Business & Tech
Can You Hear Me Now?
Verizon is gaining market share and the new computers on the block.
Verizon has already grabbed more than 7% of the market share of American iPhones. With Verizon’s growing share, at&t has sent out selective text messages giving valued customers 1,000 free rollover minutes by responding with “YES” to the 11113020 number.
HP has released information about an updated webOS-based tablet named the TouchPad. The new TouchPad will have a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 9.7in screen, HP Touchstone, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and 3G.
There are two size options: 16GB or 32GB; the models include a 1.3 megapixel camera for video calling over the Wi-Fi connection. The prices will be announced later. Unlike the Apple iPad, this will have true multitasking and Adobe Flash to allow you to view the web the way it was designed.
Find out what's happening in Graftonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The Google Art Project (www.googleartproject.com) started last month and already hosts 17 museums in 11 cities and 9 countries around the world. Each museum features one high-detail, gigapixel picture. Each of these pictures contain around 7 billion pixels, allowing you to get up very close to the picture without setting off an alarm. There are also 1000’s of other pictures available that allow you to see details.
One example is the miniature people in the river of El Greco’s "View of Toledo.'' You can create a collection of specific views of the paintings, add comments, and share them with friends and family. If you want to save the airfare to visit some interesting art museums, give the Google Art Project a try.
Find out what's happening in Graftonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
If you watched Jeopardy last month, you probably saw the IBM Watson. Watson is a supercomputer with two units of five rack mounted state-of-the-art servers, each having 4 CPUs and 8 cores each, and a total of more than 15 TB (terabytes) RAM.
Watson is quite a leap in computing power from the desktop computers available today. In comparison, a new desktop computer has 1 CPU and 4 cores and 4 GB RAM total. Originally, Watson took a minute or so to answer a question, which is too slow for a game show. After some practice, IBM was able to get response time down to game show standards.
At the end of the first day, Watson tied with Brad Rutter at $5,000 with Ken Jennings in third place at $2,000. Watson took a commanding lead in Double Jeopardy for Day 2 of the 3-day match. Mr. Jennings was in third place with $4800, Mr. Rutter in second with $10,400, and Watson with $35,734.
Throughout the competition, compound answers seemed to throw Watson off. Watson was the only contestant to miss the Final Jeopardy! response for day 2 with the category U.S. Cities. (“This city’s largest airport is named for a World War II hero, and its second largest is named for a World War II battle”). “What is Chicago” was the correct response (O’Hare and Midway airports), but Watson had “What is Toronto?????”.
Watson did not seem to have the comparative knowledge necessary to discard that potential answer, although the use of question marks did seem to portray a lack of confidence in the response.
The final result was a victory for Watson with $77,147, Jennings with $24,000, and Rutter with $21,600. Ken Jennings may have foreseen the future when he added to his Final Jeopardy! response that he “welcomes our new computer overlords”, a reference to either The Simpsons, Arthur C. Clark’s “Childhood’s End”, or H.G. Wells’ short story “Empire of the Ants.”
With the iPad 2 announcement March 2, there is now the choice of black or white iPad for the same pricing structure as the original and no difference in price for the Verizon or AT&T 3G versions.
The iPad 2 comes in 16GB ($499 for Wi-Fi, $629 for 3G), 32GB ($599 or $729), and 64GB ($699 or $829). It will be available March 11 in the US and March 25, 2011 around the world. The iPad 2 has a front standard-definition and a rear-facing, high-definition camera, up to 10 hours of battery life still, 1GHz dual-core Apple A5 processor, a gyroscope for more control with the accelerometer, and has trimmed 79 grams off the original 680 grams to be only 601 grams now (or, 1.33 pounds for the iPad 2 from 1.5 pounds for the original iPad). Apple also managed to make it thinner than an iPhone 4 at 8.8 mm thin (.34 inches).
Since it is tax season here are some apps to help you finish your taxes on time.