FBI turns to Social Media for cold cases

If social media can assist criminals in getting smarter, then why would it not be able to help those who fight crime?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has turned its eyes to social media to help solve a nearly 20-year old case gone cold.

David Parker Ray, who was convicted of sexually torturing his victims, has been known for boasts of having killed others.

Frank Fisher, a spokesman for the FBI, believes that social media will be a great help. The FBI recently posted photographs of a gold medallion, a turquoise rosary and a leather bracelet engraved with “Linda” on their website. In addition, they will be tweeting this as well as posting it on Facebook.

Social media had been pivotal in the capture of gangster James “Whitley” Bulger who was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. A tipster in Iceland led the FBI to Bulger after seeing the publicity campaign and social media announcements.

Ray died in prison in 2002; it is unknown as to whether his writing of killing and burying 40 victims is true. There have been no bodies found and agents are open to the possibility that these could have been merely fantasized killings.

There are unsolved missing persons cases dating back to the 1990s. Leg bones have recently been discovered near Ray’s home in New Mexico’s Elephant Butte.

As far as Ray is concerned, there are a number of possibilities surrounding the victims that he is claiming. It could be a series of half-truths as it is with most serial killers, or he could be angered at that his plans were thwarted by the fact that he was caught.

The Zodiac’s final mailed letter to the San Francisco Chronicle read: Zodiac (Symbol) 37 and SFPD 0. Zodiac only had 6 confirmed victims and 2 of them survived the attacks. Like Zodiac, Ray could have merely been distracting his villains, in this case anyone who interferes with a serial killer and their kill is essentially a villain.

Android smartphone with Intel chip coming in 2012

Intel hopes to boost its business selling chips to phone makers -- now the domain of rival ARM -- through a partnership announced this week with Google to develop future Android OS versions for mobile devices with Intel chips.

Intel and Google will jointly tune Android code at the kernel and driver level so that future Android versions work with Intel-based smartphones and tablets. The partnership was announced at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, where Intel showed working units of a smartphone with Android 2.3, code-named "Gingerbread," and a tablet with Android 3.0, code-named "Honeycomb." Both the devices ran on an Intel Atom chip code-named Medfield.

[ At IDF Intel's CEO demonstrated a smartphone with the upcoming Medfield chip running on Android. | iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android? Whatever handheld you use or manage, turn to InfoWorld for the latest developments. Subscribe to InfoWorld's Mobilize newsletter today. ]

Intel officials said a smartphone with Medfield and Android would come in the first half next year.

Intel has made runs at the smartphone market over the past two years, but no handsets with Intel chips are yet available. Intel last year partnered with Nokia to develop the Linux-based MeeGo OS for smartphones, but Nokia abandoned the effort after adopting Microsoft's Windows Phone OS for future smartphones.

The partnership with Google shows that Intel is serious about smartphones and on target to deliver a handset next year, said Dave Whalen, vice president of the Intel Architecture Group and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, in an interview.

"What this does specifically for the phone business is it validates to the marketplace and most importantly to the ecosystem that Intel is now in business," Whalen said, adding that the company was standing behind the development of MeeGo.

Intel's Atom chips are considered more power-hungry than ARM processors, which are in most smartphones today. But Whalen said that the Medfield chip is competitive, and that phone chips would improve over time as Intel engineers chips to smaller geometries, which would help reduce power consumption and drive up performance.

"Everybody is interested in alternatives," Whalen said. "The OEMs that we are working with that looked at our road map feel comfortable that it's going to be competitive."

Intel is pinning its hopes on its manufacturing technology, which it advances every two years, to catch up with ARM on power efficiency. The Medfield chip is manufactured using the 32-nanometer manufacturing process. New Atom designs are under development for the 22-nm process, with manufacturing beginning late this year. Intel will use the 14-nm process for its Atom processors by 2014.

The Intel-Google deal will help the chip maker design better phone chips optimized to run the software, said Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president of the Intel Architecture Group, in an interview.

Moreover, Intel has an advantage over ARM of having software engineers, chip designers and manufacturing experts in-house, which in the long run will be an advantage for the company over ARM, Perlmutter said. ARM licenses processor designs to chip makers, who then hire third-party fabs to make the chips.

"I think it is a juggernaut that is going to be hard for ARM to duplicate. They don't have the capabilities Intel has," Perlmutter said.

The Intel-Google partnership brings OS stability to mobile devices with Intel chips, but what it means to end users is yet to be seen, said Michael Gartenberg, technology analyst at Gartner.

"It makes sense as it extends the reach of both Android to new processors and Intel chips to new platforms, especially for Intel now that MeeGo has very little momentum behind it," Gartenberg said.

The partnership benefits Intel's developer partners, who can move on without worrying about MeeGo's uncertainty, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. With more users adopting mobile devices, there's room for Intel to compete with ARM. ARM may be difficult to unseat though, King said.

The iPhone 5 coming June 2012

The all new iPhone 5 is already buzzing with speculation. Will the iPhone 5 be a complete redesign? Yes! The current Apple iPhone release wasn't much to rave about, although people do really like Siri, the personal assistant. However, the iPhone 5 is going to have some amazing new hardware and features like 3D video and pictures, newly designed keyboards and 4G speeds to name a few!

