Microblogging site Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, reported a pretty dazzling statistic in its third quarter results: it now boasts over 400 million registered users. It can't be sure how many are active, of course, but it's still a vast number considering appeal is localized to the People's Republic. It also means is winning the popularity contest with social media competitor Tencent, although it humbly acknowledges their services are somewhat different. The company's platform is still evolving, and it's only recently seen mobile usage exceed computers, so is shifting product focus accordingly. More here.
Not happy with building mysterious gigantic structures in the desert, the Chinese are now building inter-dimensional portals in the middle of their cities. What the hell is this 515-foot (157 meters) high metal structure in the the city of Fushun, in northeast China's Liaoning province?
Oh wait, I know, it's just another example of the China's building craze, the one that has got them to build entire ghost cities made of thousands of pre-fab buildings.
It's made of an astounding 3,000 tons of steel and it will glow at night—decorated with 12,000 LED lights. According to Fushun Municipal Government's officials, this titanic structure does absolutely nothing except serve as an elevated sighting position. They claim it is pretty "landscape architecture"—like the Eiffel Tower. It uses four elevators to take people to the top.
The Chinese media has been harsh about the building after a blogger posted these photos on Sina Weibo, which is the country's "largest microblog platform." Not surprising, since this thing costs $16 million.
The ciy's defense: "there's not enough people to build entertainment, so we just build something pretty, OK?! ARE WE COOL NOW!". Or something like that. They also claimed that they don't have enough citizens to build other more useful buildings. They have all the hospitals, recreation centers and municipal buildings they need, so they probably decided to blow their excess budget in this thing.
According to Fushun's Urban Construction Bureau, the "Ring of Life" means "a round sky and a path leading to a paradise in heaven." More here.
Apple’s stock has been tanking for the past several weeks, perhaps adjusting to market conditions. Here’s a trivial explanation for why a stock price might fall even when a company appears to be performing well: sometimes in a weaker market a firm’s stock price will decline to meet demand expectations, suggesting that perhaps it was too high before.
One might assume, in that scenario, that it will climb back up to somewhere between its current low and its previous high. Right now, it’s trading at the lowest price since May, six months ago, as noticed by 9to5Mac. The stock price is around $529 at the time of publication, and its market cap is at $499 billion. In August, the company became the most valuable company in the world when its market cap hit $621 billion on a stock price of $663. It closed just above $702 in September. More here.
If you want to take advantage of all the handy gesture shortcuts in Windows 8, but would rather skip the tablet or touchscreen display, Elecom's got a new space-saving keyboard that's right up your alley. It's a full-sized wireless keyboard complete with a dedicated number pad that does double-duty as a gesture-compatible touchpad.
When it drops in December for around $105, the Elecom TK-FDP055BK will also be able to be used like a laptop's trackpad for controlling the cursor and performing more common gestures like scrolling. But at the push of a button it will revert back to functioning like a typical number pad. Accountant-types who work with numbers all day might not appreciate the lack of physical keys, but the average PC user should find the added functionality more useful, particularly if they've already updated to the latest version of Windows. More here.
The iOS 6 version of Skype has been officially updated to support the larger 4-inch display on the iPhone 5. Prior to today, the application showed borders along the top and bottom of the screen, which was a bit frustrating since it didn’t provide an full, more immersed experience. Skype also said it fixed several bugs in the application, although it’s initially unclear what bugs were prevalent. As always, Skype is available from the iTunes App Store for free. More here.
You can pretend you're just a baseball fanatic, or prefer batting practice at night, but there's really only one reason someone is going to buy this heavy-duty machined aluminum flashlight shaped like a baseball bat. It's for protection—or more likely—for delivering physical intimidation to one's enemies under the darkness of night.
It's available in both 15-inch and 23-inch lengths for $36 and $46 respectively, but most will probably opt for the longer, heavier version. It's got a 3-watt LED bulb and various flashing modes, but again, these are features the flashlight's true target market probably cares nothing about. More here.
In a cute, little art project, this keyboard supposedly shows the most used keys on a keyboard. Think of it as an infographic IRL. Do you agree that these buttons are the most popular key? I swear I use C more than that! More here.
