NEW NET Weekly List for 26 Jun 2012
Below is the final list of issues for the Tuesday, 26 Jun 2012, NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Entrepreneurism and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 PM weekly gathering at Sergio's Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.
The ‘net
1.
Successful lawsuite means
users can now stop Facebook ads from using their names, photos http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57458489-93/facebook-to-give-users-more-control-over-controversial-ads/ “If a judge approves Facebook's settlement of
a class-action lawsuit regarding "sponsored stories," the social
network will give users more control over the advertising tool, which features
users' profile photos and other information in ads for businesses and products
the users have "Liked."…the settlement agreement includes giving
users the ability to determine what, if any, user information can be featured
in ads, and adding new language to Facebook's guidelines informing users of
sponsored ads, according to court documents filed Wednesday…user opt-outs will
apparently apply on a story-by-story basis and that users can't opt out of all
sponsored stories in one fell swoop. Facebook agreed to keep the changes in
place for at least two years…While an economist hired by the suit's plaintiffs
said the value of the changes is about $103 million for Facebook members, the
company will pay just about $20 million to take care of attorney fees and pay
organizations that are devoted to educating people about using social
networking safely…”
2.
Facebook forces all users
over to @facebook.com e-mail addresses (and what to do about it) http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/facebook-forces-all-users-over-to-facebook-com-e-mail-addresses/ “If you are on Facebook but have never taken
a particular shine to Facebook's e-mail capability, Facebook is intent on
changing your mind. As of Friday, the company seems to have quietly given or
replaced the display e-mail addresses of all of its users with an @facebook.com
address, routing any e-mail communiques you would have received back to its own
Messages inboxes. Facebook began its jaunt as an e-mail service in November
2010…The service was intially hailed as a Gmail replacement, but caught on
about as well as Facebook Gifts and Facebook Places…You can change your e-mail
back, if you want. By the way, congrats on your new Facebook e-mail address. If
you find your display e-mail has been hijacked by a facebook.com domain, fret
not; a quick edit of the settings will let you restore a personal e-mail
address (edit Contact Info, then select the facebook.com email to be
"hidden from timeline." Select another to be "shown on
timeline," if you desire)…Facebook has provided the following statement on
the change: As we announced back in April, we’ve been updating addresses on
Facebook to make them consistent across our site…”
3.
Mac users steered to
pricier hotels on Orbitz http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/06/26/mac-users-have-money-to-spare-says-orbitz/ “…travel website Orbitz has discovered that
people who use Macs are willing to spend as much as 30 percent more per night
for hotel rooms compared to the more frugal Windows PC users…The sort of
targeting undertaken by Orbitz is likely to become more commonplace as online
retailers scramble to identify new ways in which people’s browsing data can be
used to boost online sales. Mac users are also 40 percent more likely to book a
four or five-star hotel compared to Windows users, and when Mac and Windows
users book at the same hotel, Mac users tend to stay in more expensive rooms…Orbitz
isn’t showing the same room to different users at different prices, but more
luxurious rooms at higher prices…”
4.
Bing Maps Adds 165 TB,
High-Res Imagery Will Cover All The U.S. And Europe By The End Of The Year http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/25/microsoft-bing-maps-high-res-imagery-will-cover-all-the-u-s-and-europe-by-the-end-of-the-year/ “…Microsoft…is launching its largest imagery
release in its history: Bing Maps today features a full 165 terabytes worth of
new data that spans about 1 million square miles. What’s maybe even more
interesting, though, is that the Bing Imagery Technologies group completed its
mission to cover 100% of the U.S. with aerial photography in June and that the
company expects to hit the same 100% milestone for Europe…by the end of 2012…With
the “Global Ortho” program, which Microsoft launched in 2010, the company aims
to provide 30cm aerial blanket coverage of the U.S. and Europe to provide users
with a consistent mapping experience…Microsoft also noted that it takes about
16,500 compute cores and about 55 petabytes of storage to run Bing Imagery
Technologies’ software that stitches all of these photos together and prepares
them for publishing…”
5.
Microsoft to build out
Bing Maps with Gigwalk mobile workforce http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2011/07/gigwalk-partners-with-bing.html “Microsoft has tapped Gigwalk's mobile
workforce to add panoramic and 3-D images to its Bing Map results. Gigwalk, a
California startup that launched less than two months ago, elicits the help of
iPhone users, a.k.a. Gigwalkers, to capture images and information about local
businesses. The new service pays Gigwalkers anywhere from $3 to $50 to perform
on-location "gigs," tasks like taking photos, verifying street signs
and product placement or reporting a red-light camera. Gigwalk has signed up a
few big customers, including Tom Tom and MenuPages. But Microsoft, which
recently ran a successful trial of the service in New York, is a big addition
for the company. Microsoft plans to use Gigwalkers to build out its Bing Maps;
participating users will use the Photosynth app to take panoramic images of
restaurants, bars, and retail shops…”
6.
Backup Box Makes
Switching Between Cloud Storage Services Easy http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/25/backup-box-makes-switching-between-cloud-storage-services-easy-now-also-supports-google-drive/ “Chances are, you have quite a bit of data on
your favorite cloud storage service by now. But with the recent changes in this
space, especially with Google and Microsoft making a push to compete with
startups like Dropbox, what happens if you decide to switch to a different
service? Moving data between different backup and cloud storage services is
usually a manual and slow task, but that’s where Backup Box comes in. What
started as basic tool for moving data from an FTP server to Dropbox has now
become a fully-featured backup and data transfer service with support for FTP,
SFTP, Dropbox, Box, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, MySQL, and – starting today – Google
Drive. Since its launch, the company, which is based in Edmonton, Canada, has
already moved over 12 million files, as BackupBox’s founder Eric Warnke told me
earlier this week. Even without a major marketing push, the company is now
growing rapidly and getting to the point where it is moving a million files
every three days…”
7.
