Dueling disks: Apple's 128GB response to Surface Pro



Not all disk subsystems are created equal. Microsoft has opted for a speedy mSATA-based SSD for its Surface Pro.

Not all disk subsystems are created equal. Microsoft has opted for a speedy mSATA-based SSD for its Surface Pro.



(Credit:
Micron Technology)


With the 128GB iPad, Apple is obviously trying to steal thunder from Microsoft's Saturday roll out of the Surface Pro. But that doesn't mean you can equate the iPad's disk performance with the Surface Pro's.


Apple's carefully-timed release of the 128GB iPad ostensibly puts the
iPad's storage on par with Microsoft's 128GB
Surface Pro, which will go on sale Saturday.


Well, not quite.


Apple is using a flash drive optimized for power efficiency, while Microsoft's solid-state drive favors speed -- the same kind of drive used in ultrabooks. (And Apple's MacBooks, for that matter.)


"Apple is using something that's more optimized for cost/power/form factor while Microsoft is using the type of SSD you'd stick in a high-end Ultrabook or other PC," Anand Shimpi of Anandtech, told CNET.


For the Surface Pro, Microsoft went with an SSD based on the mSATA interface, according to Michael Yang, a memory and storage analyst at IHS iSuppli. And Microsoft confirmed the mSATA interface today with CNET.



That's the same interface used in ultrabooks boasting read speeds of more than 400MB per second and writes up 250MB per second.


But Yang said that it's really a combination of silicon that should give Microsoft's tablet its snappy disk performance. "The Surface Pro [has] hardware almost identical to an Ultrabook...the Core i5, 4GB of DRAM and mSATA SSD should provide users with very peppy performance with the new
Windows 8 operating system," Yang said.

And a high-performance SSD is necessary with Windows, which is designed as a multitasking OS: users typically have multiple windows open on the desktop and multiple tasks executing (e.g., encoding a video and editing a photo) at the same time. That's not the case with iOS, which is designed to run one thing at a time.

And Yang added that there are a lot of other factors that come into play, including how the operating system interacts with storage subsystem.

And, speaking of software, another key difference between the two devices has nothing to with hardware and everything to do with software. Microsoft has stated publicly that the 128GB Surface with Windows 8 Pro will ship with 83GB of available storage.

Apple's 128GB iPad, on the other hand, will undoubtedly have considerably more available storage due to the small footprint of iOS.


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The Real Richard III


It's a question that actors from Laurence Olivier to Kevin Spacey have grappled with: What did Richard III, the villainous protagonist of Shakespeare's famous historical drama, really look and sound like?

In the wake of this week's announcement by the University of Leicester that archaeologists have discovered the 15th-century British king's lost skeleton beneath a parking lot, news continues to unfold that helps flesh out the real Richard III.

The Richard III Society unveiled a 3D reconstruction today of the late king's head and shoulders, based on computer analysis of his skull combined with an artist's interpretation of details from historical portraits. (Related: "Shakespeare's Coined Words Now Common Currency.")

"We received the skull data before DNA analysis confirmed that the remains were Richard III, and we treated it like a forensic case," said Caroline Wilkinson, the University of Dundee facial anthropologist who led the reconstruction project. "We were very pleasantly surprised by the results."

Though Shakespeare describes the king as an "elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog," the reconstructed Richard has a pleasant, almost feminine face, with youthful skin and thoughtful eyes. His right shoulder is slightly higher than the left, a consequence of scoliosis, but the difference is barely visible, said Wilkinson.

"I think the whole Shakespearean view of him as being sort of monster-like was based more on his personality than his physical features," she reflected.

Look back at 125 years of National Geographic history

People are naturally fascinated by faces, especially of historical figures, said Wilkinson, who has also worked on reconstructions of J.S. Bach, the real Saint Nicholas, the poet Robert Burns, and Cleopatra's sister.

"We make judgments about people all the time from looking at their appearance," she said. "In Richard's case, up to now his image has been quite negative. This offers a new context for considering him from the point of view of his anatomical structure rather than his actions. He had quite an interesting face."

