Category: News

Anyone over the age of about 25 will remember Tamagotchis. The little electronic keychain pets became very popular for a few year in the late 90s. Caring for, disciplining (smacking), and eventually neglecting the virtual animals was a short-lived fad that spawned imitation toys and an anime TV show.

Since that time, the toys settled into a comfortable niche market while staying relatively popular in Japan. Now, though, Namco Bandai is bringing back Tamagotchis, this time to the devices we hold even more dear than our keychains.

Tamagotchi L.i.f.e. was released this week for Android smartphones.

Fans of the original “games” will be happy to learn that the character designs of the Tamagotchis has not improved significantly since they were first introduced. The major upgrades are that the pets are now in color and are made up of a (very) few extra pixels. This appears to be a conscious decision on the part of the developers.

It’s a free app that can be downloaded through Google Play by Android users in the U.S. and Canada. It features the original “characters” in the series and allows users to collect Tamagotchi wallpapers or share their virtual pets via Facebook.

As a slice of nostalgia, Tamagotchi L.i.f.e. is sure to be installed on thousands of smartphones in the coming weeks. What that game needs to become long-lasting, however, is a home screen widget. That way, users can see the pile of poo their creature has left on the floor every time they unlock their smartphone.

We know the Facebook is the most popular social network in the U.S., and even in the world in terms of total active users. In fact, it dominates. But just how big of a lead does Facebook have on other social sites when it comes to where you spend your time?

Well, it’s not even close.

According to a white paper from ComScore, Facebook accounts for 5 of every 6 minutes spent on a social networking site (83%). The next highest was Tumblr with 5.7%. Pinterest and Twitter command a very small amount, 1.9% and 1.7% respectively.

According to the report, Facebook leads in share of total time spent on the web with 10.8% – just over all Google sites with 10%. Google sites command the largest audience, however, with 191.4 million people in the U.S.

Long story short: it’s Facebook’s world, and all other social networks are just living in it.

[ComScore via CNET]

Is the future of the self-driving car one of full autonomy, or, as car manufacturers such as Ford have suggested, one of part-time autonomy? In the near-term, the latter option seems far saner, and it’s the approach that underpins new research being shown off by academics at the University of Oxford.

The RobotCar U.K. project is using a modified Nissan Leaf, an all-electric vehicle, which is fitted with around £5,000 ($7,750) worth of prototype navigation equipment. That system includes a controller PC in the trunk — which can control every function of the car — as well as cameras in the front, lasers discreetly tucked under the front and rear bumpers, and an iPad for the user interface up front.

In time, the researchers hope to develop an autonomous navigation system that costs just £100.

“We are working on a low-cost ‘auto drive’ navigation system, that doesn’t depend on GPS, done with discreet sensors that are getting cheaper all the time. It’s easy to imagine that this kind of technology could be in a car you could buy,” Professor Paul Newman, the project’s co-leader, said in a statement.

Mapping and learning

The system doesn’t use GPS because the satellite-based system is not accurate enough for the researchers’ needs. Instead, twin cameras keep an eye on the road ahead for pedestrians and so on, while the lasers create a three-dimensional map of the world around the car — this is a similar approach to that taken by Google in its autonomous vehicle research, except far cheaper (Google’s LIDAR unit alone costs $70,000) and less conspicuous.

This is where the car’s part-time autonomy comes in — at least in city environments. As Newman put it:

“Our approach is made possible because of advances in 3D laser mapping that enable an affordable car-based robotic system to rapidly build up a detailed picture of its surroundings. Because our cities don’t change very quickly robotic vehicles will know and look out for familiar structures as they pass by so that they can ask a human driver, ‘I know this route, do you want me to drive?’, and the driver can choose to let the technology take over.”

It’s really a matter of machine learning, the science of probability and good guesswork; and the data the researchers are using comes from the cameras and lasers, but also from road plans, aerial photographs and internet queries. The car needs to learn its environment before it can, metaphorically speaking, take the wheel. (The driver can always take back control by tapping the brakes.)

Check out this video showing car driving through a gradually-updating “semantic prior map” — in other words, all the fixed stuff such as road markings, curb locations and so on, with dynamic objects being mapped along the way:

As for next steps, the team will try to get the system to understand traffic flows and learn how to evaluate best routes.

