Remote control Airsoft gun MacGyvered out of Wiimote

What do you think about Wiimote-controlled airsoft gun? As we see on Engadget feed says:

It’s the weekend, folks, and you know what that means — time to blow off a little steam. By way of example, the folks that brought us that Wiimote coil gun a while back have returned to the scene with a little something they like to call OfficeDefender. Using the very same servo and ioBridge module as the last time, this hack finds the gun replaced with a Beretta 9mm replica airsoft gun. Also note the nice use of Construx in a non-beer or iPhone related context. If that weren’t enough, this bad boy has a full-auto mode, moves 180 degrees horizontally, can be sighted with the head-mounted webcam and fired via Wiimote. More on Remote control airsoft gun MacGyvered out of Wiimote, ioBridge, and Construx.

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OQO Rumor: Expansys Pulls New Model Off Web Site

jkOnTheRun feed posted: “The title of the smallest full-featured Windows PC is still held by OQO, the tiny pocketable computer that has been around for a few years. I spent a good half hour with the newly announced Model 02+ early this year, the latest model that OQO was getting ready for release. That new model has not hit the market yet and rumors flying around a major OQO enthusiast web site have me wondering if it will ever be released.” More on OQO Rumored to Be Looking for Buyer: Expansys Pulls New Model Off Web Site.

Engadget feed posted: Oh no, OQO. According to some chatter on the OQOTALK forums, the company’s in dire financial straits and is looking to sell, and that the Model 2+ may be the last OQO device made, if it ever gets released. More worrisome, European retailer eXpansys is reportedly canceling orders for the MID and removing all the company’s products from the site, due to what it’s telling customers is “uncertainties to stock availability.” Ouch. Whatever’s going on, right now it’s not sounding too good — guess that Model 2+ Lie to Me cameo wasn’t enough to rile up overwhelming support. More on OQO looking for buyer, Model 2+ future in limbo?

source : hottestelectronicgadgets.co.uk
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Nokia Rolls Out E52 Smartphone

Nokia released another device in its E Series line of smartphones, and the E52 is aimed at corporate professionals who need to stay connected while on the go.

Unlike smartphones such as the E71x, the E52 lacks a full QWERTY keyboard and opts for a traditional nine-key input method. The E52 has a sleek and slim design with a metallic finish, as well as a 2.4-inch screen that has a 240-by-320-pixel resolution.

The lack of a full keyboard doesn't mean the E52 is a messaging slouch, though, as it can receive corporate e-mail from Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes accounts. Additionally, the Symbian-powered handset will come packed with Nokia Messaging, which gives users free push e-mail from the likes of Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, and other ISP or Web-based accounts.

To stay connected, the E52 has EDGE, Wi-Fi, and 3G connectivity that's capable of getting 10.2-Mbps downlink speed. The handset also has a GPS chip that can be used with cellular data for assisted GPS services such as location-based searches and navigation features.

Nokia's smartphone is also a capable media player, as it can play multiple types of video and audio files. It also packs a 3.2-megapixel camera with an LED flash, Bluetooth 2.0, an FM radio, and expandable memory via a MicroSD slot.

The handset boasts an impressive eight hours of talk time, and Nokia said it can get up to 23 days of standby time. The E52 will ship in the second half of the year, priced about $325 before taxes and subsidies. It's likely to ship in major European markets first, and then expand to other regions.

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HUBBLE'S NEW SUPERPOWERS

When astronauts from the shuttle Atlantis open up the Hubble Space Telescope for its final extreme makeover, much of the work will be aimed at fixing what's been ailing the world's premier orbiting observatory. It'll get fresh batteries and brand-new gyros, and if all goes well, Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph will be back in full working order for the first time in years.

But this is not just a fix-up mission. Two new instruments are due to be swapped into the mix, and those enhancements should give Hubble superpowers it never had before: for example, three-in-one vision that spans the spectrum from ultraviolet to infrared, and the ability to make out the cosmic cobwebs that stretch out between galaxies.

"We're all looking forward to seeing how well the new installations and the instrument repairs go," Ken Sembach, Hubble project scientist at the Baltimore-based Space Telescope Science Institute, told me this week. "We're looking forward to an improved Hubble."

The new instruments, known as the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3, or "Wiff-see-three") and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (or COS), should open the way for new wonders and speed up the pace of discovery during Hubble's final five years. They're designed to complement the two instruments being repaired - or replace them in case they can't be fixed.
Here's a quick guide to Hubble's future superpowers and how they'll mesh with the space telescope's pre-existing capabilities:


WFC3: Superman's three-in-one vision
The $75 million Wide Field Camera 3's superpowers have their roots in its enhanced sensitivity in wavelengths ranging from the ultraviolet part of the electromagnetic spectrum, through visible wavelengths and into the infrared.

"This camera basically is doing the work of two or even three cameras, if you think about the previous generations of instruments," Sembach said. He said its sensitivity to infrared light is 10 to 30 times that of Hubble's old workhorse for those wavelengths, the now-dormant Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer, a.k.a. NICMOS.

WFC3 takes full advantage of manufacturing standards that just weren't available for earlier instruments - such as the camera it's replacing, the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2, or "Wiff-pic-two"). During image processing, engineers usually have to work around the small blemishes caused by imperfections in the camera detectors, but with WFC3, "we can remove almost all of those to very high precision," Sembach said.

Once the camera gets to work, you can expect bunches of eye-popping, color-enhanced images that combine ultraviolet, visible-light and infrared data. "One of the real drivers behind this camera, scientifically, was really wanting to understand what's going on in star-forming regions," Sembach explained.

The infrared detectors can pick up the light that filters through warm clouds of interstellar dust, while the ultraviolet/visible light detectors can spot the hot blue stars that are just crackling into existence. "You can start to build up a more complete picture of how these stars are forming, and how they're interacting," Sembach said.

To get an idea how observations from multiple wavelengths can be put together, check out the Hubble/Spitzer/GALEX image of the galaxy M81, and the Chandra/Hubble/Spitzer/GALEX view of the galaxy M51.

WFC3 also is equipped with "grisms" - grating-equipped prisms that can analyze the spectral signature of light and determine how distant a celestial object is, based on its redshift.

"One of the other things that WFC3 was really designed for is to look back at earlier times of the universe and pick out really red things, as a precursor to what we'll be doing with the James Webb Space Telescope in the 2013-2014 time frame," Sembach said. "It's going to be a very interesting time to look at, when galaxies are just first coming together."

The new camera could help Hubble double or triple the rate of discovery for extremely distant supernovae. Those are just the kinds of observations that can help sort out the mysteries surrounding the accelerating expansion of the universe. For more about that and other WFC3 wonders, check out this NASA Web page.


COS: The Flash's speediness for spectroscopy
We've already mentioned how WFC3 can analyze the characteristics of light from distant galaxies to figure out how far away they are. When it comes to ultraviolet wavelengths, the $70 million Cosmic Origins Spectrograph is built to conduct that kind of analysis with far greater sensitivity than WFC3 or the space telescope's other spectrograph could manage.

