Google's Android Has Hit A Wall, And Now It's Fading In The U.S. (GOOG, AAPL)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/androids-market-share-in-the-united-states-2013-4

Something is happening to Android in the U.S.

After years of runaway success, it's now losing share to Apple's iPhone, according to the latest data from comScore.

For the three months ended in February, Apple had 38.9 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, up from 35 percent for the same period ending in November. Android fell to 51.7 percent over the same period, down from 53.7 percent.

The United States is not the world, but it is a leading market for smartphones. So, it's worth paying attention to these trends.

Apple has been able to eat in to Android's lead thanks to increased distribution, and lowered pricing. The iPhone wasn't on Verizon until February 2011, four years after the iPhone debuted on AT&T. It later joined Sprint, then some regional carriers, and this year it's going to T-Mobile.

Apple offers the iPhone at a variety of prices on Verizon and AT&T, from $0 to over $400. A free-on-contract iPhone has make it an option for more people.

Android is a great operating system available on a number of excellent phones, some with gigantic screens. It's odd that it's gone flat. It's not just a U.S. phenomenon for Android, either.

When Andy Rubin stepped down, Google released new data on Android activations. While year-over-year growth remains spectacular, growth during the holiday season was relatively tepid.

We're not sure if this is a blip for Google, or the start of something bigger. We've seen Android have the occasional set back in the past.

SEE ALSO: Apple Is Preparing Major Changes To The iPhone's Software

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Scientists Can Read Dreams Using Brain Scans

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5993732/scientists-can-read-dreams-using-brain-scans

A team of scientists claim to have developed techniques which allows them to read dreams via brain scans—and it could help us better understand what goes on in the brain while we sleep.

The team of researchers, from the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, in Kyoto, have been performing MRI scans while people drift into early stages of sleep. Just after participants fall asleep, they are awoken and asked about what they have seen. Each tiny mental image—from bronze statues to ice picks—is recounted and recorded, and the entire process repeated 200 times for each participant.

That gives the scientists a database of images, linked with brain activity, which can be grouped together into similar visual categories. So, cars, trucks and buses might all be linked under the category of vehicles, for instance.

From there, the scientists were able to analyze brain activity while participants slept, and attempt to predict what they were dreaming about. The results, published in Science, show that the researchers could predict what volunteers were seeing—at least at the broad broad category level—with 60 percent accuracy. Not perfect, but pretty impressive. Professor Yukiyasu Kamitani, one of the researchers, explains to the BBC:

"We were able to reveal dream content from brain activity during sleep, which was consistent with the subjects' verbal reports. I had a strong belief that dream decoding should be possible at least for particular aspects of dreaming... I was not very surprised by the results, but excited."

But this is only the start. Crucially, the scientists have only so far considered light sleep—and now the researchers are particularly interested in studying more vivid dreams which occur during deeper sleep. Next stop, Inception. [Science via BBC]

Turn a Raspberry Pi Into an Always-On Usenet Downloading Machine

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5993580/turn-a-raspberry-pi-into-an-alway+on-usenet-downloading-machine

One of the nice things about the Raspberry Pi is the that it doesn't require a lot of power to run. This means you can leave it on all day long without it putting a dent in your electricity bill. To take advantage of that, How-To Geek has a guide for using your Raspberry Pi as an always-on Usenet machine.

The setup hinges on SABnzbd, and includes setting it up to start automatically, UNRAR files as they come in, and sending all the files over to an external harddrive. The nice thing is that you can tap into SABnzbd with a mobile app so that you don't ever really need to look at your Raspberry Pi. If you're a big Usenet user who consumes a lot of power with a desktop PC that's always on and downloading, this low-powered solution is certainly worth a look. If you need a little primer on how Usenet works, check out our guide. Head over to How-To Geek for the full guide.

How to Turn a Raspberry Pi into an Always-On Usenet Machine | How-To Geek

Asus Ai Charger Quickly Charges Your iPhone or iPad Over a Regular USB Port

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5993609/asus-ai-charger-quickly-charges-your-iphone-or-ipad-over-a-regular-usb-port

Windows: Asus's Ai Charger is a free utility that finally lets you charge the iPad from your PC's USB port, which otherwise doesn't offer enough juice to charge the tablet. Ai Charger also promises to charge iPhones and iPods 50 percent faster using standard USB ports.

