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Posts Tagged ‘tech’

Tech I sell: MacBook Pro 13″ Late 2010

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Fast payday loans For Every One

Here is the last video you will see about this guy. My awesome MacBook Pro is leaving me, due to I want to buy newer hardware.

Tech Refugee John McAfee Answers 9 Questions

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Author: Gabe Hall

The Slashdot community tracked down notorious software legend and international man on the run John McAfee and asked him WTF was going on. Pictured here in his latest disguise.

Q:Do you still write code, perhaps for fun?

McAfee: I haven’t written code in 20 years. In truth I was a terrible programmer. At all the companies I worked at I did everything within my power to avoid coding tasks. I was just good enough though to be able to spot the truly outstanding programmers. At McAfee I hired the best and then stayed out of their hair. If I had been responsible for even a tiny amount of code I fear we would never have gotten off the ground.

Q:Did you really evade the police by dressing up in a speedo and screaming at people in German, as you describe here?

McAfee: I favor disguises that change character rather than looks when running from the police. The German Tourist disguise was terrific. I looked exactly like me but no-one searching for me paid me any mind. Here is another common disguise I used that would work for any well known CEO.

Q:If I understand correctly, this whole episode began because a local politician visited you in your home and he had the expectation (for whatever reason) that you would pay him USD $ 30,000 as some kind of protection money for his campaign and your expectation was that politicians are supposed to work for people and not the other way around. Is this a reasonable characterization? If so, how do you think such a large missmatch in expectations came about? Do you think you were overly naive? Or is the political environment in Belize changing? I can easily believe that this might be the normal expected way that people do business down there based on other things I've heard, but I really have no idea. Now that you've had time to reflect, what would you say was responsible for the conflict in the first place?

McAfee: Had it been $ 30,000 I would have paid it in an instant, ushered him out and then returned to my task of molesting the underage girls (as some would characterize them) populating my property.However it was not. It was $ 2 million.I am not naive and I expect politicians and public servants, in all countries, to do one thing only – everything in their power to annoy, delay and inconvenience me. At least that has been my experience with public servants. Perhaps yours is different. In any case, two million was not even in a negotiating arena and, not being someone prone to wasting time, I told him to fuck off and not to come back.

Q:If you had to relive the whole debacle, what would you do differently the second time around.

McAfee: Absolutely nothing. Everything that has happened has brought me to this present moment – and not a bad moment at all. You may view my life as chaotic, tragic, comical, whatever. From where I sit it's a great adventure and an unending mystery. I have no complaints.

See More Q&A with John McAfee

Via: features.slashdot.org

Slickdeals’ best in tech for May 8th: Samsung NX1000 mirrorless camera and Amazon Kindle Fire

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Author: Dave Adams

Looking to save some coin on your tech purchases? Of course you are! In this roundup, we’ll run down a list of the freshest frugal buys, hand-picked with the help of the folks at Slickdeals. You’ll want to act fast, though, as many of these offerings won’t stick around long.

Sure, tablets and cameras discounted on the regular in our twice weekly roundup, but today an A/V system sees the big price drop. A Denon AVR-1613 receiver and Harmon Kardon HKTS 16 speaker bundle is reduced by over 50% with the aid of a simple discount code. All of the particulars, and the rest of the list, await on the other side of the break.

Filed under: Cameras, Home Entertainment, Portable Audio/Video, Tablets

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Source: Slickdeals

Microsoft could make 3D Skype calls a reality with new meeting tech

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Author: Laura Clark

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A 3D telepresence technology that started life as a Microsoft research project may soon become an official product, a new job listing suggests. Microsoft has begun advertising for a new software development engineer who will be tasked with helping it develop hardware and software capable of offering holographic meetings for remote workers. The company says it is also looking to extend the technology to Skype, allowing consumers to enjoy “high-definition communication” in its voice and video calling software.

Microsoft could make Skype holograms a reality with new 3D meeting tech

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Author: Heather Brown

Screen_shot_2013-04-26_at_10

A 3D telepresence technology that started life as a Microsoft research project may soon become an official product, a new job listing suggests. Microsoft has begun advertising for a new software development engineer who will be tasked with helping it develop hardware and software capable of offering holographic meetings for remote workers. The company says it is also looking to extend the technology to Skype, allowing consumers to enjoy “high-definition communication” in its voice and video calling software.

Leap Motion Controller Tech To Be Embedded In, And Bundled With, Future HP Devices

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Author: Jenny Zhao

Leap Motion hasn’t even launched its first product yet (the first devices ship May 13), and already the company is on a roll. Now, it’s announcing a collaboration with HP, to bring its brand of 3D motion control to that company’s devices, first via bundling the Leap Motion Controller with select HP computers, and then later by hardware integration that embeds Leap tech right into HP gadgets themselves.

