Breakthrough material barely denser than air - CBS News

Breakthrough material barely denser than air - CBS News: Researchers at HRL Laboratories and the Composites Center at the University of Southern California have created what they say is the lowest-density material, a lattice of hollow tubes of the metal nickel.

Its volume is 99.99 percent air, and its density is 0.9 milligram per cubic centimeter--not including the air in or between its tubes. That density is less than one-thousandth that of water.

Same-size lithium ion battery, 10 times the storage | Cutting Edge - CNET News

Same-size lithium ion battery, 10 times the storage | Cutting Edge - CNET News: With a better anode, a cell phone could be charged in 15 minutes and have 10 times the energy storage capacity of current lithium ion batteries, according to Northwestern University researchers, who predict the technology could be available in three to five years.

Argonne's battery researchers, meanwhile, say that replacing the traditional graphite anode with titanium oxide could lead to cell phones that can get half their full charge in less than 30 seconds.

AOL reworks AIM: message sync, in-line media, easy groups

AOL reworks AIM: message sync, in-line media, easy groups: AOL on Wednesday launched a redesigned AIM for both desktops and mobile devices to compete with modern alternatives like Facebook Messenger or Google+. The service now syncs message histories and makes sure users can follow what was missed, even if they were signed out.

VIDEO: Neil Gaiman Visits "The Simpsons"

VIDEO: Neil Gaiman Visits "The Simpsons": You may know Neil Gaiman from such works as "Sandman" and "Coraline," but the acclaimed writer is also set to guest star on this Sunday's episode of "The Simpsons." ROBOT 6 has details and a video clip.

Vet to Feds: Enough Stonewalling, Give Us Pot for PTSD

Vet to Feds: Enough Stonewalling, Give Us Pot for PTSD: Marine Corps veteran Ryan Begin once took over 100 pills a day for his post-traumatic stress. Now he smokes a few joints. He's launched an online petition asking the federal government to reverse their ban on a study to determine marijuana's effectiveness in treating PTSD -- and scored 12,000 signatures in a mere two days.

More Mammoth (and Mysterious) Structures Found in China’s Desert | Danger Room | Wired.com

More Mammoth (and Mysterious) Structures Found in China’s Desert | Danger Room | Wired.com: As former CIA analyst Allen Thomson notes, turning on the DigitalGlobe coverage layer in Google Earth shows all the various times the imaging satellite has been asked to inspect that part of the desert. (Here’s a screenshot, above.) “Starting in 2004, somebody has ordered many, many satellite pictures of it,” Thomson tells Danger Room. “Can’t have been cheap.”

Below are some of the strange things those satellite swoops photographed, which were then uncovered by Danger Room’s community of commenters.

Autonomy's wizardry: Bringing still images to virtual life | Digital Media - CNET News

Autonomy's wizardry: Bringing still images to virtual life | Digital Media - CNET News: Lynch had an assistant hold up poster-size images--an ad for a Harry Potter move, a front page of a newspaper, a static ad. Lynch then pointed the camera at the images and, one by one, they came to virtual life.

In each case, the device would pick up a familiar pattern and transform the image. Suddenly, a scene from Harry Potter was playing on the iPad, the page of a newspaper updated to a current story and became a video presentation, and a man walked out of the ad to explain the product.

It was an amazing, if slightly creepy, stuff. And according to Lynch, it's just the beginning of what's possible. He said, for instance, that the iPhone can remember up to 500,000 things that it can draw on to, in effect, trigger its memory and transform static images.

Eventually, he said, the device will begin to scan your physical world, looking for familiar items around you without you even doing a thing. The magic happens within the device, he stressed--there's no need for a website.

Why Is China Building These Gigantic Structures In the Middle of the Desert? | Danger Room | Wired.com

Why Is China Building These Gigantic Structures In the Middle of the Desert? | Danger Room | Wired.com: This is crazy. New photos have appeared in Google Maps showing unidentified titanic structures in the middle of the Chinese desert. The first one is an intricate network of what appears to be huge metallic stripes. Is this a military experiment?

They seem to be wide lines drawn with some white material. Or maybe the dust have been dug by machinery.

It’s located in Dunhuang, Jiuquan, Gansu, north of the Shule River, which crosses the Tibetan Plateau to the west into the Kumtag Desert. It covers an area approximately one mile long by more than 3,000 feet wide.

The tracks are perfectly executed, and they seem to be designed to be seen from orbit.

SPINOFF REVIEW: "Immortals"

SPINOFF REVIEW: "Immortals": While Tarsem Singh's "Immortals" is gorgeous, filled with gold-armored warriors, sweeping vistas and Greek gods in impossible headpieces, the film stumbles as the story gets in the way of the adrenaline-pumping action

Apple Store Employees Made This Music Video to Teach Customer Service Skills

Apple Store Employees Made This Music Video to Teach Customer Service Skills: The Apple Steps of Service, as taught during Core Training, which every new hire at Apple goes through:

A - Approach the customer with a "warm welcome"

P - Position, Permission, Probe -- Tell the customer what you want to do, ask permission, and then ask them questions to determine their needs.

P - Present the appropriate product solution that fits their needs.

L - Listen to their concerns.

E - End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return.

There are also the three A's -- three steps used with the "L" above to help alleviate customer concerns.

A - Acknowledge that their concerns are valid.

A - Align with the customer, agreeing that you would feel the same were you in their shoes.

A - Assure the customer that you will be able to solve their problem to their satisfaction.

Amazon updates, sunsets Stanza app

Amazon updates, sunsets Stanza app: Amazon on Thursday released an update to Stanza that fixes a slew of problems affecting the app when running on iOS 5. But the company's support team suggests that the app will no longer be updated.

Amazon acquired Lexcycle, the original developers of Stanza, in 2009. Though the app can’t display Kindle books, it does offer support for ePub, eReader, PDF, Comic Book Archive, and DjVu book formats. Stanza devotees praised the app’s plentiful customization options for text display.

Pentagon Regrowing Soldiers' Muscles From Pig Cells

Pentagon Regrowing Soldiers' Muscles From Pig Cells: Some pig cells, a single surgery and a grueling daily workout: They're the three ingredients that patients will need to re-grow fresh, functional slabs of their own muscle, courtesy of Pentagon-backed science that's two years from hitting mainstream medicine. Already, the research team behind the project has operated successfully on four soldiers.

I Don't Like To Complain

I Don't Like To Complain: I really don't. We've been lucky so far. Got a good college education, married well, raised three pretty good children, and drifted into a career that pays very well most of the time. We've got a big house on an acre and a half and three cars. But lately we've had a series of setbacks, and Monday night was the low point. Saturday I felt fine. Sunday evening I got sick. Leslie was across town staying with her eighty-eight year old mom who is waiting for gallbladder surgery. I was supposed to...

