Monthly Archives: February 2012
Russian Mogul Plans to Plant Our Brains in Robots and Keep Them Alive Forever [Video]
The Pentagon's new Avatar project, unveiled by Danger Room a few weeks back, sounds freaky enough: Soldiers practically inhabiting the bodies of robots, who'd act as "surrogates" for their human overlo...
Business Data Reporting In 5-10 Minutes, Not Days. Facebook Rolls Out Real-Time Insights
Facebook has just confirmed my scoop from last week, announcing its business performance metrics tool Page Insights will start reporting data with a latency of 5-10 minutes, not two or more days. It will open new tactics for marketers such as amplifying a well-performing post's reach with ads, or deleting one receiving negative feedback before it can trigger Unlikes or a PR crisis.
Insights Product Manager David Baser tells me real-time Insights will roll out globally over the next two weeks, and I think the way it ties to Sponsored Stories ads could boost Facebook's revenues. Impressions, clicks, negative feedback instantly. Data wizards rejoice!
Redirect the Sun’s Rays With This Solar-Powered Self-Controlled Mirror [Solar]
Instead of an electricity generating solar panel, a motorized sun-bouncing mirror known as a heliostat is another approach to solar-powered lighting. And for just $400 the SunFlower will redirect up to ...
Redirect the Sun’s Rays With This Solar-Powered Self-Controlled Mirror [Solar]
Instead of an electricity generating solar panel, a motorized sun-bouncing mirror known as a heliostat is another approach to solar-powered lighting. And for just $400 the SunFlower will redirect up to ...
It’s A Mighty Hard Road To App Store Success
A bit of news that squeaked out during the Win8 festivities was the launch of the Microsoft app store. In the version of the software I was using, the app has always been there but it wasn't available until today. To be clear, the app store here is still in its absolute infancy and is, at best, a hall of demos for various app providers.
The real test of Windows 8 will be the adoption of the OS's new design paradigms. While everyone will eventually have to fix their apps to reflect Win8's major architecture changes, there is going to be a lot of hand-holding until the Win9 (potentially) destroys all vestigial Windows cruft. For example, Windows 8 still uses a legacy version of the registry inside Windows 8, a necessary evil required by many applications. Many apps won't be able to update to Win8 UI standards and many more apps won't trickle over to the Microsoft app store. It's this disconnect that will challenge Windows 8 in the first few years of life.
Prehistoric Fleas Would Probably Eat Your Dog If They Still Existed [Insects]
Their descendants are happy to just suck blood and pass along parasites to small mammals, but the hugeprehistoric fleas from 165 million years ago were equipped with saw-like projections around their mo...
Prehistoric Fleas Would Probably Eat Your Dog If They Still Existed [Insects]
Their descendants are happy to just suck blood and pass along parasites to small mammals, but the hugeprehistoric fleas from 165 million years ago were equipped with saw-like projections around their mo...
$35 Raspberry Pi Linux PC pre-orders sell out in less than a day
As promised, the $35 Raspberry Pi Linux computer was made available for pre-order on Wednesday. The single-board computer is equipped with a 700MHz processor, 256MB of RAM, SD card support, two USB ports, an Ethernet hookup and both HDMI and RCA outputs. Despite the low cost and small size — which is roughly equal to a credit card — the Raspberry Pi computer is powerful enough to run games such as Quake III Arena and power 1080p video. Additionally, the cheaper Model A unit, which removes the Ethernet hookup and a USB port, received an increase from 128MB to 256MB of RAM and will be on sale later this year. “Raspberry Pi provides a revolutionary low cost platform, which opens up programming to a whole new audience,”
Foursquare Is Doing Big Things, So Existing Investor Spark Capital Buys $50M Of Employee Stock
Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley spent this afternoon in Barcelona, explaining his location company's potential to Mobile World Conference attendees. Someone else didn't need to hear the presentation, though. Existing investor Spark Capital is buying $50 million worth of its stock, according to sources, in a deal to provide at least some employees with liquidity.
The result is a valuation north of of the already-impressive $600 million from its last round, I've heard. This is even though the company continues to focus on product development instead of trying to maximize revenue.
Your Average Facebook Post Only Reaches 16% Of Your Friends
You're not unpopular, it's just the nature of the news feed. Amongst all the business-related news at FMC, Facebook revealed that the average news feed story from a user profile reaches just 16% of their friends. Your actively shared links, photos, and status updates probably reach much higher than 16% of your friends, while more inane auto-generated posts about new friendships, wall posts, and articles you read may only be seen by your closest buddies.
Overall, this is actually a good thing, because the reduced visibility of irrelevant content makes room for what you want to see. But don't be alarmed if your all your friends don't like that awesome concert photo, they may just be offline.
