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So you agree that you're wrong, then. Good. Clearly if 56% of consumers are buying the Mac Air instead of an Ultrabook, they're selling a lot of them.

No I think the market segment is a bit of a failure.

Ultra-hyped ultrabooks ultra-flopped in 2012 http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/010713-ultrabooks-265469.html
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/are-ultrabooks-an-epic-failure/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/are-ultrabooks-an-epic-failure/
A year on, Ultrabooks are a worse disaster than most expected http://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/02/a-year-on-ultrabooks-are-a-worse-disaster-than-most-expected/
Remember Ultrabooks? Yeah, That Was A Good Time http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/01/remember-ultrabooks-yeah-that-was-a-good-time/

as I said apples sales are down 22%, 2% and 7%

I would say that it is bad when you unjustly harm someone.

Such as selling exploits that affect a broad range of users for a hefty profit with the sole purpose of making them available to the highest bidder(s)? Or denying them use of their property after you've sold it to them?

You claim that your hacking is ethical because you only hack your own property...Many products these days (e.g. game consoles) are still owned by their manufacturer and you are only buying the license to use them if you read the fine print.

A good point, which I raised specifically because you implied that all hacking is "bad" and I illustrated my point with several examples, one of which was the console. By your own logic I am not harming anyone and unlike a remote system owned by a 3rd party, everything was in my possession and obtained via legal means. I think it's a dubious claim to suggest that a console manufacturer owns the device that they sold after the customer purchases it. Otherwise one would need their permission to sell (transfer the license, according to you) it, which isn't the case with the device itself. Modifying something in an unauthorized manner (typically) results in a voided warranty, and things only get hairy when you sell and/or distribute the modifications, and as with most legal issues intent matters. Let's take a look at the First Sale Doctrine which applies to physical things (the console in this case) and the DMCA for the modifications. If it were a phone, I'd be completely in the clear. Since it's a console, it's illegal. Wat.

Laws do not dictate morality. I'm fully aware of the legalese and just because something is law doesn't make it right, see slavery for an example. It's a strange world where it's someone else's business what you do with your possessions in private. Could you imagine this being the case with cars? We have laws that allow this behavior for certain classes of devices but not others. Ultimately they're all computers, owned my someone.

I am a utilitarian of sorts. I believe the ends justify the means.

Results are hard to argue with, especially when you end up with something beautiful like a pyramid ;) but that didn't stop us from finding better methods to achieve greater things.

This is Matt Weaver. He certainly does have a face that you just want to punch.

> In the near future we'll be building it all in-house and dropping vendors like this.

Good luck with that.

I'm letting you know: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-to-license-official-ios-7-game-controllers/

Ahmdahl's law: A system needs a bit of IO per second per instruction per second.

Given that the i7-3720QM is capable of 20,333 "MIPS" source,

we will need 20 billion bits of IO per second.

We're close, but not quite there.

But Li-Ion batteries are pushed much harder. If a battery needs replacement, you lose about half of the original cost of the car at that very instant.

With a Leaf, maybe. Tesla warranties their batteries for 8 years/125k miles.

They're on record saying that they expect their 60 kwh pack to last at least 200k miles, and you can pre-purchase a new 60kwh battery pack replacement in 8 years for $10k today.

Batteries can be damaged by full charge and by low charge, so we have to see how it plays out IRL. Traditional cars aren't going to need any such service after only 75K miles. After 150K - maybe. But then an EV would surely be on its second, if not third, battery pack.

Not from what I'm seeing. At 150k there's a chance it'll be on it's 2nd. In addition, Different battery chemistries have different behaviors, characteristics, and quirks. Still, consider that when you have a multi-thousand dollar battery you're not just clamping any old charge system to it. They're carefully mated for optimal performance and lifespan.

For example, from what I've read, '100%' charge for the common EV's is actually only 90% of the battery's capacity, which reduces battery degradation substantially, and we've come a long way in LiIon manufacturing. With long range EV's, the battery pack actually ends up so huge that even a 'fast charge' is more like a normal charge for smaller battery packs. A fast charge for a NiMH cell is something like 10 minutes, and will cause problems with heat and such. An equivalent 'fast charge' for an EV takes over an hour even with a special fast charge station due to the sheer size of the battery pack.

