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Monday, 6 May 2013
EDSAC, the first 'practical' civilian computer, turns 64
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Vídeo: Diez trucos para principiantes para ahorrar tiempo con la tecnología
David Pogue es un tipo tan majo como parece en el vídeo; tuve la suerte de conocerle en los 90 en la época de Macworld (él escribía una columna en la edición americana). Desde entonces se ha dedicado a divulgar y escribir libros y artículos en la sección de tecnología del New York Times y colabora en la CBS entre otros sitios.
En este vídeo escenifica en cinco minutos un artículo que podría ser típico: 10 trucos para ahorrar tiempo con la tecnología, principalmente ordenadores y teléfonos móviles. Cuando lo vi pasar me dije: Mmm… ¿Más de lo mismo? Pero resulta que estoy seguro de que todo el que lo vea aprenderá algún truco: para mi por ejemplo tres o cuatro detalles eran completos desconocidos.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ordenadores/video-diez-trucos-ahorrar-tiempo.html
GameStop confirms June 1 end to PlayStation 2 trade-ins, will continue selling used stock 'for several months'
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About.com's New CEO On How To Stay Relevant
Even with 84 million uniques each month, About.com tends to fly under the radar. But there is change afoot since IAC bought out About.com from the New York Times last year, most notably the appointment of Neil Vogel as CEO. We brought in Vogel, as well as Chief Strategy Officer Scott Kim (who also served as interim CEO for the past few months), to discuss how About might be changing in the foreseeable future.
Neil has only been at About for a little over a month, but he has big plans. It’s a three-pronged approach really, involving social, mobile, and user experience.
Where social is concerned, Vogel mentioned that About hasn’t ever given the vertical any “water or sunlight,” which means it’s a huge opportunity to leverage thousands of expert guides (content producers) and the massive flood of traffic coming to the site each month.
He also revealed that 25 percent of About’s mobile traffic comes via mobile, and “it’s not cannibalistic traffic either, it’s a clear growth over the desktop traffic we’re seeing.” Confusing math aside, Kim explained that the mobile strategy doesn’t involve an app, since SEO is the primary driver of traffic to About.
“The goal with mobile is the same as desktop, which means that we need to have the best possible user experience so people will travel throughout the site,” said Kim.
I asked if SEO was enough for About, or if there are plans to bring users in more directly.
“SEO is a thing now. As the internet evolves, SEO will become less and less of a thing as Google and Bing are getting better and better at what they do,” said Vogel. “They want to give you the best content possible when you want to solve a problem, and we have great content.”
More important than how the consumer gets there, Vogel and Kim are concerned with keeping the user there. According to the dynamic duo, the plan isn’t a huge, monumental redesign.
“It’ll be 1,000 small things we do,” said Vogel. “If you look at what we’re doing 12 months from now next to where we are today, it will look like we did something drastic, but we didn’t. We’re going to do it one new thing at a time.”
After considering one of About’s greatest challenges, this plan actually seems much more logical. See, About is one of the top medical sites on the web, and it’s also one of the top food sites on the web. Vogel explained that it’s hard to get inspiration from competitors when you compete in so many verticals.
“The good news is there are a lot of ideas,” he said. “And the bad news is there are a lot of ideas.”
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/FEuIP5n4WuA/
Amazon drops 7-inch Kindle Fire HD's price to $179 for Mother's Day
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Adobe announces Projects Mighty and Napoleon: Creative Cloud-connected hardware for tablet-based creations
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Inside the third-annual White House Science Fair
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Government Lab Reveals Quantum Internet Operated for 2 Years
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Adobe Goes All-In on Subscription Pricing Model
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Twitter #Music lead Kevin Thau joins Biz Stone's mysterious Jelly project
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Intel Silvermont: next-gen mobile CPU's three times as fast and more energy efficient
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En este vídeo se utilizan 2000 gotas de agua como lentes
El vídeo Entropy de Physalia Studio se compone de 2000 fotografías que registran a cámara lenta la caída de 2000 gotas de gota de agua que actúan como una lente dentro de las cuales se puede ver nítidamente la animación que se proyecta desde una pantalla situada detrás.
