Microsoft on Monday announced a pilot program to hire workers with autism.
The company is working with an organization called Specialisterne, which helps create and find jobs for autistic workers. Microsoft will focus on filling full-time positions at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The news comes just after World Autism Awareness Day, which was last Thursday.
Microsoft has been "committed to enabling people with disabilities to be successful for a long time," said Mary Ellen Smith, Microsoft's corporate vice president for operations. In a blog poston the company's site, Smith noted that her 19-year-old son Shawn was diagnosed with autism when he was 4 years old.
"Microsoft is stronger when we expand opportunity and we have a diverse workforce that represents our customers. People with autism bring strengths that we need at Microsoft," Smith wrote. "Each individual is different, some have amazing ability to retain information, think at a level of detail and depth or excel in math or code. It’s a talent pool that we want to continue to bring to Microsoft."
Smith did not specify how many workers would be hired under the program.
Other software companies have also recognized that people with autism can bring special skills to the workforce. SAPannounced a similar program in conjunction with Specialisterne in 2013.
In a recent study, Microsoft's workforce efforts earned it recognition for being among the top-ranked diverse companies.
Candidates interested in Microsoft's pilot program can email resumes to msautism@microsoft.com.
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Microsoft manager Satya Nadella presents his vision for the future of the software company at the developer conference 'Build' in San Francisco, USA, 02 April 2014.
Microsoft's biggest event of the year is about to begin.
The company's annual Build developer conference kicks off Wednesday with an opening keynote from CEO Satya Nadella and other top execs who will share the latest on Windows 10, HoloLens and more.
If you want to follow along with every second of the two and a half hour keynote, Microsoft will be streaming the entire event on Build's website beginning at 8:30 a.m PT Wednesday.
The company is expected to preview the latest updates to Windows 10, which will run across phones, tablets and PCs. We're also likely to hear more about the latest Office apps, HoloLens, Microsoft'snew browser and the company's Siri rival, Cortana.
Microsoft, which has been increasingly focused on cross-platform experiences since Nadella took over, may also reveal new ways developers can bring existing Android apps to its platform.
With so many updates in the works, it's sure to be a jam-packed keynote so stay tuned as Mashable will be reporting live from the event in San Francisco with all the latest news and analysis.
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Putting aside everything else about the Retina iMac, the real story and the reason you're interested in this machine is the screen.
The iPhone 6 Plus notwithstanding, Apple tends to define "Retina" as a display that has double the pixels of the product's previous (non-Retina) display. Apple doubles the pixels but then adjusts text and graphics so they take up the same amount of space on-screen, keeping things readable.
With the Retina iMac, Apple doubled the 2,560 x 1,440 resolution of the old 27-inch iMac in both directions — to a mind-boggling 5,120 x 2,880 pixels. Apple dubs this 5K, and it's a significant increase over other high-resolution desktops.
With 14.7 million pixels on the panel, Apple says the Retina 5K iMac has seven times the resolution of full HD (1,920 x 1,080). Even more impressive, it has 67% more pixels than a 4K display.
Kent Akgungor put that in perspective when he figured out that you can fit 80displays from the original Macintosh from 1984 into the resolution of the new Retina iMac. That's a lot of display advancement over the last 30 years.
To push all those pixels, Apple had to create its own timing controller. A timing controller, or TCON, is what ensures that pixels light up in the right places at the right time.
Historically, a big bottleneck with displays with this kind of density is bandwidth for the stream itself.
I've tested a few 4K displays in the past and although those displays look great, most use what's called Multi-Stream Transport (MST) to get the image to appear. MST basically outputs two 2K images (a 1,920 x 1,080 screen) and then combines the two images together. MST works fine, but in some applications, you can sometimes see tearing artifacts.
Apple's custom TCON gets around this issue by combining two DisplayPort 1.2 streams onto a single chip. This ends up being 40Gbps (gigabits per second) of bandwidth, which is four times that of the previous 27-inch iMac. As a result, there is no tearing on the Retina 5K iMac and no pauses where the display seems "off." It's seamless.
Apple is also using oxide TFT (thin-film transistor) LCD technology to charge all of those pixels and to make sure they charge faster and last longer. Apple is also using organic passivation — a technique it introduced with the first Retina iPad — to make sure there isn't any pixel cross-talk.
Experiencing the screen
As for the display quality itself, it's an absolute stunner. My first reaction to seeing the screen was to say quite simply, "I want to live in this screen."Blacks are black and whites are white. Colors pop and the tone and calibration are fantastic to the naked eye. Apple calibrates each of its displays before they leave the factory and the results here are fantastic.
The screen is glossy, but not overly reflective. I tested this machine adjacent to a big picture window and although I could certainly angle my head to see reflections in the display, it took a lot of effort and it wasn't evident at all head-on.
