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Steve Jobs FBI file pulled with Freedom of Information Act

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There’s quite a bit of hubub about the Steve Jobs FBI file that’s been put up for download by any man, woman, or child who would dare read it today, but not a whole lot of people speaking about how it came to us all now, of all times. What’s going on here is that [...] (from: www.slashgear.com)

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Kodak Backs Out of Camera Market

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As part of its effort to be reborn as a company, Kodak has announced the decision to gradually stop offering digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames. Basically, the company is phasing out what used to be a major part of its global business, which means that it will focus on desktop inkjet printers and photo printing (online... (from: news.softpedia.com)

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Apple to reveal latest iPad in March: report

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc plans to introduce its latest iPad tablet at an event in the first week in March, the website AllThingsD reported, citing unnamed sources. The event will be held in San Francisco, likely at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which is Apple's preferred site for product launches, the website said. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. Apple has typically introduced the latest versions of its iPad in the first few months of the year. The current iPad 2 was introduced on March 2, 2011. The original iPad was introduced at the end of January 2010. ... (from: news.yahoo.com)

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Fabled Google Drive Won't Be Another Dropbox

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The Wall Street Journal has revived rumors about Google launching a cloud storage service called Drive. The comparison everybody wants to make is to Dropbox . The thinking is that Google will challenge everyone's favorite start-up by releasing a native desktop and mobile Drive app with the same syncing features Dropbox users know and love. Google Drive rumors have been around for many years , and they've always conformed to the understanding of "The Cloud" that has prevailed at the time. If it's not like Apple's iCloud, which is integrated into Apple's devices, then it must be like Dropbox, which lives on the Web but syncs through a client. But think outside the box for a minute. Google has new and unique cloud services that Dropbox and Apple don't. There's room for a third, stand-out option here. Sponsor Google Docs Google already has a browser-based file system, Google Docs . It originated as a sort of word processor in the cloud, but it can actually handle and store many kinds of files, such as PDFs, JPEG images, MPEG audio and video, and it'll handle pretty much anything containing text. That does make it a pretty compelling stand-in for Dropbox when it comes to simply storing files. It even has a nice disk drive icon now, after last year's Google makeovers. Google Drive, indeed: Are people already using Google Docs as a cloud drive? Spanning , a company that provides backup for Google apps users (not just Google A pps users; free customers, too), has a look into how thousands of people are using it, and it studies their use to better optimize its services. Consequently, it has some insights about Google apps users to share. Spanning has found that over half of the files in their customers' Docs accounts were not Google Apps-created. They were PDFs, audio, video, photos and Microsoft Office files. By file size, non-Google files comprised over 85% of the stuff people stored in their Docs accounts. So, at least for the use case of storing files, lots of people are already using Google Docs instead of Dropbox. What Docs does that Dropbox doesn't is allow users to create and edit certain kinds of files. If you use Google Docs as your cloud document service, you're probably using it to make and work on documents, too. That's more than Dropbox can offer, standing on its own. (We'll get to apps built on top of Dropbox in a minute.) Search, plus Your World There's a new Google product that didn't exist last time the Google Drive rumors surfaced. It's Google. Or rather, it's Google+. On January 10, Google revealed Search, plus Your World , which threw everybody for a loop. If you don't understand that Google+ is the user-centric backbone of Google itself now, it doesn't make sense that this one side of Google search has stuff from this weird social network in it. While this early stage of Search+ is definitely about putting Google+ in users' faces, that's not what the message is. "Your World" does not consist solely of YouTube videos shared on social networks. Google's personalized search also tries to figure out what a search means to you , so it can return something more meaningful. It's two modes of search: Global mode searches the indexed Web, and personal mode tailors it to you. How much more useful would this be if Google's personalized search had your files in it? If your Google Drive contained your documents and music and other local files, they could show up in your personalized search results. If you couldn't remember whether you read something online or in a document you downloaded, Search+ could find both. Now we're giving meaning to the "Your World" part. Dropbox has search, but it only contains part of what you're looking for when you search "your world." It's more useful as one of many services in a third-party cloud search app like Greplin , which also logs into Google apps and searches across. Google's new social signals run through all its services now, so if it's in your Google cloud, Google search will find it, period. Dropbox Is A Platform. It'll Be Fine. Between Docs and Search+, whatever Drive Google eventually ships (whether it's in a few weeks or another X years) will have lots of unique capabilities that make it a different beast from Dropbox. That's exactly the way Dropbox wants it. Dropbox turned down insane amounts of money from Apple, because it didn't want to get rolled in as a feature of one integrated system. That's why iCloud doesn't work like Dropbox. Apple wanted cloud syncing that was just there , so users don't have to know where their files are. Developers in the Apple ecosystem can just hook into iCloud. Their applications become Apple-specific. In exchange, they get free marketing in the App Store, and if Apple is feeling generous it features their apps as the App Of The Week or something. Dropbox said "no" to all that. It wants to be the next Apple or Google, and its valuation seems optimistic about that possibility. Apple's cloud is totally integrated with its devices, using hardware as the platform. Google's cloud is integrated with its services, using the Web as a platform. Dropbox is a platform. Dropbox lets different clients on different systems read and write to it. Dropbox doesn't have a Google Docs because anyone can build a word processor on top of it. We can build a thousand word processors on top of it, and if they can all read the same file format, they can all work together. Dropbox's platform ubiquity is what it's all about, and that's why Google (and Apple) can't copy it. Lead photo: AHMAD FAIZAL YAHYA / Shutterstock.com Discuss (from: www.readwriteweb.com)

