Apple significantly updates Final Cut Pro X – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home

Apple significantly updates Final Cut Pro X – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home: Final Cut Pro X v10.0.3 includes a collection of groundbreaking new tools for editing multicam projects. Final Cut Pro X automatically syncs clips from your shoot using audio waveforms, time and date, or timecode to create a Multicam Clip with up to 64 angles of video, which can include mixed formats, frame sizes and frame rates. The powerful Angle Editor allows you to dive into your Multicam Clip to make precise adjustments, and the Angle Viewer lets you play back multiple angles at the same time and seamlessly cut between them.

IBM: Tiny carbon nanotube transistor outshines silicon

IBM: Tiny carbon nanotube transistor outshines silicon: In the pursuit of smaller transistors, IBM Research found that carbon nanotubes outperform silicon on speed and power consumption, offering a possible route to maintain pace of Moore's Law.

Djokovic denies Nadal yet again in marathon final | Reuters

Djokovic denies Nadal yet again in marathon final | Reuters: (Reuters) - Novak Djokovic waged war against Rafa Nadal for almost six hours in the longest grand slam final ever played to claim a third Australian Open title and leave the tortured Spaniard empty-handed yet again.

The world number one, who has now beaten Nadal in the last three grand slam finals, looked dead and buried in a dramatic fifth set but dragged himself back from the brink to close out the match 5-7 6-4 6-2 6-7 7-5.

Djokovic ripped open his shirt and tore it from his shoulders after the final point, letting out a primal roar in front of the players box where his management team had cajoled him to victory throughout the five hours, 53 minute marathon.

The match smashed the previous record of four hours, 54 minutes set when Mats Wilander beat Ivan Lendl in the 1988 U.S. Open final.

The gallant Nadal has now lost in seven successive finals to Djokovic and knows the Serb has something special.

"Now he's the best in the world," the Spaniard told reporters. "That's how great he is. His returns are probably the best in history. I never played against a player who's able to return like this every time."

Apple's New iBooks Won't School College Bookstores Any Time Soon | Epicenter | Wired.com

Apple's New iBooks Won't School College Bookstores Any Time Soon | Epicenter | Wired.com: University professors, along with other experts and stakeholders in the college textbook market, are even more skeptical. Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Pomona College professor and Director of Scholarly Communication for the Modern Language Association, was troubled by the limited view of interactivity modeled in the new iBooks — interaction between a student and a screen, not students with one another — as well as the limitation of these new textbooks to only Apple’s platform and format.

Macworld | iWorld 2012 Best of Show winners | Macworld

Macworld | iWorld 2012 Best of Show winners | Macworld: What’s more impressive about the app is its remote-camera feature, which lets up to eight shooters record an event at the same time; the footage can then be edited together on one iPhone.

Review: The futuristic OnLive Desktop runs Windows apps on the iPad | VentureBeat

Review: The futuristic OnLive Desktop runs Windows apps on the iPad | VentureBeat: Today, OnLive Desktop is a solid application client that has all the basic functions of a Windows computer freely available for all iPad users. Along with the basic Office apps and the Windows 7 Touch environment, OnLive Desktop has the potential to change the way we use tablets and smartphones, and perhaps even PCs. With a Windows-based machine as readily available as an internet connection, this technology may be paving the way for the future of cloud computing.

Invisibility's Next Frontier: Scientists Cloak 3-D Objects

Invisibility's Next Frontier: Scientists Cloak 3-D Objects: A team of researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have successfully "cloaked a three-dimensional object standing in free space." Not only that, but they've managed to make the object invisible to any observer, no matter their distance from the object or where they're looking from.

More iPhones sold than babies born in the world every day

More iPhones sold than babies born in the world every day: Apple is now making iPhones at a rate that exceeds the amount of babies that humans produce on earth every day...

Apple shares hit new all-time intraday high; Apple passes Exxon as world’s most valuable company

Apple shares hit new all-time intraday high; Apple passes Exxon as world’s most valuable company: Apple Inc. shares today rose $34.14 in early morning NASDAQ trading to set a new all-time intraday high...

