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The Zuckerberg Tax
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 7:16 PM | Slashdot

Hugh Pickens writes \"David S. Miller writes that when Facebook goes public later this year, Mark Zuckerberg plans to exercise stock options worth $5 billion of the $28 billion that his ownership stake will be worth and since the $5 billion he will receive will be treated as salary, Zuckerberg will have a tax bill of more than $2 billion making him, quite possibly, the largest taxpayer in history. But how much income tax will Zuckerberg pay on the rest of his stock that he won\'t immediately sell? Nothing, nada, zilch. He can simply use his stock as collateral to borrow against his tremendous wealth and avoid all tax. That\'s what Lawrence J. Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, did, reportedly borrowing more than a billion dollars against his Oracle shares to buy one of the most expensive yachts in the world. Or consider the case of Steven P. Jobs who never sold a single share of Apple after he rejoined the company in 1997, and therefore never paying a penny of tax on the over $2 billion of Apple stock he held at his death. Now Jobs\' widow can sell those shares without paying any income tax on the appreciation before his death — only on the increase in value from the time of his death to the time of the sale — because our tax system is based on the concept of \"realization.\" Individuals are not taxed until they actually sell property and realize their gains and the solution to the problem is called mark-to-market taxation. According to Miller, mark-to-market would only affect individuals who were undeniably, extraordinarily rich, only publicly traded stock would be marked to market, and a mark-to-market system of taxation on the top one-tenth of 1 percent would raise hundreds of billions of dollars of new revenue over the next 10 years.\"

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Researchers get CPUs and GPUs talking, boost PC performance by 20 percent
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 1:58 PM | Engadget

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How do you fancy a 20 percent boost to your processor\'s performance? Research from the North Carolina State University claims to offer just that. Despite the emergence of fused architechture SoCs, the CPU and GPU cores typically still work independently. The University hoped that by assigning tasks based on each processor\'s abilities, performance efficiency would be increased. As the CPU and GPU can fetch data at comparable speeds, the researchers set the GPUs to execute the computational functions, while the CPUs did the prefetching. With that data ready in advance, the graphics processor unit has more resources free, yielding an average performance boost of 21.4 percent though it\'s unclear what metrics the researchers were using. Incidentally, the research was funded by AMD, so no prizes for guessing which chips we might see using the technique first.

Researchers get CPUs and GPUs talking, boost PC performance by 20 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pentax K-01 mirrorless camera doesn\'t feel as cheap as it looks, we go hands-on (video)
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 10:53 PM | Engadget

After Pentax boasted about the performance of its incredibly small Q mirrorless cam, we\'re certainly justified in approaching the company\'s latest ILC with a bit of skepticism -- especially given its blatant toy-like appearance. But after spending a few minutes with the K-01 at Pentax\'s CP+ booth, we can confirm that the compact camera doesn\'t feel nearly as cheap as its looks may imply. The camera includes a brand new 16.28-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor -- a far cry from the 12-megapixel 1/2.3-inch imager included with the petite Pentax Q. There\'s also a bright 920k-dot 3-inch LCD, a sensitivity range of ISO 100-25,600 (!) and 1080/30p video capture. It\'s also, believe it or not, compatible with Pentax\'s range of K-mount DSLR lenses.

The K-01 is a bit hefty for a mirrorless camera -- it dwarfs the near-pocketable Pentax Q -- and has a weight to match its rather large footprint. The cam actually feels quite durable, though we\'re definitely not sold on its \"fun\" Michael-Graves-meets-Fisher-Price design (think smooth corners and bright colors). There\'s a built-in pop-up flash, along with a hot shoe positioned just over the lens. There\'s also -- much to our surprise -- a microphone input. We can\'t imagine pairing this thing with a pricey external mic rig, but if you\'re not too embarrassed using this for professional applications, the included audio input may come in handy. Jump past the break for a quick video walkthrough from Japan, and keep an eye out for the camera closer to home -- the $750 (body only) K-01 is expected to hit stores next month.

Gallery: Pentax K-01 mirrorless camera hands-on

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Continue reading Pentax K-01 mirrorless camera doesn\'t feel as cheap as it looks, we go hands-on (video)

Pentax K-01 mirrorless camera doesn\'t feel as cheap as it looks, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Circuit Playground – An electronics reference app from Adafruit
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 12:01 PM | hack a day

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It’s not everyday that we review software around here, but the folks at Adafruit recently put together an iOS app that I figured might be of interest. Their iPad/iPhone compatible application is called “Circuit Playground”, and it includes all sorts of handy electronics reference tools. For the context of this review, it should be noted that I paid for the application myself, and that I have had no communication with the Adafruit team regarding my assessment of the app.

As you can see from the main screen, the app currently features eight different tools, not counting the “Deals @ Adafruit” entry, since I consider that to be more of a marketing strategy than a real tool. The rest of the items are pretty standard reference fare, in an easy to use and understand package.

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The Resistor Value tool is pretty straightforward, allowing you to specify resistance in two ways. You can select the color bands of your resistor and view the resulting value, or enter the resistance to see what color resistor you should be looking for. It supports both 4 and 5 band resistors as you would expect, and features a simple “Instruction Page” (as do all the tools), accessible via the small information icon on the bottom left corner of the screen. One thing I would love to see implemented is the ability to photograph components and display their resistance. I think it would be a very helpful addition for makers whose eyesight isn’t what it used to be.

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The Multiple Resistor and Multiple Capacitor tools are similar in function, showing you the resultant resistance/capacitance of various series and parallel component setups. They both support up to 9 items apiece, and let you select the capacitance and resistance values for each component one at a time. This is both good and bad, as it gets pretty tedious entering each value manually after a bit. One other item that I thought could use improvement here was the functionality of switching between series and parallel configurations or adding/removing components. Any time a change is made to the configuration, all of the values are reset – this means that if you add another resistor to your 8-resistor diagram, you must re-enter each and every value.

