Destructoid has launched a new Friday Night Fights with Playhem! The system is a streamlined way to challenge other players online in wagered competitions in an assortment of games such as Starcraft II. Winning matches will net you points which can be applied to getting yourself prizes. Or you can battle for real money! We're giving away a Razer Xbox 360 controller through the new system and you can learn more about it here.

We want to know if there's a game designer you would follow anywhere, Ross reviewed Darkspore, hackers are planning yet another attack against Sony, EVE Online turns eight and more happened on 5/6/11.

Destructoid Original:
The Question: Is Nintendo's dominance over?
Get into a fight at Destructoid, win a Razer fight pad
Last call: Mr. Destructoid Bobbleheads on sale
Is there a game designer you would follow anywhere?
Live show: Mash Tactics community picks
Destructoid is going to the L.A. Zoo tomorrow!
Meet the Women of The Witcher 2

Community:
Community blogs of 5/6/11
Forum thread of the day: Podtoid 149: Elusive Zazu

Contests:
Contest: Win a rare steampunk gun based on ARGO Online
Win Space Invaders Infinity Gene and the soundtrack!

Reviews:
Review: Darkspore

News:
Thor Wii developer discusses smiting and movie tie-ins
Team Fortress 2 gets a replay editor, Saxxy Awards
Rumor: Project Cafe to be Nintendo FEEL
Rock Band DLC: Foo Fighters, Run DMC, Lordi, Pantera!
ESRB: Burnout Crash has cartoon violence and LOBSTERS!
Bethesda breaks down Brink by crazy numbers
Epic: Gears of War has the best cast in videogames
Rockstar launches L.A. Noire Crime Map
Shameless Canabalt rip-off ran out of town by Apple
National Endowment for the Arts now endowing games
Hackers allegedly planning third attack on Sony
Saints Row: The Third character sharing tool revealed
Valve considers Steam for mobile platforms
Prototype 2 reminds us that Mother's Day is almost here
Free App of the Day: Fingerless 3D (iOS)
Sanctum receiving a free map next week
EVE Online turns eight, celebrates with Quafe Zero
Atari strategy game sale on GOG.com
Deus Ex: Human Revolution on PC will use Steamworks
EA says 'next-gen Xbox' rumors are 'total fabrication'
Postmortem explains how the Portal 2 ARG came together

Offbeat:
Platformance 2 is going in an unexpected direction
Here's the Portal 2 poster we're all going to buy

Media:
Building the worlds of Hunted: The Demon's Forge
Deus Ex: Human Revolution devs discuss all things PC

I was still a kid in the early 1980s, but I vividly remember my father's excitement when he bought an Apple II equipped with a 9" monitor and two 5-1/4" floppy drives. I get nostalgic every time I see a dusty old floppy disk. Rossum has similar memories of his Atari 400, which came with a hulking Atari 810 drive....

Dual charging option for your smartphone and tablet

Scosche has brought its latest accessory to the table - the goBAT II portable back up battery - and Pocket-lint has been giving it the once over to see if it really is worth the ?70 or so that you'll have to fork out on it.

And the short answer is yes - especially if you're the type of person (like us) who constantly forgets to charge your smartphone or tablet before leaving the house.

As with most Scosche products it has Apple firmly in mind, with the device packing two USB charging ports - one with enough oomph to keep your iPad ticking over.

The goBAT II boasts a 5000mAh rechargeable lithium ion battery, which you charge up using a standard USB port and the supplied cable (it takes around 4-5 hours for a full charge from a laptop's USB port). This power is then held in the device, available to you when your gadgets are running low.

It has a standard 5 Watt (1 Amp) port for your phone - a fully charged goBAT II will re-charge your iPhone from dead at least two times - and a 10 Watt (2.1 Amp) port for your iPad (or other tablet - it comes with a Galaxy Tab adapter in the box too).

Now, whilst you won't get a full charge for your iPad - it takes it up over half. Using both ports together, expect to see, from dead, an iPhone 4 reach around 90 per cent and an iPad to around 30 per cent. Not too bad at all, we're sure you'll agree.

There's an LED display on the top, shining a nice neon blue, to show you how much juice the device has left and it's easily small enough for you to slip into your bag. There's even a free iOS app that works with it to give you charging stats and alerts via email.

It's definitely a handy thing to have around and, with the festival season coming up, could well prove a life saver for campers.

The Scosche goBAT II is out now, priced at ?69.99. You can pick one up from Eoutlet.

Tags: Scosche Scosche goBAT II iPad accessories Phones Tablets

                             

Scosche goBAT II hands-on originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 06 May 2011 14:59:47 +0100

Can't see the video? Click here

SO CUTE!

We brought you a look at the art of From Dust, check out the amazing Child of Eden concept art, The Witcher 2's Triss Merigold gets naked, L.A. Noire is three discs on the Xbox 360 and more happened on 5/5/11.

It is interesting to note that the Samsung Galaxy S II have already seen early reviews of it published online, and initial impressions seem to be extremely favorable (Apple, you hear that?). Well, it has arrived at the FCC at long last, so that means it will be arriving at store shelves soon. The Samsung Galaxy S II is super slim at 8.49mm, while it sports a 4.3″ Super AMOLED display which is stunning to say the least (albeit at 800 x 480 resolution), a dual core processor (that seems to be the norm these days, don’t you think so?), an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front facing camera for video calls. Not only that, this smartphone will also come with 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity, GPS support and a 1650 mAh battery to support all the above mentioned.

Samsung Galaxy S II checks in at FCC hotel, By Ubergizmo. Top Stories : Apple iPhone 5 already shipped to developers?, HTC Thunderbolt Review,

INTERVIEW: We talk to the star of TV's Grand Designs

A mirror that stores health information and keeps you updated with the news, a remote controlled kitchen and a bath that can be filled remotely using an iPhone app - these were just some of the gizmos that made up the House of the Future at the Grand Designs Live show in London. The concept of the smart home has been doing the rounds for some time now but is it really something that we can expect to see happening any time soon?

We settled down for a chat with architecture expert and star of Channel 4's Grand Designs Kevin McCloud to find out his thoughts on the matter.

"I'm really keen on the idea of life being straightforward and simple and things being easy and not scary. But, I'm not at all a fan of the idea that we should all be lying on the sofa - it seems to imply some sort of Roman decadence and laziness and I'm anything but lazy. I'm a fan of making an effort."

Cutting quite a dash in three-piece grey, an effort McCloud has certainly made. Relaxed and friendly, albeit while wolfing down his lunch, he happily takes us through the more technological side of his field.

"I like the idea of home automation and systems that run so that they serve a useful purpose. For example - a system that tells me how much energy I'm using so that if I've left the lights on or left a window open, it will tell me. I think we're moving to the point now where home automation isn't just about home entertainment."

Technology has advanced exponentially in the past 20 years or so, with plenty of science-fiction fare becoming fact. Remember the video call that the aging Marty McFly had with his colleague on his TV in Back the Future II in the year 2015? Thanks to internet-enabled smart TVs, you can now do exactly that, without the need for a time-travelling DeLorean. But not all developments have been quite so dramatic. Gradual improvements in software and the processing capabilities of computers have also played their part, something of which McCloud is well aware.

"In many ways, computers have made things easier for designers, although in some ways they've made things harder. On the whole, it's brilliant - anyone can download Google SketchUp and use it, which is fantastic."

SketchUp is a free 3D-modelling program launched in 2006 which enables users to build three-dimensional models of anything from houses and sheds to cars and ships. A no-brainer for anyone thinking of a design project of their own.

"Ten years ago, things weren't the same. If you'd asked me the same question then, my answer would've been completely different, but now because free software can be downloaded and is easy to use, it's much easier for people to get involved and producing designs can be much faster."

And it's not just Google who's in on the act. There are now plenty of free and reasonably priced software options around for budding designers and property developers and you can even get official Grand Designs software?too - all a big change?since McCloud first started out, and just what was it that first fuelled his passion for architecture?

"Good question. I got given a book by the old man who lived next door which was a guide to architecture written in 1932 - he'd had it since he was a young boy. It was full of pencil drawings which I loved, so I started to do my own drawings and that's how it all started."

As well as being a successful designer, writer and TV presenter, McCloud has also transferred his skills to his Hab housing business?project. The initials stand for Happiness, Architecture, Beauty and the aim is to produce modern housing that takes into account the landscape, culture and community of the area, rather than swiftly knocking up a sea of identikit homes. In a joint venture with housing group GreenSquare, Hab currently has several projects underway with new residents due to move into the first development in Swindon in June 2011.

Comprising a mix of rented accommodation, rent to buy, and social housing, these Hab houses are designed to be eco-friendly, as well as providing a comfortable place for residents to live, thanks to some nifty gadgetry.

"What we have is a home information portal - a touchscreen that's built into the wall. It tells you useful information such as how much energy you're consuming and what the temperatures are and it can be programmed and updated remotely."

The idea of a integrated system that could save energy, as well as money, is certainly appealing but we'll need to wait and see whether it becomes a mainstream idea or whether it will remain a niche option used by companies where green issues are high up the agenda. Apart from the tech on offer in his own Hab housing though, what's the best technical wizardry that McCloud has seen at work?

"There's a great company called Newform Energy and I'm particularly enamoured with its Hybrid Solar Solution panels. It's an excellent example of renewable power and it delivers hot water and heating all-year round."

This is something of a boon for a solar-powered system, as they're notorious for unreliable power output in times where there is little or no sun. Newform's system gets round this using a number of techniques including the integration of a heat pump which means that the output of the thermal collector isn't dictated by the intensity of the sun.

Speaking as an expert in building design, McCloud reveals that his favourite building of all time is the Library of Celcus at Ephesus in Turkey, while he admits that "I don't really have a soft spot in my heart for glass-walled buildings". Despite his love of ancient examples of architecture, McCloud has certainly made use of the latest technology is his housing project, but is he a gadget fan?

"Oh yes, I'm quite techie."

And his favourtie gadget?

"Hmmm, it would have to be my iPhone. It might not be that brilliant as an actual phone, but it does everthing else utterly brilliantly. I've even done presentations on there - showing pdfs to people sat round a table. It's a fantastic tool."

At the very mention of apps, McCloud slips an iPhone 4 out of his waistcoat pocket and starts flicking through the various folders.

"My favourtie app would have to be Trainline - its works better as an app than it does on the website. I also really like weather apps. Living Earth HD is especially good - it shows you a computer reproduction of the cloud formations as they are in the sky right now."

Why the big interest in weather apps? Is it to do with building design and materials?

"No, I'm just a geek", confesses McCloud.

Along with a few architectural apps, McCloud names some other favourites including radio station streamer ooTunes, file-sharing service Dropbox and guitar amp app iShred. Despite a definite infinity with iOS, he's keen to downplay suggestions that he's an Apple fanboy, referring to its "appalling human rights record", in relation to the Draconian work practices that reportedly take place in the brand's China-based factories.

However, he makes the point that if we looked too closely at many of the big-brand names we'd probably find less-than-perfect working conditions in some of their factories, too. Although not a definitive member of the Apple fanboy fraternity, he admits:

"The thing about Apple products is - they work. They do what you want them to do, and they make it easy."

And there you have it - you can have all the fancy gadgetry you like, but producing technology that actually works while keeping it simple remains the key - whether that's for a mobile or a smart home of the future.

