Technology News

Bryan Bishop / The Verge:ePub standards body proposes new ‘lightweight’ DRM for ebook platform interoperability  —  Tor and several other related imprints may be going DRM-free in July, but that doesn't mean the rest of the publishing industry is ready to jump on board.  Instead, the International Digital Publishing Forum …

Every TV has a button that zooms in on the picture, or changes the aspect ratio. These modes have a variety of names, but all have the same purpose. In reality, most of the time there is only one “correct” mode for a better picture. Here’s how to do it.

A potential rocket engine problem may be to blame for the unexpected abort of a private SpaceX rocket launch before dawn on Saturday, officials said.

Summer travel season is here. And whether you plan on traveling by train, plane or automobile, the chorus of "Are we there yet?" is inevitable. You may be able to stave it off, though, if you pack your kid's travel entertainment kit properly. Here's what I suggest you take with you.

New submitter closer2it writes with news of interface changes in Windows 8. From the article: "Microsoft has revealed that it has made some big changes to its desktop UI for Windows 8, which includes moving away from Aero Glass — the UI first introduced with Vista. According to the company, this means visual changes that include 'flattening surfaces, removing reflections, and scaling back distracting gradients.' Despite all of these changes with the interface, the company doesn't appear to be worried about the issue of 'learnability.' Instead, Microsoft believes that with a little help it won't take long for users to adapt to the new operating system." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dish has been tranquil about facing a longer FCC review period for its planned LTE-based 4G network, and now we might have an idea as to why. The satellite TV giant is telling the FCC that it only expects coverage to reach up to 60 million potential customers "within four years," or about 2016 -- six years after MetroPCS and Verizon first flicked their respective 4G switches. This is also assuming that the 3GPP cellular standards group clears the AWS-4 frequency band for LTE use. There's speculation that Dish is giving the extra time so that it can sell the spectrum later, but we'd take the safe road and assume Dish is serious. After all, AT&T wouldn't be trying to set tough conditions for Dish's LTE if it didn't think there was possibly significant competition on the way.Dish warns the FCC its 4G LTE might come in earnest as late as 2016 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 May 2012 10:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink GigaOM  |  FCC (PDF)  | Email this | Comments

Matthew O'Brien / The Atlantic Online:Why Did Zynga's Stock Drop After Facebook Went Public?  —  Believe it or not, other stocks besides Facebook traded on Friday.  Although Zynga probably wishes it wasn't one of them.  —  While Facebook's much-ballyhooed IPO didn't pop, Zynga's stock went cliff-diving.

The launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was aborted just after ignition, meaning that the first commercial mission bound for the International Space Station will have to be put off for at least another three days.

When a privately built rocket aborted its launch attempt at the very last second on Saturday, it was likely a familiar sight to the booster's builders: The California-based company SpaceX.

ClockEndGooner writes "Sadly, SpaceX had to abort its launch of the Falcon 9 to the International Space Station this morning due to higher than expected pressure levels in one of its engine chambers. NASA and SpaceX have another launch window scheduled for early next week."Probably better than an engine failing during launch; hopefully everything is worked out for Tuesday. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hot off the heels of the One X and EVO 4G LTE spending some prolonged time at customs, now another member of HTC's sensational family appears to be feeling the rigorous effects of the ITC. According to a recent email acquired by TmoNews, it looks as if the Magenta carrier is delaying shipments of the HTC Amaze 4G in the US, saying it's facing "an unforeseen issue with receiving the product from the manufacturer," and that it doesn't know when the handset will be up for grabs again. What's also interesting here, however, is T-Mobile going as far as recommending Sammy's Galaxy S Blaze 4G as a substitute -- which, let's face it, can't be good news for HTC. Here's to hoping this all gets sorted out relatively soon. In the meantime, you can check out the aforementioned email in its entirety at the source below.T-Mo delays HTC Amaze 4G online orders due to 'unforeseen issue,' has other recommendations originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 May 2012 08:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  TmoNews  | Email this | Comments