The 5120x2880 display in its full resolution.
Although you can use the Retina iMac in its full 5,120 x 2,880 resolution, most users aren't going to want to do that. The screen real-estate is simply too immense. Instead, the scaled mode, which makes windows and objects the same size as on a traditional iMac, is probably the best bet for most users.
If you have ever used a MacBook Pro With Retina Display, the experience is very similar. Text is crisp, icons are sharp, and every detail (or pixelated imperfection) is visible.
The nice part about Apple's scaling technology is that video files still play back at their native resolution. As a result, a 1080p video file in full-screen on the Retina iMac doesn't look pixelated or blurry; it looks excellent.
If you want to edit photos or videos, the Retina iMac is a treat. The resolution is so high, you can actually view every pixel of a 4K video clip in Final Cut Pro X, along with the timeline for edits, all in one monitor. That's just phenomenal.
Likewise, anyone doing pixel-precision work, such as illustrators, will love the screen. Zooming in on vector drawings in Sketch or Illustrator is an absolute joy.
Specs
As for the Retina 5K iMac itself, well, it's a top-of-the-line iMac. In fact, core for core, the results were actually better on GeekBench 3 than the 8-core Mac Pro I reviewed earlier this year.
We tested the base model Retina iMac, which includes a fourth-gen Haswell Intel Core i5 quad-core running at 3.5GHz. For the GPU, it includes an AMD Radeon R9 290X with 2GB of RAM. You can upgrade the Retina 5K iMac to a quad-core Intel Core i7 running at 4GHz and you can raise the graphics card to an AMD Radeon R9 295X with 4GB of RAM.
The base system comes with 8GB of RAM, but it can be expanded to 32GB. The system also came with a 1TB Fusion Drive, which combines a 128GB SSD with a 1TB standard hard drive for an experience that offers faster reads and writes for frequently-used files and OS stuff, but uses a traditional hard drive for files that are accessed less often or for media such as music.
The Fusion Drive is a great concept, but for users who value speed above all else, we'd suggest configuring the Retina iMac with an SSD-only option.
The Retina iMac comes with a gigabit ethernet port, 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, four USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt 2 ports, plus an SDXC slot.
Because of the bandwidth required to run the display, the Retina iMac cannot act as a secondary display. That's a shame, because Target Display Mode has always been one of my favorite iMac tricks. Still, it makes sense, especially given the nature of the TCON. It also suggests that Apple might not have a standalone Retina 5K Display until Thunderbolt 3 becomes a reality.
Running Cinebench, the OpenGL results for the Retina iMac are solid. True, this isn't going to be as great as what you could get on a Mac Pro or a higher-end gaming PC, but it's solid.
Performance
I tried to run the Retina iMac through the paces to test its performance. I'm happy to say that even with the base model, it came through with flying colors.
I never noticed any issues with tearing or dithering on the screen. Editing 4K content in Final Cut Pro X with real-time effects was flawless, just as it was on the Mac Pro.
The system never stalled on me, even with two different browsers open and dozens of tabs open at once, along with Final Cut X, Photoshop CC 2014 and other apps running in the background.
Retina iMac with Final Cut Pro X
The Mac isn't a gaming platform; we know this, but I decided to test out Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance to test the graphical prowess.
At 2,560 x 1,440 (the maximum resolution I could use) and at "ultra" settings, the game remained crisp and solid without any dropped frames. Although I wouldn't say that the Retina 5K iMac is an ideal gaming machine, even the base graphics card managed to keep up. I can only imagine that an upgrade to the 4GB AMD Radeon R9 295X would be even better.
All in all, I have to say I'm impressed with how well the Retina iMac kept up with what I threw at it.
Is it necessary?
A colleague asked me an interesting question about the Retina 5K iMac: Is it necessary? The idea being, do we actually need screens this big with this type of clarity?
Needs are subjective, of course, and it's certainly true that anyone who has an older 27-inch iMac will probably still enjoy the screen and the experience. Plus, although the web is now more Retina-friendly than ever and almost every major Mac app I tested had great Retina support already, it's true that when it comes to video content, 4K and higher is hard to come by.
Netflix offers 4K video on select SmartTVs, but not in the web browser. YouTube offers 4K too, but not for commercial video — plus, YouTube's compression algorithms are far from pristine. iTunes still only offers content in HD, and sure, it looks great on the Retina iMac, but obviously it's not 4K.
It could be fair to say, that at least from a video content perspective, the Retina iMac is ahead of its time. So what's the point? Why did Apple release a Retina iMac now?
Well, to paraphrase George Mallory (and Sir Edmund Hillary), "because it can."
The technical achievement of the Retina iMac is immense. It's a fantastic response to anyone questioning Apple's record on hardware innovation. The fact that Apple was able to get this type of screen, with this quality, working the way that it has in an all-in-one machine is incredible. It's even more impressive when one realizes that the new screen actually uses less power than the older model and that it was able to fit everything into a housing that is incredibly, incredibly thin.
