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Full HD displays have made quite a splash on Android smartphones and Chinese company Neo has developed the world’s cheapest 1080p smartphone. Costing just 899 yuan or $145, the Neo N003 will feature a 5-inch 1920×1080 display, MediaTek MT6589 quad-core processor, 13 megapixel camera, and 3,000 mAh battery. There is no official release date yet other than “soon” and it will only go on sale in China.

Source: Gizchina

Come comment on this article: World’s Cheapest 1080p Smartphone Costs $145, Launches ‘Soon’

Bre Pettis, founder of 3D-printer manufacturer MakerBot, announced their first desktop 3D scanner, the Digitizer, at a SXSWi keynote today. Pettis was coy about availability or final design but instead was focused on making a splash at the event.

“We’re excited to put ourselves out there with the announcement. I have a tradition of announcing things at SXSW. I don’t think there are many actual physical products announced at SXSW, so it’s special,” he said.

Officially called the MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner, the device will work in concert with the MakerBot printer to complete the constellation of services MakerBot offers. For example, you will be able to scan an object and print it immediately on a MakerBot printer.

According to today’s release, the design shown at SXSW is a prototype and there is no launch date slated although Pettis said it would be available “this Fall.”

Pettis, for one, is excited.

“It’s a natural progression for us to create a product that makes 3D printing even easier. With the MakerBot Digitizer, now everyone will be able to scan a physical item, digitize it, and print it in 3D – with little or no design experience.”

“It’s going to be another pathway for people to make 3D models,” he said.

UPDATE – I’ll be posting live photos from the event. The scanner uses two lasers to map small, breadbox-sized objects and a webcam to create a digital model of any object.

Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome. Here is one cool enough to keep you busy during this weekend.

Mini Ninjas ($0.99 Universal) is a side-scrolling runner where you play a jumping fighting ninja with a mission to free his friends from captivity.  Don’t be fooled by the cuteness of this game, it is only a disguise: there is some serious gameplay hidden under its shinobi shōzoku.

As with all endless running, side-scrolling action games, you do not need to control your forward movement. You do however need to control both your jumps and your attacks. Tap on the left side of the screen to jump and on the right side of the screen to attack. There is also the ninja skill to run along walls. This one is a little harder to master, and is accomplished by jumping with the left control, then pressing and holding the left control as you run along the wall. Once you release, you fall from the wall back onto the ground.  You are not able to scale every wall, but the ones you can run across end up being the only means of avoiding the obstacle in front of you.

The backdrop for each trail is set in different seasons which you are placed in by the magic of a flying dragon. As you run there are different obstacles you must either destroy or avoid. Along the way you will be challenged by warriors of varying skills and abilities. Fortunately for you they each have a distinctive color and costume that distinguishes them from one another. Some warriors jump, some fly, and others just run, but they all will eventually attack you. When each warrior is defeated, an animal appears in its place and follows you on your journey.

As you run, you also collect gold “koins.” These koins are more than just pocket change as they can be used for one of two purposes. The first is to buy yourself a second life when you stumble on an obstacle or get killed. All you need to do is surrender some of your koins and you will be brought back to life, running once again right where you left off. The second use of the koins is to buy various outfits, equipment upgrades, potions and spells from the village Dojo.  While the outfits and equipment upgrades appear to be more cosmetic, the potions and spells have a real effect on game play.  One such potion, Death Banisher, will extend your run by bringing you back to life when you die.

Throughout the game there are various missions that you must complete: land on top of three rocks, craft three potions, or even defeat three captains of the guard.  Once you have achieved a certain number of missions, your ninja will level up and be granted a new title. You soon find that your friends are trapped in cages and strung up in trees.  You must break open their cage in order to free them. Once free, you will run as the friend instead of the ninja and use their unique abilities for a while. This is also a way of gaining extra life with each run, as you will continue to run as your friend until you stumble upon an obstacle or are defeated by an opposing warrior. At which time you will be transformed back into the mini ninja and continue with the endless running.