Related links:

• Feature - Internet TV - what's on offer and from whom

Tags: Home Cinema Internet Smart TV Kevin McCloud Grand Designs Grand Designs Live Features Interviews Internet TV

   

Smart homes not just for entertainment, says Kevin McCloud originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 05 May 2011 14:50:26 +0100

The patent lawsuit that Paul Allen filed against several of the biggest internet companies took the tech world by surprise; and many folks were even more surprised when Steve Wozniak, the legendary inventor who created the Apple I and Apple II, seemed to actually praise Paul Allen and defend patent trolling. But in a talk yesterday in Silicon Valley, “The Woz” made it clear that his views on Allen’s lawsuit have changed—big time.

When first interviewed on Bloomberg TV, Wozniak said this about Paul Allen’s lawsuit:

I think this lawsuit represents the idea that hey, patents, individual inventors, they don’t have the funds to go up against big companies. So he’s sorta representing some original investors. And I’m not at all against the idea of patent trolls.

But last night, speaking to a Silicon Valley audience, Wozniak said he actually skipped out on a Paul Allen event recently because he objected to the lawsuit, which seeks royalty payments on basic internet technologies like “related links.” The British tech publication The Register reported:

From Wozniak’s point of view, Allen’s lawsuit will not help anyone except Allen and his lawyers. “Well heck,” he said, “Paul Allen should be out there investing in companies that are doing something, making products, actually making a new future for the world, and not ‘I’m ... going to sue people, and get in bed with the lawyers to make my money.’ That’s not the right way.”

For many in the tech community, Woz’s denunciation of patent trolling will truly be a return to the natural order of things.

Related

• Paul Allen Refiles Lawsuit, Says He Patented 'Related Links'
• Jay Walker Goes Nuclear: Priceline Founder Sues More Than 100 Companies
• Video: Paul Allen: New Memoir About Tech History, Not Revenge On Gates
• Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak: iPod Is Dying; Apple Stock Downgrade Was 'Correct'

Seattle Post Intelligencer (blog)

Steve Wozniak: On Second Thought, Paul Allen's Patent Trolling Is Kinda Bad paidContent.org The patent lawsuit that Paul Allen filed against several of the biggest internet companies took the tech world by surprise; and many folks were even more surprised when Steve Wozniak, the legendary inventor who created the Apple I and Apple II, ... Woz snubs Paul Allen, praises pea soupRegister Apple co-founder tells Microsoft co-founder to stop patent-trolling (Register)Seattle Post Intelligencer (blog) Apple cofounder Wozniak calls out Allen on “patent-troll thing”TechFlash CNET -San Francisco Chronicle -Social Barrel all 68 news articles »

In what's probably the coolest custom-built machine I've seen in ages, computer enthusiast Michael J. Mahon has built a parallel computer made out of 17 Apple IIe motherboards.

As you can see the "AppleCrate II" looks like a big crate of motherboards stacked on top of each other -- and that's pretty much what it is, along with some very clever networking and custom boot code.

This is actually his second computer built using old Apple motherboards. The first we covered five years ago; it also used spare Apple IIe boards, although those were a slightly different version.

I'll let the image of Mahon's latest creation speak for itself, but if you've got some extra motherboards and some free time, Mahon details how he built his latest wonder over on his website.

What's it good for? Well, in addition to blinking its status lights like a Cylon, it can play Beatles songs in 16-part polyphony -- so that's something.

[via BoingBoing]

AppleCrate II parallel computer made from Apple IIe motherboards originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung's Galaxy S II outsells Apple's iPhone 4 in Korea.

Michael J. Mahon's AppleCrate II is a parallel computer stitched together out of 17 enhanced Apple //e main boards from the dim recesses of personal computing history. It's the second iteration of the design (the earlier AppleCrate I was racked in a literal roughly carpentered crate).

Since the Enhanced //e ROM has only $200 bytes available, a new "passive" boot protocol had to be devised. The new ROM code continuously monitors the network for a broadcast BOOTREQ control packet containing the load address and length of the immediately following boot code data. When the boot image has been correctly read from the network, control is passed to its starting address. This passive boot code only needs to read packets from the net, and so occupies just $190 bytes, which comfortably fits in place of the Enhanced //e ROM self-test code at $C600.

The new boot protocol capitalizes on the fact that boot code is sent as a broadcast transaction, so the machines being booted do not need IDs to receive boot code. A page of "second-stage boot" code is added at the front of the slave machine boot image. This code is given control immediately after the boot image is received, and, when enabled by the "GETID daisy chain", it sends a GETID request to the machine that &BOOTed; it, making use of the code in the full NadaNet boot image to do so (see the BOOT2 code in the NADA.CRATE listing for details).

The GETID daisy chain functions just as it did in the AppleCrate I. The "first" machine is permanently enabled by connecting its PB2 to ground. AN2 of each machine is connected to PB2 of the "next" machine. The second-stage boot code running in each machine initially sets its AN2. Then it waits until it sees its PB2 go low, enabling it to send its GETID request. When its GETID is successful it drops its AN2, enabling the next machine. Then it clears its video display, writes a banner showing the machine ID, and enters its server loop.

AppleCrate II: A New Apple II-Based Parallel Computer (via The Command Line)

Isis, the NFC-enabled mobile payments venture led by three of the four major U.S. operators, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, has changed its course. Originally, the service was designed so that the operators themselves would take a cut of every mobile transaction made, with customers maintaining accounts with the carrier. Now, according to a report from The Wall St. Journal, the carriers have decided to instead set up a mobile wallet service in which customers can store their own credit card cards from companies like Visa and MasterCard.

But while this is a dramatic change for the carrier-led initiative, it's not a step backwards for the enabling technology itself: NFC.

Sponsor

NFC, or near field communication, is a short range wireless technology that enables the exchange of data over short distances. NFC chips are rapidly becoming the "must have" upgrade for modern smartphones, and have been showing up in new devices recently, including Google's Samsung Nexus S, Samsung's Galaxy S II, Nokia's C7 (Astound) and the upcoming BlackBerry Bold devices announced just this week at RIM's BlackBerry World conference. Apple, too, is rumored to be including NFC in its upcoming iPhone.

With NFC, customers can make payments using their phone at the point-of-sale, just by waving or tapping the device to an NFC reader. Users can then, in turn, receive mobile coupons back from the retailer after the payment was made. NFC is also being used in ticketing for transit systems, advertising and a number of other initiatives and mobile applications in development now.

Isis was one of the newer services to use NFC technology. Announced last November, the mobile carriers involved with the project had partnered with Discover Financial Services and Barclays US, part of U.K. bank Barclays PLC, which was expected to be the first issuer on the network.

What's Changing with Isis?

Now, according to the Journal, MasterCard and Visa are in talks with the carriers to be included in Isis. More importantly, the carriers will no longer attempt to set up their own mobile payments network, but instead will attempt to partner with Visa, MasterCard and others to store those cards in a "mobile wallet" on customers' phones.

Discover will still be involved in Isis, the report says.

It's unclear how the carriers plan to generate revenue from the new venture, but WSJ speculates that they will either charge financial institutions participating in the program, or would take a cut of the revenue from the mobile coupons distributed.

While much has changed with Isis' plans, one thing that has not changed is its use of NFC. The technology is still on track to become the backbone of many mobile payment ventures, including a Google-led program with MasterCard and Citigroup that is expected to debut this year.

Discuss

I have to say that after the previous installments, the Madden franchise is back on track. I have every single (yes EVERY) Madden game to date, dating all the way back to the Apple II series — I have a nostalgia problem!

doperative writes "A lot of patents are pretty much not worth that much .. In other words, any fifth-grader could come up with the same approach .. And then we find out RCA has a patent on a character generator for any raster-scanned setup .. And they patented it at a time when nobody could have envisioned it really being used or anything ... and they got five bucks for each Apple II, based on this little idea that's not even an idea. Y'know: store the bits, store the bits, then pop in a character on your TV."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Samsung says that they got over 200,000 pre-orders for the Galaxy S II phone in Korea before the launch. That's double than the iPhone 4 pre-orders last year (although Apple launched on just one carrier, and Samsung launched for all three Korean ones).

Samsung also says that they plan to sell 10 million Galaxy S II phones in 2011 - this is a rather modest plan as the company plan to offer a wide range of Android phones. It's also the same number of Galaxy S phones Samsung sold in 2010.

read more

Looks like Samsung’s Galaxy S II — the successor to the company’s popular Android smartphones from last year — could be a worldwide hit.

Pre-orders of the Galaxy S II were over 200,000 between Monday of last week and the launch on Friday in South Korea. That’s double compared to iPhone 4’s preorder numbers in that country last year, Electronista reports.

To be fair, the Galaxy S II is available from several carriers and the iPhone 4 was not even available from Korea’s largest carrier SK Telecom when it launched. Still the figures show some serious traction.

And if you look at the specifications list, you’ll probably be impressed. The phone features an 800 by 480 pixel resolution display on a 4.3-inch AMOLED screen. AMOLED screens use organic components that are designed to bring out more vibrant colors with lower power. The Galaxy S II also sports a fast Samsung dual-core processor and a built-in chipset for NFC (near-field communication) that can be used for mobile payments.

Samsung has made quite modest sales estimates. It believes the Galaxy S II will sell around 10 million units this year. That’s in line with the original Galaxy S last year. But the phone seems to be pretty impressive and the Android operating system has become more desirable among consumers. If the company can manufacture enough phones the sales target will be easily achieved.

But there may be only a limited supply available. Samsung has started shipping phones to Europe in very limited quantities. PCWorld reports. And the Euro version doesn’t even have a NFC chip. There are yet no US release dates, although AT&T and Samsung are organizing a press event on May 5. We’ll see if that’s about the Galaxy S II.

Tags: Android, Galaxy S II, iPhone 4, smartphones

Companies: Apple, Samsung

For a phone as thin as the Samsung Galaxy S II, a lot of people worry about how durable the device is. Surely if something is that thin it would be easy to break into two, right? Samsung has announced that the Galaxy S II makes use of Corning Gorilla Glass – a lightweight, damage-resistant and durable material that is designed to keep the Android phone protected.

Corning has released some videos demonstrating the strength of the glass. In one test, they use a 1mm thick sheet of Corning Gorilla Glass and dropped a 1.8kg bowling ball onto it. Unsurprisingly, the bowling ball bounces off it casually. Next up, they launched a baseball at ~50mph onto a 0.8mm thick sheet of Corning Gorilla Glass – again, it was left unscathed.

Samsung Galaxy S II has a Corning Gorilla Glass screen, By Ubergizmo. Top Stories : Droid Incredible 2 Review, Apple iPhone 5 already shipped to developers?,

TFTS (blog)

Samsung's Hottest Android Phone Is Already Clobbering The iPhone 4 The Business Insider That pace clobbers the iPhone 4's pre-order sales rate when it launched Korea. Apple's phone had about half as many pre-orders in August of last year. (But keep in mind, Samsung is a Korean company, so it has home field advantage. ... Samsung Galaxy S II beats iPhone 4 in Korea, still no US release dateVentureBeat Samsung Galaxy S II scores twice the iPhone 4 pre-orders in KoreaGSMArena.com iPhone 4 vs. Samsung Galaxy S II Pre-Order: Apple LosesPhones Review Phandroid.com -Unwired View -All about the iPhone all 124 news articles »

sproketboy noted that many years ago Michael J. Mahon built the Applecrate: a parallel stack of Apple IIs for no good reason. Recently he came back with the AppleCrate II which more than doubles the number of motherboards, and at least triples the awesomeness.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It would appear that Apple’s iPhone 4 has a battle on its hands in Korea, this is according to the pre-order sales figures for the Samsung Galaxy S II. It is claimed that the Samsung Galaxy S II had nearly...

