Supossably

Computer algorithm, MRI used to tap memory

posterbot — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:59:08 +0000

Brain scans identify which short film clip volunteers were remembering, which could help researchers better understand memory recording patterns and, ultimately, dementia.

Mozilla aggressively asks older Firefox users to update

posterbot — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:59:07 +0000

Most Firefox users have upgraded to Firefox 3.6. The stragglers that haven’t may have their reasons, but today Mozilla starts to pressure them aggressively.

Intel’s NAS-specific Atom platform hastens PCification

posterbot — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:59:06 +0000

Intel’s announcement last week that the company is planning two versions of its Atom processor specifically for the NAS market was easy to overlook. After all, there are a few Atom-based NAS options on the market already, and the new single-core D410 and dual-core D510 aren’t really different from their netbook counterparts in anything other than their target platform. But the roster of vendors that has already signed on to produce Atom-based NAS devices—QNAP, Synology, and LaCie, among others—gives a glimpse at the fact that the home/SOHO NAS market is one place where Intel is definitely poised to take significant marketshare from ARM, and in the near-term. This trend toward x86-based NAS will be great for consumers, because it will hasten NAS’s integration into the home network.

First, though, a quick note about the Intel hardware. The main thing that makes the new platform specialized for NAS is the amount of I/O hardware on the southbridge: six PCIe lanes, 12 USB 2.0 ports, a port multiplier function, and eSATA ports. This would be overkill for a netbook (compare Pine Trail’s two PCIe lanes), but for a NAS that may host a number of peripherals, it’s perfect.

Read the comments on this post

Emergent Unveils Lightspeed Updates, New Features

posterbot — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:59:05 +0000

Tech company Emergent is updating its Gamebryo LightSpeed development platform, adding new features and establishing a “Kickstart” program for more transparency on the devkit. The new features include whiteboxing capabilities, additive animation blending and full support for D3D11. Emergent’s also announcing a new source distribution method that offers engine code in three separate phases of development, beta and release. According to the company, the World Builder’s new whiteboxing tool allows developers to prototype more rapidly …

GDC: Nintendo’s Sakamoto’s Four Creative Tenets

posterbot — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:59:02 +0000

Nintendo’s Yoshio Sakamoto is a designer who takes pride in being strange – a paradox at times, as he’s employed by a company perhaps best known these days for its approachable, all-inclusive games. “It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that Metroid is the only series I’m known for outside of Japan,” Sakamoto said as he introduced himself in a packed GDC 2010 talk. He says he was “virtually uninvolved” in the Prime arc of …

iPhone OS 4.0 may finally bring multitasking nirvana

posterbot — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:59:02 +0000

One complaint commonly leveled against the iPhone is that it can’t run multiple apps at the same time. However, sources for AppleInsider say that Apple is finally planning to incorporate a task manager that will integrate with the established iPhone user interface in the next major revision of iPhone OS, expected to be available this summer.

Like Mac OS X on which it is based, iPhone OS is fully capable of running multiple processes at once. In fact, it does run multiple processes—iPod, Mail, voicemail and phone processes continually run in the background. What it doesn’t do is run multiple third-party apps at the same time. Want to listen to Pandora while answering e-mails? Run a GPS tracking app while checking your tweets? Sorry, no can do.

Apple has given a number of reasons for enforcing this limitation. The company claims that multiple apps running simultaneously will run down the battery faster, or could lead to more out-of-memory errors as apps contend for resources of the iPhone. Also, since non-Apple apps can’t run in the background, there’s virtually zero chance that malware could run without a user noticing. Finally, limiting the iPhone to one app at a time keeps things simple enough for even the most tech-adverse users to understand how it works.

However, the latest rumor says that Apple has a “full-on solution” to the problem coming in iPhone OS 4.0. No specifics were revealed, so there are no details about how Apple has implemented managing multiple running apps. Remember, it took three major versions of iPhone OS before there was system-wide cut-copy-paste functionality, and the interface ended up working extremely well. We expect Apple has likewise put extensive work into making running multiple apps as straightforward as possible while still offering reasonable levels of stability, battery life, security, and ease of use.

Read the comments on this post