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Microsoft Fires 2,100 People in Second Round of Job Cuts
Hair Growing Laser Helmet Gets the Green Light from the FDA
SmartiPi Raspberry Pi Case Has Room for LEGO Bricks and a GoPro Camera

Microsoft Fires 2,100 People in Second Round of Job Cuts

Posted: 25 Sep 2014 09:39 AM PDT

As part of the company’s previously announced plan to save money and stop losses, Microsoft will be letting 2,100 staff go.

It’s been a pretty bleak year for Microsoft. They set off 2014 trying to gain ground in the mobile market with their Surface tablets and Windows Phones struggling to go up against bigger and better iOS and Android powered offerings, the Xbox One’s first year on sale has seen its sales figures trickle somewhat concerningly behind the resplendent PlayStation 4 and to make matters worse, this is all going on after they agreed to take on Nokia’s phone business for the cool number of $7.2 billion along with 25,000 new employees.

Considered to be a poorly judged parting gift from former CEO Steve Ballmer, few people agreed that it was a good decision, instead regarding it as a problem that new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella would need to fix. So how is he going about solving it? By a staggering amount of job cuts, with this latest round of them firing 2,100.

At the initial announcement, Microsoft revealed that they would be cutting 18,000 jobs (around 14% of their global workforce) and with 13,000 already axed this recent 2,100 was not entirely unexpected. However, it is the regions of the business in which the job cuts have taken place that are perhaps of some concern.

To break them down, 747 positions will be given the chop in Washington, 160 in California and the remainder being divided up by job cuts across the globe. The troubling part of this for investors and consumers alike is that 50 of those Californian job cuts were in Microsoft’s Silicon Valley Research team which has now being closed down altogether, effective immediately. While it’s hardly unheard of for a company to decide to focus on what they’ve got rather than what they could have, it does reflect Microsoft’s new strategy to focus on their Windows Phones (where they have less than 5% of the mobile market) and productivity software that many consumers say they don’t want or need.

So is it a case of Microsoft starting to (troublingly) move all of its eggs into one basket? Depending on whether you’re a glass half-full or half-empty type of person, that answer will somewhat differ. But, with several thousands job cuts still to come before Microsoft hits their 18,000 target, it’s undeniable that even more big changes are still to come.

Source: ZDNet

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Hair Growing Laser Helmet Gets the Green Light from the FDA

Posted: 24 Sep 2014 01:52 PM PDT

There already are plenty of treatments for hair loss, some more efficient than others, but that didn’t stop Apira Science to develop a hair growing laser helmet that has just been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration recently.

Let’s be honest for a moment, anything that includes lasers is bound to be efficient, regardless of the purpose it was built for, and even more so when it’s a medical matter that we’re talking about. Even saying the word ‘laser’ out loud seems to have some therapeutic effect on people nowadays. That is not to say that the Apira Science’s iGrow hair growing laser helmet doesn’t work as advertised. After all, the FDA doesn’t give clearance to just anyone. Or does it?

The iGrow hair growth system, something that sounds as if it was made by Apple, works on a very simple principle. The helmet employs red lasers and LEDs to illuminate the scalp. Putting the helmet on for 25 minutes a day, three or four times a week, should be sufficient. However, the results won’t appear sooner than four to six months into the treatment, and then people shouldn’t expect an increase in the hair count of more than 35 percent.

LLLT (Low-Level Laser Therapy), the technology on which this helmet is based, relies on the principle that light at the wavelength of 655 nanometers can re-energize hair follicles and can actually promote hair rejuvenation. Given Apira Science’s past history, the developers of this helmet might hide behind sciency-looking data and capitalize on hope.

In case you were wondering why the pieces covering the ears look like headphones, it’s because that’s exactly what they are. The manufacturers of the hair growing laser helmet thought that you might get bored and start pulling your hair at the end of the 25 minutes-session, so it included the means for listening to music or audiobooks while your hair grows. Some might get the wrong idea that it’s actually the music and not the LEDs and lasers that promote hair growth.

iGrow will cost $696 and will be offered as an over-the-counter product, thanks to the FDA. That’s a pretty steep price, and assuming that you’ve set your expectations too high, you’re left with a very expensive pair of weird-looking headphones. Bose & Co. definitely have nothing to fear, though.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about Reebok Checklight, a helmet that warns sportsmen about head traumas, and life-saving Guardian AR motorcycle helmet.

SmartiPi Raspberry Pi Case Has Room for LEGO Bricks and a GoPro Camera

Posted: 24 Sep 2014 01:06 PM PDT

LEGO figurines make great wire holders, and that’s exactly what the makers of the SmartiPi Raspberry Pi case had in mind when they built this accessory.

The problem with things built out of LEGO bricks is that they play a cosmetic role most often, and they lack functionality. That’s certainly not the case with the SmartiPi Raspberry Pi case, which enables you to build upon it and add functionality as you go. Using LEGO figurines as cable holders is only one of the great things people loving the Danish bricks could do with this Raspberry Pi B+ case.

Thomas Murray, the industrial designer who came up with the idea of building a LEGO case for the Raspberry Pi, recounts how fascinated he was with the versatility and affordability of the B+ model. However, when he looked for a case to match, none of his findings were as versatile or affordable as the credit card-sized computer itself. With that in mind, he proceeded to creating his own.

The SmartiPi case enables people to attach a GoPro camera and connect it to the Raspberry Pi B+ computer. SmartiPi provides access to all of the computer’s ports, not to mention that it also includes 3 holes that line up with 75mm VESA mounts. This enables people to attach the case to the back of a monitor, so that the computer is inconspicuous. The is held together by four screws, so assembling it should really be effortless. It’s also possible to stack multiple SmartiPi cases one on top of another, should you need to use more than one in the same location.

The SmartiPi Raspberry Pi B+ LEGO case, as well as its camera counterpart, are currently the subject of a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. Anyone pledging $13 as an early bird, or $17 as a regular backer should expect to get the Raspberry Pi and camera case in January 2015, assuming that the project gets funded. Murray is already half-way there, as people pledged more than 50 percent of the $14K required for mass-producing this case. At the time of writing there were 25 more days to go until the end of the campaign, and I’m confident that it will be a successful one.

Watch Tom Murray explaining how he was motivated to build the case. The most interesting features of the case are also detailed in the above video. Have a look at it and decide for yourself if the SmartiPi case is worth it.

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