In 2004 I built the first AppleCrate, an 8-board system, as an inexpensive, easy to program vehicle for experiments in parallel programming—a kind of "blade server" for the Apple II, if you will! AppleCrate I (at the time I didn't realize that it was number "I" ;-) was great fun, and it enabled some very interesting experiments, but over time I discovered some of its shortcomings.

Bradley Cooper was back in the Big Apple yesterday taking a solo stroll in Manhattan before hitting the red carpet at the 2011 Met Gala last night. He spent the weekend in Washington DC and was one of the many stars in attendance at Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Dinner. Bradley dined with his former He's Just Not That Into You costar Scarlett Johansson, who later left hand in hand with boyfriend Sean Penn. Bradley has been going stag since his breakup with Renée Zellweger, though the exes were both at last night's star-studded event. He's also currently in the running for Sexiest Male Celebrity in the PopSugar 100 - don't forget to cast your votes for a chance to win one of four awesome prizes! Bradley Cooper will get plenty of attention from ladies and fans all around the globe later this month when his raunchy bachelor party comedy The Hangover Part II hits theaters on May 26. For now, Bradley is testing a new mustache and beard combo amid rumors he's going for the role of Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby now that Ben Affleck is out.

View Slideshow ›

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AndroidOS.in (blog)

Samsung Galaxy S II Pre-order Numbers Beat iPhone 4′s Phandroid.com This is a definite win over last years iPhone 4 craze which saw roughly 110000 pre-orders of Apple's handset in the month of August just before it's release. Just like the US at that time, Apple was confined to only one carrier for it's device which no ... Price Of Samsung's iPhone 5 Rival Drops To £399ITProPortal Noted: iCloud, white iPhone 4 and Samsung Galaxy S2 sales against iPhone 5PopHerald.com Samsung Galaxy S II or Apple iPhone 5: What's On Your Wish List?Online Social Media all 60 news articles »

Terason of Burlington, Massachusetts has released the Terason t3200 Ultrasound System - Breast Series. The system is built around an Apple MacBook Pro, providing easy sharing of images and access to an EMR. Plus it can be used as a standard laptop for other tasks. From the product page: Image quality and clarity for assessment and visualization of detected abnormalities is essential in breast screening. Terason's OmniBeam™ increases the spatial detail and accuracy of curved surfaces while TeraVision™ II provides refined texture and detail. Breast-specific presets, custom exams, easy documentation and a customizable report page result in faster patient throughput. X-Site probes with advanced crystal technology, coupled with Terason's unique DDR™ uniform imaging capabilities, combine to create your one-probe portable system solution. Imaging Modes B-Mode M-Mode Power Doppler Color Doppler Pulsed Wave Spectral Doppler Digital Image Acquisition, Storage and Management 320GB internal hard drive Built in DVD/CD±R/W drive Internal storage for 250,000+ images Storage of static images and dynamic clips User-selectable formats for digital storage of static images and dynamic clips: AVI, BMP and JPEG formats DICOM format Transducers 15L4 - Linear Press release: Surgeons Get FIT for Breast Health with Terason Ultrasound... Product page: Terason t3200 Ultrasound System Breast Series......

Welcome to the latest edition of the SlashGear Week in Review! Monday bought with it news that Nintendo was set to unveil a replacement for the Wii console at E3 this summer. The console itself is due to land for purchase sometime next year according to reports. The biggest story of the week has been the Sony PSN outage. Sony admitted that the Dev accounts and user accounts were hacked by outside sources.

A really cool LEGO helmet that looks like the ones the Minifig astronauts wear that is sized for kids to be able to put on turned up. The helmet is very cool and has speakers inside to read LEGO comics to the kids via a digital file right off a USB drive plugged into the back of the helmet. Apple is facing its first class action suit over the tracking of user location details on the iPhone. The suit is seeking class action status and is asking for compensation.

Sony showed off two new Android tablets running honeycomb. One of the tablets is a traditional design called the S1. The other tablet is the S2, and it uses an unconventional dual screen folding design. Kodak unveiled a new AIO printer this week. The cool part about the new Office 2170 is that it can print files from mobile devices, and it can print 3D photos too.

Chris reviewed the Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone this week. In the end, he thinks that the Galaxy S II might be the best Android smartphone on the market today. I really like the products that Quirky and its users come up with. The latest produce is a really cool Fender Bumper for the iPad 2, and it is designed to work along with the Apple Smart Cover.

Sony offered upset PSN users a bit more information Tuesday when it officially said that a hacker was the cause of the outage. Sony also said that the user information stored on the PSN had been compromised. The long running SETI program that uses the massive Allen Array that scans the skies for signs of extraterrestrial life has been shut down. The array was terminated after congress cut the funding for SETI from NASA’s budget.

Users of the Xbox 360 game console have another entertainment option now. Hulu plus landed on the Xbox 360 last week for members to view all the content they want. Sharp unveiled a gigantic video screen room it had designed for a Japanese theme park .The room has a total of 156 60-inch screens arrayed all around the room on walls and ceiling to completely immerse users in the video.

New PS3 models have hit the FCC, and they have new model numbers on them. The new numbers are CECH-3001A and 3001B, at this point we don’t know what the difference between the new consoles and the old ones already on the market are. AT&T issued another warning to users who are tethering the iPhone 4 that it will automatically charge $25 if they unofficially tether their device. AT&T had previously sent out warning messages via text to users suspected of tethering.

The massive breech of the Sony PSN could well end up costing Sony literally a fortune. The estimated cost of the breech could end up totaling $24 billion. Pepsi has unveiled a very cool new social vending machine that uses a big touchscreen. The cool machine will let user’s gift drinks to a friend or to complete strangers, talk about pay it forward.

Foxconn doesn’t take kindly to people that leak designs from its factory. Three Foxconn workers have been arrested and charged with leaking the iPad 2 design that was used to create cases and shells for the iPad 2 well ahead of the official unveil of the tablet. Another chunk of bad news came Friday for users of the PSN. Security experts warned that the credit card data for users of the PSN was apparently up for sale on the black market.

The white iPhone 4 smartphone landed in stores this week and some geeks already have the white iPhone at home. Some have discovered that the white iPhone 4 is thicker than the black one making some cases not fit. Chris posted up his review of the HTC Wildfire S on Friday. The smartphone may be a very good choice for the mainstream user on a budget.

Square has announced that it will be launching a new credit card reader this summer. The new reader will have encryption at the read head, which is something that its competitors said the reader needed from the get go. The HBO Go app has landed on the Android and iOS platforms. The app lets subscribers stream original show and movies to their smart devices.

Amazon has undercut iTunes on the price of new and popular songs on its music store. Amazon is now selling popular tracks for 69 cents each. Thanks for reading this week’s edition, see you next time!

---

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• SlashGear Week in Review – June 23rd
• SlashGear TV Week in review Episode 1
• The Daily To Erect Paywall Next Week
• Angry Birds hits PSP/PS3 as PlayStation mini game this week
• RIM’s BlackBerry 7 a simple OS 6.1 rebadge?

520ii, Yosion Apple Peel 520 II, 2G Q: What is the device in above video? A: It is called 520ii (Kno

Apple Disk Transfer ProDOS... ADTPro is a feature-rich communications platform for exchanging disks and disk images between the Apple II and Apple /// family computers and the modern world.

ADTPro has two main purposes in life:

• Transferring Apple disk images
• Bootstrapping Apple II computers when boot diskettes are long gone

ADTPro uses any of three communications mechanisms:

• Serial (RS-232, USB) hardware
• A2Retrosystems "Uthernet" LANceGS Ethernet card
• Audio/Cassette ports

Bootstrapping chores can occur with zero software at the Apple II end over serial and audio communications links. Extensive help and tutorials are available on the ADTPro website: http://adtpro.sourceforge.net

Version 1.1.9:

New functionality:

• [Client] Enabled DHCP auto-configuration from Jonno Downes' latest ip65 code. Note - Saved configuration files for Ethernet won't be compatible; so delete or re-save them with this release
• [Client] Beep at the completion of a disk transfer that had read or write errors

Bug fixes:

• [Client] Duplicate volume names caused incorrect/repeated volume size display
• [Client] Attempting to format a write-protected 5-1/4" floppy was hanging

• Mac OS X 10.3 or later
• Java

Download Now

ADTPro transfers disks to and from Apple II and Apple /// computers and the modern world using any of these communications methods: serial/USB, UDP via the Uthernet or LANceGS Ethernet cards, or audio via the Apple’s cassette ports. ADTPro has comprehensive bootstrapping support for otherwise diskless Apple IIs. The home page includes extensive tutorials for [...]

00: Where are the Mac books? - 01: iBook G3/500 - Apple and VW - 02: Basilisk II puts a Mac on Windows - Future of PowerPC - 03 Picking the right multibutton mouse - Have iBook, will relocate - 06: DRM increasingly restricts - 07: Clever USB/FireWire solution - 08: Vista one reason for growing Mac market - Why Macs are green

Can't see the video? Click here

It's May Day tomorrow, glory to the proletariat! And the middle class. And everyone else who has money to spend on mobile games. And for the legion of unemployed, some free games.

This week features a strategy-heavy load of games ranging from Brazilian multitasking action to a genuine 4X space game. Sean Carey was helpful enough to try out two iPad games as well. And there are even a couple of noteworthy Android releases, who would've guessed?

I've also taken the liberty to add small icons to the game titles this week, which should help make the layout a little bit easier to read when there are a lot of games to cover. Like this weekend for instance.

The video above shows Project Dawn, an "early Minecraft engine for iOS" by kode80. [Thanks Ben!]

Weekend highlights:

 Paleolithics (iPhone, $0.99, free lite version)

Can't see the video? Click here

Brazilian indie Instant Games made a pretty cool multitasking game called Paleolithics. You control a husband, wife, and child who walk through levels and it's your job to make them smash, jump over, or shoot obstacles and enemies as they progress.

In each level you can gather blue resources, or defeat a boss for red resources, which you can then use to buy better weapons, gear, and items to smash harder, jump higher, or shoot further. You only have three lives that are shared by all three horizontal walkers and it can be pretty easy to die at bosses. Because of that, it can take a while to get the resources required to really progress, and you can find yourself replaying levels quite a few times because of that.

Despite some grinding elements it's still a fun game and worth a buck because there is plenty of gear to buy, but give the lite version a try if you are not sure if it's for you. Well worth checking out you want to play something different.

Vampire Rush (iPhone, $1.99; iPad, $2.99)

Can't see the video? Click here

Vampire Rush is awesome. It's a mix of a top-down hack & slash game and tower defense. You walk around the map and kill vamipres, bats, and other monster to earn money. With money, you can build and upgrade towers to help you defend a gate. Money can also be spent on skills like healing (when you die you take an increasingly long time to get up again), fire bombs, freeze attacks, etc.

There's 7 levels to go through and unlockable survival mode versions of each, and it's not exactly easy on the Normal difficulty either. The controls work well, but sometimes you can keep trying to hit a bat without hitting it right until you position yourself better. As variations on tower defense go, this is a pretty good looking and fun game to play on the couch on a lazy day.

You could also see it as a vastly more limited version of Dungeon Defenders which is only $1 more. The games are not quite the same, but it's worth pointing out if you never played Dungeon Defenders.

Streets of Rage 3 (iPhone, $2.99)

You know what Streets of Rage 3 is, but does it translate well to the iPhone? Yes and no. It looks great in a stretched view on a Retina display, with only the oldschool graphics available and the option to play it in the original aspect ratio in a tiny box.

