Author: admin

Microsoft

Microsoft tops 100 million Windows 8 licenses sold, promises Windows Blue update in 2013

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As reported on Engadget. By Jon Fingas For many observers, the real story for Windows 8 was never going to be the 60 million licenses sold during the holiday rush — it was always about the long term. The first indications of its post-launch impact are here, and show mixed results. In an interview on the company blog, Microsoft CMO/CFO Tami Reller says that it “recently” sold its 100 millionth Windows 8 license since the OS launched in October.…

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Business Internet

US Senate passes internet sales tax bill, faces a stiff fight in House

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As reported on Engadget. By Jon Fingas The debate over taxing out-of-state online sales in the US has been raging for years, but there are signs that the often messy saga is finally winding to a close… well, maybe. The Senate just voted 69-27 in favor of the Marketplace Fairness Act, a bill that would make internet retailers collect out-of-state sales taxes that Americans are already obligated to pay, but rarely do under a current system that…

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Cloud

SkyDrive celebrates 250 million users

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As reported on Engadget. By Terrence O’Brien Microsoft’s celebrating a rather important milestone for SkyDrive: 250 million users, with 50 million of those signing up in just the last seven months since the debut of Windows 8. With the cloud storage service being so tightly integrated into Microsoft’s new OS, it’s no surprise that its popularity has started to skyrocket. And, with recent upgrades to the platform, it’s becoming an increasingly viable alternative to competitors like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and SugarSync. To commemorate the…

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Environmental

Rain will get more extreme thanks to global warming, says NASA study

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As reported on The Verge. By Carl Franzen The forecast for the future of rainfall on Earth is in: over the next hundred years, areas that receive lots of precipitation right now are only going to get wetter, and dry areas will go for longer periods without seeing a drop, according to a new NASA-led studyon global warming. “We looked at rainfall of different types,” said William Lau, NASA’s deputy director of atmospheric studies and the lead…

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Internet

Offline: how to use the internet

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As reported on The Verge. By Paul Miller After a year away, the internet is a little bit scary and totally enthralling Whew! What a week. First came Monday, and then Tuesday, and then there was the internet. You know how in Star Trek when they engage the warp engines and the Enterprise kind of stalls for a moment while its projection blurs toward the future, toward the stars, and then it’s gone? I’m in the blur phase.…

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Random

Temptation

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As reported on TechCrunch. by NIR EYAL Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal writes about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com. Follow him @nireyal. How do products tempt us? What makes them so alluring? It is easy to assume we crave delicious food or impulsively check email because we find pleasure in the activity. But pleasure is just half the story. Temptation is more than just the promise of reward. Recent advances in neuroscience allow us to peer…

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Article

6 Experts on Speeding Up Data

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As reported on TechCrunch. by ALEX WILLIAMS Speed. That’s what it’s all about these days. The problem: it’s still more effective to use FedEx than trying to squeeze a data load across a network. It’s an absurd reality when it requires a plane to move data from one place to another. It’s not necessary to move terabytes of data all day, all night. Moving hard drives across the continent for a feature film is different from…

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Business

How To Go From $0 To $1,000,000 In Two Years

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As reported on TechCrunch. by JAMES ALTUCHER A few weeks ago I wrote a post about how this was the year you had to quit your job. I gave the reasons why. It wasn’t a gung-ho “you have to be an entrepreneur” article. It was more: bad shit is happening in the corporate world and bit by bit you’re going to feel the urge to quit. Correctly, many people asked, “Well, what’s next? What should I do?”…

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Military

Final X-51A WaveRider hypersonic mission achieves Mach 5.1, record flight length

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As reported on Engadget. By Joe Pollicino With the third X-51A WaveRider failing to reach hypersonic speed due to a fin failure last August, it seemed the United States Air Force would possibly forgo the fourth (and final) run. On the morning of May 1st, however, that last X-51A got its chance to soar, successfully reaching Mach 5.1 during a record 370-second flight. According to the Wright Patterson Air Force base, the aircraft’s rocket booster helped it…

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Culture Military

The Liberator, the first completely 3D-printed gun, gets test-fired (video)

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As reported on Engadget. By Mat Smith The (almost) all-plastic 3D-printed Liberator pistol was announced by Defense Distributed late last week, but with the gun’s blueprints and construction details now live on the company’s own DefCAD design site, it’s also released a video taken during its testing. In front of a Forbes onlooker, the clip apparently shows a 0.380 caliber bullet being fired by the Liberator. The only non-plastic part of the design is a common nail, which acts as the firing…

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