34091417
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
MS has invited journalists to an exclusive event on Monday, June 18 at 3:30 PM Pacific time. While MS has not disclosed the purpose of the event, rumors are that MS is showing off a MS designed and built Win 8 tablet. If true, what does that mean to OEM partners of MS who are making their own tablets? The last time MS made their own hardware, it abandoned former PlaysForSure partners and used their own Zune format. Music these days is mostly DRM free but that does not yet apply to other media like movies and books.
31975069
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Last month, Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner announced that he had found the original source code to the beloved Apple II game on floppy disks. He promised to release the source code as soon as possible. Before he could do that, he first assembled a team of experts that could help him overcome any technical challenge like resuscitation of old hardware as the disks and the hardware required are over 20 years old. The code has been released to github.
31911811
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
A landmark study published in the journal Nature is classifying breast cancer as 10 separate diseases. This new classification system may help future patients in providing separate treatments that more effectively combat the cancers. Currently breast cancer is classified based on what the cells look like under microscope and tests on "markers".
31757619
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
According to an interview with the Yangcheng Evening News, Nokia's Stephen Elop said that dual-core and multi-core phones of Nokia's rivals waste batteries as they can't be used all the time. The original Chinese story is here if readers wish to translate themselves. The assertion while technically true ignores that rivals have done battery/core optimizations like nVidia's Tegra and Apple's A5. As for functionality, there are times when having multiple cores help. Also isn't the next generation of Windows Phone supposed to support dual-core? Is this just a case of sour grapes as purported real world tests of the Lumia have found that it does not last as long Android or iPhone or that Microsoft's multiple core support is behind its rivals?
31580171
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Over a year ago, Nest Labs launched the Learning Thermostat. The brainchild of Tony Fadell, former head of Apple's iPod and iPhone division, the Learning Thermostat promised a self-programming and wifi-enabled thermostat that would save energy costs. After some glowing reviews, Nest found itself in a patent infringement lawsuit against Honeywell. Nest responded with multiple claims calling Honeywell "worse than a patent troll". Among Nest's claims: Honeywell hid prior art (some on some previous patents that they owned) and inapplicable patents (patent on mechanical potentiometer when Nest's product does not include one). Nest's stance is that Honeywell filed the lawsuits not to extract money but to set back progress so that they can control the industry.
31303285
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Monday was Autism day and teams of scientists are pointing to multiple gene mutations as the possible cause in some forms of autism. These mutations, called de novo mutations are not inherited but develop near or at conception. The risk of these mutations increase with parents older than 35 and are more likely to occur with the father's genes as sperm are more susceptible to fluctuations. While the studies have found that certain mutations occur in a small number of autism cases, the discovery provides some answers as brain development is influenced by hundreds if not thousands of genes.
30978895
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Facebook lawyers released founder Mark Zuckerberg's emails from his days at Harvard in response to the Paul Ceglia lawsuit and asked the court to dismiss the suit calling it based on "fraud".
In June 2010, Paul Ceglia sued Zuckerberg claiming that he was owed 84% of Facebook because of a 2003 work-for-hire contract that Zuckerberg signed for another website. Ceglia claimed that he got 50% of Facebook for investing $1000 to Facebook plus a certain percentage for every day the site was late in completion for a total of 84%. Ceglia's evidence included emails and a contract.
Facebook lawyers contend that one page of the work-for-hire contract (with all the Facebook stipulations) has been artificially aged with sunlight and ink analysis proves that the handwriting is about 2 years old. Also Zuckerberg's lawyers contends that the emails produced by Ceglia were faked and no evidence of those emails existed on Harvard's servers. Instead the released emails between Zuckerberg and Ceglia never mention Facebook and only discussed Ceglia's website. In them Zuckerberg told one of Ceglia's associates towards the end that his interest in the work was disminishing due to other opportunities and that Ceglia was late in paying for work already completed.
30105223
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Apple unveiled the third generation iPad today with specs that have matched some of the rumors. It will include a Retina Display at 2048 x 1536 and optional 4G LTE. Other improvements include a 5 MP camera and a new chip, the A5X. Contrary to rumors of the A6, the A5X is a dual core CPU but a quad core GPU. Base price has not changed and starts at $499 with models at $629, $729, and $829 depending on capacity and 4G radio. Price does not include 4G subscription prices. Also included in the announcement is a new AppleTV that will have 1080p resolution.
29939181
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Canon today unveiled their next generation of professional DSLR, the EOS 5D Mark III. The base specifications are full frame 22MP, up to ISO 102400, 6 fps photo speed, 1080p video at 24/25/30 fps. This model is designed to compete against Nikon's D800 ($3000 body) unveiled in January. Starting at $3500 for the body, these are not meant for your average shutterbug.
29403879
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Today Microsoft unveiled the logo to their next OS, Windows 8. It is more minimalist than previous logos and actually looks like a window. But it is a single color. What is up with the war on color these days. Both MS and Apple have billions in the bank. Surely they can afford printing in more than one color.
25928934
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
In a vote of 9-3, a jury found that Micron and Hynix did not collude to manipulate DRAM prices in a violation of California anti-trust law against Rambus. The jury also ruled that the Idaho based Micron and the South Korea based Hynix did not interfere with Rambus' relationship with Intel.
On the first point, Rambus argued the two chip makers conspired to keep Rambus RDRAM prices high while artificially keeping their SDRAM prices low. Micron and Hynix countered that high RDRAM prices were due to technical problems of the design. On the second point, an Intel manager testified that Rambus contract stipulations soured the relationship. The clause that Rambus insisted and would not waive was that to use Rambus RDRAM, Intel had to agree to give Rambus the ability to block Intel processors if Rambus felt Intel was not promoting RDRAM sufficiently.
Rambus initiated the suit and the $4B was how much Rambus calculated it lost in profits. The trial started in June.
25216954
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
When the Courier project was leaked out, it was a bold look at how MS would design new tablets. Microsoft was currently selling tablets but they didn't make a dent in the market. The problem was it was too bold. According to the story Ballmer had two competing executive visions for tablets: J. Allard and Steven Sinofsky. Allard's vision was very different from MS thinking while Sinofsky's was more inline with existing Windows but was years away. Ballmer called on Gates to help and Gates met with Allard. Gates was apparently troubled on how Courier would not mesh with Windows or Office. The project was cancelled shortly thereafter. An interesting detail was that Courier was more complete than most outsiders knew. While there was no one prototype than unified all the concepts of Courier, there were parallel efforts in the different aspects of it.
24432758
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
After changing their story and admitting that the Zune was dead, MS has changed the story again and says that Zune isn't dead saying that there was “no official info has been released stating hardware is being discontinued.” Other than the notice on the Zune website (which has been pulled), they mean. At this point it is either comical or sad.
24406166
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
On Monday MS updated webpages to announce a price drop for the Zune pass subscription, it removed all references to the Zune hardware. This prompted many to suspect the Zune was dead. A MS spokesman then tweeted that the updates were in error and the Zune was not dead. Then MS later admitted that they will no longer produce hardware but would honor any existing orders. It appears MS has trouble with managing their PR.
24368006
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Last week, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled mostly against Psystar in their appeal of their case with Apple. The Court found for Apple in that they did not misuse copyright by having conditions in the OS X license. Psystar won on one point in which some of the court orders should have not been sealed.
