Choosing a Cloud Backup Provider

Businesses that use information technology should always ensure they take care of their important data. There is always a possibility that they may lose it sooner or later. It may be caused by accidental file deletion, corruption, hacking, viruses, and man-made and natural disasters. When these things happen, data retrieval can seem impossible. Fortunately, cloud storage backup was created.

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Raspberry Pi now baked in the U.K.

The Raspberry Pi computer is now being manufactured in the U.K., with Wales taking over from China as the location of production.

Those who aren’t aware of the Raspberry Pi can get up to speed by reading this previous article. Essentially it’s a credit card-sized micro computer that features the bare-bones needed for young programmers to learn about computing and experiment without fear of breaking an expensive PC or Mac. It’s been a huge success thanks to its price tag of just $25.


Until now the Raspberry Pi has been manufactured in China alongside most other consumer electronics. This was borne out of necessity rather than desire, with the costs and time-frame of manufacturing both being vastly favorable in China, the taxes on importing components into the U.K. over-inflated, and the lack of support for the unproven device making the decision to build abroad easy.

Things have now changed, however, and a deal forged between Premier Farnell and Sony means the Raspberry Pi is now being made in Pencoed, South Wales. The switch, which was made in the middle of August, means the creation of 30 extra jobs in the area. British-made Raspberry Pi units began shipping to customers this past week.

Raspberry Pi owners who want to know where their device was manufactured need only to look next to the power jack. If there’s a ‘Made in the UK’ stamp sitting there then you know you’ve bought British. Whether that matters to you in this global economy which is powered primarily by supply and demand is a personal preference.

This switch in manufacturing location coincides with changes having been made to the Raspberry Pi itself. Five months after the original went on sale, v2.0 of the board has been improved with changes including mounting holes for fastening it to a case, and the ability to power it via a USB hub.

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Pogoplug partners with Amazon to offer affordable cloud storage family plans

Pogoplug is pairing up with Amazon to offer not only its own storage devices but also online archival storage. That means that your information will be accessible even if your hard drive dies, gets a nasty virus, or you just upgrade your computer. They are also offering family plans that come with a free Pogoplug device to get you started.

According to Engadget, the partnership between Amazon and Pogoplug is expected to be part of Amazon’s conference this afternoon. Pogoplug is offering three different family plan tiers all of which come with one of their devices. The lowest yearly plan is a $29.99 plan that gives three family members unlimited onsite cloud storage and 100 GB of offsite cloud storage. The $49.99 per year plan bumps up the onsite storage 300 GB offsite cloud storage and gives five users all of the different storage options. Ninety nine dollars a year will give seven family members a full Terrabyte of offsite cloud storage as well as unlimited onsite cloud storage.


The offsite cloud storage will use Amazon Glacier. This unique cloud storage service normally costs one cent per gigabyte per month to store information. There are no up front costs and you only pay for what you store. With Pogoplug, you are paying the yearly fee for a certain amount of offsite storage whether you use it all or not. You are also paying for more family members to access the service as you purchase larger storage plans.

The reason why you can get the Amazon service so cheap (300 GB would cost $3.00) is because you pay for it on the backside when you go to download. First your download request is sent to a queue and and according to Engadget won’t be available to download for three to five hours and it is only available to download for 24 hours. The first five percent of the download is free. After that you pay one cent per additional gigabyte you download. You don’t have to worry about any download cost because it is included in your plan.

You don’t have to use the Amazon Offsite storage option if you don’t want to. Pogoplug has its own storage system and it has much quicker access and download times than what you get with Amazon Glacier. The offsite storage option is there as a backup backup option (no that is not a stutter). For those that want to make sure that their most precious pictures or documents are safe, you can have your own redundant backup system.

For large families with multiple devices, this may be just the type of service you could use. Once you have your device set up, you can access the content with any browser or with apps on your iOS devices or Android devices. As families accumulate multiple computers, smartphones and tablets, having an easy to use and easy to access storage system becomes essential. Check it out and see if it is something your family could use.

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Smarter planes could cut costs and save planet

Aircraft giant Airbus says steeper takeoffs, smarter planes and bird-like formations could cut flight times and save fuel. But it also estimates that total flight times could be cut by five million hours today just by making better use of existing on-board technology.

