The Technology Thread

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

WSJ: Apple Is Hiring Engineers in Asia to Launch More Products, Faster

Good news, perhaps, for the impatient: the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple is "hiring hundreds of new engineers and supply-chain managers" across Asia in an attempt to "speed up product development and launch a wider range of devices."

According to "people familiar with the matter," Apple is poaching staff from HTC and other tech companies across China and Taiwan to build up teams in Shanghai and Taipei. The goal, according to the Journal, is to develop products faster and provide more frequent product launches.

Last year's launch of both iPhone 5S and 5C could indeed hint that Apple is keen to increase the number of products it offers, but an ever-shortening product cycle across the industry would mean that Cook & Co. had a shift to make from their current business model if that's the case. Hiring large teams of engineers that can work directly with suppliers could help streamline that shift.

Of course, Apple may just be naturally growing, rather than seeking to churn out more products, more often. But given some of the criticism Apple has drawn for the rate of progress with its iPhones and iPads, it's not beyond the realms of possibility. Let's wait and see if we notice any change in frequency of product launches—but, even if we do, it'll take a little while to kick in, so don't hold your breath.

http://online.wsj.com/news/article_...4579416660215507816-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwMjEwNDIyWj

If these leads to lots more Apple innovations than I am all for it

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

New HTC One Seemingly Leaked in This Detailed 12-Minute Video

[YT]Vvq4H6yI3Jk[/YT]

Given we already seem to know so much about this year's HTC One successor, you have to wonder what will be left for the struggling Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer to show off at its March 25th showcase event. Thanks to this lengthy video leak, they might as well box 'em up and get the phone down to the shops already.

Coming courtesy of YouTuber GadgetReviews, who has since taken the original video down (seemingly as it reveals the IMEI number — and potentially the source of the leak), it's now been reposted by quick-fingered downloaders. While the internal specifications don't get a mention, we do get a look at the handset's dual-cameras, onscreen navigation buttons built into the updated Sense 6.0 UI and the welcome inclusion of a microSD slot.

There's not a hell of a lot new here then, sadly, but it's the most in-depth look at the phone we've had so far, and adds extra weight to the rumours that have been swirling around over the past few months. As ever, you'll want to wait for official word from HTC before setting your cash aside, but a clear picture of what to expect from the new HTC One is definitely forming.

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2014/02/everything-we-know-so-far-about-the-2014-htc-one-two-m8/

I love my HTC One, great phone. Def gonna be getting this one

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Report: First Dual-Boot Windows and Android Phones Coming This Year

Recently there's been a push to have PCs dual booting with Android and Windows, and it seems that may soon extend to phones. Reports suggest that the first Windows Phone-Android dual booting handsets are coming this year.

The Times of India reports that Karbonn Mobiles has signed a licensing agreement with Microsoft and plans to release a phone that boots into both Windows Phone and Android within the next six months. "Microsoft has eased the regulations and is opening up its platform for other players. We signed the agreement two days ago and will launch a range of Windows Phones in about three months," explained Karbonn chairman Sudhir Hasija to The Times of India.


The new handsets will reportedly be aimed at "professionals" and "tech-savvy consumers." Last year, Bloomberg reported that the head of Microsoft's operating systems unit Terry Myerson asked HTC to "load Windows Phone as a second option on [Android] handsets." Not much ever came of that, but with this new report it suggests that Microsoft is keen to get involved in dual-boot phones.

Which, honestly, we're not clear on the benefits of. Unlike PCs where dual-booting can help run once piece of hardware for quite different usage scenarios, a phone is, when it comes down to it, a phone. You talk, text, email, browse and snap photos and it's just not clear to us why you'd need to boot into a whole different OS for some marginal benefit in functionality. But hey, let's not stand in the way of progress. 2014 may the year of populist dual-booting; let's wait see what that holds.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-smartphones-in-June/articleshow/31195025.cms

This is interesting, not sure why you would need to do that but I'm sure it would have some benefits

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

How the Data From Three US Rating Agencies Control the World's Economy

[YT]tZYkjaKNr_o[/YT]

Is it governments that control the economy? Banks, perhaps? Or maybe even the people? Nope, in fact, it's rating agencies—and the there are three in the US that practically control the entire economy.

