The Technology Thread

[Teelie]

Cortana is Microsoft's answer to Apple's Siri

While this story was obviously in on the reference, poor CNN Money had no clue with not a single acknowledgement. Probably afraid that stuffy businessmen would scoff at the idea or they had no idea themselves.

Microsoft's Build conference is kicking off in San Francisco this morning, and the day-one keynote started with a focus on improvements to Windows Phone. Microsoft will be launching version 8.1 of its mobile operating system later this month—"late April or early May," specifically—and it has a much-anticipated flagship feature: a digital assistant named "Cortana."

Rumors had been flying before the announcement that Microsoft was planning to include a Siri-style digital assistant with its next Windows Phone update and name it after the AI character in the Halo series of games, and the rumors in this case turned out to be true (if you're not familiar with Halo, you might not get the reference). Along with the new digital assistant, Windows Phone 8.1 brings a new "Action Center" for customizing notifications and phone settings, as well as lots of improvements to the lock screen—which is now fully API-driven and can be programmed by applications to do all kinds of neat things.

Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore spent the better part of an hour demonstrating Windows Phone 8.1's new features, but Cortana got the lion's share of the attention. The assistant is a healthy mix of Apple's Siri and Google's Google Now, incorporating natural language-based interactivity not just in the phone's menu system, but also stretching its API throughout the device's apps. Cortana is powered by Bing Search, and users can interact with the assistant through text or speech.

Cortana had a relatively glitch-free debut, with Belfiore walking through a number of different tasks like setting reminders, looking up contacts, and setting geofenced tasks ("remind me to do something when I get somewhere"). On stage, Belfiore had a bit of difficulty getting Cortana to convert temperature from Celsius to Kelvin, but he also reminded the audience that Cortana is currently considered a beta feature. The digital assistant will gradually shed the "beta" label as it's rolled out into markets other than North America.

Global Product Marketing Manager Nick Hedderman took over after Belfiore's Cortana demo to talk about the ways that Windows Phone 8.1 expands the operating system's business and enterprise support. One of the first features announced was VPN, a feature that has been conspicuously absent from Windows Phone 8. Additionally, S/MIME finally makes an appearance and will allow users to encrypt and cryptographically sign e-mails (this is particularly handy with Active Directory functioning as a certificate store, as it would in an enterprise with S/MIME deployed for Windows desktops).

Hedderman also showed off other key mobile device management functionality, including the ability to disable local saving of documents and the ability to enable and disable applications (including default Windows Phone applications).

The Windows Phone announcement ended with Belfiore returning to the stage and showing off a grab bag of extra features "designed to make users smile." The "smile" features include added smarts on what apps the Windows Phone store suggests to users and improvements to the weather and calendar apps. The calendar app got a particularly important shoutout: it was built using only public APIs rather than private ones. This "dogfooding" should result in a much-needed improvement in the scope and performance of the tools developers can use to make their apps.

Windows Phone 8.1 also includes some changes in how Wi-Fi networks are handled. The new "Wi-Fi Sense" feature can automatically join public hotspots with captive portals, clicking through any annoying terms of use and username/password prompts. It also includes a method of pre-sharing your own home Wi-Fi password with people on your contacts list. Additionally, Wi-Fi Sense syncs Wi-Fi passwords from your PC to connected phones.

Belfiore closed with one last feature: "shape writing." Android users who have used the Swype keyboard are going to be familiar with this: rather than tapping out individual letters, users can now slide fingers from letter to letter, spelling out words by dragging their fingertip between a word's letters. After showing the feature off on stage, Microsoft played a video showing the speed at which the new shape writing feature works, with a swipe-typer attempting to beat the Guinness world record for smartphone typing.

Consumers will get Windows Phone 8.1 "in the next few months." The final update schedule will be in the hands of the mobile operators, and brand new phones will ship with it in late April or early May. Belfiore also noted that developers might get access considerably earlier; we'll update this piece as soon as that information is announced.

Ars Technica

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

KFC Secretly Rolls Out Chik-fil-A Knockoff Restaurant

This week, Arlington, Texas will get the thing it most desperately needs: a new greasy fast food chicken restaurant. But this greasy fast food chicken restaurant marks the launch of a greasy fast food chicken restaurant war.

