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Submission + - Microsoft Researchers Explore Using Light Rays To Charge Smartphones (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Making wireless charging a viable thing is far from being a new goal, but to date, no method has caught on in a big way. Microsoft might have an alternative solution that involves light rays, but not solar pads. Because indoor light is so weak compared to outdoor light, it's not realistic to rely on those light rays to charge a device. So, Microsoft built its own charger, in the form of a light fixture. Equipped with a high-powered LED flashlight, whenever this light fixture detects a compatible device kicking around, it'll begin beaming light straight at it. However, a big problem arises here immediately: no one is likely to want a light randomly pointing at their phone. It's mentioned that infrared lights could be used down-the-road to fix that problem. Also, this charger won't simply continue to charge a device when its battery is full. Via an on-phone LED, the mobile device would handshake with the light source, and either charge or not charge depending on the battery-level.

Submission + - Elon Musk's $10B Space Internet Venture Would Link With Future Mars Colony (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: You have to hand it to Elon Musk who has occasionally be referred to as a real life "Tony Stark." The man helped to co-found PayPal and Tesla Motors. Musk also helms SpaceX, which just recently made its fifth successful trip the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver supplies via the Dragon capsule. The secondary mission of the latest ISS launch resulted in the "successful failure" of the Falcon 9 rocket, which Musk described as a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) event. In addition to his Hyperloop transit side project, Musk is eyeing a space-based Internet network that would be comprised of hundred of micro satellites orbiting roughly 750 miles above Earth. The so-called "Space Internet" would provide faster data speeds than traditional communications satellites that have a geosynchronous orbit of roughly 22,000 miles. Musk hopes that the service will eventually grow to become "a giant global Internet service provider," reaching over three billion people who are currently either without Internet service or only have access to low-speed connections. And this wouldn’t be a Musk venture without reaching for some overly ambitious goal. The satellite network would truly become a “Space Internet” platform, as it would form the basis for a direct communications link between Earth and Mars.

Submission + - Engineer Ends Console War, Combines Xbox One And PS4 Into Epic 'PlayBox' Laptop (hothardware.com) 1

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: It's official, we can finally stop arguing over which is the superior game console, the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. Quite frankly, it's a pointless debate, and it took a self-taught engineer to put the argument to rest, which he did by combining both game systems into a 22-inch laptop. Meet the "PlayBox," a gaming laptop that's equal parts Xbox One and PS4 rolled into one. The PlayBox wins the argument because it allows you to play games on either system, and when it comes down to it, the ability to play games is all that matters. Built for a "specific customer," the owner of this prototype system needn't worry about exclusives since he now has a system that can play them all, and do it while taking up no more space than a single console.

Submission + - Samsung In Talks To Acquire Troubled BlackBerry For $7.5 Billion (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Shares of BlackBerry (BBRY) were up nearly thirty percent as the closing bell sounded this afternoon. What could possibly be behind this sudden spike in interest in shares of a smartphone company whose glory days faded years ago? Well, it turns out that BlackBerry may be ripe for the picking and Samsung is ready to make an offer that John Chen and BlackBerry's board may be reluctant to refuse. According to a report, Samsung is willing to pay roughly $7.5 billion for BlackBerry's assets (including its patent portfolio). Samsung's sudden interest to make a deal comes just two months after the two companies entered a strategic partnership to bring BlackBerry's BES12 cross-platform EMM solution to Galaxy smartphones and tablets that feature embedded KNOX technology. At the time, the two companies indicated that they were looking forward to future ventures together.

Submission + - Paralyzed Patients Could Learn To Walk Again With e-Dura Spinal Implant (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: For decades, one of the most-studied and elusive cures in medical science has been biotechnology that would allow humans to walk again after spinal cord trauma. Other prosthetic devices have advanced enormously over the last 50 years, thanks to the integration of miniaturized motors, space-age materials, and cutting edge fabrication, while repairing damage to the nervous system has advanced at a comparative snail's pace. Now, a group of researchers has demonstrated a new device that allows paralyzed rats to walk again, and they're hoping it can do the same for humans. The implant material, known as eDura, is built to allow the device to shift with the body's natural movement without causing abrasion. When a neuron in the central nervous system is damaged, the neuron's support cells (glia) move in. Astrocytes, one kind of glial cells, build up scar tissue around the damaged region to protect it from further damage. This combined formation is what's known as a glial scar. One of the complications that has prevented previous classes of implants from being effective long term, is that these same glial cells appear shortly after implants are inserted into patients. Devices may work in the short term, but in the long term the body takes action to isolate the implants and prevent them from functioning. What the e-Dura's manufacturers hypothesized was that it was the stiffness of the implants that caused neural damage that led to glial cell formation. Even partial success with eDura technology could be revolutionary for those living with paralysis.