Because you want to play it in stretched mode, the controls that overlap a large part of the screen sadly become quite annoying. It's easy enough to control, but Streets of Rage 3 is not a game where you want your thumb over the side of a screen when you are trying to time your jump-kicks on enemies that are just off-screen. The boxed-screen mode doesn't suffer from this issue, but you don't want to play it that way.

The music also made a terrible transition if you use your iDevice's speakers instead of headphones, which is a shame. Just stick with one of the bazillion other ways to play this game on a screen with a controller.

Quis (iPhone & iPad, $0.99 -- universal app) [iPad impressions by Sean Carey]

Can't see the video? Click here

Clawing through the morass of match-3 games on the App Store is a challenge for any new entrant to the genre. In the time it took you to read these two sentences, three more have been released. Quis, however, doesn't afraid of anything and boldly throws its multicolored hat into the ring for your perusal.

Quis does at least throw in a few twists to the Bejeweled formula to try and get your attention. Tiles are hexagonal, so matches can be made in more directions. Depending on the level, matching can be either color-based or number-based. Rather than a static screen, tiles continue to scroll down to the bottom, and the player loses lives when tiles hit the bottom. Making matches clears tiles from the screen, which scrolls incrementally faster and faster in classic Tetris fashion.

The time element does add some good tension to what is otherwise an adequate contender in an over-crowded market, but generally speaking Quis doesn't do anything to put it over the top. That being said, if you've got an unscratchable itch for more match-3 in your life, you could do a lot worse.


 Super Cosmic Word Snake (iPhone, $2.99) [iPad impressions by Sean Carey]

Can't see the video? Click here

If the name alone doesn't sell you on this one, let me do my best to explain what this quirky app is all about. Essentially, you are the bad guy from Centipede, winding your way towards a turret that is firing at you. To keep your snake from falling apart, you must spell words as rapidly as possible to replace and grow new segments. Words over a certain length create tougher body segments for your snake. The goal is to rack up as many points as you can and hold the snake together until you can get close enough to destroy the turret.

The core gameplay is fun enough, but in single player the novelty wears off really quickly. Where this game really takes off is in 2-player mode. A second player takes control of the turret and tries to gun down the snake while the other tries to spell their way to victory. It makes for some great trash talking, and taking turns as the snake and the turret is pretty entertaining.

The look and sound of the game are really solid and fun. The game is skinned as an old tabletop coin-op cabinet, like the old sitdown Pac-Man tables you used to find in bars and arcades. The cabinet motif plays into the Centipede-like visuals, and the sound design is appropriately retro. If you're looking for a fun 2-player iPad game I recommend checking it out, but if you only intend to play it solo you might consider giving it a miss.

 Symphony of Eternity (Android, $9.80)

Can't see the video? Click here

Stop the presses, it's an Android JRPG!

It doesn't look quite as good as Chaos Rings, but if you need a JRPG on your Android phone then perhaps this is right up your alley. Too bad it's also quite expensive.

Toki Tori (Android, $2.99, iPhone, $2.99, lite; iPad, $4.99, lite)

Can't see the video? Click here

Chances are you already own Toki Tori on Steam through various indie sales and the Potato Sack Pack, but it has recently received its Android release. It's a great puzzle platformer with a ton of levels, so go grab the potato-less mobile version! It's also on iOS if you want it on there.

 Vincere Totus Astrum (iPhone & iPad, $1.99 -- universal app)

Can't see the video? Click here

Last but not least, here is my favorite game of last week. Vincere Totus Astrum is a 4X game on iOS. So yes, you get to colonize planets, build fleets, research tech and all that. Each planet gets one action per turn and it seems easy to out-colonize some of your foes in order to build a massive fleet, because you have less resource worries than in say Master of Orion 2.

It is a bit of a simplified 4X game, but still the best one of its kind I've played on my iPod Touch to date. It is also the first one I played, so if there is a better one, please let me know! The only gripe I have with it is that scrolling is painfully slow for some reason. The screen doesn't respond all too well and when you have a galaxy to manage, that becomes annoying pretty fast. You can however just press the Next planet button and manage things like that.

Suffice it to say that if you like Master of Orion or Galactic Civilizations II, you'll like this. I just hope Gamesare Studios will fix the scrolling in a future update.

Free games:

Herbert's Day Out (iPhone)

Can't see the video? Click here

Caleb Hystad does a lot of great pixel art (like the recent Doom ones) and now has a free "short story game" called Herbert's Day Out. You are a pig who escapes his farm using tilt controls, and goes on a little adventure. And that's basically it.

It's an interesting concept to tell a story this way through a mobile game, and perhaps it's a hint of more to come. It's free, it won't take you more than 5 minutes to complete and you should just check it out.

[Thanks for sending this in Josh!]

Operation Wow (iPhone, iPad)

Can't see the video? Click here

This is an Operation Wolf clone plain and simple. It is also free today though, and it has two bonus modes for shooting targets and shooting meat in a Fruit Ninja fashion. It's even called "Meat Ninja." Because it's free for both the iPhone and iPad versions, you might as well just grab both while they are free.

 Get Outta My Galaxy! (iPhone)

GOMG! Gameplay Video from Ookoohko on Vimeo.

Can't see the video? Click here

Get Outta My Galaxy! is a game that has gotten pretty good reviews all around, and recently received an update that adds a virtual joystiq as an alternative to the tilt control scheme. While it may look a bit like Super Mario Galaxy at face value, it plays nothing like it. It's free throughout this weekend, so why not give it a shot?

 Grim Joggers Freestyle (iPhone, free; iPad, free)

Can't see the video? Click here

Grim Joggers has been out for a while, but a lite version named Freestyle was released yesterday. It's worth checking out, because Grim Joggers is great. But it's always good to have a demo version available.

In Grim Joggers Freestyle you control a group of 15 joggers at once. Tapping the screen lets the group jump or double jump, but because you control a group it becomes hard to save all the joggers from the numerous deathtraps that litter the levels. The further you get, the more points you'll score. Multiplier posts count the number of joggers that pass through it, which makes survival of prime importance.

WTF?

Is Techno Kitten Adventure coming to iOS?

The Game Station found this image on the Techno Kitten Adventure Facebook wall which appears to indicate that it is! As the wall post states: "Hey, so, um, since you liked us, we wanted to let you know that we like you. Like *LIKE* like you. And to prove it, here's a preview of what we're officially not talking about until next week. Mr0w."

[Thanks Jess!]

Monino (iPhone, removed)

Can't see the video? Click here

Is that a complete and utter ripoff of all things 2D Mario? Why yes it is. UK site Electric Pig found out that developer FeiYingInfo (really?) put Monino on the iPhone App Store this week, and it has since been pulled. I guess nobody ever bothers to control iPhone apps for fraud over at Apple's app acceptance division.

Weekly news highlights:

• Sony finally announced its S1 and S2 Android tablets
• Beetlenaut is an Android game you can play
• Biolab Disaster is a great, free, and short platformer for iOS
• Paperboy: Special Delivery is still free for iOS
• Apple rejects Smuggle Truck, but allows Snuggle Truck
• Dog Wars was pulled from the Android Market
• A prequel and sequel for Chaos Rings were announced, and a trailer for the sequel revealed
• EpicWin dev announced Drive Forever for iOS
• Square Enix announced a free iOS game called Imaginary Range
• Yet another case of theft: iPhone game Achilles' Defense rips off flash game Clash of the Olympians
  

Reviews:

• Air Penguin
• Coin Drop
• Burn it All
  
  

Good cause:

 Stem Stumper (iPhone, $1.99)

Can't see the video? Click here

Okay, Stem Stumper is not going to blow your mind when it comes to iPhone games if you look at it and play it. But Ananse Productions created this from the ground up with support for blind people, which is pretty damn great.

You can enable a Sonar mode in the options -- as well as a no-fail mode -- that makes the grid black. I've tried to play it in this mode (even with my eyes closed) and it works very well. Sounds provide feedback to where objects and obstacles are and it's a genuinely interesting way to play the game.

The game also fully supports Apple's VoiceOver technology, which enables blind people to navigate iOS devices with a computerized voice that speaks all the words out loud, and it works well in Stem Stumper.

It's a great development that people are making games for the blind -- especially on touch screen devices that can support them. It also confronts you with how to play a game without sight, which is really damn hard if you never trained for using auditive cues to map spatial environments in your mind.

If you're interested in this new kind of experience it's worth a buy just to hear for yourself how such a game is played, and to support future development on games like this.

$28.00
These appetizing earrings are perfect to wear on a picnic or for the sunny days to come!

Made essentially with vintage pieces (glass cabochons with strawberry decals, red glass beads dangles, brass settings, apple green beads, glimmering spacers) excepted for the oxidized brass lever back ear wires. NICKEL FREE, like all my earrings.

The vintage parts may present some slight imperfection due to their old nature, but I think it adds to the charm of the earrings.

They will arrive to you nicely wrapped in a beautiful handmade gift box.


Total length: 2 3/8 inches (6,2 cm)


You may also like:
www.etsy.com/listing/57552782/gardeners-daughters-ii-earrings-vintage
www.etsy.com/listing/44862786/red-lubie-earrings-vintage-collection
www.etsy.com/listing/61216184/mirabelle-ii-earrings-vintage-collection

Summary:

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Toyota’s North American subsidiary, Scion, surprised us today at the opening of the 2011 New York Auto Show with the world premiere of its new FR-S sports coupe concept. We say ‘surprised’ not because we weren’t expecting a Scion-badged Toyota FT-86 to make its appearance in the Big Apple, but because of its refined design that made us forget about the FT-86 II concept we saw less than two months ago at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show. Read more »

Adam is enjoying the Garden of Eden. He loves being in the garden. He is left to his own devices with nothing to do and no one to question his decisions. He finds himself to be quite clever.

Another creature rises out of the reflecting pool in the garden. It is unaware of Adam’s presence as it begins to explore the Garden of Eden, its own existence and words. It is another human - a female human. It is Eve.

As Adam and Eve continue to explore and discover, they speak to the audience, each making statements just the opposite of one another.

Eventually, they do become aware of each other and the first courtship ever begins.

Act I ends with the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Yes, Eve - in spite of Adam’s advice not to associate with the snake - has fallen under its influence and has convinced Adam to share an apple.

Act II begins thousands of years later, Adam and Eve long married with two children, one of whom is deceased. They have returned to the Garden of Eden, now an upscale resort called “E.” Not a lot has changed except that the reflecting pool is now a spa and the apple tree has been cut down.

Eve is now a successful movie producer and Adam is a marriage counselor. They have returned to Eden to see if they can discover that spark they felt when they first met.

This is the basic plot of “Searching for Eden: The Diaries of Adam and Eve,” by James Still. Still based “Searching for Eden” on two short stories by Mark Twain (1835-1910). The production opened Sunday at the B Street Theater Mainstage. This is the seventh and last B Street Theatre Mainstage production this season.

Twain’s “Extracts from Adam’s Diary, Translated from the Original MS,” illustrated by F. Strothmann, was first published in 1893. The humorous short story, Twain’s supposed translation from the original manuscript of Adam’s diary, was more closely based on Twain and his wife Olivia.

The companion piece, “Eve’s Diary,” also purported to be published from the original manuscript, was published in book form in 1906 with illustrations by Lester Ralph. The story from Eve’s view, which Twain started writing not long after the death of Olivia, is viewed to be a posthumous love letter.

