Tag: the-end

New York City’s first commercial wind turbine proves its worth

Sunset Park in Brooklyn is home to New York City’s first commercial-scale wind turbine , and it’s already flexing its green muscle. In under a month, the 160-foot-tall power source produced enough juice to power two homes for more than 12 months. It’s not being used to supplement regular energy use, though, as it feeds a recycling plant at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal — a facility that already gets 16 percent of its power from solar panels. NYC seems like the last place a massive wind turbine would make a difference, but the height of this installation, coupled with the open landscape on the shore of Sunset Park, makes for an effective combo that’s capable of generating up to 100 kilowatts. Attempts to harvest the wind in New York City are nothing new, but they’re typically used to power much smaller buildings, so their size and output are a fraction of this one at Sims Metal Management. Construction costs tallied $750, 000, and the project is expected to pay for itself in five years. [Photo credit: AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews] Filed under: Science Comments Source: New York Times

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New York City’s first commercial wind turbine proves its worth

AT&T took a $10 billion hit, but it’s hoping you won’t notice

In an extra-special Friday-night-before-a-holiday-weekend news dump, AT&T just announced that its Q4 results will include about $10 billion in charges. That includes a $7.9 billion “related to actuarial gains and losses on pension and postemployment benefit plans”, plus a $2.1 billion charge for abandoning some copper lines it says it doesn’t need anymore. Of course, you’re probably already well into whatever your weekend plans are, so you’ll barely even notice this happened once you get back to work on Tuesday — which is just how AT&T hoped it would go. [Image credit: shutterstock] Filed under: HD , Mobile , AT&T Comments Via: Reuters Source: AT&T

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AT&T took a $10 billion hit, but it’s hoping you won’t notice

HMV overtakes Amazon to become the UK’s biggest seller of physical music

Two years ago, British high-street retailer HMV was staring bankruptcy in the face . It was subsequently picked up by administration specialist Hilco , which immediately set about reversing the company’s fortunes. As a result of cost-cutting measures, HMV was forced to sell its iconic Oxford Street store and place a renewed focus on what made it popular: selling music. It certainly seems like it’s paid off, because the company has just reclaimed the number one spot as the UK’s biggest seller of physical music, overtaking Amazon in the process. CityAM reports that the company’s vinyl sales reached their highest level in over 20 years, jumping 170 percent over the past year. And in the two weeks leading up to Christmas, it was responsible for selling one in every three CDs and DVDs in the UK. It’s certainly been a good year for HMV, especially after it announced that all of its stores are now profitable. It now faces the challenge of sustaining that growth while competition continues to heat up, something that GAME has admitted is taking its toll on profits as it slashes its margins. However, the company is confident — 2015 looks set to be a bumper year for movie releases and it believes DVD, BluRay and physical music sales will continue to grow over the next 12 months. It might have the hipsters to thank for that. [Image credit: Mark Hooper, Flickr ] Filed under: HD , Amazon Comments Source: CityAM

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HMV overtakes Amazon to become the UK’s biggest seller of physical music

Soylent aims to make its nutritious sludge much cheaper than $3 a meal

Love it or hate it, the food replacement drink Soylent isn’t going away anytime soon. The company is now planning to drive down the cost of its meals to “a fraction” of their current $3 price after banking an additional $20 million, according to investor Chris Dixon . Soylent was originally developed as an inexpensive and convenient way to consume vaguely healthy meals (it’s made up of carbohydrates, proteins, and amino acids), and it quickly gained a loyal fan base . The only problem? It tastes like chalky pancake mix (with a dash of impending dystopia). It’s also tough to get your hands on right now: You can snag around 21 meals for $70 a month (or an $85 one-time fee), but you’ll have to wait four to five months for your order. Driving the price down to under $2 a meal (and hopefully increasing availability) is exactly what Soylent needs to do for normal folks to give it a shot. While Soylent was initially hyped as an entire meal replacement, Dixon points out it’s more an alternative to terrible fast food options. He also stresses that the real value of the company is the community that’s developed around it. “If you look at Soylent as just a food company, you misjudge the core of the company, the same way you would if you looked at GoPro as just a camera company, ” Dixon said. [Photo credit: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images] Filed under: Misc Comments Via: TechCrunch Source: Chris Dixon

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Soylent aims to make its nutritious sludge much cheaper than $3 a meal

Google won’t fix a security bug that’s in almost a billion Android phones

A day after Google publicized a flaw in Windows 8.1 before Microsoft could do anything about it, news broke about a security vulnerability in Android that the Mountain View company, well, won’t fix at all. Tod Beardsley, an analyst from Rapid7, a security data and analytics firm, found a serious bug in the WebView component of Android 4.3 and below (it’s an older bit of software that lets apps view webpages without launching a separate app) that potentially opens up affected phones to malicious hackers. Android 4.4 and 5.0 are unaffected by the bug, but as 60 percent of Android users — that’s close to a billion people — still use Android 4.3 or lower, it still affects a lot of people. Unfortunately, as Beardsley found out, Google won’t fix it, leaving it up to the various OEMs and manufacturers to issue a patch instead. The quote from Google to Beardsley is as follows: If the affected version [of WebView] is before 4.4, we generally do not develop the patches ourselves, but welcome patches with the report for consideration. Other than notifying OEMs, we will not be able to take action on any report that is affecting versions before 4.4 that are not accompanied with a patch. According to Beardsley, it seems that Jelly Bean devices are simply too old to support — supporting old software versions is fairly unusual, after all. But in this case, he asks Google to reconsider, due to the wider consequences this security flaw could potentially unravel. Until then, however, it might be a good idea to upgrade to Android 4.4, or perhaps get a new phone altogether. [Image credit: Phillip Bond / Alamy] Filed under: Cellphones , Google Comments Via: ArsTechnica Source: Rapid7

