7:15 PM
A *huge* spy blimp (7x bigger than the Goodyear Blimp!) may change US military operations in Afghanistan this fall. The blimp will watch and listen to everything for miles around, but the critical thing is that it will be able to process information onboard instead of sending everything back to the ground to the overloaded data crunchers on the ground. The blimp includes a supercomputer with the equivalent of 2,000 single-core servers that can process up to 300 terabytes per hour, so instead of sending *all* the footage it gets to infantrymen, it will be able to only send them the stuff they are interested in and can add tags for things like the location and time:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/all-seeing-blimp/
Article about how police agencies around the US want to use UAVs for missions such as finding lost children, discovering illegal pot farms, and reducing traffic jams in evacuations of cities before hurricanes or other natural disasters:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/police-want-uavs-domestic-surveillance
Researchers found that they can analyze an MRI scan of a brain to predict "with unprecedented accuracy" how well someone will do on a complex task such as a strategic video game:
http://www.news.illinois.edu/news/11/0114brain_kramer.html
Companies in the US will buy more than 10 million tablets this year, in addition to whatever consumers buy for their own use. Even with increased competition (was there any company at CES that didn't have a tablet to show off?), Apple is expected to go from 19.5 million iPads sold in 2010 to 55 million sold in 2011:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70H2H620110118
Sprint increased its unlimited smartphone data plans by $10. They used to only charge the extra $10/month for 4G data users, but now they charge the extra $10/month for 3G data users also:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-increases-unlimited-smartphone-data-10-month/2011-01-18
Article about how the explosion in data usage has forced Sprint to charge more for its unlimited data plans. The median smartphone users now uses 3.5x more data than last year and there are 2x more smartphone users than this point last year, which means that there is a 4x to 7x increase in data usage. So, data usage is increasing faster than the cost is decreasing to provide each MB:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/data-tsunami-and-why-sprint-increased-its-data-charges/2011-01-18
I think that it is really cool that someone made free TI calculator apps for Android phones...my wife will love this!
http://www.androidcentral.com/droid-does-trigonometry
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/all-seeing-blimp/
Article about how police agencies around the US want to use UAVs for missions such as finding lost children, discovering illegal pot farms, and reducing traffic jams in evacuations of cities before hurricanes or other natural disasters:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/police-want-uavs-domestic-surveillance
Researchers found that they can analyze an MRI scan of a brain to predict "with unprecedented accuracy" how well someone will do on a complex task such as a strategic video game:
http://www.news.illinois.edu/news/11/0114brain_kramer.html
Companies in the US will buy more than 10 million tablets this year, in addition to whatever consumers buy for their own use. Even with increased competition (was there any company at CES that didn't have a tablet to show off?), Apple is expected to go from 19.5 million iPads sold in 2010 to 55 million sold in 2011:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70H2H620110118
Sprint increased its unlimited smartphone data plans by $10. They used to only charge the extra $10/month for 4G data users, but now they charge the extra $10/month for 3G data users also:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-increases-unlimited-smartphone-data-10-month/2011-01-18
Article about how the explosion in data usage has forced Sprint to charge more for its unlimited data plans. The median smartphone users now uses 3.5x more data than last year and there are 2x more smartphone users than this point last year, which means that there is a 4x to 7x increase in data usage. So, data usage is increasing faster than the cost is decreasing to provide each MB:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/data-tsunami-and-why-sprint-increased-its-data-charges/2011-01-18
I think that it is really cool that someone made free TI calculator apps for Android phones...my wife will love this!
http://www.androidcentral.com/droid-does-trigonometry