Infinite-capacity
wireless vortex beams carry 2.5 terabits per second http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/131640-infinite-capacity-wireless-vortex-beams-carry-2-5-terabits-per-second “American and Israeli researchers have used
twisted, vortex beams to transmit data at 2.5 terabits per second. As far as we
can discern, this is the fastest wireless network ever created — by some
margin. This technique is likely to be used in the next few years to vastly
increase the throughput of both wireless and fiber-optic networks. These
twisted signals use orbital angular momentum (OAM) to cram much more data into
a single stream. In current state-of-the-art transmission protocols (WiFi, LTE,
COFDM), we only modulate the spin angular momentum (SAM) of radio waves, not
the OAM. If you picture the Earth, SAM is our planet spinning on its axis, while
OAM is our movement around the Sun. Basically, the breakthrough here is that
researchers have created a wireless network protocol that uses both OAM and SAM…”
[hah! Who needs Google Fiber 1 Gbps
symmetric when you’ve got 2.5 Tbps connections – ed.]
Security,
Privacy & Digital Controls
8.
Google Maps Reinvented As
Employee Tracker http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/06/google-coordinate/ “…Google uncloaked a new service dubbed
Google Maps Coordinate that lets businesses track the activities of remote
workers — such as traveling sales staff and field technicians — by tapping into
GPS devices on their cell phones. For instance, says Google, a cable TV company
could follow the progress of their field techs as they move from home to home
repairing cable connections….the service is designed to be as straightforward
as possible. “In the enterprise, there’s a tendency to over-engineer and over
complicate…A huge emphasis for us is to make it really simple.”…With services
such as Gmail and Google Docs, the company aims to provide a new breed of
online business software that streamlines what you get from traditional
business software outfits such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle. Tools for
overseeing remote workforces have long been available from companies such as
Trimble, IBM, and AT&T. Google says the Coordinate is different not only
because it’s simple, but because it lets businesses customize how it works on
their own…”
9.
Printer bomb malware
wastes reams of paper http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/06/printer-bomb-pandimonium/ “A recently unleashed piece of malware is
wreaking havoc in some enterprises by causing all their printers to print
gibberish until they run out of paper…"The impact is global and effecting
approximately 80 print servers," an admin of one Fortune 500 company wrote
in an online forum dedicated to the print bomb explosion. "The print job
names were all 15 characters in length and unique. The print jobs were all
garbage print, as if it was opening the .exe and printing the garbage
text." Other participants reported the same phenomenon caused hundreds of
their organizations' printers to run through reams of paper…”
10.
In bid for patent sanity,
judge throws out entire Apple/Motorola case http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/in-bid-for-patent-sanity-judge-throws-out-entire-applemotorola-case/ “…One of the most outspoken judges in the
craziness that is the US patent system made a bold move tonight, throwing out a
lawsuit in which Apple and Motorola were seeking injunctions against each
other's mobile products. Judge Richard Posner previously canceled a jury trial
in Chicago in the case, and then castigated both Apple and Motorola while
calling the entire US patent system "chaos." Posner, a US Court of
Appeals judge who is sitting by designation for this case in US District Court
in Illinois, issued a ruling late today (Scribd link) that shows he wasn't just
joking…"It would be ridiculous to dismiss a suit for failure to prove
damages and allow the plaintiff [Apple] to refile the suit so that he could
have a second chance to prove damages. This case is therefore dismissed with
prejudice," Posner wrote. Posner had previously ruled that proposed
testimony from experts put forth by both sides would be inadmissible, making it
difficult to support any claims for damages or injunctions…” http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/23/why-judge-posner-pulled-the-plug-on-apple-v-motorola/ “…Apple's "rip-off" claims are
right. Judge Posner's decision doesn't prove that there was no
"rip-off". He just cannot see that the patents that were shown to
him, and the related infringement allegations and damages theories,
substantiated a "rip-off" of the illegal kind. At the most he felt
that Apple might have been entitled to a limited amount of money, if it had
done a better job of proving economic harm. This is a useful paragraph because
it separates the legal issues at stake from the palpable sense of injustice
Steve Jobs felt when he threatened to "go thermonuclear"…There is, as
Mueller put it, a "protection gap" between what Jobs clearly felt --
and many people might feel -- ought to be protected by the laws governing
intellectual property rights, and what our patent and copyright systems
actually protect…”
11.
Canadian airports being
wired with listening equipment that 'will record conversations' http://www.globaltoronto.com/sound+off/6442663297/story.html “Airports and border crossings across Canada
are being wired with high-definition cameras and microphones that can eavesdrop
on travellers' conversations, according to the Canada Border Services Agency. A
CBSA statement said that audio-video monitoring and recording is already in
place at unidentified CBSA sites at airports and border points of entry as part
of an effort to enhance "border integrity, infrastructure and asset
security and health and safety." As part of the work, the agency is
introducing audio-monitoring equipment as well…”
Mobile
Computing & Communicating
12.
A tale of two rugged
Android smartphones http://asia.cnet.com/a-tale-of-two-rugged-android-smartphones-62216778.htm “…we bumped into these two rugged Android 2.3
smartphones. The first is Winmate's E430M, a handset made for warehouse use and
military service…It features an IP66 level of dust and water resistance, and is
compliant with the MIL-ST 810G standard. The unit that we spent time with also
came with a bar code scanner, useful for warehouse inventory stock takes. Since
it's heavily ruggedised, it's likely to survive a drop from when you're up on a
ladder…This bulky handset will not be available to consumers…if you want
something you can actually buy, the Seals TS3 is a slimmer handset with some
consumer-oriented features. It features a dual-SIM card slot, an IP68 rating as
well as the MIL-810G military standard. It comes with only 512MB of storage,
but you can expand that via a microSD card slot. The 3.5-inch HVGA (480 x 320
pixel) display may not be as big as Winmate's smartphone, but you do get a
special SOS rescue button that you can tap once to turn on the flashlight. Hold
that down and the handset will send an emergency message to five selected
friends with your location…”
13.