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Google won’t fix a security bug that’s in almost a billion Android phones

Facebook will alert you when kids go missing in your area

Facebook will now show amber alerts in its news feeds to inform users about missing or abducted children. The social network launched the venture with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to deliver the information in specific, targeted search areas following an abduction. The alerts will appear on mobile devices and desktops with photos and other pertinent details, allowing you to share them with friends or link to the latest info. Facebook said it was inspired to add the alerts after missing children were recovered due to information posted independently by users. For instance, earlier this year a motel owner recognized an 11-year-old girl from such a post and helped police recover her unharmed. Once it receives and amber alert from police, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children distributes them to Facebook, along with photos of the child, license plate numbers, the name and description of the child and abductor and any other relevant info. State and local law enforcement then determine the search area and send the alerts to your news feed if you live there. The item won’t trigger notifications, and you’ll only see them a few times a year at most, depending on where you live. Facebook now joins Google in highlighting amber alerts, meaning there’s now an extra 1.35 billion extra pairs of eyes helping spot abducted kids. Filed under: Internet , Facebook Comments Source: Facebook

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Facebook will alert you when kids go missing in your area

Apple raises the minimum price of apps in Europe and Canada

If you live in Europe, Canada or Norway, you might find that some apps are now a little more expensive on your iPhone or iPad. Yesterday, Apple informed developers that it would be raising prices before the weekend to reflect changes in VAT and foreign exchange rates. Those increases are now starting to take effect, with a 10 pence rise for the cheapest premium apps in the UK, up from £0.69 to £0.79, and a new €0.99 starting price in EU countries. The minimum spend in Canada (beyond free apps, anyway) has risen from $0.99 to $1.19 , and Norway, which uses its Norwegian krone, should see a similar rise in price. Apple is tinkering with app fees in Iceland and Russia too, so if you live in any of these countries it’s probably worth opening up the App Store to assess the damage. Filed under: Cellphones , Apple Comments Source: AppleInsider

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Apple raises the minimum price of apps in Europe and Canada

Samsung’s latest SSD is absurdly fast and uses virtually no standby power

Samsung has started manufacturing a PCIe (M.2) SSD which pulls off a rare trick — it’ll be the fastest drive your laptop has ever seen, while consuming almost no power in standby mode. The new SM951 SSD succeeds the Korean company’s XP941 , a drive that can already read data at a mind-melting 1.4 gigabytes per second (GB/s) clip. On newer laptops or desktops, its successor will shame that with 2.15GB/s read and 1.55GB/s write speeds (on PCIe Gen 3 tech) using new 10-nanometer MLC flash tech. It also sips 50 percent less power and only consumes a negligible 2 milliwatts in standby mode. The SSDs will come in 128, 256 and 512GB sizes, but only to major laptop and workstation manufacturers to start with. If it follows the XP941’s footsteps , however, you’ll be able to supercharge your own laptop later on. Filed under: Storage , Samsung Comments Via: The Register Source: Samsung

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Samsung’s latest SSD is absurdly fast and uses virtually no standby power

Here’s a closer look at Dell’s super thin tablet and nearly bezel-less XPS 13

When I invited Sam Burd, the general manager of Dell’s personal computer group, to do an interview with me at CES about the state of the PC industry, I did so mostly because, well, Dell knows a lot about computers. I had no idea at the time that Dell would be showing off some amazing stuff at the show, with not one, but two products making the finalists’ list for our Best of CES Awards . So, before Mr. Burd and I got to talking about wireless charging and Intel’s RealSense technology, he gave me a closer look at both the skinny Venue 8 7000 tablet and the nearly bezel-less XPS 13 Ultrabook . Check out our interview in full below. Filed under: Laptops , Tablets , Dell Comments

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Here’s a closer look at Dell’s super thin tablet and nearly bezel-less XPS 13

Chinese TV giant TCL brings Palm Inc. back to life

Prepare to be transported back to 2005. Chinese electronics maker TCL (which sells smartphones around the world as Alcatel OneTouch) announced earlier today that it’s reviving the venerated Palm brand in the form of a new US subsidiary. That’s right folks: it might not be long until you’ve got a shiny new Palm smartphone in your pocket. To be clear, though, this new/old venture retains basically none of the original’s DNA. Palm’s giant vault of patents? It’s been hacked apart and sold off in bits pieces to big-time bidders. And webOS, the platform a naïve company banked its smartphone future on? It was open-sourced and eventually acquired by LG, who’s now throwing it on smart TVs and maybe a smartwatch if we’re lucky. Still, TCL has said that it’ll commit to retaining Palm’s roots as a “Silicon Valley” company, even though the definition has probably drifted a bit since the days that term was really in vogue. Exactly what that means is up to you the user: The company said in a statement that it’s looking for feedback from the once-dedicated Palm crowd for future devices, though we really have no clue when TCL plans to make good on its word. Here’s the thing, though: TCL has already made some pretty big strides in growing the reach and clout of its Alcatel brand (thanks largely to its really-kind-of-nice smartphones). It’s even trying to pump up its presence in the US by partnering up with The Color Run and Avicii. Is TCL shooting itself in the foot by bifurcating its phone business? Maybe! Palm’s long-neglected devotees probably won’t mind as long as they get a device to stick next to their Pre 3s, though. Filed under: Mobile Comments

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Chinese TV giant TCL brings Palm Inc. back to life