Delphi says its diesel-like engine runs cleanly on gasoline.
Delphi, a major parts supplier to automakers, is developing an engine technology that could improve the fuel economy of gas-powered cars by 50 percent, potentially rivaling the performance of hybrid vehicles while costing less. A test engine based on the technology is similar in some ways to a highly efficient diesel engine, but runs on gasoline.
mikejuk writes with an update on the Oracle vs Google Trial. From the article: “One month into the Oracle v Google trial, Judge William Alsup has revealed that he has, and still does, write code. Will this affect the outcome? I think so! After trying to establish that the nine lines in rangeCheck that were copied saved Google time in getting Android to market the lawyer making the case is interrupted by the judge which indicates he at least does understand how straightforward it would be to program rangeCheck from scratch: ‘rangeCheck! All it does is make sure the numbers you’re inputting are within a range, and gives them some sort of exceptional treatment. That witness, when he said a high school student could do it — ‘ And the lawyer reveals he doesn’t: ‘I’m not an expert on Java — this is my second case on Java, but I’m not an expert, and I probably couldn’t program that in six months.’ Perhaps every judge should be a coding judge — it must make the law seem a lot simpler…”
From yesterday; the Oracle lawyer was attempting to argue that Google profited by stealing rangeCheck since it allowed them to get to market faster than they would have had they wrote it from scratch. Groklaw, continuing its detailed coverage as always, has the motions filed today.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Oracle makes a last-stand effort on trying for infringer’s profits, but possibly reopens the door for accepting statutory damages.
[Read more]
CNET News
An anonymous reader tips an article at CNN about the development of technology that automates the process of writing news articles. It started with simple sports reporting, but now at least one company is setting its sights on more complicated articles. Quoting:
“Narrative Science then began branching out into finance and other topics that are driven heavily by data. Soon, Hammond says, large companies came looking for help sorting huge amounts of data themselves. ‘I think the place where this technology is absolutely essential is the area that’s loosely referred to as big data,’ Hammond said. ‘So almost every company in the world has decided at one point that in order to do a really good job, they need to meter and monitor everything.’ … Meanwhile, Hammond says Narrative Science is looking to eventually expand into long form news stories. That’s an idea that’s unsettling to some journalism experts.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The proof-of-concept device concentrates sunlight to break apart limestone.
Researchers at George Washington University have bolted together an ungainly contraption that they say efficiently uses the energy in sunlight to power a novel chemical process to make lime, the key ingredient in cement, without emitting carbon dioxide. The device puts to work about half of the energy in sunlight (solar panels, in comparison, convert just 15 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity).
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has launched a probe of Facebook's proposed acquisition of Instagram that could delay the closing of the deal, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
Computerworld News
Invisibility cloaks that work for microwaves are easy to make using simple building blocks. Now engineers have created the equivalent building blocks for visible light
Given the headlines associated with invisibility cloaks, you could be forgiven for thinking that a Star Trek-style cloaking device will be available in stores before the holiday season. Sadly, no.
Toshiba isn’t going with the flow this financial season, bucking the trend and posting a healthy (albeit reduced) net profit of 73.7 billion yen ($ 898.8 million). Whilst down from $ 1.7 billion in 2010, the company points to the European debt crisis, Japanese Earthquake and high oil prices as the barriers to further success. Unlike its local rivals, Tosh branched out early into “social infrastructure,” building everything from radiation detectors, power plants and LED light bulbs — businesses that made a stack of cash while its computer and TV businesses slumped. Unencumbered by these crises in the future, the company is projecting to make $ 1.68 billion across the next 12 months — at which point it might treat itself to a spa day, or something.
Continue reading Toshiba made $ 898.8 million dollar profit, could manage to lend you twenty bucks
Toshiba made $ 898.8 million dollar profit, could manage to lend you twenty bucks originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 May 2012 05:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Biochemists have long imagined that autocatalytic sets can explain the origin of life. Now a new mathematical approach to these sets has even broader implications
One of the most puzzling questions about the origin of life is how the rich chemical landscape that makes life possible came into existence.
