Humans? Usually unappreciative and typically awful. But it wasn’t always like this! When we didn’t have fancy technology with so many features they become useless and couldn’t trap amazingness in a box in our pockets, we enjoyed the little things. Like 8-bit graphics and physical buttons and cords and cartridges. Hell, we even though the graphics were great. Now? It could be real life and we wouldn’t be impressed. Read more…
Amazon set out to makes our lives a tiny bit easier when it launched its cloud-based video transcoder back in January, and now, it’s expanding the service to audio as well. In addition to converting media files into mobile-friendly formats, the platform will also allow users to turn their videos into audio-only streams, which might just come in handy if you plan on turning a video into a podcast. The Elastic Transcoder lets you create output using AAC, MP3 or Vorbis audio codecs, and can attach relevant metadata like track names and album art to your files. In an effort to reel new users in, Amazon is offering a free usage tier capped at 20 hours of converted audio content each month. After that point, you pay for what you use, so each minute of audio will cost the princely sum of $0.0045 to transcode. To see how it all works, check out the video after the break. Filed under: Internet , Amazon Comments Via: Computerworld Source: Amazon
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Amazon’s Elastic Transcoder converts audio files now, too
NVIDIA announced Gamestream this morning, an initiative aimed at pairing the company’s GPUs with streaming gaming via its Shield handheld game console. Company head Jen-Hsun Huang says the service takes NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience software and pairs it with NVIDIA GPUs and the Shield to push streaming gaming to the living room. Huang said Gamestream’s first stop is a re-branding of the Shield’s streaming tech — sounds like that PC streaming tech on Shield is coming out of beta. But Huang’s not stopping there: he pulled NVIDIA’s Ujesh Desai on-stage, and he showed Shield powering PC game streaming on a nearby LG 4K television. “What makes Gamestream special is the low-latency of it, ” Huang said. Desai used a Nyko wireless controller that he paired via Bluetooth with the Shield, and the Shield’s Android OS ran on the television. Apparently the computer that powered the demo of Batman: Arkham Origins — an unreleased WB game demoed via Steam’s Big Picture Mode on Shield — runs NVIDIA’s $1, 000 Titan GPU. The game sure looked snazzy running on a big 4K television, though we couldn’t help but notice the same hitching issues with streaming that we encounter at home with our review Shield . Of course, the streaming will work on any old TV that has an HDMI-in. The Shield connected to the TV via its HDMI-out port — something that previously made little sense. Huang said the game console mode of Shield will arrive in the coming months, as well as the update to GeForce Experience that enables streaming to televisions via Shield.%Gallery-slideshow101410% Filed under: Gaming , HD , NVIDIA Comments
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NVIDIA reveals Gamestream, a game streaming initiative powered by NVIDIA GPUs
Endurance athlete, polar explorer, and motivational speaker Ben Saunders is on his way to Antarctica. Recreating Robert Scott’s heroic but ultimately doomed “Terra Nova” expedition from 1910-1912, Saunders has launched his own Scott Expedition to reach the South Pole on foot—and, more importantly, to walk back to the coast alive. If successful, this will make him and his co-traveler, Tarka L’Herpiniere, the first human beings ever to have done so. Read more…
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Walking To The South Pole (And Returning Alive)
The USS Zumwalt getting a coat of paint at Bath Iron Works. The ship is exotic in many ways, but it runs on off-the-shelf computing technology. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works When the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) puts to sea later this year, it will be different from any other ship in the Navy’s fleet in many ways. The $3.5 billon ship is designed for stealth, survivability, and firepower, and it’s packed with advanced technology. And at the heart of its operations is a virtual data center powered by off-the-shelf server hardware, various flavors of Linux, and over 6 million lines of software code. On October 10, I flew up to Rhode Island to visit Raytheon’s Seapower Capability Center in Portsmouth, where engineers assembled and pre-tested the systems at the heart of the Zumwalt and are preparing to do the same for the next ship in line, the USS Michael Monsoor—already well into construction. There, Raytheon’s DDG-1000 team gave me a tour of the centerpiece of the ship’s systems—a mockup of the Zumwalt’s operations center, where the ship’s commanding officer and crew will control the ship’s sensors, missile launchers, guns, and other systems. Over 20 years ago, I learned how to be a ship watch stander a few miles from the Raytheon facility at the Navy’s Surface Warfare Officer School. But the operations center of the Zumwalt will have more in common with the fictional starship USS Enterprise’s bridge than it does with the combat information centers of the ships I went to sea on. Every console on the Zumwalt will be equipped with touch screens and software capable of taking on the needs of any operator on duty, and big screens on the forward bulkhead will display tactical plots of sea, air, and land. Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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The Navy’s newest warship is powered by Linux
