Slashdot Mirror

grub writes "Halliburton has decided to drop Research In Motion's Blackberry platform in favor of Apple's iOS for its workforce. 'An internal newsletter outlined the plan for the nearly 70,000 employees who work for Halliburton in more than 70 countries. "Over the next year, we will begin expanding the use of our mobile technology by transitioning from the BlackBerry (RIM) platform that we currently use to smartphone technology via the iPhone."'"

Hugh Pickens writes "Anna Leach reports that Siri support has been a contentious issue for owners of earlier iPhones, but a recent filing from Audience shows that Siri won't run on the iPhone 4 because the phone's chip can't handle it. Linley Gwennap of the Linley Group cracked one of the secrets of the new iPhone's A5 chip after working out that it packs some serious audio cleaning power not available on the iPhone 4's A4 chip. Audience has developed technology that removes most or all of the background noise when someone places a cell-phone call from a restaurant, airport, or other noisy location. The iPhone 4S integrates Audience's 'EarSmart' technology directly into the A5 processor, improving its technology to handle 'far-field speech,' which means holding the device at arm's length rather than directly in front of the mouth. Apple has also licensed the Audience technology for a 'new generation of processor IP,' which may mean that the forthcoming A6 processor will appear in the iPad 3 and iPhone 5. 'Why Apple has not simply purchased Audience is unclear. An acquisition would prevent Audience's other major customer, Samsung, from using the technology to compete with Apple,' says Gwennap. 'The company may be hedging its bets, as it could switch to Qualcomm's Fluence noise-reduction technology in the future.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "Strengthening intellectual property enforcement has been a bipartisan issue for the past 25 years, but Stewart Baker writes in the Hollywood Reporter that when the fight went from the committees to the floor and Wikipedia went down, the Democratic and Republican parties reacted very differently to SOPA. 'Despite widespread opposition to SOPA from bloggers on the left, Democrats in Congress (and the administration) were reluctant to oppose the bill outright,' writes Baker. 'The MPAA was not shy about reminding them that Hollywood has been a reliable source of funding for Democratic candidates, and that it would not tolerate defections.' That very public message from the MPAA also reached another audience — Tea Party conservatives. Most of them had never given a second thought to intellectual property enforcement, but many had drawn support from conservative bloggers and they began to ask why they should risk the ire of their internet supporters to rescue an industry that was happily advertising how much it hated them." (Read on, below.) Pickens continues: "Pretty soon, far more Republicans than Democrats had bailed on SOPA, the Republican presidential candidates had all come out for what they called 'Internet freedom,' and now for Republicans, opposition to new intellectual property enforcement is starting to look like a political winner. 'It pleases conservative bloggers, appeals to young swing voters, stokes the culture wars and drives a wedge between two Democratic constituencies, Hollywood and Silicon Valley,' concludes Baker, adding that unfortunately for Hollywood, as its customers migrate to the Internet, it is losing not just their money but their hearts and minds as well."

Hugh Pickens writes "Strengthening intellectual property enforcement has been a bipartisan issue for the past 25 years, but Stewart Baker writes in the Hollywood Reporter that when the fight went from the committees to the floor and Wikipedia went down, the Democratic and Republican parties reacted very differently to SOPA. 'Despite widespread opposition to SOPA from bloggers on the left, Democrats in Congress (and the administration) were reluctant to oppose the bill outright,' writes Baker. 'The MPAA was not shy about reminding them that Hollywood has been a reliable source of funding for Democratic candidates, and that it would not tolerate defections.' That very public message from the MPAA also reached another audience — Tea Party conservatives. Most of them had never given a second thought to intellectual property enforcement, but many had drawn support from conservative bloggers and they began to ask why they should risk the ire of their internet supporters to rescue an industry that was happily advertising how much it hated them." (Read on, below.) Pickens continues: "Pretty soon, far more Republicans than Democrats had bailed on SOPA, the Republican presidential candidates had all come out for what they called 'Internet freedom,' and now for Republicans, opposition to new intellectual property enforcement is starting to look like a political winner. 'It pleases conservative bloggers, appeals to young swing voters, stokes the culture wars and drives a wedge between two Democratic constituencies, Hollywood and Silicon Valley,' concludes Baker, adding that unfortunately for Hollywood, as its customers migrate to the Internet, it is losing not just their money but their hearts and minds as well."

thomst writes "Cnet's Stephen Shankland breaks the news that Sony will replace the lamentable Howard Stringer with Kazuo Hirai, the (now former) head of its electronics division. Better yet, the changeover will take place on April Fool's Day. Stringer, who was appointed CEO of Sony in 2005, will become Chairman of its board, and Hirai will become a board member. Hirai has been the leader of Sony's consolidated electronics group only since last year. He was in charge of all Sony electronics products, including the Playstation Network, which famously suffered a massive security breach that compromised its unencrypted user data on his watch."

New submitter mazinger writes "In Hawaii, a bill has been proposed to retain data on Internet users and the sites they visit. Apparently, there is also no requirement for a warrant to obtain the information from service providers. The bill affects not only ISPs but also coffee shops and anyone providing Internet access."

Diggester writes with an excerpt from an article at Gizmocrazed about the absurd amount of money Apple has spent suing HTC et al: "The never-ending war on Android has cost Apple more than $100 million, according to latest estimates. While a huge chunk of that money was spent (read wasted) in claims against HTC. So far, 84 claims have been filed against different Android manufacturers (HTC, Samsung, etc.) for patent infringements, out of which only 10 were proved to have been infringed and only one ruling has gone in Apple's favor."

