Some companies are very quick to talk about beginnings and endings of eras, but the truth is that even with certain devices, or developments that caused a "hinge effect" on the market, you need a transition time. We have heard a lot of ocasciones Apple representatives say that the PC era was over. Reports of the death of conventional computer have been greatly exaggerated in recent years, but now Microsoft adds a log to the fire by saying that this is not the end of the PC era, but a new era: PC +.
I am part of the generation that saw live and in the abandonment of DOS and jumping to graphical interfaces. Pieces of hardware that were considered essential at the time have been reduced to simple low-cost components. I watched closely how the mobile phone went from a portfolio to achieve the size of a pack of cigarettes. And now, with the remarkable progress of the tablets, the concept of computer is in jeopardy as never before. I will not deny it: I am comfortable with the computer as it is. I know him well, I have control over their hardware and their updates. I can repair, modify and improve it. The idea that everything comes to an end that causes me some concern, but I'm very interested to know what's to come. The tablets have a question. Are they something different and need to be developed in parallel, they replace the computer, or are nothing more than the next step in the evolution of the PC?
The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference ended in yesterday. There is usually a conference that teaches great things for the consumer market, but this time was the COO Kevin Turner who decided to play the delicate issue of "post-PC era", and did so with a spicy statement: Apple is wrong. In mid 2010, Steve Jobs stated that the post-PC era had begun, while Tim Cook, currently CEO of the Cupertino giant has not only said that the tablet and the PC are two different things, but does not believe in hybrid formats. For Redmond, Apple is "a great hardware," but the computer is entering the era PC +, an idea based on a 1999 article written by Bill Gates called, "Why the PC will not die." Gates mentioned in this text to anticipate the death of the PC became a kind of "annual ritual" and also speaks of "devices that have not even dreamed of yet." One tablet would be today.
How could it be otherwise, Turner hinted that Windows 8 is a cornerstone for the PC + era, and that's where I think the preacher loses some strength. Windows 8 is a change, and one large, even more than the passing of Windows 3.x to Windows 95 for nearly seventeen years. But the market is not the same, the hardware is not the same, and basically, users are not the same. If the change conveys the feeling of being "good" inmiedato is absorbed, but before the first question listed stocks. And Windows 8, or should I say "the interface Metro", is a sea of doubt. Microsoft is betting nearly himself on the success of Windows 8, but if anything it has taught us both the computer and consumer electronics is that the first of its kind, regardless of whether they succeed or not, always have a sharp edge. It happened to iPhone, iPad happened, and certainly happened to Windows 95 at the time. Windows 8 is, taking into account everything you said Microsoft, the first of its kind, and that system is based PC + era. When we get to October, we'll know who was right.
To say that technology is advancing in all simple, but if we look closer, reality teaches us something different. As an example: Mobile devices have become much more powerful, and are evidence of this everywhere, but this progress has led to the energy storage systems are pushed to the limit portable. The chips need ever more power to operate, and in many cases, the battery as we know it is a limiting factor. In order to avoid this problem, a group of MIT researchers has developed a chip with the ability to get energy from different sources such as sunlight, heat, and even vibrations.
Increase the processing power without firing power consumption is a constant challenge for manufacturers of mobile devices. Sometimes it is possible to reduce consumption, while in others, the only viable alternative is to increase the size of the battery for autonomy does not record negative changes. Now what happens when a battery is not an option? Imagine remote locations, operating systems under conditions that would make it very difficult if not impossible to maintain and / or replacement of a battery. There are chips with low energy demand, to the point they can get energy from sources such as sunlight or vibration, but also the detail of intermittency, as these sources are not constant.
In addition to low power consumption, the trick lies in that a chip is capable of using different sources simultaneously, and that's exactly what Anantha Chandrakasan have developed and Saurav Bandyopadhyay Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. Generate power with our movement is well-known (think Seiko Kinetic watches, for example), but the big challenge is the combination of sources, or rather, using the same circuit for all. According to the words of Bandyopadhyay, circuits that collect energy from temperature differences produce a maximum of 0.15 volts. A single cell increases the number to 0.7 volts, while the collection of peaks of vibration can lead to five volts. Instead of choosing the source that provides more power, the chip includes all energy, using and keeping the rest of the energy in capacitors to reduce waste.