These agencies rate everything—organizations, companies, currencies—and gives it a score. The knock-on effect is that bad ratings—which can sometime be fairly arbitrary—have a massive effect on national economies. In this talk, Annette Heuser explains why rating agencies are a problem—and how it can change.

Gotta love a good TED talk

 

[Teelie]

Apple's CEO Tim Cook tells climate change deniers to **** off when asked to stop being environmentally friendly so the company would be more profitable.

Okay, maybe not quite that phrasing but close enough.

The company is already absurdly profitable and it does so in a shady as hell way (off shore tax loopholes) but at least they partially offset it with the environmentally friendly approach.

At a shareholders meeting on Friday, CEO Tim Cook angrily defended Apple's environmentally-friendly practices against a request from the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) to drop those practices if they ever became unprofitable.

NCPPR put forward a shareholder's proposal asking Apple to disclose how much it spends on sustainability programs. If those costs detracted from Apple's bottom line, the NCPPR demanded that Apple discontinue the programs and commit only to projects that are explicitly profitable. Cook apparently became angry at the group's request. According to an account from MacObserver:

What ensued was the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry, and he categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR's advocacy. He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.

"When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader.

…

He didn't stop there, however, as he looked directly at the NCPPR representative and said, "If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."

For the better part of the last decade, Apple has taken on a number of sustainability projects and adopted practices to reduce waste and carbon emissions. In 2012, it broke ground on a data center in Oregon in order to take advantage of low-cost renewable energy and has plans to make all of its facilities reliant on green energy. It generally scores highly with EPEAT, a federal environmental group that keeps a registry of “green” digital devices. And in May 2013, it hired Lisa Jackson, who formerly ran the Environmental Protection Agency, to help Apple with sustainability.

NCPPR later issued a blustery press release about how Apple's desire to “combat so-called climate change” would destroy shareholder value. It accused "the Al gore contingency in the room" of greeting its questions "with boos and hisses."

According to the press release, Justin Danhof, director of the National Center's Free Enterprise Project, said "Mr. Cook made it very clear to me that if I, or any other investor, was more concerned with return on investment than reducing carbon dioxide emissions, my investment is no longer welcome at Apple."

It seems clear that Apple won't halt its projects for climate change deniers, and the rest of its shareholders weren't troubled by that at all. The NCPPR's proposal received just 2.95 percent of the vote.

Ars Technica

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

SurroundWeb: Microsoft's Plan To Cloak Your Living Room With Internet

Your browser is in all your devices. Hell, you can even get it in your watch if you're down with that. And in the Microsoft world, its next destination is your living room wall.

Microsoft Research has cooked up a prototype of something called SurroundWeb, a holodeck-style system that finds the flat surfaces in a room, and projects the internet onto them. Microsoft lays it out:

We introduce SurroundWeb, the first least-privilege platform for immersive room experiences. SurroundWeb is a "3D Browser" that gives web pages the ability to display across multiple surfaces in a room, adapt their appearance to objects present in that room, and interact using natural user input.

SurroundWeb enables least privilege for these immersive web pages by introducing two new abstractions: first, a Room Skeleton that enables least privilege for room rendering, unlike previous approaches that focus on inputs alone. Second, a Detection Sandbox that allows web pages to register content to show if an object is detected, but prevents the web server from knowing if the object is present. SurroundWeb provides three privacy properties: detection privacy, rendering privacy, and interaction privacy while simultaneously enabling Web pages to use object recognition and room display capabilities.
Working closely with Kinect, SurroundWeb will map and remember your room, looking for the spots where it could beam content. According to the abstract, it also will look for things into your room—a can of soda, for example—and if its site has new or interesting content, it will show up in the rendering of the room. You could also scan different URLs from your phone or tablet, and SurroundWeb could plop them up on a surface in the room. But these are just a few examples.

If SurroundWeb sounds familiar, that's because it's not a far cry from the insane IllumiRoom—the wide-angle projection box that turned your TV and console into an immersive gaming experience—Microsoft teased out last spring.