The suggestions come in a document predicting how aircraft technology and practices could change by 2050. The clear emphasis is on cutting flight time and using fuel more efficiently, measures that could cut costs as well as reducing carbon emissions.


One suggestion is to have takeoff assisted by propelled acceleration using energy on the ground. It’s a similar idea to the way space rockets use “disposable” fuel but would involve a more ecologically sound propulsion that didn’t mean dropping spent fuel containers onto the airport.

The technique would mean planes carried less fuel for the flight itself and were thus much lighter (further reducing the fuel needs.) It would also mean planes could take off at a much steeper angle because they wouldn’t need to climb in multiple stages. That would allow for shorter runways and quieter takeoffs, both of which could allow for airports closer to city centers.

Another suggestion is for aircraft to communicate automatically with one another and figure out the most efficient routes, taking account of the atmosphere and weather. It’s even possible planes covering busy “main” routes could href="http://www.airbus.com/innovation/future-by-airbus/smarter-skies/aircraft-in-free-flight-and-formation-along-express-skyways/">arrange themselves in a bird-like formation, effectively getting the same slipstream benefits seen in cycling races.

Airbus estimates this could work with the planes being 20 wingspans (a little over a mile) apart; it acknowledged this is much shorter than current limits but says it could still be safe.

It could be an administrative nightmare however. Rival air carriers would not only have to establish the main routes (which would be designed to be much more direct), but would have to figure out which planes would be in the position benefiting most from the reduced drag, and whether there’d be any compensation payments to share these savings.

While these changes are years away if they ever happen, Airbus does say more efficient use of today’s technology could be a starting point. It says the average flight-time for flights in the US or Europe could be cut by 13 minutes and works this out as a saving of 9 million tonnes of fuel a year, in turn cutting CO2 emissions by 28 million tonnes.

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Bruce Willis battling Apple over iTunes collection

Bruce Willis is, according to sources, considering legal action against Apple to ensure his offspring inherit his iTunes music collection. But the law isn’t fully understood, and the story not exactly watertight.

The Daily Mail claims Willis want to leave his huge digital music collection, built up over many years, to his daughters. However, and I quote, he has discovered he “does not actually own the tracks but is instead ‘borrowing’ them under a licence.” Willis is said to be considering a number of legal options, including establishing a family trust, and supporting existing legal challenges in five U.S. states related to the issue.


The law seems to be confused on this score, or perhaps it;s just the people reading up on it. The newspaper quotes a solicitor as saying, “Lots of people will be surprised on learning all those tracks and books they have bought over the years don’t actually belong to them. It’s only natural you would want to pass them on to a loved one. The law will catch up, but ideally Apple and the like will update their policies and work out the best solution for their customers.” But commenters across the Web have different ideas about the situation.

This all points to an ambiguity that needs to be rectified in no uncertain terms. Consumers of all kinds, right down to mainstream technophobes should be made aware of the true extent of their ownership over digital content. Even physical media doesn’t escape untouched, as evidenced by the video games industry. Publishers hate the used game industry and argue that selling a game on is illegal due to the actual content on the disc being copyrighted.

I very much doubt whether Willis is going to be the champion of consumer rights some are making him out to be, but this story, however legitimate or not it is, should at least start the conversational ball rolling. The law needs to be made clearer and less ambiguous, as digital content is only going to grow in popularity from this moment on.

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Clint Eastwood and his empty Obama chair go viral on the InterWebs

I’m not sure Clint Eastwood has even ever been online before, but he’s now succeeded in going viral and kick-starting several memes after his RNC speech.

As you may have already seen or heard, veteran Hollywood actor and director Clint Eastwood made a surprise appearance at the Republican National Convention on Thursday (Aug. 30) to throw his support behind presidential candidate Mitt Romney. It was a sad, shambling performance from an 82-year-old man, and I suspect the GOP is already regretting the booking.


However, the best and worst thing about the speech was Eastwood’s conversation with an empty chair he claimed represented President Obama. He poked fun at the empty chair, asked it questions, and generally used the prop as a tool to entertain and enthrall the assembled Republican members. While everyone on the outside looking in watched in open-jawed astonishment.