A Commentor writes "Perhaps to balance the good news with the Supreme Court ruling on GPS, a judge in Colorado has ordered a defendant to decrypt her hard drive. The government doesn't have the capability to break the PGP encryption, and 'the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents' of the defendant's computer."

Hugh Pickens writes "Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year are manufactured overseas. 'It isn't just that workers are cheaper abroad,' write Charles Duhig and Keith Bradsher. 'Rather, Apple's executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have outpaced their American counterparts so much that "Made in the U.S.A." is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.' Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option and recount the time Apple redesigned the iPhone's screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, and then each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. 'The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,' says one Apple executive. 'There's no American plant that can match that.' Apple's success has benefited the U.S. economy by empowering entrepreneurs and creating jobs at companies like cellular providers and businesses shipping Apple products. But ultimately, Apple executives say curing unemployment is not Apple's job. 'We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.'"

OverTheGeicoE writes "CNET has a story on DHS' whole car X-ray scanners and their potential cancer risks. The story focuses on the Z Portal scanner, which appears to be a stationary version of the older Z Backscatter Vans. The story provides interesting pictures of the device and the images it produces, but it also raises important questions about the devices' cancer risks. The average energy of the X-ray beam used is three times that used in a CT scan, which could be big trouble for vehicle passengers and drivers should a vehicle stop in mid-scan. Some studies show the risk for cancer from CT scans can be quite high. Worse still, the DHS estimates of the Z Portal's radiation dosage are likely to be several orders of magnitude too low. 'Society will pay a huge price in cancer because of this,' according to one scientist."

New submitter crvtec sends this excerpt from CNet: "Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), one of the biggest backers of the Stop Online Piracy Act, today said he plans to remove the Domain Name System blocking provision. 'After consultation with industry groups across the country,' Smith said in a statement released by his office, 'I feel we should remove (DNS) blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the [U.S. House Judiciary] Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision.'"

gManZboy writes "Bill Gates fired off his famous Trustworthy Computing memo to Microsoft employees on Jan. 15, 2002, amid a series of high-profile attacks on Windows computers and browsers in the form of worms and viruses like Code Red and 'Anna Kournikova.' The onslaught forced Gates to declare a security emergency within Microsoft, and halt production while the company's 8,500 software engineers sifted through millions of lines of source code to identify and fix vulnerabilities. The hiatus cost Microsoft $100 million. Today, the stakes are much higher. 'TWC Next' will include a focus on cloud services such as Azure, the company says."

Meshach writes "Google's release of the new 'Search Plus Your World' feature has elicited harsh words from Twitter's general counsel (who used to work with Google). He claims that the changes will make information harder to find for users and be bad news for news publishers. Some analysts are wondering if this is a prelude to a legal battle similar to Microsoft's bundling of IE."

CNET reports (citing this BBC video account) that some aircraft engineers in Australia are concerned about small cracks that have appeared on the wing ribs of some Airbus A380 airplanes, a report says. They're calling for the whole fleet to be grounded, but Airbus says the cracks are harmless.

Diggester writes "Yahoo Inc said on Wednesday it has appointed Scott Thompson as its chief executive, effective from January 9, replacing interim CEO Tim Morse who will resume his role as chief financial officer. Thompson, who was previously president of PayPal, a unit of eBay Inc, will also join Yahoo's board. Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock said Thompson's primary focus will be on the core business as the company continues its strategic review process. Yahoo has been in discussions about selling off its Asian assets for some weeks."

Atypical Geek writes "Alec Liu of Fox News reports that Amazon, Facebook and Google are considering a coordinated blackout of the internet to protest SOPA, the Stop Online Privacy Act being debated in Congress. From the article: 'Such a move is drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter. With the Senate debating the SOPA legislation at the end of January, it looks as if the tech industry's top dogs are finally adding bite to their bark, something CNET called "the nuclear option." "When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA," Declan McCullagh wrote, "you'll know they're finally serious."'"

PerlJedi writes "I am planing a long trip (to Ireland), and want to buy an Android tablet to take along for the trip. I am a software engineer (I actually work for Slashdot), a Linux geek, and an Android fan. I would like to get a tablet primarily to use for entertainment (when I'm not working or building robots in my workshop, I'm usually playing with my phone), but something I could get some work done from in a pinch would be a major plus (all I need to be able to work is a Web browser, and an ssh terminal, preferably with a keyboard). My current cell phone is the Samsung Charge, rooted and running GummyCharge 2.1, and it is a good bet I'll want to root whatever tablet I get, if not right away, soon after getting it. From an entertainment standpoint I want something that is large enough to watch high definition videos on, with a battery life that will make it practical for use on a long flight. Having a decent camera would be a nice plus, but is not an absolute necessity. Having a forward facing camera for video chat would also be good, but is also not a necessity." PerlJedi's got a few options in mind; read on for the details of his reasoning and help him fulfill his quest. "My brief initial search has yielded the following initial contenders:

• Asus Transformer Prime: This is currently my favorite, for a few reasons: Tegra 3 quad core processor (that's just plain cool); it's designed with a docking station in mind, making it perfect for using for work; sleek, thin design; light weight; available with up to 64 GB. It is on the pricey side, though.
• Toshiba Thrive: I must admit, I know very little about this one. Unlike the others, I have not heard much hype around it. From what I've read thus far, pros include: full-size SD slot; full USB support; full HDMI support. Cons: Bulkier and heavier than its opponents.
• Motorola XOOM: This one has been available for some time, which can be both good and bad. Its problems should be known and understood by now, but it's lost some of the sex appeal of the new product.
• Samsung Galaxy Tab: The Galaxy tab line has also been on the market for a while. It does have some added appeal to me because my phone is also from Samsung, so the rooting processes, and available ROMs, will be more familiar to me.
• Sony Tablet S: Like the Toshiba, I have heard little hype about this tablet. Its feature set also seems similar to the Toshiba. I must admit here, I may be a bit biased against Sony over some of their recent treatment of the hacker/maker community."

