Apple Android apps match.
SIRI = IRIS
Like a lot other coied over stuff from iPhone to Android IRIS is another example.
One of the biggest market driving force for iPhone 4S is siri that can do NLP correctly and respond accordingly.
A team of indian android developers have tried to do do same as. Unfortunately its speed and NLP is not as good as SIRI. Some times you have to speak lil loud and make it work.
Still just a quick test with a system that took 8hrs to put together and is released as an early alpha in the Android Market. The takeaway message is that Apple can’t afford to stand still: if a small team of developers can create something like Iris in less than a day, the combined mass of Google’s developers is capable of much, much more. Ice Cream Sandwich is just the start of it.
To make physical things work in real work with a phone require a machenical extention. But once in a while engineer comes up with an idea that can blow your mind or a candel.
A genious idea of which turns your phones speaker into the world's worst personal fan, is just one of those apps.
The Japanese tradition of growing artistically shaped trees created the miniature bonsai. French artist Vivien Muller takes the bonsai concept a step further, creating artistically shaped miniature trees with solar-panel leaves to charge your gadgets. The Electree is a charging station that juices up mobile devices via USB, powered completely by light.
It's up to the user to position the 27 leaves, or solar panels, in an orientation that optimizes efficiency. The panels rotate freely, allowing the user to create an unlimited number of shapes. Energy produced during the day is stored in a 13,500 milliampere-hour-capacity battery hidden in the base. Mullen explains how he borrowed the design from nature.
A DNA based Genetics Research recently, confirms Inherited Human Intelligence, providing the first direct biological evidence for a genetic contribution to people's intelligence. The research study was jointly conducted by University of Manchester scientists, working with colleagues in Edinburgh and Australia.
The study examined more than half a million genetic markers on every person in the study. The new findings were made possible using a new type of analysis invented by Prof. Peter Visscher in Brisbane. As well as the findings in people from Scotland and England, the team checked their results in a separate group of people from Norway.
Sage Wallower, 28, and Brian Hogan, 22, were also ordered to collectively pay the Cupertino-based tech giant $250 in reparations for the smartphone prototype they sold to a writer for Gizmodo, said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. The DA's push for a five-day jail sentence was denied by San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Stephen Hall, who instead said the men must complete 40 hours of community service. The case drew international attention after Gizmodo posted a detailed peek in April 2010 at the features and look of the top-secret phone, which Hogan found in a Redwood City bar.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs personally contacted Gizmodo to get the phone back. Though Waller, of Emeryville, and Hogan, of Redwood City, were eventually charged with misdemeanor misappropriation of lost property, the blogger who bought the device was not. Prosecutors believed Jason Chen would claim he was protected by journalistic freedoms when he acquired the phone.
Waller's attorney, Elizabeth Grossman, said the sentence was appropriate given the minor circumstances of the crime. Once Hogan discovered the phone, he enlisted Waller's help in finding a buyer, prosecutors said. After shopping the device around to some tech media sources, they struck a deal to sell the phone to Chen for $5,000. Hogan's attorney said his client is deeply remorseful for what has turned out to be a really bad choice he made after a few drinks.
According to analysts at Goldman Sachs Microsoft is making a handsome amount of patient license. Microsoft has already made similar royalty deals with several other Android device makes, most notably among them is HTC. Samsung and HTC account for over half of all the Android phones sold in the U.S. over the past year. The most notable company that has not signed a deal with Microsoft is Motorola who is the third largest Android maker in the U.S. With Google buying Motorola, we don't see a royalty agreement being made any time soon between Microsoft and Motorola either.
The reason Android device makers are signing deals with Microsoft is pretty simple, because they don't want to be sued. In an interview Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith said, "So far we have not seen a single Android device that does not infringe on our patents." In order to protect themselves from being sued by Microsoft, and ultimately paying more these companies are cutting hedging their bets and paying Microsoft upfront.
There has been no official word from Microsoft, Samsung, or HTC as to what patents in particular are being infringed upon, but Microsoft has a history of infringement cases against Linux-based products. It is rumored that HTC's royalty deal with Microsoft is for around $5 per Android device sold, so it would be safe to assume that Samsung's agreement is in that area too. Part of Samsung's agreement is the company's continued support of Microsoft phones, which basically means that Samsung now is agreeing to keep making Windows Phone devices. In a report released earlier this year it was estimated that Microsoft is making more money from HTC selling Android phones than it is selling its own WP7 devices.
The OPERA neutrino experiment at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory has measured the velocity of neutrinos from the CERN CNGS beam over a baseline of about 730 km with much higher accuracy than previous studies conducted with accelerator neutrinos. The measurement is based on high-statistics data taken by OPERA in the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. Dedicated upgrades of the CNGS timing system and of the OPERA detector, as well as a high precision geodesy campaign for the measurement of the neutrino baseline, allowed reaching comparable systematic and statistical accuracies.
Scientists across the world, and even at CERN - home of the Large Hadron Collider - have been sceptical about the OPERA finding. The OPERA measurements, if independently confirmed, would mean that, in theory, information could be sent into the past, making time travel possible. "Time travel seems to be the go-to topic when faster-than-light particles are mentioned, but don't hold out hope for a TARDIS just yet," physicist Dr Jonathan Carroll at the University of Adelaide wrote on The Conversation website, referring to a time-travelling machine featured in the British television drama Doctor Who.
But he said it was more likely the OPERA finding was the result of a mistake in the calculations or experiment. "The much more likely scenario is that the analysis has overlooked some seemingly insignificant but critical aspect, and that re-analysis will led to a very good agreement with the speed of light. "Should that be the case, the followup press release will no doubt refer to the 'Phantom of the OPERA'." Another physicist likened the CERN discovery to flying carpets, saying: "This is ridiculous what they're putting out.
If you do manage to catch a chunk of satellite its not going to make a fortune. US government forbids you from selling it on eBay. The burned chunk will remain the property of the United States and must be turned over to local police.
The space agency predicts that the debris from the 20-year-old Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) has a 1-in-3,200 chance of hitting a person, a scenario they consider "extremely remote". It is mostly likely the expensive shards will plummet into the sea, NASA said.
Most of the 6.5-tonne craft will burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, but NASA debris experts say that at least 26 large pieces of the satellite will survive the scorching temperatures of atmospheric reentry. The climate taster has been orbiting the Earth, sampling the ozone layer and chemical compounds in the upper atmosphere. When the $750m UARS satellite was launched in 1991, NASA intended it to last for three years.
But it kept going until 2005 when NASA ordered the satellite to burn its remaining fuel and prepare for a suicide dive to Earth. The last of its fuel is now gone, and the UARS has been gradually pulled closer to Earth. Some recent solar activity has also advanced its descent. This activity can cause the Earth's atmosphere to heat and expand, increasing drag on spacecraft.
Android's Ice Cream Sandwich is still at least a month off, but that doesn't mean Google can't help developers to start preparing for the update. Today Google updated its official Android developers blog instructing Honeycomb app developers how to update their apps for the transition to Ice Cream Sandwich. Sadly the blog post doesn't give us any hints as to an exact release date, but it did provide developers with plenty of useful information.
