Author: Dr. Bill

Let me say that this is a good thing! I have been very impressed with Windows 7, and you know, I haven’t downed the Microsoft Kool-Aid! In fact, I am an Open Source dewd! But, after the disaster that was Vista, Windows 7 is a case of “finally getting it right!” It is nice to see that 20% of Windows users have moved on!

20% of users now on Windows 7

“Windows 7 has been steadily stealing share from Windows Vista and Windows XP ever since it was first released. It is now installed on one in five computers. Its predecessor Vista never managed to achieve that feat. In the 12 months since release, Microsoft sold 240 million licenses of Windows 7; by now that number is surely approaching 300 million.

Between January and December 2010, Windows XP fell almost 10 percentage points to 56.72 percent market share. In the same period, Windows Vista lost over five percentage points to 12.11 percent. Windows 7 meanwhile has gained over 13 percentage points, pushing it to 20.87 percent.”

Smart folks! I love my Android (Droid X) phone! And, so do a lot of other folks, it seems!

41% of new smartphone buyers choose Android

“‘The race for the lead in US. smartphone operating system (OS) consumer market share is tighter than it has ever been,” begins a blog post today on Nielsen Wire. The winner is? No one yet. Apple’s iPhone leads in total US consumer market share, while most people who recently bought a smartphone chose Android. I’m among them. “This race might still be too close to call,’ Nielsen asserts.

Perhaps the more important data point is about the broader smartphone category. ‘In November, 45 percent of recent acquirers chose a smartphone over a feature phone,’ according to the Nielsen post. That’s up from 34 percent in June. Apple and Research in motion are ‘statistically tied’ with respect to US smartphone OS market share — 28.6 percent and 26.1 percent, respectively. Android’s share is 25.8 percent.”

Wow! Now THAT would fly! As long as applications used the processors!

Intel: Why a 1,000-core chip is feasible

“Chipmaker Intel has been investigating the issue of scaling the number of cores in chips through its Terascale Computing Research Program, which has so far yielded two experimental chips of 80 and 48 cores.

In November, Intel engineer Timothy Mattson caused a stir at the Supercomputer 2010 Conference when he told the audience that one of the Terascale chips–the 48-core Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC)–could theoretically scale to 1,000 cores.

Mattson, who is a principal engineer at Intel’s Microprocessor Technology Laboratory, talked to ZDNet UK about the reasoning behind his views and why–while a 1,000-core chip isn’t on Intel’s roadmap–the path to creating such a processor is now is visible.”

Okaaay! This is weird on so many levels! A scientist in Japan is has made a mouse that tweets like a bird. He says near the end of the article: “Uchimura dreams of further “evolution” of mice through genetic engineering. ‘I know it’s a long shot and people would say it’s ‘too absurd’… but I’m doing this with hopes of making a Mickey Mouse some day,’ he said.” Yeah. Just what we need, a genetically modified mouse that speaks like Mickey Mouse! Anybody else think this is just too weird!?!?

‘SINGING MOUSE’ MADE WITH GENETIC MODIFICATION

“Japanese scientists said Tuesday they had produced a mouse that tweets like a bird in a genetically engineered “evolution” which they hope will shed light on the origins of human language.

A team of researchers at the University of Osaka created the animal in their “Evolved Mouse Project,” in which they use genetically modified mice that are prone to miscopying DNA and thus to mutations.

‘Mutations are the driving force of evolution. We have cross-bred the genetically modified mice for generations to see what would happen,’ lead researcher Arikuni Uchimura said.

‘We checked the newly born mice one by one… One day we found a mouse that was singing like a bird,’ he said, noting that the ‘singing mouse’ was born by chance but that the trait will be passed on to future generations.”

Here is the YouTube link to hear the “Singing Mouse”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLu37VvCozw

Yep… you read that right! “Beam me up, Scotty!”

Beam Me Up: ‘Teleportation’ Is Year’s Biggest Breakthrough

“Thanks to physics, and the truly bizarre quirks of quarks, those Star Trek style teleporters may be more than fiction.

A strange discovery by quantum physicists at the University of California Santa Barbara means that an object you can see in front of you may exist simultaneously in a parallel universe — a multi-state condition that has scientists theorizing that teleportation or even time travel may be much more than just the plaything of science fiction writers.

Until this year, all human-made objects have moved according to the laws of classical mechanics, the rules governing ordinary objects. Toss a ball in the air and it falls back to Earth. Drop a coin from your roof and it falls into your yard. But back in March, a group of researchers designed a gadget that moves in ways that can only be described by quantum mechanics — the set of rules that governs the behavior of tiny things like molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles.

And the implication — that teleportation and even time travel may someday, somehow be a reality — is so groundbreaking that Science magazine has labelled it the most significant scientific advance of 2010.”