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The After Math: You take the good with the bad
It's been a week of mixed news for the tech industry. Boston Dynamics and MIT showed off new devices that could radically advance humanity while, at the same time, Sharp was acquired for billions by a company whose employees regularly throw themselves from its roof. Samsung showed off some massive new memory chips even as its lawyers continued their perpetual war with Apple. Worst of all, some genius gave Woody Allen money to make a new movie. Just, ugh.
ICYMI: Computer chips cooled by 'blood,' tiny tank and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-392885{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-392885, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-392885{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-392885").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: IBM Research in Zurich is using fluid to both power and cool computer chips, modeled off of the way the human brain works. University of Southampton scientists created small glass discs for mega data storage that they say can survive for billions of years. A new unmanned ground vehicle that's basically a DIY tank is available for all those die-hard infantry fans. If you need your dose of nature, check out the video from a Minnesota-based YouTuber of the ice on Lake Superior breaking. As always, please share any interesting science or tech videos, anytime! Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag to @mskerryd.
Bipartisan education bill makes computer science a priority
Yesterday, the president signed a new education bill designed to replace the 13-year old No Child Left Behind act, reducing federal controls on state education systems -- but it does something else, too. The Ever Student Succeeds act places computer science on the same level as other "well-rounded" subjects. Coding and computer literacy is now just as important as math and science.
Steam Machines are slower gaming systems than Windows PCs
The whole point of a Steam Machine is to get PC-like gaming in your living room, but do you actually get PC-like performance? Not so much, if you ask Ars Technica. It recently ran benchmarks comparing the performance of SteamOS and Windows 10 on the same hardware, and it's pretty clear that you're taking a speed hit in the name of couch-based convenience. The two operating systems are very close in synthetic tests, but SteamOS lags well behind Windows when it comes to real gameplay: depending on the game and your detail settings, you could be losing dozens of frames per second. All of the titles tested were still very playable on the modest test rig (a dual-core 3GHz Pentium with an old GeForce GTX 660), but this could pose a problem with more demanding titles in the future.
Dell will use recycled carbon fiber in Alienware and Latitude products
Later this year, Dell will increase the amount of recycled materials that it uses to make its products. Before the end of 2015, the company will begin using excess carbon fiber and other scrap materials in a few Alienware and Latitude devices. The effort with expand across those two lines in 2016 as the Dell says its plan to use the recycled carbon fiber is "an industry first." The company is teaming up with the supplier SABIC on the initiative, and it says estimates show the duo can keep 820,000 pounds of carbon fiber from hitting landfills. The computer maker began using recycled plastics for enclosures back in 2014, re-using 4.2 million pounds since that time in a number of displays and its OptiPlex desktops.
Pentagon shuts down Joint Chiefs' email network
The Department of Defense reportedly shut down an unclassified email system on Tuesday after detecting "suspicious activity" over the weekend, according to CNN. The network served General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as a number of civilian contractors. The Pentagon refused to release many details about the attack, even what the "suspicious activity" was; instead downplaying the hack as a run-of-the-mill cyber attack that caused minimal damage.
Relive the history of computing at 'The Interface Experience'
At a time when devices are faster and slimmer than ever, a collection of bulky old computers can be amusing yet surprisingly evocative. The Interface Experience, an exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center's Focus Gallery in New York, brings on a rush of nostalgia with a ton of vintage machines. Kimon Keramidas, curator and director of the digital media lab, hopes that an interaction with aging technology will make people think critically about their current devices. Unlike the objects that are off-limits behind a glass wall in a museum, the machines at the exhibit are open and quite alive. They've been overhauled with custom programs to initiate a three-way exchange with the user, the software and the hardware.
Pack your Raspberry Pi into an underpowered laptop for $100
The Raspberry Pi has already found its way into a number of unusual applications from DIY cell phones to Gif-capturing cameras. Now, a recently launched IndieGoGo campaign aims to put it somewhere more familiar: your lap. The PiKasa is essentially a laptop shell. It doesn't sport a 3D-printed chasis like the Pi-Top but does feature a 7-inch LCD display over a ruggedized keyboard, a smattering of connectivity ports and charging cables -- basically, everything you'd need except the actual computer bits and power supply.
The mother of all tech demos becomes an avant garde opera
1968 is when it all changed. On December 9 that year, Douglas Engelbart, a computer scientist at Stanford Research Center, made a 90-minute video presentation that revolutionized the world of computers. He didn't show up on stage at the Computer Conference in San Francisco, instead, he teleconferenced from his research lab 30 miles away -- an unprecedented feat at the time. Now almost half a century later, "the mother of all demos" is being resurrected as an avant garde opera called The Demo. Composers Mikel Rouse and Ben Neill re-imagine Engelbart's demo and the defining moments in his life that led up to it through a hybrid theater performance.
