Techno-News Blog

by Ludwig Kietzmann, Joystiq

Delivering a keynote speech — entitled “Seeing is Believing: 3D a New Creative Medium for Games” — at the Develop conference in Liverpool, Sony Computer Entertainment’s Mick Hocking argued that 3D can give games more than just increased visual depth. The studio director of Sony’s Liverpool studio, responsible for Wipeout HD, stated that the technology can make games seem more natural and thus more inviting to newcomers. “Doing things like the way we’ve used Move combined with 3D in Tumble makes a game more natural and more accessible, which will be great for welcoming more people to your games,” Hocking said. The ability to interact within a game’s space makes the technology a new creative medium, he added, allowing creators to build on the player’s enhanced sense of depth and spatial awareness.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/11/25/3d-a-new-creative-medium-according-to-sonys-mick-hocking/

by Ultra-Marketing

The “next big thing” to hit the Internet will take just six months to capture consumer imagination. This was the prediction of Chris Maples, Commercial Director for Microsoft UK at UTalkMarketing’s Digital Brand Strategy Summit today. Using the example of Facebook versus the telephone, Maples pointed out that the adoption of new technology by consumers is accelerating all the time. “The telephone took 100 years be become an established technology. Facebook took two years. The next big thing, whatever that might be, will take six months to grow to those sorts of levels,” he said.

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=19713&Title=Technology_of_the_future_is_already_here

By Joel Bruckenstein, Financial Planning

Welcome to Financial Planning’s 2010 Technology Survey. This year marks our fourth anniversary, and there is plenty to be excited about. Thanks to an overwhelming response from our loyal readers, we logged 3,139 responses to this year’s survey, more than doubling last year’s 1,550 responses. To put things in historical perspective, this year’s responses exceeded our inaugural survey by a factor of roughly 13. With our growing sample size and a historical record to draw upon, we think we are better positioned than ever to offer readers an analysis of the state of technology within our industry. As we’ve done each year, we’ve tweaked existing questions and added a few new ones to keep you apprised of new technology trends.

http://www.financial-planning.com/fp_issues/40_12/technology-survey-2010-2669829-1.html

by Electronista, Gadgets for Geeks

Hitachi and Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development (NEDO) have revealed a new technology that could lead to hard drives with eight times more storage than with existing hardware. A new patterning approach lets polymer materials used for the magnetic storage arrange themselves much more efficiently than in current approaches. The technique produces about 3.9 terabits per inch (488GB) even when applied to otherwise normal drives.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/11/25/hitachi.develops.39tbit.per.inch.hard.drive.tech/

Tim Waller, WYFF News 4

You’re walking down the street, wondering where the nearest restaurant is, and whether the food is any good. But instead of asking someone, you put on a pair of sunglasses and up pops a display of all the restaurants in the vicinity, along with customer reviews of each. Science fiction? No, “augmented reality.” “There’s a computer-generated person or character standing next to you, like they really are there, and they walk with you, maybe even give you a walking tour of the city,” said Paul Travers, CEO of Vuzix, which plans to sell augmented reality sunglasses starting next year. (video)

http://www.wyff4.com/news/25904720/detail.html

By QMI Agency, Toronto Sun

If you were planning to do your holiday shopping online from your office, beware. About 40% of chief information officers say they will be blocking access to online shopping sites to prevent excessive time wasting at work, according to a new survey by Robert Half Technology. A further 28% of CIOs said they will allow online shopping but they will monitor activity for excessive use. The executives said they expect employees on average to spend about four hours a week searching the web for bargains.

http://www.torontosun.com/money/2010/11/25/16309606.html

by Forbes

The evil wizards in the new movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 sneer at magic-less humans they call “Muggles.” It seems like the wizards in Harry Potter have all the fun, with their magical potions and objects. Or do they? Though ordinary Muggles may never be able to turn invisible or even cast a simple Expelliarmus Charm, real-life science is bringing us closer to having technologies that are practically indistinguishable from magic. An actual invisibility cloak, for instance. This past summer scientists at Tufts University published research on their “first large area metamaterial structures” made up of artificially engineered compounds that interact with specific wavelengths of light in ways that organic compounds do not.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/19/deathly-hallows-muggles-technology-harry-potter.html?boxes=Homepagechannels