Still, the greatest part is the fact that Apple is doing all of this in something that retails for $2,499. For the same price as a good 4K display (or one of those new 5K displays), you get an entire system — and a powerful system at that.
The Retina 5K iMac might not be necessary, but I'm sure glad it exists.
Final image
As I said at the outset, the real story with the Retina 5K iMac is the screen. The screen is so good, it makes the $2,499 price point seem quite reasonable. If you've been looking for a new desktop and have an affinity for quality displays, the Retina 5K iMac is probably for you. For video and photo editors, depending on what you're doing, the iMac could be a better fit than the amazing Mac Pro.
Even if you're not interested in buying the new Retina 5K iMac, do yourself a favor and check out the display in person at an Apple Store. You can thank me later.
Apple 27-inch iMac With Retina 5K Display
The Good
Amazing screen • Solid performance • Solid price point
The Bad
Can't use as external monitor •Only RAM is upgradeable • Very little 4K content
The Bottom Line
The 27-inch iMac With Retina 5K Display is the most impressive screen we've ever seen and the best all-in-one computer on the market.
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The LG G3 was one of the first phones to boast a Quad HD display. Up next: smartphones with 4K resolution.
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If you think the ultra-sharp Quad HDdisplays on today's state-of-the-art smartphones are as good as it gets, think again. According to Qualcomm, who builds many of today's key technologies in mobile, 4K smartphones are just around the corner, and they'll take pixel counts to an — arguably absurd — new level.
When Apple debuted the iPhone 4 back in 2010, it introduced the idea of "Retina"displays, which loosely means a display with a resolution so sharp that the pixels disappear to the naked eye, at least at normal viewing distances. Since then, every smartphone manufacturer has responded with ultra-high-res screens on their flagship phones, sometimes going way beyond what was once considered excessive.
The standard in flagship phone displays hit 1080p (the same resolution as an HDTV) about a year ago, and the top phones rolling out of factories in Asia now sport Quad HD displays: screens with 2,560 x 1,440 — or 3.7 million pixels. Unless you're literally holding the phone right up to your face, you'll never be able to see a single one of them.
That's a lot of pixels, but just you wait. Qualcomm says phones with 4K resolution — the same as today's most advanced televisions — are coming in 2015.
The dawn of 4K in phones isn't just about how many pixels are on the screen. To Qualcomm in particular, it's more about supporting a world where 4K is the new standard for video, which involves everything from the chip to the compression technologies used to transmit the files.
"Where 4K will really take off is when you think of it being enabled by an ecosystem," says Qualcomm Technologies Co-President Murthy Renduchintala. "Concepts are going to drive it. It's not going to be the phone screen that's going to be the promoting factor in 4K. It's going to be what you want to do with data that's captured on your phone in 4K, and what you want to do with distributing data."
That ecosystem is already forming now that phones like the Sony Xperia Z3 andSamsung Galaxy Note 4 able to capture 4K video. While the footage gives users something to watch on their 4K TVs other than House of Cards, it exacerbates issues with bandwidth and storage. Many phones still have just 16GB (or even 8GB) of storage — perilously little when the resolution is 3,840 x 2,160 for every frame.
"A large part of the content you want in 4K, you can literally store at the 'edge' of your network, in a cached state, without having to reach back for those large file sizes in real time," explains Renduchintala. "You don't have to [accept] latency. You can — opportunistically — download bucketloads of content and have it sitting on a storage network that's independent. Then the problem becomes, 'How do I distribute that data around my network, which may be my house."
4K support on phones will also help mobile gaming keep up with consoles. As games begin to embrace 4K, the phones will be able to keep up, with (presumably) less need to "dumb down" functionality or gameplay on a mobile device — even if the actual screen being used is an external one.
"If you get an Android or iOS game in 4K, it'll give you the same immersive experience as a console game, but it [may] cost $1.99," says Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm Technologies' other co-president. "It could be a device that interacts with your TV; mobile is like your own remote control — you generate content, you transmit content, you have content streamed to you. But then you need to deal with 4K data processing on the mobile phone, and that's the problem we're solving."
As for the phone itself, the one most direct application of 4K resolution is virtual reality. Some VR products, including the Samsung Gear VR, use a smartphone display as the main screen. In that very specific (and currently tiny) use case, the pixels are just an inch from your eye, and the more resolution, the better.
VR aside, there probably isn't much justification from a user-experience standpoint for 4K displays on phones. Having tested several phones, I've found the improvement in resolution that Quad HD has over full HD to be discernible, but only barely, and for extremely remote situations (such as the incredibly precise handwriting experience on the Galaxy Note 4).
