What Apple does to accomplish tax avoidance is very legal, a fact that can’t be deputed. The company essentially stores its cash offshore so that it doesn’t have to pay hefty taxes levied in the U.S. While this is perfectly legal, the authorities as well as tax officials have criticized the company over it.

The hearing at Senate was a significant affair in that this is the first time such a high-level huddle has been brought together to question Apple about such practices. When asked why Apple would indulge in this, Tim Cook calmly responded to the senators that everything Apple does is above board.

However, he did concede that he would like to see comprehensive tax reform passed by the legislators this year. This may hint at Apple’s readiness to collaborate with the authorities and pay taxes over its actual cash once adequate tax reforms are in place.

Interestingly, during the course of the hearing, Senator John McCain asked Tim Cook, “I’m out of time but what I really wanted to ask was why the hell I have to keep updating apps on my iPhone all the time and why you don’t fix that.”

Cook was quick to respond that, “Sir, we try to make them better all the time.” Other senators generally expressed their appreciation for the quality products created by Apple.

Courtesy: PC Mag

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The 24-carat gold iPads are engraved with the hotel’s name and logo, along with a black Apple logo on the back. The gold iPads will be given to guests to be used as a “virtual concierge,” in which information like the hotel’s restaurants, food menus, spa treatments, housekeeping services, butler service info and other amenities will be pre-loaded.

The gold iPads have been produced by Gold & Co. of London, which made a 24-karat rose-gold iPad for the hotel last October in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Amjad Ali, CEO of Gold & Co. London, said, “The Gold & Co. London 24-carat gold iPad is the ultimate in luxury accessories, hence we wanted it to be paired with Burj Al Arab, the world’s most luxurious hotel. The symmetry is obvious, as both the gold iPad and the hotel are unique in terms of extraordinary quality and design.”

For your kind information, the hotel already has an iMac in each of its 202 rooms, in addition to other luxury amenities, like walk-in showers and Jacuzzis, large plasma TVs, and private butler service. It will cost $1,500 to $19,000 per night to stay at the hotel. If guests want to take the 24-carat gold iPad home, they’ll be able to buy it for $10,200 at the hotel’s boutique. Guests will also find gold iPad mini, gold iPhone 5, and gold BlackBerry Q10 at the hotel’s boutique.

Source: CNET
Thanks To: Business Insider

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This has been divulged in the ranking dished out by Millward Brown, a notable market intelligence company. In determining the position of different companies on the scale of value, Millward Brown takes into consideration both the financial strength as well as the equity position of a given brand.

As far as Apple is considered, the company continues to enjoy good financial position as compared to its competitors. Millward Brown says that customers around the world continue to deem Apple as the ‘gold standard.’

Interestingly, brand analysts claim that although the financial prowess of a company may dwindle, its brand value continues to exist and even grow. This precisely seems to be the case with Apple. Although the company has missed on many Wall Street expectations recently, it is still considered the undisputed champion in the tech arena.

According to Millward Brown’s list, Apple occupies the top position as the most valuable brand whereas Google falls at the second place, being valued at $113.7 billion. The third position has been landed by IBM whereas MacDonald’s is at the fourth position. The list demonstrates how tech giants have turned out to be global phenomenons and overtake mainstream businesses and corporate giants.

Source: Marketing Week

Courtesy: 9to5mac

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Opinions Currently Flying Around

The concerns of privacy conscious citizens regarding Google Glass are not  very welcoming. The comments below will give you a hint.

“It’s an audacious product for a company no one trusts to behave responsibly with our data: a pair of glasses that can monitor and record the world around you” – Milo Yiannopoulos, Tech journalist.

“Glass is not very different from other technologies available today, whether it is a smartphone or “spy” pens that secretly record audio.”– Ryan Calo, University of Washington Law Professor.

But Before You Pull a Verdict Consider the Following Facts.

- Google Glass is a consequence of a stream of technological developments that we are already used to, i.e. the smartphones, surveillance cameras, and Bluetooth.