NVIDIA’s news day apparently isn’t over just yet, as the company just revealed a new graphics card: the NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti. It’s apparently hitting retail shelves this November, and it’s just one step below the company’s super high-end GPU, the Titan. CEO Jen-Hsun Huang didn’t offer many specifics on the new graphics card, instead choosing to leave it to reviewers who are apparently receiving units any day now. We’re gonna go ahead and call it safe to assume that this is a pretty powerful little card, but we’ll get some hands-on time in the coming hours with any luck! Filed under: Gaming , HD , NVIDIA Comments
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NVIDIA reveals the GTX 780 Ti, a new ‘high-end enthusiast’ GPU
Apple’s recalling certain MacBook Air models over flash drive failure. If you purchased one between June 2012 and June 2013, a firmware update will see if your 64GB or 128GB drive needs replacing. [ Apple via GigaOM ] Read more…
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Apple’s recalling certain MacBook Air models over flash drive failure.
jones_supa writes “Final releases of Visual Studio 2013, .NET 4.5.1, and Team Foundation Server 2013 are now available. As part of the new release, the C++ engine implements variadic templates, delegating constructors, non-static data member initializers, uniform initialization, and ‘using’ aliases. The editor has seen new features, C++ improvements and performance optimizations. Support for Windows 8.1 has been enhanced and the new XAML UI Responsiveness tool and Profile Guided Optimization help to analyze responsiveness in Windows Store apps. Graphics debugging has been furthered to have better C++ AMP tools and a new remote debugger (x86, x64, ARM). As before, MSDN and DreamSpark subscribers can obtain the releases from the respective channels, and the Express edition is available zero cost for all.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Visual Studio 2013 Released
We had our doubts when AMD promised to bounce back from its second quarter slump , but the company has held its word, reporting a net income $48 million in its Q3 financial reports. Why the jump? AMD cites growth in its Graphics and Visual Solutions (GVS) division, which is responsible for semi-custom products like the chips bound for the upcoming PlayStation 4 , Xbox One and the floundering Wii U . “We achieved 26 percent sequential revenue growth driven by our semi-custom business and remain committed to generating approximately 50 percent of revenue from high-growth markets over the next two years, ” AMD President and CEO Rory Read stated in the earnings announcement. Not every portion of AMD’s business is flourishing, however — both its Computing Solutions and GPU segments saw a drop in revenue over the past year, and the company admits that it’s shipping fewer notebook chipsets these days. Even so, the numbers bode well for the company, which posted a total revenue of $1.46 billion for the quarter, alongside an optimistic outlook. After all, the company’s Mantle graphics cards are just around the corner. Filed under: AMD Comments Via: Market Watch Source: AMD
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AMD rides semi-custom business back to profitability, cites net income of $48 million in Q3 earnings
An anonymous reader writes “Coinciding with challenges in the rollout of the U.S. Affordable Care Act are challenges for NHS. The Independent reports, ‘A National Health Service free at the point of use will soon be “unsustainable, ” if the political parties do not come forward with radical plans for change before the 2015 election, top health officials have warned. Stagnant health spending combined with ever rising costs and demand mean the NHS is facing “the most challenging period in its 65-year existence, ” the NHS Confederation said … In a frank assessment of the dangers faced by the health service, senior officials at the confederation say that the two years following the next general election will be pivotal in deciding whether the NHS can continue to provide free health care for all patients. “Treasury funding for the service will be at best level in real terms, ” they write. “Given that demand continues to rise, drugs cost more, and NHS inflation is higher than general inflation, the NHS is facing a funding gap estimated at up to £30bn by 2020.”‘ From The Guardian: ‘Our rose-tinted view of the NHS has to change.’ More at the Independent, Mirror, and Telegraph.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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British NHS May Soon No Longer Offer Free Care