For many decades, the Chick-fil-A brand has won hearts and minds with a simple formula: small menu, greasy chicken sandwiches, hating gays. It's time-tested method that really works. Now, THE YUM CORPORATION, the corporate conglomerate behind THE KFC CORPORATION, is launching its own little chicken restaurant, called SuperChix, which is a direct ripoff of Chick-fil-A, because it just sells a few items of chicken, rather than many different chicken items, and the chicken is "premium" and "hand-breaded," rather than "chock full of as many industrial chemicals as our robots can inject into the chickens before the chickens die a horrible death."

(SuperChix chicken may in fact be full of horrible industrial chemicals, but they don't advertise it.)

Why, one might ask, does KFC—which actually has a lot of greasy chicken restaurants already—need to open a new brand of greasy chicken restaurants? Well, because everyone down South loves Chick-fil-A, along with its great family values of "kill homos," so THE YUM CORPORATION wants to get in on this perception of "greasy chicken with a small, unique, hometown feel," as opposed to the feel of its current chicken offering, "THE KFC CORPORATION INTERNATIONAL CHICKEN MASSACRE CONGLOMERATE." Ad Age's Maureen Morrison reports:

So why not clue in consumers that the concept comes from KFC, which already has substantial chicken cred? Dennis Lombardi, restaurant-industry analyst and exec VP at WD Partners, said it lets the company "start free and clear of all perceptions of all existing brands" — good or bad.
But does this chicken restaurant hate gays? It is the homophobia that gives it the flavor.

http://adage.com/article/news/yum-targets-chick-fil-a-chicken-concept-store-texas/292519/

This makes me laugh so much, nobody can knock Chick-fil-A off their throne. Their talons run too deep in the chicken sandwich game

 

[Teelie]

The KFC article ruins itself by *****ing about "industrial chemicals" in chicken, referring to everything as greasy, and generally being something transparently written by a vegan with a chip on their shoulder.

Otherwise it's hilarious. I really do mean that. KFC is getting desperate if they're ripping off their direct competition like that.

 

[NickNitro]

lol what garbage. Nice try KFC. You still suck. Don't be mad Chick-Fil A is kicking your ass

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The KFC article ruins itself by *****ing about "industrial chemicals" in chicken, referring to everything as greasy, and generally being something transparently written by a vegan with a chip on their shoulder.

Otherwise it's hilarious. I really do mean that. KFC is getting desperate if they're ripping off their direct competition like that.

Ya I know the article itself is a little preachy but man is it funny that KFC has to resort to this

 

[Teelie]

The local KFC is a joke. I haven't been there in years and even when I did go it was for the mashed potatoes and gravy, not the chicken.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

You ever have their "Grilled" chicken? It's one of the slimiest things on their menu. I was so grossed out when I tried it. Last time I ate KFC was when my roommates swung by the drive-thru and they were about to close so they just gave them almost all the chicken and stuff they had left and that was months ago

 

[Teelie]

No, the last time I had KFC chicken was probably a decade ago.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Uber Is About to Be a New York City Courier Service

Starting tomorrow, Uber is adding a new option to its car services—UberRUSH. It's a local New York City courier service (and experiment) that will deliver your items, either by cyclist or by foot to a specified location of your choosing, all from an app.

TechCrunch followed up with specifics, which Josh Mohrer, the General Manager of Uber NYC, confirmed to CNBC.

The base rate for the service will be $15, with more on top depending on the distance of the trip. To start, the 24 hour service will cover Manhattan from the Financial District to 110th street with specific zones marked off to categorize pricing per zones traveled. Each additional zone in a journey will tack on another $5 to the base fare, but it tops out at $30.

NYC bike messengers have a reputation for being a bit rough around the edges, while Uber's vehicles and driver's are known for their premium class, so it'll be interesting to see what kind of riders Uber rounds up for the job. Either way, they better offer good insurance.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/07/uberrush/

Uber is making moves, I can see this breaking out and moving around to other large cities

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Suck It, Robots: Toyota Is Giving Jobs Back to Humans

My, my, my how the tables have turned. The past few years have seen countless human jobs filled with our less-whiny robot counterparts. But it turns out that, at least for Toyota, the pros of total automation haven't outweighed the cons. Meaning human factory workers are back in business.

