1. Amazon's Kindle Fire: First in a New Niche?
Amazon.com's Kindle Fire tablet will be arriving on consumers' doorsteps a day earlier than planned, the company announced Monday, and reviewers have wasted no time sharing their own early thoughts about the new device. Originally planned for shipment on Tuesday to those who preordered it, the 7-inch, Android-powered device began shipping on Monday instead. Amazon's boasted that demand has been high, which it attributed in part to the item's price -- it sells for $199. The lowest-price Apple iPad 2, by comparison, goes for $499.
2. Will a Spoonful of Mint Help the GNOME 3 Go Down?
If a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, as Mary Poppins once sagely said, will a splash of Mint help users swallow GNOME 3? That, indeed, appears to be the question of the day now that the Linux Mint project has announced a hybrid desktop strategy for Linux Mint 12 that's apparently designed to help ease users into the controversial new interface. The future of Linux Mint is GNOME 3," asserted Clement Lefebvre, Linux Mint founder and project leader, in a recent blog post.
3. Flood of Filth Turns Facebook News Feeds Into Open Sewers
Many Facebook users have complained recently about a spam flood of a most unsavory nature. Some say pornographic images and images depicting extreme violence -- sometimes both -- are showing up in their News Feeds without their consent. Others say their accounts are being used to send friends links to explicit videos and other messages. The attacks once again highlight the ongoing war between Facebook and hackers. "We have recently experienced an increase in reports and we are investigating and addressing the issue," Facebook spokesperson Gwendolyn Belomy told TechNewsWorld.
4. Google open sources Android Ice Cream Sandwich, throws in Honeycomb
Google has made the source code and software stack for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) available for download on the Android Open-Source Project git servers. This means companies and developers who are working on their own devices based on the new version of Android can officially get to work.
"This is actually the source code for version 4.0.1 of Android, which is the specific version that will ship on the Galaxy Nexus, the first Android 4.0 device," said Android Open-Source Project software engineer Jean-Baptiste Queru said on Monday. "In the source tree, you will find a device build target named 'full_maguro' that you can use to build a system image for Galaxy Nexus. Build configurations for other devices will come later."
This release also includes the full history of the Android source code tree, and therefore includes the source code for the Honeycomb tablet-only builds.
Honeycomb deviated from Google's culture of releasing an open source version of Android's code and stack, and then releasing the "with Google" version, and was never really released as a standalone open source image.
Queru said "Since Honeycomb was a little incomplete, we want everyone to focus on Ice Cream Sandwich. So, we haven't created any tags that correspond to the Honeycomb releases (even though the
changes are present in the history.)"
5. Battery Breakthrough Could Give Gadgets Longer-Lasting Juice Boxes
Researchers at Northwestern University say they've made significant progress in research that could lead to longer life for the rechargeable batteries found in electronic gadgets. A team of engineers working on a lithium-ion battery said that by taking a chemical engineering approach, they've made a power cell that not only lasts longer, but can also charge 10 times faster than normal batteries. The scientists looked into the way current batteries charge.
6. Google Dabbles in Dream Tech in Hush-Hush X Lab
Google scientists are laboring away on futuristic projects in a top-secret lab somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, The New York Times claims. This lab, which is apparently so hush-hush that few Googlers even knew it existed prior to the report, is allegedly called "Google X." More than 100 futuristic projects are said to be under way there. These include a space elevator project, experiments working to connect home appliances and dinner dishes to the Internet, robots that can go to work instead of their owners, and the development of driverless cars for the mass market.
7. Why You Should Set Up Your To-Do List in a Plain Text File (and How to Do It) [To-do Lists]
Your to-do list is the hub of your personal productivity, so it makes sense that we're attracted to to-do apps filled with bells, whistles, and tassels. Then you realize you're spending more time fiddling with your app than getting things done. If you're tired of clicking around internet-needy webapps or getting locked into a specific to-do list service, it's time to switch to something simpler. Here's why a simple text file will make your to-do lists fast, easy to manage, and seamlessly integrate with everything else you use.
