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Most new smartphones seem to get rooted within a week or two of their release, but four weeks before they go on sale? Hackers have cracked a prototype tablet from Samsung, the Galaxy Tab, a month before it hits shelves.

Peter Cus writes "Cluny Lace, an English lacemaking manufacturer, has reverted to 19th-Century Leavers machines in order to stay competitive. These 19th-Century machines use Jacquard punch cards. Ian Elm, thought to be the last of the card punchers, says young people don't want factory work: 'Younger people coming into a trade want a guarantee of a career out of it, and this is so uncertain.'"

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jamie passes along this excerpt from DiscoveryNews: "If you thought the geysers and overblown threat of a supervolcanic eruption in Yellowstone National Park were dramatic, you ain't seen nothing: deep beneath Earth's surface, the hot spot that feeds the park has torn an entire tectonic plate in half. The revelation comes from a new study (abstract) in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that peered into the mantle beneath the Pacific Northwest to see what happens when ancient ocean crust from the Pacific Ocean runs headlong into a churning plume of ultra-hot mantle material."

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The Android mobile operating system—specifically, smartphones running it—is continuing a steady climb in mobile web market share versus Apple's iOS-based devices.

Apple iPad GUI PSD is especially designed for application developers out there. You can easily customize it as the PSD was constructed using vectors.

cybernanga writes "A group of researchers in South Africa has developed a filter that can purify water straight from the bottle. The filter sits inside a tube fitted on top of a bottle and purifies water as it is poured on a cup. From the article: 'The designer behind the filter, Dr Eugene Cloete, from the Stellenbosch University in South Africa, says the filter is only as big as an ordinary tea bag. He says the product is cost-effective and easy to use. "We are coming in here at the fraction of the cost of anything else that is currently on the market," says Dr Cloete on BBC World Service.'"

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theodp writes "Network analysis uses data about your social network interactions to make assumptions and predictions about your behavior. The Economist notes the upside for companies looking to sell products. But don't forget about the downside, warns Adrian Chen, of living in a world where network analysis is used by financial firms to determine risky borrowers by looking at social ties, or by Internet businesses to determine which customers are more equal than others (nice to see Microsoft's back on the forefront of some tech!). So, did Mom envision Social Network Analytics when she gave you that you-are-the-company-you-keep lecture?"

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theodp writes "In this article Vivek Wadhwa laments that short shrift is paid to management training these days at many high-tech firms. You can't be born with the skills needed to plan projects, adhere to EEOC guidelines, prepare budgets and manage finances, or to know the intricacies of business and IP law, says Wadhwa. All this has to be learned. Stepping up to address the problems of 'engineering without leadership,' which may include morale problems, missed deadlines, customer-support disasters, and high turnover, are programs like UC Berkeley's Engineering Leadership Program and Duke's Masters of Engineering Management Program, which aim to teach product management, entrepreneurial thinking, leadership, finance, team building, business management, and motivation to techies."

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Purported picture of a future iPad in testing with a front camera capable of FaceTime video calls.

After a teaser video briefly appeared on YouTube yesterday, Motorola has now unveiled the Milestone 2, a GSM version of the Droid 2.

crimeandpunishment writes "Does the battle over the Blackberry ban in the United Arab Emirates have its roots in a spy story? Dubai's police chief says concern over espionage (specifically, by the US and Israel) led to the decision to limit BlackBerry services. The UAE says it will block BlackBerry email, messaging, and web services on October 11th unless it gets access to encrypted data. Comments by Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim are often seen as reflecting the views of Dubai's leadership, and would appear to indicate a very hard line in talks with Research in Motion."

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Move over, Sunbelt. The New North is coming through, a geographer predicts in a new book. As worldwide population increases by 40 percent over the next 40 years, sparsely populated Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States will become formidable economic powers and migration magnets, Laurence C. Smith writes.

Kilrah_il writes "After having a go with a Name-Your-Price album and an open-source video, Radiohead is again breaking new ground, this time with a fan-based initiative. A group of fans went to one of the band's shows in Prague, each shooting the show from a different angle. By editing it all together and adding audio from the original masters provided by the band, they have created a video of the show that is 'Strictly not for sale — By the fans for the fans,' adding, 'Please share and enjoy.' Can this be the future of live show videos?"

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Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in an interview with the Associated Press yesterday that paid apps like those found on the iPhone, Android and iPad could help financially troubled news organizations, but he didnt have anything positive to say about charging for content on the web.On the other hand, hes not optimistic about other micropayment plans wherein publications would charge users to access individual articles because at present there is not a centralized and widespread payment system as there is with Apples services (iTunes, iBooks and the App Store) or the Android Market.If I just click on my iPad, and its billed on my normal bill, that micropayment model makes it possible for people to have an impulse purchase, he said. Apple already has his payment information from the get go, and the creator of each app can use Apples billing system for in-app purchases.Thats one of the reasons Wales believes app stores could be beneficial for the news industry. The apps model the iPad app, the Kindle does provide new and interesting opportunities for newspapers.Weve heard rumors in the past that Google has a unified micropayments system in the works that could do the same for desktop content, but it hasnt happened yet.Wikipedia is not a commercial enterprise, but Waless current venture Wikia is ad-supported.Image courtesy of iStockphoto, enot-poloskunMore About: amazon, android, apple, apps, interview, ipad, iphone, Jimmy Wales, journalism, Kindle, monetization, News, paywalls, Wikia, wikipediaFor more Social Media coverage:Follow Mashable Social Media on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Social Media channelDownload our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Apple makes computers, tablets, phones, TV set-top-boxes and a dozen other things, but to date it hasn’t made a wristwatch. Oh, wait, it has! It’s called “the new iPod nano.”

The term “social network” is of course synonymous with online networks like Facebook. But think about what you’re actual social life is like for a second. Are you really closest to the people whose items...

submitted by leap2 to gaming [link] [56 comments]

In order to celebrate 2 years, Google is releasing a new stable version (Chrome 6) that's even faster and more streamlined than prior versions. Chrome is now three times faster than it was two years ago on JavaScript performance.

harrymcc writes "I'm at IFA in Berlin — Europe's equivalent of the Consumer Electronics Show — and the massive halls are dominated by 3D TVs made by everyone from Sony, Samsung, and Panasonic to companies you've never heard of. The manufacturers seem pretty excited, but 3D has so many downsides — most of all the lousy image quality and unimpressive dimensionality effect — that I can't imagine consumers are going to go for this. 'As a medium, 3D remains remarkably self-trivializing. Virtually nobody who works with it can resist thrusting stuff at the camera, just to make clear to viewers that they’re experiencing the miracle of the third dimension. When Lang Lang banged away at his piano during Sony’s event, a cameraman zoomed in and out on the musical instrument for no apparent reason, and one of the company’s representatives kept robotically shoving his hands forward. Hey, it’s 3D — watch this!'"

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It's terribly difficult to get reliable statistics, as numbers tend to vary drastically depending upon whom you ask, but if you're inclined to believe that Android is mopping up Apple and RIM's declining mobile mindshare in the US, you'll find nothing but corroboration from Quantcast. The analytics firm reckons a full one-quarter of mobile web traffic stateside comes from devices running Google's OS, though it's important to know that the iOS tallies apparently don't include the web-friendly iPad. You also might want to note that this is mobile web traffic here -- these days, we spend an increasing amount of our internet time in apps -- and since we're on a roll with the disclaimers, let's just add that these numbers have nothing to do with a company's financial success. Nokia can attest to that.Android accounts for one-quarter of mobile web traffic, says Quantcast originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Apple Insider  |  Quantcast Blog  | Email this | Comments