Inside Google's Secret Lab

Good job Business Week, now we know where Google's secret lab are. I guess we have to call them the "not-so secret" labs.

Google X occupies a pair of otherwise ordinary two-­story red-brick buildings about a half-mile from Google’s main campus. There’s a burbling fountain out front and rows of company-issued bikes, which employees use to shuttle to the main campus. Inside one of the buildings, frosted glass covers the conference room windows.

Comments

Chinese Hackers Accessed Law Enforcement Targets?

Those sneaky Chinese hackers are always up to no good. If they keep this up, our government is just going to have to quit borrowing money from them.

Now, more that three years after that posting on what came to be known as Operation Aurora, it appears that the cyber marauders were after more than just information on activists. They were also after information on investigations on Chinese spies in the United States being conducted by the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice.

Comments

This Guy Lost His Google Glass

The bad news? This guy lost his $1,500 Google Glass. The good news? This guy lost his $1,500 Google Glass...no longer considered a glasshole.

The product designer says he lost his Google Glass last night, which, according to Google, is a major first for the device. "[It's] pretty nerve-racking. It’s an expensive and still-rare item – plus I’ve been using them to develop Glassware. So [it's] not good on a number of fronts."

Comments

Tesla Repays $450M Loan Nine Years Early

In a day and age when companies are defaulting on government loans left and right, it is nice to see something like this.

With a wire transfer of $451.8 million, Elon Musk has finally made good on his promise to repay the hefty loan Tesla received from the Department of Energy well ahead of its 2022 due date, beating even Musk's own five-year estimate.

Comments

The Document Showing Apple's Hidden Irish Tax Scheme

It is amazing the things companies will do to avoid taxes. In fact, I'm pretty sure that most of us would probably be arrested if we tried this as an individual.

The mega-valuable company that makes your laptop is under congressional scrutiny this week for offshore tax-dodging. It all started in 1980, when Apple's California execs moved their operation to Ireland with a fake company with the codename "Waldwill Limited."

Comments

Twitter Finally Gets Two-Factor Authentication

According to this blog post, Twitter finally has two-factor authentication .

Comments

Show Off Your [H] Mancave

Are you proud of your mancave and want to show it off? What a coincidence, we have just the forum thread for you!

Twitter Lets Advertisers Collect Contact Info From Tweets

Does this sound like a feature anyone needs or wants?

On Wednesday, the company added a Lead Generation Card that lets marketers use Twitter to collect the names, Twitter names, and e-mail addresses of customer prospects, no forms required.

Comments

Thermaltake Power Supplies Units are ready for Intel Haswell CPUs

Intel will soon introduce the new 4th generation Intel Core processors, code-named "Haswell", the new technology for reducing power consumption of the CPU in sleep mode. The new C6 and C7 states are able to reduce the CPU power consumption to just 0.05A (0.6W) while previous Ivy Bridge processors draw up to ten times more minimum power. As this resulting from the deep sleep state, when most other 12V devices are either turned off or in low power state, this significantly decreases the 12V load on the power supply.

Thermaltake, being an industry leader in computer chassis, thermal solutions, and power supply units announces the latest news that most high-end power supplies of Thermaltake are fully compatible with Haswell CPUs. All current high-end and mainstream PSUs from Thermaltake are already prepared for the new Intel processors to deliver stable voltages to achieve maximum energy savings.

Comments

Sony To Assess Spin-Off Plan

Sony's shares are up after the company announced that it would consider evaluating the spin-off plan proposed by its largest shareholder last week.

Sony shares charged to their highest in more than 2 years on Wednesday after the Nikkei newspaper said Sony's board would consider evaluating Loeb's proposal. The stock closed up 5.9 percent at 2,290 yen.

Comments

Gaming [H]eadlines

Leaked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Review

The Chinese site EXPreview has posted somewhat of a review of the GeForce GTX 780 complete with benchmarks, temperature and power usage data. The site is up and down at the moment, and when it is up is extremely slow, so I snagged these screens for you:

Comments

Amazon's New Seattle HQ Takes Some Balls To Build

When I say the new building will take some balls to build, I mean it.

Comments

WD to Demonstrate Solid State Hybrid Drive and 5 MM Technologies at COMPUTEX

WD®, a world leader in storage and connected-life products, today announced that it will demonstrate its solid state hybrid drives (SSHD) and 5 mm ultra-slim hard drive technologies in tablet and other thin-and-light devices at the COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2013 trade event, held in Taiwan from June 4 to June 8, 2013. The innovations will be a part of WD’s exhibit showcasing its latest storage technologies and solutions addressing thin-and-light mobile devices, cloud datacenter computing and the connected lifestyle.

At Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall, booth number L0810, WD will demonstrate:

• The world’s first ultra-slim 2.5-inch, 5 mm hard drives and SSHDs, which are designed for integration into the slimmest devices and space-constrained computing environments;

• 7 mm form factor drive designs for high-capacity mobile storage;

• Enterprise storage building blocks for the cloud-oriented datacenters, aligning to application performance, capacity, reliability and workload;

• Connected Life Products, revolving around personal cloud storage and software, enabling personal and premium content on multiple screens; and

• WD’s "Power of Choice" client hard drive solutions. The four colors – WD Blue™, WD Green™, WD Black™ and WD Red™ – enable customers’ easy selection of the best WD drive for their application or usage requirements.

Comments

[H]ardware Round-Up

Using Facial Recognition To Find Face On Google Maps

Researchers working on the Google Faces project are using an algorithm to search Google Earth to find hidden faces using facial recognition.