Submission + - For the first time in 3 years, investments in renewable energy increased (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Driven largely by oil price weakness, 2015 could be the best year to date for investments in renewable energy technology, according to several new reports. According to Bloomberg Energy Finance, new funding for wind, solar, biofuels and other low-carbon energy technologies grew 16% to $310 billion last year. It was the first growth since 2011, erasing the impact of lower solar-panel prices and falling subsides in the U.S. and Europe that hurt the industry in previous years. Demand for solar power grew 16% year-over-year in 2014, representing 44 billion watts (gigawatts) of capacity purchased during the year. Worldwide solar demand in 2015 is projected to be 51.4GW, compared with 39GW in 2014. Government policies will continue to improve for renewables — solar, in particular — given that anti-dumping duties imposed on Chinese modules by the U.S. last year are expected to be removed this year, Deutsche Bank said.

Submission + - Intel 5th Gen Core Series Performance Preview With 2015 Dell XPS 13 (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Intel's strategically timed CES 2015 launch of their new 5th Gen Core Series processors for notebooks was met with a reasonably warm reception, though it's always difficult to rise above the noise of CES chatter. Performance claims for Intel's new chip promise major gains in graphics and more modest increases in standard compute applications. However, the biggest bet Intel placed on the new Broadwell-U architecture is performance-per-watt throughput and battery life in premium notebook products that are now in production with major OEM partners. A few manufacturers were early out of the gate with new Core i5 5XXX series-based machines, however, none of the major players caught the same kind of buzz that Dell received, with the introduction of their new XPS 13 Ultrabook with its near bezel-less 13-inch WQHD (3200X1800) display. As expected, the Core i5-5200U in this machine offered performance gains of anywhere from 10 to 20 percent, in round numbers, depending on the benchmark. In gaming and graphics testing is where the new 5200U chip took the largest lead over the previous gen Core i5-4200U CPU, which is one of the most common processors found in typical ultrabook style 13-inch machines.

Submission + - Dell Unveils XPS 13 Ultrabook With Near Bezelless QHD Display, Intel 5th Gen CPU (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Dell unveiled their new XPS 13 ultrabook at CES, which the company says is the smallest 13-inch laptop in the world. Dell claims it achieved this feat by employing what it calls an "infinity display" that is virtually borderless (the bezels measure just 5.2mm), allowing the XPS 13 to maintain the external dimensions of an 11-inch notebook but with a 13-inch Quad-HD display (3840X2160). Dell also says that the XPS 13 has the longest battery life of any 13-inch notebook, clocking in at 15 hours on a charge and powered by Intel's new 5th gen Core series processor. In addition, the machine was spotted at an Intel event streaming 4K video wirelessly to a 4K HDTV via Intel's next gen WiDi technology. Other interesting notables from Dell included a 34-inch wide-aspect, curved monitor dubbed the UltraSharp U3415W that sports a 2560X1440 WQHD resolution.

Submission + - Intel Unveils 5th Gen Core Series Broadwell-U CPUs And Cherry Trail Atom (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Intel has officially taken the wraps off it's 5th generation Core Series notebook processor, code named Broadwell-U. This new SoC is a "tick" in Intel's tick-tock plan, which means it's mostly a die shrink of the existing Haswell architecture, at least, on the CPU side. On the GPU side, there's a bevy of improvements and advances, and the video decoder block has been beefed up with dual bit stream decoders in its high-end (GT3) hardware. Other feature improvements and capabilities are expected, though Intel has been quiet on exactly what they have tweaked and changed to date. Intel is claiming that the architecture will boost battery life by 1.5 hours, speed video conversions, and offer a whopping 22% improvement to 3D performance — a gain on par with what we saw when moving from Ivy Bridge to Haswell. Intel also took the wraps off their next gen Atom CPU, code named Cherry Trail. This is essentially a 14nm Bay Trail die shrink that's been on the roadmap for a while. As with Haswell-Broadwell, the Bay Trail-Cherry Trail shift is aimed at improving CPU power consumption and overall SoC power characteristics, though again, we'll see an updated GPU baked in as well.

Submission + - NVIDIA Announces Tegra X1 Chip And Drive CX And PX Automotive Platforms (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: For the last few years, NVIDIA has taken advantage of the lead-up to the Consumer Electronics Show to announce new Tegra-powered mobile architectures and this year we're being treated to more of the same. Today, NVIDIA unveiled its upcoming Tegra X1 system on a chip (SoC) and a few automotive computer systems leveraging the chip. Tegra X1 is a significant departure from the previous-gen Tegra K1 in that it features a 256 core Maxwell-derived GPU and eight CPU cores; four ARM A57 cores and four A53s in a big.LITTLE configuration. NVIDIA claims the Tegra X1 offers up to 2x the performance of the Tegra K1 in a similar power envelope, thanks to improved efficiency in the CPU and GPU cores and because the chips will be built using TSMC's 20nm manufacturing process. In addition to the Tegra X1 itself, NVIDIA also announced some new automotive computing platforms, the NVIDIA Drive CX Digital Cockpit Computer and Drive PX Auto-Pilot Platform, along with the Drive Studio software suite for developing in-car infotainment systems and autonomous driving systems.