by Buzz Insurance

Australians want to live in a suburb that’s wired with technology and surrounded by good restaurants more than they want access to good transport or education facilities, a new lifestyle study has found. What’s surprising is that more traditional attributes like access to public transport and good quality schools are now no longer as valuable to people. The study has helped us understand what Australians truly value so as an insurer we can create products. Australians want to live in a suburb that’s wired with technology and surrounded by good restaurants more than they want access to good transport or education facilities, a new lifestyle study has found. The study by The Buzz Insurance (a part of Insurance Australia Group) found Australians value access to the internet over access to trains and buses in their ideal suburb.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/11/prweb4811624.htm

by AFP

The US Air Force has warned troops that using location applications on Facebook and other networking sites could have “devastating” consequences for military operations. “All Airmen must understand the implications of using location-based services,” said a message on the internal Air Force network. The features, such as Facebook’s ‘Check-in,’ Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt “allow individuals with a smartphone to easily tell their friends their location,” it said. “Careless use of these services by Airmen can have devastating operations security and privacy implications,” said the message, which was posted on November 5, according to spokesman Major Chad Steffey.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101119/pl_afp/usinternetmilitaryfacebook_20101119052751

by Seek 4 Media

Sales of tablet computers such as the iPad will more than double next year as the appetite for slimmed-down touchscreen computers shows no sign of receding. UBS estimates that 20 million will be sold worldwide this year, rising to 55 million next year as demand hits fever pitch. Yet growth will start to slow after that point, with 80 million tablets sold in 2012 before levelling off at 100 million in 2013, UBS says.

http://www.seek4media.com/tech/10238-tablet_computer_sales_set_to_increase_significantly_during_2011.html

by the Minuteman

Cloud computing has matured from buzzword to an essential alternative IT sourcing to schools and businesses. A pair of grants from NASA and Amazon Web Services recently awarded to Fairfield University’s School of Engineering will provide a ‘cloud’ for the School to access computing services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For Fairfield students, it will also mean an opportunity to learn using the new technology, which provides Internet-based information and technology service sharing software, resources, and information.

http://www.minutemannewscenter.com/articles/2010/11/18/fairfield/business/doc4ce58247f0ad9196080177.txt

by Joy Online

The human brain is truly awesome. A typical, healthy one houses some 200 billion nerve cells, which are connected to one another via hundreds of trillions of synapses. Each synapse functions like a microprocessor, and tens of thousands of them can connect a single neuron to other nerve cells. In the cerebral cortex alone, there are roughly 125 trillion synapses, which is about how many stars fill 1,500 Milky Way galaxies. These synapses are, of course, so tiny (less than a thousandth of a millimeter in diameter) that humans haven’t been able to see with great clarity what exactly they do and how, beyond knowing that their numbers vary over time. That is until now. Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have spent the past few years engineering a new imaging model, which they call array tomography, in conjunction with novel computational software, to stitch together image slices into a three-dimensional image that can be rotated, penetrated and navigated. Their work appears in the journal Neuron this week.

http://news.myjoyonline.com/technology/201011/56175.asp

by the BBC

In July 2010, 29% of broadband lines in Europe ran at speeds of at least 10 Mbps, revealed Commission research. By contrast in July 2009 only 15% of broadband lines were capable of hitting that speed. Despite the higher rates, the Commission warned that a lot of work needed to be done to meet Europe-wide targets on access and speed. “Fast broadband is digital oxygen, essential for Europe’s prosperity and well-being,” said Neelie Kroes, commissioner for the digital agenda.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11840736

By Jane Wakefield, BBC

A satellite dedicated to plugging some of the holes in the UK and Europe’s broadband coverage finally took to the skies last month. The spacecraft, called Hylas 1 (Highly Adaptable Satellite), was scheduled to launch at the end of last year. The UK government may see the launch as an answer to its prayers as it races to provide all homes with a minimum 2Mbps broadband connection by 2015. But others have questioned the relevance of satellite in the increasingly competitive and speedy broadband market.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11829019

by the BBC

As Christmas fast approaches, millions will opt to spare themselves the crowded high street and instead settle down in front of the computer and do their shopping there. Yet buying online has always had one key disadvantage: you have to wait. Not only that, but the inability to touch a product, try it on, feel how heavy it is or do anything else you would do on your typical high street excursion prevents online shopping being the perfect experience. But technology is now coming online that could allow you to receive your goods straight away.  As the cost of 3D printing hardware begins to drop, bespoke, printable products may be about to hit the market.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11834044