As if having to remember to bring along a charging cable isn't annoying enough, they seem to have a knack for becoming knotted while in your bag. But a company called Tylt has solved at least one of those problems with its Band Wall Charger that uses a ribbon design that's nigh impossible to get tangled.
The flat ribbon also wraps around the cylindrical plug for easy storage and cable management, and at just $40, available in four different colors, it looks like a nice alternative to your iPhone's included (30-pin connector) charger. Fingers crossed for a lightning version soon! More here.
There's a solar eclipse coming tomorrow, and while it may only be visible over Northern Australia and the Pacific, there are a couple of places you can watch it remotely.
The eclipse is supposed to start at 3:35pm EDT tomorrow. The Slooh Space Camera has a live feed from Cairns, Australia that will start at 2:30pm EDT. Folks at Slooh say this dispatch should be particularly stunning, since the event is supposed to begin around sunrise in the area.
You can also watch a stream from Tourism Tropical North Queensland, which will also broadcast from Cairns starting at 2pm EST. And since it's an important reminder to all our friends in Australia catching the moon blotting out the sun in person—don't stare at it directly or you'll go blind. More here.
Following a very lengthy wait, Research in Motion is finally going to launch BlackBerry 10. The Canadian company has today announced that it will hold simultaneous launch events around the world on January 30, 2013, during which “details of the smartphones and their availability” will be announced.
“Our team has been working tirelessly to bring our customers innovative features combined with a best in class browser, a rich application ecosystem, and cutting-edge multimedia capabilities,” said RIM President and CEO Thorsten Heins on Monday.
“Thanks to our strong partnerships with global carriers and a growing ecosystem of developers, we believe our customers will have the best experience possible with BlackBerry 10. We are looking forward to getting BlackBerry 10 in the hands of our customers around the world.”
RIM has promised that it will unveil two new devices in January, which are expected to be the previously leaked L-Series and N-Series devices. The former is a touchscreen device without a physical keyboard, while the latter takes the traditional BlackBerry form. More here.
Is the love affair with Apple over for investors? Some seem to think so, even despite the iPad Mini hype. Since September, when Apple shares peaked, the prices have fallen 20 percent — from $700 to $547 per share.
Apple just recently fired several executive staffers, and add the fact that Google’s Android is just killing it, in terms of marketshare — which surged from 57.5 percent to 75 percent — and these don’t spell confidence for Wall Street. And some wonder if maybe the company doesn’t have much more room to expand, meaning that its customerbase could be maxed out.
“It has just been wave after wave of bad news,” says Gene Munster, renowned analyst at Piper Jaffray. Cupertino, however, denies any problem, saying the company’s still growing perfectly fine, thankyaverymuch. And its stock is up 38 percent on the year, which is still positive growth. Even so, it’s hard to ignore the decline in share prices. We’ll have to wait and see if this is just a drip in the pan or the drumbeat of doom for a falling enterprise. More here.
Microsoft's been holding Surface for Windows RT sales figures close to its chest so far, but CEO Steve Ballmer has allowed in an interview with Le Parisien that the much ballyhooed tablet is off to a "modest" start. The bombastic exec gave that appraisal while touting the imminent arrival of the tab's higher-powered sibling, Surface for Windows 8 Pro, though he didn't elaborate further. After all the cake it's no doubt lavished marketing the slate, we'll have to see if the software giant finds the hardware game tough to swallow. More here.
The faster the Internet gets, the less patience we all have with even the most insignificant of waits. A new study shows that a mere two second delay is enough for many people to give up and move on.
According to the recent study, based on 2.3 million views by 6.7 million unique users, users will start abandoning "short" videos after two seconds, and that 20 percent have moved on after five seconds. As far as the study is concerned, "short" equals "less than 30 minutes," so you can probably imagine the migration happens even faster when you're talking about a one or two minute clip.
This mass buffering exodus isn't the same across the board however. A user's patience also depends on the type of network they're using. Fiber, Cable, and DSL users are all pretty similarly impatient, but mobile users are far more likely to wait around staring at the buffering animation like a chump, which isn't all too surprising.
Where do you stand on the Internet video waiting game? Does two seconds sound like an instant, or more like an eternity? More here.
