Searching within Windows, much like tackling the Task Manager, has always one of the most nightmarish components. It was ugly, disorganized, and slow. Not anymore. Part of Microsoft’s “now Windows is actually pretty great” initiative means making search un-horrible. Finally.
To be fair, the new search looks (and operates) a lot like OS X’s Spotlight: instant indexing, suggested results, and file type sorting. But the smoothness with which you can slide from the traditional Windows desktop to the Metro-fied Start Menu is terrific, and gives you a fullscreen look at what’s inside your computer, and a fast means of grabbing ahold of it. Settings, movies, programs—all available from one search pane. It’s great design, and another part of why I’m excited as hell for Windows 8. Something I never thought I’d write.
Despite being on the verge of death for quite some time, PC Mag reports Steve Jobs worked on Apple’s future products on literally his last day alive.
The story is relayed by Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese telecom Softbank, who was meeting with Tim Cook the day of the 4S launch. The meeting was cut short by a call from Jobs, who pulled Cook to discuss secret products he’d never live to see. Nobody knows for sure what took place on that call except Tim Cook himself, but it does lend credence to the idea of a Steve Jobs Four Year Master Plan.
At the very least, we’ll know that whatever the next big Apple mystery is, it’ll be imbued with the thoughtfulness of Jobs. The iPhone 5 likely has his fingerprints all over it. But again, we might never know.
The iPhone 4S’s Siri is sassy and she’s everybody’s new favorite toy, but it turns out she’s leaving the door open for strangers to access information on your phone even when it’s passcode locked. Siri! How could you?
By default, users can activate Siri (iOS 5′s new digital assistant) even when the iPhone 4S is passcode locked, which is incredibly convenient if it’s you that’s using your phone. But, as CNET is reporting, if someone else gets their hands on your phone, it could be very dangerous. Anyone who picks up your phone could get it to reveal your upcoming calendar appointments and know exactly where you are going to be and when. It can also be used to send emails or text messages.
There are some limitations. While it’s passcode locked you can’t launch any apps, and you can’t send texts or emails to anyone who isn’t in your contacts, so that kind of thing could only be abused by someone who knows you, but I don’t find that particularly comforting.
The good news is that this can be disabled. In the Passcode Lock settings, all you have to do is switch Siri to “Off”. You’ll still be able to use Siri, just not when the phone is locked. Basically, you have to choose between convenience and security, but that’s your call. Still, this should be opt-in, rather than opt out, and that default setting is something we would definitely like to see them change in the next update.
Over on Google+, Google engineer and publisher Rob Pike announced that longtime colleague Dennis Ritchie, father of the “C” programming language, has died at age 70. According to Pike, Ritchie passed away at his home on Saturday, October 8, following a long illness.
“I trust there are people here who will appreciate the reach of his contributions and mourn his passing appropriately,” Pike said. “He was a quiet and mostly private man, but he was also my friend, colleague, and collaborator, and the world has lost a truly great mind.”
Bell Labs president Jeong Kim backed up the report with an official statement he released to employees on Thursday. “Dennis was well loved by his colleagues at Bell Labs, and will be greatly missed,” Kim said. “He was truly an inspiration to all of us, not just for his many accomplishments, but because of who he was as a friend, an inventor, and a humble and gracious man.”
The DeLorean DMC-12, yes that would be Doc Brown’s time travel machine in the Back to the Future series, is set to return. The iconic sports car could resurface as an electric vehicle in 2013.
Initial information suggests that the new DMC-12 EV will be vastly more powerful than the rather underwhelming 130 hp model that was built between 1981 and 1982. This EV will get a 260 hp electric motor that will be good for a limited top speed of 125 mph. Apparently, the overall shape will not change, which means that the DMC-12 could still get a fiberglass underbody, stainless steel panels as well as gull-wing doors.
The price should be somewhere between $90,000 and $100,000 according to one report. The DMC-12 sold back in 1981 for $25,000, which would be the equivalent of about $62,000 today.