All this background just adds to what is a very humorous and touching play. Still has created a clever look at the male-female relationship, going back to what he imagined the first male-female relationship may have been like.

The show has been perfectly cast with Jason Kuykendall as Adam and Lyndsy Kail as Eve.

Kuykendall is well known in Sacramento for his performances on numerous stages. This season, he appeared in “The Importance of Being Earnest,” the season opener at Sacramento Theatre Company. As a member of the B Street Theatre Acting Company, Kuykendall was last seen as multiple, very funny characters in “The 39 Steps.” With his boyish good looks and facile comedic performance, he is as great as Adam.

Bay Area actress Lyndsy Kail has become well known to Sacramento theater goers this season. Kail was also in “The Importance of Being Earnest” at STC and followed that with the role of Doris in “The Owl and the Pussycat.” Kail just finished playing in “Circle Mirror Transformation” at B Street. She has proven herself very good at playing characters like Doris and Eve, with a lot of lines to speak while seeming to be oblivious to the other character.

Kuykendall and Kail have good chemistry. They worked together in “Ernest,” where their characters did a lot of male-female bantering. In “Searching for Eden,” they create believability. Although Adam and Eve find each other very annoying much of the time, there is something more that attracts them to each other, something that keeps them together over time.

Buck Busfield again proves himself very adept at directing this funny, poignant comedy.

“Searching for Eden” starts with the enduring humor of one of America’s most beloved writers, Mark Twain. Turn this into a well written stage play by award winning playwright James Still. Add great comic acting with good chemistry between Jason Kuykendall and Lyndsy Kail. The result is another funny show with more to it than just the humor that the B Street Theatre is so well known for.

“Searching for Eden”  B Street Theatre Mainstage

Through May 29, 2011. Tickets and more information

It appears that everyone is excited to let the world know that they’re massively successful today, both Qualcomm and Apple showing off fabulous numbers in print form for the public to digest. It’s a LOT to digest when you’ve got it all lying out there in front of you, and indeed we DO have their entire sales call and numbers here in this post, but let’s see if we can’t filter it down a bit for those average citizens who, like me, like to see giant numbers after money signs right underneath year markers.

First, Qualcomm notes that this is a record quarter for them, posting revenues of $3.9 billion being no small pot of cash to scoff at. They’ve also noted that this translates to a total of $.59 in EPS, Earnings Per Share. There’s also another EPS number in there, but unless you know what non-GAAP means, I suggest you skip it. Next, Qualcomm’s operating income is $1.07 billion, that being down 3% from the quarter that came before this one, but up 38% from last year at this time. Can you say big growth?

And for those of you who’ve been lost since the article started, lemme explain who Qualcomm is. It’s the brand name given to those friendly folks who create the chipsets that are inside your smartphones. Not ALL smartphones, of course, but they’re working to fix that! Take a look at our gigantic Qualcomm Portal to see all the coverage we’ve got on this radically excellent set of power generators in developers clothing. But before you go, you have a reading assignment – the entire press release below! Hooray!

Qualcomm Announces Second Quarter Fiscal 2011 Results
Record Revenues $3.9 Billion
GAAP EPS $0.59, Non-GAAP EPS $0.86
— Raises Fiscal 2011 Revenue and Earnings Guidance —

SAN DIEGO, April 20, 2011 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM), a leading developer and innovator of advanced wireless technologies, products and services, today announced results for the second quarter of fiscal 2011 ended March 27, 2011.

“We are pleased to report record quarterly revenues, and we are raising our revenue and earnings guidance for the year as the demand for smartphones across an array of geographies and tiers continues to grow,” said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm. “In addition, we have resolved the second of the two previously disclosed licensee disputes. We continue to execute on our strategic priorities as our partners deploy our technologies and solutions to offer leading wireless products and services to consumers worldwide.”

Second Quarter Results (GAAP)

· Revenues: $3.88 billion, up 46 percent year-over-year (y-o-y) and 16 percent sequentially.

· Operating income: $1.07 billion, up 38 percent y-o-y and down 3 percent sequentially.

· Net income:(1) $999 million, up 29 percent y-o-y and down 15 percent sequentially.

· Diluted earnings per share:(1) $0.59, up 28 percent y-o-y and down 17 percent sequentially.

· Effective tax rate: 21 percent for the quarter.

· Operating cash flow: $1.77 billion, up 123 percent y-o-y; 46 percent of revenues.

· Return of capital to stockholders: $316 million, or $0.19 per share, of cash dividends paid.

(1)

Net income and diluted earnings per share throughout this news release are attributable to Qualcomm (i.e., after adjustment for noncontrolling interests), unless otherwise stated.

Non-GAAP Second Quarter Results

Non-GAAP results exclude the Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives (QSI) segment, certain share-based compensation, certain tax items that are not related to the current year and acquired in-process research and development (R&D) expense.

· Revenues: $3.87 billion, up 45 percent y-o-y and 16 percent sequentially.

· Operating income: $1.65 billion, up 55 percent y-o-y and 17 percent sequentially.

· Net income: $1.45 billion, up 47 percent y-o-y and 8 percent sequentially.

· Diluted earnings per share: $0.86, up 46 percent y-o-y and 5 percent sequentially. The current quarter excludes $0.18 loss per share attributable to the QSI segment and $0.09 loss per share attributable to certain share-based compensation.

· Effective tax rate: 22 percent for the quarter.

· Free cash flow: $1.85 billion, up 125 percent y-o-y; 48 percent of revenues (defined as net cash from operating activities less capital expenditures).

Detailed reconciliations between results reported in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and Non-GAAP results are included at the end of this news release.

In the comparisons summarized above, the following should be noted with respect to results for the second quarter of fiscal 2011: GAAP and Non-GAAP results included $401 million in revenues related to prior quarters as a result of agreements entered into with two licensees to settle ongoing disputes, including an arbitration proceeding with Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd.; GAAP results included $310 million in expenses in the QSI segment related to the FLO TV™ restructuring plan; and GAAP and Non-GAAP results included $120 million in impairment charges related to our Firethorn division, including $114 million in goodwill impairment.

Second Quarter Key Business Metrics

· CDMA-based Mobile Station Modem™ (MSM™) shipments: approximately 118 million units, up 27 percent y-o-y and flat sequentially.

· December quarter total reported device sales: approximately $40.0 billion, up 44 percent y-o-y and 18 percent sequentially.

o December quarter estimated CDMA-based device shipments: approximately 195 to 200 million units, at an estimated average selling price of approximately $200 to $206 per unit.

Cash and Marketable Securities

Our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities totaled approximately $22.1 billion at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2011, compared to $19.1 billion at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2011 and $18.2 billion a year ago. On April 7, 2011, we announced a cash dividend of $0.215 per share payable on June 24, 2011 to stockholders of record as of May 27, 2011.

On January 5, 2011, we announced that we had entered into a definitive agreement under which we intend to acquire Atheros Communications, Inc. for $45 per share in cash, which represented an enterprise value of approximately $3.1 billion on that date. The transaction has received the approval of Atheros’ stockholders and certain foreign regulators, and the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended, has expired. The completion of the merger remains subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions, including the receipt of an additional foreign regulatory approval. We continue to expect the merger to close in the third quarter of fiscal 2011.

Effective Income Tax Rate

Our fiscal 2011 effective income tax rates are estimated to be approximately 17 percent for GAAP and approximately 21 percent for Non-GAAP. The second quarter rates of 21 percent for GAAP and 22 percent for Non-GAAP are higher than the estimated annual rates primarily due to additional U.S. income resulting from the settlement of ongoing disputes with two licensees during the second quarter of fiscal 2011.

Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives

The QSI segment manages our strategic investment activities, including FLO TV, and makes strategic investments in early-stage and other companies and in wireless spectrum, such as the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum won in the India auction. GAAP results for the second quarter of fiscal 2011 included an $0.18 loss per share for the QSI segment. The second quarter of fiscal 2011 QSI results included $376 million in operating expenses and restructuring charges primarily related to FLO TV.

We have agreed to sell substantially all of our 700 MHz spectrum for $1.9 billion, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including approval by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The agreement follows our previously announced plan to restructure and evaluate strategic options related to the FLO TV business and network. Under the restructuring plan, the FLO TV business and network were shut down on March 27, 2011, and we are no longer pursuing the MediaFLO Technologies business. Restructuring activities under this plan were initiated in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010 and are expected to be substantially complete by the end of fiscal 2012. The spectrum was classified as held for sale at March 27, 2011.

In the second quarter of fiscal 2011, restructuring and restructuring-related charges related to this plan included in QSI results were $310 million. We estimate that we will incur future restructuring and restructuring-related charges associated with this plan of up to $65 million, which are primarily related to lease exit and other costs.

Business Outlook

The following statements are forward looking and actual results may differ materially. The “Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” at the end of this news release provides a description of certain risks that we face, and our annual and quarterly reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) provide a more complete description of risks.

Our outlook does not include provisions for future asset impairments or the consequences of injunctions, damages or fines related to any pending legal matters unless awarded or imposed by a court, governmental entity or other regulatory body. Further, due to their nature, certain income and expense items, such as realized investment gains or losses, or gains and losses on certain derivative instruments, cannot be accurately forecast. Accordingly, we only include such items in our business outlook to the extent they are reasonably certain; however, actual results may vary materially from the business outlook.

In addition to our ongoing operating costs, our business outlook for fiscal 2011 includes restructuring and restructuring-related charges attributable to FLO TV that are currently expected to be incurred.

We have not included any estimates related to the Atheros business in our third fiscal quarter or fiscal 2011 outlook. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of fiscal 2011.

The following table summarizes GAAP and Non-GAAP guidance based on the current business outlook. The Non-GAAP business outlook presented below is consistent with the presentation of Non-GAAP results included elsewhere herein.

Conference Call

Qualcomm’s second quarter fiscal 2011 earnings conference call will be broadcast live on April 20, 2011, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (PT) on the Company’s web site at: www.qualcomm.com. This conference call may contain forward-looking financial information and will include a discussion of “Non-GAAP financial measures” as that term is defined in Regulation G. The most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and information reconciling these Non-GAAP financial measures to the Company’s financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP, as well as the other material financial and statistical information to be discussed in the conference call, will be posted on the Company’s Investor Relations web site at www.qualcomm.com immediately prior to commencement of the call. A taped audio replay will be available via telephone on April 20, 2011, beginning at approximately 5:00 p.m. PT through May 20, 2011 at 9:00 p.m. PT. To listen to the replay, U.S. callers may dial (800) 642-1687 and international callers may dial (706) 645-9291. U.S. and international callers should use reservation number 56703245. An audio replay of the conference call will be available on the Company’s web site at www.qualcomm.com following the live call.

Editor’s Note: To view the web slides that accompany this earnings release and conference call, please go to the Qualcomm Investor Relations website at: http://investor.qualcomm.com/results.cfm

Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM) is a world leader in 3G and next-generation mobile technologies. For more than 25 years, Qualcomm ideas and inventions have driven the evolution of wireless communications, connecting people more closely to information, entertainment and each other. Today, Qualcomm technologies are powering the convergence of mobile communications and consumer electronics, making wireless devices and services more personal, affordable and accessible to people everywhere. For more information, please visit www.qualcomm.com

Note Regarding Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

The Company presents Non-GAAP financial information that is used by management (i) to evaluate, assess and benchmark the Company’s operating results on a consistent and comparable basis; (ii) to measure the performance and efficiency of the Company’s ongoing core operating businesses, including the Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, Qualcomm Technology Licensing and Qualcomm Wireless & Internet segments; and (iii) to compare the performance and efficiency of these segments against each other and against competitors outside the Company. Non-GAAP measurements of the following financial data are used by the Company’s management: revenues, R&D expenses, SG&A expenses, total operating expenses, operating income (loss), net investment income (loss), income (loss) before income taxes, effective tax rate, net income (loss), diluted earnings (loss) per share, operating cash flow and free cash flow. Management is able to assess what it believes is a more meaningful and comparable set of financial performance measures for the Company and its business segments by using Non-GAAP information. As a result, management compensation decisions and the review of executive compensation by the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors focus primarily on Non-GAAP financial measures applicable to the Company and its business segments.