Blogger Matthew Hunt posted this chart comparing charging time for the iPhone 5 with Ai Charger versus USB 2.0, USB 3.0, and the wall charger. In this test, Ai Charger is about as fast as the wall charger!

Ai Charger apparently works by sending up to 1.2A through the USB port, so charging your iPad via USB won't be quite as fast as through a wall charger. Still, this means you can travel with your laptop and iPad and leave behind the power brick if you want to.

Asus says the Ai Charger works with all motherboards and systems, but because it's hacking the power going through the USB port, this is a use-at-your-own-risk utility and your mileage may vary. After installing Ai Charger on my Dell laptop, my iPad went from "Not Charging" to charging up. Some folks over on XDA Developers are even reporting the utility works on some non-Apple devices.

Asus Ai Charger | via PCWorld

HTC One $649 64GB Developer Edition pre-orders start at 10AM ET, ship later this month

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/05/htc-one-developer-edition-pre-order/

Last month HTC announced the SIM and bootloader unlocked Developer Edition of its new One would be available at the same time as regular carrier versions, and it's held to that promise. Tonight it tweeted pre-orders will begin the morning of April 5th at 7AM PT / 10AM ET, a day after AT&T's list opened and the same day as Sprint. While there was no mention of ship or regular sale date, Android and Me reports being told by company reps at today's Facebook event that sales will begin April 19th, which it confirmed to us in a subsequent tweet. We're sure you'll cherish the hours / days left to decide if parting with $649 is worth having that 64GB metal-backed wonder (no, it is not transparent, this is just a rendering) to yourself without the phone company's interference.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC

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Source: HTCdev (Twitter), Android and Me

Scientists Use 3D Printer To Make Tissue-Like Material

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-use-3d-printer-to-make-tissue-like-material-2013-4

British scientists have used a custom-made 3D printer to make living tissue-like material that could one day serve medical purposes, according to findings released Thursday.

The material is made up of thousands of connected water droplets, encapsulated within lipid films, that can carry out some of the functions of human cells.

These "droplet networks" could be the building blocks of a new technology used to pass on drugs and, down the road, could even replace damaged tissue, said a statement from Oxford University, where the scientists are based. Their findings were published in Friday's issue of the US journal Science.

Since the so-called droplet networks are completely synthetic, don't have a genome and and don't replicate, they lack the problems linked with other methods of creating artificial tissues — such as those using stem cells.

"We aren't trying to make materials that faithfully resemble tissues but rather structures that can carry out the functions of tissues," Hagan Bayley, a professor at Oxford's Chemistry Department who headed the research, said in a statement.

"The droplets can be printed with protein pores to form pathways through the network that mimic nerves and are able to transmit electrical signals from one side of a network to the other."

According to fellow Oxford scientist Gabriel Villar, "the printed structures could in principle employ much of the biological machinery that enables the sophisticated behavior of living cells and tissues."

Each droplet measures about 50 microns in diameter (0.05 millimeters), or about five times the size of living cells. However, the researchers believe "there is no reason why they could not be made smaller."

This synthetic material can be designed to take on different shapes once printed.

!

In t his way, a flat shape can be programmed to fold itself into a "hollow ball," the statement said.

As for the 3D printer used, it was custom built at Oxford.

In February, researchers said they had engineered artificial human ears that look and act like the real thing thanks to 3D printing.

Cornell biomedical engineers and Weill Cornell Medical College physicians said the flexible ears grew cartilage over three months to replace the collagen used to mold them.

Copyright (2013) AFP. All rights reserved.

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Fwd: Phones

ComScore: Apple up to 39 percent US smartphone share in February, Android on top at 52 percent

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/04/comscore-february-2013/

While there's no question that Android is thriving on the global scale, the situation is a little more complicated in the US when looking at ComScore's market share data for February. The platform is still comfortably ahead in the American smartphone sphere at 51.7 percent, but the figure represents the second consecutive dip in recent months, and roughly matches share that we saw back in June. Apple is headed in the opposite direction and appears to be the main beneficiary of Google's drop, albeit at a less-than-breakneck pace: the iPhone continued a gradual climb in February that put it at 38.9 percent. We're not surprised that BlackBerry declined once more in its last month before the Z10 reached the US, although Microsoft will be happy to hear that Windows Phone inched forward again to 3.2 percent.