GarageBand Version: 1.1 Review | iPhone and iPad Music App | Macworld

GarageBand Version: 1.1 Review | iPhone and iPad Music App | Macworld: The buying advice I offered for the first version of the app still holds. GarageBand 1.1 is a remarkable musical powerhouse that can be had for a song. It’s a better experience when run on the iPad because of the larger work surface and ability to use it with external controllers and microphones. But the fact that Apple could create a version as accessible as this one, for more diminutive iOS devices, is a testament to the brilliance of GarageBand’s designers. Plus, the refinements and improvements brought with this version of the app make it a better and more musical tool. Whether you’ve been making music for years or have only dreamed of doing so, GarageBand remains a must-have iOS app.

Women Have Sex Out Of Obligation? - Forbes

Women Have Sex Out Of Obligation? - Forbes: A new survey on women’s sexual habits and beliefs sparked some interesting theories: Women are not prioritizing sex as part of their health regimen; women are not all that satisfied in the bedroom; and, most notably, that women are having sex because they feel obligated rather than for enjoyment.

It found that while half of women agree engaging in sexual activity a few times a week is “sexually healthy,” the majority of women (66%) have sex once a week or less. Moreover, while three out of five women said that connecting with their partner was the most important aspect of their sex life, only two out five report being “very or extremely satisfied” with that aspect of their sex lives.

Finally, to those healthy 30% who are having sex four times a week and reaping the benefits–decreased stress, strengthened pelvic floor muscles, increased immune system function and calorie burning–bravo. What’s your secret?

The Social Graph is Neither (Pinboard Blog)

The Social Graph is Neither (Pinboard Blog): Imagine the U.S. Census as conducted by direct marketers - that's the social graph.

Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when you spot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, is the entire driving force behind a site like Facebook.

We have a name for the kind of person who collects a detailed, permanent dossier on everyone they interact with, with the intent of using it to manipulate others for personal advantage - we call that person a sociopath. And both Google and Facebook have gone deep into stalker territory with their attempts to track our every action. Even if you have faith in their good intentions, you feel misgivings about stepping into the elaborate shrine they've built to document your entire online life.

Adobe ceases development on Flash Player for mobile, refocuses efforts on HTML5 – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home

Adobe ceases development on Flash Player for mobile, refocuses efforts on HTML5 – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home: Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

Four short links: 9 November 2011

Four short links: 9 November 2011:

1. The Social Graph is Neither -- Maciej Ceglowski nails it. Imagine the U.S. Census as conducted by direct marketers - that's the social graph. Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when you spot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, is the entire driving force behind a site like Facebook.


2. Anonymous 101 (Wired) -- Quinn Norton explains where Anonymous came from, what it is, and why it is.


3. Antibiotic Resistance (The Atlantic) -- Laxminarayan likens antibiotics resistance to global warming: every country needs to solve its own problems and cooperate—but if it doesn't, we all suffer. This is why we can't have nice things. (via Courtney Johnston)


4. Deep Idle for Android -- developer saw his handset wasn't going into a deep-enough battery-saving idle mode, saw it wasn't implemented in the kernel, implemented it, and reduced battery consumption by 55%. Very cool to see open source working as it's supposed to. (via Leonard Lin)

Adobe Discontinues Development of Flash on Mobile Devices

Adobe Discontinues Development of Flash on Mobile Devices: ZDNet is reporting that Adobe has announced to its partners that the company has discontinued development on Flash Player for mobile browsers. The news comes roughly a year and a half after the publication of Steve Jobs' "Thoughts on Flash" open letter, laying out his thoughts on the use of Flash in mobile devices.

Instead of working on mobile Flash, Adobe plans to continue developing its tools to produce applications that work on mobile app stores, including Apple's App Store.

From Adobe's announcement:
Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.

Apple brings Criterion Collection to iTunes, minus extras | Electronista

Apple brings Criterion Collection to iTunes, minus extras | Electronista: Apple has scored a minor coup for iTunes by adding some of The Criterion Collection's movies (iTunes Store) to its roster. The group includes 46 classic, usually remastered movies of the hundreds in the group. Among the titles are Akira Kurosawa movies such as The Seven Samurai, Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, and Louie Malle's My Dinner With Andre.

How to make basic edits in iPhoto | Macworld

How to make basic edits in iPhoto | Macworld: Take your best pictures and make them better with editing. iPhoto includes most of the image-editing tools that casual photographers need to spruce up their photos. If you use iPhoto to manage your photo collection, try these fixes before cracking open a dedicated image editor.

CROWDS R US | More Intelligent Life

CROWDS R US | More Intelligent Life: Crowds, we are often told, are dumb. They obliterate reason, sentience and accountability, turning individuals into helpless copycats. Commentators on the riots offered different explanations but most agreed that crowd psychology was part of the problem. “The dominant trait of the crowd is to reduce its myriad individuals to a single, dysfunctional persona,” wrote the novelist Will Self in the New Statesman. “The crowd is stupider than the averaging of its component minds.” The violence was said to have spread like a “contagion” through the crowd, facilitated by social media. For those who wanted to sound scientific, the term to drop was “deindividuation”: the loss of identity and moral responsibility that can occur in a group. But do crowds really make us more stupid?

Earlier this year, the world watched a crowd bring down an autocratic government, by the simple act of coming together in one place, day after day, night after night. Egyptian protesters created a micro-society in Tahrir Square, organising garbage collection, defending themselves when they needed to, but otherwise ensuring the protest remained peaceful. As well as courage, this took intelligence, discipline and restraint. Few international observers accused the crowd in Tahrir Square of being dysfunctional, or of turning its members into animals.

Le Bon’s book hit a cultural nerve: a phrase of his, the “era of crowds”, stuck to the late 19th century. Europe’s cities had grown and industrialised fast, creating a vast and unruly class of people who had a nasty habit of coming together in public places to demand things. In Paris riots had threatened and sometimes overturned the established order for the last hundred years. Le Bon was a conservative, distrustful of fashionable democratic ideas. Like other members of the French middle class, when he saw a crowd he smelt only trouble. It’s hardly surprising that he would characterise the people in them as sub-human.

What is surprising is that we seem to have inherited his prejudices. John Drury, a psychologist at Sussex university who studies crowd behaviour, believes that the idea that crowds induce irrational behaviour and erase individuality just isn’t supported by the evidence. First, most crowds aren’t violent. The crowd in the shopping mall or at a music festival is usually calm and ordered. Even crowds that include conflicting groups, as at football matches, are more likely to be peaceful than not. Second, even when crowds do turn violent, they aren’t necessarily irrational. In the 18th century England was afflicted by food riots. If ever there was an atavistic reason to riot, that was surely it. But the historian E.P. Thompson showed that the riots took place not when food was at its most scarce but when people saw merchants selling grain at a steep profit; the rioters were motivated by a rational sense of injustice rather than the “animal” drive of hunger.

When an accountant plays air guitar at a concert, he isn’t giving up his identity so much as finding a neglected corner of it. Above all, he is enjoying the glorious sensation of feeling part of something bigger than himself.

