What Do Your Apps Know -- and Say -- About You?

What Do Your Apps Say About You? via WSJ

What do you smartphone apps say about you? Not in the “who am I and what is my place in the world?” sense, but literally--what are your apps telling other people about you? Your location? Your identity? Your username and password? The Wall Street Journal has put online a pretty amazing, sometimes outraging, definitely interesting interactive graphic analyzing 101 popular iPhone and Android apps, telling you exactly what your apps are telling other people.

Those other people can be the application owners themselves, or they can be third parties like marketers or ad providers like Google AdSense. Different apps share different info with different entities. Some, like Tweetdeck, make sense--it shares information with Tweetdeck itself as well as things that interface with Tweetdeck, like Facebook, Imageshack, bit.ly, and--of course--Twitter.

Others are a bit more questionable. For instance, did you know that Pandora--according to WSJ--is sharing various information from your phone with eight different third parties? We didn’t either, but we hope it’s sharing our listening preferences as well so all that incoming marketing will at least be sonically pleasing. Take a spin through the interactive graphic at WSJ to see exactly what your apps are saying about you.
  
http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-02/interactive-graphic-breaks-down-everything-your-apps-know-and-say-about-you

The World's First Transgenic, 'Handmade' Cloned Sheep is Alive and Well in China

 

This is Not Peng Peng But's it's adorable, no? Donald Macleod via Wikimedia

The world’s first transgenic sheep produced via a simplified cloning technique, known as handmade cloning (seriously), is here. Peng Peng, named for the two principal scientists doing the cloning (who happen to have the same name), was successfully delivered back on March 26 and is developing so well that researchers have deemed him ready for the spotlight.
Peng Peng was more than two years in the making. Chinese researchers BGI Ark Biotechnology working with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shihezi University were working in some adverse conditions in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where climate and laboratory conditions were not ideal for conventional cloning. So they opted for a simplified method of cloning, known as handmade cloning (or HMC), that requires fewer sophisticated lab implements and simplified procedures.

The donor cells were collected from Chinese Merino sheep back in 2009, and a transgenic cell line was established. It took several tries, but in October of last year a successful procedure for HMC sheep cloning was developed. From that point, Peng Peng was the next step. HMC was first introduced in 2001, so the procedure itself is nothing new. Success with the procedure, however, is both new and proliferating. Successful clones have been previously made with cows, goats, pigs, and water buffalo, and with Peng Peng the world has its first HMC sheep. Which means two things. For one, scientists are getting better at this technique of animal cloning. And secondly: We’re likely going to see more of this going forward.

The Nissan Juke is Less a Family Hauler Than an Efficient City Car

Micro Machine In test drives, the Juke proved compact and punchy—ideal for darting through New York City traffic. From $18,980; nissanusa.com Courtesy Nissan

 

The crossover SUV has reached a crossroads. Models like the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V have grown so large and homogenized that they’ve become the new family SUV. Bite-sized boxes such as the Scions, Kia Souls and Nissan Cubes have plenty of attitude, but they’ve never been sporty enough to be taken seriously. That’s what’s so refreshing about the Nissan Juke: it pushes the evolution of the crossover into something beyond the shrunken SUV—more like a unexpectedly sporty, cityfriendly super-hatchback in which every component represents the latest trickle-down of advanced technology into affordable vehicles.

At the core is Nissan’s new 1.6-liter DIG (Direct Injection Gasoline) engine. a turbocharger combines with direct injection to wring 188 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torque out of the little four-cylinder. As a result, the Juke can churn from 0 to 60 mph in about seven seconds. It can also get 27/32 mpg. Nissan’s continuously variable transmission contributes to that efficiency by using a beltand-pulley system to access a continuous band of gear ratios so that the engine can run at the most efficient speed at all times. Optional all-wheel drive comes with a torque-vectoring system like those usually found on pricey sports cars. Sensors measure wheel speed, steering angle, yaw rate and gear position, and a central computer independently adjusts the amount of torque applied to each rear wheel, keeping the car stable during quick turns and highway merges and on slick uphills.

Inside, in addition to the standard gadget array (Bluetooth, optional backup camera), Nissan’s digital I-CON (integrated Control) system switches between climate controls and a series of preset drive modes at the press of a button. and in a final flourish, an in-dash G-force meter measures acceleration forces, just for kicks.

How It Would Work: Creating a Quantum Computer

IBM's 2-D Superconducting Qubit Mounted on a Chip IBM Research via Flickr

Silicon semiconductors have taken us a dazzling distance along the computing road. But even if they continue unabated to get faster and more powerful (and it’s growing more difficult to make that happen) there’s a limit to what classical computing can do.