As you may have seen over the weekend, someone has discovered a security hole in FileVault, which arose with the OS X Lion security update, version 10.7.3, back in February: FileVault encryption passwords are now visible in plain text outside of a computer’s encrypted area.
The hole was apparently spotted by someone back in February, although it was most publicly first pointed out by security consultant David Emery on the Cryptome blog a few days ago and the rest of the blogosphere has run with it.
Now, it appears that the problem could be bigger than previously thought: it turns out that the developer who first noticed the hole back in February has discovered that it exists outside of FileVault, too, with at least one other company’s security encryption software, Lion VM, from VMWare Fusion, showing the same behavior.
TechCrunch
Photos, location, professional networking, or all your real-life friends… Instagram, Foursquare, LinkedIn and Facebook lead social networking today because they’ve found existing the types of networks to connect users around.
Now a new generation of startups has been showing up in recent months, trying to nail another type of networking that so far has yielded no big success: small, very personal networks. Like you how use texts with your closest friends.
A judge rules that Facebook ‘likes’ are not protected speech. Does this mean you should be a little more careful about what you admit to liking?
[Read more]
CNET News
Mark Zuckerberg’s visit to China back in December 2011 created a storm of speculation on whether Facebook was preparing for a full scale entry into the most populous country in the world. Photos of Zuckerberg visiting Sina’s headquarters in Beijing, leaked by a Sina employee and reports of him meeting with other major Chinese Internet companies such as Baidu and Alibaba have further fueled rumors that Facebook is looking for a local partner to facilitate its China entry.
Putting aside the rumors and speculation, there is little doubt that Facebook is looking for a way to enter the China market and the real questions lie not in the “if,” but rather the “how,” “when” and whether Facebook will be able to make a success of their China market entry when countless other western Internet juggernauts have bruised and battered themselves against the Great firewall of China.
TechCrunch
Lithium batteries very frequently power our gadgets, but the material itself isn’t common and, by extension, isn’t cheap. Researchers at the Tokyo University of Science aim to solve that through sodium-ion batteries using a new electrode material. By mixing together oxides of iron, manganese and sodium, Shinichi Komaba and team have managed to get a sodium battery’s electrode holding a charge closer to that of a lithium-ion battery while using a much more abundant material. Having just 30 total charges means this simplest form of sodium-ion battery technology could be years away from finding a home in your next smartphone or EV, although it’s not the only option. Argonne National Laboratory‘s Chris Johnson has co-developed a more exotic vanadium pentoxide electrode that could produce 200 charges while keeping the battery itself made out of an ingredient you more often find in your table salt than your mobile gear.
[Image credit: Hi-Res Images of Chemical Elements]
New metal mix could lead to cheap, plentiful sodium-ion batteries in gadgets originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 May 2012 06:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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After the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) concluded that Google violated Internet privacy standards in the way that it interacted with Apple’s Safari Web browser, the question is now how much the search giant will have to pay in fines. Based on the huge number of individual instances of privacy violations, Google could technically be forced
Jonathan Zittrain calls for a technological solution to the ethical questions raised by Internet culture.
Zittrain’s message: Internet meme creators and remixers can be a force for good, in that they “look for a pathos in the world and try to capture it,” thereby exposing absurd aspects of commercialization and mass media; but it is increasingly important that those who love memes understand and deal with “the ethical dimensions that can come from our happy generation of lulz” (the made-up word that refers to the type of ironic humor many such memes embody).
Students at Rice University devise a way to remove the wires currently needed to power ventricular assist devices in patients with weak hearts.
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CNET News
It wasn’t that long ago that Dish Network was proudly offering AMC HD to its customers (especially since DirecTV didn’t, which has since been rectified) but now the company is willing to let the network’s contract expire this summer, taking new episodes of Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead away from subscribers. The source of the sudden animosity, according to a press release from AMC, is continuing litigation between it and Dish Network over dropping the Voom HD channels back in 2008, leading to them going dark soon after. The LA Times reports Dish Network claims the denial of its appeal on a decision in the case has nothing to do with its sudden change of heart is solely about AMC’s high renewal cost for a relatively low viewership. Whatever you believe, the sniping and threats will likely continue right up until the contract runs out June 30th, which is at least long enough for this season of Mad Men to finish on its own.