It's certainly an unconventional move—intentionally taking a step backwards usually is—but Toyota's reasoning makes sense. Apparently, it's been suffering from an excess of average workers and a dearth of master craftsmen. As project lead Mitsuru Kawai told Bloomberg:

We need to become more solid and get back to basics, to sharpen our manual skills and further develop them. When I was a novice, experienced masters used to be called gods, and they could make anything...

We cannot simply depend on the machines that only repeat the same task over and over again. To be the master of the machine, you have to have the knowledge and the skills to teach the machine.
So while robots may be able to work faster for less money, Toyota pays for their lack of ingenuity and expertise in the long run. For instance, at Toyota's Honsha plant, workers are now physically twisting, turning, and hammering metal into crankshafts—a process that was previously automated. Consequently, these hands-on experiences have led to a reduction in scrap material and a shortening of the production line by 96 percent in three years.

Of course, both options come with drawbacks. The push for human workers means that Toyota won't be building new factories for at least another three years. But in the battle of quality over quantity, humans still come out on top—for now, at least

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...re.html?_ga=1.157272824.2104667746.1365537028

Nice to see the human touch making a comeback

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Train for Surgery Using Immersive 3D Holograms of Corpses

Computer-generated models are starting to let researchers and students peer into the body without needing a real human stretched out before them. Virtual dissection tables have been built at places like Stanford and the University of Calgary. Now, University of Michigan computer scientists and biologists have taken the technology another step forward, using projectors, joysticks and 3-D equipment to build a floating holographic human that users can dissect, manipulate, and put back together as they wish.

The project is called Michigan Immersive Digital Experience Nexus (MIDEN), a step forward from CAVE, its predecessor audio-visual system for virtual reality, which Txchnologist has previously profiled.

"The first time I saw the technology I almost cried," said Alexandre DaSilva, an assistant professor at the university's School of Dentistry, who is using the virtual cadaver along with his students. "In my wildest dream, I never thought that this would be possible."

[YT]JVM_N__tx7M[/YT]

The team behind the visualization system say it can be used for many other applications, from helping meteorologists dissect hurricanes to aiding in archaeological or paleontological studies.

http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/22078-students-virtually-dissect-hologram-like-3-d-cadaver

Straight up Tony Stark tech man. This is so awesome, I love seeing tech that can crank out better and more experienced doctors for the world

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Silent But Deadly: The EU Wants Electric Cars to Add Sounds for Safety

Last week, the European Parliament ruled that all electric and hybrid cars must add artificial engine noise so that pedestrians can hear them coming. While the mandate is mostly to protect visually impaired pedestrians, the noise will also benefit anyone on the street who's ever had a near-miss with a Prius.

The fear that a quiet car might kill you is not unfounded: According to one study in 2012, when traveling at speeds under 35 mph, hybrids and electric vehicles are 37 percent more likely to hit walkers and 66 percent more likely to hit cyclists than traditional gas-powered cars.

In the EU, cars will be required to add something called an acoustic vehicle alerting system (AVAS) that will generate sound while the car is in motion. Although a similar recommendation has been voluntary in the past, it is now a requirement, and manufacturers have five years to comply. Here in the U.S., the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration took a slightly different tack, proposing minimum sound requirements for electric cars back in 2013. You can actually hear recordings of gas vs. electric vehicles which they used to determine the "safe" level. But manufacturers fought the proposed rule, saying that the increased engine noises would be annoying to those inside the car, and many introduced their own ideas, from warning chirps to amplifying tire sounds. The mandate was supposed to go into effect later this year, but has been delayed.

According to the Daily Mail, the artificial noise mandated by the EU will just sound like a conventional engine—maybe they can get that 60 Minutes sound engineer to generate some potential audio for them. But this regulation actually opens up all sorts of possibilities. If manufacturers are indeed replacing one non-existent engine sound with a new engine sound, might we start to see customized car audio? What if I could outfit my tiny Smart Car with the growl of a Chevy V8? Or maybe my Prius could roar like a Tie-Fighter.

