Hasta La Gadget!

According to a new Gallup poll, four out of every 10 Americans agrees with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.”

That’s creationism. And for the record, these folks vote in the same elections as you and I.

As for the concept that humans have, in fact, evolved over millions of years, but with God’s guiding hand–that captures around 38% of responses.

And for those who throw their lot in purely with science and facts, an anemic (though rising) 16% of responders agreed with the statement “Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, [and] God had no part in this process.”

Personally, I find this poll disparaging, if not expected. But there are some reasons for hope. Of the three groups, the creationists are the largest. However, the gap between those who believe in a millennial-long process of godly evolution vs straight creation is the smallest in the poll’s near 30-year history (38% vs. 40% respectively). Also, those who believe in the wholly secular process of biodiversity reach their (comparatively) best showing in the poll’s history, and their numbers have been marching upwards over the past decade.

As you might expect, the percentage of those who accept evolution (in some form) rises with the amount of education (creationists makeup 22% of postgraduates, but 47% of those who only reached high school or less), while it is inversely related with church attendance (of those who attend church weekly, 60% are creationists, but they only make 24% of those who attend church seldom/never).

As for party affiliation, a majority of Republicans (52%) are fine with the not true idea that humans have only been around for 10,000 years. However, the largest percentage of people who believe in a science-driven understanding of our species actually identify as Independents (21%, a full percentage point over those who identify as Democrats).

What a country!  

It seems like someone is gunning to be the basis of Aaron Sorkin’s next major motion picture. The whole Mark Hurd/HP debacle just keeps getting weirder. In the latest bit of news out of the whole melodramatic proceedings, the Securities and Exchange Committee has opened an investigation into former CEO Hurd’s impromptu August exit from Hewlett Packard.

Neither the SEC nor HP is letting on precisely what the investigation is about, but the company said that it “is cooperating fully with the S.E.C. on its investigation.” Hurd’s spokesman added, “Mark acted properly in all respects. It is understandable that the S.E.C. is looking into the events surrounding Mark’s departure, which was followed by a precipitous drop in the value of HP’s stock.” The company’s stock price took a 10 percent drop on Hurd’s exit.

According to a Wall Street Journal report earlier in the week, the SEC is looking into the expense reports that were said to be hiring. Hurd was also reported to have destroyed information on a shared computer around the time of his firing. A sexual harassment suit also came to light around the time of Hurd’s firing, filed by actress Jodie Fisher.

A number of suits from all sides followed Hurd’s exit. The executive was given a nice severance package and promptly snapped up by Oracle’s Larry Ellison.

Microsoft has decided to finally dish out some sales figures for its new Windows Phone 7 platform, but alas, these are not the sales figures we are looking for. Instead of giving us the juicy number of actual devices sold to end users, the Redmond crew has provided a neatly rounded figure of 1.5 million sales to mobile operators and retailers. That tells us that the mobile industry is cautiously buying into Microsoft’s new OS, and it’d be foolish not to, but it doesn’t really educate us on the relative success of the platform’s launch — 1.5 million units is a tiny, tiny number when you consider the platform launched on 10 devices on over 60 carriers in over 30 countries. All that Microsoft’s Achim Berg would say is that early sales have been “in line” with expectations.

Microsoft: over 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices sold to carriers and retailers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 09:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Curious timing, no? This morning, Cupertino’s PR department has blasted out a blurb stating that the newfangled Apple TV — which only started shipping three months ago — is expected to cross the one million mark in sales prior to Christmas Day. The obvious remark is hard to ignore: “That’s a lot for a hobby.” And yeah, it is. But it probably has more to do with trends in consumer purchasing and a delightfully low $99 price point than anything else, and if you doubt that logic, you should probably have a sit-down with Roku CEO Anthony Wood. The folks at Business Insider did, and Wood confessed that Roku media streamer sales have actually doubled since the introduction of the second-gen Apple TV. As the story goes, Jobs did the whole sector a solid by refocusing consumer attention on the set-top box realm, and with the most basic Roku retailing for just $59, it’s pretty clear that the outfit drives a tough bargain. Roku’s also expecting to sell its one millionth box by the close of this year, but of course it’s had a lot longer than three months to do so. Still, for an up and comer, selling one million of anything (let alone looking at $50 million or more in annual sales) is quite the achievement.

Continue reading New Apple TV, Roku media streamers race to break one million in sales

New Apple TV, Roku media streamers race to break one million in sales originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 09:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’ve never used a tech repair place before (I like fixing things myself), but I recently had to, when it came to my iPad and Pentax camera. And it was actually a good experience.