Embedding is a major step for Leap Motion, since it means users eventually will be able to access all of the company’s 3D motion control features without needing any kind of peripheral. Leap Motion co-founder and CEO Michael Buckwald explained in an interview that the functionality of Leap, whether embedded or standalone, should be exactly the same when it does eventually arrive, although this partnership with HP, the first such arrangement with an OEM PC manufacturer, is still at a very early stage. This first outing of embedding capabilities for Leap is big news for the company, however, even if shipping devices are still a ways off.

“It’s exciting for us on two levels. One, it’s a strong validation of confidence in leap from a technical point of view, as well as validation that it can be embedded in consumer devices,” Buckwald said. “The other is that it means a lot to our developer ecosystem as well. Yes, we’re talking about embedding the motion-sensing part of the technology, but we’re also talking about embedding Airspace, the Leap developer ecosystem.”

HP computers that are Leap Motion-enabled will come with Airspace, Lesp’s application store for Leap Motion-compatible titles, pre-loaded. That’s a huge advantage for Leap and its developers in terms of discoverability, and making sure that customers are exposed to software built for Leap Motion in the first place. Apps for Leap Motion are an integral part of the launch and platform strategy, since without software to use with the unique and impressive hardware, it’s unlikely that anyone will stick with the device long-term.

The company’s ability to impress big name partners early and often is also a very good sign for Leap Motion’s potential sustainability. It has already signed up Asus as a partner, too, and the company will ship some of its computers bundled with Leap Motion controllers. Retail partner Best Buy will also be doing endcap displays, meaning users will be able to try out the new technology for themselves, which is a huge boon in terms of convincing people it’s something worthwhile.

This new HP deal is just the start for Leap in terms of its embedded tech opportunities. Buckwald says that while the final design of a Leap Motion-enabled device hasn’t been defined yet, it could work either with placement above a display like most current webcams are positioned, or below, as it’s placed with the current standalone Leap hardware. He also said that mobile device integration is definitely something else coming down the line.

“Mobile will definitely be a part of our strategy in the future,” Buckwald said. “Tablets and phones are a great example of a use case where there’s a major benefit to the consumer to embed Leap. Anywhere we think we can provide value, we’re interested in eventually embedding in there.”

For Leap, the challenge however is less about identifying ways it could benefit users, and more about staying focused and being diligent in keeping its aspirations within the grasp of its small team of staff, he said. Embedding the tech is a huge step, and one that could position Leap as a new staple tech for inclusion in the computing products of third-party OEMs, so keeping the company’s eyes on that prize is the current priority.

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Tech Is Letting Go Of The Follower Count

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Author: Christen Arquette

The Internet's popularity metric of choice is growing increasingly irrelevant. But what comes next?

In the early days, Facebook and Twitter felt a bit like games. Search and find old friends! Follow people indiscriminately with the hope of guilting strangers into following you! Use hashtags, jump on worldwide trends, and, above all, watch your followers grow.

Today, though, a lot has changed. Our accounts have become more real — extensions of our actual lives, and places where important conversations actually take place. While the thrill of receiving new followers hasn’t completely gone away, our fixation on a precise number seems to have dwindled. We've become more focused on what internet companies call engagement. And those companies have started to notice.

Take Tumblr. The site doesn't show a follower metric publically — a calculated move by the company, which told a small audience last month at South By Southwest that taking the focus off the numbers allows users to focus on creating things rather than obsessing on stats. Instagram straddles the line, providing public follower numbers, but providing little emphasis on the number. Unlike Twitter, which emails you when you get new followers, Instagram's new-follow alterts are relegated to your phone's notification tray.

Facebook has recently struggled with follower-style system, which was introduced in the form of a “subscriber” button in September 2011. As the New York Times pointed out in March, subscriber numbers for prominent profiles ballooned after enabling the feature, but yielded little in the way of actual engagement and sharing. Bilton's article prompted a defensive response from Facebook, but the takeaway was clear: your follow count on Facebook barely matters.

Twitter, too, has publicly grappled with the significance of the follower count. The fake follower business is evidently booming, with dummy accounts becoming more sophisticated and tougher to differentiate from real accounts. It's possible to have a million followers, and yet no followers at all.

Via: @dylan_c13

Suhail Doshi, founder of Mixpanel, a mobile analytics company, sees advertisers demanding more than raw follower counts. “If I’m a brand and I'm putting in millions of dollars and my social media accounts are getting followers, that's great. But I don't know if I'm getting a return on that,” he told BuzzFeed. “The [follower] metric will become obsolete, just like page views.”