The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, or STIS, performed a similar duty before it broke down in 2004. But COS is built to handle light far more efficiently. "In STIS, there are many, many bounces before the light gets into the detector. In COS, there's only one bounce. ... You gain a lot just by not absorbing that light," Sembach said.

As a result, COS will be 10 to 30 times more sensitive than STIS was, depending on the brightness of the object you're observing. "If you want to take a spectrum of a star or a quasar or galaxy, what normally would have taken you 10 orbits will just take one orbit," Sembach said.

And when it comes to dimmer objects, COS can do more in two weeks than STIS could do in a year. That opens up whole new vistas in astronomy. Job No. 1 is to chart the ethereal cosmic web that apparently provided the framework for galaxy clusters soon after the universe was born - hence the reference to "Cosmic Origins" in the contraption's name. Learning more about the cosmic web may also tell astronomers more about the mysterious unseen stuff known as dark matter.

"That cosmic webbing can't currently be imaged with Hubble or any other observatory up there," Sembach said. "There's no way to study it other than to observe the light that's processed through it. You're looking for the 'fingerprint' of that stuff on the light, basically."

Eventually, COS' scientists will use hundreds of fingerprint analyses, pointing in all directions into the sky, to build up what they call a "CAT scan of the universe."

But wait ... there's more: COS should be able to track the flow stellar winds and even sample the starlight shining through the atmospheres of alien planets. "For example, you might be able to see whether a planet's atmosphere has hydrogen or carbon or oxygen in it," Sembach said.

COS will be installed in a slot currently taken up by a corrective-optics package known as COSTAR. Spacewalkers installed COSTAR back in 1993 to compensate for Hubble's incorrectly shaped mirror. But now all of Hubble's instruments have their own built-in corrective optics, so COSTAR is no longer needed. It will be brought back down to Earth aboard Atlantis, along with WFPC2.

What's ahead: The League of Extraordinary Instruments
If everything goes right, Hubble will have two cameras, WFC3 (new) and ACS (repaired) ... and two spectrographs, COS (new) and STIS (repaired). Does it sound as if there's some NASA-style redundancy going on? Maybe a little bit. After all, it's by no means certain that ACS and STIS will be repaired.

When it comes to taking pictures of the dusty protoplanetary disks around stars, or even directly imaging planets around other stars, ACS will be the instrument of choice because it has a coronagraph that can block out a star's glare. WFC3, which was designed before ACS went on the fritz in 2007, doesn't have one.

That doesn't mean WFC3 is totally incapable of seeing an extrasolar planet. "If conditions are right, it might be possible to get a direct image with some clever observing techniques," Sembach said. But the example does show that the old instruments can still do some things better than the new ones.

It's the same with STIS: "It's capable of spectroscopy at optical wavelengths, which COS is not," Sembach said. If STIS is returned to working order, it will be the instrument of choice for analyzing alien atmospheres and watching black holes gobble up gas. Generally speaking, COS can gather light more efficiently, but STIS can study areas of the sky in higher resolution.

Having instruments with overlapping capabilities is a good thing, Sembach said: "Being able to do something two different ways provides validation that what you're seeing is correct, or maybe confirmation that it isn't."

Sembach and his colleagues on the Hubble team should find out how much capability they'll have soon after each of the Atlantis crew's five spacewalks. First there'll be an "aliveness test" to make sure all the circuitry is hooked up correctly. If the connections needs tweaking, the job might have to be handled during a later spacewalk. Later, Hubble's engineers will conduct functional tests and calibrate the instruments.

"We'll start interleaving some science observations with the calibration observations sometime in July and August," Sembach said.

Meanwhile, the Hubble team will try to bring NICMOS back online as well. "It relies upon a cooling system that has been off since September of last year, and we've been unable to restart it," Sembach said. "We will try again to restart it this summer."

Look for the first fruits of Hubble's new (and restored) superpowers to be revealed shortly after Labor Day.

Source : cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com
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Your Facebook Relationship Status: It's Complicated

For many people, the manner in which they present themselves on Facebook has come to mirror how they see themselves in real life. Photos broadcast the fun they're having, status updates say what's on their mind and a change in relationship status announces their availability, commitment or something in between.

Of these mini-declarations, relationship status is the only one that directly involves another person. That puts two people in the social-networking mirror, and that, to borrow a Facebook phrase, can make things complicated. (Read "How Not to Be Hated on Facebook")

There are six relationship categories Facebook users can choose from: single, in a relationship, engaged, married, it's complicated, and in an open relationship. (Users can decline to list a status, but Facebook estimates that roughly 60% of its users do, with "single" and "married" the most common statuses.) The first four categories are pretty self-explanatory, but when should you use them? A Jane Austen of Facebook has yet to emerge, let alone a Miss Manners, and no one seems to have a grip on what the social norms ought to be.

"You change your Facebook status when it's official," says Liz Vennum, a 25-year-old secretary living in Chattanooga, Tennessee. "When you're okay with calling the person your girlfriend or boyfriend. Proper breakup etiquette is not to change the status until after you've had the 'we need to talk' talk. Then you race each other home (or back to the iPhone) to be the first to change your status to single."

Not everyone agrees, of course. Some couples are together for years but neglect to announce their coupledom to their social network. "Some moron tried to convince me that [my relationship is] not legitimate because I don't have it on Facebook," says Annie Geitner, a college sophomore who has had the same boyfriend for more than a year. "So that made me even more determined to not to put it up there." Others, like Trevor Babcock, consider the Facebook status a relationship deal-breaker. "I'm not willing to date anyone exclusively unless she feels comfortable going Facebook-public," he says.

One common theme among romantically inclined Facebook users is that there are almost infinite ways for the Facebook relationship status to go awry. There's the significant other who doesn't want to list his or her involvement (causing a rift in the real-world relationship); the accidental change that alerts friends to a nonexistent breakup (causing endless annoyance); but worse than both is when the truth spreads uncontrollably.

Lesley Spoor and Chris Lassiter got engaged the night before Thanksgiving. The couple thought about calling their families immediately, but instead decided to wait a day and surprise everyone at Thanksgiving dinner.

The problem, of course, was Facebook. The morning after the big night, Spoor changed her relationship status. "I got all giddy since I'm old and engaged for the first time," says Spoor of her switch from "in a relationship" to "engaged." "I thought it had to be confirmed by [my fiancé] before it would update, though. Apparently not."

The wife of a guy who went to high school with Spoor's fiancé — a woman Spoor barely knew — was the first to post a congratulatory message on Spoor's Facebook wall. Spoor realized her mistake and deleted the message, but by then it was too late; her future in-laws had seen the message, and the status update, and called to ask what was going on. How do you explain to your family that you told the Internet you just got engaged before you told them? "It caused a huge fight," she says.