“Whilst our technology won’t be in a car showroom near you any time soon, and there’s lots more work to do, it shows the potential for this kind of affordable robotic system that could make our car journeys safer, more efficient, and more pleasant for drivers,” Newman said.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• How electric vehicles lead to better telematics
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in cleantech

The latest NPD numbers for January were just released, and things aren’t looking good for Nintendo. The company that recently vowed to sell 4 million Wii U units by the end of March only managed to sell through less than 100,000 in January.

Gamasutra reports that the Wii U sold anywhere between 45,000 and 59,000 units in January according to numbers lifted from NPD’s private data. In its first three months on market, the Wii U has sold 38 percent less units than what the Wii did in its first three months.

So, is this a problem? Obviously, and Nintendo has to do something to get more hardware into more homes. Delaying multiple releases later into the year isn’t doing them any favors, and a rough casual market that’s increasingly focused on mobile gaming is definitely hurting them.

That being said, the rumors of Nintendo’s collapse are greatly exaggerated. Of course, this shouldn’t be anything new as industry analysts have predicted the collapse of Nintendo and other console manufacturers numerous times over the years due to disruptions in the gaming industry. Mobile gaming definitely presents the biggest threat yet, but I can assure you that Nintendo has plenty of cash reserves to stay afloat.

So, the Wii U is in a spot of trouble, but what can Nintendo do to get it selling again? First and foremost, it needs killer apps in the forms of software. Software sells hardware – not the other way around. The Wii U, much like the 3DS before it, launched without a killer app. Nintendo Land and ZombiU are both great games, but they aren’t exactly killer apps. Rayman Legends was the closest thing Nintendo had to a killer app, but we all know how that turned out. Now we’ll have to wait until Spring for the next great Wii U games to start trickling out.

Beyond killer software, Nintendo may need to drop the price of the Wii U. The Wii U is the most expensive console that Nintendo has ever produced, and the sales are looking like that of the 3DS when it first launched at $250. Dropping the price may help spur short term sales until killer software comes out that makes people want to upgrade.

For now, Nintendo is trying to spur sales with a ZombiU console bundle. It includes the entirety of the $350 premium console, and packs in a copy of ZombiU and a Pro Controller for $40 more. In all honesty, Nintendo should have kept the price of the new bundle at $350. It’s still a bargain at $390, but consumers don’t see an extra $40 as a deal.

Special Forces Team X is a third-person shooter developed by Zombie Studios, best known for their work on Blacklight, and published by Atari Inc., designed to appeal to those multiplayer-focused gamers who want a highly competitive environment complete with modular maps and with licensed weaponry.

The game is an interesting entry in the genre and its… (read more)

Irene* is a great colleague. A senior manager in a large consulting firm, she pitches in when the workload gets heavy, covers for people when they’re sick, and stays late when needed, which is often.

She’s also a leader, serving on boards and raising money at charity auctions. She tries to be home for her kids at dinner time, but often works into the night after they’ve gone to sleep. That is, on nights when she’s not at a business dinner.

But if you catch her in a moment of honesty, you’ll find out that she doesn’t feel so great. In fact, she’s exhausted.

Irene can’t say no. And because she can’t say no, she’s spending her very limited time and already taxed energy on other people’s priorities, while her own priorities fall to the wayside. I have experienced the same thing myself. So, over time, I experimented with a number of ways to strengthen my no.

Here are the nine practices I shared with Irene to help her say a strategic no in order to create space in her life for a more intentional yes.

