Month: December 2013

Google

Spain fines Google $1.2 million for allegedly violating privacy laws

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS Google triggered investigations in six European countries when it revealed its unified privacy policy last year, but Spain is the first of the bunch to draw blood. The country just fined Google a total of €900,000 ($1.2 million) for allegedly violating data protection laws through its current approach. The firm isn’t properly explaining why it’s collecting personal information, the Spanish Data Protection Agency claims; it also isn’t saying how long it will keep…

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Culture

British Library’s web domain archive is now available, just not on the web

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS If you need an illustration of the problems with overly stringent copyright laws, look no further than the British Library. The institution has just made its archive of UK website domains available to the public, but you can’t actually visit it from the web — the Legal Deposit Libraries Act requires that you stop by one of six libraries in the country to take a look. While reforms may be coming, the British Library…

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Business

Uber surge pricing: sound economic theory, bad business practice

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As reported on The Verge. By Ben Popper Adjusting for supply and demand makes sense on paper, but fails to understand basic consumer psychology When the snow started falling in New York City this past weekend, the prices for a ride in an Uber car began rising. It’s part of the company’s long-standing policy of “surge pricing”: using an algorithm that raises prices to adjust for demand. Uber says the higher prices motivate more drivers to…

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Application Entertainment

4K Netflix streaming launching next month

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As reported on The Verge. By Aaron Souppouris So long as you have a supported TV Netflix will start streaming movies and TV shows in 4K soon, but only to certain TVs. “We’re not naming specific manufacturers,” Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt tellsStuff, “but we have several of the major TV vendors who are going to be producing 4K-capable TVs — they’ll be announcing them at CES [in early January].” The high-resolution streams won’t be coming to…

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Google

Google’s Location History Browser Is A Minute-By-Minute Map Of Your Life

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Greg Kumparak Quick! Where were you last Tuesday at 6:35 PM? If you’re anything like me, your answer is probably along the lines of “I… have absolutely no idea.” Most people’s brains just don’t work that way. But odds are, Google knows. They probably know where you’ve been most other days, too. And they’ll happily show you, letting you relive your life one step at a time. If you carry any Google-filled gear…

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Apple

Apple’s new Mac Pro now on sale, will ship by December 30th

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As reported on Engadget. BY MATT BRIAN After months of waiting, Apple’s new Mac Pro is now available to order through its online store. Coming just a day after the company announced the availability of the trashcan-shaped desktop, the quad-core and six-core models start at $3,000 and $4,000 respectively. Should you order today, Apple says it’ll ship your new Mac Pro by December 30th. That base model will get you a 3.7GHz quad-core Xeon CPU, 12GB DRAM, two AMD FirePro…

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Apple Application

Big update for Final Cut Pro brings improved support for 4K and the new Mac Pro

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As reported on Engadget. BY JAMIE RIGG As Apple’s finally put its redesigned Mac Pro up for sale, the company’s also seen fit to update editing software Final Cut Pro. Version 10.1 optimizes rendering and playback for the new Mac, but for users of other “select” Macs, the most significant change will likely be the addition of 4K monitoring over Thunderbolt 2 and HDMI. Since 4K playback requires a lot of bandwidth, it’s probable only new Retina MacBook…

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Space

$19 million might produce the first ever image of a black hole

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As reported on The Verge. By Rich McCormick Astrophysicists think there’s a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It’s supposed to be four million times more massive than our Sun, but despite its stupendous size, we’ve never been able to see it. That might soon change. The European Research Council has given 14 million euros ($19.3 million) to the creators of BlackHoleCam, a project that will use radio telescopes and supercomputers to try to…

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Google

Google Glass Gets ‘Wink To Shoot Picture’ Mode, Lock Screen, YouTube Uploading And Hangouts Chat

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As reported TechCrunch. by Matthew Panzarino Google has just announced a massive update to Google Glass which adds a lock screen, Hangouts chat, direct YouTube uploading via a Glass app and a ‘wink to shoot a picture’ mode. The wink photo mode is obviously interesting as developers had dug up references to it in the Glass firmware a while ago and it’s just making an appearance now. You can shoot images by simply turning the mode on and winking your…

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Microsoft

Microsoft Chief: “Nobody Ever Buys Windows. They Buy Windows PCs.”

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As reported on TechCrunch.  by Alex Wilhelm Earlier today ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley published another installment in what appears to be an orgy of access, this time with outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Regarding its executive changes, Microsoft today reported that it will not announce its new leader until 2014, cooling speculation that the new CEO would land before the end of this year. Ballmer’s remarks are worth reading, of course, but two segments stand out. For one, his…

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