But relationship status doesn't have to be a source of confusion and despair. Emily and Michael Weise-King were in complete agreement about their status: they decided to change themselves from "engaged" to "married" in the middle of their February 2009 wedding reception.

"It was after cocktails but before the first course at dinner," says Mrs. Weise-King. Still in their bridal attire, the couple whipped out their iPhones — they'd done a test run ahead of time and determined that they had to use the web browser and not the simple iPhone app — and switched status in front of bemused wedding guests. (They also uploaded a photo.) Throughout the rest of the night, Weise-King would occasionally glance down at her Facebook profile, "the way I'd glance at my ring when I first got engaged." Their status has not changed since.

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10 Ways to Build Traffic to Your Site

Below are some ways to help maximize your site’s traffic.

SELF-PROMOTE
To help secure readers, add a favorites or bookmarks option so visitors can add your Web site to their reading list. Along the same lines, add an “e-mail this” and “share” tab at the bottom of each post. You might also try creating a weekly newsletter that highlights your best content. Blast it out to readers who sign up.

Comment on online forums and blog posts and link to your Web site each time. Make sure your comment adds to the conversation. Do not spam. Also add your blog or Web site to your e-mail signature, Twitter, Facebook and other online accounts. Claim your blog on Technorati and look into submitting content on StumbleUpon and Delicious. Also, create a “lens” or page on Squidoo.

DON’T WAIT ON GOOGLE
Be proactive. Send your site to Google and other search engines. If you rely on them to crawl your content, you may be waiting a long time.

WRITE USEFUL, ORIGINAL CONTENT
This sounds obvious, but it bears mentioning. Attract readers by writing well and regularly. Then keep them interested by continuing to do so. When you’re building a base, try to post new, original content at regular intervals. Use blogging software that lets you set an automatic publishing time so you don’t have to physically get up early in the morning, for example, to manually post your content at that time. Also pay attention to your headlines. Use simple keywords to describe the subject of your posts.
BRING ON GUEST BLOGGERS
Another way to increase traffic is to use an established name to bring the desired traffic to you. Find someone who writes well on your topic and ask them if they’d be willing to contribute to your Web site or blog.

MAXIMIZE TECHNOLOGY
Don’t just rely on text to attract readers. Use video, podcasts, slide shows and other multimedia to create dynamic content.

LINK AND TAG
Link to other sites within your post and ask other blogs to link back to you and add your Web site to their blog rolls. Another option is to submit your site to blog directories.

Use headers, title tags and meta tags to optimize your site for search engines. Use keywords to describe what your Web site is about. Also make sure that your site’s content matches your meta data and other tag phrases. HitTail is one service that helps you home in on key words. Don’t forget about your images. Make sure they, too, are search-engine optimized.

ENGAGE THE READER
Respond directly to e-mail and comments. Even a short mass e-mail message will begin to open a two-way dialogue. Showcase your personality by sharing personal anecdotes where relevant so that you can establish a rapport with your audience. Another option is to conduct a reader survey or poll so you can improve on your site based upon your readers’ preferences. Tracking and analyzing your statistics also helps. You might also try joining a syndication service such as BlogBurst.

PROVIDE AN RSS FEED
Feedburner and FeedDemon are two sites that can set you up with this.

THINK GLOBALLY
Remember, the Internet spans the globe. Even if your Web site is local in nature, it can still attract readers in another country, so don’t limit your base. If you’re able to add language options to your site, all the better.

DON’T FORGET THE OFFLINE WORLD
Sure, the Web is great for spreading the word about your site, but so is in-person communication. Use word of mouth and, if you can afford it, a well-placed print advertisement.

BE PATIENT
Building traffic takes time. Set short-term goals for yourself, but understand that this is a long term process.

What have I missed? What other ways can you get more people to check out your site? Comment away.

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Canon Adds Rebates on D.S.L.R.’s and Lenses

Just in time for Mother’s Day (or whatever shopping excuse works for you), Canon is offering instant rebates of up to $300 on two of its popular D.S.L.R. cameras and up to $500 on a slew of lenses.

Not all retailers are participating in the rebate program, so it will pay to shop around. For instance, Canon has an instant rebate of $200 on a Rebel XSi kit (which includes an 18mm-55mm lens) when purchased with an additional 55mm-250mm IS lens. At B&H Photo, the pair costs $849 with the $200 instant rebate. Without the instant rebate, the bundle will cost you $1,100 at Ritz Camera or $954 purchased separately at Amazon.com.

Canon is also offering $300 off an EOS 50D kit that includes an EF-S 18mm-200mm IS lens, for a total of $1,599.

Instant rebates are available for 18 lenses, some very mainstream and some very specialized (and expensive). Also look for instate rebates on three Speedlite flash units.

Canon says the instant rebates aren’t available everywhere but should be available at many authorized dealers and larger shopping sites. I did a quick survey and found the rebates at B&H Photo, but not Amazon, Best Buy, Buy.com, or Ritz Camera.

You need not be quick on the trigger, however. The instant rebates will be in effect through July 11.


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Firefox Could Be the Real Facebook Challenger

Firefox doesn't keep track of the number of users it has but Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's director of community development, said today that the company estimates that there are 270 million people using the browser. That's 35% more users than Facebook has signed up for accounts (200 million), and almost triple the number of people Facebook says log in to the social network every day (100 million).

Why compare user numbers between a browser and a social network? Because there's every reason to believe that the two technologies are converging in the near term future. Here's why we believe that Firefox should be Facebook's biggest competition.

These numbers from Firefox are pretty conservative. DownloadSquad's Lee Mathews estimates that the real number could be closer to 340 million Firefox users. That's three and a half times the number of people Facebook says log in to its service daily.

This isn't an apples and oranges situation, either.

Though we may not be sure about his prediction that Google will act before Firefox, we think Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang offers a very compelling vision of the future of browsers and social networks in his excellent report The Future of the Social Web.

"... in a bid to extend the reach of its new browser, Chrome, we expect Google to build OpenID and its associated friend connections into the browser; look for Firefox and eventually Internet Explorer to copy this feature. Facebook and MySpace will also likely build a way for users to surf the Web within the Facebook experience, retaining the social functionality. These connections won't be perfect, but they'll allow social networks to colonize communities and other parts of the Web, extending their experience out to other sites through the shared ID. As a result, in two years, portable identities will become a ubiquitous part of the online experience as they reach maturity."

It's only logical to extrapolate from that analysis that the line between browsers and social networks will become much less clear and the two types of software will very likely compete with each other.

The Browser as Social Network, Social Network as Browser

Within months not years, the Firefox browser is likely to look very, very different. The company must be scrambling to innovate even more than we can know, now that its primary source of revenue (Google) has launched its own browser. Both Firefox and Facebook are probably working very hard to figure out new models of generating advertising revenues - something both are dependent on but neither can take for granted.

Three weeks ago we wrote about the organization's plans to build the command-line-type Ubiquity system into the address bar. That means your "apps" will be accessed and controlled through your browser.