While there is a Mini Ninjas game for OS X ($19.99, Mac), the two games are not alike. The characters artwork and storyline of both games are identical, but the Mac game plays more like a 3D character adventure game, not a side-scrolling runner. The Mac version of the game is fun to play and very well done, but there is more than enough here on the iOS version to keep you busy this weekend.

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In October 2011, President Obama nominated Magistrate Judge Patty Shwartz to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  Judge Shwartz is widely respected, having earned the highest possible rating from the American Bar Association – “unanimous well qualified” — and has bipartisan support, including from Governor Chris Christie, who has praised her as “hard working, bright, articulate, great with people and conversant in the law.”  And yet, today marks the one year anniversary since Judge Shwartz has been waiting for a floor vote in the United States Senate.

Unfortunately, the delay for Judge Shwartz is not unique. Last week, my colleague wrote about Judge Robert Bacharach, who was recommended to the White House by one of his Republican home state Senators, but waited 263 days for a floor vote before being confirmed 93-0. And on Monday – after 347 days of delay — the Senate will consider the nomination of Richard Taranto to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Overall, President Obama’s judicial nominees wait an average of 117 days on the Senate floor for a vote — more than three times longer than President Bush’s judicial nominees, who waited an average of only 34 days.  The Senate must promote the administration of justice by returning to the prompt consideration of judicial nominations. It should consider Judge Shwartz’s nomination without further delay, as well as the fifteen district court nominees awaiting votes. Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved five district court nominees. There is no reason they – and the others approved before them – should not be confirmed within 34 days.

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How much would it take for you to get a Netflix tattoo? Would you do it for a free year’s worth of the service?

If you think you love Netflix and their selection of streaming offerings, you don’t. Unless you’ve permanently inked the name “Netflix” on your body, you don’t really love Netflix. Yes, I know you watched all of House of Cards in three days. You still don’t really love Netflix.

Twitter user @TheRealMyron does. He loves Netflix a lot. TheRealMyron got a Netflix tattoo, and for his troubles received a free year of Netflix.

NO WAY! Free year for you, look for DM RT @therealmyron: @netflix put me on a commercial I love you guys twitter.com/TheRealMyron/s…

— Netflix US (@netflix) March 8, 2013

In case you were wondering, Netflix didn’t ask this guy to get a tatto in order to receive a free year. He just did it to show his love, tweeted the photo @Netflix and they responded with the offer. Social media done right? I guess?

@netflix thank you so much for the free year!!!! If you ever need me to do an ad I’m ready I’m a college student ready to work hard

— MR (@TheRealMyron) March 8, 2013

Netflix’s streaming-only plan is $7.99 a month – so that means that TheRealMyron was awarded a prize worth $95.88 for his troubles. If Netflix decided to throw in unlimited DVDs too, that’s $191.76. And if they bumped him up to the Blu-Ray option, it means that his tattoo netted him $215.76

Worth it!

A deadly new virus has been making its way around the world, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a warning on the novel infection.

It’s being reported that a novel coronavirus, belonging to the same family as the common cold and the much deadlier SARS, has infected 14 people and killed eight. Most of those infected are from the Middle East – Arabia, Qatar and Jordan – but World Health officials have confirmed three cases of the new virus in Britain.

Symptoms brought on by the virus include acute respiratory illness, fever, a cough and shortness of breath. The virus can also be spread from person to person instead of other viruses that are spread from animals to people.

Fortunately, there have been no confirmed cases of infection in the U.S. yet. The threat it poses must not be that bad either as the WHO has yet to issue any travel restrictions.

Nevertheless, the CDC is following this new virus and providing regular updates on its whereabouts. You can check out all the details here.

[h/t: Reuters]

This week, TEDx took a break from posting talks as the team recovered from TED2013. However, their blog kept rolling with some wonderfully unique spins on the conference and more. Here, find some great pieces from the TEDx Blog.