Honeycomb developers have two options either make your app only useable on tablets, or to embrace Ice Cream Sandwich and allow your apps to be used on any size device. Clearly Google recommends the second option, seeing how Ice Cream Sandwich will be used on phones, tablets, and whatever else they can think of. Google developers are shown how to make a single app display as though it was custom built for both large and small screens.
Now a single app can adjust to whatever device it is being used on, without having to download different versions of the same app for both tablets and phones. Since first announced there has been very little information coming out of Google about the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich update. The only information we know for sure is that it will unify the user experience for Android users with a single operating system. Due to the fact that Google is instructing Honeycomb developers how to plan for phones it seems as though Ice Cream Sandwich will be more like Honeycomb than Gingerbread.
The followup to Google's current-generation Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS that's affectionately known as Ice Cream Sandwich won't even be arriving until October or November, according to Google. Which, according to thisismynext.com, may or may not be Jelly Bean. The tech blog cites one "trusted source" as saying Jelly Bean is a done deal.
What Jelly Bean has going for it, of course, is that Google has so far named each successive new version of Android and some important updates to the OS after a tasty treat that follows an alphabetical pattern. And while Ice Cream Sandwich is assumed to be a major version update from Android 3.0 to Android 4.0, Google hasn't actually made that official yet. Jelly Bean could be Android 5.0, but that's not official either.
Thisismynext.com thinks Jelly Bean makes a lot of sense because "the pickings are fairly slim for desserts with 'J' names." Maybe, but Google has been known to get creative with its Android codenames. Jelly Roll would be a nice twist on the more generic Jelly Bean, with the bonus of being an homage to jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton as well as a somewhat dated but naughty metaphor. Speaking of metaphors, here's a mix of them: If Google does decide to throw us a curveball with Android 5.0 (or whatever the "J" stop turns on the Android train turns out to be), perhaps it will go with Javvarisi, the Tamil term for pearl sago, a tapioca like starch that's used in sweet pudding dishes.
According to NiceKicks.com, which has additional pictures and video of the shoe, the shoes themselves will be sold on Nikemag.ebay.com, with proceeds going directly to the Michael J. Fox foundation, the foundation set up by the actor who played Marty McFly in the original Future trilogy. Word of the Nike Air Mag surfaced earlier today. One interesting aspect: so far, no one has yet to confirm that the high-top shoes (which actually look more like snow boots than anything else) actually self-tie or self-secure, as the original shoes featured in the movie do.
Nike representatives did not return calls asking for comment, even though PC Magazine was one of the few technology publications around when Back to the Future Part II debuted in 1989. "The original NIKE MAG was worn by the Back to the Future character Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, in the year 2015," Nike's Web site says. The 2011 NIKE MAG shoe was designed to be a precise replica of the original from Back to the Future II.
However, the shoe appears to be designed as close as possible to the original footwear, even going so far as to include the glowing LED "Nike" logo and lights in the heel of the shoe. "We wanted to translate the excitement people have for the 'greatest shoe never made' and for the Back to the Future into positive action," said Mark Parker, CEO of Nike, as quoted by NiceKicks. As any child of the 80's remembers, the "Nike Air Mag" was a futuristic prop that was sold in 2015, part of the setting for Back to the Future Part II. The second part of the trilogy, which also starred Christopher Lloyd as Dr. Emmett Brown, involved visiting the future to save the future children of McFly and his future wife, Jennifer.
Leave bare skin when outside can lead to sun damage and increased risk of skin cancer. Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States. A 58 will be diagnosed with melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer during their lifetime.
Melanoma is the most common cancer in young adults 25 to 29 years and the second most common for teenagers and young adults 15 years to 29, depending on the facts provided by dermatologist Dr. Sarah Cash, the Dermatology Group of the Carolinas . Like all other cancers, early detection is the best tool in the fight against skin cancer. Caucasians with fair skin are most at risk of developing any form of skin cancer, including melanoma.
Cash recommends skin cancer examination begins about 20 years. One in five people in the United States to develop some form of skin cancer during their lifetime. "The best way to find skin cancer as its first, most treatable stage is to examine your skin regularly and with a dermatologist to perform full-body skin cancer," Cash says. Previous studies show that tanning beds increase the risk of skin cancer by 75 percent.
Google will hold its annual developer conference, Google IO, Tuesday and Wednesday in San Francisco, California this week and is expected to discuss the status of the two operating systems, Android and Chrome OS, and the state of its partnerships with companies that create Chrome hardware OS. Android, Google's operating system open-source software for mobile devices, is already on track overall. The challenge for Google's operating system, OS Chrome is out of the shadow of Android. It was probably no more than 90,000 users around the world today, if you count the 60,000 developers who have received no chrome hardware, 24,400 employees of Google, and thousands of people sufficiently committed to the project to install their own versions of Chrome OS The open source project from which springs Chrome OS. Chrome OS is not intended as a substitute for general purpose computers running Linux, Mac OS or Windows, the main desktop operating systems.
Google Eric Schmidt when he was chief executive, said that Android is an operating system for mobile devices based on touch, while Chrome is an OS operating system for devices with keyboards. Chrome browser in the OS is fast because it is when you are running on a computer with a desktop operating system. That's because Chrome OS does not allow users to deploy software-intensive resources that can slow the operating system.
But Chrome OS does not support Chrome browser extensions, and a dedicated user can probably find a way to install extensions sufficient to impair performance. Chrome OS is now more reliable desktop operating systems. If Chrome OS becomes popular enough, it is almost certain that Chrome OS malware will be developed and there are lots of Chrome browser bugs that could potentially be exploited. The advantage of the most pressing security Chrome Chrome OS is that OS devices can be implemented so as not to store valuable data.
A British woman's breast implant reportedly exploded after she was hit in the chest by a paintball, which can travel at 190 mph. "We respectfully ask that any ladies with surgical breast implants notify our team at the time of booking," according to a statement on its website. Just wait, it gets better: "You will also be issued with extra padding to protect your implants while paintballing," the statement says.
This, of course, happened within days of an FDA official reaffirming that silicone breast implants on the market were safe to use. But then again, when they talk about the dangers of breast augmentation, paintball is not usually one that comes to mind. But perhaps this particular incident should be filed under "dangers of implants" rather than the "dangers of paintball."
After all, it would not be the first time that high-impact events have caused breast implants to explode. Lest we forget, last year a British health agency ordered cosmetic surgeons to stop selling a bestselling silicone implant because it was twice as likely to rupture as other types. Ruptured breast implants are no joke. If you absolutely have to get breast implants, avoid any potentially high-impact activities.
United Airlines is joining the paperless flight deck revolution, announcing Tuesday that it is distributing 11,000 iPads to United and Continental pilots to replace bulky paper navigation charts in the cockpit. The announcement gives further momentum to a movement underway since spring, when the Federal Aviation Administration authorized pilots to use iPads running the Jeppesen Mobile TC navigation app instead of paper maps. FAA spokesman Les Dorr told Macworld on Tuesday that about a dozen airlines including, perhaps most famously, Alaska Airlines have made the switch to iPad-based charts.
