IDC has posted third quarter market share estimates which show that Android tablet makers had an exceptional summer. Samsung jumped more than two points over its Q2 results, claiming 20.4 percent of shipments; ASUS also thrived during the period, moving up from just 4.5 points in the second quarter ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/HJ2riNZqIUg/
Automatic's car monitor on the iPhone 5s.
Given all the marketing hype out there, everyone has heard about the Internet of things, even if it's not at all clear what it is. (For an informative guide, read my primer on the Internet of things.) Well, the $100 Automatic device for the iPhone 4s and later (and soon for some Bluetooth 4.0-equipped Android smartphones) from Automatic Labs gives a good example of the Internet of things in action.
I've been testing this device on an iPhone 5s for a couple weeks in my 1996 Toyota Corolla; it's now available for sale from the Apple Store. It plugs into the car's engine computer port (on nearly every U.S. car since 1996) and uses your compatible iPhone as its central brain. When you get in the car, the device automatically connects to the iPhone via the low-power Bluetooth 4.0 radio (aka Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth Low Energy), sending data about your driving patterns and engine condition to Automatic's iPhone app. You get feedback on your driving habits, track the routes you've taken, and see how much money each trip has cost you.
[ Move over, smartphone -- the car is getting smarter. | See InfoWorld's recommendations for a road warrior's must-have mobile toolkit, and discover the best productivity apps for your iPad. | Keep up on key mobile developments and insights via Twitter and with the Mobilize newsletter. ]
How does the Automatic device do all these things? That's the Internet of things part. If all it did was communicate with your iPhone, that'd be useful but limited. But it uses your iPhone as a waystation to other resources.
If your engine reports a problem, for example, the Automatic app can check with Automatic's database to know what the error code actually means for your specific car, providing you both an alert and an understandable explanation -- much better than just seeing the check-engine light come on. It can also check your location via the iPhone's GPS and compare that to a database of mechanics, to suggest a nearby repair shop.
The same combination of local sensor (the Automatic device reading the car computer), the smartphone (your portable brain), and the Internet (the big brain and universal data source) is what makes the Automatic an example of the Internet of things in action. It's how the app can tell you how much money each trip costs you and its actual gas mileage, by reading the mileage and gas consumption data from the car computer and using current gas prices in your area to compute the costs on your iPhone.
Likewise, if you brake too hard, start too fast, or exceed 70mph, the Automatic knows that from the car computer and warbles to let you know -- a kind way to try to change your behavior. It also indicates these issues in the iPhone app so that you can see any patterns of inefficient driving, using a scoring system meant to engage you to try harder. If you tap the specific trip where you erred, it uses GPS data to show you exactly where you went astray, so you can see where you sped and for how long, where you slammed on the brakes, and so on.
Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Koji Uehara and catcher David Ross celebrate after getting St. Louis Cardinals' Matt Carpenter to strike out and end Game 6 of baseball's World Series Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 6-1 to win the series. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Koji Uehara and catcher David Ross celebrate after getting St. Louis Cardinals' Matt Carpenter to strike out and end Game 6 of baseball's World Series Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 6-1 to win the series. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Koji Uehara jumps into David Ross's arms after defeating the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 6 of baseball's World Series Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 6-1 to win the series. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Koji Uehara and catcher David Ross celebrate after getting St. Louis Cardinals' Matt Carpenter to strike out and end Game 6 of baseball's World Series Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 6-1 to win the series. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina looks back as home plate umpire Adam Wainwright call Boston Red Sox's Jonny Gomes safe on a three run RBI double by Shane Victorino during the third inning of Game 6 of baseball's World Series Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. Left is Jacoby Ellsbury, Xander Bogaerts, center and second right, David Ortiz. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
Boston Red Sox's Shane Victorino hits an RBI ingle during the fourth inning of Game 6 of baseball's World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
BOSTON (AP) — There hasn't been a party like this in New England for nearly a century.
Turmoil to triumph. Worst to first.
