There’s been plenty of speculation about what the future holds for HP and its Personal Systems Group — a group that CEO Leo Apotheker seemed intent to shed — but the crew now led by CEO Meg Whitman has just confirmed that division is staying home, where it belongs. Meg says the company “objectively evaluated” the idea of spinning PSG off but decided that keeping it in-house is “right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees.” Or, maybe her reserve wasn’t met. Either way, the press release after the break goes on to confirm that the board believes PSG will continue to “drive profitable growth” in these challenging times. Maybe good ‘ol Leo was right when he said “You still need larger machines to handle heavy-duty tasks.” Heavy indeed.
Update: Oh, and in case you had any doubts, HP is actually going to use Windows 8 (when available) to make its tablets appealing. And now you know.
Fishermen in Córdoba, Argentina caught a three-eyed wolf fish in a reservoir fed by a local nuclear power plant, which will surely hinder the plant’s owner’s attempt to run for local office. More »
We think Google+ should get better every time you use it. It’s not enough to obsess over community feedback (which we do); we also need to surprise and delight you with constant improvements (which we also try and do). Today’s no different, so we’re rolling out four new features in four different areas.
What’s Hot on Google+: see what everyone’s talking about
Google+ users share and receive billions of items every day—on a wide range of topics, in nearly every country. Circles give you a personal lens on all this activity, helping you focus on updates from your family or your favorite celebrities. But sometimes you want to know what the world is so excited about. Whether it’s breaking news or beautiful photos, you just don’t want to miss anything. With this in mind, we’re launching “What’s Hot” on Google+, a new place to visit for interesting and unexpected content:
Google+ Ripples: watch how posts get shared
There’s something deeply satisfying about sharing on Google+, then watching the activity unfold. Comments pour in, notifications light up, friends share with friends (who share with their friends), and in no time at all there’s an entire community around your post. We want to help people re-live those conversations—both to rekindle that initial excitement, and to learn how posts flow across the network. That’s why we’re launching Google+ Ripples: a visualization tool for public shares and comments.
To get started, just find a public post that interests you, and select “View Ripples.” From there you can replay its activity, zoom in on certain events, identify top contributors and much more. Google+ Ripples is still experimental, so let us know how we can make it more informative and more awesome:
Google+ Creative Kit: have more fun with your photos
Nothing tells a story like the perfect picture, so it’s only natural to want to make yours really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking. Unfortunately, photo editing is too often a chore, requiring specialized software and lots of patience. We want to help everyone put their best photo forward, so today we’re introducing the Google+ Creative Kit, a fast and friendly way to make powerful edits to your photos.
Now you can add that vintage feel to your vacation photos. Or sharpen those snapshots from the family barbeque. Or add some text for added personality. With the Creative Kit, all you need is an idea:
Of course: we also think photo editing should be lots of fun. So we’ve added some limited-edition Halloween effects to the Creative Kit, and we’re inviting everyone on Google+ to join a ghoulish (and good-spirited) photo competition.
Through the end of October, simply add some spook to your photos, and share them publicly on Google+ with the hashtag #gplushalloween. We’ll assemble a surprise panel of celebrities, and next Thursday, Nov 3, they’ll announce their favorites. In the meantime, you can see early submissions from community members below. After all: we take our fun very seriously. 🙂
… Google Apps customers can now use Google+
You’ve been asking for it. I’ve been talking about it. And today we’re excited to make Google+ available to all Google Apps customers worldwide. Visit the Google Enterprise Blog for more details.
We think Google+ should get better every time you use it, and we hope it feels that way today. If ever it doesn’t, we hope you’ll let us know.
Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering
Well, well, what do we have here? These Logitech Revue boxes just hit the sales floor of a major electronics retailer, prominently sporting "New & Improved: Google TV with Android 3.1 and Android Market” stickers. Logitech also released its quarterly earnings overnight, claiming $7.9 million in sales from the Revue and accessories since dumping its CEO and slashing prices to $99. These haven’t been cracked open yet to see if any Honeycomb leaks out, so it’s possible they’re just waiting for the long-delayed OTA update like all the others. Still, if you’re trying to get a jump on the second major Google TV push without any hackery needed, it could be worth scouting store shelves in your area.
Update: As a few commenters have pointed out, a support rep on Logitech’s forums indicates these boxes have been updated with a sticker only. You’ll still have to wait Google to deliver the goods along with everyone else.
Update 2: Logitech reached out to us with the following statement:
We’d like to clarify that these products do not include the next version of Google TV software. The boxes were prematurely updated with the stickers in anticipation of the next release of the Google TV software, which, once available, will be a free and automatic update pushed to all Logitech Revue boxes that are installed and connected to the Internet.
This DIY LED display falls deeply into the “We think it’s awesome; glad he’s not our neighbor” category. Check out the video to see a 1144-channel LED extravaganza.
The home featured in the above video has made several appearances over the last few years, but this year is by far the most over the top version. Sporting thousands of LEDs organized into a massive array of programmable channels, the light show is something to behold. We can only imagine his neighbors use some equally heavy hitting draperies to block out the blinding light show.