With regard to noise, a lot of that insulation also dampens road noise - which is not going to be any lower, until you switch to antigravity. So you probably still need a lot of that foam and rubber.

As Rioki mentioned, it's been my perception that motor noise has always overpowered road noise, especially at higher speeds, as the engine power necessary to maintain a given speed to goes up exponentially as your speed increases due to wind resistance.

No it doesn't

While it has been in vogue for years for universities to have this capability in-house, I have to question the wisdom of this kind of investment in a few areas. First, recently there was an article on Slashdot posted about the Federal Government retiring Roadrunner because in less than 5 years because it was too much of a power hog. I haven't seen anything in the press releases about Big Red that would indicate that IU has solved the power obsolescence issue; in five years, we'll probably see Big Red II retired because it wasn't power efficient given newer technology. IMO in five years, IU will be looking to fund Big Red III so I hope they get their value out of this investment, total operating costs (TOC) because it has to be very, very expensive to keep the lights on for this thing. Second, with Utility Computing models available in the Cloud with AWS, Google Apps etc. for large scale experiments, more and more companies are choosing the utility model to run their research rather than buying it. I don't need to cite them all here but there's stories day in and day out of companies and universities leveraging utility based, cloud models for HPC. You have one resource here at IU when you could lease multiple Cloud based resources with hundreds of thousands of nodes simultaneously, not just rely on one large machine in your data center. I can imagine there are quite a few experiments that IU can do with it, but when I read their press, it's available to IU students and Faculty, does that mean they won't let other academic institutions use it? If that's true it's a very expensive resource that only one institution can use and I doubt that they can keep it busy 24x7x365 for its useful life with experiments. Maybe I'm wrong but I just can't see this kind of large scale investment being feasible over the coming years because it will just be too inexpensive and disposable to run it in a Cloud based model.

Yeah, I was reminded how durable Netflix was last Christmas when the ghosts of Christmas showed me the true meaning of bulletproof uptime.

I think you're misreading the article. The Winestock is not making the "if you have something to hide ..." argument, he's anticipating it. His argument is that the computer industry, and perhaps computing as a technical endeavor, tends the direction of centralization of computing power and grunt work which then leads to centralization of data. Both governments and business – even cool, supposedly "revolutionary" businesses – like it this way. So, don't look to the high tech companies for help protecting your privacy. As he says in TFA:

Pleading will not help because the interests of those companies and their users are misaligned. One reason why they are misaligned is because one side has all of the crunch; terabytes of data, sitting in the servers, begging to be monetized. Rather than giving idealistic hackers the means to liberate the users from authority, the democratization of computing has only made it easier for idealistic hackers to get into this conflict of interest. That means that more of them will actually do so and in more than one company.

You see, in the past, the computer industry was dominated by single corporations; first IBM, then Microsoft. Being lone entities, their dominance invited opposition. Anti-trust suits of varying (lack of) effectiveness were filed against them. In the present, we don't even have that thin reed. Thanks to progress, we now have an entire social class of people who have an incentive to be rent-seekers sitting on our data.

Being members of the same social class, they will have interests in common, whatever their rivalries. Those common interests will lead to cooperation in matters that conflict with the interests of their users. For example, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is backed by Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and, yes, Google, too.

As the head of the Software Freedom Law foundation, Eben Moglen says, keep your data locally, at home, where the 4th Amendment still has some effect. As Winestock is saying, you better be ready to defend even the right to do that.

The average American that has internet access may not lose access for very long, unless they get hit by a strike. But what happens when it's the other end of the connection that fails? I don't want EA's or Blizzard's underestimate of demand or inability to provide sufficient server capacity to handle the early load to keep me from playing a game.

I also enjoy playing older games, and I don't want a company's decision to shut down old servers they don't want to pay to maintain to prevent me from doing that.

And this here fellow /. readers is a prime example of a pedantic troll with no social skills.

Instead of saying 'I don't use either but it shows nothing for me, btw - did you know ghostery is ad industry funded and here is why?'