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HTC Sensation/4G, Sensation XE/XL To Get Android Ice Cream Sandwich In March: Confirmed

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HTC has officially confirmed the 1st batch of devices that will be upgraded to Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS in the march. Rezound, EVO 3D, EVO Design 4G, Vivid and more handsets will be upgraded to ICS OS later this year. HTC Sensation/4G, Sensation XE/XL To Get Android Ice Cream Sandwich In March: Confirmed is a post from: Gadgetian (from: gadgetian.com)

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German court clears Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N for sale

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A German court affirmed a preliminary ruling on Thursday that determined Samsung’s reworked tablet does not look so much like the iPad that it should be banned. The ruling comes as another blow to Apple, which is in the midst of several other lawsuits with rival smartphone and tablet makers over intellectual property. The court said that there were “clear differences” between the Galaxy Tab 10.1N and the iPad, reports Reuters. Apple and Samsung have been tangled in what seems like an endless patent battle in Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia, Japan and Korea. Thus far, courts in several countries including the Netherlands, the United States and Australia have decided to allow Samsung to continue selling its Galaxy smartphones and tablets (from: www.bgr.com)

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Apple protesters hit stores, hack Foxconn

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Protesters Thursday delivered a petition with 250,000 signatures to the Apple Store in Grand Central Station in New York as part of a international demonstration about working conditions at Foxconn, a day after hackers infiltrated computers at the now-notorious Taiwanese tech manufacturer and main Apple supplier. (from: technolog.msnbc.msn.com)

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What Do Your Apps Know -- and Say -- About You?

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What Do Your Apps Say About You? via WSJ What do you smartphone apps say about you? Not in the "who am I and what is my place in the world?" sense, but literally--what are your apps telling other people about you? Your location? Your identity? Your username and password? The Wall Street Journal has put online a pretty amazing, sometimes outraging, definitely interesting interactive graphic analyzing 101 popular iPhone and Android apps, telling you exactly what your apps are telling other people. Those other people can be the application owners themselves, or they can be third parties like marketers or ad providers like Google AdSense. Different apps share different info with different entities. Some, like Tweetdeck, make sense--it shares information with Tweetdeck itself as well as things that interface with Tweetdeck, like Facebook, Imageshack, bit.ly, and--of course--Twitter. Others are a bit more questionable. For instance, did you know that Pandora--according to WSJ--is sharing various information from your phone with eight different third parties? We didn't either, but we hope it's sharing our listening preferences as well so all that incoming marketing will at least be sonically pleasing. Take a spin through the interactive graphic at WSJ to see exactly what your apps are saying about you. [ WSJ ] (from: www.popsci.com)

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Apple to reveal latest iPad in March: report

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Google building "home entertainment system" for wireless music streaming

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Google is building a "home-entertainment system that streams music wirelessly throughout the home and would be marketed under the company's own brand," according to a report today in the Wall Street Journal . While the move has not been confirmed by Google, it would build upon the Google Music streaming service and music store. It would also likely integrate with Android—the Journal describes it in one paragraph as the "Google Android entertainment system," and says it is being developed by Google's Android unit for unveiling later this year. The system "would let people download digital media such as music and stream it to Google-made speakers or other Web-connected devices in people's homes," and could be operated using a smartphone or tablet, the Journal reported, citing anonymous sources. Google has also targeted home media with Google TV , but with limited success. The Journal report says the upcoming home entertainment system could support streaming media in addition to music, presumably including videos. Read the comments on this post (from: arstechnica.com)