If Facebook is looking more and more like an Operating System with its app platform, Firefox is too - with the added advantage of having access to apps on the desktop, the web and integrated Rich Internet Applications. Facebook launched its own desktop interface last week and we would be willing to bet that it is going to become much more browser-like in the near future, but Firefox has a huge running start in that department.

Facebook already has its own frames it uses for links shared through the site, holding the browsing experience inside the Facbook ethos. It's not hard to imagine a search bar being placed inside that frame.

In that same post about Ubiquity in Firefox we also looked at the Firefox user experience team's experimentation with removing the tabs from the browser and replacing them with an interface that looks a lot like iTunes.

Just like iTunes is all about the playlists, organizing content by type and category, Firefox may also start offering ways to organize the information you consume passively by browsing. Two weeks ago we covered proposals by Firefox lead designer Alex Faaborg to capture events, location and other microformatted information and serve it up other applications like Google Earth and calender.

Would Facebook like to build value on top of the data it collects from your browsing around the web? You'd better believe it would, undoubtedly that's a big part of the vision behind the much celebrated Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect requires that users give their permission to Facebook each time they want to connect it and the relative handful of pages that support the Connect login system. Firefox has a huge advantage in that it has de facto permission by users to interact with all the data from all the pages we visit in the browser. Facebook is going to want that too.

Firefox's Faaborg sees the browser as a first-class player in questions of Identity and Data Portability as well (much like Owyang predicts above). All Firefox has to do is start offering messaging between users and a News Feed of user activity across all the social networks people use already. Firefox could use Facebook Connect, for one thing. How well could Facebook compete with social software that prioritizes multiple personas (work/friends seeing different sides of you) and breaks free from the walled gardens of standard social networking? Those are approaches that Facebook will no doubt be moving towards soon as well.

Finally, Firefox is fighting hard in the mobile space. This is one place where Facebook already has a huge leg up. It will be a primary point of competition between the two companies in the future.

Another place where Facebook has a very big advantage is that it has a staff proven very skilled at building fundamentally social software. That's less the case with Firefox, whose developers and developer ecosystem are grounded in a history of the browser as a private affair.

Picture this, though. Add messaging, public profiles and activity streams to Firefox and we can imagine Ashton Kutcher level hype - no problem. Firefox may or may not be able to execute on these types of ideas across all their users, but their odds aren't bad and the browser turning social network already has far more active users than the social network turning browser does.


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Robot and the history

Robot first appeared in 1920, comes from the word 'robota' which in the Czech Republic (Eastern European countries) means that labor. Words that appear in the stage drama Rossum's Universal Robots works of Karel Capek, a Czech.


Then in 1950, Isaac Asimov in his novel 'Robot', the three rules, namely robot, a robot may not mencederai man, must comply with the commands given to man, except when it violates the first rule, and a robot must protect its own existence as a machine must comply with the human.

Along with technology development, various robots are made by specialist or specialty. Robot with a very special distinction closely related to the needs of modern industry in the world. Nowadays they are increasingly demanding such a tool with high ability who can help complete the job or people who do not complete the job is able to be human.


State the most diligent research on the various robot is Japan. In fact, the robot is not a 'new item' for the people of Japan. Robot-Japan is the first robot was created many centuries ago. Of course, not the form that have at this time.

Ranging from robots that can be made in a rice field hose Kaya-no-Miko as a collection of stories told in the century-12, Konjaku Monogatari Shu, to a doll robot karakuri-ningyo developed to the level of high technology and displayed in the form of dolls as entertainment theater and in the festival (until now still shown in the Festival in Takayama Gifu Prefecture).

(Gakutensoku)

Appear in 1927 Japan's first robot that take the technology developed with the West, given the name Gakutensoku. This robot was created by the Kingdom of Showa (aka Hirohito). Have about 3 meters high and can move the head, blinking and smiling. Gakutensoku have actually been built, but again with the computer system and Pneumatic with the new price of Rp. 2 billion. Until now robot technology have been developed in many countries in the world.


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Samsung N310 Stylish Premium Netbook

Samsung will be launch the stylish premium netbook or mini notebook called Samsung N310. As you know Samsung previously already launch the most wantednetbook NC10 because of the large display screen 10-inch.

And now Samsung want to succeed the NC10 with the next generation NC310 powered by Intel Atom processor and 1GB of RAM. Adopting still using 10-inch LCD screen with 160GB of HDD.



Like usual it’s equipped with wifi 802.11, HSDPA and WiBro. Another features of Samsung N310 like 1.3M pixel webcamera, 3 USB 2.0 ports, 3-in-1 multi slot memory card, battery life up to 5-hours and the weight only 1.23kg include battery pack.

The color available in Turkey Blue and Red Orange with price around 900,000 KRW until 1,000,000 KRW.


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From a USB camera with spotter

Thanko, a specialist manufacturer of USB products, this time offering a tie that is equipped with a mini camera that is almost not visible at all. And cable tie is also supplied with a small remote control.



You need Windows XP or Vista to be able to use it. This camera has 4GB of internal memory, enough to save the video with a duration of up to 4 hours (in the form of avi file with resolution 352 x 288 pixels). Thanko claims that the user can record video continuously for 7 to 30 minutes. And the battery takes 2 hours to charge. Tie this in Japan given the price of $ 130US.


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Signs of Life on Mars

Among us may have already asking about the existence of life on the planet Mars. But lately found signs of life, namely the presence of gas metana useful to the process of life
Some researchers believe the unidentified gas metana on the planet Mars is a geological process, but not less menyakini metana that microbes can have, an early sign of life there.

Metana on the planet Mars has been known since 2003. Metana on Earth and Mars at the same bit, as dominated by carbon dioxide. Even in the Mars, 95 percent is carbon dioxide.

Three years criss, a number of researchers successfully identified a number of metana that can be classified based on the season. Areas that contain metana in the Arabia Terra, Nili Fossae and Syrtis Major.

In fact the research is still leaving a mystery that has not been solved up to now, namely, the possibility of the existence of microbes in places that contain many metana it. Such as microbes that can live in their own areas of gold mining in the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa. Where is the natural radioactive molecules split into hydrogen and oxygen molecules.

Microbes using molecular hydrogen produced by the radioactive energy source, so that photosynthesis is not required. This process may be going on in Mars.

so, are you ready to move to the planet Mars? hehe ...


Source: disitu

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Arctic ice more vulnerable than ever

The spring melting of the Arctic Ocean’s ice cap has already begun, and data suggest that the ice is more vulnerable than ever: The ocean area covered by ice is one of the lowest ever measured by satellites, and a record high fraction of that area is capped by thin, first-year ice that’s more prone to melt than older, thicker ice is.