Dance, tiny robots, dance! The best moments, in GIFS

Just now, session 1 of TED2013 ended, but not without first introducing the TED audience to a whole mess of neat robot inventions — from a robot butler to a smartphone pet that makes the Tamagotchi seem ancient.

One of the highlights was this clip from Bruno Maisonnier’s TEDxConcorde talk, during which he had his tiny humanoid robots — called Nao — do a synchronized dance routine even the coolest b-boys would envy. Here, we GIF the best moments from the tiny Naos breaking it down on stage. See more dancing robots »

Coffee. Hacking. Indonesia: 5 TEDx Talks on Java

When you hear the word “java,” you might think of the pesky window that pops up on your computer desktop every few months, begging you to close all browser windows so you can install vital security updates. Or maybe you think of your morning coffee, expertly brewed by your favorite neighborhood barista. Or maybe you see an image even more lovely — the lush greens of Indonesia’s third largest island.

Whatever it is you’re thinking of — we’ve got a talk for you. So pour your cup of joe, save all tabs, and take a break from your vacation planning to watch these 5 TEDx talks in honor of the word java. Watch the playlist »

The world comes together for TED2013: TEDxLive events around the globe

At the end of February, TED2013 went live far beyond the city limits of Long Beach, California. In 60 countries worldwide — excited TED’xers became TEDsters for a day (or night!) — experiencing “The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered.” in the heart of their communities: inside theaters, schools, local haunts, and cultural centers. These were TEDxLive events — TEDx events centered around a live simulcast of TED2013 in Long Beach.

In Sidney, British Columbia, Canadian TEDx’ers gathered together to watch day three of TED2013 in a local secondary school for the TEDxSaanichPeninsulaLive event. Organizer Sherry Moir said a moving moment of the day came after 16-year-old Jack Andraka spoke about the new method of detecting pancreatic cancer that he developed when he was only 15. Once he finished speaking, Sherry overheard one of the school’s students say, “He might have saved my dad if he’d only done this at age 12!” Read the full story here »

TEDx Intern Picks: 5 favorites for February

It’s that time again — time for another TEDx intern playlist. Today, one of our screening interns provides a glimpse into the vast variety of ideas circling the TEDx community — ideas that confront, surprise, and astound — even when you watch dozens of talks daily. Watch the playlist »

Mars flooding seems about as likely as finding extraterrestrial life on the planet, but new evidence suggests the red planet really was subject to intense flooding during its lifetime.

NASA announced today the results of a study conducted by its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite. The study sought to recreate “ancient water channels below the Martian surface” in full 3D. Mapping out these channels helped scientists realize that Mars was home to massive floods in the last 500 million years.

The floods that created these channels are comparable to the floods that created the Channeled Scablands in Washington State during ancient times.

“Our findings show the scale of erosion that created the channels previously was underestimated and the channel depth was at least twice that of previous approximations,” said Gareth Morgan, a geologist at the National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies in Washington and lead author on the paper. “This work demonstrates the importance of orbital sounding radar in understanding how water has shaped the surface of Mars.”

NASA found the flood channels in the Elysium Planitia, an area along the Martian equator. The existence of the flood channels were covered up when much of the area was subjected to intense and frequent volcanic activity. NASA says that there are other water channels on Mars’ surface that were covered up in a similar fashion.

[Image: JPL/NASA]

Developers must make hard choices when choosing what platforms to support. In mobile, popular convention is iPhone first. But does that approach, in the real world of smartphone ownership, really make sense in 2013? Let us take a look at the hard numbers that were recently published by comScore and see what they can tell us.

This may be a self-perpetuating problem for Apple; according to ComScore, the Google platform simply offers more opportunity because of its larger user base, though that is far from the only consideration for developers. Granted, both mobile operating systems are wildly popular, despite the best efforts of Microsoft to get Windows Phone OS into contention (OK, maybe “best efforts” is going a bit far) — Android and Apple combine for nearly 90 percent of the smartphone market — 53 and 36 percent respectively.

