Imitators trump innovators in the long game?

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'Uncool' Samsung muscles ahead of Apple

"Its products may not, as one British judge put it, be as "cool" as bitter rival Apple's, but Samsung Electronics is speeding away from the iconic iPhone maker in the race for the global smartphone market..."

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Mars rover landing in HD

Via Tor.com:

UK museum revives first-ever film shot in color

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UK museum revives first-ever film shot in color

via Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories on 9/12/12

(AP)—The earliest movies known to be shot in color have been revived by film archivists, who on Wednesday gave an audience at London's Science Museum a glimpse at cinema's first attempts to show us the world as we see it.

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A BoC Governor for the people

The dust-up between the Governor of the Bank of Canada and the captains of industry illustrates (a) how resistant the latter are to constructive criticism from the centre and (b) how rare such criticism actually is in Canada: "Companies hit back at Bank of Canada Governor Carney".

Mars Curiosity landing vids

Via the Bad Astronomy blog:

The Mars Curiosity rover's heat shield crashing on the surface of Mars after being jettisoned by the descent assembly:

And images from the Mars Descent Imager, a camera pointed downward at the surface of Mars as the rover completed its descent:

On the rise of Big Data

John Brockman (@edge) 2012-08-11 5:55 PM How Big Data Became So Big - Steve Lohr in NYTimes nyti.ms/NuERFN

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Casting about for leadership...

The Globe & Mail: "Let’s see some military officers in political office"

While I don't disagree with the thrust of the article, I don't feel the article makes its case.  I attended graduate school with one of the senior officers the author mentions as a possible political leader, and there's no doubt that the individual mentioned has more than sufficient substance, intelligence and pedigree for the role. As an aside, the list is intriguing for its notable omissions as well.  But my problem with the article is that it provides us with a set of stereotypical qualities of soldiers that are by no means universal among the officer cadre, and possibly less so among those who have made careers within the Ottawa bubble, where National Defence HQ is located (where I completed my second year of graduate school).

To be fair, the specific examples the author mentions spent significant portions of their careers as field officers in command positions, not as Ottawa courtiers.  One rare quality that such candidates would bring to a political leadership role, but which is currently lacking among Canada's political parties, is a superb combination of practical management experience, intimate knowledge of government systems, and an outsider's perspective on policy and the decision-making machinery. But as the author alludes, it's difficult to think of historical examples among the Westminster systems of government of career military officers achieving eminence in elected political office, although several examples come to mind among presidential  states. There aren't many precedents.

Nevertheless the knee-jerk and somewhat naive anti-military sentiment of yesteryear has been replaced in Canada with something more sympathetic to the military as an institution in the years after 9/11 and Canada's costly sacrifices in Afghanistan.  Military service is now more apt to be seen as a solid leadership credential than as something to be mistrusted for outdated reasons.

SSD: the best one-shot upgrade

I have to agree with those who say that no matter what kind of computer system you have, upgrading from a HDD (hard disk drive) to a SSD (solid-state drive) is the one upgrade guaranteed to boost performance in an immediately noticeable way no matter what you use your computer for. I couldn't believe how much more quickly my operating system booted up once I re-installed it on a SSD. I also had my copy of SW:TOR installed on the SSD initially, and subsequenly re-installed it on my secondary HDD to conserve space so that I could install the Adobe CS 6 Master Suite on the SSD, and was amazed at how much more smoothly and more responsive the game ran when I was playing it off the SDD. Luckily, SSD's are coming down in price somewhat, although they're still a long way off from replacing bulk storage media for things like photo and video libraries. But even if you get a small-capacity SSD for just your operating system and startup applications (my SSD is only 90GB), and run all your other applications off of a secondary HDD, you'll still notice a huge difference in performance.

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The Complete Guide to Solid-State Drives

via Lifehacker: Top by Adam Dachis on 8/6/12

Adding a solid-state drive (SSD) to your computer is simply the best upgrade at your disposal, capable of speeding up your computer in ways you hadn't thought possible. The even better news: A good SSD is now cheaper than ever. But as with any new technology, there's plenty to learn. Here's everything you should know about your SSD, whether you're interested in upgrading or just like to know the ins and outs of your hardware. More »

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Bogus copyright claims blindside Official NASA Mars rover landing video

It appears even NASA isn't immune to vexacious copyright claims...

