brides-cond – Page 38 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

A brief history of USB, what it replaced, and what has failed to replace it

We’ve all had this first-world problem, but USB is still leagues better than what came before. Like all technology, USB has evolved over time. Despite being a “Universal” Serial Bus, in its 18-or-so years on the market it has spawned multiple versions with different connection speeds and many, many types of cables. The USB Implementers Forum , the group of companies that oversees the standard, is fully cognizant of this problem, which it wants to solve with a new type of cable dubbed Type-C . This plug is designed to replace USB Type-A and Type-B ports of all sizes on phones, tablets, computers, and other peripherals. Type-C will support the new, faster USB 3.1 spec with room to grow beyond that as bandwidth increases. It’s possible that in a few years, USB Type-C will have become the norm, totally replacing the tangled nest of different cables that we all have balled up in our desk drawers. For now, it’s just another excuse to pass around that dog-eared XKCD comic about the proliferation of standards . While we wait to see whether Type-C will save us from cable hell or just contribute to it, let’s take a quick look at where USB has been over the years, what competing standards it has fought against, and what technologies it will continue to grapple with in the future. Read 26 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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A brief history of USB, what it replaced, and what has failed to replace it

Insect that ekes out a living in Antarctica has tiny genome

The larval form of the midge (left) and the adult. Denlinger Lab, Ohio State When the term “extremophiles” gets thrown around, it’s usually in reference to single-celled organisms that thrive in high salt or near-boiling water. But there are a few animals that also manage to make do in rather extreme conditions. Perhaps the top example is a wingless midge that goes by Belgica antarctica . As its name implies, it’s native to the frozen continent—in fact, it’s the only insect that’s native. (A few others have more recently introduced themselves from South America in recent years, and cockroaches undoubtedly ride in shipments to research bases.) Now, to try to help understand how anything can survive in such inhospitable conditions, researchers sequenced the genome of the midge and discovered it’s gotten rid of a lot of the DNA that’s frequently termed junk. The researchers describe just how difficult the insect’s living conditions are in detail: “The larvae, encased in ice for most of the year, require two years to complete their development and then pupate and emerge as adults at the beginning of their third austral summer. The [wingless] adults crawl over surfaces of rocks and other substrates, mate, lay eggs and die within 7–10 days after emergence.” Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Insect that ekes out a living in Antarctica has tiny genome

How Verizon lets its copper network decay to force phone customers onto fiber

Aurich Lawson The shift from copper landlines to fiber-based voice networks is continuing apace, and no one wants it to happen faster than Verizon. Internet users nationwide are clamoring for fiber, as well, hoping it can free them from slower DSL service or the dreaded cable companies. But not everyone wants fiber, because, when it comes to voice calls, the newer technology doesn’t have all the benefits of the old copper phone network. In particular, fiber doesn’t conduct electricity, where copper does. That means when your power goes out, copper landlines might keep working for days or weeks by drawing electricity over the lines, while a phone that relies on fiber will only last as long as its battery. That’s up to eight hours for Verizon’s most widely available backup system. Thus, while many customers practically beg for fiber, others—particularly those who have suffered through long power outages—want Verizon to keep maintaining the old copper lines. But Verizon continues pressuring customers to switch, and it’s getting harder to say no. Read 89 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How Verizon lets its copper network decay to force phone customers onto fiber

Windows 9 preview could materialize as soon as next month

Microsoft could be shipping a preview release of the next major version of Windows—codenamed “Threshold,” and expected to be named “Windows 9″—in either late September or early October, according to sources speaking to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley . The preview will be widely available to anyone who wants to install it. The final version of the operating system is currently believed to be scheduled for spring 2015. Microsoft has all but confirmed some of the features that Threshold will ship with, including a new hybrid Start menu that includes bits of the old Windows 7 Start menu alongside new live tiles and the ability to run modern Metro applications in windows. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Windows 9 preview could materialize as soon as next month

Internet routers hitting 512K limit, some become unreliable

Chart courtesy of Renesys, a subsidiary of Dyn From performance issues at hosting provider Liquid Web to outages at eBay and LastPass, large networks and websites suffered a series of disruptions and outages on Tuesday. Some Internet engineers are blaming the disruptions on a novel technical issue that impacts older Internet routers. At the heart of the issue, the growth of routable networks on the Internet overwhelmed the amount of memory set aside in infrastructure hardware, typically routers and switches, that determines the appropriate way to route data through the Internet. For the first time, the lists of routable networks—also called border gateway protocol (BGP) tables—surpassed a significant power of two (two to the 19th power or 512K). Many older routers limit their use of a specialized, and expensive, type of memory known as ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) to 512K by default. When the tables outgrew the space allotted for them, the routers shut down or slowed. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Internet routers hitting 512K limit, some become unreliable