But that is only half of the puzzle — While Android holds a commanding lead in share, it retains only 48 percent of those users, while Apple holds onto 62 percent. That means that just over 25 out of 100 users stick with Google, while a bit more than 22 look at the world through Apple goggles. Sounds good, but if the trend were to continue then the sides would eventually change. Except that is not the case. You see, while 8 out of 10 current iPhone customers are returning buyers, that current 62 percent number means shrinking to only 6 of 10.

Benjamin Travis says that “iOS is popular among a slightly younger demographic than Android users, with 18-24 year olds representing 19 percent of all iPhone owners compared to 16 percent of Android owners”. While that may initially sound promising, the news for Apple is not all good here, plus the gap just is not that big and likely could be shrinking.

The two smartphone bases engage differently with mobile content as well. First of all, comScore finds that the Android platform has a greater number of media users in each category. While iPhone users tend to be generally more engaged with their devices and apps, market share becomes important — shear audience size is hard to beat.

Travis goes on to point out that “iPhone users show a greater propensity to engage in [M-Commerce] behavior with 23 percent having done so versus 17 percent of Android owners. iPhone owners are also more likely to make purchases on their phones on a regular basis”. This is also an important consideration for those looking to monetize by means other than in-app ads, but that is less than half of the apps on the market.

comScore also points out that iPhone owners tend to think very highly of their devices and, as a result, they are likely to remain loyal users over time. This is perhaps the red herring. Sixty-two percent of iPhone users would stick with the device versus forty-eight percent for Android.

There are other considerations not mentioned. The biggest one is a users’ library of purchased apps — once you are invested in a platform it becomes increasingly harder to move on. Regardless of income level nobody wants to purchase the same apps twice. Again, the larger share is likely more important to Android now.

In the end, while comScore tries to play fair with both sides and avoid controversy, when you read between the lines, the direction is clear. Android’s ever-increasing market share means more potential downloads and, with M-Commerce numbers that are not that far apart, more potential revenue. Google also runs a more open platform, making it easier to gets apps into the market — something Apple developers have sometimes struggled with.

The Associated Press is reporting that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) headquarters near Colorado Springs was evacuated for around four and a half hours on Thursday. The evacuation of around 1,500 people took place because of five “suspicious” or “out of place” packages that were found at the site.

Personnel were called in to examine the packages and determined they were not filled with any potentially harmful substances. UPI later reported that military dogs were brought in to stiff the packages, which were subsequently moved to another location.

According to UPI, when officials finally opened the package they found only “office supplies.” NORAD stated that its essential operations were not disrupted by the event, and that the control room team was able to operate at a nearby backup location.

NORAD is a joint organization that provides aerospace defense for the U.S. and Canada. The Royal Canadian Air Force and the U.S. Air Force use the facility to coordinate aerospace warning systems and air sovereignty throughout North America.

With the appearance of each new device, the experts have weighed in on what it will mean for the future of advertising. In the late 1930s, industry commentators worried about whether advertising could ever succeed on television screens. A letter to the editor of The New York Times asserted, “It will prove difficult to prepare and present a television advertising message”, while the author of Television: A Struggle for Power claimed “there is considerable doubt that advertising will be successful when presented to the eye as well as the ear.” So, there are always skeptics. And that’s not a bad thing: they motivate the dreamers among us to prove them wrong.

But the truth is we won’t build the future of advertising device by device. We need to learn to look at these devices as a way of understanding the context in which consumers are looking for information. Real people use these newest devices — phones, tablets, “phablets”, touch-screen laptops and Web-enabled TVs — to connect with each other, shop, navigate the world, watch videos, play games, and take pictures. It’s how, when, and why people use their devices we should be paying attention to and less so the devices themselves.

