Samsung Galaxy S5 Release Could Be As Early As Q1 2014

With the launch of Apple’s iPhone 5S now behind us, there are a number of rumors circulation around that their old friends and enemies over at Samsung could have their latest phone out as early as Q1 next year. Samsung’s Galaxy S5, which is as one would expect the successor to the popular S4, could be rolling off the production line in the early parts of January 2014, just a matter of months after the S4 was released. Not only does this mean that current S4 owners will see their handsets being classed as an ‘old model’ not even a year after they purchased them, but this could also mean that the new handset will launch just before the period when we predict Apple could start shedding light on the iPhone 5S’ successor.

Whilst there is no concrete information as to what will be packed inside the S5, naturally there is a list of specifications circulating around that would make this handset like no other. Like the latest iPhone, there is reported to be tow versions of the new handset coming off the production line; one in plastic shell and the other not surprisingly in a metal outfit. Packed inside the handset, a 64-bit quad-core processor could be paired up with 3GB of RAM and with a 4000mAh battery powering a 5″ display that packs around 560 pixels per inch, the display could potentially be one of the best we have seen to date. That is not all though, this display is rumored to also be flexible – something that are yet to see in a smart phone and to round off the package, a 16MP camera will capture the moment perfectly.

Samsung has not made any comment regarding the rumored specifications, nor is there any word on pricing, but there is probably going to be a strong possibility that Apple will have something to say about the S5 in one way or another. Anyone willing to start a bet on what Apple will take Samsung to court over next? Give us your thoughts below.

Image source: Concept-Phones

News source: The Telegraph

Deciwatt GravityLight

Deciwatt GravityLight 

GravityLight

By taking advantage of an immutable force, the GravityLight may be the most reliable electric light source of all. A person simply lifts a 22-pound bag of ballast up to the base of the device; the weight falls over a period of 30 minutes, pulling a strap that spins gears and drives a motor, which continuously powers an LED. Peripheral LEDs can be attached to focus light on certain spots. DeciWatt is field-testing units to replace kerosene lamps in developing countries and plans to sell them there for $10 next year.

Ford 1.0-Liter EcoBoost

Ford 1.0-Liter EcoBoost 

Ford

With three cylinders and less than one liter of displacement, Ford’s EcoBoost is smaller than many motorcycle engines. Yet it still produces 123 horsepower and 148 pound-feet of torque. Direct injection, variable-valve timing, and a turbocharger that spins at a lofty 248,000 rpm allow higher engine pressures and more complete combustion, which squeezes more energy from each drop of fuel. As a result, the new EcoBoost is even more powerful than the larger engine it’s replacing: the 1.6-liter four-cylinder in the Ford Fiesta hatchback. Fuel consumption should improve to 41 mpg or more on the highway. $17,500 (est.)

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 

Chevrolet

Speed tends to cost a lot. But the 190mph Corvette Stingray matches the technology and performance of much pricier sports cars, including $250,000-and-up Ferraris and Lamborghinis, with a $51,995 sticker price. The car’s chassis is aluminum; the body panels, composite. A 460-horsepower V8 engine pushes the Stingray to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds.

STATS

Top speed: 190 mph

Fuel economy: Up to 30 mpg

Price: $51,995

Motorola Moto X

Motorola Moto X 

Motorola

You can ask your smartphones to do a lot of things—remind you to pick up the dry cleaning, check for traffic on your commute home. But with the Moto X, you don’t have to ask. The handset uses your preferences and Google Now to learn your patterns and cater to them. It may mute notifications when you don’t need to see them or respond to text messages while you’re driving. The more you use it, the better it gets.$200 (with two-year contract)

Occipital Structure Sensor

Occipital Structure Sensor 

Sam Kaplan

The Structure is the easiest way to digitize the world. The iPad-mountable 3-D scanner uses diffracted laser light to create a depth map, which it can merge with an image from the tablet’s camera to create 3-D renderings of objects. Three apps currently work with the Structure—one scans objects, one maps rooms, and one is an augmented-reality game—but Occipital also released an SDK to developers, so they can make even more applications. $350

