ALMA has arrived, and she is enormous. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, was officially opened today in the high desert of the Chilean Andes. Guests including the president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, gathered to celebrate the the largest ground-based astronomical project in the world. More »
The ordered lines of Jerome, Idaho (population: 10,000) start to disintegrate as you approach those parts of town that teeter on the edge of the Snake river canyon. Here the homes are “unregulated and unzoned”, says photographer Michael Light, who took this shot from his own light aircraft. More »
I’ve been a die-hard “Apple evangelist” for over twenty years – first an avid Mac user, then an early adopter of both iPod and iPhone. In the 90s, when everyone I knew used Windows, I tried to switch them to Mac. In the 2000s, when everyone had Creative-brand MP3 players, I tried to switch them to iPod and iTunes. A few months ago I switched from iPhone to Android. Now the running joke is that I’ve become an Android evangelist. More »
You might call it a lack of ambition. Or you could just call it being very pragmatic. At a recent roundtable with reporters in Tokyo, the head of Sony’s mobile business professed his desire to be the No. 3 player in smartphones behind Apple and Samsung. BlackBerry’s CEO said the same thing heading up to the launch of BlackBerry Z10. Breaking the Sampple duopoly is no easy task, given that IDC says the two companies account for more than 50 percent of smartphones sold worldwide. More »
In just about every James Bond and Batman film, there is a segment where Q (or Morgan Freeman) introduces us to a few new gadgets. At first, the hero looks over the objects quizzically, but then the handler demonstrates how to use them, unlocking their mystery and inviting both the hero and the audience to imagine how the tool might become integral to the story about to unfold. More »
It seems like these days I can’t eat breakfast without reading about some new encryption app that will (supposedly) revolutionize our communications — while making tyrannical regimes fall like cheap confetti. More »
Facebook has announced that it’s teaming up with four of the world’s largest corporate data brokers to “enhance” the ad experience for users. Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and BlueKai obtain information gathered about users through online means (such as through cookies when users surf the web) as well as through offline means (such as through loyalty cards at supermarkets and product warranty cards). Through the new relationship with Facebook, companies will be able to display advertisements to Facebook users based on data that these data brokers have on individuals. More »
On a hot summer night in Manhattan, the young beer connoisseurs were talking shop inside Good Beer NYC, a craft-beer store on East Ninth Street, when the conversation turned to light beer. The consensus: Three of the top-sellers in America-Bud Light, Coors Light, and Miller Lite-were barely worth the glass they’re bottled in. More »
A Samsung Galaxy phone won’t go to sleep as long as you’re staring at the screen. An LG Optimus handset lets you run apps in tiny windows on top of the desktop, while Motorola RAZR devices can perform key tasks according to a schedule. Some call the proliferation of custom features Android fragmentation, but I call them innovation, as OEMs are adding functionality faster than you can say Google. More »
If you go to the Google I/O 2013 homepage and punch in IIIOOIII on your keyboard, the I/O logo changes into an new logo formed by cats. There are 12 of these easter eggs in all, and Zak El Fassi figured them all out. Here they are, plus an explanation of how he solved a puzzle written in code. More »
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