A Voice From the Past

Most people's impression of Richard's personality comes from Shakespeare's play, in which the maligned ruler utters such memorable lines as "Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this son of York," and "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

But how would the real Richard III have expressed himself? Did he have an accent? Was there any sense of personality or passion in his choice of words?

To find out more about the mysterious monarch, Philip Shaw, a historical linguist at University of Leicester's School of English, analyzed the only two known examples of Richard III's own writing. Both are postscripts on letters otherwise composed by secretaries—one in 1469, before Richard became king, and one from 1483, the first year of his brief reign.

Shaw identified a quirk of spelling that suggests that Richard may have spent time in the West Midlands, or perhaps had a tutor who hailed from there.

"I was looking to compare the way he spells things with the way his secretaries spell things, working on the assumption that he would have been schooled to a fairly high level," Shaw explained.

Read about National Geographic explorers on our Explorers Journal blog

In the 1469 letter, Richard spells the word "will" as "wule," a variation associated with the West Midlands. But Shaw also notes that by 1483, when Richard wrote the second letter's postscript, he had changed his spelling to the more standard "wyll" (the letters 'i' and 'y' were largely interchangeable during that period of Middle English).

"That could suggest something about him brushing up over the years, or moving toward what would have been the educated standard," Shaw said, noting that the handwriting in the second example also appears a bit more polished. "One wonders what sort of practice and teaching he'd had in the interim."

Although it's hard to infer tone of voice from written letters, there is certainly emotion in the words penned by Richard III.

In the 1469 letter, the 17-year-old seeks a loan of 100 pounds from the king's undertreasurer. Although the request is clearly stated in the body of the letter, Richard adds an urgent P.S.: "I pray you that you fail me not now at this time in my great need, as you will that I show you my good lordship in that matter that you labour to me for."

That could either be a veiled threat (If you don't lend me the money, I won't do that thing you asked me to do) or friendly cajoling (Come on, I'm helping you out with something, so help me out with this loan).

"His decision to take the pen himself shows you how important that personal touch must have been in getting people to do something," Shaw said.

The second letter, written to King Richard's chancellor in 1483, also conveys a sense of urgency. He had just learned that the Duke of Buckingham—once a close ally—was leading a rebellion against him.

"He's asking for his Great Seal to be sent to him so that he can use it to give out orders to suppress the rebellion," Shaw said. "He calls the Duke 'the most untrue creature living. You get a sense of how personally let down and betrayed he feels."

Shaw said he hopes his analysis—in combination with the new facial reconstruction—will help humanize Richard III.

"He probably wasn't quite the villain that Shakespeare portrays, though I suspect he was quite ruthless," he said. "But you probably couldn't afford to be a very nice man if you wanted to survive as a king in those days."


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White House: Drone Strikes on Americans 'Legal'





Feb 5, 2013 3:54pm


The White House today defended the use of targeted drone strikes against U.S. citizens abroad suspected of high-level terrorist activity, but declined to detail the criteria for ordering such an attack.


“Sometimes we use remotely piloted aircraft to conduct targeted strikes against specific al Qaeda terrorists in order to prevent attacks on the United States and to save American lives,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.


“We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats, to stop plots, to prevent future attacks and, again, save American lives. These strikes are legal, they are ethical, and they are wise,” he said.


ht predator drone nt 121108 wblog Drone Strikes on US Terror Suspects Legal, Ethical, Wise, White House Says

U.S. Air Force


Administration lawyers found it is lawful to kill an American citizen if a “high-level” government official believes the target is an operational leader of al Qaeda who poses “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and if capture is infeasible, according to a newly disclosed Justice Department document.


The 16-page white paper, first obtained by NBC News, finds there “exists no appropriate judicial forum to evaluate these constitutional considerations” and that the administration does not need to present evidence to a court before or after ordering such an attack.


“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” the document reads.


Carney repeatedly declined to discuss the details of the white paper.


“I would point you to the ample judicial precedent for the idea that someone who takes up arms against the United States in a war against the United States is an enemy and therefore could be targeted accordingly,” he told ABC News’ Jon Karl.