- After a while, the hype surrounding it will dim down, especially if we don’t try to suppress it. Let’s face it, anything we try to prohibit, always becomes more desirable and misused.

- There are many questions that Google Glass has yet to answer both its future users, and the government. In a letter from 8 members of the U.S. Congress to Google’s Larry Page, some answers were demanding, including questions “Will Google Glass have the capacity to store any data on the device itself? If so, will Google Glass implement some sort of user authentication system to safeguard stored data? If not, why not?” Google has until the 14^th of July to answer these. Let’s see what they have to say.

- Google’s insensitivity to privacy issues in 2010 still weighs down on people’s minds, as they are unwilling to forget that Google did collect personal information over unencrypted home wireless networks while collecting panoramic photographs for Google Maps.

- Some have already banned, or are considering banning Google Glass from specific places, such as movie theaters  casinos, cafes, and roads. While putting these laws or bans in place is a good precaution for the sake of safety, it is truly up to the user whether or not they will be responsible while using Google Glass.

- While there is currently a lot of toe-bashing on its privacy-retaining skills, it can only improve under proper supervision.

- At the end of the day, it is still a great technological achievement.

Now, what’s your verdict about Google Glass? Please share with us.

Thanks to: Stuff, Slashdot(1), Slashdot(2)

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Dailymotion is originally owned by Orange, which in turn is owned by France Telecom. French government was able to express its reservations over the expected deal with Yahoo, because it has a 27% stake in France Telecom.

The deal that Yahoo was looking forward to sign with Dailymotion would’ve lent the company 75% share in the video site. It was expected to rake in some $300 million. However, the French government intervened and decided not to take the deal. This may have been a decision in the national interests, but it certainly ripped Dailymotion of an extra-ordinary opportunity to grow internationally.

As a consolation, the CEO of France Telecom has announced that his company has plans of investing €30 - €50 million in Dailymotion. Compared to the $300 million being offered by Yahoo, this is too little. However, if the investment really goes well and Dailymotion is able to make good use of it, the company may be able to attract a global audience.

Courtesy: TNW

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The machine would work like any other 3D printer, but instead of sending a design to the 3D printer, you will send a recipe with precise ingredients and measurements. The 3D printer will be using cartridges of powder and oils. It will allow the food to be stored for long periods of time (up to 30 years) without spoiling.

The printer will start being built in two weeks, and once it’s been built, Contractor will attempt to print a pizza comprised of three layers of nutritional powders mixed with water and oil out first. Here’s a video.

Source: Space.com
Thanks To: Business Insider

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The Lockheed Martin F-35B fighter jet is capable of vertical take-offs and landings, and appears to hover in the air during this process in a sort of meditative state. The jet can travel at speeds of up to 1,200 miles per hour. The F-35B can’t carry as much fuel or arms. That means it can only be used for relatively short trips. The F-35B’s advanced stealth allows it to engage ground enemies from a greater distance and rapidly clear the area. The jet also can carry a weapons payload of 16,000 pounds. According to the Lockheed Martin website, the F-35B is designed to land on both conventional runways and in remote areas. Here’s the video.

Lockheed Martin hails the new F-35B fighter jet as “the most flexible, technologically sophisticated multirole fighter ever.” The first vertical take-off and landing test of the production model was successfully conducted on May 10 at Naval Air Station Patuxen River, Md. This new development will open up landing spaces unavailable to many aircrafts.

Source: Lockheed Martin
Thanks To: The Daily Caller

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According to GFX Benchmark website, the upcoming Galaxy S4 Active is not packed with neither Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 nor Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor. Rather, the Korean giant uses Qualcomm’s slower Snapdragon S4 Plus SoC, a 1.9GHz quadcore processor with Adreno 320 GPU. The device runs Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) with TouchWiz pre-installed, while retaining the full 1080p HD a 5.0-inch display.

