46018763
submission
symbolset writes:
VR-Zone is showing benchmark results from an upcoming HP Android 4.2.2 tablet with nVidia Tegra 4. While it remains to be seen if HP can find the same levels of success with Android/ARM that they have with Windows/Intel it appears they're going to put a solid attempt.
HP released their first Android tablet — the Slate 7 last week with a budget price and modest specifications. Standout features of the Slate 7 include Beats audio, and printing. Of course HP would include printing.
46016625
submission
symbolset writes:
The Wall Street Journal article says longtime industry operative Tom Wheeler will get the nod as early as today.
Is the cable lobby trying to cut Google Fiber off at the pass?
46001217
submission
symbolset writes:
Hoffman is best known for his 1943 discovery of LSD.
45911257
submission
symbolset writes:
Outbound Intel CEO Paul Otellini created quite a stir when mentioning that touchscreen laptops would reach a $200 price point. CNET is now reporting in an interview with Intel chief product officer Dadi Perlmutter that these touchscreen laptops will run Android on Intel Atom processors at first.
45888599
submission
symbolset writes:
Up to 17,500 rural Vermont subscribers of vTel, a legacy copper telephone company stand to get gigabit fiber to the premises. Funded by a $95 million US grant and $55 million in coinvestment from a utility for smart meters, if every subscriber takes the gigabit Internet the 1,200 mile fiber network will cost $8,500 per home. Currently the company is doing its best to convince people this is a product they need, but have seen only 600 takers so far.
The federal grant is part of $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funds that seem to have accomplished very little.
45862403
submission
symbolset writes:
Just two months away begins an amazing year of comets that will stand for our lifetimes as the "year of the comets." First up is ISON, which is projected to peak in August this year brighter than the moon. Following a year after is Siding Spring which still could — but probably won't — hit Mars.
Siding Spring is especially interesting because even if it doesn't hit Mars it is projected to pass Mars so closely and on the right side that Mars will be in its coma, or at least its tail. We have numerous instrument packages on Mars, in orbit, or planned to be, that can give great data about the event. Siding Spring is likely making its debut appearance in the inner solar system, so hasn't burned off the primordial gasses it gained in the Oort cloud, making its effluent particularly informative about what is out there in the Oort cloud — a region we know little about. In the unlikely event it does impact Mars we will get to see what an extinction level event looks like. As Siding Spring is believed to be up to 31 miles in diameter and have an impact velocity of 56 kilometers per second — releasing up to 20 billion megatons of energy. Mars would become visible in daylight, be heated by the thermal effects, be drenched in the water that composes most of the comet's mass.
45861555
submission
symbolset writes:
Planetary Resources wants to mine asteroids for their sweet, sweet minerals and make a business of it. The sparky little company has been writ up here on /. numerous times. With the backing of such billionaires as Sergey Brin, Larry Page, James Cameron, and many others, and such luminaries as major NASA project managers, engineers and scientists you have to think they might have a good shot at it. Recently they picked up a huge engineering, procurement and construction partner: Bechtel. Their operations are already cash-flow positive by selling tech invented to pursue their goals, so they're a legitimate business running lean and intending to make good.
Today they announced the plan to launch their first space missions: the Arkyd Series 100 — LEO Space Telescopes as soon as next year. Beginning in 2014 their satellites will be scanning the skies from Low Earth Orbit for lucrative rocks that happen to be heading our way, and incidentally doing for-pay work to keep the lights on. For a reasonable fee they'll sell you the right to retask one of these telescopes to take a picture of anything you want that it can see, for a fair price.
The plan is to follow up with harvester craft to go get these asteroids, mulch them, and sell their bits for profit. Some talk has been made of selling what are uncommon terrestrial minerals like gold and platinum, refined on orbit and deorbited at great expense as a business plan, but frankly that's absurd. "Extraterrestrial Asteroid Bits" ought to go for a higher price on the collector market than gold or platinum ever would, and the temporal preeminence should draw a premium price. "This 69 mg specimen (769 of 10,000) was one of the first commercially harvested bits of asteroid returned to Earth. Lucite embedded for permanent display, with case. Certificate of authenticity included."
45858675
submission
symbolset writes:
Just 40 miles west on the Kansas Turnpike from Kansas City Kansas sits Lawrence, KS. With the slow rollout of Google fiber in their neighbour city, it was looking like their 89,000 people were not going to get the gigabit fiber to the home for quite some time.
Up steps Wicked Broadband, a local ISP. With a plan remarkably similar to Google's they look to build out fiber to the home, business, and so on with gigabit speed and similar rates, symmetric bandwidth and no caps. Wicked Fiber's offer is different than Google Fiber's, with more tiers — with cute names. The "Flying Monkey" gigabit plan is $100/month, "Tinman" at 100Mbps is $70/month. They offer TV as well but strangely put Internet streaming and Roku to the fore. They are even using Google's method of installing first in the neighbourhoods with the most pre-registration to optimize efficiency, and installing only where there is enough demand.
It seems Google's scheme to inspire competition in broadband access is working — if Wicked Fiber gets enough subscribers to make it pay. If this succeeds it may inspire similar ISPs near us to step up to gigabit fiber so let's root for them.
45807005
submission
symbolset writes:
In a unanimous vote the Provo Municipal Council has agreed to a plan to sell the city's troubled iProvo fiber Internet network to Google.
Although this makes Provo, Utah the third city to embrace Google's ambitious gigabit fiber to the home plan the existing network will allow the residents of Provo to see faster installation than the others. Google had previously announced plans to proceed immediately on approval.
45075919
submission
symbolset writes:
It's typical to think of the progenitors of our sciences to be forgotten corpses lying in crypts somewhere. In other sciences this might be true, but in computer sciences there are some few heralds of the art remaining from our formative age. Niklaus Wirth, author of "Algorithms and Datastructures" is one.
His contributions go beyond being legendary. They literally create the framework we build our art upon. And he's still alive. We can still write him and say: sir, thank you.
44481765
submission
symbolset writes:
The US State Department has announced a new $6 billion initiative to promote and finance the development of 12 GW of geothermal resources in Indonesia. Indonesia is estimated to have the highest geothermal of any nation in the world, only 4% of which is in use. Secretary Kerry is expected to make the big announcement at the ASEAN summit in September in Brunei.
44210397
submission
symbolset writes:
Microsoft has had some trouble as of late getting adoption of their mobile products. Even Bill Gates has said it was inadequate. Despite rave reviews of Windows Phone in the press it has failed to get double digit share of the smartphone market. Now comes reports from WMPoweruser that WP8 will lose mainstream support in July 2014, before even Windows Phone 7.8.
Is this evidence that Microsoft will give up their quest for mobile relevance?
44075169
submission
symbolset writes:
According to Microsoft there have been service distruptions in their online mail services Outlook.com and Hotmail.com for the past eight hours. Techcrunch reports that Skydrive online storage service was also impacted for a time, and suggests this might relate to some part of the migration of Hotmail users to Outlook.com.
Some users report "no issue" so it is likely not all users of these services are affected.
This follows only two weeks after a prolonged global outage of Microsoft's Azure Cloud service previously here reported.
43769889
submission
symbolset writes:
Some anthropogenic global warming advocates have developed a game system whereby all online discussion of the topic can be diverted to their list of talking points. Is this a legitimate use of advocacy?
43769227
submission
symbolset writes:
According to a pair of scientists from the University of Rochester and the University of Ottawa, there may be a way around Heisenberg’s famous Uncertainty Principle. The paper is presented in "Nature Photonics", and a link will probably be available in the discussion below.
