Category: News (Page 123 of 130)

      AT&T Could Cut iPhone Plan By $10 to Win Subscribers

      May 7, 2009 /

      AT&T to lower iPhone plan?In completely unshocking news, AT&T may be planning to reduce the cost of the iPhone plan by $10, reportedly to boost sales. With the impending release of OS 3.0 (already on beta 5), the sole provider for Apple’s baby would probably see plenty of converts.

      This latest price-cut comes after plenty of others, all of which have aimed to get more iPhones into more hands (around 17 million just last year). When the iPhone first hit, it was retailing for a massive $599 for the 8GB model. I remember laughing out loud when I saw that number and wondering how long before it would drop by several hundred. That day has come and gone, leaving the provider set to save patient consumers an extra $240 over the two year contract for the phone.

      Now if only we could get Apple to drop to the BOGO offers we’re seeing for the RIM’s Storm. If only.

      Source: CNet

      Apple, iPhone, Mobile, News

      Flexible Concrete Could Ease Traveling Troubles

      May 6, 2009 /

      Victor Li's flexible concrete.As an Ohio driver, I’m hungry for any news that could mean less potholes. Enter Victor Li and his flexible concrete. The material is a composite designed to reduce road noise and even repair itself after receiving some rain (again, great feature for Ohio).

      Small cracks appear, even in this crazy flexible stuff, as a result of stress. When it rains, the new concrete creates calcium carbonate “scars” through a reaction between the carbon dioxide in the air and the rainwater. The scars leave the concrete as strong as the day it finished setting according to Li.

      The composite material has already been used in Japan (for residential buildings) and in a Michigan bridge, where it eliminated the need for those giant metal teeth builders call expansion joints.

      The major setback, as always, is cost. Up front the new composite will run three times the price of normal concrete, but with reduced maintenance cost, lower road noise, and the obviation of seismic countermeasures, flexible concrete actually saves money in the long run. Time to write Ted Strickland a strongly worded letter.

      Source: National Geographic

      Mobile, News

      Damn the Swimmer-Hunting Torpedoes – Full Speed A…whaaaaat?!?

      May 6, 2009 /

      The Moray Eel will track you!Stupid tech is almost as much fun as useful tech, at least for someone like me. When you spend a couple hours each day reading tech blogs and news stories, the strange stuff really brightens the day. Take this torpedo, for instance. Named the Reusable Unambiguous Swimmer Warning Vehicle (fairly ambiguous name, no?) this thing seeks out enemy swimmers (?!?) and then tracks them. That’s right, it tracks them, following behind and reporting GPS coordinates back to some central computer.

      So I have to wonder, the point? Wouldn’t echo-location do just as well? And once you have these alleged terrorists/triathlon enthusiasts pinpointed under water, what then? Send the GPS powered attack robots after them (okay, if those existed I would be much more serious about these torpedoes)?

      Perhaps the most mind-blowing part of this whole thing are the comments from Jim Pollock, project manager for the Integrated Swimmer Defense Program at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (again, ?!?). Pollock says the torpedo is, “a candidate technology for a solution to deterring swimmers. It’s not necessarily a solution that the Navy has picked at this point.” I’m not one to get alarmed about orange threat levels and terrorist attacks coming to a city near me, but the fact that our naval defense research dollars are going toward crap like this has me more concerned about national security than ever before. It’s like they polled a bunch of ten-year-olds for good defense ideas. “How about missiles that hunt swimmers and then…swim with them? Yeah!!!” Yikes.

      Source: Gizmodo

      News

      Apple, Google Under Investigation by the FTC

      May 5, 2009 /

      Google and Apple: Match made in hell?The Federal Trade Commission is taking a closer look at the Apple-Google relationship, with particular regard to their board members, to see if the pair is in violation of antitrust laws.

      Google and Apple share board members Eric Schmidt (CEO at Google) and Arthur Levinson (former Genentech CEO). The FTC will attempt to determine whether having both men on both boards hurts competition in the marketplace.

      News like this always cracks me up. We’re talking about two giants here, companies so big that there’s really no way they aren’t limiting a competitive marketplace in some way. Not that the two don’t do any good. I’m a shameless user of the products and services both companies provide, and for the most part I’ve had a solid experience with both. Suggesting that two men sitting two boards does any more to damage the marketplace seems more like a stunt by the FTC, as though they’re saying, “no really, guys, we are paying attention.”

      Source: InformationWeek

      Apple, News

      The Next Next-Gen Starts in 2013 – Who’s Ready?

      May 3, 2009 /

      The Next Next-Gen War?This spring’s console sales decline has plenty of people (including myself) wondering when the next generation is coming. According to Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter, we’re going to be waiting a while. Pachter thinks we won’t see new hardware until 2013 at the earliest, citing profit margins that have yet to catch up to manufacturer’s expectations.

      The good news is extended console life-cycles mean more time for developers to learn each generation’s ticks and tricks. The bad news? Developers are left guessing just as much as we are. Ubisoft’s CEO is recommending everyone start beefing up, investing in new blood and new toys to handle the next generation now. Nothing pays like preparation, but four years of it? Four years that could be spent making new games? Better games?

      This is the paradox that makes me rub my temples. I still think games could be better, and much better. They could certainly look better, which means better hardware, or possibly more intelligent use of the current hardware. Of course, games could also play better, have more intuitive control schemes, more immersive gameplay, which means more time for developers to learn the hardware and adapt to its possibilities/limitations.

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      Gaming, microsoft, News

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