Qualcomm Toq

Qualcomm Toq 

Sam Kaplan

Amid a flurry of text and e-mail alerts, designers tend to forget something critical about smartwatches: They still need to show the time. LCDs wash out in the sunlight, and e-ink is blank in the dark. The Toq’s Mirasol display is the only full-color one that’s always visible. Each pixel is a tiny glass pane; as charge moves through the screen, the pane moves to reflect different ambient light wavelengths—red, blue, or green—to the viewer. An LED provides the necessary light when it’s dark. Price not set

Google Glass

Google Glass 

Sam Kaplan

When the Google Glass concept debuted in June 2012, it became one of the most anticipated gadget launches ever—rivaling the first iPhone. For all intents and purposes, Project Glass, as it was then called, promised Terminator vision, a hovering overlay of information as crisp as a 25-inch HDTV. Impossible as it sounds, the product, which came out as a developer version in April, goes beyond that pledge: It’s like wearing a piece of the future. 

Glass is, in essence, a consumer head-up display. Incoming calls, messages, and calendar alerts pop up just above eye level. It also has a videocamera, turn-by-turn navigation, voice search, Google Now, and partner apps, including Twitter, Facebook, and The New York Times. With such a basic set of features, it would be easy to write Glass off as a novel accessory, but the fact is that we’ve only just begun to tap into its potential. About 2,000 developers are working to broaden its uses before the final consumer version arrives next year. Glass—like the PC and the smartphone before it—represents a new way to display and transmit information. How we’ll use it from here is anyone’s guess.

STATS

Apparent screen size: 25 inches

Weight: 1.4 ounces

Price: $1,500 (Explorer edition)

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-QX100

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-QX100 

Sony

No matter how much smartphone engineers manage to shrink image sensors, they haven’t found a good way to downsize a quality lens, so images suffer. The QX100 is an entirely new approach to the cameraphone. The f/1.8 Carl Zeiss lens contains all the components of a high-end point-and-shoot—a full-frame 20-megapixel image sensor, a shutter, and an image processor—and attaches onto a smartphone, which serves as its viewfinder and memory. $500

Brunton Hydrogen Reactor

Brunton Hydrogen Reactor 

Sam Kaplan

A single Hydrogen Reactor cartridge carries a week’s worth of smartphone power—more juice than any other portable source. When a user inserts one of the 3-inch cartridges into the Reactor, a catalyst frees electrons from hydrogen. The freed electrons move into a circuit that delivers power to gadgets over USB. The remaining hydrogen reacts with oxygen to produce the process’s only byproduct: water vapor.

STATS

Output: 2 amps

Cartridge capacity: 8,500 mAh

Price: $150 (includes two cartridges)

FYI: What’s The Most Durable Way To Store Information?

USB Drives 

David Arky/Getty Images

Despite claims to the contrary, the storage media in wide use today—CD-ROMs, spinning hard drives, flash memory, etc.—aren’t very durable. “You’re talking years, not decades,” says Howard Besser, a professor and archivist at New York University who was named a pioneer of digital preservation by the Library of Congress. “A CD-ROM was originally supposed to last 100 years, but many fail in 10.” 

Old-fashioned paper has done very well by comparison. Until people made a habit of adding acidic chemicals to their paper in the 19th century, books could last five hundred years or more. And while paper has its vulnerabilities—to fire and water, for example—so do more newfangled technologies. A hard disk, for instance, may suffer from a loss of mobility. “You’ve got to have it spinning regularly or you’re not going to be able to play it,” says Besser. “It’s kind of like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.”

At a 1998 conference, Besser and 12 others worked out a plan for the perfect long-term storage device: They would etch images into platinum with a laser and bury the platinum in the desert. “Ideally, we would put a nuclear-waste facility next to it,” Besser adds, “so people will never forget where it is.”

