Author: Serkadis

A report from mobile analytics firm Motally finds that outside north America, the Symbian operating system used by Nokia still dominates Windows and Android phones.

Motally’s analysis says the future isn’t all about smartphones:

The most interesting trend in the data is the large amount of mobile website traffic that is done on feature phones, particularly in regions like South America, Asia and even Europe.  These regions house the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), which many economists believe will be major drivers of global economic growth in coming years.

The Nokia 3310 (pictured) is one hot-selling phone in the emerging world. It’s the successor to the Nokia 3210 that sold more than 160 million units worldwide.

Below are the most important charts from Motally’s report, which will be published later today.

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It’s a well documented fact that the Robot Apocalypse is only a matter of weeks, moments or scores away, but today we’re facing the grim reality that it may already be underway in certain sections of Germany. Thanks to a tie-up between whiz kids at the Technical University of Dortmund and University of Manitoba, the so-called Bioloid you see above can actually scale walls on its own. As in, autonomously. The robot doesn’t rely on a predefined motion sequence; instead, it looks up and figures out the most efficient way to get from the bottom to the top based on the X / Y positions of the grips. Future versions of the critter will utilize a full-on vision system, but hopefully we’ll have outposts established on Mars by then in order to maintain some semblance of freedom. Peep the horror show after the break (if you must).

Continue reading Bioloid robot goes climbing on its own, will one day rip you from your hiding tree

Bioloid robot goes climbing on its own, will one day rip you from your hiding tree originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As shown in the table below, taken from the latest fourth quarter Pimco report, 'Non U.S. Developed' debt has jumped to 16% of the portfolio vs. just 3% the quarter before. That's an enormous shift in exposure given that it happend over just three months for this $200 billion fund.

Furthermore, he's slashed his exposure to both U.S. 'Government-Related' (to 32% from 48%) and 'Mortgage' (to 17% from 22%) securities. 'Net Cash Equivalents' meanwhile spiked to 8% of the fund vs. 2% in September. It's pretty clear Mr. Gross expects a rocky road ahead for U.S. fixed income:

PIMCO Q4 Total Return Fund Report: While PIMCO does not expect the Fed to tighten any time soon, there is still the question of how negatively markets will react as the Fed winds down its unorthodox policies that were designed to inject liquidity into the financial system. These policies include the Fed’s program of purchasing mortgage-backed securities.

...

The current environment is characterized by a high level of policy uncertainty and relatively rich valuations for many fixed income assets. This setting argues for caution in terms of overall risk exposure in portfolios, but PIMCO believes there are still a number of prudent strategies available to enhance potential

Emerging Markets and Currency – PIMCO plans to take exposure to high quality EM credits such as Mexico, Brazil, Korea and Russia, which have low levels of debt relative to the size of their economies. We also will look to take positions in select EM currencies, such as Brazil and China, anticipating that faster growth in these economies should allow their currencies to gain versus the U.S. dollar.

(Tip Via Bloomberg)

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See Also:

• Watch Erin Burnett And Bill Gross (Kind Of) Dance
• Bill Gross's Government Bond Holdings Hit 5-Year High
• Bill Gross: It's Time To Buy Utilities

So here’s another little DIY project. This one involves making your own little laser light show. Now obviously it’s not going to make shapes in time with Dark Side of the Moon, but it still looks really cool. I might even have to do this one myself, if I knew how to solder. It’s definitely worth your time to take a look at this thing if you have any interest at all in DIY projects involving lasers and sharks.

It’s a relatively simple mod. Chop the end off of a laser pointer with a dremel, put together a controller and a 1 RPM motor, and glue a quarter to the shaft of the motor. Shine the laser on the quarter and you have your own portable light show. Pretty impressive stuff. For complete instructions visit the guy’s website.

[Via Make]

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Pre-fabricated buildings have come a long way. Far from shoddy double-wides delivered by flat-bed trucks, they have become the hallmark of the green building movement, tricked out with natural lighting, ventilation and organic materials. One company, Project Frog, is wagering that — in addition to being eco-friendly — these buildings can actually improve student performance in schools. And it just raised more money to prove its point.

According to a filing with the SEC, the San Francisco-based construction company has brought in $5.2 million of an expected $5.5 million round of debt financing and convertible promissory notes. This is the second time it has raised money in its three year history, having brought in $8 million from RockPort Capital Partners in November 2008. Project Frog did not respond to calls about the source of its newest funding or how it will be used.

