Prices of Windows RT tablets drop, point to failure of OS

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The starting price for Dell’s XPS 10 is now US$449 for a 32GB model, scalping $50 off the original launch price. The 64GB model is $499, which is a drop from the original $599 price. By comparison, the price of the Latitude 10 tablet with Intel processors and Microsoft’s Windows 8 OS remained stable at $499.

via Prices of Windows RT tablets drop, point to failure of OS – Windows 8, Microsoft, Windows, hardware systems, tablets, software, operating systems – Operating Systems – Techworld.

Microcenter always has a full fledged decent laptop for under $300.  Here’s the special this week for $279.  I don’t know why anyone would pay double for a tablet which is hard to do any real work on.   I recently bought a 7″ Samsung S3 tablet for $180 (on sale) that does everything one would ever need to do on a tablet.

ASUS R503U-MH21 15.6″ Laptop Computer – Black

  • AMD E2-1800 1.7GHz
  • Microsoft Windows 8 (64-bit)
  • 2GB DDR3-1333 RAM
  • 320GB 5,400RPM Hard Drive
  • 8x SuperMulti DVDRW Drive
  • Memory Card Reader
  • 10/100/1000 Network
  • 802.11b/g/n Wireless
  • 15.6″ LED-backlit TFT Display

Note: The above link to this special will most likely be dead after the sale.

3 Steps to VoIP Nirvana: It’s Incredible PBX 2.0

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We’re pleased to introduce the latest and greatest Incredible PBX with an incomparable VoIP feature set. For the Pioneers, you now get transparent support for both Asterisk® 1.8 with PIAF-Purple and Asterisk 10 with PIAF-Red. Just download the PIAF 1.7.5.6.3 ISO and pick your favorite flavor

via Nerd Vittles » 3 Steps to VoIP Nirvana: It’s Incredible PBX 2.0.

You’ll Never Believe the Data ‘Wiped’ Smartphones Store

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So what can you do about all this the next time you’re ready to upgrade phones? The alarming answer is not much. According to Reiber, all of our volunteers did the right thing. They used the software tools available to restore each phone to its factory settings. But that didn’t matter. The data is still there, if you have the means to recover it. In fact, Reiber says there’s only one surefire way to make sure someone isn’t going to come along behind you and scarf up your old bits: Take a hammer to it.

via Break Out a Hammer: You’ll Never Believe the Data ‘Wiped’ Smartphones Store | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.

Another reason not to use your mobile gadget for storing any sensitive information.  Here’s a link to MPE+ Mobile Phone Forensics mentioned in the article.  Here’s a sample of their features:

PHYSICAL IMAGING OF ANDROID DEVICES

MPE+ enables physical imaging of Android devices. MPE+ features built in rooting functions that allows the physical analysis of any partition on an Android device. No need to pay for additional “rooting” suites.

Europa Clipper

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The Europa Clipper mission would place a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter in order to perform a detailed investigation of the giant planet’s moon Europa — a world that shows strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust and which could host conditions favorable for life. The Europa Clipper mission would send a highly capable, radiation-tolerant spacecraft into a long, looping orbit around Jupiter to perform repeated close flybys of Europa.

via Europa Clipper – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

permission denied for file write

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Redirections such as > or | are performed by the running shell, before it invokes sudo.

You have to either use

sudo sh -c "echo blah > /proc/blah", or run a root shell with sudo -s.

via linux – Bash: permission denied for file write – Super User.

This had me stumped until the greatness of google divined the answer and why my user script couldn’t write to a root owned file using plain old sudo.  After figuring this out I also realized I don’t need to write to a root owned file after all but I found this solution interesting.

Treasure Data Projects 500 Percent Growth This Year, Launches New “Plazma” Distributed Database

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They’re also launching a new distributed database called Plazma, which offers significant improvements over HDFS (Hadoop Distributed Files System). Plazma is significantly better than HDFS precisely because it’s more efficient and is able to compile and parse data at a much faster rate.

via Treasure Data Projects 500 Percent Growth This Year, Launches New “Plazma” Distributed Database | TechCrunch.

Radio Shack TRS-80 vs. Commodore 64: Battle of the Titans

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Both computers—the mind-blowing C-64 and the somewhat bland TRS-80—feature their own version of the language we mentioned earlier, BASIC. In fact, the two versions are virtually identical. Nevertheless, the company paying top dollar for that ad you see to the right, Commodore, has created a more spectacular version of the language. Therefore, the award for BASIC must go to the C-64. William Shatner is always right, after all.

via Radio Shack TRS-80 vs. Commodore 64: Battle of the Titans.

Foursquare’s API Is A Pillar Of The Mobile App Ecosystem

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Pick up your smartphone. Search through some of your favorite apps. Do you have Uber? Maybe Foodspotting? Surely you have Instagram. These apps, as well as a significant amount of the most popular apps in Apple’s App Store and Google Play, use Foursquare location data. For developers who have user actions or content tied to Foursquare venue IDs it would be difficult (if not impossible in some cases) to migrate their services off the Foursquare location database.

via Foursquare’s API Is A Pillar Of The Mobile App Ecosystem | TechCrunch.

Panasonic’s Developed a Simple Sensor Tweak That Vastly Improves Low Light Photography

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What’s particularly neat about this new approach is that it can be used with any kind of sensor without modification; CMOS, CCD, or BSI. And the filters can be produced using the same materials and manufacturing processes in place today. Which means we’ll probably be seeing this technology implemented on cameras sooner rather than later. [DigInfo TV]

via Panasonic’s Developed a Simple Sensor Tweak That Vastly Improves Low Light Photography.

Developer Freedom At Stake As Oracle Clings To Java API Copyrights In Google Fight

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Oracle lost in their attempt to protect their position using patents. They lost in their attempt to claim Google copied anything but a few lines of code. If they succeed in claiming you need their permission to use the Java APIs that they pushed as a community standard, software developers and innovation will be the losers. Learning the Java language is relatively simple, but mastering its APIs is a major investment you make as a Java developer. What Android did for Java developers is to allow them to make use of their individual career and professional investment to engage in a mobile marketplace that Sun failed to properly engage in.

via Developer Freedom At Stake As Oracle Clings To Java API Copyrights In Google Fight | TechCrunch.