But even the most indestructible data storage won’t be of any use if no one can decode the contents. Archivists also need to preserve the languages or programs used to save information, whether that’s ancient Greek or Word for Windows 95. Besser and his colleagues worry that this decoding issue will be the real bottleneck. “The durability of something is a far smaller problem than the other problems that we have,” he says. 

This article originally appeared in the December 2013 issue of Popular Science.

Hackers Successfully Dump Xbox One NAND

Hacking groups don’t hang around these days and with less than a week on the market, there has already been a fairly significant breach of the Xbox One hardware…. whoops.

Piracy is a major problem for many software developers and hardware manufactures and while I personally don’t believe that its all doom and gloom, the end of the industry or any of that nonsense, I do understand why any company would want to protect their investment and reputation. So from an industry point of view, having your console cracked is a big problem.

Konsolen Junkies (Console Junkies) have revealed that the Xbox One NAND is 4.9GB and that it can be dumped using Corona V2 via SD card reader, a similar method to what was used on the Xbox 360. However, to do so, the crystal or ‘quartz’ needs to be disabled. Do note that the NAND files contain drive info and serial number.

This is the first step to getting the console to boot backup discs or unlicensed software in general, as well as homebrew content. Given the very PC like nature of the hardware, it is likely not going to be too difficult to crack, but we shall see.

Of course we don’t condone piracy, but we do love tinkering with hardware to see what else it can do

Previously it was made known by a famous hacker ‘C4eva’, who dumped the data of Call of Duty: Ghosts for the Xbox One on the internet, that the discs can be read. This means that Xbox One is gaining attention from the hackers who are able to reach the first step with dumping the NAND. Since the hackers continue to tinkle with the Xbox One, the question is how long till they are able to hack it completely?

Stay tuned with us as we bring you more information as the story develops.

Samsung Galaxy S5 Leak Shows Mass Production in January With Awesome Specs

ETNews from Korea is starting to churn out so pretty exciting specifications on the new Samsung Galaxy S5. For starters, it is to start in mass production in January, making way for a February or March launch – we were expecting Samsung to announce it at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2014, so this would be about the right timing. This would put Samsung two-three months ahead of schedule, but they want to get the jump on the competition.

The site is also claiming there will be two models – a premium model with a 5-inch flexible Active Matrix (AM) Organic light emitting DIODE (OLED) flexible display and a metal casing and also a “General Model” with a 5-inch AMOLED flat panel display with a plastic case. It looks like you will be able to have your choice of curved display and metal casing or the flat-screen version in a plastic case – this may help Samsung meet their demand of metal cases that they were worried about being able to supply with the sales the Galaxy S series generates.

Both models will have a 64-bit processor, either the Exynos or Snapdragon chipset, although no exact specifications were given, you can be sure it will be faster than the current processors in use on the S4.

Both models will come equipped with 3GB of RAM, matching the Galaxy Note 3, a bump up from a 13MP to a 16MP camera, again, that has been much rumored as well. There is still no word on if the new camera will have the Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) on board or not. Now the battery – we are talking a massive 4,000mAH powerhouse here that should give tremendous usage between necessary charges. It should also run Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box with an updated version of TouchWiz. There was no mention of a fingerprint scanner or eye scanner built-in to the new Galaxy S5.

Production in January will start with 800,000 to 1 million units, bumping that up to 6 million units in February and 8-10 million in March depending on sales. To help with revenues, Samsung wants to offer accessories along with the Galaxy S5 and one of them will be the new Galaxy Gear smartwatch that will be released the same time as the Galaxy S5 – like they did with the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear. They believe that sales of the Galaxy Gear will increase if brought out the same time as the smartphone.

Intel Unveils 72-Core x86 Knights Landing CPU for Exascale Supercomputing

By Elric Phares

Updated: November 27, 2013

It seems when computing does make a technological advancement, sometimes it’s a big step in the next evolution of the game. Knights Landing, which sounds like a daytime TV show name starring David Hasslehoff, is Intel’s next “ante up” in the game of technology so I know some will be disappointed ☺. The Knights Landing platform is based on Intel’s next generation Xeon Phi supercomputing chip that can contain up to 72 out-of-order cores. The biggest alteration to the design is that in lieu of a slot design that must be paired-up with a standard Xeon CPU, the new Knights Landing is a standalone processor that will easier to integrate and expand upon.

