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.
First, we have what is probably the biggest news of the year for digital freedom and rights of users on the Web: The European Parliament gave him a real beating ACTA, an action that virtually destroys the possibility implement the treaty around the globe. And secondly, we have to Megaupload. Do you remember Megaupload? Your manager Kim Dotcom not only celebrated the defeat suffered by ACT in Parliament, but also predicted the return of a Mega platform, and is bigger and faster, as well as completely free.
It was dirty from the start. There were secret meetings, and agreements behind closed doors. Any request for transparency in their treatment was ignored. The Council of the European Union had "hidden" in a meeting of Agriculture and Fisheries. Removed legal protections for both providers and users, forcing ISPs to turn against their own customers at the slightest claim. Attacked legal exchange methods, and open and free software at various levels. But there was something worse, criminalized the generic concept, undermining health worldwide. However, is history: ACTA, an acronym for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is liquidated, and the place of his fall was the European Parliament. On 4 July, the Parliament refused to ACT in a vote of 478 to 39 (21 of them from French representatives), and 165 abstentions. Six months were difficult, for a moment that showed a favorable outlook for the treaty. However, the protests and activism (both web and beyond) eventually led to many members of Parliament and representatives of other states that initially expressed support for ACTA, to reconsider its position. The result is in sight.
To take effect, ACTA must be ratified by six states, but no one has done so far. We can count the United States in such confirmation, but being in an election year, the goals seem to be others. They are also more and more countries are moving away. The Mexican Senate refused to ACT in June 2011. Switzerland and Australia did their thing in May and June this year. And among all this, a name that emerges is that of Kim Dotcom responsible for Megaupload. His extradition to the United States is in check, and a judge in New Zealand outlawed the raid on his mansion because a significant number of irregularities in the process. With this in mind, and with the recent drop in Europe ACTA, Dotcom held in its own way on Twitter, announcing that Soup, PIPA and ACTA are dead, and what is your platform again Mega: "Bigger. Best. Faster. Free and protected from attacks. Evolution! "Was the expression of Dotcom on the social network.
The situation will be resolved Dotcom (in one form or another) in August, meanwhile, the fact that ACT has become dust in the European Parliament does not mean that their original advocates the same thing has happened to them. Seek ways to reintroduce the same mistakes, the same follies. The banknotes circulate, courtesy of unscrupulous giants of different markets. And probably have to leave the crossroads once again. Members of Parliament gave a lesson, and ironically was a day like July 4th, but do not give up. If you try to implement mechanisms to protect copyright destroy other rights in the process, the protest will not end easily.
Seems to be a way that everything that is successful must inevitably go over their existence. There is no doubt that the use of the vast and growing network of mobile Android is raging at the security and privacy, and if you needed proof to be believed, a researcher at Microsoft has just discovered a botnet of Android devices Yahoo! Mail uses to take advantage and make money and then sending spam SMS from mobiles affected.
The most pernicious Internet, with its nooks and malicious criminals know a little more computer niches and to detect the focus of their attacks on what is growing and it provides enough facilities to take advantage. In this sense, the explosion of attacks on Android phones and the constant barrage of spam is not an accident but the result of an unlawful activity as mounting an international botnet Android devices that today are making much money sitting on misinformation and ingenuity of millions.
Suspicions were expressed on the table of strategies, but only recently, and after investigation he called exhaustive, Terry Zink, Microsoft engineer, has discovered a complete and international botnet is attacking over and through Android devices. The owners of the phones and tablets are taken through the creation of thousands of false applications for Android, or have failed when a link is going to acquire or seem to work properly but in fact you are taking credit for sending expensive SMS from the phone to "collected all the trouble." That is, the devices are used to send and receive spam that not only cost money to those who suffer, but also endangers their safety and their data.
The details revealed in the MSDN blog talk about a method that has as main objective to make money from users' mobile after reaching the user spam from Yahoo Mail boxes funny thing is that from the same subject in the mail written information is as follows: "Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android" would seem to indicate the hackers devised a malware that can take Yahoo! Mail accounts and use them to send these messages to large scale using a botnet of Android devices interconnected. The location of the botnet was easy, yet not so much. Is that Yahoo! Mail provides the sender's IP, the problem is that the addresses come from different countries such as Chile, Thailand, Ukraine, Oman, Lebanon, Indonesia, Russia, among others
According to him, many of these conditions are given by the free and illegal downloading of Yahoo! Mail and other services that usually are extra. What he proposes as a first solution is that users only use Googe Android Play to download applications and so have security on it.