The next real game-change in computing is quantum--tapping the quantum mechanical properties of materials to process information in ways that will make today’s biggest and baddest super computers look like pocket calculators. And for the first time scientists, at places like IBM, are moving beyond just theorizing about them to actually envisioning how a finished quantum computer would work. In labs across the globe, the first building blocks of the first quantum computers are slowly becoming real.

That's huge considering a working quantum computer would be the kind of thing that truly moves the ground beneath our feet. With a relatively modest quantum computer, scientists could slice through sophisticated encryption schemes, model quantum systems with unprecedented accuracy, and filter through complex, unstructured databases with unparalleled efficiency.

But first they have to build one. The idea of quantum computing was introduced in the early 1980s by physicist Richard Feynman, and the field is still very much in its infancy. But as a discipline it's turning a critical corner as the theoretical meshes with the practical. There’s more than one way to build a quantum computer, and it’s still far too early in the game to know which--if any--of these approaches will produce a working system. But between all of these varied approaches to tapping the quantum world, there’s one common thread: it’s all about the qubit.

Like their classical cousins, quantum computers rely on units of information. In the classical world, that’s a bit (a byte most commonly consists of eight bits), each of which can exist in one of two states: 0 or 1. All of your data--your MP3s, your texts, your documents, your Tumblr--are nothing more than lines of bits. The quantum analog for the bit is called a qubit. Unlike a bit, a qubit can exist as a 0, a 1, or in a state of superposition, which in quantum lingo basically means it is both a 0 and a 1 at the same time. This is where we enter the strange realm of quantum properties, where things are anything but intuitive. “You start with a sea of all possible answers in your quantum states, and you design your algorithm to peel away the wrong answers so that the right answer emerges,” says Matthias Steffen, manager of the experimental quantum computing research team at IBM Research. Rather than considering one solution to a problem at a time, you can consider multiple possible solutions simultaneously.

There are huge challenges standing between us and this mind-numbing computational payoff. Working at the quantum scale usually means working at extremely low temperatures, often bordering on absolute zero. Particles themselves are fickle. Coherence time--the amount of time the carefully cultivated quantum system is available to be read by the computer before the quantum state collapses--is measured in mere microseconds. And because there is an intrinsic margin of error in quantum computation in general, quantum computers must constantly correct themselves for errors.

Then there’s the problem of measuring quantum states, which tends to cause them to collapse. This requires a mastery of quantum correlation or entanglement--a strange quantum phenomenon that links the states of two particles together even across distances such that affecting one affects the other--so that researchers can actually measure their quantum systems without destroying them. Needless to say, absolutely none of this is easy.

That’s why researchers are starting small, pouring their brainpower and research dollars into developing a single, stable qubit--and eventually strings of tens, then hundreds, and then thousands and tens of thousands of qubits. So what might the quantum computer of the future look like? We’re not exactly sure yet, but there are a few different approaches showing a lot of promise.

Smartphones Will Become the Only Device Hardcore Gamers Need

The Pocket Console Alison Seiffer

When Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo introduces a new videogame console, its obsolescence within six years is more or less assumed. Nintendo is likely to release the new Wii U later this year, and other console makers are rumored to be working on next-generation systems. But as early adopters line up to experience whatever new high-def graphics those systems may offer, the next-next generation of console is already gaining momentum. The device is the smartphone, and within a decade it could be powerful enough to replace conventional game systems for good.

Mobile gaming began in 1979 when the Milton Bradley Company introduced the Microvision cartridge-based system. Since then, Nintendo, Sega and Sony have released many more portable systems, from the Game Boy to the recent quad-core PlayStation Vita. Although many of these devices were a great success among gamers (to date, Nintendo has sold more than 50 million of its DS systems), they never gained a substantial following among the general public.

Then in 2008, Apple launched the App Store, providing a simple and accessible distribution platform for games. One year later, the company Rovio released Angry Birds. Within a year, 50 million people had downloaded the app, spurring developers to create more engaging portable games. Now 64 percent of smartphone owners download games, and 37 percent of iPhone owners say they play daily.
Smartphone games are still a far cry from the richly textured and fast-moving console experiences that hard-core gamers love, but that could change rapidly. Today’s fastest phones already have quad-core 1.5-gigahertz processors—a fraction of the horsepower of a PlayStation 3—and others can send full 1080p high-def to a TV over HDMI. Mobile processors are hitting the steep part of the Moore’s Law curve, where power increases sharply with every year. One day soon, a five-ounce phone’s specs could rival those of the current best laptop.

Such a sharp increase in mobile power will most certainly provoke further attrition in the gaming ranks. Android and iOS already claim 58 percent of the portable-gaming market, and console game sales are on the decline. But for smartphones to gain dominance, users will need better ways to access console-level games. Either cloud-based delivery services will license a broader range of titles, or flash memory will improve to the point that a phone can store many console games (at present, one game could consume half a typical phone’s 16 gigabytes of memory).

