New iPad review 03/17/2012
 

With a breathtaking display and big hardware upgrades, does the tablet king retain its crown? 

- Pictures from the Verge -
The moment Tim Cook took the stage and announced the new iPad on March 7th in San Francisco, I immediately started brainstorming on my review for the device. There are clear challenges in comparing generational, iterative products like the iPad — especially when the devices themselves look nearly identical. Looks, of course, are really only half the story with the new iPad (side note: the name is just "iPad," though Apple seems to be using "new" quite liberally). In fact, looks may not be the story at all.

While the device does appear to be physically nearly identical to its predecessor, there are significant changes in the product. For starters, it's boasting that outrageous Retina display — its 9.7-inch screen delivering a whopping 2048 x 1536 resolution. The new iPad is also equipped with a greatly improved camera on its back (a 5 megapixel shooter, not unlike the one featured on the iPhone 4), new 4G LTE options (for both Verizon and AT&T), and a considerably more powerful processor.

After the event last Wednesday, amongst the praise you could also detect a distinct sentiment of disappointment — mostly from the press. Much like the fallout after the introduction of the last iPhone, there were questions: Why does it look the same? No quad-core processor? Has Apple lost its edge? Yet despite the questions, pre-orders seem to be record breaking (just as with the iPhone 4S).

But is the iPad as good as it needs to be? Has Apple made the right moves, or is it slipping behind the competition? Most importantly, does the new iPad successfully defend the last version's reputation as the King of Tablets? I'll answer all those questions, and more, in this review — so read on!

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So, what'd you have in the office pool? iPad 3, iPad 2S, iPad HD? Doesn't matter, really. All that matters is that it's here! This is the next generation of Apple's iOS slate and, as usual, she's a beaut -- and yes, she's still rockin' a physical button. As was rumored this thing is packing a Retina display, potentially making this the most pixel-packed slate on the market. The 9.7-inch screen plays host to 3.1 million pixels in a 2048 x 1536 arrangement -- that's 264ppi. It's not just a higher resolution though, the screen also boasts improved color saturation. Of course, what would a new iPad be without some updated guts. The new model has an A5X processor and quad-core graphics chip. Apple even claims its newest sliver of silicon can deliver four times the performance of a Tegra 3 -- we'd say dems fightin' words.
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Windows 8 might be a gamechanger for tablets, but it's designed for desktops too. How does it fare with a keyboard and mouse? 

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Windows 8 Metro Start Menu There's a mix of Metro apps (the brightly-colored ones like Photos, Store, and Weather) and regular Windows programs (like Internet Explorer) in this new Start screen. Dan Nosowitz
Since Windows 7, Microsoft's been busily honing the interface for Windows tablets, which uses a bold bunch of squares and rectangles in flat neon colors and has been christened "Metro." Windows 8--undoubtedly the biggest change to the operating system in a few generations--finally brings Metro to the desktop. So how does it work with a keyboard and mouse?

Windows 8 integrates Metro with what in reality is a barely-changed version of Windows 7, with all the programs and behavior we've gotten familiar with for the past decade or two. It sounds disjointed, but functionally, after using it for a minute, I see what Microsoft is doing here, and it makes sense. For tablet users, Metro is everything. For desktop users, it's essentially Microsoft's new Start menu.

On a tablet, Metro is highly touchable, with big buttons and swipey gestures and pretty bright colors. Apps run in full-screen, with the additional option of sticking an app in a quarter of the screen on the left or right (great for stuff like Twitter or an instant-message client). On a desktop, Metro's still useful, but it's not where you'll spend most of your time. A desktop user triggers Metro by clicking, from anywhere, on the lower left-hand corner of the screen (or by hitting the Windows button on your keyboard), and there you are: home base.

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Despite operating within the profit-driven world of consumer technology, Apple has often maintained a distinctly rebellious public persona. Launched by two former telephone hackers Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (in addition to Ronald Wayne), Apple forged their own path by ignoring the status quo and offering such innovations as the first widespread GUI and desktop publishing software which was easy for anyone to use.

