Android Phones Will Power NASA's New Fleet of Mini-Satellites

 

Hoping to inject new life into low-cost space exploration, NASA's 'PhoneSat' program will launch a series of Google Nexus One–controlled mini-satellites into space later this year. 

While most of the recent media attention on NASA has understandably focused on the Curiosity rover on Mars, that’s not the only experiment that the space and aeronautics research agency has in the works. A team at NASA’s Ames Research center in Moffett Field, California, is working on the future launch of miniature satellites constructed with Android-powered Nexus One smartphones at the helm. Dubbed “PhoneSat,” this project is part of a larger experiment called the CubeSat Launch Initiative that incorporates small consumer electronics into working nanosatellites.

Apple-Samsung Patent Battle Now in Jury's Hands

A nine-person California jury will begin their deliberations Wednesday in the landmark patent battle between Apple and Samsung. The case, which has been argued since the beginning of the month, pits two of the world's largest electronics makers against each other and could result in billions of dollars in fines depending on the jury's decision.
The case revolves around a handful of patents covering the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad and some of the icons on the devices' home screens. It's one of several legal battles the companies are fighting around the world but, given its location in the heart of Silicon Valley and close to Apple's Cupertino headquarters, it is perhaps the most closely watched.

The Top-Performing Android Phones: Benchmark Blitz

We put six Android phones through our suite of benchmark tests to see which ones had the best CPU, graphics, and browser performance.

 

HTC EVO 4G LTE 

Choose the Right Graphics Card: 2012 Edition

GPUs today are more than just gaming accelerators. They speed up a wide range of applications, and this guide helps you pick the best match for your needs.

Modern graphics cards are intimidating, hulking beasts in a world of increasingly tiny PC components. Most of them are double-wide, occupying two expansion-slot spaces, even though they use only a single physical slot. Many require two power connectors and beefier-than-average power supplies. Their primary audience appears to be serious PC gamers, who use an arcane jargon of their own: frame rates, VSync, antialiasing.
Graphics processing units, or GPUs, are at the heart of these cards, and their sheer physical size and transistor count--some models have in excess of 4 billion transistors--help explain why they consume so much power and require sophisticated cooling systems. The transistor count also suggests why these new graphics chips aren't just graphics accelerators: They improve performance across a broad range of applications.

EnemyGraph Facebook Application

UPDATE: you can follow the trending & top enemies on enemygraph.com and my ongoing comments on the project on twitter. For press see bottom of this post.
For the past six months my research group has been looking into an app that explores social dissonance on Facebook. Today we are announcing the public release of EnemyGraph. The project was developed principally by graduate student Bradley Griffith with invaluable help from undergraduate Harrison Massey.
EnemyGraph is an application that allows you to list your “enemies”. Any Facebook friend or user of the app can be an enemy. More importantly, you can also make any page or group on Facebook an “enemy”. This covers almost everything including people, places and things. During our testing testing triangles and q-tips were trending, along with politicians, music groups, and math.

How to Fix Your Wi-Fi Network: 7 Tips

A quick guide to fixing the most common Wi-Fi problems that crop up at home, in the office, or on the road.

Wireless Internet networks afford us the luxury of browsing the Web cable-free, but a connection that relies on radio waves is subject to failure due to interference, signal range limits, hardware problems, and operator error. With that in mind, we've put together a quick guide to the most common Wi-Fi troubles and how to fix them.

If you're struggling with your Wi-Fi network at home or in the office, read on to discover a few different ways to troubleshoot your Wi-Fi woes and restore your wireless network.

iOS 6 Passbook App Shown Off In A Real-World Scenario, Looks Impressive [VIDEO]

When Tim Cook and his cohorts took to the stage to introduce us to the next-generation of iOS, we were pretty much expecting most of the announcements which were rumored beforehand. However, as the demonstration of iOS 6 continued, there was a couple of little additions that took us by surprise and had managed to slip through the rumor net which led up to the event. One of those surprises came in the form of Passbook, a new iOS stock app which offers a new and efficient way for users to store tickets, coupons, gift cards and vouchers in one central place for easy access later on.