Comment: Re:HD is not enough (Score 1) 72
after 1080p, the best increment in screen output would be a 120hz refresh rate.
Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook) 302
Posted
by
timothy
from the everything-that-will-be-invented-has-been-invented dept.
from the everything-that-will-be-invented-has-been-invented dept.
waderoush writes "Over the last decade, just three companies — Google, Apple, and Facebook — have generated most of the new ideas and most of the business momentum in the world of computing. (Add in Amazon, if you're feeling generous.) But it's been a long time since any of these companies introduced anything indisputably new — and there are good reasons to think they never will again. This Xconomy essay argues that the innovation engines at Google, Apple, and Facebook are out of gas (the most surprising thing about OS X Mavericks is that it's not named after a cat) and that other players will have to come up with the underpinnings for the next big cycle of advances in computing. Granted, it's not as if any of these companies will disappear. But the idea that they'll go on generating ideas as groundbreaking as the ones that landed them in the spotlight defies common sense, statistics, and the lessons of history, which show that real innovation almost always comes from small companies. Apple, Google, and Facebook aren't too big to fail — but they may be too big to keep succeeding."
With Sales Down, Whale Meat Flogged As Source of Strength 311
Posted
by
timothy
from the why-not-flog-whale-ice-cream-instead? dept.
from the why-not-flog-whale-ice-cream-instead? dept.
beaverdownunder writes "From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: 'Japan's peak whaling body has launched a new campaign to promote whale meat as a nutritious food that enhances physical strength and reduces fatigue. With about 5,000 tonnes of whale meat sitting unwanted in freezers around Japan, the country's Institute for Cetacean Research has decided to launch a new campaign to promote the by-product of its so-called scientific whaling program. Once popular in school lunches, younger generations of Japanese rarely, if ever, eat whale."
Spain's New S-80 Class Submarines Sink, But Won't Float 326
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the would-you-classify-that-as-a-launch-problem-or-a-design-problem dept.
from the would-you-classify-that-as-a-launch-problem-or-a-design-problem dept.
New submitter home-electro.com writes "In the era of total CAD and CAM, is it even possible to come up with a fundamentally flawed design ? Turns out, yes. This a fascinating engineering SNAFU. Spain's newly built submarine is 100 tons too heavy, which means it is unable to float. 'Unfortunately for the Spainards, Quartz reports that they have already sunk the equivalent of $680 million into the Isaac Peral, and a total of $3 billion into the entire quartet of S-80 class submarines. If Spain hopes to salvage its submarines, it must either find some weight that can be trimmed from the current design or lengthen the ship to accommodate the excess weight, The Local notes. Though the latter option is more feasible, it is expected to cost Spain an extra $9.7 million per meter.'"
Military Dolphins Discover 1800s Torpedo 112
Posted
by
timothy
from the dolphins-what-can't-they-do? dept.
from the dolphins-what-can't-they-do? dept.
First time accepted submitter The0retical writes "A couple of mine-sweeping dolphins dredged up what is known as a 'Howell torpedo' dating from 1870 to 1889. Only 50 were ever produced, this being the second example known to exist. The 11-foot-long brass torpedo had a maximum range and speed of 400 yards at 25 knots. The new example will be displayed at Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Wash. alongside the only other example."
Comment: Re:not a fan (Score 1) 514
I never liked Dr. Who. It always seemed a bit too "wacky" to really suspend disbelief.
Scientists Clone Human Embryos To Make Stem Cells 92
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the me-an-the-other-me dept.
from the me-an-the-other-me dept.
cyachallenge writes "Scientists say they have, for the first time, cloned human embryos capable of producing embryonic stem cells. 'We had to find the perfect combination,' Mitalipov says. As it turned out, that perfect combination included something surprising: caffeine. That ingredient, plus other tweaks in the process, including using fresh eggs and determining the optimal stage of each egg's development, Mitalipov says."
iTunes: Still Slowing Down Windows PCs After All These Years 519
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the performance-is-a-luxury dept.
from the performance-is-a-luxury dept.
colinneagle sends this quote from an article at NetworkWorld:
"I run a very nifty desktop utility called Rainmeter on my PC that I heartily recommend to anyone who wants to keep an eye on their system. One of its main features is it has skins that can monitor your system activity. Thanks to my numerous meters, I see all CPU, disk, memory and network activity in real time. the C: drive meter. It is a circle split down the middle, with the right half lighting up to indicate a read and the left half lighting up for write activity. The C: drive was flashing a fair amount of activity considering I had nothing loaded save Outlook and Word, plus a few background apps. At the time, I didn't have a Rainmeter skin that lists the top processes by CPU and memory. So instead, I went into the Task Manager, and under Performance selected the Resource Monitor. Under the Processes tab, the culprit showed its face immediately: AppleMobileDeviceService.exe. It was consuming a ridiculous amount of threads and CPU cycles. The only way to turn it off is to go into Windows Services and turn off the service. There's just one problem. I use an iPhone. I can't disable it. But doing so for a little while dropped the CPU meters to nothing. So I now have more motivation to migrate to a new phone beyond just having one with a larger screen. This problem has been known for years. AppleMobileDeviceService.exe has been in iTunes since version 7.3. People complained on the Apple boards more than two years ago that it was consuming up to 50% of CPU cycles, and thus far it's as bad as it always has been. Mind you, Mac users aren't complaining. Just Windows users."