Why Rakuten's Kobo Is Amazon's Only Global Competition

Why Rakuten's Kobo Is Amazon's Only Global Competition: It's quite possible that soon Kobo will be the only company standing between Amazon, Apple and world domination of e-publishing. So if you haven't been paying attention, this is just the time to tune in.

iBooks Version: 2.0 Review | iPhone and iPad Books App | Macworld

iBooks Version: 2.0 Review | iPhone and iPad Books App | Macworld: With optimized books, the app succeeds too—but in a different way. It’s not at all complicated to read an optimized textbook in the app, and anyone familiar with an iOS device should mostly be able to navigate such a book without trouble. (The one gotcha is remembering the pinch gesture to get back to the Chapter view.) But you do need to examine each element on the page to know what it can do: Is this just a photo, or is it a slideshow, or a model, or an animation, or a video, or something else? Again, it’s not hard to answer such questions—you just look at the interactive element’s description to see what it does. It’s a different way of reading, and it makes the books feel much more like exquisite webpages than texts. That’s not necessarily either good or bad—but it’s undeniably different from traditional reading. Where iBooks does a superb job getting out of your way as you read regular books, it screams “THIS IS AN IMMERSIVE MULTIMEDIA EXPERIENCE” when you read fancy ones.

Happy 28th Birthday, Apple Macintosh!

Happy 28th Birthday, Apple Macintosh!: On January 22, 1984 during the Super Bowl, Apple ran their famous "1984" commercial...

Google's Chrome Browser Sprouts Programming Kit of the Future

Google's Chrome Browser Sprouts Programming Kit of the Future: Among Silicon Valley developers, The Next Big Thing is Node. Node is short for Node.js, a new-age programming platform based on an engine at the heart of Google's Chrome browser. It's suited to building network applications that juggle scads of information streaming to and from other sources. In other words, it's suited to the modern internet.

Splendid City 6.8.9 - Organize team sports or game events.. (Free)

Splendid City 6.8.9 - Organize team sports or game events.. (Free): Splendid City, Team Sport Scheduler, and Sports Scheduling System is useful for people who organize team sport or game events. It can manage sport schedules of any size and complexity. Simply fill in the requested information into the wizard-like interface, and Splendid City automates the season, tournament, league, match, and round-robin schedules. A great first step and time saving tool for anyone who frequently does organizational sport scheduling. Splendid City can schedule games with any user specified combination of dates and times, regular or irregular. Create professional double or single elimination tournaments, multiple or single round-robin schedules, for any sport that requires pairings.

Arts & Letters Daily (21 Jan 2012)

Arts & Letters Daily (21 Jan 2012):

Freud today is disparaged, even condemned. And no wonder: He didn't indulge our taste for self-help platitudes... more

How to invent a religion: Avoid precise terms, like "brain"; use fuzzier words, like "soul." Create a mythology. Sell it hard. That's the L. Ron Hubbard way... more

William Shirer devoted 1,250 pages and 25 years to understanding the Third Reich. He didn't pretend to have all the answers. Some things are inexplicable... more

The week the web changed Washington

The week the web changed Washington: Consider the following statistics:

162 million Wikipedia page views, with some 8 million visitors using an online form to look up the address of their Congressional representatives.
7 million signatures on Google's petition.
200,000+ signatures on the Progressive Change Campaign Committee petition.
30,000+ Craigslist users called Congress through the PCCC's website.
250,000+ people took action through the EFF's resources.
2.4 million+ SOPA-related tweets were sent between 12 a.m. and 4 p.m. on January 18.
140,000 phone calls made through Tumblr's platform.
Nearly 1,000 protesters outside New York's U.S. Senators' office in New York City.

Officials: Roseburg residents, please conserve water

Officials: Roseburg residents, please conserve water:

A major water leak has occurred within the City of Roseburg’s water system, and the city is asking citizens to conserve water and report any leaks you see.