It also raises some questions about the sound design of our cities in general. If I poke my head out the window right now, I hear birds chirping and a dog barking a few yards away—but the most dominant sound is cars, from the ones slowly driving up my street to the hum of the freeway a mile away. There's really no need for us to pump up the grating of a combustion engine. There might be other ways—redesigning the acoustics of our roads?—to alert pedestrians and cyclists about the danger of an approaching vehicle without simply overdubbing another mechanized sound on our already noisy cities. Why would we want to replace one motorized whir with another, when we have the opportunity to truly redesign the way our cities are experienced acoustically?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...l-unsuspecting-pedestrians.html#ixzz2yDSfPiwL

Only makes sense being that they are so quiet and everyone has a tendency to walk around glued to their smartphones

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Strap On Oculus Rift Goggles And Control A Drone With Your Head

Oculus Rift enables you to escape into incredible virtual (or live-action) worlds, but strapping on the goggles is precisely that—an escape. Which is what makes this new open-source project by Diego Araos so crazy: using the goggles' head-motion tracking feature and live video feed, you can actually navigate an AR drone with a tilt of your noggin.

[YT]NQkOMnrQ-ew[/YT]

All it takes is a slight shift in perspective—looking up, down, or to either side—to make the little guy go flying wherever you want. We've seen Oculus and a hand-operated controller take on actual drones in the great outdoors before, but I haven't seen that function with this level of refinement.

Here's Araos with a bit more about how he did it:

I connected the AR Drone to my laptop using node.js (node-ar-drone to control & node-livestream for video feed). As for the client-side is a HTML5 web-interface that process the video feed using two canvas elements, it also connects to a REST server that reads the information of the head-motion sensors from the Oculus Rift and then computes the joystick, which are sent back to the node.js server and commanded to the drone to control pitch/roll/yaw.

TL;DR version

I used node.js to connect to the video feed and command the drone. Had to make a special adapter to carry the Oculus Rift around with a battery... now I have a wireless Oculus Rift!
He threw the whole thing up on GitHub, too. As more folks get their hands on the tech, I can't even begin to imagine the kind of wild, wild crossovers between VR and real life that will begin to emerge.

https://www.facebook.com/Logicflight

Really cool step forward with this tech

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Wirelessly Access Any of Your Naked Hard Drives With This Dock

Deep down you know that one day you should conglomerate that stack of hard drives full of random files into a single media server. But thanks to Thermaltake's new BlacX Urban wireless docking station, that one day doesn't have to be today. Just slap in any drive of your choosing and its contents instantly become accessible through all of your wireless devices.

You'll just need to download a free accompanying app to your Android or iOS smartphone/tablet that will let you access files or stream media from any SATA drive. So while it's not picky about the size, your older IDE drives unfortunately aren't compatible.

But if Wi-Fi is too slow for accessing the drive from your laptop or desktop computer, the dock also packs a speedy USB 3.0 for direct connections and quick transfers of large chunks of files. Specific pricing for the dock hasn't been revealed just yet, but if it saves you the hassle of spending a week copying files to a central server, cost might be irrelevant.

[YT]_YcFa5bHKGs[/YT]

http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00002325

Wish I had this when my HD broke

 

[KevanG]

Train for Surgery Using Immersive 3D Holograms of Corpses

http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/22078-students-virtually-dissect-hologram-like-3-d-cadaver

Straight up Tony Stark tech man. This is so awesome, I love seeing tech that can crank out better and more experienced doctors for the world

Also known as Surgeon Simulator.

Strap On Oculus Rift Goggles And Control A Drone With Your Head

https://www.facebook.com/Logicflight

Really cool step forward with this tech

Stalk your neighbors in real time.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

This Robot Is A Crash Test Dummy For HAZMAT Suits

Introducing Porton Man, the UK Ministry of Defence's answer to the Pentagon's Petman. And like the U.S. version, this robot will be subjected to a series of unpleasant scenarios, including chemical and biological contamination. So you don't have to.

Indeed, the point of the £1.1 million (USD $1.8 million) robotic mannequin is to test light-weight protective suits and equipment for the UK armed forces. Porton Man can walk, march, run, sit, kneel and lift his arms to sight a weapon like an infantry soldier.

[YT]KWnh3fs5tNs[/YT]

The bot, which happens to be constructed from advanced lightweight materials used in Formula One racing cars, is named after the home of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in Wiltshire. Its predecessor was a bulky 176 pound brute, but the F1 materials make this new robot far more portable and agile.