You attempt to belittle me for choosing the tool-set I do and provide absolutely no evidence to support your claims

http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/31/ghostery-a-web-tracking-blocker-that-actually-helps-the-ad-industry/

There, I just gave you one because I'm kind - any proof they are doing anything nefarious? like oh I don't know - adblock that whitelists people that pay?
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/05/reddit-whitelisted-by-adblock-plus-for-using-acceptable-online-advertisements/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-shaking-down-websites/

OMG, I provided another source - are you learning yet?

So troll, go back to your lynx browser - I have to wonder what the domain rpxnow.com knows about you though :)

the problem is remote bricking is software based. software can be defeated via jailbreak/rooting

even something like this has limited effect because phones are still usable (just not for voice communication)
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/us-stolen-phone-database-goes-live/

besides, it takes time for the buyer to figure out the phone won't work as a phone, but the thief still got their money (therefore will keep stealing)

tracking and going after the perp is the best way to curb thefts. If I was a thief, and knew there was a reasonable chance I could be found, i might think twice. a better approach is password to turn off.. or remote ENABLE (can't find a phone if it's not on the network, and in order to be on the network it has to be on). report phone stolen.. then, any time it's on, it starts chirping away "i'm here, i'm here" - don't forget people could get hurt during a mugging - that's what you really need to stop.

two busts, on one day for one phone:
http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2013/01/28/16739259-double-trouble-iphone-thief-busted-when-his-stolen-iphone-is-stolen-again?lite

We've watched patents slow down the smartphone and tablet markets.

Wrong. part of the problem is that we haven't. We have seen an endless stream of stupid patents, huge lawsuits (apple v samsung), and still we buy and the market continues apace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Wide_Smartphone_Sales_Share.png
http://www.lessonspace.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Untitled.jpg
http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/pc-sales-cannibalized-by-tablets-chart-bill-shopes-goldman-sachs-2010.jpg

There is no government pressure to stop, and no market pressure from consumers to stop. I recently bought a smartphone -and- a tablet. A Samsung and a Kindle. Both companies own hoards of stupid patents. But so would anyone else I chose to purchase from, and I needed or strongly desired the devices. Even if there were a high percentage of consumers educated in this (there are not enough to sway any market), I doubt there was a single vendor in the chain of sale for either that does not have what we here would consider BS IP. For the phone it was Sprint and Samsung, for the tablet Walmart and Amazon. This isn't even considering the software vendors included with both purchases or added later.

So, all you anti regulation libertarians? Who steps in to fix that? Not the gov, its either paid off as it is now, asleep at the switch, or castrated and powerless (as libertarians would have it).

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/android-4-2-1-update-december-apocalypse-back-on/

Poor battery performance: After updating to Android 4.2, services from Google Play can eat away at battery life immensely. This affects the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, and Nexus 4. The Nexus 7, however, also has its own exclusive battery issue; After updating to Android 4.1, Google’s 7-inch tablet tends to charge very slowly in certain circumstances, as some users in the XDA developers forum have acknowledged.

Random reboots: Devices are randomly rebooting after updating to Android 4.2. This bug affects the Nexus 10, Nexus 7, Nexus 4, and Galaxy Nexus – and has occurred while performing tasks and remaining idle. Some Nexus 10 users report suffering from random reboots multiple times each day. Interestingly enough, HTC’s Windows Phone 8X also suffers from the same issue.

Slow and unstable UI: The user interface, which Google boasted to be “buttery smooth,” appears to have taken a turn in the complete opposite direction with the update. Some devices upgraded from Android 4.1.2, (i.e. the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7) are slow and sluggish while opening apps and navigating through the user interface. A factory reset may remedy some of these concerns, but a laggy UI isn’t the only issue. Some Galaxy Nexus owners have said that their screen will light up without any interaction, much like an iPhone when it gets a notification.

Apple and Microsoft "donate" thousands and thousands of obsolete and refurbished ipads and computers to schools every year in an effort to get kids to become reliant on their products. Here's one example. At least google is giving these schools modern hardware that isn't refurbished or otherwise unsellable crap.

