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Distro Issue 92: Building the Xbox One

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 20:30:00 +0000

In case you hadn’t heard, Microsoft pulls the wraps off of its next-gen gaming console earlier this week at an event on its Redmond campus. A brand new issue of our slate magazine steps inside the lab where the Xbox One was built for a behind the scenes look at how the new “all-in-one” box came to be. We also offer up our initial impressions of the unit and both its gamepad and Kinect 2.0 peripherals in an extended hands-on.

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Distro Issue 92: Building the Xbox One

Jony Ive’s iOS 7 redesign reportedly eliminates ‘heavy textures’ for a flat, ‘black and white’ design

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 20:14:57 +0000

Rumors have been flying around about a major visual redesign to Apple’s iOS ever since Jony Ive took on an interface design role following the departure of senior VP and mobile software head Scott Forstall . Most of those rumors have focused on a new, “flat” design that would remove many of the skeumorphic aspects of iOS that have cropped up over the years, and now 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman has been tipped off to a number of new features and design elements in iOS 7. For starters, Ive will reportedly banish the mismatched “heavy textures” found across iOS in favor of a unified scheme largely featuring more simple black-and-white tones.

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Jony Ive’s iOS 7 redesign reportedly eliminates ‘heavy textures’ for a flat, ‘black and white’ design

Retailers reportedly briefed on how the Xbox One used-games market will work

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 20:12:00 +0000

The stage lights had barely dimmed at the Xbox One event before the internet started tripping over itself with questions about how the second-hand market was expected to operate — or if there was going to be one at all. Microsoft assured us there would be, but aside from whispers of a used game “activation fee” the finer details were kept under wraps. We may know a little more now, however, as MCV claims to have heard specifics from retailers who have been briefed by Redmond on the trade-in process. Allegedly, shops that wish to buy and sell a title will need to be hooked up to a Microsoft database so that access to the game can be removed from the previous owner’s account and transferred to a new one.

Hardwood Escher tesselated interlocking lizard tiles

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 20:09:27 +0000

The Spanish firm Arbore offered these custom Escher-inspired floor tiles back in 2011; from the looks of things, they’re still available. It’s a very well-executed conceit, done in hardwood. Diseño geometrico inspiración Escher (via Geekologie)

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Hardwood Escher tesselated interlocking lizard tiles

Why is Eric Holder in charge of reviewing Eric Holder’s surveillance of journalists policy?

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 20:02:11 +0000

During Obama’s national security speech yesterday, the president unexpectedly mentioned the AP and Fox News press freedom scandals. “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs,” he said, adding that he is “troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable.” Trevor Timm from Freedom

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Why is Eric Holder in charge of reviewing Eric Holder’s surveillance of journalists policy?

Sony and Lego research leads to DualShock-controlled minibots

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:48:45 +0000

Worried it might lose younger block-buying customers to video games and computers, Lego has teamed up with Sony to bring the two closer together. PCWorld reports that researchers at Sony’s Computer Science Laboratories in Tokyo have already started working on a number of experimental Lego products — including DualShock-controlled robots and camera-mounted figures. While Lego’s main business remains construction focused, the company is experimenting with new prototypes to stay ahead of the curve, even if it has no firm plans to release any commercial products. Continue reading…

Bing news search now shows related topics and personalities

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:41:00 +0000

Microsoft’s Bing may be a boy among men in the search-engine wars, but that’s not stopping it from piling on new features . The latest are in its news search, where it just added a “trending topics” carousel that shows timely info in the same category as your query (see the above image), along with a sidebar that displays personalities “you might also like.” Clicking on either will bring up further news results, and Bing also said it’s now extended the article index several years back in time compared to the curt two week period it had before. It’s an interesting change-up over Google’s Knowledge Graph , and Microsoft needs all the help it can get in search, given recent survey results .