“[The president] takes his responsibility as commander in chief to protect the United States and its citizens very seriously. He takes the absolute necessity to conduct our war against al Qaeda and its affiliates in a way that’s consistent with the Constitution and our laws very seriously,” he said.


The white paper is believed to be a summary of the reported classified memo that outlined the legal justification for the drone attack that killed American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011.


The American Civil Liberties Union has called the newly discovered document “profoundly disturbing.”


“It’s hard to believe that it was produced in a democracy built on a system of checks and balances. It summarizes in cold legal terms a stunning overreach of executive authority — the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement before or after the fact,” ACLU National Security Project director Hina Shamsi said in a written statement.


The Obama administration has carried out more than 300 CIA drown strikes in Pakistan, far more than his predecessor, President George W. Bush, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.


Pressure is building from Capitol Hill for the White House to outline its legal authority to kill American citizens in counterterrorism operations.


“It is vitally important… for Congress and the American public to have a full understanding of how the executive branch interprets the limits and boundaries of this authority,” a group of eleven bipartisan Senators wrote in a letter to the president Monday, “so that Congress and the public can decide whether this authority has been properly defined, and whether the President’s power to deliberately kill American citizens is subject to appropriate limitations and safeguards.”





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Ice-age art hints at birth of modern mind



Sumit Paul-Choudhury, editor


don-valley-figurines.jpg

Figurines from the Don river valley (Images: Kirstin Jennings)


The world’s oldest portrait, the world’s first fully carved sculpture, the world's oldest ceramic figure, the world’s earliest puppet - there’s no shortage of superlatives in the new exhibition of art from the ice age at the British Museum in London


But focus too closely on the exhibits’ record-breaking ages alone, and you might miss the broader point: these beautiful objects are the earliest evidence we have of humans who seem to have had minds like ours.






lionman.jpg

Consider, for example, the "lion man" found in 1939 in south-west Germany’s Stadel cave (pictured above). As the name suggests, this statue, standing 30 centimetres tall, harmoniously combines human and leonine features: the head is unmistakeably a lion’s, while the body and lower limbs are more human.


This is clearly the product of artistic creativity rather than a naturalistic drawing from life - suggesting that whoever carved it some 40,000 years ago had the capacity to express their imagination, as well as to replicate what they saw around them.


The temptation to speculate about what symbolic meaning the lion man might have had is, of course, irresistible. It was clearly valuable, taking around 400 hours and enormous skill to carve from a single piece of mammoth ivory.


The exhibition also includes a second, much smaller, feline figure found in another cave nearby, pointing to the idea that such imaginative objects might have cultural significance, perhaps as ritual objects within a shamanic belief system, rather than being isolated art objects.


Given what we know of modern traditions, that would make sense - but there is no hard evidence that anything resembling those traditions existed in Europe during the ice age.


Almost every object on show invites similarly thought-provoking consideration. Thumb-sized figurines from settlements along Russia's Don river (top) seem to present a woman's perception of her own pregnant body in an age before mirrors: no face, bowed head, the shelf of the bosom, the protrusion of the hips and buttock muscles and the swell of the belly. Were they carved by the women themselves, perhaps as protective talismans for themselves or their unborn children? And if so, what are we to make of those that were apparently deliberately destroyed subsequently?


Only a few of the animal models found at the Czech site of Dolní Věstonice are intact. The rest had shattered into thousands of clay fragments when they were heated while still wet. This must also have been deliberate: was the dramatic shattering part of a rite?


A tiny relief of a human figure with upraised arms invites interpretation as a celebrant or worshipper. Was he or she participating in a ceremony to promote social cohesion during tough times - perhaps to the accompaniment of music played on instruments such as the flute displayed nearby, which is precisely carved from a vulture's wing-bone?


Such interpretations deserve a healthy dose of caution, of course. The note accompanying an elegantly carved water bird (perhaps a cormorant) found near the smaller lion man drily reads: "This sculpture may be a spiritual symbol connecting the upper, middle and lower worlds of the cosmos reached by a bird that flies in the sky, moves on land and dives through water. Alternatively, it may be an image of a small meal and a bag of feathers."