United said that pilots typically carry 12,000 sheets of paper to chart their course during flights; the introduction of the iPad should save the airline 16 million sheets of paper and, thanks to the reduction in weight, 326,000 gallons of jet fuel per year. The fact that an airline cockpit has required so much paper might be surprising when you consider how mechanized most flights are these days, with computers in control of most in-flight duties. About 75 to 80 percent of a flight is done using the autopilot, in conjunction with the flight management system, Kevin Hiatt, executive vice president of the Flight Safety Foundation, told AOL Travel last year.
iPads won't completely eliminate paper charts from the cockpit, the FAA's Dorr said: Like passengers, pilots aren't allowed to use electronic devices below 10,000 feet and that includes the iPad. The charts for the in-route portion of a flight are still too complex to be displayed well on any electronic device, Dorr said. But Dorr said there's little risk that pilots will be distracted by an in-flight game of Angry Birds. Dorr said the FAA is giving airlines an initial six-month period to evaluate the use of iPads in the cockpit, after which permanent authorization is expected to be granted.
While looting often becomes an issue post-disaster, it's been the exact opposite in Japan.
Since the March earthquake and tsunami that leveled much of Japan, thousands of wallets containing a total of $48 million in cash have washed ashore -- and been turned in, ABC reports. In addition, 5,700 safes containing $30 million in cash also have turned up.
Ryuji Ito, professor emeritus at Japan's Yokohama City University, tells the Daily Mail that these acts of integrity are simply reflective of the culture:
"...The fact that a hefty 2.3 billion yen in cash has been returned to its owners shows the high level of ethical awareness in the Japanese people."
And doing the right thing doesn't just end with the people who found the money. Japanese officials have also worked tirelessly to track down owners and return safes and other valuables.
Police in Miyagi prefecture searched for residents at evacuation centers and made their way through missing person reports and address forms at the post office, according to ABC. Police also met with mayors and called any cell phone numbers they could find.
Officials tell the news outlet that the difficulty lay in determining whether homes were gone and if the owners were actually still alive.
Recycling has always meant reusing materials like glass or plastic, and reducing atmospheric carbon has traditionally meant cutting emissions, but what if the two could be combined and make combating climate change profitable by recycling carbon out of the atmosphere?
EnergyNOW! correspondent Josh Zepps looked into a new technology that could pull a thousand times more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than trees and could one day power our cars and trucks with green gasoline. The full video is available below:
Most efforts to capture and sequester (CCS) carbon focus on smokestack emissions, but prohibitive costs and unproven technology make this type of carbon reduction unlikely to succeed. In addition, CCS technology can only cut back on new pollution, which fails to address the billions of tons of carbon already in the atmosphere.
These problems need to be solved quickly in order to slow the effects of climate change and move to a clean energy economy. “We know the Earth is getting hotter, the ice caps are starting to melt, the weather patterns are changing,” said Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist with the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University. “This transition to a renewable or carbon neutral energy system could easily take 50 or 100 years, even if we started working on it hard today, which we’re not doing.”
To solve this quandry, two scientists from Columbia University’s Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy took inspiration from trees and invented a plastic “tree” that absorbs carbon at a much higher rate than Mother Nature.
The idea employs biomimicry by deploying small-scale units of “trees” to soak up more CO2 than real trees, wherever you might need them. “You can remove CO2 anywhere you want, and it can deal with emissions from anywhere else on the planet,” said Allen Wright, a scientist at the Lenfest Center. “There’s no real major discovery or invention that has to happen that would prevent us from deploying that technology tomorrow.”
But beyond just removing CO2 from the atmosphere, the new technology could also turn it into a valuable commodity. Carbon reduction methods often go hand-in-hand with an increase in costs, either through new equipment, or by assessing a fee on emissions. But what if captured carbon could become an economic benefit?
The new technology could serve the existing market for CO2, in enhanced oil recovery, to grow algae for biofuels, in plastic manufacturing, or even in soda – and it could also replace oil-based gasoline. “You can add hydrogen to those (captured) carbon atoms and re-create gasoline,” said Klaus Lackner, a scientist at the Lenfest Center. “It has a zero net impact on the environment because you’re taking the carbon out that burning the gasoline will put in.”
Lackner calls this approach closing the carbon loop because atmospheric carbon can be converted to gasoline, fuel vehicles without drilling for oil, and then collected once again by the “trees.”
But as with all potential energy breakthroughs, it faces two challenges: economics and regulations. The Lenfest researchers expect to be able to sell CO2 to industry for as little as $30 a ton, but they say a tax on carbon dioxide emissions would push up the price of gasoline by about 25 cents a gallon, expand the market for their product, and bring their invention from demonstration to deployment.
Every year, about 15 million pounds of alligator fat is dumped into landfills as a byproduct of alligator meat processing. It would certainly be better to reuse this gloopy mess for a greater purpose, no? As it turns out, alligator fat is a prime candidate for animal-derived biodiesel, according to researchers in Louisiana.
Worldwide food shortages have been causing widespread famine this year, especially in the horn of Africa, which raises some questions about the efficacy (and fairness) of using food crops like corn and soybeans to make biofuels.
Food waste is a good alternative, and we’ve seen plenty of projects that use restaurant frying oil repurposed as biodiesel, for instance. But this does not come close to meeting the nation’s diesel needs — in 2008 alone, Americans consumed 45 billion gallons of diesel, according to the authors of this alligator study. Rendered animal fat could supplement food waste, but some animal fats are not very suitable for biofuel production.
Researchers at the University of Louisiana set about trying to determine if alligators could be a better source. Srividya Ayalasomayajula, Ramalingam Subramaniam and their colleagues knew alligator fat has a high lipid content, which could make it a strong biodiesel candidate. To test this hypothesis, the scientists obtained some frozen alligator samples from meat producers, and microwaved it to render the fat. They also used a chemical solvent.
Microwaving it resulted in a 61 percent recovery by weight, the researchers found. Just to be sure, they went ahead and refined some biodiesel, and found the oil’s fatty acid profile meets all the requirements for high-quality biodiesel — it has a little excess calcium and magnesium, but an improved refining process can dispense with that.
Given that huge quantities of alligator fat are typically just thrown away, it could be a fairly cheap biodiesel feedstock, the researchers write. Louisiana and Florida account for the highest alligator populations, so this could be a homegrown source of alternative fuels — good news for the South, where renewable resources are far from abundant.
Apple sued by 27,000 South Koreans over Apple has been sued by a group of about 27,000 South Koreans in a class-action lawsuit over alleged privacy violations related to location services on iPhones, iPads and the iPod Touch
The suit, filed Wednesday in Changwon, South Korea, seeks about 27 billion won, or about $26 million, in damages, which would work out to about $930 for each plaintiff, the Associated Press reports.
The complaint says Apple's iOS location services infringe on privacy rights because the iPhone stores location data obtained from nearby mobile network towers and Wi-Fi hot spots for as long as a year.
The tech giant has faced criticism from consumers and politicians in the U.S. and abroad since the storage of location tracking data came to light earlier this year. The issue has prompted privacy questions for the mobile industry as a whole, including Google, creator of the rival Android operating system.
Some iPhone and iPad owners have demonstrated that they can use the location data stored on their devices to create a map of their travels.