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Microsoft details Windows 8 for ARM and unveils Office 15

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Microsoft on Thursday revealed new details about Windows on ARM (WOA) on the company’s development blog. Both Windows 8 for x86 PCs and WOA are still under development, however both will be available at the same time while delivering the same experience. Windows on ARM will come preloaded with Office 15 — which has been enhanced to support touch controls — and users will have access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. To ensure that x86-based tablets and ARM-based devices are identical, WOA will feature a desktop mode, giving users access to the File Explorer, Internet Explorer 10 desktop and other Windows desktop features. Metro-style apps from the Windows Store will support both Windows on ARM and Windows for x86/64. WOA does not, however, (from: www.bgr.com)

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Swann's PenCam Will Help You Be a Better Stalker

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Our minds go wild thinking of ways we could use Swann's new HD PenCam and regular PenCam , a pair of inconspicuous video surveillance devices that look and function like ordinary pens, but unlike your Bic ballpoint, there's a miniature camera and DVR hidden inside. That's pretty rad, and also a little creepy if you think about these devices falling into the wrong hands. Swann's regular PenCam sports 4GB of built-in storage, which the company claims is enough to hold about 2 hours of video or 18,000 still images. The HD PenCam eschews internal NAND flash memory for a microSD card slot with support for up to 16GB, which works out to 8 hours of video or 72,000 still images. The other difference is battery life. Swann's HD PenCam records video for up to 45 minutes on a single charge and the other stays alive twice as long. When they run out of juice, unscrew the pen to reveal a USB connector and plug it into your PC. The HD PenCam and PenCam 4GB are available now for $100 and $70, respectively. Image Credit: Swann (from: www.maximumpc.com)

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George Lucas thinks 3D is as good as the jump from black and white to colour

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George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars franchise, has been singing the praises of 3D technology as his first 3D effort, a 3D re-mastering of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, hits cinemas. Lucas is gushing in his... (from: www.techdigest.tv)

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Google: We want 2.25% of the iPhone sticker price

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Google intends to continue Motorola Mobility’s demands for 2.25-percent of Apple’s iPhone sales in royalties, the search giant has revealed, once its acquisition of the smartphone manufacturer goes through. Although Google’s letter to the IEE standards agency this week ostensibly called for fair patent licensing deals, it also reiterates commitment to maximum 2.25-percent per-unit royalty that [...] (from: www.slashgear.com)

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Kisai Labs Giving Away a BlackBerry PlayBook to Facebook & Twitter Followers

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The developer of popular apps such as Blaq and Show Me the Images, Kisai Labs, let us know that they are giving away a 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook. They are doing it to thank all of their fans for supporting Kisai Labs. Its really easy to enter to win just follow the instructions below or from... If you liked this article, you might find these interesting: OtterBox Giving Away $500 In the Next 5 Days Over Twitter & Facebook SmrtGuard Giving Away a Torch on Facebook and Twitter RIM Confirms Facebook and Twitter Apps for BlackBerry PlayBook AT&T and RIM Giving Away TWO BlackBerry Torch 9800s Every Day Until Dec 24th! Blaq Twitter Client for the BlackBerry PlayBook Updated to v1.6 (from: www.berryreview.com)

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iPad App News: Tweetbot client comes to Apple tablet

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Tweetbot, the popular iPhone Twitter client, has landed on the iPad. The £1.99 app brings multiple timelines, smart gestures and the ability to mute users and topics. (from: www.t3.com)

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PS Vita First Edition Bundle unboxed early by Sony

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Sony’s PlayStation Vita portable is set to launch in the US on February 22, but a special First Edition bundle will be arriving on February 15 for those who’ve pre-ordered. With less than a week to count down for the bundle, Sony’s US PR team has posted its own official unboxing video to give a [...] (from: www.slashgear.com)

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Apple and Google disagree over licensing of essential patents

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Google is at odds with Apple, Microsoft and Cisco over the licensing and litigation of patents. (from: www.macworld.com)

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Amazon Cutting New Content Deals, Trying to Get Ahead of Apple

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Amazon has been working hard on improving the content that it provides through its $79 per year Prime Instant Video service – which gives customers access to unlimited TV shows and movies – in order to lure potential subscribers away from Netflix and from Apple’s iTunes movie and TV show rental/purchase service. Today, the Seattle-based [...] (from: www.padgadget.com)

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Step-By-Step Guide: How To Build a Gaming PC With AMD's Bulldozer CPU

