Tuesday, January 31, 2012

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Years After Being Dropped, ZFS Finds Its Way Back To The Mac Top
zevoTwo weeks ago, the excellent Building Windows 8 blog posted an in-depth look at the upcoming operating system's new file system, ReFS. It reminded me of the promise of so many years ago that OS X would be changing its file system from HFS+ to ZFS. Not a promise many remember or even cared about at the time, but it was, in fact, important. ZFS support was dropped amid development and legal problems, but Don Brady, who was heading up the file system transition team at Apple, left to pursue it independently. And now he's releasing a piece of software, Zevo, which finally adds ZFS support to any Intel Mac running 10.6.6 or later.
 
CFO Defends Amazon From Analyst Skepticism Top
amazon logoInvestors seem pretty disappointed with Amazon's fourth quarter results (as of 3pm Pacific, the company's stock is down 8.6 percent in after-hours training), yet for most of this afternoon's analyst conference call, that disappointment was largely hidden in the normal stream of numbers and financial terminology. Finally, a few minutes before the call ended, one analyst asked CFO Tom Szkutak to directly address the concern that earlier questions had hinted at — namely, that the company seems to be seeing "diminishing return" on its spending. Szutak's initial response? "I'm not sure how to answer that." Yes, he said Amazon is investing heavily (for example, hhe said Amazon had opened 17 fulfillment centers during the quarter, bringing the total to 69), but that's because the company is seeing so much growth — in its own retail business, in fulfillment for third-party retailers, in Amazon Web Services, and so on. As evidence, he pointed to Amazon's 46 percent growth in overall unit sales. (He talked in more detail about media sales earlier in the call.)
 
Amazon: Video Game Revenue Down, Physical Book Sales Up Top
nintendo amazonAmazon CFO Tom Szkutak offered more details this afternoon during an analyst earnings call about the company's disappointing fourth quarter When it comes to physical media, Szkutak said the biggest hit to revenue came in the area of video game sales, which includes both console and game sales (but not games sold digitally, say from Amazon's app store). Even though he didn't offer specific numbers on that front, he noted that video games sales are seasonal and normally take a big leap in the last quarter of the year — and that did indeed happen this year, but not enough to match 2010 revenue. In part, that's because more of those sales are going to Amazon's third-party sellers, rather than Amazon itself. So video games units were up, while revenue was down.
 
Self-Guided Bullet Could Strike Laser-Designated Targets From A Mile Away Top
sandia_bullet_largeYou might remember the scene in The Hurt Locker where some soldiers are ambushed by a sniper and must do a little return sniping. That process of spotting, adjusting the sights, and altering the bullet's ballistic trajectory bit by bit and degree by degree may soon no longer be necessary: Sandia Labs has developed a bullet with a built-in processor that guides its own flight via tiny adjustable fins. The idea is that the bullet would go exactly where it was meant to go, and not deviate from the target because of wind, gravity, or other factors. They say that at the range of a kilometer, a normal bullet might be off by almost 10 yards, while this guided bullet would get within 8 inches.
 
Apple Is Totally Serious About That Stuff They Put At The End Of Their Emails Top
SpinquisitionWelcome, kids, to TIL - Today I Learned. Today's TIL is "Don't post your correspondence with AppleCare representatives or Apple will totally tell the government on you." David Boles had a nice Apple monitor that died on him. He had a little trouble transferring AppleCare coverage to his new monitor after it pooped out and so he posted some advice on his blog. Nothing major, just "don't forget to connect your AppleCare accounts." Very innocuous.
 
Reuters: Facebook IPO To Raise $5B, Filing Wednesday, Morgan Stanley In Lead Top
174597_20531316728_2866555_n (1)The drip-drop of financial news about Facebook's impending initial public offering is starting to turn into a downpour. The company is planning to file its initial prospectus on Wednesday morning, Reuters is reporting, with the intention of raising a conservative $5 billion. The report, through Reuters subsidiary International Financing Review, also answers the question of which bank will lead -- Morgan Stanley. The others will include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs, which had appeared to be in the lead position last year after it helped Facebook raise a $1.5 billion late-stage round. However, issues around that funding may have contributed to Morgan Stanley getting the top spot.
 