The new DeLorean will not be manufactured under the guidance of its creator, John DeLorean, but by Stephen Wynne, who founded DeLorean motor Company in 1995 and acquired the rights to the name and logo shortly therafter. Despite its intriguing design, the DMC-12 never lived up to its claims of being a true sports car. Its 0-60 mph performance was around 10 seconds. The electric model should do considerably better.
Google has decided that the trade-off of higher latency for increased security when running searches is worth it. While there has been an SSL-enabled search for more than a year now, it was never the default. Google announced on its official blog that it would be phasing the SSL feature in as the default setting for users who are signed in to a Google account over the next few weeks.
Attempts to access http://www.google.com will be redirected to https://www.google.com. Note that other localized Google search engines, such as Google UK and Google AU, do not yet appear to have working SSL implementations. However, it is quite common for features to be rolled out to these at a much later date.
Google says that it wants to protect personalized search results from snooping eyes connected to unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots. For this reason the new SSL-based search is optionally accessible to users who are logged out or who don’t even have a Google account. Of course that’s merely a side benefit compared to the real reason that this is being rolled out.
Upon clicking a search result using a a standard, insecure connection, the search query is passed to the website being accessed. Sometimes this is used to highlight the keywords on the page with gaudy colors that make it difficult to read. More importantly, the search term is collected by page scripts – particularly Google Analytics – and used by the website owners to determine what search terms they are primarily being found under and what content is generating the most traffic.
SSL changes everything.
No longer will Google Analytics data let website owners know what search terms were used to bring a person to their websites – at least not for logged-in Google account users. What it will provide is the number of users who came to the site via an SSL-enabled search. After conducting some research using a site whose Analytics data I have access to, I found that, rather than displaying the keyword information, these visits will simply appear in the dashboard’s Keywords section as “(not provided)”. This mirrors the findings some others as well. So while you won’t see a sudden and unexpected collapse in your traffic, the data that you receive in Google Analytics will have been stripped of any context or meaning, other than that it came from Google.
Fortunately, Google’s benevolence prevails and the search engine giant will still provide basic aggregate information about the top search terms that provided traffic to the site from the previous 30 days via its Webmaster Tools.
From an end user perspective, is this a win for privacy? Partially, yes. However, there is a small detail in the official blog post that may easily be overlooked. Google will still be passing on the search query for AdWords (paid search results). Those who are willing to pay for your search terms are still going to get them regardless of how much encryption Google throws at its users. Whether this is an attempt at causing dodgy SEOs more pain than being hit by a giant Panda or a way of pushing more people to AdWords is anyone’s guess. Regardless of the motive, it will cause headaches for website owners, especially if it is eventually rolled out as the default for users who are not logged in.
Tuesday Cadence Design Systems and ARM announced the “tape out” of the industry’s first 20-nm design based on the ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore processor. This means the artwork for the chip’s final design — its photomask used for manufacturing — was sent to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and used to create the first test chip. Now customers like Nvidia can create their own Cortex-A15 processor-based SoCs using the “gone gold” design.
Targeting TSMC’s 20-nm process, the design was jointly developed by engineers from ARM, Cadence and TSMC using a Cadence RTL-to-signoff flow. Cadence said that Tuesday’s milestone announcement is the result of an 18 month collaboration between ARM and Cadence on optimized design flows for the Cortex-A15 processor.
“The Cortex-A15 is our most advanced ARM processor to date,” said Mike Inglis, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Processor Division, ARM. “The test chip is an important milestone in ARM’s preparations to enable partners using Cadence design flows and targeting TSMC’s advanced process nodes. The joint development and 20-nm process node requirements necessitated a deep collaboration between the three companies. We look forward to evolving our relationship with Cadence to develop and deploy Cortex-A15 and several other ARM processors.”
The collaboration is part of a multi-year technology agreement signed by ARM and Cadence that will provide ARM engineering teams with ongoing access to Cadence products. Both teams will work together to unsure that ARM processors and Cadence’s design flows are optimized to work together.
“This important collaboration milestone enables customers to design Cortex-A15 processor-based designs at the most advanced process nodes,” said Chi-Ping Hsu, Senior Vice President, Research and Development, Silicon Realization Group at Cadence. “We intend to expand this collaborative model in working with ARM on the Cortex-A15 and other processor development.”
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