Comment Re:This article just motivated me to... (Score 1) 231
This article motivated me to take a picture of my manhood, just in case i decide to sell my phone some day.
What makes you think anybody would be interested in either?
BlackBerry's Innovation: Square-Screened Smartphones 139
EthanV2 sends word that BlackBerry, having finally caught up to a world dominated by smartphones, is now trying to push the envelope by developing a smartphone with a square screen. The BlackBerry Passport has a 4.5-inch screen with a resolution of 1440x1440. The phone has a physical keyboard as well. In a blog post about the new phone, they show a picture with it side-by-side with an iPhone and a Galaxy S5 — the Passport is slightly taller than the iPhone, and significantly wider, as you'd expect.
The Passport is a play for BlackBerry's "traditional" work-oriented user base, where the earlier BlackBerry Z10 and Z30 were efforts to break into the post-iPhone consumer smartphone space. Though the Passport may well be preferable for spreadsheets and word processing, that square screen will be much less useful for widescreen movies, and its wide, blocky design will entirely prohibit one-handed use. The Passport is expected to appear later this year, and it will launch with BlackBerry 10.3 (at least, according to early hands-on previews).
Comment Re:Rail? (Score 1) 142
What I do not understand about Germany - indeed this whole region of Europe (I'm in Switzerland) is this: We have excellent rail systems, why not put long-distance cargo on the trains? There are various initiatives to do exactly this, but they meet with a wide range of passive and active resistance. Fact is, given the existing rail system, using trucks for long-distance freight makes no sense at all.
Most major rail lines in Western Europe are running at full capacity.
Comment Re:1.8 million drivers will lose their job. (Score 1) 142
Well, too bad you didn't RTFA - and that the summary forgot to mention that the truck still has a driver, just that he doesn't do much for most of the drive.
Consciousness On-Off Switch Discovered Deep In Brain 284
An anonymous reader writes "One moment you're conscious, the next you're not. For the first time, researchers have switched off consciousness by electrically stimulating a single brain area. Although only tested in one person, the discovery suggests that a single area – the claustrum – might be integral to combining disparate brain activity into a seamless package of thoughts, sensations and emotions. It takes us a step closer to answering a problem that has confounded scientists and philosophers for millennia – namely how our conscious awareness arises. When the team zapped the area with high frequency electrical impulses, the woman lost consciousness. She stopped reading and stared blankly into space, she didn't respond to auditory or visual commands and her breathing slowed. As soon as the stimulation stopped, she immediately regained consciousness with no memory of the event. The same thing happened every time the area was stimulated during two days of experiments.
Comment Re:If we're talking long haul freight ... (Score 1) 142
Look at what happened on one existing self-driving train system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2009_Washington_Metro_train_collision
Even in the simplest possible scenario (closed and tightly controlled metro system), the biggest self-driving train system in North America (not sure about the rest of the world) STILL wasn't able to avoid a fatal accident. This accident makes me wonder if it's simply beyond the capability of humanity to engineer a complex, self-driving train system that won't malfunction and cause fatal accidents.
So how many fatal accidents in manned trains? Let's cut this line of argument short and go straight to the obvious solution: abandon all technology. You go first.
Comment Re:What's next (Score 1) 67
Hiring a non-computer executive? What's next, will they hire one from a soft drink company?
More importantly: Apple hiring anybody? Must be about iWatch. Apple on medical tech hiring spree, a possible hint of iWatch plans.
Apple hires somebody who worked for high-end fashion house Yves Saint Laurent? Let's ignore that YSL hired somebody formerly working at Apple and didn't go into making computers or smartphones - coincidently the same guy.
Apple hires anybody: pundits say its a replacement for Tim Cook.
Comment Re:What's next (Score 1) 67
Much of the tech is designed by other companies, which sometimes they buy. It isn't a product of their own long term r&d as such.
Again, what has DELL ever designed themselves?
Comment Re:What's next (Score 1) 67
This. I have been saying this for years.
Apple is, and day by day, more and more - a boutique brand.
http://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-adds-swarovski-bling-and-bedazzle-to-its-galaxy-s5/ - Samsung is the boutique-meister.
Comment Re:Google already snoops on Android locations for (Score 1) 112
I believe you are referring to the wi-fi data picked up promiscuously by Google fleet of camera vehicles while taking street view pictures. Their excuses about that were pretty thin as I remember.
Not as thin as their excuses for not deleting all of it. After saying they had deleted it.
Amazon Fighting FTC Over In-App Purchases Fine 137
An anonymous reader writes One of the common problems of the smartphone generation has been parents who given their phones to children, who then rack up hundreds of dollars of in-app purchases without the parents' knowledge. The FTC smacked Apple with a fine for this, and Google is facing a lawsuit as well. Now, Amazon is the latest target, having received a complaint from the FTC demanding a similar settlement to Apple's. Amazon, however, is not willing to concede the fine; they plan to fight it. Amazon said, "The Commission's unwillingness to depart from the precedent it set with Apple despite our very different facts leaves us no choice but to defend our approach in court (PDF). The main claim in the draft complaint is that we failed to get customers' informed consent to in-app charges made by children and did not address that problem quickly or effectively enough in response to customer complaints. We have continually improved our experience since launch, but even at launch, when customers told us their kids had made purchases they didn't want, we refunded those purchases."
Comment Re:Should be denser! (Score 1) 120
From the picture it looks like it takes just as much space as a regular parking garage,
That's pretty much the point: the system is intended to be added to existing regular parking garages, to add comfort to the drivers as well as increase number of parked cars.
The problem with parking garages today is that they were all designed when cars were 8 inches narrower.
Comment Re: i don't wanna hear how lazy americans are. (Score 2) 120
in 15-20 years Europe will pass America for Fatness.
Because most fat Americans will have exploded by then.
Comment Re:Too many secrets (Score 1) 74
A member of Germany's foreign intelligence agency has been detained for possibly spying for the U.S. The 31-year-old is suspected of giving a U.S. spy agency information about a parliamentary inquiry of NSA activities.
So the investigation into the NSA's secret spying activities, is itself being conducted in secret under penalty of espionage charges should any German violate that secrecy? We seem to be forgetting why people object to the NSA's activities. Something about governments being open and transparent in their operation so the public can be assured their actions are trustworthy. Any investigation into the NSA's activities should be done publicly and openly, to demonstrate a contrast with how the NSA operated. Unless that is the German government has something it wants to keep secret from its own people. But in that case they become the pot calling the kettle black.
So when is the NSA going to publish all the data it liberates from foreign governments?
Comment Re:NSA: Stop Spying on Americans (Score 1) 74
You idiots! This is all happening because you insist on spying on your fellow citizens.
Err, no - this is all because the NSA spies on Germans.