Top 5 hottest smartphones
this summer http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/top-5-hottest-smartphones-this-summer/7860 “…Here are my Top 5 hottest smartphones of
summer 2012…Number 1: Samsung Galaxy S III…Number 2: AT&T Nokia Lumia 900…Number
3: HTC One Series (X, S, EVO 4G LTE)…Number 4: Apple iPhone 4S…Number 5: Nokia
808 PureView…”
14.
13-inch
MacBook Air vs. 13-inch MacBook Pro: which should you buy? http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57458148-37/13-inch-macbook-air-vs-13-inch-macbook-pro-which-should-you-buy/ “MacBook Air. MacBook Pro. Once upon a time,
these two products were significantly different from each other, two totally
different products. That dividing line's been blurring, especially when it
comes to the world of 13-inch MacBooks. The MacBook Air used to be an
underperforming, expensive laptop with stellar design, while the 13-inch Pro
was a full-featured, far more robust machine. The truth is, these systems are
closer in performance and price than ever before…Entry-level 13-inch MacBook
Air and Pro laptops now cost the same $1,199, but you'll still have to make a
decision: do you value hard-drive space, or portability? Weight, or ports? Easy
upgrades, or faster boot times? In 2011, I thought the go-to laptop remained
the 13-inch MacBook Pro by the narrowest of margins. This year, I think the
scale has tipped to the MacBook Air…” http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/MacBook-pro-Minus-Retina-Display-Far-More-Repairable-iFixit-672852/
15.
Pixelpalooza: 15"
Retina MacBook Pro reviewed http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/pixelpalooza-ars-reviews-the-15-retina-macbook-pro/ “…Apple did not disappoint when it introduced
the new 15" Retina MacBook Pro at its Worldwide Developers Conference last
week…We put the machine through some benchmark paces to look at relative raw
performance, and spent a couple of days using the machine for our usual work to
get a more subjective impression of the whole package—and we came away
impressed. Specifications…15" Retina MacBook Pro, $2,199…Storage: 256GB
solid state flash drive…Screen: 15.4" diagonally, 2880 x 1800 native
resolution…The new 15" Retina MacBook Pro is the first time Apple has
applied the same design thinking that went into that new Air to its
"pro" notebooks. Spinning hard drives? Gone. Optical storage? Useless
anachronism. FireWire and Ethernet? Vestigial, obsolete ports. But this isn't a
stripped-down machine with ultra low voltage processors. The new MacBook Pro
differentiates itself from the Air by packing in a quad-core Ivy Bridge
processor built on Intel's latest 22nm process. It includes Intel's HD4000
integrated GPU, which isn't quite the pixel-y sloth that past Intel IGPs used
to be. It also packs in a discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M mobile GPU with 1GB
of dedicated DDR5 memory, and you get at least 8GB of DDR3 RAM standard…”
16.
Tesla Model S Rated at 89
MPGe, Instruments Powered by Nvidia http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/06/tesla-model-s-fuel-economy/ “…Beginning Friday, Tesla will begin
delivering the first batch of Model S sedans to buyers who have pre-ordered the
svelte EV, but before the first all-electric Model S rolls out of the
automaker’s Fremont, California, factory, the EPA has released its official
fuel economy ratings. The new “miles per gallon equivalent” or MPGe of the
Model S comes in at 88 MPGe in the city and 90 MPGe on the highway, for a
combined rating of – you guessed it – 89 MPGe. Just as importantly, the EPA is
rating the sedan’s range at 265 miles, based on its new five-cycle testing
procedure. That puts it at the top of the EV heap when it comes to range,
dwarfing the Honda Fit EV’s combined 118 MPGe, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV’s 112
MPGe, the Ford Focus Electric’s 105 MPGe and the Nissan’s Leaf’s 99 MPGe – none
of which are as large or as capacious as the Model S. The EPA tested a Model S
equipped with the largest capacity battery available, with 85 kWh of juice and
a sticker of $69,900…Tesla has also announced its partnership with Nvidia to
supply the chipmaker’s Tegra Visual Computing Module (VCM), which powers the
17-inch touchscreen navigation, infotainment and climate control system. Two
Tegra processors handle both the massive center stack display – the largest
fitted to a production car – along with the 12.3-inch configurable LCD fitted
behind the steering wheel and taking the place of traditional gauges…”
Apps
17.
Hands-On With the Latest
Siri Competitor For Android http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/06/hands-on-robin/ “…Android apps that aim to compete with Siri…like
their Apple counterpart…often fail to deliver on the promise of being an
always-connected virtual assistant. The latest entrant into the Android market
is Robin, which takes a similar tact to Siri, but puts the focus on searching
points of interest while you’re behind the wheel. Robin, available for free
from Google Play, comes to the party with a novel approach to inputting voice
commands – you simply wave your hand above the phone, slightly brushing up
against the light sensor, and the familiar voice control dialog appears
awaiting your instructions…Robin seems to be more focused on in-car usage than
similar apps, allowing the driver to find everything from movie theaters to gas
stations, the latter displaying the price of fuel directly on the map. You can
even specify what kind of dino juice you’re running on – from premium to diesel
– and when you tell Robin to navigate to the nearest station, it automatically
brings up Android’s built-in Navigation app. Even more useful is Robin’s
ability to find parking near your destination, filtering the results by closest
and cheapest…”
18.
10 Free Travel Apps Every
Tourist Needs To Download http://www.businessinsider.com/best-mobile-apps-for-travelers-2012-6?op=1
“Going to somewhere you've never been
before can be a stressful experience. Luckily, modern technology can help you
out through your travels so you can actually enjoy your vacation…We've compiled
a list of free mobile apps that could help a tourist in any situation, because
you don't need to pay any more for that extravagant vacation you've planned…TripIt…GateGuru…iMedJet…Hipmunk…Kayak…Yelp…Wi-Fi
Finder…Picksie…New York Pass Travel Guide…Tourist Eye…”
SkyNet
19.