Hardware, not hackers, behind US Postal Service's computer woes
The United States Postal Service had a little trouble installing some hardware yesterday, and now it's feeling the burn - the service's email system remains on the fritz while "some services offered at retail offices" have been affected to boot. Here's what you need to know: The USPS has battled snow and rain and heat and gloom of night, and a systems outage like this hasn't really slowed it down any. Mail deliveries are continuing as usual, as are mail scanning and processing procedures so your letters are currently flowing through their tubes same as always.
Light-bending silicon strips are the key to super-fast computers
No, that's not a barcode you're looking at -- instead, it's the likely future of computing. Stanford University researchers have developed an optical link that uses silicon strips to bend light at right angles, which future processors will likely need to transmit data at super-fast speeds. The key, as you might have gathered, is the series of gaps. When light hits the device, the combination of those gaps and silicon sends different wavelengths left and right. You're not limited to specific light bands or directions, either; you can use an algorithm to design the link you need within a matter of minutes.
HP officially splitting into two companies (update)
HP's home-focused and business divisions have frequently seemed at odds with each other, and apparently the company agrees. The Wall Street Journal claims that the tech giant is about to split into two companies, one focused on PCs and the other dedicated solely to corporate hardware and services. If the report is accurate, the separation could be announced as early as Monday. The exact reasoning behind the move hasn't been mentioned, but the PC-centric group would be headed by one of its existing executives, Dion Weisler; current CEO Meg Whitman would run the business group and keep an eye on the other company by serving as its chairman of the board. However true the rumor may be, such a move wouldn't be all that surprising -- much of the computing industry has been restructuring and rescaling to cope with a world where the PC's role is rapidly evolving. Update: Recode also says it's aware of the split, and has an explanation for it. Supposedly, HP had no luck in early talks to sell its PC division to Dell or Lenovo. It had similar problems offloading server and services groups, and a merger with the data storage gurus at EMC also wasn't meant to be. The breakup would effectively revive plans shelved when CEO Leo Apotheker got the boot in 2011; getting rid of less successful products (in this case, PCs) would improve the chances of an EMC merger or similar deals. Update 2: HP has now confirmed the news. In a filing with the SEC, the company states that it plans to split into two publicly traded companies. Its consumer-focused PC, tablet, and printing efforts will continue on under the HP banner, while a new company named Hewlett-Packard Enterprise will focus on "enterprise technology infrastructure" and "software and services businesses." Meg Whitman, the current CEO of HP, will take the reins at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, while Dion Weisler, the company's EVP for Printing and Personal Systems, will lead the new HP. The company also announced an increase in the number of layoffs for this financial year. It had previously estimated 45,000-50,000 employees would be leaving the company, but that figure has now risen to 55,000.
Hardcore PC gamers spend twice as much as others on their obsession
Take a gander through the comment section of any gaming-related article here on Engadget, and you're all but guaranteed to find at least one person espousing how much better playing games on a PC is compared to doing so on, say, a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. But just who are those people? Joystiq has spotted a new report from The NPD Group that should shed some light on the situation. Understanding PC Gaming: 2014 calls them "heavy core" gamers. They spend five or more hours each week playing the likes of shooters and strategy titles, and have dropped about twice as much cash on games in the past three months compared to casual gamers. They, perhaps surprisingly, make up the smallest group surveyed: 20 percent compared to casual players' 56 percent, while light core (the same demographic as heavy core, but spends less time gaming on a weekly basis) sits at 24 percent of those 6,225 people questioned.
IRL: A 24-inch AOC monitor that doubles as a gigantic Android tablet
What can you do with 24 inches of Jelly Bean that you can't do with 10? Manufacturers like Acer, Asus and ViewSonic have been building oversized Android-powered devices for a couple years now; I was determined to find out why, so I spent a few weeks with AOC's own all-in-one. The hybrid external monitor will run you $370 on Amazon -- more than twice what you'll pay for a comparable 1080p screen -- but this pricier model adds stock Android 4.2.2 with a touchscreen interface. With the tap of a button, the integrated quad-core processor and eight gigs of storage spring into action, effectively converting this otherwise ordinary monitor into a complete Android-powered machine. There's even an integrated 720p webcam, and with stock Jelly Bean on board, you can install whatever apps you'd like from Google Play.
Supercomputer passes the Turing test by mimicking a teenager (update: reasons to be cautious)
After 64 long years, it looks like a machine has finally passed the Turing test for artificial intelligence. A supercomputer in a chat-based challenge fooled 33 percent of judges into thinking that it was Eugene Goostman, a fictional 13 year old boy; that's just above the commonly accepted Turing test's 30 percent threshold. Developers Vladimir Veselov and Eugene Demchenko say that the key ingredients were both a plausible personality (a teen who thinks he knows more than he does) and a dialog system adept at handling more than direct questions.
