If mathematicians are collectively devices for turning coffee into theorems, as Alfréd Rényi once remarked, phone patents and purchase agreements are devices for turning patents into gobs and gobs of cash. Devices and technologies are so intertwined, it’s not unusual to see companies that compete in the same market and for the same customers buying and licensing technology from one another. It’s well known Samsung and Apple collectively extract virtually all of the profit from the phone market for themselves (and Apple gets the lion’s share of the profits, despite shipping far fewer devices per year than Samsung does).
Any photographer struggling with the heavy-duty interfaces of Adobe’s Lightroom and Photoshop, or who simply doesn’t want so sign up for a subscription, is a good candidate for their lighterweight sibling, Photoshop Elements. The same goes for videographers unwilling to sign up for an expensive Creative Cloud plan and might be well-served by Premiere Elements. The good news is the Elements product line becomes more powerful each year. Today, Adobe has unveiled version 18 of the applications, skipping 16 and 17 to line up with the calendar with a new name of 2018, and they’re both chock full of new features.
We’ve been tracking the long-term growth of the VR ecosystem on PC thanks to Valve’s monthly Steam Hardware Survey and its reported data. This past summer saw major price cuts from both Oculus and HTC, with the Oculus Rift temporarily on sale with controllers for just $400, and HTC offering the Vive for $600. It took HTC some time to react to Oculus’ move, however, and it wasn’t immediately obvious what kind of gains the company might realize. We’ve returned to our Steam reports to capture the new data, but this time there’s a wrinkle. Steam appears to have adjusted its ranking methodologies, making it more difficult for us to compare the new data with our previous set.
Sony’s PlayStation VR has been a quiet success, racking up over a million sales by June of 2017. Granted, that’s not much compared with the 62.6 million consoles Sony is estimated to have sold to date, but it’s not nothing, either, particularly for a new technology. The company is rolling out a modest update to its original design, and while it won’t likely persuade anyone to upgrade, new buyers waiting to see what features the second generation will bring might be enticed. The headphone jack has moved from a cable to being integrated at the back of the headset, there’s a thinner single cable to carry data traffic to and from the additional Processor Unit Sony sells with the system, and the new headset now supports HDR.
My obsession with custom is at this point. I don’t technically need more keyboards. So, if I’m going to add to my collection, I want to make sure it’s something distinctive and cool. I began making plans some months ago for a particularly fun keyboard build–a homage to NASA and retro computing. The result is one of the most satisfying (and beautiful) typing experiences I’ve ever had. Classic Inspiration There was a time when every keyboard was mechanical, but there weren’t as many of them. Back in the Apollo era, NASA used IBM System/360 mainframe computers with some interesting keyboards.
Want to learn to program? Curious about learning the intricacies of C? Today’s deal from StackSocial is a bundle you absolutely must check out. From absolute newbies to long-time programmers looking to learn the ins and outs of this specific language, there’s something for everyone in these ten courses. • (List price: $928) With your purchase, you’ll get these ten courses: • Advanced C Programming: Pointers • C Programming For Beginners • C Programming: Complete Tutorial For Beginners • Learn Data Structures Using C Programming Language • C Programming Language Refresher
It’s not common knowledge in the United States, but the majority of Android devices in-market technically sport FM radio tuners built into their SoCs. It used to be next to impossible to find a smartphone from any vendor in the US that offered an unlocked radio, but that’s improved somewhat in recent years. We’ve seen some audio services pop up that support this capability, and a handful of smartphones and carriers that now support it on various Android devices. Apple, however, has refused to activate any such feature. In the wake of Hurricane Harvey and Irma, however, the FCC is calling for Apple to begin activating its phone’s native capability and making it available to people for emergency communication, if nothing else.
The headlines on this one could almost write themselves. Anthony Levandowski, the disgraced former Google engineer whose copying of trade secrets led Waymo (Alphabet’s self-driving car company) to file a lawsuit against Uber for $1.86 billion, founded an organization called “Way of the Future” back in 2015. Its purpose, according to state filings, was to “develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence.” At first glance, the idea seems utterly preposterous. But I’d argue Levandowski’s mistake isn’t his dubious attempt to position a digital deity as a substitution for the decidedly more analog versions of conventional religions.
The world is a big place, but is looking to make it feel a bit smaller with a new mode of transportation. At the recent International Astronautical Congress (IAC), CEO Elon Musk gave an update on the company’s . What really stole the show was a new potential use for that rocket. According to Musk, the Mars rocket could also be used to transport people from one spot on Earth to any other in about an hour. The 43-minute presentation at IAC marks the first time SpaceX has provided detailed information about the BFR spacecraft. SpaceX still plans to build and launch two BFR (which stands for Big F***ing Rocket) cargo missions to Mars in 2022, followed by manned flights as soon as 2024.