Pandora pays at least 2 cents per listener hour. That's the minimum. The maximum is 25% of revenue generated during that playback. So the artist should be getting paid whichever is larger.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/does-the-riaa-even-want-pandoras-golden-eggs/

$1,653 equals 82,650 hours.
82,650 hours over 1.5M listens means average length of song is 3.3 minutes.

So, if her average piece is longer than 3.3 minutes, she's getting ripped off.
Otherwise something fishy is going on. Is BMG taking a big cut?

It seems to me that 25% of revenue is way more than fair for what is essentially radio play.

It looks like the BB 10 specs are the same or better than the iPhone 5 at least. It only comes with 16GB storage, but upgradable with a card. Faster processors on BB 10 and a few more pixels on the screen (if you get the big one) and better resolution.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/specs-blackberry-10-models-stack-18357208

BB Z10 (big touch screen version):
Display: 4.2-inch (diagonal) with a resolution of 1280 by 768 pixels (356 pixels per inch)

iPhone 5:
Display: 4-inch (diagonal) with a resolution of 1136 by 640 pixels (326 pixels per inch).

Weird, I don't see the processor specs on that page, but I checked them at another site a week or two ago.

More on these pages:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/blackberry-z10-vs-iphone-5-vs-galaxy-s3/

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/iphone-5-benchmark-lightning,3312-3.html

Says that iPhone 5 is dual core 1.29 GHz, while the BB 10 is dual core 1.5 GHz.

My biggest thing is the CAMERA! Not the specs so much, but the software. You take one picture, it gives you a couple of seconds to scroll through and pick the best picture during that time... so no more blinks and yawns in my damn pictures. THANK YOU!

They're not hijacking any ad-revenue.

What the hell are you talking about?

megakey

Megakey

Here is a leaked photo. Revolutionary! Put it up to your head: hello? HELLO? allo?

This lie again? Why are you misleading people?

An “Assembled in USA” claim requires a product’s “last substantial transformation” happen in the United States even if the components of a product are manufactured overseas. However, this requires more than a “screwdriver” assembly of the parts at the end of the process. For Apple to be putting “Assembled in USA” labels on some new iMacs, the company is claiming that it’s doing more than slapping together components into a finished whole.

- http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/does-assembled-in-usa-mean-anything-for-apple/

The controller raises a lot of interesting possibilities

Just like the Wii! And the GameCube! And the N64! Yet, somehow, none of these "interesting possbilities" ever seem to pan out into a large library of games.

But I haven't been hearing a lot of buzz about it, considering it's supposed to be launching next month. I know it's supposed to be as powerful as the PS3/360.

Wow, it's just as powerful as the consoles I've had for the last 5 years. And it's going to cost more than they have in a long time. And guess what! Instead of one of those puny 500GB PS3-with-a-game bundles, we're going to get a whole 32GB flash, and a piece of crap. Yawn. They could try a lot harder.

But I haven't heard much about the debut game lineup.

Then you haven't been paying attention. It's going to have some games at launch: a lot of non-exclusives with a few bizarre exclusives (Bayonetta 2?) and yet more rehashing of old Nintendo franchises.

Frankly I think Nintendo, for all their faults (most notably, their admittedly piss-poor online support), kind of gets the short-shrift in the gaming community. Their systems may not have the cutting edge CPU's and GPU's, but they do what they do pretty well.

This is utter BS and I'll tell you why Nintendo is getting well-deserved apathy: games. The NES and SNES had amazing lineups of games that are still playable today. The N64 started a long line of bad decisions for Nintendo: tiny cartridges; it had Mario64 and Zelda64 that were genre-defining games, but little else that stands up. The GameCube had slightly more, but due to tiny disc size and bizarrely-different controller, the lineup wasn't huge. Still, I'd take it over the Wii, which has nothing defining, lots of rehashing (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, few of them any good), and the occasionally good third-party title Nintendo refuses to import (Xenoblade).

It's not (just) because Nintendo panned the community by repeatedly insulting the "hard-core" constituents, it's a continuing downward spiral of crap gaming library. Granted, this hasn't been the last-last generation where I packed six shelves with just the good PS2 games, but the PS3 has a solid three shelves, and the 360 has a good two shelves, and I don't give a crap where any of the Wii games are.

