Tech News
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Wolfram, a Search Engine, Finds Answers Within Itself @ NYT
Published: Tuesday, February 7, 2012 | By: Garrett"Step 2" of the Wolfram Alpha search engine being released this Wednesday, Feburary 9th 2012, offers more than just mathematical computation.
The new version handles data and images. In a recent demonstration, Dr. Wolfram, using his computer mouse, dragged in a table of the gross domestic product figures for France for 1961 to 2010, and Wolfram Alpha produced on the Web page a color-coded bar chart, which could be downloaded in different document formats. He put in a table of campaign contributions to politicians over several years, and Wolfram Alpha generated a chart and brief summary, saying that House members received less on average than senators.
I have only used Wolfram Aplha a handful of times but was always impressed with the information it provides and how it is provided. Wolfram seems to be going the route of research engine.
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Switching between Android 4.0 ICS and iPhone 4S
Published: Sunday, February 5, 2012 | By: GarrettSlashgear has provided a article to help you understand the differences between some of the features found in Android's Ice Cream Sandwich OS and iPhone's iOS.
When you switch from an Android phone over to the iPhone or vice versa, there are a few adjustments you’ll have to make. The difference between the two, no matter which versions of the software you’re dealing with, are much smaller than the difference between either and any other software. Windows Phone, Symbian, any number of lesser cell phones are much more difficult to switch to or from when the alternative is switching to Android or iPhone from the other. This article is but one of several in a series written by your humble narrator called “I’m switching to iPhone 4S for a week,” this series having the alternate title “iPhone 4S Up Close and Personal.”
In addtion to reading this article, I would go find a friend or coworker with the phone you want to switch to and ask to play around with it. Hands on experience can be key when picking a device that you will use everyday and store demos rarely give you what you want.
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Taiwan man dies playing video games at internet cafe
Published: Sunday, February 5, 2012 | By: GarrettNews like this as been steadly increasing over the years, especially in Taiwan and Korea. A man was found dead in gaming cafe after a long session of gaming.
The waitress last saw him talking on the phone around noon on Wednesday and his body had apparently been sitting there for up to nine hours without any of the 30 other people in the cafe noticing.
Things like this remind us that any obsession, even video games, can be deadly when taken to exteremes.
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Stanford professor resigns, launches Udacity: Free, online, university-level computer science courses
Published: Friday, February 3, 2012 | By: GarrettLooking to build your own search engine? A new educational startup, UDacity, joins the growing trend of free online college level educational sites.
In a discussion of the report on Bits, a New York Times Technology blog, it was observed that, "The real promise of online education is providing learning experiences that are more tailored to individual students than is possible in classrooms. That enables more 'learning by doing,' which many students find more engaging and useful."
As prices of eductions continue to increase, will we be seeing more sites like this offering core classes such as math and science?
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DARPA Invests In Megapixel Augmented-Reality Contact Lenses
Published: Friday, February 3, 2012 | By: GarrettContacts lenses that display images? A company claims they have done just that and has caught the attention of DARPA.
Simply put, the technology opens the door to augmented reality systems that don’t require some kind of bulky, virtual-reality-headset-from-the-‘90s peripheral visor or helmet. Instead, Innovega’s tech relies on images protected on a normal-looking set of specs and a pair of nanotechnology-infused contact lenses that provide megapixel clarity of that up-close imagery while still allowing the eye to focus on the world beyond.
Imagine the ability for your contact lenses to sync up with google and have your contacts display google maps! Makes you wonder if the next thing on the list is a hearing aid cell phone.
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Dating Site Says Android Users Are More Likely To Give It Up On The First Date
Published: Friday, February 3, 2012 | By: DennisHere are some interesting results that match.com published after some really extensive testing using an online poll. Of course online means anonymous and with 1,068 results you have to wonder, did they see the "sex on the first date" first or the word "Android" as their queue to answer the questions.
The Toronto Star says the survey was conducted by online polling and survey site Zoomerang, and used 1,068 single Canadians as its pool. They found that 62% of Android users said they've had sex on the first date, whereas 57% of iPhone users said the same, and only 48% of those with a BlackBerry.
Makes you wonder what kind of apps they have on their phone too.
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Use a 64-Bit PC? Instead of Firefox, Try Waterfox 9.0
Published: Thursday, February 2, 2012 | By: DennisIt is no mystery that I support the Firefox browser, I develop websites for it and use it on a daily basis. It isn't because I dislike IE or that I think Chrome is rubbish but rather that I like the project and generally agree with everything they do.
Waterfox is a 64-bit version of Firefox and promises to offer speed improvements over the 32-bit Firefox browser. Time will tell if it really takes off or simply falls out of popularity.
“In benchmarks, the 64-bit variant of Firefox outperforms the 32-bit variant,” according to the Waterfox website. “Also because this variant is being built specifically for Windows, there might be further performance increases.”
I'll give it a try, maybe you should too.
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Alienware's X51 SFF Gaming System Lands at HH, Autopsy and Benchmarks Ensue
Published: Thursday, February 2, 2012 | By: DennisAww now isn't this creative
On the test track, Alienware notebooks have racked up some of the best performance numbers we've seen and the company's desktops rank right up there as well. One shape the Aliens have never assumed previously, however, is the small form-factor desktop. And let's be honest, systems in this weight class generally aren't known for their gaming prowess but usually serve as home theater or mainstream PCs. The folks at Alienware have a different sort of vision for their next alien life form and if you weren't paying attention, you'd almost mistake it for a game console rather than a PC. But you're here at HH, so you're obviously paying attention. And so are we.
You could say the Alienware X51 gaming PC system got our attention when it hacked into our news channel not long ago. So we decided to send a peaceful return transmission and allow it to touch down on a test pod in our lab.I never did like OEM style gaming PC reviews but this one caught my attention, maybe because it is a SFF tower chassis design.
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Hacker's tiny $50 spy computer hides in offices, drops from drones
Published: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 | By: GarrettJust in case you wanted to spy on someone or pretend to be James Bond for cheap, a security researcher is developing an easy to build spy computer to gather intel.
Despite its name, O’Connor says the F-BOMB is designed to be a platform for all sorts of applications on its Linux operating system. Outfit it with temperature or humidity sensors, for instance, and it can be used for meteorological research or other innocent data-collecting. But install some Wifi-cracking software or add a $15 GPS module, and it can snoop on data networks or track a target’s location, O’Connor adds. As is often the case with these kinds of hacker projects, he says the devices are only intended for penetration testing–finding security flaws in clients’ networks in order to fix them —and wouldn’t comment on what DARPA might do with the technology.
As much as I dislike the government needing to use acronyms for naming everything, I have to admit, there is a lot of potential with this one.
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Nano quadrotors demonstrate complex swarm behavior
Published: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 | By: DennisWe are getting closer to judgment day, or at least how it was depicted in the early Terminator films.
The General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab, located at the University of Pennsylvania, is already well known for its work with quadrotors. In the past the quadrotor research team has managed to get a quadrotor flying aggressively, meaning it could land on angled surfaces and maneuver through small windows at high speed. Then the quadrotors were taught to work together to build a tower structure.
Check out the video, it's pretty efin cool!
