Technology

2011-11-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

SMARTER CAMERA

DIGITAL cameras mean you no longer get stuck with a film roll full of blurry, under-exposed holiday snaps. Sadly, they don't stop you from taking bad photos in the first place. Wouldn't it be nice if your camera could also make you a better photographer?

Modern digital cameras like those found on smartphones often come with helpful tools such as face detection, yet it is still all too easy to make a mess of a picture. "A lot of the interaction with a phone camera is very similar to the interaction you had with a film camera 30 years ago," says Stephen Brewster, a researcher in human-computer interaction at the University of Glasgow, UK, He is developing a new camera interface to help get pictures right first time.

The interface uses the sensors and processing power found in smartphones to provide photographers with more information before they click. For example, accelerometers can detect that an image is aligned with the horizon or when your hands are shaking. The phone can then warn you with guidelines on the screen, audio cues or vibration. Brewster's team has also extended the face detection found in some smartphone cameras to help you frame arms-length self-portraits with friends - useful if your smartphone only has one built-in camera. When you point it towards yourself you can't see the screen, but the phone will vibrate once for each face it has in its sights.

For other photos, guidelines are summarised by a traffic-light system that lets you know the quality of a shot before you take it - a red or amber light means you might want to recompose, while a green light helps ensure a decent picture. This is important because people simply delete bad photos, says Brewster. "You've got to get it right first time because the event has gone, and if you've got a really bad photo, you've lost it."

Brewster, who will present his system at the Electronic Imaging conference in San Francisco in January, says he is in talks with a major camera manufacturer about incorporating some of his ideas into their products. He also plans to release a version of the interface as an Android app by the end of the year.

Even with extra help, smartphones can never match the images afforded by a professional digital camera with a high quality lens. But photographers with these more advanced cameras face another problem - the balancing act between a photo's exposure time and its depth of field (DoF), or how much of the shot is in focus.

Photos taken with a small aperture have a large DoF, meaning more of the frame is in focus, but less light gets into the camera. This means it takes longer to achieve the correct exposure and can lead to a blurry photo if the subject is in motion. Using a larger aperture solves that problem but narrows the focus, blurring the background or foreground.

2011-05-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

SOLAR ENERGY

Cambridge-based MicroContinuum Inc. is working with researchers at the University of Missouri, University of Colorado, and Idaho National Laboratory on “nantennas’’ — small antennas that gather much more energy from the sun than existing solar cells.

MicroContinuum’s challenge is to form nantennas into thin, flexible sheets that can be produced inexpensively in high volumes. Those thin sheets could then be incorporated into building materials and other products. Imagine a roll-up sheet, like a yoga mat, that you can toss over any structure, or roof tiles whose outermost layers are laced with nantennas.

The nantennas, according to a University of Missouri announcement, will collect 90 percent of available light.

Current solar panels capture only 30 percent of the sun’s energy, at best, the researchers said.
And yes, prototypes of the flexible film should be available within five years, they added.
Technologies similar to nantennas might include infrared sensing devices that can spot contraband at airports or be incorporated into line-of-sight communications and optical computing, the researchers said.

Mobile technology
This phone is smart about simplicity It’s a smartphone whose functions a 5-year-old can master, which means it’s one I am going to love.

I recently gave a Samsung Infuse 4G to a 5-year-old, only to suffer unflattering photos of Baba (that’s me) in the blinding LED flash on the device’s outward-facing, 8-megapixel camera.

She had no trouble swiping her fingers or completing a puzzle to unlock the Infuse’s screen, navigating its app icons, or perusing maps.

The Infuse, a sturdy, wafer-thin Android 2.2 smartphone, also captures video, with continuous flash, at 720p HD.

Videos streamed from YouTube looked wonderful on the Infuse’s 4.5-inch AMOLED screen.
The Infuse comes with apps and functions that you can use to quickly upload media and updates (typed via an onscreen virtual keypad) to Facebook and other social networks.

The Infuse is also shipped with the popular game Angry Birds. It’s available from AT&T Inc. for about $200 with a two-year contract and a minimum $15-per-month data plan.

We took the Infuse for a ride with the powerful Jabra Freeway stereo speakerphone . The Freeway paired seamlessly with the Infuse, which did not even prompt me to enter a pairing code.

The Freeway accepts voice commands. And it speaks to tell you your current connection status and battery level.

2011-05-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

Free ID theft monitoring

Sony Corp. is offering US customers of its PlayStation Network and Qriocity online entertainment services a year of free identity theft monitoring after the system was crippled by hackers.

The Tokyo-based consumer-electronics maker has hired Debix Inc. to provide the monitoring service, Patrick Seybold, a spokesman for Sony’s video game unit, said yesterday in a blog post.
Sony is struggling to end a two-week outage of the PlayStation Network, which offers video games and movies, and Qriocity, its online outlet for music, film and TV shows, after an incursion last month by hackers who stole credit card data. The company is in the final stages of testing the PlayStation Network before turning it back on.

US subscribers have until June 18 to sign up for Debix’s AllClear ID Plus protection program, Seybold said. It comes with a $1 million insurance policy per user, covering identity- restoration costs, legal expenses, and lost wages that occur within 12 months after a customer’s personal data is stolen

2011-03-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

SMARTPHONE

More than a dozen smartphone apps are offering to bring fans everything royal wedding-related wherever they are -- so they can check the days and minutes until Prince William and Kate Middleton's April 29 wedding, hoard news and pictures about them and instantly share their favorite royal wedding tidbits on social media networks.

Most of the apps are tailored for iPhones or iPads. Some are fairly informative: There are apps that feature live coverage of the wedding on the day, a weather forecast for London's Westminster Abbey up to 10 days in advance, and royal protocol in case, for whatever reason, you need to greet the queen.

Hello! Magazine, a popular source of celebrity news, promises exclusive commentary, while an app developed by mobile games company Neon Play has teamed up with Ian Jones, a photographer who has snapped William's portrait in the past, to dish up 100 exclusive images of the royal family.

If that isn't enough, one iPhone app -- "Alarm Royale" -- even lets people set their phone alarm clock to a wedding march or royal-themed music like "God Save the Queen" and "Rule Britannia."

Once a person wakes up, the app also shows them a new fact about the royal couple every day, said developer Mark Riley.

"It's fairly lighthearted," he said. "There are more modern elements in it as well, like social networking -- you can share the facts on Facebook and Twitter."

Like Riley, many app developers aim to connect users to a digital community of royalists all over the world. While the U.S. and Britain are the largest markets, people are downloading the apps from as far away as the Philippines and Saudi Arabia.

"It's one big party," said Diane Hall, president of Toronto-based 2 For Life Media Inc., which launched an iPad royal wedding app that lets users share marriage advice and wedding tips to the royal couple through a virtual guestbook. Wills and Kate -- as they are known in the British tabloids -- most likely will never read the entries, but part of the fun is reading up on what other "guests" want to tell them, she said.

"You get an interactive experience. You can be informed but also share with others and have a good laugh," Hall said.

With online social media and digital technology, more people than ever can "participate" in the historic event in real time.

Palace officials are putting all their official royal wedding photos up on the photo-share site Flickr, and a royal wedding website is in place to spread the word for the latest announcements. An official Twitter account ensures that those messages travel far and wide.

And the millions of fans who won't get a chance to line London's streets for the royal wedding procession can still get a feel for the route with a 3D map introduced by Google maps earlier this month.

All that is probably too much information for most men, though.

2011-02-05T22:38:00.000-08:00

APPLE PATENTS

It’s quite strange that Apple chose the name iPad for its tablet computer as you can’t actually use it the way one would use a pad of paper, specifically when it comes to drawing or writing with a pen.

The device’s touchscreen is designed to be used with a finger or two. In some instances it’s possible to use a specifically designed stylus to replicate the writing experience, but even that makes it very difficult to sit and take notes, or sketch pictures, using the iPad.

That could all change soon, according to a new patent filed in 2008 by Apple that was discovered Thursday by the blog Patently Apple.

The patent states that a specially designed pen could be use as an additional input on a tablet device. Apple pushes the stylus a few steps further with the use of an accelerometer in the pen that can detect movement. As Patently Apple notes, this technology could be used in a drawing or painting program to select “colors, brush sizes, shading, line width [and] eraser functionality.”
Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s founder, has repeatedly said that a pen on a tablet is a sign of failure. During an iPhone product presentation in 2007, and again in 2010, Mr. Jobs said, “If you see a stylus, they blew it.” But that should be taken with a grain of salt, from the salt shaker used when you heard Mr. Jobs say that the company would never build an e-reader, phone or inexpensive computer, and later released all three products.

So why would Apple add a stylus to an already successful iPad? According to a person who works at Apple on the iPad and is not allowed to speak publicly about the company’s coming products, the reason to add the stylus is to reach a wider number of children in school. “It’s one of the barriers for school kids and college students to purchase an iPad where they want the ability to take notes by hand and draw in class,” the individual said.

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, made this observation last year when he said students needed a pen to be able to interact with a tablet in a school setting. Mr. Gates said the iPad was good for reading, but not necessarily for creating.

2010-12-31T10:23:00.000-08:00

2011 the Year of the Blockbuster Tech

For technology start-ups, the initial public offering has long lost the sheen of the dot-com era, when it seemed like anyone with an idea could go public. At the peak of the bubble, the Silicon Valley factory was in overdrive, pumping out hundreds of I.P.O.’s. a year.

In the wake of the financial crisis, there were just 45 offerings of tech companies in 2010, according to investment firm Renaissance Capital. The year before, only 16 debuted.
Now, Silicon Valley could see a modest return to the prerecession days — and even a hot brand-name initial offering from the likes of Groupon, Facebook or Zynga analysts say.

“If the equity markets remain stable, I expect a solid I.P.O. market,” said Peter Falvey, co-head of technology investment banking for Morgan Keegan. “We could see 20 percent more deals by value and by number.” Mr. Falvey and others also see increasing odds for a “Death Star explosion” — a blockbuster, multibillion dollar offering from a major Internet company. That theory gained credence on Thursday, when DealBook reported that that social-buying site Groupon is preparing for to I.P.O. at the end of 2011.

Meanwhile, initial offerings have become less attractive to young entrepreneurs who do not want to be burdened with the costly bureaucratic challenges of going public, including increased regulatory scrutiny, constant filings and high investment banking fees.

Instead, more founders are delaying initial offerings in favor of additional venture capital. Facebook raised more than half a billion dollars from the Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies. As DealBook noted, Groupon is negotiating with Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley for another round of financing that could be as large as $950 million.

Still, several analysts say I.P.O.’s may be regaining favor again, thanks to the improving stock market and a better economic environment.

“We may be nearing an inflection point,” said Paul Bard, a vice president at Renaissance Capital. “Companies are feeling good about their businesses, the buy side is more interested in growth and new money is coming into the market. When you have those three things happening in concert, that creates the potential for a very vibrant market for tech I.P.O.’s.”

The market may also be supported by the steady flow of Chinese companies, looking to go public on American exchanges. Eleven technology companies based in China had initial public offerings in the United States this year, including DangDang, an online retailer that experienced higher-than-expected demand in its debut, raising $272 million.

After a sluggish start, I.P.O. performance and pricing has picked up in the second half of this year. The shares of technology companies that have recently gone public are up 50.3 percent from their initial offer price, according to Morgan Keegan.

Although there are a few well-known names in this group, including the electric-car marker Tesla, the vast majority are little known, small-cap stocks. And some have done very well.
Shares of the software maker RealPage, which began trading in August, have roughly doubled. RealD, the 3-D technology company that went public in July, is up 60 percent.

The average first-day increase in share price was 18 percent, said Mr. Bard, adding that the recent rally would encourage small and midsize tech start-ups to take the plunge next year. He says he expects 2011 I.P.O. activity for technology stocks to match the levels of the years preceding the recession. In those years, the market averaged 53 public offerings a year with a value of $9.6 billion, according to Renaissance Capital.

There are 22 companies in the tech I.P.O. pipeline, including the Web chat service

Skype, which many predict will be a billion-dollar offering.

The latest parlor game, however, is placing bets on whether Internet companies like Groupon or Facebook, which already have multibillion-dollar valuations, will join the fray. There has been significant demand for these Web darlings in the secondary markets, private exchanges that match buyers and sellers, including former employees looking to sell their stock. Facebook, at the center of the frenzy, is trading at an implied valuation of $42.4 billion, according to SharesPost.

Although the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has said that he is in no rush to go public, the company may face increased pressure in the near term. As more investors pile into Facebook shares, often through special investment pools, the company could soon surpass 500 shareholders. That milestone would

subject the company to a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that would require Facebook to register with the S.E.C. and submit financial results.

As DealBookreported, the S.E.C. has started to ask for information about secondary-market trading in the shares of Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and LinkedIn.

If Groupon or Facebook, or one of their peers, do go public in 2011, Mr. Falvey said it would be a game changer for the industry.

2010-12-25T23:38:00.000-08:00

Cherokee, Apple partner to put language on iPhones

Nine-year-old Lauren Hummingbird wants a cell phone for Christmas -- and not just any old phone, but an iPhone. Such a request normally would be met with skepticism by her father, Cherokee Nation employee Jamie Hummingbird.

He could dismiss the obvious reasons a kid might want an iPhone, except for this -- he's a proud Cherokee and buying his daughter the phone just might help keep the tribe's language alive.
Nearly two centuries after a blacksmith named Sequoyah converted Cherokee into its own unique written form, the tribe has worked with Apple to develop Cherokee language software for the iPhone, iPod and -- soon -- the iPad. Computers used by students -- including Lauren -- at the tribe's language immersion school already allow them to type using Cherokee characters.
The goal, Cherokee Chief Chad Smith said, is to spread the use of the language among tech-savvy children in the digital age. Smith has been known to text students at the school using Cherokee, and teachers do the same, allowing students to continue using the language after school hours.

Lauren isn't the only Cherokee child pleading for an iPhone, "and that doesn't help my cause," Jamie Hummingbird joked, knowing he'll probably give in.

Tribal officials first contacted Apple about getting Cherokee on the iPhone three years ago. It seemed like a long shot, as the devices support only 50 of the thousands of languages worldwide, and none were American Indian tongues. But Apple's reputation for innovation gave the tribe hope.

After many discussions and a visit from Smith, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company surprised the tribe by coming through this fall.

"There are countries vying to get on these devices for languages, so we are pretty excited we were included," said Joseph Erb, who works in the Cherokee Nation's language technology division.

The Cherokee take particular pride in their past, including the alphabet, or syllabary, Sequoyah developed in 1821. In 1828, the tribe obtained a printing press and began publishing the Cherokee Phoenix, which the Cherokee claim was the nation's first bilingual newspaper. Copies circulated as far away as Europe, tribal officials say.

The Cherokee language thrived back then, but like other tribal tongues, it has become far less prevalent over the decades. Today only about 8,000 Cherokee speakers remain -- a fraction of the tribe's 290,000 members -- and most of those are 50 or older, Smith said.

Tribal leaders realized something must done to encourage younger generations to learn the language.

"What makes you a Cherokee if you don't have Cherokee thoughts?" asked Rita Bunch, superintendent of the tribe's Sequoyah Schools.

Tribal officials thus decided to develop the language immersion school, in which students would be taught multiple subjects in a Cherokee-only environment.

2010-12-20T07:47:00.000-08:00

3D PRINTER

Finding the ultimate Christmas present for the discerning geek has never been easy, but a small team of professional tinkerers based in New York has come up with the ultimate geek must-have – a printer that "prints" in 3D.

Rather than printing with ink on a page, 3D printers build up objects using layers of plastic. They have been available since 2003, but Brooklyn- based firm MakerBot, which started early in 2009, has developed a small printer that comes in kit form. Having to assemble the "robot" printer adds to the charm for true tinkerers, but this DIY approach also makes it far cheaper than it might be; until now, commercial 3D printers haven't been available for much less than £25,000.

This year, 3D went mainstream, from big-budget movies to the latest 3D cameras, camcorders and TVs. MakerBot goes one better by offering three tangible dimensions, created with their Meccanoesque kits. The first model, the Cupcake CNC, sells for $649 and the newer Thing-O-Matic for $1,225.

"If you have trouble putting Ikea furniture together, get a friend to help you," explains Bre Pettis, co-founder and chief executive of MakerBot. "But, for a tinkerer, making something that makes things is the holy grail."

MakerBot "prints" in either ABS, the plastic that Lego is made from, or corn-based PLA - which smells like waffles when it is used. Hacker community website Thingiverse displays the witty creativity of "fabbers" (desktop-based fabricators and fans of 3D printing): from space invader earrings and keyrings to full-size lamps, built in sections. One Marty McGuire tells the story of going to buy a shower curtain for his new flat, but finding the store had run out of shower curtain rings. This is the kind of challenge the MakerBot owner lives for, and he enthusiastically set about measuring, designing and then printing out his own shower curtain rings.

There's an obvious bonus: buy one MakerBot and you can probably make a good batch of Christmas presents – Pettis admits he's made bottle openers and dragons as presents. The only limitations are your imagination – plus the 12.5x12.5x12.5cm dimensions of the Thing-O-Matic and the fact that you can print in any material you want, as long as it's plastic. If you're short of ideas, you can choose from the 5,000 designs already uploaded by the MakerBot community.
MakerBot has sold just 3,000 machines so far but is struggling to keep up with demand. A UK supplier, Robosavvy, is now selling the Thing-O-Matic for £847. As with the realised ambition of Bill Gates, who famously said he wanted to put a computer in every home in the world, all of us will eventually own a 3D printer, says Pettis. The key is to make these machines affordable.

"We're not engineers – we're tinkerers," he says, explaining that MakerBot's background in tinkering means a preoccupation with finding parts as cheaply as possibly, so much of the DIY kit is off the shelf. "If we were engineers, this thing would cost 100 times as much. But our goal is to democratise manufacturing so anyone can have a machine that makes anything they need. We want to render consumerism useless – and that doesn't work if the machine isn't cheap.

2010-12-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

NANO TECHNOLOGY

1 Get small. A nanometer is about the width of a strand of DNA; if you design, build, or use functional systems smaller than 100 of these, you’re a nanotechnologist.

2 By that definition, we have been doing nanotech for centuries. For instance, the colors in medieval stained glass windows result from nanocrystals created in the heating and cooling of the glass.

3 Size matters. At the nano scale, materials take on unusual properties. Their color, transparency, and melting point often differ significantly from those of larger clumps of the same stuff.

4 Nanoscale bits of metal oxide, carbon fiber, or metal blends can detoxify hazardous waste: Their extreme solubility and chemical reactivity help them zero in on the nasty stuff.

5 This approach is already being used at sites in a dozen states, mostly to clean groundwater fouled by solvents, metals, and petroleum.

6 Brighter colors! Richer flavors! Less spoilage! Those are some of the reasons why companies are dumping nanoparticles into hundreds of products, including cosmetics, sunscreens, and food.

7 Analysts say the global market for manufactured goods using nanomaterials could hit $1.6 trillion by 2013.

8 Uh-oh. Studies show that nanoparticles can work their way into the bloodstream, penetrate cells, and get past the blood-brain barrier. Research has linked such particles to lung damage; the brain may be affected too.

9 But if those particles don’t kill us, they just might save us. Scientists at U.C. San Diego have designed a fluorescent nanoparticle that glows inside the body, making it easier to image tumors and organ damage.

10 Yale researchers have created plastic nanospheres that encapsulate proteins called cytokines, which stimulate the immune system’s killer T-cells. An injection of those spheres could help fight disease and infection.

11 And in a University of Southern California lab, nanotubes have been used to create synthetic neurons (pdf).

12 The USC team is trying to assemble these neurons into functional networks, which would bring us closer to assistive brain implants.

13 In 1989, using an atomic force microscope, IBM engineer Don Eigler became the first person to move and control a single atom.

14 Eigler and his team later used 35 xenon atoms to spell out “IBM,” thus performing the world’s smallest PR stunt.

15 Atoms? Big whoop. Researchers at Princeton and U.C. Santa Barbara can control the spin of a single electron, trapping it in a “corral” created by applying voltage to minuscule electrodes.

16 But they’re not playing cowboy. The breakthrough could lead to powerful quantum computers that store and manipulate data in the spin of individual electrons.

17 Not to be outdone, Stanford scientists used scanning tunneling microscopy and holograms to write information within the interference patterns formed by electron waves on a copper sheet. The letters are less than a third the size of Eigler’s “IBM.”

18 Government researchers have created arrays of chromium nanodots that can store magnetic data with unprecedented uniformity. One goal: drawing more complex integrated circuits on silicon chips.

19 For the rodent who has everything. Georgia Tech scientists made piezoelectric generators out of nanowires and attached them to tiny hamster jackets. When the critters ran, the generators created electricity.

20 Zhong Lin Wang, co-inventor of the jacket, envisions a shirt that charges your cell phone as you stroll, or an implanted device for measuring blood pressure that’s powered by your own heartbeat.

2010-10-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

New Mac, new operating system

Macs will soon have an application store, similar to the App Store for the iPhone and iPad, Jobs said at an event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. New computers will take better advantage of multitouch gestures on track pads, mimicking the interface on Apple’s iOS, which runs mobile products, he said. The app store will open within 90 days, and Lion will be released in summer 2011.

Apple is using the popularity of its iPhone and iPad tablet to bolster demand for its oldest product, the Macintosh. Sales of the computers rose 22 percent to $4.87 billion last quarter, making up 24 percent of revenue. More than half of Mac purchases in the company’s retail stores in the most recent period were from first-time buyers.

“As more customers are being exposed to Apple products, they are spending more of their computer dollars on Apple,’’ said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners.

The new MacBook Air, which is 0.68 of an inch at its thickest point, combines features of the iPad with a notebook, Jobs said. Its battery lets users surf the Web wirelessly for seven hours. In standby mode, the battery can last 30 days. Like the iPad, it has no hard-disk drive or CD-ROM, just flash memory. It weighs 2.3 to 2.9 pounds, depending on the model.

“We asked ourselves, ‘What would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?’ Well, this is the result,’’ he said. “We think it’s the future of notebooks.’’

The new Air comes in two versions: a 13.3-inch model costs $1,299 to $1,599, depending on the amount of memory, while the 11.6-inch product starts at $999.

Apple sold a record 3.89 million Macs in the fourth quarter, a 27 percent increase from last year. The gains helped Apple nudge aside Acer Inc. to become the number three PC seller in the United States, behind Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., according to Framingham, Mass.-based IDC.

Apple’s best-selling product is the iPhone.

The company also introduced a new version of its media software, iLife 11. The update adds features for handling video, photos, and music and is more tightly integrated with Facebook. Programs include iPhoto, which makes it easier to turn pictures into books and cards.

2010-09-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

GENOMES FUEL SCIENCE

The cost of whole-genome sequencing is dropping like a rock, and that’s fueling a “renaissance of activity” for scientific sleuths tracking down the genetic causes of disease, a pioneer in the field says.

Harvard geneticist George Church provided a status report on the genome market, and its implications for medical research, during this week's "Open Questions in Neuroscience" symposium in Seattle, sponsored by the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Church is not only a Harvard professor and research, but also the founder of the Knome commercial venture for genome-sequencing.

Thanks to competition in the sequencing field, the price of decoding a complete human genome has been following an affordability curve that looks like Moore's Law on steroids. The cost of the federal Human Genome Project, which issued its first draft in 2000 and a complete genome sequence in 2003, was estimated at $2.7 billion in 1991 dollars. But that price tag has been falling by as much as an order of magnitude per year, and today the going rate for whole-genome sequencing is edging below $10,000 (counseling costs extra). The cost of materials — that is, the chemical reagents required to do the tests — is merely $1,000, Church said in June.