One quick-witted wag immediately set up a Twitter account with the name @InvisibleObama, which gained over 20,000 followers in just 45 minutes. At the time of writing that follower count has more than doubled to 45,000. There are also other Twitter accounts trying to mock the bizarre sketch, but none have got quite as much attention.

A meme has since sprung up around Clint Eastwood and his conversation with an imaginary President Obama. It’s called ‘Eastwooding’, and involves nothing more than Photoshopped images of Eastwood and his empty chair. Mashable has already pulled together some of the finer examples, including sad Keanu sitting on the chair, and Eastwood as Dirty Harry threatening an abandoned armchair.

Even Obama himself got in on the fun by tweeting a picture of himself sitting in the presidential chair with the accompanying line of, “This seat’s taken.”

Clint Eastwood and his empty Obama chair go viral on the InterWebssrc="https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/2325704772/wrrmef61i6jl91kwkmzq_normal.png" />Barack Obama
✔@BarackObama


This seat's taken. OFA.BO/c2gbfi, href="http://t.co/jgGZTb02">pic.twitter.com/jgGZTb02

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The Internet is a law unto itself, and it has decided to mock Eastwood’s performance at the RNC. Whatever your political views, that can’t be good for the GOP, Mitt Romney, or indeed Clint Eastwood.

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Google gifts Nexus 7 prime advertising spot on homepage

Google really wants you to buy a Nexus 7 tablet. No, I mean really really. So much so it has gifted the device a prime advertising spot on its homepage.

The Nexus 7 is Google’s first own-branded tablet. Built by Asus, it’s a 7-inch powerhouse running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). It’s not perfect, but the reviews have been very positive thus far. This isn’t surprising as it only costs $199, half the price of the iPad 2, and a full $300 less than the entry-level, Retina Display-boasting new iPad.


Google has already been promoting the Nexus 7 through television commercials and ads across the Web, but it has now brought it home. Literally. As first noted by CNET, the Nexus 7 is now popping up on the Google homepage for some people. This is prime advertising real estate, being one of the most-trafficked pages on the Web.

It should be noted that this isn’t the first time Google has sought to promote its own products by utilizing its homepage, that distinction goes to the Motorola/Verizon Droid. The Nexus phones and Chrome have also appeared on the Google homepage in previous years. However, these efforts were primarily text-based, while the Nexus 7 enjoys an eye-catching animation.


Google usually keeps its homepage free of clutter in a quest to retain its minimalism. This is excluding the iconic Google logo and the doodles which take its place at random times throughout the year. But advertising is usually off-limits, especially advertising of a visual nature. The Nexus 7 pops its head out of the page several times before emerging under the tagline, ‘The playground is open. The new $199 tablet from Google.’ This links to the 8GB version on Google Play.

The timing of the ad is interesting, coming some time after the Nexus 7 originally launched, at the same time as it became available in several more countries, and just a matter of weeks before Apple is expected to unveil the iPad Mini. It’s at that point that the real battle of the tablets will begin.

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Robotic Shark looks for lost ships in the Arctic

A University of Victoria (UVic) team will use an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to look for ships lost 167 years ago in the Arctic. The ill fated Franklin expedition went down in 1845 looking for the Northwest Passage.

According to the University of Victoria in Canada, the two missing ships are called the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. All 129 crew members were lost. According to the CBC, the ships were outfitted with advanced technology for their time period.



Franklin’s vessels, the Erebus and the Terror, were outfitted with steam engines, desalinators, iron plates over their wooden hulls, and propellers and rudders that could be retracted to prevent ice damage.

Fast forward to 2012 and UVic will be using some of the most advanced technology of our time to look for the doomed vessels. The AUV is called “Mano” which means shark. It has a side sonar which will help its handlers identify items on the sea bottom and chart the region.


“Among the challenges, will be navigating the torpedo-shaped vehicle in the northern waters where the magnetic field is erratic,” says research engineer and team leader Alison Proctor. “That’s an integral part of our navigation system and these are uncharted waters, so we are uncertain what to expect.”

The Mano will be controlled by team members in a “16-foot boat that will be launched daily from a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and a research vessel provided by the Arctic Research Foundation”. They will spend 12 to 14 hours a day in the boat. The actual sonar pictures won’t be seen until the end of the day when the AUV resurfaces and the pictures can be downloaded from the Mano’s onboard computer.

