Apple not allowed to keep survey secrets in Samsung case

As the Apple vs Samsung case continues to rage on, this Friday’s proceedings have begun with a ruling on Apple’s ability to keep secret their customer surveys galore. It may seem like a strange situation that Apple would have to reveal what their surveyed customers have said about the iPhone and iPad while at the same time Samsung is being denied usage of evidence in spades, but such is this case’s rather intricate set of rulings before the jury even sees the case in action. Additionally this morning’s proceedings have been preceded by a ruling that Apple’s request for sanctions against Samsung will be denied.

This second bit of business about sanctions has to do with Apple seeking to punish Samsung, so to speak, for releasing information that Apple and Judge Koh understood to be inadmissible in the case. Samsung maintains that the information presented before the trial, (and subsequently shared with the press), is still not a part of the trial as the jury has not seen it. The ruling this morning, though, includes a push for a poll of jurors to see if they have heard anything regarding the situation before the trial can proceed.

Apple also requested that the pre-trial session happening this morning be sealed, but this request was also denied. The jury will step in some time early today as or right after they’ve been polled on the situation above, but this morning is full up with procedural issues. Press such as Ina Fried from AllThingsD are sitting in on the trial and are providing information from right on site.

Early today we’ll be seeing Apple’s Phil Shiller take the stand for testimony as the trial continues. Have a peek at the timeline below to follow each of the more important points as they’ve broken over the past week in this massively important trial for two of the most gigantic hardware manufacturers on earth in the mobile realm – and stick around SlashGear.com’s main news feed for up-to-the-minute bits as well!

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Steam hardware survey sees rise in lower-end PCs

You would think that, as time goes on, more and more Steam users would be adopting better hardware for their PCs. The Steam hardware survey for June 2012 tells us that may not necessarily be the case, as the company actually saw an increase in lower-end PC use over past hardware surveys. Take, for instance, the number of computers that use Intel Integrated Graphics – while NVIDIA and ATI GPUs are still by far the most common, in June Steam saw the use of Intel Integrated Graphics rise to 11%.

There was also a rise in the use of single and dual-core systems. Systems that use DirectX 11 and DirectX 10 GPUs rose ever so slighly (both by less than one percent), but the number of systems using DirectX 9 rose by 1.5%, meaning that DirectX 9 systems are now used by almost 20% of Steam’s user base. Also of note are the most common resolutions: 25% of participants in the poll are using 1920×1080, 18% are using 1366×768, 10% are using 1680×1050, and finally, 1600×900 comes in with 7%.

PCGamesN points out that this rise in older hardware could mean that more users are installing Steam on their laptops. There’s also the fact that indie games are all the rage at the moment, and those don’t usually require high-end hardware to run. Indeed, you can enjoy a lot of Steam’s game without having a beast of a rig, and considering that indie games are generally much cheaper than major releases by big publishers, it seems like that may be one of the reasons why we’re seeing more middling PCs accessing Steam.

It’s also worth pointing out that a bug in the system recently discovered by Steam prevented new computers from being included in the monthly surveys. While the bug was present, only computers that had participated in the poll before were polled again in recent hardware surveys, meaning if you recently installed Steam on a new PC, it may not have been included in the results. The bug has since been fixed, but it’s causing all of this data to appear all at once instead of over time as it would have normally. Still, despite the bug, this is an interesting development, and it will be exciting to see where the data goes in future hardware surveys.

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Nearly One-Third Of Drivers Admit To Driving While Half-Asleep: Survey

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While drunk driving and distracted driving grab most of the headlines, new research shows that drowsy driving may be even more deadly than previously estimated.

According to the latest survey by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, nearly 96 percent of Americans say drowsy driving is unacceptable behavior, yet nearly one-third admit to driving during the past month while they were so sleepy they couldn’t keep their eyes open.

The frightening finding comes just in advance of Drowsy Driving Prevention Week, November 6-12, hosted by the National Sleep Foundation.

This comes on the heels of last year’s AAA Foundation study, Asleep At The Wheel, which found that nearly one in six fatal crashes, one in eight crashes involving serious injury, and one in 14 of all crashes in which a passenger vehicle is towed involved drowsy driving.

Drowsy driving isn’t anything to take lightly, as Jake Nelson, AAA’s Director of Traffic Safety Advocacy and Research points out, referring to Foundation findings that two out of five drivers admit to falling asleep at the wheel at some point, and one in 10 saying they’d done so in the past year. “What’s so alarming is that over half of these drivers reported having fallen asleep while driving on high-speed roads,” said Nelson.

The 2010 study further found that 57 percent of the drowsy driving crashes involved the driver drifting into other lanes or going off the road, two out of three drivers involved in drowsy driving crashes were men, and younger drivers ages 16 to 24 were nearly twice as likely to be involved in a drowsy driving crash as drivers ages 40 to 59.

Watch out for these drowsy driving warning signs

The AAA Foundation and the National Sleep Foundation have some good advice for drivers of all ages when it comes to being able to recognize the signs and prevent drowsy driving.

You could be at risk for drowsy driving if any of the following occur:

You have trouble keeping your eyes open and focused.You find yourself drifting from your lane or tailgating.You frequently yawn or repeatedly rub your eyes.You can’t keep your head up.You find yourself daydreaming or having disconnected thoughts.You miss signs or drive past your intended exit.You drift off the road and hit the rumble strips.You are unable to remember how far you have traveled or what landmarks or locations you have recently passed.You feel restless and irritable.

Keep in mind that you don’t always recognize when you are sleepy. You might feel perfectly fine but you could still fall asleep at any time. It’s also not true that you can tell when you’re about to fall asleep or that just gulping coffee or caffeinated drinks will wake you up. If you do pull off the road to have some coffee, you have to allow 30 minutes for it to enter your bloodstream, and the effects only last about three hours. You could be drinking coffee at the wheel and still have “micro-sleeps,” tiny naps lasting just seconds. But if you are traveling at 65 miles per hour, you can travel more than 100 yards in three seconds. That’s long enough to crash.

Highway rest stop - AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety

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Tips to drive alert and stay alive

Don’t be a victim of sleep deficit. Give yourself, your passengers, and others on the road the benefit of taking these precautions.

-      Never drive when you are sleepy. Long trips, especially, can be very tiring. Pull over and take a break.

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Survey shows 1 in 2 prefer contactless payments to cash in the UK

A new study has revealed that contactless payment technology could finally be gaining traction in the UK, with more than half the people surveyed saying they preferred it to paying with cash in some situations, reports the Telegraph.

Contactless payments allows people to pay for lower value goods, such as takeaway food or transport fares, by swiping a card without the need to enter a PIN number.

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