The biggest power hog inside a smartphone is the GPS chip. This component can take 30 seconds just to acquire the satellite data necessary to get the information it needs for an initial location fix; it then has to churn through the downloaded codes to calculate its location precisely.
Microsoft researchers reduced that power consumption dramatically by offloading some of the work to the cloud.
Acer Plans to Launch $99 Tablet
At seven inches with a 1024 x 600 resolution screen and 1.2GHz dual-core processor, the so-called Iconia B1 tablet will have somewhat similar specs to Amazon.com Inc. AMZN +0.66%’s Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Inc. BKS -0.66%’s Nook Color. But Acer plans to undercut those best-selling tablets’ $139 price tag by offering the Iconia B1 for around $99, the person said. The final shelf price will be determined country-by-country.
NASA plans to `lasso’ asteroid and turn it into space station
The craft would then turn on its thrusters, using an estimated 300kg of propellant, to stop the asteroid in its tracks and tow it into a gravitationally neutral spot.
From here space explorers would have a stationary base from which to launch trips deeper into space.
via NASA plans to `lasso’ asteroid and turn it into space station – The Times of India.
George Bailey lassos the moon.
Apache plugin turns legit sites into bank-attack platforms
Bureau didn’t say how the site running the plugin was hacked. Many legitimate websites used in malware attacks are commandeered after administrator credentials are compromised. He said the malicious Apache plugin is separate from a Linux rootkit discovered last month that also injects malicious content into otherwise legitimate webpages.
via Apache plugin turns legit sites into bank-attack platforms | Ars Technica.
It’s A Facebook And Google World On Apple’s App Store, Poke Hits #1 A Day After Its Release
Note that Snapchat is holding the No. 9 spot, and is clearly slipping in popularity, and Google is sitting pretty at both No. 2 (Maps) and No. 5 (YouTube). Even Pinger’s free texting and calling app is right up there at No. 6.
agedu: Unix / Linux Command For Tracking Down Wasted Disk Space
Say hello to agedu tool (pronounced as ‘age dee you’) – it scans a directory tree and produces reports about how much disk space is used in each directory and subdirectory, and also how that usage of disk space corresponds to files with last-access times a long time ago. In other words, this command might help you to free up disk space.
via agedu: Unix / Linux Command For Tracking Down Wasted Disk Space.
Can I access agedu reports using terminal mode?
Type the following command (replace /home/wwwroot with actual path):
$ agedu -t /home/wwwroot
APAC’s Telcos Take SDN for a Spin
NTT Com says its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering, called Enterprise Cloud, launched in June, utilized the OpenFlow SDN protocol that enables remote controllers to modify the behaviour of network devices and was the world’s first to use network virtualization technology.
Developed using OpenFlow-enabled devices from NEC Corp., it enables users to add and control virtual appliances such as firewalls and load balancers to their networks as and when they need them, according to the operator.
Microsoft Kills Expression Suite
Visual Studio is Microsoft’s only flagship development system and this raised the question of why Expression Blend, the XAML user interface designer, was a standalone product. Not all Visual Studio programmers were even aware of what Expression Blend could do for them. For example, books on programming Silverlight or Windows 8 would often concentrate on using Visual Studio and mention Expression Blend as an afterthought.
Military turns to ESPN to help analyze drone footage
The amount of video streaming into this base, one of a number of sites that monitors and analyzes the images, is immense. Drone video transmissions rose to 327,384 hours last year, up from 4,806 in 2001.
Given the huge amount of feeds, the Air Force has launched an aggressive effort to seek out technology or techniques that will help them process video without adding more people to stare at monitors.
Learn Linux The Hard Way
This is a simple guide written in “Learn X the hard way” style, author of which is Zed A. Shaw. The purpose of it is to give you some experience in working with Unix-like system. There are many good UNIX-Like systems out there, for example FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris and even MAC OS X, just to name a few. When deciding which system to use in this guide I chose Linux mainly because it is most popular UNIX-like server operating system, which means what you have much bigger chance encountering it in the wild in comparsion to other UNIX derivatives. And Linux-related skills are relatively easy transferable to other UNIX-likes.