That might suggest that the goal of the $1,000 genome could be achieved in the next year, but Church told me there might be a price plateau instead. In any case, the rapid price decline is reviving hopes that DNA tests can reveal which combinations of genes are linked to extreme or distinctive traits.

Church pointed to the example of Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome, a disease that affects nerve function in the body's extremities. In March, researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine announced that they unraveled the genetic cause of the disease by sequencing the entire genome of a sufferer (who happened to be a Baylor geneticist) and comparing genetic mutations with those found in his parents and siblings. Another study at the Institute for Systems Biology concluded that no more than four genes were responsible for another rare disease known as Miller syndrome, thanks to whole-genome sequencing for a family of four.

To accelerate the genomic renaissance, Church established the Personal Genome Project, which is aimed at producing a publicly available database of genome sequences linked to medical data. So far, 16,000 volunteers have signed up, and the project has the go-ahead to sign up as many as 100,000. But less than two dozen people have made their complete genome public. One reason for that is the concern over privacy. But Church told me the biggest reason why more people aren't already "Personal Genome Pioneers" is because of the cost. Sounds like that situation could change pretty darn quickly.

2010-09-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

Nuclear Fuel a Waste or a Resource

As President Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future continues to ponder what role nuclear power might play in the U.S. electricity supply, a group of scientists, engineers and other experts assembled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) released a report on the nuclear fuel cycle paid for by the nuclear industry. In short, the report finds that uranium resources are not likely to run out in the next century, even if the U.S. alone builds as many as 1,000 nuclear reactors.

Therefore, either reprocessing or recycling spent nuclear fuel, as the French and Japanese do, is likely to be a waste of money better spent on improving the light-water reactors presently in use. The funds could also be used to create a $670-million-per-year research and development program for nuclear power as well as to determine the best fuel cycle over the course of the next several decades. Finally, the global expansion of nuclear power plants should be enabled by some form of leasing program for the uranium fuel rods—one up for renewal every decade or so."For the next several decades in the U.S. the once-through fuel cycle using light-water reactors is the preferred option," said M.I.T. physicist and report co-chair Ernest Moniz at its release on September 16 in Washington, D.C. "Light-water reactors are the workhorse, and there's a lot we can do to improve [them]." The U.S. employs 104 light-water reactors to generate 20 percent of its electricity today; the reactors moderate uranium fission and the heat it produces with water, which is also boiled into steam to turn an electricity-generating turbine.M.I.T. nuclear engineer Charles Forsberg, another co-chair of the report, noted that a typical light-water reactor in the U.S. needs 200 metric tons of mined uranium resulting in 20 metric tons of uranium fuel per year. All this uranium represents as little as 2 percent of the final cost of the electricity from that nuclear power plant.

Therefore, even if uranium prices doubled or more, the impact on electricity prices would be minimal. The M.I.T. report predicts that even if the world's fleet of more than 400 nuclear power plants grew to be 4,000 such plants that then operated for a century, the cost of the electricity from those facilities would rise by a mere 1 percent as a result of the increased demand for uranium. "There's no shortage of uranium that might constrain future commitments to build new nuclear plants for much of the century," Forsberg said.

This also argues against alternate fissile fuels such as thorium. "What do you get by complicating the fuel cycle by looking at thorium when we have plenty of uranium?" asked M.I.T. nuclear engineer and report co-chair Mujid Kazimi.The question then becomes what to do with that abundant uranium once it's been fissioned in a nuclear reactor. After all, the spent nuclear fuel still contains fissionable uranium 235 and plutonium 239. "Today, we don't know whether spent nuclear fuel from light-water reactors is waste or a resource," Moniz noted. Forsberg added that the spent nuclear fuel currently awaiting a home in the U.S. could be compared with "a super-strategic petroleum reserve. We should be cautious before we throw it away."But a place to throw such radioactive waste remains necessary.

Even though the spent nuclear fuel from the entire U.S. fleet of reactors—roughly 2,000 metric tons per year—requires just two hectares of land to be stored in dry casks, some form of geologic isolation—such as the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada—will be needed ultimately. But rather than choosing a site for political reasons, as in the case of Yucca, the M.I.T. report authors argue for selecting a site based on the type of waste to be placed there, the geology that then best shields that type of waste, and even the initial reactor design as a result (to make sure the right kind of waste is made).

For example, an entire nuclear cycle involving light-water reactors, reprocessing of the spent fuel, and disposal of small "packages" of highly radioactive nuclear waste in deep boreholes could prove an attractive option, Moniz noted.Such reprocessing—or even fast-neutron reactors that don't use water to moderate fission and can potentially create more fuel than they consume—remain a distant prospect. Since the 1950s roughly $100 billion has been spent on the research and development of such reactors around the world, yet there is currently only one producing electricity—the BN-600 reactor in Russia, operational since 1980. And even with such fast-neutron reactors, the amount of potentially worrisome material for making nuclear weapons does not change.

"Transuranics are not magically changed in terms of their inventory by these things," Moniz said. In fact, the M.I.T. report argues that creating reactors that produce more fuel than they consume may never be necessary. "Light-water reactors are with us for the entire century," Kazimi noted. "They are the backbone of the system."So that leaves the question of proliferation, particularly as many countries in Asia begin to build new nuclear power plants, ranging from the United Arab Emirates to Vietnam. The M.I.T. report argues that a leasing program, in which countries with the capability to enrich uranium fuel supply it to other countries and then take back the spent fuel for disposal in one form or another at the end of its useful life. "One might combine climate and proliferation concerns with a way of attaching carbon credits to new nuclear construction in countries that took certain kinds of agreements around enrichment and reprocessing," Moniz said.Regardless, the U.S., at least, appears to be in no hurry to build nuclear reactors; only one is currently under construction at Watts Bar in Tennessee, with another potentially in the works at Vogtle in Georgia as a result of a loan guarantee from the Obama administration.

The problem, as always, with nuclear is construction costs—the M.I.T. report assumes a nuclear reactor costs $4,000 per kilowatt of electricity produced to build—or $4 billion for a typical one-gigawatt nuclear power plant. Actual industry estimates for reactors being built today are at least $6 billion for such power plants and as much as $10 billion.

"If you build a nuclear power plant and operate it well, it's going to produce a steady stream of income," Moniz noted. But "the disadvantage of nuclear is the enormous capital commitment that is made up front."

2010-09-13T17:31:00.000-07:00

CHANGES IN THE WORK OF NOKIA

A shake-up at the top of Nokia continued on Monday after the company said the head of its smartphone business would be leaving.

Nokia, which is the largest maker of mobile phones in the world, also confirmed that its longtime board chairman, Jorma Ollila, might step down from the board after the company’s general meeting in 2012.

The announcement of the departure of the head of the smartphone business, Anssi Vanjoki, a board member who has worked at Nokia for 19 years, came just days after Nokia named a new chief executive. It appointed Stephen Elop, a Canadian who headed Microsoft’s business software division, to replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

One analyst pointed to the high-level staff changes as signs that Nokia was seeking a transformation after losing ground to Apple and its iPhone.

“It would have been a mixed signal to investors to replace the chief executive and have the board chairman stay on,” said the analyst, Mats Nystrom of SEB Enskilda Bank in Stockholm.
Mr. Ollila oversaw the company’s ascent to the top of the market during his tenure as chief executive from 1992 through 2006. He also oversaw the selection of Mr. Kallasvuo, who was then his chief financial officer, as his successor.

Mr. Ollila was quoted by Finnish news media over the weekend as saying that he intended to remain at the board’s disposal as chairman until 2012, a deadline that investors interpreted as indicating his intention to leave the company. Nokia confirmed on Monday that he was considering stepping down in 2012.

Nokia has maintained its global market lead, currently 38 percent of the market, according to the British research firm Canalys. But it has struggled to match the iPhone’s success and has stagnated in the United States, where it has less than 10 percent of the market. Its share price has lost more than half its value since 2007, when the iPhone was introduced.

“There was a feeling among some investors that the board at Nokia should have done something sooner to address the situation,” Mr. Nystrom said.

Mr. Ollila said last week that the board had considered several internal and external candidates before deciding on Mr. Elop, 46, a native of Ancaster, Ontario, to become the first non-Finn to be chief executive of Nokia.

Mr. Vanjoki ran the smartphone business from 2004-8, and again from May of this year. He was most likely one of several internal candidates considered for chief executive.

In a statement on Monday, Nokia said Mr. Vanjoki, who holds the title of executive vice president and general manager for mobile solutions, had decided to leave in six months, after his notice period expired “I felt the time has come to seek new opportunities in my life,” said Mr. Vanjoki, 54, who oversaw development of Nokia’s N-Series line of smartphones.

“At the same time, I am 100 percent committed to doing my best for Nokia until my very last working day.” Mr. Kallasvuo is remaining at the company as chairman of Nokia Siemens Networks.

2010-09-04T21:13:00.000-07:00

iPAD

If Mom and Dad are sending you back to school with an iPad, consider giving it a home that will show off its gleaming screen and let you share your music collection with your captive dorm room audiences.

IHome says its iA100 FM radio alarm clock and docking station, which will retail for about $200 next month, does a marvelous job of broadcasting music via hard-dock and Bluetooth connections to the iPad, as well as the iPhone and iPod touch.

The iA100 works with a free downloadable app, iHome+Sleep, which you can use to customize alarms and to receive social media and weather alerts.

The app will even help you track the sleep you are not getting in the semesters ahead. (The iA100 also works with iHome’s other iPhone app, iHome+Radio.)

Setting up the iA100 should be easy enough: Users of iPhones can push a button on the iA100 that syncs the base station’s clock to the time on the iPhone, which is kept accurate by the cellular network to which it is connected.

For hands-free calls, the iA100 also doubles as noise-canceling speakerphone, not just for the iPhone but for any other phone with Bluetooth capabilities.

Timepieces
To sum up: Casio calculator watch provides cheap retro fun Standing in line last week at Trader Joe’s with my weekly ration of pinot noir, I noticed a fellow behind me who was wearing a cheap-looking calculator watch with a bluish LCD screen and 16 tiny buttons. It had a black shell and a black plastic wristband.

It was identical to one I wore as a kid in the 1980s, before I realized it was acting as a girl repellent.

I asked the man if he ever used the watch to calculate a tip, for example.
He said that he did. More interestingly, he also uses the watch to store phone numbers — up to 150 of them.

The only problem with calculator watches, he said, is that they break easily.
“And what happens when this one breaks?’’ I asked, noting the watch had no SD card, nor any other means for backing up data.

“Well then,’’ he said, “I have to reenter everything.’’
That would be a downside to owning a multifunction watch that might fail at any moment. But at least you are not over-investing when you buy one.

For those with low expectations, the Casio Classic Calculator Watch ($19 at ThinkGeek.com) provides the time in 12- or 24-hour mode and automatically calculates the current date. You can also set an alarm time and have the watch beep at the top of every hour.

While you can solve your multiplication and long division problems on the Casio Classic, you cannot use it to store contacts. Which is probably for the best: Given its price and construction, the watch, although it is billed as being water-resistant, is probably not built to last.

2010-08-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

INDIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we will redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance .... We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again."

The day when India woke up to freedom back in 1947 was a day of great celebration. A country got rid of her foreign yoke and became a sovereign nation, she celebrated her sovereignty on this day - the triumph of numerous martyred souls. It was a day of fulfillment, it was the day of a new beginning, a birth of a nation.On the stroke of midnight, a country came into life again as the british handed over the governance of India to the Indian leaders.

The long and difficult struggle had borne fruit at last, though the happiness was marred by the fact that the country was divided into India and Pakistan and the violent communal riots had left the countries permanently scarred. That was the price that India paid for her dearly bought freedom. The british government declared the country independent and left for their own shores.

On the 15th of August, 1947, India became completely independent. It was on this historic date that Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime Minister of India, unfurled the Indian tricolor on the ramparts the magnificent Red Fort, symbolically marking the end of the british colonial rule.

2010-07-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

Bye-Bye Batteries: Radio Waves as a Low-Power Source

MATT REYNOLDS, an assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at Duke University, wears other hats, too — including that of co-founder of two companies. These days, his interest is in a real hat now in prototype: a hard hat with a tiny microprocessor and beeper that sound a warning when dangerous equipment is nearby on a construction site.

What’s unusual, however, is that the hat’s beeper and microprocessor work without batteries. They use so little power that they can harvest all they need from radio waves in the air.
The waves come from wireless network transmitters on backhoes and bulldozers, installed to keep track of their locations. The microprocessor monitors the strength and direction of the radio signal from the construction equipment to determine if the hat’s wearer is too close.
Dr. Reynolds designed this low-power hat, called the SmartHat, with Jochen Teizer, an assistant professor in the school of civil and environmental engineering at Georgia Tech. They are among several people devising devices and systems that consume so little power that it can be drawn from ambient radio waves, reducing or even eliminating the need for batteries. Their work has been funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Powercast, based in Pittsburgh, sells radio wave transmitters and receivers that use those waves to power wireless sensors and other devices. The sensors, for example, monitor room temperature in automatic systems that control heating and air-conditioning in office buildings, said Harry Ostaffe, director of marketing and business development.
The company recently introduced a receiver for charging battery-free wireless sensors, the P2110 Powerharvester Receiver, and demonstrated it in modules that sense temperature, light level and humidity data, he said. The modules include microcontrollers from Microchip Technology, in Chandler, Ariz.

Until recently, the use of radio waves to power wireless electronic devices was largely untapped because the waves dilute quickly as they spread, said Joshua R. Smith, a principal engineer at Intel’s research center in Seattle and an affiliate professor at the University of Washington.

2010-07-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

Smart Error Repair

Smart Error Repair - Error Smart Repair uses the industry's most advanced error-resolution technology and puts it to work for you. By scanning your hard drive, analyzing the errors and correcting the problems, Error Smart can restore your system performance and increase startup speed by up to 70 percent.

Whether it's incomplete uninstalls, failed installations, driver issues or spyware infections that are affecting your PC, Error Smart will rid you of your computer problems in just minutes.One of the first things one become aware on the subject of Error Smart is that it has a user-friendly graphical user interface.

While retaining a back and forward arrow at the top of its graphic, it also allows the user to go back and forth between the icons for the Home, Settings, Backup, and Utilities features. If you don't return to the place you were expecting to by using the back/forward arrow, you can always just click on the appropriate icon feature and find your way back to where you started.

Error Smart delivers not only a fast and clean registry repair tool, but the included extra features give it more value for the money. There may be other registry cleaners on the market that deliver more power in terms of the depth they look at for errors, but our testing has shown that in addition to picking up the essential errors ErrorSmart also finds a number of errors that some of the less powerful programs ignore.

All this adds up to a more complete scanning experience for the end user, boosing Error Smart into the middle of the pack in comparison with other registry repair tools.

2010-05-02T04:15:00.000-07:00

COMPUTER

Communication Technology
Communication technology provides access to information and markets. It connects people to various educational opportunities. Thus, communication technologies help in bringing about transformation in economies. The computer-mediated communication technology includes conferencing technologies and messaging systems. This technology also facilitates group work.Communication technology helps to:
Develop thinking skills
Decreases the need for memorization of the facts
Evaluates current information
Develops accessing skills

Communication technologies also help in training the students. It promotes better understanding and coordination. The popular communication technologies are:
Telephone
E-mail
Fax
Internet
Video conferencing
Video-conferencing enables face to face interaction between the employees and their boss. It enables effective communication of ideas. Video-conferencing motivates employees. Students and teachers may also communicate through face to face interaction. Video-conferencing increases intimacy and promotes interaction.

Computer Technology
Computer technology promotes independence and self-assessment. It stimulates the interest of the students. The various programs in the system helps students in self-assessment. Word processor programs help students in organizing letters. Interactive computers also help students with their pronunciation. Computer technology assists people in learning languages. Teachers may re-evaluate their teaching methods with the help of computers. Teachers may also effectively use computer technology to enhance their teaching skills. Computer technology assists people with learning disabilities. The disabled people may use graphics software and word processor to express themselves. Computers help students to improve their spellings. Computer technologies also benefit people with speech disability. Students may film clips of their speech and replay them. Computer technology assists them in practicing their speech skills.

Management Technology
Management technology protects the sensitive corporate information. Management technologies offer solutions to many IT problems. It also reduces IT costs. An effective management technology should provide the following benefits:
Trouble shooting and recovery: It increases the efficiency of IT staff.
Non volatile storage: It survives system rebuilds.
Proactive alerting: It decreases downtime.
Tamper resistant agents: It prevents users from disturbing the software.

An effective management technology helps technicians in obtaining accurate inventory information. This technology improves asset management and reduces desk-side visits.

Triumph 4225EP

2010-04-03T12:22:00.000-07:00

Triumph 4225EP

Whether your market is quick-print, copy shop, in-plant, offset, or on-demand, Triumph makes the ideal cutter for your needs. Manufactured in Germany by MBM's parent company, IDEAL Krug & Priester, Triumph 4225EP Semi-Auto Stack Paper Cutter set the world standards for safety and precision.

Every Triumph model features either transparent safety guards or safety light beams and all electric models require true two-hand operation. Our programmable EP models have an advanced, easy-to-operate keypad, which stores nine programs with up to nine steps each. All Triumph hydraulic models utilize precise clamping pressure for mark-free cutting of specialty stocks.

The MBM Triumph 4225EP Semi-Auto Stack Paper Cutter features a programmable "EP" back gauge control module with LED display
stores 9 programs (up to 9 steps each) and frequently used measurements, a control module that features repeat cut and eject functions, an electric blade and back gauge drive, and a patented, lever-activated, fast-action clamp. The Triumph 4225 EP also includes an electronic hand wheel with variable speed control for manual back gauge setting, an optical cutting line, a solid steel blade carrier, and is UL and C UL approved.

The Triumph 4225 EP Electric Paper Cutter also includes several great safety features including: external blade depth adjustment , two-hand operation, transparent safety guards on front and rear tables, disc brake for instant blade stop, automatic blade return from any position, and safety lock with key and main switch. SCS (Safety Cutting System) package: transparent front and rear safety guards; main switch and safety lock with key; true two-hand operation; blade can be changed from front of machine without removing covers; blade changing device covers cutting edge of blade; external blade depth adjustment and cutting stick replacement; disc brake for instant blade stop; automatic blade return from any position.

Electric blade and back gauge drive, Patented, lever-activated, fast-action clamp, Electronic hand wheel with variable speed control for manual back gauge setting, Solid steel blade carrier, Optical cutting line.

Laser Technology

2010-03-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

Laser Technology

LASIK Procedure

LASIK - Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis is a surgical procedure that permanently changes the shape of the cornea. The cornea is a clear covering in front of the eye that helps focus light to create an image on the retina. It works much like a camera lens focusing light to create an image on film. The shape of the cornea and the eye are not always perfect and sometimes the image created may be blurred or distorted. These defects are called refractive errors.

The predominant refractive errors are myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. Glasses and contact lenses are prescribed to correct these errors in people with vision problems. Refractive surgery aims at improving the eye's focusing power. In general, the procedure of LASIK surgery is as follows:

A flap in the cornea is cut using a knife called a microkeratome.
The flap is folded back to reveal the stroma, leaving a hinge at one end of the flap. The stroma is the middle section of the cornea.
Pulses from a computer-controlled laser vaporize a portion of the stroma and the flap is replaced.

As with any surgical procedure, LASIK has its share of risks. LASIK may cause some patients to lose vision, develop severe dry eye syndrome, impaired vision, etc. LASIK is not recommended for those in their early twenties or younger, those whose career may be affected because of refractive surgery, those having a disease or are on medication that may affect wound healing, etc.Consult a qualified and experienced practitioner and clear all doubts about preoperative, operative and postoperative procedures of LASIK surgery.

Advanced Laser TechnologyLaser technology has increased the hopes of finding a solution to the problem of nuclear waste. A giant laser has found to reduce the toxicity of nuclear waste by a factor of 100. Advanced Laser technology has its applications in various fields like industry, scientific research, communications, medicine, military applications, etc.

Laser technology in industry has many uses like drilling holes in diamonds, alignment in construction work, etc. In scientific research, it is used for accurate measurements and particle accelerators, etc. Advanced Laser technology is useful in space communications. Laser technology is used in surgical procedures. Advanced Laser technology is used to build guidance systems for aircrafts, missiles and satellites.

Wind Generator - Plans

2010-03-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

Wind Generator - Plans

The solution to today's power shortage problem is literally blowing in the wind! Wind power is the answer to today's electric power supply problems. If conventional sources of electric power are supported by local wind generator farms, then the power supply problem can be solved effectively.

Harnessing renewable energy sources like wind energy is the only way we can satisfy our energy needs while not disturbing the balance of nature. In this article, I talk about things to consider when creating wind generator plans. Design Considerations For Wind Generator PlansIf you are a proactive person who believes in radical and effective solutions to problems, then going for designing home wind generator plans to solve the energy needs of your house is the way to go.

I provide you with basic design tips on creating wind generator plans that will be tailor made to your energy requirements.A wind generator, aeroconverter, wind power unit or a wind turbine converts wind energy into electrical energy. The earliest recorded use of windmills of vertical axis type is from 200 BC in Persia. These early windmills were used to power water distribution, grind food grains and draw water. The first electricity generating windmill, that is a wind generator was reportedly built in 1887 in Scotland by James Blyth.

Since then, wind farms have developed by leaps and bounds in Europe and today wind power capacity of Europe has reached a staggering 74,767 MW! If a windmill could be installed in every conducive place on Earth, an estimated 72 Tera Watts of electric power might be generated!

A wind generator consists of many components that make the generation of electricity possible. Three main parts are the blades, the wind turbine which converts wind energy into mechanical energy and the generator inside which converts this mechanical energy into electricity. Other important parts are the electrical storage mechanisms and control mechanism of the wind generator. Let us see the prime design considerations for creating the best wind generator plans.Wind Resource AssessmentAn installed wind generator is useless without adequate wind blowing in the area to turn its blades.

Therefore, first and foremost step in creating wind generator plans is to decide on a location and altitude at which you will get adequate power generation. To determine that, you need to make a wind resource assessment report of your area. Information about wind speeds in a particular area can be had from your local meteorological department which will have decade old data sets for your particular locale. You can measure wind speeds yourself by taking help of anemometers and recording data for some months.

Another important factor is altitude and orientation of the wind as well as local range of temperature variation. The data about wind speeds will help you decide on a location for your home wind generator and give you an idea about what kind of wind turbine capacity should you install.

Theoretically, according to Betz's law, for horizontal axis wind turbine, you cannot convert more than 59.3% of of the wind's kinetic energy into usable electric power! This law was devised from the study of the aerodynamics of a horizontal axis wind turbine.Blade DesignThe most important consideration is the blade design of a wind generator turbine. The two primary types according to structure are horizontal axis based wind generator blades and vertical axis based wind generator blades. The horizontal axis three blade design offers maximum efficiency. One important factor that affects blade design is tip speed ratio. It is the ratio of wind speeds to speed of the blade tip. You should aim for a wind generator blade design that gives you a tip speed ratios of 6 to 7.