Similarly to page views, which were once the gold standard for measuring success online but supplanted in part by unique visitors, the notion of the follower says very little about how people are actually interacting with Tweets and links shared online. Twitter is keenly aware of this and, as co-founder Ev Williams hinted last year at an event at BuzzFeed, the company seems to be looking at better ways to express things like influence and interest. “The dream metric is how many people saw your tweet,” he told the crowd. When asked, Twitter declined to comment for this post.

The growing irrelevance of the follower count leaves an opening for services like Klout, which, while often the butt of jokes, looks an awful lot like a theoretical Twitter “engagement” score. Twitter currently provides tools for advertisers to show how widely tweeted links are actually shared. They're limited, and not available to regular users, but that dramatically change how you feel about your Twitter account — they show actual impact, not projected impact. For a person, it can be humbling. For a business, though, it's vital information. And with Facebook and Twitter pushing harder than ever to court advertisers, companies with money to spend will most likely get what they want.

That said, the follower probably won't go away completely or without a fight. “I don't think Twitter will ever totally remove follower counts, but I think they'll do away with them as a key metric,” Doshi said. “I can't imagine [Twitter] killing it off altogether though. People just like to know where they stand.”

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This is the Modem World: When tech can’t save us from road rage

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Author: Jesus Sargent

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of customer modern technology.

So I’m driving house the various other evening after a decent day of work, expecting a little run, some supper and maybe a motion picture. Taking my regular north-south course along Crescent Heights, I listen to Tame Impala to soothe the nerves and get in an additional mindset.

I’m at one of those intersections through which 2 lanes become one because of a parked vehicle in the right lane ahead. I, being in the right lane, gun it a bit at the beginning in order to get some distance from the man on my left.

He’s having none of this, apparently.

Ends up my vehicle is faster, though, and I edge him out. I see him wave his arms frantically, shaking them and then applauding.

Filed under: TransportationComments

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This is the Modem World: When tech can’t save us from road rage

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Author: Jesus Sargent

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

So I’m driving home the other night after a decent day of work, looking forward to a little run, some dinner and maybe a movie. Taking my normal north-south route along Crescent Heights, I listen to Tame Impala to calm the nerves and enter another mental state.

I’m at one of those intersections in which two lanes become one because of a parked car in the right lane ahead. I, being in the right lane, gun it a bit at the start in order to get some distance from the guy on my left.

He’s having none of this, apparently.

Turns out my car is faster, though, and I edge him out. I see him wave his arms frantically, shaking them and then applauding.

Filed under: Transportation

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Japanese mobile boss claims he’s already patented the tech inside Google Glass

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Author: Margo Tipton

Patent filings, we don’t take so seriously. One of Japan’s richest men, with the potential to call on an army of lawyers to defend what he claims is his invention, we probably ought to. Masayoshi Son, the billionaire (and philanthropic) CEO of SoftBank, has given a two-hour speech to his shareholders about his technological predictions for the next 30 years, and about halfway through he describes a familiar idea: augmented reality glasses that can understand what a person is saying and provide subtitles as a visual overlay. At one point, he specifically mentions protecting the concept:

“By the way, we’ve already taken out a patent on this — translation glasses with captions.” (1:22:49 in the video at the source link.)

We think we may have found the patent application in question, submitted in 2010 by SoftBank Mobile Corp. It does show a translation function similar — but not totally identical — to what’s been shown off in a recent Project Glass promo video, in which a guy translated his own words using Google’s specs. In any case, the whole patent system is so esoteric that it’s impossible to predict what ideas will clash and what won’t, but it’s worth bearing in mind how Masayoshi Son first became rich: he sold a translation device patent to Sharp for $ 1 million. What are the odds on that?

Posts Tagged ‘tech’

Tech I sell: MacBook Pro 13″ Late 2010

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Tech Refugee John McAfee Answers 9 Questions

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Slickdeals’ best in tech for May 8th: Samsung NX1000 mirrorless camera and Amazon Kindle Fire

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Microsoft could make 3D Skype calls a reality with new meeting tech

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Microsoft could make Skype holograms a reality with new 3D meeting tech

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Leap Motion Controller Tech To Be Embedded In, And Bundled With, Future HP Devices

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Tech Is Letting Go Of The Follower Count

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This is the Modem World: When tech can’t save us from road rage

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This is the Modem World: When tech can’t save us from road rage

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Japanese mobile boss claims he’s already patented the tech inside Google Glass

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