| Cute mini-robots compete for championship title, gladiator freedom (video) Mar 27th 2012, 22:12 If you thought a robot fighting championship just sounds like the plot for a Hugh Jackman vehicle, you'd be partly right. We'll tell you who does have the real steel though, the plucky fellas you see above. They're competing for this year's ROBO-ONE championship, an annual competition where humanoid robots slug it out to the death (or power failure at least) held this weekend in Kawasaki, Japan. This is no toy fair either, with contestants bagging a $12,000 pot if their android-avatar wins the crown. This year, that title goes to GAROO, winning for the second time in a row by defeating Gargoyle Mini for the spoils. Rumors of LED gauging were unfounded, as you'll see in the video after the round... we mean break. Continue reading Cute mini-robots compete for championship title, gladiator freedom (video) Cute mini-robots compete for championship title, gladiator freedom (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  The Verge |  Robot Dreams, Robo-One (Japanese) | Email this | Comments | | Microsoft's 'HTTP Speed + Mobility' aims to make the web faster, could be the next big ping Mar 27th 2012, 21:27 We're generally satisfied with our internet performance, but we wouldn't say no to a speed boost. A Microsoft blog post reveals plans to enable just that, with the company's proposed "HTTP Speed + Mobility" approach to HTTP 2.0. Have you thought about what life would be like with a faster internet? MS says Y-E-S! "There is already broad consensus about the need to make web browsing much faster," the company proclaimed. Juicy. The suggested protocol will, well, focus on achieving greater speed, but Microsoft hasn't detailed exactly how it will accomplish that, beyond mentioning that it's based on the Google SPDY protocol, which on its own aims to reduce latency and congestion by prioritizing requests and removing the limit on simultaneous streams over a single TCP connection. For its part, MS says it will be expanding on SPDY to "address the needs of mobile devices and applications," which we presume would be in Google's best interests as well. It's safe to say that Microsoft's being a bit more forthcoming during its meetings with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) this week -- the organization responsible for creating HTTP 2.0 -- so perhaps we'll be hearing more about this fabled faster internet before we turn anew to Q2. Microsoft's 'HTTP Speed + Mobility' aims to make the web faster, could be the next big ping originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Webmonkey | Microsoft | Email this | Comments | | Department of Commerce and NTIA suggest spectrum sharing for government and commercial services Mar 27th 2012, 21:05 In 2010 President Obama stated, in no uncertain terms, that our country's competitive edge and technological leadership were conditional on our ability to open up broad swaths of spectrum for commercial and governmental use. Two years later, we've made progress, but our wireless providers are still struggling to keep up as our demand for cellular broadband skyrockets -- even spectrum hog Verizon claims to be gasping for air. The Commerce Department and US National Telecommunications and Information Administration are suggesting a new approach to opening up the airwaves to carriers that doesn't involve the wholesale abandonment of radiowave real estate by its current residents. The NTIA thinks there is room for both federal agencies and companies in the 95MHz between 1755 and 1850MHz. This would open up the prime spectrum to commercial use, but would also save the time and money normally needed to relocate existing government services which, in this case, includes military communications and missile guidance systems. In typical bureaucratic fashion, more study will be needed before a formal recommendation can be made to the FCC. But, there's plenty more detail to be had in the meantime -- just check out the PR after the break and the full report at the source link. [Tower photo via Shutterstock]Continue reading Department of Commerce and NTIA suggest spectrum sharing for government and commercial services Department of Commerce and NTIA suggest spectrum sharing for government and commercial services originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink The Verge | NTIA | Email this | Comments | |