Google Webmaster Tools
Adds New Capability http://technorati.com/technology/article/google-webmaster-tools-adds-new-capability/ “…Google announced…a way to make keeping
track of certain website metrics much easier…you can download your Google
Webmaster Tools data directly to Google Documents…This is great for cloud
computing enthusiasts because it eliminates the need for an installed
spreadsheet program on your computer's hard drive, such as Excel, WordPerfect
Office Quattro, or Open Office, to chart or make other changes to the stats as
they're presented in your Webmaster Tools account. Though you can still
download the familiar.csv file to be used in stand-alone spreadsheet programs,
this new ability to download your files directly to Google Docs makes your data
available by browser — anywhere, anytime…”
20.
YouTube’s Gigantic Year
Is Already Here http://allthingsd.com/20120621/youtubes-gigantic-year-is-already-here-citi-says/ “Is Google making money off of YouTube? You
betcha, Google execs told shareholders today, without offering the slightest
bit of detail…in lieu of real numbers from Google, here’s a Wall Street
estimate: Google is making a ton of money from YouTube…The video site should
generate more than $3.6 billion in gross revenue this year, says Citi’s Mark
Mahaney. After distributing some of that to partners, Google probably records
net revenue of $2.4 billion…last year, when he guessed at YouTube’s 2012
revenue, he thought it would do a mere $1.7 billion. Why is he even more
optimistic now?...because YouTube’s traffic continues to grow…comScore has it
posting 20 percent growth, quarter after quarter. And because Google is
sticking more ads on more videos…He’s also bullish about the early results from
its “channel” project…”
21.
The Next Version Of
Android Is Confirmed As 4.1 Jelly Bean http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/06/21/the-next-version-of-android-is-confirmed-as-4-1-jellybean-will-be-coming-to-the-galaxy-nexus-first/ “Google's let a bit of info slip a little
early via the Play Store. When purchasing a Galaxy Nexus via the site, while
checking out, the device is listed on your order as "Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ -
The latest smartphone from Google, soon the first phone with Android 4.1
Jell..." This marks the first time the name Jelly Bean, and the version
number 4.1 has been referenced publicly. More interesting than that, however,
is…that the HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus from the Play Store is "soon the first
phone" running the new OS…”
22.
Google ramping up
development of Android Siri rival http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/google-ramping-up-development-of-android-siri-rival-50008326/ “…Google is accelerating its efforts to beat
Apple's voice-controlled butler Siri, according to the Wall Street Journal…the
Journal reckons Google is speeding up plans to launch an Android-based Siri
competitor, rumoured to be called Google Assistant. Android has featured
voice-control tech for ages, letting phone owners bark orders into their
mobiles using Voice Actions. This lets you do plenty of things, such as send
texts, search or play music on your Android phone, but the actions are
triggered by specific commands and, unlike Siri, the phone doesn't speak back. Google
is reportedly looking to upgrade its voice-controlled search to full
personal-assistant status -- a new Android tool that will create a
'personalisation layer' using data from Google+, offer a 'do engine' that helps
you achieve real life goals…” http://support.google.com/ics/nexus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=168603 “You can use Voice Actions in Voice Search to
text your contacts, get directions, send email, and to perform a number of
other common tasks, in addition to searching the web…Words you want to search
for…"Call" followed by a name from your contacts…"Map of"
followed by an address, name, business name, type of business…"Navigate
to," followed by an address, name, business name, type of business…"Call"
followed by the digits of a phone number…"Call" followed by a
business name…"Send SMS" or Send Text…"Send email"…"Note
to self" followed by the message you want to send to yourself…"Listen
to" followed by words for music you want to search for…”
General
Technology
23.
Breakthrough
in speech recognition with Deep-Neural-Network approach http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2012/06/20/a-breakthrough-in-speech-recognition-with-deep-neural-network-approach.aspx “…I’m a big fan of a Microsoft Research
technology known as MAVIS – it indexes audio and video content and then allows
you to search for a word or phrase across that content and jump to the exact
point at which it was uttered…The key is to hover over the “bubbles” that
appear beneath the text to jump to the precise moment in the video. A recent
post by Rob Knies on the Inside Microsoft Research blog details so new advances
in our speech technology – something with the mysterious name
Deep-Neural-Network Speech Recognition. MAVIS is being updated to include this
technology and it’s the first time deep-neural-networks (DNN)-based
speech-recognition algorithm in a commercial product. It’s been heralded as a
breakthrough and the “Holy Grail of speech recognition”. So what is DNN?...Automated
voice services that interact with multiple speakers do not allow for speaker
training because they must be usable instantly by any user. To cope with the
lower accuracy, they either handle only a small vocabulary or strongly restrict
the words or patterns that users can say. The ultimate goal of automatic speech
recognition is out-of-the-box speaker-independent services that don’t require
user training. That’s where DNN comes in. Artificial neural networks (ANNs),
mathematical models of the low-level circuits in the human brain, have been a
familiar concept since the 1950s. The notion of using ANNs to improve
speech-recognition performance has been around since the 1980s. The Speech
group at Microsoft Research Redmond became interested in ANNs when recent
progress in building more complex “deep” neural networks (DNNs) began to show
promise at achieving state-of-the-art performance for automatic
speech-recognition tasks…”
24.