Part of the reason for this is that we can no longer deduce a customer’s context purely by the device she is using. We used to assume that your mobile meant you were on the go, your tablet meant you were at home on the sofa, and your desktop meant you were at work, but this is no longer accurate. These devices are now bleeding into new realms and your behavior is very different depending on the context in which you’re using the device. Think about your own life. You might email on your laptop in front of the TV and simultaneously use your tablet to look up a takeout menu, or listen to music. Don’t believe me? Spend time with a 16 year old!

Today, most people constantly switch between devices in order to stay connected. And despite advertisers’ initial concerns, consumer eyeballs are not necessarily being “lost” from one screen to another. Rather than splitting a finite number of hours across a greater number of screens, consumers are often using multiple screens simultaneously. This is the new multiscreen world.

And we’re starting to see remarkable data suggesting just how quickly the multiscreen world is taking hold with consumers. For example, let’s look at the Holy Grail of traditional TV advertising, the Super Bowl. Traditional Super Bowl campaigns focused a huge amount of brand energy on one, expensive slot of air time. Now, even if people leave the living room to grab chips and soda from the kitchen during the breaks, it doesn’t mean they’ll miss your ad. Super Bowl advertisers can bank on an extended online audience to justify and add value to their TV buys. This year, Super Bowl ads on YouTube were watched more than 76 million times before game day and we saw a total of 200 million views on 100 video ads and teasers tied to the Super Bowl.

The multiscreen world creates opportunities for marketers by helping them reach people in the right context with the right message on any device. For example, a pizza restaurant wants to show one ad to someone searching for pizza at noon downtown on their smartphone (click-to-call and restaurant locator), and a different ad to someone searching for pizza at 9pm on their laptop or tablet at home (link to online order form or menu). Context-aware ads like this are more likely to get a positive response because they help people achieve something quickly and simply so they can get on with life.

Advertisers should focus their investments on the contexts they care about. For example, our pizza restaurant may be having a slow day and want to attract more walk-in customers for lunch. Their ad could show lunchtime discount offers, directions and a click to call function to people searching mid-day for pizza within a 5 mile radius of the restaurant location. Or, if someone’s searching for your retail housewares store on a mobile device during business hours, your ad can direct them to call you or provide a map of your location, whereas if they search for you when you’re closed, you can direct them to your website to research and make purchases online.

Context-aware ads create a connection, they entertain, inspire and influence. They don’t feel like an intrusion because they provide a great experience that’s based on the user’s context. So rather than focus solely on the device as the centerpiece of your next campaign, go a level or two deeper to examine the context. That’s where the opportunities lie in today’s multiscreen world.

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Lenovo appears to be working on a pair of mid-range devices to compete for buyers looking for more affordable devices. Although projected to be a middle tier device, the Lenovo S920 will reportedly come with a 5.3-inch screen in a case with narrow bezels, a quad-core processor, dual-SIM support, a decent battery clocking in at 2,250 mAh all running Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean when launched.

Joining the S920 will be the Lenovo S820, another quad-core cpu powered device. Images of the S820 show a handset clad in a bright red case. Chinese website MyDrivers.com indicates the S820 will be targeted at female shoppers. It is unclear what exactly would make the device more appropriate or appealing to women.

No other details about these two devices are available at present, so we will have to keep our eyes open for news about them, especially if they will end up available in markets outside China. In the meantime, check out the images below and ponder the idea that a quad-core, 5.3-inch device is now considered “mid-range.”

source: MyDrivers.com
via: Unwired View

Come comment on this article: Images of new Lenovo mid-range devices discovered

While it’s easy for advertisers to track people across different websites, the trail goes cold when a person turns off the computer and resumes surfing on a phone or tablet instead. That’s starting to change, however, as brands deploy technology that matches identities across devices.

One example is New York ad company Tapad, which claims its “Device Graph” uses 2 billion data points to find people on whatever screen they’re using. This means, for example, that a shoe company can identify a potential customer and hit them with a succession of ads — one on their work computer, another on their phone as they walk home and yet another as they look at a tablet on their couch.

In a recent interview, CEO Are Traasdahl said about 100 clients are using Tapad’s technology, including Dell and major electronics and finance firms. The appeal, he says, is that ad campaigns are more efficient if marketers know that an ad viewer on a computer and a smartphone is the same person.