Recent satellite images reveal that for March 2009 an average of 15.16 million square kilometers of Arctic seas were covered by ice, says Walt Meier, a remote sensing analyst at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. That’s only 730,000 km2 more than the record low ice extent measured in the spring of 2006 but about 590,000 km2 — an area slightly smaller than the state of Texas — less than the long-term average, as tallied between 1979 and 2000, he announced during a press teleconference on April 6.

Although in the past year the ice extent has recovered slightly, its average thickness is way down, largely because much of this year’s ice formed just this last winter, Meier adds. While the average proportion of multiyear ice in Arctic seas is about 30 percent, this spring the proportion of ice older than 1 year old is a record low 9.8 percent. The region’s floating ice “is much younger and thinner compared to previous years,” Meier noted.

Thinner ice is more likely to melt over the course of a summer, says Ron Kwok, an analyst at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. While multiyear ice is often three meters or more thick, first-year ice measures only two meters thick or less. In recent years, wind patterns have driven large amounts of multiyear ice from the Arctic Ocean into the North Atlantic, and winter refreezing hasn’t caught up with that ice loss, he commented at the press conference.

Although some small parts of the Arctic were cooler than normal this winter — including the Bering Sea, where ice extent actually increased this year — long-term trends for the entire region show an overall loss of ice, Meier notes. “We’ve lost about one-third of the ice cover that we had in the 1980s,” he says.

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Anticipating Virus, Pentagon Set Fund USD100 million

WASHINGTON - The attack of serious cyber network mengincar the United States government and commercial, get serious attention.

Indeed, the increase of the virtual world through the middle of the country increased by uncle Sam. Therefore, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a fund ready to USD100 million or as much Rp1, 1 trilun.

Later, as the money will be used to strengthen the external network to prevent computer viruses.

"Provençal lot of news that says, if a virus capable of crippling the computer system. In fact, even the military network," said commander of the Pentagon Jhon Davis, as dilansir AFP on Wednesday (8/4/2009).

Davis also added, the money is also used to clean the network in order to prevent any future attacks. Because according to them,? far better to prevent than to repair after the attack.


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Although many resistance Qwerty, Numeric Key Still will last

IN the middle occurrence of the number of mobile phone touch screen and Qwerty keyboard-based mobile phone, the phone keypad numeric behavior is still hard. At least, this is the case in developing countries such as Indonesia. Phone numeric keypad, which spelled out the ancient, and even still dominates mobile phone sales.

According to Hero Tjokro Ardi, Head of Mobile Phones Division PT Samsung Electronics Indonesia, 80 percent mobile phone market in the Indonesian mobile phone charged at below Rp2 million. Mobile-phone of this type is clearly dominated by mobile phone numeric keypad.

In fact, the Indonesian people are still averse to adjust with the touch screen and Qwerty, especially in terms of price. "With a fairly large number, of course we continue to develop mobile-phone numeric keypad. We do not close the eyes with the technology, we must also be zero in a potentially large market," a Hero.

Indeed, people still need to change the habit last longer. Numeric keypad of the phone has become a tradition since the phone is quite difficult digusur found. "Most do not, go Hero, for five years mobile phone numeric keypad as a scraper still benefit you a vendor in Indonesia.

The same tone presented John Halim, Product Manager of LG Mobile Indonesia. According to him, using the profits Qwerty keyboard and touch screen is a lot. One of them is the ease in typing, especially users who like the Internet and SMS

However, the numeric keypad to menggusur in Indonesia, the Qwerty keyboard and touch screen still needs a long time. "I think the numeric keypad will survive and still exist until a few years. Ponsel fill this type of low end of the market in Indonesia is quite promising," called John.


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China Will Build Center for Stem Cell

Beijing - China plans to build medical center technology in Asia. According to the plan, this place will serve as the center of the stem cell (stem cell).

Obtained from Reuters, Thursday (8/4/2009), the center of development this technology will contribute to greater progress in the medical and health care.

Recently, treatment of disease by using stem cells is being developed in popularity in the world medicine. This method can generate new cells produced from the parent cell in the body.

"We hope this technique can be a solution to combat various diseases and can heal wounds," said Chinese Minister of Health Chen Zhu. In fact, he says, with the center of this stem cell will be positioned China as a country are using this technology.


"The progress rapidly in this sector is very important in order to increase living standards and public health," he added.

This shows that China appears to explore the serious competition in this area, while in other countries the development of stem cells is still a controversy.

As happens in the United States, former President George W. Bush and some conservative religious organizations oppose the use of stem cells derived from human embryo. But rather, now Barack Obama support this even allocate some funds for stem cell research technology.


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Windows 7 Launched in April?

Ars Technica (via Engadget) reports that Windows 7 will be marketed to the public on 10 April 2009. But of course this rumor has not yet been confirmed. Ars Technica is also reporting that the team development schedule of Windows 7 still on time to date. Hopefully this happens correctly, already bored with Vista ...





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Astrobotic Technology and Carnegie Mellon Researchers Show Small Robots Can Prepare Lunar Surface for NASA Outpost

PITTSBURGH — (Feb. 25, 2009) — Small robots the size of riding mowers could prepare a safe landing site for NASA’s Moon outpost, according to a NASA-sponsored study prepared by Astrobotic Technology Inc. with technical assistance from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.

Astrobotic Technology and Carnegie Mellon researchers analyzed mission requirements and developed the design for an innovative new type of small lunar robot under contract from NASA’s Lunar Surface Systems group.

The results will be presented Friday in Washington, D.C., at a NASA Lunar Surface Systems conference co-sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its Space Enterprise Council.

“NASA faces a challenge in planning the layout for its outpost, which is expected to begin operations in 2020,” said Dr. William “Red” Whittaker, chairman and chief technical officer of Astrobotic and a Carnegie Mellon professor of robotics. “For efficient cargo transfer, the landing site needs to be close to the outpost’s crew quarters and laboratories. Each rocket landing and takeoff, however, will accelerate lunar grit outwards from the pad. With no atmosphere to slow it down, the dry soil would sandblast the outpost.”

The research examined two potential solutions: 1) construction of a berm around the landing site, and 2) creation of a hard-surface landing pad using indigenous materials.

In the first solution, researchers found that two rovers weighing 330 pounds each would take less than six months to build a berm around a landing site to block the sandblasting effect. A berm 8.5 feet tall in a 160-foot semi-circle would require moving 2.6 million pounds of lunar dirt. Robots this size can be sent to NASA’s planned polar outpost site in advance of human expeditions. Astrobotic Technology Inc. has proposed that landing site preparation be provided by commercial ventures.

In the second solution, researchers showed how small robots could comb the lunar soil for rocks, gathering them to pave a durable grit-free landing pad, said John Kohut, Astrobotic’s chief executive officer. “This might reduce the need to build protective berms. To discern the best approach, early robotic scouting missions need to gather on-site information about the soil’s cohesion levels and whether rocks and gravel of the right size can be found at the site.”

Also at Carnegie Mellon, Dr. Whittaker is directing the development of Astrobotic’s first lunar robot, which has been undergoing field trials for several months. The company’s first mission, to win the $20 million Google Lunar X prize by visiting the Apollo 11 landing site and transmitting high-definition video to Earth, is set for December 2010.


