Month: March 2012

Cross-posted from the Hand Held Hack:

Angry Birds! Space! What more do you need?! That appears to be the shared sentiment around the world, as Angry Birds: Space is soaring to new heights! Indeed, I must have it!

Angry Birds Space rockets to the top of the App Store charts in over 28 countries

“Only a few hours after its debut, Rovio’s Angry Birds Space has hit the top of the App Store charts in more than 28 countries. Released last night at 1:00 am PST, or 10:00 am Helsinki time, Angry Birds Space costs $0.99 on iPhone and $2.99 on the iPad.

The game — which was highly anticipated thanks to a smart marketing campaign by Rovio that included a video from NASA actually filmed in space and a promotional campaign with WalMart — is the No. 1 paid and No. 1 top grossing app in dozens of countries including: the US, China, Germany, France, Indonesia, New Zealand, Russia, Columbia, Denmark, Norway, Mexico, India, Greece, Belgium, the UK, Spain and (no surprise here) Finland.

In Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland and Korea Angry Birds Space is the No. 1 paid iPhone and iPad app. The game is the No. 1 paid iPhone app and the No. 1 paid and top grossing iPad app in Australia, Hong Kong, Israel and the Czech Republic. It’s also leading the paid and top grossing charts in some capacity in Bulgaria, Italy, Argentina and Sweden.

At time of writing, the game hadn’t yet registered on the U.S. Google Play charts, which tend to be slower to update due to the algorithm Google uses to determine chart rankings. On Android the game comes in both the standard $0.99 paid format and a free, ad supported version. Neither of the app’s pages had updated yet to show how many downloads they have received, but the free version has already amassed 6,048 reviews and 4.8 star rating.

The game is available in the Amazon Appstore with a free, ad-supported app, a $0.99 paid app, and a $2.99 Kindle Fire App. It’s also available in the Mac App Store for $4.99.”

Awesomeness! 60 TB in a single hard drive! How amazing is THAT? Want!

Seagate hits 1 terabit per square inch, 60TB hard drives on their way

“Seagate has demonstrated the first terabit-per-square-inch hard drive, almost doubling the areal density found in modern hard drives. Initially this will result in 6TB 3.5-inch desktop drives and 2TB 2.5-inch laptop drives, but eventually Seagate is promising up to 60TB and 20TB respectively.

To achieve such a huge leap in density, Seagate had to use a technology called heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). Basically, the main issue that governs hard drive density is the size of each magnetic ‘bit.’ These can only be made so small until the magnetism of nearby bits affects them. With HAMR, ‘high density’ magnetic compounds that can withstand further miniaturization are used. The only problem is that these materials, such as iron platinum alloy or a sprinkling of table salt (really), are more stubborn when it comes to changing their magnetism (i.e. writing data) — but if you heat it first, that problem goes away.

HAMR, which was originally demonstrated by Fujitsu in 2006, adds a laser to the hard drive head. The head seeks as normal, but whenever it wants to write data the laser turns on. Reading data is done in the conventional way. Just so you understand how small the magnetic bits are in a HAMR drive, one terabit per square inch equates to two million bits per linear inch; in other words, each site is just 12.7 nanometers long — or about a dozen atoms.”

And, not in a good way! Turns out the new iPad runs very hot (temperature-wise!) So, users are complaining, and Apple, as usual, is not happy that they are complaining!

Apple’s Chilly Response to iPad Heat Complaints

“It’s not uncommon for Apple enthusiasts to start finding fault with their new gadget within a couple days of buying the latest and greatest.

In some rare cases — most famously, with the iPhone 4 antenna — Apple may end up acknowledging some validity to the griping.

But for now, at least, that’s not what’s happening when it comes to reports that the new iPad kicks out more heat than its predecessors.
Here’s their statement, via Apple PR’s Trudy Muller:

‘The new iPad delivers a stunning Retina display, A5X chip, support for 4G LTE plus 10 hours of battery life, all while operating well within our thermal specifications. If customers have any concerns they should contact AppleCare.'”

Will you be ready? Will you care? Bottom line, will you buy it?

Microsoft Said to Finish Windows 8 in Summer, Debut October

Microsoft will finish work on Windows 8 this summer, setting the stage for personal computers and tablets with the operating system to go on sale around October, according to people with knowledge of the schedule.

The initial rollout will include devices running Intel Corp. (INTC) and ARM Holdings Plc (ARM) chips, making good on Microsoft’s promise to support both standards, said the people, who declined to be named because the plans are confidential. In embracing ARM technology, Microsoft is using the same kind of processors as Apple Inc.’s iPad. Still, there will be fewer than five ARM devices in the debut, compared with more than 40 Intel machines.

The timing would let Microsoft target Christmas shoppers with the new software, which works with touch-screen devices as well as laptops and desktop PCs. The Redmond, Washington-based company, which hasn’t announced timing for the Windows 8 release, aims to take back sales lost to the iPad and reinvigorate the sluggish PC market. Apple (AAPL) released the third version of the iPad this month, posing an even stiffer challenge to Microsoft.

“If they miss the September-October time frame, they’re going to be stuck without being able to ship anything in 2012,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Stamford, Connecticut- based Gartner Inc. “The last thing Microsoft wants to have is a situation where there are no compelling Windows tablets at a time when the new iPad looks like it’s going to be a good seller for the holidays.'”

Now, this is an interesting mashup! Mixing the Linux kernel with Android code!

Latest Linux kernel 3.3 comes with added Android

“The latest kernel update for Linux has been released, and features supporting Android are back for the first time since 2010, along with improved processor and networking support.

