This year has not been a kind one for Kodak. Last month, the photography pioneer announced that it was filing for bankruptcy (and suing Samsung, incidentally), and now the company has let it be known that it will be dropping out of the digital camera business — and then some — marking an end to its line of digital point-and-shoots, pocket camcorders and digital photo frames. Production will end the first half of this year. The future for the company will hold printers, brand licensing, enterprise services and photo labs. Kodak will, however, continue to honor warranties on existing products.

SOURCE via Reuters

A researcher at MIT is promising to pay $100,000 to the individual or group of individuals who can prove that the creation of a functional and scalable quantum computer is impossible.

The award was prompted by an article describing the views of a quantum computing skeptic and a proponent. As part of the discussion Scott Aaaronson was challenged to support his opinion with real money, which he now did.

Aaronson himself believes that scalable quantum computers will be possible one day and he does not think that he will ever be forced to pay out the reward. To critics, who said that his challenge is similar to being asked to prove that there is no Bigfoot, he replied that there may be future discoveries in physics that could provide evidence against the quantum computer model, which would be enough for someone being entitled to collect the prize.

Aaronson said that he does not expect this evidence to ever surface, but he “would welcome [it] as the scientific thrill of [his] life.” If he had to pay, he would consider it as an “honor” to do so: “For I’d then (presumably) simply be adding a little to the well-deserved Nobel Prize coffers of one of the greatest revolutionaries in the history of physics.”

In an update, Aaronson now challenged skeptics to put up a prize for “a demonstration that scalable quantum computing is possible.” He added that he is “certainly not offering such a prize.”

SOURCE via Scott Aaronson

We already knew that Nokia sits atop the world’s market when it comes to shipments and market share. As it turns out, though, the Finnish manufacturer leads the way in terms of mobile web browsing, too. That’s according to the latest report from StatCounter, which found that Nokia handsets account for about 40 percent of the world’s mobile browsing, followed by Apple, at around 29 percent. Coming in at a relatively distant third is Samsung, with an approximately 14 percent share. Android OEMs as a whole, however, account for a little under 25 percent of the world’s mobile browsing, while RIM came in at just 8.3 percent (thought it still ranks second in the UK, behind Apple). Overall, global mobile web usage has just about doubled every year since 2009, which is both crazy and not crazy.

SOURCE via Read Write Web

It took quite some time, and along with the shockingly high price tag which is quite a bit steeper than previously thought, but the FAA is finally getting the funding it needs to bring the United States’ air traffic control system up to date.

The US Congress has just passed the bill to make it happen, allotting $11 billion to the FAA to upgrade the nation’s 35 busiest airports air traffic controls from radar to GPS. The deadline for the conversion is June 2015, and when complete, it’ll allow for more precise positioning of aircraft — GPS pings for the planes’ locations every second, while radar updates their locations every 6 to 12 seconds.

With such technology enabled, airplanes will be able to take-off and land more closely together while utilizing steeper descents than is currently possible to conserve fuel.

SOURCE via Mobile Tech Today

It’s no secret that the rise of smartphones, tablets and social networking has fostered an entirely new market for app developers, but a freshly released study has now attempted to quantify this impact, in terms of real jobs.

According to TechNet, a bipartisan network of tech execs, the so-called “App Economy” has created an estimated 466,000 jobs since 2007, when the iPhone was first unveiled. The report specifies that this estimate includes all jobs at Facebook-focused companies like Zynga, as well as dev gigs at Amazon, AT&T and Electronic Arts, in addition to the obvious heavyweights, Apple and Google.

As far as geography goes, US state California leads the way as the most app-friendly state, though New York City tops the list of metropolitan areas. It’s not an entirely bi-coastal affair, though, with some two-thirds of all app-related jobs located outside of California and New York. TechNet acknowledges that the App Economy “is only four years old and extremely fluid,” so it’s likely that these numbers will fluctuate in the years to come, though the organization says these numbers underscore a fundamental principle: “Innovation creates jobs, and in this case, lots of them.”

Read the full report at the source link below.