Among individual smartphone makers, it's more of a familiar story. Apple's platform control gave it the lead at 38.9 percent, while Samsung at 21.3 percent was hovering roughly around the same share it had in January. As for everyone else? It's a bit ugly, to be honest. HTC, Motorola and LG all lost share in February, leaving the US ! firmly i n a two-horse race. That said, we wouldn't be surprised if the market plays a different tune around April and May: with 2013 Android flagships like the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S 4 just around the corner, there's room for a potential upset.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, HTC, Google, LG, Blackberry

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Source: ComScore

The Major Mobile Announcement Facebook Just Made Explained In A Single Graphic

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-major-mobile-announcement-facebook-just-made-explained-in-a-single-graphic-2013-4

Mark Zuckerberg swore his team wasn't making a Facebook phone. But today, he greeted a room full of press in Menlo Park with a different message.

"Today we're finally going to talk about that Facebook phone," the social network's CEO said. 

But by "Facebook phone," Zuckerberg doesn't mean actual hardware. Instead his team created Home, a concept that changes the "soul of the phone," the home screen.

"What would it feel like if our phones were designed around people, not apps?" Zuckerberg asked the audience. 

"We're not building a phone. We're not building a new MP3 player. And we're not building a new internet communication device," Zuckerberg said.

Instead, Facebook Home appears the moment you turn on your phone or wake it up from stand-by mode (Zuckerberg says people turn on their phones an average of 100 times per day).

Facebook Home doesn't display the typical static background photo. It shows story after story posted by friends to Facebook or Instagram in real-time. It displays status updates, photos, and other open graph stories with large images. 

Below is a graphic that simply explains what Facebook Home is. It's an integration on top of Android's Operating System but beneath the app icon layer we're all used to seeing on our smart phones.

Facebook has built the first home screen that comes to life, and updates in real time.

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The Rise Of Bitcoin [INFOGRAPHIC]

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-bitcoin-infographic-2013-4

Our friends at Visual Capitalist lay out everything you ever wanted to know about Bitcoin in this great infographic:

SEE ALSO: 16 Bubbles Getting Ready To Burst >

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Article: Scintillating specs: New 5.2-inch OLED display for smartphones

Japanese manufacturers unveil a white-hot display destined for future smartphones.

Get ready to see more smartphones sporting a spectacular OLED screen.

Japan Display -- a joint venture consisting of Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi's manufacturing muscle -- revealed the development of a 5.2-inch O...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57577836-1/scintillating-specs-new-5.2-inch-oled-display-for-smartphones/?subj=News-Mobile&tag=feed

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Article: Seagate Ships World’s First 4TB HD With Four 1TB Platters

Seagate will be shipping a 4TB hard drive that has the distinction of being the world's first to include a 1TB per platter design. This basically means that each spinning disk in the hard drive has a capacity of 1TB, and that there are four of them.

It's not everyday that you can claim to that ...

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/03/seagate-ships-worlds-first-4tb-hd-with-four-1tb-platters-2/

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Google Is Forking WebKit to Create a New Rendering Engine For Chrome and Opera

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5993566/google-is-forking-webkit-to-create-a-new-rendering-engine-for-chrome-and-opera

Google announced last night that it's going to stop using WebKit—the rendering engine currently used by the likes of Safari and Chrome to display web pages—in favor of its own solution which will be called Blink.

That is, admittedly, super-nerdy news, but it's important. Google claims that WebKit has been slowing down the way it develops its web browser. That's mainly because of the way Chrome uses different methods to display web pages compared to other browsers—each tab in Chrome is a separate process—and WebKit doesn't quite fit the mold. That means you can expect to see Google's Chrome get better, quicker in the future. Google explains:

This was not an easy decision. We know that the introduction of a new rendering engine can have significant implications for the web. Nevertheless, we believe that having multiple rendering engines-similar to having multiple browsers-will spur innovation and over time improve the health of the entire open web ecosystem.

What it actually means for the rest of the internet is unclear. WebKit is certainly the dominant rendering engine for the mobile web, thanks in the most part to its use in Safari which dominates mobile browsing. That means that, since Blink is a fork of WebKit and not a reinvention of the wheel, developers likely won't have to do much to support the change. At least, in the first instance.

Elsewhere, Opera has announced that it's joining Google in the shift, explaining that "the new engine that will power Opera's browsers." It could also be good news for Microsoft and Mozilla: currently, many mobile websites cater entirely for WebKit, and this shift might be enough to convince developers to shift to a more inclusive regime in the future. As for Apple, the major user of WebKit—well, it seems unlikely it will bother it at all.