SSD prices
plummeted by 48 percent over the past year http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/22/3109811/ssd-price-stats-cost-per-gb-june-2012 “While traditional hard drive pricing remains
inflated after last year's Thai floods, the cost of SSDs continues to drop…the
price for drives from OCZ, Corsair, and Crucial have fallen dramatically over
the past year, with the larger 240GB / 256GB models dropping by over 50 percent
in most cases. Samsung's 830 Series SSDs started at a lower cost than the
others, but have settled into a similar price range today. The only buck to the
trend is the Intel 320 Series, which uses a proprietary Intel controller and
hasn't fluctuated much since its release. The newer Intel 520 Series, which
uses the same SandForce controller as found in the majority of drives, is still
pricier than most, as Intel differentiates its drives with custom firmware it
says gives higher performance levels than its competitors' SSDs. Overall, the
statistics show a huge 48 percent drop in the average price of a flash storage
drive. Several models finally fall beneath the hallowed $1 per GB threshold…”
25.
Innovation in
America: A Tale of the Decade to Come
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/06/22/innovation-in-america-a-tale-of-the-decade-to-come/ “…This is a fictional story exploring how
several major technological trends shape one man's life 10 years from now. It
is the final part of a three-part series that examines the possible progress of
technology over the coming decade…Johnny is now 33 years old and has become a
senior roboticist at Google (NAS: GOOG) X. He and his wife are trying to
conceive their first child. They want their offspring to have the best possible
opportunities available in a rapidly changing world. Today, Johnny and his wife
are going to visit the Silicon Valley Genomic Institute for a full genomic analysis.
The institute is not known only for its analytical capabilities. It has evolved
from that original focus to become one of the most advanced human genetic
engineering facilities in the United States. Johnny and his wife travel to the
institute in an autonomously driven car controlled by Google technology. It's
been more than a decade since Google first developed successful self-driving
cars, but legislation and costs posed major obstacles to widespread consumer
adoption until the start of the 2020s…The roads would seem eerily sparse to a
driver in 2012. Most knowledge workers now find telecommuting more rewarding
and efficient than going to an office, and cost-conscious corporations
encourage the behavior shift. Many travel-dependent jobs have either moved
online or have been superseded by autonomous vehicles and unmanned aerial
transports, whic…”
Leisure &
Entertainment
26.
Nintendo unveils
super-sized 3DS XL game machine http://www.ingame.msnbc.msn.com/technology/ingame/nintendo-unveils-super-sized-3ds-xl-game-machine-840499 “…Nintendo has unveiled a new super-sized
version of its Nintendo 3DS handheld game machine. During a pre-recorded online
video released Thursday night, the game giant took the wraps off of the
Nintendo 3DS XL (that's XL for extra large) -- a gadget that boasts top and
bottom screens that are 90 percent larger than the original 3DS's screens…The
new 3DS XL handheld will run $199.99 and will launch in North America on August
19 -- the same day "New Super Mario Bros. 2" launches for the 3DS…the
top screen will measure 4.88 inches while the bottom screen is 4.18 inches
compared to the current 3DS' 3.53-inch and 3.02-inch screens. The battery will
last 3.5 to 6.5 hours compared to the 3 to 5 hours with the current-model 3DS…”
27.
GIGApixel cameras coming
soon http://dvice.com/archives/2012/06/megapixel-schme.php “While some camera geeks are salivating over
the possibilities of the new Nokia 808 PureView smartphone and its
comparatively beefy 41-megapixel camera, researchers have recently unveiled a
technique for capturing 50-gigapixel images, which they predict may hit the
public in as little as five years. Let's put those numbers in some perspective:
if you're happy with the camera on, say, your iPhone 4S, that comes with a
relatively standard 8 megapixels. Have fun with that. Meanwhile, 50 gigapixels
is 50,000 megapixels, which also happens to be five times better than 20/20
human vision…researchers at Duke University and the University of Arizona —
with support from DARPA — have developed a prototype that synchronizes 98 tiny
cameras to produce one ginormous image…”
Economy and
Technology
28.
Domain Wheeling and
Dealing http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304441404577481101826098404.html “Entrepreneurs and big companies are battling
one another for the rights to manage hot new Web address endings, including
.app, .home and .book. Some are gathering in Prague this weekend, where they
may decide to team up and pursue a contested domain together or duke it out. Among
them will be Bill Doshier of Conway, Ark., who hopes to meet his competition
for the rights to .fun. Mr. Doshier in April spent more than $500,000 to apply
officially for the rights for the name as well as .buzz. He thinks he can sell
the two domains to registrars such as GoDaddy.com LLC, which specialize in
reselling website addresses, including secondary names—the words to the left of
the dot. He believes people who list entertainment venues or promote parties
online might have an interest in buying addresses such as parties.fun…The
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, a nonprofit that
regulates the Internet, last week disclosed the identities of the more than 800
applicants for new right-of-the-dot names…In addition to the $500,000 of his
own money for application fees and technology services and other expenses, Mr.
Doshier lined up additional funding from private investors to cover the cost of
managing and promoting the domains in the event he wins approval from Icann for
either of them. "My intentions are to be a part of .fun but I realize who
I'm up against," he said. "I'm nervous."…at this weekend's
meeting, many of those seeking the rights to contested domains say they intend
to meet with their competitors. Some hope to discuss teaming up to reach
arrangements where one party might agree to withdraw an application so that
another technically would have the rights to manage the name in question. But
they would work together to manage the name and share profits if Icann were to
later approve the remaining application. It is also possible that some domain
seekers will offer to pay their rivals to back out entirely. Icann, which
awards domains based on applicants' qualifications and plans for using the
domains, is expected to begin evaluating the applications next month…”
29.
Y Combinator-Backed
Rentobo Helps Landlords Fill Apartments Without All The Messy Paperwork http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/25/rentobo/ “Looked for an apartment lately? It sucked,
right? You showed up and you had to fill out an application and submit all
sorts of stupid paperwork — credit check, proof of employment, utility invoice
(apparently to prove that you can pay a bill, like an adult), etc. And then, if
you’re lucky, your name will be pulled out of a hat amongst the other
half-dozen people who applied for the same property. Well that whole process
sucks for landlords and property management companies as well. After all,
they’re the ones who collect all that paperwork and sort through all that data.
