Geekly Update - 14 March 2012
Happy Pi Day! Will the stars align at 1:59PM today? Can you charge up a dying smartphone battery by connecting it to a snail? And hey... is that my fridge talking to the vacuum cleaner? Get answers to these burning questions, and the scoop on the latest tech news, in this edition of the Geekly Update. It's guaranteed to make you 146% smarter, read on... |
The AskBobRankin Geekly Update
It's Pi Day! One hot summer day, about 35 years ago, I memorized pi to 50 places. There's probably an app for that now. If you're into irrational numbers, join the folks at 3.14159265358979....com to celebrate at 1:59pm today.
Scientists at DARPA have found a way to turn snails into electric power generators. Yes, really.
A French man is suing Google for $13000, because the company's Street View cameras caught him peeing in his yard. Google's response? "It's okay, we blurred out his face."
Lady Gaga takes the prize as the first person on Twitter to have over 20 million followers. I guess that makes Lady Gaga's publicist the most popular person on Twitter.
Samsung has released smartphones apps to monitor and control appliances, such as your refrigerator, washing machine, air conditioner and robotic cleaners. Well not YOUR appliances, really. The internet-connected appliances and apps are only available in Korea for now.
Sony's SmartWatch will launch in April and with it you can check email, text messages, monitor social networks and take calls. It attaches to any watchband, connects to your Android phone via Bluetooth, and comes at with $149 price tag. If the next version has a toaster slot, I'm all over it.
Sprint is offering you a chance to win one of 30 Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphones with its Data Storm Sweepstakes. Enter before April 5 on your PC or phone, or by playing the company's mobile game. In a bizarre twist, Sprint is also allowing people to enter the contest by sending a postcard. I *so* hope the winner is one of those postcard people.
Amid the usual hype, the new iPad made its debut this week. Improvements include a retina display for more lifelike images, 4G LTE capability, and a 5-megapixel iSight camera. But the really good news for the masses is that competition from Android tablets (mostly Amazon's Kindle Fire) has forced Apple to drop the price of the iPad 2 by $100.
Think of Gnzo as a video Twitter that allows you to display 30 clips at the same time. The default time on the free app is six seconds, long enough to give friends and relatives an idea of what you are up to at any given time.
Square has released Register, a free iPad app (no plans for Android yet) that turns the device into a cash register. Designed for small businesses, it accepts cash or credit cards, lists menu items and tracks customers usage.
"That dark cloud over Asia? Turns out it's not pollution... it's the Internet!" Microsoft has published research results done by IDC predicting that cloud computing will create up to 14 million new jobs by 2015, with the bulk of them going to China and India.
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This article was posted by Bob Rankin on 14 Mar 2012
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Article information: AskBobRankin -- Geekly Update - 14 March 2012 (Posted: 14 Mar 2012)
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Most recent comments on "Geekly Update - 14 March 2012"
Posted by:
RW
14 Mar 2012
I disagree that the Android competition forced Apple to lower the iPad2 price, as they'd lowered the price of the original iPad after the announcement of the iPad2.
Posted by:
Don Martin
14 Mar 2012
Hi Bill,
Thank you for your e-mails. I read every one of them.
Can you tell me how to completely remove myself from FACEBOOK?
No matter what I do I cannot unsubscribe or totally remove myself.
I know it is a long process for removal, but I am willing to do anything to get out of this program.
Thank you for your help.
Posted by:
Mike Collins
14 Mar 2012
You have the wrong pi day over there because you put the dates the wrong way round. Pi day is July 22nd (22/7).
EDITOR'S NOTE: Accck. 22/7 is merely the lazy man's approximation of the venerable pi. Do the math... you find it's only 99.95976625% accurate. :-)
Posted by:
ManoaHi
15 Mar 2012
Regarding:
"But the really good news for the masses is that competition from Android tablets (mostly Amazon's Kindle Fire) has forced Apple to drop the price of the iPad 2 by $100."
This is not correct. When the iPad 2 came out, long before the Kindle Fire and most other Android tablets, Apple had dropped the price of the original iPad by $100. When the iPhone 4 came out they dropped the price of the 3GS to $49. When the iPhone 4S came out they dropped the price of the 4 to $49 and the 3GS to $0. Same has been true of when new Macintoshes come out, the previous model is cheaper.
The common sense thing to do is lower the price of the older stuff to get rid of inventory (which is expensive). Also, as common sense would dictate, why would you buy the old device if the new device is the same price. To keep it the same price would be a brain dead action. Apple has shown time and time again that they lower the price of older items, if they still have inventory. In fact there were many people who were waiting for Apple to release the new iPad so that they could get the iPad 2 for a lower price. In other words, for years and years, Apple has always done this. Android did not force the change. Apple doesn't consider the Kindle Fire as competition, they classify the Kindle Fire as a reader but the iPad as so much more. They don't even call the iPad a tablet. Most others do, but listen and read carefully, Apple never refer to the iPad as a tablet.
In other words this is FUD. Please don't spread FUD. From the tone of things, I get you don't care for Apple much (e.g. "Amid all the hype", "force Apple to..."), but FUD is really bad. I really like Apple, but I feel the same for Microsoft, Google (including Android - I have a Galaxy Tab 10.1), and various distros of Linux. I don't like hearing FUD regarding any of those.
I know you won't publish this, but please be a little more careful. Yeah, a little FUD won't hurt Apple much, unless many people see this. But the Apple fanbois will flame you. I am not one of those I am more of a Tech fanboy, I like all of it. Please don't spread it.
Posted by:
carmen
17 Mar 2012
"I *so* hope the winner is one of those postcard people."
ha ha ha. ME TOO! :)