PATREONItems tagged with TIM
What is a company to do when it is sitting on a $256 billion pile of cash? If you’re Apple, you peel away a tiny sliver of that money to reinvest in the United States. That’s coming straight from the horse’s mouth, or in this case, Apple CEO Tim Cook. In an interview this week with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, Cook explained that Apple would set aside the $1 billion for an advanced manufacturing fund. “It's $1 billion of our US money, which we have to borrow to get. That's another whole topic.” Cook’s off-hand comment refers to the fact that most of Apple’s cash pile is held overseas, and the company has no plans to repatriate that money unless it can secure more favorable terms with regards to the...
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It’s no secret that the iPhone has long had a pretty good camera onboard, snapping fast and highly detailed photos. Apple is so proud of the iPhone’s camera that it launched a “Shot on iPhone 6” series last year which showcases the shooting capabilities of the iPhone’s camera (when handled by a skilled photographer). However, Apple CEO Tim Cook proved last night that the person actually taking the picture is just as important as the actual camera hardware. A lucky Cook found himself on the field at Levi’s Stadium following the Denver Broncos’ 24-10 win over the Carolina Panthers, and whipped out his iPhone to take the following picture, which he posted to Twitter: Colorado Rocky Mountain High...
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It's been a long time since we saw much innovation in thermal interface materials. Back ten years ago, when OEMs tended to use pads made from camel hair, companies like Arctic Silver burst on the scene with compounds that offered significantly improved performance compared to stock solutions. As CPU TDPs increased and die sizes shrank, manufacturers began offering better thermal pastes by default and the buzz generally quieted down. Claims that adding diamond dust improves thermals, for example, are based on remarkably poor physics and exploiting a margin of error. Today, Maingear has launched what they claim is a genuine advance over existing thermal pastes. The Epic T1000 kit uses a PCMA (phase...
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There's a lot more to history and archeology than just uncovering the past. Sometimes recreating the past in our present time is the best way to understand how people lived thousands of years ago. One such project, the Rome Reborn project of the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, seeks to digitally rebuild the city of Rome "as it might have appeared at the height of its urban development in the time of Constantine the Great in A.D. 320."The first version of the Rome Reborn project was ten years in the making and was completed only last year. It included digital models of the terrain and over 7,000 structures--250 of which were highly detailed. The source...
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It's no secret that most radio talk shows have a slight delay before a caller's audio reaches the air. The obvious reason: to make sure no "f-bombs" reach the sensitive ears of the public --- or the FCC. Well, Microsoft has been awarded a patent that might eliminate the need for that delay. The patent, 7437290, is for "Automatic censorship of audio data for broadcast" was first filed in 2004. Here's how it's described: An input audio data stream comprising speech is processed by an automatic censoring filter in either a real-time mode, or a batch mode, producing censored speech that has been altered so that undesired words or phrases are either unintelligible or inaudible. The automatic censoring...
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How do you roll out computer access to 1.8 million students at $70 per seat? The answer: Virtualization. The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is undertaking a "massive 5,000-school educational computing initiative" to build computer labs and give computer access to almost two million Indian children. But instead of requiring one computer per user, the system being put in place, supplied by NComputing, will allow up to seven users simultaneous access to a single computer. Credit: NComputingGet those images of a bunch of kids crowded around a single keyboard and display out of your heads--that's not how this system works. The system will utilize NComputing's X300 kit that essentially...
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With Windows 7 slated for either late 2009 or early 2008, those of us foolish enough to buy into Microsoft's hype over Windows Vista Ultimate Extras are probably running out of time in which we might see a really useful Extra come down the pipe. The latest set of underwhelming Extras were released last week, so quietly we sure didn't notice. Microsoft announced them in a blog post on the official Windows Vista blog. The new release includes: Microsoft Tinker: Microsoft Tinker is a casual game that provides players with short puzzle game play sessions set in a warm, calming environment. Ultimate Extras Sounds from Microsoft Tinker: Based on the positive feedback we received from the release of...