In the total absence of documentary evidence, there is no way of telling which is correct: archaeological material might help clarify the utilitarian perspective, but it is far less helpful when it comes to discovering any symbolic value.


In any case, there is very little archaeological evidence on display at the British Museum. Curator Jill Cook says she was keen to avoid exhausting visitors with copious background material about the evolutionary and environmental contexts in which these objects were made.


Humans were capable of complex behaviour long before they reached Europe - as demonstrated by discoveries such as the 100,000-year old "artist's workshop" in South Africa's Blombos cave - but Cook thinks the explosion of art among Europeans 40,000 years ago may reflect changing social needs during the ice age.


When Homo sapiens first arrived in Europe some 45,000 years ago, "the living was initially probably reasonably easy", explains Cook. They would have found temperatures only about 5 °C lower than they are now, she says, and grassy prairies would have been well stocked with bison. As the human population grew, they would have had to find new ways of building, socialising and organising themselves.


“And as it turns desperately cold, around 40,000 years ago, suddenly we have all this art," she says.


That may have reflected the need to communicate and develop ideas - a need pressing enough for people to spend hundreds of hours creating objects that generally seem to have had little quotidian function.


"This is all about planning and preconceiving and organising and collaborating and compromising," suggests Cook, "and that is something art and music helps us do."


The dazzling array of objects on display, spanning tens of thousands of years, anticipate practically every modern artistic tradition. The first portrait, dating back 26,000 years, includes closely modelled details of its female subject's unusual physiognomy, perhaps the result of an injury or illness.


But nearby is an extraordinary figure of similar age whose facial features are utterly abstract, resembling a visor with a double slit in it.


picasso-inspiration.jpg

Another (above) has a body whose angular patterns anticipate Cubism by some 23,000 years: Picasso kept two copies of it in his studio. Elsewhere, there are doll-like models of women with stylised faces, and female forms streamlined into little more than slender, strategically curved lines.


movement.jpg

Representations of animals, too, come in all forms, from incredibly realistic illustrations scratched onto stone or ivory, to elegantly minimal sculptures; there are even carvings designed to create the illusion of movement when viewed from different angles or rotated (above) - a form of prehistoric animation.


The masterpieces in the latter part of the show include - and sometimes combine - both precisely observed, superbly rendered naturalism, and more abstract work that is still beautiful, but much harder to interpret.


tusks.jpg

Carved mammoth tusks


"The brain likes to tease us," says Cook. "We don't just represent things with great realism and naturalism, we like to break things down into patterns. That sparks your imagination, and makes you curious and questioning.


“What’s so spectacular about the modern brain, and the mind that it powers, is that it doesn't just make everything simple, it pushes us to new ideas and new thoughts."


After tens of thousands of years, the objects displayed in this extraordinary exhibition still have the power to do just that.


Ice Age Art: Arrival of the modern mind runs at the British Museum from 7 February 2013



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Japan summons China envoy in island row






TOKYO: Tokyo summoned China's envoy Tuesday in protest after what it says was another incursion into its territorial waters around islands at the centre of a bitter dispute with Beijing.

"The foreign ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador over ships entering the waters near Senkaku islands," said a foreign ministry official, referring to a chain claimed as the Diaoyus by Beijing.

The move comes after Chinese state vessels spent much of Monday in waters around the islands and as the two sides show no sign of backing down in a dispute that has badly affected trade between Asia's two largest economies.

Two maritime surveillance boats arrived in the area shortly before 9:30 am (0130 GMT), the Japanese coastguard said, with Kyodo News reporting they had remained there for around 14 hours.

Chinese ships have repeatedly ventured into the waters, in what observers say is Beijing's bid to create a "new normal" in which Tokyo does not have effective control over the archipelago.

A Chinese government plane entered the chain's airspace in December, setting off sorties by Japanese fighter jets.

In recent weeks both countries have dispatched military planes to the region, although there have been no clashes.

But analysts say the ramping up of rhetoric and the more frequent confrontations raise the risk of an accidental armed conflict.