PerlJedi writes "I am planing a long trip (to Ireland), and want to buy an Android tablet to take along for the trip. I am a software engineer (I actually work for Slashdot), a Linux geek, and an Android fan. I would like to get a tablet primarily to use for entertainment (when I'm not working or building robots in my workshop, I'm usually playing with my phone), but something I could get some work done from in a pinch would be a major plus (all I need to be able to work is a Web browser, and an ssh terminal, preferably with a keyboard). My current cell phone is the Samsung Charge, rooted and running GummyCharge 2.1, and it is a good bet I'll want to root whatever tablet I get, if not right away, soon after getting it. From an entertainment standpoint I want something that is large enough to watch high definition videos on, with a battery life that will make it practical for use on a long flight. Having a decent camera would be a nice plus, but is not an absolute necessity. Having a forward facing camera for video chat would also be good, but is also not a necessity." PerlJedi's got a few options in mind; read on for the details of his reasoning and help him fulfill his quest. "My brief initial search has yielded the following initial contenders:

• Asus Transformer Prime: This is currently my favorite, for a few reasons: Tegra 3 quad core processor (that's just plain cool); it's designed with a docking station in mind, making it perfect for using for work; sleek, thin design; light weight; available with up to 64 GB. It is on the pricey side, though.
• Toshiba Thrive: I must admit, I know very little about this one. Unlike the others, I have not heard much hype around it. From what I've read thus far, pros include: full-size SD slot; full USB support; full HDMI support. Cons: Bulkier and heavier than its opponents.
• Motorola XOOM: This one has been available for some time, which can be both good and bad. Its problems should be known and understood by now, but it's lost some of the sex appeal of the new product.
• Samsung Galaxy Tab: The Galaxy tab line has also been on the market for a while. It does have some added appeal to me because my phone is also from Samsung, so the rooting processes, and available ROMs, will be more familiar to me.
• Sony Tablet S: Like the Toshiba, I have heard little hype about this tablet. Its feature set also seems similar to the Toshiba. I must admit here, I may be a bit biased against Sony over some of their recent treatment of the hacker/maker community."

It's a rumor that goes back years (here's one example from this summer) that Apple is planning to produce dedicated TV sets branded with its own name; the main question seems to be when. DigiTimes (hat tip to CNet) is reporting that component-maker sources say that Apple has begun the process by ordering parts that hint at an offering next year of Apple TV sets (as opposed to Apple TV) in 32" and 37".

First time accepted submitter expo53d writes "CNET reports that yesterday 21,054 domains were pulled off Domaincontrol.com, a subsidiary of GoDaddy. While this maybe a coincidence, it is likely to be caused by GoDaddy's controversial support for SOPA. It seems that GoDaddy's attempts at remedying the problem were of no use."

Multiple readers sent word that Bastion, an action RPG from indie developer Supergiant Games originally made for Xbox Live Arcade, has shown up in the Chrome Web Store. The purpose of the move is to showcase the browser's Native Client technology. From the article: "Ian Ellison-Taylor, Google's director of product management for the open Web platform, said that Native Client, also called NaCl, can currently improve browser performance by 1 to 10 times. 'What would it be like if we could run native code inside the browser,' he asked the crowd, and he enumerated two goals for the Native Client project. He said Google wants to bring native applications to the Web for performance and security reasons, and it wants to enrich the Web ecosystem by bringing popular, long-in-use programming languages to the Web."

Android Police reports that Google employees have begun receiving the newest version of Android for their Nexus S phones in the form of over-the-air updates. CNET adds a note for the impatient that "the CyanogenMod project to build unofficial versions of Android is working on CM9, the version based on the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich source code. Early CM9 builds are available in alpha for the Samsung Nexus S and beta for the Samsung Galaxy S."

bonch writes "European antitrust regulators are set to issue a 400-page statement of objections accusing Google of 'abuse of dominance' next month, the result of an investigation launched last year after complaints from rivals that Google manipulated ad pricing and barred advertisers from running ads on rival sites. If found guilty, Google could be fined up to 10% of its annual turnover, which is about $3 billion. Microsoft avoided a similar fine when it settled its European antitrust case and included a 'browser ballot' in Windows."

helix2301 writes "Napster was one of the earliest and most popular P2P music-sharing services. After a long legal battle that saw Napster slowly gutted in the face of infringement lawsuits, it was reinvented as a legitimate music download service. The resurrected Napster is now being shut down. Rhapsody has completed its purchase of Napster and will be absorbing its subscribers and assets."

redletterdave writes with news that Google Chrome is in the process of surpassing Firefox to become the second most popular web browser. Pinpointing the exact time of the change is difficult, of course, since different analytics firms collect slightly different data. The current crop of media reports were triggered by data from StatCounter, which shows Chrome at 25.69% and Firefox at 25.23% for November. Data from Net Applications shows Firefox still holding a 4% lead, but the trends suggest it will evaporate within a few months.

a_hanso writes "Hard drives that combine a traditional spinning platter for mass storage and solid state flash memory for frequently accessed data have always been an interesting concept. They may be slower than SSDs, but not by much, and they are a lot cheaper gigabyte-for-gigabyte. CNET's Harry McCracken speculates on how soon such drives may become mainstream: 'So why would the new Momentus be more of a mainstream hit than its predecessor? Seagate says that it's 70 percent faster than its earlier hybrid drive and three times quicker than a garden-variety, non-hybrid disk. Its benchmarks for cold boots and application launches show the new drive to be just a few seconds slower than a SSD. Or, in some cases, a few seconds faster. In the end, hybrid drives are compromises, neither as cheap as ordinary drives — you can get a conventional 750GB Momentus for about $150 — nor as fast and energy-efficient as SSDs.'"

