Earlier this week, we reported on efforts by an Indiana state legislator who was interested in getting creationism inserted into the state's science classrooms. He managed to get a modified bill , one that was less sectarian but still overtly promoted religion, passed by the state's Senate[......]
Anger at last month's decision by the European Union and 22 of its member states to sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has led to widespread protests, hacked Web sites, and legislators backing away from the treaty. The anti-ACTA protests that saw Polish politicians don Guy Fawkes masks in parliament have borne fruit. After experiencing a considerable backlash in Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has suspended ratification of the controversial agreement, acknowledging that the consultation surrounding it was inadequate and that he approached it from a "20th century perspective." The ACTA agreement has been signed already by an EU representative and ambassadors from 22 of the EU's 27 member states. [......]
While Apple's been busy trying to chase Samsung's Galaxy line out of the Milky Way, Android device makers have ganged up on the Cupertino outfit and experienced a spattering of success. [......]
Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: Swarming Robots Will Fly Menacingly Towards Your Loved Ones In Perfect Formation Mint.com Launches Android Tablet App The New Android Watch In The Google Store Isn’t What You Think Review: Panasonic Lumix GX1 Back To Basics: Sony Appoints Kazuo Hirai, Ousts Stringer [......]
I really wish this whole post could be about Google taking a big step forward in the field of wearable tech with the introduction of a new Android-powered wrist device, but their new Android watch is simply a watch with Android logos on it. So what if it can’t display text messages, connect to a phone via Bluetooth, or play Angry Birds on your wrist - it’s a completely serviceable timepiece and it’s a fraction of the price of an actual Android-powered watch. The watches themselves are from Modify , and sticking to their usual MO, they allow you to swap the actual clock itself into different wristbands[......]
Well, that’s the end of that dream for me. I was really looking forward to owning one of these lovely little cameras, but Fujifilm has just gone and priced it right out of my range. Amazon has put up its pre-order pages for the camera and its lenses, and the earlier rumors were true: the camera sells for $1700 body-only, and the lenses aren’t cheap, either: $600 for the 18mm and 35mm, and $650 for the 60mm macro. [......]
When it comes to information privacy concerns, Facebook already has a bullseye on its back. That won't change now that Facebook is going public in its highly anticipated Initial Public Offering (IPO). But disclosure rules affecting publicly traded companies may force Facebook to reveal privacy-related investigations that it otherwise might have kept secret[......]
If there’s been one complaint my contacts inside large CE companies have had, career-wise, it’s been the inability to rise far in the hierarchy. While there are clear exceptions to this rule, the complaint has always been that succeeding in Asian companies has been contingent on (literally) speaking the language and knowing the rules of the road, as it were, culturally. When Sir Howard Stringer took the reins at Sony, it looked like this tendency had been bucked[......]
Ever since I saw this mesmerizing commercial for the wood-clad (and unfortunately named) Touch Wood , I’ve been a sucker for phones of a more organic persuasion. While the Touch Wood ultimately never saw the light of day outside of its native Japan, another wooden smartphone is preparing to take the proverbial stage. The ADzero , as it’s known, began its life as a concept design from a Middlesex University student named Kieron-Scott Woodhouse. [......]
This video is making the nerd rounds today and it’s pretty amazing. [......]
The Samsung Galaxy S II successor will not be in attendance at Mobile World Congress. The company issued a statement this morning indicating that the phone will get its own event, one that’s closer to its launch date. But don’t worry that much for MWC. [......]
The Akamai State of the Internet report for the third quarter of 2011 is out, and as usual, it is full of interesting data about global broadband developments. Many observers read the survey to get updates on the nations with the fastest broadband speeds and greatest high speed Internet penetration. But what caught our eye this time around was the extent to which two of the world's most important nations, India and China, lag in advanced broadband adoption[......]
802.11ac: next-gen Wi-Fi If you thought Wi-Fi couldn't get much faster than 802.11n, think again. 802.11ac, dubbed 5G Wi-Fi, promises ridiculously fast wireless connections, better range, improved reliability, improved power consumption and a free horse. [......]
Carpathia Hosting, the Virginia company that owns more than 600 servers previously leased by Megaupload, today joined forces with the EFF to collect the stories of legitimate users who want access to their now-inaccessible files stored with the defunct file-locker. The new site, megaretrieval.com , hopes to hear from the "multitude of innocent users who stored legitimate, non-infringing files on the cloud-storage service were left with no means to access their data." EFF can't promise that the data will be retrieved, though, and Carpathia says it has no direct access to the content on the servers[......]
Two weeks ago, the excellent Building Windows 8 blog posted an in-depth look at the upcoming operating system’s new file system, ReFS . It reminded me of the promise of so many years ago that OS X would be changing its file system from HFS+ to ZFS. [......]