- AFP/ck



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Alleged T-Mobile roadmap shows LTE devices arriving March 27



T-Mobile's LTE launch plans revealed?



(Credit:
TMO News)


T-Mobile is reportedly readying a harvest of LTE-enabled devices this spring, suggesting that T-Mobile's 4G LTE network will be operational by that time


The wireless carrier is expected to release the
BlackBerry Z10, Samsung Galaxy Exhibit, and Sonic 2.0 LTE mobile hotspot on March 27, according to a purported roadmap leaked to TMO News. A screenshot of the roadmap also lists an LTE-enabled Samsung Galaxy S3 launching either March 27 or April 3.


Pricing for the devices was not included.


T-Mobile, which does not yet currently offer 4G LTE, has said before that it will develop a 4G LTE network. It currently offers 4G (HSPA+), which it says is fast enough to be called 4G.




CNET has contacted T-Mobile for comment and will update this report when we learn more.


The BlackBerry Z10, which was announced last week, is reportedly off to a strong sales start in several countries around the world. The device runs the company's latest operating system,
BlackBerry 10, and comes with a full, 4.2-inch touch screen.


The U.K. seems to be BlackBerry's best market, according to Jefferies analyst Peter Misek. "Initial checks" had found that Carphone Warehouse, a company that sells handsets, "is seeing widespread sellouts," Misek said in a research note obtained this morning by CNET. U.K. carriers O2, Vodafone, Orange, and EE "are seeing robust demand," he said.

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Space Pictures This Week: A Space Monkey, Printing a Moon Base

Illustration courtesy Foster and Partners/ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced January 31 that it is looking into building a moon base (pictured in an artist's conception) using a technique called 3-D printing.

It probably won't be as easy as whipping out a printer, hooking it to a computer, and pressing "print," but using lunar soils as the basis for actual building blocks could be a possibility.

"Terrestrial 3-D printing technology has produced entire structures," said Laurent Pambaguian, head of the project for ESA, in a statement.

On Earth, 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, produces a three-dimensional object from a digital file. The computer takes cross-sectional slices of the structure to be printed and sends it to the 3-D printer. The printer bonds liquid or powder materials in the shape of each slice, gradually building up the structure. (Watch how future astronauts could print tools in space.)

The ESA and its industrial partners have already manufactured a 1.7 ton (1.5 tonne) honeycombed building block to demonstrate what future construction materials would look like.

Jane J. Lee

Published February 4, 2013

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Boy Safe, Kidnapper Dead After Hidden Camera Tip













A week-long standoff in Alabama, where a retired trucker held a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker, has ended with the kidnapper dead and the child safe, according to law enforcement.


Officials had been able to insert a high-tech camera into the bunker to monitor the movements of the suspect, Richard Lee Dykes, and they had become increasingly concerned that he might act out, according to a law enforcement source with direct knowledge.


"FBI agents safely recovered the child who's been held hostage for nearly a week," FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson said at a news conference.


The agent said negotiations with Dykes "deteriorated" in the past 24 hours.


"Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," Richardson said. "At this point, the FBI agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."


The boy, identified only as Ethan, "appears physically unharmed" and is being treated at a hospital, authorities said.






Joe Songer/AL.com/AP Photo













Alabama Hostage Crisis: Boy Held Captive for 7 Days Watch Video









Hostage Standoff: Drones Fly Over Alabama Bunker Watch Video





Dykes, 65, is dead, but officials have not yet provided details on how he died.


"Right now, FBI special agent bomb technicians are in the process of clearing the property for improvised explosive devices," the FBI said in a written statement. "When it is safe to do so, our evidence response teams, paired with state and local crime scene technicians, will process the scene."


PHOTOS: Worst Hostage Situations


Dykes allegedly shot and killed a school bus driver last week and threatened to kill all the children on the bus before taking the boy, one of the students on the bus said.


"He said he was going to kill us, going to kill us all," Tarrica Singletary, 14, told ABC News.