arcite writes "The Mars Science Laboratory Rover 'Curiosity,' an SUV-sized rover packed to the gills with the latest scientific instruments and an innovative landing system, is set to launch tomorrow. As the heaviest and largest Mars rover to date, if it is successful in touching down on the red planet, it will be the best bet yet for NASA to find signs of life. Stuffed with turkey and burned out on holiday shopping, Geeks everywhere will be watching the skies above (or the livestream here) and wishing NASA's Curiosity godspeed!"

localman writes with this excerpt from CNET: "Through his hit Web site and three popular books, [author Brendan] Smith has spread the gospel of 'The Brick Testament.' But now, because of what it says are concerns about 'mature content,' Sam's Club, one of the nation's largest retailers, has banned in-store sales of the fourth book in the series, The Brick Bible.

destinyland writes "Black Friday has touched off a three-way price war between Apple, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. Kobo readers dropped their price to just $99 to compete with the Nook, only to discover that Barnes and Noble was lowering the price on their touchscreen Nooks to $79, to compete with the new $79 Kindle from Amazon. And meanwhile, Apple has announced aggressive pricing on all Apple products for Black Friday, reportedly including $100 off on MacBook and iMac products, and a $61 discount on the iPad 2."

First time accepted submitter boley1 writes "According to Cnet — S3 Graphics's case collapsed in their ITC suit, with the ITC ruling that Apple does not infringe on any of S3's patents. A big blow to HTC according to the report." So much for HTC buying a warchest; according to the ruling it looks like AMD/ATI actually owned the patents in question.

"The MacBook Air and the Ultrabook come without a piece of hardware that's been a mainstay in laptops for a long time — the optical drive," says a piece at CNET. "Maybe because they really aren't that necessary anymore." I would have thought otherwise a few years ago, but traveling in the meantime with a small netbook was certainly handy. Since that machine died, I think I've used the optical drive in its low-end laptop successor a grand total of once, which was to test its wireless compatibility with a Live CD Linux distro.

DaveyJJ writes "Once again, it seems Apple is about to take intellectual property claims to a new level. Apple has been reissued a patent they acquired from Xerox that pretty much wraps up what we know as 'location services' as their own. In the overview, the patent says the system involved will display information specific to the location the device is in. The language used in the patent is broad and powerful. I guess now we wait and see whom Apple will use this against?"

ideonexus writes "CNET has obtained a statement to be released by the Department of Justice tomorrow defending its broad interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) that defines violations of 'authorized access' in information systems as including any act that violates a Web site's terms of service, while the White House is arguing for expanding the law even further. This would criminalize teenagers using Google for violating its ToS, which says you can't use its services if 'you are not of legal age to form a binding contract,' and turns multiple attempts to upload copyrighted videos to YouTube into 'a pattern of racketeering' according to a GWU professor and an attorney cited in the story."

An anonymous reader writes "Google has sent out press invitations to an event on Wednesday where it's expected they'll unveil their long-rumored Google Music download service. CNET reports that while Google already has an agreement in place with Universal, talks with Sony and Warner Music Group are still in progress, and won't be finished by the time Google Music launches. 'The negotiations between Google and the labels by and large have not gone well for either side. The labels are eager for a serious iTunes competitor to emerge and believe Google has the technological know-how, money, and Internet presence to give iTunes a run for its money. ... Yet, the company is once again launching a major part of its music service without acquiring licenses and this may serve to widen the rift between the company and some of the labels. '"

ardmhacha writes "Zynga seem to think they were overly generous handing out stock to early employees. Fearing a 'Google Chef' situation they are leaning on some employees to hand back their unvested stock or face termination. From the article: 'Zynga's demand for the return of shares could expose the company to employment litigation—and, were the practice to catch on and spread, would erode a central pillar of Silicon Valley culture, in which start-ups with limited cash and a risk of failure dangle the possibility of stock riches in order to lure talent.'"

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "At the SysCan conference in Taiwan next week, Charlie Miller plans to present a method that exploits a flaw in Apple's restrictions on code signing on iOS devices, the security measure that allows only Apple-approved commands to run in an iPhone's or iPad's memory. Using his method, an app can phone home to a remote computer that downloads new unapproved commands onto the device and executes them at will, including stealing the user's photos, reading contacts, making the phone vibrate or play sounds, or otherwise using iOS app functions for malicious ends. Miller created a proof-of-concept app called Instastock that appears to show stock tickers but actually runs commands from his server, and even got it approved by Apple's App Store." Update: 11/08 02:54 GMT by U L : Not unexpectedly, Apple revoked Miller's developer license.

the simurgh writes "The DMCA is just not providing the kind of protection against online piracy that Congress intended, RIAA lawyer Jennifer Pariser says. The judge in Universal Music Group's copyright suit against Veoh as well as the judge in EMI vs. MP3tunes.com issued similar findings. The courts have now determined the burden of policing the web for infringing materials is on the content owner and not the service provider. Content companies think it is unfair for them to be required to spend resources on scouring the Web when their pirated work helps service providers make money. What they complain about almost as much is that after they notify a service provider of an infringing song or movie clip and they're removed, new copies appear almost immediately. Basically they are complaining the the DMCA makes them responsible for policing their own content at their expense."

olsmeister writes "Google removed their new GMail app from the App Store due to a programming error that caused an error message related to the aps-environment entitlement string when the app was started and also caused the notifications not to function correctly. They are working to get the app fixed and are going to have the new one ready soon."