Apple has said its mobile devices don't need to store location data for more than seven days and were keeping the information for as long as a year only because of a software glitch in the iOS operating system that runs the machines.
The tech giant has released software updates to change how its iOS devices track a user's location for maps, geo-tagged photos and location-based apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla.
Company representatives couldn't be reached Wednesday morning to comment about the lawsuit.
Apple has been sued by a group of about 27,000 South Koreans in a class-action lawsuit over alleged privacy violations related to location services on iPhones, iPads and the iPod Touch.
The suit, filed Wednesday in Changwon, South Korea, seeks about 27 billion won, or about $26 million, in damages, which would work out to about $930 for each plaintiff, the Associated Press reports.
The complaint says Apple's iOS location services infringe on privacy rights because the iPhone stores location data obtained from nearby mobile network towers and Wi-Fi hot spots for as long as a year.
The tech giant has faced criticism from consumers and politicians in the U.S. and abroad since the storage of location tracking data came to light earlier this year. The issue has prompted privacy questions for the mobile industry as a whole, including Google, creator of the rival Android operating system.
Some iPhone and iPad owners have demonstrated that they can use the location data stored on their devices to create a map of their travels.
Apple has said its mobile devices don't need to store location data for more than seven days and were keeping the information for as long as a year only because of a software glitch in the iOS operating system that runs the machines.
The tech giant has released software updates to change how its iOS devices track a user's location for maps, geo-tagged photos and location-based apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla.
Company representatives couldn't be reached Wednesday morning to comment about the lawsuit.
If you don’t have time to do the recommended 30 minutes daily exercise, 15 minutes can still be beneficiary, according to a study published Tuesday in The Lancet, a British medical journal.
Conducted by Taiwanese researchers, the study tracked 416, 175 people for 12 years and found that people doing15 minutes of exercise a day had a 14 percent lower risk of death and three years more life expectancy than those who did no exercise.
The fitness guidelines of the World Health Organization recommend adults get at least a half-hour of moderate exercise most days of the week or 150 minutes weekly exercise. But in China and Japan, less than one-fifth of the population meets the goal, according to Bloomberg reports.
"Finding a slot of 15 minutes is much easier than finding a 30-minute slot in most days of the week,” said Dr. Chi-Pang Wen, lead author of the study. The 15-minute exercises may be brisk walking, bike riding, or even digging the garden, researchers said.
The researchers also found the more exercise, the better. Each additional 15 minutes of exercise reduced the risk of death by another 4 percent compared with those who did no exercise.
In case you needed more proof that watching excessive amounts of TV is bad for your health: new research shows that there is a correlation between the amount of time you spend in front of the TV and how long you live.
A study by researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia has concluded that, for every hour of television watched after age 25, the average human lifespan drops by 22 minutes. A person who watch six hours of TV per day will, on average, live five years less than people who spent less time on the couch and in front of the television screen. Those are some scary numbers.
The study tracked data from 11,000 Australian participants over the age of 25. It was published earlier this month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
This study doesn’t prove that TV is quietly killing us. It’s more likely that lack of exercise and bad eating habits are shortening the lifespans of TV couch potatoes. A person who spends six hours a day staying active is almost certainly going to live longer than a person who likes to lean back in a recliner watching countless episodes of Judge Judy or Law and Order: SVU.
It’s not just TV watching that’s bad for you, either. We recently learned that sitting in front of the computer for six hours a day increases your risk of death by 40%. And with Americans watching more video than ever, the health problem is growing. That’s why we’re fans of the stand-up desk.
[via Yahoo]
The Google/Motorola purchase is going to test everyone in the smartphone and tablet industry. But it’s also going to test whether Android’s success has come from the strength of the platform itself or if Google was just at the right place at the right time.
Looking back, the conditions for Android’s breakthrough were perfect. Google took advantage of what every other major software company had done in the space, but sidestepped all of their commitments.
smartphone world was overloaded with commitments — to carriers, hardware and sunken strategies. Android didn’t have any of that. It wasn’t just free to use: it was free from history.
Android made no assumptions, so it had, and permitted, maximum freedom. Google could sell an unlocked phone without a carrier. Barnes & Noble could use it to build a custom OS for an e-reader. You could strip it down to make a phone cheap enough to give away, or load it up with specs crazy enough to make fanboys and fangirls drool. Carriers and hardware partners could load it up with whatever pet software they wanted. Everyone involved loved it. Market share soared.
But all that freedom came at a well-known price: fragmentation. Not every piece of hardware could support every version of Android, and versions of Android built for smartphones began powering tablet and media player devices they were never designed to handle. Big players like Amazon realized there was nothing stopping them from selling Android apps. Microsoft and Apple realized there was nothing stopping them from suing hardware makers for patent infringement. Even Blackberry and Palm were on the move, developing competitive next-generation software platforms. Every one of Android’s hundred blooming flowers was just an easy, isolated target.
With Apple now on Verizon and its top phone makers dabbling in WinPhone7, Google had to put lightning back in the bottle. It had to exert more control over its software and its marketplace. It had to buy up patents to protect itself and its partners. And finally, with Motorola, Google went all-in and bought its own hardware company.
Google finally has as many commitments as each of the competitors it undercut along the way.
Now, Google’s advantages are structural, too. Even with Apple blocking products from coming to market and Microsoft extracting tolls, Android is still generally cheaper and more customizable than its competitors. It also has the biggest smartphone user base. This is the good kind of inertia. Developers don’t leave; users don’t switch.
But it does mean that it’s not enough for Android to be the only software company for Samsung, HTC or LG to work with; it’s not enough to offer the best smartphone in the Verizon store.
It’s time for Google to saddle up. It doesn’t just have to make the case that Android is better; it has to make Android better. It has to make Samsung believe that Google is ready to fight harder than Microsoft and Apple for developers, fight harder in court, and fight harder to keep making Android better than any new OS you’ll see this year, next year, or the year after that.
Get on your horse, Google. Get focused. No more excuses. Put on your Keyser Söze face.
Show everyone that it wasn’t an accident that got you here. Show everyone that it’s because you saw what nobody else could see and were willing to do what no one else could do. Show everyone that you’re ready to do it again.
Apple already controls the tablet market, but this feature will only make it more difficult for competitors to steal away a slice of the pie
On Thursday, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a new patent application from Apple that shows the company could be planning on adding mini-projection devices to a coming iteration of its iPhone line and/or developing a projection add-on for MacBooks and other Apple portable devices. "Today's incredibly detailed patent application reveals how they're working on pico-like projectors for iOS devices and how these projectors will work with a shared workspace in presentations," according to Patently Apple, a blog that closely follows all Apple patents and breaks them down, piece by piece, in detailed articles. "Apple's patent even details how they'll introduce advanced gesturing that will be able to interpret shadow and silhouette gesturing associated with presentations in a darkened environment."
Now, Apple controls a huge number of patents and trademarks, far more than it can possibly work into its devices, no matter how many of them there seem to be. iPhones and iPads and iPods, oh my. But integrating projection into the iOS system (one that could soon replace the traditional Mac OS on all of Apple's devices, regardless of size) is something that Apple has long hinted at.