An accidental crowd can become an organised one in response to an external threat. Passengers on the Piccadilly line who left King’s Cross at 8.50am on July 7th 2005 would have felt little in common with each other, bar the tetchiness of the commuter. But when the carriage exploded and the survivors realised they had been attacked, they performed heroic acts to save the lives of strangers they had just been ignoring. The Tahrir Square crowd included supporters from Cairo’s leading soccer teams, Al-Ahly and Al-Zamalek. The two groups have a longstanding post-match tradition of vicious fighting. Yet in Tahrir Square they stood together against Mubarak’s thugs. Crowds are as likely to bring out the best in us as the worst.

Organize and play your media from a NAS

Organize and play your media from a NAS: If you have multiple computers, iOS devices, and media players in your home, it's likely your media is a mess--scattered from one end of your home to the other. With the aid of a NAS and these tips, you can cull, organize, and play that content on any device you own.

Intel's newest lands in an old standard: Commodore 64 | Nanotech - The Circuits Blog - CNET News

Intel's newest lands in an old standard: Commodore 64 | Nanotech - The Circuits Blog - CNET News: Well, a lot has changed in 30 years. After resurrecting the Commodore name in April of 2010, the company came out with an Intel Atom-based design in April of this year. That's a relatively pokey processor though. So, now Commodore has bulked up its lineup with Intel's latest 2.2GHz Core-i7-2720QM quad-core processor (which turbos to 3.3GHz).

Go to iforgot.apple.com to reset your Apple ID password.

Go to iforgot.apple.com to reset your Apple ID password.:

If you forget your Apple ID password or simply want to change to a new one, use Safari on your computer or any of your devices to go to iforgot.apple.com where you can enter your Apple ID and begin the process. You'll be asked to choose whether you want to confirm your identity via an email to the account associated with your Apple ID or by answering the security question you put in place when you first created it. As you create your new password, you'll see an indication of its relative strength in the area below the form. You can keep entering and editing until you achieve your ideal password strength. When you're satisfied, confirm your password and tap or click the Reset button.

You can use your Apple ID in iTunes, iChat, iCloud, the Apple Online Store, Apple Retail Stores and at Apple.com Support. If you don't have an Apple ID and want to create one, go to appleid.apple.com.

What Should We Expect From Genre TV in 2012? « Spinoff Online – TV, Film and Entertainment News Daily

What Should We Expect From Genre TV in 2012? « Spinoff Online – TV, Film and Entertainment News Daily: ABC prepping both 666 Park (about an apartment building wherein all the tenants have made a literal deal with the devil) and Wicked Good (about a coven of witches in Southern California fighting evil. I think this used to be called Charmed, but I don’t think ABC can really be blamed for forgetting about that show)

Yahoo's IntoNow: Interactive TV, but not on TV | Challengers - CNET News

Yahoo's IntoNow: Interactive TV, but not on TV | Challengers - CNET News: IntoNow started out as an iPhone app that Yahoo acquired back in April. It's based on a clever TV-show-fingerprinting technology that's basically Shazam for TV: You let it listen to the program you're watching for a few seconds and it can figure out what the show is.

I tried the iPhone version a few months ago, and it was fun for a while to play random episodes of "I Love Lucy" and have IntoNow identify them for me. By itself, though, the identification is kind of a party trick. Generally speaking, if you're watching a TV program, you either already know what it is or can find out easily enough.

That's what I've found. I already know what I'm watching, so what's the point?

Arts & Letters Daily (05 Nov 2011)

Arts & Letters Daily (05 Nov 2011): The university is broken. Students learn little and take on big debt to pay for an education that, intellectually, doesn't amount to much... more

Our Universities: Why Are They Failing?

The Collegiate Learning Assessment reveals that some 45 percent of students in the sample had made effectively no progress in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing in their first two years.

Second, and more depressing: vast numbers of students come to university with no particular interest in their courses and no sense of how these might prepare them for future careers. The desire they cherish, Arum and Roksa write, is to act out “cultural scripts of college life depicted in popular movies such as Animal House (1978) and National Lampoon’s Van Wilder (2002).” Academic studies don’t loom large on their mental maps of the university. Even at the elite University of California, students report that on average they spend “twelve hours [a week] socializing with friends, eleven hours using computers for fun, six hours watching television, six hours exercising, five hours on hobbies”—and thirteen hours a week studying.

Americans, as Malcolm Harris recently pointed out, now owe almost a trillion dollars in student loans, more than they owe in credit card debt. Student debt, he explained, “is an exceptionally punishing kind to have. Not only is it inescapable through bankruptcy, but student loans have no expiration date and collectors can garnish wages, social security payments, and even unemployment benefits.” The burden is distributed by the reverse of the Matthew principle: to him who hath not, no one gives anything.

All this to pay for an education that—as we have already seen—means little, intellectually, to many of those who are courting debtors’ prison to pay for it. The unkindest cut of all, of course, is that those who drop out must still carry the full burden of the loans that so many of them have taken out—even though they will, in all probability, earn less and fare worse in hard times than graduates. Yet even unemployment among graduates has been rising—as have rates of student loan default.

Imagine what it’s like to be a normal student nowadays. You did well—even very well—in high school. But you arrive at university with little experience in research and writing and little sense of what your classes have to do with your life plans. You start your first year deep in debt, with more in prospect. You work at Target or a fast-food outlet to pay for your living expenses. You live in a vast, shabby dorm or a huge, flimsy off-campus apartment complex, where your single with bath provides both privacy and isolation. And you see professors from a great distance, in space as well as culture: from the back of a vast dark auditorium, full of your peers checking Facebook on their laptops.

It’s no wonder, in these circumstances, that many students never really internalize the new demands and standards of university work. Instead they drift from course to course, looking for entertainment and easy grades. Nor is it surprising that many aren’t ready when trouble comes. Students drink too much alcohol, smoke too much marijuana, play too many computer games, wreck cars, become pregnant, get overwhelmed trying to help anorexic roommates, and too often lose the modest but vital support previously provided by a parent who has been laid off.

Still, the dark hordes of forgotten students who leave the university as Napoleon’s army left Russia, uninspired by their courses, wounded in many cases by what they experience as their own failures, weighed down by their debts, need to be seen and heard.

Steve Jobs interview: One-on-one in 1995

Steve Jobs interview: One-on-one in 1995: I used to think when I was in my twenties that technology was the solution to most of the world's problems, but unfortunately it just ain't so. I'll give you an analogy. Alot of times we think "Why is the television programming so bad? Why are television shows so demeaning, so poor?"

The first thought that occurs to you is "Well, there is a conspiracy: the networks are feeding us this slop because its cheap to produce. It's the networks that are controlling this and they are feeding us this stuff."