Tapad’s technology may provide a boon to marketers but it also raises some obvious questions. First, how do we know it works? Mobile marketing is tricky in the first place because smartphones and tablets generate fewer cookies (the bits of computer code that indicate you’ve visited a given website); for example, Apple limits cookie collection by its Safari iPhone browser and by third party apps. This makes it difficult for brands to use so-called “retargeting” (showing an ad to someone based on what they done in the past) on a mobile device; identifying that same person across multiple devices would seem even more difficult.

According to Traasdahl, Tapad uses a sliding scale to guess whether a computer and phone user is the same person. Like all advertising, he says, there is an inherent degree of uncertainty. But he adds that, for brands, the proof is the pudding — they can look at whether multidevice targeting produced a lift in response or sales.

There is also the question of just how Tapad is tracking people. Like other companies in the mobile marketing space, such as Google Ventures-backed Adelphic, Tapad is tight-lipped about its techniques. Traasdahl did, however, say the company uses data sources like publishers’ log-in information, Wi-Fi locations and zip codes as some of the sources for its billions of data points. This is an example of what a recent MIT Technology Review article described as “reverse-engineering” our online identities.

Finally, in addition to the technology dimensions, there is the creepy factor. While companies like Tapad may provide more efficient advertising, some are going to bristle at its efforts to track them wherever they go. Tapad, like others in the advertising industry, protects “PII” — personally identifiable information — which means the “identity” that marketers see is just a random number, not your name or address. Still, there is growing concern in the media about tracking (see this week’s “Technology Turns to Tracking People Offline” in the New York Times) and in Congress where there are regular mutterings about Do Not Track legislation.

For now, the likes of Tapad and its investors (who include FirstMark Capital and Avalon) are counting on a light regulatory hand as they fine tune the online marketing machine.

(Image by Alexey Fursov via Shutterstock)

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With the storm still swirling over Marissa Mayer’s decision to end telecommuting at Yahoo, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly now takes center stage as the latest corporate leader to ax flexible work.

While Mayer’s announcement raised eyebrows, Joly’s decision is actually much more momentous. Why? Because Best Buy’s flexible work program is not just any flex policy, but the groundbreaking Results Only Work Environment (ROWE), one of the most innovative and celebrated examples of a company redesigning work to focus on results and boost performance through motivation-enhancing trust and autonomy. Under ROWE, corporate (non-store) employees had the freedom to work when and where they wanted as long as they got their work done.

Developed by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson (who have since written a book and launched a firm, CultureRX, to disseminate the program), ROWE yielded impressive results. Ressler and Thompson’s case studies as well as independent scholarly research find that ROWE increases productivity, employee well-being, and work-life balance while decreasing turnover. At Best Buy, these results produced $2.2 million in savings over three years, according to the CultureRX website.

The ROWE method has since been implemented in more than 40 companies. In addition to extensive media attention, it has also been featured in scores of management textbooks and teaching cases on topics including human resource management, strategy, and innovation.

Why such notoriety among management thinkers and educators? Because ROWE systematically implements what decades of research studies have shown to be the keys to motivating and engaging a workforce for maximum performance, commitment, and satisfaction. In short: help understand employees what needs to be done, give them the autonomy, trust and support to accomplish objectives in the ways that work best for them, and provide feedback and recognition to let them know how well they’re doing and reinforce good performance. When implemented effectively by well-trained leaders, this is a recipe not only for promoting work-life balance, but also for maximizing the value and contribution of a firm’s human capital over the long term.

Why on earth, then, would Joly cut this program? What killed ROWE at Best Buy was the same phenomenon that occurs frequently when a cost-cutting leader is appointed to turn around a struggling company: a short-term “get tough” mindset that favors rapid shocks over the slower, more difficult — but ultimately much more powerful — work of developing and communicating a strategy and harnessing the talent and creativity of committed, engaged employees to implement it. While Al Dunlap-style management can boost stock price in the short term, it lays waste to human capital value — the very resource that is most critical in firms like Best Buy, whose fortunes depend on providing excellent customer service.