The most detectable difference with SurroundWeb is Microsoft is dealing with web pages, which are dynamic and evolve and change, rather than games, which have a set source code. (You can read the whole idea for SurroundWeb in this 16-page paper.) But it's a neat vision of the future in which you would actually be able to interact with the things you do online, whether it's watching a video or browsing Twitter. Imagine, for example, you could read Snowfall in this setting.

It's just research at this point. But given that Microsoft has already made gesture-based controls for the living room into a real thing with Kinect, it's not exactly unrealistic.

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/201...content-across-multiple-surfaces-room/#!x8sUh

Pretty cool if you ask me

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

New Netflix Phishing Scam Tricks You Into Calling Fake "Tech Support"

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If the screen below has ever popped up as you were supposedly logging into Netflix, we've got some bad news for you. No, it's not your Netflix account—that's perfectly safe (at least for now). But if you followed the instructions on the screen, you've been duped by a new phishing scheme that seems so painfully obvious, it's almost brilliant.

Jérôme Segura of Malwarebytes Unpacked was the first to uncover the dastardly little trick, which he painstakingly details in the video above. It starts when Segura attempts to login to his account with a bogus username and password, bringing him to a screen that prompts him to call what is, supposedly, Netflix tech support.

That number is, of course, not connected to Netflix in any way. Instead, Segura found that it was actually coming from an unaffiliated phone number in India. The "support staffer" then told Segura that hacker had infiltrated his computer, even going so far as to show him a "Foreign IP Tracer," which, as he notes, is actually "a fraudulent custom-made Windows batch script."

That's when things start to get bizarre for even the untrained eye. The operator's next step is to connect him with a "Microsoft Certified Technician." Why Netflix would be sending users straight to Microsoft tech support, though, is anyone's guess. As all this is going on, the scammers downloaded any files of interest from his computer (seen below), sent him a bill for their services, and even asked him to take a photo of his ID and credit card for "proof." When they were unable to do so—Segura's camera is disabled by default—the call promptly came to an end.

Anyone familiar with internet safety protocol would see the red flags immediately—at least one would hope. But there are plenty of people out there who are very easy to scare and very eager to put their trust into someone they think is a professional. And that's what makes it so scary.

http://blog.malwarebytes.org/fraud-...ng-scam-leads-to-fake-microsoft-tech-support/

Sneaky hackers

 

[Teelie]

I never trust any kind of customer service or tech support I don't specifically call and talk to, which is almost never because they are almost never helpful when you know there is a problem.

 

[NickNitro]

The Future is Here! Back to the Future!

If this is somehow real life I am going to freak out.

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http://huvrtech.com/

 

[KevanG]

I never trust any kind of customer service or tech support I don't specifically call and talk to, which is almost never because they are almost never helpful when you know there is a problem.

There's been a large amount of fake tech support calls in my area for the past few years where you'll get a call from someone saying they detected your computer isn't running fast and your internet is having issues so go to this website and download it. Of course it's all sorts of malware to steal your info. The cops don't do anything because it originates outside of the country.

 

[Teelie]

I've heard of those too. It's almost always from India. It's once again the ignorant ones who fall for this. No one should be falling for it.

 

[Teelie]

This isn't going to make them faster but it will make them a lot cooler and less energy hungry.

Researchers increase power efficiency for computer processing by up to 1,000 times

Researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles have determined a way to increase the power efficiency for future computer processors. According to the researchers, the heat you feel coming from your laptop is actually a byproduct of the microprocessors in the computer utilizing electric current to power computer processing functions. That heat, researchers say, is wasted energy.

Utilizing an emerging class of magnetic materials known as “multiferroics,” researchers have made significant enhancements to computer processing. In fact, these improvement could make future devices much more energy-efficient than current technologies.

In today’s computer processors, electric current passes through transistors. Because current deals with the movement of electrons, this process generates heat. These switches can also “leak” electrons, making it harder to completely turn them off. According to researchers, the quantity of wasted heat increase as chips continue to get smaller.

Hewlett-Packard notes, “All computers require electricity to function, and some computer components require more electricity than others. As electricity passes across circuits and through wires, it meets a natural degree of resistance. This resistance, like the friction of two hands rapidly rubbing together, creates heat.”