Supreme Court Rules For Monsanto In Patent Case 579
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the all-your-seeds-are-belong-to-us dept.
from the all-your-seeds-are-belong-to-us dept.
Pigskin-Referee writes in with news of the Supreme Court's decision in a dispute between Monsanto and an Indiana farmer over patented seeds. "The Supreme Court has sustained Monsanto Co.'s claim that an Indiana farmer violated the company's patents on soybean seeds that are resistant to its weed-killer. The justices, in a unanimous vote Monday, rejected the farmer's argument that cheap soybeans he bought from a grain elevator are not covered by the Monsanto patents, even though most of them also were genetically modified to resist the company's Roundup herbicide. Justice Elena Kagan says a farmer who buys patented seeds must have the patent holder's permission. More than 90 percent of American soybean farms use Monsanto's 'Roundup Ready' seeds, which first came on the market in 1996."
Animation Sophistication: The Croods Required 80 Million Compute Hours 196
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the that-is-incroodible dept.
from the that-is-incroodible dept.
Lucas123 writes "It may be a movie about a stone age family, but DreamWorks said its latest 3D animated movie The Croods took more compute cycles to create than any other movie they've made. The movie required a whopping 80 million compute hours to render, 15 million more hours than DreamWorks' last record holder, The Rise of the Guardians. The production studio said between 300 and 400 animators worked on The Croods over the past three years. The images they created, from raw sketches to stereoscopic high-definition shots, required about 250TB of data storage capacity. When the movie industry moved from producing 2D to 3D high-definition movies over the past decade, the data required to produce the films increased tremendously. For DreamWorks, the amount of data needed to create a stereoscopic film leaped by 30%."
DARPA Tackles Machine Learning 95
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the learn-faster dept.
from the learn-faster dept.
coondoggie writes "Researchers at DARPA want to take the science of machine learning — teaching computers to automatically understand data, manage results and surmise insights — up a couple notches. Machine learning, DARPA says, is already at the heart of many cutting edge technologies today, like email spam filters, smartphone personal assistants and self-driving cars. 'Unfortunately, even as the demand for these capabilities is accelerating, every new application requires a Herculean effort. Even a team of specially-trained machine learning experts makes only painfully slow progress due to the lack of tools to build these systems,' DARPA says."
Nanoscale 3D Printer Now Commercially Available 127
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the small-jobs dept.
from the small-jobs dept.
kkleiner writes "Now the field of 3D printing has advanced so far that a company called Nanoscribe is offering one of the first commercially available 3D printers for the nanoscale. Nanoscribe's machine can produce tiny 3D printed objects that are only the width of a single human hair. Amazingly this includes 3D printed objects such as spaceships, micro needles, or even the empire state building."
Microbes Likely Abundant Hundreds of Meters Below Sea Floor 68
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the hollow-world dept.
from the hollow-world dept.
sciencehabit writes "Samples drilled from 3.5-million-year-old seafloor rocks have yielded the strongest evidence yet that a variety of microorganisms live deeply buried within the ocean's crust. These microbes make their living by consuming methane and sulfate compounds dissolved in the mineral-rich waters flowing through the immense networks of fractures in the crust. The new find confirms that the ancient lavas formed at midocean ridges and found throughout deep ocean basins are by volume the largest ecosystem on Earth, scientists say."
New Pope Selected 915
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the holy-smokes dept.
from the holy-smokes dept.
Freshly Exhumed sends this quote from CBC:
"Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina has been selected as Pope of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. He will be known as Pope Francis. He is the first Pope from the Americas. The 76-year-old was the runner-up to Benedict XVI during the last conclave. He is well-known for his humility and espouses church teachings on homosexuality, abortion and contraception. He has no Vatican experience."
Seattle Bar Owner Bans Google Glass, In Advance 471
Posted
by
timothy
from the we-don't-want-your-kind dept.
from the we-don't-want-your-kind dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A popular Seattle bar and restaurant has posted a notice on its Facebook page warning patrons that wearing Google Glass will not be tolerated. 'Ass kicking will be encouraged for violators,' wrote Dave Meinert, owner of the 5 Point Cafe, perhaps in a mock aggressive tone. GeekWire reports that Meinert raised privacy concerns in an interview with a local radio station: 'People want to go there and be not known and definitely don't want to be secretly filmed or videotaped and immediately put on the Internet.' A subsequent FB post includes more Meinert musings on Google Glass: 'They are really just the new fashion accessory for the fanny pack & never removed Bluetooth headset wearing set,' along with unflattering photos of a pair of early adopters."