The VMultra combines a USB hub, an SD card slot, a DVD±RW drive and 500GB of storage into a surprisingly slim package that connects to any computer via USB 3.0. If you like, you can even fit your own 2.5-inch hard drive in the SATA III bay.
You'll have to take out the included 500GB HDD first of course. The company intends this to be a "perfect all-in-one peripheral," especially for notebook travelers looking to lighten their luggage; perhaps to make room for things like "clothes." Each VMultra will cost you $199.99 and will ship starting November 12th. More here.
For the longest time Just Born, the maker of Peeps, has been on the forefront of novelty seasonal marshmallow technology. But the company's monopoly ends now, here, with a mug-friendly Frosty marshmallow.
What would you rather have dissolving away in your hot cocoa? A gooey yellow baby chicken covered in sugar, or these adorable snowmen marshmallows sold in packs of five for $5? More here.
If you've ever thought it would be cool to have a miniature figurine of yourself—or maybe a loved one—just hanging out on your desk and doing it's thing, your day has come. The first 3D printing photobooth is due to open in Japan later this month.
From November 24th to January 14th 2013, those who wish get themselves a mini-me can go to the Eye of Gyre exhibition space in Harajuku for the procedure. The miniatures come in three sizes, roughly 4, 6, and 8 inches, and cost the equivalent of $265, $400, and $530 respectively, with modest discounts for groups. You can bet it'll still be expensive though. More here.
NASA scientists are having a lot of fun with Messenger, the spacecraft now orbiting Mercury. Not only they are documenting the planet at a resolution of 200 meters per pixel, but they are spotting all kinds of fun stuff. A few weeks ago it was the Sesame Street's cookie monster. Today it's a smiley crater.
It looks like even the craters on Mercury have heard of Bob Ross! The central peaks of this complex crater have formed in such a way that it resembles a smiling face. This image is oriented so north is toward the bottom.
So far, Messenger has taken 88,746 images "and extensive other data sets." After completing its primary mission—and still working like a champ—the spacecraft is going to capture another 80,000 images. More here.
As if RIM wasn't already having enough trouble struggling for relevance with BlackBerry phones, there's yet another thing about the handsets that makes them a bit less appealing compared to iPhones and Android devices: you could actually be allergic to a BlackBerry, in the most literal sense.
According to a recent study, around one third of all BlackBerries contain nickel, a metal that causes allergic reactions in 17 percent of women and 3 percent of men. As if that wasn't bad enough, many of these phones also contain cobalt, yet another contact allergen. If you're allergic, symptoms can include eczema, blisters, lesions, swelling, and in extreme cases, using a BlackBerry can literally be a scarring experience. iPhones and Android phones, on the other hand, were found to be free and clear.
While many BlackBerries old and new have the offending metals, flip-phone models are by far the worst offenders, containing nickel a whopping 91 percent of the time. That's a pretty huge margin, but the fact that this hasn't been a huge issue yet probably means BlackBerries aren't out there ruining lives left and right. Still, if you've got a nickel allergy—or have been suffering from itchy, BlackBerry-face—it's just another reason to write off the suffering brand. More here.
The problem with little USB jump drives is that no matter how many you own, you've never got one when you need it. You could've have sworn you tossed one in your bag, but when it's time to pass files around, it's not there. That's why we're tempted to keep LaCie's new PetiteKeydangling from our keychains.
The PetiteKey comes in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB for $15, $23, and $40. It's waterproof down to 100-meters, scratch-resistant, and tough. There's a two-year warranty, should you want to test that toughness out. But best of all, it's much tinier than its cute-but-not-as-useful ancestor, the iamaKey: The little USB drive weighs 0.25 ounces and measures just 1.5 inches long. In other words, it's smaller and lighter than most actual keys, which means it's actually convenient enough to carry with your everywhere. More here.
One cow looks much like another, but some provide meltingly tender meat while others are as tough as old boots. Fortunately, a team of researchers has devised a series of DNA tests that can predict how good beef will taste by the time it hits your plate.
Usually the meat industry takes a bit of a punt on which cows will provides the tastiest steak. Sure, concepts like marbling and hanging method are decent indicators, but a team of researchers from the National Agronomic Research Institute in Theix, France, think they can do better.
