At the height of the Space Race both Soviet and American astronauts faced an unforeseen challenge: taking notes when the lack of gravity rendered normal pens inoperable. The Americans reputedly “spent millions” on an advanced pressurized space pen while the Soviets—they simply brought pencils. More »
NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite was able to grab this beautiful image of the United States of America at night because of a new infrared sensor on the satellite. The sensor is able to detect natural light versus man-made light at extremely high resolution. That’s how you get this perfect image of Earth at night. More »
America, the Great Republic, is holding her elections today. And her voters, you voters, are, uh, still frantically Googling to find out who’s running for President. More »
Last year, the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) told us there were five billion mobile subscriptions worldwide at the close of 2010, and now it’s reporting that at the end of 2011, that figure hit a staggering six billion.
Interestingly, the number of global mobile broadband subscriptions now outnumbers fixed ones by two to one, and mobile internet services showed the biggest growth rates in 2011: 40% worldwide and 78% in developing markets. The ITU attributes the latter figure to the relatively high price of fixed access in these countries, and the increasing availability of mobile alternatives. The CTIA also commented on mobile broadband use, reporting that from July 2011 to June this year, Americans consumed 104 percent more data — no doubt due, in part, to people taking advantage of expanding 4G coverage. As usual, we’ve given you the cheat sheet, so if you’d like the full reports and have got a thing for statistics, there’s plenty more in the source links below.
[Image credit: Chris Jordan]
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Wireless, Internet, Mobile
International Telecommunication Union: worldwide mobile subscriptions hit six billion in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Ars Technica | 
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Samsung’s Galaxy Note II is happily filling hands in Korea and the UK without so much as a release date announced stateside. We may now have one, thanks to the folks at TmoNews, who appear to have snagged an internal document which suggests the phablet will arrive at the Magenta carrier on October 24th. Coincidentally (or not), Samsung is holding an event the same day, marrying with our previous speculation that it’ll be unveiling the various carrier editions of the 5.5-inch beast there. Our suspicions are flagged, however, at the mention that Need for Speed: Most Wanted will come pre-installed, a game that isn’t slated for release until October 30th — not that we haven’t seen similar release partnerships from the Note crew before. Although we can’t confirm the legitimacy of this leak, we can suggest you start building up that grip strength just in case.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, T-Mobile
Galaxy Note II coming to T-Mobile on October 24th, say leaked documents originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 13:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that more Americans than ever now own tablets, but if you’d ever wanted some quantifiable data to go along with that homespun wisdom, then the Pew Research Center is glad to help. According to its latest report, 22 percent of US adults now own a tablet of some form. While the iPad remains the dominant player in the space with a 52 percent market share, this figure starkly contrasts the 81 percent share that Pew reported in 2011. As you might expect, Android tablets have made significant inroads and now account for 48 percent of the overall tablet space. Leading the Android charge is the Kindle Fire, which alone accounts for 21 percent of all tablets sold. It’s worth pointing out that Pew’s survey was conducted before the release of either the Nexus 7 or the Kindle Fire HD, which means that even the most recent information is a bit behind the curve. You’ll find a press release after the break that provides a much broader take on Pew’s latest findings in the mobile space, but those who want to go straight to the meat should hit up the source link below.
Filed under: Tablets, Mobile, Apple, Amazon
Pew Research finds 22 percent of adults in US own tablets, low-cost Android on the rise originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 17:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink Computerworld | Pew Research Center | Email this | Comments
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Lenovo
Lenovo building PC production facility in North Carolina originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
When you punch into Google, why is California so… Google autocomplete will show you liberal, broke, anti-gun and expensive. For New York? Great, populated, expensive and big. Alabama? So racist, so good, so good at football and so obese. This is the United States of America, according to Google autocomplete. More »
The federal government is really pushing electric vehicles of all sorts. The Obama administration has offered tax credits on the purchase of electric vehicles to help lure drivers to ditch fossil fuels and purchase more environmentally friendly electric cars and trucks. If you’re not the kind of person who wants a car, but electric motorcycle are of interest, you can now get your own tax credit.
The Senate has voted to approve tax credits for electric bicycles and motorcycles, like the cool RedShift electric bikes, of up to $2500 (USD). The tax credits are good for 10% of the purchase price up to a maximum of $2500. The goal of the tax credits is not only to help reduce some of our dependence on foreign oil, but to also spur the creation of jobs in the electric bicycle and motorcycle industry.
The tax credit is estimated to cost US taxpayers $15 million over the next two years. The Senate did vote to repeal a similar tax credit on electric golf carts. After all, why should we be paying tax credits to golfers?
[via InAutoNews]
NASA has finally answered a long-standing question: all but one of the six American flags on the Moon are still standing up. Everyone is now proudly talking about it. The only problem is that they aren’t American flags anymore. More »
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