The phrase "crime prevention" may seem removed from the speech of any political campaign, but the truth is that it is very difficult to perform. Not all crimes are equal, despite efforts, there's a crime that initially go unnoticed. However, technology has become one of the most important allies of the authorities in recent years. Some time ago we talked about the IBM System Blue Crush, but now, an algorithm developed by the company PredPol demonstrated excellent capacity in anticipating which areas are most likely to record a crime.
"The best way to prevent crime is ...". Honestly, how many times have we heard that? The word "crime" is used as a kind of wild, when the reality shows that can be as complex and varied as human nature itself. There is no exact formula for preventing crime, and personally, I think it never will be. It's a constant battle, not only against criminals. Lack of resources is a recurring problem in many police forces, to name just one. Technology can help in different ways, although it is still resisted by elements who believe that "traditional methods" are more reliable.
One element that may tip the balance in favor of "prevention technology" is an algorithm developed by the people of PredPol. The software works together from previous reports, studies of criminal behavior and anthropological research. The District Police Department's Foothill of Los Angeles began to follow the patterns indicated by the algorithm, and a decrease of 25 percent in property crimes. The main advantage is that the algorithm can process full years of reports and indications, thus presenting more accurate predictions. With reference to random locations, the algorithm was six times more accurate anticipation of crimes against three times human analysts. Still, company officials clarified that the objective is not "replace" the police effort, but place it in the right place and right time.
The application of this algorithm has so far yielded solid results, but as expected, certain questions arise. On the one hand, if a policeman stops a vehicle or type in a place simply because a computer program has indicated that "could" be a crime there, some would invoke the Fourth Amendment to protect, leading to a more complicated legal situation . On the other hand, take into consideration that the crime is rarely static. If prevention in an area becomes too strong, the criminals simply move elsewhere. The big question is whether the algorithm, or a similar development can anticipate where would these criminals. The algorithm will use expanded in the coming months, and perhaps even departing from Los Angeles to be applied in other cities.
Blind, deaf and dumb should be the autistic computers do not believe that we have equated gradually more characteristic of the human qualities, those that give us reason to be and add meaning to our existence as a whole identified as humanity. Still missing and I hope very much, but to give us another example of how insignificant we are, some Spanish scientists developed a computer capable of composing classical music like one of the many great musicians in history. Of course, Lamus at incredible speeds up and puts us to discuss music, man and the universe itself.
For its complexity, which involves writing and execution by the secrecy of his age and because like a fine wine, only specialists know what it's made and tastes so good, listening to the mystique that has a quasi-supernatural large piece of classical music, the feeling of joy is in part to recognize the human as a being capable of the most virtuous, when we insist on the other hand through the media that serve only to destroy each other. There are moments of human feeling pride when you hear these heavenly pianos weeping cellos conjugated with a philosophical subtlety, but may now have to attach another narcissistic wound of humanity to the list provided and fed Freud, because scientists Malaga University have developed a computer capable of composing classical music.
No more exclusivity and bad copies, because the computer Lamus, scientists at the UMA, Department of Computational Intelligence, have broken with the established view that only humans had the sensitivity and wonder to build musical works which have no noticeable differences with the human authors. The team manager, Francisco José Vico, Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, told that the current draft is based on the application of biomimetic techniques and hence is the closeness of the Darwinian theory of evolution, genetics and computing, with its own language that has been able to answer the question about the creativity of the machines. That is, a reformulation of the question that Alan Turing founded the Artificial Intelligence.
So far Lamus has created over 800 original scores and how to check their "humanity" is the comparison of these with other group of renowned artists of all time. As the results have been positive with amazing composition speeds (less than 10 minutes to write a score of 5 minutes to an instrument), at year end we will have a record with 10 scores performed by the London Symphony Orchestra among others. Of course, the existence of this binary Mozart has created debates around the world on how a machine that does not think or feel can create music that generates emotions in humans and appear to have included in his musical body. What does this mean? What music is just math? What computers can sit or emulate the emotions to a very high level? So that. Computers compose classical music, man.
