iOS 5 Concept – advanced speech recognition
It’s no secret, and I’ve felt this way for almost two years, Voice Control sucks. It often takes so long for the program to get what you’re saying that’d you’d have been better off just calling someone, or accessing the iPod app the old fashioned way.
Recent news has been that Apple is in partnership with Nuance, a company specializing in speech recognition. What this could mean for the next iteration of iPhone software is that we see a dramatically improved Voice Control system. Read more...
What it’s like to work at Facebook
Facebook generates $2bn in revenue, is valued at $50bnand has a global ‘customer’ base of 600m people. It’s fair to say it’s a pretty big company.
And to service a company of this size, you need a lot of people – 2,000 in Facebook’s case. But what’s life in Facebook like for those that drive the business towards world domination? For a little perspective, here’s a quick peek at another digital behemoth.
Much has been written about Google as an employer over the years. Tales of giant slides, all-you-can-eat buffet canteens and even a giant replica T-Rex skeleton have often been told, as life in the Googleplex is portrayed as the ultimate working environment. Read more...
Sony Breach Shows Amazon Cloud’s Hacker Appeal
For three pennies an hour, hackers can rent Amazon’s servers to wage cyber attacks such as the one that crippled Sony Corp. (6758)’s PlayStation Network and led to the second-largest online data breach in U.S. history.
A hacker used Amazon’s Elastic Computer Cloud, or EC2, service to attack Sony’s online entertainment systems last month, a person with knowledge of the matter said May 13. The intruder, who used a bogus name to set up an account that’s now disabled, didn’t hack into Amazon’s servers, the person said.
The incident helps illustrate the dilemma facing Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos: Amazon’s cloud-computing service is as cheap and convenient for hackers Read more...
10 years after they broke up Microsoft
It was all over when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to reconsider the judgement of the Court of Appeals upholding Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's antitrust breakup of Microsoft. A shotgun divorce is an ugly thing in business.
Microsoft had to overcome some considerable obstacles in order to separate in the way ordered by the Court. Having the large majority of their staff at one campus outside Seattle was an immediate problem. It was quickly decided by the Court that splitting the buildings between the two companies was insufficient for a real separation, and so one of the "Baby Bills" would have to leave. Read more...
What was the first Apple Store like?
Ten years ago today, I stepped into the world of Apple retail. Company CEO Steve Jobs hosted a group of journalists to see the first Apple Store, which opened at Tysons Corner Center in McLean, Va., on May 19, 2001. It was a strange gathering if for no other reason than timing. Recession gripped the country, Apple had reported several consecutive quarterly losses and Gateway was in process of shuttering 40 stores (and would eventually close them all). Apple Store didn't fit. Read more...
Google Chromebook’s auto-update scheme will be hard sell
Consumers may love that Google's Chromebooks will automatically deliver security updates, but company administrators will resist it tooth and nail, experts said today.
The notebook PCs, which will initially come from Samsung and Acer, and go on sale next month, will feature Google's Chrome OS and run only online applications.
Google is pitching the new machines at consumers, businesses and schools, with the latter two groups able to buy them on a subscription basis, starting at $28 per business user and $20 per school and public sector user.
"It's software and hardware as a service," Sundar Pichai, Google's senior vice president for Chrome, said Wednesday as the company announced the Chromebooks. Read more...
HP advances next-gen ‘memristor’ memory technology
HP scientists have made a small breakthrough in the development of a next-generation memory technology called memristors, which some see as a potential replacement for today's widely used flash and DRAM technologies.
In a paper to be published Monday in the journal "Nanotechnology," scientists report that they have mapped out the basic chemistry and structure of what happens inside a memristor during its electrical operation.
Previously, although working memristors had been built in the labs, scientists didn't know exactly what was happening inside the tiny structures. So while HP was already confident it could commercialize the technology, this discovery will allow it to greatly improve its performance, said Stan Williams, a senior fellow at HP. Read more...
Hands on: Droid Charge is cool but costly
What makes Samsung's Droid Charge (which is finally shipping after a 16-day delay) a Droid?
At first, you might think that a Droid is an Android phone that's sold by Verizon Wireless. But not all Verizon Android phones are Droids, and Droids are made variously by Motorola, HTC and now Samsung. You could hazard a guess that Verizon reserves the Droid handle for its top-of-the market phones, but that's wrong, too: For one thing, the top of the market changes roughly every month.
First look: Google Music
One of the first services that Google unveiled at this week's Google I/O conference was its new cloud-based music player, Google Music. I've spend the last 12 hours using the beta of Google Music and for someone like me, with multiple PCs, a Mac, a Motorola Xoom and a Motorola Droid X, it's the Holy Grail of music players. Gone are the days of trying to copy and sync music from my main PC to everywhere else. Now, no matter where I am, as long as I've got Internet access, I've got access to my entire music collection.
If you're in the same situation as I am, find any way you can to wrangle an invitation to the beta. It's simple to install, simple to use and eliminates the hassles inherent in trying to manage a large music collection across multiple devices. Read more...
PSN still down in Japan; Server glitches slow PlayStation restoration in US
Almost 24 hours after Sony restored the PlayStation Network and Qriocity in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, there was no word on the restoration of the services in Japan and the rest of Asia.
It has been reported that Japanese regulatory watchdogs have not given the final go-ahead to Sony for the restoration of the services in the country on grounds of niggling doubts over network security.
Meanwhile, there have been reports that the PSN restoration in the U.S. and Europe was far from being a smooth affair, with occasional server glitches slowing down the process much to the disappointment of avid fans who skipped sleep to lay hands on favored games. Read more...
Computer ‘error’ voids all US green card lottery results
The US State Department apologized today for a computer glitch that has resulted in the invalidation of all 2012 green card visa lottery results — a massive blunder that affects tens of thousands of people. The names of this year’s Diversity Lottery winners were already posted to the State Department website. But now all of those results are now void due to the “computer programming problem.”
“We regret to inform you that, due to a computer programming problem, the results of the 2012 Diversity Lottery that were previously posted on this website have been voided,” said the State Department in a statement posted to its website. ”They were not valid and were posted in error. The results were not valid because they did not represent a fair, random selection of entrants, as required by U.S. law.” Read more...
Sony PSN Back Online for PS3, PSP; Plagued by Service Overloads
The servers for the PSN have now been overloaded after the service was finally online again today. It's being established region by region with North American being nearly fully in service as of yesterday. But when Sony takes a step ahead, they take another back as the service simply wasn't ready for this amount of usage. But at least the PSN is back up even if you have to wait a little longer.
After the PSN went back up earlier today, there has been rampant usage as online gaming is now enabled and everyone in creation is trying to get back on the server and modify their settings, play their games and what have you. It's been a month since the service was last seen and people were itching to play. Hopefully this doesn't blow up in Sony's face and the server will completely go down again. Hopefully though I wouldn't expect anything less from them. Read more...