Still, it's hard to argue with the crux of Qualcomm's vision: that 4K video will soon be the standard in high-quality video, and phones — which are rapidly becoming the main gateway to our digital lives — will need to support it. You might call it overkill, but to the future, it's just Tuesday.
BONUS: 4K and 1080p compared
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Think that brand-new smartphone in your pocket is pretty cool? In just a few short months it’ll be officially obsolete. In early 2015, the first phones with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 chip will arrive on store shelves, and they’re going to power all kinds of new experiences in the next generation of mobile devices.
Qualcomm Snapdragon processors power virtually all of today’s top-tier phones that aren’t iPhones. Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry — if it’s a flagship device (or close), chances are it packs a Snapdragon (although Nvidia’s Tegra line and Samsung’s home-grown chips make rare but notable appearances here and there).
A smartphone or tablet’s processor is the backbone of the entire experience. Every app, every push notification, every pixel is controlled by the CPU (although graphics are sometimes handled by a separate GPU). Greater computational power means enhanced abilities, and the company’s best chip on the market today — the Snapdragon 805 — enables experiences like the virtual reality environment on the Samsung Gear VR(created by a Qualcomm-poweredGalaxy Note 4).
The Snapdragon 810 will level-up things even further. In a briefing with reporters, Qualcomm demonstrated some of the practical new abilities its new processor will enable in next year’s smartphones.
Here are five things next year's smartphones, powered by the 810, will be able to do that this year's can't:
1. Juggle 4K video
This display has 4K resolution, but the device is also capable of wirelessly streaming 4K video to a display.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, CHRISTINA ASCANI
Yes, smartphones such as the LG G3already have Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) displays, which more pixels than you’ll ever need, but the new phones will be more about moving 4K video around than actually displaying it. A phone with a Snapdragon 810 will be able to wirelessly stream a 4K video (4,096 x 2,160) to a TV with just a few taps. Of course, you’ll need a TV or dongle capable of receiving it, but that’s in the works, too.
And just where will we get all the 4K video? Qualcomm believes that we’ll create it ourselves, and there’s good reason to think that. Most flagship smartphones can already shoot 4K video (it requires only an 8-megapixel camera), and the company estimates 500 million devices will be 4K-capable by 2018. An ecosystem needs to arise to deal with those big video files, and the 810 enables exactly that.
2. Simulate an optical zoom
The computational power of the Snapdragon 810 chip will let smartphone cameras like this one simulate the zoom power of a DSLR lens.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, CHRISTINA ASCANI
There’s a new kind of smartphone camera, made by Core Photonics, that’s actually two cameras: a normal wide-angle imager, and one with a fixed telephoto lens that magnifies the image about 3x. Using the serious computing power in the Qualcomm chip, the phone can combine the two images to create a picture that Core Photonics claims is better than what a DSLR can capture, at low zoom levels.
Checking out a live demo of the camera, I could read the text in a Peanuts cartoon that the camera was aimed at, even though the zoom was engaged at about 8x. The picture from a normal camera, displayed alongside the Photonics cam, was noticeably blurrier, and the text was illegible.
3. Record directional audio
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chip will enable directional audio recording while capturing video, letting the camera capture individual voices in a loud room.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, CHRISTINA ASCANI
One big issue with capturing video on cellphones is audio quality. With the new chip, the phone will be able to process sound in a way that captures it in specific directions. If you, say, just want to record audio from the person you’re filming, you’ll be able to tell your camera you just want his or her voice, and nothing else.
4. Serve as your home PC
This receiver enables a Snapdragon 810-powered tablet to become a home PC by connecting to a monitor, keyboard and mouse wirelessly.
With this much computing power in a phone or tablet, it can actually serve as a PC workstation, connecting wirelessly to a workstation with a monitor and keyboard. With a device not much bigger than a Chromecast, a Qualcomm-powered tablet can power a the workstation, connected via the next generation of Wi-Fi, called 802.11ad (akaWiGig).
The Snapdragon 810 will be the first Qualcomm chip to support 802.11ad, which is about 5x the speed of the current 802.11ac standard. That’s good enough for 4K and then some, although it’s going to require new hardware all around.
5. Game like a console
A Snapdragon 810-powered smartphone or tablet can do double duty as a game console, wirelessly streaming gameplay to a TV.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, CHRISTINA ASCANI
Finally, a phone or tablet powered by a Snapdragon 810 processor will be a pretty good substitute for a game console. While Android has had difficulty in becoming a fully fledged game platform, next year’s hardware will be superb for gaming, able to connect to an external monitor wirelessly with ease for gaming on a big screen.
All these new abilities are just demonstrations at this point — it’s up to manufacturers to implement them. But they certainly will, and tomorrow’s smartphones will surely play an even greater role in our digital lives than they do now… if that’s even possible.
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