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Bing news search now shows related topics and personalities

‘Children Are Dying’: a harrowing look at America’s drug shortage

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:32:03 +0000

There’s a public health crisis brewing across hospitals in the US, where many sick children are struggling to obtain the basic drugs and nutrients that could save their lives. Alexandra Robbins takes a deeper look at America’s drug shortage in a piece for the Washingtonian , supplementing shocking statistics with harrowing portraits of the children most directly affected. As Robbins reports, assigning blame can be difficult — some blame drug manufacturers, others blame the FDA — but the numbers speak for themselves; there are currently 300 drug, nutrient, and trace element shortages across US hospitals, the highest number ever recorded. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire career, and I’ve been a pharmacist for… Continue reading…

Samsung, LG join forces with Korean cable companies to push UHDTV content

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:06:00 +0000

No matter how many 4K TVs hit shelves , without native content their appeal will likely remain limited. Samsung and LG are working to change that, at least in their home country, by announcing a memorandum of understanding with five Korean cable operators (Hyundai HCN, CJ HelloVision, C&M, CMB, and T-Broad) to boost 4K TV broadcasts. We could see both live and on-demand 4K programming by the end of this year or early next year, made available via apps on smart TVs and streamed through South Korea’s abundant high speed internet connections. Still not enough resolution for you? Just last week, Japan’s NHK showed off the first 8K Super Hi-Vision narrative film at the Cannes Film Festival.

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Samsung, LG join forces with Korean cable companies to push UHDTV content

Microsoft details how Xbox One cloud servers will tackle processor-intensive gaming chores

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:29:00 +0000

One of the Xbox launch’s big reveals was that Microsoft added 300,000 servers to Xbox Live, and now GM Matt Booty has detailed to Ars Technica how that’ll improve game play. He said the improved cloud architecture will speed up GPU- or CPU-heavy chores that aren’t dependent on latency — like lighting or cloth dynamics — by pre-calculating them before applying them to a scene. To make that happen, the Xbox One server cloud will provide three virtual devices for “every Xbox one available in your living room.” It’ll be up to game developers to manage transitions between console-only and cloud assisted graphics, though, since the first few seconds of lighting in a new scene will need to be handled by the console before servers can take over. Of course, that means many titles may look better when you’re online, but he added that you’ll still be able to play if the internet is cut and “the game is going to have to intelligently handle that.” Filed under: Gaming , Microsoft Comments Source: Ars Technica

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Microsoft details how Xbox One cloud servers will tackle processor-intensive gaming chores

Life-sized Lego X-Wing smashes world record with five million bricks

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:05:55 +0000

Somebody at Lego built a life-sized, five-million-brick model of a Rebel X-Wing fighter. Or rather, 32 somebodies, who spent 17,000 hours building the 43-foot-long, 45,980-pound replica — the largest Lego model in the world. Gizmodo reports that the the fighter was assembled at the Lego Model Shop in Kladno, Czech Republic before being shipped to New York City, where it currently sits on display. Lego had other motivations for building the X-Wing than just breaking records — it’s being used to promote Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles, a new three-part animated series coming to Cartoon Network on Wednesday, May 29th

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Life-sized Lego X-Wing smashes world record with five million bricks

US Cellular getting ready to launch Home Phone service

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:19:00 +0000

Keen to capitalize on the ever-growing segment of landline cutters, US Cellular appears to be launching a home phone service similar to the Home Connect offerings by Verizon and Sprint . According to information we’ve received, all you have to do is plug in a regular cordless or corded phone into the provided base station and voilà — you’ll be able to make calls via US Cellular’s wireless network instead. You’ll get unlimited voice calls for only $19.99 a month, which also includes voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, three-way calling and that all-important E911 service. Of course, as it’s voice-only, you won’t get data or text messaging as part of the plan. The PCD-made base station seen above has a model name of FT2260 and boasts dual-band support (800/1900 MHz CDMA), a QSC6055 chipset, two phone jacks and a USB port for diagnostics purposes.

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US Cellular getting ready to launch Home Phone service

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen rocks out with Joe Walsh and Chrissie Hynde on major label debut

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:00:14 +0000

Multibillionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is set to release his next project this summer: the major label debut of his band, The Underthinkers. The LA Times reports that the record features Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders, Neville Brother Ivan Neville, and Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh, and that all the money from album sales will go toward educational programs at his Experience Music Project museum in Seattle. You might not guess it, but Allen is an accomplished guitarist, as evinced by the impressive blues shredding in the video below.