In mid-2009, Apple filed a patent that shows some crude images of a phone projecting images out of its top, the spot where you might expect to find a headphone jack on the current line of iPhones. Nothing had come of that project -- it was probably an attempt to protect preliminary research and development on micro-projectors -- by the time Apple filed another patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that touched on the issue. This next patent, which was filed in early 2010, shows thinking on projectors taken to the next level. Even the renderings are more complex and incorporate actual Apple devices. Not too long after, we learned that Apple was working on adding a projection feature to its existing line of MacBooks.
Patently Apple, which has examined all of the patents mentioned above in detail, also touched on the evolution of these applications. "The level of detail associated with this patent would suggest that Apple's development teams are moving full steam ahead on the projection system project which will further push the likes of Apple's iPad into the enterprise," the blog noted. That makes perfect sense, of course. I have seen more iPads in meetings and conferences than anywhere else; they make for excellent business tools. Apple already controls the tablet market, but adding this feature to the iPad line will only make it more difficult for competitors to steal away a slice of the pie.
Smartphone camera can almost do it all
While Google may control the lion's share of the search market, queries made through Microsoft's Bing search engine lead users to click on a Web page at a significantly higher rate than queries made through Google, according to data released Thursday.
The success rate for Bing searches in the U.S. in July was 80.04%, compared to 67.56% for Google, according to Experian Hitwise. The market watcher defines "success rate" as the percentage of search queries that result in a visit to a website. Searches made through sites owned by Yahoo, which farmed out search to Bing under a deal struck in 2009, were also more efficient than Google. Those searches yielded a success rate of 81.36%.
Experian officials said the results show that there's room for both Google and Microsoft to step up their games when it comes to search accuracy. "The share of unsuccessful searches highlights the opportunity for both the search engines and marketers to evaluate the search engine results pages to ensure that searchers are finding relevant information."
Search engine users could also probably help themselves a lot by formulating more precise queries. Experian's numbers show that the plurality of searches, 25.32%, are made with just a single word, followed by two-word and three-word queries, with shares of 24.09% and 19.49%, respectively.
The numbers could help Microsoft boost its revenue from online services, as they show marketers that keywords purchased on Bing-powered sites have a better click-through rate than those purchased on Google. Microsoft has taken a number of steps to boost the efficacy of Bing searches, including adding tools that allow users to book travel and entertainment with one or two clicks following the input of related terms such as, for instance, "San Francisco hotels." Microsoft also recently added real-time feeds from Facebook to its search results.
Microsoft's revenue for online services, including search, was up 16.5% in the most recent quarter, to $662 million.
While Redmond may have bragging rights when it comes to search efficiency, it still lags far behind Google in terms of search volume. Google's share of total U.S. search volume in July was 66.05%, down 2% from the previous month. Bing's share came in at 12.98%, down 2% from June. Yahoo search took a 15.07% share, up 4%, meaning that total "Bing-powered" search came in at 28.05%.
The data shows that Google clearly remains the dominant search engine, but Bing is gaining ground.
Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner has the best airplane windows ever. It ditches that small window with a pull-down plastic shade and replaces it with a larger, dimming window that can be adjusted to let in various amounts of light.
The windows are a dreamy 19 inches tall and 65% larger than the standard airplane windows so you'll get to see a lot more of your surroundings. And did I mention they dim?
The dimming effect is the result of an electrified gel sandwiched between two thin pieces of glass. As the electric current increases, the gel darkens and as it drops, the gel lightens. The system is brilliant in its simplicity.
Each passenger in the coveted window seat will have control over their window. They're also networked together so flight personnel can control the windows, too. Attendants can adjust each window, adjust windows in an entire section of the plane or adjust them for the entire plane.
These new dimming windows are just the beginning for Boeing and its research partners PPG Aerospace and Gentex Corporation. The trio hopes to add other features to the windows like automation that would brighten your portal during take off and dim it at night.
[via Boeing]
It appears that the fantasies of many libidinous male soccer fans (and many non fans, presumably) have been answered as the fetching goalkeeper of the U.S. Women's National Team, Hope Solo, hinted on her twitter account on Tuesday that she will pose naked in the famed "Body Issue" of ESPN The Magazine.
"The Body Issue" features male and female professional athletes posing naked in a tasteful fashion. Last year's issue had photos of Serena Williams, Dwight Howard and Adrian Peterson in the buck, among many others.
As she recently told The Huffington Post's Jordan Schultz, Solo has been very busy in recent weeks following the conclusion of the Women's World Cup, in which her U.S. team was defeated in the final by Japan.
"I flew to LA when most people went home, and I did the media circuit there," she told The Huffington Post. "I think that's our responsibility; I need to keep the awareness of the game out there, but I also need to thank our fans."
Despite the tremendous outpouring of support the team received during the World Cup and the tireless efforts of Solo and her teammates since returning home, the Women's Professional Soccer League continues to struggle, seemingly unable to carry the World Cup interest over to the domestic league.
Perhaps, Solo can generate another wave of momentum, and probably keep the marriage proposals piling up, by posing naked for ESPN The Magazine.
A major revamp of Apple’s famous Fifth Avenue store in New York City with the 32-foot glass cube entrance has been underway since June. The $6.7 million project will keep the glass cube intact but will simplify its structure by using larger panes of glass. Today Apple provided a rendering showing how the new cube will look once completed.
The new structure of the cube entrance will use only 15 panes of glass instead of 90. This makes for only two vertical seams on each side. The original cube was already the epitome of minimalism, but the rendering of the new cube shows that you can still get an even cleaner look. However, this could also mean more dead birds and bruised foreheads.
The store has remained open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, although the entrance has been covered up with grey plywood to hide the construction. It’ll be interesting to see how they plan on delivering 32-foot tall by 10-foot wide panes of glass to the site without disrupting the flow of customers and without revealing the unfinished structure. The construction is expected to complete by November.
Do you have a few old, dusty beige-box computers kicking around that you’d like to turn into money? Or perhaps you’d just like to get rid of them, but you lack the means to dispose of them properly? Well, if you’re in the US you’re in luck: Apple will now recycle your old laptop or desktop PC and its monitor for free — and if it’s worth anything, you’ll even get an Apple Gift Card in return. In addition, your old iPhone or iPad can now be returned for an Apple Gift Gard, too.
This service, provided by Apple and PowerON, a California-based reseller of used and refurbished computers, is completely free of charge. Simply visit the Apple Reuse and Recycling Program website, select what kind of device you want to recycle (any desktop, notebook, iPad, or iPhone), and then fill in a few details about the device. For Windows desktops the only factors seem to be the case size and the processor speed; for laptops, the screen size and processor speed. For Apple products you need to select the exact model. On the next page you provide a few details about the condition of the computer: Does it boot up? Is it scratched? Can you can provide the original driver/OS disc? And so on. You’ll then be given an estimated fair market value — or if the device is too old or in bad condition, you’ll simply be told that it’s worth nothing (but you can still recycle it for free).