El cómo se hizo lo explican con todo detalle, en español, en el blog de Physalia: Entropy – Versión larga (sí, también hay una explicación en versión corta),
Para poder fotografiar cada gota en el lugar exacto y llegar a ver una caída fluida, creamos un sistema basado en Arduino en el que, tras cruzar cada gota el haz de luz de un puntero láser, supiésemos con precisión el momento en el que disparar los flashes para captarla en el momento deseado. Trabajamos muy duro para sincronizar este mecanismo con nuestra Motion Control, y el resultado final es fruto de tres semanas de pruebas en las que rodamos 45 caídas con más de 20000 fotos tomadas, todo antes de llegar al resultado final.
Simplemente impresionante.
Vía PetaPixel.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/arte-y-diseno/este-video-utilizan-2000-gotas-de-agua-como-lentes.html
Samsung Galaxy S 4 with Exynos Octa-core: what's different?
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Adobe rebrands Creative Suite to focus on Creative Cloud, outlines new features for Photoshop
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IRL: Dell's U2713H monitor and the X-Arcade Dual Joystick
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RP-VITA bringing its telepresence to seven North American hospitals
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The Sims 4 brings another dose of human experimentation to PC and Mac in 2014
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Updated Gmail for iOS links directly to Chrome, Google Maps and YouTube apps
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Hulu Plus comes to Windows Phone today
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A la espera de la inminente caída de la novena gota del experimento de la gota de brea
John Mainstone, el cuidador actual del experimento, se perdió la caída de la gota de 2000, y con 78 años de edad no querría perdérselo esta vez
El profesor Thomas Parnell inició en 1927 un experimento científico que todavía está en curso casi 90 años después, el experimento de la gota de brea.
Su objetivo es demostrar que la brea, aunque nos parezca un sólido, es en realidad un líquido extremadamente viscoso.
Para ello aquel año calentó un poco de brea y la colocó en un embudo cuya base cortó tres años después, en 1930, cuando la brea había vuelto a endurecerse.
Y desde entonces se han venido contando y anotando las veces que ha caído una gota de brea del embudo, que han sido ocho hasta el momento:
- Diciembre de 1938.
- Febrero de 1947.
- Abril de 1954.
- Mayo de 1962.
- Agosto de 1970.
- Abril de 1979.
- Julio de 1988.
- 28 de noviembre de 2000.
Esto ha permitido calcular que la brea es unos 230.000 millones de veces más viscosa que el agua, pero hasta hoy nadie ha visto caer ninguna de las gotas en cuestión, tan siquiera en 2000, cuando se había montado un sistema para grabarlo, pero este falló.
Ahora vuelve a haber un cierto nerviosismo en torno a este experimento porque creen que la novena gota está a punto de caer, solo que como el embudo del experimento no se mantiene en un ambiente controlado nadie sabe realmente cuando caerá.
Pero estos días hay un cierto nerviosismo en torno a este experimento –si es que esto se puede decir de un experimento que lleva todo este tiempo en marcha– porque tal y como se puede leer (más o menos) en Suspenso en el experimento más antiguo del mundo la novena gota está a punto de caer.
Time-lapse del experimento entre el 28 de abril de 2012 y el 10 de abril de 2013
Es de esperar que esta vez, aunque nadie lo vea en directo, funcione al menos una de las tres webcams dispuestas para grabarlo.
El experimento se puede seguir en directo en The Pitch Drop Experiment.
(Vía @pampanilla).
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/inminente-caida-novena-gota-experimento-gota-de-brea.html
ProPublica Tool Lets Journalists Search Instagram by Location and Date
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BlackBerry R10, Successor to the Curve, Leaks Online
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Telstra says Windows Phone 8 GDR2 update should reach testing in mid-May
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Fitbit Flex activity tracking wristband now shipping for $100
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Fitbit Flex review
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Tapestry, The App To Help Seniors Stay Connected, Raises Further $400k To Bring Its Wares To iOS Ahead Of U.S. Launch
Australian startup Tapestry, which makes an app for Android tablets to help seniors stay connected to family members, has raised $400,000 in new funding in the form of a grant from Commercialisation Australia — capital it will use to extend its wares to iOS (and beyond tablets), add additional community features, and gear up for a U.S. launch.