Intel’s Knights Landing tale is one of a CPU that will have up to 16GB of DRAM 3D stacked on-package, that will provide up to 500GB/sec of memory bandwidth (along with up to 384GB of DDR4-2400 mainboard memory). When Intel makes the move to the 14nm process then Knights Landing will make its debut and this should happen sometime sin 2015. With the promise of such power that Knights Landing is bring to the table and its 3 teraflops (double precision) per socket we will most assuredly see 100+ petaflop X86 supercomputers being introduced very soon. Companies like Aberdeen LLC will be on the forefront of this technology the same as they were with the first petabyte server.

Currently the version of Xeon Phi (Knights Corner) and uses a PCIe expansion board with an up-to-61-core Intel MIC (Many Integrated Core) chips. These cores are based on the original P54C Pentium core and have many technological things in common with its stillborn Larrabee predecessor, although with many new additions that have come into play recently, such as 64-bit support and 512-bit vector registers. Knights’ Landing is essentially just a major revision of Knights Corner, but with mass changes across the entire platform. The original P54C cores have now been replaced with up to 72 out-of-order Silvermont (Atom) cores that will also implement AVX 3.1 instructions (AXX-512). Like stated earlier though the most ergonomic and important change is that now Knights Landing is a standalone CPU, with an integrated six-channel DDR4-2400 memory controller, up to 16GB of on-package 3D stacked RAM, and 36 PCIe 3.0 lanes.

The theoretical performance of 6 teraflops of single precision math, or 3 teraflops of double precision math is what all the new changes equate to and if you compare Intel’s Haswell you will see that Haswell maxes out at around 500 gigaflops of double precision math. Currently the crop of efficient supercomputers in existence max out at around 4 gigaflops per-watt, but with Knight’s Landing we should see 14-16 gigaflops per-watt, which might not seem like a big deal, but with scaling it amounts to quite a bit. There will be 16GB of on-package RAM with a bandwidth of 500GB/sec; there should also be significant latency gains as well with this step up. By Q4 of 2015 we will see another version of this technology called Knights Landing-F that integrates a 100Gbps Cray HPC interconnect on 32 of those PCIe 3.0 lanes, allowing supercomputer makers to connect up Knights Landing chips via standard QSFP optical links. Knights Landing is the next step on Intel’s road map to Exascale computing.

NVIDIA has their own solution called Tesla, which is their GPU-based coprocessor add-in board, and the Intel Xeon Phi is the direct competition to their market making stiff competitors for the men in green and black. NVIDIA currently has the “Lions Share” of the HPC/coprocessor market with 38 of the top 500 supercomputers using that technology. At the moment the Xeon Phi s a major component of the world’s most powerful supercomputer (Tianhe-2), but adoption is generally lower (just 13 of the top 500) by comparison. Making the move to becoming a standalone CPU rather than an ad-in card that must be controlled by a CPU (Haswell, Opteron, etc.), it will now be possible to build supercomputers entirely out of Xeon Phi that will reduce both the costs and the complexity of building supercomputers.

With Intel’s latest unified technology it will now be possible to write software that takes full advantage of Knights landings hardware and will make everything run smoother and faster. If we do the math At 3 teraflops per socket, assuming four sockets per 1U server, we’re looking at a full 500 teraflops (half a petaflop) in a single 42U rack. If the 100 petaflops barrier hasn’t been broken by 2015, it will almost certainly be a Knights Landing-based supercomputer that is the platform to do it. Intel is once again pushing the technology envelope and it will be interesting to say the least to see this new technology in action. Just think of the Knights Landing as the Chuck Norris of computer platforms ☺. Thanks for reading Tech of Tomorrow folks.