Comments

SilverStone AR01 CPU Cooler

The PureOverclock team has the SilverStone AR01 CPU cooler strapped to the test bench today. Aside from a minor clearance issue, they seemed to really like this cooler.

SilverStone is a company that’s been around for 10 years, yet they haven’t quite developed a high level of brand recognition amongst consumers. Still, for those who know them, they sometimes make stand out products. One of their most famous products is the Air Penetrator fan. Silverstone recently released the Argon series of CPU coolers which feature the AR01, AR02 and AR03, each having distinct blue-framed fans in a variety of sizes and heat pipe configurations.

Comments

RIAA Makes Drastic Employee Cuts as Revenue Plummets

According to tax records, the RIAA has had to lay off almost half its employees and its revenue is way down. Uh oh, you know what that means, they'll have to start shaking people down again.

New tax records reveal that the RIAA has made heavy employee cuts after revenue dropped to a new low. Over the past two years the major record labels have cut back their membership dues from $33.6 to $23.6 million. RIAA staff plunged from 107 to 60 workers in the same period. The IRS filing further shows that the music industry group paid $250,000 to the six strikes anti-piracy system.

Comments

Vint Cerf Weighs In On Google Glass

Ugh, even Vint Cerf is wearing Google Glass all the time now.

"Glass doesn't interfere with my normal vision, and I found it conveniently available," he said. "It's an extension of the mobile phone and less overt -- you don't have to pull out your mobile. Cerf has also been Google's chief Internet evangelist since 2005, so he might be a little bit biased.

Comments

Xbox One Reveal 2013 Highlights

For those of you that missed the Xbox One press event yesterday, this video will get you up to speed in just under two minutes.

Comments

ASRock Announces A-Style Conformal Coating For 8 Series Motherboards

You have butterfingers, unfortunately we’re not talking about those delicious sweets, but the kind that makes you practice Newton’s law of universal gravitation every once in a while. And according to Murphy’s law, things tend to get even worse when your slippery hands get involved with electronics. What usually happens when you spill beverages or other conductive liquids onto your motherboard is that it turns into a not-so-fun sizzling barbeque fest, and then your motherboard dies of short circuit fatefully. That’s where A-Style, Conformal Coating comes in.

The special layer of Conformal Coating makes ASRock’s motherboards invulnerable to conductive liquids, so overclockers won’t have to worry about accidently spilling liquid nitrogen, liquid helium or even clam chowder over their motherboards while they are overclocking. Along with conductive liquids, Conformal Coating also protects the motherboard against dust, corrosion and extreme temperatures. It is the ultimate armor for the upcoming 8 Series motherboards.

Comments

Microsoft and NFL Announce Multiyear Landmark Partnership

Microsoft Corp. and the NFL today announced a multiyear, landmark partnership that will deliver truly unique interactive NFL television experiences for the next-generation Xbox One and leverage Microsoft devices and services to evolve the in-game, sideline experience for coaches, players and other personnel.

The agreement provides Microsoft with the rights to create exclusive interactive experiences through products such as Xbox One and Surface, transforming the way fans will experience the NFL in the years to come. The NFL on Xbox will provide fans with an all-new viewing experience through innovations around Skype and Xbox SmartGlass; an all-new, innovative fantasy football solution allowing fans to view players and live competition side by side on a single TV screen; and a personalized NFL destination featuring information about the players, teams and games fans care about most. Xbox also retains the exclusive rights to extend these interactive experiences to tablets, enabling fans to use Xbox SmartGlass technology to enhance game day.

Comments

Creator of the GIF Sets Record Straight

The guy that created the GIF seems a bit miffed that people still want to pronounce the word with a hard G.

He is proud of the GIF, but remains annoyed that there is still any debate over the pronunciation of the format. "The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations," Mr. Wilhite said. "They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story."

Comments

Hands On With The Kinect 2

Wired got a little hands-on time with the Kinect 2 sensor. Looks pretty spiffy.

Comments

[H]ardware Round-Up II

Xbox One Supports External Storage

If you are worried about the Xbox One's non-removable 500GB hard drive, you shouldn't be. Microsoft told Engadget that external drives are supported and can be used for everything the internal drive is used for.

Hard drives in the Xbox One are non-user-serviceable, but Penello confirmed that the USB 3.0 port is there for external storage, which can be used for everything the internal storage can be used for. That includes game installs and downloads. So, don't fret: adding storage will be just as easy as ever.

Comments

SilverStone AR01 CPU Cooler

Need a new heatsink? The crew at Hardware Secrets says the SilverStone AR01 CPU cooler is quiet, easy to install and a "true performer."

We tested the SilverStone AR01 CPU cooler. It has a tower heatsink, three 8 mm heatpipes and one 120 mm fan, supporting up to two fans. With its conservative design, will it perform well?

Comments

Xbox One FAQ

Microsoft has put out a Xbox One FAQ this afternoon that will hopefully answer some of your unanswered questions. The good news? No "always on" connection required and it plays used games:

Q: Does Xbox One require an "always on" Internet connection?

A: No, it does not have to be always connected, but Xbox One does require a connection to the Internet. We’re designing Xbox One to be your all-in-one entertainment system that is connected to the cloud and always ready. We are also designing it so you can play games and watch Blu-ray movies and live TV if you lose your connection.

Q: Will Xbox One allow players to trade in, purchase and play pre-owned games?

A: We are designing Xbox One to enable customers to trade in and resell games. We’ll have more details to share later.

Comments

Human-like Opponents Lead to More Aggression

This is your "I can't believe this was a real study" article of the day.

Video games that pit players against human-looking characters may be more likely to provoke violent thoughts and words than games where monstrous creatures are the enemy, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Connecticut and Wake Forest University.

Comments