Tag: news

Nokia Closes Out 2013 With 92% Of The Windows Phone Market

The fine folks at AdDuplex have provided Paul Thurrott with an early look at their final Windows Phone market data for 2013 , giving us in the public a final look at the key statistics of Microsoft’s smartphone platform’s OEM and device makeup. The figures are much as they have been all year, only more so. Nokia continues to control the lion’s share of Windows Phone hardware, ending the month up a few points at 92.1 percent (this is a calculation of usage share, tracked through AdDuplex’s network). And the Lumia 520 handset continues to dominate its brethren, with a new high of 39.3 percent share. And that Windows Phone 8 grew against the now-fading Windows 7.x system, with record relative market share of 78.3 percent. Windows Phone’s 2013, if you had to put it into basic trends, would be that Nokia cleaned up, and its Lumia 520 was the weapon of choice. Thurrott well describes the current low-ending of Windows Phone (bolding original): Almost no high-end phones are popular . Worldwide, only the Lumia 920 makes the top 10 list for usage among all Windows Phone handsets, and if you look just at Windows Phone 8 handsets, only two high-end devices make the list: The Lumia 920 and the 925. In the US, there are three: The Lumia 920, 928, and 1020. All the rest are new low-end devices or old devices. The Lumia 1520 phablet doesn’t appear anywhere in this report. What this means is that the sales momentum that Windows Phone has comes at the cost of per-unit revenue. Margin pressure increases at lower price points. The list of sacrifices that had to be made to produce the Lumia 520 is not small . So, as we tally what could be the final month in which Nokia rules Windows Phone, it’s important to note that rising unit volume has come at a cost. The Lumia 1020 is a hit among a subset of the technology elite, but perhaps few else. Can you build a mobile empire on predominantly low-end phones? Apple managed the opposite, so perhaps this, too, is possible.

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Nokia Closes Out 2013 With 92% Of The Windows Phone Market

First 3D Printed Liver Expected In 2014

Lucas123 writes “After 3D printing has produced ears, skin grafts and even retina cells that could be built up and eventually used to replace defective eye tissue, researchers expect to be able to produce the first functioning organ next year. The organ, a liver, would not be for the purpose of human implant — that will take years to complete clinical trials and pass FDA review. Instead, the liver would initially be for development and testing of pharmaceuticals. The field of 3D printing known as organs on a chip, will greatly increase the accuracy and speed of drug development and testing, researchers say. The company producing the liver, Organovo, has overcome a major stumbling block that faces the creation of any organ: printing the vascular system needed to provide it with life-sustaining oxygen and nutrients. Typically, 3D printed tissue dies in the petri dish before it can even be used because of that. ‘We have achieved thicknesses of greater than 500 microns, and have maintained liver tissue in a fully functional state with native phenotypic behavior for at least 40 days, ‘ said Mike Renard, Organovo’s executive vice president of commercial operations.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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First 3D Printed Liver Expected In 2014

Partnership With Chinese App Store Shines A Light On The Hidden World Of Jailbreak Groups

Jailbreak releases for new iOS products are major events. In the early years, release teams would celebrate major holidays with a new jailbreak or SIM unlock and millions of anxious users would rush for the latest software. Much has stayed the same – the excitement, the rush to jailbreak. But something has changed: jailbreaks have become big business. Take Evasi0n, for example . After launching an iOS 7 jailbreak users found that, on computers with the language set to Chinese, the program automatically installed a program called TaiG (Tai-Gi or Tai Chi). This Chinese app store offered Chinese-language apps but a little something extra, as well: pages and pages of cracked, pirated games. The group made “around a million dollars” in placement fees for adding TaiG to Chinese iPhones. While the actual number is currently unknown, my source explained that the rumors were true and that the fee was well within that “order of magnitude.” The Evasi0n team , for their part, responded online to allegations that they had been paid to put pirated app stores on users’ phones. Yes, we have benefitted financially from our work, just as many others in the jailbreak community have, including tweak developers, repo owners, etc. Any jailbreak from us will always be free to the users but we believe we have a right to be compensated in an ethical way, just as any other developer. However, the interests of the community will always be the most important thing to us. When releasing the jailbreak, we pledged all our donations to foundations supporting the interests of the community. We are deeply upset at how we have inadvertently distressed the community and we are focused on fixing it. “We are very upset that despite our agreement and review by their team, piracy was found in the store. It was not acceptable and they have been strenuously working to resolve the problem in good faith, and have removed all instances of it that we have brought to their attention,” they wrote. “The jailbreak works and people should use it,” said Jay Freeman aka saurik , creator of Cydia , a popular “feature store” that allows users to shop for tweaks and updates to their iPhone’s OS. “The thing that bugs me [about TaiG] is there’s tons of piracy in it. We’re not about piracy. It used to be that if you wanted to pirate you did have to jailbreak. That’s no longer the case. But people still look at us we’re those pirate assholes,” said Freeman. Jailbreaking is a business now. Saurik himself makes a living off of having his app installed on jailbroken phones and the Evasi0n team, among others, make money selling space in their apps. In short, things have come a long way since the lone hacker spent time cracking iOS in his spare time. What does the TaiG partnership mean? Very little, in the long run. Even George Hotz aka Geohot, a well-known early iPhone jail breaker, attempted to sell his own jailbreak technique to unidentified buyers for $350,000 to a commercial customer. In the end, Evasi0n released theirs for free, heading potential for-pay jail breakers off at the pass. That they made money for adding TaiG, in fact, should be immaterial. That the TaiG app store contains pirated material, however, is another matter entirely. Now that jailbreaking is a business, people want to get paid, but not this way. “They do good work and I think they deserve money for it,” said Freeman.