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The Mission AMD’s Bulldozer architecture finally hit retail in October 2011, and Gordon put the highest-performing chip, the FX-8150 , through the wringer. His conclusion: It’s a decent competitor to Intel’s i5-2500K, but no match for the (much more expensive) Sandy Bridge-E or 2600K parts. And that’s OK; there are plenty of reasons to want a solid midrange performer. Maybe you really, really want to be able to say you have an eight-core processor. Maybe you’re opposed to Intel for religious reasons. Or maybe you just want real PCIe x16 lanes without having to put out for the pricey X79 platform. Whatever your reason, an FX-8150 can be a respectable foundation for a solid gaming rig since modern gaming is still more about the GPU than the CPU. In this article, we'll give you a step-by-step walkthrough of our build--if you're wondering how to build a killer gaming PC of your own, read on! Building from the CPU Out Central to my build, of course, is AMD’s top-tier Bulldozer part, the 3.6GHz FX-8150. It’ll rest in Asus’s Sabertooth 990FX motherboard, which has USB 3.0, six SATA 6Gb/s ports, and plenty of PCIe x16 lanes. The 990FX isn’t markedly different from 890FX except for one glaring change: Board vendors are now offering SLI “support” (read unlock codes) in the BIOS. I was originally going to use Cooler Master’s Hyper 212 Evo CPU cooler, but in the course of overclocking I decided to swap it out for AMD’s Asetek-built Bulldozer FX liquid cooler, which bears a very strong resemblance to Antec’s Kuhler 920. To keep things in the AMD house and at the $1,500 price point, my graphics card of choice is the Radeon HD 6970 . It’s got enough juice to power any game on the market at reasonable settings, and at $330 it fits well with my budget without being a budget card. NZXT’s just-launched Phantom 410 is a smaller version of the original Phantom, with a few more fans and USB 3.0 support. Corsair’s TX750 v2 PSU is more than enough power for my overclocks and any extra graphics cards I want to add later. The one wild card in my build is the hard drive. Thanks to the still-ongoing Thailand floods, the price of a 750GB 2.5-inch hybrid drive is (at press time) only a little more than a 1TB 3.5-inch drive. The 8GB of NAND cache on the Momentus XT gives a performance boost to my most frequently accessed sectors of the disk, so boot and oft-used programs will be faster. Assembling the Hardware Step 1: Prep the Board To install the CPU, lift the socket arm and gently lower the CPU into place, making sure the triangle on the CPU’s corner is aligned with the correct corner in the socket. Lower the lever back into place. Install the RAM into the second and fourth slots (the tan ones). Step 2: Prep the Case and Install Motherboard Before we start building into the case, it’s time to move some fans. Remove the side, top, and front panels from the case, then remove the rear 12cm exhaust fan and top 14cm exhaust fan. This will involve unplugging them from their fan controller connectors behind the motherboard tray. Use the long screws provided to install the 12cm fan in the front of the case, directly above the existing intake fan. Reconnect it to one of the fan control connectors behind the motherboard tray. Set aside the 14cm fan and its screws for now. Install the motherboard standoffs in standard ATX configuration, put the motherboard I/O shield in place, then install the motherboard in the case. Step 3: Install the CPU Cooler If you’re getting flashbacks to last month, I don’t blame you. AMD’s Bulldozer-branded liquid-cooling system is built by Asetek, the same OEM who makes Intel’s RST2011LC liquid cooler, and is, in fact, nearly identical to the Asetek-made Antec Kuhler 920. The instructions say to install the cooling fans as intakes, but we’re going to use ours as exhaust. Attach one fan to the inside of the cooler, then attach the other through the exhaust fan mounts to the radiator (image D). Run the radiator fans’ power cables behind the motherboard tray. Next, a ssemble the cooler mounting bracket as shown in AMD’s instructions and clip it to the CPU heatsink. Unscrew the four screws attaching AMD’s cooling mount to the backplate and remove the plastic mounts. Mount the CPU cooler/pump unit to the AMD backplate, tightening the mounting screws in an X-shaped pattern. Attach the 3-pin pump power cable to the CPU_FAN header and run the radiator fan Y-connector behind the motherboard tray to the radiator fan cables. Run the USB 2.0 cable behind the motherboard tray to the bottom of the motherboard and connect it to a USB 2.0 header). Install the GPU in to the topmost x16 PCIe slot. Step 4: Install the Drives Remove the top optical drive bezel and replace the case’s front panel. Slide the optical drive into that bay and secure it with the toolless mechanism. Add thumbscrews