Zynga’s second-quarter stumble is prompting questions about the company’s prospects, including whether social gaming is a sustainable business or a fad. Shares in Zynga fell 37% Thursday.
From Gizmodo: Samsung Sells 50 Million Smartphones a Quarter, Twice as Many as Apple
In the second quarter of 2012, Samsung sold 50.5 million smartphones—twice as many as Apple—which sees the company extend its sales lead ahead of the iPhone. More »
from Gizmodo
From Gizmodo: Blind Mice Can See Again—and Maybe Blind Humans, Too
Some mice that once were blind can now see, thanks to a breakthrough from researchers at UC Berkley. And humans might not be far behind. More »
from Gizmodo
From Engadget: Extra footage of record-setting Yates electric plane flight shows power loss, dramatic deadstick landing
We’ve chronicled Flight of the Century founder and CEO Chip Yates‘ record-breaking 202.6MPH flight in his Long-ESA EV craft before. What we didn’t quite touch on, however, is the power loss Yates’ aircraft suffered after earning that electric plane speed record. Now Yates has released new video of the flight, which includes the moment his aircraft breaks the record, the ensuing power loss and his dramatic deadstick landing. That smile you see in the photo up there is the smile of a man who just made history and is also happy to be alive. Hey, we’re glad he’s safe, too. You can witness the close call yourself by checking out the video after the break.
[Image credit: Flight of the Century]
from Engadget
From Engadget: ARM forms UK group to foster an Internet of Things, put 50 billion devices online by 2020
ARM isn’t content with dominating the mobile space. It’s been by the far the most vocal about an Internet of Things where everything is connected — and to make that happen, it just established an industry forum in the UK that it hopes will establish common ground for all those internet-linked light bulbs, refridgerators and thermostats. Home energy firm Alertme, cloud-aware sensing outfit AquaMW, lighting maker EnLight and white space wireless guru Neul will start meeting with ARM from August 24th onwards to hash out our automated, eco-friendly future. There’s a certain urgency in this for the chip designer: it expects 50 billion devices on the grid by 2020. With IDC estimating a billion new connected devices just in 2011, the clock on that connected device transition is ticking very loudly.
from Engadget
From Droid Life: NVIDIA to Add Support to Tegra Chips for Miracast Wireless Display Standards
From the same creators of the WiFi standard, comes the Miracast wireless display standard, which allows for the wireless beaming of the display contents on your mobile phone or tablet, directly to a large HDTV screen in your house without a wireless router. To sum it up, you won’t need anymore HDMI or MHL cables cluttering up your home theater to copy your phone’s display onto your big screen in the living room.
NVIDIA is embracing this technology and has added enhancements for Tegra-powered devices to take full advantage of Miracast. To get a an idea of what they’re doing to enhance the new standard for wireless beaming, check the video down below.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Via: NVIDIA
from Droid Life
From Autoblog: Report: Researchers developing washless coating for cars
Filed under: Technology
We could have easily filed this under “Too Good to Be True” or “Snake Oil,” but it sounds legit, and certainly has our attention. Researchers in The Netherlands’ Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) have developed a self-healing vehicle coating, meaning that one day, you may not have to wash your car.
Catarina Esteves of the department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at TU/e and her team claims to have invented a solution to the problem of minor scrapes. Apparently the nano-capsule technology features special chemical groups that are able to re-orient themselves in the event that a surface with this compound is scratched.
The potential automotive use for this technology is obvious; it allows for the development of coatings that are not only water-resistant, but scratch resistant. A minor rain shower is all it would take to keep the car clean.
The implementation of this technology is not limited to the automotive world – it can also be employed on contact lenses, smartphone screens, and solar panels.
The benefit it could provide to the aviation industry would be two-fold. A plane employing this coating would not only need less frequent cleaning, but the inability for algae and dirt to build up means that the aircraft would allow for less wind resistance, resoling in more fuel efficient flying.
from Autoblog