Non-GAAP information used by management excludes the QSI segment, certain share-based compensation, certain tax items and acquired in-process R&D. The QSI segment is excluded because the Company expects to exit its strategic investments at various times, and the effects of fluctuations in the value of such investments are viewed by management as unrelated to the Company’s operational performance. Share-based compensation, other than amounts related to share-based awards granted under a bonus program that may result in the issuance of unrestricted shares of the Company’s common stock, is excluded because management views such share-based compensation as unrelated to the Company’s operational performance. Further, share-based compensation related to stock options is affected by factors that are subject to change, including the Company’s stock price, stock market volatility, expected option life, risk-free interest rates and expected dividend payouts in future years. Certain tax items that were recorded in reported earnings in each fiscal year presented, but were unrelated to the fiscal year in which they were recorded, are excluded in order to provide a clearer understanding of the Company’s ongoing Non-GAAP tax rate and after tax earnings. In fiscal 2009, the Company included the benefit of the retroactive extension of the federal R&D tax credit in Non-GAAP results because it had previously occurred with relative frequency and was included in the Company’s business outlook for fiscal 2009 as the credit had been extended prior to the release of the fiscal 2009 business outlook. In fiscal 2011, however, the Company did not include the benefit of the retroactive extension of the federal R&D tax credit in Non-GAAP results because the Company had not included the potential extension of the credit in its previously released fiscal 2011 business outlook due to uncertainty as to whether and when the federal R&D tax credit would be retroactively extended. Acquired in-process R&D is excluded because such expense is viewed by management as unrelated to the operating activities of the Company’s ongoing core businesses.

The Company presents free cash flow, defined as net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures, to facilitate an understanding of the amount of cash flow generated that is available to grow its business and to create long-term stockholder value. The Company believes that this presentation is useful in evaluating its operating performance and financial strength. In addition, management uses this measure to evaluate the Company’s performance, to value the Company and to compare its operating performance with other companies in the industry.

The Non-GAAP financial information presented herein should be considered in addition to, not as a substitute for, or superior to, financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. In addition, “Non-GAAP” is not a term defined by GAAP, and, as a result, the Company’s measure of Non-GAAP results might be different than similarly titled measures used by other companies. Reconciliations between GAAP results and Non-GAAP results are presented in the following tables.

Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

In addition to the historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ substantially from those referred to herein due to a number of factors, including but not limited to risks associated with: the rate of deployment and adoption of, and demand for, our technologies in wireless networks and wireless communications, equipment and services, including CDMA2000 1X, 1xEV-DO, WCDMA, HSPA, TD-SCDMA and OFDMA; the uncertainty of global economic conditions and its potential impact on demand for our products, services or applications and the value of our marketable securities; competition; our dependence on major customers and licensees; attacks on our licensing business model, including results of current and future litigation and arbitration proceedings, as well as actions of governmental or quasi-governmental bodies, and the costs we incur in connection therewith, including potentially damaged relationships with customers and operators who may be impacted by the results of these proceedings; our dependence on third-party manufacturers and suppliers; foreign currency fluctuations; strategic investments and transactions we have or may pursue; defects or errors in our products and services; the development and commercial success of our QMT division’s mirasol® display technology; as well as the other risks detailed from time-to-time in our SEC reports, including the report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 26, 2010 and most recent Form 10-Q. The Company undertakes no obligation to update, or continue to provide information with respect to, any forward-looking statement or risk factor, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Qualcomm is a registered trademark of Qualcomm Incorporated. Mobile Station Modem, MSM, FLO TV and MediaFLO are trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated. mirasol is a registered trademark of Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, Inc. CDMA2000 is a registered trademark of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA USA). All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

---

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• Apple posted record Quarterly Revenue and Earnings
• Google Announces Third Quarter Financial Results
• Nintendo raises sales forcast
• Qualcomm Announces Third Quarter Fiscal 2010 Results
• Intel Reports Q1 Results Exceed Expectations Thanks To Enterprise Strength

$25.00
My favorite cabs are back in this new creation. Longer than the Jane Austen earrings, a little different from the first edition of the Magdalena Earrings, with a hint of baby pink glass and superb apple green vintage marquises.

A lot of details in these vintage decal cabochons! Admire the gold speckles in the 3rd picture.

NICKEL FREE like all my earrings, they hang from brass French hooks.

Will arrive to you nicely wrapped in a beautiful handmade gift box.

*Comes with 2 clear earring stopper tubes, to prevent from losing it.


Total length: 2 3/8 inches

You'd think Apple had claimed ownership of Dokkdo or something!

 In reality Apple is claiming all manner of trade practice, trade mark and patent infringements (16 in all) by Samsung.

Apple also has that idea in mind and thinks it has the proof to back it up. So much so that speaking of the Galaxy S and the TouchWiz UI Apple has reportidly said “The copying is so pervasive, that [they] appear to be actual Apple products.” 

Apple also has that idea in mind and thinks it has the proof to back it up. So much so that speaking of the Galaxy S and the TouchWiz UI Apple has reportidly said “The copying is so pervasive, that [they] appear to be actual Apple products.” 

Burn!

Not quite trademark, not quite copyright, Apple's first set of claims against Sammy are to do with "Trade dress" Trade dress refers to iconic names and in this case shapes and design elements that consumers recognise as being particular to that company. Apple is pretty anal retentive proud of its design aesthetic and you could argue you cn recognise an Apple product by its smooth lines and curves and what not. Over and above the Apple logo and the term "iPhone" the shape and design of the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad are all distinctive and all purely "Apple".

Apple is claiming Samsung, has been ripping off this aesthetic. in particular:

• a rectangular product shape with all four corners uniformly rounded;
• the front surface of the product dominated by a screen surface with black borders;
• as to the iPhone and iPod touch products, substantial black borders above and below the screen having roughly equal width and narrower black borders on either side of the screen having roughly equal width;
• as to the iPad product, substantial black borders on all sides being roughly equal in width;
• a metallic surround framing the perimeter of the top surface;
• a display of a grid of colorful square icons with uniformly rounded corners; and
• a bottom row of square icons (the “Springboard”) set off from the other icons and that do not change as the other pages of the user interface are viewed.

That sounds like every phone and tablet made in the last 2 years.... But then again...

[Image: This is my next]

Apple has already registered some of these with the US Patent office (Whop have accepted them) and so Samsung will need to defend these claims. (cf. U.S. Registration No. 3,470,983 , U.S. Registration No. 3,457,218 and U.S. Registration No. 3,475,327 )

Where Smsung is arguably going to have a rough time is when it comes to icons - all of which Apple has registered trademarks. There is a certain similarity here that might get Sammy in a bit of trouble...

I'm not necessarily batting for either side, but Apple's claims when it comes to the Phone icon, Settings, Notes, Contacts and Music and even the Gallery icon  All of the icons except the messaging one look pretty similar to me. Even the TouchWiz Gallery icon with the close-up of yellow petals is evocative of iOS's sunflower.

If I were a judge, or a jury I would have some issues here. On one side you could easily say that Samsung has essentially copied Apple's work. On the other hand they are not exactly the same and are there elements of just common sense and standards here? A phone icon has...well... a picture of a phone on it. The proverbial cog has long been associated with settings and you would think it logical that you take "notes" in an app represented by a notepad.

I mean go figure!?

So these are all elements of trade dress and relate to the relationship between the aesthetic of a product (how it looks etc) and the customer. (Could the customer reasonably be confused and think Apple is making Galaxy S Phones).[Image: This is my next]

These claims and some catch all and state level law infringement claims make up the bulk of Apple's case. However there are also accusations of design infringements.

Again Apple has applied for and been granted patents for these designs, and so is well within its rights to be defending it's designs. But again one has to ask, are these really designs, or are they conventions that are apparent in phones and tablets across the board.

Apple claims that Samsung is infringing upon 10 of its design patents, encompassing both hardware and software.

Patent #D627,790: Graphical User Interface For a Display Screen or Portion  Thereof. This is the iOS home screen — the grid of icons.

Patent #D602,016: Electronic Device. This is the iPhone 3G / 3GS design,  The broken lines that form the screen and the button aren’t part of the patent, just the device’s shell, so any button or screen size differences on Samsung’s devices don’t matter.

Patent #D618,677: Electronic Device. This is the opposite of ’677 — it’s the screen and button design of the iPhone. The broken lines that form the case in the patent application images below aren’t part of the patent.

[Image: Google Patents]

Above its noted that the iPhone buttons aren't part of the patents listed. That's because they have their own patents - including  Patent #7,863,533 which deals with the multiple functions of the volume buttons (in this case on the 3GS:

[Image: Google Patents]

Software patents include Method and Apparatus For Displaying Information During An Instant Messaging Session, Ellipse Fitting For Multi-Touch Surfaces, Application programming interfaces for scrolling operations, (This is a neat one where the software decides whether you are using one finger or two to scroll and what action the phone should take) and Method and apparatus for displaying a window for a user interface.

All pretty boring stuff and I can't help but think, given the ubiquity of these technologies, that these are all pretty common sense and inherent to the modern phone paradigm, regardless of whether Apple has a patent awarded to them for these or not.

Now bare in mind that this is not the only law suit Apple has open at the moment. Indeed they are also suing Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC (Makers of the Nexus One and purveyors of the Sense UI for Android) and Motorola, makers of various other Android handsets. (and then there are a number of other similar law suits going on in the space as well - Motorola V. Microsoft, Microsoft V. Barnes and Nobel etc etc).

Also bare in mind that while all of this is going on, Samsung (while it is counter-suing) continues to manufacturer and supply Apple with A4 and A5 chips - i.e. the guts of the iPhone and iPad as well as Flash SSDs going into every new MacBook Air.

Which probably means everything will probably work out about even in the end. GigaOm has a good piece on the balancing act between the two companies, with Apple being Samsung's biggest customer (alone contributing about 4% to Samsung's $142Billion revenue)

Since the suit was filed last week Samsung has come out all guns blazing even citing this cozy relationship between the two companies as a possible vector for Apple to have stolen some of Samsung's Interllectual property.

"We think Apple has violated our patents in communications standards," Chung Jae-woong, a spokesman at Samsung Electronics, said by phone. "We are considering a counterclaim."

(Yonhap)

But if Samsung's own denials and counter claims weren't enough, then out came the hacks at The Korea Times

Lawsuit Displays Apple's Sense of Urgency

Is Apple feeling threatened by Samsung Electronics' advances into the market of the latest "smart" devices?

Apple's sweeping patent lawsuit the Korean electronics behemoth comes at a time when Samsung is going toe to toe, head to head with Apple in the entire range of products. 

(Kim Yoo Chul in The Korea Times)

It goes on:

``That lawsuit is good evidence that shows Apple's sense of urgency about Samsung, said Prof. Lee Jong-su, a media critic at Hanyang University. 

Samsung's Galaxy S is the only smartphone that has exceeded 10 million in unit sales, besides iPhone.