The blade structure has to be designed after taking aerodynamics into consideration. Things that you need to consider while designing your generator blades are the expected wind speeds at the site, the generator speed and torque limits and the strength of the entire structure. Generator DesignThe generators need to be mounted behind the blades at the top of the wind generator tower. The torque generated by the wind is transmitted to the generator through a gear box which drives a dynamo inside to generate AC power.

Through the use of gears, more rotations of the dynamo rotor are achieved in a single blade rotation. Design a generator after taking the expected wind speeds and power generation limits into consideration. Control MechanismYou need to consider designing of control mechanism to control the speed of rotation and power generated through gearing mechanism. Also needed is a braking mechanism to stop the blades from rotating during maintenance. Tower HeightThe height of a tower can drastically affect the amount of power supplied by the wind generator. Wind speeds increase almost exponentially as the altitude rises. So higher the tower, better it is for your wind generator plans! The tower needs to be sturdy to hold the weight of the blades and generator mechanism. You will need batteries and electrical lines that can transfer the power generated for use in your house.Use of MaterialsThe use of materials for building your blades, towers and other equipment matters as it will affect cost, stability and output of wind generators. Fiberglass composites are normally used to create the blades as they are lighter than other materials (creating lesser rotational inertia) and they offer the necessary sturdiness. They are all essentially glass fiber reinforced polymer composite materials. You may need to get the blades fabricated.

Inquire about the cost of every option available and decide which one will suit your home wind generator plan.Creating a Tailor Made Design Taking all the above factors into consideration, you must create your own wind generators plans taking your requirements and the on site conditions into consideration. You can find many basic design models of wind generators online and refer to books about wind generator plans.

After taking into consideration your installed power generation goals, established constraints imposed by on site conditions and your budget, you can make your design.

Windows Mobile

2010-03-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

Windows Mobile

The recent Mobile World Congress saw Acer unveil a handful of Android and Windows smartphones that drew both interest and yawn from its booth visitors. We can understand the yawns especially from the smartphone running a lackluster Windows Mobile 6.5.3 totally overshadowed by a demo of it upcoming successor, the Windows Phone 7 Series.

Continuing the tradition started by its neoTouch Windows handset launched in October last year, we now have the Acer neoTouch P400, a minimized version, not a successor. Slated to ship in Asian and European markets this May, the new neoTouch will be available only in black and is pitched to a younger crowd with a more affordable price tag and a more socially aware feature set.

Features Up Close
Sporting rounded corners where the older neoTouch and the Liquid get sharp corners, the neoTouch P400 achieves a poor shadow of the iPhone profile but without the solid feel and weighing 10g lighter than the iPhone for a more pocket friendly 125 g.

That's not to hint that the neoTouch is anywhere near striking distance of the iPhone. It has the features of an average smartphone that hardly brags any outstanding feature especially with a lackluster Windows Mobile.

That should be clear when looking under the hood. There's no top-of-the-line Snapdragon. Rather, you get a decent Qualcomm 7227 processor clocked at 600 MHz but shares the same 512 MB ROM and 256 MB RAM in the first neoTouch. It gets the same nearly unlimited phonebook entries and fields together with microSD expandability of up to 32 GB. A Lithium Polymer 1090 mAh battery yields up to 5 hours of talk time and 400 hours in standby
The P400 is a quad band GSM radio with Class 10 GPRS/EDGE speeds on 2G. It's also a 3G phone using a dual band UMTS (900/2100) with 3.6 Mbps HSDPA. There's also a tri band (850/900/2100) radio specification presumably for models meant for the North American markets.

Local connectivity is provided by a WiFi 802.11b/g for hotspot internet surfing as well as Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with A2DP and microUSB 2.0 for wireless and wired data transfers, respectively. It has SatNav functionality with a GPS receiver supporting A-GPS.

Screen size gets shrunk from 3.8 in the neoTouch to just 3.2 in the new one with the same TFT LCD resistive touchscreen technology with half-VGA resolution at 64k colors. It comes with the expected gravity accelerometer for auto rotate viewing convenience. Its digital camera also gets minimized from 5 to 3.2 megapixel resolution without LED flash, but you now get image stabilization and the same autofocus and geo tagging from its GPS function.

Mobile entertainment gets a stereo FM radio on top of the Windows Media Player 10 that support MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ audio file codecs and MP4/WMV/H.264/H.263 video codecs. You get a 3.5mm AV jack for wired high fidelity headphones and A2DP support for wireless stereo listening.

Distilled Water

2010-03-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

Distilled Water

The water which is almost completely pure and doesn’t contain any impurities can be roughly defined as distilled water. Boiling water and condensing the steam formed as a result of it, is known as distillation. Most of the impurities present in water are removed by the process of distillation. The information about what is distilled water and factors affecting its pH are provided in the following paragraphs.What is Distilled WaterRain water in its purest form can be called as distilled water. However, reaction with CO2 and pollutants results into rise in its acidity. The nitrous and sulfur oxides are converted into nitric and sulfuric acid respectively. Thus, by the time, rain water reaches the ground surface, it attains a yellowish tinge.

What is the pH of Distilled Water?

To know the pH of distilled water, one should first understand what exactly is pH? It is the measure which determines alkalinity or acidity of a particular solution The letter ‘p’ in pH stands for ‘potenz’, a German word. The English translation of potenz is power. The ‘H’ on the other hand means hydrogen. The hydrogen ‘power’ of a solution is thus, determined by means of pH. Ideally, the pH of distilled water needs to be 7. The pH of 7 indicates that, the liquid is neither acidic nor alkaline. The pH of distilled water that is prepared in laboratories is however, in the range of 5.5-5.8. This is because, it is very difficult to achieve a perfect 7 of pH, due to interaction with carbon dioxide (CO2). The reason behind it is that distilled water needed for practical application has to undergo interaction with the atmosphere. The interaction of distilled water with CO2 in air, results in the formation of carbonic acid. Thus, introduction of ions in the chemical composition/structure of water molecules results into the alteration of pH.

What is the Difference Between Distilled Water and Purified Water?

The difference between pure and distilled water is that, the former is prepared by filtering water while the later by boiling it. The process of filtration leads to removal of impurities up to a certain extent; it may contain naturally found minerals. Distilled water on the other hand doesn’t contain solid materials; So, "What is distilled water made of?" It is just pure hydrogen dioxide (H2O).

What is Distilled Water Used For?Let us understand what is distilled water good for? One cannot judge as to, what is distilled water best used for. This is because, it serves many other purposes apart from the usage in laboratories i.e. in research projects.

The distilled water is suitable for conducting experiments and also in cleaning purposes. As stated earlier, it is one of the most important applications of distilled water.

The domestic use of distilled water is made for cooking. It can especially be used in the preparation of diets containing low amount of sodium.
In the industrial areas, distilled water proves to be useful in developing photographic films. The reason behind using distilled water for this job is that photographic films have a layer of certain chemicals on them. These chemical are washed away and no other chemicals remain on the surface, if distilled water is used.

Distilled water is also required for the purpose of filling wet-car batteries. Intravenous solutions too are prepared with the help of distilled water.

Code Defends Against 'Stealthy' Computer Worms

2010-02-06T21:28:00.000-08:00

Code Defends Against 'Stealthy' Computer Worms

"In 2001 the 'Code Red' worms caused $2 billion dollars worth of damage worldwide," said Yoon-Ho Choi, a postdoctoral fellow in information sciences and technology, Penn State. "Our algorithm can prevent a worm's propagation early in its propagation stage."

Choi and his colleagues' algorithm defends against the spread of local scanning worms that search for hosts in "local" spaces within networks or sub-networks. This strategy allows them access to hosts that are clustered, which means once they infect one host, the rest can be can be infected quickly. There are many types of scanning worms, but Choi calls these worms the stealthiest because they are the most efficient and can evade even the best worm defenses.

A worm outbreak can begin with the infection of a single computer. After infection, a worm begins to probe a set of random, local or enterprise IP addresses, searching for more vulnerable hosts. When one is found the worm sends out a probe, or packet, to infect it.

"A local scanning worm can purposely scan a local or enterprise network only," said Choi. "As the size of the susceptible population increases, the worm's virulence increases."

The researchers' algorithm works by estimating the size of the susceptible host population. It then monitors the occurrence of infections within it and sets a threshold value just equal to or below the average number of scans necessary to infect a host by an infected host.

If the scanning worm's number of scans carrying a specific destination port number exceeds the threshold, the algorithm quarantines the worm. The algorithm then breaks down the network into many small networks, or cells, which in some cases might be only one computer. A worm can spread within the cells, but not between the cells. This way the algorithm can isolate an infected host or small cluster of infected hosts housing the worm.

"By applying the containment thresholds from our proposed algorithm, outbreaks can be blocked early," said Choi.

To test the effectiveness of their algorithm the researchers ran a series of computer simulations and emulations using different scanning strategies of local scanning worms. Results showed that their algorithm was an efficient estimator of worm virulence and could determine the size of the susceptible host population after only a few infections.

"Our evaluation showed that the algorithm is reliable in the very early propagation stage and is better than the state-of-the-art defense," said Choi.

Choi, working with Lunquan Li, assistant professor, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, and his Penn State colleagues, Peng Liu, associate professor, information sciences and technology, and George Kesidis, professor, electrical engineering and computer science and engineering, published their work in the February issue of Computers and Security.

According to Choi, local scanning worms are constantly evolving. They are becoming more complicated and increasingly efficient. As a result, worm outbreaks pose a real threat to networked systems. Because many networked home and office computers are susceptible to local scanning worms this algorithm may be an effective defense against damaging worm outbreaks.

Send Pictures to Cell Phone

2010-01-30T21:37:00.000-08:00

Send Pictures to Cell Phone

These days, pictures are considered to be able to express more than words. Being a writer, I would want to disagree. But, I can't, it's true. Social networking sites and blogs, today, allow people to keep track of each others life. More so, one now has the ability to introduce people to each other without the requirement of meeting them in person. You can simply send your friends the picture of the person whom you wish to introduce.

So, you see, it is very important to be able to send pictures to cell phone. But, if you are not aware of how to go about doing it, I am here to help you out, as always. Send Pictures to Phone from ComputerThis is one of the ways in which one can send pictures to cell phones. You can simply email the picture to your friend's phone number.

Open a new email composer.
Attach the picture that you wish to send.
Make sure the picture is 640X480 in size, to the maximum.
Now email the picture to the person's email account (if they have Internet on the phone) One can also send a picture to a cell phone by emailing the picture directly to the recipient's phone number. The sender is not charged for this, however the recipient will be charged their stipulated amount.

Open email composer.
Attach the picture that you wish to send.
Make sure the picture is 640X480 in size, to the maximum.
Now email the picture to the following email address: phonenumberofrecipient@teleflip.com. This option can be used in case you are not aware of the recipient's service provider.

Unless the recipient has an unlimited service plan, they are likely to be charged for receiving the picture. You can make use of these two methods in order to send picture to cell phone from a computer. Send Pictures to Cell Phone from Cell PhoneAnother really fast method of sharing pictures can be to and from cell phones. One can make use of the following method to share the pictures between cell phones.

One can send a multimedia message from their phone to the recipient's phone number. There are certain settings that need to be activated on the phone for a person to be able to send and receive multimedia messages from the phone. Make sure that these settings are done. The sender will be charged the fixed multimedia charges as per the service provider.

The next method is to transfer the picture from one phone to another with the help of infrared. Infrared is a sharing technology. However, both phones should have an infrared service and it should be activated for the transfer to take place. More so, for infrared transfer the sending and receiving phone needs to be kept near each another. The transfer is free for both receiver and sender.

Another option to send pictures to cell phone from cell phone is via bluetooth. Bluetooth is a technology that helps connect two devices within a certain radius. For this method, both the cell phones should have bluetooth services and it should be activated. The cell phones need to be within the stipulated radius from each other. The transfer is free for both receiver and sender.

These three methods are quite freely available these days and most phone manufacturers as well as service providers offer them. All these methods have made photo sharing and communication much faster and easier a process. With the improving technology, we will only see things getting faster and better in the future.

Succeed with Your Invention

2010-01-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

Succeed with Your Invention

"I have a great idea, what should I do next?"

1. Confirm. Prove that your idea is as good as you think it is. Build a prototype. Survey family and friends. Talk to potential distributors. Meet with manufacturers and find out if it can be made at the right price. Learn about competitive products. Research prior art. Find out if your invention seems eligible for patent protection and how strong the patent(s) might be. Be honest with yourself. Be prepared to drop the project if strong confirmation isn't forthcoming. Spend the minimum necessary to take the next step (but enough to do it right).

2. Protect. Keep a written record in a bound notebook and date every entry. Use disclosure agreements. Keep key information secret - only disclose what you need to disclose. Work with a professional advisor and be careful to avoid costly mistakes. Save money and don't begin the patent process until you are truly ready.

3.Commercialize. Should you license or launch on your own? Either way, you will want to find partners who will be committed to your product. Structure deals that work for everyone. Edison said, "inventing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." Our rule of thumb is that an undeveloped idea is worth 1% of net sales. You can get more by developing the idea further and participating in the commercialization process. In short, the more you invest, the more you do, the more you can earn. Good advisors are worth several times their weight in gold.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

2009-12-24T08:09:00.000-08:00

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Why are you in the world?

I Am teaching you the Ways of Love.Teaching your intellect to understand how to apply Love.Teaching your mind to know the things you should do - in order to Love properly.
From a baby, I Am teaching you to learn the Wisdom of Love.

Your mind is being developed and organized, so you will think the thoughts of goodness, and follow those thoughts into doing good things.
Your mind is being raised up into spiritual concepts - which teach the ways of Love.
All the things that happen in your life, is for this ultimate purpose.
All the events in your life, have happened in sequence, planned and ordained.

Look how a mother hen protects her baby chicks.
Learn the ways of Love.
This is your reason for living.

The 3-D Simulation that Lets Your Surgeon Practice

2009-12-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

The 3-D Simulation that Lets Your Surgeon Practice

You wouldn’t fly on a commercial jet plane unless you were confident that the pilot had logged some serious time in a flight simulator, preparing for every eventuality. Someday it may be just as inconceivable to undergo delicate surgery without assurances that your doctor has taken a few practice runs on a three-dimensional, interactive simulation of your own anatomy. Researchers at Stanford University are hastening that day by developing a training technology that allows doctors to rehearse surgical procedures before the patient reaches the operating room.

The demonstration project, called the Stanford Rhinological Virtual Surgical Environment (VSE), uses a haptic interface—mechanical feedback that simulates the sense of touch—developed by SensAble Technologies of Woburn, Massachusetts. The VSE system combines that interface with a set of detailed CT scans, taken before the operation, to create a digital “body double” of the patient. Using the patient’s own scans in the simulation could greatly assist doctors performing surgery near critical parts such as the optic nerve and carotid artery, where damage could cause permanent debilitation or death. In such operations, knowing the precise quirks of an individual’s anatomy is crucial to a successful outcome.

Kenneth Salisbury, a professor in Stanford’s departments of computer science and surgery, says that tactile feedback combined with the personalized information gives the VSE system a big advantage over current medical training simulations that use virtual surgery. “Existing systems allow you to move surrogate instruments around, watch how they look on the screen, and learn to make movements in the correct direction,” he says, adding, “It starts to get more interesting when you add the feeling and the reaction of tissue.”

CELLPHONE USE NOT CONNECTED TO BRAIN CANCER

2009-12-05T17:29:00.000-08:00

CELLPHONE USE NOT CONNECTED TO BRAIN CANCER

One of the persistent fears of our modern era is that cell phone radiation may cause brain tumors. But here’s some good news: A team of researchers in northern Europe, however, has now combed through three decades of cancer registries and found no increase in the rate of brain tumors in the five to 10 years following widespread cell phone adoption in that region . The researchers, from the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen, studied 20 to 79 year old men and women from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, and paid special attention to cancer rates during the cell phone boom of the mid-1990s. The researchers published their analysis in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Overall the study found that cancer rates were unchanged from the period before mobile phones were widely used. The study was based on 59,684 brain tumour cases diagnosed over 30 years from 1974 to 2003 among 16 million adults. During this time, the incidence rate of cancers known as gliomas increased gradually by 0.5% per year among men and by 0.2% per year among women. For cancers known as meningioma, the incidence rate increased by 0.8% among men and, after the early 1990’s, by 3.8% among women . The researchers say the larger meningioma increase in women is due to the greater age of the women in this group.

Despite finding no increased risk for 10 years of cell phone use in Nordic countries, researchers say the cell phone-cancer issue is far from settled. A lack of correlation in these countries or elsewhere … doesn’t clear the air of doubt—even in the researchers’ minds. “The scientific literature is unsettled right now about the association between mobile phones and brain tumors,” says Isabelle Deltour, the study’s lead author. Deltour says much of the uncertainty is due to the lack of a general understanding about brain tumors and the fact that some tumors take longer than 10 years to develop. However, the work will add to a growing body of knowledge as researchers continue to investigate any potential link between cell phones and cancer.

2009-11-23T07:08:00.000-08:00

SOLAR PANELS

Solar power is an energy source based on the solar cell technology, which converts energy obtained from the Sun into electricity. Solar panels are arrays of solar cells which generate a sizable amount of electric power. This article is intended to explain how solar panels work and convert solar energy to electrical energy.Considering that our Earth receives roughly 1000 watts of solar energy per square meter, the solar cell technology promises to be the energy source of the future. However, the cost of solar cell production and their low efficiency are proving to be barriers, in making the technology available to the common man.

Still there is a promise that research advances in the future, will make solar cells cheaper and accessible to common people in developing countries. Photovoltaic cells are made up of special types of materials called 'Semiconductors'. The most widely used semiconductors are silicon and germanium. They are insulators in the natural state. However, they can be converted into conducting materials, by adding small quantities of doped elements. Such doped semiconductors are used in constructing photovoltaic cells.Let us see what happens when such a solar cell is connected in a closed electric circuit and kept in the sun.

This explanation is simplistic and a bit naive but conveys the essence of the principle which operates the solar cell. There are technical details which I am not venturing into, since this is intended for a layman audience. This will convey the gist of how solar panel works. When photons fall on the surface of solar cells, electrons in the semiconductor are knocked out or freed by the absorption of energy. Every such photon is like a missile dislodging electrons from its orbits around the atom. Every ray of sunlight contains millions of such photons which strike the semiconductor surface of a photovoltaic cell. Every photon helps in liberating electrons from their atomic shells. This creates a bunch of free electrons in the semiconductor which can be made to flow if an electric field is applied across the solar cell. This gives rise to a minuscule current across the semiconductor, which can be drawn for external use, through the use of metal contacts placed on the surface. This current is very weak and not powerful enough.

Fibre optic cables in Kenya

2009-11-20T07:31:00.000-08:00

Fibre optic cables in Kenya

This new field has its advantages and benefits that require to be exploited by locals.

The impacts of fibre optic cables in Kenya business environs will be felt as more and more firms embrace its use. But is this technology going to alter the Kenya's business field? No doubt! It's a matter of when, not if it is going to take place. It's already happening.

Fibre optic cables have some advantages over convection modes of data transmission
Great speed and capacity

One of the preeminent advantages of using fibre optic cables is cognition to persuade higher quantity of aggregation than different communicating technologies. This results to more latitudinarian slip. Use of optical signals in this bailiwick implies fasting assemblage delivery. Thusly businesses are foretold to use this technology to assist data transfer. Steep speed implies that firms give be gambler set to nurture customers faster than ever.

Redoubled speed module also go long way in reducing costs of connection. Internet connections are going to affordable and thus accessible to many Kenyans. This means more business opportunities online.

Security
Fibre optic cables offer more protected mode of information transmission than traditional ones. There is no radiation interference related with fibre optic bailiwick, thusly it is rattling rough to tap. This is rattling material especially when businesses are transmitting crucial data. This enables secure online transactions.

Energy-Saving Powder May Allow Exploitation of Unused Reserves of Natural Gas

2009-11-19T07:11:00.000-08:00

Energy-Saving Powder May Allow Exploitation of Unused Reserves of Natural Gas

Methanol can be transported from locations where it is not economical to build a pipeline.
It is not cost-effective to lay pipelines to remote or small natural gas fields; nor is it worthwhile accessing the methane in coal seams or in gas sand, or which is burned off as a by-product of oil production, although the methane burned off throughout the world could more than satisfy Germany's requirement for natural gas. It is also too expensive to liquefy the gas and transport it on trains or in tankers -- and even chemistry has so far been unable to offer a solution.

Although there are chemical ways to convert methane to methanol, which is easy to transport and which is suitable as a raw material for the chemical industry, "the processes commonly used up to now for producing diesel fuel -- steam reforming followed by methanol synthesis or Fischer-Tropsch synthesis -- are not economical," says Ferdi Schüth, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Mülheim an der Ruhr. He and his colleagues have been working with Markus Antonietti and his team at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam to develop a catalyst that might change all this.

The catalyst consists of a nitrogenous material, a covalent, triazine-based network (CTF) synthesized by the chemists in Potsdam. "This solid is so porous that the surface of a gram is approximately equivalent in size to a fifth of a football field," says Markus Antonietti. The researchers in Mülheim insert platinum atoms into the voluminous lattice of the CTF. Thanks to the large surface area, the catalyst oxidizes the methane efficiently to methanol, as it offers the methane a large area in which to react when the chemists immerse it in oxidizing sulphuric acid, force methane into the acid and heat the mixture to 215° Celsius under pressure. Methanol is created from more than three-quarters of the converted gas.

A catalyst manufactured by the American chemist Roy Periana more than ten years ago from platinum and simple nitrogenous bipyrimidine also effectively creates methanol, but only supports the reaction in a soluble form. This means that the catalyst -- which chemists refer to as a homogenous catalyst -- subsequently needs to be separated off in a laborious and somewhat wasteful process. "It's much easier with our heterogeneous catalyst," says Ferdi Schüth. The chemists in Mülheim filter out the powdery platinum and CTF catalyst, and then separate the acid and methanol in a simple distillation.

The catalyst developed by the Max Planck chemists probably uses the same mechanism as the Periana catalyst and was indeed inspired by it. "When I saw the structure of CTF, I noticed the elements which correspond to its bipyrimidine ligands," says Schüth. "That's when I had the idea of manufacturing the solid catalyst."

To get closer to a large-scale technical application, he and his colleagues are now attempting to enable the process to work with reactants in gaseous rather than soluble form. "We are also looking for similar, even more effective catalysts," says Schüth. "We have already found more efficient homogenous catalysts with ligands other than bipyrmidine." They are now using these as a model for simple, easy to manage catalysts like the CTF and platinum powder.

A New Way Forward

2009-11-15T07:34:00.000-08:00

A New Way Forward

Tech-based solutions, such as tools for teaching kids how to recognize facial expressions, are giving educators a means of helping autistic students acquire basic life skills.

To celebrate the end of last school year, a select group of students from the New York City school system threw a party-- a block party, to be exact, complete with rides, cotton candy, and dancing.

But this particular block party didn't take place on the streets of the Big Apple; it happened in the virtual world known as Second Life, and the party planners and attendees were participants in a pilot program intended to help students with autism become more equipped to operate in the mainstream population.

Called 3-D Worlds, the project included about 60 autistic students from six high schools, says Cara Coffina, coordinator for applied learning for New York's District 75, which serves students with autism and other disabilities citywide. Of the district's 23,000 kids, about 5,000 have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.

The program had three overarching objectives: increasing communication, expanding social skills, and applying functional living skills, Coffina says. The district purchased an island in Second Life and, with assistance from New York-based educational organization LearningTimes, designed a world for the students where they could communicate with one another and hone practical skills.

