Computers

(Phys.org) —One key selling point in laptops is battery life and Intel earlier this week had good news on that very front. Its upcoming Haswell processors will give users 50 percent more battery life than Ivy Bridge.

We've all seen the TV show on the SyFy Channel, so you have a pretty good idea what the game is all about and this weekend, you can find out even more. Today and Sunday you can try the game out free of charge and if you like it, you can pick up the game at a substantial reduction from Steam. Defiance is an interesting experiment in content crossing over between a persistent online game and the scripted world of a television show. This could be the wave of the future. Microsoft announced similar crossover projects in their Xbox One reveal. Comments

eBay is pushing its users to petition the US House of Representatives over what it calls ”unfair Internet sales tax legislation.” This campaign is, of course, in regards to the Marketplace Fairness Act, which has already been approved by the Senate. In case you’re unfamiliar with the Marketplace Fairness Act, it requires online retailers to collect sales tax on every purchase, paid to the state where the user is located. In other words, shoppers accustomed to not paying sales tax on their online purchases may soon be required to do so. In an email signed by CEO John Donahoe, eBay warns its users that this bill “creates an unfair tax burden for small online businesses.” For, or Against? Supporters of this bill believe it will level the playing field for local (offline) businesses. Those against the bill, like FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe, claim it “undermines state sovereignty and allows for taxation without representation.” eBay undoubtedly has financial incentives in this fight, but it’s noteworthy that many supporters of the Marketplace Fairness Act have money in the game as well. MarketplaceFairness.org, for example, is actually run by TaxCloud (owned by FedTax), a company which provides sales tax services for online retailers. In its petition, eBay is asking Congress to “support small businesses” by modifying the current bill to “exempt small businesses with less than 50 employees or less than $10 million in out-of-state sales.” eBay claims “big retailers and state tax collectors” are looking to burden “small businesses that use the Internet to grow.” We have reached out to eBay in regards to this campaign and will update this post when we hear back. Which side do you support in this debate? Let us know in the comments below! Image credit: Thinkstock

It's been a busy week in the world of LAPTOP. CTIA 2013, a tech conference overrun with mobile gadgets and software, kicked off on Monday and Microsoft revealed the future of its Xbox gaming console.

Now those are fighting words, mister.

BERLIN (AP) — An auctioneer says one of Apple's first computers — a functioning 1976 model — has been sold for a record 516,000 euros ($668,000). German auction house Breker said Saturday an Asian client, who asked not to be named, bought the so-called Apple 1, which the tech company's founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built in a family garage. Breker claims it is one of only six known remaining functioning models in the world. Breker already sold one last year for 492,000 euros. It says the computer bears Wozniak's signature. An old business transaction letter from the late Jobs also was included. The Apple 1, which was sold for $666 in 1976, consisted of only the circuit board. A case, a keyboard and a screen had to be bought separately. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

One issue Yahoo will have now that it plans to build out Tumblr's advertising offerings is persuading advertisers to actually show up on Tumblr. We recently reported that Tumblr's ad products offer only extremely limited targeting abilities and that clients aren't yet asking about paid media on Tumblr. But Rob Leathern, CEO of Optimal, a social media marketing management company, wrote that brands have mostly not bothered to investigate even Tumblr's free offerings: Of the 10,600+ brands we examine on a daily basis (see optimal social.com/portfolios for more on these across 100 sectors), we see about 2,400 (just less than 25%) have a tumblr presence. However, 25% of these are mostly empty and many appear to be brands squatting on their own names and planning to get to it later when they have time, perhaps. About 588 of these brand pages have fewer than 10 items of lifetime activity. Some brands like Pepsi are quite active, though the activity levels ebb and flow quite a bit, but others are far less so. The mean number of total engagements per brand on tumblr is 224 but the median is just two. That's scary: Tumblr has 225 million unique visitors per month, but most companies don't have a presence there. Of those that do, engagement with other users is minimal: Just two per company. How likely is it that Tumblr can build a robust advertising business if brands don't even want it when it's free? Partly, it's about education. CEO David Karp only got serious about advertising a year ago. prior to that, he was actively disinterested in it. It's early days and most brands probably haven't added Tumblr to their "To Do" lists yet. A spokesperson for Tumblr tells us: We are one year into working with brand advertisers and have been delighted by the content brands have created on Tumblr- beautiful and diverse content that fits seamlessly with the best work on our network. We now have 10 out of 10 of the top Hollywood studios advertising on Tumblr along with eight out of 10 of the most valuable brands, and growing. Hayes Davis, CEO of Union Metrics, one of Tumblr's official content analytics companies, adds: Tumblr is still an emerging platform, but with that said, there is an incredible diversity in the types of brands taking advantage it. Most recently, we saw the movie studio behind Great Gatsby tap into the community to build momentum and interest around the movie's release. It saw huge levels of engagement, with an animated GIF featuring Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby receiving 161.5k notes. But it is not just entertainment - companies like General Electric, which might not come to mind when thinking about Tumblr, has a vibrant presence on the site and just in the last month has garnered 55.1k notes around its brand. ... Adidas saw an increase in conversations around its brand when a fan took a screen grab of one of its TV commercials and posted it on the Tumblr. In just two weeks the post saw 88K notes. This is part of the problem: GE, a handful of movie studios, and Adidas have famously taken to Tumblr like fish to water. But other than that, brands with serious money are conspicuous by their absence. What Tumblr must do is go down the path trodden by Facebook: Encourage brands to use Tumblr's free offerings — blogs and dashboards — and then, once they've gained some traction with their followers, start charging for promoted products that have extended reach beyond organic views.• There's A Huge Flaw In Yahoo's Monetization Plan For Tumblr • Tumblr's Ad Sales Pitch Deck Says Brands Will Now Be 'Front And Center' • Yes, Yahoo Will Put More Ads On Tumblr Please follow Advertising on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

