Computers

AT&T revealed today that it has exclusive rights to stock the new Samsung Galaxy S4 in Aurora Red, a new color variant announced earlier today when the smartphone passed 10 million global sales. The device will be available to buy both in-store and online from June 14, although pre-orders are opening on May 24 (tomorrow). The 16GB model will cost $199.99 on a two-year contract, the same as the existing color variants, Black Mist and White Frost. The Samsung Galaxy S4, unveiled in March, is currently going head-to-head with the HTC One, and will also compete with the next iPhone that will inevitably be released later this year. The device has a premium 5-inch 1080p display, set at an impressive 441 ppi. Under the hood is a quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 processor, bumped up by an additional quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 chipset. That’s an insane amount of processing power, to put it mildly. Alongside the aforementioned 16GB of internal storage is a microSD card for extra memory, and the device runs on the latest version of Android (version 4.2.2) with Samsung’s TouchWiz skin slapped on top. The Galaxy S4 also has a mighty Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery, which should do a pretty decent job of counterbalancing the smartphone’s power-hungry processors, and 2GB of RAM handling multiple apps and tasks. The device hit 10 million global sales today, breaking the milestone within one month of its initial launch. That’s twice as fast as the Galaxy S3, which took two months last year.

So you’re putting together your all out custom build. You’ve got the best processor, motherboard, memory, GPU, and case you can buy. Now is the time you’re going to have to start thinking about fans and cooling. Whether it be air or water, you will need fans. This is often forgotten till the end, and this item is crucial to bringing all those bits together and helping them to perform to their fullest. While there are many options when it comes to choosing fans, it is very important to be selective in order to get the right fan for your configuration as well as a good quality fan. Today we are going to be taking a look at a broad selection of 9 fans from one of the most lauded fan manufacturers, Noctua.Special thanks to Noctua for providing the fans for today’s review.Features Although we are looking at 9 different fans, they are all very similar in their design. The variations between them being their intended uses. Notable differences and similarities include:- The PWM fans are all equipped with Noctua’s NE-FD1 PWM IC which integrates their Smooth Commutation Drive technology found on all the other fans. What this means is that even in a PWM situation where the motherboard is automatically adjusting fan speed when needed, there is a controller in the fan itself that controls the inputs and reduces noise from switching inconsistencies. While the Smooth Commutation Drive technology on all of the fans regulates and reduces torque variations and switching noise - All fans feature either Flow Acceleration Channels, or Anti Stall Knobs. Both of these work to ensure that the air is flowing smoothly over and off the blades. - All fans feature the AAO frame. - All fans feature the improved SS02 bearing and most feature a metal bearing shell as well. - All come with a 6 year manufacturer warranty. - All fans have integrated anti vibration pads. - All fans come with 3 or 4 pin extensions most come with adapters from their proprietary adapter to molex for directly connecting to a power supply.Some fan specific features include: - OmniJoin Adapter Set on the 40mm fan allowing it to be attached directly to the proprietary fan headers. - The ULN (ultra low noise) fans all come with adapters to change the fan speed to 800 or 600 rpm without a controller.Packaging Each fan comes in a roughly standard sized fan box. They feature a double flip panel. one on front the other on the back. These panels include all the product features as well as some diagrams explaining the technology employed. The front of each box has a silver sticker denoting the fans best use in most cases.The sides of the boxes are simply white with the Noctua names on top and a band of purple with the fan category printed there.The very back also features the technical specifications of the fan within. Pulling the fans from the box they are held in formed plastic trays. They are a two piece design with the bottom tray having sections that hold the accessories and a top piece that goes over the whole bottom tray to hold everything in place.