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In our continuing coverage of technologies that are enabling convergence and mobility, we have news from Motorola that they're serious in their commitment to capitalizing on convergence and connectivity in the multimedia living room of tomorrow. Dubbed the au BOX (case sensitive, please...), Motorola plans to enable customers to take their multimedia content with them on their cell phone. KDDI, a major mobile carrier in Japan plans to offer the au BOX service first which will allow subscribers to tap into their personal music, video and image libraries, while on the road. And with the help of a setup box? You are correct, sir. Unfortunately the roll-out is only...
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NVIDIA and Opera team to accelerate the full web on mobile devicesOpera 9.5 Browser Licensed and Optimized For Tegra Processors SANTA CLARA, CA -- September 9, 2008 -- Browsing the Internet on a mobile device will take a leap forward with today's announcement that NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) and Opera Software (OSE: OPERA) are collaborating to bring the full desktop Web-browsing experience, including support for JavaScript, accelerated vector, and video content, to smartphones and mobile Internet devices. As a result, NVIDIA will offer an optimized Opera 9.5 browser in its suite of pre-integrated, in-house and third-party software for the NVIDIA Tegra family of computer-on-chip Windows...
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AMD Delivers Optimum Platform for Virtualization with Microsoft- Combined Offering Expected to Benefit Underserved Mid-Market by Offering Reduced Cost, Superior Flexibility for Web-based Workloads - SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- September 8, 2008 --AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the availability of robust new virtualization solutions powered by a combination of technologies from AMD and Microsoft Corp. This new deployment model uses AMD Opteron processors with AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) technology together with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V to deliver significant efficiencies to enterprises large and small. Mid-market companies in particular, which have traditionally been slower to implement...
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Pundits argue that the computer is quickly on its way to becoming the primary source of delivering audio-visual entertainment. Others will argue that it's already happened. With over 12 billion videos watched online in the U.S. during the month of May, its hard to argue against the ubiquity of the PC as the king of media. To further this claim, market research company, Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI), has released a study that claims that almost 20 percent of primetime "episodic" television shows are watched online.This number is an average representing IMMI's measurement of "3,000 teens and adults'" viewing habits of "fourteen primetime shows on two major networks during the fall of...
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Federal regulators continue to come down on hard on corporate executives they believe are involved with misrepresenting investors and analysts. The latest group to get collared were 8 executives from AOL Time Warner who are being charged with inflating the company’s online advertising revenue by more than $1 billion between 2000 and 2002.“Four of the executives have agreed to settle the civil charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission by paying a total of roughly $8 million in fines and returning allegedly ill-gotten gains. They are David Colburn, Eric Keller, Jay Rappaport and James MacGuidwin, who was controller of the media company. The other three were in its business affairs...
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Your Digital Video Recorder might not have found Sarah Conner yet, but it seems to be responsible for the disappearance of six million primetime TV viewers since last May. Some of the miserable ratings of this year's crop of primetime shows could be laid at the feet of the writer's strike, but that really can't explain the whole number. It's starting to dawn on the TV industry that there's no such thing as primetime anymore. ...the more significant shift can’t be blamed on the strike. In the past television season, there has been a sharp increase in time-shifting. Some of the six million are still watching, but on their own terms, thanks to TiVos and other digital video recorders, streaming video...
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NVIDIA just launched a new optimized PC Configurator on the company's website designed to educate consumers on the importance of a GPU in overall system performance. The configurator website states that "At least half of the PCs shipped today have an underpowered GPU...You need the right CPU / GPU mix for the best experience. Whether you're using the latest operating systems, editing photos, watching videos, or playing a game..." It's difficult to verify that percentage, but the thought behind the statement is obviously true. NVIDIA's Optimized PC Configurator The optimized PC Configurator shows visitors to the site how shifting part of their PC budget towards a...
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Here's a way to peruse the globe while getting regional updates.New York Times "placemarks" will appear on maps where there's relevant news, and showing the New York Times layer in the software will show a window with a month's worth of headlines, Google's LatLong blog said.Google spokeswoman Kate Hurowitz said the company is open to partnerships with other media outlets and that extending such a feature to Google Maps--a much more widely used service than the Google Earth software--"would be a logical progression," though the company has nothing to announce right now. Google's interest in extending this to Google Maps is not only natural, it's a lot more exciting. Naturally if you want...
