Manufacturers of Android devices may have scoffed at the notion of a 64-bit smartphone when Apple unveiled the iPhone 5S last year, but those same hardware makers are apparently tripping over themselves to play catch-up now.DigiTimes today reported that Google's forthcoming Android L operating system appears to be moving up the timetable for adoption of 64-bit hardware capable of taking full advantage of it.According to unnamed industry sources, 64-bit CPUs could become "mainstream technology" for Android smartphones by the end of next year now that manufacturers have stepped up efforts to adopt the speedier architecture.Lenovo, K-Touch, Huawei, Vivo and HTC have all reportedly signed up for Qualcomm's 64-bit Snapdragon 610, 614 and/or 410 processors, which have been designed with rapid migration to Android L in mind.On your marks64-bit processors from rivals MediaTek and Samsung Electronics have already started making their way into the supply chain, with MediaTek's architecture reportedly already in the hands of "China-based handset vendors."Samsung apparently plans to keep its own 64-bit technology closer to home with in-house smartphones for the remainder of 2014, presumably expanding availability for other customers next year.Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Technologies also appears to have a roadmap to 64-bit already laid out, but sources claim those processors won't appear until the first half of 2015 at the earliest.Google still hasn't confirmed an official launch (or even a final name) for Android L, which could roll out next month at the earliest, suggesting many of the first handsets to ship with the OS upgrade may not take full advantage of what the software has to offer.Take a gander at our review of the Motorola Moto X (2014)!
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Monday, September 29, 2014
Android L reportedly accelerating race to 64-bit smartphones
Adobe to stream Photoshop to Chromebooks
For an operating system that lives mostly on the cloud, Chrome OS provides users with just about everything they need from working on documents to streaming video. But one crucial omission has always been a decent image editor - that is until now .Adob...
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It's time to bid good riddance to PlayStation Home
What did PlayStation Home ever do to you? Nothing, but that doesn't mean you'll be sorry to see it go.The PlayStation 3 social hub that let users spend real money on pointless crap for no reason will finally shut down on March 31, 2015, according to PlayStation Senior Community manager Paul Sullivan.Sullivan posted in the official PlayStation forums that the trickle of new PS Home content will cease on November 12, existing content will no longer be available to download for US and Canada users as of December 3, and the platform will shut down for good next year.In addition some form of new content will be released just before Sony flips the switch for good "as a token of our tremendous gratitude to the community," Sullivan said.Fly away, HomeHe blames the loss of Home on "a shifting landscape," which is to say, no particular reason besides that it was useless."PlayStation Home has been serving the PS3 community since December 2008," Sullivan wrote. "During that time, tens of millions of users around the world have grown the social gaming platform into a thriving community of creative and enthusiastic gamers."That's one way to look at it. Another is that PS Home was Sony's weird attempt to port Second Life to the PS3, but with more ads. Hopefully you didn't spend too much money on it.Now let's just pray Sony doesn't try to recreate the experiment on PS4.PS4 vs. Xbox One: which is better?
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Bottoms Up: Celebrate National Coffee Day With 25 Incredible Photos Of Latte Art
September 29 marks one of the best days of the year — a day everyone can celebrate — National Coffee Day! It’s just one of those national holidays where people can be thankful for the one reason their lives aren’t completely in shambles. If it weren’t for that cup of coffee you had this morning, […]
Bottoms Up: Celebrate National Coffee Day With 25 Incredible Photos Of Latte Art
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Red Sox Player’s Wife Posted Perfect Tweet After Her Husband Acted Like A Fanboy Around Derek Jeter
Derek Jeter is so popular and renowned, wives are willing to publicly throw their husbands under the bus for the New York Yankees legend. That’s exactly what happened when one Boston Red Sox player seemed a little too eager to share Jeter’s last moments on a baseball diamond. Sox pitcher Joe Kelly took this selfie with the […]
Red Sox Player’s Wife Posted Perfect Tweet After Her Husband Acted Like A Fanboy Around Derek Jeter
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Why One Man Defected From ISIS — Then Went To War Against It In Syria
Hopes of defeating ISIS may depend on local fighters like this one turning against the group. It’s not something in which the U.S. or its allies have much say. News’ Mike Giglio reports from the Turkey-Syria border.