The new smartphone is speculated to ship in the next few weeks. But we cannot make any assumption about the pricing of the device. It has a downgraded processor that might reduce the cost, but manufacturing of this rugged smartphone may associate extra costs. And, there is no official confirmation yet.

Source: Ubergizmo

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The sensitive information essentially refers to knowledge of U.S. surveillance targets as well as names of any under-cover agents that U.S. security agencies may have in China. No one is sure exactly how much of this information was attained by the hackers. But the government officials claim that these hackers did access valuable information for sure.

Especially, any such persons who maintained Gmail accounts, were the primary focus of these hackers. If any of these users were under-cover agents, the hack essentially put their lives in danger. Alternatively, if any of them was being monitored by the U.S. intelligence agencies, the Chinese hackers could have disseminated the information to the Chinese government, thus defying the whole purpose of monitoring.

These concerns are compounded by similar concerns cited by Microsoft recently. According to a Microsoft official, the Chinese hackers also tried to access Microsoft’s servers and tried to reach such accounts which had been tagged for surveillance by the U.S. authorities.

According to Microsoft’s David W. Aucsmith, “What we found was the attackers were actually looking for the accounts that we had lawful wiretap orders on.” This method, Aucsmith stated, was fairly sophisticated since rather than trying to directly access FBI servers, these hackers tried to identify the monitored personnel by going through their emails.

Source: Washington Post

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The limitation is quite obvious, given the fact that Xbox One is arriving with an x86 architecture whereas the same can’t be said of Xbox 360. The limitation would essentially stop users from playing original Xbox titles on their game console.

Confirming the curb in Xbox One, Xbox Live’s Vice President, Marc Whitten, stated, “The system is based on a different core architecture, so back-compat doesn’t really work from that perspective.”

However, before the avid gamer in you gets a bit too disappointed, the good news is that you will be able to continue your Gamescore over at Xbox 360, while making the switch from Xbox 360. Moreover, the Xbox 360 titles will continue to be around and Microsoft will continue to expend its resources into developing them further.

According to a Microsoft spokesperson, “We care very much about the investment people have made in Xbox 360 and will continue to support it with a pipeline of new games and new apps well into the future.” Ideally, one may want to quit dreaming of Xbox One, and shift attention to Sony’s PlayStation 4 because of this. But nearly all next-generation consoles, including PS4, lack backward compatibility and won’t support titles from older consoles.

Courtesy: TNW

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Nigel Warren is the person who rented out his apartment in NY through Airbnb. However, New York officials soon brought a case against him, citing that by renting out his apartment, he has violated the illegal hotel law enacted by the city back in 2010.

Warren fought back the charge, with Airbnb also siding with him. The original fine imposed on Warren was $7,000. During the case, Airbnb argued that Warren’s case should be taken as an exception since he didn’t mimic the hotels in any way while renting out his apartment.

However, the judge has now ruled against Warren, citing, “While breech of the condominium rules is not of itself a ground for sustaining this (notice), respondent was in breach (through Warren’s acts) and the existence of the rule against rental for transient, hotel, or motel purposes is evidence that the unit owners were to restrict their use to permanent occupation.”

Thankfully, the sum of fine has been trimmed down from $7,000 to $2,400. Airbnb is naturally unhappy with the verdict and stated, “There is universal agreement that occasional hosts like Nigel Warren were not the target of the 2010 law, but that agreement provides little comfort to the handful of people, like Nigel, who find themselves targeted by overzealous enforcement officials. It is time to fix this law and protect hosts who occasionally rent out their own homes. Eighty-seven percent of Airbnb hosts in New York list just a home they live in — they are average New Yorkers trying to make ends meet, not illegal hotels that should be subject to the 2010 law.”

Courtesy: CNET

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Gaming is one form of entertainment and Microsoft intends to up the ante by offering many other forms of entertainment through Xbox One. Given below is a quick recap of the new features that are included in the console as well as the device’s specifications.

