Maxim Bange

Popular headphone maker Beats is buying back HTC's 25 percent stake in the company. HTC originally bought a $300 million, 50.1 percent stake in Beats back in 2011, and the headphone maker then paid $150 million to buy back half of that investment last year. Today's announcement means the close partnership between the two companies comes to an end, with Beats buying back the final $265 million in shares. In a statement, HTC says Beats will still be an important partner, but it refused to say exactly how important or the reasons behind the split and any financial impact.

HTC has been struggling to gain smartphone market share recently, with its profits dwindling quarter upon quarter. Conversely, Beats' revenue has been strong and the...

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Microsoft is building its own cloud gaming service. Company officials demonstrated a prototype of the service during an internal company meeting today. Sources familiar with the meeting revealed to The Verge that Microsoft demonstrated Halo 4 running on a Windows Phone and PC, both streaming the game from the cloud. We're told that the concept service runs smoothly on both devices, and that Microsoft has managed to reduce the latency on a Lumia 520 to just 45ms.

We understand that Microsoft is building the service as a way to stream games to its Windows devices. Microsoft's demonstration included a Windows Phone with a Xbox controller attached through an accessory, and a low-end hybrid PC. Microsoft has not yet branded the cloud games...

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On Thursday, a New York-based firm called SecondMarket announced the launch of the Bitcoin Investment Trust, a new way for American investors to effectively bet on the future price of bitcoins.

As Ars has reported in the past, this wouldn’t be the first Bitcoin fund in the world. Last year, Malta-based Exante launched its service in Europe. But SecondMarket is hoping to make it easier and safer for investors to put down some serious coin (at least $25,000 worth) in a virtual currency that is notoriously difficult to use and rife with shady players.

“Auditing and classification standards for Bitcoin have not yet been broadly adopted,” Bitcoin Investment Trust warns on its site. “However, the BIT, which will be audited by Ernst & Young, enables investors to invest in Bitcoin via a security, making it eligible for investment for institutions, certain IRAs, and other types of brokerage accounts.”

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For the first time, Facebook is letting users edit their posts after the fact. The change will be available to some people on the web and the Android mobile app later today; an iOS version is supposed to follow soon after. Like many of Facebook's new features, this is a gradual rollout, so don't be surprised if it doesn't appear right away. When it does show up, the feature will let users click to edit a post, then preserve a viewable history of the changes, hopefully keeping users honest enough to use it mostly for typos and bad grammar.

Facebook first introduced comment editing (also with an edit history tool) in mid-2012, but it's so far held off on letting people actually edit posts. Until now, that meant you had to outright delete...

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Ever since Elon Musk revealed his Hyperloop designs in August, the inventor has been coy about any plans to construct the device, leaving many to wonder when the innovative transportation system would see the light of day. But today brings good news for Hyperloop fans, as a new group has formed to develop Musk's designs, with the help of expert engineers and an innovative crowdfunding platform.

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The Pirate Bay is without doubt one of the most censored websites on the Internet.

Courts all around the world have ordered Internet providers to block subscriber access to the torrent site, and this list continues to expand.

This week a coalition of Portuguese copyright trade groups announced they will file for an injunction to prevent ISPs from providing access to The Pirate Bay and other infringing sites.

The groups, backed by the major movie studios, plan to file the necessary paperwork at the Intellectual Property Court in the coming months.

“We still have to solve some technical and legal issues, but we anticipate delivering the injunction to the Intellectual Property Court by the end of 2013,” confirmed Paulo Santos, the leader of the two groups in this matter.

Santos notes that website blocking has proven to be effective abroad, and also in Portugal where blocks are in place to filter out other offensive material.

“Telecom operators and ISPs already use similar filters today to prevent access to pedophile content, or sites that promote violence or racism,” the anti-piracy boss says.

The groups expect that the Internet providers may not be happy with the application, but they are convinced that the court will decide in their favor. This belief is undoubtedly strengthened by court orders against ISPs in other European countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, Italy and Finland.

“I think the court will accept the injunction. Of course there can always be procedural issues, but we have reason and right on our side,” Santos says.

If the court agrees it will be the first time that Internet providers in Portugal are required to block a website on copyright grounds.

