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Showing posts with label gadgets and personal tech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gadgets and personal tech. Show all posts
Apple is now more liquid than the United States government, the Financial Post reports.As the government struggles to resolve the debt ceiling debate, the operating balance in Washington is at US$73.768 billion and falling.
Meanwhile, Apple has US$75.876 billion – and that number isn’t going anywhere but up as the company continues to break records and make its competitors look bad.
You can check the treasury numbers yourself here and the Apple numbers from the most recent quarterly earnings report here.
Apple’s lead over the government is more pronounced than it would seem if you treat cash as more valuable than credit. Washington’s “operating balance” refers to the amount of money it can spend before it hits the debt ceiling.
The phrase “richer than a small country” is not uncommonly heard, but this is another thing altogether. Congratulations Steve Jobs — you’re now more powerful than one of the largest nations on Earth.
Scientists may soon be able to identify potential criminals using developments in brain research on children as young as six months, an expert has claimed.
Psychologist Dr Adrian Raine said recognising problems in a child's limbic system, which controls emotion, will allow scientists to predict future offenders and psychopaths.
"Seeds of sin are sown quite early in life," Dr Raine told a science conference in the US.
The British scientist, who is at the University of Pennsylvania, said three year olds with a poorly-functioning amygdala, a key part of the limbic system, were more likely to commit crime 20 years later.
Further research presented at the conference showed emotional problems, like "callous-unemotional" (CU), were hereditary.
Its very simple - bad brain, bad behaviour…improve brain functioning and you will improve behaviourDr Adrian Raine - Psychologist
After assessing more than 9,000 twins between the ages of four and 12, Dr Nathalie Fontaine concluded that genetics played a fundamental role in the emergence of CU traits, especially in young boys.
Dr Raine said that a time would come when "we are going to be able to predict reasonably well which individuals at a modest age say eight to 10 years old are predicated to become criminal offenders".
The scientist added people would have to decide whether or not to intervene at an early age to stop crime despite possible mistakes in predictions.
Omega 3 - a fatty acid that helps build brain cells - was identified as being able to reduce aggressive behaviour in children based on studies that have shown giving supplements to prison inmates cut serious offending by a third.
"Its very simple - bad brain, bad behaviour… improve brain functioning and you will improve behaviour," Dr Raine said.
The good news is that the 3G-less Xoom will be available from March 27 and will cost $599, a price match to the equivalent iPad 2. The bad news is that Motorola still hasn't fixed some of the issues with the Xoom, and the 3G version still costs more than the equivalent iPad.
The Wi-Fi only Xoom comes with 32GB of on-board storage and costs just as much as a 32GB Wi-Fi iPad: $599. Although Motorola pushed for a price match, the entry price for
a 16GB iPad is $100 cheaper at $499. Motorola didn't introduce a third model of the Xoom with only 16GB of storage, but perhaps it should have, considering the $499 iPad is the model flying off the shelves the quickest.
press release says a beta version of Adobe Flash 10.2 will be available as a download, not preloaded onto the Wi-Fi Xoom. Last week Motorola announced the 3G Xoom will get a software update that will support an upcoming Adobe Flash Player 10.2.
Essentially though, the original
Xoom still has no Flash support, a month after the original tablet was released. However, Adobe said a beta version of Flash Player 10.2 for Android will be available on March 18 for current Xoom owners, and it will probably come bundled on the Wi-Fi-only Xoom later this month.
Motorola also didn't address another ardent issue: SD card support. The Xoom touts memory expansion via SD cards, but the slot is still unusable due to lack of software support. Again, Motorola gave no clear indication whether this issue would be addressed by the time the Wi-Fi only Xoom arrives next week.
Motorola's Xoom does indeed have better cameras and more RAM memory (see a comparison chart) than the iPad 2, but Apple's tablet is much thinner and lighter (some reviewers called the Xoom obese in comparison). Finally, the iPad 2 has the advantage of a more mature App Store, with thousands of apps in comparison to a few dozen on the Xoom. This is why even the price-match Wi-Fi Motorola Xoom won't trump the iPad 2 any time soon.
The Wi-Fi only Xoom comes with 32GB of on-board storage and costs just as much as a 32GB Wi-Fi iPad: $599. Although Motorola pushed for a price match, the entry price for
a 16GB iPad is $100 cheaper at $499. Motorola didn't introduce a third model of the Xoom with only 16GB of storage, but perhaps it should have, considering the $499 iPad is the model flying off the shelves the quickest.
press release says a beta version of Adobe Flash 10.2 will be available as a download, not preloaded onto the Wi-Fi Xoom. Last week Motorola announced the 3G Xoom will get a software update that will support an upcoming Adobe Flash Player 10.2.
Essentially though, the original
Xoom still has no Flash support, a month after the original tablet was released. However, Adobe said a beta version of Flash Player 10.2 for Android will be available on March 18 for current Xoom owners, and it will probably come bundled on the Wi-Fi-only Xoom later this month.
Motorola also didn't address another ardent issue: SD card support. The Xoom touts memory expansion via SD cards, but the slot is still unusable due to lack of software support. Again, Motorola gave no clear indication whether this issue would be addressed by the time the Wi-Fi only Xoom arrives next week.
Motorola's Xoom does indeed have better cameras and more RAM memory (see a comparison chart) than the iPad 2, but Apple's tablet is much thinner and lighter (some reviewers called the Xoom obese in comparison). Finally, the iPad 2 has the advantage of a more mature App Store, with thousands of apps in comparison to a few dozen on the Xoom. This is why even the price-match Wi-Fi Motorola Xoom won't trump the iPad 2 any time soon.
The HTC Thunderbolt, the first smartphone equipped with 4G LTE available through Verizon Wireless, will go on sale on Thursday, March 17 for the price of $199 with the signing of a two-year contract. Off-contract Thunderbolts will cost $669.99, according to online mobile phone retailer Wirefly.
Based on Google’s Android 2.2 operating system, the Thunderbolt sports a large 4.3-inch touchscreen, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for Skype-enabled video chats. It also features Dolby surround sound and HD video recording capabilities.
Inside, it has 8GB of built-in storage and 32 GB of additional storage on a microSD card. It’s powered by a custom single-core 1GHz Snapdragon processor.
While the Thunderbolt is a solid offering, the thing that makes it unique is its 4G LTE-compatibility. Verizon’s LTE network, the first of its kind in the US, can support speeds of between 6Mbps and 12Mbps — thought LTE is theoretically capable of speeds of up to 100Mbps.
Wirefly began to take pre-orders of the Thunderbolt at 3am EST Tuesday morning. Verizon has not yet confirmed the launch date of the device, which debuted at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in January. But a Wirefly spokesman told Computerworld that Verizon has sent out paperwork to certified dealers to inform them of the March 17 launch date.
One thing Verizon customers looking to purchase a new phone may want to take into consideration: The Thunderbolt will be the first smartphone on Verizon to be able to support the use of both voice and data at the same time. (Think talking to someone while simultaneously looking up the location of a restaurant on Google maps .) Not even the iPhone 4 — which operates on Verizon’s 3G, rather than 4G, network — can do this.
Edit: Clarification made in the last sentence to say that simultaneous voice and data will not work on Verizon’s 3G network. The iPhone 4 can do both voice and data — when used on AT&T.
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