We all know geeks love their Lego toys, the bigger and more complex the build, the better. So naturally someone just had to build a massive Star Wars X-Wing fighter out of almost 5.5 Million Lego bricks, weighing in at an incredible 23 tons. We have a video and some close-up pictures for you to check out. Comments

Type/Code, the interaction design studio behind Google’s Currents app, has launched Screensiz.es, a deceptively simple database of (…you guessed it!) screen sizes. This free service lets you view smartphone, tablet, laptop and desktop screen sizes by pixel dimension, physical size and pixel density. It’s also able to order by demand, using “average monthly Google queries, and some fuzzy math.” No, the popularity sorting isn’t scientific, “but it’s better than nothing,” Type/Code says — we agree. Nice subtle touches to the site include the ability to show and hide extra columns of data, allowing responsive-design obsessed developers to zero in on exactly what they need. As we’ve said before, we’re big fans of single-purpose tools and resources that make your life easier. This is especially true when it comes to design, because sometimes a simple, straight-forward solution can solve the worst headaches. We’ve given plenty of attention to apps of this category in the past, including services like SnapRuler, Sip, Icon Strike and Red Pen. To give Screensiz.es a try, check it out via the link below. ? Screensiz.es

There are many reasons you may want to create your own audiobook: Perhaps you are the author of your own book and want a version of your book spoken in your own words. You can even create an audio only version of a favorite family story spoken by the person that lived through the event and pass it down from one generation to the next.  For me it was a chance to capture my children’s voices while reading their favorite stories and nursery rhymes (for personal use, not for reselling of course).  Now when they grow up, they can play them back to their own children. Whatever your motivation, creating your own audiobook isn’t that difficult. The following will walk you through the steps necessary to record the spoken word, capture it in digital audio, and convert it into the audiobook format. Choosing a sound location Finding an acoustically sound location to record your reading sessions is probably the single most important decision you will have to make in this process. Annoying ambient noise, room echoes and outdoor wind can make for a poor recording. Provided you do not have your own private recording studio, a large closet packed full of clothes will prove to be your best bet. The material in the clothes will absorb most of the unwanted background noises as you record. Record with Apogee MiC and an iPad Choosing a decent microphone that can produce the sound results you are looking for is the second most important decision you will make. Considering the fact that you will be retreating to your closet to do most of your recording sessions, choosing one that works well with your portable iOS devices is recommended. The Apogee MiC ($199.95, Accessory) works extremely well with both the iPad and the Mac, and has a really great sound to it.  Using any external microphone is preferred over the onboard mic that comes with the iPad. To record your voice Apogee recommends using Apple’s own GarageBand for iOS ($4.99, Universal). When you first create a project in GarageBand, be sure to select Audio Recording as your instrument. GarageBand can also be configured to record in the background, which comes in handy when you are reading a book from your iBooks library. Offload recordings to iTunes As things progress and you continue to read your book you will want to offload your recorded sessions as GarageBand project files organized for each individual chapter. Follow a naming convention that makes sense to you from the start so you don’t get your recorded sessions out of order. To offload your recording from GarageBand on the iPad, you tap on the recording you want to save and then choose to share the file to your iTunes Library on your Mac.  Once the process is complete, you then must tether your iPad to your Mac and open iTunes on your Mac.  Select your iPad and navigate to the Apps tab.  By selecting GarageBand in the File Sharing section, you should see the individual recordings you shared.  Simply save them to your music folder on your Mac. Edit recorded audio with GarageBand on a Mac When you are recording, you may have extended sessions of brilliance. But not every session will be so great. Cutting and splicing your recordings together can best be accomplished with GarageBand ($14.99, Mac) on your Mac.  In GarageBand you can cut and splice your recorded sessions to remove any unwanted audio.  So you don’t have to worry too much about being interrupted or flubbing a sentence or two when you are making your original recording.  You can always cut it out later. Share each chapter’s project as a song GarageBand is a great tool when it comes to editing multiple tracks, one song at a time, or in this case one chapter at a time. But it is not so great when it comes to organizing multiple songs into an album, or in this case multiple chapters into a book.  Each GarageBand project should be thought of as an individual song.  This means that each book will need to have multiple GarageBand projects, one for each chapter.