Common Paradox Tech Blog

I can see why someone would want to do this. After all, people compete to see how many cockroaches can be eaten in a sitting (36 by Ken Edwards, Great Britain), books can be typed backward (67 by Michele Santelia, Italy), and the shortest time to pluck a turkey (90 seconds by Vincent Pilkington, Ireland). What I don’t understand is why Dresden? There’s probably a less interesting place on the planet, but I’m hard pressed at the moment to imagine where it might be. Still, there’s now a 26 gigapixel image of Dresden in all its glory, and it now stands as the world’s largest.

The picture was manufactured by A.F.B. media GmbH. It was taken with a Canon 5D Mark II camera with a 400mm lens. It is comprised of 1,665 full format, 21.4 megapixel images. Using a robot atop the Haus der Presse building, all the snapshots that make up the final image were captured in 3 hours, 52 minutes. Another 94 hours were needed to stitch together the 102 GB of raw data, using a computer with 48 GB of memory and 16 CPUs.

The completed image is 297,500 pixels by 97,500 pixels. To view the complete image would take the equivalent of 13,558 1600×1200 monitors. And at 26 gigapixels, this image of Dresden is 1.5 times larger than the previous record holder, a 17.2 gigapixel image of Yosemite National Park.

Still, for all the niftiness in this technological feat, couldn’t it have been someplace other than Dresden?

Image Credit: A.F.B. media GmbH

It is so easy to ruin a good thing. Facebook, for example, offers a social networking opportunity for millions of subscribers, who want nothing more than to share with family and friends. But the same networking tools available to them are available to others. Which is fine, until they get abused. Game developers, for example, use “push notifications” on Facebook to promote their apps, and at the same time diminish the experience for those who’d prefer not to be bothered.

Facebook wants to make sure that each party can be accommodated in the chunk of cyberspace it controls, and has announced a redesign that includes a “Game Dashboard”, which will better isolate the gaming and non-gaming communities. The dashboard API, which is now available in limited release, will keep game developers penned into a cyber-walled area that interested Facebook users can enter. Outside the walls Facebook users won’t be pestered by the non-stop game-related announcements.

Dean Takahaski at GamesBeat, sees some plusses and minuses in Facebook’s effort. If it works, life on Facebook for gamers and non-gamers alike will be improved. Non-gamers will be spared the stream of unwanted information about game apps, and gamers will have a place they can go where games will be more easily found and managed.

But, Takahaski warns, if Facebook messes up, it risks alienating both its gamers and game developers (who now have a wait-and-see attitude about the change). Takahaski holds up Microsoft’s attempt to manage games under Vista as a cautionary tale: it didn’t work, making a lot of gamers unhappy.

Image Credit: Facebook

Money is burning a hole in Google’s pocket. Back in November Google purchased AdMob for $750 million. Now Google is expressing a serious interest in Yelp, and a figure of $500 million is being bandied about as the possible price of acquisition.

Yelp is a social networking company that concentrates on user reviews of local businesses, promising “Real People. Real Reviews.” Yelp has a presence in 40 states, and has user reviews on nearly 31,000 local businesses. Yelp has recently gone international, with London as its first foreign location.

Google has a serious interest in establishing itself in this same general venue. It is currently building directories of local businesses for its Place Pages, and creating links to Google Maps. But, Yelp offers much more: not just the reviews of local businesses, but a social network of people active in the acquisition and sharing of such information. (Never pay for something you can get others to do for free, right?)

By acquiring Yelp, Google would also enhance a revenue stream: more business advertising. Yelp sells sponsorships to businesses, ranging from $300 to $1,000 a month, for ads and favorable search result placement. Businesses can also promote themselves on their own profile page–something Google is presently offering.

The deal’s not done. And, it is suggested that despite the seriousness of negotiations, now that word has leaked about the possible deal, another suitor might jump in and snatch Yelp away.

Image Credit: Google, Yelp

Not everyone needs a rocking socket 1366 platform crammed with high-end parts and prepped for Intel’s upcoming 6-core Gulftown chips, and even the more affordable (and mainstream) socket 1156 might be too much. Budget conscious shoppers not looking to push the envelope instead turn to IGP solutions, but if you’re planning a build based on Intel’s G41 chipset, you may want to hop off the fence and make it happen.

Wait too long and you may find that mobo of choice is out of stock. That’s because supplies of Intel’s G41 chipsets are falling short, a situation sources from motherboard makers say is due to insufficient capacity at the company’s 8-inch Fab and a turnaround in orders by mobo makers.

In somewhat of an attempt to play hardball, motherboard manufacturers tried to push demand for Intel’s G31 chipset, a part that costs about $4-5 less than G41. The idea was to force Intel to maintain its output of the older chipset, but Intel has held firm on transitioning to G41, causing mobo makers to place orders for the newer part.

The sudden turnaround, sources say, has resulted in a surge in demand that Intel’s maximum supply volume simply can’t keep up with.

Much ado about nothing? Perhaps. Intel says the situation is typical of a product transition and that it is working closely with customers to satisfy demand.

Image Credit: Intel

With all the talk and attention focused on Google’s Android platform and Apple’s still trendy iPhone (even as AT&T’s service wigs out), it seems easy to forget about RIM and the BlackBerry – just ask Wall Street.