Apple's lawsuit came only a week before the scheduled unveiling of Galaxy S II.

At the same time, Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet computer is often dubbed as the only alternative to iPad. 

``Samsung is a fast learner. Its Tab 2 design shows it, Lee said.

The article goes on confusingly drawing Google and Android into the debate while finishing off with the same point I make above, namely that in the long run the aim of both companies is probably to make out OK in the end because it does no one any good to be tied up in court when you could be making bajillions of dollars together.

Meanwhile The JoongAng Daily calls it "War" noting "Fight comes as Korean company grabs smartphone, tablet PC sales"

Yet the JoongAng comes to the same conclusion more-or-less:

Industry experts said that it will be hard for Apple to part ways with Samsung as a supplier because Toshiba’s production of NAND flash memory has suffered a setback as a result of the recent earthquake in Japan, while Samsung is the world’s No. 1 NAND flash memory producer.

Both companies have no alternative but to get on with each other, mutually assured destruction is just not an option.

The Atlantic has some interesting ideas on why Apple should shut up and not sue Samsung.

But the verocity with which the Korean media has come out in portraying Apple as attacking its poor, fledgling home grown enterprise embodied by Samsung is a bit much, and is of the Nationalis bent usually reserved for the likes of Japan and DokkDo. (We obviously can't pick on Japan at the moment though, can we.) Its not like Samsung needs the help and stands to be burned by the domestic Korean media if papers like the MaeIl Kyongjae start to join in the whining and complaining.

But you see, in the minds of many (and not just we flippant foreigners) Korea is Samsung is Korea. The miracle of the Han happened on the back of companies like Samsung just like the Korean Wave is riding along on the back of Samsung laptops, phones and MP3 players.

As for the legal matters, you can guarantee this will be settled outside of court. My bet is that Apple will buy off Samsung with promises of more component orders in the years to come in return for being able to keep its aluminium ringed, curved edge aesthetic and Samsung coming out with significant changes to TouchWiz and moving away from the curves and beveled edges in its handsets. 

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Following on from Bertram's piece on the Fender Cyclone II a few days ago, Guitarz reader Ben Albey has sent us this review of a Fender Cyclone 2-pickup model plus a video demo. Nice one! Over to Ben:


© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

As much as the technology chorus overstates the case when they chant that we either adopt the shiny new iToy that comes out or die, there remains a swathe of lawyers who take some sort of perverse pride in refusing to adopt anything that runs on electricity.  Need to know where you're going? Get a Hagstroms. 

Belying this refusal to even consider learning what's out there is the Luddite belief that they already know how to do things, and aren't reliant on somebody else's app to manage their lives.  For some, it's the way they've always done it, and they've done pretty darn good up to now.  For others, it's the pace of change, too much to bother with and, advertisements to the contrary, it's not intuitive.  If you've managed just fine up to now, why change?

Part of the problem is that the pace of change can be overwhelming, leaving those who aren't paying attention to the ever-changing cutting edge constantly behind.  It's not that important to them to spend the time to know, and as one finds oneself behind the times, it's not important enough to catch up.  They make the decision not to bother, secure in the knowledge that they'll manage.

But another part of the problem is the smugness of the Luddite, some sort of perverse pride of ignorance.

I see that a lot among my peers, meaning people of a certain age who can well remember the transition from eight track tapes to cassettes.  Some have embraced certain elements of technology, such as a Blackberry, but eschew others.  Some can barely use a computer and are, inexplicably, proud of it.

My gut reaction to the announcement of a Apple product is "so what?"  But I like to know what's out there and what it can do, if for no other reason than to avoid the shock when the next version appears a week later.  I thought the Flip video camera was a remarkable invention, considering that my first video camera took VHS tapes and weighed about 74 pounds.  Now I hear that Cisco has given them up, smartphone video being too much to compete against.  Of course, I also remember my first cellphone, reminiscent of a World War II walkie-talkie and costing $12 a minute provided you could find a signal. 

To my eye, most of what is touted at the cutting edge of technology means nothing to me.  Few of the very cool apps used in smartphone television commercials fill any need I might conceivably have, and the cool factor of the newest gadget doesn't make me feel like more of a manly man.  I'll pass.

However, when a dear friend's reaction to anything remotely smelling of tech is to say, "pooh, pooh," ridicule it and remind me that they've lived this long without every using anything that required a microprocessor, I cringe.  You sound foolish.  You are foolish.  I understand the resistance, but there's a point at which reasonably intelligent people take notice of what's happening around them. 

You can play the Luddite game for fun, but when you really mean it, you refuse to either recognize the utility of technology or distinguish things that will facilitate your life from shiny toys, you become that caricature of the curmudgeon who refuses to accept that life is passing them by. 

The problem is that the pace of change is mind-boggling.  Due to my involvement in the blawgosphere, I learn a fairly good amount about what's new, and I find it difficult to keep pace or wrap my head around evolving change.  If you haven't given much thought to tech since the CD came out, it can be impossible to catch up.  And you will spend the rest of your life wondering what the hell everybody else is talking about.

It's not that I'm suggesting that the iPhone 17 will change your life.  It won't.  But to deny that changes are happening and remain blissfully ignorant of their existence is no more useful than being the first online at the Apple store when the new iToy comes out.  Use your long-term perspective to distinguish things that will provide meaningful utility to your life, provides a serious benefit for a reasonable cost, and has more than 2 weeks longevity.  There's a benefit to not feeling the compulsion to be on the cutting edge.

Do not, however, hide your head in the sand and pretend that your ignorance of technology is a virtue.  it's not.  It's just ignorance.



© 2011 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.

Sydney Morning Herald

Samsung Galaxy S II, Motorola Xoom headed to Telstra Australia Unwired View By Florin on 19 Apr 11 Earlier in January, we've reported that Telstra would launch Honeycomb tablets in Australia. Now the time has come to find out exactly what tablet the carrier plans to release: it's the Motorola Xoom, the world's first Honeycomb ... Telstra Releasing Motorola Xoom Tablet in AustraliaBusiness Review Australia Xoom launch begins Android tablet onslaught as Apple takes gloves offSydney Morning Herald Motorola Xoom confirmed to launch on Telstra in AustraliaAndroidOS.in (blog) Techlogg.com all 64 news articles »

Kit contains stencils, embossing tools, and other items needed to create tactile graphics by dry pressure embossing. You supply your own light source to place underneath sheets to be embossed (for example, APH's Mini-Lite Box or natural light).

The types of graphics you can create are almost infinite, including graphs, clock faces, cards, flash cards, street maps, flowcharts, etc.

Kit Includes:

• Nine Brass Stencils, such as Block Letters, Geometric, and Bold Plaid Stripe
  
• Eight Unique Stenciling Tools, such as Stylus with Medium and Large Tips, Serrated Tracing Wheel, and Standard Braille Signage Stencil
  
• Twenty Whole Objects Stencils: such as Apple, Teddy Bear, Heart, etc.
  
• Stenciling Accessories Pack, with items such as Soft Wire Screen, Foam Pads, Clear Vinyl Sheet
  
• Bold Line Graph Paper, 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheets, 1/4 inch grid
  
• Wooden Braille Eraser
  
• Guidebook with instructions, tips, and techniques for creating good embossed graphics
  
• Guidebook included in large print and on PC-formatted floppy disk
  
• Optional Braille Guidebook available
  
• Carrying case

Crafty Graphics Kit:
Catalog Number: 1-08844-00

Replacement Guidebooks:

Large Print Edition:
Catalog Number: 7-08844-00

Optional Guidebook:

Braille Edition:
Catalog Number: 5-08844-00

Additional Bold Line Graph Paper, 8 1/2 x 11, 1/4 Inch Grid:
Catalog Number: 1-04062-00

Optional Items

Light Box:
Catalog Number: 1-08660-00

Mini-Lite Box:
Catalog Number: 1-08661-00
Click this link to purchase the Crafty Graphics Stencil Embossing Kit.

Crafty Graphics II

Crafty Graphics Kit II provides supplemental tools to be used with the original Crafty Graphics kit. Some items can be purchased separately, as noted below. Includes:

• Clear SimBraille Stencil: can be used for making simulated print braille dots. 40 cells, 4 lines.
  
• Clear Plastic Pocket Braille Slate/Stylus: allows you to see where to place braille labels.
  
• Three plastic stencils: Point symbol stencil, Multi-line stencil, Directional line stencil.
  
• Graphic Boundary Frame: helps with placement of graphics for thermoforming.
  
• Three Spur Wheels and One Compass with Spur Wheel: use for making tactile lines and circles.

Crafty Graphics II Kit:
Catalog Number: 1-08852-00

Optional Items:

Guidebook, Braille:
Catalog Number: 5-08844-00

Additional Bold Line Graph Paper, 8 1/2 x 11 with 1/4 Inch Grid:
Catalog Number: 1-04062-00

Replacement Items:

Clear Plastic Pocket Braille Slate/Stylus:
Catalog Number: 1-00078-00

Three Spur Wheels and One Compass with Spur Wheel:
Catalog Number: 1-08852-01
Click this link to purchase the Crafty Graphics II Kit.

Crafty Graphics: Stencil Embossing Kit Video

This VHS video, produced in the nuts-and-bolts style of APH's Homegrown Video Series, demonstrates a variety of uses for the Crafty Graphics Stencil Embossing Kit, as well as briefly exploring some tactile graphic concepts. Features a parent, a teacher of the visually impaired, a transcriber, and an art teacher.

Discover from them:

• how they use the kit
  
• for which projects and applications they use it
  
• some tips and tricks
  
• their favorite features
  
• how they used the finished results

Runs approximately 17 minutes. Closed Captioned.

Crafty Graphics VHS Video:
Catalog Number: 1-30013-00
Click this link to purchase the Crafty Graphics: Stencil Embossing Kit Video.

American Printing House for the Blind, Inc.
1839 Frankfort Avenue
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 6085
Louisville, Kentucky 40206-0085
Toll Free: 800-223-1839
Phone: 502-895-2405
Fax: 502-899-2274
E-mail: info@aph.org
Web site: http://www.aph.org
APH Shopping Home: http://shop.aph.org

$23.00
The cutest earrings!

Made with tiny colorful German cabs, translucent apple green glass navettes and Japanese glass pearls, all vintage. They hangs from antique brass hooks (NICKEL FREE, like all my earrings) and securely close with clear earring stopper tubes.

They will arrive to you nicely wrapped in a beautiful handmade gift box.


Total length: 2 3/8 inches (6 cm)


* Shown on an Alice stand from http://www.etsy.com/shop/orangeandblossom

What’s the most underappreciated decade in the history of personal computers to date? Easy: The 1990s. It was a transitional period, long past the era when early giants such as the Apple II and TRS-80 ruled the world, but before things got totally commoditized. Plenty of interesting, imaginative, sometimes just plain odd computers were released [...]

 The Apple iPhone, released in 2007. 

 

 

The Samsung Galaxy S II, released in 2011.

 

 

 

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."
Steve Jobs

Social Barrel

Apple hires former Microsoft cloud computing guru CFO World UK Part II: Brave new world: cloud, mobile and social mediamore .. By Ben Camm-Jones | Macworld UK | Published 09:40, 17 April 11 Apple is planning to expand its data centre infrastructure and has poached a leading Microsoft executive to help it achieve ... Apple poaches Microsoft cloud computing guruComputerworld Apple poaches Microsoft's cloud computing expertDigitaltrends.com Did Apple Just Poach Microsoft's Datacenter Guru?PC Magazine Barron's -ReadWriteWeb -Social Barrel all 52 news articles »

My junior year of college, my roommate Scot played Dr. J vs. Larry Bird on an Apple II, the game's original platform, always taking Bird. Scot had a Three Ring Binder. After each score he'd put down that boxy joystick… [Kotaku] More »

Buzzword du jour

NFC, that’s the big buzzword du jour, and it’s likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future according to a new report by Juniper Research.