Hugh Pickens writes "Steve Blank, a professor at Berkeley and Stanford and serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, says that the the Facebook IPO is the beginning of the end for Silicon Valley as we know it. "Silicon Valley historically would invest in science, and technology, and, you know, actual silicon," says Blank. "If you were a good venture capitalist you could make $100 million." But there's a new pattern emerging created by two big ideas that will lead to the demise of Silicon Valley as we know it. The first is putting computer devices, mobile and tablet especially, in the hands of billions of people and the second is that we are moving all the social needs that we used to do face-to-face onto the computer and this trend has just begun. "If you think Facebook is the end, ask MySpace. Art, entertainment, everything you can imagine in life is moving to computers. Companies like Facebook for the first time can get total markets approaching the entire population." That's great for Facebook but it means Silicon Valley is screwed as a place for investing in advanced science. "If I have a choice of investing in a blockbuster cancer drug that will pay me nothing for ten years, at best, whereas social media will go big in two years, what do you think I'm going to pick?" concludes Blank. "The headline for me here is that Facebook's success has the unintended consequence of leading to the demise of Silicon Valley as a place where investors take big risks on advanced science[..]

Apple's plans for a Bluetooth 4.0-based iWallet could be the beginning of the end for the venerable cash register.

Andrew Webster / The Verge:Motorola Droid RAZR and RAZR Maxx getting Android 4.0 in Q2, Bionic in Q3  —  Motorola has updated its timeline for Ice Cream Sandwich updates for a number of devices, several of which should see Android 4.0 within the next few months.  In the US, both the Droid RAZR and RAZR Maxx are expected …

Accuracy is generally an important consideration in computer chips, but a team of researchers led by Rice University are touting a new "inexact" chip (dubbed PCMOS) that they say could lead to as much as a fifteen-fold increase in efficiency. Their latest work, which won a best paper award at a recent ACM conference, builds on years of research in the field from the university, and is already moving far beyond the lab -- some inexact hardware is being used in the "i-slate" educational tablet developed by the Rice-NTU Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics, 50,000 of which are expected to wind up in India's Mahabubnagar school district over the next three years. As for the chips themselves, their inexactness comes not just from one process, but a variety of different measures that can be used on their own or together -- including something the researchers describe as "pruning," which eliminate rarely used portions of the chip. All of that naturally comes with some trade-offs (less defined video processing is one example given), but the researchers say those are often outweighed by the benefits -- like cheaper, faster chips that require far less power.Researchers tout efficiency breakthrough with new 'inexact' chip originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 May 2012 06:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink TechEye  |  Rice University  | Email this | Comments

DerekduPreez writes "The UK government has finally unveiled the second iteration of its Cloudstore after a number of delays, and has reneged on its pledge to make version 2.0 open source. Cloudstore is an online catalogue that the public sector can use to procure cloud services provided by suppliers signed up to the G-Cloud framework. The first version of the Cloudstore was unveiled in February. Computerworld UK spoke to former G-Cloud director Chris Chant shortly after the first release, who was at the time also overseeing the second iteration. He stated during his interview that Cloudstore 2.0 would be go live in April and it would be built using open source code. However, following weeks of delays, the Cabinet Office has now confirmed that the second iteration also isn't open source." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:Apple files for immediate Galaxy Tab 10.1 ban in the United States after partially successful appeal  —  At 8 PM local California time on Friday, Apple filed a motion for a U.S. preliminary injunction against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1.  The motion is based on a ruling by the Court of Appeals …

While the main thing that would make Raspberry Pi's diminutive $25 / $35 Linux setups better would be if we could get our hands on them faster, the team behind it is already working on improvements like this prototype camera seen above. The add-on is slated to ship later this year and plugs into the CSI pins left exposed right in the middle of each unit. According to the accompanying blog post, the specs may be downgraded from the prototype's 14MP sensor to keep things affordable, although there's no word on an exact price yet. Possible applications include robotics and home automation, but until the hackers get their hands on them you'll have to settle for one pic from the Pi's POV after the break and a few more at the source linked below.Continue reading Raspberry Pi team shows off pics of (and taken with) prototype camera add-onRaspberry Pi team shows off pics of (and taken with) prototype camera add-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 May 2012 04:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  Raspberry Pi  | Email this | Comments