Now I should be excited about the Wii U, which is just now playing catchup with last gen and getting lots of ports? Sony is already pushing to have the Vita and PS3 interact to kill whatever "interesting possbilities" the WiiU wants to hold exclusive. Love or hate Sony, they can build a platform that has a game library worth playing. If Microsoft does something similar with smartphones or the Surface, say bye to any interest in the Wii U from anyone.

M$ should be worried. Along with Apple and anyone else trying to keep their proprietary little death-grip on their market share. Android is turning up everywhere. It's becoming ubiquitous. You can find it on everything from smartphones to Televisions[0] to Refrigerators[1]. Why do you think Apple is going 'thermo nuclear' on Android? It's not just due to 'Rounded corners and rectangular design' it's because Android can be made to run on just about any home appliance imaginable -- and guess who makes a lot of home appliances (TVs, fridges, washing machines, etc) as well as smartphones? Now guess who doesn't?

Apple and Microsoft PAY people extraordinary salaries to forecast market trends. They know where the industry is trending. And it ain't trending into Cupertino or Redmond at the moment -- at least not in the world outside of the US.

[0] - http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/android-powered-pocket-tv-turns-any-television-into-a-smart-tv/

[1] - http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425210/do-we-really-need-an-android-powered-fridge/

IMEI blacklists are widely used in Europe. The problem is that, at least in Norway, few people actually bother to have the IMEI blacklisted if the phone is stolen.

In the US the vast majority of phones are purchased thru carriers. They already have your IMEI on file.

The FCC has finally gotten the four big carriers to start blocking IMEI numbers of stolen phones. You simply go back to your carrier and tell them you need a new phone because your old one was stolen. They will automatically add the stolen phone to t a nation wide database of stolen phones. It takes no effort on the users part.

While new IMEIs can be programmed into stolen handsets, the thieves don't have the skills to do this, (if they did they would be in a safer more profitable line of work). They just use the stolen phone till it dies and then steal a new one. I suppose some thieves work for rings exporting their wares to foreign countries.

[citation needed]

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:NOK

You can look at their stock prices and earnings reports. Start around 2007, that's when things started to get interesting.

[citation needed] - (see: Samsung's recent profit reports)

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-apple-and-samsung-cornered-all-smartphone-profits/

ONE Android manufacturer - Samsung - appears to be making Android devices profitably. All the rest are losing money. And Samsung accounts for only 37% of the global profit share, with the remainder going to Apple. If Nokia were as good at phones as Samsung... they wouldn't have been in the nose dive already. In fact, Nokia had several things (in house OS dev) that Samsung didn't have, and they were still failing. There is nothing to suggest that changing course and going with in-house-customized Android would have somehow been a magical panacea when they couldn't get any of their other three in-house developed systems in a state where they'd reasonably compete with Android or iOS.

[citation needed] See the ratio to which the N9 completely outsold the Lose-mobiles.

I'll point you once again to the stock & company information linked above, and ask you to consider how you think selling a million or two units of a single phone is going to magically reverse Nokia's fortunes? Because they were selling these devices, and they always had the ability to sell these devices... but their revenues & profits & market share just keep on shrinking. That a million or two people around the world got so excited at the prospect of a MeeGo phone that they bought one is not surprising. This does not demonstrate any sort of mass market appeal, or ability to sell large (profitable) volumes.

So... [citation needed] on your bullshit - explain to us how Nokia - which was already pursuing Symbian, Maemo, and MeeGo for years, was going to magically correct their course and turn back to profitable, when pursuing that course had ALREADY put them well down the road to ruin?

When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. It's a good thing Nokia realized this, and a shame you don't get it.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/the-riaa-is-dying/

Saying that Android won't gain much market share is not only foolish, it's entirely false.

The latest numbers disagree with your assessment: Apple is gaining faster than Android is. And let's not forget profit per unit, where Apple is kicking the crap out of Android. But what about growth of the market itself? Well, that isn't looking too hot either. In fact, the latest numbers suggest that Android's biggest problem isn't Apple at all, but Microsoft.

If Google can step their game up and fix some the glaring issues such as inconsistent updates from manufacturers, they'll be well on their way to take the dominant position.