That's why they analyzed 3,000 genes involved in muscle biology in order to pick out ones that have an impact on meat qualities like tenderness, flavor and juiciness. Then, having selected genes they thought were important, the team developed a DNA chip which analyzes gene activity in beef samples and can spot fundamental differences in their makeup.
They pitted the chip against a panel of expert tasters and it seems to work well. In fact it was in full agreement, and they found that the genes the device analyzed accounted for up to 40 percent of the variability in tenderness between different samples. The results are published in BMC Veterinary Research.
Of course, the researchers aren't happy yet: the team only uses a handful of genetic markers at the moment, and the test only works with certain breeds of cow. Still, the theory's there, so before too long you might be buying beef based on genetic ranking, not hanging time. More here.
Books, hahaha! Streaming video? Whatever. But wine, the blood of Bacchus, harbinger of groping and maybe more? Amazon—get dirt cheap bottles of wino sent straight to your door, you lush.
Starting today, anyone in California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and the District of Columbia can get up to six bottles in one order, with a shipping cost of just $10.
You'll have to get an adult to sign for your shipment at the door, and you can't get bubbly sent to an Amazon Locker yet—it's almost as if the company foresaw the interest of underage kids—but if you're a teen living in an apartment building with a doorman or front desk that signs for all packages, prepare to be swimming in gallons and gallons of cheap wine. More here.
As long as you don't take the sun into consideration, this 18th century contraption could very well be the world's first alarm clock that uses light as a wake up trigger, instead of sound.
A spring-loaded mechanism triggered by its built-in clock releases a flint-lock that lights a pop-up candle. So if you needed to rise before the sun was up, you didn't have to fumble your way out of bed in the dark looking for a way to light a candle. Brilliant! More here.
Kim Dotcom has been hyping up Megaupload's new website Mega for so long that it seemed like a given that the file sharing site would come back bigger and badder. But it doesn't look likely because Me.ga has already been shut down by Gabon, a small country in Africa that controls the .ga domain.
According to Stuff.co.nz, Blaise Louembe, communications minister for Gabon, says:
Communications Minister Blaise Louembe has reportedly said he had given an instruction for www.me.ga to be "suspended" and that Gabon "cannot serve as a platform or screen for committing acts aimed at violating copyrights, nor be used by unscrupulous people".
Kim Dotcom, ever the obstacle crusher, says they have backup domains to use so it's not a cause for concern. Guess it can't be cleverly named Me.ga anymore though! More here.
Early this morning, with this simple, joyful photograph, Barack Obama scored yet another victory: the most-liked Facebook photo of all time.
As of now nearly three million people have given the photo—uploaded to Barack Obama's timeline and adorned with a message of "Four more years"—a thumbs up. Between it and last night's most popular tweet ever (same picture, same words), Obama's win has clearly been sanctified by the United States of Internet. Picture is here.
The Verge is reporting that Microsoft is trying to nix its Windows Live Messenger client in favor of Skype. That's definitely for the best, and something we've seen coming for a while now. But it also smacks of some missed opportunity for Windows 8 and Windows Phone.
The plan, according to the Verge, is that the backend of Messenger will be moved over to the Skype client. So you still use your Messenger account and contacts, just in Skype. That move's been happening for a while, and apparently 80 percent of Skype IMs are already through the Messenger protocol. Skype is a better alternative for a lot of people than WLM, and consolidating the number of clients under Microsoft's roof is a good thing.
Messenger remains widely used—according to Microsoft's numbers, it and Facebook are the two most popular chat clients. But, honestly, when is the last time you signed into WLM? So Microsoft has been focusing more on the chat functions in Skype—especially with recent improvements to the client's chat interface—and is even integrating it into its People apps in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 in the near future. More here.
Under the guidance of Google, the open-sourced OS has become the darling among some of the world’s most popular manufacturers: Samsung, HTC, LG all make Android devices, and that’s just naming a few. Sure, Android still has a fragmentation problem, but the newest devices are better than we’ve ever seen, and a lot are coming equipped with some pretty phenomenal features: Google Now in particular.
Seeing Android grow over the past few years has been fun (Google Play has seen anenormous uptick as well), and we’ve yet to see the best Android has to offer — compare the T-Mobile G1 to a device like the recently announced Nexus 4. The differences are incredible.
