Infographic: Bill Gates is better than Batman
In what initially seems to be an odd comparison of two people, one of the richest and most philanthropic individuals to come out of the Silicon Valley boom is put through his Top Trumps-esque paces against the masked crusader of Gotham City. Read further down and it does start to make sense: the challenge of how two incredibly rich men save lives in their respective fiction/non-fictional worlds. Our favourite infographic of the moment, courtesy of Frugal Dad.
Intel-Powered Smartphone Performance ‘Better Than Any Other’
Tests carried out on the latest handsets powered by Intel chips has concluded performance exceeds the levels seen in current, at-market smartphones; including Apple’s iPhone 4S and Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy S2. The results come from a series of ‘benchmarking’ tests carried out by website Anandtech on Intel’s ‘Medfield’ reference platform.
Editorial: The Android design guide is not enough. Close the OS
So the Head of design at Android, Matias Duarte, officially unveiled the Android design guide via a live Q&A session on The Verge: a set of in-depth guidelines for app developers and OEMs alike to keep within sync of the design language of Android 4.0. Instantly, this is already a much better direction, with an aim of ecosystem defragmentation in mind; but then we began to think of what we thought to be the failings of Android phones we have owned in the past.
An Interview with Orangutan Outreach
The name “orangutan” literally translates into English as “man of the forest”. It comes from Malay and Bahasa Indonesian orang (man) and hutan (forest).
Hitting viral news recently, the Orangutan Outreach charity effort has asked Apple to add a dedicated "Apps for Apes" category to their app store. This followed remarkable results the zoo keepers saw when giving the primate an iPad, allowing enrichment through the likes of Skype, video and picture drawing apps. Regardless of what sort of response (if any) they will receive off the Cupertino based technology company, it shone a spotlight on their conservation efforts.
The Orangutan is a critically endangered species, and the goal of the outreach is to save these highly intelligent creatures. Public support is more important than ever to protect and care for them. We instantly became fascinated by the curiosity that the Orangutans showed to this technology, and had to find out more. We spoke to Richard Zimmerman, Executive Director of Orangutan Outreach.
Web connected robot gives your online notifications their own scent
Meet Olly: a small, rather minimalistically designed gadget which is, according to creator Mint Foundry, a 'web connected smelly robot.' What does this mean? If sight and sound are already stimulated by the very device with which you are reading this from, then imagine adding smell to this combination.
Your girlfriend/boyfriend messages you on Facebook or Twitter, for example. Instantly your nasal capacity is filled with the scent of their perfume, due to Olly emitting that individual scent as part of the notification.
Windows 7 comes to iPad thanks to OnLive App
We never thought we’d see the day, but Microsoft’s Windows 7 OS is now available to iPad owners after cloud gaming service OnLive has designed and readied an app for Apple’s market-leading tablet that allows you to use the PC giant’s first operating system partly designed for use with touch-screens. To accommodate the iPad’s touch controls even further, the user-interface has been tweaked to allow for pinch-to-zoom and flick-to-scroll controls.
Ericsson cuts the USB cord. Transfer data using your body
$10m Reward Proposed To Inventor of Star Trek-esque ‘Tricorder’
Aiming to “make 23rd Century science-fiction a 21st Century medical reality”, X Prize Foundation’s organizers have offered up a prize of $10 million (£6.5m) to anyone who can invent a Star Trek-alike medical ‘tricorder’ – influenced by the tool used by Spock and Bones in the popular sci-fi show. Launched at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the foundation’s competition page for the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize reads:
“Imagine a portable, wireless device in the palm of your hand that monitors and diagnoses your health conditions. That’s the technology envisioned by this competition, and it will allow unprecedented access to personal health metrics. The end result: Radical innovation in healthcare that will give individuals far greater choices in when, where, and how they receive care.”