Of course, it's going to be a while before this has any major impact on the internet we all use. Blink's still being developed, and will be first appear in Chromium before it eventually makes its way into Chrome. [Google via Verge]

LG's 5-inch Optimus G Pro launches in Japan

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/03/lg-5-inch-optimus-g-pro-launches-in-japan/

South Korea gave the Optimus G Pro a reasonably warm reception after debuting, and now LG's hoping to pull off a similar victory in Japan. Those in the Land of the Rising Sun can now pick up the smartphone from NTT DoCoMo. Though the handset bears the same name as its Korean counterpart, it forgoes a 5.5-inch 1080p display for a smaller 5-inch screen with the same resolution. In case you're in need of a refresher, the hardware runs Jelly Bean 4.1.2 on a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 Processor and 2GB of RAM flanked by a 3,000mAh battery, 13-megapixel rear shooter, 2.1-megapixel front-facing cam, 32GB of built-in memory and a microSD slot. LG still hasn't pinned down just when in Q2 the phone will launch in North America, but with a Japanese release behind it, a US arrival shouldn't be far off.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, LG

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Source: LG Newsroom Korea (translated)

Chrome 26 for Android gets stable release with autofill and password syncing

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/03/chrome-26-for-android-stable-with-autofill-and-password-sync/

Perpetually forgetful Android users no longer have to adopt a Chrome beta to coordinate their lives. Just a month after the test version of Chrome 26 arrived with autofill and password syncing, its stable version has appeared with the same option to remember form and login details between supporting desktop and mobile Chrome builds. There's no talk of the SPDY-based proxy, however: aside from tune-ups, the syncing is the main highlight. That's still enough for us to justify swinging by Google Play for the update.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Google

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Via: Chrome Releases

Source: Google Play

ASUS unveils GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU Mini graphics card destined for little rigs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/04/asus-geforce-gtx-670-directcu-mini-graphics-card/

It's easy to chop and change components in spacious towers, but small PCs need upgrading, too. If your stunted desktop has fallen into the "minimum system requirements" category for the latest games, then maybe the newly announced ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU Mini graphics card will interest you. Quite the mouthful, we know, but its long name contrasts with its small size -- the dual-slot, 2GB card measures 6.7 inches on its longest edge, shaving almost 3 inches off the reference design. There's no reason you can't put the card in a regular case, of course, but it's intended mainly for compact rigs with mini ITX or micro ATX motherboards. We don't have pricing or release info yet, but if the cost of NVIDIA's GTX 670 is anything to go by, expect to drop at least a trio of Benjamins on the petite version. Glamor shots and all the finer specs are available at the source links below.

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Peripherals, ASUS

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Via: Fareas tgizmos

Source: ASUS (1), (2)

Small Businesses Are Critical To The US Economic Recovery

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-small-business-is-critical-2013-4

According to the ADP National Employment Report, which came out Wednesday morning, private sector employment increased by 158,000 in March. That was substantially below the consensus estimate of 197,000 and it was also way down from the revised 237,000 gain in February.

However, the most interesting part of the report was how it highlights the importance of small businesses to an economic recovery. Small businesses are typically defined as those that employ fewer than 500 people. Of the 158,000 payroll gains in March, 111,000 came from small businesses. In fact, 74,000 jobs were created by businesses that employ fewer than 50 people. Only 47,000 jobs were due to hiring from large companies.

Yet large businesses are the ones that have the clout and resources to lobby politicians. Perhaps it is time for elected officials who are interested in putting more people to work to start paying more attention to what small business owners have to say.

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Google forks WebKit with Blink, a new web engine for Chromium and Chrome

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/03/google-forks-webkit-with-blink-a-new-web-engine-for-chromium/

You could call WebKit the glue that binds the modern web: the rendering engine powers Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, and many mobile browsers past and present. Things are about to unstick a little. Google believes that Chromium's multi-process approach has added too much complexity for both the browser and WebKit itself, so it's creating a separate, simpler fork named Blink. Although the new engine will be much the same as WebKit at the start, it's expected to differ over time as Google strips out unnecessary code and tweaks the underlying platform. We'd also expect it to spread, as the company has confirmed to us that both Chrome and Chrome OS will be using Blink in the future. We're safely distant from the Bad Old Days of wildly incompatible web engines, but the shift may prove a mixed blessing -- it could lead to more advancements on the web, but it also gives developers that much more code to support.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Google

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Source: Chromium Blog

10 Of The World's Best Places To See Stunning Sunrise Views

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-stunning-sunrise-views-in-the-world-2013-3

 Let’s face it: Winter has left us chilled, pallid and perhaps a little less than energized. But the arrival of the vernal equinox on March 20—the first day of spring for the Northern Hemisphere—brought the promise of warmer temperatures and brighter days.