Samsung’s Android-powered Galaxy Camera is coming to the United Kingdom on November 8, just in time for the holiday rush. It’s expected to cost £399.99 (approx. $637), but Samsung is yet to confirm that price tag — despite the release being just three days away.
That’s the price currently being advertised by camera retailer Jessops, and online retailer Clove.co.uk, which is now allowing customers to pre-order. The Galaxy Camera will also be available from various electronics retailers come November 8, including phone stores like Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U, according to The Verge.
Running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the Galaxy Camera comes with a 16-megapixel 1/2.3″ sensor, and an f/2.8 21x optical zoom lens. It’s powered by a super speedy 1.4GHz quad-core processor, and offers 8GB of internal storage — which can be expanded via the microSD card slot.
The device also has access to the Google Play store and built-in Wi-Fi and 3G, which means you can use all your favorite Android apps to edit your best shots and upload them to photo sharing services on the go. More here.
Skype has unveiled a series of prepaid cards for the UK, offering users without a credit card the ability to top-up their accounts starting from £10. A second £20 card will also be available in UK retailers including Asda, Currys, PC World, Sainsburys and bookseller WHSmith, with both denominations redeemable globally through the Microsoft company's online portal. More here.
Even despite the lingering presence of Hurricane Sandy, hundreds of people waited in line to pick up the iPad mini at Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue store; the white models reportedly sold out in mere minutes. It’s unclear how reception has been outside of New York City, but it’s clear people are excited about Apple’s newest member of the iPad family. Apple, going up against competitors Google and Amazon, is expected to sell over a million iPad mini units during launch weekend, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.
It’ll be interesting to see what the upshot is once Apple announces sales, which the company typically does the Monday following weekend sales. More here.
Twitter is reportedly lining up a new photo filterting feature aimed at taking Instagram head-on. According to The New York Times, the San Francisco-based social media company, which processes just under a billion Tweets every 48 hours, is hoping avid Tweeters will bypass the use of Instagram altogether and instead use Twitter’s new filters when sharing photos. Twittergram?
The update is allegedly landing in the coming months, though people with knowledge of Twitter’s plans didn’t share precisely when. The social network’s scheme was put into high gear following Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram earlier this year, NYT said.
It was said Twitter had planned to purchase a company like Camera+, but those plans seem to have been scrapped in favor of creating its own system — much like the one Facebook launched with its own camera app.
“After meeting with an appraising some companies, Twitter’s executives decided the price tags were not worth the goods, and decided the company could build its own filters instead,” NYT wrote.
Instagram is a pretty formidable social media service in its own right, with monthly traffic supposedly surpassing Twitter. Twitter’s plans aren’t all that surprising; what is puzzling is the fact that it’s taken the company so long to come up with an answer to Facebook’s Instagram purchase. But it sounds like we’ll see something of interest sometime early next year. More here.
Check this little guy out. If you have any microUSB cables sitting around the house, this Lightning adapter will let you sync your iPhone, iPad or iPod without a problem. It’s teeny-tiny, but it’ll likely appease plenty of people with multiple cables, or even a USB charger. There’s not much else to report, it’s obviously only compatible with Apple’s latest set of products: the iPhone 5, iPod touch 5th gen, iPod nano 7th gen, iPad 4th gen and iPad mini. The Lightning to Micro USB adapter is available now (1-3 business day ship time) for $19.00. More here.
The company has sold, as opposed to shipped, 30 million Samsung Galaxy S III devices worldwide. That’s quite the impressive figure, and shows a substantial growth of 10 million units in just two months. Samsung’s announcement comes on the heels of news in which the company said 3 million Galaxy Note II units have been sold across the world.
It’s fantastic news for Samsung, and Android as a whole, as we head into the busy holiday season. Samsung revealed just how much time and effort went into the making of its S III, and the numerous rave reviews — and now, sales — show it was all time well spent. With Jelly Bean rolling out to the device all over the world, we can expect sales to only increase during the final stretch of 2012. More here.
What's that? You had dreams of being the first person in the world with an iPad Mini installed in your 2012 Toyota's dashboard? Well consider those dreams dashed, as Tampa, Florida's Soundwaves is way ahead of you. Like, "they already did it" ahead of you. That regular old iPad you've got in your car? Boooring.
