Month: April 2016

(credit: Sara Robertson)

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. One of the last cultural holdouts of text-messaging, the movie theater, may be set for an invasion.

AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron has said he’s open to relaxing the ban on cell phone use in an effort to get more millennials into movie theaters. He wants this generation of movie-goers to attend “with the same degree of intensity” that the baby boomers did.

"When you tell a 22-year-old to turn off the phone, don’t ruin the movie, they hear 'please cut off your left arm above the elbow,'" said Aron in an interview with Variety. "You can’t tell a 22-year-old to turn off their cellphone. That’s not how they live their life."

September 11, 1957: World champion Argentinian racing driver Juan Manuel Fangio in action driving a Maserati at the 1957 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. He finished second behind Stirling Moss in a Vanwall. (credit: Central Press/Getty Images)

We're pretty sure fans of all sports love a good argument over who is "the greatest of all time." Will Stephen Curry soar higher than Michael Jordan at his mid-'90s apogee? Will Tom Brady eclipse Johnny Unitas? This is the stuff of countless hours of barroom banter. Formula 1 is no different. But given how much cars have changed over the years, is it even possible to compare different eras?

Andrew Bell and his colleagues at the University of Sheffield think so, and this team has just published a paper in the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports offering proof that Juan Manuel Fangio owns the crown.

Most sports change over time, but the Formula 1 World Championship—first held in 1950—has changed a great deal over the past six-and-a-half decades. A 1950s F1 car looked like a cigar tube with wheels. The engine was in front of the driver, and there were no wings or spoilers. (Or seat belts, for that matter.) In the early 1960s, front-engined cars were made obsolete when John Cooper put the driver ahead of the power unit. Later that decade Colin Chapman at Lotus was responsible for a string of innovations, from fully stressed engines (bolted to the monocoque and carrying the rear suspension) to aerodynamics. Then we got ground effects, carbon composite construction, an ever-increasing regard for safety, and finally hybrid powertrains.

Nodes in Facebook's Terragraph wireless network. (credit: Facebook)

Facebook is building a wireless Internet service that uses 60GHz WiGig technology to deliver “ubiquitous gigabit citywide coverage” in densely populated urban areas. Facebook said it is testing the technology at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, and preparing a larger trial for San Jose.

“So far, we have demonstrated 1.05Gbps bidirectional (2.1 Gbps total throughput per distribution node) in P2P mode, up to 250 meters away,” the company said in an announcement yesterday. “This means up to 8.4Gbps of total traffic per installation point assuming 4 sectors, and we think this number can be as high as 12.8Gbps in the future." Facebook also says it will make the technology "open and interoperable" in unlicensed spectrum, just like Wi-Fi.

The project faces technological hurdles related to the use of extremely high frequency spectrum. WiGig technology using 60GHz frequencies is generally aimed at home use, as it is great for high-speed transfers between two devices in a single room but nearly impossible to use in multiple rooms because the airwaves are easily blocked by walls.

Marina Lonina was indicted on accusations that she Periscoped her boyfriend, Raymond Gates, raping a minor girl. (credit: Franklin County Sheriff)

An Ohio woman has been indicted on accusations that she live-streamed the rape of a 17-year-old girl on Periscope, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Marina Alexeevna Lonina, 18, is accused of initiating the broadcast while her boyfriend, 29-year-old Raymond Boyd Gates, sexually assaulted the girl in February in Columbus, Ohio, according to Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Ron O'Brien.

"The victim and the two defendants were socializing and at some point in the evening it is alleged that Gates forced sexual intercourse with the victim and Lonina started Periscoping (live-streaming in real time) the sexual assault," the prosecutor said. "Lonina had also photographed the victim in a state of nudity the night before at Lonina’s house located at 4146 Nafzger Drive in Columbus. A friend of Lonina’s in another state watched the Periscope live stream of the rape on the 27th and authorities were contacted."

(credit: Survey Monkey)

Now that Nintendo's plans for smartphone app development have gone from persistent rumor to actual reality, it's time to start thinking about whether mobile profits can help the company's flagging console business. Earlier this week, SurveyMonkey Intelligence gave us some early information on that score, providing download, user, and revenue estimates for Nintendo's recently launched Miitomo social networking app/game.

At first glance, the results look promising for Nintendo's mobile move. Miitomo has already attracted 4 million total monthly users, with about 1 million using the game on any given day. On average, a Miitomo user spends eight minutes with the app across two or three play sessions.

More importantly to Nintendo's bottom line, plenty of those users are also paying for cosmetic items in the otherwise free-to-play app. SurveyMonkey estimates that Miitomo is already bringing in $40,000 a day in revenue, mostly from iOS users. That's enough for the SurveyMonkey analysts to write that "King, Zynga, Storm8, EA and Glu should be worried... In a nutshell, Miitomo is crushing it and Nintendo seems to have a hit on its hands!"

The front of the HTC 10. There's no giant speakers or logo here, just sensible smartphone design.

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The last 12 months have been dark for HTC. Year over year, the company's revenue was cut in half. At one point, the stock price hit an all-time low of $1.25 a share. Last we heard, HTC's market share was hovering somewhere less than two percent of the market—it's hard to get up-to-date numbers when analysts only ever list the company under "other."

HTC is clawing back, though. The HTC Vive—a VR headset it made in conjunction with Valve—leapfrogged Oculus to be the best and most complete VR package out there. For the past year or two, the company has been searching for alternative revenue stream away from the smartphone market. And while the Vive is still an early-adopter product, it's a big bright spot in the company's line up.

So what about the smartphone division then? For 2016, HTC has the HTC 10, a $700 (£570) all-metal smartphone. The specs are your standard 2016 flagship levels: a 2.15 GHz Snapdragon 820 with 4GB of RAM and a 5.15-inch 1440p display. It's the design that is the big differentiator here, though. The 10 looks a lot like HTC's post-2013 flagships, but the new phone works like a "best of" collection of past HTC design decisions.