First time accepted submitter ourlovecanlastforeve writes "Those of you still hanging on to Jaguar and Land Rover as the last vestiges of the truly British automobile in the States may find yourselves grasping at straws as Chery announces a nearly two billion dollar joint effort with the auto brand to move production to Changsu in China." Anyone still hanging on to that idea might also be interested to learn that Jaguar and Land Rover are subsidiaries of India's Tata, maker of the low-priced Nano. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you found yourself longing for the minor tweaks Samsung made to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany earlier this year, you may be in luck: Apple's filed for a preliminary injunction against the slate stateside. It isn't the first one, either, Cupertino filed something similar back in February, though it didn't quite pass legal muster. After gaining some headway earlier this week, Cook's crew is in for round two, according to FOSS Patents, asking for Judge Koh to rule in their favor without a new hearing. Concerned consumers, however, can sidestep the whole mess by simply opting for an injunction-exempt Galaxy Tab 2. Details and speculation can be found at the source link below, just in case you aren't already sick to death of the whole Samsung / Apple spat.Apple files (again) for a preliminary ban against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 May 2012 02:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  FOSS Patents  | Email this | Comments

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:The story of the ‘secret’ room at Pixar, frequented by Steve Jobs and many other celebrities  —  Truthfully, I thought everyone knew about the ‘Lucky 7 Lounge’.  It's a secret room at Pixar that's really not so secret now.  But I took a quick poll of some friends and coworkers and drew a blank, so here goes.

GigaOM:Facebook IPO: Here is the best of the web  —  Feeling overwhelmed with all the Facebook chatter?  Is all this talk of the IPO making you yearn for the weekend already?  Well, we are going to make life a little easier for you and find you best stuff for you to read from all around the social web.

Let's face it, whether you're down at the laundromat or feeding the meter on a busy street, you can never find enough quarters when you need'em. Know what effectively sidesteps that lack of foresight? NFC, that's what. And that tap-to-pay convenience is ready to roll out for folks in Oakland, CA courtesy of Atlanta-based Parkmobile. There's no great mystery to the company's purpose -- the name says it all -- as it specializes in payment solutions for (what else?) parking. With the installment of special near field-equipped stickers on meters throughout that West Coast city, fine-fearing citizens will now have one extra payment option beyond the outfit's currently available mobile app and internet transactions. Naturally, you'll have to sign-up online to get started, but after that you'll never have to fear the meter maid again.Continue reading Parkmobile adds NFC to its parking payment repertoireParkmobile adds NFC to its parking payment repertoire originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 May 2012 01:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

The origin of a rare tyrannosaur skeleton, now sitting mounted and prepared at an auction house in New York City, has been questioned, with some saying the specimen is from Mongolia; if so, that would mean it entered the United States illegally.

For a blind or visually-impaired person, getting around a large building like a hospital or lab may involve a lot of guesswork and asking for directions. A new system called Navatar uses the sensors in a smartphone to detect progress along a map of a building.

A newly discovered 200-year-old shipwreck was found 200 miles off the Gulf Coast in more than 4,000 feet of water by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Law enforcement officials have been systematically tracking license plates for a long time — at the border, for instance. But a DEA project in Utah may be overstepping the bounds of good governance, tracking and sharing licenses on a national level.

Some Motorola Mobility smartphones infringe on a Microsoft patent and will be barred from importation to the United States, a U.S. trade panel said on Friday.

John Biggs / TechCrunch:GameStop To Sell SIM Cards  —  GameStop is hurting.  Same store sales fell 5%-11% and revenue was down 17% to $2 billion.  Profit fell to $72.5 million.  Arguably, those are still huge numbers and presumably a new console refresh should push the company out of the doldrums.

Hunter Moore investigated by FBI, UK porn filter conspiracy theories, Coca Cola vs. porn cybersquatters and Big Porn is sued for patent infringement.

We here at Engadget tend to spend a lot of way too much time poring over the latest FCC filings, be it on the net or directly on the ol' Federal Communications Commission's site. Since we couldn't possibly (want to) cover all the stuff that goes down there individually, we've gathered up an exhaustive listing of every phone and / or tablet getting the stamp of approval over the last week. Enjoy!Continue reading FCC Fridays: May 18, 2012FCC Fridays: May 18, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 May 2012 23:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Dan Rowinski / ReadWriteWeb:Computer Programming for All: A New Standard of Literacy  —  Everyone ought to be able to read and write; few people within the global mainstream would argue with that statement.  But should everyone be able to program computers?  The question is becoming critically important …