But the truth of the matter, if you study it in any depth, is that networks absolutely want to give people what they want so that will watch the shows. If people wanted something different, they would get it. And the truth of the matter is that the shows that are on television, are on television because that's what people want. The majority of people in this country want to turn on a television and turn off their brain and that's what they get. And that's far more depressing than a conspiracy.

Does Inequality Make Us Unhappy?

Does Inequality Make Us Unhappy?: When the rich do something to deserve their riches, nobody complains. But when those at the bottom don't understand the unequal distribution of wealth, they get furious. Neuroscience blogger Jonah Lehrer examines the psychological roots of the occupy movement.

Yahoo Doesn’t Understand What Makes Flipboard Special | Epicenter | Wired.com

Yahoo Doesn’t Understand What Makes Flipboard Special | Epicenter | Wired.com: Flipboard solves an actual problem for readers: trying to distill newsworthy reading items from already existing RSS and social media feeds. Yahoo’s Livestand only solves problems for publishers and advertisers: how to display content and advertising to readers without having to have everyone write their own code from scratch.

Google pulls Gmail iOS app for fix, accused of low interest

Google pulls Gmail iOS app for fix, accused of low interest: Google in just two hours has already pulled its Gmail app for iOS. The company's Dave Girouard explained the removal as a voluntary step after Google found a bug that would break notifications and trigger errors the first time the app is open. The fix is underway, and a new version was coming "soon," he said....

Good thing I haven't opened it yet.

'Steve Jobs' Easily Tops Best Seller Lists in Debut Week

'Steve Jobs' Easily Tops Best Seller Lists in Debut Week: Despite being on sale for just six days in the US, Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography is already the 18th bestselling book of the year.

‘Steve Jobs – One Last Thing’ premieres today on PBS

‘Steve Jobs – One Last Thing’ premieres today on PBS: Few men have changed our everyday world of work, leisure and human communication in the way that Steve Jobs has...

Moodle 2.1.2 - Produce/manage educational sites.. (Free)

Moodle 2.1.2 - Produce/manage educational sites.. (Free):

Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities.

You can download and use it on any computer you have handy (including webhosts), yet it can scale from a single-teacher site to a 50,000-student University. This site itself is created using Moodle, so check out the Moodle Demonstration Courses or read the latest Moodle Buzz.

Version 2.1.2: Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.

Mac OS X 10.4 or later

Download Now

SPINOFF REVIEW: "Puss in Boots"

SPINOFF REVIEW: "Puss in Boots": Wielding its charming hero's wit like a blade, "Puss in Boots" sets out in a welcome direction, giving the feline a proper (and highly entertaining) origin with a stellar supporting cast.

Import camera videos directly into iMovie '11 | Macworld

Import camera videos directly into iMovie '11 | Macworld: Admittedly, that's a lot of steps, made slightly frustrating by the fact that Image Capture doesn't remember other folder locations the next time you open the application. So, to streamline the process for the next time, create a simple Automator workflow specifically for Image Capture.

Apogee Lets You to Plug Into iOS and Jam | GeekDad | Wired.com

Apogee Lets You to Plug Into iOS and Jam | GeekDad | Wired.com: I connected the Apogee Jam to my iPad 2 and launched GarageBand. The status light on Jam turned green, indicating that the app I launched connected to the device. I adjusted the control knob to bring up the level of my guitar. I selected a clean amp and a 2 x 12″ cabinet to emulate a Fender Twin reverb, added some reverb and tremolo and strummed out a few chords. Gorgeous sound exploded out of my headphones. Full of clarity, detail and nuance that I haven’t heard in an iOS app, the combination of Jam with Garageband’s amp simulation and effects technology created an unparalleled mobile experience. So true was the sound I was creating that it was easy to forget about the interface and begin exploring the music and all that Garageband for the iPad had to offer.

Dwarf Planet Eris Is Icy Double of Pluto

Dwarf Planet Eris Is Icy Double of Pluto: Astronomers from France have made the first accurate measurements of the distant dwarf planet Eris, and found that it's an almost exact doppelganger of the declassified ninth planet, Pluto.

Cataloging Cosmic Train Wrecks

Cataloging Cosmic Train Wrecks: By spying on galactic smash-ups, we're learning how the massive Milky Way-Andromeda collision might play out in 5 billion years.

PBS to air Steve Jobs documentary Nov. 2

PBS to air Steve Jobs documentary Nov. 2: PBS will air a documentary about late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on November 2, that includes interviews with numerous early Apple employees and those who knew him, as well as part of an un-aired interview Jobs did with PBS in 1994.

Steve Jobs - One Last Thing will premiere next Wednesday, November 2nd, at 10:00 PM on PBS stations around the United States.

Discover What's New in CSS 4

Discover What's New in CSS 4: CSS 3 we hardly knew you. The World Wide Web Consortium is already making plans for CSS 4, an update that will give web developers even more powerful ways to wrangle their code into a faster, better looking web.

Steve Jobs’ biography: The first great digital book event – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home

Steve Jobs’ biography: The first great digital book event – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home: Carmody reports, “Jobs’ biography may be the first great digital book event, a last hurrah for the universally appealing hardcover, a collective reading experience of Potteresque proportions.”

Everywhere Man - Magazine - The Atlantic

Everywhere Man - Magazine - The Atlantic: Count Harry Kessler dined with Diaghilev, fought for Germany, and penned one of the greatest diaries ever published.

HE WAS COSMOPOLITAN, and a member of a new aristocracy. He grew up in Paris, in England, in Germany, and on Staten Island. Though his mother was Anglo-Irish, Count Harry Kessler was, or became, intensely German, as if by a sort of tragic choice; and he also became, through his experiences and through the anguished searching of his spirit, something close to a representative man.

The diary he wrote, starting in 1880 when he was 12 and continuing until his death in 1937, is said by the editor and translator of the volume, Laird M. Easton, to be one of the greatest ever written, “comparable in its stature to those of Samuel Pepys, André Gide, Henri Frédéric Amiel, Beatrice Webb, or Virginia Woolf.” Kessler moves between countries and is intimate with high society in England, France, and Germany. He seeks out great artists and gives us memorable portraits of Verlaine in old age, of Degas and Renoir, of Rodin and Maillol, of Rilke and Hofmannsthal, of Cosima Wagner, of Richard Strauss, of Diaghilev and Nijinsky, and of other great dancers and theatrical figures of the age. He tells us of the intrigues of the German Imperial Court. We see him helping Hofmannsthal to work out the plot of Der Rosenkavalier. We accompany his party to the premiere of Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and to the dinner afterward with Nijinsky, Cocteau, Misia Sert (as she later became), Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Bakst, Ravel, Hofmannsthal, and—a late arrival, covered in gems from the Persian Ball—the Aga Khan, who, “sitting next to Nijinsky with his jaw and vulgar face, was like a fat sack of real money next to a fantastic dream of wealth.” The cast list alone makes this an amazing diary.

...