Once the barriers to access fall, though, the phone will become a dual-purpose game hub. Mobile gamers will probably continue to rely on app-based games—who would want to play Skyrim on a four-inch screen, anyway?—but home gamers will have a dramatically different experience. Rather than firing up an Xbox or PlayStation, they will pair their phones with their TVs and wireless controllers. Discs will become obsolete, shelf space in the home entertainment system will open up, and users will carry a self-contained game system wherever they go.

Nokia Lumia 900 Review: Bigger Is Not Always Better

Lumia 900 and iPhone The Lumia is the bigger one. Dan Nosowitz

If you want to buy a phone right now, and you're shopping based on quality rather than price, you have two choices in terms of size. You can get the iPhone, with its 3.5-inch screen, or you can choose from a handful of top-tier Android and Windows phones, all of which will have, at the bare minimum, a four-inch screen. Most of them will be bigger--4.3 inches is much more common right now, and an increasing number are even larger, including the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (4.65 in), HTC Titan (4.7 in), and the Samsung Galaxy Note (which, at 5.3 inches, is more lunchtray than phone).
The Nokia Lumia 900 is essentially a 4.3-inch version of the Lumia 800, a phone I absolutely loved in its 3.7-inch iteration (a Europe-only model). So reviewing the Lumia 900 presents an interesting question: with most other specs remaining constant, how does the experience of using a phone change when it grows to the size most phone manufacturers insist we really want?

WHAT'S NEW

The Lumia 900 is Nokia's first "flagship" Windows Phone that's available in North America (the Lumia 710, a cheapie, has been available on T-Mobile for a little while already). It's the sequel to the much-admired Lumia 800 and its changes are mostly in size (of various sorts). It's got a 4.3-inch screen, compared to the Lumia 800's 3.7-inch screen; it has 4G LTE (on AT&T), compared to the Lumia 800's 3G; it has a bigger battery and a front-facing camera.

Nokia Lumia 900 and Plaid Sheets:  Dan Nosowitz

WHAT'S GOOD

This is mostly a good phone. Windows Phone is a great operating system; it's still maturing, but it's very usable, and it's an interesting and distinctly different approach to a smartphone than iOS or Android. (More on that here.) The physical design is pretty good; it's inoffensive, at worst, and is weighty enough to feel sturdy rather than cheap and plasticky, as many Windows Phones do (especially those made by Samsung). It's also nicely thin, only a millimeter or two thicker than the iPhone. The screen, though not thrilling in its resolution, has great deep blacks, which is important when using an OS with a predominantly black interface by default.
AT&T'S 4G LTE continues to be great. This is the first phone using AT&T's LTE I've personally used, and it feels just as screamingly fast as Verizon's. It's startling how quickly things load--LTE is as fast or faster than many people's home internet connections, so apps download instantly, web pages load instantly, music and podcasts sync instantly. I was impressed with AT&T's coverage too--I used the Lumia 900 all over New York City and it never dropped out on me. And the giant 1830mAh battery will get you through a full day with normal use, which is not always the case with the current crop of LTE-capable phones.

WHAT'S BAD

Bigger is not better. Gadget makers will tell you I'm wrong--they'll point to sales numbers, saying that people have embraced big phones by the millions. But you could just as easily point to the iPhone, the most successful phone line in the country by a long shot, and say that it proves that people love smaller phones. Or you could remember that if you want a good Android or Windows phone, you are basically forced to buy a giant one. There are no longer any top-tier 3.7-inch phones. There are a rapidly decreasing number of 4-inch phones (the Motorola Droid 4, an above-average but not particularly special phone, is the only high-end 4-incher released in the past six months). If you're shopping Android or Windows, your choices are limited to big or bigger. And that's not necessarily for the better.
Most gadgets need to be of a particular size to fulfill their particular roles. A phone has to fit in your pocket or purse. An ebook reader has to display a page of text. A tablet has to provide a full web experience. You can't just stretch it out, like it's a Gumby made of silicon and glass and metal and plastic, and say it's a better device because of it. And that's exactly what the Lumia 900 is. The phone is big--not as big as a Galaxy Note, but big. It's actually wider and thicker than the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, a phone with a substantially bigger screen.