Don’t you wish there were a better way? Thanks to Rentobo, there is. Rentobo
provides a platform for landlords, listing agents, and property management
firms to not only post their open units across a number of different apartment
listing sites, but it gives them a way to quickly and easily get information
from prospective tenants with an online application process…For landlords,
first and foremost there was the listing problem. Craigslist still looms large
in most major metro areas, despite its crappy interface and lack of
functionality. But then there’s Zillow, Trulia, and other sites as well.
Rentobo provides a single listing interface for landlords and listing agents to
post to all of those sites at once…”
DHMN Technology
30.
Can 3D
Printers Reshape The World? http://www.npr.org/2012/06/22/155582850/can-3d-printers-reshape-the-world “What if you needed a new toothbrush and all
you had to do was hit print? What if doctors could print out transplantable
organs and pastry chefs turned to a printer, not a kitchen, for their next
creation? Ira Flatow and a panel of guests discuss 3D printing technology, how
far it's come and what a 3D-printed-future could look like…I'm Ira Flatow. What
if you broke your doorknob, or you needed a spare part for your car, and
instead of going to a store or your car dealership, you just powered-up your
desktop 3-D printer, and hours later, voila, you've got the part you needed. Some
say 3-D printers already have that capability, after all people have printed
out bicycles and bikinis and burritos and even a person's entire lower jaw from
titanium on these nifty gadgets. And if that weren't enough, they're exploring
how to print out skin and ears and bone and organs like the kidney, made out of
living cells…Wohlers is the president of Wohlers Associates, a consulting firm
that tracks the 3-D printing industry. He joins us from Fort Collins, Colorado.
Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY…”
31.
How I
Accidentally Kickstarted the Domestic Drone Boom http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/ff_drones/all/ “…Companies like Shenzhen-based DJI
Innovations are selling drones with the same capability as the military ones,
sometimes for less than $1,000. These Chinese firms, in turn, are competing
with even cheaper drones created by amateurs around the world, who share their
designs for free in communities online. It’s safe to say that drones are the
first technology in history where the toy industry and hobbyists are beating
the military-industrial complex at its own game. Look up into America’s skies
today and you might just see one of these drones: small, fully autonomous, and
dirt-cheap. On any given weekend, someone’s probably flying a real-life drone
not far from your own personal airspace…What are all these amateurs doing with
their drones? Like the early personal computers, the main use at this point is
experimentation—simple, geeky fun. But as personal drones become more
sophisticated and reliable, practical applications are emerging. The film
industry is already full of remotely piloted copters serving as camera
platforms, with a longer reach than booms as well as cheaper and safer operations
than manned helicopters…To give a sense of the scale of the personal drone
movement, DIY Drones—an online community that I founded in 2007 (more on that
later)—has 26,000 members, who fly drones that they either assemble themselves
or buy premade from dozens of companies that serve the amateur market. All told,
there are probably around 1,000 new personal drones that take to the sky every
month (3D Robotics, a company I cofounded, is shipping more than 100 ArduPilot
Megas a week); that figure rivals the drone sales of the world’s top aerospace
companies (in units, of course, not dollars). And the personal drone industry
is growing much faster. Why? The reason is the same as with every other digital
technology: a Moore’s-law-style pace where performance regularly doubles while
size and price plummet. In fact, the Moore’s law of drone technology is
currently accelerating, thanks to the smartphone industry, which relies on the
same components—sensors, optics, batteries, and embedded processors—all of them
growing smaller and faster each year. Just as the 1970s saw the birth and rise
of the personal computer, this decade will see the ascendance of the personal
drone. We’re entering the Drone Age…”
32.
The Many
Faces of Raspberry Pi: From Toy to Autonomous Drone http://midsizeinsider.com/en-us/article/the-many-faces-of-raspberry-pi-from-toy “Raspberry Pi, the $25 open-board computer,
made its debut earlier this year to great anticipation by students, hobbyists,
and industry professionals alike. The low-cost computer is intended as an
educational platform to teach school children in developing countries to
program, but industry professionals are increasingly taking a closer look, in
part because of its envisioned potential. In a recent Engadget article,
Terrence O'Brien evaluated the computer's components by running the Pi through
a series of tests. He found that the Pi was able to perform on the level of a
300MHz Pentium II, as advertised, and that the Broadcom graphics chip, a
Videocore 4 GPU, was mostly worthy of the buzz it has received. On the
downside, the computer struggled from the software perspective, leading the
author to believe that the supported Linux language variants were not
particularly reliable. Overall, O'Brien found that the Pi was "more likely
a tinker toy."…OpenRelief, a group that makes tools for disaster relief
efforts, is using the Pi to control a computer-vision system onboard an
autonomous flying drone. It will communicate with a radiation-detection system
and weather sensors, providing information to on-the-ground responders and
disaster management systems. So it seems that the Raspberry Pi's usefulness may
be greater and even grander than expected…”
33.
Will Apple
Buy Into 3-D Printing? http://seekingalpha.com/article/674001-3d-systems-will-apple-buy-into-3-d-printing “Personal 3-D printers are the next big
technological revolution. They will drastically change our lives, second only
to the effect of the personal computer. Throughout the course of this article,
we will see why 3-D printing really is the next big technological leap; learn
about 3D Systems Corp. (DDD), one of the major players in the field; and
discuss why Apple Inc. (AAPL) should buy into this burgeoning industry…There
are already a number of different marketplaces set up to connect designers with
consumers. Designs for eyewear, shoes, jewelry, light fixtures, and sculptures
are already being sold. Apple even sells 3-D printed iPhone covers. Also, a
number of apps that assist in the creation and personalization of the products
are already available. The 3-D printing industry has grown almost 9% a year
over the last ten years and is expected to reach "$3.1 billion worldwide
by 2016 and $5.2 billion by 2020."…I can't say how these processes will
evolve or which of these technologies will gain preeminence. However, here is
my prediction for the next five to ten years…”
34.