The folks at Soundwaves had a dashboard setup fabricated ahead of the Mini's launch this morning, and filmed themselves performing the installation.
What kind of movement does a theft entail? Apple's in the process of figuring that out, today filing a patent application for a, "acceleration-based theft detection system for portable electronic devices." Apple pickers: you've just been put on watch. According to the patent filing, said device would activate an alarm of some form after determining, "whether a theft condition is present." It'll apparently figure that out based on the accelerometer built into many of Apple's mobile devices -- the same thing that figures out which way you're holding your phone. Beyond just the hardware, said theft protection system would work in concert with software to determine if the movement matches a pre-determined "profile characteristic of theft."
Of course, Apple's not the only one worried about mobile device theft, as Google already patented just such a device pertaining to its Project Glass concept. But the you'd have to be pretty brazen to steal the glasses off of someone's face without "accidentally" socking them in the eye. More here.
Apple just launched iOS 6.0.1 to consumers, but it also began seeding the latest beta, iOS 6.1, to developers on Thursday.
The update is available for anyone with a developer account and who owns an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, and 9to5Mac said Xcode 4.6 beta is also included in the package. iOS 6.1 includes a new MapKit that allows developers to “programmatically search for map-based addresses and points of interest” and return relevant information. “For example, searching the string “coffee’ would return the location of local coffee bars along with information about each one,” Apple explained.
It’s unclear what else is in the beta build, but it appears that Apple’s default Maps application is still included in its existing form. More here.
Samsung just revealed that the half-pint Galaxy S III mini that debuted in Germany will arrive in the UK on November 8th. The 4-inch, WVGA super-amoled, dual-core smartphone will alight toting Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and all that entails, like Google Now and the whole butter thing. You'll also get Samsung's video and games hub plus a 50GB Dropbox for two years if you nab the device, along with all the TouchWiz-y doodads like S-Voice and Direct Call. Phones4U announced it was taking preorders for the device earlier, which will be free on contract for £25 and up. More here.
The sequel to Frictional Games’ stupendously terrifying Amnesia: The Dark Descent, subtitled A Machine for Pigs, is due sometime in 2013. What with today being the spookiest day of the year, the collaborating (as Frictional is teaming up with the chinese room) indie developers decided it was a great time to release a trailer.
A trailer that provided a nice morning scare for me.
If you watched the onset of the trailer and find yourself wondering when, exactly, the horrifying stuff starts, make sure you wait until around the one minute mark. The next bits that follow are exactly why I can’t handle games like Amnesia and its upcoming sequel.
Apple recently said that there are 700,000 iOS applications in its iTunes App Store. Google’s Android platform, which has typically trailed Apple’s iOS in terms of the number of applications available to its users, is now all caught up.
AllThingsD today said that a Google source has confirmed that it now also has more than 700,000 applications. That’s impressive growth for Android, which hasn’t had an app store as long as Apple has. Meanwhile, Microsoft said yesterday that the Windows Phone Store has 120,000 applications, but that it’s also growing quickly. More here.
Google just released an updated version of its Search app for Android devices yesterday, and it's now (aspromised) also delivered a fairly big update to iOS users. That brings with it iPhone 5 compatibility, but the bigger news is the expanded voice search functionality, which promises "faster and significantly improved voice recognition," with spoken responses à la Google Now provided alongside the search results. Those additions also extend to iPad users in addition to the iPhone and iPod touch -- get it here.
What happens when you gut a pumpkin and replace its insides with heat-shrink tubing, solder, 128 LEDs, eight AA batteries, an Arduino board and clever programming? You get what self-proclaimed tinkerer Nathan Pryor calls "Pumpktris." Over the years we've seen the classic puzzle game Tetris ported to some amazing things, but a piece of fruit? Just in time for Halloween, this high-tech spin on the jack-o'-lantern features a fully playable Tetris game controlled from the pumpkin's joystick stem.
Whether you're a hardcore do-it-yourselfer, or a diehard Tetris fan hoping to top the system's high score (9,800 points), you can build your very own Pumpktris. Of course, its creator estimates it'll take around 12 hours or longer to build the custom LED matrix and joystem and carve up the gourd of your choice.