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NASA's Official Mars Landing Video Got Taken Off YouTube Over Bogus Copyright Claims [Dmca]

via Gizmodo by EricLimer on 8/6/12

The Curiosity Rover may have landed safely on the surface of Mars, but like all good things, it's not invulnerable to completely bogus DMCA takedown requests. More »

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Motion graphics breakthrough

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Researchers demonstrate markerless motion capture

via Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories on 8/6/12

Conventional motion capture for film and game production involves multiple cameras and actors festooned with markers. A new technique developed by Disney Research, Pittsburgh, has demonstrated how three-dimensional motion capture can be accomplished with a single camera and without aid of markers.

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New Mars rover sends higher-resolution image

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New Mars rover sends higher-resolution image

via Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories on 8/6/12

(Phys.org) -- About two hours after landing on Mars and beaming back its first image, NASA's Curiosity rover transmitted a higher-resolution image of its new Martian home, Gale Crater. Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., received the image, taken by one of the vehicle's lower-fidelity, black-and-white Hazard Avoidance Cameras - or Hazcams.

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Mars Rover Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror"

The Hobbit...trilogy?

Black Gate expresses misgivings about the decision to make 'The Hobbit' into a trilogy of films: Three Hobbit Films for the LOTR Fans = Trouble.  Apparently there are copyright issues that prevent the filmmakers from mining additional story content from any Tolkien work other than the LOTR appendices (in addition to The Hobbit novel itself of course).  But this still leaves the filmmakers with a lot to work with, since the appendices contain a chronology of backstory events not described or referenced in The Hobbit but that transpire simultaneous to the events described in the novel.  For example, if I remember correctly, Gandalf's temporary absence prior to the dwarves' arrival at Rivendell is explained in the chronology by his attendance at a meeting of the White Council (which Galadriel, Elrond, Saruman, and presumably the other three wizards/istari also attended).  The Hobbit film teasers show a face-to-face encounter between Gandalf and Galadriel, and since Galadriel is entirely absent from the novel, we can infer that this is one backstory item that has been lifted from the chronology and inserted into The Hobbit films to flesh-out the story and lend the films the same continuity with the LOTR films that Tolkien himself worked into his later books after The Hobbit was published with no apparent intention to turn the children's novel into the prologue of an epic work of mythopoetic fiction.

This is encouraging news

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The aging brain is more malleable than previously believed

via EurekAlert! - Breaking News on 7/31/12

"Neuroscientists are finding that, as we get older, our aging brains are proving surprisingly malleable, and in ways not previously anticipated. But there are limitations..."

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I want one...

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Mars Curiosity Rover reaches for youth audience with Hot Wheels

via SlashGear by Chris Burns on 8/1/12

"It's time to get cute with science as NASA is working with Mattel toys to create none other than the Mars Curiosity Rover for their newest Hot Wheels lineup. This little beast of a vehicle is a 1:64 scale replica of the actual NASA Mars Curiosity Rover that'll be touching down this Saturday Night on the red planet. This machine will be a mix of plastic and hardcore metal and will be landing approximately one month after the real deal makes its mark in just a few days..."

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Video: View from the ISS at Night

A video by Knate Myers (I first saw it on The Presurfer site):

View from the ISS at Night from Knate Myers on Vimeo.

NASA image: Mars cavern

A Hole in Mars from Astro Pic of the Day

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The PSE bubble

More signs that the post-secondary education (PSE) bubble is bursting. From The Daily Best (via the Globe & Mail): Are Millennials the Screwed Generation?

Case in point...

TechEye.net: "Intel gets locked into desperate fight for life: Business partners looking at alternatives"

A propos of my preceding post ("Chronic imminent obsolescence") reports are now circulating in the tech blogosphere that Apple and other major computer manufacturers (Dell, HP) are considering switching from Intel processors to ARM chips for their next generation laptops and possibly servers and desktops.  ARM chips are currently widely used in handheld devices such as smartphones, tablet computers and some brands of netbooks.  Apple's relationship with ARM Holdings goes back to the 1980's, and the Apple Newton was powered by ARM.  A key attraction of ARM chips for hardware manufacturers has been the chips' relatively low power consumption, which makes them ideal for mobile tech in particular:

"Intel's Achilles' heel is power, and while it is doing a lot to fix this problem, it is still way way behind ARM.

But now this power consumption philosophy is starting to influence those who run servers and from there it will almost certainly move into PCs. In the next couple of years there will be a chip war to see which is the best."

Needless to say, if true, this would constitute a major shift in the industry. And since all major manufacturers are currently rolling out their brand new Intel Ivy Bridge-based 2012 hardware lines, this could have ramifications for consumers currently in the market for a new computer, especially if they were planning a significant investment with the expectation that the hardware would remain "future proof" at least for a few years.  Whether this switch away from Intel turns out to be the case, and whether this will lead to the kind of premature obsolescence that attended Apple's 2006 switch from PowerPC to Intel chips, remains to be seen.