Steam Mobile Apps Graduate From Beta, Now Open To All Gamers Top
steam-mobileI know I say this a lot, but man that was fast. Valve's new pair of Steam mobile apps have been in their respective marketplaces for less than a week, and already they have graduated from beta status. That means that you, Mr. or Mrs. Game Enthusiast, will be able to sign into your Steam account on your iOS or Android device right now and begin chatting your far-flung friends or ogling new deals.
 
Peavey Builds An Auto-Tuning Guitar Top
504_15914Guitar-maker Peavey has teamed up with audio electronics experts Anteres to create an auto-tuning guitar. While these things aren't new - Gibson has had robotic tuners for a while - this system is unique in that it senses and corrects the pitch of the strings regardless of tuning, which means you can do all sorts of interesting tricks with vibrato even in what would amount to be an untuned guitar.
 
Amazon Misses; Q4 Net Income Down 58 Percent To $177M; Sales Up 35 Percent Top
amazonAmazon has just released fourth quarter 2011 earnings, missing sales expectations but beating earnings estimates. Net income decreased 58% to $177 million in the fourth quarter, or $0.38 per diluted share, compared with net income of $416 million, or $0.91 per diluted share, in fourth quarter 2010. Net sales increased 35% to $17.43 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $12.95 billion in fourth quarter 2010. Analysts are expecting earnings of $0.17 cents a share on revenue of about $18.3 billion. "We are grateful to the millions of customers who purchased the Kindle Fire and Kindle e-reader devices this holiday season, making Kindle our bestselling product across both the U.S. and Europe," said Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos. "Our millions of third-party sellers had a tremendous holiday season with 65% unit growth and now represent 36% of total units sold."
 
FlatFrog Offers Up A New Multitouch Table Top
3200-1We saw a few touch-tables at CES, and while the Surface remains the gold standard, not everyone loves the price, form factor, or size. There's room for competition, and FlatFrog, based in Sweden, is hoping to break into the market with a new 32" device. When it comes to touch, there are a few different methods of detecting fingers and objects. Most common now is capacitive, which is on most smartphones. Then there's resistive, which isn't quite as responsive. Samsung created one for the new Surface that embeds tiny photosensors between image pixels. And FlatFrog uses yet another method.
 
Facebook News Feed Bug Announces "This Group Is Scheduled To Be Archived" Top
Facebook News Feed Groups BugWait, what group? A bug has caused a significant percentage of Facebook users to see a message atop their news feed announcing "This group is scheduled to be archived". But don't worry, your news feed is safe. The alert shouldn't have appeared there, and only belongs on old groups set up prior to October 2010 which Facebook is migrating to the new format used today.
 
London Implements "Smart Bins" Before 2012 Olympics Top
smartbinsI'm not sure how I feel about this. The object you're looking at right now is what the city of London calls a "smart bin." Built by Renew, the smart bins are being installed on the streets of London and have two massive LCD screens slapped on the sides. According to the Daily Mail, the screens will display news from the Economist and stock quotes.
 
Jaja: A Pressure Sensitive iPad Stylus With A Clever Twist Top
jaja
"Who Wants A Stylus?"
- Steve Jobs, MacWorld 2007 As it turns out, plenty of people do. Not for navigating around the user interface, mind you — Steve (et al.) was absolutely right about that. But for the artists of the world looking to use the iPhone or iPad as their newfangled portable glass canvas, the stylus wins over the finger any day. And yet, the myriad iPad styluses floating about generally lack something that artists have come to expect of their digital pens: pressure sensitivity. Dubbing itself "the world's first pressure sensitive stylus for iPad", a successfully Kickstarted project called "Jaja" looks to change that.
 