As one of the most exciting companies in the green building industry (it was named best cleantech company at the 2009 Crunchies awards), Project Frog advances an interesting and promising theory — that environmentally-conscious building practices, usually associated with sacrifices in comfort, can actually enhance quality of life and productivity.

On its web site, the company lists characteristics its buildings share, including improved air quality and abundant daylight, more recycled materials, a 50 to 75 percent reduction in energy use, low waste production, short construction timelines (six months, typically), 50 to 75 percent lower operation costs and 25 to 40 percent lower purchase costs. All of its buildings are guaranteed to meet the highest of efficiency and green certification standards.

In combination, these features have been shown to buoy test scores, improve cognitive processing and collaborative skills in young children, stave off fatigue, and reduce illness among students and faculty, the company says.

This sounds all well and good, but two things make Project Frog’s offerings truly special: First, its price points. Usually introducing advanced technology, particularly green features, into projects makes them more expensive. The opposite is true of the company’s buildings, which are not only cheaper to make (pre-made components are snapped together), but can be built to fit specific budgets — a very important criterion for cash-strapped school districts.

Second, its buildings are highly customizable. The team at Project Frog is eager to work hand-in-hand with its clients to make sure finished products accommodate all of its clients’ needs. How many students will be in a room? How do teachers like the configure the desks? These concerns are addressed in the architecture.

Project Frog has three major projects in different stages right now. In Bayside, Calif., it’s replacing the portable trailers on the Jacoby Creek Charter School’s 6-acre campus to provide space for more students. The school district received a grant from the state of California to pay for the construction. In Hartford Connecticut, Project Frog will be building three connected, energy-neutral science classrooms for the Watkinson School.

And lastly, the company’s crowning accomplishment is the new Crissy Field Center located on the waterfront in San Francisco. The building — made out of salvaged redwood, recycled paper and bamboo fiber — will showcase sustainable building practices and serve as home for environmental education programs for young people. Project Frog says it is one of the most energy efficient buildings in the country, complete with classrooms, a science lab and an art room in addition to a visitor information area. It will be hosting an open house on Feb. 6.

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We’ve written about how companies are using technology to upgrade the old-fashioned bicycle — now you can see what it’s like to actually ride one of those bikes.

Sanyo’s Eneloop (short for energy loop) includes a battery-powered motor. Riders still pedal like they would on an normal bicycle, but they get a boost from the engine, adding to the ease and speed. I interviewed Sanyo’s Aaron Fowles at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show about the bike, and you can see the interview in the video below. Fowles takes the bike for a spin about 3:30 into the footage.

After shooting the video, I rode the Eneloop myself, and it really did feel like a smoother, easier riding experience. The bike is available at retailers now, and costs $2,299.

Sanyo Hybrid Bike from Dean Takahashi on Vimeo.

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It’s a well documented fact that the Robot Apocalypse is only a matter of weeks, moments or scores away, but today we’re facing the grim reality that it may already be underway in certain sections of Germany. Thanks to a tie-up between whiz kids at the Technical University of Dortmund and University of Manitoba, the so-called Bioloid you see above can actually scale walls on its own. As in, autonomously. The robot doesn’t rely on a predefined motion sequence; instead, it looks up and figures out the most efficient way to get from the bottom to the top based on the X / Y positions of the grips. Future versions of the critter will utilize a full-on vision system, but hopefully we’ll have outposts established on Mars by then in order to maintain some semblance of freedom. Peep the horror show after the break (if you must).

Continue reading Bioloid robot goes climbing on its own, will one day rip your from your hiding tree

Bioloid robot goes climbing on its own, will one day rip your from your hiding tree originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Engadget German  |  YouTube 1, 2  | Email this | Comments

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Sorry Cramer, with several hours to go until the official market open, S&P futures are pointing down, not up, despite the election of Scott Brown.

What’s the narrative now?

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Jim Cramer: Markets Will Surge Wednesday If Coakley Loses
• Senator Brown!

Hearst Magazines, which is the division of the Hearst Corporation behind Popular Mechanics, has teamed up with Old Navy to print t-shirts with old Popular Mechanics illustrations aimed at kids. The classic artwork is supposed to revive interest in the new editions of Popular Mechanics as well as generate some enthusiasm for mechanical gadgets related to transportation (think 1950s rocket cars and electric motorcycle concepts). Along with the shirts, the magazine is also sponsoring a ‘Kids Can Do Great Things Design Contest’ for children (up to 12) to submit their own artwork. The winner of the contest will get a $500 shopping spree at Old Navy and have the design printed in the magazine — and if it looks good on a shirt, they’ll sell shirts, too.