They obtained the dominant position some time ago, in terms of per unit sales. It's highly unlikely they'll ever achieve parity with per unit profit compared to other offerings. It's arguable that the only thing keeping Android alive is the Google brand identity; The support is shit and the platform is fragmenting. By most business metrics, the Android platform's golden age is drawing to an end. Google hasn't "stepped up their game" at any point, and they can't... because the entire Android model is a free for all. They have no control over what apps get loaded, they can't possibly test all possible combinations of hardware and software, and in fact most vendors have to work rather closely with Google to get a shipping product. Oh, and it's not cheap maintaining 20 different hardware platforms for the vendor... which is why so few stand behind their product for any length of time.

No, I don't think they're on their way to a dominant position: I think they're on their way to the shit can if they can't sort out some very real structural (read: management) problems in the overall Android platform.

Is that why Apple gave them free early-release copies of OS X Lion and invited them to test?

"It's been five years since Radiohead brought the pay what you want model to the public with their successful sale of their 'In Rainbows' album.

Yes, you mean that stunt that the Radiohead manager said they won't repeat again?
"Radiohead abandons ‘pay what you want’ for upcoming album release" - http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/radiohead-abandons-pay-what-you-want-for-upcoming-album-release/
"But Radiohead's manager has also said that the band likely wouldn't try a similar promotion again." - http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9894376-7.html

Sorry, I just had to mention that because I'm tired of people using Radiohead as an example of "pay what you want" which was wildly successful, when it really sounds like it wasn't.

"Now, here's a fresh example of how a game developer is making The Pirate Bay work for him by offering his game, McPixel, for free and letting people pay what they want."

Yeah, I saw the McPixel developer trying to get fans on Reddit too. I saw a YouTube video of the game and it isn't very good. It wasn't worth a free download. But, he seems to be doing a good job of getting out there and marketing, as well as trying to build some fame by telling pirates exactly what they want to hear.

No thanks, McPixel developer. What you're doing by validating the PirateBay is undermining the game development industry while trying to make a few extra bucks. It's fundamentally self-centered. If this ever became "the norm", then the McPixel developer wouldn't get squat as far as free-advertising from sites like Slashdot. (It actually reminds me a little bit of the stunt that S.E.Cupp (an atheist) pulled a few months ago when she went on a news show and told people she'd never vote for an atheist politician because atheists can't be trusted. She's throwing other people (other atheists) under the bus by making those kinds of arguments, but I'm sure it did a good job of getting her extra fame and sales because she's saying the opposite of what you'd expect someone to say - and playing into the hands of conservatives. I can already hear them crowing, "See, even atheists admit they can't be trusted. We need only God-fearing politicians.")

Apple's Penalty
$35,000 payment to Samsung for infringement on 2 patents
Ban on iPhone 3GS
Ban on iPhone 4
Ban on iPad 1
Ban on iPad 2

Samsung's Penalty
$22,000 payment to Apple for infringement on 1 patent
Ban on Galaxy S2
Ban on "certain other products"

Net Cost
Apple pays Samsung $13,000 (about the cost of an entry-level Hyundai)
Each side loses millions of dollars in sales of its banned devices
Samsung loses additional money because Apple buys components for the banned devices from Samsung
Each side pays its legal team hundreds of thousands of dollars for the representation.
Corporate legal teams assure CEOs it was worth it because the costs will be much higher if they don't defend their patents.

20 to 1

Thanks to ongoing lawsuit, we know that Apple's iPad outsold the Galaxy tablets by a margin of 20 to 1 when the Galaxy tablets launched. In the most recent quarter (which may not be complete), Samsung only sold 37k Galaxy tablets. For reference, during it's slowest quarter the iPad sold 63k units per day.

Much like the iPod market, Apple is absolutely crushing people in tablets. The Kindle Fire has been be the best competitor, and it seems to have lost it's sales. The Nexus 7 is a much more compelling device, so we'll see what happens there. Apple doesn't have the lead in phones (only 16% of the market), but they have 71% of smartphone profits. Android may be moving more units, but that's not a good trend.

Modern games, especially when camouflaging of some form is involved (which usually is in shooters) it's motion that will give them away, if your eyes are not adapted to spotting things.