Four open questions about iBooks Author | Macworld

Four open questions about iBooks Author | Macworld: iBooks Author is an intriguing app and a a big deal for publishers. But while the app is obviously very new, some aspects of the software give me pause. Here are my questions for Apple about the iBooks Author. (And yes, I’ve sent them all Apple’s way, though I haven’t heard back just yet.)

Opinion: Why Apple's iBooks Initiatives Won't Revolutionize Education | GeekDad | Wired.com

Opinion: Why Apple's iBooks Initiatives Won't Revolutionize Education | GeekDad | Wired.com: There will be a lot of commentary that will make parents and educators think that Apple has done it again. But be wary of reports that say Apple has “revolutionized the education industry.” It hasn’t.

Apple's announcements further iPad revolution in education | Macworld

Apple's announcements further iPad revolution in education | Macworld: Apple already revolutionized education when it invented the iPad. While iBooks textbooks are a bridge from the past to the future—and we do need a way to get to the future—they are not that future. If Henry Ford had been an educational publisher, his customers would have asked for electronic textbooks instead of faster horses.

iBooks Author 1.0 - Create and publish iBooks for iPad.. (Free)

iBooks Author 1.0 - Create and publish iBooks for iPad.. (Free):

iBooks Author helps you create and publish amazing Multi-Touch books for iPad.

Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad. All you need is an idea and a Mac. Start with one of the Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. Add your own text and images with drag-and-drop ease. Use Multi-Touch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects, and more.

Mac OS X 10.7.2 or later

Download Now

Why Apple’s iBooks Author Will Pave The Way For A Writing Renaissance | Cult of Mac

Why Apple’s iBooks Author Will Pave The Way For A Writing Renaissance | Cult of Mac: With the announcement of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author, Apple isn’t just giving the education system a much needed boost: they’re attempting to resurrect the dying art of the written word by taking absolute power out of the hands of publishers and putting it in the hands of aspiring writers. We’re on the cusp of a renaissance.

iTunes U for iPad Retools the Learning Experience - Mac Rumors

iTunes U for iPad Retools the Learning Experience - Mac Rumors: iTunes U lets you take a complete course on your iPad. View the course overview, instructor biography, and course outline. Read posts and keep track of your completed assignments. Watch videos directly within the app, read books, and view all your course notes in one place. Receive push notifications alerting you to new posts from the instructor. And iCloud keeps your notes, highlights, and bookmarks up to date on all your devices.

Apple unveils iTunes U app | Macworld

Apple unveils iTunes U app | Macworld: Apple has set up several Web resources for teachers interested in creating and distributing courses through iTunes U. You can enroll in the iTunes U portal (at the time of this writing, the site was down for maintenance). The iTunes U support site has links to several how-tos and the iTunes U support community, where you can get feedback from other iTunes U participants. Apple also notes on its iTunes U website that iTunes U is available for K-12 teachers, as well as colleges and universities.

When you're ready to create a course after you've enrolled in iTunes U, Apple offers the iTunes U Course Manager, a Web-based tool. Apple offers step-by-step instructions on course creation, and materials (such as a syllabus and handouts) can be uploaded and hosted by Apple.

Hands on: iBooks Author effortless to use, but iPad-only | Macworld

Hands on: iBooks Author effortless to use, but iPad-only | Macworld: iPad-exclusivity aside, those willing to work in iBooks Author should be quite pleased. It’s the best WYSIWYG ebook designer I’ve seen on the market so far, and—formatting problems excluded—incredibly easy to work with. If you have iTunes Producer installed, you can even use the Publish button to send your finished book directly to the publishing process; you’ll still need an ISBN and an iBookstore sales account to proceed, but it’s a nice link to unify the process.

