Best Buy stores go out of business without telling employees

Best Buy has just shut down 15 stores across Canada as part of their restructuring and ‘transformational plan’.
The resent closings came as a shock to a few of the locals not current on Best Buy's problems, but in reality they should have seen it coming all along.  Once the leader in regards to brick and mortar sales, Best Buy has been fighting a very tough up-hill battle with sites like Amazon.com and countless other on-line Internet stores.
In 2011 Best Buy reported a total loss of 1.23 billion dollars (U.S.).  Richard Shulze, who was the founder of Best Buy, has been trying to buy back the company to take it private.  However, this has not come easy and is a really tough sell with board members.
Best Buy based their decision on the closings after an extensive review of Best Buys’ retail footprint in the region.  Company official said the closings were necessary to help reduce costs and to help with eliminating “redundant operating systems and to optimize its real estate strategy to reflect a changing retail landscape.” 
The five Best Buy stores that were closed were located in South Surrey, Queensborough, Nanaimo, Victoria, Langford (Westshore Town Centre).  The two Quebec store closing were the Lachenaie, and Sherbrooke (SmartCentres Sherbrooke) areas.  The Future Shop closing were located in Manitoba (Regent), Alberta (Calgary), Columbia (West Kelowna), Quebec (Montreal and Laval), and Ontario (Ancaster, Barrie South and Erin Mills).
To add insult to injury, many Canadian on-line media outlets reported that employees working at the Sherbrooke Outlet in Quebec did not know beforehand about the closing.  A few arrived to work on Thursday, January 31^st only to find a note left on the window saying the store was permanently shut down.  In all about 900 people will lose their jobs from the closings over all.
Currently, there are still about 120 Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile locations operating in Canada at present.  They also have approximately 140 Future Shop stores scattered throughout the region as well

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Earthquake in North Korea might actually be nuclear related

It is unclear at the moment if the quake was indeed of a natural cause or if it was the third nuclear test done by the North Koreans.  South Koreans are saying that its counterpart to the north is conducting nuclear tests despite the UN’s sanction.

The quake had an epicenter of about one km deep, and was close to North Korea’s previous nuclear test sites.

Update: It has been confirmed that North Korea did conduct a nuclear test.

(When I say raise my hand, you say "Boom!")

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Creating easy design printouts with the iDecora iD-01

Japanese computer accessory manufacturer Roland DG has recently unveiled their latest iCreate printer model. Designated with the name iDecora iD-01, it is technically a creativity-centric printer model that is primarily focused on printing high quality design sheets and other similar projects.

For the most part, the iDecora iD-01 functions like an ordinary printer. However aside from its usual PC integration function, this printer could also communicate with your iPhone or iPad unit for printing jobs via the upcoming iDecora app for the iOS. This communication/data transfer feature provides the printer with the functionality that is present on many standard wireless printers today. Aside from directly connecting through iPhone and iPad units, the iDecora iD-01 could also wirelessly communicate using the AirMac Express.

Sticker and iron print sheets are the first things that would definitely come to mind with this design printer. However, it can also take other types of specialty design sheets like label papers and vinyl chloride sheets. You can create wallpapers, shirt designs, papercrafts and even nail designs with it.

The dimensions of the unit are (W)230×(L)158×(H)108mm, and it weighs 1.4kg. Wired connectivity option for the device includes a USB 2.0 port. Those who want to learn more about the printer's design and creativity potential may simply look up into the iDecora app's list of available design data. Other than the iDecora app, the printer unit itself will also have its own iDecora Creator design data software for PC's.

Roland DG plans to launch an iDecora specialty website around the same time of its commercial release. Owners of the printers will be presented there with detailed usage instructions, maintenance tips and additional downloadable design files to maximize their use for the design printer.

The official release date of the iDecora iD-01 is on November 15, 2012. It would be available to customers at a price of 20,790 yen (265 USD).

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Lenovo announces first table, not tablet, computer

Lenovo has announced the IdeaCentre Horizon and Gamma Table PCs, kick-starting a new sector of the industry that it is calling the “interpersonal PC,” a multi-user, multi-touch, multi-mode device for a very different interactive experience.

 

The Horizon is like a tablet computer, but much larger, with a 27-inch screen. It is designed to be placed flat on any surface, such as a table or floor, and lets two or more people use the touchscreen simultaneously, allowing for some interesting new gameplay options.

 

For example, players can use the screen as the board for their games of Monopoly, with an e-dice accessory that means players can still use a traditional element of boardgame gameplay, while the digital version will automatically pick up the appropriate roll of the die. We can see boardgames in general becoming a major attraction to these devices.

 

 

Players can utilise other accessories like the the four accompanying joysticks and strikers in unique ways, such as in the games FishingJoy and Raiding Company. Music and TV apps are also available, as is a Paint, Color Corner app that turns the screen into a virtual easel.

 

The Horizon also features a unique Aura desktop interface when flat or a standard Windows 8 experience, allowing the device to be used at a normal viewing angle like a standard desktop PC. The Lenovo App Shop offers over 5,000 apps to choose from. The system features an Intel Core i7 processor and an Nvidia graphics card.