Specifcations:
The new Xbox One packs an 8-core CPU which joins hands with a 64-bit architecture to deliver top performance. The unit includes 8 GB of RAM, a Blu-ray drive, 500 GB of storage space and HDMI in and out ports. There’s a USB 3.0 port as well and option for Wi-Fi connectivity.

Kinect:
Kinect has been around for a while, being used for gaming purposes. However, imagine the same kind of voice and gesture-control functionality available for surfing between different TV channels or shows. The voice-control part of Kinect is remarkably accurate and quick, letting you dictate the Xbox One and surf across multiple profiles and entertainment hubs in the flick of an eye.

As far as motion and gesture-control measures are concerned, Kinect has been packed with additional capabilities to perform these tasks far better. Kinect can now capture 1080p video and it can measure many more motion points on the body to more accurately discern the users’ movements.

Snap Mode:
Snap mode is an excellent option that essentially lets you perform two different kinds of tasks side by side on Xbox One. For instance you can watch a movie and do a Skype call, both at the same time. Microsoft has essentially brought together the best of both TV and gaming on a single console and spiced this content up with options such as Snap mode.

DVR recoding and Cloud storage:
Cloud storage is fast becoming something of a mandatory feature for all devices. Microsoft has been careful to ensure its inclusion in Xbox One. You can upload your regular content, games, game saves and other data straight to the cloud storage that Microsoft offers. You can also recard the games while you are playing through the DVR option.

During the launch event, Microsoft shied away from divulging the exact pricing and availability details of the new console. However, it did reveal that Xbox One will land the shelves later this year.

Source: Xbox

Courtesy: TC

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The changes are essentially meant to add more meaningfulness to the pins that are currently hosted on the website. For instance, imagine a Pinterest food board. Formerly, people would simply attach images as pins to the board and that would be it.

But with the new changes that Pinterest is rolling out, users will be able to add a lot more details to these pins. For instance, if you are viewing a recipe on a food board, the pin for that recipe will include information such as the cooking time, ingredients etc.

The idea behind these changes is to provide users more details and let them decide whether or not the pins are useful and relevant for them. Pinterest is positioning the information-rich pins as ‘rich pins’ and the company claims that they can be especially useful for businesses.

That is precisely why the company hopes that with ‘rich pins’, it will be able to adapt a more profitable model. Users who want to use ‘rich pins’ need to join Pinterest as a business or have their accounts converted. In other words, they will have to split their profits with Pinterest.

The website has also rolled out the option of adding pins to a given board straight from the mobile devices. Given the sheer number of users accessing social media sites from mobile devices, this move can also add a significant audience to Pinterest.

Source: Pinterest

Courtesy: Venture Beat

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The new Flickr essentially allows users to upload their images in high-resolution. The uploading process does not tamper with the size or quality of the images so that you can upload the exact image that you shot straight to your Flickr account. To compliment the availability of such high-res images on the website, Flickr has also undergone an interface change.

On the new Flickr, you can view an image in full-screen, rather than being presented with a photo and a relevant photo stream to the right. Yahoo has cut out nearly all white-spaces from Flickr. If you view a ‘Set’ on Flickr now, it will appear as a stream of very neatly bundled images, much likes tiles stacked against on another.

Users can set a high-resolution picture as the cover photo for their profiles. On profile pages, images start appearing as a tile-stream right below the cover photo.

One of the key announcements made by Yahoo’s CEO, Marissa Mayer, was that all Flickr users get to have a whopping 1 terabyte of space for free! That’s a huge storage space and allows user to essentially upload an approximate number of 537,000 photos. Flickr Pro is going away with this new update. Marissa Mayer said

There’s no such thing as Flickr Pro today because (as so many people taking photo) there’s really no such thing as professional photographers anymore.

There are still a couple of paid options. Users can pay $49.99 a year for an ad-free interface, and can add a second TB of data for $499.99 per year. We cant find any information what will happen to existing paid member.

The task to revamp Flickr was probably Mayer’s brainchild. When she first came to steer Yahoo out of its crisis, campaigns sprang up online, asking her to ‘rescue’ Flickr. And from the looks of the revamp that her company has rolled out, she has succeeded in doing so.