Engage: Apple's New Tools for Interactive Books on iPad | Epicenter | Wired.com

Engage: Apple's New Tools for Interactive Books on iPad | Epicenter | Wired.com: It’s not entirely clear to me that the new and improved iTunes U can become a wholesale replacement to current widely-used learning management systems like the much-reviled Blackboard. I don’t know whether it meets some of the specialized security requirements for handling assignment submissions, grading, and so forth. And again, deploying it as an iOS app rather than a web-based service limits its use to Apple’s proprietary platform. But it is potentially a powerful new tool to add to existing “open education” iTunes U-related initiatives like MIT OpenCourseWare. And it’s exciting to see a company that actually knows how to build software a person would want to use venture into the bone-ugly world of education management systems. Finally, Apple’s lined up a slew of university partners who seem willing to give it a shot. So who knows?

Are There Fundamental Laws of Cooking?

Are There Fundamental Laws of Cooking?: Cooking is a field that has in recent years seen a shift from the artistic to the scientific. While there are certainly still subjective and somewhat impenetrable qualities to one's cuisine, there is an increasing rigor in the kitchen. From molecular gastronomy to Modernist Cuisine, there is a rapid growth in the science of cooking. And mathematics is also becoming part of this.

Engage: Apple's New Tools for Interactive Books on iPad

Engage: Apple's New Tools for Interactive Books on iPad: At Thursday's event, Apple's Phil Schiller said that 1.5 million iPads were in use in education settings, leveraging more than 20,000 education applications. Today, Apple's giving away brand-new tools that ensures the company will be able to sell many, many more.

Summary: Apple puts iPad at head of the class

Summary: Apple puts iPad at head of the class: A summary of Apple's Thursday announcements, including iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and the new iTunes U app.

Enabling iTunes Home Sharing

Enabling iTunes Home Sharing: Macworld senior associate editor Dan Moren shows you how to share media between Apple devices using iTunes Home Sharing.

iBooks Author 1.0 - Create and publish iBooks for iPad.. (Free)

iBooks Author 1.0 - Create and publish iBooks for iPad.. (Free):

iBooks Author helps you create and publish amazing Multi-Touch books for iPad.

Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad. All you need is an idea and a Mac. Start with one of the Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. Add your own text and images with drag-and-drop ease. Use Multi-Touch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects, and more.

Mac OS X 10.7.2 or later

Download Now

Unfortunately, "Bloodlust in Ratland" won't be published until I got a Mac that supports Lion.

iTunes U for iPad Retools the Learning Experience

iTunes U for iPad Retools the Learning Experience: The all-new iTunes U app lets teachers create and manage courses including essential components such as lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabuses and offer them to millions of iOS users around the world.

Courses are created via the iTunes U Course Manager, a web-based tool that allows teachers to build a course that includes a syllabus, handouts, quizzes, and other items. Course materials are hosted by Apple and available to anyone taking the course -- by default, courses are open and available to anyone, though it appears schools can restrict their courses to only their students.

Apple revamps iTunes U, makes it class portal | The Digital Home - CNET News

Apple revamps iTunes U, makes it class portal | The Digital Home - CNET News: The company announced today at its New York City education-focused event that iTunes U will now become a go-to hub for both students and professors at the college level. The service allows professors to post messages, send out assignments, and share syllabi.

On the student side, the application allows full access to course material, including video, documents, apps, textbooks, and other content. As one might expect, the service will have full integration with iBooks.

When new assignments pop up in iTunes U, students will be able to complete them and then mark them off from the iPad. A Notes section in iTunes U includes all the notes they might have taken on digital textbooks. The Notes tab also includes all the content that has been highlighted in the digital textbooks.

Lastly, Apple has also moved into the registrar space with iTunes U, allowing students to sign up for a class from their iPads with just a single tap.
The iPad iTunes U application is available for free. However, students won't totally get off easy: e-textbooks and apps that are used in their classes will still cost them.

iBooks Author offers free e-textbook creation | Macworld

iBooks Author offers free e-textbook creation | Macworld: Although digitial textbooks were the focus of Thursday’s Apple event, Phil Schiller, the company’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, noted that iBooks Author could be used to create other media-intensive offerings, such as cookbooks and travel guides, for Apple’s iPad.