Nokia Lumia 900: Back and Sides: Clockwise from top left: right edge (buttons are a volume rocker, power/hold button, and camera shutter), top edge (with a headphone jack, microphone, and microUSB port, and SIM card slot), back, and bottom edge (speaker grille). Click here to get a bigger view of the other sides of the Lumia 900.  Dan Nosowitz

I have small hands (we all have our hurdles in life), and for me, any phone with a screen bigger than four inches is more difficult to use than it's worth. In regular use, I find myself constantly readjusting my grip--I can't hold the phone and reach all parts of the screen with my thumb. Beyond the overall size increase, I don't think the bigger screen has any real benefits in this case. The Windows Phone keyboard is excellent; I never found it awkward to type on the smaller Lumia 800, so unless you have the sausage fingers of Billy Joel (YouTube it, the dude has ten kielbasas attached to his palms), I can't imagine this being a striking improvement. The screen is also mathematically worse than the Lumia 800's. It's the same exact screen--a PenTile AMOLED screen with 800 x 480 resolution and Nokia's ClearBlack tech, which, if you don't understand that, congratulations for not having so much nonsense rattling around in your head. What matters is that it's the same number of pixels stretched across a larger canvas—the opposite of Apple's approach with its Retina Display—which means a visible downgrade in image quality. So on the Lumia 900, the picture is worse. It creates a bigger bulge in my pocket. What's the point?
All the buttons are on the right edge of the phone, even the power/hold button, which is often found on the top edge. That's essential, because it's not really possible for anyone besides Hakeem Olajuwon to reach the top edge of the phone while holding it with one hand. But with it placed on the side, I found myself accidentally hitting the hold switch often, since it falls directly under your right thumb.
The design is also somehow not quite as enthralling as the sleek Lumia 800, even though it's nearly identical. It's the little things, which add up to a different impression when you're dealing with a very simple design presentation. Example: the 800's screen was curved, with the screen seeming to melt off into the sides of the phone like an infinity pool. The 900 has a typical flat screen, with a more definitive bezel between the screen and the sides of the phone, and a weird raise ridge around the edges. It's a very minimalist design, which worked for the 800, because it had nice little touches and felt compact and sharp. The Lumia 900 isn't bad-looking, and it's certainly well-crafted, but it's also not that interesting.
The camera remains not very good. I was surprised at this with the Lumia 800, and I'm still surprised--the Nokia N8, probably the worst phone I've ever reviewed, had a stellar camera, and Nokia is well-known for their phone cameras. The Lumia 900's is average at best--I love that it has a dedicated shutter button, and shutter speed is pretty good, but I wasn't impressed with image quality. The Lumia often came up with very dark shots, and color reproduction was sometimes off. And in lower-light situations, photos were extremely noisy.

Nokia Lumia 900 vs. iPhone 4S: Near and Far: A couple more comparisons: the Lumia 900 took the two photos on the left, while the iPhone 4S took the two on the right. You can see that the Lumia works okay in full sunlight, but still has troubles with shadows and differences in light (look at the slanted shadow on the building to the right of the Empire State Building, or how the daffodils blend into the brighter sidewalk in the upper left corner). Click here to get a bigger view.  Dan Nosowitz

The hardware handles the Windows Phone operating system pretty nicely; it's responsive and fast, for the most part. The way it scrolls still feels not quite as organic as iOS--there's a little lag, and sometime the "flick" motion results not in a super-fast scroll, like you wanted, but a slow trudge downwards through a list. Otherwise the software has the same ups and downs (and it's mostly ups, to be clear) as any other Windows Phone, plus a few Nokia-specific apps (Nokia Drive, a free turn-by-turn GPS app; yet another mapping app, Nokia Maps; and a little Nokia-curated section of the App Marketplace).

THE PRICE

It's available on AT&T for $100 with a two-year contract. That's half the price of other 16GB phones like the iPhone, and probably a good way for Microsoft and Nokia to worm their way back into the public consciousness. It's a good deal, though given the fact that you're signing a two-year contract that'll cost you several thousand dollars in voice and data plans, it doesn't really make sense to care much about an extra $100 up front.

Nokia Lumia 900 Email App:  Dan Nosowitz

THE VERDICT

The Lumia 900 is a pretty good phone--I still think the iPhone is a smarter buy on AT&T, due to its gigantic and thriving App Store, sleeker hardware, and more polished software, but the Lumia 900 is very nice. And yet I don't think it's as good a phone as the Lumia 800 (though the LTE speeds are delightful). It's a weird feeling to be disappointed while still recommending a product, but that's how it goes--the 900 doesn't live up to my expectations, but it's still the best Windows Phone in America. Still, it feels a little dull, where the Lumia 800 felt fresh and new and stylish. But most of all, I'm turned off by the size. Dear phone manufacturers: I know it's an easy sell to say that your phone is bigger and therefore better--but for some of us, it's simply not the case.

Source : http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-04/nokia-lumia-900-review-bigger-not-better

Why You Might Want a Multi-Core Tablet

Tablet Devices Sam Kaplan

The current and next generation of tablets are getting into a core war: three, four, even five cores are going to be popping up in your Android (and possibly iOS and Windows) tablets. But what's the point of this numbers battle?