The Daily Grind: Do you prefer games available on multiple platforms?
There's a certain glee in knowing that any time I want, I could buy a copy of Final Fantasy XIV for my PlayStation 3 and just play there instead of on the computer. I doubt I ever will, but I always have the option. And I've met more than a few people whom I enjoy playing alongside and who do play on the console, so it's certainly enriched my overall game experience. Most MMOs launch for the PC and that's it. A small number go on to develop a native Mac client, some are available on consoles or mobile decides, and so forth. You can argue that developing these extra clients takes time and resources away from improving the main game, but you can also argue that these extra clients allow people who would otherwise have never played the game to experience something awesome. So how do you feel? Do you prefer games available on multiple platforms, do you prefer development focused on just one, or do you not really care? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Gaming the system: Edward Thorp and the wearable computer that beat Vegas
"My name is Edward Thorp." "My name is Edward Thorp." "My name is Edward Thorp." It's 1964 and Edward Thorp is on the television game show To Tell The Truth, sitting alongside two other well-dressed men also claiming to be Edward Thorp, a man so adept at card counting that he'd been barred from Las Vegas casinos. Thorp, the quiet man on the right, every bit the mathematics professor with black-rimmed glasses and close-cropped hair, is the real deal. Two years earlier, Thorp's book, Beat the Dealer, was published, explaining the system for winning at blackjack he developed based on the mathematical theory of probability. The system worked so well that Las Vegas casinos actually changed the rules of blackjack to give the dealer an added advantage. Those changes would prove to be short-lived, but Thorp's book would go on to become a massive bestseller, and remains a key guide to the game of blackjack to this day. That all this happened as the computer age was flourishing in the 1960s isn't coincidental. While working to beat the house, Thorp was also working at one of the hotbeds of that revolution: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he had access to two things that would prove invaluable to his research. One was the room-filling IBM 704 computer, without which, he writes in Beat the Dealer, "the analysis on which this book is based would have been impossible."
Beta test reveals Logitech planning to support OS X
OnlineBeta.com lists callouts for beta testers. A recent listing has revealed that accessory maker Logitech is planning to expand its support for OS X. In the listing, Logitech asks for help testing out its various gaming keyboards and mice on OS X, offering up public software for more configurability and precision with its various tools. This is great news for us Mac gamers. Logitech has been making great mice, keyboards and joysticks for years now, but the company has primarily focused on Windows computers (mostly because PCs are traditionally more targeted at gaming). In the past few years, however, gaming on the Mac has definitely grown in popularity, and it looks like Logitech is ready to start working on compatibility for its products.
NPD counts 39M game consoles in US homes going into 2013
The NPD's latest report says there are 400 million Internet-connected devices in American homes these days, 39 million of which are video game consoles.The majority of connected devices (about 184 million) are still plain ol' desktop and laptop computers, and smartphones are in second place with about 133 million devices. Video game consoles come in third, right above tablets (31.8 million) and connected HDTVs (16 million), which means there's a significant number of game-oriented devices out there plugged into the Internet.The NPD says it expects these devices to start connecting to each other more in 2013, with smartphones and tablets doing more sharing to larger television screens. Video game consoles serve plenty of functions outside of pure gaming already, including video streaming, networking, and Internet browsing. NPD's report says that if smartphones and tablets can provide those services in a combination that appeals to customers, those categories will continue to grow this year, possibly even leaving dedicated game consoles behind.
Digital Storm Bolt stuffs full-power graphics into a mini gaming desktop, stretches laws of physics
Attempts to create truly small gaming desktops usually involve at least some kind of performance hit. Even HP's category-bending Firebird, one of the few stand-out examples, had to use toned-down graphics to succeed in a tiny enclosure. Digital Storm might have broken the trend towards sacrifice with its new Bolt desktop: although it's just 3.6 inches wide and 14 inches tall, the Bolt can cram in as much as a GeForce GTX 680 and will even let gamers upgrade the graphics like they would in a full-size PC. The seemingly logic-defying (if also finger-defying) case still allows room for as much as an overclocked 4.6GHz Core i7, 16GB of RAM and storage options that meld a spinning hard drive with up to two SSDs and a DVD burner. Digital Storm isn't even setting an absurd base price, but it's in the cost that we finally see the catch to the miniaturization tricks. The $999 entry-level Bolt carries a modest 3.1GHz Core i3, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive and GeForce GTX 650 Ti, while it takes a staggering $1,949 to get a fully decked-out Core i7 system with a GTX 680. Those prices might be worthwhile for anyone who has ever strained while lugging a traditional tower to a game tourney. %Gallery-169137%