Can 3D
printing make it into the mainstream?
http://www.techhive.com/article/2000140/can-3d-printing-make-it-into-the-mainstream.html “3D printing could be at the start of
something huge. 3D-printing technology has only been available to consumers for
a few years, but it’s already led to some interesting creations and made the
manufacturing process easier in terms of sourcing parts and reducing costs.
However, a few key limitations and legal controversies surrounding 3D printing
could restrain innovation…3D printers are becoming more common in a variety of
different fields. They’ve proven to be a valuable tool for researchers,
hardware engineers, and even artists. Thanks to hardware advances and falling
prices, 3D printing is as accessible as it’s ever been, and it’s only going to
become more consumer-friendly in the future…3D printing could even be used to
replace various body parts. Earlier this year, doctors and engineers worked on
a project involving a 3D printer, which would replace a patient’s infected
lower jaw with a new artificial one. The patient recovered from the operation
within a few days…researchers in Germany are making steady progress developing
3D-printed, bio-compatible artificial blood vessels. While the research team
stressed that 3D printers are not quite precise enough to cover all the steps
necessary to create the vessels yet, it’s an emerging area of research worth
watching…3D printing could one day end up in the kitchen: A University of
Exeter lecturer modified a 3D printer to print chocolate. His invention, the
Choc Creator, is now on sale for businesses looking to let customers design
their own sweet treats for loved ones—or individuals who really love chocolate…there
are plenty of fun and practical uses for a 3D printer, too. For example, you
could use a 3D printer to replace broken or missing parts of a model you’re
working on. Or even cooler, you could create your own model from scratch and
get the printer to run off the parts. There’s plenty of room to get even more
imaginative. By connecting it to an iPad and taking a photo, you could have
your face printed onto a vase, all done with a 3D printer. Want to make
electric guitars more practical without compromising sound? Then you can print
a more- streamlined version of the instrument. You can also create your own
unique fashion accessories with the help of 3D printing…”
Open Source
Hardware
35.
Open Source Hardware
Association is official http://www.oshwa.org/2012/06/20/were-official/ “We’re official! After getting denied (a
couple times) in NY State, we successfully incorporated in Delaware. Yay! Step
1 accomplished (Step 2 will be to
tackle the paperwork for IRS non-profit status.) We also created a mailing list
for the Open Source Hardware Association. Sign up here please:
www.oshwa.org/mailing-lists/ We will use
this list to update folks on our progress, discuss directions for our goals and
purposes, and use the list as our communication method…”
36.
Makey Makey Hits $568,106
and 11,124 Consumers Said Yes http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2012/06/20/makey-makey-hits-568106-and-11124-consumers-said-yes/ “Make a key out of any thing. Literally.
Banana piano? No problem. Play dough. A pencil sketch. A beachball. Connect any
and all of it with an alligator clip and you have an input device. Any material
that has even the tiniest bit of conductive capability can be a touch sensor
with the Makey Makey. The Kickstarter project goal was $25,000 and it raised
$568, 106 from 11,124 customers in 30 days. Make + Key = Makey Makey. It has a
fun ring to it, but more than that it is a powerful way to get kids engaged in
learning about inventing, and tinkering, and making interesting projects. In
fact, it is also for experts and engineers and those who want to solve problems
that involve nontraditional input keys or products for the differently able. It
just takes a little bit of creativity to think about how a quadriplegic
individual might benefit from a simpler keyboard-like interface. The open
source hardware company has partnered with Sparkfun…to manufacture the circuit
boards. It is an arduino-compatible
controller/device…”
Open Source
37.
Wireshark 1.8.0 can
capture from multiple interfaces at once http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Wireshark-1-8-0-can-capture-from-multiple-interfaces-at-once-1624081.html “Support for capturing from multiple
interfaces at the same time is one of the most notable improvements in the
major update to the Wireshark network protocol analyser. Version 1.8.0 of the
open source, cross-platform tool – used for network troubleshooting, analysis,
development and education – also includes support for GeoIP IPv6 databases, and
now allows users to add, edit and save packet and capture file annotations. Like
TCP retransmissions, fast retransmissions are now flagged as an expert info
note in the new stable release of the network monitor, and TCP Window Updates
are no longer coloured as "Bad TCP". Wireshark can now resolve SNMP
OIDs (object identifiers) on 64-bit versions of Windows, and decryption key
management for IEEE 802.11, IPsec and ISAKMP is said to be easier…”
38.
OStatic's Updated
Collection of Free Books on Open Source Topics http://ostatic.com/blog/ostatics-updated-collection-of-free-books-on-open-source-topics “Ask many people--including CIOs who are wary
of allowing open source software in their organizations--about the manuals and
documentation you get with many open source applications, and they'll say that
these guides leave a lot to be desired. There are, however, a lot of free,
online books on open source topics available. We round these up on a regular
basis here at OStatic, and in this post you'll find our latest updated
collection of online books that you can get in an instant. They introduce
essential concepts for getting started with Linux, Firefox, Blender (3D
graphics and animation), GIMP (graphics), and much more…”
Civilian
Aerospace
39.
Ice on the
moon: Explorers may be able to raid 'lunar freezer' http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-moon-ice-20120621,0,1168186.story “Scientists believe that the glow from one
extremely cold crater on the moon is due to ice, and now they are aglow too.