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The LED Resistor Calculator does exactly as its name suggests, much like many online calculators that have come before it. This handy feature lets you pick your LED color from a pre-determined list, populating the forward voltage and current fields automatically, based on some common/standard values. Once you specify a supply voltage and quantity of LEDs, the application returns the exact resistance required to meet your specs, along with the value of the nearest standard resistor. While the tool is certainly helpful when calculating resistors for LEDs in series, it lacks any sort of ability to do the same for parallel configurations. If the folks at Adafruit included that functionality along with the ability to customize the default LED list, I would be thrilled. I do have to point out however, that this tool does retain the LED count and supply voltage when changing LED colors, which is something I was glad to see after playing around with the Multiple Resistor tool.

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The Ohm’s Law calculator is a simple tool that is great for allowing me to carry out quick sanity checks of the math I have done in my head. Simply enter two values in the triangle, and Circuit Playground spits out the third. The Power Calculator is a similarly straightforward tool, which takes in two of four values (Power, Voltage, Current, Resistance), calculating the rest for you. Neither tool is overly complicated, but then again they don’t need to be.

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The final calculator that the app provides makes number conversions dead simple. Given one number, the converter will give you its representation in binary, decimal, hexadecimal, octal, and ASCII notation. While it might not be something that I’ll use every day, it certainly is a very helpful reference tool. I personally think that this tool would benefit from the ability to convert strings of characters/numbers rather than one at a time, but perhaps that is something they are looking to add in a forthcoming release.

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One of Circuit Playground’s features that is not as prominent as the others on the main menu is the built-in datasheet viewer. It uses a lightweight interface to help search through and view PDF files located in the iPhone’s document store. I don\'t have anything of the sort stored on my phone so I can’t truly test this portion of the app – let us know in the comments how it works for you.

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A few data persistence nitpicks aside, I think that Circuit Playground is a solid app with a lot of potential. At $2.99 it sits at the higher end of the App Store pricing structure, so whether or not these tools are worth it is ultimately up to you. Adafruit does say that anyone who purchases the app gets $3 off their next order in their online store, which essentially makes the app free if you are a regular customer.

While it’s not designed for your seasoned Electrical Engineer, it is definitely a great resource for the part-time tinkerers out there. At the moment, it is an iOS-only offering, but Adafruit says that they will be releasing an Android version at some point in the future. In the meantime, they suggest giving ElectroDroid a try, as it is currently the best app on that platform.

Filed under: iphone hacks, software hacks, tool hacks $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$

San Francisco gearing up for electric bike sharing program
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 8:19 PM | Engadget

Anyone who\'s ever attempted to ride a bike in San Francisco can attest to just how rough the city\'s numerous hills can be on the lower body. Thankfully, government dollars are set to go a ways toward making electric bicycles a tiny bit more prevalent amongst the local populace. The city by the bay\'s CarShare program will be getting funding to bring some 90 e-bikes to 25 locations in SF and nearby Berkeley, beginning with 45 bikes in the second half of this year. Forty-five more will be coming in 2013.

San Francisco gearing up for electric bike sharing program originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Congress passes bill giving the FAA $11 billion to get off radar, onto GPS
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 2:42 PM | Engadget

It took awhile, and the price tag is quite a bit steeper than previously thought (shocking, right?), but the FAA is finally getting the funding it needs to bring the nation\'s air traffic control system up to date. Congress just passed the bill to make it happen, allotting $11 billion to the FAA to upgrade the nation\'s 35 busiest airports air traffic controls from radar to GPS. The deadline for the conversion is June 2015, and when complete, it\'ll allow for more precise positioning of aircraft -- GPS pings for the planes\' locations every second, while radar updates their locations every 6 to 12 seconds. With such technology enabled, airplanes will be able to take-off and land more closely together while utilizing steeper descents than is currently possible to conserve fuel. So, now that we\'ve got the new traffic control system to improve airline punctuality, we just need the FAA and the FCC to team up and eliminate the \"Terrible 10,000 feet\" and flying might actually be fun.

Congress passes bill giving the FAA $11 billion to get off radar, onto GPS originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BigDog Robot Gets Much Bigger
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 3:05 PM | Slashdot

savuporo writes \"Well known Boston Dynamics BigDog prototype now has a bigger brother named \'LS3\' or Legged Squad Support System. It\'s intended to carry heavy loads for long treks and have enough autonomy to follow soldiers around, listen to voice commands and navigate autonomously.\"

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Color sensor gives the RGB values of anything
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 10:01 AM | hack a day

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[Rick Osgood] wanted to build a color sensor that could be held up to any object to get RGB color values. He originally started with a photoresistor and a few LEDs, but couldn\'t get that to work reliably. [Rick] finally completed his color sensor after finding a digital luminosity sensor on Adafruit, ending up with a pretty accurate piece of hardware to judge the color of something.

The idea behind the color sensor is to light up red, green, and blue LEDs and see how much light is reflected back from the object with a luminosity sensor. [Rick] chose an Arduino to do all the heavy lifting for the light sensor and activating the LEDs.

After a few tests [Rick] got his color sensor working, but it\'s not up to par with what he had expected. This isn\'t really a problem: the LEDs probably don\'t have the same brightness and the luminosity sensor doesn\'t respond evenly across the entire rainbow. Those things can always be fixed in software, though. It\'s a nice project that could serve as part of a prototype for this color picker pen.

Filed under: hardware, led hacks $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$ $\"\"$

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