We are in the post-PC era, and soon billions of consumers will be carrying around Internet-connected mobile devices for up to 16 hours a day. Mobile audiences have exploded as a result. Mobile advertising should be a bonanza, similar to online advertising a decade ago. However, it has been a bit slow off the ground, and its growth trajectory is not clear cut. In a recent report from BI Intelligence on the mobile advertising ecosystem, we explain the complexities and fractures, and examine the central and dynamic roles played by mobile ad networks, demand side platforms, mobile ad exchanges, real-time bidding, agencies, brands, and new companies hoping to upend the traditional banner ad. Access The Full Report And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >> Here's the dynamics surrounding the mobile advertising ecosystem: Mobile advertising is relatively tiny: U.S. mobile ad revenue was $1.2 billion last year, a tiny fraction of overall U.S. ad spend. And most "mobile ads" were simply search and display ads viewed on mobile. According to BI Intelligence estimates, mobile advertising is on track to hit $3.2 billion this year. Why? Mobile CPMS are low, and ads are oftentimes intrusive. Ad spending has therefore not caught up with time spent on mobile. These will remain significant challenges to mobile ads. Also, the mobile ad ecosystem is very complex: The mobile ad ecosystem is not as strictly delineated as the desktop ecosystem. In mobile advertising, the rules of the road change with different combinations of device, wireless operator, and operating system. And there are few shared protocols or standards: Mobile lacks the technical consensus that enables ad targeting, delivery, and measurement to work fairly seamlessly across the desktop world. As the mobile ad industry matures it will likely become more streamlined and simple, but for now there are innumerable actors interacting with one another and attempting to find a niche. The display ad category presents a dynamic and complicated future: Google dominated the paid search category, which accounted for 62 percent of mobile global ad spend last year. But, mobile ad networks, demand side platforms, mobile ad exchanges are all part of a dynamic ecosystem that is constantly evolving and trying to grow non-search mobile related advertising. New companies are also testing out and finding some success with mobile native ad formats. In full, the report: Explains how the mobile ad ecosystem is fractured and complex Analyzes how mobile ad networks play a central role that is coming under threat Examines how demand side platforms and mobile ad exchanges are streamlining the market Breaks down how real-time bidding will play a growing role Details how agencies are coming around to mobile and are trying to bring big brands along Explains how new companies are emerging with native ad formats that are hoping to upend the traditional banner ad To access BI Intelligence's full reports on The Mobile Advertising Ecosystem, sign up for a free trial subscription here. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

Last weekend, internet pioneer Ted Nelson speculated that the creator of Bitcoin (who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto) was actually Japanese math professor Shinichi Mochizuki. This was the latest theory in an extremely long hunt by various researchers and journalists trying to identify Nakamoto. Hilary Sargent at Chartgirl has put together a monster chart detailing all of the endeavors to find Nakomoto, and the various conjecturs that have been put forth about them. Click the chart to see a full, large version in all its detail and splendor. Note that some points on the chart are satirical. Please follow Business Insider on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

When I say this ad "features Siri," I mean it in the "butt end of the joke" kind of way. Comments

Evernote has added customizable reminders, one of the company’s most highly requested features, to its popular note-taking app on Mac, iOS and the Web today. Users will now see a small alarm clock with a tick symbol above each note. Clicking or tapping it once will initiate a new reminder, which can even be static – simply notifying users that it still hasn’t been completed – or scheduled for a particular date and time. Evernote offers some common deadlines by default, such as tomorrow or in a week, but there’s also a compact calendar for more precise scheduling. Selecting a specific day will trigger another field above, where users can set a specific time to be notified about the note. While using Evernote, users can also clear the reminder, or just mark it as completed. Upon setup, users can also ask that they receive reminder emails on the day that the note is due. Ongoing reminders are added to a separate list that sits just above the notes section in the Mac app. It’s clear, unobtrusive and doesn’t take up too much screen space, which is vital for an app like Evernote where there’s already so much information being displayed at once. Users can also click a ‘plus’ icon here to add their own custom reminders alongside a new note. The introduction of reminders shows that Evernote is prepared to expand beyond a simple note-taking service and begin moving into the same space already occupied by calendar and to-do list apps. In theory, the feature should streamline users’ workflow; rather than receiving a reminder in a completely different app or service, launching Evernote and then returning to the original notification to dismiss it, everything is now self-contained. It’s not quite as simple or beautiful to look at as a dedicated service such as Clear, but it’s certainly a start. The new feature follows an update to Evernote Food on iOS earlier this month, which added improved Foursquare integration and new recipe partners. The company has also teamed up with Korea-based Kakao to integrate its note taking service in Kakao Talk, a cross-platform messaging app with more than 90 million registered users. ? Evernote | iOS | Mac | Web Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service. Image Credit: Joern Pollex/Getty Images