Out of a pool of 1,200 adults, 52 percent said they’d never heard of Windows 8 leading up to last week’s release. For all of Microsoft’s wining and dining of the tech-savvy crowd — it seems the revamped software isn’t in the average consumer conscious. The company was always going to fight an uphill battle when marketing its new OS vision.
According to The Associated Press and GfK, of those who had heard of Windows 8, 61 percent said they had little to no interest in buying a computer running Microsoft’s newest OS. About 35 percent of people who were somewhat familiar with the new system felt it would not be an improvement over Windows 7.
One 43-year-old engineer, Chris Dionne, who knew Windows 8 was coming, said he isn’t “thrilled [Microsoft is] changing things around” when Windows 7 already does what he wants it to.
Additionally, the poll highlights the lack of interest surrounding Microsoft’s Surface, which launched in conjunction with Windows 8. Of those surveyed, 69 percent admitted they had little to no interest in the device, which is a product Microsoft is hoping will fit into a tablet/laptop niche.
Microsoft’s approach to the changing market is admirable and something that strays pretty significantly from iOS and Android. The company’s task of marketing Windows 8 (and Windows Phone 8, and its two Surface tablets) was always going to be difficult. It’ll be interesting to see how consumers receive Microsoft’s new direction now that all its cards are on the table, especially since it does offer compelling features, such as a new modern user interface and full touchscreen support in laptops and PCs. More here.
Google just took the lid off a 32GB Nexus 7 tablet, and dropped the price of the 16GB model from $250 to $200. The bigger version is $249.
This confirmed earlier suspicions from price leaks to third-party retailers that Google would make its flagship tablet cheaper. In spite of the cancellation of Google's event because of Hurricane Sandy, the news is still moving along—Google also revealed the 10-inch Nexus 10 to rival the iPad. The 32GB Nexus 7 also comes in an HSPA+ version for $300. The tablet goes on sale on November 13. More here.
Scientists have developed a way to manufacture a new breed of computer chips that use carbon nanotubes in the place of silicon.
Nanotubes have plenty of superior electronic properties over silicon, but until now it's been impossible to manufacture a chip with a high enough density of nanotubes to make an effective processing unit. Now, the researchers, from IBM, have cracked it.
Writing in Nature Nanomaterials, the researchers explain a new manufacturing technique that makes it possible to squeeze enough tubes on to the chip. It involves two solutions which work like a two-part epoxy: when they double-dip their chip substrate in the two, it enables them to create neatly aligned nanotube devices, with a density of a billion nanotubes per square centimeter.
While that sounds like a lot, though, it's not quite enough for the ambitious team of scientists. James Hannon, one of the researchers, explained to the BBC:
"That's one nanotube every 150 or 200 (billionths of a meter) or so. That's not good enough to make a microprocessor yet - it's a factor of 10 away... But it's a factor of 100 better than has been done previously."
So, while they've managed a step change in their production technique, there's still some tweaking to be done. The team, however, predicts that if it can bump up its density, then it could produce processors three times faster than the current state-of-the-art, that consume a third of the power. Fingers crossed. More here.
Sharp may look like it's in trouble, but that's not stopping it bringing new displays to the market, the AQUOS Quattron 3D XL TV line. Behind the mouthful of acronyms, these LED-backlit LCD panels are the first to feature Sharp's Moth-Eye technology, designed to reduce glare and pump out bright colors, as well as a deep black. The company's 'four primary color'tech is partly responsible for the rich output, which squeezes a yellow sub-pixel in with the standard R, G and B.
All the panels run at 1,920 x 1,080, as you'd expect, sport a 10 million to 1 contrast ratio and use five speakers to deliver audio. Prices aren't fixed, but the 46-, 52- and 80-inch models will be released in Japan on December 15th, while the 60- and 70-inch variants will come slightly earlier, on November 30th. You're going to have to be quick on launch day, though -- only 10,000 units are expected to be available in the first month.More here.
We’ve seen the Nexus 4 show up for pre-order, support pages in Australia, a charging pad and even a quick-start guide, but if you want at least one more spoiler before then, take a look above. The folks over on the @evleaks account shared one more render that gives you a good look at the front, back and sides. Christmas is definitely coming early for those who can’t wait for the Nexus 4. More here.
