Gamer dies at PC in Taiwanese Internet cafe and nobody notices
three February 2012 15:31 GMT / By Rik Henderson
A man died at his function station in an world wide web cafe in Taipei, Taiwan, this week, but nobody noticed for up to nine hours. Twenty-three-year-old Chen Rong-yu checked in to play the multiplayer on the web game League of Legends on Tuesday night, but was found sitting “rigid on a chair with his hands stretched out towards the keyboard and mouse”, said neighborhood police.
None of the other 30 men and women in the cafe noticed, though it is claimed he had been taking frequent nap breaks, so that could clarify the inaction. His physique was identified by a female employee on Wednesday.
RIM Claws Back Against Apple and Google With Free Tablets
RIM’s battle is a long and tiring one against the predominant mobile platforms in the industry. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop put it best: “The industry has shifted from a battle of devices, to a war of ecosystems.” In other words, a smartphone or a tablet is only as good as the apps it runs.
This is good news for some — namely, Apple and Google. The two dominant mobile application platforms currently offer the majority of smart-device apps, boasting numbers in the hundreds of thousands. But for underdogs like RIM, it foretells a grim outlook on the future of the company’s mobile platform.
In an effort to claw its way back into the game, RIM has settled on a new strategy. Effective today until Feb. 13, every Android developer who ports an Android application over to the BlackBerry ecosystem will receive a free PlayBook, according to a recent tweet sent by RIM VP of developer relations Alec Saunders.
iPhone photography course on offer for ‘appy snappers
three February 2012 17:36 GMT / By Paul Lamkin
In what is believed to be a UK first, London’s Kensington and Chelsea College is to offer budding photographers a photography course with a twist. For there won’t be any SLR action going on the course, called “iPhoneography” is, you guessed it, centred on teaching fanboys and girls how to take very good pictures with their Apple handsets.
Richard Gray will be taking the course and he says that “all you need to have is a passion for photography and a creative thoughts”.
BMW Highly-Automated Car Barely Needs You
February 3rd, 2012
It in no way ceases to amaze me when I drive someplace just how many idiot drivers I see reading, texting, and carrying out anything other than keeping their eyes on the road. The government is attempting to combat distracted drivers but what they truly want to be doing is combating idiots. There is no legislation that will make an idiot stop getting an idiot behind the wheel. This is exactly where sweet vehicle tech like BMWs new prototype extremely automated driving mode comes in.
I prefer to be in manage of my personal automobile, so I don’t want this kind of stuff to be mandatory, but I vote we come up with some sort of idiot test and should you really be an idiot you’re would be forced to have a extremely-automated motor vehicle. BMWs idea is not like the totally-autonomous Google cars that drive with no human interaction, though. With BMW’s program, at any point along the way, you can take manage and drive commonly, but the automobile can manage a lot of driving situations all on its personal.
Built into a modified BMW Series five, highly-automated mode is much more along the lines of a fancy cruise manage technique that has radar, sonar, ultrasound, and other sensors built that can recognize when one more car is ahead of you and pass the other automobile safely. The car will also recognize speed limits and not exceed that speed. Check out the video above to see highly-automated mode in action.
At this point, BMW has no plans to commercialize this capability, but will use the learnings from their investigation to support develop other improvements for vehicle safety systems.
Apple overturns German online sales ban on iPhone, iPad
Germany appears to be a hotbed for patent war activity at the moment with Apple now overturning an on the web sales ban on several of its 3G gadgets.
Just this morning we reported on an injunction won by Motorola stopping Apple promoting the iPad 2, iPhone 3GS and iPhone four on it is official on the internet shop due to its alleged infringement on a 3G patent.
Nonetheless, the wheels of justice move swiftly in these matters and Apple has been able to strike down the injunction with haste.
Moto becoming unreasonable?
The Cupertino-based business says that the legal see-saw was in a position to occur due to Motorola Mobility’s refusal (no doubt backed by its new pals at Google) to "reasonably" license the patent to Apple.
An Apple spokeswoman told AllThingsD: "All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale by way of Apple’s online store in Germany shortly.
WEBSITE OF THE DAY: Gov.uk
three February 2012 1:00 GMT / By Ian Hughes
To anybody living in the UK at the moment, the notion of “a single Government” anything is a fanciful a single.
We have a collation where the correct hand does not seem to know what the one in the middle is doing, if you get my tortured, politically anatomical metaphor.
Bouncer is Google’s defense against malware in Club Android
Throughout the final year, Google has learned about a single of the potential drawbacks of having an open (or semi-open) platform. In yet one more parallel in between Android and Windows, Google’s mobile platform has been the recent target of several high-profile malware attacks. The threat hasn’t gone unnoticed from Mountain View, though, as Google has introduced a new service that automatically scans and removes malware from the Android Industry.
Meet Bouncer. Though Google only told us about it this week, it’s in fact been about for many months. When a developer submits a new app for the Android Marketplace, Bouncer steps in and analyzes it for prospective threats. It scans for malware, spyware, and trojans — as well as apps that “misbehave” in other ways. This is carried out via an Android emulator on Google’s cloud infrastructure. Though new apps are obviously the concentrate, Bouncer actually scans all apps — new and old.
An additional element of Bouncer is to try to catch repeat offenders in the act. In addition to scanning apps, it also focuses on the developers behind the apps. It apparently analyzes new dev accounts, and looks for red flags that recommend that they could have a identified malware-distributing track record. It wouldn’t be tough for a rascally developer to sign up with a new name, address, credit card, and IP address but something brief of those precautions may possibly uncover a developer blocked from submitting apps.
Google is touting some impressive results with Bouncer. It says that there was a sharp drop in Android Market malware at around the middle of 2012, when the automated service was added. It adds that this coincides with a reported rise in the distribution of Android malware (outside of the Market place).
Bouncer sounds like a clever way to deal with the malware issue, without having implementing an app approval process. It will need the proper balance of catching malware without having incorrectly flagging non-malware apps or developers. Even though malware on Android most likely is not as frequent as tech headlines would lead you to think, Google is taking precautions to maintain it from becoming a significant concern.
HTC Sensation coming in Ice White with Android 4.0
HTC has revealed plans to launch a white version of the Sensation handset, which will also bring Android Ice Cream Sandwich along for the ride.
The Ice White version of the device will launch on March 1, while adding Android four. into the mix tends to make it the 1st in the HTC Sensation series to pack the most recent version of Google’s mobile OS.
The newly-painted Sensation could also be the initial device to boast HTC’s refined Sense four. UI, although that’s but to be confirmed.
A dutch press release also states that devices its counterparts the Sensation XE, Sensation XL will also be acquiring an Android four. update "soon."
Cutting down on the clutter?
The announcement comes just weeks immediately after it admitted it would be focusing on a smaller array of Hero devices in 2012 in an try to reduce consumer confusion.