Whether such a blockade will be very successful remains to be seen though, as there are plenty of alternatives and circumvention tools available. This includes VPN services, the many proxies that make up 8% of The Pirate Bay’s total traffic, and TPB’s own PirateBrowser.

These tools appear to be widely used to circumvent censorship. Last month researchers from the University of Amsterdam released a report suggesting that the court-ordered Pirate Bay block has had no impact on piracy rates in the Netherlands.

“Blocking access to TPB has had no lasting net impact on the overall number of downloaders from illegal sources, as people learn to use alternatives to TPB,” the report concluded.

Source: Portugal Next in Line to Block The Pirate Bay

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has finally admitted that forcing users to press the Control-Alt-Delete key combination to log into a PC was a mistake. In an interview at a Harvard fundraising campaign, Gates discusses his early days building Microsoft and the all-important Control-Alt-Delete decision. If you've used an old version of the software or use Windows at work then you will have experienced the odd requirement. Gates expains the key combination is designed to prevent other apps from faking the login prompt and stealing a password.

"It was a mistake," Gates admits to an audience left laughing at his honesty. "We could have had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't wanna give us our single...

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Quark chip means more than smart watches and wearable technology

Government might have pulled the plug in the face of riots

During the last couple of years entertainment companies have heavily criticized Google for linking to copyright-infringing material in its search results.

Google has responded by removing many millions of links but apparently that’s just not enough. In the past couple of weeks the world’s largest search engine has become a punching bag for the music and movie industries and today they find themselves battered again, this time by a British House of Commons report.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee comprises MPs from several parties including those from the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition government and Labour opposition. Today in a new report aimed at supporting the creative economy, the Committee dedicates an entire section to copyright and piracy issues. It has many targets for criticism but begins with a swipe at the UK’s leading Internet rights groups.

Open Rights Group

“The relationship between the strength of Britain’s creative industries and robust copyright laws is acknowledged by the Open Rights Group which aims radically to liberalise the use and sharing of copyrighted content.

“While we share the Open Rights Group’s attachment to freedom of expression via the internet, we firmly repudiate their laissez-faire attitudes towards copyright infringement,” the Committee says.

Repeating industry claims that film and music piracy results in lost annual sales of £400 million (while noting it could be well in excess of £1 billion) the report says the Open Rights Group’s “quibbles” that the figures “were not based on exact science” should not detract from the damage piracy causes the creative economy.

IP Crime Unit and site blocking

The report goes on to mention the creation of a new City of London Police unit dedicated to cracking down on intellectual property crime and reveals that a first-of-its-kind conference is being planned “to bring players from across the world to London” to discuss enforcement issues.

On the blocking of infringing websites by ISPs the Committee said there were signs that the courts are making it easier, citing comment from the MPAA supporting “improvements to the justice system” to allow site blocking orders to be obtained more efficiently.

“We encourage businesses to use the current law to bring claims wherever it is feasible for them to do so. There nonetheless remains a systemic failure to enforce the existing laws effectively against rife online piracy,” the report notes.

But inevitably the big guns were turned on the messenger.

Google in the firing line again

The Committee begins by quoting Google itself, who at the time were removing around 9 million URLs from its indexes every month at the request of copyright holders. This was countered with information provided by the BPI who said that despite Google’s alleged algorithm changes, the instances of infringing sites turning up in the top 10 results had fallen only marginally, from 63% in August 2012 to 61% a year later. Clearly the Committee are unimpressed.

“We strongly condemn the failure of Google, notable among technology companies, to provide an adequate response to creative industry requests to prevent its search engine directing consumers to copyright-infringing websites,” the report states in emphasized bold type.

“We are unimpressed by their evident reluctance to block infringing websites on the flimsy grounds that some operate under the cover of hosting some legal content. The continuing promotion by search engines of illegal content on the internet is unacceptable. So far, their attempts to remedy this have been derisorily ineffective,” it continues.

“We do not believe it to be beyond the wit of the engineers employed by Google and others to demote and, ideally, remove copyright infringing material from search engine results. Google co-operates with law enforcement agencies to block child pornographic content from search results and it has provided no coherent, responsible answer as to why it cannot do the same for sites which blatantly, and illegally, offer pirated content.”

Turning up the heat further still in an attempt to have Google held accountable through the reporting of a government office, the report has more proposals.