It follows $600,000 raised raised last November from Sydney Angels, with a list of investors that included David Greatorex (founding investor ResMed, SecureNet), Su-Ming Wong (CHAMP Private Equity), Brand Hoff (Tower Software, Director NICTA).
Targeting the ageing population and their family members, Tapestry’s service — currently an Android tablet app — is an attempt to simplify the social web and make it more accessible to less tech-savvy seniors in order to help them stay connected to family. It does this through a user interface that relies on two different account types — one for “sharing”, aimed at the more tech-savvy family members, and another, dubbed “simplicity”, for the senior(s) in the family who wish to mostly consume content and require the tailored Tapestry experience.
In addition to an Android app, the startup was offering its own (optional) hardware — a rebadged Toshiba tablet — though this appears to have been quietly dropped, a sensible move as Android hardware is fast becoming a commodity business.
Instead, the product roadmap looks to be in its software and service only, with expansion to the iPad and iOS in general, along with Android smartphones not just tablets. Tapestry also says it plans to extend its proposition beyond helping families stay connected, to include community-based features, which founder Andrew Dowling describes as “retirement and other group-based group packages”.
Meanwhile, further growth is also said to come from a planned U.S. launch, which the startup has been putting in place via a recent trip to the Valley to meet potential investors, partners and customers, backed by the Australian Federal Government-funded Advance Innovation Program.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/dzxSOUlmTzI/
Aereo Asks Court To Block CBS From Suing In New Districts Ahead Of Boston Launch
Today marks the latest step in Aereo’s massive legal battle with major broadcast networks like Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC, with the live TV streaming/DVR service filing a declaratory judgement action against CBS, in particular. The company is asking that the court prevent CBS from suing Aereo in every district to which it expands, as CBS has twice threatened to sue Aereo in Boston, where it will launch on May 15.
But let’s start from the beginning.
After losing a preliminary injunction in the Second Circuit of New York, the major broadcast networks have been eyeing other routes to shut down the fledgling TV startup, which rents out mini-antennas to its users to watch live or recorded television from thirty OTA broadcast channels on any device.
It’s shaking up the way we think about TV, and the broadcast networks aren’t pleased.
The major court battle is still underway after the favorable ruling for Aereo with the preliminary injunction, and meanwhile Aereo continues to expand. The service is headed to Boston on May 15, and this has prompted quite the reaction from CBS.
Les Moonves, CBS CEO, said on stage last week that CBS would consider going to cable if it couldn’t shut down Aereo in the courtroom. He also threatened to continue going after them in the courts. This follows a similar threat from Fox, wherein NewsCorp went so far as to send out a press release threatening to go to cable if it didn’t get its way in court.
Drama.
And before that, a PR representative for CBS tweeted this in response to Aereo’s expansion into Boston.
@RichBTIG We will sue, and stealing our signal will be found to be illegal in Boston, just as it will be everywhere else.—
Dana McClintock (@Dana_McClintock) April 23, 2013
Here’s what Aereo’s spokesperson, Virginia Lam, had to say about it:
In response to the CBS companies’ repeated threats to sue Aereo in every market that it enters, Aereo today filed a declaratory judgment action in New York naming CBS, its Boston affiliates and its wholly owned and operated companies located in Aereo’s initial expansion markets. In 2012, CBS and other broadcasters chose to file copyright lawsuits against Aereo in the federal courts in New York. Last year, the trial court denied CBS’s and the other broadcasters’ request for a preliminary injunction against Aereo; and, last month, the appeals court affirmed that decision. The fact that CBS did not prevail in their efforts to enjoin Aereo in their existing federal lawsuit does not entitle them to a do-over in another jurisdiction. We are hopeful that any such efforts to commence duplicative lawsuits to try to seek a different outcome will be rejected by the courts.
