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The site says Intel's new Thunderbolt controller, code-named Alpine Ridge, will see power consumption reduced by 50 percent, support for PCIe generation-3, and charging capacities of up to 100 watts. Backward compatibility will be maintained through the use of connector adapters, but the new Thunderbolt connector itself will be reduced in size.
Last April, Intel first announced Thunderbolt 2 in April before seeing it move to the Mac in October. There is no indication of when the third-generation of Thunderbolt could make its way to consumers.
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Back in January, a couple turned to the Internet to help name their new baby.
The husband set up a site — NameMyDaughter — for people to vote on their favorite names. There was a caveat, however, as the site explains:
Hi, My name is Stephen and much to the disbelief of my wife, I have decided to let the internet name* my daughter. Yeah that is an asterisk, Unfortunately internet I know better than to trust you. We will ultimately be making the final decision, Alas my daughter shall not be named WackyTaco692. Sorry guys the wife wouldn't go for a free for all.
And it seems the Internet didn't disappoint.
The winning name was Cthulu All-Spark — with Cthulu being the first name, All-Spark being her middle name, obviously — but fortunately for everyone involved, that name was vetoed by the parents for a much prettier Amelia Savannah Joy McLaughlin. She was born on April 7.
Amelia was the second favorite first name out of 150,000 votes, according to Global News. Amelia's mother, Kathryn, gave a nod to the Internet's favorite, though, in a Facebook post: "All bow down to the great and powerful Cthulhu," she wrote, according to Global News.
Cthulhu is a fictional monster that first appeared in a sci-fi story in 1928, called "The Call of Cthulhu." It's often depicted as having a tentacled mouth, wings, clawed hands and scaly skin.
Absurd. Like seriously. Look at this fleet of Blue Angels fighter jet planes fly in a perfect pattern in a practice session. The flight pattern they were practicing, I'm assuming here, is called "Let's get these flying metal beasts as close as possible so that one inch of a mistake will kill us all". I mean the wing of one plane is right on top of a the cockpit of the other. Nuts, these guys.
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-- For more information read the original article here.
New details about architect Norman Foster's design for Apple's Cupertino HQ have been slow to leak, but a new video from Unofficially Apple gives us the most detailed look so far. This building is going to have everything: Native trees! Solar panels! Crazy circular desk spaces!
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-- For more information read the original article here.
On the eve of Earth Day, Apple is doing a big media push to highlight its environmental progress.
As part of that push, it gave Wired writer Steven Levy access to its new environmental executive, Lisa Jackson.
Jackson left her job as head of the Environmental Protection Agency a few months ago. He reports directly to CEO Tim Cook.
Most of Apple's plans for becoming greener started before her time, but Jackson is now holding Apple's environmental feet to the fire, helping it to green up its manufacturing processes, says Wired's Levy.
Apple used to be a pretty big data center polluter, according to Greenpeace who for years targeted Apple with demonstrations and petitions asking it to clean up its act.
Today Apple's data centers, the place that runs iCloud, use 100% renewable energy, earning praise from that very same environmental watchdog, Greenpeace. In a report last month, Greenpeace wrote: "Apple's commitment to renewable energy has helped set a new bar for the industry, illustrating in very concrete terms that a 100% renewable internet is within its reach."
Apple is now trying to power all of its facilities with renewable energy, including its stores and is making commendable progress.
In 2013, 73% of the energy it used for its facilities was green: 86% at corporate campuses, 100% for its data centers. So far in 2014, more than 120 U.S. retail stores are using renewable energy, too, it says.
While all of that can make you feel better about using iCloud for your email and photos, or visiting the Apple Genius bar, Jackson isn't as easily satisfied.
Most of Apple's carbon footprint actually comes from manufacturing devices like iPads, iPhones and Macs, not from powering its buildings. In 2013, Apple's facilities produced .6 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions while manufacturing produced 23.6 metric tons, it said.
Jackson, who reports directly to CEO Tim Cook in her role of vice president of Environmental Initiatives, is working on that bigger, harder problem.
For instance, last year an engineer told her that Apple's use of aluminum, a major material for its products, was having more of an environmental impact than Apple thought it was. She pressed for new ways to measure that impact even though it meant that Apple's 2013 environmental report couldn't show the kind of progress the company wanted.
She told Wired's Levy: "We should challenge the most innovative company—which I think Apple is–to do everything it wants, but do it better. To give you all the data you could possibly want, but none of the emissions that go along with it.”
If she and the engineers at Apple could figure that out – and the sooner the better – the whole world will be a lot better off.
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iBEACON GAINS TRACTION, WITH POTENTIAL TO DISRUPT. Slowly but surely, Apple's iBeacon appears to be gaining traction, a development with disruptive potential for the payments ecosystem. The technology, which uses battery-friendly Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and geofencing to detect nearby devices and exchange data with them, got a major boost with iOS 7.1, which quietly upgraded iBeacon to allow it to communicate with apps even when they're closed. Last week, chip maker Texas Instruments announced that it would integrate iBeacon compatibility across its BLE product line, “enabling manufacturers to quickly add micro-locationing capabilities to their products.” By the end of 2014, over 30,000 retailers will have beacons installed, one study predicts.
Beacons have the potential to disrupt on several fronts, and iBeacon is in pole position. We've estimated that there are over 200 million currently deployed iPhones and iPads capable of acting as or receiving signals from iBeacons. That kind of infrastructure could pave the way for a much-anticipated mobile payment app from Apple, which as we reported last week, could be based on a combination of near-field communication (NFC) and BLE. But PayPal is also racing to get its own beacons in the field. As PayPal CEO David Marcus noted on the company's blog last week: “The proliferation of BLE chips in devices will enable the industry to create very precise, fast, and secure shopping and payment experiences.” (BI Intelligence)
SQUARE COULD BE LOOKING FOR A BUYER: Square, the company whose mobile card reader is used by over one million merchants, could be up for sale after incurring mounting losses of $100 million last year, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Google has apparently discussed a possible acquisition, as have PayPal and Apple, though all companies deny the talks have taken place. The report notes that while Square has been highly successful getting merchants to adopt its hardware, the company operates on razor-thin margins, taking a 2.75% cut of all transactions, and then paying back about 80% of that to the major payments networks. (Wall Street Journal)
FORMER MONEYGRAM EXEC FACES ‘UNPRECEDENTED' $5M FINE. Thomas Haider, former chief compliance officer at MoneyGram, has been ordered to meet with U.S. Treasury Department officials early next month to face a potential $5 million fine, Reuters reports. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network wants to hold Haider personally liable for compliance lapses at MoneyGram that it says occurred under his watch.
In 2012, MoneyGram admitted it aided in wire fraud and failed to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, forfeiting $100 million in a settlement agreement. “A multi-million dollar penalty against a person accused of playing a role in an institution's anti-laundering failures would be unprecedented,” writes Reuters' -- For more information read the original article here.
Move over, Google Fiber. There's (maybe) a new gigabit internet game in town, and it's (maybe) coming to 100 cities and municipalities by way through AT&T, at some point in the future. Maybe.
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-- For more information read the original article here.