Re-views.org | LEGO Mindstorms ready for Tuesday space launch
Posted by Reviews in Electronics, Gadgets, Uncategorized on 07 29th, 2008
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of LEGO Mindstorms, a group of professors, middle-school students, and corporate nerds will be launching several Mindstorms robots into near-space. The High Altitude LEGO Extravaganza (HALE) project will set the robots aloft in an atmospheric weather balloon shortly before sunrise this morning outside of Reno, Nevada. At about 100,000 feet (30km) the balloon will burst and the robots will parachute back to terra firma collecting data and photographs along the way. One robot named Lil’ Joe will attempt a world record free-fall decent before deploying its parachute on a pre-programmed schedule. Mind you, the world record is attributable to Mindstorms NXT free-fall, a title we expect is currently held by your little brother sleeping upstairs.
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read comments (0)Re-views.org | Microsoft takes in $60b, sells 180m Vista licenses since launch.
Posted by Reviews in Uncategorized on 07 20th, 2008
Microsoft’s been touting its “fastest annual revenue growth since 1999,” which resulted in a princely $60.42 billion dollars in its last fiscal year, but the number that has us rapt? Vista licenses sold since launch about 18 months ago: 180m. Damn, not too shabby a clip — especially considering that they moved 20m licenses moved in month one, 40m licenses moved after the first 100 days, and 140m licenses by last April. But at roughly 10m licenses per month, that means Vista’s still a couple years out before it surpasses XP, and with a bit of luck, by then we’ll have already moved on to Windows 7.
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Re-views.org | Sony Ericsson sees net profits fall 97%, looks to cut 2000 jobs.
Posted by Reviews in Uncategorized on 07 18th, 2008
Sony Ericsson warned the world just over a fortnight ago that things wouldn’t be too rosy when it came time to announce Q2 results, and rosy things are not. Even though the handset maker was hoping and praying to break even at the end of the quarter, net profits ended up falling through the floor to the tune of 97%. As predicted, weak sales of mid-to-high-end mobiles were blamed for the bulk of the bad news, and it did affirm that conditions would remain rough for the rest of the year. Granted, the looming launch of the Xperia X1 should help matters a bit, but without a new stable of low-end cellies to send to emerging markets, it’ll be a long road back to the top. Unfortunately, SE’s sagging position in the market has left it slashing 2,000 jobs across the globe, though it didn’t say exactly where the cuts would be made. It’s okay SE, there’s only one place to go when you’re laying on the bottom… or something like that.
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