Research including my own has shown that the culture of work-life support in a company is the most powerful predictor of employee work-life balance as well as a key element in job performance, organizational commitment, and intention to remain with the company. But top management exerts the strongest influence on culture, and nothing undermines a supportive work-life culture more quickly than a leader who believes and communicates that flexible work and work-life initiatives are nothing but frills that serve to coddle employees.

Joly made a very revealing comment following an investors’ meeting in November. “In a turnaround transformation,” he said, “you need to feel disposable as opposed to indispensable.” He is far from the only “Theory X” leader who believes that stressing employees makes them perform better, while boosting their satisfaction makes them lazy. This underlying belief persists despite enormous research evidence to the contrary because, quite frankly, it is simpler to comprehend and less behaviorally demanding of managers.

The prevalence of this mindset combined with less corporate investment in the leadership development needed to implement flexible work — and a weak job market that erodes employees’ power to demand alternative work arrangements — makes this a precarious moment for flexible work. Now is the time for leaders who understand the value and potency of well-designed flexible work programs to step forward and help others see the light.

Data analysis didn’t start with Hadoop. Companies have been working with data to get insights for decades. While technology has changed, some of the rules from the past still apply, or ought to, as data gets bigger and bigger.

Jack Rivkin, an occasional blogger with deep investment experience, recently shared some of the best practices he was exposed to early in his career working on economic forecasts. He shared some sage suggestions for enterprises to bear in mind as they consider and implement big data strategies. Among his insights:

• Forecasting models can only be as good as the data inputs.
• Be skeptical and hedge when sharing the models by noting factors that could lead to different results.
• The less time it takes to process data, the more valuable it is.
• Constantly improve models and inputs.

Of course, big data isn’t wholly evolutionary — it does bring its own all-new opporunities and risks. Some of the world’s leading data scientists, IT executives and business users will address them at GigaOM’s Structure:Data conference in New York on March 20-21.

Feature image courtesy of Flickr user luckey_sun.

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Google had to make serious cuts at Motorola Mobility in an effort to become profitable again, and has laid off 1,200 workers or 10 percent of its workforce. An email sent to employees earlier this week, hinted at layoffs with “while we’re very optimistic about the new products in our pipeline, we still face challenges” and “our costs are too high, we’re operating in markets where we’re not competitive and we’re losing money.” Workers will be affected in the U.S., China and India.

From a Motorola spokesman:

“These cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer. It’s obviously very hard for the employees concerned, and we are committed to helping them through this difficult transition.”

Back in August 2012, Google laid off 20 percent of Motorola’s workforce or 4,000 employees. With now a 30 percent reduction in employees, the tech giant is waiting for Motorola’s existing product pipeline to come to an end so it can start focusing on “actually building the next wave of innovation and product lines.”

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Come comment on this article: Google’s Motorola Mobility Laying Off 1,200 Workers Or 10% Of Staff

Just a few weeks ago we saw a wireless Qi charging pad pass through the FCC for Samsung devices, and according to some sources, we may see that Qi charging adopted in the Galaxy S IV. It won’t be embedded into the device, but Samsung may offer an extra back plate to support the inductive charging technology.

Samsung hasn’t been a pioneer in wireless charging the way they’ve tried to innovate other hardware aspects of their mobile devices, but they are a part of the Alliance for Wireless Power, so they’re certainly committed to keeping the latest, greatest tech in their devices. Although the A4WP doesn’t promote Qi charging, I can definitely see why Samsung wants to keep their options open. With how popular the S IV will undoubtedly be, if Samsung does choose to support Qi charging, it’s definitely more likely to get mainstream attention than some other inductive charging methods.

source: Digitimes

Come comment on this article: Samsung may offer wireless charging for the Galaxy S IV