Not too long ago, we mentioned Rolling Stone magazine trying out a similar merchandise program (though with a few more legal complications), so this isn’t exactly a novel concept (and we never said it was). But it’s interesting that more publications are experimenting with efforts to connect with fans — and especially younger fans to keep the fan pipeline filled. And one of the key components for this Popular Mechanics example is that it fits with the magazine’s audience and also highlights a common theme from the magazine. This is the beginning of creating a brand for the magazine that features why readers should be interested in paying attention to it. Namely, if you’re looking for articles and concept artwork related to futuristic transportation solutions, Popular Mechanics is where to go.

If this t-shirt trend continues, though, we’ll have to be on the lookout for newspapers printing t-shirts, too. I’m pretty sure there would be a market for WSJ-style hedcut artwork on t-shirts — and some copyright issues for it as well.

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Government is Too Big to Succeed

by Ron Paul

Last week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off their first round of hearings on the causes of the economic meltdown on Wall Street. The commission is being compared to the the Pecora Commission launched in 1932 to investigate the causes of the Great Depression. The Pecora commission is beloved by those who believe the solution to every problem is more laws because it was used to justify a number of new laws, including Glass-Steagall. Of course, none of those laws addressed the real causes of the Great Depression. It was the introduction of unsound monetary policy and central economic planning pursued by the Federal Reserve that really threw everything off balance. The Fed was founded in 1913 to stabilize the economy and prevent a recurrence of the short-lived Panic of 1907, but instead it promptly produced the Great Depression which lasted more than 15 years.

The Pecora Commission was stacked with big government sympathizers who blamed the free market and the gold standard without question, and without any consideration of government interference in the economy. This panel is no different. Never will they contemplate how government steered us into this crisis, and what perverse incentives can be removed or repealed so that the market will function more smoothly. Never will they discuss how investment should come from savings, not debt. Never will it occur to them that fiat money, artificially low interest rates and the whole Federal Reserve System might be unwise and unstable, not to mention unconstitutional. The answer will always be more government regulation and oversight. It is predictable that this government panel will eventually come to the firm conclusion that government needs to be bigger, and that the market is just too free.

How sad is this when exactly the opposite is true?

It is big government that gives out tax breaks to engineer behavior, often creating large pockets of malinvestments. It is government that created the FDIC and the Fed as lender of last resort which all encourages moral hazard. It is big government that gives bureaucrats the ability to bail out cronies with taxpayer dollars while screaming that the economic sky is falling if they don’t. It is big government that every year adds new layers to the already labyrinthine regulatory code that smaller businesses can’t keep up with while simultaneously preventing new businesses from emerging. It is big government that misdirects economic productivity into bankrupt businesses that they consider to be too big to fail.

If this panel was serious about understanding the root of the problem, as they claim to be, they would have people testify who understand the crisis and saw it coming. To my knowledge, none of them have received a phone call. The problem is those people would say too many things the government panel would find inconvenient. They would point fingers at too many of the state’s anointed. They would recommend getting government out of the way of the free market and getting back to simply protecting contracts and punishing fraud. But the biggest fraud is perpetrated by the Federal Reserve. No one on this panel takes that viewpoint seriously. Instead, they will be asking people who are still scratching their heads at how they could have missed the housing bubble what new regulations they can put in place to prevent future bubbles. Thus, I don’t expect much real wisdom to come out of this current investigation.

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What’s the life of Bioshock 2’s Creative Director like now that the game is finished? “I’m mostly doing stuff like this,” Jordan Thomas tells me over the phone, referring to the interview. “It’s stuff that’s not necessarily natural to my character, such as looking at action figure designs, promotional materials… it’s not the main thrust of game development.” He assures us that there has been a short break, but the game is due out on February 9, just a few short weeks away.

This gives us an excellent chance to look back not only to the first game, but to the entirety of the development of Bioshock 2, and why the team decided to make the decisions that lead to this game. Hold your breath: we’re going deep.

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Wallets are becoming more and more functional these days. We told you about the Flipside wallet before, but here’s one that takes it to a whole new level of ridiculousness.

TMTs Tactical Wallet comes in two models, one made of plastic, and one milled from solid aluminum. The plastic version is intended for use by water sport aficionados, and will float. The aluminum one, well, I can only assume it’s intended for use by survivalists and secret agents that have really bad days.

So what’s so special about these wallets? Much like a multi-tool, it’s all in the attachments. Both of the versions of the wallet have a compass, ink pen, tweezers, toothpick, carbide glass breaker, and a o-ring system sealing them against water and dust. I suspect the tactical version might even be able to stop a bullet, but don’t quote me on that.

