co_pl_te

Here's a tweet from the author of the article before it was published that might shed some light on that:

"I have possibly the nerdiest, longest article I've ever written going up at 1930 Central tonight."

https://twitter.com/DrPizza/status/260154952868057088

So, I'd say the audience is nerds in general. I agree the article doesn't seem to have a definite target audience, but I think — in some sense — that is the beauty of Ars Technica's content. It's accessible enough that non-technical nerds can get value from it, but technical enough that more hardcore nerds appreciate it.

Try using this:

https://edit.yahoo.com/forgotroot/

Or contact Yahoo at account-security-help@cc.yahoo-inc.com or 1-408-349-1572 and explain the situation.

Here's the PDF that outlines the details of the acquisition:

http://webcast.softbank.co.jp/en/pdf/20121015_01/20121015_01...

The original press release (in German) is here:

http://www.sbb.ch/sbb-konzern/medien/medienmitteilungen.news...

Nice to see Apple and SBB come to quick licensing terms on this. Apple was clearly infringing on the Swiss railway's clock design. Loved how the SBB opted for "an amicable agreement and compensation" as opposed to immediate legal action. You can't argue that the Swiss don't have class!

Love this. Data visualization + LOST for the win.

The direct link to Santiago Ortiz's Lostalgic is here:

http://intuitionanalytics.com/other/lostalgic/

There's also a great interview by Greg J. Smith at Creative Applications that gives more insight into the project.

http://www.creativeapplications.net/featured/anatomy-of-a-se...

As cleverjake points out, I was wrong about webOS having more marketshare than Android prior to the Droid's launch on Verizon. In my defense, it did have respectably competitive OS share going into the fall of 2009. ;-)

Looking at AdMob's figures on worldwide mobile OS share for August 2009 (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/09/30/admob-the-iphones-sha...), Android reportedly had 7% global share to 4% for webOS.

US figures from AdMob for the same time frame (http://www.prethinking.com/home/2009/9/30/webos-web-market-s...) also revealed Android had a healthy 13% share to webOS' 9%.

I still think that's mighty impressive (though certainly not more) since the Sprint Pre was the only webOS phone until it hit Bell in Canada late that August. The GSM Pre didn't hit until mid-October right around the debut of the 'Droid Does' campaign on October 17, 2009. The rest is history.

You're correct, sir. My fond memories of webOS must have clouded my judgment. :-) I'll be back with figures in a sec.

The GitHub repository is at https://github.com/openwebos/ for anyone who is interested.

I'm tentatively excited by this. webOS was my 'first love' in modern mobile operating systems. Though it lacked the polish of iOS and was limited by the hardware both Palm and HP chose to pair with it, it was ahead of its time in many respects.

Just think, before the original Droid launched on Verizon, webOS had more marketshare and mindshare than Android. Imagine what could have been.

The GitHub repository is at https://github.com/openwebos/ for anyone who is interested.

For anyone interested, the (no longer) live stream is available here:

http://www.justin.tv/start_x/b/331303892

Cool. Much obliged.

Go for it. Tabbed browsing is like the sliced bread of the Internet. It's hard to imagine surfing the web before it, but it's become such an integral part of the browser that it suffers from "it's good enough" syndrome.

Hope you look into it further. Sounds like it could solve a problem most people might not realize they have.

I also tend to have over a dozen tabs open at any one time, and sometimes keep multiple windows open, each with tabs that are (loosely) centered around a given task.

I think a lot of people have the problem of having too many tabs open, but for me, I've never used a browser in recent memory that couldn't restore my previous session even after quitting unexpectedly. Being a Safari user on a host of Apple devices, I also don't have too much of a problem with syncing tabs, though the solution is far from perfect. It would be interesting to access your current session on any device using any browser seamlessly, though.

I'd really be interested in an alternative to tabbed browsing that intelligently categorizes the web pages I have open according to the task or activity to which they relate. Like most people, I have multiple things I'm working on on my Mac that have corresponding tabs open all in the same browser window. The issue is that it becomes increasingly difficult to access the relevant information the more tabs I have open. It would be cool to just be able to ask 'Siri, show only those tabs I have open that correspond to the article I'm researching.'

I'd also be interested in a dead simple way to 'flick' the web page I'm currently viewing on my iPhone to my Mac or iPad. For example, I'd love to be able to flick this comment from my iPhone to my Mac and finish typing it there.

In any case, I think you've definitely hit on a problem that could use a better solution.