What does moon ice mean for space exploration? It could be a huge "lunar freezer,"
acting as a source of water for a nearby lunar base. Think "man on the moon" -- but in a
much more permanent way. "Frozen water in particular could be a resource
for future human explorers," said Ashwin R. Vasavada, a planetary
scientist for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory…The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
was sent to the moon in 2009 with a mission of mapping its surface. Now it's
carrying out scientific experiments, as The Times' Science Now blog reports,
and topping that list was an effort to determine what was causing an unusual
brightness in the south pole's Shackleton crater. As Vasavada noted, it's long
been theorized that the mountains near the moon's poles could be places of
permanent shadow, never feeling the touch of the sun. "These super-cold
places would be expected to trap water and other molecules that wander
by," he said, "like frost collecting on your roof on a cold morning…”
40.
Voyager to
become first man-made object to exit solar system http://www.thebunsenburner.com/news/voyager-to-become-first-man-made-object-to-exit-solar-system/ “Voyager will soon become the first
human-made object to leave the solar system, scientists from NASA say. Voyager
1, which was launched in 1977, is expected to exit the solar system much sooner
than previously thought. “The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will
become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do
not know exactly when that someday will be,” said Ed Stone, Voyager project
scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, in a press
statement. “The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where
things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the
solar system’s frontier…”
41.
New passenger
service to the Moon for $100M
http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/06/new-passenger-service-to-the-moon-for-100m/ “Excalibur Almaz has announced that it is
selling tickets to lunar orbit. The price is $100 million. Your golden ticket
will entitle you to a complete astronaut experience…The price includes a ticket
to a flight to space aboard the XCOR Lynx suborbital spaceplane, so you'll have
already been to space and experienced weightlessness before you board the
Excalibur reusable capsule. On the big day you'll ride the Soyuz rocket with
your two fellow passengers up from Baikonur to one of the company's two
90-cubic-meter space stations. Once you're aboard the station with your two
fellow passengers, an electric thruster will slowly spiral the three of you up
to an elliptical orbit around the Moon. After several days you'll spiral back
the way you came, re-enter Earth orbit, board a small reusable capsule and
re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, leaving the station behind you…Excalibur Almaz
has based its business around a fleet of Soviet spacecraft…Several years ago
Dula procured two Almaz space stations…and four very stout reusable return capsules
along with their escape systems…on…the Isle of Man…The spacecraft received new
solar arrays, environmental controls, flight controls, and communications
equipment. The kitchen, crew quarters, exercise rooms, storage racks,
laboratory, and telescope are all being brought up to date…we can't operate at
a profit in Low Earth Orbit right now…That takes government subsidy…There are
more customers that are interested in going beyond LEO for a purely commercial
system…Orbits were found that would allow the station to use electric
propulsion to slowly make its way into lunar orbits…Plans eventually came
together for three different lunar missions…The first mission begins in low
Earth orbit and involves an elliptical lunar flyby, good for tourists who want
to see the Moon up close through a window instead of a telescope. The second
requires the station to travel up to a circular lunar orbit on a slow
low-energy trajectory, where it waits for a crew on a high-energy spacecraft
such as an Orion space capsule riding on a ULA Centaur upper stage. The crew
vehicle docks with the station and can stay for a month or two. It then does a
high-energy return and re-enters the atmosphere. The third mission is the lunar
cycler orbit, wherein the space station flies to the Moon on a low-energy
trajectory…The Moon rotates around and catches the spacecraft two weeks later
on the other side, catching the spacecraft and returning it to where a new crew
or supply ship can dock with it. The two-week cycles could last quite a long time
before the station would need to be refueled…”
Supercomputing
& GPUs
42.
Can OpenGL And OpenCL
Overhaul Your Photo Editing Experience? http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/photoshop-cs6-gimp-aftershot-pro,3208.html “In our continuing look at the heterogeneous
computing ecosystem, it's time to turn our attention to the photo editing apps
currently able to exploit OpenCL- and OpenGL-capable hardware. We interview
experts, run benchmarks, and draw some conclusions. The processing loads common
in video editing are well known; it doesn’t take more than a couple of 1080p
tracks and a filter or two to soak up 100% of CPU resources in many systems.
However, not as many people appreciate the significant compute burden imposed
by modern digital photography workloads. Adding a sepia filter to an
eight-megapixel (MP) image may be no big deal, but how about a complex blur to
an 18 MP RAW image? Even if your editing tasks don't swamp your CPU, they can
still take a significant amount of time to execute, especially for multi-image
batch jobs. More time means more waiting. For professionals, that translates to
a loss of income. And pauses in your workflow prevent you from operating at the
pace of your creativity, stopping you dead in your tracks. You want to edit as
the creative options stream through your mind. The object of the game, of
course, is to devise new ways of getting more processing work done in less
time. In two prior articles, we examined how modern GPUs, including those
embedded within CPUs and APUs (compute engines with on-die graphics
capabilities), can be leveraged by industry standard APIs to accelerate highly
parallel operations within video post-processing and games. The same is now
increasingly true within the world of photo editing…”
43.
gSTAR game power to
uncover the universe http://www.swinburne.edu.au/chancellery/mediacentre/media-centre/news/2012/06/gstar-game-power-to-uncover-the-universe- “Swinburne University of Technology's new $3
million GPU Supercomputer for Theoretical Astrophysics, 'gSTAR', has been
launched today…gSTAR represents the next generation of supercomputing, and is
one of only six such machines in Australia and among the top 200 in the world…Director
of the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Professor Warrick
Couch, said gSTAR is set to accelerate the rate of science and knowledge
discovery at Swinburne and is at least 10 times faster than its predecessor. "This
means that the three years of data processing that culminated in early 2011 in
the discovery of a diamond planet in the Milky Way galaxy could now potentially
be done in one week,"…Professor Couch said gSTAR is poised to receive a
deluge of data from an emerging generation of telescopes equipped to generate a
million billion bytes of information in a single night…gSTAR uses 636 Intel
computer processing units (CPUs) and 121 NVIDIA graphics processing units
(GPUs)…”
*****
posted by myDigitechnician at 26.6.12
|
0 comments