Source: Extreme Tech

Two New Nokia Asha handsets Have Been Leaked

Two Nokia handset images have been leaked a few hours ago, according to a post by UnwiredView. The most interesting part is that Nokia kept their existence on the low-key and the following images can at least confirm the rumor of their presence.

One of them is codenamed Nokia Normandy, and its design suggests that it may be a Lumia. However, it’s does not show running a Windows Phone OS, as its home/back button is similar to the Nokia’s latest Asha models, including the 500, 501, 502 and 503. Therefore, the conclusion is that the two handsets are powered by the Nokia Asha software platform.

Information regarding the handset specs has not yet been revealed, and the same goes for availability details. However, the pics are confirmation that the latter information is soon to be revealed as well.

This Infographic Shows Which Sites Properly Encrypt Your Data

No company out there wants to admit it, but the fact is, there's always a reasonable chance they'll get hacked. If they don't encrypt your data, those hacks reveal all kinds of information about you very easily. So, to see who's doing encryption well, the Electronic Frontier Foundation decided to come up with a chart that looks at a number of the big companies. P

The EFF looked at major companies like Apple, Amazon, Dropbox, and Google. They then looked at what type of encryption options they offered users and what they use to keep your data out of the hands of hackers. The results are pretty surprising, with some companies, like Comcast and Microsoft not doing very much at all to keep your data safe. You can find the full infographic below, as well as the EFF's full report. 

BLU Announces the World’s Thinnest 5-inch Smartphone – The BLU Life Pro Starting at $299 off-contract

BLU is one of those companies that makes ultra-cheap handsets that run virtually stock Android. I reviewed the BLU Life Play a few months ago which retails for about $150 off-contract and I was very surprised with how good of a device it actually was. Although I was saddened by the amount of storage inside, it did have a microSD card slot to expand the storage, luckily.

Now BLU has come along and introduced the Life Pro which is a 5-inch HD smartphone running Android 4.2. It’s a 5-inch 1280×720 resolution display, along with a 1.5GHz quad-core processor which is unnamed but will probably be from MediaTek. It’s also got 1GB of RAM along with a 12MP rear-facing camera and a 5MP front-facing camera. It also comes with about 16GB of internal storage, but of course that will actually be less, probably closer to about 12GB of usable storage. It’s running on Android 4.2 – Jelly Bean and has a 2500mAh battery inside. It’s just 6.9mm thin and only has HSPA+ connectivity. So if you’re on T-Mobile, it’s a great device. Now on AT&T, maybe not so much. Since their HSPA+ network isn’t as robust as AT&T’s.

Microsoft's New Xbox One Sells Out

Like Sony, Launch Is Strong, But Questions Hang Over Console Business

Microsoft Corp.'s MSFT -0.11% new videogame console drew crowds for its debut, emulating an upbeat launch by rival Sony Corp. 6758.TO +0.32% while offering a different take on living-room entertainment.

The Redmond, Wash., tech giant said it sold more than one million units of its Xbox One videogame console in the less than 24 hours since its debut. The $499 device launched in 13 markets around the world, and sold out at most retailers. Microsoft said it is working to replenish stock as fast as possible.

The most important season for the gaming industry gets underway, Scott Austin reports in his look at the top tech stories of the week. Photo: Getty Images.

Microsoft had previously said preorders were sold out as well and predicted it would set a sales record. "We are on track for the biggest launch of any kind," said Yusuf Mehdi, head of marketing for the Xbox group, in an interview earlier this month.

But how long the strong demand will last for the Xbox One and Sony's new PlayStation 4, which also initially sold out, remains a matter of debate. The console videogame industry has struggled to show growth in recent years, as some consumers turned to games created for mobile devices and social networking websites.

Market research firm PricewaterhouseCoopers said it expects world-wide console game sales to rise 4.2% to $25.98 billion this year, and projects another 6.4% jump in 2014. That is still far less than the 28% growth the industry saw in 2007 after the last batch of new videogame consoles were released

One concern is that some people may have lost the console habit, while a younger audience growing up on mobile devices might never begin playing in the living room.

