1. 25 Sep


    All your tweets, emails, and other assorted pieces of data end up being stored in vast centers requiring unfathomable amounts of energy. The New York Times investigated the huge amounts of power that go into the sprawling server farms. Here, a brief look at the eye-popping numbers: 1 — Bytes used to store a single letter or number 1 — Gigabytes required to store for one billion bytes of information 50,000 — Gigabytes used by a “data-intensive customer” who stored a lot of data in server farms 10 years ago 1 million — Gigabytes processed and housed in data centers during the creation of a single 3D-animated movie today 2,000 — Gigabytes of data produced each day by the New York Stock Exchange 30 billion — Watts of electricity used by digital warehouses worldwide, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants 76 billion — Kilowatt-hours used by data centers nationwide in 2010, or roughly 2 percent of all electricity used in the United States More numbers…

    All your tweets, emails, and other assorted pieces of data end up being stored in vast centers requiring unfathomable amounts of energy. The New York Times investigated the huge amounts of power that go into the sprawling server farms. Here, a brief look at the eye-popping numbers:

    1 — Bytes used to store a single letter or number

    1 — Gigabytes required to store for one billion bytes of information

    50,000 — Gigabytes used by a “data-intensive customer” who stored a lot of data in server farms 10 years ago

    1 million — Gigabytes processed and housed in data centers during the creation of a single 3D-animated movie today

    2,000 — Gigabytes of data produced each day by the New York Stock Exchange

    30 billion — Watts of electricity used by digital warehouses worldwide, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants

    76 billion — Kilowatt-hours used by data centers nationwide in 2010, or roughly 2 percent of all electricity used in the United States

    More numbers…

    (Source: theweek.com)

     

  2. 30 Aug



    There are some words you can never say… if you’re part of Apple’s in-store support team

    The word “freeze” is a no-no, it turns out, says CNET’s Josh Lowensoh. Instead, the guidebook insists on the following alternatives: “Unexpectedly quits,” “does not respond, or “stops responding.” Also banned: “Hot” (“warm” is preferred), “bug” or “problem” (“condition,” “issue,” or “situation” are better), and “eliminate” (instead, you “reduce” a problem). 

    In case you missed it, Tech blog Gizmodo leaked Apple’s official Genius Bar training manual. Here, four key revelations

    (Source: theweek.com)

     

  3. 8 Aug


    The first sign that he was being hacked came about 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 3. He was playing with his daughter when his iPhone suddenly powered down. Honan assumed it was nothing more than a glitch in iOS, but when he plugged his iPhone into his MacBook to restore from backup, he realized something weird was going on. “When I opened my laptop, an iCal message popped up telling me that my Gmail account information was wrong. Then the screen went gray, and asked for a four-digit PIN,” says Honan. “I didn’t have a four-digit pin.” Later that night, he learned that two hackers had infiltrated his Twitter account, @Mat, which was also linked to the Twitter account at Gizmodo (his former employer). The perpetrators used the accounts to troll thousands of followers with racist and incendiary messages touting their hacking exploits. How hackers erased one tech writer’s entire online life

    The first sign that he was being hacked came about 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 3. He was playing with his daughter when his iPhone suddenly powered down. Honan assumed it was nothing more than a glitch in iOS, but when he plugged his iPhone into his MacBook to restore from backup, he realized something weird was going on. “When I opened my laptop, an iCal message popped up telling me that my Gmail account information was wrong. Then the screen went gray, and asked for a four-digit PIN,” says Honan. “I didn’t have a four-digit pin.” Later that night, he learned that two hackers had infiltrated his Twitter account, @Mat, which was also linked to the Twitter account at Gizmodo (his former employer). The perpetrators used the accounts to troll thousands of followers with racist and incendiary messages touting their hacking exploits.

    How hackers erased one tech writer’s entire online life

     

  4. 20 Jun


    64 — Percent of British office workers who continue toiling away via smartphones and other devices after leaving the office 138 — Minutes a day they spend working while technically off-duty 25 — Percentage of Boston Consulting Group managers who sleep with their cellphones We’ve become slaves to the screen

    64 — Percent of British office workers who continue toiling away via smartphones and other devices after leaving the office

    138 — Minutes a day they spend working while technically off-duty

    25 — Percentage of Boston Consulting Group managers who sleep with their cellphones

    We’ve become slaves to the screen

    (Source: theweek.com)

     

  5. 23 May


    Introducing Leap: A small Lego-sized motion sensor that plugs right into your USB port and seamlessly picks up on hand swipes and finger flicks. Basically, “it’ll track any and all motion within that space, letting you use your hands to do whatever you could do with a mouse.” It is ”200 times more sensitive than anything else on the market.” Woah.

     

  6. 15 May


    If you’re thinking about buying a new Mac, you might want to hold off. Apple is reportedly giving its MacBook Pro line of performance notebooks the most drastic makeover it has had in years.  The Cupertino-based company will supposedly unveil the new hardware at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), set to take place June 11-15, possibly even sooner. What kind of spec enhancements should we expect? 4 rumored features about Apple’s next MacBook Pro

    If you’re thinking about buying a new Mac, you might want to hold off. Apple is reportedly giving its MacBook Pro line of performance notebooks the most drastic makeover it has had in years. 

    The Cupertino-based company will supposedly unveil the new hardware at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), set to take place June 11-15, possibly even sooner. What kind of spec enhancements should we expect?

    4 rumored features about Apple’s next MacBook Pro

    (Source: theweek.com)

     

  7. 10 May


    Super-fast computers… made by bacteria? The bacterium Magnetospirillum magneticum can typically be found in ponds or lakes, just below the water’s surface. Magnetospirillum isn’t just your ordinary microbe, though. It possesses a strange and unique ability, one that scientists think may allow us to build faster and more powerful computers in the near future: The tiny creature regularly creates powerful nanoscale magnets that humans otherwise wouldn’t be able to build.

    Super-fast computers… made by bacteria? 

    The bacterium Magnetospirillum magneticum can typically be found in ponds or lakes, just below the water’s surface. Magnetospirillum isn’t just your ordinary microbe, though. It possesses a strange and unique ability, one that scientists think may allow us to build faster and more powerful computers in the near future: The tiny creature regularly creates powerful nanoscale magnets that humans otherwise wouldn’t be able to build.

    (Source: theweek.com)

     

  8. 13 Sep



    Discouraging news from the world of journalism:

    Narrative Science, a company affiliated with Northwestern University, has devised a new computer software that can write news articles in under a minute. The articles sound like they were written by humans, impressing robotics and language experts. “It’s as if a human wrote it.”

    Except… a computer actually wrote it.

    Narrative Science says it already has 20 customers using the technology.