Source: Flickr

Courtesy: CNN

Edited By M Asif Rahman on May 21st, 09:45PM (BST)

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According to the reports so far, Microsoft has focused more on non-gaming features in the new Xbox. The company can afford to do so since its current-generation Xbox units are already the best-selling gaming gear around the globe.

However, Microsoft will have to consider the competition that may be offered by PlayStation 4. Sony is certainly going for a far better graphics engine and better storage options in its upcoming console – and the corresponding next-generation Xbox will have to compete against it.

While Microsoft hasn’t revealed any detailed specs of the new Xbox, analysts have speculated that it will come with a faster processor and many new entertainment options. In fact, the entertainment and other non-gaming features may be the limelight of the new Xbox.

For instance, the company plans on adding the ability to make Skype calls, stream videos online and accomplish many other similar functions. One bone of contention about the new Xbox, however, is that it will need to be connected to the internet at all times.

That can be quite a hassle for the gamers and at the same time, it would eliminate the option of playing second-hand titles, thus making the entire Xbox ecosystem pricier and more closed for the users. Let’s see how true these reservations and expectations turn out to be this Tuesday.

Courtesy: CNET

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On April 19, 2013, a Russian space capsule named Bion-M No.1 set off towards space carrying 53 mice and lizards. The capsule’s orbit was at 575 kilometers (345 miles) above Earth. According to scientists, sending those animals towards space was an experiment of testing the effects of weightlessness and other factors of space flight on cell structure.

On May 19, the animals returned to the Earth at a planned field near Orenburg, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) Southeast of Moscow. Though all 15 of the lizards survived, unfortunately only half of the mice survived the flight.

Source: Washington Post

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Samsung Wallet is more of a depository, where credit cards can be stored along with tickets, membership cards and coupons. Online purchases can be made using the information in the wallet confirmed by a PIN number or a one-time password. From now on, Korean customers using Galaxy S4, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy Note 10.1 or Galaxy S II HD LTE, can download Samsung Wallet app from the company’s own app market. Currently it only appears to collect credit card info, which customers can use to pay for goods and services at online merchants using the information in the wallet confirmed by a PIN number or a one-time password.

Source: Samsung Korea, Samsung Wallet Partners

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The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair is the “world’s largest high school research competition,” and is owned and administered by the Society for Science & the Public. It was founded in 1950 by Science Service (now the Society for Science & the Public) and has been sponsored by the Intel Corporation since 1997. Each May this event is organised and about 1,600 finalists are selected annually from hundreds of affiliated fairs in 70 countries, regions and territories. The participants compete for scholarships, tuition grants, internships, scientific field trips and the grand prize of winning one $75,000 or two $50,000 college scholarships.

This year, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair was conducted in Phoenix, Ariz. Eesha Khare, from Saratoga, California was one of the participants in this event. She invented a new black colored, over an inch long rectangular type supercapacitor that fits inside mobile phone batteries, and could allow the batteries to charge within 20 to 30 seconds. According to Khare, the device can last for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, compared with 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries.

Khare said, “I developed a new supercapacitor, which is basically an energy storage device which can hold a lot of energy in a small amount of volume.” She also said that the technology might also “speed up charging of automobile batteries.”

Khare’s invention was honored as one of two winners of Young Scientist Awards by Intel Foundation. She won $50,000 prize money. Khare said, “I’m in a daze. I can’t believe this happened.”

This major science award will help Khare fund her college education at Harvard University. The $50,000 prize money will be delivered to Khare when she heads to Harvard University in the fall.

Source: CNN

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The hardware, as well as the software, of the Jolla smartphone is fairly impressive. The design is very elegant and lends excellent looks to the handset. It falls somewhere near the looks borne by Nokia Lumia handsets, but is still very distinct and unique.