The fair market value for Windows PC computers do seem to be a bit on the low side — $48 for a two-year-old computer (see right) is a little miserly — but you do get free shipping and packaging, which doesn’t come cheap. Apple products are given higher values — $165 for a first-gen, 16GB Wi-Fi iPad, for example — but some devices are still on the penny-pinching end of the scale: last year’s top-of-the-range 17-inch MacBook Pro, for example, is only valued at $758, while its street value (Craigslist, eBay) should still be in excess of $1,000. In all cases, you will be sent some postage-paid packaging for your old computer, and in a few days you’ll be sent an Apple Gift Card.
In other news, Apple still offers free recycling for any iPod or mobile phone. Just fill in your address and Apple (powered by WeRecycle) will send you some prepaid packaging — or you can simply print off your own prepaid label, if you have your own packing materials. Alternatively, if you have an Apple Store nearby, you can give them your old iPod for a 10% discount on a new one.
Finally, it’s worth noting that Apple is fairly unique in offering free, anywhere-in-the-US recycling for any computer. There are many similar services that operate at a state level, store-based programs offered by Best Buy and others, and trade-in schemes from the likes of Dell, but to offer a completely free service is admirable. Of course there could easily be a kickbacks from WeRecycle and PowerON to Apple, but who cares? Proper disposal of computers and peripherals is tricky business and vital for the conservation of the rare and valuable materials that are used in their construction.
The eldest daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver says she fled to London after her parents separated, in part to escape a storm of unwanted attention.
Katherine Schwarzenegger tells Harper's Bazaar magazine she wanted to "go away and realize that it's not as big a deal in other places."
Shriver and the former Republican governor are in the midst of a divorce, after Arnold Schwarzenegger confirmed in May he fathered an out-of-wedlock child with a former housekeeper.
Their 21-year-old daughter never mentions her now-teenaged half-brother in the interview, while discussing what she calls "definitely a difficult time."
She says she tries "not to care about what other people ... think," but adds she's been consoled by Twitter messages from supporters.
She tells the magazine, "I've always been way closer to my mom."
Their 21-year-old daughter never mentions her now-teenaged half-brother in the interview, while discussing what she calls "definitely a difficult time."
She says she tries "not to care about what other people ... think," but adds she's been consoled by Twitter messages from supporters.
She tells the magazine, "I've always been way closer to my mom."
Downgrading your global ambitions could make you a healthier and happier nation.
As the U.S. bond rating falls and the stock market plunges, the American Century looks to be well and truly over. While this has provoked no small amount of hand-wringing, Americans may soon come to enjoy no longer bearing the responsibility for running the world's indispensable nation.
The signs of decline are everywhere. Illegal immigrants are heading back home in search of a better life. China already leads the world in green technology and is about to become the world's biggest economy in terms of purchasing power. Two U.S.-led wars are dragging toward an end charitably described as: mission not completely failed. The United States was able to avoid default only by stopping pretty much all other government business for several weeks. And it's not only U.S. political and economic preeminence that is deteriorating, but its cultural hegemony: India's Bollywood and Nigeria's Nollywood are each producing more films a year than Hollywood (to say nothing of their superior artistic quality).
Of course, the United States still possesses greater military strength than any other country in the world. But what good has being the world's policeman done for Americans? Wielding that might meant the United States saw more combat deaths overseas last year than any other country, according to data from Uppsala University. Beyond the blood is the treasure: U.S. military spending increased 81 percent between 2001 and 2010 and now accounts for 43 percent of the global total -- six times its nearest rival, China. The U.S. military burden is equivalent to 4.8 percent of GDP, the largest economic burden of any OECD country.
It is no coincidence that the man who coined the term "imperial overstretch," Yale University historian Paul Kennedy, is British. Britain was the last country to get knocked off the top spot, after all -- and the United States could learn a lot from its experience.
Britain spent much of the 1950s pretending it was still a global power, which resulted in one of the country's grimmest decades -- food was still rationed until 1954. This exercise in delusion culminated in Britain's attempt to occupy the Suez Canal in 1957, an effort that was scuttled by the world's new ascendant power, the United States.
But it was only a year after the Suez crisis signaled the end of Britain's global reach that British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan declared his compatriots "never had it so good." He was right: Average incomes, health indicators, and levels of education were all far better than in the glory days when Britannia ruled the seas. Then, after Britain gave up on empire -- decolonizing across Africa and Asia in the early 1960s -- they got the Beatles, the Mini, and free love.
Britain may still go on about "punching above its weight" in international affairs, and it has kept some of the trappings of great-power status, such as a seat on the U.N. Security Council and a small flotilla of nuclear submarines, but its burdens are significantly less momentous. Freed from the distractions of colonial oversight and global leadership, it could retire its planet-spanning chain of military bases, shrink the Royal Navy, and devalue the pound without fears that the world would come to an end. And the country learned to collaborate without feeling equal status was a slight to its dignity -- joining the European Union, for example, and signing the Kyoto Protocol.
Whatever happens to the United States in the global economic rankings, it will remain a great country. Accepting -- even embracing -- decline will serve as a reminder that American exceptionalism is built on a set of values, not stock indices. If the S&P downgrade helps the United States foster a shift toward prioritizing the good life over great-power status, perhaps it will be seen as a blessing in disguise. What's more, the United States starts out its decline with many advantages over 1950s Britain. Not least, in large parts of the country, it is already possible to find a good restaurant -- something that took the Brits 30-plus years of not-so-bad power status to achieve.
[via foreignpolicy]
SWEDISH MAN BUILDS NUCLEAR REACTOR IN HIS KITCHEN
Swedish authorities have detained a man who attempted to build a nuclear reactor in his kitchen, Helsingborgs Dagblad reported Tuesday.
"I was arrested and sent to jail when the police and the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority searched my apartment," the unnamed nuclear enthusiast wrote on a blog detailing his project. "They took all my radioactive stuff, but I was released after a hearing. But I am still suspect for crime against the radiation safety law."
Police in the western town of Angelholm were alerted when he contacted Sweden's nuclear authority and asked if it was permitted for an individual to build a nuclear reactor in his home.
The unnamed enthusiast brought radioactive materials, as well as a Geiger counter which he ordered from the United States. He also dismantled smoke detectors, which contain small amounts of nuclear material.
A spokesman for the local city council told FoxNews.com that people in the city of Angelholm were largely unfazed by the potential nuclear reactor.
"The reactions I have encountered about citizens in Angelholm is that the whole thing seems innocent," Anders Clark told FoxNews.com. "Some have questioned his ability to feel a sense of responsibility, but I haven’t met any particular concern over the incident."
He posted requests for information online and posted photos of experiments in his kitchen. But his attempts to build a reactor fell some way short, he told the newspaper.
Not so the work of Mark Suppes, a New York web designer for fashion house Gucci who surprised his neighbors in June of 2010 by revealing he had built a nuclear reactor in a Brooklyn warehouse.
The 32-year-old amateur physicist constructed the $40,000 homemade fusion reactor in his spare time, and became the 38th independent physicist in the word to achieve nuclear fusion from a self-built reactor and forms part of a growing community of "fusioneers."