David Ortiz and the Boston Red Sox, baseball's bearded wonders, capped their remarkable turnaround by beating the St. Louis Cardinals 6-1 in Game 6 on Wednesday night to win their third World Series championship in 10 seasons.
Shane Victorino, symbolic of these resilient Sox, returned from a stiff back and got Boston rolling with a three-run double off the Green Monster against rookie sensation Michael Wacha.
John Lackey became the first pitcher to start and win a Series clincher for two different teams, allowing one run over 6 2-3 innings 11 years after his Game 7 victory as an Angels rookie in 2002.
With fans roaring on every pitch and cameras flashing, Koji Uehara struck out Matt Carpenter for the final out. The Japanese pitcher jumped into the arms of catcher David Ross while Red Sox players rushed from the dugout and bullpen as the Boston theme "Dirty Water" played on the public-address system.
And the Red Sox didn't have to fly the trophy home. For the first time since Babe Ruth's team back in 1918, Boston won the title at Fenway Park. The 101-year-old ballpark, oldest in the majors, was packed with 38,447 singing, shouting fans anticipating a celebration 95 years in the making.
There wasn't the cowboy-up comeback charm of "The Idiots" from 2004, who swept St. Louis to end an 86-year title drought. There wasn't that cool efficiency of the 2007 team that swept Colorado.
This time, they were Boston Strong — playing for a city shaken by the marathon bombings in April.
After late-season slumps in 2010 and 2011, the embarrassing revelations of a chicken-and-beer clubhouse culture that contributed to the ouster of manager Terry Francona, and the daily tumult of Bobby Valentine's one-year flop, these Red Sox grew on fans.
Just like the long whiskers on the players' faces, starting with Jonny Gomes' scruffy spring training beard.
Across the Northeast, from Connecticut's Housatonic River up to the Aroostook in Maine, Boston's eighth championship will be remembered for all the beard-yanking bonding.
Ortiz, the only player remaining from the 2004 champs, had a Ruthian World Series. He batted .688 (11 for 16) with two homers, six RBIs and eight walks — including four in the finale — for a .760 on-base percentage in 25 plate appearances.
Even slumping Stephen Drew delivered a big hit in Game 6, sending Wacha's first pitch of the fourth into the right-center bullpen.
By the time the inning was over, RBI singles by Mike Napoli and Victorino had made it 6-0, and the Red Sox were on their way.
The win capped an emotional season for the Red Sox, one heavy with the memory of the events that unfolded on Patriots Day, when three people were killed and more than 260 wounded in bombing attacks at the Boston Marathon. The Red Sox wore "Boston Strong" logos on their left sleeves and erected a large emblem on the Green Monster as a constant reminder.
A "B Strong" logo was mowed into center-field grass at Fenway.
Among the players blamed for the indifferent culture at the end of the Francona years, Lackey took the mound two days shy of the second anniversary of his elbow surgery and got his first Series win since the 2002 clincher. He pitched shutout ball into the seventh, when Carlos Beltran's RBI single ended the Cardinals' slump with runners in scoring position at 0 for 14.
Junichi Tazawa came in with the bases loaded and retired Allen Craig on an inning-ending grounder to first. Brandon Workman followed in the eighth and Uehara finished.
St. Louis had been seeking its second title in three seasons, but the Cardinals sputtered. Symbolic of the team's struggles, reliever Trevor Rosenthal tripped while throwing a pitch to Ortiz in the eighth, balking Dustin Pedroia to second.
Pedroia had brought back memories of Carlton Fisk's 1975 Game 6-winning home run, sending a first-inning drive about 10 feet foul of the Green Monster foul pole — and waving his left arm once to try to urge the ball fair as he came out of the batter's box.
Lackey escaped a two-on, none-out jam in the second when he retired Matt Adams and David Freese on flyouts and, after a wild pitch, struck out Jon Jay.
Boston wasted a similar threat in the bottom half, then went ahead on the third.
Jacoby Ellsbury singled leading off and went to second on Pedroia's grounder. Ortiz was intentionally walked, Napoli struck out and Gomes was hit above the left elbow with a pitch, loading the bases.
