FACEBOOK REACHES 1 BILLION ACTIVE USERS EVERY DAY
Facebook reported its third quarter earnings last week, and the figure that stood out was 1.01 billion average daily users. That is up 17 percent from the same three-month period last year and highlights what a massive global phenomenon the social network has become.The company’s share price also surged in after-hours trading after it beat analysts’ expectations. It reported $4.5 billion in revenue and a profit of $1.46 billion. Those numbers are both up more than 40 percent over the same period last year.
As with previous quarters, mobile continues to be an increasingly large percentage of Facebook’s revenue, now accounting for 78 percent of all advertising dollars on the platform, up from 66 percent for the third quarter last year.
Investors had been hoping that Facebook would break out some details of the money Instagram is earning. The photo-sharing app has now rolled out a robust advertising business, but so far, Facebook is keeping those numbers misty, reporting inside of its larger advertising business.
So far founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had only platitudes to offer. “We had a good quarter and got a lot done. Facebook focused on innovating and investing for the long term to serve its community and connect the entire world. They are hoping for something more on the earnings call later this afternoon and will update this post accordingly.

The World’s most expensive earphones just got more expensive
In1990, Sennheiser engineers set out to create the best headphones in the world. The result was the legendary Sennheiser Orpheus, a pair of US$16,000 audiophile headphones so sophisticated that they even came with their own tube amplifier that looked like something taken from a mad scientist’s lab.

Only 300 pair of the original Orpheus exist today (and they typically fetch more than US$30,000 on eBay), but on last, Tuesday Sennheiser announced the successor to the Orpheus, which you’ll be able to buy this year for around US$55,000.
That staggering price tag also means that the Orpheus will remain the most expensive headphones in the world.
Like the original headphones, the new Orpheus are not designed for portability, they’re designed to sit on your desk like a piece of art. The originals featured a tube amplifier constructed out of wood, metal and glass, complete with a key to turn them on and warm up the vacuum tubes. Sennheiser has gone for a more modern aesthetic for the new model, opting for a marble transistor amplifier that also “combines to perfection the advantages of a tube amplifier.” Sennheiser says it used marble shipped from Carrara, Italy, home to the same marble that Michelangelo used.
Each of the amplifier’s controls are created using a single piece of brass, and once you turn the headphones on, the quartz glass vacuum tubes rise up from the marble enclosure and emit their characteristic glow. So, are you ready for a pair of the world’s most expensive ear piece?

AMD unveils world’s first 5GHz CPU
In a desperate ploy to stay relevant, AMD has announced the first commercially available CPU to hit 5GHz: the FX-9590. Like its flagship predecessor, the FX-8350, the new chip features four Piledriver modules, which roughly equate to eight cores. For those of you who can’t afford the FX-9590, AMD is also releasing the FX-9370, which is identical except for a slightly lower clock of 4.7GHz. Both chips are unlocked for further overclocking.
Before you get too excited, though, I should warn you that AMD-as usual, when it comes to performance-isn’t being entirely honest about the FX-9590’s 5GHz claim to fame. 5GHz is the chip’s Turbo Core speed, not the base clock. AMD hasn’t even announced the base clock speed, leaving me to guess (it’s probably around 4.3GHz). In reality, 5GHz will probably only be obtainable when there’s plenty of thermal overhead, and not for extended periods of time; if you were hoping to build a render farm out of eight-core monsters that are stuck at 5GHz, you will be disappointed.
AMD, which announced the FX-9590 and 9370 at E3, is framing these two chips as the ultimate gaming companion.
The bigger story here is that AMD has released the first commercial CPU to hit 5GHz, with a standard heatsink and fan (fun fact: AMD also produced the first 1GHz chip, way back in 2000). Piledriver was always built with high clock speeds in mind (See: AMD’s FX-8350 analyzed: Does Piledriver deliver where Bulldozer fell short?), but 5GHz is still rather impressive. AMD may have made some tweaks to the architecture reach 5GHz, but in all likelihood this is probably just the result of improved yields from Global Foundries’ 32nm SoI process, which is finally reaching maturity. This correlates nicely with AMD’s recently released Richland APUs, which feature Piledriver-based CPUs capable of 5GHz overclocks.
The FX-9590 and FX-9370, both of which are Socket AM3+ Vishera CPUs, will be released soon. No word on pricing yet, but they will probably be priced just below Intel’s chips. It’s also worth noting that process maturity doesn’t override physics: At 5GHz, the FX-9590 will have an utterly monstrous TDP, probably in the 200W region, perhaps.