SOURCE via TechNet(PDF)

Gianfranco Lanci may be gone from Acer, but the PC maker’s former chief is not forgotten — not financially, at least. The company is suing the exec over non-compete violations, after he jumped ship around this time last year. The exec recently landed a gig at Lenovo as head of its Europe, Middle East and Africa division, after doing some time as a consultant for the company. Acer filed the suit in Lanci’s native Italy, alleging that he “has clearly breached the terms” of the 12-month non-compete. No word yet on how much the company is seeking with the claim.

SOURCE via Financial Times

While Nintendo is darn proud of its attempts to differentiate itself from other console manufacturers with its unusual hardware choices, it looks like Sony also had plenty of touchscreen-toting, TV-connected ideas way back in 2010.

These patent sketches explain a handheld device that bares a foggy resemblance to Nintendo’s incoming Wii U. The “position-dependent gaming, 3-D controller, and handheld as a remote,” would act as the “input to a video game” — or controller, as we technical types like to call it — adding in some augmented reality functionality as an overlay to camera input on the device.

The PS Vita is already capable of doing most of what’s posited above, including the ability to hook up to its older (bigger) brother, the PS3 — possibly that anonymous box you can see above. If such a mystery device does appear, at least it looks like Sony’s got its bases covered, again.

SOURCE via Joystiq

According to the latest research from the NPD group, Apple has got its second wind in smartphone sales. In the same quarter that saw the iPhone 4S reinvent the wheel obey our every vocal whim, the trio of available models soaked up a total of 43 percent of the US smartphone market in Q4 2012, apparently gnawing away at Android’s market share of 53 percent held during the rest of 2011. However, Google’s mobile OS appears to be the debutante smartphone of choice, cornering 57 percent of new purchases, with 34 percent going for Apple.

The remaining 9 percent is distributed between the smartphone also-rans, with the likes of Windows Phone and BlackBerry languishing in that anonymous grey bar at the top. The top five handsets from NPD’s Mobile Phone Track service is an Apple and Samsung love-in, with iOS devices claiming the three top spots, followed by the Samsung Galaxy S II (we assume collectively) and the Galaxy S 4G.

SOURCE via NPD

The latest figures are in from IDC: the top three global smartphone makers are Nokia, Samsung and Apple, in that order. Drilling down into the figures finds some surprises: Cupertino’s third-place with only 8.7 percent of the market, while the giants of Korea and Finland are duking it out with 22.8 percent and 26.6 respectively. LG and ZTE are tied for fourth, but that’s hardly good news for Goldstar, given that it’s lost a staggering 42.2 percent of its market share in the last twelve months (Nokia was the other loser, eating 8.2 percent). The cause for the drop is in part the world’s rejection of feature-phones (dropped faster than fashionistas rightly abandoned Ugg Boots and Jeggings) as millions upgraded to smartphones. After the break we’ve got the tables in full for anyone who wants to have their mind blown at the sheer quantity of handsets shipped in the last year, both financial and calendar.

Top five mobile phone vendors, shipments and market share: Q4 2011 (Units in millions)

Top five mobile phone vendors, shipments and market share: Calendar Year 2011 (Units in Millions)

SOURCE via IDC

2011: the year Smartphones supplanted computers, at least according to the bundle of spreadsheets that just arrived from Canalys Research. Vendors shipped (shipped, not sold) 488 million of the devices, compared to 414.6 million “PCs,” which erroneously includes Tablet PCs of all shapes and sizes. Looking at Smartphones exclusively (IDC’s numbers from yesterday concerned all mobile handsets), Apple remains king of the hill having shipped 93.1million iPhones. Samsung is close behind, with 91.9 million and Nokia is kicking along in third with 19.6 million. For all of the doomsaying around RIM, it’s nestled in fourth, although Canalys chose not to include its numbers. Framing the research as “PCs versus Smartphones” isn’t the wisest, given the fragmentation and hybridization prevalent in the market today. Drilling down into those numbers, we learn that 63.2 million tablets were pushed out last year, cannibalizing netbook shipments (dropping 34.5 percent in a year), but desktop and laptop movements remained relatively stable. We’ve included the full report and the most relevant table of data for your perusal and insight (hint: there’s no points for saying netbooks are on the way out).

Worldwide Smartphone and Client PC Shipments (in millions)