The new iPhone 5 is going to be loaded with awesome new features like video chat on 3g and 4g (no longer restricted to WiFi only), face recognition and extreme downloading. Also there is a new chat service between Apple devices! Similar to the blackberry messenger service. It has also been integrated into the SMS/MMS application used originally on the iPhone models. (List of possible features below). The new iPhone 5 features are speculated, these features are well received by the public and will typically follow suit based on previous releases and their features.

This iPhone 5 will be equipped with a two A5 chip processors and higher more powerful graphic chips that can deliver higher video resolutions (5-9 times better and 7 times faster) and amazing "still" images when taking pictures, AND it will make multi-tasking a lot faster, in addition to adding support for 4G speeds. The processor will have speeds at 1.5 - 2.0 GHz and 1GB of RAM. Obviously the new iPhone 5 will have iMessage, iOS5, iCloud and all the standard features of the iPhone 4S, including Siri the personal assistant. These improvements alone will be healthy competition for the newly released Samsung Galaxy S II.

Apple recently filed several patent applications in order to bring 3D picture capturing to the iPhone 5. This phone will be capable of rendering, capturing and processing 3D images, which coincides with the recent changes to the dual-camera hardware. The new iPhone 5 will also be capable of taking pictures in Panorama!

The new iPhone 5 will boast 4G also known as LTE (Long Term Evolution) speeds, according to AT&T which is due to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) which is in line with the most recent technology standards for mobile networks.

Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S, a faster version of its best-selling smartphone that includes a virtual "personal assistant" you can talk to. And now, Apple will release the iPhone 5, which looks promising in terms of being sleek, packed with new hardware and finally less restrictions. Very exciting! We will update our information as soon as we learn more about the newest features of the iPhone 5, as more information comes in daily. Again, the iPhone 5 is going to be a complete redesign so there is still a lot to learn about this device. Check it out ....

A few features of the new iPhone 5:

Thinner sleeker design

Physical Keyboard (Possible)

Built in GPS standard

Face Recognition Security

Face Time on 3G and 4G

Custom SMS tones

Custom E-mail alerts with ability to assign different tones to each email address

Shatter resistant

8 MEGAPIXEL Camera front and rear

64G Basic and 120G memory

Extended battery life = 20 hours talk time on 3G and 10 hours on 4G. Standby 1000 hours.

Full 1080p HD Recording AND 3D Video Display !!!

Messaging indicator light.

HTML5 (safari) Flash Player capable

SIM-Less Phone - Basically, the iPhone 5 will be a World Phone, or World iPhone. This is accomplished huilding 2 to 3 internal antennas which makes it capable of GSM and CDMA technology, so you can take the phone to any network!

Motorola Atrix2

Now with a 4.3" 540 x 960 pixel panel (up from 4" on the original), the ATRIX 2 also has a 8 megapixel camera on the back with 1080p HD video capture plus a secondary camera for video calling. Inside is the same 1GHz dual-core processor coupled with 1GB of RAM as in the previous model, which makes it an impressively fast device.

One other upgrade over the old ATRIX is a new type of laptop-style docking station, the LAPDOCK 100, which will be compatible with several models of new Motorola phones.

The operating system is Android 2.3 where the original launched with the out-of-date Android 2.2, and of course it can do everything that every other Android phone can do, although more quickly than most.

All the usual Android smartphone features are here too, including GPS, WiFi, 3.5G support (up to 21Mbps), expandable memory (with a 2GB card in the box), Bluetooth and USB connectivity. There's also an HDMI port and a 3.5mm audio connector.

Inside is a large 1785 mAh battery quoted as giving up to 8.5 hours talktime and 15.9 days standby time. The ATRIX 2 measures 126 x 66 x 10.4mm and weighs 147 grams.

Perhaps this is more of an ATRIX+ rather than the significant upgrade you would expect from the name, and it seems to be lagging behind some of Samsung's latest announcements when it comes to raw processing power. Still, the ATRIX 2 looks like a very impressive device.

Motorola ATRIX 2 at a glance
Available:	Q4 2011
Network:	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 + UMTS 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
Data:	GPRS + EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSPA+ + WiFi
Screen:	4.3" 540 x 960 pixels
Camera:	8 megapixels (main) 0.3 megapixels (sub)
Size:	Large tablet smartphone 126 x 66 x 10mm / 147 grams
Bluetooth:	Yes
Memory card:	MicroSD
Infra-red:	No
Polyphonic:	Yes
Java:	Optional
GPS:	Yes
OS:	Android 2.3
Battery life:	8.5 hours talk / 15 days standby

The Reunion

Release Date: October 21, 2011 (limited) 
Studio: Samuel Goldwyn Films 
Director: Mike Pavone 
Screenwriter: Mike Pavone 
Starring: John Cena, Ethan Embry, Michael Rispoli, Boyd Holbrook, Amy Smart 
Genre: Action, Adventure 
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for violence, sexual content and language) 
Official Website: TheReunion-movie.com 
Review: Not Available 
DVD Review: Not Available 
DVD: Not Available 

Paul Goodman changed my life

Release Date: October 19, 2011 (NY) 
Studio: Zeitgeist Films 
Director: Jonathan Lee 
Screenwriter: Not Available 
Starring: Not Available 
Genre: Documentary 
MPAA Rating: Not Available 
Official Website: PaulGoodmanfilm.com 
Review: Not Available 
DVD Review: Not Available 
DVD: Not Available 
Movie Poster: Not Available 
Production Stills: Not Available