Month: August 2013

Culture Photography

Awe-Inspiring Photos of Swirling Superstorms Belie Their Destructive Power

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As reported on Wired. BY JAKOB SCHILLER Kansas, 2009 South Dakota, 2010 Wyoming, 2010 Oklahoma, 2009 North Dakota, 2011 Wyoming, 2009 New Mexico, 2010 Wyoming, 2009 Texas, 2009 South Dakota, 2011 Minnesota, 2010 Colorado, 2010 View as gallery   Supercell thunderstorms are characterized by a cycling, cylindrical vortex of air that moves upward off the ground, which is also known as a mesocyclone. Not only does it sound badass, but it produces some of the most…

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Business Mobile

Research, no motion: How the BlackBerry CEOs lost an empire

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As reported on The Verge. By Jesse Hicks Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry phones pioneered wireless email, no longer holds the commanding heights in the smartphone market. With Android, iOS, and even Windows Phone gaining market share, the Waterloo, Ontario, company finds itself in a battle for relevancy. The past year has been especially hard on the once-innovative RIM, but it may be at a turning point. Or the beginning of the end. Last April, Mike…

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Microsoft

You Can Bet On Who Will Be Microsoft’s Next CEO (Marissa Mayer Pays Out 33 To 1)

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As reported on TechCrunch. by ALEX WILHELM A betting service has compiled a list of potential candidates for Microsoft’s soon-to-be-vacant CEO role that you can wager on. It’s a partially serious, partially silly list. Microsoft COO Kevin Turner as CEO? Perhaps. Apple CEO Tim Cook as the new Microsoft boss? Probably not. But Turner pays out but 6 to 1 while Cook is a 100 to 1 longshot, so place your bets accordingly. In the thinking of betting…

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Application Culture Entertainment

Hands On With The Seven Best Fantasy Football Sites And Apps

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As reported on TechCrunch. by BILLY GALLAGHER With the NFL season just a week away, fans are poring over stats, trash talking their friends, and gearing up for the real season: fantasy football. The national phenomenon has spawned five seasons of a TV show, The League, has NFL teams refitting their stadiums so that fans can track their teams more closely, and costs businesses billions of dollars a year due to distracted employees. So, easily distracted employees, here…

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Business Mobile

Pressy: the one-button Android controller so cool it was Kickstarted in under a day

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As reported on Engadget. By Timothy J. Seppala If Kickstarter had a 24-hour funders club, Pebble and the Bolex Camera would be welcoming Pressy today. In under a day, the multifunction Android controller has more than doubled its $40,000 goal (raising $108,435 from 4,889 backers as of this writing) and with 45 days left to go, the numbers keep climbing. Perhaps its simplicity is what’s making it such a hit. Pressy plugs into any Android device’s headphone port (Gingerbread and above), and…

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Art

Incredible paintings of sci-fi suburbia will make you wish you were Swedish

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As reported on The Verge. By Dante D’Orazio Welcome to rural Sweden, sometime in the late ’80s. Citizens go about their mundane lives and children explore the countryside. But something isn’t quite right. Robots and hovercrafts are commonplace, and decaying science facilities sprout from the harsh Scandinavian landscape. There’s even a rumor circulating that dinosaurs have returned from the dead after some failed experiment. This is the world that exists in artist Simon Stålenhag’s mind, and…

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Business Culture Google

Google Exec Departs Amidst Rumors Of Tangled Love Quadrangle

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As reported on on TechCrunch. by ALEXIA TSOTSIS We’ve confirmed a report today that Android VP Hugo Barra is leaving Google for “Apple of China” Xiaomi. The report was timed to coincide with another story about the dissolution of Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s marriage to 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki. It also revealed that a person whom Hugo Barra had been in a previous relationship with was now dating Brin. Barra’s departure was said to be “unrelated” to the above. Barra had been at Google since March 2008, coming…

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Story

Apple Working On Intelligent Brightness Control And Automated FaceTime Camera Selection

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As reported on TechCrunch. by DARRELL ETHERINGTON Ideally, your smart device of the future anticipates your needs and adjusts itself to suit them without requiring input on your behalf. Two newly published patent applications (spotted by AppleInsider) from Apple describe systems that could help do just that for future iPhones and iPads, viaselective screen brightness control and auto camera switching during FaceTime video calls. The first patent application describes a way for a user to selectively adjust brightness and…

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Business Entertainment Hardware Dev

Black Betty 2K camera can shoot, cut and upload video with built-in Mac Mini

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As reported on Engadget. By Steve Dent The Black Betty company has just hit the scene with a cinema camera that pulls an astounding trick — it’s got a freaking desktop computer jammed into the body. Camera-wise, there’s a 2/3-inch 2K sensor with a 16mm lens mount developed by Silicon Imaging and used in films like Slumdog Millionaire. That’ll capture 2K or 1080p, 160-500 ISO footage at up to 30fps (or more for lower resolutions), and bring…

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Google

Google+ Hangouts moving to HD video soon, going plugin-free within months

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As reported on Engadget. By Jon Fingas You may not have noticed it yet, but Google is in the middle of sweeping changes toHangouts that should offer big improvements to image quality and accessibility. The company tells GigaOM that it’s currently upgrading its video chat service to 720p by switching from the H.264 video codec to the more efficient (and Google-controlled)VP8 standard. HD-quality Hangouts should be available soon after Google finishes the VP8 rollout to web users late next week.…

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