The handset features a 4.5-inch Estrade display together with a dual-core chip to power it up and 4GB of RAM. The internal memory is 16GB together with the option of having it extended through a microSD card slot. There’s also an 8MP rear camera.

The most notable feature of the handset is that the shell colors are customizable. And while this option is available in other handsets too, the unique thing about the Zolla smartphone is that as soon as you change the color of the shell, the corresponding software running on top of the smartphone also changes! Jolla hasn’t indicated how it makes this happen, but we suspect that NFC is at play here.

As for the pricing and details of the handset, the company reveals, “Expected availability by end of 2013 subject to demand in your local market. Sales will start in European countries with more countries to follow. If you join the Movement and get the pre-order number to buy the phone when available, you’ll pay no more than 399€; including applicable VAT in Europe, but excluding shipping costs, duties and any local taxes.” You can place your pre-order for the handset here.

Source: Jolla

Courtesy: TechCrunch

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The competition comes with a number of strict rules, which must be adhered to by the participating developers. For instance, all such developers who decide to participate in it must make use of Samsung’s Chord SDK, a special software interface which has been specifically developed for Samsung devices.

At the same time, all participating apps must be sold at ‘Samsung Apps.’ The company has stated that it will be judging the entries on the basis of their uniqueness, design and commercial value. For those of you who aim to be a part of this competition, you must send in your entries from June 20 to Aug 31.

The grand prize is $200,000, whereas three runner-ups will get $100,000 each. Finally, six developers who are lucky enough to be in the third position will each receive $50,000. Not only that, Samsung promises that the winning entries will be eligible for investments from the company’s venture department.

It remains to be seen how successfully this App Challenge spices up the interest of the developer community on Galaxy S4. The company’s aim, in bringing together this event, is to essentially crowdsource great apps for the handset as well as divert the attention of the developers, at large, towards it.

Source: Samsung

Courtesy: TechHive

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Acrobotic’s project is very unique in that it doesn’t aim to politicize the issue of environmental pollution. Rather, it wants to make the issue more personal for citizens around the world. The company is offering a kit which is to be installed inside a user’s home and allows the user to monitor a whole range of environmental indicators.

According to the COO of Acrobotic, Francisco Zabala, “I believe that climate is changing for the worse, but our approach is more personal. By raising awareness we’re working toward a solution without banging on people’s heads.”

For instance, once the users installs the kit inside their home, they are able to monitor temperature, air composition, humidity, air density, sound levels and many other factors. The kit helps in educating users and keeping them aware of the environment they are breathing in.

The kit is made up of an Arduino computer which has been fitted with a range of sensors. Acrobotic hopes that once a huge number of users install the kit in their homes, the company will be able to discern the environmental data from around the globe and keep tabs on it in real-time. Such direct information can be a huge asset for those trying to curb environmental pollution.

If you wish to lay your hands on one of these kits, you can sign up for it at the widget provided below. For now, the kit is going to cost you $155, which isn’t too steep for something that lets you keep tabs on so many environmental indicators. The company aims to raise $500,000 in pledges before going forth with the mass-production of the kit.

Source: KickStarter

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Playing Dots all day long can be a problem, of course. It can have an impact on your eye sight, cause the muscles in your shoulders to stiffen and adversely impact your personal and professional life. So it must be treated as a game that is played only occasionally.

For casual gamers of Dots, a study suggests that they may actually benefit from playing it. There are many other similar games that have been around for a while now, for instance ‘Bejeweled.’ Scientists at East Carolina University discerned in a study that such players who indulged in Bejeweled and other similar games for 30-minute periods were able to register an 87 percent improvement in their cognitive response time.

At the same time, such gamers are also able to display an executive functioning which is 215 percent more than a control group. While these results are very encouraging, other studies suggest that when you play a game, the smartness that you acquire can be applied only to that game.

In other words, the cognitive skills that are developed as a result of playing a specific game are useful only for playing that game again – and to put them to use in other situations doesn’t seem to work out.