The app itself is a WYSIWYG editor with a user interface similar to Apple's iWork product line, which includes Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. Text can be dragged directly from Pages or Microsoft Word into the editor; the app uses the document’s styles to automatically create sections, headers, and layout. Keynote presentations can also be automatically inserted into textbooks, giving the final document more interactivity than a traditional publication.

Images can also be dragged into the text; iBooks Author uses live alignment guides to flow text around the picture as it is placed in the correct spot. A “widgets” feature allows users to create image galleries that can also be dragged into the book, then easily resized. The app can also connect to Internet databases to present numerical information without cutting-and-pasting.

Another feature of iBooks Author is a new glossary creator. If an author clicks a word in the text, that word appears in a new Glossary listing; users click “Add Term” to create definitions and add images.

The app also offers a preview mode: If your iPad is connected to your Mac, the app builds the book live and sends it across the wire to be previewed on the tablet.

iBooks Author is in the Mac App Store now. It requires Mac OS X 10.7.2 or later.

Apple launches iBooks 2 digital textbooks | The Digital Home - CNET News

Apple launches iBooks 2 digital textbooks | The Digital Home - CNET News:

'iBooks Author' eBook Authoring App for Mac Now Available

'iBooks Author' eBook Authoring App for Mac Now Available: Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad. All you need is an idea and a Mac. Start with one of the Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. Add your own text and images with drag-and-drop ease. Use Multi-Touch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects, and more. Preview your book on your iPad at any time. Then submit your finished work to the iBookstore with a few simple steps. And before you know it, you’re a published author.

Apple Launches iBooks 2 with Interactive Textbooks

Apple Launches iBooks 2 with Interactive Textbooks: Introducing iBooks 2 — now with iBooks textbooks.

- Experience gorgeous Multi-Touch textbooks designed for iPad

- iBooks textbooks are filled with interactive features, diagrams, photos, and videos

- Tap to dive into images with interactive captions, rotate 3D objects, swipe through image galleries, watch videos in full screen, and more

- Use a finger as a highlighter when swiping over text in a textbook

- Take advantage of Study Cards to help you memorize important highlights, notes, and glossary terms

- Tap glossary terms to see definitions of key topics and concepts without leaving the page

Apple is partnering with McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on the textbook front, with the three companies currently responsible for 90% of textbook sales in the United States. McGraw-Hill and Pearson are rolling out a handful of introductory titles today, with more coming soon.

Apple's initial focus for its textbook effort is on high school textbooks, with books priced at $14.99 or less. Authors can continually update their content, and the students get to keep their copies indefinitely.

Op-Ed: What Scientists Under Pressure Can Learn From Spock

Op-Ed: What Scientists Under Pressure Can Learn From Spock: Spock takes his fair share of abuse for being the stereotypically unemotional, weird and strangely driven scientist. But today's scientists could learn a lot from him. Marine scientist Christopher Reddy argues that Spock is the ideal role model for scientists dealing with a crisis, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

MPlayerX 1.0.11 - Alternative, modern media player.. (Free)

MPlayerX 1.0.11 - Alternative, modern media player.. (Free): MPlayerX is an alternative media player powered by ffmpeg and mplayer.

You know what this means, don't you? It means "Bloodlust in Ratland" may finally get published

Reinventing Textbooks

iBooks 2

Study card option turns your highlights into virtual index cards to swipe through.

Gorgeous, fullscreen books. Interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos. Fast, fluid navigation. Highlighting and note-taking. Searching and definitions. Lesson reviews and study cards.

iBooks Author is a Mac application that lets you create everything we just saw

Anyone can create stunning, interactive books. From textbooks to cookbooks to travel books to whatever you can imagine. Beautiful templates, multitouch widgets, photos, and videos, extend with HTML5 and JavasScript, and publish to iBookstore.

High school textbooks is where we're starting. They're $14.99 or less. "Whoa" says crowd.

Educational learning companies have given us a ton of advice. Including Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Together, these three companies account for 90 percent of textbooks sold in the US.