Women pray next to the graves of their relatives in a cemetery in Idlib province.
Nour Kelze / Reuters
GAZIANTEP, Turkey — It took the deaths of innocent men, women, and children, right before his eyes, for one extremist fighter to turn against his comrades-in-arms.
The 26-year-old Syrian — who fights under the nom de guerre Abu Omar — was a seasoned soldier in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the militant group now at the center of U.S. airstrikes.
But before the group entered America's crosshairs, it faced an internal war from other rebels in Syria. Those rebels turned on ISIS — which is dominated by foreigners at its top levels, but counts many Syrians among its ranks — early this year, citing its brutality against locals. They accused ISIS of caring more about imposing its extreme brand of Islam on Syrians than fighting the regime.
Abu Omar believed in ISIS, though, seeing it as a force for freedom from the Bashar al-Assad regime, and one that also upheld his conservative religious values. When ISIS began to fight other rebel groups, his commanders told him it was because those rebels were against both Islam and the Syrian revolution. Abu Omar believed them.
Then he took a short vacation in his home village in the province of Idlib one day this spring. While he was relaxing at home, ISIS began to attack the village, which was guarded by a local rebel group that wanted to keep it free from the extremists' control. Rebels and civilians alike were killed in the bloodshed — including children from Abu Omar's own extended family.
Suddenly he believed the worst of the allegations swirling around ISIS — that it was primarily concerned not with overthrowing the regime but with bending those Syrians living in opposition-held territory to its will, whatever the cost.
In a rage, he placed a phone call to his commander. "Innocent people have been killed," he said.
The ISIS commander asked Abu Omar to return to his unit. He also asked what he could do to make up for his family's loss. "There is no solution," Abu Omar said.
He rushed to join the village rebels on the frontlines against ISIS, taking a bullet to the arm in the fight. He and the other fighters were able to keep their village free.
But defecting from ISIS was far from an easy decision, even though he no longer believed in the group. He knew it would make him a prime target for retribution — ISIS reserves a special wrath for those who leave. As another young ISIS defector told NPR recently: "If you turn against ISIS, they will kill you."
While Abu Omar fought ISIS to defend his village, he knew that other men from his hometown, who remained with the group, were participating in the attack.
On the other hand, Abu Omar's former affiliation with ISIS remains a stigma to other Syrians even now. On a recent afternoon, as he ate lunch with a group of Syrian activists in Gaziantep, a Turkish city near the Syrian border, they ribbed him for his previous ties to the group. There was bite to the humor — as if the men were still suspicious of Abu Omar for his ISIS past.
Yet the scar on Abu Omar's arm attested to his commitment to fighting ISIS — and it's a war, for him, that continues to this day. Abu Omar is now a member of a rebel group that fights ISIS regularly.
Despite U.S.-led efforts to combat ISIS in Syria, it may be people like Abu Omar who determine how much the fight succeeds — those who have decided to leave ISIS, or even turn against it, because of the cold-blooded extremism they've seen with their own eyes.
International recriminations of ISIS did nothing to turn Abu Omar against it — he was wary even of having a U.S. journalist join him for lunch.
But his views were hardened against the group all the same. Asked for his opinion of ISIS now, Abu Omar gave a terse reply: "real terrorism."
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Ukraine's Biggest Lenin Statue Is Brought Down, But Not Everyone Is Happy
According to one count, 168 Lenin statues have been toppled since the start of Ukraine’s protests. News’ Max Seddon reports from Kiev.
Stringer / Reuters
KIEV, Ukraine — As the grinder sawed through the legs of Europe's largest Lenin statue on Saturday, causing the massive granite structure to land on its face, hundreds of protesters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv waved Ukrainian flags, leapt for joy, and scrambled to break off souvenirs.
The euphoria of the surprise assault on the statue of the first Soviet leader, however, could barely mask deep tensions between hardcore pro-Ukrainian activists, the police, and the government, highlighting the difficulty the country faces in remaining united while shaking off its stagnant, corrupt past.
Several hundred pro-Ukrainian activists and soccer fans gathered early Sunday evening and spent several hours trying to pull down the statue with a cable.
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