Submission + - Hackers Leak Xbox One SDK Claiming Advancement In Openness And Homebrew (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Microsoft, it seems, just can't catch a break. Days after a major hack took its servers offline on Christmas day, and after being lambasted in multiple stories for shipping games like Halo: The Master Chief Collection in nigh-unplayable condition, the company's Xbox One SDK has been leaked to the public by a group calling itself H4LT. H4LT, which apparently objects to being called a hacker group, offered this explanation when asked why it was distributing the SDK. The group claims that "the SDK will basically allow the community to reverse and open doors towards homebrew applications being present on the Xbox One." To be clear, what H4LT has done is a far cry from groups like Lizard Squad. The SDK for any given product is typically available behind some degree of registration, but they don't necessarily cost anything. The SDK is one small component of creating the ecosystem that would be necessary to get homebrew up and running on the platform. Whether or not users will ever pull it off is another question.

Submission + - Security Research At The Hague, Netherlands: Mobile Network And Internet Threats (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: The Hague Security Delta (HSD) is the official title of a collaborative effort between Netherlands businesses, their federal government and multiple research institutions, to identify emerging security threats, share best practices, and foster collaboration between industry, governments, and universities. One of the most pressing issues they're tackling is that of mobile network and internet security. One point that the Netherlands' officials made repeatedly is that the country is essentially the "digital gateway" to Europe. This might seem like hubris but once you look at the arrangement of undersea cables between the US and Europe, it makes a lot more sense. The Netherlands is far from the only transatlantic connection hub between the US and Europe, but it certainly accounts for a significant chunk of total cable capacity. One of the brainchildren of the HSD is the creation of what it calls the "Trusted Networks Initiative" that would allow direct denial of service attacks originating from specific countries to be cut off. By creating a network "bridge" that can be raised and lowered, the idea is that content and visitors can be cleanly isolated from the bad actors launching an attack. There's an intrinsic assumption here — specifically, the idea that attackers are gathered into a group of systems that can cleanly be split from the so-called "trusted" networks that would continue to operate. It is however, an interesting concept to thwart broad-scale DDoS attacks.

Submission + - 6 Terabyte Hard Drive Round-Up: WD Red, WD Green And Seagate Enterprise 6TB (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: The hard drive market has become a lot less sexy in the past few years thanks to SSDs. What we used to consider "fast" for a hard drive is relatively slow compared to even the cheapest of today's solid state drives. But there are two areas where hard drives still rule the roost, and that's overall capacity and cost per gigabyte. Since most of us still need a hard drive for bulk storage, the question naturally becomes, "how big of a drive do you need?" For a while, 4TB drives were the top end of what was available in the market but recently Seagate, HGST, and Western Digital announced breakthroughs in areal density and other technologies, that enabled the advent of the 6 Terabyte hard drive. This round-up looks at three offerings in the market currently, with a WD Red 6TB drive, WD Green and a Seagate 6TB Enterprise class model. Though the WD drives only sport a 5400RPM spindle speed, due to their increased areal density of 1TB platters, they're still able to put up respectable performance. Though the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 6TB (also known as the Constellation ES series) drive offers the best performance at 7200 RPM, it comes at nearly a $200 price premium. Still, at anywhere from .04 to .07 per GiB, you can't beat the bulk storage value of these new high capacity 6TB HDDs.

Submission + - Know Your Type: Five Mechanical Keyboards Compared (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: As a power user, you notice certain things that the average person might not. One of those is the difference between typing on a sweet mechanical keyboard with luxurious key action, versus pounding away on a run-of-the-mill squishy plank that relies on membrane switches to register your keystrokes. The difference may seem subtle to the uninitiated, though even casual typists can recognize that there's something inherently superior about a mechanical keyboard. Of course, it's the mechanical key switches that are responsible for elevating the typing experience. These are better than the rubber domes found in membrane keyboards in a number of ways, including feel, responsiveness, and durability. Mechanical keyboards are growing in popularity, as word is spreading about how good they are. In turn, keyboard manufacturers have responded by feeding more mechanical models into what was once a niche market. If you go out in search of a mechanical keyboard, you'll now find a mountain of options. This roundup further reinforced something we've known for a long time, which is that mechanical keyboards are the superior choice for both gaming and daily typing chores. That doesn't mean they're all created equal — there are different key switches to choose from, and features vary from one plank to the next. The choice of key switch type is highly subjective but we can say that Cherry MX key switches are indeed of higher quality than knock-offs like the Kailh switch. That's not to say Kailh switches are bad, just that you can discern a difference when going from one to the other.

Comment Re:What's the problem? Use case, better multitask (Score 1) 75

by MojoKid (#48670649) Attached to: Samsung Galaxy Note Edge Review
Here's the use case problem I think it can solve better, or at least somewhat. When you're actually in an app, you can pull up shortcuts to other apps as well as use edge panel apps simultaneously, without having to go back to the home screen. Other phones offer split screen or windowed views but this is a different and in some cases better (in some not) way of multitasking.

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