Walmart is planning to launch several new projects this holiday season based on the technology it acquired from the social media startup Kosmix back in April. Kosmix's platform previously powered multiple services, including a Twitter search site called TweetBeat, a health vertical called RightHealth and a homepage where users could search the Web by topic. But the core of what Kosmix was building was something called the "social genome" a way to organize the content in social networks in order to connect people with the information that mattered to them. Now, that same technology is in the hands of Walmart, the world's largest retailer. These days, Walmart.com does around $6 billion per year in sales vs. Amazon.com's $34 billion, according to analysts. "Walmart had fallen behind in e-commerce," says Anand Rajaraman, Kosmix Co-Founder now SVP of Walmart's Global e-Commerce division, and the board realized the issue was serious. Although Rajaraman wouldn't go into detail about the handful of projects Walmart has planned, it's easy to read between the lines at guess at their nature social search on Walmart.com, personalized alerts on rollbacks sent to email or mobile, Facebook-enabled social wish lists or gifting applications, and who knows what else may come in the future. In April, when Walmart acquired Kosmix, it had already raised $55 million in funding from a number of investors throughout the years. What made Kosmix appealing was not just the technology itself, but also the people behind the technology: founders Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, successful e-commerce pioneers who had sold their previous company, Junglee, to Amazon. At Amazon, they worked with CEO Jeff Bezos to transform Amazon into a retail platform, and invented the technology that now powers Mechanical Turk. When Kosmix was acquired, it became the nucleus of a new group at Walmart known as @Walmart Labs, based in Silicon Valley. At WalmartLabs, the founders have been busy developing projects which will integrate the Kosmix technology into Walmart's online and mobile offerings, including its e-commerce website, Facebook pages and more. There are three main areas of focus for the team: search, recommendations and serendipity. In search, Kosmix's technology will pull data from Facebook and Twitter to improve your search experience on Walmart.com. By monitoring your ever-changing interests on topics like your favorite sports team or band, for example, Walmart will be able to serve better recommendations when you search its site.
It might work this way: you search for a new smartphone, and Walmart recommends one you friend just liked on Facebook . Walmart plans to leverage your social data outside of search, too. It plans to directly recommend products on its homepage. At Amazon, explains Rajaraman, there's too much emphasis placed on your purchases for recommendations. "Purchases are a window into your interests," he says but they're a small window. Anyone who has ever purchased a gift at Amazon only to be suggested similar items upon every subsequent login knows the problem. Instead of recommending more travel guides for Paris, long after your trip was complete, or more power tools, long after Dad's birthday has passed, Walmart plans to recommend things it actually knows you like. Whether or not it can succeed where so many others have failed will soon be put to the test. And these tools can be used to analyze your friends behavior, too, in order to offer wish list suggestions based on their interests. Assuming they get it done, the way Walmart is leveraging Twitter and Facebook here could be an industry first. If that sort of deep dive into your personal preferences sounds creepy, well, at least this is an opt-in system. Rajaraman says Walmart will never use consumers data in any way beyond what it has permission for, and your'e in control of that. But he thinks consumers will be willing to share there information in return for tangible benefits. Benefits, like discounts? While Walmart has no plans introduce huge discounts like Groupon offers (it's happy to provide everyday low prices, says Rajaraman), it will be able to personalize alerts on items it puts on rollback, its own system for promoting sale items. Instead of spamming you with notifications, Kosmix's technology will be able to identify what sort of rollbacks you, as an individual, would like. This is what he means by serendipity alerts that will surprise and delight consumers. You may even be able to one day receive in-store notifications as you pass by items of interest that match those pulled from the Kosmix system. As for what technology would be used on the mobile side, Rajaraman couldn't say. But the company is experimenting with several approaches for providing mobile services, including things like NFC (near field communication), barcode scanning and in-store geo-fencing. However, these fall outside of the @WalmartLabs team's domain they're more focused on the data.
A 10-year-old girl, reportedly bored with farm-style video games such as the wildly popular game Farmville, has uncovered a security flaw in mobile video games, CNET reported.
"It was hard to make progress in the game, because it took so long for things to grow. So I thought, 'Why don't I just change the time?'" the girl, who goes by the hacker name CyFi, told CNET. Doing so revealed a flaw in how the game operates: By manually advancing the clock on a phone or tablet computer to accelerate, say, the growth of a stalk of corn, she jumped ahead in the game, opening up a hole in its security.
Many games will detect and block this kind of manipulation, CNET reported; CyFi said she had discovered some ways around those blocks however.
CNET did not reveal the girl's name in order to protect her identity, other than to reveal that she was a state-ranked downhill skier, a Girl Scout, and somewhat nervous about public speaking. AFP reported that CyFi is the daughter of a pair of hackers, frequent attendees of the popular DefCon hacker conference that has run annually since 1993.
CyFi presented her findings Sunday at Defcon Kids: a conference spawned from DefCon and -- you guessed it -- aimed at children hackers.
"Please note that parents must be with their children during any classroom or workroom sessions that they attend," the convention's website notes.
Although only in its first year, Defcon Kids is off to a good start: The NSA brought a booth to the event to show off its cryptography program to the young hackers.
[via foxNews]
Due to the extreme popularity of social media use, researchers have increased their attention on the development of psychological disorders resulting in teens who obsess over Facebook. They’ve found antisocial behavior, narcissism and a many other character flaws may be on the rise due to teens overdosing on the world's most prevelent social media site.
These findings come from a recent study performed by Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University. Rosen’s study used a number of computer-based surveys that were given to 1,000 urban adolescents as well as 15-minute observations of 300 teens in the act of studying
Here are some of Professor Rosen’s findings:
Teens were more likely to develop narcissistic behaviors if they used Facebook often.
- Young adults with a strong presence on Facebook show more signs of psychological disorders such as mania, aggression and anti-social behaviors.
- Overuse of media and technology has an overall negative effect on the health of all adolescents as they are more prone to anxiety and depression. They are also more likely to have future health problems.
- Students who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period experienced lower grades.
- Not all of the study's results showed Facebook to be a negative influence on the lives of teens. Sometimes naturally introverted teens can learn how to socialize through Facebook, he found. “Virtual empathy” was also a common positive attribute found in teens who often use Facebook.
Three large explosions from the Sun over the past few days have prompted U.S. government scientists to caution users of satellite, telecommunications and electric equipment to prepare for possible disruptions over the next few days.
"The magnetic storm that is soon to develop probably will be in the moderate to strong level," said Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
He said solar storms this week could affect communications and global positioning system (GPS) satellites and might even produce an aurora visible as far south as Minnesota and Wisconsin.
An aurora, called aurora borealis or the northern lights in northern latitudes, is a natural light display in the sky in the Arctic and Antarctic regions caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere.
Major disruptions from solar activity are rare but have had serious impacts in the past.
In 1989, a solar storm took down the power grid in Quebec, Canada, leaving about six million people without power for several hours.
The largest solar storm ever recorded was in 1859 when communications infrastructure was limited to telegraphs.
The 1859 solar storm hit telegraph offices around the world and caused a giant aurora visible as far south as the Caribbean Islands.
Some telegraph operators reported electric shocks. Papers caught fire. And many telegraph systems continued to send and receive signals even after operators disconnected batteries, NOAA said on its website.
