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Comment Multimedia (Score 1) 336

by piphil (#35757550) Attached to: Quad-Core Mobile Chips Wasted On Mobiles?
I use Spotify on my Android phone (Samsung i5700). Even with the tracks synced to my SD card, the music can stutter if you're trying to browse the web at the same time as listening to music. Streaming over wifi and browsing is completely useless. I'm assuming that there are overheads inherent in the data reception and processing that cause this, and thus dual-core makes sense. Quad-core? I guess it's the same issue as found with full-fat PC CPUs - is Quad-core that helpful unless you have programs that can utilise the extra available threads? Another factor could be energy-efficiency - is it more efficient to have extra cores that can switch themselves off when not required, or have fewer cores that are sometimes overwhelmed? There's marketing in there too of course: "Hey, my phone's got more cores than your laptop...!".
User Journal

Journal Journal: The problem with ebooks

Journal by piphil

The announcements by Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins that they will delay ebook editions of new releases has prompted a perhaps predictable response from the online community. Although it is regrettable that publishers should behave in such a short-sighted way, I take issue with a number of the comments th
The Media

Murdoch Says, "We'll Charge For All Our Sites" 881

Posted by timothy from the subverting-the-dominant-paradigm dept.
Oracle Goddess writes "In what appears to be a carefully planned suicide, Rupert Murdoch announced that his media giant News Corporation Ltd intends to charge for all its news websites in a bid to lift revenues, as the transition towards online media permanently changes the advertising landscape. 'The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive methods of distribution, but it has not made content free. Accordingly we intend to charge for all our news websites,' Murdoch said."
OS X

Mac OS X v10.5.8 Ready For Download 152

Posted by timothy from the upgrades-are-for-wimps dept.
mysqlbytes writes "Apple has posted an anticipated v10.5.8 patch for Mac OS X, updating a number of components in the operating system, one of their last updates to Leopard. The update brings improvements to Safari, Airport, Bluetooth, among others and rolls out the latest OS X security fixes." Worth glancing at are some of the security-related notes on the update.
Space

NASA's LCROSS Spacecraft Discovers Life On Earth 171

Posted by timothy from the that-was-the-control-group dept.
Matt_dk writes "On Saturday, Aug. 1, 2009, the LCROSS spacecraft successfully completed its first Earth-look calibration of its science payload. 'The Earth-look was very successful' said Tony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist. 'The instruments are all healthy and the science teams was able to collect additional data that will help refine our calibrations of the instruments.' During the Earth observations, the spacecraft's spectrometers were able to detect the signatures of the Earth's water, ozone, methane, oxygen, carbon dioxide and possibly vegetation."
Transportation

A Hypothesis On Segway Hate 487

Posted by kdawson from the seg-fault dept.
theodp writes "Admit it, IT is ingenious. Also, IT is surprisingly effective for certain uses, including real cops and mall cops. And if you tried IT, you probably smiled to yourself. So why all the Segway hate? Paul Graham looks into The Trouble with the Segway and offers a hypothesis about what prompts people to shout abuse at Segway riders: 'You look smug. You don't seem to be working hard enough.' Not that someone riding a motorcycle is working any harder, adds Graham, but because he's sitting astride it, he appears to be making an effort. When you're riding a Segway you're just standing there. Make a version that doesn't look so easy for the rider — perhaps resembling skateboards or bicycles — and Segway just might capture more of the market they hoped to reach."
Image

100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About 30

Posted by samzenpus from the tell-me-about-betamax-again-daddy dept.
runyonave writes "There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week's 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore's Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks. That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias."
Space

Is Jupiter Earth's Cosmic Protector? 222

Posted by Soulskill from the sounds-like-we-should-deify-it-oh-wait dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Last Sunday, an object, probably a comet that nobody saw coming, plowed into Jupiter's colorful cloud tops, splashing up debris and leaving a black eye the size of the Pacific Ocean — the second time in 15 years that this had happened, after Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fell apart and its pieces crashed into Jupiter in 1994, leaving Earth-size marks that persisted up to a year. 'Better Jupiter than Earth,' say astronomers who think that part of what makes Earth such a nice place to live is that Jupiter acts as a gravitational shield, deflecting incoming space junk away from the inner solar system where it could do to humans what an asteroid apparently did for the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. 'If anything like that had hit the Earth it would have been curtains for us, so we can feel very happy that Jupiter is doing its vacuum-cleaner job and hoovering up all these large pieces before they come for us,' says Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley, who first noticed the mark on Jupiter. But others say the warm and fuzzy image of the King of Planets as father-protector may not be entirely accurate. In 1770, Comet Lexell whizzed by the earth, missing us by a cosmic whisker after passing close to Jupiter. The comet made two passes around the Sun and in 1779 again passed very close to Jupiter, which then threw it back out of the solar system."
Microsoft

Linus Calls Microsoft Hatred "a Disease" 634

Posted by kdawson from the open-means-open dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "In the aftermath of Microsoft's recent decision to contribute 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community, Christopher Smart of Linux Magazine talked to Linus Torvalds and asked if the code was something he would be happy to include, even though it's from Microsoft. 'Oh, I'm a big believer in "technology over politics." I don't care who it comes from, as long as there are solid reasons for the code, and as long as we don't have to worry about licensing etc. issues,' says Torvalds. 'I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease. I believe in open development, and that very much involves not just making the source open, but also not shutting other people and companies out.' Smart asked Torvalds if Microsoft was contributing the code to benefit the Linux community or Microsoft. 'I agree that it's driven by selfish reasons, but that's how all open source code gets written! We all "scratch our own itches." It's why I started Linux, it's why I started git, and it's why I am still involved. It's the reason for everybody to end up in open source, to some degree,' says Torvalds. 'So complaining about the fact that Microsoft picked a selfish area to work on is just silly. Of course they picked an area that helps them. That's the point of open source — the ability to make the code better for your particular needs, whoever the "your" in question happens to be.'"
Image

Claymore Mine Found in Goodwill Donations 3

Posted by samzenpus from the protection-for-the-poor dept.
For some reason people in Arvada, Colorado are upset that someone left a claymore mine in the Goodwill drop box at a local strip mall. Police were notified and the Jefferson County Bomb squad disposed of the explosive. Officials say they don't know if the mine was operational or not. I guess the residents of Arvada don't think the disadvantaged deserve a secure perimeter.
Image

Man's Locust Farm Worries Neighbors 2

Posted by samzenpus from the grow-your-own-plague dept.
61-year-old Li Shuqi is only raising one of the ten plagues of Egypt but from the fuss his neighbors are raising you'd think he was working on all ten. Li has spent the last three years raising locusts. He has about two millions locusts living in five locust houses and sells them to Beijing restaurants where they are considered a delicacy. Li says, "My neighbours are constantly keeping an eye on my locust fields and checking the security of the meshes that prevent them from escaping."

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