Continue reading Dish Network, AMC dispute could see the network’s channels dropped this summer
Dish Network, AMC dispute could see the network’s channels dropped this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 May 2012 19:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | AMC Networks, The Hollywood Reporter | Email this | Comments
Engadget
What’s the penalty for lying on a resume? It’s an important question for new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson, after his PR department offered up the laughable excuse that he made “an inadvertent error” on Yahoo’s website and in an SEC filing claiming he had a Computer Science degree. TechCrunch editor Eric Eldon just wrote this should cost him his new job. At Yahoo, the penalty could include “immediate discharge.”
TechCrunch
Comcast already reported its Q1 results earlier today but on the earnings call CEO of the cable division Neil Smit revealed its next generation X1 cloud DVRs (previously called Xcalibur and promised for a wide rollout to “hundreds of thousands” of customers this year) will launch in a major market in the second quarter. Light Reading cites sources indicating field testing is already under way in Boston and that it could launch in May which fits all too well because The Cable Show will take place there May 21st. In case you’ve forgotten, the quad-tuner X1 DVRs have an all new UI with support for third party apps and social media tie-ins, and will reportedly precede the company’s eventual push towards IP video. While that’s the rumor, what we do know is that TiVo has completed the rollout of Comcast video on-demand support to Premiere DVRs in the Bay Area, and also let us know that Boston, coincidentally, will be next. Customers in other areas can sign up on TiVo’s site at the link below for notifications when the feature goes live in their neck of the woods.
Comcast VOD coming to Boston TiVos, next gen X1 DVR platform could launch there too originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 May 2012 05:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Engadget
The growing interest in a market for personal data that shares profits with the individuals who own the data could change the business landscape for companies like Facebook
To justify its sky-high valuation, Facebook will have to increase its profit per user at rates that seem unlikely, even by the most generous predictions. Last year, we looked at just how unlikely this is.
Hearing aids aren’t the most discreet cybernetic creations, because the need for a clog-free microphone means that they generally need an external component. Engineers at the Universities of Utah and Ohio aim to change everything with a much smaller mic that uses an accelerometer to detect sound vibrations — so it requires no opening and can be inserted right into the ear. The only exterior hardware is the charger — worn exclusively at night. Clinical trials in living humans begin approximately three years from now, and if you’re looking forward to using this new device, removal of the incus (or anvil bone) in the middle-ear must first take place to optimize effectiveness of the new implant. We never said it’d be pretty.
Accelerometer mic could change the way we look at cochlear implants originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 May 2012 11:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
As much as it’d be interesting to see Windows Phone running on a gold-plated cigar lighter, that’s probably never going to happen. According to the UK’s Financial Times, Nokia has been trying to hive off its luxury Vertu brand for months already, and has finally found a suitor with the right cash / sense ratio. Although still far from a done deal, we’re told that venture capitalist firm Permira is willing to contribute up to $ 265 million to Nokia’s needy coffers — which might sound like a lot, but is mere costume jewelry to a manufacturer that just lost $ 1.7 billion.
Nokia could sell luxury Vertu brand to VC firm for $ 265 million originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 03:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Engadget
Orbiting spacecraft could be refueled with water taken from planetoids—but some experts doubt the economics.
A startup called Planetary Resources has announced ambitious plans to survey asteroids and ultimately mine them for water that could be converted to the liquid hydrogen and oxygen needed to refuel spacecraft in orbit.
A new cloud-storage service from the search giant steps on the toes of startups like Dropbox and opens a new front against Apple and Microsoft.