Skip ahead to see the most stunning sunrise views >

Historically, pagans aligned this turn in season with the theme of rebirth, both spiritually and agriculturally. Likewise, many pagan deities were associated with renewal and rejuvenation. Egyptians looked to Hathor, daughter of the sun god Ra, who bore a golden solar disk between her horns. Greeks turned to Aphrodite of Cyprus, who is associated with love and fertility. And the Saxons honored Ostara, the goddess of springtime and the namesake of Easter.

Perhaps our ancestors were on to something. (Who doesn’t link the spring and summer months with growth and positive energy?) So take a cue from nature and begin the season of renewal with a visit to a place that celebrates and accentuates the beauty of the morning horizon. Soak in the silhouettes of Cambodian temples in Angkor Wat or peer out at the waters over the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Take a walk by India’s Ganges River and see one of the world’s greatest tributes to romance, the Taj Mahal, or travel to the South Pacific archipelago of Tonga, where islanders are among the world’s first to see the sun rise each day. Each of our 11 favorites is bound to be enlightening. 

Skip ahead to see the most stunning sunrise views >

 

More from Departures:

• Stunning Hotel Dining Room Views
• Asian Hotels with Captivating Views
• World's Most Beautiful Bridges
• World's Most Bikeable Wine Regions
• Let's Go Glamping!

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

It’s only fitting that the Hindu deity Angkor Wat was erected for—Vishnu—would have a connection to the sun. Although he is known as “the Protector” today, Vishnu is referred to as the Sun God in ancient Hindu scriptures. And although Angkor Wat has since become a Buddhist site, it remains one of the world’s best vantage points for a sunrise.

Book a room at La Résidence d’Angkor, a lavish riverside resort located near both the majestic temples and Siem Reap’s vibrant markets. The hotel offers a daybreak tour of Angkor Wat, with an optional breakfast picnic or an early-morning water blessing, in which a monk bestows fragrant flowers on guests and blesses them against the backdrop of ancient temples. For the full experience, schedule a meditation session with a Cambodian monk.Rooms start at $280; River Rd.; 855-63/963-390;

Bali, Indonesia

Bali’s gorgeous seascape is perfect for the romantically inclined. Book a room at the Amankila, a cliffside resort perched high in the hills overlooking the Lombok Strait and the volcanic eastern coastline.

The resort’s 35 thatched-roof suites embody refuge and relaxation; each suite is elevated and connected to the main hotel by tiny walkways. Start the day with a combination of light cardio and yoga, or opt for a sunrise cruise up the coastline for radiant views of Mount Rinjani, a volcano on the island of Lombok. Eat breakfast onboard and try your hand at fishing on the tranquil ride back. Another reason to set your alarm? A cooking class at dawn includes a guided market tour during which guests can handpick ingredients to cook an authentic Indonesian feast. Rooms start at $950; Manggis; 62-363/41333; amanresorts.com.

Great Barrier Reef, Bedarra Island, Australia

Located just off the coast of Mission Beach, Bedarra Island is a secluded alternative to Cairns, the city where most tourists end up when seeking out Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. With a maximum capacity of 14 guests, Bedarra Island has all the amenities of a large resort combined with the intimacy of a bed-and-breakfast.

Soak up the sun on a nearby deserted island, book a private deep-sea fishing charter or explore the lush rainforest surrounding the hotel. The privately owned island has seven villas, each nestled away with private beaches and commanding views of the reef. Sustainability is important here, so expect fresh produce from the island’s garden, water-saving d! evices a nd a new off-grid hybrid solar system. Rooms start at $990; Bedarra Island; 61-7/4047-4747; bedarra.com.au.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Draft Is a Writing App with Serious Version and Draft Control

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5993339/draft-is-a-writing-app-with-serious-version-and-draft-control

Google Drive/Docs is great at working everywhere and offering instantaneous collaboration. Drive is not so great at letting you review changes and track specific versions of your document. Enter Draft, a writing webapp that works with Drive—and Dropbox, and Evernote, and Markdown.