Chaotic Moon's modestly named 'Board of Awesomeness'
Chaotic Moons Labs is showing a 30 mph motorized longboard controlled by the use of Kinect and a Samsung Windows 8 tablet at CES 2012. Being the chiefs of tact, this device has been given the name of the "Board of Awesomeness."
DIY Cardboard Robot takes its first steps
Ever thought of building a hexapodal robot out of cardboard, including servos and controllers for $85 (about £55)? This is a thought process that creator Mike Estee had, and we've got to admit, the DIY, homebrew look of it all (not intentional as it is actually homemade) is awesome.
Origin PC Over-Clocked To A Whopping 5.7Ghz With Help Of Sub-Zero Cooling System
There's precious little else that gets PC gamers all hot under the collar than discussing hardware specifications. In truth, there's nothing we despise more than gamers trying to out-geek the other - from noisy disputes that his AMD Phenom II 850 4 x 3.3 GHZ tops your Intel Core i7 2600K, or arguments kick-started by a debate over cooling systems – but then perhaps we don't care less.
Project Gemini archives the history of space exploration in photos
The Project Gemini Online Digital Archive was released recently by NASA, in conjunction with Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration.
What we have is a collection of high-resolution photos, which have been scanned from the original mission flight films, spanning ten missions between 1965 and '66. The one thing you can probably take note of while flicking through the photos is the beauty of it all.
Apple's Tim Cook: The Man who earned £464 per minute in 2011
Apple chief executive Tim Cook has earned a pay package worth a staggering $378m (£244m) in 2011. Taking home £1.8 million in salary and performance bonus during the year – quite the generous sum itself we'd agree – that figure is eclipsed by the value in shares he was granted by Apple's board upon taking over from the late Steve Jobs in August.
Panasonic announces MySpace TV app...why!?
Image courtesy of Engadget.
Remember that social network that you haven't used for years? Turns out Panasonic is making an app around social viewing and interconnectivity with the service, called Myspace TV, for it's Viera Smart TV offering.
Justin Timberlake, popstar and Myspace Co-owner joined Panasonic on stage to talk about the service. He spoke of being able to see what your Myspace friends are watching, and make comments through the device.
Nokia Lumia 900 announced
Nokia's Stephen Elop has taken the stage at the CES 2012 keynote and announced the third device in the Lumia portfolio: the Nokia Lumia 900.
Singing from a near identical hymn sheet to the Lumia 800 and the N9 in respects to product design, only bigger. The same polycarbonate design is back; but the 900 has some rather impressive specs for it's America-exclusive debut:
Samsung introduces AllShare Play. Control the washing machine with your smartphone
It seems that Samsung have developed a rather healthy ecosystem of what they call "smart" devices. With this, they've introduced the amalgamation of these different devices into one connected form: a rebranding of the original AllShare into what they've announced to be "AllShare Play" at their CES 2012 keynote.
Intel predict the future of Ultrabooks with concept
So Intel had their keynote today at CES 2012, which confirmed their further investment and specialised efforts into the Ultra portable form factor. They even went to far as to say 2012 is to be "the year of the Ultrabook," as they presented their concept of super-thin and powerful laptops, along with what they think the future holds in the form of a concept called 'Nikiski.'
Sharp's Jaw-Dropping 80-Inch 3D TV Due To Arrive Early This Year
CES 2012 will no doubt bring countless intriguing technology news stories to our shores; both from conceptual ideas of future designs, to ultra-thin laptops (Acer today unveiled the world's thinnest at just 15mm thick), to Microsoft showing off Windows 8-adorned tablets via staggeringly beautiful smartphones.
NASA unveils hub for open source projects
Continuing with the initiatives NASA has been making to generate an open plain of communication and discussion surrounding scientific research, they have announced code.NASA: a central portal to "continue, unify, and expand NASA’s open source activities."
After just turning Alpha, some of the features are not present yet; but as is there's still much to be done. You can access information and resources from other users looking to make it big via the NASA open source route.