A quick burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Beijing government releases official air quality monitoring app >> Tech In Asia
Boy, has the government come a long way when it comes to air pollution. Just half a year ago, if you wanted to know how dangerous the air was in Beijing, your only real option was the US Embassy's @BeijingAir twitter feed, and the Chinese government was desperately trying to stop you from reading that. Now, not only is the Beijing government publishing real-time numbers for the air's PM2.5 (deadly particles) count, it has released a smartphone app so that users can check pollution stats while on the go.
OK, good. But - would you trust it to be telling you the truth?
New details on Apple's budget iPhone 5 >> iLounge Backstage
This new model is actually a cross between the iPhone 5, fifth-generation iPod touch, and... wait for it... the iPod classic. Yes, really. It will have a 4" screen, like the iPhone 5, a bottom like the latest iPod touch, and a shape that's most similar to the iPod classic.
The budget iPhone's raw dimensions are just barely larger than the iPhone 5's. It is around a half-millimeter taller and a half-millimeter wider--nearly imperceptible differences--as well as almost a millimeter thicker. Beyond shifting from glass and metal to a substantially plastic chassis, the most significant change Apple will make is in the curves.
iPhone 5P for Plastic?
Cash worries hit Phorm shares >> FT.com
Phorm was a sharp faller this week as fears grew that the maker of internet traffic monitoring software would need a rescue fundraising.
The group, which has been focused on emerging markets after facing criticism from privacy campaigners, dropped 39.8% even after announcing a rollout into two new Chinese provinces. "The company is likely to run out of cash around March absent funding," said Liberum Securities. "Recent share price weakness is potentially unhelpful and reflects financial worries, not progress in the business."
Remember Phorm? (Subscription required to view article.)
Moving to 64-bit Twitter User IDs >> Twitter Developers
Every entity represented in Twitter's API has an ID associated with it. As we allocate larger and larger numbers for these IDs, the space required to store them must grow in turn. For example, we migrated Tweet IDs from 32-bit to 64-bit integers back in 2009, then did the same for direct message IDs in 2011. We expect to start allocating user IDs in a 64-bit integer space sometime this year.
This means that if you currently use signed 32-bit integers to track user IDs in your system, you should update your code to use 64-bit integers as soon as you can. To be safe, and to provide a date to aim for, we recommend making this change by July 1, 2013. This includes statically typed variables in your application code and column types in your database code.
Twitter is thinking big.
iMac shipments fall over 40% in 4Q12, say Taiwan makers >> Digitimes
There were an estimated 578,000 new iMacs shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012, dropping 42.8% on quarter and 54.8% on year mainly due to delayed supplies of key components, especially panels, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers. As the supply of key components began to significantly increase in November 2012, iMac shipments are expected to rebound in the first quarter of 2013, the sources said.
Pretty much what Tim Cook said.
New BlackBerry World for BlackBerry 10 to Include extensive catalogue of songs, latest movies and TV shows
BlackBerry® World(TM) storefront (formally BlackBerry App World(TM)) for BlackBerry 10 will offer one of the most robust music and video catalogs in mobile today. The new BlackBerry World will include an extensive catalog of songs as well as movies and TV shows, with most movies coming to the store the same day they are released on DVD, and next day availability of many current TV series. The competitive offering will feature content from all major studios, music labels and top local broadcast networks. Customers will be able to preview tracks and access the content using multiple payment options.
Instagram v Vine >> Willa's World
Says it all. Requires six seconds, but no video.
Acer sees success in Chrome; Windows 8 fails to drive sales >> Bloomberg
Chrome-based models accounted for 5% to 10% of Acer's US shipments since being released there in November, President Jim Wong said in an interview at the Taipei-based company's headquarters. That ratio is expected to be sustainable in the long term and the company is considering offering Chrome models in other developed markets, he said.
Acer, which last week announced a NT$3.5bn ($120m) write-off on the value of its Gateway, Packard Bell and eMachines brands that pushed it into losses, is looking for alternatives as Windows-based computers struggle amid rising popularity of tablets and smartphones. Global computer industry shipments dropped 6.4 percent in the fourth quarter despite Microsoft's latest operating system being released during the period, according to IDC Corp.
"Windows 8 itself is still not successful," said Wong, whose company posted a 28% drop in fourth-quarter shipments from a year earlier. "The whole market didn't come back to growth after the Windows 8 launch, that's a simple way to judge if it is successful or not."
Also: won't release any Windows RT devices before autumn. Instead, it's getting into the smartphone business.
False beliefs persist, even after instant online corrections
It seems like a great idea: Provide instant corrections to web-surfers when they run across obviously false information on the Internet.
But a new study suggests that this type of tool may not be a panacea for dispelling inaccurate beliefs, particularly among people who already want to believe the falsehood.
"Real-time corrections do have some positive effect, but it is mostly with people who were predisposed to reject the false claim anyway," said R. Kelly Garrett, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University....
In fact, it has already been attempted: A team from Intel and the University of California, Berkeley, developed Dispute Finder, a plug-in for web browsers that was released in 2009 and would alert users when they opened a webpage with a disputed claim. That project has ended, but Garrett said similar efforts are under way.
Idées fixes are all very well until a lion chews off your head. You'd think evolution might have sorted this out. Or maybe it's not an evolutionary disadvantage?
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