A storm of similar magnitude today could cause up to $2 trillion in damage globally, according to a 2008 report by the National Research Council.
"I don't think this week's solar storms will be anywhere near that. This will be a two or three out of five on the NOAA Space Weather Scale," said Kunches.
SOLAR SCALE
The NOAA Space Weather Scale measures the intensity of a solar storm from one being the lowest intensity to five being the highest, similar to scales that measure the severity of hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.
The first of the three solar explosions from the sun this week already passed the Earth on Thursday with little impact, Kunches said, noting, the second was passing the Earth now and "seems to be stronger."
And the third, he said, "We'll have to see what happens over the next few days. It could exacerbate the disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field caused by the second (storm) or do nothing at all."
Power grid managers receive alerts from the Space Weather Prediction Center to tell them to prepare for solar events, which peak about every 12 years, Tom Bogdan, director of the center said.
Sexual function improved significantly and quickly in obese men with type 2 diabetes after weight loss with reduced-calorie diets, results of a small Australian clinical study showed.
Erectile function, sexual desire, and urinary symptoms all improved significantly in 31 men who lost 5% to 10% of their body weight in eight weeks.
Metabolic parameters, including blood glucose, insulin sensitivity, and lipid profile, also responded favorably to either a low-calorie, meal-replacement diet or a high protein-low carbohydrate diet, according to an article published online in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Obesity and type 2 diabetes increase the risk of erectile dysfunction and lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), which are associated with each other and with systemic inflammation and endothelial dysfunction.
Rapid weight loss by dietary means can improve erectile dysfunction and LUTS, the authors noted in their introductory comments. Studies also have shown improved endothelial function and reduced inflammation after weight loss, particularly in people who lose at least 10% of body weight.
Scant data have accumulated regarding the influence of macronutrient composition on associations between weight loss, endothelial function, systemic inflammation, sexual function, and LUTS in obese men. To address that issue, Khoo and co-authors conducted a randomized study involving 31 men.
All the study participants had type 2 diabetes, a body mass index >30 (obese), and a waist circumference ≥102 cm. They were randomized to two dietary plans:
Liquid meal-replacement consumed twice daily and one small, nutritionally balanced meal, providing a total energy of about 900 kcal/day (low-calorie diet)
A high-protein, low-fat, low-carbohydrate diet designed to reduce energy intake by about 600 kcal/day
Investigators had an extensive list of outcome measures, including weight, waist circumference, the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF), Sexual Desire Inventory (SDI), International Prostate Symptom Scale (IPSS), fasting glucose and lipids, testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) and a battery of inflammatory markers.
The primary assessment occurred after eight weeks, and follow-up continued for an additional 44 weeks. All participants who opted to remain in the study for long-term follow-up consumed the high-protein diet during the follow-up.
Men randomized to the low-calorie diet had about a 10% reduction in mean body weight and waist circumference at eight weeks, as compared with about 5% among men assigned to the high-protein diet (P<0.01). Weight loss at eight weeks averaged 9.5 kg (20.9 lbs.) with the low-calorie diet and 5.4 kg (11.9 lbs.) with the high-protein diet, both of which were statistically significant (P<0.o5).
Other statistically significant (P<0.05) improvements in both groups included:
IIEF: +2.17 with the low-calorie diet and +2.75 with the high-protein diet
SDI: +10.37, +11.5
IPSS: -1.68, -2.5
Glucose: -15.84 mg/dL, -23.94 mg/dL
LDL: -7.02 mg/dL, -5.04 mg/dL
SHBG: +8.69 nmol/L, +3.75 nmol/L
In general, inflammatory markers decreased significantly (P<0.05) in the high-protein group but not the low-calorie group. However, the men assigned to the high-protein diet had higher baseline levels of the markers.
About half of the men remained in the study for the entire 52 weeks. Of those who did, improvements were either maintained or increased.
Facebook Inc. said its inspection of computers turned over by Paul Ceglia, the western New York man who claims he’s entitled to half of Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s holdings in the social-networking company, shows “smoking gun” evidence of fraud.
Ceglia sued Facebook and Zuckerberg last year, claiming that a two-page contract Zuckerberg signed in 2003 gave Ceglia half of the company when the service was started the following year. Palo Alto, California-based Facebook has grown to become the world’s biggest social-networking site.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio in Buffalo, New York, last month ordered Ceglia to let Facebook run forensic tests on his computers, hard drives and electronic storage media, as well as on the contract and the e-mail he says support his claim.
“Defendants have uncovered smoking-gun evidence that the purported contract at the heart of this case is a fabrication,” Facebook said in its court filing late yesterday.
In a publicly filed version of the motion papers, Facebook, citing a confidentiality order in the case, didn’t identify the evidence it says was “embedded in the electronic data on Ceglia’s computer.”
Paul Argentieri, a lawyer for Ceglia, declined to comment on Facebook’s claim, citing Foschio’s July 13 confidentiality order.
$69.2 Billion
Facebook is valued at as much as $69.2 billion, according to Sharespost.com, an online marketplace for investments in companies that aren’t publicly traded.
Facebook’s “smoking gun” claim comes in the context of a court battle between the parties over the pretrial exchange of evidence in the case.
On July 1, Foschio entered several orders requiring Ceglia to turn over evidence for testing by Facebook after the company argued Ceglia’s case was a “fraud on the court.” Foschio also ordered Facebook to produce samples of Zuckerberg’s signature and 176 e-mails from Zuckerberg’s Harvard University e-mail account.
Both sides filed papers claiming the other side has failed to comply fully. Facebook also said Ceglia abused Foschio’s protective order by designating all 120 relevant items found on Ceglia’s computers, CDs and floppy disks as confidential. Facebook said it wants the “smoking gun” and other materials made public.
University of Phoenix the Institute for the Future has produced a new report titled Future Work Skills 2020. It identifies the key driving factors changing the workplace, but the actual skills section leaves something to be desired. This report is probably best for college students or mid-career workers thinking about making a change but haven't looked deeply into the matter yet.
Six drivers of change:
- Extreme longevity - Increasing global lifespans change the nature of careers and learning.
- Rise of smart machines and systems - Workplace automation nudges human workers out of rote, repetitive tasks.
- Computational world - Massive increases in sensors and processing power make the world a programmable system.
- New media ecology - New communication tools require new media literacies beyond text.
- Superstructured organizations - Social technologies drive new forms of production and value creation.
- Globally connected world - Increased global interconnectivity puts diversity and adaptability at the center of organizational operations.
Some of these are more obvious than others, and futurists have been talking about most of these issues for decades now. However, they are indeed some of the most important drivers of the workplace and both students and workers should be be thinking about how these trends will effect them.
the report suggests the following as key skills in the future workforce:
Sense-making - The ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed.
Social intelligence - Ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired intentions
Novel and adaptive thinking - Proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based.
Cross-cultural competency - Ability to operate in different cultural settings.
Computational thinking - Ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning.
New-media literacy - Ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communications.
Trans-disciplinarity - Literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines.
Design mindset - Ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes.
Cognitive load management - Ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques.
Virtual collaboration - Ability to work productively, drive engagement and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team.
