Hasta La Gadget!

Google currently allows copyright holders to request a takedown from the search giant’s search results, but they only allow 10,000 URL requests per day, which just isn’t enough for some copyright holders nowadays, and they’re fighting with Google to raise the limit to 40,000 requests per day, which is supposedly enough for companies to request without reaching a cap.

Specifically, the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy organization BREIN and the RIAA, which both represent a handful of media companies, wants to increase the daily DMCA cap to 40,000, but wants to eventually remove the cap altogether at some point. Google has seen a huge spike in takedown requests recently, and it’s large enough amount that Google is worried that it violates freedom of speech, but copyright holders say they are just looking out for their businesses.

However, it doesn’t look like Google will budge on its set daily limit. The company says it can’t increase the limit because it may cause technical problems due to unexpected peaks in server performance. However, the RIAA isn’t having none of that, and has said that Google has the resources to increase the limit. They also say that Google’s number of allowed requests per day is “minuscule.”

Copyright holders are afraid that if Google doesn’t lift the limit of daily takedown requests, they fear that they will be unable to keep up with the numerous links (in the hundreds of thousands) that are added to Google search results every day. However, Google notes that BREIN is currently only sending under 5,000 takedown requests per day, far below the current 10,000 request limit. Then again, this certainly won’t be the last that we hear from the RIAA and BREIN, so get out the popcorn and stay tuned.

[via TorrentFreak]

Google under attack by anti-piracy groups over DMCA takedown limits is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you’d like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with “Insert Coin” as the subject line.

Soundlazer’s parametric speaker pushed music in one direction, making it great for impromptu discos in confined spaces. But you can’t have a party without some fancy lighting, so Soundlazer creator Richard Haberkern cooked up the Lumapad, a WiFi-enabled LED lamp. The open-source hardware houses 32 high-power LEDs that push out light a t up to 8,000 lumens and has Electric Imp and Arduino expandability. There’s even a mobile app to let you control the visual rhythms without consigning yourself behind a lighting deck. Haberken needs to raise $28,000 before the project can go ahead, with a pledge of $329 enough for you to get one of your own. Not convinced? Head on past the break to watch the man beg for your patronage.

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Source: Kickstarter

Mobile industry analyst Benedict Evans has crunched the numbers on newly-released tablet sales figures from Asus and arrived at an approximate estimate of total Nexus 7 tablet sales for 2012, which clock in at between 4.5 and 4.8 million units per his math. Google doesn’t release sales figures for its Nexus devices, so this is likely the closest we’ll get to a solid number on the 2012 totals, and how they might compare to the continued success of Apple’s iPad.

Evans estimates that based on Asus’s reported sales of 6.3 million tablets in 2012, and verbal statements from the CEO which gave a rough estimate of sales to date of the Nexus 7 as of October, the Nexus 7 likely sold around 2.2 million units between the end of Q2 2012 and during Q3, as well as around 2.4 million during Q4. He compares that to around 10 million in iPad mini sales during its first and only availability through Q4 of 2012, despite a launch halfway through the quarter. That estimate is based on the average selling price of the iPad mini, combined with Apple’s revenue figures and tablet sales numbers, since Apple doesn’t break out iPad sales by model.

The upshot is that what we’re seeing from engagement numbers and browser share is likely still a good representation of how the actual tablet market is shaking out: Apple is dominating, and its decision to enter the smaller-screened market is either helping it stall the progress of others, or doing nothing to jeopardize its position at the top.

Consider that Apple sold 22.9 million iPads during just its first fiscal quarter of 2013, which is the last calendar quarter of 2012. That’s five times the amount of Nexus 7 tablets Evans estimates were sold during the entire year in 2012, which indicates we’re still very far away from a situation where the tablet market begins to look anything like the smartphone space in terms of Android share.

Google looks to be set to try to kickstart its tablet sales efforts with physical retail locations, a rumor that started this past weekend and was backed up by the Wall Street Journal today. I’ve already noted that I think this is a play to help the company try to replicate some of Apple’s success with selling and evangelizing the iPad through its physical retail locations, but these sales estimates underline exactly why the company needs to do that.

This week we’ve had the opportunity to have a look at the new HTC One with not only a collection of hands-on experiences, but with processor benchmarking as well. Using the standard Quadrant Benchmark test here we’re finding that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor is blowing up the charts, destroying the previous high-mark in the basic readout by more than double – those tiny towers on the left are what’s left of the original HTC One X, the ASUS Transformer Prim TF201 (with a Tegra 3 processor), and some lesser beings. Even compared with the Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core SoC running on the Google Nexus 4 only reaches nearly 5000 as a final score in Quadrant – the HTC One reaches 12,417!

Comparing the individual markers inside the total you’ll find a CPU score of 37,304, Memory at 10,922, and I/O at a staggering 10,566. Those are massive scores, on all accounts. The Nexus 4 comes in at CPU: 10,687, Mem: 7,612, and I/O: 4,340 if you’d like to know. With the HTC One’s combination of four Krait 300 CPU cores at 1.7GHz, an Adreno 320 GPU, and a performance boost well over the Snapdragon S4 Pro, this will very likely be the most impressive smartphone processor-wise you’ll have ever experienced.

We’ve also had a look at Sunspider working with the standard web browser on the device. Here we get a lovely 1195.2ms as a final result, this compared with the HTC One X+ (1215.4ms) and the Samsung Galaxy S III (1082.2ms) shows that web browsing is pretty much the same as it’s been over the past year. Then again – as above – this is not final software and anything could happen before the HTC One is released inside March, 2013. It should also be noted that the speed of the rendering on the HTC One (as well as the others here) were done at different times and under different conditions – so take it all with a bit of straw.

Also have a peek at our timeline below filled with hands-on experiences with the HTC One, complete with details from each of this device’s new features. With the HTC One, the company may well be entering a new age. One in which a single device really, truly is the hero – could it possibly be?

HTC One benchmarks: off the charts is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

I would like to think that Digital Storm’s claim that their Bolt is the thinnest gaming PC in the world is limited to those mass produced models, and not hand-crafted ones. Heck, even a custom made gaming PC chassis would be tricky if it were to measure 3.6 inches wide, so I guess that the Bolt does have its fair share of success to that claim.

In fact, Digital Storm has announced that they will be offering a Titan Edition of its award winning Bolt, and thanks to the inclusion of the spanking new NVIDIA GTX Titan (which is the world’s fastest graphics card), it will make use of similar technology that powers Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Titan, which has been deemed to be the world’s fastest supercomputer.

How can something so slim remain cool operationally? This was made possible by the Bolt’s unique ventilation system, making the Bolt one of the only systems in its class that is capable of handling the powerful GTX Titan. There are vents located near each critical component, not to mention large top and rear vents that do their bit to eliminate any stagnant air remaining within the system, while there is also a dedicated air channel that was created by a slotted side vent to cool the power supply.

Having said that, the Digital Storm Bolt Titan Edition is not going to come cheap – at $2,499 a pop.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Jeep Twitter Account Hacked, Gets Logo Change, Apple Newest Target Of Hackers,