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Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen rocks out with Joe Walsh and Chrissie Hynde on major label debut

On The Verge is coming back

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:22:54 +0000

New weekly shows. New fascinating guests. New exciting antics. Absolutely no pants.

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On The Verge is coming back

Chrome 28 beta for Android brings translation bar, fullscreen on tablets

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:10:00 +0000

Internationally savvy Chrome desktop users are well acquainted with the translation bar’s ability to quickly make sense of sites using foreign languages . Courtesy of the new Chrome 28 beta for Android, they can take that linguistic power on the road: the translation bar now shows up on mobile when visiting pages in non-native text. The test release also gives tablets the same fullscreen mode that phones have in the stable build , and everyone can see graphs illustrating the data usage savings they get from compression .

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Chrome 28 beta for Android brings translation bar, fullscreen on tablets

Hands-on with Maxwest’s $65 7-inch dual-core ICS tablet at CTIA 2013

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:50:00 +0000

It’s true that cheap affordable Android tablets are a dime a dozen at most trade shows these days, but here at CTIA 2013 we stumbled upon something that caught our eye — a 7-inch dual-core tablet running Ice Cream Sandwich that costs just $65. The Maxwest TAB-7155DC aka. Ippo Y88 measures 182 x 122 x 10mm (7.16 x 4.8 x 0.39inch), weighs 187g (6.6oz) and comes in several hues (black, white, silver, red, blue and pink). It features a 7-inch 1024 x 600-pixel capacitive multitouch LCD, an Infotmic IMAPx820 SoC (dual-core Cortex A5 CPU with Mali 400 GPU), 512MB of RAM, 4GB of built-in storage, dual VGA cameras (front and back), WiFi b/g/n and 2800mAh battery. The screen isn’t covered in glass and there’s no sign of any Bluetooth or GPS radios, but then again, what do you expect for $65?

The unsung heroes of early Tumblr culture

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:31:08 +0000

A good read in The Daily Dot about a “major piece of the puzzle” in Tumblr’s origin myth that’s often overlooked: “[Founder David] Karp wasn’t the first person to create a tumblelog, the term used to describe the stripped-down blogging and content curation he has become known for. He wasn’t even the second. The true

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The unsung heroes of early Tumblr culture

Box acquires Folders technology with its next-gen iOS app in mind

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:31:00 +0000

Box just recently snapped up Crocodoc to improve the web component of its cloud storage, but what about tuning the native apps? It’s addressing that side of the equation by acquiring the technology behind Folders, a third-party cloud storage app for iOS. Box loves Folders’ code and design enough to want both of them inside the next generation of its iOS client . Folders creator Martin Destagnol (pictured here at center) has already been working on this for weeks, Box says. While there’s no word on a similar treatment for Android, we should see the iOS partnership bear fruit in updates spread throughout the year.

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Box acquires Folders technology with its next-gen iOS app in mind

‘The Daily Show’ rips fawning Senators at Tim Cook’s tax hearing

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:28:06 +0000

US Senators’ indulgent treatment of Apple CEO Tim Cook at this week’s hearing on tax avoidance didn’t escape the writers at The Daily Show. On Wednesday’s episode, host Jon Stewart skewered lawmakers like John McCain (R, AZ) and Claire McCaskill (D, MO) with a supercut of fawning and adoration, punctuated with lines like “you’ve managed to change the world,” ” we love the iPhone and the iPad,” and “I harassed my husband until he converted to a MacBook.” Cook was called in to testify about Apple’s offshore profit shifting — avoiding US taxes on over $100 billion of income by keeping it stashed overseas. After throwing in a shot about Apple Maps, the host ripped the senators for asking Cook what kind of tax code he thought… Continue reading…

Chrome for Android automatically translates the web in latest beta

bigBrains — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:04:05 +0000

Google Translate is coming to Chrome on Android. The Chrome Beta Android app was updated Thursday with a new feature that can automatically translate webpages into different languages. On a phone or tablet, the feature works a lot like the translation capabilities that are included in Chrome on the desktop counterpart — recognizing different languages by scanning websites and translating them after a user prompt.

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Chrome for Android automatically translates the web in latest beta