UnknowingFool writes "When the Courier project was leaked out, it was a bold look at how MS would design new tablets. Microsoft was currently selling tablets but they didn't make a dent in the market. The problem was it was too bold. According to the story Ballmer had two competing executive visions for tablets: J. Allard and Steven Sinofsky. Allard's vision was very different from MS thinking while Sinofsky's was more in line with existing Windows but was years away. Ballmer called on Gates to help and Gates met with Allard. Gates was apparently troubled on how Courier would not mesh with Windows or Office. The project was cancelled shortly thereafter. An interesting detail was that Courier was more complete than most outsiders knew. While there was no one prototype that unified all the concepts of Courier, there were parallel efforts in the different aspects of it."

theodp writes "Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently revealed that he is now leading Google's efforts to ready a driverless car for the consumer market, but one big, publicly-unanswered question is: Who exactly owns the intellectual property behind the highly-touted vehicles? To develop the Google Car, the company said it tapped 'the very best engineers from the DARPA Challenges,' a series of autonomous vehicle races organized by the U.S. government which provided university teams with millions in development funding and millions more in prizes. Last year, Carnegie Mellon reported that 8 of the 15-member Google Car team had current or past ties to DARPA Challenge participants CMU and Stanford. Whether Google's sponsorship of the Stanford Racing Team and CMU Tartan Racing entitled it to the IP is unclear. Clouding matters further is that key Google Car Team members are listed as inventors of autonomous car technology in pending patents assigned to the likes of General Motors and Toyota, and it was reported that the credit (and liability) for another key team member's successful robotic, autonomous Prius project was his-and-his-alone, not Google's. Could another party lay claims to the technology, or does Google have all of its IP ducks in a row on this one?"

theodp writes "Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently revealed that he is now leading Google's efforts to ready a driverless car for the consumer market, but one big, publicly-unanswered question is: Who exactly owns the intellectual property behind the highly-touted vehicles? To develop the Google Car, the company said it tapped 'the very best engineers from the DARPA Challenges,' a series of autonomous vehicle races organized by the U.S. government which provided university teams with millions in development funding and millions more in prizes. Last year, Carnegie Mellon reported that 8 of the 15-member Google Car team had current or past ties to DARPA Challenge participants CMU and Stanford. Whether Google's sponsorship of the Stanford Racing Team and CMU Tartan Racing entitled it to the IP is unclear. Clouding matters further is that key Google Car Team members are listed as inventors of autonomous car technology in pending patents assigned to the likes of General Motors and Toyota, and it was reported that the credit (and liability) for another key team member's successful robotic, autonomous Prius project was his-and-his-alone, not Google's. Could another party lay claims to the technology, or does Google have all of its IP ducks in a row on this one?"

New submitter ThatsMyNick writes "The two largest credit-card networks, Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., are pushing into a new business: using what they know about people's credit-card purchases for targeting them with ads online. 'A MasterCard document obtained by the Journal outlines some of the company's plans, which included linking Web users with purchases. According to document, the credit card provider said it believes "you are what you buy." ... Visa is planning a similar service, which would aggregate its customers' purchase history into segments, including location, to make ads more effective at appealing to people in a respective area.'"

Hitting the front page for the first time, ttong writes "The highly anticipated Android 4.0 (codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich) has been released and finally brings the features of 3.x Honeycomb to smaller devices. Some of the highlights include: a revamped UI, a much faster browser, face unlock, a vastly improved camera app, improved task switching, streaming voice recognition, Wi-Fi Direct, and Bluetooth Health Device Profile. ... The API level is 14, download the new SDK here." calc noted that the source code has yet to be released (Google account required) except to legally required GPL components. Supposedly progress is being made toward getting AOSP back online: "We're working on it and we're making good progress, but we're not ready to announce any additional details yet." How many of the new features will remain proprietary and tied to Google services remains to be seen.

dstates writes "What happens when Apple ships 100,000 iPhone 4S in a day? Answer, 100,000 users all try to activate their new phones. AT&T's activation servers are struggling under the load. Apparently Verizon and Sprint are doing a better job keeping up with the load." Adds an anonymous optimist: "The solution? Call AT&T by dialing 611 and talking to an operator to perform a manual activation with your IMEI and SIM card #, works every time!"

robotissues writes "Cnet reviews 'I'm Getting Arrested,' an Android app that alerts your lawyer and loved ones if you have been arrested while peacefully demonstrating. The app makes it easy to broadcast a message via SMS in case all hell breaks loose."

walterbyrd writes "A company called Smartphone Technologies filed the suit last Friday in Texas Eastern District Court accusing the Kindle Fire tablet of violating four of its patents. Smartphone Technologies is owned by Acacia Research, a firm that buys and licenses patents and is seen by many as a patent troll. 'One patent cited in the suit, U.S. Patent No. 6,956,562, simply refers to a method for using a touch screen to enter commands on a handheld computer. Another patent in question relates to a method for storing calendars on a PDA and was initially issued to Palm in 2002.'"

Barence writes "Opera has proposed a new browsing system that swaps scrolling on websites for flippable pages. The Norwegian browser maker is looking to remove the side scroll bar for documents or articles in favor of 'pages' of a set-size, similar to an ebook. Text can be reflowed into a column layout, and ads will be moved into the right spot in the text, with different ones displayed depending on the orientation of the device. Pages are flipped with gestures on tablets or with mouse clicks on the desktop. It's an 'opportunity to rethink the ads on the web and the user interface,' said Hakon Wium Lie, Opera's CTO." Their main focus for this is browsing on tablets.