No one knows exactly where the two ships went down so this years expedition may not be successful, but even if it is not successful, it will rule out at least one section of the Arctic for future trips. If the trip is successful and one or both ships are found, this is just the beginning of the exploration.

Once the ships are located by sonar, another expedition will set out to get actual footage of the ship or ships using another type of submersible equipped with a camera. The final step will include sending divers down to the wrecks for a closer look.

Best of luck to the researchers. May seas be calm and the wind always at their back.



The above photograph is of:

UVic Research Team
A team of UVic researchers are traveling to the arctic this summer to help Parks Canada locate Sir John Franklin’s lost ships. Pictured from front to back are UVic research engineers Emmett Gamroth, Alison Proctor and Jeff Kennedy.
Photo by: UVic/Bluefin

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Star Wars-style speeder bike tested

A speeder bike just like those seen in Star Wars, you say? I’ll take two, and pay any price you care to name.

I would hope that, as geeks, everyone reading this will have seen the Star Wars movies at least once. The original trilogy, not the prequel trilogy, of course. Those who haven’t seen George Lucas’ opus should go do so immediately. And everyone who is left is free to get really excited over the news that someone, somewhere is succeeding at turning the speeder bike into a reality.


That someone is a company called Aerofex, and the somewhere is California. Aerofex has been developing the vehicle for some years now, but an early test in 2008 saw the contraption crashing into a tumbleweed and catching light. The brave pilot came away with burned hands, while the team decided to head back to the drawing board in order to try again.

Four years on and the test flight went a lot smoother. We know this because the company released video footage (embedded below) of what it calls the Tandem Duct Aerial Vehicle in operation in the Mojave Desert. While it’s clearly years away from production it’s mightily impressive this thing can even be maneuvered at all. And already I can see I’ll want one in the future.

Interestingly Aerofex isn’t talking these thins up as being speeder bikes from Star Wars, either now or in the future. According to Innovation Daily they’ve been conceived as unmanned vehicles, though I suspect that were they ever to become commercially available consumers and supply/demand would have the final bearing on that.

Some people are doubting the validity of the footage – understandable given the ability for anyone with even an ounce of tech-savvy to manipulate moving images in this day and age – but I believe it. And sure, there is still a lot of work to be done here, but compare footage of early test flights for planes with the reality of today and tell me it isn’t possible we’ll all be flying one of these around some day.

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Apple “most-valuable public company,” kinda

Apple has, by one measure at least, become the most-valuable publicly-traded company of all time. If you completely ignore inflation, that is. Which you cannot.

Many sites around the InterWebs are today reporting that Apple has broken the record to become the most-valuable public company that has ever existed. The claim is led by MacRumors, which states that with 937,406,000 outstanding shares at the time of its last quarterly filing, and with the share price hitting $660.73 today, Apple has a market capitalization figure of $619.17 billion.


This beats the previous record, held by Apple’s arch-rival Microsoft since 1999. At that time Microsoft had 5,160,024,593 outstanding shares when its share price hit $119.94. That resulted in a market capitalization of $618.89 billion. Et voila, Apple is now the new record holder and most-valuable company trading publicly.

Unfortunately someone forgot to add inflation into the mix, and doing so changes everything. Adjusting for inflation means Microsoft’s record from 1999 would be the equivalent of $842.5 billion in today’s money. So Apple is still more than $200 billion away from wresting the title away from Steve Ballmer and co.

This does throw up a number of different points of interest however. Firstly, I don’t remember anyone waxing lyrical about Microsoft and its potential to keep on growing in 1999 the way some people are doing about Apple now. If anything Microsoft’s fall from grace, which has seen the company lose three quarters of its market cap, should act as a warning against Apple and its supporters becoming arrogant.

Perhaps it’s more to do with the turnaround in Apple’s fortunes that has occurred more than anything. After all, it has gone from near-bankruptcy to where it is today under the guidance of the dear-departed Steve Jobs. And with a loan from Bill Gates to help set the ball rolling.

Lastly, it should be noted that there are several privately-traded companies much richer than Apple. That still doesn’t take anything away from this achievement, it’s just not quite as big an achievement as some headlines would have you believe.