After roughly six years of rumors, Google has finally launched its own cloud storage and syncing service, called Google Drive. The service offers five gigabytes of online file storage for free and includes software that automatically synchronizes files between Windows and Apple computers, Android phones, and Google’s cloud. An iPhone app is due out in the “coming weeks,” Google says. Users can pay $ 2.49 a month for an extra 25 gigabytes of storage, or pay more for larger blocks up to a maximum of 16 terabytes. A post on Google’s official blog announced Google Drive.
HTC’s results for Q1 2012 were a long way short of spectacular, but they came too early to see any impact from sales of its latest wares — particularly the flagship One X and the ambitious mid-range One S. According to Reuters, the Taiwanese manufacturer now predicts that its revenue will leap by 55 percent in Q2, compared to that bad last quarter. That kind of growth equates to around $ 3.56 billion, which isn’t so impressive when you compare it to the same quarter last year, when turnover broke records and was around 20 percent higher, but it’s still an encouraging sign that this company could reap what it sowed at MWC.
HTC predicts 55 percent revenue jump, could hint at strong One sales originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Engadget
German court rules that YouTube is solely responsible for the content users upload and post, a decision that could have massive implications for the Google-owned video-sharing giant.
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CNET News
A pair of researchers at the University of Texas in Dallas have designed a new imaging chip that could turn mobile phones into x-ray devices capable of seeing through walls. According to the researchers, the sensor would be able to see through walls, wood, plastic, paper, and other objects. I don’t think I want my
Increasing demand for Qualcomm’s advanced LTE cellphone chips, and the company’s inability to meet that demand, has led to speculation that Apple’s 2012 iPhone could be delayed.
[Read more]
CNET News
hypnosec writes “With London’s summer 2012 games due to take place in the very near future, you’d think that organizers would make more of an effort and persuade people to show more of an interest — yet it appears the complete opposite has happened, with strict guidelines banning athletes from posting photos of themselves on Twitter with products that aren’t official Olympics sponsors, as well as prohibiting videos or photos to be taken from the athlete’s village. Oh and just for good measure, fans could find themselves barred from sharing videos and photos on Facebook and YouTube of themselves delighting in said Olympics action.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google has warned 20,000 websites that they might be hacked and injected with JavaScript redirect malware, Google said.
Computerworld News
An anonymous reader writes “With North Korea’s failed missile launch Friday, it is clear many nations around the globe are attempting to acquire missiles that can carry larger payloads and go further. Such moves have made the United States and its allies very nervous. Missile defense has been debated since the 1980′s with such debate back once again the headlines. Most missile defense platforms have technical issues and are very expensive. One idea: use drones instead. ‘… a high-speed (~3.5 to 5.0 km/s), two-stage, hit-to-kill interceptor missile, launched from a Predator-type UAV can defeat many of these ballistic missile threats in their boost phase.’ Could a Drone really take down a North Korea missile? ‘A physics-based simulator can estimate the capabilities of a high-altitude, long endurance UAV-launched boost-phase interceptor (HALE BPI) launched from an altitude of approximately 60,000 feet. Enabled by the revolution in UAVs, this proposed boost-phase interceptor, based on off-the-shelf technology, can be deployed in operationally feasible stations on the periphery of North Korea.’”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
If you spent your weekend scanning Picasa for photos shot on a Motorola Droid RAZR HD smartphone, then ordinarily you’d have wasted your time. No phone by that name officially exists, and the PenTile Super AMOLED displays on both the standard Droid RAZR and the RAZR Maxx are distinctly not high definition. Surprising then, that when Blog of Mobile searched Picasa they discovered an album shot by a Motorola engineer supposedly using a RAZR HD. The photos have since been removed, leaving only the blurry desk image shown above, which is also attributed to a RAZR HD even if we can’t be certain who shot it. Fortunately, the EXIF data was grabbed before the wipe, and if you glance past the break you’ll see that it mentions a possible ‘Vanquish’ codename for the phone as a well as ICS build 4.0.3. There, just when you needed yet another reason to love EXIF.