"That is reinventing the textbook. That's the FIRST thing we wanted to tell you about today."

The second thing we're doing for education is Reinventing Curriculum. To do that, let's talk iTunes U.

We want to let teachers do more—full online courses. The syllabus, interactive material, the reading material, and more.

Today, we're announcing iTunes U app.

iTunes U: Full courses with video, documents, apps, and books. You can see the syllabus and all assignments. Teacher posts and updates. iBooks notes integration.

The Apple Classroom of Tomorrow—a decade-long study.

Apple to Launch 'Garageband for e-books' on Thursday?

Apple to Launch 'Garageband for e-books' on Thursday?: The current state of software tools continues to frustrate authors and publishers alike, with several authors telling Ars that they wish Apple or some other vendor would make a simple app that makes the process as easy as creating a song in GarageBand.

Our sources say Apple will announce such a tool on Thursday.
Apple is said to announcing support for the ePub 3 standard as well, and hopes to open the door for publishers to easily create interactive e-books. Steve Jobs is said to have been intimately involved with the project for several years.

Apple's media event is being held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City on Thursday, January 19. It is scheduled to begin at 10:00 AM Eastern / 7:00 AM Pacific, and Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue has been reported to be a key figure in the presentation.

First Look: OnLive Desktop | Macworld

First Look: OnLive Desktop | Macworld: I’m writing these words as I often do, using Microsoft Word. But I’m doing so on an iPad 2, not on a Mac. And I’m running Word for Windows on that iPad, thanks to the new OnLive Desktop client for the iPad.

OnLive made its mark with a streaming service that allows almost anyone with broadband access—whether they’re on a Mac, PC or other platform—to play a wide array of PC games. OnLive’s servers do all the heavy processing—3D rendering and such—then stream the resulting video to client apps via a broadband link.

If you can stream an interactive, high intensity PC game over the internet, why not stream productivity apps, too? That’s exactly what OnLive Desktop does.

The Conservative Mind - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Conservative Mind - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education: So accustomed are we to the sunny Reagan and the populist Tea Party that we've forgotten a basic truth about conservatism: It is a reaction to democratic movements from below, movements like Occupy Wall Street that threaten to reorder society from the bottom up, redistributing power and resources from those who have much to those who have not so much. With the roar against the ruling classes growing ever louder, the right seems to be reverting to type. It thus behooves us to take a second look at the conservative tradition, not just its current incarnation but also across time, for that tradition provides us with an understanding of why the conservative responds to Occupy Wall Street as he does.

Since the modern era began, men and women in subordinate positions have marched against their superiors. They have gathered under different banners—the labor movement, feminism, abolition, socialism—and shouted different slogans: freedom, equality, democracy, revolution. In virtually every instance, their superiors have resisted them. That march and démarche of democracy is one of the main stories of modern politics. And it is the second half of that story, the démarche, that drives the development of ideas we call conservative. For that is what conservatism is: a meditation on, and theoretical rendition of, the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.

Four short links: 13 January 2012

Four short links: 13 January 2012: How The Internet Gets Inside Us (The New Yorker) -- at any given moment, our most complicated machine will be taken as a model of human intelligence, and whatever media kids favor will be identified as the cause of our stupidity. When there were automatic looms, the mind was like an automatic loom; and, since young people in the loom period liked novels, it was the cheap novel that was degrading our minds. When there were telephone exchanges, the mind was like a telephone exchange, and, in the same period, since the nickelodeon reigned, moving pictures were making us dumb. When mainframe computers arrived and television was what kids liked, the mind was like a mainframe and television was the engine of our idiocy. Some machine is always showing us Mind; some entertainment derived from the machine is always showing us Non-Mind. (via Tom Armitage)

IBM smashes Moore's Law, cuts bit size to 12 atoms

IBM smashes Moore's Law, cuts bit size to 12 atoms: IBM announced that after five years of work, its researchers have been able to reduce from about one million to 12 the number of atoms required to create a bit of data.