Instructing on such tasks as opening a bank account and shopping for groceries, teachers used a two-tiered approach: Students practiced in the virtual world what they learned in the classroom. In establishing a virtual bank account, for example, a teacher or other adult would play the role of bank teller, and students, as their custom-designed avatars, would wait in line to set up their accounts.

"It's so connected with real-life skills," Coffina says, noting that the ultimate goal is for students to transfer their online skills to the outside world.

To help develop their social skills, all the students in the program from the participating schools would meet weekly for "community day" and interact with one another, including forming interest groups that would gather in certain areas of the Second Life environment to chat.
"The real test was when they would communicate with other people, with students they didn't know," Coffina says. As kids from the Bronx conversed with their peers from Staten Island, some chose text-based chatting, coming prepared with scripts or conversation prompts to help move things along, but most opted to use their voices. For the culminating virtual party, students were the organizers, responsible for carrying out such tasks as renting picnic tables and ordering food.

"They were so excited for the party," Coffina says. "They genuinely had fun doing it."
Technologically, the program was easily executed. Second Life can be a bandwidth hog, Coffina says, which limits the number of participants that can be managed. But based on the good feedback from both students and teachers, the district has expanded the pilot project from 12 weeks to a year and is adding six more schools. "It was very powerful," Coffina says. "Overwhelmingly, the students got a lot out of it. I just see reactions from them that I don't see when they're doing anything else."

Broadcast pioneer NBC prepares for cable takeover

2009-11-14T17:07:00.000-08:00

Broadcast pioneer NBC prepares for cable takeover

Cable TV operator Comcast Corp. is expected to buy a controlling stake in NBC Universal, perhaps as early as this week, bringing the network of Johnny Carson, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Hope, Milton Berle and Tom Brokaw under the corporate control of the company that owns the Golf Channel and E! Entertainment Television.

"This is highly symbolic," said Tim Brooks, who had worked at NBC for 20 years and now writes books on television history.

Starting Sunday, Vivendi SA has an option to sell its 20 percent stake in NBC Universal. Majority owner General Electric Co. is expected to buy it and then sell a 51 percent stake of the entire NBC Universal unit to Comcast, which serves about a quarter of the nation's subscription TV households.

Broadcast people, the folks who remember when television was ABC, CBS, NBC and little else, used to look down upon cable.

The idea of broadcast TV was implied in the name; the networks tried to reach the broadest possible audience. For cable it's important to do something specific and do it well, and the audience doesn't need to be as large.

NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker recognizes this. Cable properties such as USA, SyFy, CNBC and The Weather Channel mean more to NBC Universal's bottom line than staggering NBC, fourth place in the ratings.

And those cable properties -- more than the flagship "Peacock" network -- were the draw for Comcast. By owning more content, Comcast further hedges its bets as mainly a distributor of shows in case viewers ditch their cable TV subscriptions and migrate to the Internet, mobile devices or a platform that has yet to emerge. The company could charge for the shows or sell ads wherever the viewers are.

In a sense, NBC would become a pioneer again, as it seeks to stay relevant amid intensifying audience fragmentation.

NBC was established as the nation's first radio network in 1926. Its parent company, the Radio Corporation of America, made radios and realized the best way to get people to buy the product was to make sure there were interesting things to listen to.

"Without NBC, there wouldn't be broadcasting as we know it," said Walter J. Podrazik, a consulting curator at the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

Improve teenage driving (300)

2009-11-10T06:44:00.000-08:00

Improve teenage driving (300)

ACCIDENT rates among teenage drivers could be slashed using in-car technology that warns them when they are driving recklessly.

So says safety engineer Oren Musicant at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, who wanted to know if in-car technology could help reduce the appalling number of teenage deaths on the roads. In the US, for instance, car crashes are the leading cause of death for teenagers, accounting for over one-third of all deaths of those aged between 16 and 19 years old.

In March 2008, Staffordshire County Council in the UK trialled in-vehicle data recorders with 50 local teenage drivers over six months. The IVDRs, made by GreenRoad of San Francisco, California, are more commonly used to help truckers drive more safely and with greater fuel efficiency. The IVDR monitors unsafe driving events, such as overly sharp turns, heavy acceleration, hard braking and fast lane-changes. The warning system was switched on halfway through the trial. From that point, red, yellow and green LEDs on the facia of a dashboard-mounted box told the drivers how they were faring.

Musicant has now analysed the data GreenRoad downloaded on some 18,000 trips that 32 of the Staffordshire teenagers took. He found the number of unsafe driving events undertaken by each driver halved after the warning lights were turned on, he told the recent Intelligent Transport Systems conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

Musicant reckons the system could become part of the measures insurance companies mandate for teenage drivers: "Some insurance companies already adjust premiums depending on how far you drive - in pay-as-you-drive programmes. This could be part of such measures, lowering premiums if a teenager uses a risk detector."

However, teenagers may prefer to have more-familiar kit to carry out such monitoring, says Per-Olof Svensk, an engineer with Triona, a transport-software consultancy in Borlange, Sweden. The accelerometers needed to detect unsafe driving events are becoming available in smartphones, he notes. "The phone has a lot of functionality to spare and will do a lot more to assist drivers than merely provide navigation."

SALT BASED SOLAR POWER TOWER TO BE BUILT IN CALIFORNIA

2009-11-09T06:42:00.000-08:00

SALT BASED SOLAR POWER TOWER TO BE BUILT IN CALIFORNIA

Permission was sought from authorities in California for a solar power tower to be built near Rice, a town in San Bernadino County, California. The California-based company called SolarReserve claims the technology it will use for the solar tower will allow the plant to supply electricity to consumers around the clock through the help of molten salt. The plant will have a 12-foot pedestal to which a total of 17,500 24 x 28 feet heliostats will be placed surrounding the Solar Power Tower. Above the tower, at 100 feet in height, 4.4 million gallons of molten salt are contained. This hefty amount of salt will receive the heat from the sun, reflected by the mirrors, in order to reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit in temperature.

This heat provides the needed energy at any time of day or night by using a steam generator through which the molten salt will pass through. An attached turbine is driven by the steam generator to produce the electricity. While there are other solar towers that use molten salt to produce energy, SolarReserve claims its system will produce a comparatively larger output. Kevin Smith, Chief Executive at SolarReserve, says they use synthetic oil during steam generation. This supposedly makes the system more efficient, allowing the setup to produce the steam at higher temperatures, and could lead to production of three times the amount of energy other similar salt-based systems can produce. The solar power tower planned for Rice might start operations as early as 2013 if SolarReserve's plans pull through.

Security engineering

2009-11-07T09:22:00.000-08:00

Security engineering

It is similar to systems engineering in that its motivation is to make a system meet requirements, but with the added dimension of enforcing a security policy.

It has existed as an informal field for centuries, in the fields of locksmithing and security printing. Technological advances, principally in the field of computers, have now allowed the creation of far more complex systems, with new and complex security problems.

Because modern systems cut across many areas of human endeavor, security engineers not only need consider the mathematical and physical properties of systems; they also need to consider attacks on the people who use and form parts of those systems using social engineering attacks.
Secure systems have to resist not only technical attacks, but also coercion, fraud, and deception by confidence tricksters. For this reason it involves aspects of social science, psychology and economics, as well as physics, chemistry and mathematics.

Energy Saving Technologies

2009-11-06T06:43:00.000-08:00

Energy Saving Technologies

Today's world is experiencing acute shortage of energy and each country and company is trying its best to conserve this limited source of energy. After cotton harvesting, Textile finishing industry has earned reputation of highest energy eating field.

According to different studies to manufacture a single cotton shirt approximately 2,800-3,000 litres of water is used and wet finishing processes consume the highest amount of water in all finishing processes. Considering this global water shortage problem many countries has tighten their norms and regulations for textile finishing processes as in order to reduce waste water problem.

To solve this problem companies are opting for technologies which are more environment friendly and more energy saving in nature. Machinery manufactures are focusing their investment on R&D to develop technologies which are energy efficient and more sophisticated.
Following description provide brief idea about latest offerings by some notable processing machinery manufactures which will help reduce energy wastage problem and make a step forward in way to make environment clean and green.

Leading manufactures are tightening their belts with the aim of offering best solution to the industry and are investing highly on R&D to develop energy saving technologies. Following are some latest products offered by some leading finishing machine manufactures.

Benninger AG
Benninger is a leading provider of finishing machinery and a well reputed in terms of developing innovative machineries. Under the term "Resource management" company attempts to make solutions for finishing industry more energy efficient.

Benninger has developed system which can efficiently recover water, valuable materials and waste energy in the process through a specially developed diaphragm filtration systems with
This diaphragm system is a multi stage system where the first stage is comprises an ultrafiltration stage followed by downstream reverse osmosis stage. The ultrafiltration stage is equipped with a special ceramic diaphragm frame which is designed to restrain long-chain organic components of the used waste water coming out of processing process. In the next stage i.e. reverse osmosis, dissolved dyestuffs and salts are almost completely separated from the processed water.

Processed water after passing through these two purification stage becomes ready to be reusable in textile finishing process without any adverse effect to quality of the end product. This system helps recover more than 80 % of the treated waste water.

Brueckner has long tradition of investment in development in energy efficient equipments. The company supplies its products with Eco-Heat, a heat recovery system, which is a unique energy saving concept by brueckner.

This system recovers heat from exhausted air and reuses this air to heat up fresh air entering into the stenter. In the same manner this system also enables reuse of exhausted air to heat up service water which is used in wet finishing. Brueckner's Eco-heat system are said to be most efficient system which has short payback time.

Breakthrough In Industrial-scale Nanotube Processing

2009-11-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

Breakthrough In Industrial-scale Nanotube Processing

"Plastics is a $300 billion U.S. industry because of the massive throughput that's possible with fluid processing," said Rice's Matteo Pasquali, a paper co-author and professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering and in chemistry. "The reason grocery stores use plastic bags instead of paper and the reason polyester shirts are cheaper than cotton is that polymers can be melted or dissolved and processed as fluids by the train-car load. Processing nanotubes as fluids opens up all of the fluid-processing technology that has been developed for polymers."

The report was co-authored by an 18-member team of scientists from Rice's Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Co-authors include Smalley Institute namesake Rick Smalley, the late Nobel laureate chemist who developed the first high-throughput method for producing high-quality carbon nanotubes, as well as Virginia Davis, a former doctoral student of Pasquali's and Smalley's who is now a professor at Auburn University, and Micah Green, a former postdoctoral researcher of Pasquali's who is now a professor at Texas Tech University.

The new process builds upon the 2003 Rice discovery of a way to dissolve large amounts of pure nanotubes in strong acidic solvents like sulfuric acid. The research team subsequently found that nanotubes in these solutions aligned themselves, like spaghetti in a package, to form liquid crystals that could be spun into monofilament fibers about the size of a human hair.

"That research established an industrially relevant process for nanotubes that was analogous to the methods used to create Kevlar from rodlike polymers, except for the acid not being a true solvent," said Wade Adams, director of the Smalley Institute and co-author of the new paper.

"The current research shows that we have a true solvent for nanotubes -- chlorosulfonic acid -- which is what we set out to find when we started this project nine years ago."

Following the 2003 breakthrough with acid solvents, the team methodically studied how nanotubes behaved in different types and concentrations of acids. By comparing and contrasting the behavior of nanotubes in acids with the literature on polymers and rodlike colloids, the team developed both the theoretical and practical tools that chemical firms will need to process nanotubes in bulk.

"Ishi Talmon and his colleagues at Technion did the critical work required to help get direct proof that nanotubes were dissolving spontaneously in chlorosulfonic acid," Pasquali said. "To do this, they had to develop new experimental techniques for direct imaging of vitrified fast-frozen acid solutions."

Talmon said, "This was a very difficult study. Matteo's team not only had to pioneer new experimental techniques to achieve this, they also had to make significant extensions to the classical theories that were used to describe solutions of rods. The Technion team had to develop a new methodology to enable us to produce high-resolution images of the nanotubes dispersed in chlorosulfonic acid, a very corrosive fluid, by state-of-the-art electron microscopy at cryogenic temperatures."

Co-author Nicholas Parra-Vasquez, a Rice graduate student advised by Pasquali who is now working in France, said, "In looking at the project when I started, I had no idea where it was going to end up and how much work needed to be done. The project encompassed many students and professors, as well as collaborations with other schools. Because of this, it was a slow process but one that left no avenue unchecked. Looking on it now, I can't believe how big it became -- how much effort was put into every point found."

Few technological breakthroughs have been hyped as much as carbon nanotubes. Since their discovery in 1991, nanotubes have been touted as everything from a cure for cancer to a solution for the world's energy crisis. The hype is all the more remarkable given that nanotubes are notoriously difficult to work with and that chemists worldwide struggled for years even to make them.

So why the hype? Put simply, carbon nanotubes are remarkable. While they are roughly the same size and shape as some rodlike polymer molecules, nanotubes can conduct electricity as well as copper, and they can be either metals or semiconductors. They can be tagged with antibodies to diagnose diseases or heated with radio waves to destroy cancer. They've been used to make transistors far smaller than those in today's finest microchips. Nanotubes also weigh about one-sixth as much as steel but can be up to 100 times stronger.

"Kevlar, the polymer fiber used in bulletproof vests, is about five to 10 times stronger than our strongest nanotube fibers today, but in principle we should be able to make our fibers about 100 times stronger," Pasquali said. "If we can realize even 20 percent of our potential, we will have a great material, perhaps the strongest ever known.

"The electrical conductivity is already pretty good," he said. "It's about the same of the best-conducting carbon-carbon fibers, and that could be improved 200 times if better production methods for metallic nanotubes can be found."

The new research appears just as the Smalley Institute prepares for a 10th anniversary celebration Nov. 5 of the creation of Smalley's "HiPco" reactor, the first system capable of producing high-quality nanotubes in bulk. HiPco, short for high-pressure carbon monoxide process, broke the logjam on nanotube production and cleared the way for more scientific study and for industry to begin using them in some materials. Industrial nanotube reactors today generate several tons of low-quality carbon nanotubes per year, and the worldwide market for nanotubes is expected to top $2 billion annually within the next decade.

But a final breakthrough remains before the true potential of high-quality carbon nanotubes can be realized. That's because HiPco and all other methods of making high-end, "single-walled" nanotubes generate a hodgepodge of nanotubes with different diameters, lengths and molecular structures. Scientists worldwide are scrambling to find a process that will generate just one kind of nanotube in bulk, like the best-conducting metallic varieties, for instance.

"One good thing about the process that we have right now is that if anybody could give us one gram of pure metallic nanotubes, we could give them one gram of fiber within a few days," Pasquali said.

Future Tech

2009-11-03T07:10:00.000-08:00

Future Tech

Many regions of the developing world exist in a strange technological limbo. Places that are well served by advanced cellular phone networks may lack the modern medical facilities necessary to diagnose and treat serious illness. As a result, a remote village in, say, South Africa—a region hard hit by malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS—might be able to contact top medical experts and yet have no way to apply their knowledge. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley are bridging the gap with the CellScope, a microscope that attaches to a camera-equipped cell phone and produces two kinds of imaging, called brightfield and fluorescence microscopy. The CellScope can snap magnified pictures of disease samples and transmit them to medical labs across the country or around the world. The goal is to use mobile communications networks as a cost-effective way for medical personnel to screen for hematologic and infectious diseases in areas that lack access to advanced microscopic equipment.

Scientists have demonstrated the CellScope’s potential in two types of test case. They have used white light to image the red blood cells of sickle-cell anemia and the parasite that causes malaria. They have also used an LED and fluorescent dye to identify tuberculosis bacteria in sputum samples. Fluorescence is increasingly being touted as the future of clinical imaging due to its selectivity. In fluorescence microscopy, certain specimens, such as TB bacteria, can be dyed so that they emit light when exposed to ultraviolet radiation. To date, only a few diseases have been examined using fluorescent dyes, but David Breslauer, co-lead author of the study and a graduate student in the UC San Francisco/UC Berkeley Bioengineering Graduate Group, says that medical researchers are likely to target more and more pathogens this way as fluorescence microscopy becomes more widely adopted. The CellScope tests were conducted using an off-the-shelf 3.2-megapixel cell phone.

According to Breslauer, anticipated improvements in cell phone image sensors will boost the amount of information carried by each photo. Rather than having to take 50 pictures to provide adequate data for diagnosis, field workers may soon be able to capture enough detail in five. Boosts in processing power will improve productivity too, allowing software in the phone to facilitate on-site diagnosis. Clinical and field trials of CellScope will continue into 2010. Shrinking the device into a package that is compact and rugged enough for remote use will require significant strides in manufacturing.

But the interest is there, and not just from the medical world: Agricultural experts have spoken with the Berkeley researchers to see if their technology could be used remotely to detect crop diseases. The color of an LED is chosen according to the fluorescent dye applied to the specimen. To test for the presence of TB bacilli, for instance, researchers use a high-power blue LED to illuminate the sample. After the light passes through the sample and the objective lens, an emission filter blocks all light except for that emitted by the green fluorescent dye specific to the TB bacilli. The green-glowing microbes are then easily detectable against the dark background. To detect malaria parasites, for which a reliable fluorescent dye has not been developed, the LED and two filters are removed and researchers use conventional light, or brightfield, microscopy to illuminate the sample. CellScope prototypes have achieved effective magnification of 28× and spatial resolution of 1.2 microns, sufficiently detailed for screening and diagnosis of these common diseases.

Astronomy

2009-11-02T06:35:00.000-08:00

Astronomy

It is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as the formation and development of the universe. Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences.

Astronomers of early civilizations performed methodical observations of the night sky, and astronomical artifacts have been found from much earlier periods.

However, the invention of the telescope was required before astronomy was able to develop into a modern science.

Historically, astronomy has included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy, the making of calendars, and even, at one time, astrology, but professional astronomy is nowadays often considered to be identical with astrophysics.
Since the 20th century, the field of professional astronomy split into observational and theoretical branches.

Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring and analyzing data, mainly using basic principles of physics.

Theoretical astronomy is oriented towards the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena.

The two fields complement each other, with theoretical astronomy seeking to explain the observational results, and observations being used to confirm theoretical results. Amateur astronomers have contributed to many important astronomical discoveries, and astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can still play an active role, especially in the discovery and observation of transient phenomena. The most frequently studied star is the Sun, a typical main-sequence dwarf star of stellar class G2 V, and about 4.6 Gyr in age.

The Sun is not considered a variable star, but it does undergo periodic changes in activity known as the sunspot cycle.

The study of stars and stellar evolution is fundamental to our understanding of the universe.
The astrophysics of stars has been determined through observation and theoretical understanding; and from computer simulations of the interior. Star formation occurs in dense regions of dust and gas, known as giant molecular clouds.

When destabilized, cloud fragments can collapse under the influence of gravity, to form a protostar.

A sufficiently dense, and hot, core region will trigger nuclear fusion, thus creating a main-sequence star. Almost all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were created inside the cores of stars..

Digital Insulation Resistance Tester

2009-10-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

Digital Insulation Resistance Tester

Toronto, Canada – GAO Tek Inc. (www.GAOTek.com) offers its digital insulation resistance tester which performs highly stable and accurate tests of insulation resistance. The easy-to-use tester is designed to predict, prevent and identify insulation failures and to test all kinds of electric equipment and insulation materials such as transformers, electro-motors, cables, switches and other appliances.

The rugged digital tester tests insulation resistance up to 2000M?. With a built-in high power voltage generator, the output testing voltage is adjustable via a rotating switch at ranges of 250V, 500V or 1000V depending on requirements. Alternating current can be measured; voltage below 750V AC can be tested. The well-designed tester, model 803, offers a large backlit LCD screen making it equally suitable for use under bright sunlight or in poorly lit environments. Encapsulated in a rugged and moulded plastic case, this high performance digital insulation resistance tester is an invaluable tool for field testing.

Lightweight Projector is your Business Hero

2009-10-24T08:59:00.000-07:00

Lightweight Projector is your Business Hero

Projectors are important in business. It is used to display facts and figures to possible investors, partners or the board of directors. It can also be used to entertain and amaze your audience while conducting a presentation. The old models may not be that user-friendly but it has greatly evolved already. Aside from the low-technology that old projectors offer, they are now an inconvenience for business travelers.

Low-end projectors have low projection quality, low picture quality, big and heavy. The other aspects of a low-end projector can be forgiven. The big and heavy part is a major inconvenience for buyers. Such gadgets must at least be either of the two, not big or not heavy. For this reason, the newer models addressed these concerns. Lightweight series projectors are now ready and out in the market.

Among the lightweight projectors out in the market, these are the best lightweight projectors: Hitachi CPX2 LCD Projector, Optoma Technology EP7155 DLP Multimedia Projector, and NEC NP50 Projector.

Hitachi CPX2 LCD Projector
This projector is one of the durable brands that the electronics industry is copying. This Japan-made projector will take you into a lot of business presentations and ventures. The resolution of this projector is 1024 x 768 (XGA) and HDTV compatible. The contrast ratio is 500:1, 2000 lumens for brightness and the aspect ratio is 4:3. It has an audio socket both for headphones and Line In, a video output, 2 USB ports, 1 SD card slot and an Ethernet both for cabled and wireless varieties.

The light source type is a UHB Lamp, a power of 160W and a life for 3000 hours. This projector only weighs 4.1 pounds, 2.6 in. in height, 10.8 in. in width and 8.1 in. depth. The product has a 1 year limited warranty. This projector ranges from $ 739.95 to $1,014.95.

Optoma Technology EP7155 DLP Multimedia Projector
This projector delivers a high quality images. This can be perfect in displaying a colorful presentation. The resolution is 1024 x 768 (XGA). This is a digital light processing type of projector. The contrast ration is 2500:1, an aspect ratio of 4:3 (standard) and 16:9 (widescreen). It has 4 video outputs: RCA, S-Video, VGA, and DVI. It also has a USB port and an Audio output. The brightness is 2500 lumens.

The light source type is SHP (Super High Pressure) Lamp, a power of 200W and a life for 2000 Hours. It has a 1W mono built-in speaker. It only weighs 1.5 kilograms or 3.2 pounds. Its size is 8.7”W, 2.8”H and 7.0”D. It is available at the price of $999.

NEC NP50 Projector
This projector has the best usefulness deal. This projector functions almost like an automatic type. It can detect which source is plugged-in. It automatically adjusts its colors and it shuts down by itself. The resolution is 1024 x 768 (XGA) up to 1600 x 1200 (XGA). The brightness is at 2600 lumens, a contrast ration of 1600:1 and an aspect ration of 4:3. This projector is also made with DLP technology.

Its lamp is 200W and can last for 2000 to 3000 hours. It has all the analog video format and 3 analog video output (RGB, S-Video, Composite Video). It has a remote control. Its special feature is the security lock slot password protected. It has a 3 year limited manufacturer’s warranty. It only weighs 3.5 pounds. Its size is 9.7”W, 7”D, and 2.8”H. The price of this projector ranges from $934- $1312.

You are probably wondering on how you can save money if the prices of these projectors reach up to a thousand dollars. Surprisingly, money is not the only thing you can save with these lightweight projectors. You can save time and effort as well. You can even save yourself from the danger that a big and heavy projector might cause you. You might be able to save your business through a hassle-free projector. You can save more from a low maintenance projector. This is an investment that can lead you to more financial opportunities.