Porton Man has over a hundred sensors placed throughout its body to record data during the tests. This will allow the researchers to conduct real-time analysis on equipment such as biological and chemical suits in a realistic (but secure) environment.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-26892771

Pretty cool, testing nasty stuff to make sure we don't die. I hated HAZMAT drills when I was in the Navy. The suits are hot as balls but they will save your life

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Intel's Thunderbolt 2 standard has received an update: now, it can be used to pair computers together—even Macs to PCs—to allow data transfer at speeds of up to 10Gbps. That's pretty quick.

http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2...paign=Feed:+IntelTechnology+(Technology@Intel)

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

An Ergonomic Upgrade Makes Guitar Picks Easier To Grasp

Die-hard musicians might scoff at the idea of the guitar pick needing an upgrade, but the creators of the Pykmax believe they've created a far more ergonomic and comfortable way to pick and pluck at strings.

Available in two sizes (for children or adults), the Pykmax isn't just for those starting out on the guitar, although it certainly makes it easier for amateurs to strum. Learning how to hold and handle a small pick is its own challenge, and since the Pykmax is easier to grip, there's less muscle strain as a result of playing.

[YT]i6KKswOW93k[/YT]

At $12 the Pykmax isn't unreasonably expensive, either. And you can customize your playing experience with picks of different thicknesses for a harder or softer feel. It doesn't guarantee you'll instantly be a better guitar player, but from the sounds of it, it might help make the learning curve a little less steep.

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/04/py...ick-an-ergonomic-makeover/?utm_source=mainrss

Any guitarist out there can tell me how they feel about this?

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Heartbleed: Why the Internet's Gaping Security Hole Is So Scary

In the past 15 or so years, we've all learned to feel pretty safe on the internet. BigSite.com is surely handling your credit card information safely, at least as safely as any brick and mortar store. Maybe don't be so sure; there's been a bug lurking in one of the internet's most important security measures for years, and it's given attackers the keys to the kingdom. Enter Heartbleed.

Secret handshakes

The heart of having secure transactions on the internet relies on a pair of technologies called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), and its slightly younger brother Transport Layer Security (TLS). For most intents and purposes, they're the same thing. You can thank TLS/SSL for the little padlock that shows up next to the address of a secure website, and the https:// those addresses start with. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, TLS/SSL is what brokers the exchange of cryptographic keys that lets a browser and a server know they are who they say they are. It's the guardian of the secret digital handshake that keeps your private information between just you and BigSite.com.

TLS/SSL is a huge part of the internet as we know it today, and fortunately it still works just fine. What's causing the dangerous breach is a software library called OpenSSL. It's basically a open source package that people can use to get the protection of TLS/SSL encryption quick and easy. The only problem? It's had a hole in it for years. A hole called "Heartbleed."

A look inside

OpenSSL works just fine in theory, but thanks to a minor coding error and the exploits result from it, malicious folks can abuse certain (and popular!) versions of OpenSSL to grab slices of private data that should be secured by the TLS/SSL code that keeps you safe. Attackers can look inside the secret handshake and see how it's done.

This is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, if attackers take a peek at a secret handshake you are performing when you login to your email account at Yahoo.com, they can see your information. Your username, your password, maybe even your credit card number depending on what you're doing. There's all kinds of juicy stuff in there.

But that's small time spoils compared to the real danger. Attackers will also get a look at how the site that's taking your data identifies itself. And once that half of the handshake is out in the wild, all bets are off. Not only could ne'er-do-wells use their new-found key to fool people into thinking they are a fine upstanding place of business with a good ol' man-in-the-middle attack, they can also look back into transactions that already happened. And since they're getting in with the master key instead of breaking through a window, these sort of attacks leave no trace.

So how does this affect me?

Fortunately not all versions of OpenSSL are vulnerable to this kind of exploit, and there's already a fixed version of it out there. But considering how long it was broken for, that's a cold comfort.