Dykes had been holed up in his underground bunker near Midland City, Ala., with the abducted boy for a week as police tried to negotiate with him through a PVC pipe. Police had used the talks to send the child comfort items, including a red Hot Wheels car, coloring books, cheese crackers, potato chips and medicine.


Dykes was a decorated Vietnam vet who grew up in the area. He lived in Florida until two years ago, the AP reported, and has an adult daughter, but the two lost touch years ago, neighbor Michael Creel said. When he returned to Alabama, neighbors say he once beat a dog with a lead pipe and had threatened to shoot children who set foot on his property.



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Bug protects itself by turning its environment to gold









































Mythical King Midas was ultimately doomed because everything he touched turned to gold. Now, the reverse has been found in bacteria that owe their survival to a natural Midas touch.












Delftia acidovorans lives in sticky biofilms that form on top of gold deposits, but exposure to dissolved gold ions can kill it. That's because although metallic gold is unreactive, the ions are toxic.












To protect itself, the bacterium has evolved a chemical that detoxifies gold ions by turning them into harmless gold nanoparticles. These accumulate safely outside the bacterial cells.












"This could have potential for gold extraction," says Nathan Magarvey of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who led the team that uncovered the bugs' protective trick. "You could use the bug, or the molecules they secrete."












He says the discovery could be used to dissolve gold out of water carrying it, or to design sensors that would identify gold-rich streams and rivers.












The protective chemical is a protein dubbed delftibactin A. The bugs secrete it into the surroundings when they sense gold ions, and it chemically changes the ions into particles of gold 25 to 50 nanometres across. The particles accumulate wherever the bugs grow, creating patches of gold.











Deep purple gold













But don't go scanning streams for golden shimmers: the nanoparticle patches do not reflect light in the same way as bigger chunks of the metal – giving them a deep purple colour.












When Magarvey deliberately snipped out the gene that makes delftibactin A, the bacteria died or struggled to survive exposure to gold chloride. Adding the protein to the petri dish rescued them.











The bacterium Magarvey investigated is one of two species that thrive on gold, both identified a decade or so ago by Frank Reith of the University of Adelaide in Australia. In 2009 Reith discovered that the other species, Cupriavidus metallidurans, survives using the slightly riskier strategy of changing gold ions into gold inside its cells.













"If delftibactin is selective for gold, it might be useful for gold recovery or as a biosensor," says Reith. "But how much dissolved gold is out there is difficult to say."












Journal reference: Nature Chemical Biology, DOI: 10.1038/NCHEMBIO.1179


















































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Beyonce brings out Destiny's Child for Super Bowl thrill






NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana: Pop diva Beyonce thrilled the Super Bowl crowd Sunday with a pyrotechnic half-time spectacular that doubled as a much-anticipated Destiny's Child reunion.

Fireworks burst into the sky from the Superdome field just vacated by the game-leading Baltimore Ravens and lagging San Franciso 49s as the 31-year-old chart-topper took the stage with "Crazy in Love".

Blowing a kiss to the live television camera after her opening number, she looked relieved to get the much-hyped, 15-minute show underway, but the real treat came when Destiny's Child bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams joined her on stage.

They appeared in matching Rubin Singer black leather warrior-woman bodysuits and dizzying stilettos as did an ever-growing, all-female army of dancers, with musicians cast off on the sidelines.

"Bootylicious", "Halo", and "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" rounded out the greatest-hits performance with a sci-fi edge that set it apart from Madonna's hyperactive Super Bowl half-time effort last year.

"Thank you for this moment," a beaming Beyonce told the cheering crowd at the conclusion, "God bless you all."

Beyonce had promised to sing live at the Super Bowl, acknowledging that she had sung over a pre-recorded version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at President Barack Obama's second-term inauguration on January 21.

Singing the pre-game national anthem Sunday was Alicia Keys, performing solo at a grand piano, after Jennifer Hudson and the Sandy Hook Elementary School choir from Newtown, Connecticut sang "America the Beautiful".

The school was the scene of one of the worst mass murders in US history in December when a lone young gunman cut down 20 pupils and six teachers before taking his own life. He had earlier killed his mother at their home.

-AFP/fl



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