A couple weeks ago, you asked questions of Stanford professor Jonathan Koomey about what has been dubbed Koomey's Law — the idea that the energy efficiency of computing doubles every 1.5 years. Read on for Professor Koomey's answers to the questions you raised. What makes this a non-trivial extension?
by Anonymous

What makes your law a non-trivial extension of Moore's Law, which states that the transistor count would double every 18 months due to an increase in density? E&M theory states that if you cut a wire's length in half, it's resistance cuts in half. Granted density in this case is a 2 dimensional expansion and wire resistance is a 1 dimensional formula, but what makes this different from what a freshman in college can infer from an R = (resistivity * length)/cross sectional area?

Jonathan Koomey: First, it’s important to note that we assessed these trends empirically, using measured power data for each computer system in our dataset, and it’s often valuable to confirm with actual measurements what theory implies. Just because the result sounds intuitive to you after the fact doesn’t mean that it isn’t valuable to confirm with real data that the trends actually exist. And of course we discuss in the paper the driving forces behind the reductions in power use per logical switch (and they involve more than just reductions in I squared R losses in the wires). I’ve pasted below two relevant paragraphs from the article:

For vacuum tube computers, both computational speed and reliability issues encouraged computer designers to reduce power use. Heat reduces reliability, which was a major issue for tube-based computers. In addition, increasing computation speeds went hand in hand with technological changes (like reduced capacitive loading, lower currents, and smaller tubes) that also reduced power use. And the economics of operating a tube-based computer led to pressure to reduce power use, although this issue was probably a secondary one in the early days of electronic computing.

For transistorized and microprocessor based computers, the driving factor for power reductions was (and is) the push to reduce the physical dimensions of transistors, which reduces the cost per transistor. In order to accomplish this goal, power used per transistor also must be reduced; otherwise the power densities on the silicon rapidly become unmanageable. Per transistor power use is directly proportional to the length of the transistor between source and drain, the ratio of transistor length to mean free path of the electrons, and the total number of electrons in the operating transistor, as Feynman (2001) pointed out. Shrinking transistor size therefore resulted in improved speed, reduced cost, and reduced power use per transistor (see also Bohr (2007) and Carver Mead’s thinking in the late 1960s, as summarized in Brock (2006, pp. 98-100)).

In addition, the fact that the trends have now been confirmed empirically means that people can get on with considering the implications of these trends, which I think are under-appreciated. The idea that we’ll be able to use ever more efficient computing technology in distributed applications will revolutionize data collection, communications, and control of processes, and people are only now starting to think about what may become possible.

As one of many examples showing the potential of ultra low power computing, consider the wireless no-battery sensors created by Joshua R. Smith of Intel and the University of Washington (coverage in the NY Times and the Economist). These sensors scavenge energy from stray television and radio signals, and they use so little power (60 microwatts in this example) that they don’t need any other power source. Stray light, motion, or heat can also be converted to meet slightly higher power needs, perhaps measured in milliwatts. The contours of this exciting design space are only beginning to be explored, and they are enabled by the trends identified in our paper.

I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of a shift in industry focus from raw performance to power efficiency for mobile devices. Some of the best engineers will be drawn to the problems of ultra low power computing in the same way as they’ve were drawn to high performance computing (HPC) in the past (no doubt terrific technologists will also continue to focus on HPC, but anytime a new hot area opens up there’s a migration of talent to that new topic).

Finally, I would add that the truly unexpected result was that the trend in computational efficiency extends for a longer period than Moore’s law, all the way back to Eniac in 1946. So these trends in computational efficiency are an inherent characteristic of computers that use electrons for switching, and are not limited to the microprocessor era. I, for one, did not expect that.

Your Take on Futurists?
by eldavojohn

What is your take on the interpretation of Futurists -- like Raymond Kurzweil -- in regards to extrapolating these 'laws' out to extreme distances?

JK: The physicist Neils Bohr once famously said “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” It’s important to be careful in making long-term extrapolations, even if some technological trend has continued for some time. I think it’s fair to say that Moore’s law (and the trends in computational efficiency we identify) have more years to run, given how far we are from theoretical limits, but exactly when we’ll hit a real roadblock it will take someone more brash than me to say. I discuss the theoretical limit based on Feynman’s calculations below, and we will eventually reach that, but there may be ways to sidestep those limits. We’ll have to see how clever we can be!

Lets work this backwards ...
by PPH

... and see where the Babbage Engine fits on the curve.

JK: Since the Babbage engine never operated, I’m not sure how we could do this. I believe that some parts of the engine have been created using modern machining practices, but I don’t think anyone has ever made one in complete form. If someone has, I’d be interested to measure its electricity use and estimate its performance (of course, it was designed before the era of electricity). Nordhaus (2007) reports that

Early calculators were “dumb” machines that essentially relied on incrementation of digits. An important step in the development of modern computers was mechanical representation of logical steps. The first commercially practical information-processing machine was the Jacquard loom, developed in 1804. This machine used interchangeable punched cards that controlled the weaving and allowed a large variety of patterns to be produced automatically. This invention was part of the inspiration of Charles Babbage, who developed one of the great precursor inventions in computation. He designed two major conceptual breakthroughs, the “Difference Engine” and the “Analytical Engine.” The latter sketched the first programmable digital computer. Neither of the Babbage machines was constructed during his lifetime. An attempt in the 1990s by the British Museum to build the simpler Difference Engine using early-nineteenth-century technologies failed to perform its designed tasks. (reference: Swade, Doron. The Difference Engine. New York: Viking Press, 2000.)