RIM on Thursday reported a 59 percent increase in third-quarter income, made possible by a flurry of new subscribers and record sales of the company’s BlackBerry. And all but 20 percent of those new subscribers were non-corporate customers, which would indicate that BlackBerrys are holding their own in the popularity contest alongside the iPhone, Palm Pre, Droid, and other hot smartphones.

"The consumer side is growing real fast," co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie said on a conference call with analysts. "It’s not like this isn’t a competitive space with big companies trying to do well and yet we’re No. 1."

RIM managed to sell 10 million BlackBerry phones during the third-quarter alone, beating its previous record of 8.3 million set in the second-quarter. To put it into perspective, Apple sold 7.4 million iPhones in the most recent quarter.

Image Credit: blog.majibu.com

Yesterday we posted a blurb referencing comments Nvidia made to news and rumor site Fudzilla, in which the graphics chip maker talked up its upcoming Ion 2 platform as being a faster solution than an Atom platform built around Intel’s upcoming Pine Trail architecture. So does that mean you should hold off on buying a netbook?

Not at all, Nivida’s Ken Brown says, who got in touch with us to clarify a few points. Regarding the performance benefits of Ion 2 over Pine Trail, Brown said all of that is correct, but that "is also true for current generation Ion-based PCs. Pine Trail will not deliver a significantly better experience than current-generation Atom-based PCs (link). Ion based systems which are available today will provide a much better experience than Pine Trail for HD video, games, media conversion, and other applications that people want to run."

In addition, Brown stated that first-generation Ion parts will also deliver anywhere from 5-10x faster graphics performance than Pine Trail, so for anyone who needs a graphically-charged netbook today, waiting isn’t necessary.

Image Credit: Nvidia

Google and Audi have teamed up to "take Google services in a car to the next level," the search giant said in an official blog post earlier this week. What they’re talking about is integrating Google Earth into the newly unveiled Audi A8.

The Audi A8 becomes the first car manufacturer to bring Google Earth right into the vehicle, which will be combined with a handful of Google services. Drivers will have access to 3D satellite imagery, terrain information, and a bunch of other geo information based on the current location.

But that’s not all. Google Maps and local search will be linked to the driver’s desktop, so an Audi A8 owner will be able to send business listings direct from Google Maps to their car, or search for an address on their home or work PC and have that info ready when its time roll out in the Audi A8.

"Our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful is paid into by the efforts of Google’s automotive team — they always are trying to find new ways to make relevant information accessible and useful — now also in your car."

Image Credit: Google

Novell this week announced the availability of Moonlight 2, essentially an open-source Linux version of Microsoft’s Silverlight platform. In addition, Microsoft and Novell said they plan on expanding their collaboration on Moonlight to include support for Moonlight implementations of Silverlight versions 3 and 4..

The companies say Moonlight 2 is interoperable with Microsoft Silverlight 2 and includes some features of Silverlight 3, including support for Bitmap APIs, file dialogs, easing functions, pluggable media pipeline, and custom codecs.

"Moonlight development is quickly catching up to Microsoft Silverlight with each release," Novell said. "A preview release of Moonlight 3 will be made available in the first quarter of 2010 with a final release scheduled for the third quarter of 2010. Moonlight 4 will follow shortly thereafter."

Novel says Moonlight has been downloaded 1.3 million times so far.

Image Credit: Novell

Oracle didn’t exactly stick it to Wall Street, but the world’s No. 2 software maker did manage to post a quarterly profit above what analysts were expecting, eWeek reports. Not by a wide margin, mind you, but still 3 cents higher than the average Wall Street forecast of 36 cents per share.

The better-than-expected performance can be attributed to an unexpected increase in sales of new software licenses, which rose 2 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter ended Nov. 30. And it was just 3 months ago that Oracle said sales would probably be down 10 percent, or at best, fall flat.

Oracle wasn’t the only one with reason to celebrate. The company’s numbers has analysts and other vendors optimistic that technology spending is on the rebound after suffering through a rough year. Because of its size, Oracle reports earnings a month before most of its peers.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inquiring minds might not really care, but developers for smartphones certainly do. And what they care about is what mobile OS platforms are most prominent among users, so they can better direct their limited resources to a market with potential. Unfortunately for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, it looks to be one of those markets where potential is dwindling, with figures showing it slipping into third place behind Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone.

The numbers reported are from ComScore, which conducts monthly user surveys of U.S. mobile subscribers, age 13 and over. The three month period ending in October show RIM with 15 million users, the iPhone with 9 million users, and Windows Mobile with 7 million users. (Non-proprietary OS rules the roost with 197 million users.)

The good news for Microsoft is that the number of Windows Mobile users has stayed fairly constant in 2009. The bad news is that Apple’s user base has shown a relatively steady increase during the year. And the really bad news is that Google’s Android has yet to make its presence felt in the market.

Jason Ankeny, at FierceDeveloper, a site dedicated to wireless developers, writes that “Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform seems increasingly irrelevant with each passing week.” He notes that Windows Mobile lost 28 percent market share between the 3rd quarter of 2008 and the 3rd quarter of 2009. Steve Lohr, a writer for the Strategic New Service, echoes Ankeny, stating “It’s time to declare Microsoft a loser in phones. Just get out of Dodge.”

Maybe it’s time for Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, to reconsider his initial assessment of the iPhone (not to mention Microsoft’s mobile market strategy).

Image Credit: FierceDeveloper