Hasta La Gadget!

Supercomputers – this is a badge of pride to wear by any country, if they managed to churn out the fastest supercomputer in the world. Needless to say, the mantle has changed many times over the previous years as new advancements in engineering and manufacturing are made, with the best brains of each country coming together to see who can cobble together the best and fastest supercomputer possible. The NVIDIA-powered Titan supercomputer was the fastest in the world at one point in time, and has since been superseded with the Tianhe-2 reigning supreme at the moment. Well, how about our friends down under, do they have a supercomputer to boast of?

The answer would be yes, with the Raijin debuting today to coincide with the opening of the National Computational Infrastructure (which so happens to be a high performance computing centre). Raijin is the god of thunder, lightning and storms in Japanese mythology, where it is capable of performing a similar number of calculations in an hour as seven billion people with calculators could – across the time span of 20 years. The speed of Raijin has been clocked at 1.2 petaflops, clearly biting the Tianhe-2’s dust at 33.86 petaflops. Still, this is a start to be proud of Down Under, don’t you think so? [Press Release]

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | Raijin Is Australia’s Most Powerful Supercomputer original content from Ubergizmo.

When one goes to any of the numerous Starbucks coffee joints around the world, chances are your favorite brew would taste more or less the same throughout the entire franchise, and we do know that Starbucks has tried to be at the front of technological advancements too. For instance, they have started to offer wireless charging for your compatible devices in select parts of the country, not to mention give out free apps with each drink purchase from time to time and enabling Square wallet payments as of last year. Another endearing aspect of Starbucks would be having free Wi-Fi, and if you need to know, it does seem as though AT&T’s Wi-Fi at Starbucks outlets in the US will be ousted by Google soon.

We are talking about a massive number of 7,000 stores throughout the US, and Google themselves did promise to deliver up to 10 times a faster speed, which would bode well for Starbucks regulars. This entire process will be a lengthy one, taking approximately 18 months to complete. Of course, we do drool in anticipation of areas that do have access to Google Fiber which will theoretically deliver up to 100 times faster speed that before.

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | Starbucks’ AT&T Wi-Fi To Be Replaced By Google original content from Ubergizmo.

It seems that there is no way to find a way out of advertising – everywhere you go and turn, there is some sort of advert hanging over you, even in a creepy manner where ads seem to know who you are, and deliver a custom ad that best fits your ‘profile’. Of course, there are instances where advertisements can be criticized for being deemed as deceptive to the consumer, but others do have legit methods of going about it. Yahoo has done its bit to inject some life into their mobile advertising arm, while Twitter is looking into targeted ads, and the Samsung-Apple wars does not stop at just patents and lawsuits, but also includes the realm of advertising. Facebook is no stranger to the world of ads in their social network, having raised some controversy recently, but it seems that the social network giant is reportedly (according to Bloomberg) going to sell TV-style ads for $2.5 million a pop.

These ads will arrive in 15-second videos, and the clips are inserted directly into a person’s news feed. Initially, it is said that these ads will be sold on a full-day day basis, where its targeting will be based solely on a person’s age and gender. A video would not show itself more than three times per person, per day, and the price would cost marketers anywhere from $1 million to $2.5 million each day. Hopefully the presence of these video ads will not ruin the end user’s experience.

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | Facebook TV-Style Ads To Sell For $2.5M Each (Rumor) original content from Ubergizmo.

Chinese companies such as Huawei have always been accused of helping the Chinese government in its spying operations. Countries such as the U.S. and U.K. take special measures to ensure that any Huawei equipment being installed is free from all vulnerabilities that can let China spy on them. A new report from the Australian Financial Review claims that top spy agencies like the MI6 and CIA have banned Lenovo machines from their networks over fears that they might contain “back-door” hardware that would aid China’s spying attempts.

Lenovo has said that it hasn’t been informed on any such restriction on sales, and that it would look in to this situation closely. Australia’s Department of Defence has confirmed that Lenovo machines haven’t been approved for top-secret networks. Back in 2006, the U.S. State Department said that over 16,000 Lenovo computers won’t be used on its classified systems so as to not compromise U.S. information and communication channels. Right now there’s no proof that Lenovo actually installs “back-door” hardware to aid China. Huawei recently told its criticizers to put up evidence of its links with the Chinese government or “shut up.”

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | Lenovo Apparently Banned By Top Spy Agencies original content from Ubergizmo.

Another day, another bug. It has only been a little over one month since Apple released the 2013 MacBook Air at Worldwide Developers Conference. The refreshed lineup doesn’t come with any major design changes, but it does come with Intel’s all new Haswell processors. Users have reported a couple of bugs in the past as well, some complained that their new MacBook Air would repeatedly and unexpectedly drop the Wi-Fi connection. Others said volume would fluctuate on its own during video playback. A new thread on Apple Support Forums contains complaints from users about intermittent video loss on the display, the bug seems to be affecting both 11 and 13 inch 2013 MacBook Air models.

Judging by the complaints on the thread, the issue seems to be more persistent when the MacBook Air is on battery power, while some claim to have experienced it on AC power too. Basically the laptop itself doesn’t shut down or go in to sleep mode, the display goes dark as the screen flashes intermittently. It is not clear as of now if this issue is hardware or software based. Apple is yet to advise users on a possible fix.

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | 2013 MacBook Air Bug Causing Intermittent Video Output Loss original content from Ubergizmo.