For Those About To Rock, WooThemes Launches A WordPress Theme For Bands Top
unsignedWoothemes has just announced a new theme for musicians called Unsigned. To build the theme, the company worked with band managers and promoters as well as real, actual musicians in order to make a "rockin'" theme that is both "classical" and "jazzy" with a little but of "afro-beat" thrown in. The theme includes modules for events, discographies, and SoundCloud comparability for uploading music. You can also use a sales widget to sell music and merch instantly. The theme supports "tours" and events separately, so you can plan your cross-country van trip and your tour of the Baltic states using the same system.
 
iOS Game Design This Home Lets You Construct And Create Your Dream Abode Top
designDesign This Home, the latest game title from iOS game development studio App Minis, is debuting as a new way to add gaming elements to designing your dream house, keeping your residents happy, and completing tasks. As App Minis founder Alex Ahlund explains, "Think The Sims with a greater emphasis on home decor and design." Design This Home, which is currently available for download in the App Store, allows you choose from a number of architectural styles of homes including modern, traditional, country, Southwestern, European, Asian, and Victorian. You then have nine different rooms to decorate and can customize every element of your home such as arranging furniture, putting up cabinets, painting the walls, renovating the floors and more. As you complete more tasks, you increase your home's value and collect more income from your residents.
 
Introducing The iPnoho 6 Top
ipnoho6Meet the future, everyone: The iPnoho6. Steve Jobs would be proud. This Shanzhai special isn't even an iPhone clone. It doesn't deserve that honored distinction. This is an IPDA as it's labeled on the front under the small screen and next to the large Apple logo. Around back are two large speakers and yet another Apple logo -- because, you know, two Apple logos equates to twice as much fun. The only thing that's missing from this IPDA is an iStylis.
 
Better Business Bureau Calls Out LG For False Advertising Top
LG3dadYou can't believe everything you read, nor can you trust everything you hear on TV. Especially if it sounds something like "four out of five people choose LG Cinema 3D over Sony and Samsung for overall 3D experience." Apparently the Better Business Bureau (more specifically the National Advertising Division) "has recommended that LG Electronics USA discontinue advertising claims made for the company's Cinema 3D Television and 3D glasses." Back in June of 2011, LG sent out a press release claiming that four out of five customers prefer LG Cinema 3D television over Sony and Samsung in a number of different categories including brightness, color, picture quality, glasses, and overall 3D experience. The research was done by a company called Morpace Inc., which tested the TVs at their default settings without any branding shown.
 
Good DRM Makes Bad Neighbors: This Is The Content Protection Tipping Point Top
fencesFor people who have been doing just one thing for a long, long time, it's amazing how many content distributors get things so catastrophically wrong. These last few weeks brought us quite a few unique situations, including the launch of Apple's iBook Author software as well as a number of announcements from the studios to withhold streaming rights for Netflix viewers. Cory Doctorow points to a particularly delightful bit of DRM making the rounds in publishing right now, something that will be familiar iTunes users who found their real names embedded in music files a while back.
 
Dining Out? Mogl Grabs $10 Million For Its Gamified, Charitable Loyalty Program Top
unnamedWould you like some gamification with your french fries? Well, one San Diego-based startup is willing to bet you just might. Mogl, which describes itself as not only "a party in your wallet" but also a "four letter word you can say in front of your grandma," wants to turn you into a loyal customer at your local restaurants. Said another way, Mogl is using gamification and a bit of charity to increase engagement and the enjoyability of customer loyalty program for restaurants -- all while on the go.
 
Ben Horowitz: "It Took About 3 Weeks" To Raise Our $1.5 Billion Fund Top
ben horowitzAndreessen Horowitz is definitely killing it these days. The unconventional VC firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz is less than three years old, but just raised its third fund. The amount raised: $1.5 billion. That puts Andreessen Horowitz in the rarified realm of only a handful of VC firms with funds of that size. And how long did it take to raise all that money? "It took about 3 weeks of actual fundraisng activity," Horowitz tells me. It took longer to do the actual paperwork—another 6 weeks.
 

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