MOSCOW — A Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts successfully docked Friday with the International Space Station, bringing the size of the crew at the orbiting lab to six.
Chris Cassidy of the United States and Russians Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin traveled six hours in the capsule before linking up with the space station’s Russian Rassvet research module over the Pacific Ocean, just off Peru.
The flagship device from Taiwanese manufacturer, HTC, has yet to hit the smartphone markets worldwide, but that does not mean there is no lack of interest for it. After all, folks watching the Android scene are starting to lick their lips in anticipation as the HTC One throws down with the recently announced Samsung Galaxy S4. Well, when it comes to the issue of repairability, just how does the HTC One fare? Apparently, the good people over at iFixit have discovered that to their horror, the HTC One is a repair nightmare.
It seems that the only way to check out what is underneath the HTC One’s external chassis would be to use brute force and pry the components apart, instead of taking the time honored way of unscrewing the device and removing bits and pieces, one at a time. Needless to say, you cannot open up the HTC One without marring the finish for most folks, and the circuitry, being covered in copper shielding, also contributes to the overall repairability score of just 1 out of 10. Which is pretty measly, and the lowest smartphone to “achieve” such a score to date.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Expected To Launch Shortly After The Galaxy S4, Google’s Nexus 4 Appears To Have Received A Subtle Redesign, 
In a world where patent wars are a common staple in the news and courtrooms, many companies are moving towards more transparency, Microsoft being among them. Today the company has rolled out its Patent Tracker tool, which allows anyone to check out which patents the company owns, as well as download a list of them all in CSV format.
With the Patent Tracker Tool, patents can be searched for via patent number, country, title, and by whether it is held by a subsidiary or Microsoft itself. Those needing an offline version or who are more comfortable shifting through Excel than an online tool can download all the information in a spreadsheet here.
This comes a couple days ahead of their originally stated target of April 1, and is being done as an improvement to the patent system, something Microsoft says private companies and the legal system/USPTO should be doing. Such a move in transparency, says the company, is one step towards enhacing competitiveness and fueling growth and job creation.
Microsoft’s Executive VP of Legal & Corporate Affairs Brad Smith said: “Transparency around patent ownership will help prevent gamesmanship by companies that seek to lie in wait and “hold up” companies … transparency is a prerequisite to enforceability of patent licensing pledges, whether to standards bodies or to the world at large. Quite simply, without transparency it is impossible to determine if a company is in fact abiding by those commitments.”
[via TechNet]
Microsoft moves towards greater transparency with Patent Tracker Tool is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
What you see above is known as the Freeride E-Speed electric motorcycle, although it is right now still in the prototype stage, where the Freeride E-Speed hails from KTM-KISKA. It certainly is a beauty to cast your eyes upon, where it performs just like how a normal commuter would expect it to, and also has the capability of performing offroad as well, which means your weekends would be a whole lot more exciting.
Some of the Freeride’s features include a sturdy electric motor, where thanks to its disc armature design of a brushless synchronous motor which powers the KTM Freeride E, it will be able to crank out 42 Nm of torque right from the moment you twist the grip, offering even power delivery. Specially designed for peak power of 22 kW (30 hp), the electric motor is capable of churning out 20 ponies continuously. There is no clutch to worry about, and neither do you have to worry about shifting gears, just twist and go. Not only that, it is dust- and water-proof, making it more than ideal for the toughest offroad trips.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Detroit Electric Intends To Roll Out A Battery Powered Sports Car, Volkswagen E-Up Concept Now Realized, 
Earlier this morning, we did mention on how the Nokia Lumia 920 over at AT&T has received a spanking new firmware update, which would bump up the version to 1308, but it seems that the entire firmware update has hit an undesirable snag. Normally, updates tend to introduce improvements to a particular device, but when it comes to this flagship Windows Phone 8 powered smartphone from the Finnish smartphone manufacturer, things appeared to have gotten worse.
There is a thread over on Reddit that saw Lumia 920 owners share horror stories after installing the new update, as it concerns the handset maintaining a connection to AT&T. It seems that one user has shared his grievances on seeing his device go through the full works where connection possibilities are concerned, starting from no service to LTE with full bars, EDGE and 4G, all in a single spot without moving anywhere. Definitely not a normal occurrence, we do hope to see Nokia fix this particular issue as soon as possible, and for those who have yet to install the latest firmware update, it makes perfect sense to hold it off at the moment.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Expected To Launch Shortly After The Galaxy S4, Google’s Nexus 4 Appears To Have Received A Subtle Redesign, 
Google has every intention of making life a whole lot easier for those of us who rely on the Internet to get things done, especially when it comes to communication. I can still remember how Gmail invites were extremely precious all those years ago, and now, just about everyone and their aunt have a Gmail account, or maybe several of those. Well, this can only mean one thing – Google is not going to sit down and leave Gmail just like that, but will work hard at improving the overall user experience. The latest update to Gmail would see the introduction of a new compose experience as the default, regardless of who you are.