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Once mighty BlackBerry will have fewer users than Windows Phone by years end

Once mighty BlackBerry will have fewer users than Windows Phone by years end

Remember the days when owning a BlackBerry phone was considered cool? Yeah, its hard but Research In Motion’s (RIMs) continued decline is getting worse. By the end of the year, it is expected that the number of phones with BlackBerry OS will be less than those sporting Windows Phone OS. That’s low. Windows Phone doesn’t even have to pick up much market share because BlackBerry is falling so fast.

According to Ars Technica, BlackBerry has already fallen to three percent, down from from just six percent at the beginning of the year. Windows Phone OS is currently sitting at one percent. What is sad is that even with Windows torpedoing further sales of its Windows Phone 7.5 handsets, BlackBerry is expected to slide to just one and a half percent of the market by December of this year. Windows is expected to pick up a bit because of the expected release of Windows Phone 8 devices.


Even though RIM’s market share is currently tanking that doesn’t mean that it will go the way of Palm, which effectively ceased to exist after finally releasing WebOS and being bought by HP. Bloomberg reported earlier this month, that like Palm, RIM is pinning its hopes on a much delayed new operating system called BlackBerry 10 and based on QNX software “used in cars, nuclear plants and military drones.” RIM is also hoping to be able to license its new OS while also building its own devices, a trend that seems to be catching on.

Bloomberg also reported that RIM hopes to license BlackBerry10 to more than the usual devices.


In Heins’s vision for RIM, the company will expand the scope of its devices beyond BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablets into other areas of mobile computing and what he calls machine-to-machine communications.

ZNET reported that another RIM was also expecting its new devices to be a type of “convergence device” that would span work and personal roles. So one phone might have two different cell phone plans while allowing you to switch back and forth between your work network and personal line. That could ultimately be a nightmare. Supposedly one side would be “sandboxed” from the other so that if you left the company they would only wipe one portion of your phone leaving your personal side in tact. With the general paranoia that most corporations exhibit, I can’t see them being content with that.

Whatever RIM has up its sleeve, it had better be something pretty amazing or that slide to one and a half percent may be thought of as the “good old days.”

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Dish Network taking satellite broadband nationwide

People wanting premium TV services have often had to choose between cable and satellite. Now Dish Network thinks that choice should apply in the broadband market as well.

The company is said to be planning to extend its existing satellite broadband service nationwide. At the moment it links up with another firm, ViaSat, to provide service in a few areas. The plan now is to run a national network using a satellite from the fleet that provides its TV services.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 makes its debut but is it worth it

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 has finally appeared six months after its initial preview at Mobile World Congress (MWC). The tablet comes complete with an included stylus and the ability to give you a split screen view. You can watch a video on one half while taking notes on the other. Both provide some novelty and value but is it enough to justify the $499 price tag?

According to Engadget’s review of the new device, it certainly isn’t worth the virtually $500 price tag for the 16GB version. Yes, the Galaxy Note 10.1 has some nifty features but it also has some serious deficiencies. Those deficiencies are enough that the price is too high.


The tablet starts out with some rather nifty specs. It is the only tablet out at this price point with 2GB of RAM. It has a very fast proprietary quad core Exynos 4 processor running at 1.4 GHz. The devices multitasking capability is so far unsurpassed and its split screen ability is fantastic. The included S-Pen is a nice touch and the tablet includes several programs that make very good use of it.

In spite of these outstanding features, Samsung severely hamstrung the device with a several inferior specs. The camera is a middling 5 megapixel rear camera that takes poor pictures. The 1280 X 800 screen resolution is not enough to compete with the same priced iPad’s retina display or the new Asus Transformer Pad TF700’s 1920 x 1200 resolution. It comes with Ice Cream Sandwich and not the latest Android OS version of Jelly Bean. To finish it off, the Galaxy Note 10.1 has a cheap plastic build with creaks and squeaks.

Meanwhile Android Authority reports that you can get the Asus Transformer Pad TF700 with its Tegra 3 quad core processor, 32 GB of memory, superior screen resolution and build quality for $499. Techradar’s review of the top of the line Asus tablet talks about its excellent build quality, aluminum back, gorilla glass, 8 megapixel camera, excellent display and overall great feature set. Well except for the speaker which is on the back. For the money, at least at this moment, it looks as if ASUS has the better 10.1 inch tablet at the $499 price point. As always, visit your local gadget store and try them both out. Like with all devices, some of it comes down to personal preference.