Here, at Edward Gordon Craig’s production of Ibsen’s Vikings, we witness the invention of modern theatrical production style:

The chief reforms: he completely abolishes the ramp lights, and the stage decorations almost completely. He uses only overhead lights and props. The stage is surrounded as if by cloths that remain almost invisible behind the changing lighting effects and the colored veil of lights. You feel as if you were looking into a kind of infinite space. Your entire attention is concentrated, however, on the action that takes place, lit up brightly and variably, according to the mood in this sidereal, so to speak, infinity. These basic ideas seem to me of great value, and the impression is in any case much stronger than with the usual papier-mâché decoration because the imagination has more room and the attention is concentrated.

Elgan: Getting serious about Siri - Computerworld

Elgan: Getting serious about Siri - Computerworld: One thing Siri can do is send text messages. And text messages can do powerful things, with the right help.

I told you recently about a new service called "If This Then That," which is abbreviated and lowercased by the company as: ifttt, for some reason.

The service lets you connect together all kinds of Internet-based services. One of these services is SMS. And that's the key to empowering Siri.

Here's how it works: You use Siri to send a text to ifttt, and that service can turn your text into a Facebook or Twitter post, Tumblr, Posterous or Wordpress blog post, an Evernote entry or any number of other actions.

The New York Times reviews ‘Steve Jobs’ by Walter Isaacson: Replete with passion and excitement – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home

The New York Times reviews ‘Steve Jobs’ by Walter Isaacson: Replete with passion and excitement – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home: “Skeptic after skeptic made the mistake of underrating Steve Jobs, and Mr. Isaacson records the howlers who misjudged an unrivaled career,” Maslin reports. “‘Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work,’ Business Week wrote in a 2001 headline. ‘The iPod will likely become a niche product,’ a Harvard Business School professor said. ‘High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product,’ Mr. Sculley said in 1987.”

“Mr. Jobs got the last laugh every time,” Maslin reports. “‘Steve Jobs’ makes it all the sadder that his last laugh is over.”

Hints of New Physics Crop Up at LHC

Hints of New Physics Crop Up at LHC: Preliminary findings from CERN's Large Hadron Collider may have uncovered experimental evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model. Data from the CMS experiment is showing significant excesses of particles known as leptons being created in triplets, a result that could be interpreted as evidence for a theory called supersymmetry.

Al Gore: Steve Jobs' greatest work was Apple itself

Al Gore: Steve Jobs' greatest work was Apple itself: The Apple board member says Jobs leaves behind a world-class executive team that is "hitting on all cylinders" and committed to taking risks.

Lytro Light Field Camera offers simplicity with futuristic features | Macworld

Lytro Light Field Camera offers simplicity with futuristic features | Macworld: Ng claims that the "light-field engine" needed for viewing, refocusing, and interacting with the images is embedded in each image file, making it possible to embed the images in interactive, refocusable form on sites such as Facebook.

At Popcorn Hackathon, Coders Team With Filmmakers to Supercharge Web Video | Underwire | Wired.com

At Popcorn Hackathon, Coders Team With Filmmakers to Supercharge Web Video | Underwire | Wired.com: Popcorn.js, which few outside the web-development world have ever heard of, could be the next big thing in internet video. It’s a simple — for coders, at least — framework that allows filmmakers to supplement their movies with news feeds, Twitter posts, informational windows or even other videos, which show up picture-in-picture style. For example, if a subject in a film mentions a place, a link can pop up within the video or alongside it, directing the viewer to a Google Map of the location.

Popcorn-powered videos work in any HTML5-compatible browser and are easy to navigate for anyone who has ever used the internet. The tools the Popcorn coders are creating could lead to far more interactive online experiences, not just for movies and documentaries but for all videos...

“Popcorn is the most developer-friendliest library for making it super-simple to make a read-only experience, which is what HTML5 video really is,” said Waldron, one of Popcorn.js’s lead developers, while ferociously typing out The Interrupters code. “The library is very small and very capable of making it super-easy to add an interactive level [to video]...”

Troy Hunt: Secret iOS business; what you don’t know about your apps

Troy Hunt: Secret iOS business; what you don’t know about your apps: Not so in the mobile app world of today. These days, there’s this great big fat abstraction layer on top of everything that keeps you pretty well disconnected from what’s actually going on. Thing is, it’s a trivial task to see what’s going on underneath, you just fire up an HTTP proxy like Fiddler, sit back and watch the show.

Let me introduce you to the seedy underbelly of the iPhone, a world where not all is as it seems and certainly not all is as it should be.

Lytro unveils radical new camera design | Deep Tech - CNET News

Lytro unveils radical new camera design | Deep Tech - CNET News: Conventional digital cameras uses lenses to focus a subject so it's sharp on the image sensor. That means that for an in-focus part of the image, light from only one direction reaches the sensor.

For light-field photography, though, light from multiple directions hits each patch of the sensor; the camera records this directional information, and after-the-shot computing converts it into something a human eye can understand.


The result that a Lytro camera image is a 3D map of whatever was photographed, and that means people can literally decide what to focus on after they've taken the photo.

"It's got an instant shutter. You press the button--bang! It takes the picture right away," Ng said. "We have that unique feature--shoot first, focus later. The camera doesn't have to physically focus while you take the shot."

How Apple screwed up the iPad music app with iOS 5 | Apple - CNET News

How Apple screwed up the iPad music app with iOS 5 | Apple - CNET News: The changes to the Music app may be minor amidst the other new features in iOS 5. But as someone who regularly listens to music, podcasts, and iTunes U content on my iPad, I think Apple dropped the ball here. Let's hope we see some fixes to this new and improved Music app in the next iOS update.

I might add that, while listening to the MacBreak Weekly podcast, I discovered that you can no longer adjust the speed to 2X - a huge feature loss. :(

NetNewsWire 3.3 - RSS/Atom newsreader.. (Free)

NetNewsWire 3.3 - RSS/Atom newsreader.. (Free):

NetNewsWire is an easy-to-use RSS and Atom newsreader for Mac OS X. Its familiar three-paned interface -- similar to Apple Mail -- can fetch and display news from thousands of different websites and weblogs, making it quick and easy to keep up with the latest news. Features include:

• A tabbed browser lets you read web pages with the convenience of staying in the same window.
• Search your news items with a standard Apple search widget -- as in Mail and other applications.
• Downloads podcasts and enclosures, and sends podcasts to iTunes with with your choice of genre and playlist.
• The flagged items feature lets you mark items that you want to keep -- they stay forever or until you mark them as unflagged.
• Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) compatible, and includes Automator actions to control functions in NetNewsWire.
• Other features include syncing, smart lists, search subscriptions, built-in styles, and AppleScript support.
• Includes a built-in categorized list of feeds that can be easily subscribed to.
• If NetNewsWire Lite is already running, quit it before running NetNewsWire.