“We recommend that the Intellectual Property Office’s annual reports include an assessment of the degree of online copyright infringement and the extent to which identified search engines and other internet services facilitate this. We further recommend that the Government consider how it might incentivise technology companies to hinder access via the internet to copyright infringing material.”

Of course, while “carrots” are offered to do something about infringement, no document of this nature could conclude without a recommendation to bring out the sticks.

10 years in jail for “serious” online infringement

Citing the successful prosecution of SurftheChannel owner Anton Vickerman, the report notes that while large scale copyright infringement in the offline world can result in harsh penalties, online those punishments are limited to two years. To sidestep this issue a decision was made to prosecute Vickerman on counts of Conspiracy to Defraud which ultimately secured a four year jail sentence. In future the Committee would like to see such maneuvering become unnecessary.

“We recommend that the maximum penalty for serious online copyright theft be extended to ten years’ imprisonment. Criminal offences in the online world should attract the same penalties as those provided for the physical world by the Copyright, etc. and Trade Marks (Offences and Enforcement) Act 2002,” the Committee notes.

Digital Economy Act

Finally the report criticizes the delay in implementing the controversial Digital Economy Act, stalled now for the best part of three years. In particular, the issuing of warning notices to infringers should come sooner rather than later.

“We recommend that a copyright infringement notification system envisaged by the Digital Economy Act be implemented with far greater speed than the Government currently plans. By targeting information letters to the worst infringers, early implementation will, we believe, serve an important educative purpose which could percolate more widely,” the report states.

However, if the government can’t get its act together, a voluntary scheme between ISPs and copyright holders should be put in place.

“We are encouraged by the progress that has been made towards instituting a voluntary system of warning letters following discussions involving internet service providers and rights owners. If this can be achieved by mutual cooperation rather than legislation, it will be a major step forward.

“However, should voluntary initiatives such as this prove unsuccessful then the Government should ensure that the equivalent measures in the Digital Economy Act are promptly put into effect,” the Committee concludes.

Source: Google “Condemned” By UK Politicians For Linking to Piracy

How come we live in 3 dimensions? Not 2, not 4, not 7.3, but 3? Is there something special about that number of dimensions? This video tries to explain.

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I've opined on the issue of handwritten thank you notes before.

I think mailing a handwritten thank you note after an interview is horrible practice for four reasons:

• There's a delay.
• The letter might never get to your interviewer. It could get lost in the mail, the secretary could throw it out, or it could end up in a pile of envelopes that don't get opened for months.
• It feels old.
• The chance of the interviewer writing back to you is slimmer.

That still holds true for interviews. Email is always the way to go.

However, as I've spent much of the last few years watching people come, and sometimes go, from Business Insider, I've reached an unexpected conclusion: There's something wonderfully nostalgic about getting a handwritten thank you note on someone's last day of work. (Their internship is ending. They're moving on to another job.)

It's a simple but worthwhile gesture for these reasons:

• Because you likely work in an office, a handwritten note can be easily delivered to the person, by you.
• It shows thoughtfulness. You had to go out and buy stationery and a nice-ish pen. And you had to formulate your message before you started writing, because you can't just hit "delete."
• You can force yourself to deliver the note in person, so it sets up the perfect thank you/goodbye/handshake moment on your way out.
• Your boss will read it. Nobody has the heart to throw out a handwritten note.
• Not many people do this, so it will help you stand out.
• Your words, if phrased well, will help you leave on a good note.

I save all my handwritten thank you notes to look back one day and remember the people who were old fashioned and thoughtful enough to say a few nice words before closing the door behind them.

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Over the last 30 years, China has undergone an unprecedented industrialization. In that time, China’s GDP has jumped from $202.5 billion in $1980 to $8.2 trillion in 2012, according to the International Monetary Fund. But that growth has come at an increasingly hard-to-ignore environmental cost.

As China’s population has migrated from the countryside to cities in search of factory work, China’s energy consumption has increased dramatically. 

The majority of China’s energy is supplied by coal-fired power stations, which produce widespread pollution.  Back in January, the air quality in Beijing got so bad that when the United States Embassy rated it 755 on an Air Quality Index that was only supposed to go up to 500. The public outcry over the situation forced the notoriously opaque Chinese government to allow Chinese news to report more honestly on the pollution. 