OnLive Desktop for iPad Now Available on App Store

OnLive Desktop for iPad Now Available on App Store: OnLive's virtual Windows 7 / Office app for the iPad has arrived on the App Store. As we reported earlier this week, OnLive Desktop offers iPad users access to full-featured versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The applications are running on OnLive's servers and streamed to your iPad.

OnLive offers a number of plans for the service, including a Free service as server capacity is available. Paid accounts will take priority over free accounts.

IBM creates data storage at the atomic level

IBM creates data storage at the atomic level: A new discovery by Big Blue researchers suggests that it's possible to store a bit of information in as little as 12 magnetic atoms. Today's disk drives require a million atoms to store a bit.

Strata Week: A .data TLD?

Strata Week: A .data TLD?: If a human went to wolfram.data, there'd be a structured summary of what data the organization behind it wanted to expose. And if a computational system went there, it'd find just what it needs to ingest the data, and begin computing with it.

Game Guru Slips Microsoft Windows Onto Apple iPads

Game Guru Slips Microsoft Windows Onto Apple iPads: Steve Perlman's latest venture, OnLive, released a free iPad app designed to access a virtual Windows desktop running on a distant server, complete with software such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. And in typical Perlman fashion, it tackles the problem from an unexpected but completely sensible direction. Founded a year and half ago, OnLive is actually a gaming company. But rather than run games on your PC or your phone or your tablet, it streams them to your device over the net.

CloudFTP connects iOS to USB drives

CloudFTP connects iOS to USB drives: A $100 box the size of a small bar of soap, CloudFTP turns any USB drive into a wireless file server for iPhones, iPads and any other Wi-Fi enabled devices.

Apple's 'Education Announcement' Scheduled for January 19 in New York City

Apple's 'Education Announcement' Scheduled for January 19 in New York City: The Loop reports that Apple has sent out media invitations for an "education announcement" to be made at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City on Thursday, January 19.

Oregon State study: Lack of sleep hurts your brain

Oregon State study: Lack of sleep hurts your brain:

New research at Oregon State University provides evidence for the first time that disruption of the biological “clocks” found in many animals – can cause accelerated neurodegeneration, loss of motor function and premature death.

OnLive to stream Windows desktop to iPad, Android devices | For the Record Podcast - CNET News

OnLive to stream Windows desktop to iPad, Android devices | For the Record Podcast - CNET News: Beginning on Thursday, U.S. iPad users will be able to download an app from the iTunes App Store to use the free service. Users can sign up early, starting Tuesday.
The free service provides 2 gigabytes of storage. After an initial testing phase, OnLive will offer a $9.99-per-month OnLive Desktop Pro version with 50GB of storage and access to additional software, including programs that customers can download themselves to OnLive's servers. The company will also launch an enterprise version, with which IT professionals will be able to add additional software and allocate employee access privileges.

Even with the free service, when you sign on, you see a Windows 7 desktop, which, based on a hands-on demo at the company's Palo Alto, Calif., office, starts up very quickly. OnLive is taking advantage of some of the features built into Windows 7 for tablets (yes, Microsoft has supported Windows tablets for years) to give users an iPad-like experience, even though they're using the iPad as a terminal to run Windows. Features include pinch and zoom, drag and drop, and the ability to draw or write on the screen with a finger or a stylus. The version of Office available for streaming includes handwriting recognition.

OnLive to stream Windows desktop to iPad, Android devices

OnLive to stream Windows desktop to iPad, Android devices: OnLive, which pioneered fast streaming on console-like games, is offering free access to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to iPad users. Android, Mac, and PC streaming will launch later.

Easy encryption with Disk Utility | Macworld

Easy encryption with Disk Utility | Macworld: Launch Disk Utility and choose File -> New -> Blank Disk Image. In the New Blank Image window that appears name your image, choose a size for it (something roomy enough to accommodate all the files you’re likely to move to it), select 128- or 256-bit encryption from the Encryption pop-up menu, and select Sparse Disk Image from the Image Format pop-up menu. I suggest choosing sparse disk image because your disk image will take up only as much storage as the sum of the files within it. So, even though you’ve created a 2.5GB image, if you’ve only flung a single 300MB file into it, that’s the size it will be. (It can hold up to 2.5GB but won't stretch beyond that boundary.)