Version 3.3:

• Adds Full Screen mode support on both Lion and Snow Leopard.
• Provides fixes for problems affecting concurrency, stability, and Google Reader sync.
• NetNewsWire 3.3 require Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later. If you need a version that runs on 10.5.8, you should continue to use NetNewsWire 3.2.15.

Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later.

Download Now

In a Single Month, the Occupation Became a Force

In a Single Month, the Occupation Became a Force: The Occupy movement turned a month old Monday, and it's grown up quickly from a protest that NPR dismissed to a movement that has the world watching.

NetNewsWire upgrade provides key missing link to David Handy - Blogger workflow

I am very pleased.

The workflow for this blog, on my Mac, is NetNewsWire.app-to-MarsEdit.app-to-Blogger website.

On my new iPad 2, the workflow became FeedlerRSS.app-toBlogger.app-to-Blogger website.

This morning I upgraded NetNewsWire to its latest free (albeit ad-supported) version. Its support for syncing with Google Reader provides the last missing link in giving me the same kind of workflow on my iPad as I do on my Mac.

I've benn using FeedlerRSS on my iPad and syncing with Google Reader. Or, rather I've stopped using it because until now NetNewsWire didn't sync with Google Reader.

Now my workflow will be much more efficient. I can read on my iPad in FeedlerRSS and go to my desktop and
NetNewsWire to post to MarsEdit.

Or, in a pinch, do what I'm doing now: composing a post in the iPhone Blogger app. ;)

How Yahoo Spawned Hadoop, the Future of Big Data

How Yahoo Spawned Hadoop, the Future of Big Data: If you listen to the pundits, Yahoo isn't a technology company. And yet it spawned one of the most important software technologies of the last five years: Hadoop, an open source platform designed to crunch epic amounts of data using an army of dirt-cheap servers.

HP TouchPad gets major webOS update despite device's end

HP TouchPad gets major webOS update despite device's end: WebOS chief Ari Jaaksi said on his blog that an update is available for the HP Touchpad. Among the new features and improvements in version 3.0.4 of webOS are better camera support, connectivity for non-HP phones, improved messaging, and a tweaked UI. The over-the-air update is being applied automatically....

Dark Matter: Now More Mysterious Than Ever

Dark Matter: Now More Mysterious Than Ever: Astronomers have one more reason to scratch their heads over the unseen material known as dark matter. Observations of two dwarf galaxies, Fornax and Sculptor, show the dark matter within them is spread out smoothly rather than heaped into a central bulge, contradicting cosmological models.

Adobe brings Reader to iPhone, iPad

Adobe brings Reader to iPhone, iPad: Adobe has released the first iOS version of Reader, its dedicated PDF viewer. While iOS can already open PDF files, Reader supports some additional features, such as the ability to load portfolios, packages, annotations and drawing markups. Users can open documents protected by passwords or Adobe LiveCycle, and launch files in other apps using an "Open In" command. Likewise, Reader becomes an option in any other iOS title that supports Open In....

Google Voice drops from App Store after iOS 5 crash bug

Google Voice drops from App Store after iOS 5 crash bug: Google has temporarily but voluntarily pulled Google Voice for iOS devices (App Store, cached) following a major bug with iOS 5. At least some users are reporting the app crashing when they try to sign in.

Apple stock closes at all-time $422 high on iPhone 4S launch

Apple stock closes at all-time $422 high on iPhone 4S launch: Apple capped off a successful iPhone 4S launch by reaching an all-time high in share price. Its shares closed at exactly $422 after seeing a rapid $13.57 climb. The value was over $52 above the drop to $369.80 recorded just a week earlier....

Marvel's "The Avengers" Trailer Downloaded Over 10 Million Times on iTunes in First 24 Hours

Marvel's "The Avengers" Trailer Downloaded Over 10 Million Times on iTunes in First 24 Hours:

Commerce Weekly: PayPal wants to "one click" across the web

Commerce Weekly: PayPal wants to "one click" across the web: At its Innovate developer conference in San Francisco this week, eBay announced PayPal Access, a single sign-on technology that functions like OpenID, Facebook Connect, and other proxy identity mechanisms. But it comes with a twist: PayPal Access enables transactions.

Review: Flying Free as a Bat Through Arkham City | GameLife | Wired.com

Review: Flying Free as a Bat Through Arkham City | GameLife | Wired.com: Arkham City is what every lesser open-world videogame wishes it could be, a few important pieces of core gameplay that have been polished to perfection, set in a wide-open city filled to the brim with things to do. And it does all this with narrative panache, spinning a story worthy of one of the world’s most famous superheroes.

Five annoying things about iOS 5 | iPhone Atlas - CNET Reviews

Five annoying things about iOS 5 | iPhone Atlas - CNET Reviews: I'm really perturbed by some of the new operating system's quirks and limitations. Here's my list of the five most annoying things about iOS 5.

USGS: 5.9 magnitude quake off OR coast, no tsunami

USGS: 5.9 magnitude quake off OR coast, no tsunami:

Officials say there is no danger of a tsunami. The quake was felt by residents in southern Oregon and as far north as Portland, as well as by some residents in northern California.

Apple publishes guide on how to set up iCloud

Apple publishes guide on how to set up iCloud: The company has published its official online step-by-step guide on how to configure iCloud on a mobile device, Mac, and Windows PC.

Apple iOS 5.0 - iPhone operating system; download with iTunes.. (Updater)

Apple iOS 5.0 - iPhone operating system; download with iTunes.. (Updater):

Apple iOS can be downloaded from iTunes by connecting your iPhone and clicking the Update button.

Version 5.0:

Notifications

• Swipe from the top of any screen to view notifications in one place with Notification Center
• New notifications appear briefly at the top of the screen
• View notifications from lock screen
• Slide the notification app icon to the right on the lock screen to go directly to the app

iMessage

• Send and receive unlimited text, photo, and video messages with other iOS 5 users
• Track messages with delivery and read receipts
• Group messaging and secure encryption
• Works over cellular network and Wi-Fi

Newsstand

• Automatically organizes magazine and newspaper subscriptions on Home Screen
• Displays the cover of the latest issue
• Background downloads of new issues

Reminders for managing to do lists

• Syncs with iCloud, iCal and Outlook
• Location-based reminders when you leave or arrive at a location for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4

Built-in support for Twitter

• Sign-in once in Settings and tweet directly from Camera, Photos, Maps, Safari and YouTube
• Add location to any tweet
• View twitter profile pictures and usernames in Contacts

Camera improvements for devices with cameras

• Double click the home button when device is asleep to bring up a camera shortcut on iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
• Volume Up button to take a picture
• Optional grid lines to line up shots
• Pinch to zoom in the preview screen
• Swipe to camera roll from preview screen
• Tap and hold to lock focus anxd exposure, iPad 2 and iPod touch (4th generation) only support exposure lock

Photo improvements for devices with cameras

• Crop and rotate
• Red eye removal
• One tap enhance
• Organize photos into albums