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MySpace: A Playbook for Beating Facebook

CEO Chris DeWolfe outlines his strategy for expanding profits, luring advertisers with "hyper-targeting," and keeping MySpace's U.S. edge over rival Facebook

Hunched over a small conference table, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe is in full spin mode. MySpace, which DeWolfe co-founded before selling it to News Corp. (NWS), has been getting a lot of bad press of late. Key executives are fleeing, the social network's chief rival, Facebook, is signing up millions more new users while MySpace is essentially flat, and rumors are flying that Google (GOOG) next year will pull out of—or dramatically cut—an advertising pact that provides nearly 40% of MySpace's revenues.

That's why DeWolfe, a resolutely earnest chap even in his trademark pointy-toed boots, is eager to talk about the new services being readied to help pump up MySpace's revenues. The year-old MySpace Music, he says, will soon allow its 18.1 million music customers to purchase concert tickets and band merchandise. MySpace is beefing up its game offerings, and will start selling "virtual" merchandise, including cupcakes people can send to friends and loved ones. "Too bad you're not here a month from now," says DeWolfe, 42.

Of late, DeWolfe and his team have been focusing more on making money than attracting millions of new users. As such, he says he "has been too focused on creating a profitable site" to worry about the recent spate of bad news. "I don't know Facebook's profitability," he adds. "But if I could have 300 million people using MySpace or be profitable, I would take profitability."
"A Huge Audience to Monetize"

DeWolfe says MySpace is making money. But News Corp. acknowledges that hefty spending on new features and an international expansion crimped earnings, which it doesn't break out. What's more, Wall Street has been largely unmoved by the MySpace story for the last year, when the company's revenues came up short and News Corp. failed to reach the $1 billion goal it had set for its Fox Interactive Media group, of which MySpace is by far the largest piece. Analysts figured FIM came in at closer to $900 million. And if Google pulls out of the advertising deal, MySpace could find it difficult to find another search engine willing to match the $250 million MySpace will receive this year from Google.

It's true that Facebook, with 236 million unique visitors worldwide in January, is now bigger than MySpace, which has 126 million globally. But MySpace maintains its edge on Facebook in the U.S., based on unique visitors and time spent on each site. As of January, each MySpace visitor spent an average 266 minutes on the site in a month, vs. 176 minutes on Facebook, according to the tracking firm ComScore Media Metrix. Marketers like that because it means people are hanging around long enough to see their ads. DeWolfe wants to keep visitors on MySpace even longer. His executives have been signing deals with TV producers to make more of the six-minute shows it needs to siphon off users from YouTube, and they are working on new video games to hike traffic on MySpace's game site.

Down the road, DeWolfe is planning advertisements for the mobile world where MySpace has more than 50 deals worldwide. Meanwhile, MySpace Music is experimenting "with five or six things," including an online radio service for its users, says its president, Courtney Holt. "Everything we do now is focused on generating revenue," he says. "We have this huge audience that we intend to monetize."

No Longer a Growth Story?
Keeping people on MySpace longer doesn't necessarily mean companies will buy more ads, of course. MySpace is acting more and more like a portal, a medium that tends to attract display ads—exactly the kind of online marketing that is taking a hit in these recessionary times. Sanford C. Bernstein senior analyst Michael Nathanson predicts that MySpace's ad sales will decline by 4% in the second half. "This is no longer the growth story that we were told," says Nathanson, who last year downgraded News Corp. to a hold partly because MySpace fell short of Rupert Murdoch's $1 billion revenue target.

To lure advertisers, DeWolfe & Co. are deploying the same bait many online media companies use: "hyper-targeted" ads. The company's president of sales and marketing, Jeff Berman, says local businesses can target MySpace users by Zip Code or by demographics—right down to "whether they are men [ages] 18 to 34 who like Nascar and live in a single county." Already, Berman says that about 70% of MySpace's orders include some form of hyper-targeting. And the company still gets huge traffic to its pages that have lured advertisers like Sony (SNE), State Farm, and McDonald's (MCD), including many that sponsor events. Toyota (TM), for instance, sponsors Toyota Tuesdays on MySpace Music, giving away free music downloads.

MySpace also offers advertisers one thing that Facebook doesn't: what it calls the "home-page takeover" when an advertiser pays to festoon MySpace's front door with promos. "When marketers have a big launch such as a movie," says Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst with the market research firm eMarketer, "a home-page takeover on MySpace is really popular."

The clock could be ticking for DeWolfe and co-founder Tom Anderson. Both men's contracts at News Corp. are up later this year, and speculation is rife in media and tech circles that they might not be renewed. DeWolfe says he has yet to start negotiating a new deal to replace a two-year contract said to be worth $15 million. He and Anderson, he says, would both like to keep running MySpace for Murdoch. On the other hand, DeWolfe acknowledges, "That's not my decision alone."


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MetroPCS Beckons BlackBerry Fans With Curve

While writing about the growing popularity of prepaid phones, I encountered many cellphone customers, still bound under contracts with a major wireless carrier, who said they were willing to sacrifice the bragging rights of owning a fancier device in favor of cutting costs and living with the simpler phones that tend to accompany prepaid plans.

Now, they may not have to.

On Tuesday, MetroPCS, a carrier based in Dallas that only sells prepaid plans, announced the addition of the BlackBerry Curve 8330 to its slate of handsets.

Like all of MetroPCS’s offerings, the phone is available without a contract, and payment is due at the beginning of the month, rather than the end. The company also unveiled a new, flat-rate plan to support its first smartphone. For $50 per month, customers get unlimited talk time, Web browsing, e-mail and text messaging.

The price of the BlackBerry, made by Research in Motion, has not yet been released. But the cost of handsets tend to be higher at prepaid carriers because they typically don’t offer the same subsidies that come with a contract.

Tom Keys, the chief operating officer for MetroPCS, told me last month that one of challenges of competing with major wireless carriers for subscribers was being able to offer customers the same amenities.

To that end, he said the company is “working with top handset makers and will be introducing four to five new handsets over the next six months.” In addition to adding smartphones to its stable, Mr. Keys said the company plans to introduce sleek sliders and phones sporting QWERTY keyboards. In addition, MetroPCS, a regional carrier, recently added coverage in New York and Boston to increase its appeal.

So far, the company’s plans have been gaining traction: During its fourth quarter, the company had the biggest quarterly gain in its six-year history, with the addition of 520,000 subscribers. MetroPCS finished 2008 with more than five million subscribers, a 35 percent increase over 2007.


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Youtube can Translating Text Automatically

Watch video on Youtube now more comfortable and no longer limited by differences in language with the presence of features captions / subtitles (Captions for text in the same language with Subtitles for the video and text in a language different from that shown in the video). Sometimes we find some video on Youtube is really interesting, but because the language used does not understand us, it is very difficult for us to catch what is presented through video. Youtube parties understand the complaint and have some time and create a facility for users to add captions file / Subtitle berekstensi. TXT to in the video is downloaded before.