 

Perhaps even more unusual is the literal Table PC, which is codenamed Gamma, and still in the concept stage. It is a 39-inch screen built right into a table with wheels, making for a huge working surface. A variety of arcade games could play very well on such a large screen, especially with the part-digital, part-physical experience that Lenovo has penned as “phygital.”

 

 

“We've seen technology shifts across the four screens, from the desktop to the laptop, tablet and smartphone, and yet, while people have more computing power than ever before, there is still room for technologies like Horizon that bring people together. Horizon makes personal computing interpersonal computing with shared, collaborative experiences among several people,” said Peter Hortensius, president of the Product Group at Lenovo. “Now many people can enjoy different photos, music and video on the same screen, and they can play games with our special accessories that blend physical and digital interaction. Horizon reflects our commitment to delivering the innovative products that define the PC Plus era.”

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Cisco will acquire Meraki Incorporated

The acquisition of Meraki Inc is the latest acquisition in just one of many companies that Cisco has been acquiring.

Cisco Systems has been on something of an acquisition run of late, and they just recently announced a 1.1 billion dollar deal in acquiring Meraki, Inc.  According to Cisco the deal should be going through by January 2013.  This latest deal will help Cisco provide improved security when it comes to cloud managed Wi-Fi networks for mid-sized corporations and businesses. The California based Cisco Systems is currently the world’s largest producer of computer-networking equipment. 

This latest acquisition announcement from Cisco comes just a few days after their November 15^th announcement of the company’s plans to acquire the company, Cloupia.  A relatively new company, Cloupia is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and operates as a software data center that manages and automates cloud data.  The company offers numerous products such a cloud computing services and helps other companies make transitions over to private and public cloud environments. 

On Cisco’s company website Hilton Romanaski who serves as Cisco’s Head of Corporate Business Management says that the acquisition of Cloupia would allow them to “provide a single, ‘pane-of-glass’ management across Cisco and partner solutions including FlexPod, VSPEX, and Vblock.  Romanaski goes on to say; “Mergers, acquisitions and investments are a key part of Cisco’s build, buy and partner innovation framework and supports our strategy of providing best-in-class solutions for customers.”

It is quite apparent that Cisco’s recent acquisitions of many companies is an effort to help the computer-networking corporation expand their base and perfect their Cloud Computing organization to work as part of their growing Cisco Open Network Environment.  But combining networking storage, management solutions and interconnecting all of our computers and mobile devices only makes sense, and it seems Cisco wants to remove any future competition in this department. 

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Sharp unveils 32-inch 4K IGZO display

Sharp made an announcement in April, 2012 about their plans to use IGZO technology in future LCD's. Well, it seems that a fully functional PN-K321 IGZO display is almost available to the tech market.

Recapping the basics on the IGZO technology, it stands for indium gallium zinc oxide. It is basically a semiconductor material that can be used as a channel for TFT's. Thus, it's most prominent application is on LCD's wherein it acts as an active layer. The difference of the IGZO to other materials used as active layers is that it has a very high electron mobility, which indirectly relates to individual pixels becoming even smaller. Thus an IGZO display could, in effect, have more pixel per area ratio compared to the best ones we have today.

The PN-K321 IGZO display is a 32-inch LED-backlit LCD screen. This 4K display has a specific screen resolution of 3840x2160 pixels, with a pixel density of 140ppi. It uses a DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a for display connectivity. Before, most 4K displays required multiple cables, or a special type of cable to fully utilize the ultra HD resolution. With the display unit's modification to use the IGZO semiconductor material, it only needs one regular input port, which makes it directly compatible with most other devices.

As for its other specifications and product details, the dimensions of the unit are 750 x 441 x 35 mm. It weighs 7.5 kg. Brightness can be set at a maximum of 250 candela/lumens. Energy consumption rate is 120 watts, and has standard 30p/60p frame rate adjustment modes.

The launch date of the PN-K321 in Japan is on February 15, 2013.  No launch dates have been proposed for regions outside of Japan.

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It only takes six shots to break 3D printed gun

I'm not sure it this is a case of art imitating life or the other way around since the idea of a 3D printed gun has already made its way into a recent episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, but in that case it was only a 3D printed handgun which could only fire one round before becoming useless.

However, in real life the team at The Wiki Weapons Project have successfully printed out an AR-15 assault rifle, the only problem is that it falls apart after firing six shots.

The project is trying to develop a fully working blueprint for the AR-15 that they want to make freely available as a downloadable design file that can be loaded up into a 3D printer. One can definitely argue the questionable legal issues around this idea but for now we can rest peacefully because at this point the team members of the project have only been able to print out the lower receiver; which is the trigger and handgrip, with the rest of the gun being made up of off-the-shelf spare parts.

As to what is causing the gun to fall apart after only six shots, the team believes it is because of the gun recoil; which causes the o-ring in the connecting section of the receiver to stock to snap.

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