"We've lost some gamers into other things," said Paul Raines, chief executive ofGameStop Corp. GME -1.93%

Mobile games account for some of that decline, he acknowledged. But Mr. Raines said activities like using social media and online video streaming have just as much of an impact.

Still, gaming industry executives remain upbeat following the dueling console launches. Sony, which attracted large crowds for the PlayStation 4's launch on Nov. 15, said it sold more than one million units in its first day on the market. The device sells for $100 less than the Xbox One.

How to switch from iPhone to Android in 4 easy steps

Eric’s Guide: Converting to Android from iPhone

Many of my iPhone friends are converting to Android.  The latest high-end phones from Samsung (Galaxy S4), Motorola (Verizon Droid Ultra) and the Nexus 5 (for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile) have better screens, are faster, and have a much more intuitive interface.  They are a great Christmas present to an iPhone user!

Here are the steps I recommend to make this switch.  Like the people who moved from PCs to Macs and never switched back, you will switch from iPhone to Android and never switch back as everything will be in the cloud, backed up, and there are so many choices for you.  80% of the world, in the latest surveys, agrees on Android.

1. Set up the Android phone
a) Power on, connect to WiFi, login with your personal Gmail account, and download in the Google Play Store all the applications you normally use (for example, Instagram).
b) Make sure the software on the Android phone is updated to the latest version (i.e. 4.3 or 4.4). You should get a notification if there are software updates.
c) If you are using AT&T, download the Visual Voicemail app from the Play Store.
d) You can add additional Gmail accounts now or later.

At this point, you should see all your Gmail, and be able to use any apps and they should work well.  Be sure to verify this.

2. Update your iPhone or iPad
a) Power on, connect to WiFi, make sure your Gmail is logged in, and upgrade all of the iPhone software to the latest iPhone software release (typically iOS 7+).
b) Check that you are using iCloud to back up contacts.  Go to iCloud (in Settings) and enable that for contacts (“on”).  If not using iCloud, go ahead and sign up for it.  (The latest Mavericks requires the use of iCloud for Mac users if you want to transfer contacts.)
c) For your personal Gmail account, in Settings/Mail, turn on sync for contacts.  In the latest iOS, this should sync your Gmail contacts and iPhone contacts.
d) In Settings/Messages, turn “off” iMessage, as that messenger is an iPhone-to-iPhone messenger and if its on your iPhone friends texts won’t make it to Android.  Your iPhone will still use SMS messaging to reach your friends if you use the iPhone after this change.
e) Make sure your iPhone is fully synced to the Mac iTunes.  Your photos and music should all be backed up on your Mac when this is done. Go ahead and verify that on the Mac and the iPhone.

At this point you should see all your Gmail, have your apps, and have your contacts in the Android phone.  If the contacts are not in the Android phone, manually download the contacts as follows on your Mac:
a) Go to apple.com/icloud, login with your Apple ID, and click on contacts
b) In the lower-left corner, click on the wheel, and “select all” the contacts and “export” the vCard into a vCard file (in Downloads).
c) In a browser, go to gmail.com, click on the Mail button and select “Contacts”.  You should see a list of your Gmail contacts.  Import the vCard file into Gmail/contacts using the “Import contacts” command and it should have manually added your contacts.  Delete any duplicates or use the “More / Find & merge duplicates” function.

At this point you have your Gmail, apps and contacts on the new phone.  Also verify this.

3. On your Mac, connect your music to Google:
Download Google Music Manager onto the Mac, and run it.  Music Manager will upload your iTunes music to the cloud.  The standard version is free and handles most iTunes libraries.  You will need to sign up for Google Wallet and give your credit card information, but it’s free.  Be sure the music is going to your personal Gmail account above. See https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1075570

With the above complete, you should have your Gmail, apps, contacts, and music all moved over.  Verify this on the Android phone :-)

4. Take the SIM out of the iPhone and insert it into Android.  You may need an adapter (from nano-SIM to micro-SIM), but then reboot the Android and you are all set !  For texting either use the Messenger app in earlier releases or the “Hangouts” app in Android 4.4.