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Apple patched QuickTime not once, but an amazing eleven times on Wednesday. Some of the patches were to improve stability and compatibility, but there were also some exploits which were found and patched.“It's at least the sixth time Apple has patched QuickTime since October, as researchers and hackers have been closely examining media players for vulnerabilities. As operating systems have become more secure, vulnerabilities in applications have become a favored route to break into a PC.”Apple is notoriously coy with information regarding the specific exploits, but the running rumor is that most of the exploits patched were actually found by Apple themselves....
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Intel's announcement about their forthcoming CPU architectures hasn't fazed AMD. In fact AMD claims that the integrated memory controller and QPI sound a lot like features AMD CPUs have had for several years now. What's even better is that AMD more or less tipped their hand regarding AMD's future CPUs:On Dunnington (AMD's Randy) Allen said that AMD’s forthcoming Shanghai will be 45nm. “In 2009 we will have enhancement to hyper threading with HT3, DDR3 technology and eight cores or more. We’ll have six cores by the end of the year and you can expect to see eight cores in the 2009 timeframe,” he said.If AMD manages to squeeze two Shanghai quad-cores onto a single CPU package, the fight...
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We're getting to be nags here at HotHardware news about this facet of computer upgrades, but once again, it's proven to be true: Bigger monitors make people more productive. Researchers at the University of Utah tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an 18-inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and with two 20-inch monitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. There is an upper limit, however:...
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Some retailers have been offering credits or trade-ins for returns of HD-DVD players, but you always need to buy a new Blu-ray player in exchange. Circuit City is going them one better, extending its 30-day return policy to 90 days for HD-DVD players.Circuit City Stores Inc. is getting on the Blu-ray digital video format bandwagon by tripling the period in which customers who purchased a rival HD DVD player can return them.The nation's No. 2 electronics retailer has instructed its stores to "take care of our customers" and accept returns of HD DVD players within 90 days of purchase, spokesman Jim Babb said."Take care of our customers," now that's a great sentiment. Nice move, Circuit City....
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Yahoo's rejection of Microsoft's $44.6 billion buyout offer has stirred up a lot of controversy and even more lawsuits than we reported earlier this week.Yahoo's board of directors claim that the offer isn't sufficient, while Microsoft is of the opinion that anything above and beyond $44.6 billion is too much and it'd be more efficient to start buying stock in preparation for a hostile takeover. Neither company has budged publicly, but Yahoo shareholders are up in arms according to a recent filing Yahoo provided the Securities and Exchange. “The impasse has triggered four shareholder suits in California's Santa Clara County Superior Court. Three other complaints have been filed in...
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A phone you can turn into a slingshot? Well, you can't quite do that, but this concept phone is stretchable and flexible - and definitely cool.Nokia Research Center and researchers at the University of Cambridge have teamed up to create a joint nanotechnology concept dubbed "Morph". The two teams announced their partnership back in March of 2007 and the Morph is one of the first projects to emerge from the partnership. Launched today, the Morph is part of the "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition, on view from February 24 to May 12, 2008, at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Morph, as it is appropriately named, is comprised of flexible materials that can be reshaped on the fly to...
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Seattle has been a boomtown a half-a-dozen times over the years. Looks like it is again. The entrepreneurs of the digital age seemed to have settled on the Seattle area as the next big thing - the overcast version of Silicon Valley. “The Seattle start-up ecosystem is vibrant, and growing rapidly,” said Oren Etzioni, an artificial-intelligence expert at the University of Washington and a serial technology entrepreneur.The University of Washington, in fact, is one of the big draws. It is fostering the entrepreneurial climate here the way Stanford University does in Silicon Valley. Another advantage is the tech-savvy talent at the Seattle-based Amazon and nearby Microsoft.Microsoft offshoots,...
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