One of the cities most affected by China’s rapid industrialization and pollution is Wuhai city in Inner Mongolia. Located on the Yellow River, Wuhai is a city that used to be based around grapes, wine-making, and dairy farming. Now, because Inner Mongolia holds 26% of China’s coal reserves, its economy is based around coal mining, power plants, and chemical industries.

Below are some photos of the damage from Susan Shifflett at the Wilson Center, along with more alarming details.

In 2012, Wuhai City had a population of 548,000 and produced 38 million tons of coal.Before 1998, Wuhai had four factories. Now, it has more than 400. This area is designated for open-pit mining, which produces large amounts of air and water pollution. Two-thirds of China’s surface water and half of the country’s groundwater are polluted.

A truck packed with barrels of coal heads for processing. Unique to Wuhai, all aspects of the coal industry are housed in the city, including mining, power plants and coal-to-chemical processing. All produce air and water pollution.

These chickens were turned black from coal and pollution. Many other species in the area have been turned black as well.

A recent study concluded that the pollution has taken 5.5 years off the life expectancy of residents in Northern China.

Clean coal technology, which reduces pollution, is in place, but companies do not use it to cut costs.

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Gamification, or the use of game elements to promote desired behaviors among customers and employees, has been a popular business strategy for decades. Loyalty programs, cereal box prizes, employee-of-the-month schemes, hidden tokens within video games and applications — these are all examples.

But the always-on mobile age has vastly expanded opportunities for gamification. Integration with social networks means these experiences are shared with friends, acquaintances and co-workers. A smartphone-carrying employee or consumer might be drawn into a gamified experience at any time, wherever they are.

In fact, gamification represents the fusion of four trends: the explosion of social media usage, the mobile revolution, the rise of big data, and the emergence of wearable computing. Already, marketers, enterprises, and even governments are using gamification to achieve and expand their goals.

In a new report from BI Intelligence on the mobile gamification, we take a look at the overall market for gamification tools, services, and applications, analyze the elements that are critical to a winning gamification strategy, look at the various typology of mobile gamification uses, and detail how to quantify the impact of gamification tactics. 

Access The Full Report And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here's an overview of the state of mobile gamification:

• A large and getting larger market: The overall gamification market is sizable. Forecasts from two research firms, MarketandMarkets and M2, put the global market for gamification apps and services in the neighborhood of $400 and $500 million by year-end 2013. M2 Research sees the market growing to $2.8 billion by 2016. Late 2011 Gartner figures project more than 70% of Global 2000 companies will use at least one gamified application by 2014.
• The classic and most well-known example in the mobile context is Foursquare: Early in its history, Foursquare spurred user acquisition and engagement with its focus on competition and rewards. But Foursquare has shifted away from this gamification dimension. More and more, it has become more of a social app to broadcast location to friends, and a location-based directory that competes with Yelp and Google.
• But organizations have developed a wide range of uses for gamification: Foursquare's move away from gamification has been taken by some to signal the end of the gamification fad. We disagree, and believe that it signals something else: the demise of superficial gamification. Consumers are no longer attracted by the novelty of competing for virtual badges and intangible rewards. The shine has faded on gimmicky applications. 
• Gamified experiences must add real value to the user's experience, or they will fail to take hold: The right gamification tactics can be used to help with user acquisition, engagement, behavior modification and management, commerce and loyalty, and business learning and innovation on the enterprise level. The key critical elements of any winning gaming strategy are varied, and include intuitive design, behavioral sensibility, balanced design, and alignment with core business objectives. Some successful examples to look at include Zamzee, Nike+ and SessionM. 

In full, the report:

• Takes a look at the overall market for gamification tools, services, and applications
• Analyzes the elements that are critical to a winning gamification strategy
• Looks at the various typology of mobile gamification uses
• Details how to quantify the impact of gamification tactics

To access BI Intelligence's full reports on Mobile Gamification, sign up for a free trial subscription here.

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Bij een steekpartij in Weert is een thuiszorgmedewerkster gedood. Een vrouw is aangehouden.

De politie kreeg rond 13.30 uur een melding dat er een vrouw gereanimeerd werd in de hal van een flat aan het Oranjeplein. De vrouw bleek een steekwond te hebben. Ze overleed tijdens de reanimatiepoging.