Mail improvements

• Format text using bold, italic, or underlined fonts
• Indentation control
• Drag to rearrange names in address fields
• Flag messages
• Mass mark messages as flagged, read or unread
• Customize mail alert sounds
• S/MIME

Calendar improvements

• Year view on iPad and new Week view for iPhone and iPod touch
• Tap to create an event
• View and add event attachments

Game Center improvements

• Use personal photos for your Game Center account
• Compare your overall achievement scores with your friends
• Find new Game Center friends with friend recommendations and friends of friends
• Discover new games with custom game recommendations

AirPlay Mirroring for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S
Multitasking Gestures for iPad

• Use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen
• Swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar
• Swipe left or right to switch between apps

On-device setup, activation and configuration with Setup Assistant
Software updates available over the air without tethering
iCloud support

• iTunes in the Cloud
• Photo Stream
• Documents in the Cloud
• Apps and Books automatic download and purchase history
• Backup
• Contacts, Calendar, and Mail
• Find My iPhone

Redesigned Music app for iPad
Hourly weather forecast
Real-time stock quotes
Wireless sync to iTunes
Keyboard improvements

• Split keyboard for iPad
• Improved autocorrection accuracy
• Improved Chinese and Japanese input
• New Emoji keyboard
• Personal dictionary for autocorrection
• Optionally create keyboard short cuts for frequently used words

Accessibility improvements

• Option to light LED flash on incoming calls and alerts for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
• Custom vibration patterns for incoming calls on iPhone
• New interface for using iOS with mobility-impairment input devices
• Option to speak a selection of text
• Custom element labeling for VoiceOver

Exchange ActiveSync improvements

• Wirelessly sync tasks
• Mark messages as flagged, read or unread
• Improved offline support
• Save a new contact from a GAL service

More than 1,500 new developer APIs
Bug fixes

Supports:

• iPhone 3GS / 4 / 4S
• iPad / iPad 2
• iPod Touch 3rd Gen / 4th Gen

Download Now

Apple Releases iOS 5 with Notification Center, iMessage, Twitter, and More

Apple Releases iOS 5 with Notification Center, iMessage, Twitter, and More: In line with Apple's announced schedule calling for a release today, iOS 5 is now available to download for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch users. Users can obtain the update by connecting their devices to iTunes and clicking the "Check for Update" button. It may take a few minutes for the update to propagate to all users, however.

BerryMover Version: 1.0 Business App | Macworld

BerryMover Version: 1.0 Business App | Macworld: Reclaim all the data stuck on your old BlackBerry and move it quickly and easily over to your iPhone with BerryMover. BerryMover moves all your data with just a few clicks.

Here's how it works...

...simply upload your most current and complete BlackBerry backup file to your iPhone. Then run BerryMover. It will grab every contact, calendar, task, note, text message and anything else you need on your iPhone.

Without BerryMover, there would be no way to pull the data from your BlackBerry and your valuable info would be stuck there forever.

Apple iOS 5 Mobile Review | Macworld

Apple iOS 5 Mobile Review | Macworld: It seems like every time a major software revision comes along, it’s described as the “biggest ever.” In the case of iOS 5, though, that might not be hyperbole—there’s hardly a part of Apple’s mobile operating system that isn’t altered in some way by the latest update.

Don’t think that this is just change for change’s sake, however. By and large, iOS 5’s changes are for the better, spackling a number of shortcomings and gaps in functionality that have existed since day one.

Opinion: iPhone 3GS is Apple's secret weapon

Opinion: iPhone 3GS is Apple's secret weapon: The iPhone 4S is pretty awesome. The iPhone 4 is nice as well. But PCWorld's Tony Bradley thinks the free iPhone 3GS is a game changer for Apple.

Apple posts iTunes 10.5 ahead of iOS 5 and iCloud

Apple posts iTunes 10.5 ahead of iOS 5 and iCloud: Apple has quietly posted iTunes 10.5 as prep for iOS 5 and iCloud. The new music jukebox app is needed for full cloud services like iTunes Match and for local syncing with the iPhone 4S. iOS 5 devices can also sync over Wi-Fi when on the same local network....

Marvel's The Avengers - Trailer

Marvel's The Avengers - Trailer:

Marvel's The Avengers - Trailer Marvel Studios presents in association with Paramount Pictures "Marvel's The Avengers"--the Super Hero team up of a lifetime, featuring iconic Marvel Super Heroes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson, and directed by Joss Whedon, "Marvel's The Avengers" is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series "The Avengers," first published in 1963 and a comics institution ever since. Prepare yourself for an exciting event movie, packed with action and spectacular special effects, when "Marvel's The Avengers" assemble in summer 2012. In "Marvel's The Avengers," superheroes team up to pull the world back from the brink of disaster when an unexpected enemy threatens global security. Directed by: Joss Whedon Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård , Samuel L. Jackson

Apple’s next big thing is already here; revolutionary Siri will stymie rivals Google and Microsoft

Apple’s next big thing is already here; revolutionary Siri will stymie rivals Google and Microsoft: The iPhone 4S’s virtual assistant, Siri, will soon appear on Macs, TVs, and iPads and ‘stymie’ rivals...

iOS 5: Five overlooked app enhancements

iOS 5: Five overlooked app enhancements: Apple has put a spotlight the apps receiving the biggest changes in iOS 5, like Safari, Messages, and Mail. But there are still many improvements in the iOS's other built-in apps. Here are some of goodies awaiting you in iOS 5’s versions of Maps, Weather, FaceTime, Contacts, Music, and Video.

Nuance buys Swype for over $100 million [U]

Nuance buys Swype for over $100 million [U]: (Update: confirmed) Nuance has reportedly bought Swype in a deal worth over $100 million based on new tips late Thursday. The deal would support its existing ownership of the T9 keyboard system with an advanced, full QWERTY layout. Uncrunched in getting word of the deal didn't get Nuance's intentions....

The Magician

The Magician: Max von Sydow stars as Dr. Vogler, a nineteenth-century traveling mesmerist and peddler of potions whose magic is put to the test in Stockholm by the cruel, eminently rational royal medical adviser Dr. Vergérus.

Stephen Wolfram on 25 Years of Steve Jobs' Influence

Stephen Wolfram on 25 Years of Steve Jobs' Influence: To me, Steve Jobs stands out most for his clarity of thought. Over and over again he took complex situations, understood their essence, and used that understanding to make a bold definitive move, often in a completely unexpected direction.

Five new things your device will be able to do in iOS 5 | Mobile | Macworld

Five new things your device will be able to do in iOS 5 | Mobile | Macworld: As iOS 5’s October 12 release date draws close, you’ll hear plenty about the update’s big features. For now, let’s take a look at some new features that may have escaped your attention.

Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011

Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011: We discussed the sad news. "Someone will come along to replace him," she offered. "No," I replied. "No, you may as well say 'someone will replace Shakespeare.'" No one ever will.

Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011

Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011: Steven Paul Jobs, co-founder, chairman and former chief executive of Apple Inc., has passed away. A visionary inventor and entrepreneur, it would be impossible to overstate Steve Jobs? impact on technology and how we use it. Apple?s mercurial, mysterious leader did more than reshape his entire industry: he completely changed how we interact with technology.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passes away at 56

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passes away at 56: Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple and a driving force behind the creation of the Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod, died Wednesday after a long bout with cancer. He was 56.

iOS 5: What you need to know | Mobile | Macworld

iOS 5: What you need to know | Mobile | Macworld: But Forstall’s time was limited, and obviously he didn’t have a chance to run down everything that’s changed in the next major release of iOS. There are still plenty of questions to answer before iOS 5 arrives next week, and while not every detail is available just yet, we’ve gathered up what Apple has revealed to answer your burning questions about this iOS update.

Microsoft to bring cable programming to Xbox

Microsoft to bring cable programming to Xbox: The software giant announces long-rumored deals with 40 television content providers to bring cable content to Xbox Live.

The Plan to Bring an Asteroid to Earth

The Plan to Bring an Asteroid to Earth: Scientists and engineers met last week at Caltech to discuss the possibility of capturing an asteroid and placing it in orbit near Earth to use as a base for manned space missions further into the solar system.

Apple: Sprint getting the iPhone

Apple: Sprint getting the iPhone: Apple confirms Sprint will get the iPhone, joining AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

iPhone 4 drops to $99 while Apple makes iPhone 3GS free with contract

iPhone 4 drops to $99 while Apple makes iPhone 3GS free with contract: As was rumored, Apple has opted to keep the iPhone 3GS alive as a free phone with a new service contract, while the 2010 iPhone 4 is now $99 with a carrier subsidy.

Apple reveals Find My Friends, iOS 5 coming on October 12th

Apple reveals Find My Friends, iOS 5 coming on October 12th: Presenting at its special iPhone event, Apple has announced that iOS 5 will go public on October 12th. All of Apple's recent iOS devices will be supported, including first- and second-generation iPads, the iPhone 4 and 3GS, and third- and fourth-generation iPod touches. The firmware introduces a host of features, such as Twitter integration, the BBM-like iMessage, Newsstand, and an overhauled notification system....

Apple unveils iPhone 4S with A5 CPU and 4G-like data speeds

Apple unveils iPhone 4S with A5 CPU and 4G-like data speeds: Apple's newest smartphone, the iPhone 4S, is a world phone powered by the company's speedy A5 processor, and features a new antenna design that can allow file transfers up to twice as fast as its predecessor.

Apple updates iPod nano with improved interface, expanded fitness features

Apple updates iPod nano with improved interface, expanded fitness features: Apple's new iPod nano features an even easier to navigate user interface with larger icons, as well as an improved fitness experience that can track runs without any extra sensors.

Family and Friends allows location sharing with other iPhone users

Family and Friends allows location sharing with other iPhone users: A new iOS application was unveiled by Apple on Tuesday dubbed "Family and Friends," allowing users of iPhones to quickly and safely share their location with one another.

iOS 5 will be available for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch on Oct. 12

iOS 5 will be available for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch on Oct. 12: iOS 5, the next major update to Apple's mobile operating system for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, will publicly be available for download next Wednesday, Oct. 12.

Apple's Cards app for iOS allows users to mail custom greeting cards

Apple's Cards app for iOS allows users to mail custom greeting cards: Apple on Tuesday announced Cards, a new free application for iOS devices that will allow users to order and mail custom-printed greeting cards for any occasion.

Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: Did Lucretius’s Poem Really Bring Us Modernity? - Slate Magazine

Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: Did Lucretius’s Poem Really Bring Us Modernity? - Slate Magazine: his real subject is the intellectual revolution of Epicureanism, the Greek philosophical school to which Lucretius belonged. Epicurus, its fourth-century founder, taught that the universe was completely material, made up of nothing but atoms and space. The power that drove life to multiply and evolve was irresistible but blind, the result of purely physical forces. It followed that there was no afterlife, no divine punishment, and no purpose to human existence except the cultivation of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

New cloth self-cleans by killing bacteria

New cloth self-cleans by killing bacteria: Chemists at UC Davis are reporting on a new self-cleaning cotton fabric that breaks down toxic chemicals and bacteria when exposed to light.

Why Assistant Needs an A5 and How it Was 'Many Iterations' Ahead of its Competitors

Why Assistant Needs an A5 and How it Was 'Many Iterations' Ahead of its Competitors: Make no mistake: Apple’s ‘mainstreaming’ Artificial Intelligence in the form of a Virtual Personal Assistant is a groundbreaking event. I’d go so far as to say it is a World-Changing event. Right now a few people dabble in partial AI enabled apps like Google Voice Actions, Vlingo or Nuance Go. Siri was many iterations ahead of these technologies, or at least it was two years ago. This is REAL AI with REAL market use. If the rumors are true, Apple will enable millions upon millions of people to interact with machines with natural language. The PAL will get things done and this is only the tip of the iceberg. We’re talking another technology revolution. A new computing paradigm shift.

New pursuit of Schrödinger’s cat | Prospect Magazine

New pursuit of Schrödinger’s cat | Prospect Magazine: Quantum mechanics is more than a hundred years old, but we still don’t understand it. In recent years, however, physicists have found a fresh enthusiasm for exploring the questions about quantum theory that were swept under the rug by its founders. Advances in experimental methods make it possible to test ideas about why objects on the scale of atoms follow different rules from those that govern objects on the everyday scale. In effect, this becomes an enquiry into the sense in which things exist at all.

In 1900 the German physicist Max Planck suggested that light—a form of electromagnetic waves—consists of tiny, indivisible packets of energy. These particles, called photons, are the “quanta” of light. Five years later Albert Einstein showed how this quantum hypothesis explained the way light kicks electrons out of metals—the photoelectric effect. It was for this, not the theory of relativity, that he won his Nobel prize.

The reinvention of the night | TLS

The reinvention of the night | TLS: In 1710, Richard Steele wrote in Tatler that recently he had been to visit an old friend just come up to town from the country. But the latter had already gone to bed when Steele called at 8 pm. He returned at 11 o’clock the following morning, only to be told that his friend had just sat down to dinner. “In short”, Steele commented, “I found that my old-fashioned friend religiously adhered to the example of his forefathers, and observed the same hours that had been kept in his family ever since the Conquest”. During the previous generation or so, elites across Europe had moved their clocks forward by several hours. No longer a time reserved for sleep, the night time was now the right time for all manner of recreational and representational purposes. This is what Craig Koslofsky calls “nocturnalisation”, defined as “the ongoing expansion of the legitimate social and symbolic uses of the night”, a development to which he awards the status of “a revolution in early modern Europe”.