"I believe web is the ideal platform for MVP, it's open to everyone, you can release at will and you can measure analytics easily."

Really heartening to hear someone who has taken an idea and made it a reality say this. As someone who is just embarking on attempting to convert an idea that moves me into a real, usable thing, this is invaluable advice.

Initially I was hell-bent on trying to make a mobile-first — perhaps mobile-only — version, but in researching lean startup methodologies with my teammates (as well as noting our own inexperience in what we were doing), we came to the conclusion that it might be easier to test our idea and iterate it more rapidly on the web. This was initially a somewhat unsettling conclusion for me, but your experiences are reassuring.

Thanks again for sharing. Really great advice.

Really love what Nokia has done with the Lumia line. Definitely the best handsets running Windows Phone, and if I weren't so enchanted by Apple's walled garden, I'd probably consider it over the next iPhone.

The Lumia 920 is the uniPhone in all the right ways. Reminds me very much of what Palm tried to do with webOS and the Pre — Microsoft and Nokia are just in a better position all around to pull it off.

Having said that, very much bummed by an announcement of what seems like a great product that doesn't include pricing and/or ship dates. As to why they were announced before the new iPhone, it seems obvious to me that if they aren't ready to ship, you'd at least want some mindshare to stem the tide of the looming iPhone launch. I bet at least some people will wait to upgrade.

Couldn't agree with you more. Definitely one of my favorite contemporary writers. There's something special about his command of language and refined sense of humor that lays bare the truth in the starkest of ways.

I think I am actually headed in your direction but don't have the means to get there yet. I have intuitions that space-time is discrete, but I don't possess the requisite knowledge or the grasp of physics to corroborate them.

Totally agree with how unsettling our model of physics is if we grant that space-time is in fact discrete. I do believe, however, it is not so much about making the math easier as it is about making the universe conform to our perception of beauty. Continuous is just sexier than discrete. :-)

When I was younger and less of a technophile, I often wished analog computing would somehow overtake digital computing. I suppose from my naïve perspective I found it unsettling that our model of computing is discrete while the space-time we exist in is continuous.

Being much more into technology today than I was 10 years ago (but equally naïve :-), my perspective seems to have flipped. I question whether reality is really continuous or whether it is just our limited perception of it that makes it seem that way. Obviously, my growing interest in digital technology has had a profound impact on how I view the world in which we live.

In any case, I'm glad DARPA is looking more seriously into analog computing. I think there is a lot to be learned from revisiting the issue in a field that is still very young.

Hi, sbierwagen.

This is certainly beyond my field of expertise, but I don't see how the inability of this new lens to focus in the range of visible light detracts from the main point of it being a distortion-free lens whose "focusing power approaches the ultimate physical limit set by the laws of diffraction."

Although I agree that the press release makes it appear as if this will have direct implications on imaging in the lay sense (this isn't going to make a future iPhone the perfect camera), there are certainly applications of such technology that aren't consumer-focused and don't require visible light that stand to benefit from this research.

As blacksmythe notes, the lens created is not your stereotypical refractive lens, but is more along the lines of a Fresnel lens or zone plate. I'd be interested in hearing more about the differences between the two, especially with regard to the limitations of each. Would anyone who read the write up in Nano Letters or has a better understanding care to comment more on the implications?

I agree the press release is a tad sensationalistic and possibly (intentionally) misleading — but what do you expect from a press release? Although the findings presented may not be as earth-shattering as a mass-produceable visible-light metamaterial, I still think it's a noteworthy development that shouldn't be dismissed so easily.

I'd venture to make a broader claim. It's not so much that relaxation affords for higher incidence of creative breakthroughs as it is that relaxation is a type of activity that supplies the human brain with a steady, stable flow of blood, and hence, oxygen. Essentially, it's good circulation that gets those creative juices flowing.

I think if we look at this physiologically, we begin to see a connection between seemingly incongruous activities that we could all attest to being potential hotbeds for insight.

Relaxation and meditation are certainly activities that predispose us to steady breathing, but they are not the only ones. Consider strenuous activities like exercise and sex. Oftentimes, the breakthroughs here follow directly after the activity while falling back to a rest state.

Finally, consider periods of sustained intense activity like marathon running. I have a close friend who runs them regularly who has remarked that she gets some of her best ideas during her runs. I'd speculate this happens when the runner's body has adjusted to a certain pace and breathing and blood flow has stabilized.

Just another angle to look at this, I guess.