Tecnologia

Apple Multi-Touch Appears Ready To Tickle The Desktop

Snissastnew — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:40 +0000

In front of me right now there’s an enormous 27-inch screen with another 24-inch screen connected to it for use as a second monitor. This massive amount of screen real estate is nice for everything from blogging to watching streaming movies. And yet, I find myself using this set up less and less and instead favor my 15-inch laptop. Why? Simply because I prefer using a multi-touch trackpad to navigate my computer. It looks like I’m about to get the same experience on my desktop now. The FCC has just approved a new bluetooth device made by Apple. The model number Engadget found seems to prove this will be a new trackpad device meant to be used with desktop computers. It seems fairly likely that this thing will either be called the Magic Trackpad , the Magic Slate , or the Magic Pad based on trademark filings. Given Apple’s history with FCC approvals, we could see this device unleashed as soon as tomorrow. So what exactly is it? If the leaked images from June are legitimate (and they certainly seem to be), it would seem that this device is simply a MacBook trackpad made into a stand-alone device so it can be used with desktop computers. The design is really a cross between a trackpad and one of Apple’s new style keyboards. The circular bottom will be where the batteries are held, and it will boost the thing up at a comfortable angle to use on a desktop. The entire surface should be clickable, just like a MacBook trackpad. Okay, so it’s a trackpad for your desktop — big deal, you might think. But it could be a pretty big deal. While Apple’s Magic Mouse brought some elements of multi-touch to the desktop, it’s still pretty limited. The two-finger swipe to go back and forth on webpages is great, but there’s nothing like pinch-to-zoom or the two-finger rotation that you find on Apple’s other multi-touch products (well, unless you use this awesome third-party software ). The Magic Mouse simply has too small of a surface area for more advanced multi-touch. Plus, it’s still a mouse, the decades-old input device. Apple’s stance on the future of computing is becoming more clear every day. The iPhone set the standard for multi-touch on a mobile device. Apple then included elements in its MacBook trackpads. And now we have the iPad . For many users, myself included, touch (and multi-touch to be more specific) is now a preferable input method of computing. I don’t want to use a mouse. I want to use a touch surface. That’s what this Magic Trackpad is. It’s the first real step to bring multi-touch to the Apple desktop experience as all computing moves towards touch. [images: Engadget ] CrunchBase Information Apple Information provided by CrunchBase

IBM Q2 Net Income Up 9 Percent To $3.4 Billion

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:36 +0000

IBM reported steady second quarter earnings today, with net income rising 9 percent compared to the second quarter of 2009, to $3.4 billion. Big Blue’s diluted earnings increased 13 percent to $2.61 per share compared with diluted earnings of $2.32 per share in the second quarter of 2009, beating the street estimate of $2.58 per share. Total revenues for quarter came in at $23.7 billion, a 2 percent increase from the second quarter of 2009, but falling below analyst expectations of $24.2 billion The impact of changes in currency rates since IBM’s first-quarter earnings report in April reduced revenue by approximately $500 million in the second quarter. Revenues from the Software segment were $5.3 billion, an increase of 2 percent. Revenues from IBM’s middleware products, which include WebSphere, Information Management, Tivoli, Lotus and Rational, were $3.3 billion, an increase of 9 percent versus the second quarter of 2009. Operating systems revenues of $544 million increased 3 percent compared with the prior-year quarter. Revenues from Big Blue’s Business Analytics operations increased 14 percent, with revenues from the Systems and Technology segment totaling $4.0 billion for the quarter, up 3 percent. IBM ended the quarter with $12.2 billion of cash on hand. IBM f inished Q1 of 2010 with $14 billion, but the company may have spent some of its cash over the past few months with its shopping spree. This year alone, Big Blue has acquired Big Fix, Coremetrics, Sterling Commerce, Cast Iron Systems, Initiate and Intelliden. CrunchBase Information IBM Information provided by CrunchBase

