Comment A whole new level of parallelism (Score 4, Insightful) 137
I've heard that many programmers have issues coding for 2 and 4 core processors. I'd like to see how they'll addapt to running "run hundreds of threads" in parallel.
Submission + - Repair Program for Faulty Time Capsules
TwiztidK writes: Apple recently issued a support document outlining a repair/replacement program for those affected by the power issues on Time Capsules manufactured between February and June of 2008. The repair program will even take measures to preserve data on the hard drives by transfering it to new drives. Those who have already paid for a repair may contact Apple for a refund.
Submission + - The Creativity Crisis (newsweek.com)
An anonymous reader writes: For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining.
Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary discovered this in May, after analyzing almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults. Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward. “It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant,” Kim says. It is the scores of younger children in America—from kindergarten through sixth grade—for whom the decline is “most serious.”
Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary discovered this in May, after analyzing almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults. Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward. “It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant,” Kim says. It is the scores of younger children in America—from kindergarten through sixth grade—for whom the decline is “most serious.”
Submission + - Apple’s iAd: What Developers Think (wsj.com) 1
Nemilar writes: "It’s been about a week since Apple rolled out its new advertising platform, and developers of iPhone apps are watching the earliest returns to see how much money they can expect to make from these ads. One developer reported Thursday that he earned $1400 in one day for his flashlight app. The amount iAds pay is “a high number when you get it, but you don’t get it very often,” said Dave Yonamine, the director of marketing at MobilityWare. The article discusses revenue potential in relation to the only other mobile ads platform, AdMob for Android, and claims that iAd paid $148 for the same number of ads as $1 on AdMob. What's Apple up to?"
Hollywood Accounting — How Harry Potter Loses Money 447
An anonymous reader writes "Techdirt has the details on how it was possible for the last Harry Potter movie to lose $167 million while taking in nearly $1 billion in revenue. If you ever wanted to see 'Hollywood Accounting' in action, take a look. The article also notes two recent court decisions that may raise questions about Hollywood's ability to continue with these kinds of tricks. For example, the producers of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' now have to pay $270 million for its attempt to get around paying a partner through similar tricks."
Comment IQ isn't everything (Score 2, Insightful) 553
Basing emplyment on IQ is pointless as it doesn't actually predict "real-world" performance. This is similar to college only accepting students with a score in the top 1% on the ACT/SAT - they can do well on a test, but that doesn't mean they are a good student.
Comment Re:For the record (Score 5, Informative) 320
It went about 5 miles down the road where me and several volunteers helped disassemble, sort, package, and ship the components to somewhat local refineries to complete the recycling process. None of it even left the tri-state area during the whole process.
Comment For the record (Score 5, Interesting) 320
I held a computer and electronics recycling day in my town. We were able to collect over 50 used computers and many other things. Several of them were refurbished and given to people who could use them, but the majority had to be recycled. We didn't ship them to China or Africa either. I'm sure that there will always be people out there trying to game the system to make a quick buck, but there are a lot of people who are just trying to help out (by reducing "ewaste" in my case).
Comment Re:This is great, but... (Score 1) 85
"It's fantastic that air travel can now be powered using solar enery alone," No it can't. This is a UAV and can not carry people so next.
Where are you getting this information? The original story referred to its last flight as the "first ever manned night flight on a plane propelled exclusively by the power it collects from the sun." It is an ultralight, but it is not a UAV.
Comment Re:Isn't this illegal? (Score 5, Funny) 193
But this is Science!
Comment This is great, but... (Score 1) 85
It's fantastic that air travel can now be powered using solar enery alone, but I think that our real emphasis needs to be on needs to be the successful implementation of renewable energy sources in automobiles. Sure, planes use a lot of fuel, but I'm sure that the millions of cars and trucks driven every day are burning through our resources much faster.
Submission + - Should Cities Install Moving Sidewalks?
theodp writes: 'The real problem nowadays is how to move crowds,' said the manager of the failed Trottoir Roulant Rapide high-speed (9 km/h) people mover project. 'They can travel fast over long distances with the TGV (high-speed train) or airplanes, but not over short distances (under 1 km).' Slate's Tom Vanderbilt explores whether moving walkways might be viable for urban transportation. The first moving sidewalks were unveiled at Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition, and at one point seemed destined to supplant some subways, but never took root in cities for a variety of reasons. Vanderbilt turns to science fiction for inspiration, where 30 mph walkways put today's tortoise-like speed ranges of .5-.83 m/s to shame. In the meantime, Jerry Seinfeld will just have to learn to live with 'the people who get onto the moving walkway and just stand there. Like it's a ride.'
Submission + - Pre-Fab Data Centres Shipped In Months (eweekeurope.co.uk)
judgecorp writes: Service provider Colt has launched pre-fabricated data centres. Order one, and it ships to your site — currently Northern Europe — within four months, with a (target) PUE efficiency score of 1.2. These aren't the well-known mobile data centres — temporary capacity in a shipping container — they are about 15 times the size, and for permanent use. What we want to know is, why do we need them, when they cloud is supposed to be replacing in-house IT?
Comment Re:Well... (Score 1) 365
You are correct in your assumption. Apple's patent specifically mentions being used in a power adaptor for a laptop computer.
Comment Re:Well... (Score 3, Informative) 365
At present, Apple won't license their "MagSafe" connector to anyone.