According to the company, one in five smartphones will have NFC in them by 2014 thanks to Google's?move in the last six months to make the technology popular.

So how many is one in five? According to Juniper, it forecasts almost 300 million NFC capable smartphones will be in use by 2014. Juniper’s analysis shows that this growth will be driven in the short term by mobile network operators launching services in 20 early adopting countries before the end of 2012.

With more and more handset vendors integrating NFC chipsets, the new Juniper Research report forecasts that NFC payments and retail marketing capability via coupons and smart posters will become common amongst smartphone users in Western Europe, North America and other developed regions.??

If that’s going to be the case though, handset makers had better get their socks on, currently there is only a handful of NFC ready devices from Samsung, like the Samsung Galaxy S II, and Nokia on the market, with company’s like LG, RIM, HTC, HP, Apple and Sony Ericsson all to announce NFC touting smartphones.

Not that that is stopping company’s either professing their love for the technology or rumoured to be bringing into the next generation of models – iPhone 5 anyone?

And where will all these NFC phones be? North America will account for half of all NFC smartphones in 2014, followed by Western Europe says the report.

Tags: Phones NFC Google Apple RIM LG Samsung Nokia Sony Ericsson Juniper Research

20 per cent of phones will be NFC happy in 3 years originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Sat, 16 Apr 2011 09:00:00 +0100

I was reading ZDNET's post on the Fed targeting to close 800 data centers by 2015.

Fed CIO Kundra: We need to shut 800 data centers down by 2015

By Larry Dignan | April 12, 2011, 1:49pm PDT

Summary

Vivek Kundra, the chief information officer of the Federal government, said Tuesday that the company is actively shutting down 800 data centers by 2015.

Then I read the PDF testimony by Vivek Kundra to understand more, and found the section on strengthening program managers.

I spent much of my career at Apple and Microsoft as a program manager working on operating system releases.  Three of some of the best I worked with are:

Sheila Brady - Project Leader for System 7

Dennis Adler - Group Program Manager for Windows 95

While a director for MSR, Mr. Adler led a team from Research to the Windows Server Division and oversaw the initial development of a new server deployment and management technology that shipped with Windows Server 2003; formed the University Relations Group in
MSR and oversaw its rapid growth and initial expansion into Europe and Asia; was instrumental in MSR’s initial external public relations endeavors; and was a liaison between MSR and Microsoft’s product teams, as well as a Group Program Manager in the Personal
Systems Division.  Mr. Adler led the team responsible for designing and overseeing the development of the core components for Windows 95

John Medica - Project Leader for Macintosh II

John K. Medica retired as Senior Vice President and Co-Leader, Product Group from Dell Inc. in April 2007. In 1993, Mr. Medica joined Dell as Vice President, Portable Systems. During 1996, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Dell?s Japan division. He returned to the U.S. in August 1997 as Vice President, Procurement, and later served as Vice President, Web Products Group, and Vice President and General Manager, Transactional Product Group. Prior to joining Dell, he served as Project Leader for the Macintosh II, Director of the Macintosh CPU Projects Group and Senior Director of PowerBook Engineering with Apple Computer. Mr. Medica received his bachelor?s degree in Electrical Engineering from Manhattan College, and his master?s degree in Business Administration from Wake Forest University. Mr. Medica is currently a director of Compal Electronics, Inc., a publicly traded company.

These are some of top program managers I learned a lot from and the unique talent to manage complex projects with 100s if not 1000s of people on projects that were market successes.  And, I have been lucky to be able to connect with these great program managers even the products shipped.

According to Gawker, the top three most popular passwords are:

123456
password
12345678

The thirteenth most popular is "trustno1," which was Agent Mulder's password on The X-Files.  It's definitely a cooler choice than "qwerty" (number 5 on the list), but not exactly adequate to keep the FBI from sneaking a peek.

At An Associate's Mind, Keith Lee addresses the extant reality that the government can seize and search laptops that cross the border, no reason needed.  The arguments against this bastardization of the border search rationale notwithstanding, it remains that the courts have held no Fourth Amendment prohibition applies.  Recognizing this, Keith gets technical with how to protect one's data.

For people of a certain age, computer passwords are a nightmare.  We struggle to remember our children's names, even our own age.  Maybe it's because the file cabinet is filled to overflowing, or maybe our parents were right that abusing our bodies in our teen years would come back to haunt us.  Whatever, we suffer from CRS in a big way.  Of the things we struggle to recall, passwords are the least of our problems.

The best we can hope for in this age where everything demands a password is to come up with something we are reasonably likely to remember and offers some small amount of security.  Our comprehension of the latter, however, is based on images of American cryptographers working night and day to break Japan's secret codes in World War II.



Keith has disabused me of my romantic delusion.

Simple passwords are subject to brute-force cracking in a matter of minutes by the average desktop machine, never mind a workstation or cluster systems that a computer forensic lab will have available to crack a system.

For example, below is the time needed to crack a password consisting of 36 characters: The full alphabet, either upper or lower case (not both in this case) plus numbers.

0123456789 and either ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ or abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Password Length	Combinations	Class A	Class B	Class C	Class D	Class E	Class F
2	1,296	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
3	46,656	4 Secs	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
4	1.6 million	2½ Mins	16 Seconds	1 Second	Instant	Instant	Instant
5	60.4 million	1½ Hours	10 Mins	1 Min	Instant	Instant	Instant

Versus the time to crack a password that contains 96 characters: Mixed upper and lower case alphabet plus numbers and common symbols.

0123456789AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz <SP>!”#$%&’()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~

Password Length	Combinations	Class A	Class B	Class C	Class D	Class E	Class F
2	9,216	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
3	884,736	88½ Secs	9 Secs	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
4	85 Million	2¼ Hours	14 Mins	1½ Mins	8½ Secs	Instant	Instant
5	8 Billion	9½ Days	22½ Hours	2¼ Hours	13½ Mins	1¼ Mins	8 Secs
6	782 Billion	2½ Years	90 Days	9 Days	22 Hours	2 Hours	13 Mins
7	75 Trillion	238 Years	24 Years	2½ Years	87 Days	8½ Days	20 Hours
8	7.2 Quadrillion	22,875 Years	2,287 Years	229 Years	23 Years	2¼ Years	83½ Days

Note: Class D is a typical desktop machine, or next year’s high-end smartphone.

Taken from: Password Recovery Speeds. A full breakdown of password security is available from Lockdown.co.uk.

So as should be painfully clear, choose a strong password.

What has become painfully clear is that there is no chance whatsoever that I will be able to remember a password that can't be broken instantaneously.  If you can, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.  There's also a matter of encryption, and Keith provides some suggestions for that as well.

There are three alternatives, however, worthy of consideration.  The first is to have nothing incriminating or private on your electronic device as you enter the United States, making the search and seizure nothing more than wrong and inconvenient.  The second is to continue to argue that laptop searches bear no connection to the historic bases for causeless border searches in the hope that the federal courts will eventually apply the rationale rather than the rubric and distinguish opportunistic law enforcement searches that properly fall under the ambit of the Fourth Amendment.  Good luck with that.

The third is to fundamentally undermine the scheme concocted by the government to subvert and circumvent the reasonable expectation of privacy in our papers and effects by employment of special tools designed to thwart the government's efforts to use any excuse to delve into our secret computer life:  A pen and paper.

No, Apple doesn't make the iPen, and you won't need a password to use one.

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Probably few remember the original Apple logo, which featured Sir Isaac Newton sitting under a tree with the inscription ‘“Newton … A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought … Alone.” Thankfully, within a year, Jobs was introduced to Rob Janoff, a young designer based in Palo Alto, California who was assigned to help market the clunky Apple II, a far cry from today’s sleek MacBook. “For inspiration, the first thing I did was go to the supermarket, buy a bag of apples and slice them up,” recalled Janoff in an interview with Sync Magazine. “I just stared at the wedges for hours.” Eventually, Janoff created the polychromatic Apple logo which survived until 1998.

Founded in 1909, British Petroleum’s (BP) original logo was designed by an amateur who submitted his emblem in a company-wide competition. “A Mr. AR Saunders from the purchasing department won an employee competition in 1920 to design the first BP mark, a boxy ‘B’ and ‘P’ with wings on their edges, set into the outline of a shield,” the company notes on its site. BP, which is now officially incorporated as BP p.l.c., updated its logo in 2000, incorporating green and yellow, perhaps as a means to associate a “green” mentality with the company. Lauded by marketing gurus at first, the logo was later scrutinized (and lampooned) in 2010, when BP became responsible for perhaps the world's worst oil spill.

Perhaps one of America’s most recognizable brands, the Ford logo has retained its familiar oval shape since the company’s founding during the turn of the 20th century. In 1909, the first logo with the distinctive lettering was designed by C.H. Wills, an engineer and draftsman who was with the company since its incorporation. Though Wills passed away in 1940, the oval emblem he created lives on. In a press statement announcing the company’s most recent logo update in 2003, Jan Valentic, Ford’s vice president of global marketing noted that "The oval is a memorable visual symbol that conjures up great images of the storied experiences people have had with their Ford vehicles…Ford, the oval, is a thread in the fabric of our culture."

Tracing IBM’s logo back to its origins brings us back to 1889, when the International Time Recording business was founded. In 1911, ITR merged with the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company — the forerunner of IBM. About a decade later, the tongue-twisting Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company simplified its name to the International Business Machines Corporation. “The ornate, rococo letters that formed the "CTR" logo were replaced by the words "Business Machines" in more contemporary sans-sarif type, and in a form intended to suggest a globe, girdled by the word "International,” according to the company's site. The company’s current logo was design by Paul Rand in 1972, and “horizontal stripes now replaced the solid letters to suggest ‘speed and dynamism.’”

Shell, one of the world’s oldest oil companies, traces its humble roots back to a shopkeeper named Marcus Samuel who sold antiques and decorative shells and wanted to expand his business. After a merger in 1907, the Royal Dutch Shell Group was formed with the shell, or “pecten,” as its official emblem. According to Shell, it’s not exactly certain why or how the logo came to be. One explanation comes from the original business of selling shells as decorations; however, some within the company disagree. Some evidence points to an investor named “Mr. Graham” whose Spanish family coat of arms bore a shell emblem.

In 1907, 19-year-old Jim Casey borrowed $100 from a friend to start the American Messenger Company, which, using the help of his two brothers, made deliveries on foot and by bicycle. Fast-forward ten years, when Casey merged his company with a local competitor, and created its first logo, a shield with an eagle carrying a package. Paul Rand, famous for designing some of America’s most notable corporate logos including IBM, UPS, Enron, Westinghouse, and ABC, designed UPS’s third logo in 1961. In 2003, UPS, along with marketing consultancy FutureBrand, spent two years designing the most recent logo.

Walmart first opened its doors in 1962. Founded in Arkansas (where its headquarters remain today), Walmart began to experience significant growth in the 1970’s, when the first Walmart distribution center was opened. Walmart’s logo has gone through several iterations since the company’s founding. Perhaps the logo with the most significant departure was the “Discount City” emblem, which was only used in print advertising, on company uniforms, as well as in-store signage.