There's a long list of sites that used the offending package, but because the attacks leave no trace, there's no way of telling how many were actually attacked; you just have to assume they all were. And if you're a user of one of them, assume your credentials are now out in the wild.

yahoo.com
imgur.com
flickr.com
redtube.com
kickass.to
okcupid.com
steamcommunity.com
hidemyass.com
wettransfer.com
usmagazine.com
500px.com

And even once those sites have patched up the actual OpenSSL hole, the problem is far from solved. Sites also have to perform the internet equivalent of changing their cryptographic locks. Even then, any data that attackers may have managed to stash before then is still vulnerable, and it always will be.

Fortunately there are no real juggernauts of internet commerce wrapped up in this, as far as we know. No Amazon, no Google, no Microsoft. Your LastPass and 1Password are still safe. But still, it's a potentially unprecedented breach though we'll never actually know how many sites got attacked.

In the meantime, there's not much you can do besides avoiding affected sites until they're fixed, and changing your passwords after the fact. You can also put on a tinfoil hat, but sometimes the best solution is just a close eye on your credit card statement.

http://heartbleed.com/

Well hopefully not too many of you guys use these sites, I don't have an account with any of the offenders

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The ATLAS Robot Will Soon Be Walking Without a Tether

As impressive as Boston Dynamics' humanoid robot ATLAS moves, it's still not completely free to explore wherever it wants. Thick trunk lines keep it tethered to machinery and pumps that provide power, hyrdraulic fluids, and of course communications and data. But researchers at MIT are now working to free ATLAS of its leash-like umbilical cord sometime in the next six months.

According to Time's Doug Aamoth, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have been working to improve ATLAS' software and programming to make it faster, more reactive, and most importantly more autonomous.

As the official DARPA Robotics Challenge approaches, the researchers are hoping to free ATLAS of the cables that limit its mobility and movement, but also improve its decision making capabilities. Once the challenge starts, the humanoid will hopefully be able to operate fully autonomously for up to 30 seconds should there be a short blackout in communications.

And since the ultimate goal is for this robot to be able to explore environments too dangerous for humans, this is a very important next step in its development. But a scary one too, since there's now one less safety measure keeping ATLAS in check.

http://www.slashgear.com/mits-darpa-atlas-robot-slated-to-shed-wire-tethers-07324190/

We are getting closer and closer to having personal robots. Can't wait to get mine

 

[NickNitro]

Chinese Cup Auctioned for Record-Breaking $36M

A Shanghai collector bought a rare Ming Dynasty cup that's touted as the "holy grail" of China's art world for $36 million at a Hong Kong auction on Tuesday, smashing the previous world record price for Chinese porcelain.

Sotheby's said Liu Yiqian was the winning bidder for the small white cup, which measures just 8 centimeters (3.1 Inches) in diameter and is more than 500 years old. The vessel is known as a "chicken cup" because it's decorated with a rooster and hen tending to their chicks.

It was made during the reign of the Ming Dynasty's Chenghua Emperor, who ruled from 1465 to 1487. Sotheby's said there are only 17 such cups in existence, with four in private hands and the rest in museums.

"There's no more legendary object in the history of Chinese porcelain," said Nicholas Chow, Sotheby's deputy chairman for Asia. "This is really the holy grail when it comes to Chinese art."

For such a prized item, bidding was limited to a handful of wealthy collectors and when the winning bid was hammered down at HK$250 million ($32.2 million), the standing-room only crowd broke into applause. The auction house's commission brought the total to HK$281.2 million ($36.1 million). A pre-sale estimate had estimated a maximum sale price of HK$300 million.

http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-cup-auctioned-record-breaking-36m-065323364.html

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Weirdly Enough, Comcast Thinks Its TWC Buy Will Be Great For Customers

Monopoly? What monopoly? At least that's one of the pillars of the 180-page document Comcast just filed with regulators in defense of its pending $45 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable. It is a big fat load of bull.

Comcast executive vice president David Cohen claims that Comcast and TWC only compete in one small area, and that the market is otherwise full of competition from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and pretty much any other big-name tech company you could think of. Sure, they might overlap in some areas, but the problem is, these "competitors" are not competitors at all.