As Apple lost a series of running battles with Microsoft over market share and the company faced a number of vicissitudes, Apple embraced their underdog status and turned their near destruction into a rallying cry. Never had a technology company made financial disaster seem so cool and owning an Apple computer could feel like being part of an exclusive club. However, as Steve Jobs and co guided Apple back from the brink to renewed success, there is a perception that perhaps they lost something of their free-thinking spirit along the way, that Apple have become part of the establishment which they once so gleefully ignored.

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Why Is Everyone Talking About Sony's New Gaming Device?

The PlayStation Vita reviews are in, and it seems we have a winner. February 22nd is the Vita's mainstream launch date, but pricier early-bird bundles are shipping this week. Sony's betting hard that it can woo gamers back from their phones with actual hardware (and not just terrible commercials). Still, the PS Vita does have some features that mobile lovers have gotten used to -- the five-inch AMOLED screen acts as a touchscreen device and it packs a built-in GPS. With its standard array of console-style buttons, analog and direction pad controllers, and a touch-sensitive back panel, this thing's not lacking for input.
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A Tennessee man, Marvin Potter (on the right), is in police custody tonight, charged with two counts of first degree murder in the shooting deaths of a couple who had unfriended his 30-year-old daughter on the popular social site.

The murderous spat began when Billy Payne Jr. and his girlfriend, Billie Jean Hayworth, unfriended Potter's 30-year-old daughter Jenelle. According to police, Jenelle began harassing the couple in the week leading up to the shooting on January 31st.
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This luxury watch concept named “Ringen” was created by French designer Marc Tran. It was inspired by the perfect roundness of balls and automotive shapes. The watch is composed mostly of white gold, but the blue disc that represents the hours is made of brushed, anodized aluminum and adds a touch of youth to the overall design. A blue ball, representing 2 minutes, is moved along a horizontal progression of black slats. An additional blue ball orbits the face to displace seconds. Pretty creative watch concept! Take a look! 
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When electronic components bite the dust, there’s very little you can do. Unlike a leaky pipe or broken piece of plastic, it’s not like you can tear off a piece of duct tape and fix a cracked or failed microchip. Best case scenario is you replace it, but if it’s an integrated part or a discontinued chip, you might have to replace the whole device. Bummer. But what if a chip could heal itself?

It sounds like science fiction, but a team of engineers at the University of Illinois claim they’ve “developed a self-healing system that restores electrical conductivity to a cracked circuit in less time than it takes to blink.”
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As part of IBM's "5 in 5" forecasts of predictions, the company says that "minding reading" (more like mind control) will no longer be a science fiction dream and that within five years, we'll all be controlling our computers and smartphones by just wiggling our brains.

While Apple focuses on speech technology with Siri, IBM believes the next revolution will involve our brains. To tackle and make mind control a reality, we'd all need to wear something like Emotiv's EPOC neuroheadset that's equipped with sensors that read electrical brain signals. 
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Three years ago, a Navy study showed UAV pilots were suffering from the stresses of their job. Three years later, nothing has changed—and that's very bad news.
The Air Force study, Reuters reports, says that 17 percent of US-based drone pilots are showing signs of "clinical distress"—an ambiguous but unsettling diagnosis.

The pilots are understaffed and overworked—but hey, so are most American employees, you might say. But think of it like this: most American employees aren't remotely piloting drones that kill Taliban and spy on Iranian nuclear facilities. These are rigorous tasks, to say the least, even if they're done in some air conditioned office in the US. Lives depend on the decisions made by these pilots, and if they make the wrong decisions—say, identifying the wrong man as an insurgent because everyone is too damn tired and stressed to tell the different—the wrong life ends.

Three years later, this is also a much more prominent, rigorous task—America is out of Iraq, and drones are at the fore throughout the mideast. They're an increasingly popular, palatable way to wage war. So we should be increasingly sure that these remote pilots aren't going to snap, or at the very least, use poor judgment—because poor judgment in this case involves firing hellfire missiles at tiny people from very, very far away.
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