Developing…
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/66n1gxFBKsE/
First Small-Screen Windows 8 Tablet Leaked on Amazon
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Samsung Galaxy Core Gives Just a Taste of the S4
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JoyTunes Lands $1.5M, Releases New App To Help You Learn To Play Instruments Through Interactive Mobile Games
Founded in 2010, Israeli startup JoyTunes has been on a mission to become the Rosetta Stone of music — to help those looking to learn play an instrument do so by turning practice into a mobile game, activated by playing the instrument of their choice. The startup’s first app, a free iPad app called Piano Dust Buster, enables wannabe rockstars to learn and play songs at their own pace, using a piano to play the game through their iPad’s microphone or by using the app’s 3-D virtual keyboard. To date, users have played 25 million songs using the app, with one million songs being played each week.
Today, based on the success of Piano Dust Buster, JoyTunes announced that it has closed a $1.5 million round of Series A financing, led by Genesis Partners. Founder Collective, Kaedan Capital, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, angel investor Zohar Gilon, Head of Yahoo Creative Innovation Center Eran Shir and former Steinway CEO Dana Messina, among others, also contributed to the startup’s Series A raise. The new round follows the $500K in seed capital the startup raised early last year from a host of angel investors, bringing its total funding to $2 million.
In conjunction with its raise, JoyTunes is also announcing the release of its second piano app, Piano Mania, which builds on the startup’s first app, while offering a deeper practice experience for those who’ve moved beyond entry level. The app aims to help users learn to read sheet music notation and symbols, play melodies in both treble and bass clefs, work on songs while focusing either on the left hand, right hand or both, while saving work to show to their piano teacher.
Like its first app, Piano Mania allows users to collect skill points as they play, progressing through the ranks and leveling up. Users can purchase a subscription to access the app’s entire roster of songs and levels, or play around with the free offerings and pay-as-they go.
While there are a bevy of apps out there that aim to help novices learn to play instruments, like Magic Piano by Smule, for example, JoyTunes co-founder Yuval Kaminka believes that the App Store still fundamentally lacks experiences that help people learn to play their actual instrument while incorporating game dynamics as a serious part of learning, rather than simply as a feature or superficial layer. Sure, apps like WildChords, Jammit and gTar all offer addicting musical experiences, but many of today’s apps focus on guitar.
Piano, as many musicians know, is essential to learning the fundamentals of music and is an important foundation before moving on to other instruments. There are plenty of youngsters out there that want to learn how to play piano and other instruments — wind, or otherwise — that are often overlooked by mobile gaming companies.
So, going forward, JoyTunes will be looking to build out the social elements of its gaming experience to more effectively create a community of aspiring musicians, while bringing its core piano learning experience to other instruments. It’s already begun adding new features, like the ability to record and share songs with music teachers, and Kaminka says that users can expect the startup to beef up this functionality with future releases and carry that experience over to new instruments.
For more, find JoyTunes at home here.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/68RijYbi7o8/
Dos meses rompiendo hielo en la Antártida, resumidos en cinco minutos
Cassandra Brooks explica en este time-lapse de imágenes del rompehielos Nathaniel B. Palmer cómo es la vida y las vistas que se pueden disfrutar en uno de estos titanes del transporte en climas extremos, concretamente en el Mar de Ross en la Antártida. [Conviene verlo en HD].
En este barco de bandera norteamericana pueden ir unas 60 personas y tiene una autonomía de unos 75 días. Es relativamente pequeño (tiene menos de 100 metros de longitud) y su sistema de propulsión genera unos 12.700 caballos de vapor.
Atención especial a momentos impactantes como cuando se rompen las grandes placas de hielo (ej. 00:16), las tormentas de nieve o a esos auténticos mares de cristal que son todo un espectáculo de la naturaleza.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/fotografia/dos-meses-rompiendo-hielo.html
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