Online storage service enhancements help it keep pace with rivals like DropBox, Apple’s iCloud, and Google Drive. By Paul McDougall Microsoft has unveiled a major revamp of SkyDrive, and said the cloud storage service has moved beyond the “preview” stage to become fully operational. The enhancements include a new Web front, faster uploading and sorting, new tools for developers, and a forthcoming SkyDrive app for mobile devices that run Google Android.
The physics world was abuzz Monday with early reports that the elusive “God particle” had been detected at Europe’s premier physics lab. Scientists working at the The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest atom smasher, may have discovered the existence of “The God Particle.” Discovering the particle, formally called the Higgs boson, would finalize physicists’ understanding of how subatomic particles have mass, which gives an object weight. Two international physics teams at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva will present their results Wednesday. Their data should reveal a definitive signature that the particle exists as seen in the atom-smasher experiments at CERN. Physicists have been pursuing the Higgs boson for three decades to understand how particles create forces, such as electromagnetism. To physicists, mass isn’t what we carry around on our waists, but the amount of resistance that matter produces as it’s being moved, or inertia. In theory, the God particle, a term coined by physicist Leon Lederman to capture its elusiveness, interacts with the other particles to give them inertia. CERN researchers reported in December they were close to discovering the particle, but the new results are built on twice as much data. Ahead of the expected announcement, the journal Nature reported “pure elation” Monday among physicists searching for the Higgs boson. One team saw only “a 0.00006% chance of being wrong,” the journal said. Officially, the lab is mum about the results until Wednesday. CERN technology official Steve Myers reported only that data collection for the experiments ended last month. “We don’t actually know the answer yet. We are still doing the calculations,” said physicist Paul Padley of Rice University in Houston, who is on one of the physics teams presenting the findings. “It’s endless fun for us to read all these news reports about the results, before we even have finished the calculations,” he said. Martial Trezzini, AP
Joel Tenenbaum, RIAA’s Public Enemy No. 1 Congratulations, RIAA, for prevailing in a court case that will do nothing to stop piracy and continue to turn the public against you. The Supreme Court refused earlier this month to hear the case of Joel Tenenbaum, a former Boston University student with a PhD in statistics, who was ordered to pay $675,000 for the crime of downloading 30 songs. If you end up bankrupting him, you’ll get lots of publicity, but not the kind you’re looking for. I suggest you check with your members’ kids and see how many songs they and their classmates download. Wouldn’t that be a great lawsuit? Suing the kids who illegally download music is as stupid as suing the people who download content on Androids because Google “stole” Apple’s patents. Apple isn’t stupid. It’s suing Google, not its own customers. You can argue that Apple, too, is shooting itself in the foot and simply inviting scores of counter-suits, but at least its not hurting its own customer base. So if you have to sue someone, sue the guys who profit by selling your songs illegally, the companies that maintain massive caches of “pirated” songs, the Internet companies that allow consumers to freely pass songs back and forth, even colleges like Boston University that allowed Tenenbaum and thousands of other students to store and sends songs on their high-speed networks. That won’t make much of a dent in the piracy problem, either. But beating up a penniless graduate student? C’mon, do you beat up your own kids? The solution is the same as its been for over 10 years, if you’d just open your eyes. Give people access to anything, anywhere, anytime for a fixed monthly cost (See: cable networks, massive profits of). Give away free or reduced-price concert tickets, access to rock stars, whatever, to keep your fan base engaged. Continue to sell songs to people who want to own. Support free advertising-supported services like Spotify. You can probably think of dozens more ideas. Get creative. Isn’t that what they pay you the big bucks for? You’ll end up with massively better profits than you did before those pesky MP3s showed up. Or you can continue to go after consumers and win the law suits. In which case congratulations soon won’t be in order for you and your member companies. Think eulogies. By Michael Stroud May 31, 2012 at 7:29 pm
Apple iGrid? Perhaps chastened by recent stories about their poor environmental scorecard, and getting the fifth lowest score in Greenpeace’s How Clean Is Your Cloud? report, Apple Inc. seems to be changing its iTune and, at least as far as one new data center is concerned, is seeking to have 100% of its power generated from renewable sources.
IP Announces 100% Recycled Paper for North American Customers Friday, May 04, 2012 International Paper is pleased to announce the launch of a 100% recycled paper offering, Hammermill Great White 100 to North American customers. The paper is the newest product to join the Hammermill Great White line of recycled products.
Landa Corporation today announced the details of its groundbreaking Landa Nanographic Printing Presses that are set to transform mainstream commercial, packaging and publishing markets. With output speeds comparable to offset presses and employing NanoInk colorants that create unprecedented image qualities, the Landa Nanographic Printing Press portfolio is set to fundamentally change printing as we know it.
Following the Breadcrumbs on the Data-Sharing Trail WOULD you like to donate to the Obama campaign? Sign up for a college course? Or maybe subscribe to Architectural Digest? If you have ever felt inundated by such solicitations, by e-mail or by snail mail, you may have wondered what you did to deserve it.
False duotone: a normal halftone printed over a flat screen of an accent color When dinosaurs roamed the earth and letterpress was the printing process of choice, full color was a luxury few advertisers could justify.
Are Twitter and Facebook your new marketing frontier? Or all sizzle and no steak? All the buzz and explosive growth makes it seem every marketer should be getting into social media, but your potential results depend on who your customers are and how they make buying decisions. Online social tools can drive significant results only with the right audience and strategies.
MAY 18, 2011 · Optical disc replicators in California would be required to keep detailed records of job orders and equipment purchases or face stiff criminal fines, under new anti-piracy legislation now making its way through the state’s Senate. The legislation, introduced earlier this year by California State Sen. Alex Padilla, aims to strengthen an existing state law that requires replicators to include source identification information on every disc they manufacture. In addition to specifying new documentation requirements and raising fines for violations, the proposed amendments authorize law enforcement to conduct warrantless compliance inspections of the state’s replication facilities.