Small is not Nano

2009-10-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

Small is not Nano

US and French scientists say the term 'nanoparticle' needs to be redefined to provide a focus for environmental, health and safety studies, and future regulation. According to the researchers, nanomaterials should be categorised based on novel properties that are related to their small size - not, crucially, their size alone.

In most countries, few or no specific regulations exist to govern the safe use of nanoparticles, despite their wide use in cosmetics, sun screens and some drug products. Until a decision can be reached on what exactly constitutes a nanoparticle, however, there can be no clear path forward. Although traditionally thought of as any particle smaller than 100nm, the researchers argue in a review published in Nature Nanotechnology that for the purposes of health and safety, a more rigorous approach to classification is needed.

Lead researcher Mark Wiesner of Duke University, US, says it is too easy to tar all nanoparticles with the same brush. 'All that is small is not necessarily nano,' he says. 'You need to have that novel property. The question then becomes: what's the taxonomy of these nanomaterials?'
The review highlights various novel physicochemical characteristics of nanoparticles that might help form the basis for Wiesner's new taxonomy. Size-dependent changes in the crystal structure of particles, for example, can influence their reactivity - importantly, changing how they interact with their environment.

Despite stressing 'novel properties', however, the study points towards particles at the lower end of the nano spectrum as being the most likely to bear characteristics that would provoke cause for concern. If you want to find a hazardous nanoparticle, you should probably look below the 30nm barrier, says Wiesner.

But by narrowing the focus to particles below 30nm, is Wiesner falling into the same trap as those who claim the 100nm barrier holds any special significance? Ken Donaldson of the Safety of Nanomaterials Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Edinburgh and the author of another recent review of nanoparticle safety2, argues that there is no proven consequence of any size-related change in properties. 'If you focus only on this "quantum effect" of the change in physicochemical reactivity... then [the study] shows that this does set in only at sizes below 30nm. But in general there is no rational basis for restricting the definition of nanoparticles to those below 30nm. It would be premature and without toxicological basis,' he says.
Teresa Fernandes, a nano safety expert at Edinburgh Napier University, worries that redrawing the boundaries will encourage the idea that there is no need to regulate above 30nm. But she says Wiesner's work is important because it promotes debate.

Wiesner reasons that the 30nm limit is simply a guide. 'I think it helps us focus on what materials might be of concern in developing regulations, but you can't imagine that you define something at 30nm as toxic and 31nm as non-toxic,' he says. 'The focus on novel properties, I think, is one categorisation scheme that might have some relevance for long term approaches to regulation.'

Mobile Phone Batteries

2009-10-22T07:49:00.000-07:00

Mobile Phone Batteries

The users of mobile phone batteries should know that batteries of mobile phones are basically CE permitted stock and original product, which is at present covering both nimh, 1-ion and li-polymer cells and 400 phone models along with pda smart phones and pocket pc's. For getting good performance from one's mobile phone batteries one should use charger to keep providing power to the batteries. Beofre buying mobile phone batteries it is important for the users to go through information which provides details of the battery along with charging limits and whether it is fulfilling the needs of the users or not.

Consumers should know the types of batteries available in themarket such as Benq siemens el71 battery lg c2200 samsung z140 Samsung d800 Lg Kg800 chocolate Motorola krzr k1 Sanyo s750 Sanyo s750i Sharp gx30 Sharp 902 Palm treo 600 palm treo 650 blackberry etc. For getting good performance from one's mobile phone batteries one should use charger to keep providing power to the batteries.

These mobile phone batteries are safer, and compatible with bluetooth found in many mobile phones and pda handsets.camera images,videos to one's mobile. One will not require to delete items from the mobile. Mobile phone battereis should be dealt properly and as per the power consumption needed should be charged. One should keep their mobile phone in a qualitative case inorder to avoid the risk of damaging the batteries. Mobile phone batteries gives more memory which is used in saving lots ofpictures , camera images,videos to one's mobile. One will not require to delete items from the mobile. Mobile phone battereis should be dealt properly and as per the power consumption needed should be charged.

How To Buy Vintage Camera Online

2009-10-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

How To Buy Vintage Camera Online

Collecting vintage cameras is fast becoming a hobby. It can be very fun too - but that is if you know what you are doing. You have to know how to buy vintage camera. You have to know exactly what you are looking for and where to find it.This saves you from the time of searching. It also can save you from spending too much. By knowing how much the vintage camera costs, you wouldn´t be afraid of getting duped if you go out and buy vintage camera.

That is why the first thing you should do is to do some research. Aren´t you thankful for the Internet? The Internet contains many information on the vintage camera that is available in the market today.

You can check sites such as eBay so that you are knowledgeable of the going rates of the camera that you are eyeing. You can join the forum boards where your fellow vintage camera enthusiasts discuss the models.

By doing so, you will be well-informed. This is very important if you are going to buy vintage camera.

Now that you have the knowledge you need, the next thing for you to do is to actually find the vintage camera that you are looking for. You can buy vintage camera at garage sales, thrift stores, and estate sales.

You can ask your fellow photographers the best place to get the particular model that you are looking for. You must be aware that the stock changes on a regular basis.

The model that you want may be available today but gone tomorrow so make the most out of what you see on the market. Then there are thrift stores that charge more when you buy vintage camera from them.

Thus explains the first step which is to canvas for the prices online so you know exactly what the going rates are. If you see a vintage camera that is half off, then it´s your lucky day.
The minute you buy vintage camera, evaluate the condition Fire the shutter, turn the knob, open the back. You have the right to do these because this is an investment that you are about to purchase.

Just because it is vintage it doesn´t mean that it wouldn´t have no function whatsoever. Keep in mind that no mechanisms may work without the battery. Don´t be too concerned if the shutter doesn´t fire.

The battery compartment must not have corrosion. If it has, ask the person selling it to clean it off. Bad corrosion should also be a red flag for you because this could mean that there is damage to the internal parts.

Look through the viewfinder. You want it to be bright and clear. If there is a dirt clouding in the viewfinder, you can clean this.

Voting Machines: Make Your Vote Count!

2009-10-20T17:14:00.000-07:00

Voting Machines: Make Your Vote Count

Human-factors engineers, along with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a rigorous, standardized test for all electronic voting machines -- whose error rate is currently estimated at about 5 percent. The NIST test has people evaluate how easy a voting machine is to use and its accuracy at recording a voter's preferences Does your vote really count? The topic of a reliable voting system has sparked some heated debates. Now, new electronic voting machines are unveiled, tested and graded.

"We know that there are problems when people try to use voting machines," says Bill Killam, a human factors engineer at Ashburn, Virginia-based User Centered Design, Inc. "In some cases, people cast votes they didn't intend."

Many outdated paper ballots are being replaced by new, electronic voting machines ... But there are many different systems, each with a unique design, set of instructions, buttons -- and problems. Now, human-factors engineers like Killam, along with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a rigorous, standardized test for all machines.

Killam says, "In the United States there are a number of vendors who produce voting machines, and so one of the questions is, 'If there's multiple designs, how does each one perform in the same test?'"

The NIST test has people evaluate how easy a voting machine is to use. Then, its accuracy and overall performance are rated. The information is then compiled to see how each machine measures up. Forty states now require machines to pass the NIST test before being used in an election.

"The real goal of this whole effort is to make sure that these machines work as people expect them to and that we're not producing machines for the marketplace that cause problems," Killam says.

Experts estimate about a 5 percent error rate in some machines currently in use, but as the ballot becomes more complicated and more names are added, it's likely to be much higher than that.

Results from previously tested voting machines are pending approval from the government before they can be released to the public.

BACKGROUND: A key component of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 is to ensure that it is possible for all U.S. citizens to exercise their right to vote privately and independently. This breaks down into two parts: accessibility and usability. A Virginia-based company called User-Centered Design is working to demonstrate that it is possible to reliably measure the usability of voting machines, then the results can be compared to predetermined criteria. Its findings could one day have a major impact on how we vote.

THE ISSUES: Voter language and disabilities may prevent citizens from voting, as well as confusion when encountering unfamiliar electronic ballot machines. But aside from special issues, voting machines could be standardized so that the each machine's performance could be measured in order to ensure they provide correct vote tallies. Can the U.S. population learn and use a given system without making errors? And how can this be determined? Research can scientifically test these usability and performance issues to make sure the results are reliable and valid.

HOW WE VOTE: There have been many different kinds of voting systems used in the United States, and the approach varies from state to state, sometimes from district to district. With paper ballot systems, voters record their choices in private by marking the boxes next to the candidate they select and dropping the ballot into a sealed ballot box, which are then counted by hand. Mechanical voting machines connect each lever in an array to a specific candidate, and the voter pulls down selected levers to indicate his or her choice. Each lever is connected to a counter wheel to indicate the number of votes cast for each candidate. With punchcard systems, voters punch holes in cards to indicate their choices. The cards can be counted by hand or fed into a vote-counting device. Optical scan systems are similar to the way standardized tests are conducted: voters fill in ovals next to their choices with a pencil, and the cards are fed into a computer counting device that selects the darkest mark to count as a vote. The most recent type of system is direct recording electronic systems, an updated version of the old mechanical lever systems. The voter uses a computer touch-screen to indicate his or her choices which are electronically stored before being counted.

Mobile

2009-10-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

Mobile

During the initial years after the development of mobile phones, they were a luxury. With the passing of time, they became a necessity. Today, cell phones can provide their users with access to the Internet. They support several gaming applications and utility software. The cell phones can play music, showcase movies and store large multimedia files and games. They can also be used as tracking and monitoring devices, thanks to the advancement in technology.

Windows mobile is an operating system that is combined with a suite of basic applications for mobile phones. Smartphones and PocketPCs run on Windows Mobile. Similarly, the iTunes digital media player application introduced by Apple is compatible with Apple’s iPhone. iTunes can also be used to download music, television shows, games and other applications from the Internet. Originally, Motorola mobile phones supported the synching of iTunes library with cell phones. Certain mobile phone applications have capabilities of converting YouTube videos to formats compatible with mobile phones. Moreover, most of these applications do not require technical expertise and can be easily installed on cell phones.

One of the very popular cell phone applications is the Yahoo mobile, which allows the mobile users to be on Yahoo messenger through their cell phone. This application does not require to be installed on a cell phone. A fairly simple change in the Yahoo messenger settings can allow users to interact with their online buddies through their cell phones. Certain mobile phones feature support for the installation and running of chat and video conferencing applications. Synchronica, a software vendor based in the UK, offers mobile push email synchronization solutions. AIM Sync is a free service that allows the synchronization of mobile devices with Microsoft Outlook.
While some mobile phone applications enrich user experience, others encourage user creativity. Yes, certain mobile applications allow their users to create their own ring tones. They allow the users to compose melodies, edit them and apply them as alert tones. Some applications also feature a fragment tool, whereby a user can crop and edit movie songs according to the user’s preferences and use them as ring tones. Many of these cell phone applications facilitate the customization of mobile phones through the creation of mobile phone themes, wallpapers and animations.

Another group of mobile phone applications is of those offering Internet connectivity. These applications provide the users with emailing and Internet browsing facilities. Some of them also support the posting of blogs and uploading of media over the Internet. They allow the users to publish their work on the Internet by means of their mobile phones. Browser applications that can run on mobile phones provide users with an easy Internet access.

There are GPS-enabled cell phones that serve as tracking and locating devices. Google Maps for Mobile is a very popular application for mobile phones. It is a Java application introduced by Google that can run on any Java based mobile device. It also includes a location service, which makes use of the GPS location of the mobile receiver to identify the mobile user’s geographical location. Spy cell phones host software applications that convert cell phones into tracking and monitoring devices. Installing these applications on a mobile phone helps the user keep track of his/her household and business activities.

This was an outline of some of the different types of applications for mobiles. One thing is for sure; mobile applications have given a new dimension to the world of mobile phones.

Verizon Boss Hangs Up on Landline Phone Business

2009-10-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

Verizon Boss Hangs Up on Landline Phone Business

That was in effect what Ivan Seidenberg, the chief executive of Verizon Communications -– one of the largest descendants of the old Bell System — declared this morning.

Speaking to a Goldman Sachs investor conference, Mr. Seidenberg said Verizon was simply no longer concerned with telephones that are connected with wires.

All traditional phone companies are suffering because many customers are canceling their landlines in order to use phone service from their cable companies or simply to rely on their cellphones. Speaking earlier at the Goldman conference, Randall Stephenson, chief executive of AT&T, and Ed Mueller, head of Qwest Communications, both talked about seeing a day when their landline businesses would stop shrinking.

Mr. Seidenberg said that his “thinking has matured” and that trying to predict when the company would stop losing voice landlines “is like the dog chasing the bus.”
In other words, that snipping sound you hear around copper phone lines is just going to get louder.

This prospect, however, doesn’t rattle him.

Not only does Verizon control the largest mobile phone company in the country, it has also largely moved away from copper wires. Verizon is selling off most of its operations in rural areas and is spending billions to wire most of the rest of its territory with its fiber optic network, or FiOS.

FiOS, of course, offers voice calling as well as video and Internet service, but from now on, traditional phone service will be more of an add-on than the centerpiece of Verizon’s offerings to consumers (much as voice service is treated today by cable firms).

“Video is going to be the core product in the fixed-line business,” Mr. Seidenberg declared. And the focus will move from selling bundles of video and landline to video and cellphones, he added.
By converting most of its landline operation to FiOS, Mr. Seidenberg said Verizon had a new opportunity to cut costs sharply. FiOS uses the decentralized structure of the Internet rather than the traditional design of phone systems, which route all traffic through a tree of regional, then local offices.

“We don’t look any different than Google,” he said. “We can begin to look at eliminating central offices, call centers and garages.”

Mr. Seidenberg said that he was just beginning to work through the implications of this and that he planned to reorganize the company in order to emphasize this strategy. He told investors it may take a year or two for the financial impact to be apparent.

Mr. Seidenberg criticized himself for not seeing this sooner. “I could have done a better job of accelerating the idea that fiber creates productivity opportunities,” he said.

But Mr. Seidenberg also talked of the psychological lift he had gotten from finally escaping from the shadow of the legendary Bell.

“Once I shed myself of the burden of chasing the inflection point in access lines and say ‘I don’t care about that anymore,’ I am actually liberated,” he said.

TV Stations Start Broadcasting to Mobile Gadgets

2009-10-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

TV Stations Start Broadcasting to Mobile Gadgets

As if you are not barraged with video choices from your cable system, YouTube, iTunes, Hulu, NetFlix, and Ye’ Olde Video Store in the neighborhood, here comes yet another way to veg out: programs beamed over the air from your local TV station right to your cellphone.

A group called the Open Mobile Video Coalition announced Thursday the completion of a standard that will let TV stations use a sliver of the new frequencies that Congress gave them for high-definition broadcasts for broadcasts to wireless devices.

TV on the cellphone isn’t a new concept, of course. People can watch YouTube and other Web videos on some smartphones. Some carriers, like Verizon, also offer video clips on demand. This approach allows users to choose anything they want to watch, but it uses scarce capacity of the wireless data networks.

It is far more efficient to broadcast certain channels, allowing any device to tune in to a stream of programs, the way regular broadcast TV works. Qualcomm’s Flo TV uses the broadcast approach to offer about 20 linear channels for a $15 monthly fee.

The new standard would allow TV stations to have both free and paid channels aimed at mobile devices using their existing spectrum.

On Friday, the coalition demonstrated the new service by taking a number of government officials on a bus ride around Washington during which they could lean back and watch TV.
The group said that at least 70 stations would begin broadcasting using the standard. Several electronics makers, including Samsung, LG and Dell, have produced prototype devices. It is first likely to be available on netbook computers, according to a report in Broadcasting and Cable.
The standard was devised for mobile phones, in part because watching TV on handsets has become common in parts of Asia. But so far, no wireless carrier in the United States has agreed to sell a handset with a tuner that can use the new standard. After all, why let people do something free when you can charge money for it instead?

Most Efficient Solar Power in the World

2009-10-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

Most Efficient Solar Power in the World

In 1986 solar panels were literally ripped from the White House roof. But political will and financial incentives have reignited the search for efficient, affordable ways to harness the sun’s energy. Two new solar thermal technologies—which focus sunlight to create heat rather than convert it directly to electricity, as photovoltaics do—promise to make solar power practical at vastly different scales.

The SunCatcher solar thermal system, developed by Tessera Solar and built by Stirling Energy Systems at the Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility, captures solar energy at 31.25 percent efficiency, the highest ever achieved by this technology. Each of SunCatcher’s 38-foot-wide dishes collects enough heat energy to run a Stirling engine that can then generate 25 kilowatts of electric power. The system will fulfill two of the world’s largest solar contracts, providing a planned 1,600 megawatts to Southern California by 2014. It improved on its predecessor with a new design that makes each dish substantially lighter and cheaper to manufacture.

Meanwhile, a group of recent and current MIT engineering students is working to bring solar thermal to Africa with an off-grid system that operates on a much smaller scale. The team has developed a microgenerator capable of producing 3 kilowatts of electric power plus hundreds of gallons of hot water each day using relatively inexpensive, readily available components such as auto parts. Engineer and cofounder Amy Mueller says that the MIT group’s nonprofit, called STG International, has already set up microgenerators at two locations in Lesotho. A third Lesotho installation is under construction at a medical clinic, where it will provide power for lighting and communications equipment as well as hot water.

The Brain Where Does Sex Live in the Brain? From Top to Bottom.

2009-10-17T18:02:00.000-07:00

The Brain Where Does Sex Live in the Brain? From Top to Bottom.

On April 11, 1944, a doctor named T. C. Erickson addressed the Chicago Neurological Society about a patient he called Mrs. C. W. At age 43 she had started to wake up many nights feeling as if she were having sex—or as she put it to Erickson, feeling “hot all over.” As the years passed her hot spells struck more often, even in the daytime, and began to be followed by seizures that left her unable to speak. Erickson examined Mrs. C. W. when she was 54 and diagnosed her with nymphomania. He prescribed a treatment that was shockingly common at the time: He blasted her ovaries with X-rays.

Despite the X-rays, Mrs. C. W.’s seizures became worse, leaving her motionless and feeling as if an egg yolk were running down her throat. Erickson began to suspect that her sexual feelings were emanating not from her ovaries but from her head. Doctors opened up her skull and discovered a slow-growing tumor pressing against her brain. After the tumor was removed and Mrs. C. W. recovered, the seizures faded. “When asked if she still had any ‘passionate spells,’” Erickson recounted, “she said, ‘No, I haven’t had any; they were terrible things.’”

Mrs. C. W.’s experience was rare but not unique. In 1969 two Florida doctors wrote to the journal Neurology about a patient who experienced similar spells of passion. She would beat both hands on her chest and order her husband to satisfy her. Usually the woman would come to with no memory of what had just happened, but sometimes she would fall to the floor in a seizure. Her doctors diagnosed her with epilepsy, probably brought on by the damage done to parts of her brain by a case of syphilis. More recently, in 2004, doctors in Taiwan described a woman who complained of orgasms that swept over her when she brushed her teeth. Shame kept her silent for years, until her episodes also caused her to lose consciousness. When the doctors examined her, they diagnosed her with epilepsy as well, caused by a small patch of damaged brain tissue.

Each of these stories contains a small clue about the enigmatic neuroscience of sex. A hundred years ago Sigmund Freud argued that sexual desire was the primary motivating energy in human life. Psychologists and sociologists have since mapped the vast variations in human sexuality. Today pharmaceutical companies make billions bringing new life to old sex organs. But for all the attention that these fields of research have lavished on sex, neuroscientists have lagged far behind. What little they knew came from rare cases such as Mrs. C. W.’s.
The case studies do make a couple of things clear. For starters, they demonstrate that sexual pleasure is not just a simple set of reflexes in the body. After all, epileptic bursts of electricity in the brain alone can trigger everything from desire to ecstasy. The clinical examples also point to the parts of the brain that may be involved in sexual experiences. In 2007 cognitive neuroscientist Stephanie Ortigue of Syracuse University and psychiatrist Francesco Bianchi-Demicheli of the Geneva University Psychiatric Center reviewed the case of Mrs. C. W. and 19 other instances of spontaneous orgasms. In 80 percent of them, doctors pinpointed epilepsy in the temporal lobe.

The temporal lobe is still a big piece of real estate, though. To zoom in on the regions associated with sexuality, neuroscientists needed to scan people’s brains while they were having sex-related thoughts. But using brain scans to study sex is not easy. Most brain imaging technology works the way cameras did in the 19th century: If you want a clear picture, you have to hold very still. Even then, brain scans provide meaningful information only in carefully designed experiments. If you want to find the parts of the brain that are crucial for reading, for instance, you can’t just take pictures of people’s brains as they read; the visual cortex carries out many functions other than reading. Scientists therefore have to craft experiments that allow them to compare what happens to brains during reading with what happens when people look at random strings of letters or checkerboard patterns. The same precision is required to study sex in the brain.

As a result, the first imaging studies of sex in the brain have appeared only in the past few years. Serge Stoléru, a neuroscientist at Pierre and Marie Curie University in France, published one on sexual desire in 2003. He and his colleagues showed a series of pictures and films—some erotic, some ordinary—to 15 men. To record the activity in the subjects’ brains, the scientists used PET scans: They injected radioactive tracers into the volunteers and then tracked how the tracers moved in the brain. The radioactive signal accumulated in areas where neurons became active, as their energy was replenished by the surrounding blood vessels.

Eight of the men were ordinary, sexually speaking. The other seven suffered from hypoactive sexual desire disorder. People with this condition rarely experience sexual desires or fantasies. Stoléru and his colleagues found clear-cut differences between the two groups. In particular, a patch of neurons near the front of the brain—a region called the medial orbitofrontal cortex—was active in the desire-impaired men but quiet in the normal ones. Among its jobs, the medial orbitofrontal cortex keeps our emotions from getting out of control. Perhaps men with hypoactive sexual desire disorder couldn’t feel desire because their brains were keeping their emotions bottled up.

Unfortunately, PET scans take several minutes to capture a single image. A lot can happen in that time, especially when sex is involved. So Stoléru and other scientists have switched to a faster method, functional MRI (fMRI), which monitors the flow of blood to active neurons by measuring levels of oxygen in the brain. This technique can capture an image of the working brain in just a couple of seconds and locate areas of activity down to a millimeter or so—about one-twentieth of an inch.

Using fMRI, scientists have pinpointed a number of regions of the brain that kick in when people feel sexual desire. As expected, several of them are in the temporal lobe. One of those regions, the amygdala, orchestrates powerful emotions. Another, the hippocampus, manages our memories. It may become active as we associate sights and smells with past sexual experiences. But despite what Freud thought, sexual experiences are not just a matter of primal emotions and associations. The parts of the brain that light up in the fMRI scans include regions that are associated with some of our most sophisticated forms of thought. The anterior insula, for instance, is what we use to reflect on the state of our own bodies (to be aware of the sensation of butterflies in the stomach, say, or of lightness in the head). Brain regions that are associated with understanding the thoughts and intentions of other people also seem linked with sexual feelings.
Even fMRI studies are not fast enough to catch the flow of activity, however. They cannot tell us which regions of the brain become active first, which later. So Ortigue and Bianchi-Demicheli are updating one of the oldest brain-monitoring technologies. For decades scientists have taped electrodes onto people’s scalps to record their brain activity and create a readout called an electroencephalogram, or EEG. In the past this approach offered a blurry picture of what was going on in the subject’s brain. An electrode on the scalp can pick up electrical activity only after it has spread beyond the skull, getting weakened and smeared along the way. But the EEG process is fast; it can capture 1,000 snapshots a second.