Later meldde zich een 60-jarige vrouw bij de politie. Ze zei dat ze betrokken was bij de steekpartij, waarop ze werd aangehouden.

Het slachtoffer was een medewerkster van Groene Kruis Thuiszorg. Volgens verschillende media werd ze aangevallen door een cliënt bij wie ze op bezoek was.

Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig has come up with a novel way to use Tumblr as part of a Supreme Court case.

On Thursday, with the help of Senator Elizabeth Warren, he will be showing the judges how the word "corruption" is used on Tumblr and argue that the word has a different meaning when used in the Constitution.

He contends that the word doesn't just mean things like bribes, or "quid pro quo" corruption, as Lessig calls it. It means "institutional corruption," he says, explaining in a post on Tumblr.

"Like — to pick just one totally random example — a Congress developing a dependence upon its funders, rather than the dependence the framers intended — 'on the People alone.'"

He hopes that Tumblr will help the judges as they hear the McCutcheon v. F.E.C. case over limits on political campaign contributions.

The event will be live streamed, here.

SEE ALSO: You Can Make Incredible Sums Of Money In Enterprise Software Sales

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Graphics cards aren’t normally our go-to choices for audio processing, but we may have to make exceptions for AMD’s just-unveiled Radeon R9 and R7 lines. The R9 290X (shown above), R9 290 and R7 260X (after the break) will support TrueAudio, a new programmable pipeline that enables advanced audio effects without burdening a PC’s main processor or a dedicated sound card. Not that the range will be lacking in visual prowess, of course. While the company isn’t revealing full specifications, it claims that the R9 290X flagship will have five teraflops of total computing power versus the four teraflops of the previous generation. The boards will ship sometime in the “near future,” with prices ranging from $89 for an entry R7 250 to $299 for the mid-tier R9 280X. AMD isn’t divulging the R9 290X’s price, but pre-orders for the card will start on October 3rd.

The firm has also revealed a new programming interface, Mantle, that makes the most of the Graphics Core Next architecture found in many of its recent processors and video chipsets. Developers who build the low-level code into their games should get better performance from GCN-based devices without having to re-optimize for each platform — a title meant for Radeon-equipped PCs should still behave well on a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, for instance. Mantle will debut on Windows through a December update to Battlefield 4, and should spread to other platforms in the months ahead.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals, AMD

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Via: AnandTech

Source: AMD

The post AMD unveils Radeon R9 and R7 series video cards, unifying graphics code for PCs and consoles appeared first on AIVAnet.

Earlier this year, Dove's Real Beauty Sketches became the most-watched online video advertisement of all time.

If you don't remember, the ad elicited an intense emotional response from viewers by using a sketch artist to show that women are often much more beautiful than they describe themselves as being.

But while the ads garnered more than 50 million views on YouTube, a survey found that it's likely that many of those views came from people who didn't even remember that the ads were for Dove. That's because Dove isn't mentioned until the very end of the 3-minute ad, when the company's logo is briefly flashed onscreen.

New research from Karen Nelson-Field, a professor at the University of South Australia Business School, suggests that Dove really ought to have made its brand more prominent in its massive viral hit.

Here's why:

Though marketers have been shy to plaster social video content with repeated brand references for fear that people won't want to share something that is obviously an advertisement, the truth is that people actually don't care who sponsored a piece of content, so long as it's good.

In her new book, "The Science of Sharing," Nelson-Field reveals that the frequency with which people hear or see a brand's name in a social video has no tangible effect on how likely they are to share the video with their friends on social media.

But due to brands' reticence to slap their names all over social video content, Nelson-Field found that just 6% of branded videos include both a visual and verbal mention of the brand that sponsored it, a tactic that has been found to help the brain encode the information necessary for remembering the brand.

By comparison, 90% of 30-second TV commercials include a verbal and visual mention of the sponsor, making viewers of those commercials much more likely to recall who sponsored them.

Unruly CEO Scott Button, who frequently collaborates with Nelson-Field, has noticed this phenomenon first-hand with the online video campaigns his company works to optimize. He spoke to Business Insider following an Advertising Week event. Oftentimes, he said, brands unnecessarily try to present sponsored content covertly in order to avoid making the videos appear too commercial.

Instead of worrying about a non-existent roadblock, Button said brands should instead focus on triggering intense, positive emotions with content that surprises, excites, inspires, or makes people laugh.  