The researchers utilized multiferroic magnetic materials to lower the quantity of power consumed by “logic devices.” A multiferroic can be switched on or off by applying alternating voltage. It then carries power through the material in a cascading wave through the spins of electrons — a process known as a spin wave bus.

“Spin waves open an opportunity to realize fundamentally new ways of computing while solving some of the key challenges faced by scaling of conventional semiconductor technology, potentially creating a new paradigm of spin-based electronics,” noted principal investigator Kang L. Wang, UCLA’s Raytheon Professor of Electrical Engineering.

The researchers were able to prove that utilizing this multiferroic material to produce spin waves could lower wasted heat and therefore augment power efficiency for processing by up to 1,000 times.

“Electrical control of magnetism without involving charge currents is a fast-growing area of interest in magnetics research,” posited co-author Pedram Khalili, a UCLA assistant adjunct professor of electrical engineering. “It can have major implications for future information processing and data-storage devices, and our recent results are exciting in that context.”

The study’s findings are described in greater detail in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

State Column

 

[Teelie]

I know there are some defenders of e-cigs but this is why there are questions over their safety. It's not something the promoters of e-cigs acknowledge very often.

LA Council Bans E-Cigarette ‘Vaping’ at Restaurants Bars, Clubs,Some Public Places

The Los Angeles City Council Tuesday moved to ban e- cigarette use, often called “vaping,” inside bars, nightclubs, restaurants and other public areas where tobacco smoking is restricted.

The council voted 14-0 to approve the ordinance that prohibits vaping at farmers’ markets, parks, recreational areas, beaches, indoor workplaces such as bars and nightclubs, outdoor dining areas and other places where lighting up is banned.

Vaping lounges and stores will be exempted from the ban, similar to exceptions made for cigar and hookah lounges under tobacco smoking regulations.

E-cigarettes used for “theatrical purposes” will also be allowed.

An amendment by Councilman Joe Buscaino that would have allowed an exemption for bars failed 8-6.

Buscaino, in presenting his amendment, argued that while he supported keeping e-cigarettes out of the hands of minors, the ban at bars would tread on the rights of adults to use e-cigarettes.

The battery-powered devices, which have been marketed as smoking-cessation aids, enable users to inhale a nicotine-laced vapor.

Some city and public health officials say not enough is known about the effects of chemicals contained in the liquids. Supporters of the regulation point to studies indicating that chemicals considered harmful by the Food and Drug Administration — such as nickel, lead and chromium — have been detected in e-cigarettes.

“Safer does not mean safe,” Dr. Jonathan Fielding, the county’s public health director, told the council. “Although they are less harmful than traditional cigarettes, some e-cigarettes contain some health risks.”

Fielding added that e-cigarette sales have grown into a “$1.5 billion industry that has caught the attention of big tobacco which historically has had scant regard for public health.”

EGP News

 

[NickNitro]

I'm sorry but if you use an E cig you look like a *****e. There is no way around it. Especially if you're in a public place like these ^^^. I feel like LA just saved you.

 

[Teelie]

If you wear a fedora while doing so it should be considered a criminal offense.

 

[NickNitro]

Or it should be legal for people to walk up and slap you in the face in public. Then they should be paraded around town like they just cured cancer.

Ok I'm done...........

 

[NickNitro]

Sony could unveil its secret weapon against Xbox One next week

Sony has already built up a consistent lead over Microsoft in the latest generation of the console wars and it may soon unveil a key new feature that could help maintain that lead indefinitely. IGN reports that Sony will host a panel at the Game Developers Conference on March 18th that will discuss “innovation at PlayStation” and the “future of gaming.” While this is a very vague teaser, IGN says that it could be a hint that Sony finally plans to make a formal announcement about a virtual reality headset for the PlayStation that will go head-to-head with VR headset Oculus Rift.

http://games.yahoo.com/news/sony-could-unveil-secret-weapon-against-xbox-one-190314586.html

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

A Little Intel Cable That Moves Data at a Staggering 800Gbps

This cute little green cable may look innocuous, but it can carry data along its core at a breathtaking 800Gbps.