Victorino, wearing red, white and blue spikes with an American flag motif, had been 0 for 10 in the Series and missed the previous two games with a bad back.
Dropped from second to sixth in the batting order, he took two balls and a called strike, then turned on a 93 mph fastball and sent it high off the Green Monster, the 37-foot-high wall in left. Gomes slid home as Yadier Molina took Matt Holliday's one-hop throw and applied the tag, then argued with plate umpire Jim Joyce.
Victorino, pumped with emotion, went to third on the throw and pounded his chest with both fists three times.
After Drew's homer, Lance Lynn relieved Wacha with two on, and RBI singles by Napoli and Victorino boosted Boston's lead to 6-0. Wacha entered 4-0 with a 1.00 ERA in his postseason career but gave up six runs, five hits and four walks in 3 2-3 innings, the shortest start of the 22-year-old's big league career.
Boston was a 30-1 underdog to win the World Series last winter but joined the 1991 Minnesota Twins as the only teams to win titles one season after finishing in last place. Now, the Red Sox will raise another championship flag before their home opener next season April 4 against Milwaukee.
The Red Sox had not played a Series Game 6 since that infamous night at New York's Shea Stadium in 1986, when Bill Buckner allowed Mookie Wilson's 10th-inning roller to get through his legs. And there had not been one at Fenway since Fisk's 12th-inning home run off the foul pole atop the Green Monster.
Following consecutive late-season skids, the Red Sox parted with Francona at the end of the 2011 season and reports emerged of players drinking beer and eating fried chicken in the clubhouse during games.
Valentine took over as manager, injuries caused Boston to use a club-record 56 players, and the Red Sox skidded to a 69-93 record, their poorest since 1965.
John Farrell, Boston's pitching coach from 2007-10, was hired after a pair of seasons as Toronto's manager.
A roster turnover began in August 2012 when Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and their big-money contracts were traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a deal that saved Boston just more than $261.66 million through 2018. The Red Sox restocked during the offseason by signing seven major league free agents for contracts of three years or fewer at a total of $100.45 million: Victorino, Napoli, Gomes, Drew, Uehara, Ryan Dempster and Ross.
After losing closers Joel Hanrahan and Andrew Bailey to injuries early in the season, the Red Sox remained relatively healthy: Seventeen players wound up on the DL, down from 27. They finished 97-65 — matching St. Louis for the best record in the major leagues — and made the playoffs for the first time since 2009. They also became the first team since the 2005 Cardinals to navigate the season without losing more than three in a row.
After falling behind 2-1 in the Series, the Red Sox ended with three straight wins.
NOTES: Boston also won the Series at Fenway Park in 1912. The Red Sox won the first World Series in 1903 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds and in 1916 at Braves Field. ... Catfish Hunter and Jimmy Key each won Series clinchers for two clubs, as a starter and reliever. ... Freese, the 2011 World Series MVP, hit .158 (3 for 19) with no RBIs.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-10-30-BBO-World-Series/id-45010bff80dc424f8c59bc6dc9f19102Thought-provoking doc works for both art fans and those more interested in cultural geopolitics.
Hamptons International Film Festival
Mika Mattila
THE HAMPTONS, NEW YORK — A doc about culture change in China that doesn't stop at lamenting vanishing folkways or cluck-clucking at rampant consumerism, Mika Mattila's Chimeras looks at the struggle between Eastern and Western mindsets through the work and lives of two celebrated artists. Tightly focused but appealing to both art lovers and those seeking insight into an evolving China, the picture should satisfy at festivals and in niche theatrical engagements.
The artists in question are a young, timid-seeming photographer, Liu Gang, and Wang Guangyi, the Pop-leaning art star who emerged in the Eighties with the North Art Group. (We're told that 2008 auctions of his work reaped around $23 million.) Mattila shadows both men, avoiding talking-head interviews in favor of narration accompanying well photographed scenes of them at work -- Liu with his camera, looking lonely amid the pastiche architecture of China's faux-European theme parks -- or in social settings -- like the gathering of North Art Group vets where Wang silences a room by declaring that a colleague's work is meritless, even destructive to Chinese identity.