In fact it is not enough, because not a text that can be understood by everyone and will be making if we have to make a Subtitle for various languages. To more easily take advantage of Youtube likely one of fasiitas or services that have been owned by Google, namely Google Translate, YouTube allows to automatically translate the text in the captions / Subtitle into many other languages with a quality translation that is not much different as when you use Google Translate.

If you find the video that has been added to the captions / Subtitle through Youtube (CC marks a red icon), try to navigate the cursor to the icon in the corner of the triangle right under the video window ago directed the cursor to the arrow beside it to select the appropriate language by the owner diunggah video it. Select English in order to more easily translated into other languages, then you can click on the Translate option will appear and rendering a variety of languages, including English. Read More..

IBM eServer won the highest award in the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo

IBM announced that IBM eServer won the highest award in the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo held in San Francisco last week. While affirming the commitment to the IBM Linux.

IBM eServer iSeries reach title "Best of Show" in the annual competition that appreciate the extraordinary achievements. Competition was held by open source community. Previously, the IBM eServer z900, also won the highest award in the LinuxWorld, New York in February ago.

In addition, Dr. Daniel Frye, Director of IBM Linux Technology Center, won the "Golden Penguin." This award, shaped penguin made of glass and wind instrument
coated with gold. Awards given to teams that win in the Golden Penguin Bowl.

This is a quiz game that set the two teams consisting of a figure-figure open source and leading the audience to the event dites knowledge about their industry and the development of open software. Linux Technology Center is owned by IBM group of 200 people who work directly with the open source community to enhance the development of Linux.

The award is the latest findings in line with efforts to further strengthen the IBM commitment to Linux and open source community by giving support to Linux on all product lines eServernya.

"Reaching the award" Best of Show "is a kebanggan for IBM and our customers," said Kim Stevenson, Vice President Marketing, IBM Server Group. "This emphasizes the commitment to Linux and IBM's ability eServer products, we provide solutions for Linux that is integrated and classmates Mainframe to all our customers. (Endang K. saputra)

Source: Astaga


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Apple Gets Crushed, For No Good Reason

When it comes to Apple [AAPL 83.11 -2.19 (-2.57%) ], help me understand something: JP Morgan PC analyst Mark Moskowitz cuts his outlook for iPhone and Mac shipments microscopically, and it's good for a 5 percent drubbing of Apple shares.

Even as the guy maintains his "overweight" rating on Apple shares.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Wall Street lunacy.

Moskowitz took down his earnings estimates for Apple by a penny — yes $0.01 — to $1.01 a share. His revenue estimate collapsed — kidding! — from $7.72 billion to $7.62 billion. The news gets even more dire — kidding again! — with his Mac estimate collapsing from 2.39 million to 2.19 million. And iPhone unit shipments will plunge — ok, this is getting ridiculous — from 3.8 million to 3.4 million units.

All of that will translate into a lower fiscal 2009 performance for Apple, the analyst argues, with earnings per share declining to $4.73 versus the original $4.82, and revenue now at $32.98 billion against the original $33.97 billion anticipated.

In an economy like this one, to suggest companies are not going to suffer some kind of shortfall is the height of ostrich-ness. Unless your head is buried in some hole somewhere, you recognize as an investor that times are slowing around us, and that no company will be immune from such a tsunamic economic collapse. But to suggest that today's new expectations from JP Morgan are anything less than exceptionally good news risks missing out on what continues to be a horribly oversold stock like Apple.

Apple caters to the higher end of the market, no question. Its Macs carry a premium that customers have been more than happy to pay for decades. And judging by the company's last quarterly report, continued pay. And judging by these new numbers from JP Morgan, will still continue to pay, to the tune of another quarter of well over 2 million Macs sold. Hello? Recession? Depression? You can get a new Dell [DELL 8.04 -0.33 (-3.94%) ] or Hewlett-Packard [HPQ 25.53 -1.45 (-5.37%) ] or Lenovo or some other OldsmoBuick computer for far cheaper. You'd expect massive revisions in Apple's numbers by Wall Street analysts so worried about the macro-economic climate. But that's not what's happening here. Revisions lower are tiny. Customers are trading up and buying new, at least so far as Apple is concerned.

These revisions by JP Morgan are noteworthy if only because they are so very slight. And yet action in Apple's shares is so very dramatic. For no reason other than downward momentum and reactionary traders once again selling first and then not even bothering anymore to ask questions later. Geez, get a clue.

Trends still favor Apple. Along with its cash, its innovation, and what apparently is the consumer's insatiable demand for anything with that little piece of fruit on it. Today's action is overdone.

Apple's oversold.

Again.

Questions? Comments? TechCheck@cnbc.com
© 2009 CNBC, Inc. All Rights Reserved


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Boat made of plastic bottles to make ocean voyage

SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- Imagine collecting thousands of empty plastic bottles, lashing them together to make a boat and sailing the thing from California to Australia, a journey of 11,000 miles through treacherous seas.

You'd have to be crazy, or trying to make a point. David de Rothschild is trying to make a point.

De Rothschild hopes his one-of-a-kind vessel, now being built on a San Francisco pier, will boost recycling of plastic bottles, which he says are a symbol of global waste. Except for the masts, which are metal, everything on the 60-foot catamaran is made from recycled plastic.

"It's all sail power," he said. "The idea is to put no kind of pollution back into the atmosphere, or into our oceans for that matter, so everything on the boat will be composted. Everything will be recycled. Even the vessel is going to end up being recycled when we finish."

De Rothschild's vessel, scheduled to set sail from San Francisco in April, is called the Plastiki. Its name is an homage of sorts to Thor Heyerdahl, the fabled Norwegian explorer who in 1947 sailed 4,300 miles across the Pacific on the Kon-Tiki, a raft made from balsa wood.

De Rothschild is something of an adventurer himself. The scion of a wealthy British banking family, he is one of only several dozen people to traverse both the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps. In 2005 he founded Adventure Ecology, an organization that uses field expeditions to call attention to environmental issues.

Joining him on the Plastiki will be a permanent crew of three sailors and scientists plus a handful of other crew members who will rotate through the voyage. The Plastiki is expected to stop in Hawaii, Tuvalu and Fiji on its way to Sydney, a trip estimated to take more than 100 days.

Don't Miss
In Depth: Edge of Discovery
The plastic sailboat is taking shape in an old pier building not far from this city's famous Fisherman's Wharf. Here, thousands of two-liter soda bottles are being stripped of their labels, washed, filled with dry-ice powder and then resealed. The dry ice sublimates into carbon dioxide gas and pressurizes the bottle, making it rigid.

The vessel's twin hulls will be filled with 12,000 to 16,000 bottles. Skin-like panels made from recycled PET, a woven plastic fabric, will cover the hulls and a watertight cabin, which sleeps four.