Ultimate Spider-Man Bows April 1, Launching Marvel Universe Block « Spinoff Online – TV, Film and Entertainment News Daily

Ultimate Spider-Man Bows April 1, Launching Marvel Universe Block « Spinoff Online – TV, Film and Entertainment News Daily: Disney XD announced today that the somewhat-delayed Ultimate Spider-Man animated series will premiere April 1, forming the centerpiece of a Marvel programming block that seems similar to Cartoon Network’s upcoming DC Nation.

OnLive brings cloud-based Windows apps to the iPad — Cloud Computing News

OnLive brings cloud-based Windows apps to the iPad — Cloud Computing News: That begins with the introduction of OnLive Desktop, a free iPad app that allows anyone to use full-featured versions of Microsoft Word and other desktop applications on the Apple tablet.

The introduction of OnLive Desktop means iPad users will now have access to full-featured versions of popular and powerful Windows PC applications. The application, available free from the iTunes App Store, runs virtualized versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint software on its data centers in the cloud.

Aussie Brains Move Chip Design to Quantum Realm

Aussie Brains Move Chip Design to Quantum Realm: The law of the land is Ohm's Law -- even when the land is really, really small. Contradicting what was previously thought, researchers at the University of New South Wales have announced that the law governing electrical resistivity -- how readily electrical current flows through a material -- extends into the quantum realm. This has major significance for chipmakers, who are starting to wrestle with the forces of quantum physics as transistors and interconnect sizes shrink down to a few dozen nanometers. These forces are among the barriers threatening to bring another famous law to a halt. Moore's Law holds that number of transistors you can fit on a chip doubles about every 18 months.

More tablets, PCs, and TVs to adopt AMOLED displays | Business Tech - CNET News

More tablets, PCs, and TVs to adopt AMOLED displays | Business Tech - CNET News: AMOLED (active matrix organic light emitting diode) displays are ideal for tablets and TVs as they offer high contrast ratios, quick response times, and wide viewing angles. The technology also allows for such devices to be thin, flexible, and even transparent, the research firm notes.

Google+ Is Going To Mess Up The Internet

Google+ Is Going To Mess Up The Internet: I hate Google+. Can't stand it. It is agonizing to use. The stream is so noisy, it won't even bother me when the inevitable Google ads arrive. Culturally, it feels like walking into a religious school. It swarms with disciples of the + waiting for the messianic downfall of the Evil Internet, so that the One True Google+ is all that's left.

Understanding randomness is a double-edged sword

Understanding randomness is a double-edged sword: Leonard Mlodinow's "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives" is a great book on an important subject. As data scientists know, random phenomenon are everywhere, and humans don't understand them well. We're not wired to understand them well. This book is a huge help, and will be a relief to anyone who's heard people say "I don't believe in global warming because last winter we got a lot of snow," or some load of crap like that.

Why I use Scrivener for business writing | Macworld

Why I use Scrivener for business writing | Macworld: Originally designed for writing fiction, Scrivener provides an integrated researching, organizing, and writing environment that makes the process of moving ideas from your brain to your screen faster and more efficient. The same features that make it ideal for writing a novel also work at the office. I now use Scrivener every day for writing proposals, contracts, and legal pleadings and briefs. Here’s how.

CloudOn Brings Free Cloud-Hosted Microsoft Office Functionality to iPad

CloudOn Brings Free Cloud-Hosted Microsoft Office Functionality to iPad: Silicon Valley startup CloudOn today released a free iPad app [App Store] that aims to bring the functionality of Microsoft Office to the iPad. The iPad app actually serves as an interface for the full cloud-based app on CloudOn's servers, and thus requires an Internet connection to function, but offers what seems to be a remarkably functional implementation of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, all integrated with file storage and syncing through Dropbox.