If getting long-range WiFi is a perpetual battle, ASUS just started a nuclear war. Its fresh RT-N12HP router carries a pair of (thankfully removable) high-gain, 9dBi antennas and a separate signal amplifier that can jointly boost the range of the router's 802.11n wireless up to 300 percent versus challengers that reach the same 300Mbps peak speed. Beyond that, the hotspot mostly claims sheer flexibility as its virtue with support for as many as four separate WiFi networks and a fast toggle between pure router, access point and repeater modes. More here.
The heart of the costume is a Nikon D800 with an Eye-Fi SD card inside transferring photos to an iPad serving as the display on the back. But since the D800 isn't fully compatible with the Eye-Fi's direct transfer mode, a portable wireless router was also added to the mix to facilitiate the exchange. Oddly enough it doesn't seem as if the costume uploads photos to an Instagram account, which leaves the door wide open for someone to come along and one-up this one too. More here.
A puffy down feather jacket is one of the lightest and warmest things you can wear. But the tradeoff is that if you get it even the slightest bit wet, you'll be wearing a cold soggy mess. Not the Brooks-Range Mojave, though; thanks to a special coating on the feathers, it doesn't skimp on the warm when it's wet.
The feathers it's stuffed with are treated with a hydrophobic polymer known as perfluoroalkyl acrylate, developed by a company called Down Decor. So instead of absorbing water, the down inside the $300 Mojave repels it. And while it doesn't guarantee you'll stay completely dry, the company claims the treated feathers will only absorb about a quarter of the moisture that regular down filling would. Which means your jacket will dry five times faster and be ready to warm you again in no time. More here.
A Korean gadget site has posted images of a user manual for a device called a Samsung Nexus 10 that looks much like an oversized Nexus 7. Could this—along with that new Nexus phone—be what Google is announcing on Monday?
The pictures don't offer much in the way of hard intel beyond that in terms of features, and the sketch of the phantom gadget looks like what you'd expect from a 10-inch tablet. At the very least, it supports persistent rumors that Google will reveal its flagship slate's bigger brother at some point. This tablet is said to have a 2560×1600 pixel display, more pixels per inch than the iPad, and run on Android 4.2, a.k.a. Key Lime Pie. We'll know if the so-called Nexus 10 is actually real next week. More here.
If you're having a crappy day, go grab yourself an emergency compliment at this thoughtful website which serves up, you guessed it, emergency compliments.
There should be a special Nobel Prize set aside for geniuses who find ways to improve the simplest things in life. And this year's award would go to Shapeways user OliveBird, whose Button 2.0 turns any shirt into a convenient headphone wrangler.
It's not to say that the traditional button design isn't useful. It's just that with the addition of a subtle clamp on one edge for holding headphone cables no thicker than two millimeters, the Button 2.0 is approximately a thousand times more useful. And this isn't some design student's thesis on how to make the world better. It's an actual product you can order from Shapeways in different colors ranging in price from $3 to $4. Expensive for a button? Yes. But this is the bleeding edge of shirt fastening/cable wrangling technology. More here.
The placebo effect seems to make little sense: get ill, take a dummy pill, and you'll recover in much the same way as someone taking real drugs. While there have been many theories bandied about over the years to explain how it works, new evidence suggests that it may be genetic.
A team of researchers at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School has published a study in PLoS One that identifies the first ever genetic difference between patients who respond to placeboes and patients who don't. If it's correct, it could completely change the way drugs are tested and prescribed.
The study looked at patients with irritable bowel syndrome who were enrolled in an acupuncture trial. Split into three groups—one that received no treatment, one that got fake acupuncture with little interaction with the caregiver, and another that received fake acupuncture with real interaction—they were also analyzed genetically.
The results show variations in the COMT, or catechol-O- methyltransferase gene, affect patient response to placebo. The gene is known to be related to dopamine release—a neurotransmitter associated with reward and positive feeling—and the study shows that variations in it are strongly correlated with placebo susceptibility.
Of course, many of the usual caveats apply: this was a modestly sized study, involivng just 104 patients, which considered just one placebo treatment used for one medical condition. If, however, the results bear out, then expect to see genetic tests being used to improve both personal care and clinical trials in the future. More here.