Sierra Games returns with new King’s Quest and Geometry Wars titles

If you’re a PC gamer of a certain age, the name Sierra On-Line (or Sierra Entertainment) revives memories of some of the most classic point-and-click adventures of the late 20th century. New corporate owner Activision is set to reactivate those memories today, reviving the brand as “Sierra Games” and promising new games in the King’s Quest and Geometry Wars franchises. The new Sierra name will apparently serve as an umbrella for a number of independent studios to reinterpret some classic gaming franchises. The newest King’s Quest entry is being developed for 2015 by The Odd Gentlemen, best known for esoteric puzzle platform game The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom . Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions , meanwhile, is being worked on by mobile/portable developer Lucid Games for this holiday season. No platforms have been announced for either title. “Sierra’s goal is to find and work with gifted up-and-coming indie developers working on their own amazing projects or who are passionate about working on great Sierra IP,” a Sierra representative told GamesBeat . “We’re in talks with a large number of other indie devs, and we can’t wait to share more details with fans in the near future.” Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Tiny, reversible USB Type-C connector finalized

The USB Type-C cable and its various connector designs. USB-IF The USB Promoter Group announced today that it has finalized the design of the USB Type-C plug , a new type of USB plug that’s designed to completely replace every size of all current USB connectors. Like Apple’s Lightning cables, the new connector is reversible so that it can be used in any orientation. According to the USB-IF’s press release ( PDF ), the new connector is “similar in size” to current micro USB 2.0 Type-B connectors (the ones you use for most non-Apple phones and tablets). It is designed to be “robust enough for laptops and tablets” and “slim enough for mobile phones.” The openings for the connector measure roughly 8.4mm by 2.6mm. As we’ve reported previously , cables and adapters for connecting Type-C devices into older Type-A and Type-B ports will be readily available—the prevalence of these older ports will make any industry-wide shift to USB Type-C an arduous, years-long process. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Tiny, reversible USB Type-C connector finalized

Lyft: Uber scheduled, canceled 5,000 rides to hassle us

The Uber smartphone app. Uber CNN reports that people associated with car-on-demand service Uber have been attempting to sabotage an Uber competitor, Lyft, by ordering and canceling as many as 5,000 rides since October 2013. Lyft drivers have also complained that Uber employees will call them to take “short, low-profit rides largely devoted to luring them to work for Uber.” Uber reportedly used the ride request-and-cancellation tactic earlier this year on another competitor, Gett, to the tune of around 100 rides. Those ride calls were placed by employees as high in the company as Uber’s New York general manager, Josh Mohrer. The calls serve a number of purposes: frustrating drivers, wasting their time and gas approaching a fare that won’t come through, and occupying them to artificially limit driver availability, if only temporarily. Lyft claims to have sussed out the fake requests using phone numbers used by “known Uber recruiters.” Lyft claims that one Uber recruiter requested and canceled 300 rides from May 26 to June 10, and it said that recruiter’s phone number was associated with 21 more accounts with 1,524 canceled rides between them. However, in this instance, there’s no evidence that the cancellations were suggested by Uber corporate, according to CNN. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Lyft: Uber scheduled, canceled 5,000 rides to hassle us

J. Michael Straczynski wants to reboot Babylon 5 as a big-budget movie

Warner Bros. According to a report from TV Wise , Babylon 5 showrunner J. Michael Straczynski will shortly begin work on a rebooted big-screen version of his 1990s sci-fi TV series. Straczynski made the announcement at San Diego Comic-Con last week. Babylon 5’s pilot episode originally aired in 1993, with the series beginning its regular run almost a year later as a foundational component of the now-defunct Prime Time Entertainment Network . The show lacked the production budget of its contemporary rival Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (which allegedly lifted some or all of its core concepts directly from Straczynski’s original—and rejected— Babylon 5 pitch meeting with Paramount). Still, it attracted enough of an audience to accomplish a noteworthy feat: Babylon 5 became the only non- Star Trek science fiction show on American television to reach its series completion without being cancelled. Not until 2004’s Battlestar Galactica reboot would another non- Star Trek show earn the same distinction. After Babylon 5 ended in 1998, Straczynski (usually referred to simply by his initials, “JMS”) tried multiple times to bring a B5 movie to theaters. The most recent attempt in 2004 came the closest, with a completed script and some preproduction work underway, but without financial backing from Warner Bros. the project had to be abandoned . Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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J. Michael Straczynski wants to reboot Babylon 5 as a big-budget movie

Netflix surpasses HBO in subscriber revenue

Reed Hastings’ Facebook update boasting about Netflix’s (possibly temporary) victory over its unwilling adversary. Netflix has surpassed HBO in subscriber revenue, according to a status update from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on Wednesday. The company is now pulling in $1.146 billion compared to HBO’s $1.141 billion, and it boasts 50.05 million subscribers , according to its second-quarter earnings reported in July. Netflix has long seen HBO as a competitor in terms of audience and, more recently, in produced content. While HBO has slowly started to come down from the ivory cable tower and be more flexible about how it offers its subscriptions, Netflix has been making gains. Hastings acknowledged that HBO still surpasses Netflix “in profits and Emmy’s [sic], but we are making progress.” Hastings has said many times before that he considers HBO to be a media company that is well-positioned in the changing distribution landscape, where power is shifting away from cable providers and toward Internet streaming. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Netflix surpasses HBO in subscriber revenue