In recent years scientists have dramatically improved the power of EEG by writing computer programs that compare recordings from multiple locations around the head and then calculate which regions of the brain are producing the signals. These programs can home in on regions just a few millimeters across, nearly as close as fMRI.

Ortigue and Bianchi-Demicheli put the improved EEG to the test by placing a set of 128 electrodes on a group of healthy volunteers and showing them pictures of people in swimsuits. The subjects then had to decide whether each person they were looking at was desirable or not and press a computer key to register their vote. These EEG recordings detected activity in many of the same regions that turned up in the early fMRI studies.On average, Ortigue and Bianchi-Demicheli’s subjects needed about 0.4 second to become aware of whether a person looked desirable or not and press a button. But in that 0.4 second, a lot happened in their brains. Some parts became active, then quiet, then active again. Other parts went through a different series of changes.

Intriguingly, the pattern of neural action seen in the experiment does not follow an orderly progression from the vision-processing centers to the centers of emotion and finally to the lofty regions of self-awareness. In fact, the “higher” regions of the brain start responding and passing judgment remarkably early. Ortigue and Bianchi-Demicheli found a clear difference in the activity in people’s brains depending on whether they regarded the people in the photos as desirable or undesirable; that decision emerged less than 0.2 second after a picture was viewed.
Ortigue and Bianchi-Demicheli suspect that several different parts of the brain are analyzing the information coming in from the eyes and influencing the final response. In some cases the flow of information goes from the bottom up, as signals from the visual cortex and the emotional centers move to the higher regions of the brain. But the influence also goes from the top down. The higher regions may be priming the visual cortex to be more sensitive to certain kinds of information—in essence, instructing the eyes on what kind of person looks sexually desirable. The brain regions that handle self-awareness and understanding others may also be telling the emotional centers what to feel. All this happens in about half a blink of an eye, with many of the details of how it unfolds still quite obscure.

Which is to say, we still have a lot to learn about sex. But at least we are far beyond the days of Mrs. C. W.

Tips for More Successful Cell Cultures

2009-10-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Tips for More Successful Cell Cultures

For those who perform cell culture experiments, it pays to be meticulous. Even seemingly minor handling techniques and lab equipment features can make a difference in achieving success.

It can be challenging to maintain pure cell cultures and keep them healthy and growing properly. By their very nature, these cell cultures are extremely fragile. Any researcher who has had problems with cell culture health, longevity, or contamination knows how time-consuming, costly, and frustrating this can be.

Some researchers are almost superstitious about trying new cell culture vessels or media, or even altering their techniques. But not all cells types respond to growth conditions in the same way. What's more, products are continually being developed that increase convenience and efficiency in the research lab. The trick is to find ways to maximize experiment results while minimizing wasted time and money.

The following tips, compiled from interviews with experienced researchers and innovative equipment manufacturers, can help increase success rates without relying on luck.

Choose the right growth surface
There is no universal growth surface on which all cells grow well. For non-anchorage cells, be sure to select a vessel surface that is hydrophobic in order to minimize attachment.
Finding a surface for cells that you wish to attach can be a bit trickier. For example, if your cells grow poorly on a traditional, negatively-charged cell culture surface, a specialty surface with a positive charge, such as Cell+ from Sarstedt, Inc., may be a viable alternative to achieving necessary adhesion without laborious coatings.

"The transfection of adherent cells is good with Cell+ and it gives better results than traditional growth surfaces," notes Dorain Thompson, research associate at Ferring Research Institute, San Diego, Calif

Lee Fuller, president, Fuller Labs, Fullerton, Calif., concurs, "Cell+ is very useful; my DHP and insect cells attach more quickly and growth performance is better."

Look for a vendor that offers flasks with color-coded surface options so that it is easy to differentiate them in the lab. Not only will color coding help to prevent mix-ups among various cell cultures, it also serves as a visual aid for quick and reliable identification of different growth surfaces.

Color coding on flasks makes it easy to quickly discern between suspension and adherent cells, for instance, according to Dr. Patrick McDonald, associate professor of Immunology at Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec. "This is a nearly fool-proof system that benefits everyone."
Be sure that your vendor uses high-grade materials and products are manufactured under stringent purity conditions, free of pyrogens and cytotoxins. This is essential to achieving reliability and consistency for your experiments.

Also, make sure that vessel surfaces are as flat as possible. This can provide better adherence where needed and minimize "patchy" cell growth that could compromise results.

Filter out potential contaminants
Contaminants corrupt cell cultures and the results of experiments. If proper care is not taken, cell lines could be lost. Take the time and steps necessary to filter and purify everything that will come into contact with your cells.

For proper filtration, choose a membrane such as PES (Polyethersulfone), which is low in protein binding, low in extractables, and offers a high flow rate.

To make certain that media and any nutrients you might use are free of mycoplasma, use a filter with a 0.1 micron pore size.

According to Aaron Haubner, PhD, from Sarstedt, "At Sarstedt, we have put our new low-binding, 0.1 micron PES filters through extensive testing and found that they are incredibly effective at clearing mycoplasma from cell culture reagents. Our new 0.1 micron PES bottle-top filters are able to effectively clear mycoplasma even from densely-spiked large volumes, while providing similar flow rate and performance as the traditional 0.22 micron bottle top filters."

Cap carefully
Flasks with standard non-vented membrane caps are designed for use in closed systems (e.g. Leibovitz L15 media), providing a liquid- and gas-tight seal. Non-vented caps may be used in the vented position when gas exchange is desired and in the closed position when gas exchange is not desired.

When there is no requirement for anaerobic conditions, vented caps with a non-wettable hydrophobic membrane can be closed tightly to allow regular gas exchange while keeping potential contaminants out. Using a vented cap also eliminates the step of setting the cap to a vented position, and prevents the liquid buildup that sometimes forms around the inside of plug seal caps, partially sealing them and inhibiting gas exchange.

Look for quick-release caps for one-handed attachment or removal. Generally, cell culture flasks with traditional screw caps require one or more turns to remove or replace the cap. A quick-release cap design should require less than a full turn. "The Sarstedt flasks with quick release caps allow for a quick and easy opening with one hand under the hood,"says McDonald.

Do not disturb
Just like an infant, your cell culture does not like excessive noise or movement. Make certain that your incubator is level, stable and in a location away from heavy foot traffic or vibrating, motorized instrumentation, such as compressors, laminar flow hoods, or centrifuges. Also make sure it has a rattle-free fan and that the shelving allows for a uniform temperature profile. Bear in mind that temperature fluctuations will more likely occur in the front of the incubator, so keep your more critical experiments toward the back of the storage compartment.

"I believe that researchers experience this problem more often than you might think," says Pillari Ratnakar, PhD, veteran cell culture researcher. "I have seen instances where an incubator was placed next to a centrifuge and a staff member thought there was a problem with the culture vessel, incubator or culture medium, for example. The real problem was the agitation caused by the centrifuge equipment, and it ruined the experiment by causing cells to form different circular growth patterns on dishes."

Be flexible
Cell scrapers are useful tools that allow researchers to remove cells without using chemicals to dislodge them in preparation for experiments. However, choosing the proper scraper design is critical. For example, many cell scrapers have hard, inflexible blades that can cause more cell damage than successful removal. To avoid such unnecessary or excessive damage, consider using a cell scraper with a thin, flexible, non-toxic blade material.

More advanced cell scraper designs can also include adjustable, swiveling blades that are easier to use even in culture containers that can be difficult to access. This type of scraper blade can be aseptically turned 90° from the "scraper" position, making it ideal for use in flasks, to the "lifter" position, which is useful for harvesting cells in dishes.

Freeze cautiously
Once you have grown your cell culture, remember that freezing and thawing are critical for successful preservation and recovery. Follow an established freezing protocol and always use storage tubes that are specifically designed for cryogenic use. Also, be sure to use cryo tubes that are tested and certified to be completely free of potential contaminants that would harm cell materials and cellular components during preservation.

Freeze your cells in a container at -80°C with a cooling rate of 1°C/minute for several hours before transferring them to a liquid nitrogen tank. Store these samples in the gas phase of the tank to prevent contamination from frozen organisms in the liquid nitrogen. Taking this precaution also avoids potential tube breakage due to liquid nitrogen entry and expansion during thawing.

When thawing, use a 37° C water bath with cover. Disinfect the tube before opening with 70% alcohol.

To avoid confusion or mixing of frozen samples, consider using a tube system with color-coding. In its CryoPure system, for example, Sarstedt offers a total of 25 different color combinations for its tubes.

"The main point is, once you have successfully grown your cells and are ready to store them long term, you don't want to risk losing them during freezing," advises Ratnakar.

Attention to detail is the name of the game in preparing and storing cell cultures. Make careful decisions about techniques and equipment, continue to look for ways to increase efficiency, and you'll avoid the headache of lost cell lines and ruined experiments.

2009-10-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

DEEPAVALI

A colorful festival that is celebrated by all Hindus worldwide is Deepavali, which is also known as the festival of lights. This festival usually falls around late October and November. One important practice that the Hindus follow during the festival is to light oil lamps in their homes on Deepavali morning. By lighting the oil lamps, the Hindus are thanking the gods for the happiness, knowledge, peace and wealth that they have received. The Hindus consider Deepavali as one of the most important festivals to celebrate.

The Legend -
There is even an interesting legend behind this festival. The story goes that Narakasura, a demon, ruled the kingdom of Pradyoshapuram. Under his rule, the villagers suffered a lot of hardship as the demon tortured the people and kidnapped the women to be imprisoned in his palace. Seeing his wickedness, Lord Khrishna set out to destroy the demon and the day Narakasura died was celebrated as Deepavali, the triumph of good over evil!Preparations -
Preparation for Deepavali starts usually at least two to three weeks before the festival. It is known that the Hindus will be busy cleaning their houses to prepare for the festival. Some would even renovate their houses to prepare it for Deepavali. Usually the family will shop for new clothes and for accessories to decorate their homes. Prior to the festival, Indian shops will be selling festive items like Deepavali greeting cards, carpets, Punjabi suits and flowers. The Hindus will frequent these shops when they are shopping for Deepavali.

Celebrations -
The Hindus usually awake early in the morning of deepavali around 3am and the first ritual will be having an oil bath, which is an important feature of Deepavali. Hindus will be dressed in their new clothes on Deepavali. Most of the ladies would be clad in silk saris or Punjabi suits of various bright shades. Hindus particularly dislike dressing in black on that day, as they consider black an inauspicious color for the festival. Hindus would also pay their respects to the elderly and most families would go to the temple after having breakfast. This is also an important practice for them. The reason why they would be going to the temples is to pray to get happiness and prosperity on Deepavali. The houses would be decorated with oil lamps and children will play with firecrackers to celebrate the festival. On the first day, they would not go visiting but would stay at home to welcome the guests who visit them.

Food -
Visiting Hindus during Deepavali will be an interesting activity, as you will get to taste a wide variety of delicious food. In every home that you visit you are bound to be served with a tempting spread of sweets. Some of the popular sweets are halwa, burfi and laddu. Hindus love eating spicy food and for non-vegetarians they indulge in favorites like chicken tandoori, prawn sambal and fish head curry. In homes of Hindus who are vegetarians popular dishes like thosais, idlis and naans are prepared.

7 Inch LCD Car Headrest DVD Player + FM Transmitter -Pair -Grey

2009-10-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

7 Inch LCD Car Headrest DVD Player + FM Transmitter -Pair -Grey

Car Headrest DVD player system with a high quality faux leather exterior in grey, and a super large 7 inch TFT LCD display for letting passengers in the grey seats really enjoy movies as you drive.

This Car DVD accessory features a built-in region-free DVD player and a FM transmitter for sending audio directly to your car stereo for the incredible sound your cars own sound system can provide. The headrests also have a 3.5mm earphone jack, and the ability to play CD's, digital media via SD card or USB input, and can play NES ROM's burnt to disc.

Other great features include AV IN and AV OUT, adjustable struts for the easy installation, and an all in one kit featuring everything you will need to quickly and easily install this great addition to your family car. Order yours now and keep your backseat passengers entertained while you concentrate on the road. A great gift for the whole family!

Main Function: Deluxe car headrest DVD + media player Headrest Specs: -

Color: Gray - Material: Faux Leather - Space Between Struts: 130mm. Adjustable to 180mm. - Strut Width: 12mm Discs Played: - Discs Played: DVD, DVD-R/RW, VCD, CD, CD-R/RW - Video System: PAL/NTSC/Auto Files Played: - File Types: MP3, WMA, MPEG, DIVX, JPEG Screen Information - Screen: 7 Inch TFT LCD - Aspect Ratio: 16:9 or 4:3 - Resolution: 480x240 Input / Output - Video IN - R/L Audio IN - Video OUT - Audio OUT - x2 Mini-USB slot - USB slot - SD card slot - 3.5mm headphone jack Manufacturer Ref: YP7QD6L9EYS8 Catalog Ref: Deluxe car headrest media player Product Notes

Perfect DIY project for dad or the soon to be father Built in wireless FM audio transmitter Powered from car battery OSD languages: English, Chinese

Package Contents
Model CVEJS-DV708-GREY (2)

Remote control (2)

Game disc (2)

Game controller (4)\

ISO wiring harness with AV out (2)

Strut extension bars (4)

Earphones (2)

AV IN cable set (2)

User manual - English (2)

2009-10-15T15:53:00.000-07:00

Puzzling play by Sony

What I wondered while testing the new PSP Go handheld video game device from Sony Corp. Like most Sony gadgets, it’s well-engineered and attractive, but not quite right.

It’s as if the PSP Go designers read engineering journals instead of watching what actual people do; on the subway, for instance. Lots of those passengers are playing games. But a growing number aren’t using a PSP, or even rival Nintendo Inc.’s DS game machine. These days, the fastest-selling devices for handheld gaming are the iPhone and iPod Touch music device from Apple Inc.

Hardly anyone saw it coming. Only last year did Apple let outside software companies write programs for the iPhone and iPod and sell them through Apple’s online store. Almost overnight, developers unleashed hundreds of games for the gadgets. Some are free; others are cheap. Most are simple time-wasters. But now, major game developers like Electronic Arts Inc. and Ubisoft are serving up iPod editions of mainstream titles such as Madden NFL and Assassin’s Creed. Today, Apple runs TV ads selling the iPod Touch as a better way to play than anything from Sony or Nintendo.

Nearly 107 million of Nintendo’s DS game machines, in various versions, have been sold since 2004. Sony’s original PSP sold 55 million units over the same period. But Apple has sold 50 million iPhones and iPod Touches in just two years. And Apple recently cut the price on a basic iPod Touch to $200, in time for Christmas.

It’s likely that by year’s end, people will have bought more iPhones and iPod Touches than PSPs. The research firm Compete Inc. found that 79 percent of iPhone users have downloaded at least one game. Soon Apple could become the world’s number two maker of handheld game systems after Nintendo, with Sony falling to third place. Somehow, I doubt the PSP Go will arrest Sony’s slide, even though it’s an appealing gadget. Basically, the new Go is a slimmed-down version of the original. Up until now, most PSP games came on UMD disks - a miniature CD format used only by Sony. The Go abandons that system. All games are downloaded over the Internet and installed either in the Go’s 16 gigabytes of built-in memory or on a removable memory card.
Sony’s still pushing its unpopular Memory Stick technology. Nintendo’s newest, the DSi, lets you download games onto industry-standard SD memory cards. But with the Go, it’s Sony’s Memory Sticks or nothing.

Users of the old PSP obviously can’t run their game disks on the new Go. Sony had promised to offer free replacement downloads to game disk owners, but had to abandon this plan after game software companies objected. So hang on to your PSP “classic’’ if you value your old games.
Like a lot of keypad phones, the Go keeps its controls under wraps. Slide the screen up and the buttons and joystick snap out. They feel much better in the hand than the PSP’s controls. Indeed, the entire device feels pleasantly light and compact.

Sony says serious gamers will always prefer pushbutton controls to a touchscreen. I think they’re right. I played the sword-and-sorcery game Hero of Sparta on an iPhone and on the PSP Go, and it was no contest. Whether running from enemies or slaying them, it was easier and more fun on the PSP. But the PSP version cost me $6.99. The iPhone game is priced at $1.99. PSP games often cost more. The iPhone version of Madden NFL 10 costs $9.99, but the PSP version is $39.99. A Sony official said that the PSP version has a lot more features; I’ll take his word for it. Still, few consumers will long tolerate such a price gap.

Besides, the PSP Go itself is absurdly priced at $250. That’s just $50 cheaper than Sony’s high-powered PlayStation 3 living-room console. It’s $80 more than the old-style PSP, which Sony will keep making. And forget about winning over customers from rival pocket platforms. The Go is $80 more expensive than the Nintendo DSi, and $50 more than the entry-level iPod Touch.
This excessive price buys you a sleek, lightweight design - and what else? The inability to play your old PSP games and the chance to pay more for software than iPhone and iPod gamers. They’re a smart bunch at Sony; you’d think they know what they’re doing. But I suspect that when the people at Apple think of the PSP Go, they smile and wonder:

What was Sony thinking?

Phones With IQ

2009-10-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

Phones With IQ

The history of smartphones takes us to the first smartphone called Simon, introduced by IBM in 1992. This device contained calculator, address book, email, games, notepad and fax. Later, the Black Berry smartphone gained astounding popularity by bringing various models varying in price ranges and features such as Bold, Pearl, Curve and Storm.

Mobile phones are a craze today. Earlier, people only required phones for communication, but now the multimedia gizmo bestows multitudes of top notch features. The majority of the brands of mobile phones is renowned for their excellent features and is a craze among people. The craze is increasing day by day as the hand sets are coming with more features that cannot be ignored.
Smartphone allows the communication functionality and tons of other aspects including internet browsing, GPS, email, calendars, mp3 players, complete operating systems, full keyboards, organizers, video and camera and certainly the cell phone. It has a galore of features and today these devices come featured with touch screens.

Smartphones come with multiple advantages. The internet is a mandatory feature and this is available with hi-end models. These devices have services such as SMS and instant messaging, besides e-mail and MMS in the 3G device. Similarly, carrying cameras can be conveniently avoided as these devices are capable enough to capture quality images and also to make video footages. It also facilitates video calling.

The camera quality is excellent offering the best pixels resolution as well as LED flash. Entertainment aficionados can have a great time with 3G device that supports the music formats. Working professional`s efficacy that depends on instant and accurate action also finds the smartphones of today of immense use. There is no doubt that these gadgets are developing by leaps and bounds. The working professionals can find the top models with software features such as Excel, Word, PDF documents, PowerPoint and OneNote on the handset screen.
The connectivity features comprise EDGE, GPRS, WiFi, 3G HSDPA, USB connection and Bluetooth. The new smartphones come with options such as expandable memory card and good storage capacity. The GPS technology helps in identifying the locations and also in comprehending other vital information.

This new technology of smartphones helps even in commercial utility such as for property buyers. Tenants and potential buyers can acquire photos and property data such as lease rates, price and more on their phone. The profile of the shopper is matched and e-mail is also sent updating the interest expressed. Blackberry and iPhone facilitates in sorting through quotes, news, latest headlines, saving or sharing articles, images and photos through email or twitter.
The latest features are designed in the aim of being user friendly. The dimensional size is easy in carrying and the long touch screen is well integrated. The pixels resolution snaps clear pictures effortlessly and records the video clips conveniently. These devices are designed intelligently such that the auto turn off technology keeps you out of the power saving worries. Similarly, the phone book memory helps saving unlimited entries. Models such as Acer, Nokia, Black Berry and iPhone are some of the hi-end smartphone models that are the favorites and are available to suit the needs of each person.

Modern Moms

2009-10-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

Modern Moms

Women have entered the workplace in droves in recent years and now make up nearly 50 percent of the workforce. Many of them leave young children at home. The result: more kids spending less time with mom, and in many cases a lot of adult guilt.

That's the picture emerging from several surveys by the Pew Research Center and others of working moms today. In 2008, women made up 47 percent of the U.S. labor force, up from 38 percent in 1970, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (more than 70 percent of women with children under age 18 were in the workforce). The latest stats suggest the 50 percent mark has been crossed or will be soon - in part because the recession has caused more layoffs among men than women.

While the surveys indicate plenty of discontent among working mothers, the true ramifications of the shift remain unclear.

Mom by the numbers
A peek into modern mom's life comes from surveys by the Pew Research Center as well as the General Social Survey, which has tracked societal trends since 1972 with a sample of at least 1,500 Americans.

Here are some of the results:
More than 60 percent of working mothers said they would rather work part-time than full-time, while just 19 percent of fathers indicated the same. The sample of 135 mothers and 165 fathers came from a larger, nationally representative survey conducted in the summer of 2009. In 2002, nearly 30 percent of surveyed Americans strongly agreed that both spouses should contribute to the household income, with another 28 percent agreeing, but not strongly, with that statement, according to the General Social Survey. That's compared with 1988, when only 15 percent agreed. In a 2005 Pew survey, four-in-ten working mothers with children under age 18 reported they always feel rushed, and another 52 percent said they sometimes feel rushed. Only 19 percent of Americans agree that women should return to their traditional roles in society, while 75 percent disagreed with this statement, according to Pew telephone surveys of more than 2,000 adults between December 2006 and January 2007. That's compared with 1987 numbers showing 30 percent agreed while 66 percent disagreed.

"The data have been around for maybe 30 years, showing trend lines that [for] men and women there is increasing agreement that women should be occupying non-traditional roles," said Rosalind Chait Barnett of Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

But the data may not tell the whole story.
Some of the Pew surveys are "so bad you can't draw any conclusions," Barnett told LiveScience, citing small sample sizes and ambiguous questions. For instance, she notes the surveys don't specify what is meant by "part-time" and "full-time" work and the specific trade-offs involved.
Still, the survey results are consistent with "the idea of intensive motherhood, which is essentially 'you've got to do everything. You've got to be a great parent,'" said Joseph Grzywacz of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina. "At the same time women have their own needs, making it in the world and having a career that's personally satisfying."

What's it mean for families?
In spite of these long-term changes in behaviors and attitudes, many women remain conflicted about the competing roles they play at work and at home. Men, too. "As far back as people have started looking at work-family conflict, about 20 or 30 years, men have always expressed at least as much, if not more, work-family conflict than women," Barnett said.

For some women, the best decision remains simply not to work outside the home.
About 34 percent of mothers with kids under age 18 opt out of the workforce all together, according to the Pew Research Center.

For those who do head to work and need to keep a clear head, Grzywacz said women often use so-called psychological reappraisal in which they tell themselves, "What's good for my child and for me is to be a working mother."

How do moms juggle family, work and a personal life? Grzywacz has found the number-one strategy involves scheduling one's life.

"So they're up early; they fit in every opportune time they have to try to get something accomplished; everything is scheduled out," Grzywacz said.

Next, women adjust their standards. "So whereas maybe before kids were born, there was one set of expectations about what a clean house means, for example, or what a healthy meal means," Grzywacz said during a telephone interview. "Once kids come along, they report, 'Maybe my standards were too high, maybe this is good enough.'"

And home-cooked meals can become a thing of the past. "Next there seems to be a relatively frequent reliance on fast food or commercial foods," Grzywacz said.
One strategy missing from mom's toolbox: Asking for help from a spouse or partner was way down on the list, he said.

That's too bad, as past research has shown working moms had lower stress levels, as measured by cortisol, if they were happily married compared with the less happily married participants.