Based on Intel's Silicon Photonics technology, the cables uses 64 fibers—32 for transmitting and 32 for receiving—each capable of moving data at 25Gbps. Multiply that up, and it can shift 800Gbps in each direction, an aggregate of 1.6Tbps. Those fibers are brought together at the end by an MXC connector—which doesn't stand for anything—which is significantly slimmer than a standard ethernet cable head.

But don't expect to swap your USB 3.0 or Cat 5 cable for MXC anytime soon. The cables are really designed to take the place of interconnect cables in data centers and supercomputers, where they're intended to replace the 10Gbps cables commonly used to connect switches and the like. Maybe one day, though, you'll have a super-fast green cable, too.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/intel-labs-silicon-photonics-mxc-connector.html

That is an insane amount of data to be able to transfer

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Sony and Panasonic's New Optical Archival Discs Will Store Up to 1TB

Sony and Panasonic announced last year that they had plans to develop a new, high-capacity optical storage disc—and they weren't lying. New details indicate that a new Archival Disc format will have a capacity of up to 1TB.

Claiming that the Archival Disc format will be hardy—coping well with dust, temperature and humidity—Sony and Panasonic plan to endow the format with "inter-generational compatibility." That means that while the first iteration, due summer 2015, will cram 300GB onto a single disc, the associated kit should play nicely by the time a 1TB disc arrives... some time.

Primarily be targeted at "professionals," these high-capacity discs should be good for backups and archiving—especially when it comes to HD video and the like. Who needs Blu-ray anyway?

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201403/14-0310E/index.html

Wow, 1TB disc. Amazing how fast tech goes forward

 

[Teelie]

Their plan is for it to be used for archival purposes. I doubt it will take long for commercial and consumer uses to come about although the space is bordering on excessive even for 4k video.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

One thing I have learned as a DJ is you can never have too much space or have things backed up too many times. A lesson I learned the hard way recently

 

[Teelie]

Oh, no doubt about that. I can easily fill up a terabyte of data on my computer. I'm already pruning the data I have now to keep some free space open and I'm past a terabyte of data as it is.

I am thinking of buying a 1 terabyte harddrive or a blu-ray burner to archive older data to save on the space. The problem with another harddrive is you get lazy and with a disc you have to store it someplace else (usually a good thing for lesser-used data). So there's a trade off.

Archival storage like this would be nice, especially if it was rewriteable.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

This Contraption Cuts Vinyl Records From Digital Audio In Real Time

Sonic purists swear that everything sounds better on vinyl, and you know what? Spinning records is also just way more freaking fun. It's common to digitize your LPs, but what if you could easily do the reverse? This dude made a device that makes it easy to press audio files into albums in real time.

Motherboard checked in with German engineer Souri Automaten (side note #1: can his real last name really be "machines" in German??) at SXSW; apparently he designed the first incarnation of this current device almost 30 years ago (side note #2: it looks like he hasn't updated his website in about as long).

Unlike most record cutters, Automaten's machine is extremely easy to use. That's what sets it apart: Just about anyone could buy it and start cranking out LPs. A record lathe equipped with a diamond stylus cuts the master, and the whole thing is ready to go by the time the track is through. At $4,000 it's a bit steep for a hobbyist, but as an investment, it might give indie bands or labels a cost-cutting, hands-on approach to their tunes.

Or: How completely awesome would it be to create The Perfect Playlist and give someone special a custom mix on wax?

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-awesome-machine-cuts-vinyl-records-in-mere-minutes

Seems like you would need your audio file to be in at least a WAV format if you wanted true vinyl sound. a 320 mp3 probably isn't gonna cut it. I know every DJ I can think of would have killed for this thing back in 90's. Some very cool possibilities with this thing

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

This is the amazing self-driving car we all need right now

The promise of the self-driving car is taking too long to materialize—but it may be around the corner. As soon as 2020, says Nissan. This video shows the XchangE self-driving concept car now on display at the Geneva Auto Show 2014. Imagine being able to take a road trip like this, chilling and relaxing, with no risks.

[YT]8e1HZCGs6yE[/YT]

I know the self driving thing is cool and all but I really want my flying car. I guess I can accept being able to get smashed anywhere and have a safe ride home without getting another DUI

 

[KevanG]

Flying cars are really a terrible idea. Look at all the DUIs and imagine them flying in the air hitting houses or flying out to sea.