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Partnership With Chinese App Store Shines A Light On The Hidden World Of Jailbreak Groups

Overstock.com Plans To Accept Bitcoin

SonicSpike writes “Overstock plans to become the first big U.S. online retailer to accept Bitcoin, as Patrick Byrne, the company’s libertarian chief executive, warms to the virtual currency as a refuge from government control. Mr Byrne told the Financial Times that Overstock planned to start accepting Bitcoin next year – possibly by the end of the second quarter – a decision that he said was driven mainly by his own political philosophy. ‘I think a healthy monetary system at the end of the day isn’t an upside down pyramid based on the whim of a government official, but is based on something that they can’t control, ‘ Mr Byrne said.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Overstock.com Plans To Accept Bitcoin

MediaPortal 2 Alpha 4 released

We are proud to offer a special Christmas gift for you: MediaPortal 2 Alpha 4 ! Although this version is still tagged “Alpha”, which means there might be still problems, don’t hesitate to try it. It works very smoothly and will probably be the last Alpha release before we take the next steps to a “Beta” release! Be sure to read the instructions at the end of this news regarding installation, upgrade and extension compatibility. Why MediaPortal 2? If you don’t know what it’s all about, read the blog:  MediaPortal 2: What does it bring to the table?  or just give it a go and find out what the most advanced media center dares to offer you in future. Summary of changes This release brings a lot of new technologies to your HTPC. We upgraded to .NET 4.5.1 framework , switched from SlimDX to SharpDX , switched the default database to SQLite , updated many 3rd party libraries, implemented new features and of course fixed some bugs. Improved user experience: Major improvements to Media Library navigation and layouts, user selections are now saved and reused the next time. This affects filter, sorting and layout of each screen. Reduced complexity in Media Library menu items, moved filters into own dialog. Added support for browsing Media Library shares by filesystem structure. Improved GUI performance due to newly added VirtualizingWrapPanel (which reduces memory required and speeds up display because only visible items are allocated). Improved media importing performance. Improved video thumbnail creation. Improved database performance with no size limits due to SQLite as new default database. Fixes Browsing network shares could fail under certain cases. Some minor fixes in the MediaPortal UPnP library. Updated plugins OnlineVideos plugin is included in this release. SlimTV plugin (both NativeTV and MPExtended) has been significantly improved for Alpha 4 release. WebRadio plugin to play your favourite web radio streams inside MP2! More plugins are available! (via our MP2 Plugins Downloads section on the website and forum) WiFi configuration plugin (included). CEC remote plugin allows controlling MP2. The full change log is available here: MediaPortal 2 Alpha 4 change log Screenshots Installation Before installing MediaPortal 2 make sure all requirements  are installed. Then extract the downloaded .zip archive and simply run the .msi installer file. For screenshots or further details, refer to our Getting Started wiki.  Upgrade notes Due to the new default database (SQLite) you cannot use an older version (SQLCE, MySQL) with the default installation. You must add your media shares again. However, performance is much improved compared to Alpha 3. Local cached online data will be kept (like covers and backdrops). Feedback & Support Discuss this release in the official release thread MediaPortal 2 Alpha 4 If you are looking for further information please check out  MediaPortal 2 wiki first. We are working constantly to improve it, and you can help! If you don’t find an answer there create a new thread in  MediaPortal 2 forums . If you find a bug, please check our Issue Tracker   &  bug report forums  first. If it has not been reported already, create a new thread. Download If you would like to support MediaPortal, we would be happy to receive a small donation ! The Team wishes you a lot of fun with this new release! .::. Download – MediaPortal 2.0 Alpha 4 .::. .::. Download MP2 plugins .::. .::. Post a Comment .::.