On its own, Draft is a very nice and minimalist place to write. What sets Draft apart is its collaborative editing powers. You can invite people to pick at your words, but Draft tracks the changes they make and asks you to accept or reject them, individually, while showing the two different versions of the document in side-by-side columns. This way, you can invite more than one person to review your work and keep track of who made which suggestion. You also mark drafts as you write, making it easy to get back to ideas you may have discarded as you went along. That is, suffice to say, nicer than running through Drive's color-coded overwriting and immense list of revisions by username.

Draft packs in a lot of other features without intruding on the writing-focused interface. You can bring in professional copyeditors for important work, write and convert from Markdown, and import and export documents from all the popular cloud services. But my favorite feature involves installing a Draft Chrome extension that lets you click in any text field on the web to open a new Draft, then click again to paste your work back into that field, in HTML or Markdown or regular text again. In fact, that's how I wrote this Lifehacker post.

Draft is free to use, and you can sign in using your Google account.

Slight disclosure: Draft's creator is a friend-of-a-friend, and I had access to a test version of the Chrome extension for a short period before Draft promoted it.

Draft

Twitter Cards for apps, products and photo galleries unveiled

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/02/twitter-cards-apps-products-photo-galleries/

Twitter just wrapped up a developer shindig at its San Francisco HQ and trotted out three new content preview cards. When a user links to a page with Twitter-specific markup, a tweet will feature an application's name, icon, description, rating and price within the freshly unveiled App Card and link to its Google Play or App Store page, to boot. Product Cards on the other hand, highlight merchandise with an image, price and even ratings. When tweets link to a photo gallery on the web, the social network will use a Gallery Card to display a collection of four photos, indicating that it points to an image set, and not just a lone picture. The firm rounded off the updates with "mobile app deep-linking," which means that tweets can sport a download link for the app which was used to publish them. Flickr, Foursquare, Path, Vine and others will make use of the new features when they launch, which should be tomorrow according to word from the coder get-together.

Filed under: Internet, Mobile

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Twitter Dev Blog

Hybrid Memory Cube receives its finished spec, promises up to 320GB per second

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/03/hybrid-memory-cube-receives-its-finished-spec/

The Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium has been almost too patient in developing a standard for for its eponymous technology -- efforts began 17 months ago -- but it at last has more than good intentions to show for its work. Its just-published HMC Specification 1.0 lets companies build platforms and RAM with 2GB, 4GB and 8GB chips incorporating the stacked, power-efficient technology, all without compatibility jitters from other supporters. The completed spec is a scorcher when living up to its full potential, too. With eight links, a memory cube can reach a peak 320GB/s (yes, that's gigabytes) of aggregate bandwidth -- more than a hair faster than the 11GB/s we often get from existing DDR3 memory.

The Consortium is teasing us with more. Although we'll have to wait until the second half of the year before HMC 1.0 products appear in earnest, the Consortium already has a next-gen blueprint due in early 2014 that should nearly double individual data link speeds (from 15Gbps to 28Gbps). While we'd like to see the group walk the walk with real products before it talks more talk, there's still a chance that some memory performance bottlenecks could vanish for a good, long while.

Filed under: Storage, Samsung, Microsoft, HP

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Via:< /strong> Computerworld

Source: Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium

Google and ASUS to release second-generation Nexus 7 tablet in July, says Reuters

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/03/reuters-google-and-asustek-to-release-second-generation-nexus-7/

Google's next generation of Nexus 7 tablets from ASUS will be Qualcomm-powered and arrive this July, according to Reuters. If its sources are to be believed, Mountain View is aiming to ship eight million units by the end of the year, showing it has a lot of confidence in the upcoming model. Other leaked info claims more screen resolution, a thinner bezel and an unspecified Qualcomm CPU instead of the current model's NVIDIA Tegra 3, possibly to save power. There's no info on pricing or other specs and Google's not speaking at this point, of course -- but if it proves accurate, hopefully the two companies have learned their lesson from the current model's runaway success and will ramp production accordingly.

