Apple News: Should Apple TV users be excited about the Apple Watch event?
Apple will be hosting (and live streaming) an event on March 9. Judging by Apple’s track record of cryptic invites, the “Spring Forward” tagline shouts out that the event will be mostly about the Apple Watch. But there are some goodies hidden somewhere here for us Apple TV users, too. First of all, let’s hope for Apple TV 4. While Apple Watch is sure to take the center stage, the possibility of an Apple TV refresh cannot be ruled out yet. Apple’s beloved ex-hobby device‘s refresh is too much delayed and reliable rumors point to an imminent launch. As iMore’s Rene Ritchie notes, the Spring event of 2012 is when we saw the last Apple TV get announced and he wouldn’t be surprised if it takes the stage this year as well.
Read full story => AppleTvHacks
Technology News: A superconductor advance using ‘superatoms’
USC scientists may have discovered a family of superconductor materials called superatoms that could lead to room-temperature supercomputers. A team led by Vitaly Kresin, professor of physics at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, found that aluminum “superatoms” — homogenous clusters of atoms — appear to form Cooper pairs of electrons (one of the key elements of superconductivity) at temperatures around 100 Kelvin. Though 100 Kelvin is about –280 degrees Fahrenheit — not quite room temperature, it’s a significant increase compared to bulk aluminum metal, which turns superconductive only near 1 Kelvin (–457 degrees Fahrenheit). “This may be the discovery of a new family of superconductors, and raises the possibility that other types of superatoms will be capable of superconductivity at even warmer temperatures,” said Kresin, corresponding author of a paper on the finding published by Nano Letters on Jan. 28.
Read full story => Kurzweil
Programming News: If Programming Languages Were Beer
We were surprised the other day when we realized that If Programming Languages were <T> didn’t have a category for beer. It seemed like such a tragic mistake, so I naturally started a shared doc at Appirio and began to collect ideas. Here’s what we came up with. Let us know if we missed anything. Basic is the O’Doul’s of programming. A premium non-alcoholic beer and you can throw down a lot of this stuff, but no one will notice any results except how often you use the restroom.
Read full story => JeffDouglas
Photography News: How’d He Do That? A Technical Breakdown of the Perfect Shot
Think those gorgeous National Geographic photos happen easily? Photographer Charlie Hamilton James breaks down a recent shoot of a belted kingfisher—and all the work that went in to getting the perfect shot. I’m obsessed with kingfishers. I have been since I was seven years old, and to date I have shot and written two books on them, as well as one National Geographic magazine article. So when I find a belted kingfisher nest on a recent assignment for National Geographic in Wyoming—there’s no choice, I have to photograph it. Fortunately, I’m covering the wildlife of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem for a special issue, and my job is specifically to shoot cutthroat trout and their predators—one of which is the belted kingfisher.
Read full story => NationalGeographic