Courtesy: Salon

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Acquisition are a tricky thing. They often tend to make successful products wildly popular and yet, at some instances, they turn a very popular product into an entire failure. In the past, Yahoo has failed with several acquisition, which is the reason why many had been highly skeptic of Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr.

The acquisition has cost Yahoo $1.1 billion in cash, which is rather huge for a company not doing very good on profits. Despite the acquisition, David Karp will continue to be the CEO of Tumblr. According to Yahoo, “Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business. The product, service and brand will continue to be defined and developed separately with the same Tumblr irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators.”

One of the key reasons why many are critical of the acquisition is that Yahoo has a wide range of web portals. And the company tends to intermingle them, which is the reason why it has failed at many recent choices.

However, under the leadership of Marrisa Mayer, this is Yahoo’s biggest acquisition. And Mayer has promised that her company won’t screw it up. Let’s hope that turns out to be the case.

Courtesy: Forbes

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During his childhood, Philip was unable to speak and suffered terrible fits and seizures. Doctors found that half of the brain (right side) of Philip was damaged. The doctors considered the right side brain “incurable” and mentioned that the condition of Philip’s brain would turn “worse” with age. After hearing this, Philip’s mother Eva didn’t lose her heart, rather she started battling against medical opinion.

In 1989, Eva found a surgeon who said if the right side of Philip’s brain is removed, then Philip might start talking. But there was a negative impact too – Philip could die if the operation is not successful. However, Philip’s mother took the risk with her 9-year old son. The surgeon removed the right side of Philip’s brain. Philip, who had never uttered a word before the surgery, started to speak in sentences after the operation. Undoubtedly, this was a great victory. But right now, Eva is facing a new challenge for his half brained son, which is even bigger than the earlier.

Philip is suffering from a rare illness called Sturge-Weber syndrome. Eva is fearing that her son’s eyesight could be damaged as the port wine stain is spreading. If proper treatment can’t be delivered in due time, Philip could go blind. At this moment, Philip needs special laser treatment to control the growth. Eva has already spent £150,000 on medical care for her son, but now she can’t afford further expenses for her son’s treatment. Though she had sent NHS “photographs; all the evidence; reports about how important the laser treatment” was, the NHS refused to pay for the treatment “as there was insufficient evidence of clinical exceptionality.” Rather, NHS informed EVA “nothing could be done” and advised her “to forget it.”

But Eva has not stopped. She is still trying to provide her miracle half-brain son special laser treatment through alternative funding source. Do you have the heart to stand beside Eva and Philip?

Source: Telegraph

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A team of British and Canadian scientists had been investigating water samples from other mines. Greg Holland, a geochemist at Lancaster University in England, and his colleagues saw some fluid had been coming from a mine in Timmins, Ontario. They became interested to know for just how long that fluid had been trapped in the rock. So, they approached some miners and asked them to drill boreholes. As soon as the gold miners did, water started to come from those holes and scientists collected samples of water. The scientists looked at the decay of radioactive atoms in the collected water sample and calculated that the water was between 1.5 and 2.67 billion-year old.

According to Holland, about 2.7 billion years ago, Timmins looked a bit different. Beneath prehistoric seas, tectonic plates had spread, and magma had welled up to form new rock. As the rock had matured under heat and pressure, water was trapped inside tiny cracks. He said, “the fluids that we see now are actually preservation of ancient oceans. There’s a lot of hydrogen in these samples.” He also mentioned that it was the hydrogen that “could provide the energy for life to survive in isolation for 2 billion years.” He also added that the collected sample water from those rock was the oldest cache of water ever found on Earth and the water was sealed in the rock before humans evolved, before Pterosaurs flew and before multicellular life.

Now the scientists are testing the water samples for evidence of microbes. They hope, within a year they would come up with results. The research has been published in Nature.

