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Businesses

Apple Confirms Purchase of Beats For $3 Billion 188

Posted by Soulskill from the throwing-down-the-big-money dept.
SimonTheSoundMan writes: "Apple has confirmed it will buy Beats Electronics and Beats Music for $3 billion. Apple will make the purchase using $2.6 billion in cash and $400 million in stock. An important part of the acquisition for Apple is absorbing the Beats subscription streaming service, even though it only has about 110k users. The Beats brand will remain intact, and will continue to sell headphones. "
Science

Nat Geo Writer: Science Is Running Out of "Great" Things To Discover 292

Posted by samzenpus from the nothing-new-under-the-sun dept.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "John Horgan writes in National Geographic that scientists have become victims of their own success and that 'further research may yield no more great revelations or revolutions, but only incremental, diminishing returns.' The latest evidence is a 'Correspondence' published in the journal Nature that points out that it is taking longer and longer for scientists to receive Nobel Prizes for their work. The trend is strongest in physics. Prior to 1940, only 11 percent of physics prizes were awarded for work more than 20 years old but since 1985, the percentage has risen to 60 percent. If these trends continue, the Nature authors note, by the end of this century no one will live long enough to win a Nobel Prize, which cannot be awarded posthumously and suggest that the Nobel time lag 'seems to confirm the common feeling of an increasing time needed to achieve new discoveries in basic natural sciences—a somewhat worrisome trend.' One explanation for the time lag might be the nature of scientific discoveries in general—as we learn more it takes more time for new discoveries to prove themselves.

Researchers recently announced that observations of gravitational waves provide evidence of inflation, a dramatic theory of cosmic creation. But there are so many different versions of 'inflation' theory that it can 'predict' practically any observation, meaning that it doesn't really predict anything at all. String theory suffers from the same problem. As for multiverse theories, all those hypothetical universes out there are unobservable by definition so it's hard to imagine a better reason to think we may be running out of new things to discover than the fascination of physicists with these highly speculative ideas. According to Keith Simonton of the University of California, 'the core disciplines have accumulated not so much anomalies as mere loose ends that will be tidied up one way or another.'"
Windows

Windows 8.1 Update Released, With Improvements For Non-Touch Hardware 294

Posted by timothy from the don't-touch-me-there-or-there-or-there dept.
DroidJason1 (3589319) writes "Microsoft has released the highly anticipated Windows 8.1 Update, adding numerous improvements for non-touch consumers based on feedback. It is also a required update for Windows 8.1, otherwise consumers will no get any future security updates after May 2014. Most of the changes in the update are designed to appease non-touch users, with options to show apps on the desktop taskbar, the ability to see show the taskbar above apps, and a new title bar at the top of apps with options to minimize, close, or snap apps."
First Person Shooters (Games)

Measuring the Xbox One Against PCs With Titanfall 377

Posted by Soulskill from the now-you're-thinking-with-death-robots dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this week, Respawn Entertainment launched Titanfall, a futuristic first-person shooter with mechs that has been held up as the poster child for the Xbox One. The Digital Foundry blog took the opportunity to compare how the game plays on the Xbox One to its performance on a well-appointed PC. Naturally, the PC version outperforms, but the compromises are bigger than you'd expect for a newly-released console. For example, it runs at an odd resolution (1408x792), the frame rate 'clearly isn't anywhere near locked' to 60fps, and there's some unavoidable screen tear. Reviews for the game are generally positive — RPS says most of the individual systems in Titanfall are fun, but the forced multiplayer interaction is offputting. Giant Bomb puts it more succinctly: 'Titanfall is a very specific game built for a specific type of person.' Side note: the game has a 48GB install footprint on PCs, owing largely to 35GB of uncompressed audio."

Comment Re:Take medicine away from the wizards (Score 1) 255

And yet, tablets as capable as the ipad for much cheaper abound. The iPad is still expensive.

And yet, the CEO of BlackBerry didn't exactly understand the cost of things, as the iphone was not the first touch-screen handheld.

And yet, Razer has created something more powerful than the MBP for less than the equivalently specced MBP. Also, Microsoft has released a piece of hardware specced like the Air, but with a high resolution display and a touchscreen, for less than the Air.

So, no.

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