Using cellphones to change the world

2009-10-14T15:49:00.000-07:00

Using cellphones to change the world

It’s an unlikely medical device: a sleek smartphone more suited to a nightclub than a rural health clinic. But it’s loaded with software that allows health workers in the remote northernmost Philippines province of Batanes to dramatically reduce the time it takes to get X-rays to a radiologist - and to get a diagnosis for a patient being tested for tuberculosis.The software, created by a nonprofit organization called Moca, is one of nearly two dozen cellphone-based projects that have sprung from NextLab, a course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It’s taught by Jhonatan Rotberg, who was sent to MIT by Telmex, one of Latin America’s largest telecommunications companies, to bring cellular technology to the “90 percent of people’’ who fall outside of the marketing plans of most phone companies.

Talking about his Telmex job, Rotberg made a peak with his hands. “We were dealing with the very top of the pyramid,’’ he said as he sat in his office at MIT. “We spent most of our time trying to sell more phones and products to the middle class and the upper middle class.’’
So three years ago, funded by a grant from Mexican investor Carlos Slim’s foundation, Telmex sent Rotberg to MIT to research methods for using cellphones to help “the resource-constrained countries, aka developing countries, aka low-income countries.’’

And when Rotberg settled into his research and teaching position at the Media Lab, he made a discovery: The same device that powers teenage texting in the United States can be adapted to help farmers in Mexico and illiterate women in India.

“Cellphones are inexpensive, personal, connected, and everywhere,’’ he said. “They are also the perfect Trojan horse for social development, because you don’t have to convince anyone to buy one.’’

In NextLab, Rotberg challenged students by asking, “Can you make a cellphone change the world?’’ And students have responded, creating nearly two dozen projects and three start-up ventures that have been working with communities in developing countries like India, Vietnam, and Mexico.

“It really kind of jumps out at you, the positive impact you can have with cellphone technology,’’ said Zack Anderson, a recent MIT graduate who was on a team that started Moca, a nonprofit that is developing mobile software to improve health care access in less wealthy countries.
“The next billion people who will be getting online will be using cellphones, not computers,’’ Anderson said. “That gets you thinking about how you can leverage this.’’

Using Rotberg’s course as a sounding board, the Moca team decided to focus on facilitating cellphone communication between health workers in rural areas and doctors, who tend to be in cities.

Last summer, Moca conducted a small pilot program in Batanes, using cellphones to send X-rays to urban doctors for screening.Leo Anthony Celi, a physician who recently completed a master’s degree at MIT, has made three trips to the Philippines to field-test Moca.

“The Philippines actually adopted cellphone texting way ahead of the US, so there’s already a platform in place that we can leverage,’’ he said. “We started with X-rays, but there’s no reason we can’t also transmit ultrasound videos, echocardiograms, and other medical imagery.’’
Cellphones are well suited to what is known as telemedicine, networks that connect remote locations with sophisticated medical diagnosis and advice. But social entrepreneurs are also using cellphones to enable remote commerce and promote literacy.

Dinube, a NextLab spinoff that was tested in Mexico last summer, provides payment services to people who don’t have access to traditional banks.

“One of the powerful things about cellphones in Mexico is that there is a 75 percent penetration rate,’’ said Jonathan Hayes, a cofounder of Dinube. “But only 25 percent of the population has a bank account. So a cellphone-based system can fill a huge, important gap.’’

Two other NextLab projects show the mobile phone’s range: CelEdu offers cellphone-based games and quizzes that have been used in India to teach basic literacy skills. Zaca - developed by students at MIT, Harvard, and Tufts - helps farmers make deals with buyers using their cellphones, bypassing expensive middlemen. The cellphones also provide current crop prices and advice on growing practices.

MIT’s Legatum Center, which supports a variety of entrepreneurial programs to bring innovation to developing countries, has four cellphone-related projects in the works. That’s not surprising, given that the center’s director, Iqbal Quadir, founded Grameenphone, a company that introduced low-cost cellphone service to Bangladesh in the 1990s.

“For cellphones, it’s really only the beginning,’’ Quadir said, “because cellphones are becoming computers. Think about it: What are the limits of computers? Actually, there’s no end to it.’’
To stay ahead of this rapidly evolving technology, Rotberg recently launched what he refers to as version 2.0 of NextLab. The spring semester course, hosted by the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, will be focused on creating a mobile phone-based platform for a broad range of projects.

“The magical part of this technology is that if we build something in one location, we can just tweak it and use it in another,’’ Rotberg said.

It’s safe to assume, he added, that there will be more opportunities for leveraging cellphone technology.

“There’s no question that the cellphone footprint will expand, and that phones will get cheaper, and that computing power will grow,’’ he said. “The only question is, will we recognize that this is an opportunity for social good.

Video games are good for the brain

2009-10-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

Video games are good for the brain

In his speech to America’s schoolchildren last month, President Obama had a clear directive about video games: Put them away. It wasn’t the first time he had sounded this particular alarm, warning of the dangers of days spent at gaming consoles. But the latest science shows that there’s a lot more to video games than their dark reputations suggest.

There’s still a tendency to think of video games as a big wad of time-wasting content,’’ said Cheryl Olson, co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital. “You would never hear a parent say we don’t allow books in our home, but you’ll still hear parents say we don’t allow video games in our home.

“Games are a medium. They’re not inherently good or bad.’’

After years of focusing on the bad - and there are still legitimate concerns, for instance, about the psychological effects of certain violent games - scientists are increasingly examining the potential benefits of video games. Their studies are revealing that a wide variety of games can boost mental function, improving everything from vision to memory. Still unclear is whether these gains are long-lasting and can be applied to non-game tasks. But video games, it seems, might actually be good for the brain.

The very structure of video games makes them ideal tools for brain training.

“Video games are hard,’’ said Eric Klopfer, the director of MIT’s Education Arcade, which studies and develops educational video games. “People don’t like to play easy games, and games have figured out a way to encourage players to persist at solving challenging problems.’’

The games aren’t just hard - they’re adaptively hard. They tend to challenge people right at the edge of their abilities; as players get better and score more points, they move up to more demanding levels of play. This adaptive challenge is “stunningly powerful’’ for learning, said John Gabrieli, a neuroscientist at MIT.

Most games involve a huge number of mental tasks, and playing can boost any one of them. Fast-paced, action-packed video games have been shown, in separate studies, to boost visual acuity, spatial perception, and the ability to pick out objects in a scene. Complex, strategy-based games can improve other cognitive skills, including working memory and reasoning.

These findings fit with scientists’ increasing understanding of how malleable the human brain truly is. Researchers now know that learning and practicing a challenging task can actually change the brain.

Richard Haier,a pediatric neurologist and professor emeritus at the School of Medicine at the University of California at Irvine, has shown in a pair of studies that the classic game Tetris, in which players have to rotate and direct rapidly falling blocks, alters the brain. In a paper published last month, Haier and his colleagues showed that after three months of Tetris practice, teenage girls not only played the game better, their brains became more efficient.A type of scan that illuminates brain activity showed that at the end of the three months, the girls’ brains were working less hard to complete the game’s challenges. What’s more, parts of the cortex, the outer layer of their brains responsible for high-level functions, actually got thicker. Several of these regions are associated with visual spatial abilities, planning, and integration of sensory data.
“Does this mean that Tetris is good for your brain?’’ Haier said. “That is the big question. We don’t know that just because you become better at playing Tetris after practice and your brain changes . . . whether those changes generalize to anything else.’’

Generalizability to non-game situations is the big question surrounding other emerging games, particularly software that is being marketed explicitly as a way to keep neurons spry as we age. The jury is still out on whether practicing with these games helps people outside of the context of the game. In one promising 2008 study, however, senior citizens who started playing Rise of Nations, a strategic video game devoted to acquiring territory and nation building, improved on a wide range of cognitive abilities, performing better on subsequent tests of memory, reasoning, and multitasking. The tests were administered after eight weeks of training on the game. No follow-up testing was done to assess whether the gains would last.

Now that researchers know these off-the-shelf games can have wide-ranging benefits, they’re trying to home in on the games’ most important aspects, potentially allowing designers to create new games that specifically boost brain power.

“Until now, people have been asking can you learn anything from games?’’ MIT’s Klopfer said. “That’s a less interesting question than what aspects of games are important for fostering learning.’’

Klopfer is currently conducting research to determine how important narrative is in an educational physics game: Do students learn more with a more narrative game? And Anne McLaughlin, a psychologist who co-directs the Gains Through Gaming lab at North Carolina State University, is assessing whether games that are novel, include social interaction, and require intense focus are better at boosting cognitive skills. McLaughlin and her colleagues will use the findings to design games geared toward improving mental function among the elderly.
Other researchers are hoping to use video games to encourage prosocial behaviors - actions designed to help others. (“Prosocial’’ behaviors are, in some ways, the opposite of “antisocial’’ ones.) In June, an international team of researchers, including several from Iowa State University, reported that middle school students in Japan who played games in which characters helped or showed affection for others, later engaged in more of these behaviors themselves. Researchers also found that US college students randomly assigned to play a prosocial game were subsequently kinder to a fellow research subject than students who played violent or neutral games.

Unlike, say, movies or books, video games don’t just have content, they also have rules. A game is set up to reward certain actions and to punish others. This means they have immense potential to teach children ethics and values, said Scott Seider, an assistant professor of education at Boston University. (Of course, this is a double-edged sword. Games could reward negative, antisocial behavior just as easily as positive, prosocial behavior.)

Some off-the-shelf games already contain strong prosocial themes; consider The Sims, for instance, or the classic Oregon Trail, which make players responsible for the well-being of other characters and feature characters who take care of one another. But Seider also hopes game developers consider the prosocial possibilities in developing new games. The challenge for the architects of future games will be figuring out how to wrap virtuous characteristics into an engaging package.

“Ultimately, the video game needs to be an entertaining experience,’’ Seider said. “The game has to be fun.’’

Surviving the crash

2009-10-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

Surviving the crash

There is no doubt car seats save lives, but they have not evolved much in recent years. Curtain air bags help shield adults and older children from side-impact crashes - a major cause of injury - but car seats have not offered that added protection for infants and younger children.

Now, however, Dorel Juvenile Group Inc., a car seat manufacturer in Foxborough, says its Safety 1st Complete Air Convertible Car Seat is designed to protect infants and children during side-impact crashes. It features air cushions that cover the side of a child’s head. The pockets of air offset the harsh, whipping impact of a crash. Unlike air bags - which expand upon sudden impact - they are already inflated.

The seat costs $249 - an infant-only version is $179 - and can be positioned to face front or rear, accommodating children who weigh up to 50 pounds.

Dorel said its technology, which it calls Air Protect, is the result of 3,000 prototypes and more than two years of testing.

“Thousands and thousands of tests later, we’d explored a combination of a lot of different things - looking at protection on the outside shell of car seats to foams all over the place,’’ said David Amirault, the company’s director of design and engineering. “We found that to have some sort of technology on the outside of the car seat wasn’t going to do the trick. The car seat’s not going to stop a door. That’s when we started focusing on cushioning the blow.’’

In developing Air Protect, Dorel went to Kettering University, the Flint, Mich., school owned by General Motors Corp. There, the company teamed up with Janet Brelin-Fornari, director of the school’s Crash Safety Center. The Dorel team performed deceleration tests designed to simulate side-impact crashes - allowing engineers to test the effects of crashes without actually crashing dozens of cars.

Brelin-Fornari said she was impressed with the results. “It is a novel idea with an air bag,’’ she said. “It doesn’t deploy, but it’s there always ready to protect the head and neck of the child.’’
“We were learning a lot of things together, at the same time, understanding the crash performance aspects,’’ Amirault said. “We would bring in several different mockups or variations of things we developed, and literally worked hands-on at the labs.’’

Dorel and Kettering officials said they are seeking a federal standard for side-impact safety ratings, based on what they learned with Air Protect. There is no federal threshold for child safety in side-impact crashes.

“A lot of products out there claim to have side-impact protection, but you really don’t know what that means,’’ Brelin-Fornari said. “There could be a dramatic difference in trying to decrease the risk of injury.’’

All 50 states and the District of Columbia require children to be restrained in vehicles. According to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, an estimated 425 lives statewide were saved with car seats in 2006 alone.

Hanah Smith, a spokeswoman for the state agency, said child car seats reduce the likelihood of an infant being killed in a crash by 71 percent and the risk of a toddler (1 through 4 years old) being killed by 54 percent.

How the iPhone’s App Store Could Stimulate the Flash Economy

2009-10-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

How the iPhone’s App Store Could Stimulate the Flash Economy

Thanks to new tools provided by Adobe, the iPhone has the potential to transform the Flash programmer community from an experimental playground into a lucrative industry.

Adobe last week announced that its new version of the Flash Professional CS5 developer kit will include tools to convert software written in Flash into standalone iPhone apps. That creates the opportunity for Flash developers to submit Flash-ported iPhone apps to Apple; if Apple approves those apps, they can then be sold through the iTunes App Store.

The community of Flash programmers is 1 million strong, according to Adobe, but very few of them make any decent money since the platform lacks a clear and consistent business model. Thus, the prospect of selling software through the App Store, which has served over 2 billion downloads and earned some developers hundreds of thousands of dollars, could be enticing to many Flash developers.

The result could be a large flood of new Flash-ported iPhone apps, as well as heightened interest in developing for the Flash platform.

“Whether the iPhone can bolster a good enough performance to do intensive mobile Flash games we are unsure of,” said John Cooney, head of game development at Flash game company Armor Games. “But if it can it’s going to open up doors for several Flash game developers, including myself personally, to become iPhone developers.”

Why aren’t many Flash programmers making a living off their code? It’s just not very easy to do. If you’re in the Flash industry and you’re not a big studio-affiliated website like Hulu — or if you’re not employed to develop Flash for larger companies — you’re most likely an independent developer coding games. For creators of Flash games, there are three primary sources of revenue: 1.) Up-front sponsorship deals with larger websites (such as Kongregate.com or AddictingGames.com), in which developers agree to brand their games with the website’s company name; 2.) Selling licenses of their games to other web portals, allowing visitors to play the game for free; 3.) Embedding advertising into their games.

The major hurdle for independent Flash programmers is the difficulty of getting people to pay for website-based games, said Greg McClanahan, game sponsorship director of Kongregate. And that’s where the App Store might help.

“Flash developers can already get a few million views of their game and it wouldn’t be a huge deal, nor would they necessarily make significant money from it,” McClanahan said. “They’re coming from an industry where it’s very difficult to charge people for their games, though I imagine it would be a lot easier on the iPhone than on the web, due to the different mentalities of the potential customers.”

Because Flash programming isn’t a highly lucrative business, many of the game developers in the Flash community are teenagers or college students making games for the sake of learning and experimentation; money is a side goal, McClanahan said. Also, Flash development is popular in third-world countries. Thanks to currency exchange rates, that means a little bit of revenue can still add up to a lot of money for an overseas programmer. If, for example, a programmer receives sponsorship from U.S.-based Kongregate, he’ll receive U.S. dollars no matter where he’s coding — even a third-world country where the dollar is strong.

“A guy in Indonesia made enough off his Flash game and bought a house,” McClanahan said. However, he added, “[those] results [are] not typical.”

Whether bigger entrepreneurs are going to step into Flash programming because of the iPhone will depend on the results for Flash-ported iPhone apps in the App Store.

There have, in fact, already been a few big App Store hits from Flash developers who manually recoded their games using the iPhone SDK. In June, Armor Games’ $1 puzzle game Shift reached no. 6 in Apple’s list of top paid apps for over 40 days, according to iPhone app review site 148Apps. That translated into $30,000 in revenue, and the game is continuing to sell 1,000 copies per month, according to Shift developer Daniel McNeely.

Another popular Flash-ported iPhone game was Bloons, which reached as high as no. 2 in the App Store in May and spent over 100 days in the top 100 paid apps list, according to 148Apps.
“I think I’d call that a success,” said Jeff Scott, editor of 148Apps.

Whether the iPhone will dramatically stimulate the Flash economy is up for debate. Adobe’s new conversion tools won’t be available until the end of the year, so concrete data won’t be available until early 2010. Also, Flash developers might be turned off by horror stories uttered by iPhone programmers who have failed to make money, largely due to Apple’s inconsistent and unclear App Store approval policies.

However, what is clear is what Adobe has in mind with this new Flash-to-iPhone conversion tool: Evangelizing more developers and getting them to join the Flash community, said James McQuivey, a Forrester analyst.

“From Adobe’s side what they’re hoping for is that people who are currently developing using Apple’s tools might be able to do future versions of their product with Flash,” McQuivey said. “From a developer’s perspective you’d rather write once and port to one common application on several devices. It’s not going to be Apple’s development language that ports to the connected TVs and netbook computers and so on. It’s more likely it’s going to be Flash.”

Regardless of whether or not Adobe’s Flash-convertion tool will produce an impact, the Flash programmers will definitely benefit from having the option to port their software into iPhone apps, Cooney said.

“If I can make a game, stick it on a web page, stick it on my iPhone, and then stick it wherever else Flash decides to go, then I am most certainly going to find it much more lucrative,” Cooney said.

Oled's shrink the projector, and the headset

2009-10-12T16:48:00.000-07:00

Oled's shrink the projector, and the headset

A German research institute with ties to Boston is bringing the space and energy savings and the brilliant color of OLED to augmented reality applications and boardroom projectors.Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems recently produced a prototype projector about the size of a “Star Trek’’ communicator that can connect to computers and the Internet via a wireless device Fraunhofer is referring to as a MediaBox.

The micro-display projector uses OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology, which can be used to generate brilliant color images with less energy and can be mounted on curved surfaces, such as eyeglass lenses. (Conventional optics, many headset makers concede, are nearing their limits for weight and size. OLED might be the technology to continue the scaling-down process.)
Fraunhofer says its micro-display project, called HYPOLED (www.hypoled.org) will lead to devices that can stream MPEG videos and incorporate lightweight optics and electronics.
The institute is also pitching HYPOLED as a breakthrough technology for head-mounted displays - to be used in augmented reality applications, such as Wikitude and Layar.
The micro-displays will yield millions of colors at VGA resolution and be within reach of most consumers, Fraunhofer predicts.

Fraunhofer, which has been dotting the globe with research facilities in recent years, will soon be performing some of its light wizardry in Cambridge. The institute said last week that it was opening a photonics lab at MIT, where researchers will work on new solar energy technologies.

Audio
Headphones that will dent your walletAs fall takes hold, I’m coming to realize those earbuds I’ve been wearing are not going to cut it against biting winds and the screeching Red Line trolleys I hear turning around at Mattapan Square, more than a mile from my Milton home.

My Sennheiser cans might do the trick - they resemble the all-ear-encompassing pair John Travolta wore in “Blow Out.’’ But those studio headphones are awfully painful to wear after a while, and their long, coiled cord makes me look as if I just escaped from a radio station. (And besides, there is something not quite right, to my mind, about wearing headphones that are bigger than your media player.)

If I were in the market for a new pair, I would be looking hard at those from the German manufacturer Ultrasone (www.ultrasone.com).

I might also have some explaining to do to my wife, Lisa, once the bill rolled in. At about $330, Ultrasone’s latest headphone, the HFI-2400, is in the middle range for headphones aimed at connoisseur listeners.

The HFI-2400 has open-backed cups with electromagnetic shielding (to guard against radiation from the pair’s electronics) to protect your brain.

The HFI-2400 also includes technology that reduces air pressure changes that might harm your eardrums, according to Ultrasone.
It folds into a slim velvet carrying case.

The HFI-2400 cans come in black and silver and have gorgeous aluminum nameplates. The headphone’s looks, and German pedigree, help account for the HFI-2400’s heavy price tag.
The HFI-2400 comes with a 3-meter straight cable, which is removable. The headphones will be available in the States this month or next, according to Ultrasone

Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement

2009-10-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement

Across the nation many schools are developing and implementing technology into the classrooms to enhance student academic achievement. There are many different types of technology that can be used to support and enhance learning. The types of technology used in the classroom can range from the basic tool-based computer applications such as word processing to online research and distance learning on the internet. By using technology in the classroom, teachers find themselves as being facilitators and coaches and less as lecturers. The students take ownership of their own learning skills and become more as explorers and increase their thinking skills. Technology can be used as a tutor (drill-and-practice software, and computer-assisted instruction), as the means to explore (network search tools), as a tool to create, compose, analyze data and store information to promote organizational skills (spreadsheets and databases) and finally the means to converse with others to promote communication skills (e-mail, distance learning interaction). Technology in the classroom tends to allow students to collaborate, therefore provides a positive effect on student achievement

Double DIN DVD Player - 7.0 Inch Touchscreen TFT LCD

2009-10-11T16:56:00.000-07:00

Double DIN DVD Player - 7.0 Inch Touchscreen TFT LCD

2-DIN Car DVD player and entertainment center with extra large 7 Inch screen. This unit features a wide compatibility of disc and digital media formats as well as a frontside USB port and touch screen for easy control. Other excellent features included a built in TV tuner, SD card reader, a CDC port, and rear view camera input.

Combining an excellent design, the latest in entertainment technology, and high performance components, this car multimedia center is a great upgrade for any vehicle (especially if you are on the road a lot). A great wholesale price makes this unit perfect for the resale market, VAR market, or simple personal use. As always, it is only available from your source for wholesale direct from China electronic products, Chinavasion.

At a Glance...
Car touchscreen DVD + multimedia player with beautiful 7 inch display. Analog TV tuner has a whopping 4 antenna IN connections USB port is a great way to hook up your portable media player with your car entertainment center

Green Shoots from Brown Fields

2009-10-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

Green Shoots from Brown Fields

When the Bethlehem Steel mill in Lackawanna, N.Y., finally shut its doors for good eight years ago, it took away thousands of jobs and left behind a polluted and unsightly mess.

But in 2006, while the idle grain elevators and coke ovens sat rusting on the banks of Lake Erie, something unexpected happened. Wind turbines began springing up on a 30-acres section of the former Superfund site in this Buffalo suburb.

Today, the eight turbines at the Steel Wind project crank out enough clean, green electricity to power more than 6,000 homes in western New York, and the 400-foot-tall windmills have become a visual landmark. First Wind, the Newton, Mass.–based company that operates the wind farm with BQ Energy, plans to install six more windmills at the site.

Lackawanna is glad the turbines are there. "We embrace this project wholeheartedly," said Ralph Miranda, the city's director of development. Steel Wind is one of the first, but President Obama and Congress are pushing to identify thousands of contaminated landfills and abandoned mines that could be repurposed to house wind farms, solar arrays and geothermal power plants.
Renewable energy is one of the fastest growing sectors of the U.S. economy, with the Energy Information Administration predicting 70 percent growth over the next two decades. But even with that expansion, renewable supplies will provide only a sliver--roughly 5 percent--of the nation's energy needs by 2030, according to the EIA.

Using already disturbed lands would help avoid conflicts between renewable energy developers and environmental groups concerned about impacts to wildlife habitat. These conflicts have stalled some high-profile projects despite the fact that renewable energy sources do not produce heat-trapping emissions of carbon dioxides, the primary greenhouse gas driving global warming.
Known as "brownfields," old industrial sites and landfills that have been cleaned to a certain standard, often languish for years waiting redevelopment. Most are already connected to the electric power grid, eliminating the need to build miles of costly transmission lines across pristine lands to bring the power to market.