"If you present content to viewers, and the content is good, they don't care whether you shot it at home or if it's being made in some studio by a major brand," Button said. "It's just good content. If you want to go crash a party, it's fine. Just make sure you bring champagne."

SEE ALSO: 5 fascinating brain tricks publishers use to get you to see their ads

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Billionaire business mogul Richard Branson says that the single most important attribute when considering whether to hire someone is personality. This is even more important than if the person has the skills for the job.

People who are "fun, friendly, caring and love helping others" are winners and the rest of the job can be taught, he wrote in an column published on LinkedIn on Monday.

He explains:

"You can learn most jobs extremely quickly once you are thrown in the deep end. Within three months you can usually know the ins and outs of a role. If you are satisfied with the personality, then look at experience and expertise. Find people with transferable skills – you need team players who can pitch in and try their hand at all sorts of different jobs. While specialists are sometimes necessary, versatility should not be underestimated."

That's an interesting way to think about staffing up the workforce, especially in the tech industry, where startups are in bidding wars for developers and designers with certain tech skills and a good track record.

He's also not a big fan of what he calls "hiring in bulk," where companies are so desperate to get help, that they relax their standards to fill the ranks. That would perhaps make him not so keen on the whole acqu-hire trend, unless the acquired company has a corporate culture that fits really well with the one doing the buying.

He also cautions managers to be careful of jumping to judgement about personality from one interview. Interviews are stressful and introverts can get a bit quiet while extroverts can get a bit over-the-top. He advises managers to make an effort to really see a person's personality.

Yet, he says, managers shouldn't be looking for a personality that conforms. It's not about sameness, it's about a well-balanced team.

"Don’t be afraid of hiring mavericks. Somebody who thinks a little differently ... Some of the best people we’ve ever hired didn’t seem to fit in at first, but proved to be indispensable over time."

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Tuesday, following a 7.7 magnitude earthquake, there were reports that a small island had emerged off the coast of Gwadar, Pakistan.

Despite initial skepticism from some quarters, the evidence seems to suggest it's real.

The Gwadar local government office released this close-up image of the island today:

And this photograph actually taken on the island:

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Dedicated video games consoles will never be able to exceed PCs in power and graphics quality, Nvidia's senior vice president of content and technology Tony Tamasi told PC PowerPlay in a recent interview.

Tamasi noted that Nvidia spends $1.5 billion a year on research and development for graphics, and over a console's lifecycle will spend over $10 billion in that department. He added that Sony and Microsoft "simply can't afford to spend that kind of money" when it comes to investing in their console's graphics power.

"It's no longer possible for a console to be a better or more capable graphics platform than the PC," he said. "Certainly with the first PlayStation and PlayStation 2, in that era there weren't really good graphics on the...

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Time to revise the high school biology textbooks: contrary to their typical portrayal as being precisely X-shaped, chromosomes are in fact much more complex — and much messier looking. That's the finding of a new project that relied on DNA sequencing to produce accurate 3D images of chromosomes.

A collaborative effort led by the Babraham Institute is behind the 3D models. To create them, researchers first collected thousands of measurements of chromosomes, before combining them using computer modeling software. The resulting images show the precise shapes of chromosomes as they most often appear: more like blobs than X shapes (chromosomes do, however, take on an X shape during cell division). The models are also detailed enough to...

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Apple's new design style in iOS 7 has had plenty of detractors, but some may have genuine cause for complaint: the zooming and parallax animations across the new operating system have been giving some users bad cases of motion sickness. "The zoom animations ... are literally making me nauseous and giving me a headache," Apple forum user Ensorceled writes. "It's exactly how I used to get car sick if I tried to read in the car." Other forum users are reporting feelings of illness, eye pain, and dizziness as well.

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Lenovo could be working on one of the thinnest ultrabooks that's ever been built. According to Yesky, Lenovo is building a concept laptop called the ThinkPad 9 Slim, which measures in at a trim .38-inches thick — approaching half the size of Apple's MacBook Air. The laptop reportedly has a 13-inch display with an incredibly pixel-dense resolution of 3200 x 1800. It's also said to continue the carbon fiber body of Lenovo's X1 Carbon, and weigh just 2.2 pounds. It's still unclear if the ThinkPad 9 Slim is purely a demonstration of what Lenovo's capable of when it comes to design, or if it'll actually turn into a shipping machine. But if such a laptop does hit the market with stunning specs to match, it could easily give the MacBook Pro...