Boxopus born a few weeks ago, a tool to download torrents directly to your Dropbox I had all to be a success because of the sync option and having the torrents available for download from any place where you are. Work, school, home of the mother, not going to stop downloading torrents ever. For this reason is that Dropbox became concerned, as the torrents are strongly associated with piracy and this is not nice for a company that is very successful without relying on anyone. So the dream ended, but we could not tell you about this great idea censored by fear.
Dropbox is a great help for those who want our files by hand all the time, and also for those who rely on this service as an aid when backing up. Through its API, applications, websites and other services have made Dropbox universal storage system in a context where the alternatives are many and there are some that I look better. But its expansion has come so that people of Boxopus had a great idea and decided to launch an application that allowed namesake torrents direct to your Dropbox, bringing together two worlds that we love. In short, Boxopus was a new service that let you download torrents synchronize based on a strange and unmediated Dropbox without compromising the integrity of your account.
Making an intelligent use Dropbox API, users would be able to add BitTorrent torrent files anonymously and without the need for a BitTorrent client installed on your computer (great for when you're at work and want to advance a little downloads). The good thing is that basically all you had to do is click comenzasen files for synchronization with the cloud and your Dropbox folder, which would be converted into a true hub of content downloaded you can use anywhere and building width foreign band, cough cough. But why use the past tense? Because Dropbox was in his pants, basically. Is that in view of what this web service offered, the company decided to ban or prohibit Boxopus. The reason is the piracy which are associated with the torrents because Dropbox wants nothing to do with itDropbox says: "We noticed that Boxopus characteristics may be perceived as an incentive for users to violate copyright using Dropbox. Copyright infringement is against our terms of service, so cancel access to the API. Once the access is revoked, any request to the API to generate the application will fail"
A pity! For the comfort knowing that he was almost assured, security was a factor in the use of Boxopus, that by using the Dropbox API, this had no access to other files in your Dropbox account. The idea was launched and several torrent sites had already discussed his interest in integrating alternative Boxopus download your torrents, but the dream was short with Dropbox in fear at the prospect of being pointed the finger of the RIAA and other economic interest groups that are behind everything that has whiff of piracy, though to the rest of us is more of a scent of freedom of action.
By now you may have heard of Amazon EC2. If you need a computer / server and virtual private (or more) running constantly and allowing applications to be administered at any time through the cloud, that's the kind of service you seek, however, the neighborhood is about to a bit more populated. With the I / O conference entering its final day, the Mountain View giant officially announced its platform Google Compute Engine. With more than 770 thousand families and counting, the new platform promises GCE increased processing power at lower cost, something that definitely sounds good in theory.
Perhaps an average user with a desktop, a laptop and / or tablet available to ask (with some validity) that want a virtual computer in the cloud. If your hardware needs are met, there may be no reason to have one, but the point is that, in most cases, these needs "no" are covered. Virtualization is one of the best things we have passed, and having access to all virtual machines that we want in exchange for a certain cost increases the chances of success for any project. I know some users use virtual systems in the cloud to create "boxes torrent", however, such use is negligible in comparison with large-scale projects that require thousands of cores in parallel, to carry them out in a reasonable time.
Here is where the new option of Google, called Google Compute Engine. Web sites, online games, content distribution and databases are some applications that can have virtual environments based on Linux (Ubuntu or CentOS are the main options) GCE. The key to better understand the GCE platform is think big. During his demonstration, executed an application focused on analyzing the human genome, and assigned to it about 600 thousand families, which verifies that the CGE has a level of flexibility and impressive processing power. Google has said that his GCE can provide up to fifty percent more calculations per dollar, and when operating on such a scale, there is no doubt that every penny counts.
With this announcement, Google clearly seeks to erode the position of Amazon EC2. It's as if Google is in a sort of cold war against Amazon, the first consumer-level tablet with the Nexus 7, and now with a very high-profile platform as CGE. Obviously, Amazon has several years ahead and have more varied options (virtual systems can run Linux or Windows, according to what the user needs), but beyond the differences, the smallest instance of Google seems to deliver more amount of resources worth more than reasonable. The platform is in beta, and Google is already offering "trials" limited to selected projects.
