Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Wolfram Alpha Ends Up Where It Belongs: Inside Another Search Engine [Wolfram Alpha]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/YuS06HJNK-Y/wolfram-alpha-ends-up-where-it-belongs-inside-another-search-engine

Results from Wolfram Alpha—the mathematically-inclined search engine that everybody hyperventilated about a few months ago then promptly and completely ignored—will soon be rolled into Bing searches. This is fantastic news! (If you use Bing! [Which you actually might!])

Wolfram Alpha will still live on as a standalone site, since Microsoft is just licensing their search API for Bing. And to be fair, this is what most people—including us—envisioned for Wolfram Alpha from the start:

I'm aware of the theoretical differences between the two, and I'm sure Wolfram Alpha's creators' blood would boil at the thought, but the engine's most natural home might be as a direct complement to Google, as a tab on their homepage or as a replacement for their modest current nonsearch functions.

Well, uh, almost. Maybe this'll be a good time to give Bing another shot? [CNET]




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The Magic of Choose Your Own Adventure Books, Beautifully Visualized [Visualizations]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/E5uc2sSyScM/the-magic-of-choose-your-own-adventure-books-beautifully-visualized

There are two ways to look at the legendary Choose Your Own Adventure books. As reading experiences and childhood memories, they're vital. But as data sets for visualizations, they're weirdly spectacular. Observe!

Designer Christian Swinehart has parsed piles upon piles of Choose Your Own Adventure titles, and rendered them as a series of visualizations, from charts documenting how frequent "catastrophic" endings occur as opposed to "favorable" ones to animated representations of every single permutation of a given book to a full-on digital copy of Zork, which tracks your every move on a visual graph.


Continue browsing the main site, because you have no sense of whimsy/had a horrifying childhood that you'd rather not be reminded of? Click here.

See your favorite childhood books, exploded into animated data sets? Click here. [via MetaFilter]




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Apple App Store Approval Process Becomes Slightly Less Inscrutable [IPhone Apps]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/SggB6JxN2HI/apple-app-store-approval-process-becomes-slightly-less-inscrutable

The shroud falls a bit further: Apple's now letting developers see where their apps are in the mysterious approval process! It's not much, but it is progress. Maybe one day we'll learn about the shadowy figures doing the approving. [Wired]




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Bigshot camera kit could help turn your kid on to the dark world of the teardown

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/bigshot-camera-kit-could-help-turn-your-kid-on-to-the-dark-world/

Pardon us while we freely admit that we have literally no idea what's going on inside a camera -- whether it's digital or those quaint film-based ones you hear about from your grandma. Luckily, our own kids might not have to suffer as we have: a group at the Computer Vision Laboratory at Columbia University have designed and built a prototype digital camera that should demystify the devices. The Big Shot digital camera kit, if / when it hits the market, will be a box of all the necessary parts for kids to be able to build their own simple, candy-colored digital camera. While the Big Shot is still in prototype testing phase, we really hope this gadget (and more like it) makes it to the market sometime soon.

[Via Make]

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Bigshot camera kit could help turn your kid on to the dark world of the teardown originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung SyncMaster P2770HD has built-in TV tuner, sex appeal

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/samsung-syncmaster-p2770hd-has-built-in-tv-tuner-sex-appeal/

Remember the Samsung P2370HD monitor? Well, this is it at 27 inches. How's that for concision? Oh, you want more -- well, Samsung must've expected you to, because it's also added a TV tuner and a HDMI input to its latest Full HD display, to go along with a 5ms response time and a 50,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. There's also a pair of 3 watt stereo speakers that can simulate 5.1 channel sound -- good for emergencies or if you just can't stand speakers cluttering up your desktop. Filling out the goodie bag are Picture In Picture and Picture By Picture modes, which should make good use of the extra real estate on the screen by combining, for example, your desktop with a TV source. The price is set at 549,000 Won (or about $473) for Korea, though global availability looks imminent so don't rush to import it just yet.

Read - Samsung Korea press release
Read - Product page

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Samsung SyncMaster P2770HD has built-in TV tuner, sex appeal originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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