Filed under: Tablets, ASUS, Google

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Source: Reuters

On your mark, get set, benchmark! 3DMark Android Edition now on Google Play

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/02/3dmark-android-benchmark-now-on-google-play/

Android just gained another go-to for benchmarking. After failing to hit the 2012 mark for its Android-specific performance software, Futuremark's finally delivering on its promise and making 3DMark available today on Google Play. Typically used as a PC benchmarking tool, the free-to-download app now lets users catalog and compare performance across Windows and Android devices -- iOS and WinRT versions are still listed as "coming soon." There are a few caveats to use, though, as the application requires a smartphone or tablet running Android 3.1 or higher, with 300MB of storage space, a minimum of 1GB RAM and the ability to play nice with OpenGL ES 2.0 (which is about 90 percent of all Android devices, according to Google). Who knows? It could even find a permanent place in our own Android reviews soon. Only time and testing will tell -- check after the break for a video preview of what's in store.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Google

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Via: Xperia blog

Source: Google Play, Futuremark

Google changes Android dashboard numbers to count active users, not just pings

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/02/google-changes-android-dashboard-numbers-to-count-active-users/

The Android device dashboard has been providing a picture of OS version distribution since before Froyo pushed aside Eclair, but now it's seeing some changes. A post on the Android Developers Google+ page indicates that starting this month, numbers are based on devices whose users actively checked Google Play during the reporting period. Previously, it counted all devices that pinged Google servers. The latest stats updated today, show a jump in the amount of actives (previously devices, now users) on Jelly Bean (Android 4.1 or higher), up to 25 percent from 16.5 percent last month when it counted the old way. The number of devices recorded running Froyo and Gingerbread have taken the biggest hit, down 3.6 and 4 percent, respectively.

There are a few ways to react to this, particularly remembering that these numbers are meant to help developers figure out how many users are available to target on the various versions of Android and types of hardware. It may give a clearer picture of what the active users that developers may have some hope of reaching without being muddied by little-used zombie devices. On the other hand, it could be seen as a way to juke stats which have been used against it by its competitors like Apple. Whichever side of the line one finds themselves on, more data is available by clicking on the source link below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile, Google

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Source: Android Developers (Google+), Android Dashboard

First ARM Cortex-A57 processor taped out by TSMC, ready for fab

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/02/tsmc-arm-cortex-a57-tape-out/

Your current smartphone just took another spin backwards on the obsolescence cycle thanks to a new landmark from ARM and TSMC: the first Cortex-A57 has reached the "tape out" stage, meaning it's ready for mass production. The new chip will use TSMC's 16nm FinFET technology (though the transistors will be 20nm for the A57) and will bring up to three times the CPU power of current chips for the same battery life -- or a maximum of five times the battery life at the same speed. The companies said they ramped the chip from design to tape out in a mere six months, though there's no timetable for its arrival in specific devices. When it does start hitting next gen phones and slates though, expect the performance charts to get singed.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets

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Macy's Accidentally Puts $1,500 Necklace On Sale For $47

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/macys-puts-1500-item-on-sale-for-47-2013-4

Macy's had a costly typo in one of its recent ads. 

Because of a copy writing error, the department store accidentally put a $1,500 silver and gold necklace on sale for $47 and listed it as a "Super Buy," Dallas-based station WFAA reported. 

That's a 97 percent discount. 

The necklace quickly sold out at the local Macy's, the station reported. 

A Dallas man, Robert Bernard, couldn't get his hands on a necklace in stores. But associates let him pay $47 for two necklaces and had them shipped to his house. 

Bernard said he got a call a couple days later that the order had been cancelled.

When the station reached out to Macy's, a spokeswoman apologized to Bernard. 

"For those customers who bought the necklace at the $47 price, they were fortunate," Macy's said. "For the gentleman you spoke with, he was not so fortunate."

The spokeswoman said she wasn't sure how many necklaces the retailer sold at the wrong price. 

Here's the ad:

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NVIDIA outs GeForce 700M GPUs for notebooks, boasts inclusion by 'every leading manufacturer'

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/01/nvidia-geforce-gt700m-series/

In NVIDIA's ongoing efforts to monopolize the technical-sounding graphics card market, the California-based components manufacturer today announced a fresh mobile line of GPUs aimed at notebook computing. That's five new GPUs in total, with the GeForce GT 720M and 735M making up the "mainstream" segment, while the GT 740M, 745M, and 750M make up the "performance" portion of the lineup. All five cards include NVIDIA's "GPU Boost 2.0" tech, which allows the GPU to alter its clock speed on-the-fly for the sake of efficiency -- although this is mainly a software-level upgrade over the first iteration of Boost, and it's still the same familiar Kepler architecture under the hood. It won't be too long before we start seeing the newest NVIDIA mobile GPUs in notebooks at retail, as the PR says they'll be in notebooks from "every leading manufacturer" in the coming months.

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops, NVIDIA

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