Nordhaus, William D. 2007. "Two Centuries of Productivity Growth in Computing." The Journal of Economic History. vol. 67, no. 1. March. pp. 128-159. [http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/recent_stuff.html]

Nordhaus does attempt to estimate the speed of computation possible by hand calculations as well as abacuses, to compare to more automatic methods.

Infinity w/ reversible computing?
by DriedClexler

This one doesn't seem to have fundamental physical limits, so long as we eventually transition to reversible computing, in which the computer does not use up useful energy because every process it uses is fully reversible (i.e. the original state could be inferred).

All the limits on computation (except regarding storage) that you hear about (e.g. Landauer limit) are on irreversible computing, which is how current architecture works. It is the irreversibility of an operation that causes it to increase entropy.

Could the whole process be bypassed by the near-infinite efficiency of reversible computers?

JK:Here’s the flip answer: Only if you can afford to wait infinitely long for your answer.

Here’s the more serious answer: in principle, reversible computing could have a revolutionary impact, if we could figure out how to do it, and some folks are working on this. But I haven’t seen any near term applications of such devices—if you know of any, please let me know.

Multicore or System on a Chip Speed bumps?
by eldavojohn

A lot of consumer grade machines have begun focusing on multicore chips with a lower frequency to provide the same or better perceived computing performance than a high frequency single core chip. What happens when a technology like this subverts our craving for higher transistor density? Can you argue that your "law" is immune to researchers focusing on some hot new technology like a thousand core processor or a beefed up system on a chip in order to improve end user experience over pure algorithm crunching speed?

JK: First, I would call it (like Moore implied in his own papers) an empirical observation rather than a law.

But in any case, I don’t think that the transition to multicore has “subverted our craving for higher transistor density,” we’re just using the transistors in a different way. The density of chips (measured in components per square centimeter or equivalent metric) will continue to increase, it’s just that the scaling of clock speeds that drove performance increases for so long is no longer possible (mainly because of high leakage currents inside the chip). So that means we need to make many cores and then modify software to capture that performance.

At the end of the day, WHAT you choose to do with the computing power is unrelated to the trends we identify, but I would argue the focus of device and software design is inevitably moving towards enhancing the end-user experience because these trends in efficiency are allowing ever more mobile devices to serve people’s immediate needs in an ever more personal way.

How will this affect programmers?
by Anonymous

When we eventually hit the physical limits of atoms, will programmers eventually stop their autistic quest for more and more layers, more and more complexity and more and more languages to move a number from one address to another?

How will programmers affect this?
by skids

While sarcastic, the above question is an important one: as computing power has increased, the tendency of coders to just ride over badly coded underlayers rather than redesign them competently and efficiently has increased. Why bother cutting out bloat that causes an 80% penalty on system efficiency when you can just use a more efficient chipset to get the same result?

So my question is whether you have put any thought into similarly quantifying the opposing software bloat factor, and what he sees the total balance of system works out to.

JK: Software bloat is a real issue, and I agree with your analysis that the ever-improving hardware picture has allowed poor coding practices to continue. But with the shift to multicore, there’s been at least some burden on programmers to change their ways—they have to modify their code to take advantage of multicore performance, so their skills are actually needed to capture increased performance (which is new, or at least a throwback to the early days of computing, when the programmers had so few hardware resources to work with that they had to be extremely parsimonious in their coding).

In the paper, we write:

Whether performance per CPU can grow for many years more at the historical pace is an ongoing subject of debate in the computer industry (Bohr 2007), but near-term improvements are already “in the pipeline”. Continuing the historical trends in performance (or surpassing them) is at this juncture dependent on significant new innovation comparable in scale to the shift from single core to multi-core computing. Such innovation will also require substantial changes in software design (Asanovíc et al. 2006), which is a relatively new development for the IT industry and it is another reason why whole system redesign is so critical to success.

This really doesn’t address the serious issue you raise about bloatware, which I think is a generic problem that other people more skilled in software design than me can address much better than I can. It’s hard to quantify it because it is so situation specific, but someone at a university somewhere may have tried to do this—I just don’t know.

Applied to Other Kinds of Computing?
by Anonymous

How well does Koomey's Law fit other kinds of computing? For instance, has the energy efficiency of cell phone microprocessors followed the same trend as desktop computers and servers? What about embedded systems like routers and car engine controllers, or specialized hardware like game consoles?

JK: These are all excellent questions (which we raise in the article) and I’m actively seeking data, but I don’t have anything new to report on this yet. I’m also interested in trends in data transmission power efficiencies, because that’s a key limitation on these mobile devices. And I’m digging around for battery capacity data over time as well.

Moral/Ethical
by vlm

Here is the list of moral / ethical arguments about the path we're on, as seen in your law. You saw the path clearly enough to define a time based law. Are there any issues I'm not seeing on our current path?

1) Lower energy consumption at point of use
2) Higher energy consumption at manufacturing point
3) faster cpu = bigger programs = more bugs = lower quality of life
4) faster cpu = stronger DRM possibilities
5) Better processing * battery life = better medical devices
6) Better processing * battery life = better 1984 style totalitarian devices
7) Lower energy consumption = less air conditioning demand = decreasing average latitude of data centers = population shifts or whatever or something?
8) More money required for both hw and sw development = good for big corps and bad for the little guy

JK: Hmmm, I’m not quite sure where you are going with this. There are pluses and minuses to all technological innovations, but I’m pretty sure the benefits will outweigh the costs in this case (as long as we put proper restraints on how collected data can be accessed by the authorities).

