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Iphone

Submission + - AT&T Challenges Net Neutrality With FaceTime Policy (northmobilepost.com)

Submitted by
nmpost
nmpost writes: "AT&T is coming under fire for its policy regarding FaceTime on the iPhone. In Apple’s latest software update, iOS 6, the company has opened up FaceTime to use over cellular data networks. AT&T is limiting that option to customers who purchase a shared data plan. Customers with an individual plan will not be able to use the feature over the cellular data network, but they will be able to use it over Wi-Fi. Three special interest groups plan to file complaints with the FCC over the decision. The policy is designed to push customers towards the more expensive shared data plans. The new plans can be cost effective if they are actually being shared among several people, but for a single person they are generally more expensive than the individual option. Given that FaceTime uses your allotted data in your plan, there is no other reason for AT&T to limit this feature to those on shared data plans. It is a business decision, and not a network management decision. AT&T is proving an old adage true, give someone an inch and they will take a mile. The big telecoms were given room to work within the wireless data field, and now AT&T is exploiting that leeway. This wisdom has proven true time and time again in regards to deregulation. The country has already seen its share of disasters due to lax regulations, such as the financial collapse of 2007-2008. Our future will be internet based, which means failure to properly regulate bad actors could lead to an even bigger crisis down the road."
Google

Submission + - Major Backlash Looms for Apple's New Maps App

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Michael DeGusta writes that Apple’s new Maps app is the very first item on their list of major new features in iOS 6, but for many iPhone and iPad users around the world Apple's new maps are going to be a major disappointment as the Transit function will be lost in 51 countries with 4.4 billion people, the Traffic function will be lost in 24 countries with 2.3 billion people, and the Street View function will be lost in 41 countries with 2.5 billion people. "In total, 63 countries with a combined population of 4.5 billion people will be without one or more of these features they previously had in iOS," writes DeGusta. "Apple is risking upsetting 65% of the world’s population, seemingly without much greater purpose than speeding the removal of their rival Google from iOS. Few consumers care about such battles though, nor should they have to." The biggest losers will be Brazil, India, Taiwan, and Thailand (population: 1.5 billion) which overnight will go from being countries with every maps feature (transit, traffic, and street view) to countries with none of those features, nor any of the new features, flyover and turn-by-turn directions. Apple’s maps are clearly behind in some key areas, but they will presumably continue to improve over time. Google has committed to making their maps available everywhere, so it seems likely Google will release their own iOS maps app soon, as they did with YouTube, which has similarly been removed from iOS 6."
Google

Submission + - What Google really wants from its broadband strategy. (zcorum.com)

Submitted by
Thorizdin
Thorizdin writes: "Google is spending significant sums of money to build a FTTH network in Kansas City with the stated goal of increasing broadband capacity, speed, and penetration. Exactly how a "model" network will do this is a matter of debate and this is one possible explanation."
Wireless Networking

Submission + - The Danger In Exempting Wireless From Net Neutrality (northmobilepost.com)

Submitted by
nmpost
nmpost writes: "Nearly two years ago, the FCC outlined its rules for net neutrality. Notably absent were rules for wireless networks. There are several legitimate reasons that the same rules applied to wired networks can not apply to wireless networks. However, the same danger lies in leaving wireless networks unguarded against the whims of its administrators. As we move more and more towards a wireless dominated internet, those dangers will become more pronounced. We are going to need a massive investment in infrastructure in this country regardless of net neutrality rules. Demand for wireless is going to continue to grow for many years to come, and providers are not going to be able to let up. Data caps and throttling are understandable now as demand is far outpacing infrastructure growth. Eventually, demand will slow, and these practices will have to be addressed. This is where allowing internet providers to regulate themselves becomes an issue. Self regulation usually does not end well for the consumer. Imagine allowing power plants and oil refineries to determine what chemicals they could pour into the air. Would they have the population’s best interest at heart when making that determination? In the future when the infrastructure can match the demand, what will stop internet providers from picking winners and losers over their wireless networks? As conglomerates like Comcast gobble up content providers like NBC, a conflict of interest begins to emerge. There would be nothing from stopping one of the big wireless providers like AT&T or Verizon from scooping up a content provider and prioritizing its data speed over the network."
Twitter

Submission + - Twitter based Ted Beats Seismometers, Detects Philippines Earthquake Earlier (skynews.com.au) 2

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Twitter based system has managed to detect the earthquake off the Philippines before any other advanced spotting systems being used by Seismologists. US Geological Survey uses the micro-blogging site to quickly gather information about earthquakes around the globe through the use of a system – Twitter Earthquake Detection (Ted) which put behind USGS’ own sensors on Friday when it came to detecting 7.6 magnitude earthquake off the Philippine coast. The Ted system gathers earth-quake related messages (Tweets) in real-time from Twitter. The system takes into consideration various parameters like place, time, keywords, photographs of affected places where tremors have been detected. Online information posted by people, Tweets in this case, can be picked up faster by researchers as compared to scientific alerts that may take up to 20 minutes.
Google

Submission + - Google Patents Software that Identifies Real World Objects within Videos (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Google has been recently granted a patent that could not only improve online search but, also will possibly give the search engine giant an awful lot of information about the world. Google, through the software, wants to scan and analyze the content within videos, YouTube videos most probably, and look for objects in the real world, identify them, and make a catalogue out of those objects. The patent describes Google’s technology of scanning a video, picking out landmarks, objects and context; and subsequent tagging and categorization.
IBM