if you like. Take a hard drive tray from the cage and remove the mounting posts from the sides. Install the Momentus XT using the 2.5-inch mounting holes on the bottom of the tray. Replace in bay. Step 5: Install the PSU Install the power supply into the case with the fan facing down. Bring the dual-4-pin ATX auxiliary power cable, 24-pin ATX power cable, and two 6-pin PCIe power cables through the cutout nearest the PSU to the back of the motherboard tray. Bring the auxiliary ATX power cable through the opening at the top of the motherboard tray and connect it (image I). Bring the 24-pin motherboard power cable through the top side cutout and connect it, then connect the 6-pin PCIe connectors to the GPU—one will require the use of the 2-pin connector, as well. Step 6: Finish the Wiring Replace the top 14cm fan, but flip it around so that it’s used as an intake fan rather than exhaust. This will keep the motherboard voltage regulators under the radiator from overheating. Connect the fan power lead to one of the fan controller connectors behind the motherboard tray. Connect the front-panel connector power and LED switches to the board, as well as the HD Audio, USB 2.0, and USB 3.0 connectors. Connect SATA power and data cables to the optical and hard drives, then connect 6Gb/s SATA cables from the drives to the lowest set of SATA ports on the motherboard. Use zip ties to tie excess fan controller connectors and case wiring to the rear of the motherboard tray. Bundle the unused power connectors here as well, if you can fit them. Step 6: Into the BIOS At this point you should connect your monitor, mouse, and keyboard and turn on the rig. Enter the BIOS’s Advanced Mode, go to Boot, and deselect “Wait for F1 on Error.” This will prevent the system from hanging up due to a perceived fan-speed error from the pump. Exit out of the BIOS, and install Windows and your drivers as normal, making sure to install the ChillControl software for the CPU cooler. Once Windows is set up and working, it’s time to tweak the CPU a little bit. Bulldozer parts seem to vary in their overclocking stability: After many overly ambitious overclocks, I got to 4.2GHz, mostly by upping the CPU multiplier, but I’ve seen overclocks of over 4.8GHz with the same CPU and motherboard, so your mileage may vary. Middle-Class Dreams Acquired Given that Gordon had already benchmarked the FX-8150, I wasn’t expecting miracles, and I didn’t get them. The Bulldozer rig pulled down respectable scores for a $1,500 rig, but I didn’t really see any benefit from eight cores at 4.2GHz that wasn’t exceeded by a quad-core i7-920 at 3.5GHz. I was really surprised by both the difficulty of maintaining a stable overclock and the lack of oomph I got when I did manage to overclock. After spending hours trying to stabilize my Bulldozer system at 4.8GHz and 4.6GHz, both of which I’d seen run on the same motherboard with the same processor, I had to lower my sights a little. I finally settled on a stable 4.2GHz—17 percent faster than stock. On CPU-bound benchmarks, though, like Vegas Pro and MainConcept Reference, I saw less than a 10 percent improvement over the FX-8150 at stock, and the other benchmarks showed even less improvement. FX-8150 chips seem to be variable in their tolerance for overclocks, so you might have better luck. Of course, the lower scores on encoding tests could also have to do with my boot drive. I normally prefer to run with an SSD boot drive, but I went with a hybrid drive this time. The disk access speed and slower-than-solid-state write speeds doubtless affected the encoding tests, which all involve reading and writing large files to the disk. That said, Bulldozer does offer better thermal performance. My FX-8150 never got above 55 C, even running Prime95 at 4.2GHz, which is far lower than we’d see from the overclocked i7-920 in our zero-point test bed. If your budget allows for it, you may want to go for a multi-GPU setup. Unlike Sandy Bridge motherboards, which can run two x16 PCIe videocards but only at x8, the Sabretooth 990FX can run them at their full x16 speed. Does it really make a big difference? In the vast majority of cases no, but hell, you can at least rub it in the noses of your friends running at x8 speeds. For a $1,500 machine, the Bulldozer rig does offer a lot of performance, although unless you’re running heavily multithreaded applications you probably won’t notice the difference between its eight cores and a decent quad-core—especially if the quad has Hyper-Threading. At this point, diehard AMD fans will probably just be happy to hear that a Bulldozer-powered rig holds its own at its price point. A Bulldozer rig isn’t the fastest money can buy, but for the price, you get a lot of cores, decent performance, and full PCIe lanes to grown into. (from: www.maximumpc.com)

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