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MediaPortal 2 Alpha 4 released

Researchers Crack Major HIV Mystery

mrspoonsi sends this news from Scientific American: “The difference between HIV infection and full-blown AIDS is, in large part, the massive die-off of the immune system’s CD4 T-cells. But researchers have only observed the virus killing a small portion of those cells, leading to a longstanding question: What makes the other cells disappear? New research shows that the body is killing its own cells in a little-known process. What’s more, an existing, safe drug could interrupt that self-destruction, thereby offering a way to treat AIDS. The destructive process has caught scientists by surprise. ‘We thought HIV infects a cell, sets up a virus production factory and then the cell dies as a consequence of being overwhelmed by virus. But there are not enough factories to explain the massive losses, ‘ says Warner Greene, director of virology and immunology at the Gladstone Institutes, whose team published two papers today in Science and Nature describing the work. Greene estimates 95 percent of the cells that die in HIV infections are killed through pyroptosis, so the findings raise hope for a new type of treatment that could prevent HIV from progressing into AIDS. ‘Inhibiting activation of the immune system is not a new concept, but this gives us a new pathway to target, ‘ says Robert Gallo. And in fact, a drug already exists that can block pyroptosis.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Researchers Crack Major HIV Mystery

Rumor: The Full Start Menu Might Be Coming Back to Windows 8, Too

Microsoft were forced to make some come compromises to their original vision for Windows 8 come the recent update , reinstating the Start Button due to popular demand. Now, rumors suggest that the 8.2 update could take that one step further. Read more…        

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Rumor: The Full Start Menu Might Be Coming Back to Windows 8, Too

1.5 Million Pages of Ancient Manuscripts Online

New submitter LordWabbit2 sends this quote from an AP report: “The Vatican Library and Oxford University’s Bodleian Library have put the first of 1.5 million pages of ancient manuscripts online. The two libraries in 2012 announced a four-year project to digitize some of the most important works of their collections of Hebrew manuscripts, Greek manuscripts and early printed books. Among the first up on the site Tuesday, are the two-volume Gutenberg bibles from each of the libraries and a beautiful 15th-century German bible, hand-colored and illustrated by woodcuts. … The Vatican Library was founded in 1451 and is one of the most important research libraries in the world. The Bodleian is the largest university library in Britain.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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1.5 Million Pages of Ancient Manuscripts Online

Epson Tries to One-up Google Glass with Moverio-Goggles (Video)

In the world of head-worn displays, Google Glass seems to lately get most of the praise as well as most of the dirty looks, though it’s far from alone. At this year’s DroidCon in London, I talked with Epson Europe product manager Marc-Antoine Godfroid about a very different kind of head-worn display: the Moverio BT-100. Epson’s display is running a Google operating system, but it isn’t competing with Glass, at least not directly. The hardware in this case is a relatively high-definition stereo display meant for immersion (whether that means information overlays or watching recorded video) hooked to an external control unit running Android, rather than the sparer, information-dashboard, all-in-one approach of Glass. One other big difference: Epson’s stereo, full-color headset is cheaper than Glass, and available now. Hit the link below to see what it looks like. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Epson Tries to One-up Google Glass with Moverio-Goggles (Video)

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Returns Thanksgiving Day 2013 with Web-Only Live Stream

It’s the 25th Anniversary of Mystery Science Theater 3000 , and one of the events happening in celebration is the return of the show’s Turkey Day Marathon! Read on for the details of this Web-only live stream kicking off November 28th at 9:00 am PT/12:00 noon ET. From the MST3K Turkey Day website : Do you miss the Turkey Day Marathons of yesteryear, when, loaded with tryptophan, you’d curl up on the sofa with friends and family for a postprandial MST session? Well, you can relive the magic once again with a special Web-only Turkey Day Marathon featuring six classic episodes curated and hosted by Joel. This streaming event will kick off on Thursday at 9 am PT / 12 noon ET on Thursday, November 28th at MST3KTurkeyDay.com. Fans who have suggestions for episodes they’d like to see included are encouraged to tweet Joel (@JoelGHodgson) with their votes. On Turkey Day, MST-ies can join in on Twitter with the tag #mst3k. For updates on MST3K Turkey Day, follow @ShoutFactory and @JoelGHodgson. VISIT THE EVILSHOP @ AMAZON! Got news? Click here to submit it! Curl up with some MST3K in the comments section below!

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Mystery Science Theater 3000 Returns Thanksgiving Day 2013 with Web-Only Live Stream