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NASA’s Curiosity is in day 2 of a “brain transplant”

A “brain transplant” is what NASA is calling the multi-step software update that is taking place from August 10-13. Apparently, the Mars rover was and is going to have its software upgraded as needed. This ability to upgrade the software gives NASA a way to tune Curiosity’s software to the task at hand.

According to NASA during its first weekend on Mars the rover will be recovering from its own form of jet lag by having the software upgrade that should improve its driving and use of its robotic arm. Since the update will need to occur on both of Curiosity’s redundant internal computers, the upgrade will occur in a series of steps over the four days.



"We designed the mission from the start to be able to upgrade the software as needed for different phases of the mission," said Ben Cichy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., chief software engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory mission. "The flight software version Curiosity currently is using was really focused on landing the vehicle. It includes many capabilities we just don’t need any more. It gives us basic capabilities for operating the rover on the surface, but we have planned all along to switch over after landing to a version of flight software that is really optimized for surface operations."

One of the main upgrades will be to its ability to “see” obstacles and choose a safe path around them. This will give the rover more autonomy.

While the rover is getting its current upgrade, scientists back on earth will continue to pour over the first photos from the rover to decide what parts of the Gale Crater to explore. Of course the first few weeks scientists will be testing out the various equipment on the rover to make sure that it is working properly. If not that could lead to more software changes.

Curiosity contains its own internal laboratory. The robotic arm is equipped with a drill and a scoop for taking samples of soil and rocks. The samples can then be separated into smaller samples for analysis on its different “analytical laboratory instruments”.

There is evidence that Mars was once a wet planet. According to Gizmag one of Curiosity’s primary goals is to search for any evidence of life that might once have existed on Mars.

Who knows, if this Mars rover longer than its original mission, as many of NASA’s projects have, then “brain transplants” could be occurring for quite some time to come.

Photo: Curiosity’s Self-Portrait, is courtesy of NASA.

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Streaming music helps Warners’ bottom line

Warner Music Group recently revealed its financial figures for the last quarter, and surprise, surprise, streaming music services are a growing source of income. And they’re only going to become a bigger piece of the pie from here on in.

The music industry was the first of the major content producers to be hit by the emergence of the Internet as a source for shared and sharing media files. It didn’t know how to react to this sudden threat to its business, and flopped around trying to make examples of certain websites and certain individuals in the hopes of scaring off everyone else. That didn’t work out so well.


It has now become clear that the music industry should have plowed all its time and effort into increasing the range of legal options open to consumers. If they had done so earlier then things would be much rosier for all concerned right now. It took the industry a long time to embrace these other options, especially streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora, but it finally gave in and accepted the inevitable.

Now, as the figures clearly show, the music industry is getting rewarded for its gamble, with Warner Music Group claiming 25 percent of its digital revenues from streaming services. This works out to around $54 million, roughly 8 percent of Warners’ total revenues for the period. This does include YouTube, but even so the numbers being touted are impressive.

The bottom line is that the way people consume music is changing. Less of us are buying CDs in stores, but a growing number of us are choosing to either purchase whole albums or individual tracks in digital formats, or listening to music legally on demand through subscription-based offerings such as Spotify or Rdio.

And then there is file-sharing, which will always exist no matter how much money and energy is wasted trying to curtail it. Give consumers fair legal options and they will likely take them. Those that don’t aren’t worth worrying about.

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Google’s employees benefit from death

Google has long been known for its very generous employee benefits. The company has from the start gone out of its way to keep its workforce happy and healthy, with the idea being that that happiness and healthiness contributes to productivity and consequently the bottom line. But it has now taken the idea a step further, in fact as far as you can take it.

In an interview with Forbes, Google Chief People Officer (Head of HR) Laszlo Bock revealed that Google now sees its employees OK even in death. If a U.S.-based Google employee dies while working for the company, his or her spouse of partner continues receiving a pay check – for 50% of their annual salary – for a further 10 years.


Furthermore, all stock held by the employee at the time of death is immediately vested, and any surviving children receive $1,000 every month until they reach 19 (23 if a full-time student). All of this comes without any special requirements, so the majority of Google’s workforce qualify as soon as join the company.