For those who are already using the new compose experience (and loving it), chances are you would have realized that it has received a slew of upgrades in the past months, ranging from a new method to scurry files over using Google Drive to other often requested features such as pop-out replies. Not only that, there is also support for originally missing features including starring and labeling while you are composing a message, in addition to the Canned Responses lab. This new compose default should roll out to the entire world in a matter of the next few days, and you can check this page out if you need any help.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google Chrome Web Store Search Interface Updated, Intel PixelSync Contributes To computer Graphics History, 
We’ve been tracking the sun-powered plane known as Solar Impulse for years as it roved hither and yon. Today, Solar Impulse’s pilots, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, came to NASA’s Ames research center to announce their plan to fly across America. The cross-country tour will begin in the Bay Area and end in New York, with stops in Phoenix, Dallas and Washington DC in between. Solar Impulse will also land in either Atlanta, Nashville or St. Louis, with the plane and its pilots set to stay in each locale for about a week to ten days to talk about the project before moving on. For the next month, Piccard and Borschberg will perform test flights around the Bay Area in preparation, and the plan is for the journey to start on May 1st, with an estimated arrival in Gotham sometime in early July.
Gallery: Solar Impulse Across America event
The point of this new flight is to inspire and educate the public in general of the benefits of renewable energy and efficiency, and to encourage school children and university students in particular to “think off the grid” and innovate and invent on their own. To that end, the pilots will be broadcasting live transmissions and allowing the public to speak with them as they fly, in addition to providing access to flight planning information on the Solar Impulse website. Read on to learn a bit more about the Solar Impulse project and it’s future plans.
Filed under: Transportation
According to Reuters, North Korea has readied its rockets to attack US military bases in South Korea and the Pacific Ocean after the US made a show of force earlier today by flying stealth bombers over South Korea. Kim Jong Un had apparently signed off an order for North Korea’s rockets to be “on standby for fire”. More »
Facebook has sent out invitations to an event on April 4 at its place in Menlo Park, California. What’s it about? We don’t know exactly, but the invite says “Come see our new home on Android,” and so the two most likely options seem to be either a new Facebook app or a Facebook-related Android operating system.
If the last prospect gets you excited, take heart: some sources have come forward to say a Facebook Phone is on the horizon. The invite is a simple tease – vague title, location, date and time – giving us just enough information to spend the next week guessing. Some sources have surfaced, however, saying that we should expect an operating system.
According to the folks over at TechCrunch, a source who previously advised them to be on the lookout for an April Facebook event has said that Facebook is going to announce an operating system. Specifically, this will be a modified Android operating system that has Facebook functionality woven throughout it, making it a one-stop-shop sort of deal for Facebook loyalists.
And, of course, what is an operating system without some hardware? The sources said that Facebook will likely be pairing its modified Android operating system with an HTC handset, model unknown. Both of those things are rumors at this point, the by-product of unnamed sources, and so don’t take it without a grain of salt. Stay tuned, and we’ll update you next week!
Facebook April 4 event invite teases Android-related announcement is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Forget having kids. Forget mind-transfers. Real immortality lies in naming a video transition after yourself. No, seriously. To make eternity happen, you simply need to donate $500 to Jonathan Thomas’s Kickstarter project and in return he’ll let you create and name a transition effect in a new cross-platform version of his free, open source video editing program, called OpenShot. Currently Linux-only, it supports regular timeline-based video editing with layers and compositing, transitions, effects, titles and support for a wide range of AV formats courtesy of the usual open source codec libraries. If it reaches its $20k goal, Thomas will start work Windows and Mac OS editions alongside Linux, anticipating a beta release before the end of the year. Smaller donations will receive more minor possessions in the afterlife, such as your name in the credits. Bigger pledges — of up to $10,000 — will flip things around slightly and require Jonathan Thomas to sell you his soul. Go get it, Pharoah!
Filed under: Software
Source: Kickstarter
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