Chad's News

Certainly it’s much less expensive to offshore your manufacturing to Asia, but some US businesses have said, “Enough!” due to quality problems, production delays, intellectual property concerns, and the large lead time from prototype approval to delivery. These businesses have returned to domestic manufacturing sources. Note that this situation mainly applies to small businesses with relatively low manufacturing volumes—apparently the Asian companies don’t consider them important enough to worry about. But it’s not just small companies. The linked article also explains how Chinese wages are not as low as they used to be, and that offshoring, which used to be a no-brainer, is not necessarily the best business decision to make.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Following in the footsteps of AOL, Myspace has seriously tanked from its days of glory and has pretty much lost relevance. It had an operating loss of $230 million last year, prompting its parent company to sell it at a mere $35 million (when it was originally purchased for $580 million).

Thanks to Josh for this topic.

Link #1: http://allthingsd.com/…

Link #2: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/…

The linked article explains how the number of bars on your cell phone is determined. It’s not nearly as standardized as you’d think. Comparing bars between different carriers, or even different phones, can be a poor indicator of relative signal strength.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

These two cartoon strips by Dan and Tom Heyerman of Pants Are Overrated are spinoffs of the classic Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. They take place when Calvin and Susie are married and have a daughter nicknamed Bacon. Very well done, and they leave me wanting MORE! MORE! MORE!

Link #1: http://www.pantsareoverrated.com/…

Link #2: http://www.pantsareoverrated.com/…

MIT researchers have developed a computer program that’s capable of reading and understanding the instruction manual for the computer game Civilization. Without any prior programming on how to play, the computer read the manual, then was not only able to play the game but went on to win 79 percent of the time.

Link #1: http://www.extremetech.com/…
(via TechRepublic)

Link #2: http://web.mit.edu/…

Adobe Flash is used all over the worldwide web and will continue to be popular for years to come. That being said, however, Flash will eventually be replaced by HTML5 (and its successors). This process is being hastened, in part, because Apple refuses to allow Flash on the iPhone or iPad. Even Adobe has seen the future and is embracing it—they recently released the beta version of a animation development tool that uses HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. It’s called Adobe Edge.

Link: http://www.zdnet.com/…
(via TechRepublic)

I’ve never understood the US government’s reluctance to retire the $1 bill in favor of the $1 coin. The GAO estimates this would save $5.5 billion over 30 years. And while we’re discussing money, wouldn’t it make sense to kill the penny as well—inflation has made them pretty useless, and they cost more than a cent to manufacture.

Link: http://consumerist.com/…

The generally accepted age of the universe is slightly less than 14 billion years. Given that the speed of light is a barrier for how fast things can travel through spacetime, one would think that the size of the universe would then be about 28 billion light-years in diameter. Not so! Because even though matter travelling through spacetime cannot reach the speed of light, spacetime itself can expand much faster than lightspeed. Recent research puts the estimated size of the universe at more than 250 times that of the visible universe.

Link: http://www.technologyreview.com/…
(via Slashdot)

The linked article has a map of the world. It was created by tracing Facebook connections on a blank canvas—no boundaries were actually drawn, but they show up clearly nonetheless.

Link: http://www.facebook.com/…

Google+ is Google’s latest attempt at a social networking site. And it appears they’ve done a really good job of it. Unfortunately it’s still in a field test period where membership is by invitation only, but they’ll be opening it up to the rest of us sometime in the near future. The linked article has more details about Google+ and why it will succeed.

Update: I received an invite from Eric, a friend of Chad’s News. If anyone would like to be invited, please contact me.

Link: http://www.techrepublic.com/…

EA Sports publishes the popular Madden NFL video games. Each September, they run a simulation of the upcoming NFL season using the game. Their record is impressive—they’ve picked the correct Superbowl winner seven times in the last 8 years. Note that the linked article, written in September 2010, correctly predicted the Green Bay Packers as the champions.

Link: http://www.wired.com/…
(via Slashdot)

QR codes are two-dimensional bar codes that are becoming popular here in the United States. They can contain text, web links, calendar events, vCard addresses, and much more. Some people even put them on their gravestones! You scan them with your smartphone to pull up the desired information.

The linked website allows you to create custom QR codes. Josh, a friend of Chad’s News, suggests making one that contains your vCard data and then setting that image as the lock screen for your smartphone. Should you lose your phone, your contact details are right there for anyone who finds it and wants to return it.

Link: http://www.qrstuff.com/