The writer of the piece suggests that this doesn’t offer any benefit to the company, but that isn’t strictly true. The biggest and brightest employees are hard to find and even harder to retain, especially in the cut-throat world of tech giants where companies will do everything they can to lure even the most-loyal worker away to pastures new.

In this context the motive for the after-death benefit becomes clear: it’s another way of Google tempting its workforce to stay put for the longterm. Interestingly the older employees are more likely to be swayed by such an offering, so we could see the mean age of Google’s workforce increasing. Either way it’s one hell of a good deal: giving Google another weapon to retain the best and brightest, Google’s employees enviable peace of mind.

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Apple fanboys plan Steve Jobs memorial in Russia

Plans are afoot to build a memorial to Steve Jobs in St. Petersburg, Russia, with a contest being held to find and decide upon a worthy monument.

Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs sadly passed away in 2011 after a long battle with cancer. Whatever people thought of the man – and opinions really were mixed – most accept he was a visionary who helped shape the technological landscape we now reside in. Apple has carried on after Jobs, with Tim Cook taking charge, but his legacy will be felt for many years to come.


In Russia a contest is being held to find a suitable memorial to Jobs, one that will be erected in St. Petersburg, widely regarded as the country’s technological capital. A private foundation is behind the contest, which sees anyone and everyone invited to pitch an idea for a fitting monument. The winners will be decided by a combination of a jury of I.T. professionals in St. Petersburg and an online vote.

The ultimate winner will see their idea created and put on display, and also receive an iPad for their efforts. Two runners-up will receive an iPhone. The location and other details of the monument will be decided upon by project organizers and city officials once the contest is over. Which isn’t too long away.

Entries have to be in by Aug. 6, with the winners announced a week later on Aug. 13. The scope of the memorial has been left wide open to encourage creative thinking, with everything from a classical sculpture to an installation welcomed. However, Russia Today reports that concepts which have a technical element to them stand more chance of winning.

There have been several tributes honoring Jobs already, with Brazil naming a street after him, and a bronze statue installed in Budapest, Hungary. But this looks to be the most-ambitious Steve Jobs memorial planned so far.

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Android-powered Ouya console breaks all Kickstarter records, raises over $2M in a day

Yesterday an interesting project launched on Kickstarter. An Android-based gaming console called Ouya promised to change the gaming world for good. The $99 console aimed to deliver cheap, high quality games to everyone by being completely open to developers, hackers and users.

Yet, what Ouya managed to achieve was probably beyond its creators’ wildest dreams. The developers were hoping to gather $950,000 to begin production, but the Kickstarter project generated a whopping $2 million on the first day alone.
At the time of this writing the counter is at a mind-blowing $2.7 million and it keeps rising quite quickly. Shocked by the amount of money they got, the developers are now working on their stretch goals – the things they will do with the extra financing. In case you have an idea you are welcome to contact them ideas@ouya.tv and if you want to back the project or just learn more about it, feel free to follow the source link.

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Angry Birds to hit Xbox 360, PS3 and Nintendo 3DS later this year

The Angry Birds universe will undergo another expansion at the end of the year. After a small teaser on the E3 in June, Rovio has finally spoken on the matter.

New Angry Birds versions that are being “built from the ground up” will hit the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 3DS in the holiday season.
The game will be distributed physically on discs (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) and a 3DS cartridge. There is no info on the pricing just yet.
The console Angry Birds offerings will include the original Angry Birds game, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio. It is yet unknown if the game will pack all the levels available on iOS and Android.
The fact that Rovio rebuilt the game from scratch for the consoles allowed the devs to include animated backgrounds, new and better effects, HD (and probably Full HD) resolution support, etc. MS Kinect, PS3 Move and 3DS StreetPass support is going to be included as well.
There will be new leaderboard and achievements system as well as individual score charts for each level.
Angry Birds for consoles is coming this holiday season.

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Indoor Google Maps gets support for 22 of the most popular US museums

The indoor maps are one of the coolest features of Google Maps, but the coverage is rather limited for now, meaning you don’t get to use it as often as you might like. It’s good to know though that the developers are working on that and have just announced newly-added map data for 22 new museums and a zoo.

The newly supported venues include the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cincinnati Museum Center, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural

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