Kindle Books Outselling Hardcover Books. “Tipping Point” Reached, Amazon Says

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:33 +0000

Amazon’s Kindle eReader has long been a great device. Unfortunately, for much of its life, it has been far too expensive. And now with Apple’s iPad out there, it seems a bit too, well, monochrome. But Amazon did a smart thing recently, they slashed the price of the device, down to $189 . As a result, growth is accelerating once again, Amazon says. In fact, in each month this quarter, the Kindle saw an upswing in sales. “ We’ve reached a tipping point with the new price of Kindle—the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189 ,” Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says. Perhaps even more interesting is that books sold on the Kindle are now outpacing the hardcover books Amazon sells. In the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books sold, Amazon.com has sold 143 Kindle books, they say. And that gap is getting wider. In the past month, for every 100 hardcover books sold, there have been 180 Kindle books sold through Amazon. This is across Amazon’s entire U.S. book business and even includes hardcovers that have no Kindle version. Plus, free Kindle books are not included, or the numbers would be even higher. Amazon also says that it sold three times as many Kindle books in the first half of 2010 as it did in the first half of 2009. The store now has over 630,000 books available for the Kindle. And over 510,000 of those are $9.99 or less — one clear advantage over Apple’s iBookstore, which is more expensive. Plus, Amazon has access to over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books for the device. Also interesting is that there have been five authors now that have sold over 500,000 Kindle version of their books: Charlaine Harris, Stieg Larsson, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, and Nora Roberts. Earlier this month, Amazon also announced that an updated version its larger DX model with a better screen and a black frame . All that said, Amazon is going to have a tough battle competing in hardware with the likes of Apple going forward. The Kindle, while great for reading, still offers only a fraction of what the iPad can do (and even Amazon highlights this ). And I suspect another Kindle price cut down to $99 may be coming sometime in the next year. If Apple stays at $499 for the iPad, that should be enough to differentiate itself for a while. Amazon is also smart to offer its Kindle software on devices like the iPad, iPhone, and Android phones. This ensure that Amazon’s future in the book business will remain intact whether or not they’re the ones in charge of the hardware. Also, why is Amazon issuing press releases about these numbers? They’ve famously shied away from saying much about the Kindle sales in the past. Of course, they weren’t the subject of a weekly “iPad is killing Kindle” story in the past. CrunchBase Information Amazon Kindle iPad Amazon Information provided by CrunchBase

Real Time Search Engine OneRiot Taps Into The Google Buzz Firehose

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:30 +0000

Real time search engine OneRiot is now tapping into Google Buzz. So now, content shared on Buzz will now be indexed in realtime search results available through OneRiot’s API and the the third party developers who build apps on top of the search engine’s API. Realtime search results will now be incorporating what is being shared most by Buzz users. This also means that the 150 partners that use OneRiot’s search API will also now see content shared by Buzz users. And OneRiot will be incorporating Google Buzz into its Trending Topics Engine, which finds hot topics by analyzing the realtime conversations across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Digg. OneRiot says that the integration of Buzz with its realtime products was fairly easy because Google is using the Activity Streams standard, which is the same standard used by MySpace, another OneRiot partner. The search startup has also ventured into the advertising world with RiotWise, an ad format which places content in an emphasized position in their realtime feed. The search engine also launched a pilot program of RiotWise Trending Ads, a stream of ads that correspond to trending topics as they emerge across the social web, that has since been integrated into the search engine’s API. And the startup recently launched self-refreshing realtime trending ads and a self-service version of RiotWise. Today, OneRiot says that its “RiotWise” ad network now serves close to one billion impressions per month. Google has also opened up the Buzz firehose to realtime search engine Collecta, Gnip, and a few others. CrunchBase Information OneRiot Google Buzz Information provided by CrunchBase

QinetiQ’s Solar-Powered Zephyr Attempting To Stay Aloft For 14 Days

shoommany — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:27 +0000

It’s summer here in the Northern hemisphere, and that means the solar-based industry in the US is in top experimental gear. A few more months and they’ll hibernating or relocating to their Australian headquarters, but in the meantime, we’re getting a lot of solar-related news. It wasn’t long ago that the Solar Impulse proved it could stay in the air for 24 hours (26, in fact), and now we’re hearing that Qinetiq’s much-smaller craft, the Zephyr, will be going for a world-record 14 days. Of course, it already holds the world record, since it’s been in the air a good week or so already. It’s kind of like when you set the high score but the points are still rolling in. Unlike the Solar Impulse, the Zephyr is intended to be a long-flight, low-payload craft, meaning you won’t be strapping yourself into one any time soon. At 50kg/110lb gross weight, the Zephyr is about as light as a functioning solar craft of that size can be; its construction is carbon fiber and the paper-thin solar cells are connected to a handful of Li-S batteries. Continue reading…

Blekko Screencast And Founder Interview

shoommany — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:24 +0000

We just posted our first thoughts on Blekko , a new search engine preparing to launch to the public. We’ve also taken a screencast of the search experience on the site and have a short video interview with cofounders Rich Skrenta and Mike Markson . Blekko Screencast: Founder Interview: CrunchBase Information Blekko Information provided by CrunchBase

PhpVirtualBox Manages Your Virtual Machines Remotely [Downloads]

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:14 +0000

Open-source, web-based administration panel phpVirtualBox helps you more easily manage your VirtualBox virtual machines—starting, stopping, and performing almost any task through any web browser. More

Workoutz Catalogs Workout Videos for Easy At-Home Training [Exercise]

shoommany — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:12 +0000

Whether you’re looking for yoga videos to follow along with or new ideas for weight training routines, Workoutz catalogs dozens of videos you can follow along with at home or throw on your iPod to take with you. More

The Real Damage Calculates the True Cost of a New Purchase on Your Credit Card [Personal Finance]

Snissastnew — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:09 +0000

Webapp The Real Damage calculates the true price of adding another purchase to a credit card that’s already carrying a balance. More

Remains of the Day: Kindle Books Outselling Hardcovers [Remains Of The Day]

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:13:07 +0000

Canadians get some national love from two great online services, in-flight Wi-Fi and Kindle books are steadily growing in popularity, iPhones’ unflattering network history is explained, and Google says goodbye to its first self-ordered smartphone. More