Comments and additions welcome ! Eric

PS. Photos on your iPhone
If you have pictures on your iPhone, you will have to first copy them over to the Mac and then sync the iPhone with iTunes.  See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083   

It’s probably easiest to backup your iPhone photos to the Mac, but not copy the old photos to the Android phone.  New photos you take on the Android phone will automatically be backed up to your photos in the Gmail account (iAuto-Upload is normally enabled) so no action is required.  If the old photos are important, send them to Gmail and download into the Android phone or upload them to Google+.

PPS.  Some general advice

Be sure to use Chrome, not Safari; its safer and better in so many ways.  And it’s free.
https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/

Be sure to use two-factor authentication for your Gmail and Google accounts.  Makes it very hard for someone to break into your Gmail.  Also free.
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/180744?hl=en

Microsoft confirms Windows RT will die

Microsoft has finally said what most of the world has already guessed: Windows RT will die. It won't happen right away, but there's no doubt now that it's in the cards.

Julie Larson-Green, in charge of Microsoft's devices unit, said at the UBS Global Technology Conference last week:

"We have the Windows Phone OS. We have Windows RT and we have full Windows. We're not going to have three."

That means the death of RT. Most likely, there will be one Windows to rule them all, running on all devices. And that means based on full-blown Windows, not half-baked Windows RT, because RT can't run desktop apps. Previously, Terry Myerson, who is now in charge of the Windows group for Microsoft, which includes Windows, Windows Phone, and Windows RT operating systems, said that there will be a single Windows store for all Windows apps,and that:

"We should have one set of developer APIs on all of our devices. And all of the apps we bring to end users should be available on all of our devices."

That certainly sounds like it ultimately means a single version of Windows running on all devices. But there's a chance that Microsoft could reduce the number of Windows operating systems to two, one for computers and tablets, and one for phones. But in that case as well Windows RT is the odd man out.

Windows RT has been, by all accounts, a dismal failure. It resulted in a $900 million Microsoft writedown, and a number of people have said that it was a contributing factor to Ballmer leaving Microsoft.

Windows RT will be missed by no one. Excellent, inexpensive tablets with long battery lives can be built using Windows 8.1, as the Dell Venue 8 Pro shows.

As to how long it will take to kill Windows RT, Microsoft isn't saying. But the market has already voted. People simply aren't buying Windows RT tablets, and so by the time Microsoft officially kills it off, it will be dead anyway.

Apple Retail's Effort to Boost Share of U.S. iPhone Sales Starts Paying Dividends

Over the course of the last several months, Apple has improved its in-store iPhone sales, according to a new survey from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (viaAllThingsD). Approximately 25 percent of iPhones are purchased within an Apple Store, up from an estimate of 20 percent earlier this year. 

The majority of iPhones in the United States are still sold through carriers, however, with AT&T responsible for 21 percent of sales and Verizon responsible for 18 percent. Best Buy's iPhone sales accounted for 13 percent of total sales, and Sprint, Amazon, and other mass retailers like Target, Walmart, and Costco accounted for 5 percent each. 

Carriers also sell the most overall cell phones, but Apple, though it only sells the iPhone, accounts for a total of 11 percent of all retail phone sales. 

Back in July, Apple CEO Tim Cook told employees that he would like to improve Apple Store iPhone sales with new promotional tactics. According to Cook, the iPhone is Apple's central "gateway product" to other devices like iPads, which makes it vital that users purchase their iPhones where they can be exposed to other Apple products. 

To encourage sales within Apple retail locations, Apple has launched new features for its Apple Store app, including an iPad version, and debuted an in-store trade-in program in August with the goal of improving the company's U.S. sales numbers. 

Though Apple has seen slight improvements in in-store iPhone sales, further increasing iPhone sales within Apple Stores remains an uphill battle as Apple has roughly 250 retail stores in the United States that compete with more than 10,000 third-party retail outlets that offer the iPhone.