• Know your no. Identify what’s important to you and acknowledge what’s not. If you don’t know where you want to spend your time, you won’t know where you don’t want to spend your time. Before you can say no with confidence, you have to be clear that you want to say no. All the other steps follow this one.
• Be appreciative. It’s almost never an insult when people make requests of you. They’re asking for your help because they trust you and they believe in your capabilities to help. So thank them for thinking of you or making the request/invitation. Don’t worry; this doesn’t need to lead to a yes.
• Say no to the request, not the person. You’re not rejecting the person, just declining his invitation. So make that clear. Let him know what you respect about him — maybe you admire the work he’s doing, or recognize his passion or generosity. Maybe you would love to meet for lunch. Don’t fake this — even if you don’t like the person making the request, simply being polite and kind will communicate that you aren’t rejecting him.
• Explain why. The particulars of your reason for saying no make very little difference. But having a reason does. Maybe you’re too busy. Maybe you don’t feel like what they’re asking you to do plays to your strengths. Be honest about why you’re saying no.
• Be as resolute as they are pushy. Some people don’t give up easily. That’s their prerogative. But without violating any of the rules above, give yourself permission to be just as pushy as they are. They’ll respect you for it. You can make light of it if you want (“I know you don’t give up easily — but neither do I. I’m getting better at saying no.”)
• Practice. Choose some easy, low-risk situations in which to practice saying no. Say no when a waiter offers you dessert. Say no when someone tries to sell you something on the street. Go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and say no out loud ten times. It sounds crazy, but building your no muscle helps.
• Establish a pre-emptive no. We all have certain people in our lives who tend to make repeated, sometimes burdensome requests of us. In those cases, it’s better to say no before the request even comes in. Let that person know that you’re hyper-focused on a couple of things in your life and trying to reduce your obligations in all other areas. If it’s your boss who tends to make the requests, agree upfront with her about where you should be spending your time. Then, when the requests come in, you can refer to your earlier conversation.
• Be prepared to miss out. Some of us have a hard time saying no because we hate to miss an opportunity. And saying no always leads to a missed opportunity. But it’s not just a missed opportunity; it’s a tradeoff. Remind yourself that when you’re saying no to the request, you are simultaneously saying yes to something you value more than the request. Both are opportunities. You’re just choosing one over the other.
• Gather your courage. If you’re someone who is used to saying yes, it will take courage to say no, especially if the person asking doesn’t give up easily. You may feel like a bad friend. You might feel like you’re letting someone down or not living up to expectations. Maybe you’ll imagine that you’ll be seen or talked about in a negative light. Those things might be the cost of reclaiming your life. You’ll need courage to put up with them.

After Irene tried these practices she started working less and spending more time with her kids. She’s still doing great work and she’s still valued by her boss and co-workers, but they’ve noticed the difference too, she told me. And not all of it is positive.

They’re respecting her boundaries — they don’t even seem to resent her for them — but she’s had to give up something she never knew was important to her: her sense of herself as someone who could do it all. It’s been hard for her to feel as valued and necessary as she did when she always said yes.

“Would you rather go back to saying yes all the time?” I asked her.

She answered me with a very well-practiced “No.”

*Name and some details changed.

Rackspace, a cloud hosting provider, is known for its corporate culture. This week, it’s email and apps team demonstrated their energy and levity through their own version of the viral video hit, the “Harlem Shake.” Apparently, this helps with recruiting.

For the previous humor posts on DCK, see our Humor Channel.

Prepublication Now Available

For many household surveys in the United States, responses rates have been steadily declining for at least the past two decades. A similar decline in survey response can be observed in all wealthy countries. Efforts to raise response rates have used such strategies as monetary incentives or repeated attempts to contact sample members and obtain completed interviews, but these strategies increase the costs of surveys. This review addresses the core issues regarding survey nonresponse. It considers why response rates are declining and what that means for the accuracy of survey results. These trends are of particular concern for the social science community, which is heavily invested in obtaining information from household surveys. The evidence to date makes it apparent that current trends in nonresponse, if not arrested, threaten to undermine the potential of household surveys to elicit information that assists in understanding social and economic issues. The trends also threaten to weaken the validity of inferences drawn from estimates based on those surveys. High nonresponse rates create the potential or risk for bias in estimates and affect survey design, data collection, estimation, and analysis.

The survey community is painfully aware of these trends and has responded aggressively to these threats. The interview modes employed by surveys in the public and private sectors have proliferated as new technologies and methods have emerged and matured. To the traditional trio of mail, telephone, and face-to-face surveys have been added interactive voice response (IVR), audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI), web surveys, and a number of hybrid methods. Similarly, a growing research agenda has emerged in the past decade or so focused on seeking solutions to various aspects of the problem of survey nonresponse; the potential solutions that have been considered range from better training and deployment of interviewers to more use of incentives, better use of the information collected in the data collection, and increased use of auxiliary information from other sources in survey design and data collection. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda also documents the increased use of information collected in the survey process in nonresponse adjustment.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences

Prepublication Now Available

Congress has an ongoing interest in ensuring that the 500,000 buildings and other structures owned and operated by the Department of Defense (DOD) are operated effectively in terms of cost and resource use. Section 2830 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year requires the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to the congressional defense committees on the energy-efficiency and sustainability standards used by DOD for military construction and major renovations of buildings.

DOD’s report must include a cost-benefit analysis, return on investment, and long-term payback for the building standards and green building certification systems, including:
(A) American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 189.1-2011 for the Design of High-Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential.
(B) ASHRAE Energy Standard 90.1-2010 for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential.
(C) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver, Gold, and Platinum certification for green buildings, as well as the LEED Volume certification.
(D) Other American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited standards.