So:
1. Pattern and antipattern detection/recognition (hey that grass looks diff... oh that's an enemy!)
2. Fine motion detection/recognition (something just moved in those trees)

These very same "skills" are trainable - the more you play, the better you get. This has actual real-world impact, especially in the realm of soldiers, hunters etc. Likewise if you've done a lot of that kind of thing, you'll find you pick up these games a bit easier since there's something to build on.

Here's another study, though this one's some news report with no links.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/att-customers-can-start-blocking-stolen-devices-on-july-10/

AT&T blocks IEMI now. Can't speak for the other companies.

Hah, I would _love_ to take the train across an ocean if I could. Flight from NYC to London is absolute hell; even if it took an extra 12 hours I'd pick the train on that one every time.

Of course, based on your talk of crossing the Baltic...your trains are probably something like this:
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/BBQBOY/files/2009/06/train1.jpg

Where the trains I'm familiar with are more like this:
http://cdn4.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/25_01_1-Amtrak-Locomotive-Boston.jpg ...and I STILL prefer those old rustbuckets...

Not in the slightest. When they launched the Xbox 360 they were negative by about 4 billions thanks to the original xbox, but the 360 made huge losses again. And it's still faltering.

I can't believe I'm bothering to respond to a troll AC but here we go.

a) "Can any of Samsung's lawyers tell me which one is Samsung and which one is Apple?" Koh asked. A moment later, one of the lawyers supplied the right answer."

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-has-terrible-lawyers/

One of many articles available from a two second Google search - feel free to search on your own to find one more to your liking, if you wish. Here's the relevant section:

"Reuters reports that at one point during the hearing, Koh held both an iPad and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 above her head and asked Samsungâ(TM)s lawyers if they could tell which was which at a distance of only 10 feet.
âoeNot at this distance your honor,â said Kathleen Sullivan, a Samsung attorney that may need to get her eyes checked.
The judge asked the question again, this time of the entire Samsung legal team. âoeCan any of Samsungâ(TM)s lawyers tell me which one is Samsung and which one is Apple?â she asked. After a moment or two, one of the team got the right answer."

So, with a 50/50 chance of randomly picking the right device, Samsung's own legal team showed no confidence in picking the right one and the _entire legal team_ had to take a moment to pick one. I stand by my statement.

b) Here's a bunch of pics that shows how they are TOTALLY THE SAME. Nope, you need a microscope to find a difference. "Entire design" copied, right. Except for all the parts that aren't.

Someone else in the thread posted a very clear outline of how clearly and obviously Samsung has altered their designs to match the iPad. I won't bother regurgitating the information - I'll just link to their informative post.

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2940821&cid=40464751

c) Did you know that US is not the whole world? Other courts thrown out Apple's design claims.

First, what does that have to do with anything. Second, you do know that there are countries that have enforced Apple's design patent. Introduce yourself to Germany - Samsung altered their infringing design, to avoid an infringement conviction, to keep the product on the shelves.

What's your point?

That Apple OS X killed (slaughtered, annihilated, eviscerated, fragged, whatever adjective you prefer) Lin-sux. You mad bro?

Think different.
Think BETTER.
Think Apple!

Modern Windows NT-based kernels support up to 256 cores though... see here for reference:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/windows-7-boasts-better-multi-core-support-for-up-to-256-cores/

* Vista had up to 64 cores iirc, but Windows 7 "upped the mark"... a good thing!

APK

P.S.=> Seems sort of odd MS would limit it to 64 cores only, but then again? I don't know of any smartphones that possess THAT many cpu cores presently either (unless someone knows differently, I'd stand by that, but then again - I can always stand to learn a new thing or two, & things are nearly constantly changing in the art & science of computing too)... apk

That said, it is interesting that the Skype website wasn't immediately rebranded with Microsoft logos. It seems MS are underplaying their ownership of this cross platform service

It was actually a demand from Skype to be left alone as a team. Apparently, their CEO even demanded that their office keycards would have Skype logo on them, and not MS.

A few notes: 1) This is not the only way she can communicate, simply the cheapest $299 + iPad). The first paragraph of the article says that much. Later on it does mention that the iPad app is the only one the girl took to right away.