Submission + - IBM Releasing Fastest Commercial Processor (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
nmpost
nmpost writes: "IBM's latest mainframe, the zEnterprise EC12, is big on data analytics and hybrid clouds. This system, announced Tuesday, includes a new 5.5-GHz, six-core processor, versus the 5.2-GHz, quad-core processor that shipped with the zEnterprise 196, announced two years ago last month. This may be the world's fastest commercial processor, say analysts. Despite this, it is not as big a jump in sheer clock rate as some of the earlier leaps in mainframe CPU speed. Regardless, IBM says this system has 25% more performance per core and some workloads will see performance gains by as much as 45%."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft's sneak attack on Apple: SkyDrive, not Surface (xconomy.com) 1

Submitted by
curtwoodward
curtwoodward writes: "Microsoft won't become a hardware company — unless you count mice and keyboards, former Microsoftie Charlie Kindel argues — because that would mean competing with Apple on its terms.
But Kindel says Microsoft may be embarking on a totally new business model by seeding its connected software services across all platforms. You saw more evidence this week with the release of SkyDrive for Android.
"For that to work, it can’t just be Windows," he says. "As a matter of fact, to beat Apple, it has to work really well on Apple devices.”"
The Military

Submission + - Now Russia Wants a Hypersonic Bomber 1

Submitted by derekmead
derekmead writes: Hot on the heels of the U.S. Air Force’s most recent failed test of an unmanned hypersonic vehicle, Russia now says it wants to jump into the hypersonic game with a long-range bomber. Will Russia’s newest Bear fly at 4,500 miles an hour? The Russian military sure hopes so.

“I think we need to go down the route of hypersonic technology and we are moving in that direction and are not falling behind the Americans,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Russian television. “The question is will we copy the Americans’ 40-year experience and create a [Northrop] B-2 analog or will we go down a new, ultramodern technology route, looking to the horizon, and create a machine able to penetrate air defenses and carry out a strike on any aggressor.”

The Russians want their plane operational by 2020, which doesn’t seem particularly realistic — we are talking about five times the speed of sound here, and Russia is just starting engine development. The U.S., meanwhile, has been investing in its Waverider program since 2004, and the last test of the X-51A scramjet-powered missile failed after just 15 seconds.
Medicine

Submission + - Harvard creates cyborg flesh that's half man, half machine (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Bioengineers at Harvard University have created the first examples of cyborg tissue: Neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels that are interwoven by nanowires and transistors. hese cyborg tissues are half living cells, half electronics. As far as the cells are concerned, they’re just normal cells that behave normally — but the electronic side actually acts as a sensor network, allowing a computer to interface directly with the cells. In the case of cyborg heart tissue, the researchers have already used the embedded nanowires to measure the contractions (heart rate) of the cells. So far, the researchers have only used the nanoelectric scaffolds to read data from the cells — but according to lead researcher Charles Lieber, the next step is to find a way of talking to the individual cells, to “wire up tissue and communicate with it in the same way a biological system does.” Suffice it to say, if you can use a digital computer to read and write data to your body’s cells, there are some awesome applications."
HP

Submission + - HP, Dell Problems: PC Makers In Desperate Need Of A Reboot (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by
nmpost
nmpost writes: "Hewlett-Packard Co. used to be known as a place where innovative thinkers flocked to work on great ideas that opened new frontiers in technology. These days, HP is looking behind the times. Coming off a five-year stretch of miscalculations, HP is in such desperate need of a reboot that many investors have written off its chances of a comeback. Consider this: Since Apple Inc. shifted the direction of computing with the release of the iPhone in June 2007, HP's market value has plunged by 60 percent to $35 billion. During that time, HP has spent more than $40 billion on dozens of acquisitions that have largely turned out to be duds so far. HP might have been unchallenged for the ignominious title as technology's most troubled company if not for one its biggest rivals, Dell Inc. Like HP, Dell missed the trends that have turned selling PCs into one of technology's least profitable and slowest growing niches. As a result, Dell's market value has also plummeted by 60 percent, to about $20 billion, since the iPhone's release."
Mars

Submission + - Robots to Go Spelunking in Martian Caves? (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "Scientists are beginning to sketch out plans for NASA's new Mars rover Curiosity to climb Mount Sharp, but future robots may have a more direct way to access the planet's history books. Recent discoveries of "skylights" and lava tubes on the surface of Mars, as well as the moon, are sparking the development of robotic probes that can descend into caves and explore tunnels. "Geology works in layers, so how many layers can you see? Well, we know there are sinkholes on Mars. Those sinkholes expose potentially hundreds of feet of layers, so if you could lower something down and examine those layers and explore a tunnel underneath, or anything of that sort, the science that can be done with that is just phenomenal," Jason Derleth, senior technology analyst with NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program, told Discovery News."
Google

Submission + - Google Distances Android from Samsung Patent Verdict (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "On August 24, a California court ruled in favor of Apple in its patent-infringement case against Samsung, hitting the latter with a $1.05 billion fine. Tech pundits spent the weekend chattering about the possible repercussions of the decision, which Samsung will surely appeal. One of the biggest issues under discussion: how Apple’s victory will affect Google Android, the operating system that powers the majority of Samsung’s mobile devices, and itself a player in the patent-infringement actions shaking the tech world.

For its part, Google made every effort to create some distance between Android and the smoking ruins of Samsung’s case. “The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims,” the company wrote in a widely circulated statement. “Most of these don’t relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the US Patent Office.”

Google didn’t end there. “The mobile industry is moving fast and all players—including newcomers—are building upon ideas that have been around for decades,” the statement continued. “We work with our partners to give consumers innovative and affordable products, and we don’t want anything to limit that.”"

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