It was also necessary to minimize the consumption of the circuit itself, so that it can deliver as much energy as possible to the device. The chip can even work with the energy that comes directly from the source, or use the stored energy depending on the situation, further increasing efficiency. The project received financial support from the Interconnect Focus Center, a name behind which we find another old friend: DARPA. Sensors located in remote areas, medical devices fed patient movement, and gadgets with a secondary charging system are just three applications that come to mind for a chip like this. We waste a lot of energy, and any development that allows us to collect it, is certainly welcome.
The brain is an electrical organ. Is therefore capable of being stimulated with microelectrodes. But also with magnetism. Now scientists are exploring the possibility of implanting tiny magnetic coils that can modify brain activity.The use of microelectrodes is increasingly widespread. The most notable is the cochlear implant. A device that has several components. One is a microphone which records the sound. Through wires generated signals are transmitted to the auditory nerve. Thus, the device bypasses the ear and directly stimulates the nerve. The cochlear implant has been a huge relief for the deaf from birth. Two hundred thousand people in the world use them.
The electrode implantation technology is also used in the brain. It's called deep brain stimulation (DBS for short English Deep Brain Stimulation). It is used in Parkinson's, in deep depression and even epilepsy. The idea is to produce a stimulation to restore the normal rhythm of neuronal firing in the brain. The back of the electrical stimulation is magnetism. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a magnetic coil that is applied from outside the brain and produces a magnetic field that changes the brain and changes its state. The TMS is used experimentally and is beginning to be used clinically. By applying a strong magnet may move your hand against their wishes.
What is now in experimentation is the use of small magnets instead of large electrodes or magnets. Has the advantage of electrodes to stimulate the sense that small parts of the brain, not the stimulating TMS large regions. In turn, its effect varies with the orientation of the magnet. In experiments on the retina, the orientation of the magnet changes the populations of excited neurons. If the magnet is placed parallel to the retina, cells activate a group of bipolar flames. When set perpendicular, activate another group of cells called ganglion. A new development in the stimulation of the brain that can allow the relief of many diseases to which today's medication does not answer.
More and more applications that are looking for (and finding) a place in the cloud, and BitTorrent clients are no exception. With different elements seeking any legal detail to blow up the classics BitTorrent clients, placing the ability to download torrents directly from your browser seems a more than reasonable. And that is what Torque: All interested developer can create applications enabled for use in this "online customer", delivering more features to users, and expanding existing ones.
Personally I must say I am very comfortable with the current BitTorrent clients. uTorrent is an essential software to me, and I think his role is simply fabulous WebUI. I have a small terminal with a hard drive large enough (and is already flying with the steam, I might add), and WebUI me to manage (almost) everything the conventional customer has. But if there are players, audio and image editors, word processors and many other tools in the cloud, the fact that a BitTorrent client is located in that place is not far-fetched. Many people feel intimidated by the BitTorrent patients, and their configuration details, but if they somehow integrate a method to download torrents like normal files, everything would be easier.
That's what BitTorrent Torque. Imagine an online platform (which functions similarly to a BitTorrent client) on which you can develop small JavaScript-based applications to expand the functionality of BitTorrent in the browser. If you visit the official website of torque, you'll see that there are some active projects, and others in development. Between what is available and OneClick, an extension compatible with Chrome (and only under Windows, for now) that lets you download torrents like common files, and Paddle Over a feature to share files by "drag and drop" using a dedicated site. Some things are yet to come streaming video settings to optimize the client, uTorrent and Friends, which adds to BitTorrent sharing a social twist through Facebook.
I tried checking the operation of OneClick under Chrome, and not only was negative (at least for now), but I also got a surprise. Our evidence was common, with many seeds and is perfectly legal as image "netinst" from the last version of Debian. Chrome plays. Torrent file correctly and try to do something, but I found that OneClick is reported himself as a "trial" and to continue to use it should pay one dollar, one curious detail when we consider that it did not work, which is Alpha offered a platform, and basically being asked to pay to download something available free of charge (a dollar is not much, but I will try to contact people from BitTorrent to confirm). Eliminate dependence on BitTorrent clients and place all of the functionality on the Web is an interesting project, but Torque is just in alpha state, and there are many sharp edges to eliminate. Patience.