The nation's soul is the central theme here. Wang says he has been brainwashed many times in his life -- not just by Mao's Cultural Revolution, but by the West's art history, a system of aesthetics that had no room for traditional Asian art. Liu has based whole series on deconstructions of the luxury being hawked to newly wealthy Chinese: His photos of crinkled-up newspaper advertisements turn glossy fantasies into soulless, degraded ephemera.
Mattila spends enough personal time with both artists to find ironies in the contrast between how each man lives and the philosophical underpinnings of his work. But he doesn't harp on these observations, and this thoughtful, serious film instead positions them as more clues about a nation struggling to understand itself while being forced to assert its place in a world long dominated by Western Civilization.
Production Company: Navy Blue Bird
Director-Screenwriter-Director of photography: Mika Mattila
Producer: Markku Niska
Editors: Mika Mattila, Mikko Sippola
No rating, 85 minutes
After being sidelined for more than two years because of knee injuries, bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz will finally fight again at UFC 169 Feb. 1 against interim belt-holder Renan Barao. Cruz last fought and won with a unanimous decision over now flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson in October of 2011.
After that, Cruz was selected as a coach of The Ultimate Fighter, opposite his rival Urijah Faber. The two had fought twice before and were set to have a rubber match after coaching TUF.
Cruz tore his ACL in a knee and was forced out of the fight. Barao stepped in to fight Faber in an interim title bout, which he won.
Cruz' recovery was delayed by a second ACL tear and surgery. Barao has defended his interim title twice in the meantime.
The main event of UFC 169 will include another title bout as featherweight champ Jose Aldo defends against Ricardo Lamas. Lamas has won four straight bouts heading into his long-awaited title shot.
Aldo has not lost in over seven years and 16 fights. He last fought and won at UFC 163, when he stopped Chan Sung Jung in the 4th round.
UFC 169 will take place SuperBowl weekend in Newark, New Jersey. Newsday first reported the two title match ups.
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You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Steam now proudly claims 65 million users -- a 30 percent improvement over the past 12 months. Follow the link for more information about Steam Machines, SteamOS and the Steam Controller.
Are you the proud owner of a Tesla Model S? If so, you can now delight in a quick, free recharge, courtesy of Tesla Motors' Supercharger Corridor. At least six of the locations between San Diego and Vancouver are open for business, putting most Californians within just 200 miles of a Supercharger. Continue reading to learn more about supercharger locations and upcoming demonstrations.
Though Nintendo reported a loss for the previous quarter, the company still managed to sell another 300,000 units of the Wii U. It's a far cry from its goal of 9 million units by March of 2014, but it's better than nothing, right? Read on to find out about why we think the handheld market is still Nintendo's best bet for success.
Sprint's looking to shake things up with Sprint Spark, an LTE service that aims to deliver 50-60 Mbps speeds to its users, with potential to get faster over time. The rollout begins today, so click through to find out when, where and on what devices you can expect to benefit from these supercharged cellular waves.
This past weekend, we brought together 500 of Berlin’s finest coders, designers, and builders for our first ever Disrupt Europe Hackathon. Teams had to slam together the best thing they could build from the ground up in just 24 hours, with $5,000, a chance to present your project in the main Disrupt Europe conference, and tons of other prizes up for grabs.
Couldn’t make it? It’s okay — there will be another one. In the mean time, TCTV has put together a lil’ video to show to give you a sense of the energy, exhaustion, and raw talent involved with an event like this.
While the judges had to pick just three winners, we were absolutely blown away by all of the projects — so much so, in fact, that we ended up giving tickets to Disrupt Europe to every single team that presented (we originally planned on giving tickets to the Top 40 or 50 teams, but there were just too many projects that we all liked.)
Want to peruse all of the awesome submissions? You can check out the full submission gallery here.