Per Comcast's alternate universe:

The traditional boundaries between media, communications, and technology are obsolete. The competitive ecosystem in which we operate includes companies with national and even global– scale like AT&T, Verizon, DirecTV, DISH, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook – who are competing with each other and us in unprecedented ways. As the graphs below demonstrate, many of these companies are far larger than our combined company would be in market capitalization, annual revenues, and/or customers.
Comcast says, but hey look at these massive market caps from our competitors:

See? We're the underdog, even when combined with another cable fatcat, says Comcast. It argues again and again, this merger is good for you, humble consumer, making the case that the merger will give you faster internet, more options, a better network overall, and more on-demand options. That might happen, sure. But this one big piece about the market being full of competition is straight-up crap. On the high-speed internet front, Comcast makes the case that Google Fiber exists, and yes, it certainly does and it's expanding. But not in all of the cities TWC and Comcast touch. That is years and years away, if that. Moreover, it's also worth asking the question of what happens when Comcast is no longer legally bound to Net Neutrality laws. There are too many unknowns.

Comcast says it sees these players as direct competitors for content delivery. That's hard to believe. Google Fiber, Verizon Fios, AT&T Uverse might at the very least dabble in the same areas but the percentage of their business actually devoted to direct competition is quite small. As is their overall footprint. Comcast cites Netflix's 33 million and counting consumers. But it fails to mention that if they're subscribing to Netflix, well, they probably pay for internet too. Alternatively, the same would go for someone who owned an Apple TV box, or Amazon Fire TV, or whatever streaming service. There are many disconnects in this extensive Comcast defense.

The merger has been decried for a number of reasons. Take your pick of which one. In this case, the creation of a massive cable company monopoly is a very big lingering issue, and a very troubling one. But Comcast's shoddy defense is not doing anything to put that concern to bed.

http://corporate.comcast.com/comcas...ations-and-public-interest-statement-with-fcc

I do not like this one bit, I think this will be very detrimental to net nuetrality and start us on a path of capping our bandwidth for our internet

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The Hal 9000 of Grills Tells You When It's Time to Flip the Meat

No one likes a backseat griller, especially if you've spent years perfecting your bbq craft. But for those starting out, a little coaching can help avoid turning steak into charcoal. And Lynx's voice-activated Smart Grill will actually ask you what's going on the barbie so it can then recommend the perfect setting, placement, and grill times—no fathers-in-law required.

The secret to the grill's know-how is that it actually connects to your home's Wi-Fi network, giving it access to a database of recipes and cooktimes. So if you tell it you're having steak for dinner, it will automatically preheat the burners itself, and tell you exactly where to place the cuts of meat on the grill for optimal searage.

The Lynx Smart Grill will also keep a griller posted on the status of dinner via voice prompts, text messages, or the use of an accompanying app. So if you're throwing a party, you can mingle with guests instead of hovering over the grill like a helicopter parent. And if you do get distracted and miss all of those cues, the grill will automatically shut itself off to help prevent your food from burning—although residual heat might mean things get a little overdone.

Lynx is hoping to get its Smart Grill to the market sometime in 2015, and while it certainly won't be cheap, if it means you never scorch an expensive cut of meat again, it could be an essential addition for any backyard chef.

http://www.gizmag.com/lynx-voice-command-smart-grill/31535/

Crazy, so even you freaking grill will be connected to your Wi-Fi haha. I'm a charcoal man myself, nothing beats that flavor

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

AMD's New Radeon Is a Preposterous Powerhouse You'll Wish You Needed

If you buy video cards, chances are you have a lust for power. No respectable PC builder doesn't at least covet insane high-end cards, even without ever really considering them. Well here's a new sucker to salivate at, the 11.5 teraflop, water-cooled AMD Radeon R9 295X2. The new coolest card you have no reason to own.

Tricked out for 4K gaming (which not too many games support, and which also requires a multi-thousand dollar monitor you also can't afford or at least should think twice about buying) the AMD Radeon R9 295X2 offers 8GB of video GDDR5 RAM alongside its whisper-quiet cooling system and insane compute power.

The R9 295x2 comes fully-assembled with its water-pipes in place and launches this week. And at "just" $1500, it continues AMD's trend of pricing cards super cheap. Granted, $1,500 is far more than you need to spend on a card, but it's half the price of the $3,000 Nvidia Titan Z that boasts 12GB of video RAM but a "mere" 8 teraflops of compute. Rest-assured you won't be needing either. But just imagine how awesome it would be if you had an excuse.

That is some serious hardware right there

 

[KevanG]

I want it but I can't use it.