"In the next decade there's going to be a lot of renewable energy built, and all that has to go somewhere," said Jessica Goad, an energy and climate change policy fellow for The Wilderness Society. "We don't want to see these industrial facilities placed on land that's pristine. We love the idea of brownfields for renewable energy development because it relieves the (development) pressure on undisturbed places."

There are many contaminated sites nationwide to choose from. The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have identified nearly 4,100 contaminated sites deemed economically suitable for wind and solar power development, as well as biomass. Similar maps are expected to be released this month for contaminated sites with geothermal-power potential.

Included in the 4,100 sites are five million acres suitable for photovoltaic or concentrated solar power development, and 500,000 acres for wind power.

These sites, if fully developed, have the potential to produce 950,000 megawatts--more than the country's total power needs in 2007, according to EPA data.

"The potential is pretty amazing," said Pam Swingle, an environmental scientist with the EPA's RE-Powering America's Lands initiative, which was formed last year to coordinate federal efforts to encourage the use of contaminated sites for renewable energy.

Obama's Nuclear Arms Agenda Helps Him Win 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-10T16:08:00.000-07:00

Obama's Nuclear Arms Agenda Helps Him Win 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

U.S. President Barack Obama's efforts advocating for a world without nuclear weapons, as well as his support for international diplomacy and institutions such as the United Nations, have earned him the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced today.

"The Committee attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons," according to a committee press release issued Friday morning. "The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations."

In April, President Obama told a crowd of 20,000 in Prague that the U.S. had a "moral responsibility" to take the lead in ridding the world of nuclear weapons. He also noted in that speech, "Today, the Cold War has disappeared but thousands of those weapons have not. In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up."

The committee chose Obama to send a clear signal to the world that it want to advocate for international diplomacy, strengthen international institutions and work for a world without nuclear arms, Norwegian Nobel Committee President Thorbjørn Jagland said at the press conference to announce the Peace Prize winner. Jagland, who is also secretary general of the Council of Europe, added that the committee hopes the award will "enhance a little bit" Obama's peace efforts.

When a laptop’s too much, try a netbook

2009-10-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

When a laptop’s too much, try netbook

Netbooks are all the rage these days. For half the price of a regular laptop, you can buy an ultra portable, ultra small netbook that does the job nicely.

A netbook is marked by its small size and lower power requirements. They are aptly named. They’re great for surfing the Web, typing documents, and checking e-mail, but you’re not going to play any modern computer games or edit video on one. Netbooks also don’t usually come with optical drives like a CD- or DVD-ROM.

The Globe tested three of the latest netbooks and found varying results. We tested the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 for $349, the Lenovo IdeaPad S12 for $449, and the Asus Eee PC 1000HE at $399.

The first thing we noticed about all three netbooks is that they run Windows XP and not the newer Windows Vista. The Dell model comes in Windows XP by default, but you can also get it with Ubuntu, a form of the Linux operating system. Netbooks, by design, are not as powerful as regular laptops and are much less powerful than desktop computers. Windows XP and Linux are both faster and better choices than the more robust Vista.

Our favorite, by far, was the Asus Eee PC 1000HE. On the downside, it has a very low-resolution screen, but it gets more than nine hours of battery life. That alone makes it amazingly attractive. You can work all day without stopping to plug in.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S12 comes in second. It’s bigger than most netbooks, with a 12-inch screen and about half the battery life. It also has a bigger keyboard, which is much more comfortable. Netbooks have smaller-than-normal keyboards, which can be frustrating for those with big hands.

The IdeaPad’s bigger screen is easy on the eyes, and the keyboard is easier on the fingers, but its size almost goes against the point of buying a netbook. It’s also the most expensive of the group.

The Dell has a glossy screen and some radical features like a TV tuner with HD-antenna and a high-definition video port. Both features are great, but the Inspiron Mini has only about three hours of battery life from its 3-cell battery. That’s less than some conventional laptops. That’s a deal-breaker, plain and simple.

Dell does have an optional 6-cell battery: You can add it to your order for $30 more when you’re buying the laptop or purchase it separately for $150. We highly recommend the $30 upgrade. The 6-cell battery will be well worth it.

“The rule of thumb is, if you added the 6-cell battery to the system, it would double the battery,’’ said Anne Camden a Dell spokeswoman.

The Asus runs for more than nine hours, and the Lenovo has a 6-cell battery. Even without something as fun as television on the go, we’d rather have the battery life.

Our ChoiceASUS EEE PC 1000HE $399Pros: The Eee PC has more than nine hours of battery life.Cons: The screen resolution is very small, which limits your ability to multitask and may mess up some Web pages.The final word: You won’t complain much about the screen when the computer is still powered up at 5 p.m. after the workday is done.

DELL INSPIRON MINI 10$349Pros: The Inspiron is inexpensive and has a crisp, vibrant display, an on-board TV tuner, and an HDMI port.Cons: It’s designed for three hours of battery life, which goes against the spirit of buying a netbook.The final word: The battery is a deal-breaker in this relationship. We highly recommend upgrading for $30 to the optional 6-cell battery.

LENOVO IDEAPAD S12 $449Pros: The IdeaPad has a sharp screen and very comfortable keyboard. Battery life is average for a netbook, even with a bigger-than-normal screen to power.Cons: It’s a little big for a netbook. It’s also the most expensive on the list.The final word: It’s up to you. If you want a slightly larger netbook that’s easier on the eyes and hands, look here.

Nikon is projector and camera in one

2009-10-09T16:43:00.000-07:00

Nikon is projector and camera in one

My wife takes pictures of everything. Then she immediately shoves her camera under my nose to demand I admire the digital view. Drives me nuts.

So she can forget about getting the new Nikon Coolpix camera for Christmas. According to Nikon, the Coolpix S1000pj is the first camera to include a built-in video projector. Touch a button and the camera will fling your snapshots or videos onto any nearby wall, ceiling, or floor. Now it is easy to show your photos to an entire roomful of viewers as apathetic as I am.

The Coolpix S1000pj is the latest entry in the “pico projector’’ market. These are pocket-sized devices that use lasers or miniature liquid crystal displays to project small, but useful, images onto any handy surface. Pico projectors began showing up a couple of years ago, but are only now coming into their own. They sell for as little as $225, and can be connected to a variety of video storage gadgets, from laptop computers to iPhones.

It makes sense to build a pico projector into a cellphone, where it can show off images stored in the phone’s onboard memory. South Korea’s Samsung has done this, but the resulting phone, called the Show, has not gone on sale on this side of the Pacific. Nikon’s Coolpix is a shrewd application of the same idea, but in a camera. According to the Photo Marketing Association, about 40 percent of Americans keep their favorite pictures in their digital cameras, using the device as an electronic photo album. So why not make it easy to share?

The Coolpix, $429 at Amazon.com, has more going for it than the projector. It features 12.1 megapixel resolution - which keeps images sharp even when they’re blown up and beamed against a wall - and a 5X optical zoom lens. It also shoots standard-definition video, which you can feed directly from the camera into your home TV set. Nikon tosses in a little remote control, so you can enjoy the show from a distance.

The camera comes with a CD full of software for installing on a PC or Mac. Fair enough, but I keep hoping that all digital gadgets will eventually put their software right inside the device, like Flip video cameras do. Then you could just plug in the camera and it would set up with minimal fuss. Bring it on, Nikon.

It is the camera’s projector that sets it apart. Mounted right below the flash unit, it throws out a surprisingly bright beam of light. It can be placed up to 6 feet from the target surface, and will display an image over 3 feet across. A slider button on top lets you sharpen the focus. You can aim it at the wall with your hands while working the controls, but Nikon supplies a little plastic stand so you can rest the camera on a table. Then you can run the show using the remote control.

So how does it look? Not bad. Images are viewable even in a well-lit room, and much better if you lower the lights. You can place the camera 6 feet from the wall, but I found the best results at around 4 feet. At that distance, the projected photos were still reasonably colorful, with tolerable contrast. To be sure, the projected images did not look nearly as good as they did on the camera’s 2.7-inch LCD display screen. But the results are quite good enough for showing off to friends and family.

Nikon calls the S1000pj “your personal theater on the go,’’ but not quite. I tried installing an AVI video file from my home computer and viewing it on the camera. No dice. Nikon officials told me that the device will only show videos that were created on the camera, so forget about using it to watch any other movies. And beware of the rechargeable battery. The projector drains it fast, especially if you’re also shooting photos and videos.

As someone who prefers to view digital photos on a computer screen, I regard Nikon’s in-camera projector as a nifty but inessential gimmick. It is not nearly as useful as built-in Wi-Fi or cellular networking for transmitting photos directly to the Internet. But then, I do not feel a desperate urge to show everybody the photo I took 15 seconds earlier. Maybe someone at Nikon knows my wife.

Trio wins chemistry Nobel for solving ribosome riddle

2009-10-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

Trio wins chemistry Nobel for solving ribosome riddle

Three scientists who produced atom-by-atom maps of the mysterious, life-giving ribosome won the Nobel chemistry prize on Wednesday for a breakthrough that has allowed researchers to develop powerful new antibiotics.While DNA molecules contain the blueprint for life inside each cell of every organism, it is the ribosome that translates that information into life.

Israeli Ada Yonath and Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz shared the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.4 million) prize for showing how the ribosome, a kind of protein factory, operates at the atomic level.

"As ribosomes are crucial to life, they are also a major target for new antibiotics," the Nobel Committee for Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

The academy said many of today's antibiotics cure various diseases by blocking the function of bacterial ribosomes.

Yonath, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, told a news conference by telephone that she was elated to receive the award: "It is above and beyond my dreams."
A method known as X-ray crystallography was used to pinpoint each of the hundreds of thousands of atoms in a ribosome.

The technique involves aiming X-rays at a crystal. The rays scatter when they hit atoms and by looking at how they spread out, scientists can determine where atoms are positioned.
Yonath made the initial breakthrough at the end of the 1970s when she first tried the method on the ribosome -- a feat most considered impossible.

LIFE IN THE DEAD SEA
Yonath started by taking a micro-organism found in the nearby Dead Sea and crystallizing its ribosomes. She did this by freezing them at nearly minus 200 degrees Celsius.

Jeremy Berg, director of the U.S. National Institute of General Medical Sciences which funded the work of all three researchers, said he was amazed at how intrepid Yonath was.

"I remember at the time being just completely stunned that she was somewhere between brave enough and crazy enough because it was way, way, way beyond the technology available at that point," he told Reuters.

But it would take another 20 years before a full map could be made. During that time, two others joined the race: Yale University's Steitz and Indian-born Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Britain.

In 1998, Steitz published the first crystal structure of a large part of a ribosome, something that looked like a dim photograph. The three scientists reached the finish line almost simultaneously in 2000, publishing crystal structures that were sharply enough defined to locate atoms.

Steitz, whose PhD advisor William Lipscomb captured the 1976 prize for chemistry, told Reuters by phone from his office in Connecticut that he received a "nice wake-up call" at 5:30 a.m. "I'm very excited of course," he said. "It's so nice to be appreciated."

Steitz now wants to go beyond still images of the ribosome. He is trying to make a movie to capture every step of the process. Asked whether the award will change his life, he said he expected it would. "But it won't change what I want to do."

Ramakrishnan paid tribute to those who worked beside him.
"I have to say that I am deeply indebted to all of the brilliant associates, students and post docs who worked in my lab as science is a highly collaborative enterprise," he said in a statement.

VAST POTENTIAL
Scientists use ribosome models to develop antibiotics that can fight harmful bacteria, but many believe researchers have only just begun to tap into the potential these models offer.

"Fifty percent of all antibiotics target the ribosome, and now we have the tools to begin looking at if there are other substances we can fit into different slots to block and disturb bacteria in our bodies," said Peter Brezinski, a member of the chemistry panel at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

Prizes for the sciences and for peace were established in the will of 19th century dynamite tycoon Alfred Nobel and have been handed out since 1901. Sweden's central bank began awarding a prize for economics in 1969.

Wednesday's award was the second protein-related prize in a row. Last year's chemistry Nobel went to researchers for the discovery of a glowing jellyfish protein that makes cells, tissues and even organs light up.

Previous winners have included Marie Curie, who won the 1911 prize and is remembered for her contribution to the fight against cancer, and Frederick Sanger, who won the 1958 prize for his work on the structure of proteins, especially insulin.

Scientists Measure The Rate Of Ascent Of Volcanic Magma

2009-10-08T15:48:00.000-07:00

Scientists Measure The Rate Of Ascent Of Volcanic Magma

Professor Donald Dingwell of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, together with Professor Jonathan Castro of the University of Orléans in France, has now been able experimentally to measure the speed with which molten rock rises during a Plinian eruption. The two scientists studied rocks that erupted from the volcano Chaitén in Southern Chile in May 2008. Their experimental analyses revealed that the magma must have ascended from the interior of the volcano to the surface within a period of only four hours. These results raise the disturbing prospect that it may not be practically possible to give adequate warning and carry out orderly evacuation procedures prior to this type of eruption.

The first description of a highly explosive volcanic eruption dates from the year 79 AD. In that year, the Roman author Pliny the Younger observed the famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which buried the city of Pompeii under enormous amounts of ash and pumice. Pliny's description led later students of volcanology to name eruptions of this type after him. Plinian volcanoes are characterized by long periods of quiescence, during which they show very little activity.

Moreover, the rare eruptions are preceded by quite short bursts of tectonic activity, signalled only by minor earth tremors and increased emission of gas. During the build-up that precedes the eruption itself, magma rises to the surface within a very brief interval, and is expelled from the volcano at high pressure in a huge explosion.

More than a dozen Plinian volcanoes are found in the Andes of South America, yet scientists observed a typical Plinian eruption there only last year. On May 2nd 2008, the volcano Chaitén in Southern Chile suddenly began to spew large quantities of ash and rock fragments into the air. The erupted material eventually gave rise to an ash plume some 20 km high. The town of Chaitén, 10 km away, was covered by a layer of ash several centimeters thick and had to be evacuated. "This eruption was particularly noteworthy, because the volcano had been quiescent for over 9000 years", says Professor Donald Dingwell, Director of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at LMU Munich. "The best estimates suggest that the last eruption took place in the year 7240 BC."

Together with the Jonathan Castro from the University of Orléans in France, Dingwell has now been able to calculate the velocity with which the volcanic material must have risen within the magma chamber. The researchers collected samples of pumice from the eruption debris, and these were then subjected to a series of laboratory analyses in Munich, while being heated to a temperature of 825 degrees centigrade at high pressure. After a certain time under these conditions, characteristic crystalline margins begin to develop around the feldspar crystals in the pumice. Dingwell and Castro systematically varied the temperature and pressure, and measured the time it took for these crystalline margins to grow. "The interesting thing is that we found none of these crystalline margins in the natural samples themselves", reports Dingwell. "From that we can conclude that the material must have risen so quickly that there was no time for them to form."

The researchers were surprised by the results of their analyses. Their calculations suggested that the rock fragments they had collected had ascended from the earth's interior to the crater floor in less than four hours. To accomplish this, the material must have risen at a rate of about one meter per second. "This figure is very disturbing, because it implies that a Plinian eruption can develop with astonishing speed", Dingwell points out. "In such a case, it would be well nigh impossible to give adequate warning of an impending eruption, in particular if the period of activity preceding it also happened to be very short." This was precisely what happened at Chaitén. The inhabitants of the town felt the first perceptible earthquakes on the evening of April 30th. The first ashfall arrived on the next day, and on May 2nd there was a violent eruption, followed by the appearance of a huge cloud of ash over the mountain.

"The problem with such short periods of heightened activity is that they may, but do not necessarily, forecast an eruption", explains Dingwell. "In the case of Chaitén we knew that we were dealing with a highly explosive volcano. What we did not know was what kind of activity would give notice of an impending eruption." Normally, patterns of volcanic activity are observed only locally, for instance by geophysicists who measure seismic waves, or by geochemists who analyse the gases emitted in the vicinity of a volcano. "Our study is something entirely new and complements the local observations by using a well-founded experimental and theoretical approach", says Dingwell.

"In our view, this will become an important option in future investigations of the behaviour of volcanoes."

China Adds a Feature to Phones: Patriotism

2009-10-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

China Adds a Feature to Phones: Patriotism

BEIJING — Just in case residents of this capital are not feeling sufficiently nationalistic ahead of National Day, the state-controlled mobile service company has changed its customers’ cellphone ring-back tones to a patriotic song.

“It’s a gift,” said a customer service representative at China Mobile when asked about the switch it made Monday.

A ring-back tone is what a caller hears once a number is dialed but before the other party picks up. The standard tone is a repetitive ring.

But some cellphone users customize their ring-back tones — just as they customize their ring tones — with favorite songs.

Many Beijing customers who use the standard tone discovered Monday that China Mobile had a surprise for them: Callers heard “Guojia,” or “Country” — a patriotic tune sung by the actor Jackie Chan and a female vocalist.

The lyrics include the following lines: “A country stands up in the world,” “Only when we have a strong country can we have a prosperous family,” and “Country is glorious perseverance.”
A performance of the song is planned for the celebration on Thursday of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

The company’s representative said any customer who did not like the tune could switch to other options at no cost by following instructions on its Web site. She said she did not know how long the song would continue to play otherwise.
The cellular provider, China’s biggest, is far from alone in trying to add its own flourish to the commemoration of 60 years of Communist rule.

Numerous companies have changed the background colors of their Web sites to red and yellow, the colors in the Chinese flag.
But Hu Xingdou, a reform-minded economics professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, said China Mobile went overboard in tinkering with its customers’ phones.

“The current efforts to instill ideology makes me feel that the authorities consider ordinary Chinese people to be unpatriotic or even mentally challenged,” he said. “So they enforce this patriotic education on people.”

Parental Guidance on Web Video for Children

2009-10-07T16:47:00.000-07:00

Parental Guidance on Web Video for Children

Finding video these days that will hold a child’s attention is far easier than turning a dial. One or two carefully chosen keywords, like “moonwalking,” can give your child a moonwalking tutorial, or “rubber ducky,” for a dose of Ernie’s classic Sesame Street serenade.

For parents who grew up with only a few television channels, the idea of turning a curious child loose with such a vast amount of content can produce a fair amount of anxiety. YouTube has a policy banning children under 13 in its fine print. “YouTube is for teens and adults, not children.” said Scott Rubin, a YouTube spokesman.

Yet, according to Nielsen VideoCensus, more children under 13 watched videos in August on YouTube than on Disney.com, Nick.com and Cartoon Network combined. There is also no shortage of children’s content on YouTube. KidZui.com, a subscription-based Web portal service, lists no fewer than 60,000 child-friendly selections on its site.

Parents and teachers are discovering YouTube’s potential for exposing children to new ideas. Children can learn how to carve a pumpkin or improve their sketching skills. But it can just as easily expose them to videos of births, surgeries, corpses and executions — all things conscientious parents might prefer their children discover at a later age.

In my own town of Flemington, N.J., it is easy to find plenty of YouTube-using children and cautious parents. When they are not playing on their Wii, the Liebowitz children, Seth, 5, and Asa, 7, like looking up videos of homemade skits involving Webkinz, the virtual reality toys, by typing in “Webkinz idol.” They giggle at the elaborate Evian commercial featuring roller skating babies (warning: you will giggle, too). None of the parents I interviewed felt completely safe giving their children free rein on YouTube, however. “I’ve done my own searches on the topics they look for, just to be sure,” said Brooke Liebowitz. “Plus, I’m always in the next room.”
They also were not aware of YouTube’s customization features, intended to filter content or offer prescreened selections to their children. Here’s a tour of how to make the most of the service’s safety features.

ACTIVATE YOUTUBE’S FILTER While salty language and edgy humor and are commonplace on YouTube, explicit content is rare. Still, it is smart to test the waters with a few of your child’s favorite search terms, just to make sure you are comfortable with what shows up.

Make sure you scroll down to the comments, which is usually where offensive vocabulary appears. You can bleep out these comments automatically. Look at the top of the text comments column, and choose options. This leads to a set of preferences that includes “hide objectionable words.” Once clicked, it will replace offending words with rows of asterisks, before your child sees them. Your preferences will remain in place as long as you use the same browser.

UPLOAD YOUR OWN VIDEO As a YouTube content provider, you quickly learn what you can and can’t do. This experience will help you and is an effective way to better understand how the process works.

BE A HALL MONITOR Notice some nasty content? YouTube makes tattling easy. When you are on the site, look for the word flag below every video. Give it a click, and you can send the video to the YouTube screeners.

This self-cleansing process can help keep bad surprises away from other people’s children, but it obviously isn’t perfect. YouTube’s Advance Search options also include the ability to prevent videos that have been tagged as explicit by the screeners, like news film of a suicide bombing, for example, from showing up in your child’s search results in the first place. For more details, explore the links at the bottom of the home page, including the YouTube safety center
KEEP UP WITH TRENDS To stay abreast of the bus stop conversation, you can use YouTube’s counters to keep up with the most-viewed videos. Here’s how.

From the home page, click videos, and then most viewed, and then look for the word “when” and select a time option. You’ll see that “Evolution of Dance,” a comedy routine in which Judson Laipply demonstrates various dance moves, has more than 127 million views.

Other high-ranking videos of interest to your children include Potter Puppet Pals — puppet versions of Harry Potter characters — in “The Mysterious Ticking Noise” (69 million views) and Animation vs. Animator, a stick-figure cartoon (almost five million views).

Be just as aware of options outside YouTube. Sources of streaming video content for children continue to grow beyond YouTube’s servers. TV Guide’s Web site lists almost 900 full episodes of online children’s programs. Sources include Comcast’s Kabillion (kabillion.com/videos/) and Hulu (hulu.com/channels/Family/Kids).

LEAVE THE SORTING TO PROS A growing number of sites are powered by YouTube, but operate independently. Two of the best are ZuiTube.com, with a library of 60,000 videos, and the Totlol.com, a Canadian site that can be customized by age. Both are free, with subscription options. Another, called Kideos.com, offers fewer choices, but a cleaner interface.

GET YOUTUBE’S CHANNELS Besides steering your child toward preselected, high-interest videos, you can create an activity feed, which is a running list of the latest action on any channel you have subscribed to. Because your channel can be embedded outside of YouTube — in blogs, Facebook pages or Twitter — news of fresh video uploads can spread faster.

To find channels, start with something your child is passionate about. Animals? Try your local zoo’s page. Here’s the Houston Zoo channel: youtube.com/user/houstonzoo. Cartoon lovers can watch episodes like Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh at the 4Kids channel youtube.com/user/4KidsTV.
SHOW CHILDREN HOW TO VOTE At its heart, YouTube is a popularity contest, and your child can be the critic, writing informed reviews, posting ratings and choosing who deserves a subscription.

In addition, he or she can start to collect and share favorite videos by making playlists, which differ from YouTube Channels because they can contain videos from a variety of places. To learn how to make a playlist, such as one on train lore, you can watch a video (on YouTube, naturally) at bit.ly/12flaY.

LET THEM WRITE Offering a review includes writing, which has little value unless someone else can read it. Teachers call this authentic publishing, and YouTube is a gold mine of opportunity for sharpening spelling and editing. It can even build acting skills, as children make homework projects like a third grader’s video tour of Des Moines at bit.ly/3aZumM.

Letting a child stumble at random into something as vast as YouTube can be akin to letting them explore a public park unsupervised. It can be enlightening, but it’s wise to stay a few steps ahead of your child’s curiosity and make discoveries together. Consider it an essential parenting skill for the 21st century.