‘For a long time, code from the Android project has not been merged back to the Linux repositories due to disagreement between developers from both projects,’ the release notes state. ‘Fortunately, after several years the differences are being ironed out. Various Android subsystems and features have already been merged, and more will follow in the future. This will make things easier for everybody, including the Android mod community, or Linux distributions that want to support Android programs.’

The Linux team has been looking at reintroducing Android since December, after the acrimonious split in 2010. After the last kernel summit in Prague, Tim Page set up the Android Mainlining Project and called for developers. The new kernel features have focused on putting enough code in to allow smooth cross-platform development and interoperability between Linux and the current version of Android.

The reunion is a sign that the Linux hierarchy have recognized that they can’t ignore the success of Android much longer, both in tablets and smartphones – something Ubuntu and others have recognized already. But it’s also going to cause a few problems with the purists, since Google isn’t showing any signs of releasing source code for its latest Android builds. But at least developers will have more paid opportunities to code.”

Don’t mess wit’ da man! Einstein has been proven right… again! We knew it all along!

Einstein Proved Right in Retest of Neutrinos’ Speed

Einstein may have been right after all.

European researchers said Friday they had measured again the speed of a subatomic particle that a September experiment suggested traveled faster than the speed of light, violating Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which underlies much of modern physics.

The research team, led by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Carlo Rubbia, found that the particles, neutrinos, do not travel faster than light.

Mr. Rubbia’s team, called Icarus, measured the speed of neutrinos fired from CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Switzerland, to a detector 453 miles away in Italy.

‘The results are very convincing,’ Mr. Rubbia said, ‘and they tell us essentially that there was something not quite right with the results of Opera.’

Opera was the team that reported in September that its tests appeared to show neutrinos speeding faster than light, prompting widespread disbelief among scientists.

Einstein’s theory of relativity, a pillar of modern physics, says nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, approximately 186,282 miles per second.

That speed factors into all kinds of calculations, from estimates about the size and age of the universe to the radius of black holes.”

Cross-posted from the Hand Held Hack:

An analysis of the new iPad shows that it costs $316.00 to build it (parts-wise!) But isn’t the true value in the whole? (Philosphical question!)

Apple’s New iPad Costs at Least $316 to Build, IHS iSuppli Teardown Shows

“Apple’s new iPad hit store shelves today. That means that along with the lines at the stores and the requisite applause of store employees cheering people who buy them, there were among the many iPad buyers today people who just couldn’t wait to get the gadget torn apart.

The analysts at the market research firm IHS iSuppli, considered by the investment community to be the most reliable of the organizations that conduct teardowns, were among that set. Today, somewhere in Southern California, an iSuppli analyst stood in line at a store and promptly took an iPad to a lab, where it was torn into, initiating the interesting process of estimating what it all cost to build.

Here’s what iSuppli’s team found: First off, there weren’t many changes from the last iPad, in terms of suppliers. “It’s most of the same characters we saw last time around,” analyst Andrew Rassweiler told me today. Wireless chipmakers Qualcomm and Broadcom both reappeared — Qualcomm supplying a baseband processor chip, Broadcom a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chip, TriQuint Semiconductor suppling some additional wireless parts. STMicroelectronics once again retained its position supplying the gyroscope. Cirrus Logic supplied an audio codec chip.

The 16 gigabyte, Wi-Fi-only iPad that sells for $499 costs about $316 to make, or about 63 percent of the device’s retail price. On the upper end, the 4G-ready 64GB model that sells for $829 costs about $409 to make, or about 49 percent of the retail price.

The new cost figures represent an increase of between 21 percent and 25 percent, depending on the model, from the iPad 2, which iSuppli tore down last year.

So what did they find inside? An expensive Samsung display, for one thing. All those millions of pixels don’t come cheap. ISuppli analyst Andrew Rassweiler estimates that the display, which cost $57 on the iPad 2, has grown in cost to $87 on the latest iPad.

Rassweiler says that two other vendors, LG Display and Sharp Electronics, have inked display supply deals with Apple for the latest iPad, but only Samsung is thought to have fully ramped up production. Depending on the vendor, the display may cost as much as $90, he said.

One set of components remained essentially the same as before: Those that drive the touchscreen capabilities. Rassweiler says that three Taiwanese companies, TPK, Wintek and Chi Mei, supply parts related to driving the central interface feature of the new iPad, but he says to expect a major shift in how Apple handles the touch interface on future iPads.

The combined cost of cameras, including the front-facing and back camera, is pegged at $12.35, more than three times the cost of cameras found on the iPad 2, Rassweiler says. But it’s essentially the same setup as that on the iPhone 4, he says. As has been the case with cameras, the identity of the supplier wasn’t easy to determine because they try hard to hide identifying information from the prying eyes of teardown analysts. The candidates, however, include Largan Precision Co., a Taiwanese supplier of camera modules to wireless phone companies, and Omnivision. On the iPhone 4S, a research firm called Chipworks identified the supplier of the CMOS sensor in one of the cameras as having come from Sony.

As with other Apple devices, the main processor chip is an Apple-made A5X processor, one manufactured under contract by Samsung. The estimated cost of that chip is $23, up from $14 on the iPad 2.

Another part that’s more expensive than on the last iPad, but also better for a variety of reasons, is the battery. This one is estimated to have cost Apple $32, up from $25 on the iPad 2. But it constitutes a significant upgrade, Rassweiler says, with 70 percent more capacity than before. Apple benefited in part by lower prices in the lithium polymer material used to make the battery, offsetting the cost of adding a vastly improved battery.

ISuppli wasn’t the only outfit conducting teardowns of the iPad today. An enthusiast site called iFixit that encourages consumers to learn how to repair and upgrade their own electronics, flew technicians to Australia to conduct its own teardown analysis.”