Continue reading Motorola engineer leaks Droid RAZR HD, could lose his desk
Motorola engineer leaks Droid RAZR HD, could lose his desk originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 06:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink The Verge, DROID Life | Blog of Mobile | Email this | Comments
Engadget
Six ideas for where Mark Zuckerberg might put his money.
A little over a year ago, I got an email from a college friend, telling me about her boyfriend’s startup. He and some friends had a made an app that let you take pictures, apply filters to them, and share them with friends. “That’s kind of boring,” I thought. I decided not to write about it.
The U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five book publishers over alleged e-book price fixing means that the publishers have to reinvent their digital futures, some experts said.
Computerworld News
In a new interview with MCV, head of Kinect development Kudo Tsunoda has said that a future version of the motion-tracking unit may be able to detect the tone of your voice, as well as body language. Tsunoda says the Kinect team is “really interested right now is creating experiences that help you develop real
Amazon’s next-gen e-ink Kindle may come with a front-lit screen, according to TechCrunch, which claims to have caught a glimpse of an early prototype. The e-ink display offers a more comfortable paper-like reading experience, but like paper it can only be read during the day or in well-lit conditions. Apparently, Amazon has been considering introducing
Will ephemeral plastic solar cells make ubiquitous sensor networks a reality?
When you think about how to power a distributed network of environmental sensors–the kind we’ll want to have in order to connect the entirety of our physical world to the Internet of Things–the answer is obvious: solar power. Most of these sensors are by nature too tiny to have access to much of a temperature gradient, and a steady supply of vibrations isn’t always available. Batteries have limited lifespans and add bulk and expense.
Rumors relating to a new Kindle, or three, land in our inbox with surprising frequency, but when they come from our brethren at TechCrunch, we’ll definitely give it a listen. Devin Coldewey reports how he was lucky enough to snatch a glance at an in-development Kindle, which sports an illuminated screen. Amazon’s purchase of Finnish firm Oy Modilis, which has a quiver of patents pertaining to lighting technology, adds credence to the idea that an e-reader with some form of lighting could be in the works, and Coldewey thinks he’s seen it. He says tapping the screen reveals a slider that, when dragged to the right, “lit up evenly with a rather cool light.” Importantly — for eyes and batteries alike — the light is said to be softer, and of a gentler blue-white color, compared to the harsh white common in LCDs. The loose-lipped wielder of this device claims that the industrial design isn’t finished yet, but did hint at a 2012 release. We’re not holding our breath, but the chance to do away with additional light accessories, is definitely enough to have us keep our fingers crossed.
Illuminated Kindle e-readers could arrive this year, also, might not originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Apr 2012 09:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
A genotyping test from a Canadian biotech company enables timely personalized drug treatment.
For some cardiac patients, recovery from a common heart procedure can be complicated by a single DNA base pair gene responsible for drug processing. The risk could be lowered with the first bedside genetic test of its kind. The test shows promise for quickly and easily identifying patients who need an alterative medication.
Microsoft’s just been granted a patent entitled “Shopping assistant.” The claims indicate a system that generates a route to a product based on user-defined criteria (i.e. quickest, cheapest, shortest distance,) it also indicates that certain real-time conditions from participating merchants, such as stock levels, could also help determine the route. Now we’re no CSI, but sounds to us like someone got fed up pounding the Mall looking for the last Buzz Lightyear, and cooked up a system to help save folk from the same pain. The problem is, we’re not sure we like the idea of Windows Shopping all that much either…
Microsoft ‘Shopping assistant’ patent could help you find Elmo, more time for the kids originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Engadget
A verdict against Megaupload in the U.S. would mean other cloud storage providers can be held criminally liable for illegal content stored by customers on their networks, an attorney representing the shuttered file-sharing site said on Tuesday.
Computerworld News
No other means of storing energy may be able to reach the scale required to run Germany on solar and wind power.
If Germany is to meet its ambitious goals of getting a third of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, it must find a way to store huge quantities of electricity in order to make up for the intermittency of renewable energy.
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