The Air Force is aiming to save at least $5.7 million in fuel costs alone, which is “well over $50 million,” according to the major. But the cost saving isn’t everything. Being able to quickly pull up “engine fire” through a simple PDF search is far easier — and less stressful — than flicking through tens of thousands of pages of text. It also might save the U.S. taxpayer even more money in the long run by not crashing the $168 million mega-plane into a mountain or a Taliban stronghold.
The iPad’s become a popular replacement for cockpit manuals for commercial pilots, too.
Imports have actually spiked on the rumors even though it’s Sunday: normally we import 400-600 posts an hour from Tumblr, last hour it was over 72,000.
I understand why people are worried — Yahoo has a terrible reputation for screwing things up, but I don’t think it will happen this time. Maybe I think too highly of Marissa Mayer, but I think Tumblr will be okay.
According to numerous sources, Mayer determined quickly in her research that the fast-growing content site, turbocharged by mountains of user-generated content, was just the kind of property that Yahoo needed to make it both “cool” and relevant to new audiences.
My thanks to World 1-2 for sponsoring The Loop. World 1-2 is a new videogames-inspired music album by Koopa Soundworks, directed and produced by Mohammed Taher. It hosts a number of famed superstars as well as rising indies, including Austin Wintory (of Journey), Akira Yamaoka (of Silent Hill), Manami Matsumae (of Mega Man), Chipzel (of Super Hexagon), and a lot others.
The Wii U just had its Dreamcast moment. With Electronic Arts confirming it doesn’t have any games in development for the machine, one of the console industry’s biggest players has walked away from the system counting its losses. So that’s none of the market-leading sports games for the Wii U in the near term and none of those tantalising new Star Wars games in the mid-term. We weren’t looking at a long term solution for the Wii U, but now it seems it won’t even get a semi-decent sales pick up at the end of the year. Christmas is cancelled for Nintendo.
I have to admit, I winced with the Dreamcast reference. I’m a big Dreamcast fan even to this day. Big difference between Nintendo and Sega, though: Nintendo’s got a thriving handheld gaming business.
EA pulling up stakes in the Wii U software business isn’t necessarily a death knell for the platform, but it is a major PR issue for Nintendo to deal with. Martin outlines some of Nintendo’s other challenges, too.
Yahoo has been mulling some kind of deal with the hip New York-based blogging site, from a strategic investment to an outright acquisition. Sources said that the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s CEO Marissa Mayer has decided that buying Tumblr was going to be “the stake in the ground of what her strategy is going forward for Yahoo.”
Over 11,000 UK consumers responded to the survey, with Apple coming out on top with an 85% satisfaction score. Apple Retail Stores were praised specifically for their “unique look and feel” and “great customer service.”
Beware. Your tech gear is costing you money while you sleep. Sure, the stuff looks innocent enough: cable box, HDTV, computer monitor, and sundry other electronic gadgets that consume power even when in “sleep” mode. While their energy-sucking ways may seem harmless, they cost you big bucks over time.
”We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we’d done it,” Otellini told me in a two-hour conversation during his last month at Intel. “The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do… At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought.”
So basically, Otellini is the Pete Best of the tech business.
I have never used a case on my iPhone, except for the Mophie Juice Pack Plus. Having the extra battery power made it worth while and the Mophie never let me down. Good seeing it available for the iPhone 5.
Zakk Wylde, Lee Ritenour, JJ Grey & Mofro, and Rock Candy Funk Party (RCFP)–featuring Tal Bergman, Joe Bonamassa, Ron DeJesus, and Mike Merritt–will take The Iridium stage to celebrate Les Paul’s 98th birthday with more than a week of shows June 3-12.
I was at the first celebration at the Iridium in New York after Les died sitting at a table with Zakk Wylde and Steven Van Zandt. Jeff Beck played that night — it was absolutely amazing.
Sydney has been having a big problem with oversized trucks driving into tunnels that are too low. So Sydney needed a stop sign that is absolutely impossible to miss. Here it is and it’s amazing.P
It’s a curtain of water with a stop sign projected onto it.
I don’t know – it seems like they might scare the daylights out of the driver and cause even more havoc.
…as a scientist, I can’t help but notice that every now and again, just sometimes, maybe, Trek ventures into some pretty dicey science territory. Let me be clear: I have no problem with faster-than-light travel, time travel, teleporters, the Universal Translator, or anything like that. Every genre has a conceit, a gimme, and in scifi that means advanced tech that we can’t necessarily explain today. That’s fine, and as long as it’s internally consistent in the story I’m happy.
My beef is usually when the plot relies on some error in science, or when the tech is used inconsistently.
In honor of the release of the latest Star Trek movie today, this should get the Trekkies all wound up.
Police were called to calm Star Wars and Doctor Who fans at a science fiction convention in Norwich, UK, after the two groups got into a heated argument, the BBC reports.
Meanwhile the Star Trek fans just watched from the sidelines, recording the fracas on their Windows 8 phones.
Remember how Google sent Microsoft that cease and desist letter because Microsoft made a YouTube app, but cut out the ads? Well, Larry Page went on stage at Google I/O preaching about how being “negative is not how we make progress,” and “not every new technology is zero-sum.”
“In light of Larry Page’s comments today calling for more interoperability and less negativity, we look forward to solving this matter together for our mutual customers.”
This is my problem with Google in situations like this.
Google is forever preaching to users how they are not evil and how everyone should work together in harmony to make everyone happy. They stick to that mantra as they enter new markets, destroying the competition and sometimes even walking away when they get bored.
All’s fair to Google, and that’s fine.
However, as soon as another company messes with Google’s advertising, the company’s main revenue stream, then it’s a different story. Then the lawyers come out and the cease and desist letters start.
EA is doing away with its Online Pass program from this point forward, a decision the video game publisher says is partially based on player response.
“Yes, we’re discontinuing Online Pass,” EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg confirmed to GamesBeat in an e-mail. “None of our new EA titles will include that feature.”
Online Pass was EA’s attempt to short circuit the used game market. New console games included an “online pass” code that players needed to input in order to play their games online. Games purchased second-hand from GameStop and elsewhere required users to purchase an additional code in order to play.
With all the bad press that EA’s getting this year over SimCity and other fumbles, it’s no wonder they did away with this program. It was as welcome as a turd in a punchbowl.
“Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99.”
That is the line that the DOJ is using in its e-book case against Apple. However, when you look at it in context with the rest of the comments Jobs made, it’s pretty innocuous.
Google is pissed off that Microsoft made a YouTube app for Windows Phone, but excluded the advertising. Here is a section of Google’s letter:
“Unfortunately, by blocking advertising and allowing downloads of videos, your application cuts off a valuable ongoing revenue source for creators, and causes harm to the thriving content ecosystem on YouTube,” says Google’s letter, addressed to Microsoft’s Todd Brix.
Actually Google, Microsoft has it right — this sounds like a great YouTube app.