TMTs wallets are currently available from their website, the plastic version sells for $85, the aluminum for $125. Oh, and we’ve already contacted them to see if we can get a review unit. I want to see if the aluminum one will actually stop a bullet.

[via OhGizmo]

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Don’t lie. You laughed. Also: I can’t be the only one that would prefer one of these to a Segway.

[via Geekologie]

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In addition to all that tablet nonsense (maybe), Apple’s January 27th event should see new versions of iLife and apparently Aperture. Books have been leaking out on e-tailers over the last couple days that point to a debut this month of the next version of Apple’s photo editor. I use Aperture and am quite happy with it, though I hear Lightroom is even better — but we’ll see what happens a week from tomorrow.

If you’ve recently started shooting with a DSLR and haven’t used one of these advanced photo editors, you’re missing out. It makes my shots blow up like whaaat!

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Microsoft just announced that it is taking the Bing Maps Sliverlight version out of beta and making it the default version for Bing Maps. The Bing Team is rolling this change out slowly. Within a few weeks, all users in the U.S. will see the Silverlight maps by default. The AJAX site will continue to work for the time being and users will be able to switch back and forth between the two version. The Silverlight version is a major step forward for Bing Maps and, in many respects, puts it ahead of Google Maps in terms of features and usability.

Sponsor

In addition to this change, Microsoft also announced two new products for Bing Maps: Destination Maps and an events app.

Silverlight allows the Bing Maps team to make the user experience far more fluid than Google currently can with its AJAX-driven mapping service. The Silverlight version of Bing Maps is also the only way to access Microsoft’s Streetside images, the company’s version of Google’s Street View. Because it runs on Silverlight, Streetside offers a very fluid way of moving around the streets of the cities in the U.S. and Canada that the service currently supports. The Silverlight version of Bing Maps also allows users to seamlessly switch between maps, satellite images and highly detailed aerial photos. In addition, the Bing Maps Silverlight version also makes it easy to browse through user-generated PhotoSynth images.

Finding Treasure – Destination Maps

Destination Maps are an interesting addition to the Bing Maps Apps. With this application, you can quickly create a map of driving directions to a specific place to give to your friends. The interesting feature here is that you can choose different map types, all of which display simplified and easy-to-read maps: American, European, Sketchy and Treasure, which looks like a pirate map.

Events

Bing’s new Local Events application displays the locations of local events on the map. The application allows you to filter events by type (concert, theater, museum. etc.) and date. Currently, the selection of events in the application’s index seems a bit limited.

Bing Maps vs. Google Maps

Google, however, still offers a couple of features that Bing Maps doesn’t offer. With Place Pages, for example, Google offers a better local search experience. Google also offers slightly better maps, especially if you are planning to walk or to take public transport.

If anything, though, the current competition between Google and Microsoft is driving the development of online maps forward. Chances are that some users won’t be happy about the fact that the new version of Bing Maps works with Silverlight, but the plugin is easy to install and the results are worth the hassle of installing.

Discuss

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Our guess is that the EROS tablet got caught in customs on its way to join its tablet friends at CES. Poor kid. Regardless, the 10.1-inch 1366×768 resistive touchscreen device still deserves its time to in the sun. Powered by an Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive, it runs Windows 7 (we’re hoping Home Premium since Starter doesn’t support touch). It all sounds fairly good until you hear about its three-cell battery’s abysmal hour and a half of run time. And we’ve also got to say that it looks pretty chunky in the pictures, but most Wintel tablets are. But hey, maybe HP and Microsoft will change all that with the Slate. But if the EROS has struck your fancy, it looks to only be available in China for about 3,000 yuan or $441.

Filed under: Tablet PCs

EROS Shenzhen tablet has Atom, 2 hours of battery life and a $450 price tag originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you go to the Silverlight version of Bing Maps, at the bottom is an application gallery which adds different features and layers to the maps. Two new Silverlight apps added today are for Events and Destination Maps.

The Events app brings up nearby events and places them as pins on the map. The name of the events appear in the left-hand column, where you can scroll through them and sort by popularity or date. You can also filter by specific times (today, tomorrow, this weekend, this week, next week, or a specific date range). The app also lets you narrow the search down by categories such as music, sports, performing arts, food & dining, and fairs & festivals.

The Destination Maps app creates a stylized map that is good for party invites or directions. The recipient gets a simplified map showing just the route from where they are coming from to where they are going, and the maps can be skinned with different background themes including a a European road map or a pirate treasure map (below).

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