For the curious, he’s driving the whole assembly with equipment from Light-O-Rama–if you’re looking to follow in his footsteps make sure to hit up the Light-O-Rama forums.
Two things. One, we're going to need a lot of hand sanitizer if Microsoft is right about the all-touch-everything future. Two, I'm surprised how much I like Microsoft's vision—it's futuristic, natural and metro-y. More »
Sadly, we weren’t able to replicate the screenshot above but, if it’s legit, it could mean that a Google Music store is right around the corner. Reports are coming in that visiting music.google.com on your Android phone brings up a page suggesting you, A, upload your personal music collection, and B, “shop millions of songs in the Android Market.” Clearly Google is tinkering away behind the scenes: the links on the earliest versions of the splash page were reported to be broken, then they led to the about page for Google Music Manager and the nonexistent market.android.com/music respectively. Now, all traces of it are gone. Add to this the familiar shopping bag-shaped music icon that popped up in the developer build of Chrome OS last week and it’s looking like we’re inching ever closer to a Google Music shop launch. Check out the full sized image after the break.
Android: Jeannie, formerly Pannous Voice Actions for Android (not to be confused with Google Voice Actions) has always been a solid voice control utility for your Android phone, but the developers have taken a page out of Apple’s book and updated the app with a new name and the ability to hold its own in a conversation with you, the ability to set alarms and send emails, play music, tell jokes, look up the news, and search the web. More »
The ESNET security company is reporting that the Tsunami Trojan originally developed for Linux systems has been ported to OSX. The Trojan is designed to hijack an infected system and use its network connection in DDoS attacks or to automatically download more malware. More details are available at MacWorld. More »
Who’s ready for a little gadget pr0n? ASUS head honcho Jonney Shih gave AsiaD attendees a first peek at the Transformer’s successor just last week. Apart from that distant, dais-based reveal, we now have in the wild shots of the tab to focus our tech lust on. The leaked images, which have since been pulled from the Chinese site that hosted them, show off several angles of the quad-core Prime, its Zenbook-like aluminum finish and accompanying dock. Unfortunately, the lone lockscreen shot on offer’s not giving us any taste of the potential Ice Cream Sandwich OS lurking beneath. Hungry for the full tablet spread? Then hit up the source below to get your gawking a-go-go.
Reggie Hunt is leaving the CFL the same way he came in — as a member of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The veteran linebacker signed a one-day deal with the club Wednesday and will retire as a Roughrider.
Now known as one of the most inhospitable places on Earth, the giant arctic island of Greenland might actually hold the birthplace of all life on Earth. Yes, all life on Earth might well have sprang from Greenlandic mud volcanoes. More »
Canada’s homicide rate last year fell to the lowest level since the mid-1960s, according to Statistics Canada, a decrease the agency says was driven largely by fewer incidents in major cities and the western provinces.
A Montreal law firm is launching a class action lawsuit against Research in Motion Ltd. on behalf of individuals who lost the use of their BlackBerry devices during a service outage earlier this month.
Hidden within Nokia’s Future Lounge, this very flexible display offers up a glimpse of what sort of thing we could possibly be dealing with when we roll up to Nokia World in 2021. The prototype Nokia Kinetic Device, including its display, can be flexed across both the vertical and horizontal planes — with bending and twisting motions controlling the interface. If you bend the screen towards yourself, it acts as a selection function, or zooms in on any pictures you’re viewing. In music mode, you can navigate, play and pause with the tactile interface. It’s still a way off from arriving on phones, though Nokia is aiming to whet developers’ appetites with this prototype. We may have seen some twisty interfaces already, but nothing packing a four-inch screen and built-in functionality like this. Nokia couldn’t confirm the screen technology being used. Could that be a flexible AMOLED display? See those impressive viewing angles and contortions after the break and judge for yourself.
The Nexus One was the first “Pure Android” device, then came the Nexus S and recently the Galaxy Nexus is scheduled to join the family in November. All of these devices are the first to receive official OS updates and this time around it’s no different, except for those who have the Nexus One. According to Google’s Hugo Barra, Product Management Director for Android, has confirmed that Nexus One hardware is too old to run the high performing Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS. However, there will 3rd party devs that will come to the rescue with unofficial ROMs. In addition, Barra stated that the Nexus S will be receiving ISC update “within weeks”.
Well, we hope you weren’t expecting to have PlayBook 2.0 up and running on your BlackBerry tablet any time soon, cause it’s been officially delayed till at least February. Word has come straight from the mouth (well, keyboard) of David Smith, senior vice president for the PlayBook project. In a blog post Smith announced that RIM would be holding back on the release to ensure many of the new features, including native email and enterprise app deployment, work as advertised. The OS update will be getting a decently long beta test, with it rolling out to some in the Early Adopter Program “shortly.” Sadly, it seems that some features have fallen by the wayside with the focus on polish — namely, BBM. Since the messaging service relies on a one-device per-PIN model, getting it on the tablet has proved troublesome. For now users will have to rely on BlackBerry Bridge and their RIM handsets to get their BBM fix. Considering the company’s track record, we wouldn’t be shocked if the OS update slips even further into the future — remember an email client was promised within 60 days of launch… that was back in April.
