Ch-ch-ch-changes

• Ars Technica reports on an impending change from 512-byte to 4096-byte sectors in hard disks.  The article discusses problems for Windows XP users, but I suspect the side-effects will go a lot further than that.

• Meanwhile, CNN discusses parallels between the banking situations in Iceland and the US.  The Icelanders declined to bail out their bankers.  We haven't been permitted that option.  Regulatory changes have been proposed to prevent another occurrence, but whether they'll go far enough, actually work, or have any teeth in their final form is debatable — and in any case, past experience suggests that if Wall Street finds the new regulations inconvenient, Wall Street will invent ways to circumvent them, and Congress, as it has done a hundred or a thousand times before, will smile, wink, and look the other way.

• And to finish up with a positive note, MIT is working on a new nanotube-based battery technology that could yield completely non-toxic batteries with a tenfold increase in energy density and zero charge leakage.

Hellmouth?

Just because it's such a cool image, really.  This is a natural-gas pocket in Darvaz, Uzbekistan (thanks to montieth for the positive identification) that's reportedly been burning for 35 years.  (Presumably no-one can figure out how to put it out.)

You did bring marshmallows, right...?

Public media analysis

For gadgeteers: iPad vs. ADAM

Data sources:  NotionInk, Apple Computer

• Screen

  • iPad:  9.7" 1024x768 multi-touch LED-backlit color LCD
  • ADAM:  10.1" 1024x600 PixelQi multi-touch transflective color LCD with low-power e-paper mode

  Advantage:  ADAM

• Processor

  • iPad:  Single-core 1GHz Apple custom processor, reportedly a feature-stripped ARM CORTEX-A8 core
  • ADAM:  Dual-core ARM CORTEX-A9 (1GHz or faster; the CORTEX-A9 is available up to 2GHz)

  Advantage:  ADAM

• Graphics

  • iPad:  Reported to be a PowerVR SGX core
  • ADAM:  NVidia Tegra2 fully accelerated 3D graphics

  Advantage:  ADAM

• Battery

  • iPad:  25Wh non-user-replaceable¹ lithium polymer, "up to ten hours of surfing the web, watching video, or listening to music"
  • ADAM:  140 hours audio playback, "over 16 hours" of HD video playback

  Advantage:  ADAM

• Storage

  • iPad: 16GB, 32GB or 64GB flash drive
  • ADAM:  16GB or 32GB flash drive

  Advantage:  iPad

• Camera

  • iPad: None
  • ADAM:  Swivelling 3MP camera

  Advantage:  ADAM

• Flash support

  • iPad: None
  • ADAM:  Full accelerated Flash support

  Advantage:  ADAM

• OS and applications

  • iPad: Apple proprietary iPhone OS; Apple Store apps only, no multitasking (rumors say iPhoneOS 4.0 may support multitasking)
  • ADAM:  Android; any Android application, full multitasking (but idle apps are killed, not swapped, when necessary to free memory)

  Advantage:  ADAM

• eBooks supported

  • iPad: Apple format only, natively; Kindle, Nook, ePub, and non-DRM'd PDF books supported via available apps
  • ADAM:  Current reports say "all major formats" are supported

  Advantage:  pretty much tied for now

• Wireless connectivity

  • iPad: WiFi + Bluetooth standard, 3G optional
  • ADAM:  WiFi + Bluetooth + 3G standard

  Advantage:  ADAM

• Sensors

  • iPad: Accelerometer, ambient light sensor; assisted GPS on 3G models only
  • ADAM:  Accelerometer, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, assisted GPS

  Advantage:  ADAM

• I/O ports

  • iPad: Headphone jack, proprietary dock connector, MicroSIM card tray on 3G models only
  • ADAM:  HDMI out, 3x USB ports, reports indicate SDHC or similar card slot

  Advantage:  ADAM

• Dimensions

  • iPad: 9.56" x 7.47" x 0.5", 1.5lb (3G model 1.6lb)
  • ADAM:  9.4: x 6.2" x 0.5", 1.35lb

  Advantage:  ADAM

• Price

  • iPad: Pre-orders starting at $499 for the most basic model
  • ADAM:  Expected to start around $320

  Advantage:  ADAM

Yeah, this is somewhat speculative, because the ADAM is still in development and hasn't actually been released yet (I understand NotionInk is hoping to release it in June this year).  But on the basis of what information is available so far, it looks like it's going to wipe the floor with the iPad.

Expect Steve Jobs to sue NotionInk any time now...

---

[1]  In fact, it's now being reported that never mind the iPad battery being non-user-replaceable, Apple won't even replace the battery in your iPad for you.  When your iPad battery needs replacement, Apple will just swap out your entire iPad, probably for a refurbished unit as with iPods, for $100 and a one-week turnaround.  Better make sure you have everything on your iPad backed up... oh, and you'd better not have made any unauthorized modifications.

No-Evil Zone

Tim Bray (formerly of Sun Microsystems) on why Android is good and the iPhone is bad.

Money quotes:

• I’d had an offer to stay with Oracle which I decided to decline; I’ll maybe tell the story when I can think about it without getting that weird spiking-blood-pressure sensation in my eyeballs.

• Android [...] seems to me as unambiguously a good thing as the tangled wrinkly human texture of the Net can sustain just now.

• The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet's future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what.  It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers.  The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger.

(Incidentally, he doesn't think much of Flash either.  Which makes him very far from alone.)

NYTimes: PSA tests overblown

Op-ed column in the New York Times by Dr. Richard J. Ablin, who discovered prostate-specific antigen in 1970 and laid the groundwork for the PSA test:

The medical community is slowly turning against P.S.A. screening.  Last year, The New England Journal of Medicine published results from the two largest studies of the screening procedure, one in Europe and one in the United States.  The results from the American study show that over a period of 7 to 10 years, screening did not reduce the death rate in men 55 and over.

The European study showed a small decline in death rates, but also found that 48 men would need to be treated to save one life.  That’s 47 men who, in all likelihood, can no longer function sexually or stay out of the bathroom for long.