DOD’s report to the congressional defense committees must also include a copy of DOD policy prescribing a comprehensive strategy for the pursuit of design and building standards across the department that include specific energy-efficiency standards and sustainable design attributes for military construction based on the cost-benefit analysis, return on investment, and demonstrated payback required for the aforementioned building standards and green building certification systems. Energy-Efficiency Standards and Green Building Certification Systems Used by the Department of Defense for Military Construction and Major Renovations summarizes the recommendations for energy efficiency.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Energy and Energy Conservation | Conflict and Security Issues | Engineering and Technology

That seems like a silly headline until you realize that LG’s 55-inch OLED TVs sell for over $10,000. That means those 100 TV sets brought in over $1 million for LG.

The Korean electronics manufacturer has begun selling pre-orders for its OLED TVs, which it debuted at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. At the time, the TVs were reported to cost $12,000 and rumored to begin shipping in March 2013.

Now, Reuters is reporting that over 100 pre-orders have already been logged.

While LG’s OLED TV sets are expensive, early adopters of technology are used to paying a premium for such showpieces. The cost of the TVs comes from new manufacturing processes, and the difficulty of packing in the OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology into an ultra-thin screen where LCD (liquid-crystal display) screens were once found. The new OLED TV screens are, according to LG, only 4mm thick.

LG’s Korean rival Samsung was rumored last year to be preparing to launch its own lineup of OLED TVs before the end of 2012, but that prediction didn’t pan out. Samsung did, however, show off a curved OLED TV set at CES 2013, leading to speculation that the company is more interested in implementing the display technology into its Android smartphones.

(via BGR)

Google has posted an interactive photo tour of Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts. The company says this is the first imagery of of inside an NFL stadium in Google Maps, leading us to believe there will be more to come.

“With this new interactive, 360 degree imagery, you can march out of the tunnel and down the field towards the end zone, just like Andrew Luck did all season,” says Google Maps product manager Evan Rapoport. “Or check out the Colts’ locker room where Head Coach Chuck Pagano gave his memorable post-game locker room speech on November 4, after an inspirational win against the Miami Dolphins. You can also explore the stadium’s three concourses and suites, including the Quarterback Suite, a Field Level Suite and Loge-Level Suite.”

“Together with the Colts and Lucas Oil Stadium, we’re thrilled to give you, the fans, a behind-the-scenes look at the home of the Colts, and enable anyone to ‘visit’ the stadium from wherever they may be,” Rapoport adds.

The Field

The Tunnel

The Locker Room

The Quarterback Suite

The Main Concourse

The Loge-Level Suite

The imagery is accessible by searching “Lucas Oil Stadium” or “Colts Stadium” from a desktop browser or from the Android and iPhone apps.

It’s Friday! We’ve made it to the end of the week. It’s time for our Friday caption contest. Take a moment to vote for the best caption.

Each Friday, Data Center Knowledge features a cartoon drawn by Diane Alber, our fav data center cartoonist, and our readers suggest funny captions. Please visit Diane’s website Kip and Gary for more of her data center humor.

The caption contest works like this: We provide the cartoon and you, our readers, submit the captions. We then choose finalists and the readers vote for their favorite funniest suggestion.

This week, we are voting. Scroll down and vote for the best caption for I <3 You cartoon. Thanks for voting!

For the previous cartoons on DCK, see our Humor Channel.

This is simply stunning. And it proves that there really is no bad way to cover Leonard Cohen’s beautiful masterpiece. Well, unless you’re Bono.

There’s been a lot of talk about the upcoming Star Wars spin-off movies. Lots of fans have ideas of where they’d like to see these go. Conan O’Brien has an idea as well…

Microsoft announced last month that Messenger would be merging into Skype on March 15. That’s not exactly the case anymore as Microsoft has extended the deadline by a month. That being said, Microsoft really thinks you should start moving to Skype now.

In a post on the Skype Big Blog today, Microsoft says that it will start to upgrade Messenger to Skype on Windows desktop starting April 8. The extension gives the stragglers a little more time to make their peace with the dying service. The upgrade process will take a few weeks so those using non-English versions will have a few more weeks. The company expects to finish the upgrades on April 30 withe the Brazilian Portugese client being upgraded last.

For those still concerned about the move, Microsoft offers a reason not to be. All the same features you enjoyed in Windows Live Messenger will be in Skype upon your arrival. You will also get the added benefit of many Skype features that were not in Messenger, including: