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Data Storage

Seagate Releases 6TB Hard Drive Sans Helium 147

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the platters-like-to-breathe dept.
Lucas123 (935744) writes "Seagate has released what it said is the industry's fastest hard drive with up to a 6TB capacity, matching one released by WD last year. WD's 6TB Ultrastar He6 was hermetically sealed with helium inside, something the company said was critical to reducing friction for additional platters, while also increasing power savings and reliability. Seagate, however, said it doesn't yet need to rely on Helium to achieve the 50% increase in capacity over its last 4TB drive. The company used the same perpendicular magnetic recording technology that it has on previous models, but it was able to increase areal density from 831 bits per square inch to 1,000. The new drive also comes in 2TB, 4TB and 5TB capacities and with either 12Gbps SAS or 6Gbps SATA connectivity. The six-platter, enterprise-class drive is rated to sustain about 550TB of writes per year — 10X that of a typical desktop drive."

Comment Re:Hotel tax??? (Score 1) 319

by ackthpt (#46687853) Attached to: SF Evictions Surging From Crackdown On Airbnb Rentals

It's a tax. It's so some people can spend money without going to the trouble of earning it.

It takes a lot of money to run a city. Several of California's larger cities are near bankrupt (yeah, yeah, don't honor contracts on retirement, blah, blah, blah) Keeping SFO afloat means the city is always looking for a way to stick it to people. One of these days Golden Gate Park will be crammed with parking meters (or those pay stations) The city is becoming less friendly to tourism. Why bother with festivals and stuff when you keep robbing visitors.

Comment Timely... (Score 2) 37

by ackthpt (#46686437) Attached to: Book Review: Mobile HTML5

We're moving development into HTML5 and CSS3, with more users interested in apps which they can use on tabs or mobiles.

Big trick is figuring how to make apps work on a smaller screen and not totally suck (like fb does.)
Australia

UAV Operator Blames Hacking For Malfunction That Injured Triathlete 178

Posted by timothy from the convenient-line dept.
jaa101 (627731) writes "The owner of a drone which fell and reportedly hit an athlete competing in a triathlon in Western Australia's Mid West has said he believes the device was 'hacked' into." From the article: "Mr Abrams said an initial investigation had indicted that someone nearby "channel hopped" the device, taking control away from the operator. ... Mr Abrams said it was a deliberate act and it would be difficult to determine who was responsible as something as common as a mobile phone could be used to perform a channel hop. The videographer added that there had been a similar incident when the drone was flown earlier in the day."
The Almighty Buck

Facebook and Google's Race To Zero 53

Posted by timothy from the just-don't-go-dividing-by-it dept.
theodp (442580) writes "As Facebook and Google battle to bring the Internet to remote locations, Alicia Levine takes an interesting look at the dual strategy of Zero Rating and Consolidated Use employed by Google's FreeZone and Facebook's 0.facebook.com, websites which offer free access to certain Google and Facebook services via partnerships with mobile operators around the world. By reducing the cost to the user to zero, Levine explains, the tech giants not only get the chance to capture billions of new eyeballs to view ads in emerging markets, they also get the chance to effectively become "The Internet" in those markets. "If I told you that Facebook's strategy was to become the next Prodigy or AOL, you'd take me for crazy," writes Levine. "But, to a certain degree, that's exactly what they're trying to do. In places where zero-rating for Facebook or Google is the key to accessing the Internet, they are the Internet. And people have started to do every normal activity we would do on the Internet through those two portals because it costs them zero. This is consolidated use. If Facebook is my free pass to the Internet, I'm going to try to do every activity possible via Facebook so that it's free." The race to zero presents more than just a business opportunity, adds Levine — it also presents a chance for tech companies to improve lives. And if Google and Facebook fall short on that count, well, at least there's still Wikipedia Zero."
Intel

Intel Releases $99 'MinnowBoard Max,' an Open-Source Single-Board Computer 97

Posted by timothy from the embed-and-deploy dept.
A few months back, we posted a video interview with some of the folks behind the Linux-friendly, x86-based MinnowBoard. TechCrunch reports the release of a more powerful version of the same all-in-one computer, now with a 1.91GHz Atom E3845 processor. According to the linked article, "The board's schematics are also available for download and the Intel graphics chipset has open-source drivers so hackers can have their way with the board. While it doesn’t compete directly with the Raspberry Pi – the Pi is more an educational tool and already has a robust ecosystem – it is a way for DIYers to mess around in x86 architected systems as well as save a bit of cash. The system uses break-out boards called Lures to expand functionality."

Comment Re:adware is malware (Score 2, Insightful) 177

I've never heard of "crapware" before, but charging money for something that has no monetary value (as it's offered for free by another entity) sounds to me like fraud.

That's complete nonsense; if true, it would mean nearly every piece of commercial software was fraud, from office software to image editing software to antivirus software.
United Kingdom

UK Government Pays Microsoft £5.5M For Extended Support of Windows XP 341

Posted by timothy from the ok-but-only-if-you-pay-nicely dept.
whoever57 (658626) writes "The UK Government has signed a contract worth £5.5M (almost $9M) for extended support and security updates for Windows XP for 12 months after April 8. The deal covers XP, Exchange 2003 and Office 2003 for users in central and local government, schools and the National Health Service. The NHS is in need of this deal because it was estimated last September that 85% of the NHS's 800,000 computers were running XP."

Comment Re:Freedom of Speech? (Score 5, Insightful) 328

by ackthpt (#46666135) Attached to: Federal Bill Would Criminalize Revenge Porn Websites

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And, as we learned from "People vs. Larry Flint" (and other, less popular, sources), porn is speech...

However disgusting, "revenge porn" ought to remain legal...

Cough. Your freedoms end where other's begin. Cough.
Android

Illustrating the Socioeconomic Divide With iOS and Android 161

Posted by Soulskill from the your-phone-is-your-class-marker dept.
An anonymous reader writes: "Android has a huge market share advantage over iOS these days, but it hasn't had as much success at following the money. iOS continues to win over many app developers and businesses who want to maximize their earnings. Now, an article at Slate goes over some of the statistics demonstrating this trend. A map of geo-located Tweets show that in Manhattan, a generally affluent area, most of the Tweets come from iPhones. Meanwhile, in nearby Newark, which is a poorer area, most Tweets come from Android devices. In other tests, traffic data shows 87% of visits to e-commerce websites from tablets come from iPads, and the average value of an order from an iPad is $155, compared to $110 from Android tablets. (Android fairs a bit better on phones). Android shows a huge market share advantage in poorer countries, as well. Not all devs and business are just chasing the money, though. Twitter developer Cennydd Bowles said, 'I do hope, given tech's rhetoric about changing the world and disrupting outdated hierarchies, that we don't really think only those with revenue potential are worth our attention. A designer has a duty to be empathetic; to understand and embrace people not like him/herself. A group owning different devices to the design elite is not a valid reason to neglect their needs.'"

Comment Re:The internet of things...that might get you kil (Score 1) 128

Some things are important enough to

a) keep simple, and
b) keep offline

While that's true, it's also flying in the face of Progress We must strive to make things as complicated and feature rich as possible (and also shiny).

See, it worked, it detected the fire by melting. Success!

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