Amazon.com's Kindle Fire tablet will be arriving on consumers' doorsteps a day earlier than planned, the company announced Monday, and reviewers have wasted no time sharing their own early thoughts about the new device. Originally planned for shipment on Tuesday to those who preordered it, the 7-inch, Android-powered device began shipping on Monday instead. Amazon's boasted that demand has been high, which it attributed in part to the item's price -- it sells for $199. The lowest-price Apple iPad 2, by comparison, goes for $499.
2. Will a Spoonful of Mint Help the GNOME 3 Go Down?
If a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, as Mary Poppins once sagely said, will a splash of Mint help users swallow GNOME 3? That, indeed, appears to be the question of the day now that the Linux Mint project has announced a hybrid desktop strategy for Linux Mint 12 that's apparently designed to help ease users into the controversial new interface. The future of Linux Mint is GNOME 3," asserted Clement Lefebvre, Linux Mint founder and project leader, in a recent blog post.
3. Flood of Filth Turns Facebook News Feeds Into Open Sewers
Many Facebook users have complained recently about a spam flood of a most unsavory nature. Some say pornographic images and images depicting extreme violence -- sometimes both -- are showing up in their News Feeds without their consent. Others say their accounts are being used to send friends links to explicit videos and other messages. The attacks once again highlight the ongoing war between Facebook and hackers. "We have recently experienced an increase in reports and we are investigating and addressing the issue," Facebook spokesperson Gwendolyn Belomy told TechNewsWorld.
4. Google open sources Android Ice Cream Sandwich, throws in Honeycomb
Google has made the source code and software stack for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) available for download on the Android Open-Source Project git servers. This means companies and developers who are working on their own devices based on the new version of Android can officially get to work.
"This is actually the source code for version 4.0.1 of Android, which is the specific version that will ship on the Galaxy Nexus, the first Android 4.0 device," said Android Open-Source Project software engineer Jean-Baptiste Queru said on Monday. "In the source tree, you will find a device build target named 'full_maguro' that you can use to build a system image for Galaxy Nexus. Build configurations for other devices will come later."
This release also includes the full history of the Android source code tree, and therefore includes the source code for the Honeycomb tablet-only builds.
Honeycomb deviated from Google's culture of releasing an open source version of Android's code and stack, and then releasing the "with Google" version, and was never really released as a standalone open source image.
Queru said "Since Honeycomb was a little incomplete, we want everyone to focus on Ice Cream Sandwich. So, we haven't created any tags that correspond to the Honeycomb releases (even though the
changes are present in the history.)"
5. Battery Breakthrough Could Give Gadgets Longer-Lasting Juice Boxes
Researchers at Northwestern University say they've made significant progress in research that could lead to longer life for the rechargeable batteries found in electronic gadgets. A team of engineers working on a lithium-ion battery said that by taking a chemical engineering approach, they've made a power cell that not only lasts longer, but can also charge 10 times faster than normal batteries. The scientists looked into the way current batteries charge.
6. Google Dabbles in Dream Tech in Hush-Hush X Lab
Google scientists are laboring away on futuristic projects in a top-secret lab somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, The New York Times claims. This lab, which is apparently so hush-hush that few Googlers even knew it existed prior to the report, is allegedly called "Google X." More than 100 futuristic projects are said to be under way there. These include a space elevator project, experiments working to connect home appliances and dinner dishes to the Internet, robots that can go to work instead of their owners, and the development of driverless cars for the mass market.
7. Why You Should Set Up Your To-Do List in a Plain Text File (and How to Do It) [To-do Lists]
Your to-do list is the hub of your personal productivity, so it makes sense that we're attracted to to-do apps filled with bells, whistles, and tassels. Then you realize you're spending more time fiddling with your app than getting things done. If you're tired of clicking around internet-needy webapps or getting locked into a specific to-do list service, it's time to switch to something simpler. Here's why a simple text file will make your to-do lists fast, easy to manage, and seamlessly integrate with everything else you use.
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