Month: April 2014

Space

What would ‘Civilization’ look like in outer space?

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As reported on The Verge. By Andrew Webster The wildly popular strategy game series finally leaves Earth Civilization is setting its sights on the stars. After years of building epic strategy games that follow the course of human history, developer Firaxis Games is taking the next entry in the series into the future with Civilization: Beyond Earth, slated to launch later this year. It’s a game that follows a similar path to its predecessors, putting you in charge…

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Mobile SmartPhone

Sony Xperia Z2 Review: A Waterproof Android Smartphone That Goes Beyond Gimmicks

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Darrell Etherington Posted 13 hours ago Twitter Shares Test New All-Time Lows After Its Q1 Earnings Fail To Excite Investors Sony hasn’t had a great time of it in the U.S. smartphone market over the past few years, and it recently announced that its new flagship, the Xperia Z2, would only be made available to U.S. customers unlocked via its website. But the Z2 is still a solid device, and a contender on more…

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Microsoft

Microsoft Is Technology’s Comeback Kid

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Danny Crichton Microsoft. For a generation of technology executives, the name strikes fear into even the most iron-willed business leaders. A lion among gazelles, its very gaze into a market could cause investors and analysts to flee in terror. Yet, its name has become a punchline among today’s technorati, a joke about formerly dominant companies evolving into large, plodding kludges. Missed deadlines, delayed products, and canceled features are only some of…

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Local

​New York City is cleaning its ancient Egyptian monument with lasers

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As reported on Engadget. BY SEAN BUCKLEY A 69-foot, 3,500-year old granite obelisk has stood in New York City’s Central Park for 130 years, and it’s never, ever, been cleaned. The ancient pillar is deceptively fragile, and conservationists have been hesitant simply to hose it down. The solution? Blast it withlasers, of course. After careful testing, the Central Park Conservancy determined that a gentle bath of infrared lasers is both the most sensitive and environmentally friendly cleaning method…

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Education

Essay generator can spew out BS, still get you an ‘A’

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As reported on Engadget. BY STEVE DENT While automated essay-grading machines can tackle 16,000 essays in 20 seconds, are they any good compared to a human? Online course administrators in the machine camp think so, but retired MIT prof Les Perelman has shown that such bots aren’t about to pass aTuring test anytime soon. His proof is the Babel Generator, aka the Basic Automatic BS Essay Language Generator. In less than two seconds, the software can spit out…

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Entertainment Film

Watch the trailer for Aaron Swartz documentary ‘The Internet’s Own Boy’

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As reported on The Verge. By Jacob Kastrenakes  Those advocating for the reform of hacking laws have rallied around Aaron Swartz’s cause from the beginnings of his prosecution through his suicide last year while facing with the possibility of 35 years in prison. In the short time since, filmmaker Brian Knappenberger has created The Internet’s Own Boy, a documentary that traces Swartz’s early impact on the web and details his struggle with the government after being caught…

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Microsoft

Microsoft Boosts OneDrive Storage For Corporate Clients From 25GB To 1TB Per User

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As reported on TechCrunch.  by Alex Wilhelm Facebook Plans To Break Ground On A Second Iowa Data Center Soon In the cloud storage wars, capacity is a weapon, and one that is rapidly losing its dollar value. Put simply: Companies that offer cloud storage are scrambling to add value on top of stored gigabytes, as the marginal dollar price that can be charged for that storage is rapidly dropping to zero. Microsoft, making that point even more…

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Mobile

Samsung blurs the line between phone and camera (again) with the Galaxy K zoom

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As reported on Engadget. BY CHRIS VELAZCO Last year, Samsung tried something a little kooky: it made a mash-up of a middling smartphone and a solid point-and-shoot camera (you know, the kind smartphones have nearly driven to extinction). The resulting chimaera was called the Galaxy S4 Zoom, and it was… not great. To absolutely no one’s surprise, though, Samsung’s fixation on fusion is still going strong and the company’s trying to crack the code again with a new camera/phone combo called…

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Business Microsoft

Good luck, Microsoft: Nokia’s phone sales are down 30 percent

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As reported on Engadget. BY DANIEL COOPER Nokia, at least in the form that we once knew it, is no more. The handset business has been cleaved off and sold to Microsoft, but that union isn’t beginning on a happy note. In Nokia’s final earnings report as an independent phone manufacturer, the outfit revealed that it isn’t just feature phone sales that are dwindling, but that people are spending less on Asha andLumia handsets too. In fact, the company’s overall…

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Apple Business Retail Sales

Apple’s MacBook Air is now $100 cheaper and has a slightly faster processor

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As reported on Engadget. BY SEAN BUCKLEY Been waiting for a MacBook Air refresh? Breathe easy, friend, because one has arrived — well, sort of. Cupertino has quietly updated its online store with a familiar looking ultraportable, matching last year’s model almost spec for spec: 4GB of RAM, 128 or 256GB of flash storage, a 1,440 x 900 resolution display, Intel HD 5000 graphics and a slim wedge frame with all the trimmings — Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 ports…

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