This camera is so sensitive that we used it to differentiate between identical twins and the system got the right one, Skaugen explained.The camera can also be used to personalize games, mapping the player's face and body into player characters. Skaugen said that Intel has been working with Electronic Arts to add this into games, and the early results are looking very good.In China, Tencent is also adding the technology to dating sites to eliminate the nasty shock of meeting someone who looks nothing like their photo. Skaugen joked that startups should start building profile editing software.All of this is for laptops, but desktop systems are also going to rise again, Skaugen predicted, with gamers driving growth. Gamers typically refresh their systems every two years, compared to nearly six for standard desktop users.The big loser in all of this is going to be the tablet market, Skaugen said. Intel had got the growth in tablets wrong, he said, and is now revising its forecasts.18 months ago many people thought that tablet sales were going to cross over PCs in 2014; now we're sure they won't ever, Skaugen said. At Intel we've taken a billion units out of our forecasts in the last year. The Mountain View ad giant said on Monday that it has no immediate plans to kill off Chrome OS nor the army of lightweight Chromebook PCs it has spawned: the web goliath has promised a regular six-week software cycle and guaranteed auto-updates for five years for the operating system.
After that, of course, who knows? Maybe it'll find a comfy spot on the shelf next to Google Reader, Google Wave, Google Code, and Google Talk.Over the last few days, there's been some confusion about the future of Chrome OS and Chromebooks based on speculation that Chrome OS will be folded into Android, blogged Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google senior vice president for Android, Chrome OS, and Chromecast.While we've been working on ways to bring together the best of both operating systems, there's no plan to phase out Chrome OS.This followed rumors that Google was going to fold Chrome OS into Android to form a single operating system that was mobile and laptop friendly.It was speculated that this effort would focus Google engineers on the Chrome-droid hybrid, and put Chrome OS and the open-source Chromium project – the Linux-powered basis of Chrome OS – on the back burner.This drew outcry from folks who feared that in the process of merging the two operating systems, Google will mothball a pretty secure lightweight desktop OS (Chromium) in favor of developing a vulnerability-riddled phone platform (Android).
Lockheimer has been the point man for Google's response, issuing public denials that Chrome OS was going to be phased out in favor of a PC-flavored build of Android.Designed for low-cost lightweight notebooks, Chrome OS relies in large part on in-browser applications that are isolated into sandboxes that limit their reach to other components. Google estimates that 30,000 Chrome OS devices are activated every day in US schools.Even in issuing the denial, Lockheimer noted that Google was indeed looking to integrate more of Android into Chrome OS. He noted moves such as last year's launch of the App Runtime for Chrome (ARC) tool allowing Chromebooks to run Android mobile applications.We have plans to release even more features for Chrome OS, the Google senior VP said, such as a new media player, a visual refresh based on Material Design, improved performance, and of course, a continued focus on security.What that means for the future of Chrome OS remains to be seen. In the meantime, however, the Chocolate Factory stresses that the OS isn't going anywhere. Well, not for another five years, anyway. Something for the Weekend, Sir? There’s nothing worse in journalism than a big-mouthed writer who can’t take what he gives. So I would like to thank all those readers who emailed me personally to offer their opinions on last week’s column in which I cast doubt on Hollywood’s portrayal of computer hackers as sharp-witted and articulate with washboard abs rather than fat, spotty and smelling of Lynx and tramp sick.A special note of appreciation goes to those who expressed shock at my apparent lack of respect for the mighty Iron Maiden before going on to tell me which popular music combos they thought were rubbish.It was a eye-opener. I had hoped The Reg’s readership might be getting younger but I never imagined it included quite so many children.
This being the case, allow me to enhance the SEO standing of this week’s column by making an unnecessary reference to The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Thank you for your indulgence.Speaking of youngsters, I was browsing in a charity bookshop yesterday in which I noticed an old book called How to Photograph Children. One imagines it will remain gathering dust on that shelf for quite a while. It’s not exactly the kind of tome you’d wish to be seen with tucked under your arm as you bicycle back to the vicarage, is it?There is an innate creepiness about the act of watching children. This possibly explains the decision by Judge Rebecca Ward this week in the US to clear the charges made against a bloke who shot down a drone hovering over his back garden. William Merideth said he believed the drone was spying on his two girls and, being an ordinary protective father whose primary concern is for the safety of his kids, reached for the nearest shotgun lying about the house and blasted the motherfucker out of the sky.Hailing from northern Yurp, I am a stranger to back-garden gun culture. Guns themselves I have no trouble with, except when used outside club competition and forestry hunting. Perhaps for this reason, European gun owners are treated as charming throwbacks to a more innocent era rather than as survivalist psychos and ego-supremacists in constant terror of something made up in their own heads.
In France, for example, hunters are treated as figures of some amusement. Although there are cases of hunters catching careless ramblers with stray buckshot while trying to track down wild boar, they are much more likely to end up accidentally shooting their own dogs and even each other in their hapless adventures.I have heard that in many locations around the US, you can shoot whomever you like just as long as they’re on your property. This must be handy when you’ve run out of bottles and tin cans but it must make visits from family over Christmas a tense affair, what with all those simmering life-long disagreements ready to explode into an almighty bloodbath simply by leaving the cap off the toothpaste.So I am transfixed by the court’s finding that Mr Merideth is within his rights to shoot down a drone invading his personal space – not because I am appalled but because I think it’s absolutely fantastic. To me, he sounds like Fuzzy Lumpkins from the Power Puff Girls for digital generation.
Just think of all those intrusive CCTV cameras staring at you as you leave the front door, tracking you down the street, watching as you wait for a bus, record your every sniff and cough while on the bus itself, following you into work and sniggering at you all day to make sure you’re at your desk. Bugger the drones, let’s poke all those fixed-camera bastards in the eye!Then there are the unwelcome intrusions into my personal cyberspace to deal with. Perhaps I could persuade a judge to justify my violent retaliative action against every Nigerian scammer and American spammer attempting to fill my inbox.
As for Google’s laughably targeted ads or those irrelevant crap promotions you keep seeing on Twitter, how would you like a slug of digital lead between your virtual eyes, pal? Oh and what about GCHQ prying through my children’s web history? Bloody paedos, the lot of them.There are plenty of other instances when instant retribution would do me nicely.I recently had to deliver a presentation of a bespoke development project to a customer, directed onto a company laptop that had been set up with the software. Just as we began, she began plugging in an unfamiliar computer. When challenged, she said she felt more comfortable using her own laptop from home than the one I’d spent a week configuring. She refused to be talked out of it.Rather than desperately trying to install Oracle runtime and shitloads of support files before delivering what turned out to be the most incompetent tech demo since the dawn of the industrial age, what I should have done was reach into my shoulder bag for a shotgun and blasted her laptop into aluminium filings. And I’d have had the might of the courts behind me.Don’t stop there. Does the postman keep invading your private space with bills? Blamm!!! Is that nice old lady from the other end of the street about to ask you to mind her cats while she goes on another cruise to the West Indies? Kapow!!! The next time your neighbour climbs a 20ft ladder to “trim the hedge” just outside your living room window and remains there all afternoon watching your TV, take the fucker out with a Glock model 40.