An anonymous reader writes "MIT researchers have developed a highly articulated robotic manipulator based on soft materials that can harden to reposition the device. The technique is known as jamming, and it relies on pouches filled with granular material like coffee grounds; when air is removed from the pouches, they become rigid. The researchers combined jamming actuators with cables to build a manipulator resembling an elephant trunk. They say the device is low-cost, capable of grasping a variety of objects, and can remain in a hardened state for extended periods of time using little energy." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ready for your latest tour through the dense and meandering wording of patent applications? Well, dig in, because it's Microsoft's turn to confuse lawyers the world over with this latest USPTO doc, submitted in November of 2010. The filing describes a computer-based program that would, essentially, analyze a primary device's installed applications, cross-reference it with a different device and then either migrate that software batch or suggest similar apps to download on a secondary unit. Sounds a lot like a potential Windows Phone Marketplace recommendation / app transfer engine to us, but what exactly Redmond intends to use this pending patent for is anyone's guess. As always, if you care to sacrifice a few minutes of your life to mind-numbing legal jargon, then by all means hit up the source link below.Microsoft patent application outlines system to recommend and transfer apps across devices originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 May 2012 22:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  USPTO  | Email this | Comments

Josh Lowensohn / CNET:Steve Jobs TV movie to film at the original Apple garage  —  For those wondering how authentic the upcoming made-for-TV movie about Steve Jobs will be, maker Five Star Feature Films says it's going to actual locations, including Jobs' childhood home, where the first Apple computers were pieced together in the garage.

Wall Street Journal:Facebook's IPO Sputters  —  Underwriters Forced to Prop Up IPO of Social Network; Only a 23-Cent Rise  —  Facebook Inc. took eight years to stage one of the most anticipated initial public offerings ever.  The anticlimax came Friday, as Wall Street bankers struggled to prevent …

An Italian court has upheld a €900,000 (US$1.2 million) fine imposed on Apple by Italy's competition authority for allegedly violating consumer protection laws, Italian media reported late Friday.

Nick Wingfield / Bits:Closure in Disappearance of Computer Scientist  —  Just over five years ago, Jim Gray, a computer scientist then working for Microsoft, vanished with his sailboat somewhere in the waters off in San Francisco beyond the Golden Gate Bridge.  Because no trace of Dr. Gray or his boat, Tenacious …

snydeq writes "With WWDC around the corner, iOS 6 rumors are taking center stage, but the real action for developers may be around iCloud. Forthcoming OS X Mountain Lion will integrate iCloud into the formal file system, making iCloud usage much easier and thus more common, and thanks to iCloud Documents, which lets apps open and save documents directly in iCloud, developers will be able to better tap iOS-to-OSX document syncing in their apps, a la iWork. But there is a downside to this opportunity: 'For developers, it further enmeshes you in the Apple ecosystem, almost in the way that America Online did in its heyday. Case in point: OS X apps can use the iCloud Documents APIs only if they are sold through the Mac App Store.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:Windows 8's desktop UI changes unveiled  —  If you have been following Windows 8 for any amount of time, you must have run across the Building Windows 8 Blog, the official organ of the Windows team.  It is not for massive, Internet-bending pieces of non-fiction that pack in enough context …

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The historic initial public offering of Facebook Inc did not go as planned on Friday, as the social networking company's sky-high valuation combined with trading glitches left the stock languishing near its offering price at the market close.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The historic initial public offering of Facebook Inc did not go as planned on Friday, as the social networking company's sky-high valuation combined with trading glitches left the stock languishing near its offering price at the market close.

First time accepted submitter ixarux writes "India is at a crucial crossroad at the moment. Internet censorship laws are getting stricter as it begins to ban file-sharing and video-sharing websites. It started with Indian courts allowing censorship of Google, Facebook, etc. It has now gone one step ahead and decided to ask ISPs to block file-sharing sites. It is the movie industry which is again at the forefront of this. Anonymous retaliated, and targeted the websites of various Indian government websites in protest. What India lacks at this crucial juncture are debates in the public domain about this and citizens actually organizing protests as seen in the West." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:BitTorrent Piracy Boosts Music Sales, Study Finds  —  For more than a decade researchers have been looking into the effects of music piracy on the revenues of the record industry, with mixed results.  —  None of these researchers, however, used a large sample of accurate download statistics …