The parents tried several much more expensive alternatives (including devices by the plaintiffs), but they were all too heavy or too difficult for an illiterate four-year-old to operate. They're not just going for the cheapest option

Yup. Plenty of cases.

http://m.digitaltrends.com/photography/recording-police-is-a-constitutional-right-says-doj/

Probably. The first 3tb was released June 2010. [techdigest.tv] 4tb came out Oct 2011. [storagereview.com] Not exactly amazing growth, over a year for 1tb, at this rate we'll be 9tb in 2016. At this rate we will not see 60tb by 2016, and I say "we" meaning end consumer, maybe some lab monkey will see an areal density equivalent to 60tb, but it won't be available for sale. You're making the flawed assumption that current PRM technology can continue at that pace and that HAMR will not be a disruptive technology resulting in a "bump" in the density. HAMR will be a bump in density just like PRM was only a bump in density over the older recording methods.

You're exactly right: perpendicular recording (PRM) was a bump in recording methods. Before perpendicular recording the largest hard drive was 400gb and perpendicular recording did exactly what slashdot predicted, offer 10x the storage, with 4tb hard drives now available only 7 years after PRM came out in 2005.

But it took 10 full years to reach that 10x prediction, and hard drive capacity has been increasing at the same exponential growth for 30 years. What they're calling for is a huge leap, 15x the storage in 4 years, from 4tb to 60tb, and that's just not going to happen.

I would predict 10-20tb, but I'm not sure anyone will care since we'll all be using multiple terabyte SSDs by 2016 anyway, they're increasing at a much faster growth rate than hard drives and who wants to wait milliseconds to transfer date at mBps when you can wait nanoseconds to transfer at gBps? Hard drives will be almost as useful in 2016 as tape drives are in 2012.

For example take microSD cards, they're at 64gb now. 100 of those would be 55mm by 15mm by 20mm = 16,500 mm3, much smaller than a 3.5" hard drive at 101.6 mm × 25.4 mm × 146 mm = 368,650 mm3, yet a hundred 64gb microSD cards would provide 6.4tb of storage, far more than any hard drive and it could fit in a cellphone and weigh only 50grams (0.1 lbs) compared to the 1.5 lbs a hard drive weighs. Of course at $87 each that would be almost $9,000, but flash memory prices are dropping faster than any other technology related item so I have no doubt that $9k will be ~$200 within a few years.

And GM's stated public partnership with Google, Google+ and Android has NOTHING to do with this. Right?

http://www.androidcentral.com/tags/gm

http://www.androidcentral.com/tags/chevrolet

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&sqi=2&ved=0CGoQtwIwCA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DhcbTw_dvPgY&ei=SMOzT8vLDIWm8QSphN3uCA&usg=AFQjCNFiOVx-KhoOtBzmZAehYIC1nc2MmQ&sig2=h-EnMGtOVXB7ukBpBKPoig

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&sqi=2&ved=0CHEQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corvettenewsblog.com%2Ftag%2Fgm-and-android%2F&ei=SMOzT8vLDIWm8QSphN3uCA&usg=AFQjCNHVGF5QkdUkIzrKRroRwqLTbCQUkQ&sig2=dBPvLP-uWArg8lP5ANJWAw

Just another "Hmmmm" tinfoil hat thought for you. I wonder how much input the Feds have in GM making such an announcement just as Facebook is prepping for a IPO?
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/feds-freeze-gm-ceo-alan-akersons-salary-at-1-7-million-limit-other-top-exec-pay-in-the-process/

http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/anonymous-makes-charitable-donations-using-stolen-credit-card-details/

They've released a few screenshots demonstrating the cleaner, lighter typeface and refined iconography.

Some of you may have noticed the same thing happening to Google over the past few years. I see more and more negative news stories on them every year. Soon, they'll be hated too.

The anti-Google bias on many tech sites is a lot of manufactured controversy.

http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/new_sopa/

Do sign, please. It may not help, but it can't hurt.

While at it, give CISPA a bump... while you still can.

It's called CISPA.

FTFY. Now, go and try to do something.