By J. Nicholas Hoover, Information Week

The federal government plans to slash the number of data centers it operates by 40% by 2015, and the Obama administration will push for legislative changes to consolidate more IT budget and management authority in the hands of agency CIOs, administration officials said in a speech Friday in northern Virginia. LG showcased its Watch Cell Phone at CES 2009 in Las Vegas, demonstrating its ability not just to tell time and make phone calls, but run applications, take photos, take video, conduct two-way videoconferencing and more.The reforms, jump-started by the Office of Management and Budget, come as part of a larger set of “structural changes” and other plans to make federal IT more productive and effective. The policy changes will cap a three-pronged strategy to overhaul federal IT that began this summer with reviews of high-risk IT projects and financial systems modernization efforts.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/policy/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228300256&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

By: Lance Ulanoff, PC Magazine

When things go terribly wrong with technology, you may have to go that extra mile to find the right answers. I’ve been having a rough couple of technology months. First, my test system gets attacked by powerful malware that forced me to rebuild the laptop from scratch and then, just this past week, my family’s desktop PC went bonkers (yes, that’s the technical term). The laptop drama was a bit more straightforward. I’d been using this Windows 7 test system for over a year and hadn’t bothered to put any security software on it. It had never had an infection or a hiccup; Windows 7’s own baseline defenses seemed to be doing just fine. Then one day, pretty much out of the blue, my search results started acting like they were possessed. I’d perform a search on Google or Bing, click on the desired result and end up somewhere else. It was never something objectionably like adult material, weird photos or even incessant pop-ups. Instead it was just a site, which vaguely related to the original search, trying to sell me something.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372962,00.asp

by Jon Grier, the Gateway

The next generation of computer chips might be created in something not much more complex than a microwave oven and the technology is being developed right here at the U of A. Jillian Buriak is a senior researcher at the National Institute for Nanotechnology. One of her group’s projects could further revolutionize the production of computer chips.

http://thegatewayonline.ca/articles/news/2010/11/18/computer-chip-technology-advancing

By the University of California Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley, Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (CET) has published “Intellectual Property (IP) Strategies for New UC Berkeley Ventures: A Framework.” The report provides practical insight on how entrepreneurs implement effective intellectual property strategies while starting technology ventures within an academic setting. Understanding the mechanics of how academics innovate has become critical as universities increasingly replace private laboratories as a primary source of innovation.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/11/17/prweb4799774.DTL

By MERCEDES CARDONA, Daily Finance

At last year’s annual WWD Apparel & Retail CEO Summit, the talk was all about recession and inventory control. But at this year’s gathering in New York, the assembled execs buzzed about technology. Now that retailers seem to be moving out of crisis mode, they’re back to investing in new bells and whistles for their stores and websites. Merchants are dabbling in all kinds of in-store technology, from apps that send coupons to your cell phone when you walk in the door to digital cameras by fitting rooms that let you send a snapshot of that little number you just tried on to all your Facebook friends. The expansion of smartphones will affect the way people shop, points out John Donahoe, CEO of eBay (EBAY). Applications such as RedLaser that let smartphones scan a product bar code on the store shelf and comparison-shop for that product online are “blurring the lines between in-store and online,” he says.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/company-news/five-ways-new-technologies-are-changing-stores-and-shopping/19709693/

by Janet Harris, Tech Watch

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)is developing technology that camera-shy types are going to hate – a camera that can take photographs around corners. There’s no escape from the laser-based technology which emits ultra-short high-intensity burst of light that bounces around before returning to the camera to reconstruct the scene. The light particles can enter nooks and crannies and go over raised surfaces, effectively providing ‘x-ray vision’ – so no hiding behind your granny to dodge the family photo anymore. Consumers aren’t likely to get their hands on the technology yet though as it is still in an early stage of development and researchers are encountering difficulties with reconstructing complex scenes.

http://www.techwatch.co.uk/2010/11/17/new-camera-technology-can-%E2%80%98see-round-corners%E2%80%99/