Batter Capacity vs. Processor Speed
by vlm

Have you run into a law relating battery capacity (either per Kg or L) vs processor speed over time? I bet there is some kind of interesting curve for mobile devices. Or, maybe not — that’s why I'm asking a guy with previous success at data analysis in a closely related field...

JK: Great questions. I haven’t seen any quantitative regularity in how battery power densities vary over time, but am actively looking for data. I hope to have something to report about that (along with the other trends I’m investigating, as I describe above). If you know of any good data sources, please let me know.

Queen of Hearts
by Anonymous

What do you think about the following observation: that every X years the amount of computing operations we use to perform basic calculations doubles (by virtue of doing those calculations with more complex software, slower languages...), so when you factor in Moore's law (and your own), the amount of useful calculations we do with computers remain more or less constant.

JK: This is related to the bloatware question above. I haven’t seen any quantitative estimates of the real cost from bloatware, but computing is becoming more widely distributed throughout the society, and it’s hard to believe that will the proliferation of more and more mobile devices and all the chips now incorporated in embedded systems that we’re doing less useful computing work than in the past. Some folks have tried to quantify total computational work being done, but it’s hard to do: Hilbert, Martin, and Priscila López. 2011. "The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information." Science. vol. 332, no. 6025. April 1. pp. 60-65

Feynman Quote
by yakolev

Mr. Koomey, if we take your numbers from the attached article, which may not have been quoted correctly

Feynman indicated that there was approximately 100 billion times efficiency improvement possible, and 40,000 times improvement has happened so far.

If we take Feynman's number at face value, this means that if computing efficiency improvements continue at the current rate (doubling every 18 months,) we will reach the theoretical maximum in 2043.

Based on that, do you believe that we will see a dramatic reduction in efficiency improvements in the next 10-20 years as we approach the theoretical limit, or do you think Feynman was conservative in his estimate?

JK: Your math is correct, as is the quotation of those numbers. If computing efficiency doubles every 1.5 years, it will take 21.3 doublings before we reach the theoretical limits identified by Feynman, which means will hit that limit in 32 years (i.e. in 2043).

Here’s what Feynman had to say in the book I cited:

Of course there is a limitation, the practical limitation anyway, that the bits must be of the size of an atom and a transistor 3 or 4 atoms; the quantum mechanical gate I used has 3 atoms. (I would not try to write my bits on to nuclei, I’ll wait till the technological development reaches the atoms before I need to go any further!) That leads us just with (a) the limitations in size to the size of atoms, (b) the energy requirements depending on the time as worked out by Bennett, (c) and the feature that I did not mention concerning the speed of light; we can’t send the signals any faster than the speed of light. Those are the only physical limitations that I know on computers.

If we make an atomic size computer, somehow, it would mean that the dimension, the linear dimension is a thousand to ten thousands times smaller than those very tiny chips that we have now. It means that the volume of the computer is 100 billionth, 1011 of the present volume, because the transistor is that much smaller 1011 , than the transistors that we make today. The energy requirement for a single switch is also about eleven orders of magnitude smaller than the energy required to switch the transistor today, and the time to make the transitions will be at least ten thousands times faster per step of calculation. So there is plenty of room for improvement in the computer and I leave you, practical people who work on computers, this as an aim to get to. (Feynman, Richard P. 2001. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman. London, UK: Penguin Books.)

So the calculation Feynman did was based on a transistor using just three atoms. In theory, one could use individual nuclei (as Feynman suggests) or there may be another as yet totally unknown way to crack this nut. But using Feynman’s calculation as the ultimate limit, in about three decades (and probably before that) we’re going to hit some kind of limit using our current methods.

But even given that, we’ve got at least another decade of improvements (that’s what my friends at Intel tell me) and probably more. Every decade means a factor of 100 improvement in the power efficiency of computing (doubling every 1.5 years) but there are also vast improvements we can make in our software as well as our implementation of power savings in the standby power of these devices (which turns out to be a much bigger power drain than the active power, given that almost all computers have very low average utilization). Hitting these limits may actually force the software designers to get more efficient (we’ll see!). And we’re just at the beginning of using the technologies enabled by these trends to accomplish human goals, so I’m hopeful we’ll be clever and figure out loads of important applications that will become possible with a factor of 100 or 1000 improvements in efficiency over the next 15 years.

Haven`t we already fallen behind?
by Anonymous

The Pentium M (which is powering the computer that I`m using to type this) came out eight years ago. Let`s call it 7.5 and make our "Koomey factor" 2^5=32. The ULV chip ran at 1.1GHz and ate 6.4W, and we can add on the power of the 855PM northbridge which would make the total 8.2W. I don`t see any products on the market that are anywhere close to a 32x improvement on performance per watt. Do you?

JK: Our focus is on system power, not chip power alone. And you need to calculate what your current system is capable of in computations per kWh (which you can calculate from performance per watt) so you can compare to our numbers. But I’ll wager that the current crop of laptops (or the new Mac Mini) will blow away your old machine in terms of computations per kWh at maximum performance (which is what we measure).

The iPad has sold extremely well at a starting price of $500 but "that kind of pricing doesn't work for many tablet vendors," says a story at CNET. And recent price drops reflect this. It's been a rough year for tablet makers, and it's not even Black Friday yet.

CNET reports that as of yesterday, a new Chrome extension will "let a person on one computer remotely control another across the network." The new remote-desktop capability is in BETA (Google's all-caps version, for emphasis), but is said to work to control any OS from any other OS, so long as both sides are equipped with Chrome and the new extension. Related: Wired is running a profile of Rajen Sheth — "father of Gmail," and now in charge of Google's Chromebook project as well.