Source: NPR
Thanks To: National Geographic

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The Lenovo K900 is packed with Google’s Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, powered by a 2GHz dual-core Atom Z2580 processor with Gorilla Glass 2 full HD 1080p 5.5-inch display. The phone body comes in a stainless steel frame with the unibody chassis providing a slim and sleek look. The K900 is just 6.9 millimeters thick and weighs 162 grams. Lenovo believes its new Intel-based smartphone is the perfect choice for high-end smartphone buyers.

In China, the Lenovo K900 is now retailing for RMB 3,299 (about $530). Currently, we do not have any information on international pricing.

Source: Ubergizmo

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The venture is essentially a collaboration between three entities, namely Google, NASA and Universe Space Research Association, a non-profit organization. The trio aims to explore the possibilities of machine learning with the help of the highly advanced D-Wave two quantum computer.

The only other D-Wave two quantum computer that has been sold by D-Wave was purchased by Lockheed Martin. This tells something about the costs of buying the machine. Nonetheless, the unique computing prowess that such a machine offers may be critically helpful in pushing the limits in fields such as language translation and related fields.

According to a blog post by Google, “We actually think quantum machine learning may provide the most creative problem-solving process under the known laws of physics.” The claim may be bold but is very encouraging.

Being a quantum computer, D-Wave two can speed up the computational speeds very significantly, since it relies on quantum bits for its calculations. Rather than following the gate-based logic model, quantum computer makes use of an adiabatic model, which helps the computer makes far more complicated calculations rapidly.

It remains to be seen how useful this quantum computer turns out to be in the field of machine learning. But if the likes of Google and NASA are able to steer it successfully for the stated ends, this could bring somewhat of a revolution in the arena of artificial intelligence.

Courtesy: Scientific American

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Normally, online retailers do away with the previous stock in anticipation of the arrival of a new model. Although MacBook Air is currently available with Best Buy, it is the only retailer that is still selling the machine.

Given these developments, many analysts have opined that we may finally see a new MacBook Air model, probably by next month. Rumors have it that Apple may decide to include Retina display in the new model for the 13.3-inch machine but so far, nothing credible has been cited to support these rumors.

What is known, nearly for sure, is that the new model will pack the next-generation Intel chip, Haswell, as well as better graphics. Intel had formerly announced that the chip line-up will arrive in June. It is possible that alongside the official debut, the chip also arrives under the hood of the new MacBook Air.

Courtesy: CNET

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The incident took place at Las Vegas on Thursday. Marcos Vincente Arenas was on his way when an SUV pulled up near him and a man dashed out of it. The man tried to snatch away Arenas’ iPad but Arenas held on to his tablet and wouldn’t let go.

The thief started pulling the iPad, together with the clinging Arenas, towards the vehicle. However, Arenas was still near the passenger door when the SUV took off, with Arenas stumbling to the ground and being ran over by the car as the thieves fled.

Arenas was rushed to the hospital but he died before soon, having sustained serious injuries. Police is in the process of investigating the crime and in its initial reports, has stated that the SUV was a white Ford Explorer or Expedition.

Apple-picking, as the incidents involving theft of Apple gadgets are known, have become more frequent over the recent years. However, not many of these incidents have involved physical injury or harm. This makes the recent incident in Las Vegas a rather shocking one.

Courtesy: CNET

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Mixed content websites are such sites which usually display HTTPS content but also load some of their content from HTTP sources. So the latter content is not secure and leaves a user vulnerable to a whole range of security risks.

Usually, secure websites run insecure scripts from HTTP sources to offer greater functionality to the users. But this is being done at the cost of security. The new feature that Mozilla is offering in Firefox 23 Aurora will essentially provide the users with a choice to block or unblock mixed content.

Users can block mixed content on per-site basis or set the default settings so that mixed content across all websites is blocked. When need be, the users can then unblock such content on any given website.

The Aurora version is the pre-beta version for the mainstream desktop version of Firefox. So we can expect the changes to be included in the next, actual version of Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Moreover, the next version will also arrive with a number of new developer tools such as network monitor, Variables View etc. These tools will help the developer discern the browser’s functionality as well as the performance of different websites on the browser.

Courtesy: CNET

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