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Yelp might have to reconsider its classic slogan, "Real People. Real Reviews." 

Sure, the people might be real, but apparently one-fifth of all the reviews are big, fat phonies. 

The number of fake reviews on Yelp rose to 20% in 2013 from only 5% in 2006, according to a new report out of Harvard Business School.

The study, which we found on Market Watch, comes hot on the heels of The New York Attorney General's bust of 19 companies that specialize in publishing fraudulent online reviews, a process called "astroturfing."

These companies hire freelancers from places like the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Eastern Europe to write fake reviews for $1 to $10 each, and The Attorney General's Office slammed them with combined fines of more than $350,000.

But this big reveal just scratched the surface. 

“The problem is definitely more widespread than the Attorney General’s investigation,” the new report's author, Michael Luca, warned Market Watch.

The rush for rave reviews may be growing as more businesses realize the power of Yelp's 108 million monthly visitors. Boosting a restaurant's rating on Yelp by even one star can increase its revenues by as much as 9 percent, according to a different study that Luca published in 2011.

So, what's an honest Yelp user to do?

Pay close attention to the language and source of both one and five-star reviews, as those extremes are more likely to be fake. Also, Yelp tries to weed out professional reviewers by encouraging people to post with their real names, so if you spot an extremely sunny or negative review from a nicknamed user, proceed with caution. 

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iFixit has already disassembled the new iMacs that were released yesterday. The teardown didn’t reveal too many changes from the previous version, though there are a few new features worth mentioning.

Both the 21.5-inch and 27-inch models include the new 802.11ac wireless standard, while the 27-inch model includes the new PCIe-based flash storage that was originally introduced in the MacBook Air back in June.

The 21.5-inch model has a few differences from its larger sibling, according to iFixit. It now includes a new empty PCIe SSD slot so users can upgrade the base model iMac to the Fusion Drive combination HDD/SDD drive that Apple introduced last year. In last year’s 21.5-inch model, Apple did not include an empty PCIe slot on the logic board.

More disappointing, for users who like to upgrade their machines, is the fact that the CPU is soldered directly to the logic board, making an upgrade nearly impossible. iFixit gave the 21.5-inch model a 2 out of 10 for repairability, largely because of the soldered processor.

The 27-inch model received a 5 out of 10. The largest issue with upgrading the iMac is getting the glass and LCD panel out of the machine, making repairs impossible for all but the most determined do-it-yourselfers.

The post iFixit Tears Down New iMacs, Finds Soldered CPU on 21.5″ Model appeared first on AIVAnet.

An Alaskan airport had to close an aircraft access route because several people blindly obeyed the navigation orders of their inaccurate Apple Maps app. 

In the past three weeks, two motorists drove along the taxiway and then across a runway at the Fairbanks International airport, the BBC reports. To be fair, Apple only takes credit for directing them to the taxiway. 

Fairbanks complained to Apple through the local attorney general's office, asking the company to disable the map until it was corrected to avoid any more dangerous situations. Apple apparently responded that it would fix the problem by Wednesday, and directions to the airport seemed to be disabled when we tested. 

In the meantime, the airport erected barricades to block access to the final stretch of the taxiway.

Ever since Apple ditched Google Maps (which, incidentally, directs drivers to avoid the taxiway), it's faced criticism for having multiple errors, including confusing a farm named "Airfield" with the Dublin Airport and stranding Australian drivers in a national park. Recently, Apple has snapped up several other transportation apps and CEO Tim Cook promised on the company's website that "we are doing everything we can to make Maps better."

Of course, Apple is not entirely to blame for the Fairbanks fiasco. After all, drivers should always let their common sense overrule their app's robotic voice. 

The assistant manager of the Fairbanks airport, Angie Spear, described the drivers' mix-ups to the BBC: 

They must have been persistent. They had to enter the airport property via a motion-activated gate, and afterwards there are many signs, lights and painted markings, first warning that aircraft may share the road and then that drivers should not be there at all.

They needed to drive over a mile with all this before reaching the runway. But the drivers disregarded all that because they were following the directions given on their iPhones.

Thankfully, no one was injured.

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