There's no way around it — Facebook's Android software "Home" is a flop. Consumers have avoided HTC's Facebook phone, and users aren't flocking to download Home on their Android phones. Home is a decent screen saver that gives you the News Feed in a new way. Other than that, it's just not that good. It hides your apps and limits your phone. The failure of Home reminds us of something Larry Page said earlier this year: Facebook is "doing a really bad job on their products." Page's quote was part of a big Wired Interview. Here's the full question and answer: Wired: One area where people say that Google is indeed motivated by competition is the social realm, where in the past two years you have been working hard in a field dominated by a single rival, Facebook. That’s not the case? Page: It’s not the way I think about it. We had real issues with how our users shared information, how they expressed their identity, and so on. And, yeah, they’re a company that’s strong in that space. But they’re also doing a really bad job on their products. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

This post is sponsored by Concur. The spreadsheet is the Swiss Army knife of small-business programs: It serves almost every function you can think of. But using a spreadsheet to manage expense reporting is like using the knife's little plastic toothpick to flip pancakes. Sure, you could do it, but would you really want to? Manually entering expense data into a spreadsheet is time-consuming, and it can introduce errors that make financial reporting difficult. There's also the pressure to pay employees on time, so they don’t end up being out of pocket. It's easy to see how the process gets overwhelming for both managers and employees. But there is a better way to manage expenses. Concur has put together a simple white paper with eight tips to help you create a better expense management process for your company. It explains what the best practices are, giving advice on the easiest ways to implement a new system or improve your current one. The eight tips include: Create a company-wide policy. All companies have an obligation to themselves and the IRS to ensure that expenses are genuine and appropriate. Simplify your reimbursement process. Employees are more likely to comply if the process is simple. Get the relevant information. Ask for the right details, not a novel. Leverage mobile devices. Make it easy to capture receipts and submit and approve expense reports while employees and managers are on the go. These are just four things to consider when creating or improving your expense management process. Download “8 Tips for a Best-Practice Expense Process” to get the rest, plus more resources that will help make those tedious spreadsheets a thing of the past. Download the paper and get all eight tips now. Find out more about Sponsor Posts. Please follow War Room on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

The HTC First, the only smartphone to come pre-installed with Facebook Home, is no longer coming to the United Kingdom. At least not right now, anyway. The device was originally set to launch with local network operators EE and Orange this summer, but Facebook has reportedly decided to cancel all pre-orders and shipments until further notice, due to “customer feedback” following its availability in the United States. “Following customer feedback, Facebook has decided to focus on adding new customization features to Facebook Home over the coming months,” a statement sent to Engadget by EE reads. ”While they are working to make a better Facebook Home experience, they have recommended holding off launching the HTC First in the United Kingdom, and so we will shortly be contacting those who registered their interest with us to let them know of this decision.” It continues: “Rest assured, we remain committed to bringing our customers the latest mobile experiences, and we will continue to build on our strong relationship with Facebook so as to offer customers new opportunities in the future.” It’s a huge blow for Facebook Home. The service, which combines an interactive lockscreen experience with its new cross-platform Chat Heads messaging service, was met with a rather mixed reaction when it was unveiled earlier this year. The service is available to a large number of Android users to install as a custom app launcher, but it doesn’t come with all of the functionality found on the HTC First. This is because the hardware was designed from the ground-up to take advantage of the software, thereby allowing Facebook to dive a little deeper into the Android operating system. There have been rumors that the HTC First isn’t selling very well in the United States, but this hasn’t been confirmed with any concrete sales figures. Regardless, the statement from EE shows that at least in Facebook’s eyes, the dedicated smartphone isn’t ready to be sold to the British public. A Facebook spokesperson told The Verge: “We’ve listened to feedback from users on their experience using Home. While many people love it, we’ve heard a lot of great feedback about how to make Home substantially better. As a result we’re focusing the next few months on adding customization features that address the feedback we received. While we focus on making Home better, we are going to limit supporting new devices and think it makes a lot of sense for EE and Orange to hold off deploying the HTC First in Europe.” By putting the breaks on a wider release, Facebook should be able to improve the Facebook Home experience and fix any existing problems. It’s a sensible move, given that it’s vital both HTC and Facebook make a good first impression with new users.

It looks like some of those Sense 5 features that debuted on the HTC One are making their way to new devices as well. On Thursday HTC officially revealed its Desire 600, which comes with BlinkFeed and BoomSound among other features..