"This actually is the same material that is made out of bottles," said de Rothschild of the PET fabric. "We actually wrap the PET fabric over the PET foam and then basically put it under a vacuum, heat it, press it and create these long PET panels. So that means the boat is, technically, one giant bottle."

Two wind turbines and an array of solar panels will charge a bank of 12-volt batteries, which will power several onboard laptop computers, a GPS and SAT phone.

Only about 10 percent of the Plastiki will be made from new materials, de Rothschild said. He declined to reveal how much it's costing him to build the boat.

"We could potentially put together a boat that costs a fraction of what normal conventional boats are made of," he said. "The idea is to take the Plastiki, break it down [after the voyage], and put it back into the system. So, it may come out being a jacket, a bag, more bottles. It's infinitely recyclable."

The ultimate goal of the Plastiki voyage is not just to encourage people to embrace clean, renewable energy but also to see consumer waste as a potential resource.

That's what this is all about -- showcasing cradle-to-cradle products rather than cradle-to-grave," de Rothschild said.

Whether the Plastiki will successfully complete its unique journey remains to be seen. But to conservationists concerned about the amount of energy required to manufacture and distribute plastic bottles, its symbolic message is a welcome one.


"Anything that gets in the news and makes people stop and think about plastic can be very helpful," said Betty McLaughlin, executive director of the Container Recycling Institute.

"But it strikes me as a long way to go. I flew from Los Angeles to Australia once, and it took forever. This trip strikes me as kind of dangerous."



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Scientists discover new species in ocean's depths

(PopSci.com) -- Until last December, no one had ever seen the bottom of the Tasman Fracture, a trench that drops more than four kilometers below the surface of the ocean. A group of Australian and American researchers recently spent a month hundreds of kilometers southwest of the Tasmanian coast, exploring the fracture's depths.

Jess Adkins, a professor at Caltech and one of the project's lead scientists, remembers sitting in his control room and watching the underwater life on his monitors with a sense of awe.

Once, he says, none of the scientists or pilots said a word for 10 minutes straight as their submersible glided over an undiscovered coral reef full of urchins and sponges and sea stars.

The researchers explored the fracture with Jason, a remotely-operated submersible the size of a small car. On loan from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, it carried a high-definition camera that weighed more than 500 pounds and beamed underwater video up to the ship through a long fiber-optic tether.

At 3,000 meters below sea level, the crew saw thousands of sea spiders. At 3,500, millions of specimens of a new, purple-spotted sea anemone. At 4,000 meters, a single never-before-seen carnivorous sea squirt with a funnel-shaped body that snapped shut like a Venus flytrap around any shrimp unfortunate enough to brush against it.

Back on land, the three new species (the anemone, the sea squirt, and a new kind of barnacle) have drawn the most attention, but it's the team's coral collection, some 10,000 pieces of it, that can tell us about the history of our climate and, perhaps, its future.

A coral skeleton acts as a tape recorder of its environment. As it grows, the coral's chemical structure (specifically the weight of its oxygen molecules) varies depending on the temperature of the water around it. And, because the coral's uranium decays into thorium over time, it is conveniently datable.

By charting different corals' ages and oxygen weights, researchers can map the ocean's changing temperature. During the coming months, expedition scientists will compare 40,000 years of oceanic and atmospheric records.

The ocean's temperature and carbon dioxide levels are important because of their impact on our atmosphere. The watery part of the world absorbs and stores sixty times more CO2 than the atmosphere.

Huge reservoirs of the ocean's CO2 lurk in its coldest, densest waters (found in the Tasman Fracture and off Greenland). Because cold water releases more CO2 into the air than warm water, the rate at which bottom water rises to the surface has a profound effect on the atmosphere above.

Until recently, we had assumed that our climate was relatively stable. After all, for the past 10,000 years -- during which we developed the alphabet, electrical wiring, and microchip necessary for this article -- little has changed.

But early-'90s research on Greenland's ice core proved that, over the past 100,000 years, climate stability has been the exception, not the norm. During the last glacial period, global temperatures fluttered up and down by as much as several degrees in as little as a decade. CO2 levels in the atmosphere changed along with the temperature, though more slowly.

The researchers' ultimate goal is to see if changes in the ocean followed or proceeded changes in the atmosphere. Adkins suspects that the ocean (and in particular the depths of the ocean) played a part in triggering the climate's sudden fluctuations.

He's sure, though, that we're adding more CO2 to the ocean now, in the form of burning fossil fuels, than it has ever held before. Given how little we know about how the ocean regulates the amount of CO2 in our air (we've mapped the surface of Mars, he points out, but not the ocean floor) he wonders if that's such a good idea.

We do know that increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean makes it more acidic. And whether or not it sets off a climate shift of Pleistocenic proportions, acidification could kill the researchers' newly-discovered, awe-inspiring reef, along with others we haven't even found yet. There would be just as much ocean to study, but less to find.



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The Missisipi Distiller

March 9th, 2009 by Edwin in Drinking Gadgets, Home Gadgets

This looks like some sort of strange mad scientist design of a contraption which concocts a weird potion after putting in all sorts of exotic ingredients. Actually, it is known as the Missisipi Distiller that attempts to capture the original spirit (pun not intended) of the American south distilling heritage.

Designed in Barcelona, Spain, this finely crafted home distiller illustrates the nuances of English that are often lost in translation. The still’s copper frame is engraved with Missisipi Destil Co.–an honest, if poorly translated, attempt to pay homage to the distilling heritage of the American south. Destined to elicit questions from guests and encourage conversation, the distiller is reminiscent of those used to make brandy or extract essential oils from plants for use in perfumes. The alcohol burner, cucurbit, condensing pot, and collection cup are made from heat-resistant borosilicate glass–the same glass used in laboratory beakers. The distiller is mounted on a walnut base and its frame is made from five copper plates secured in place with copper rivets.

How much does it cost to bring this piece of memorabilia home? $199.95. Read More..

Renasys Go negative pressure wound therapy device

March 9th, 2009 by Edwin in Medical Gadgets

Smith & Nephew has just rolled out a brand new negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) device that was specifically designed for people who want/need to ambulate. Known as the Renasys Go, it comes in a much smaller form factor that can be worn around your neck just like a fashionable MP3 player, although it doesn’t play back any music (could be a feature the manufacturer includes the next time round) but sucks at your gross wound instead. Hey, if somebody asks, you can either tell them the truth or pull their leg that you’re using a pair of prototype Bluetooth earphones which are located right inside your ear canals, hence having no wires running out from the Renasys Go.

The Renasys Go is intuitive, lightweight, portable and quiet, and can be used with the RENASYS-F foam and RENASYS-G gauze wound interfaces, the broadest selection of interfaces available from a single supplier. This enables clinicians to tailor NPWT to meet their patients’ unique needs and the specific requirements of their wounds, with clear improvements in patient comfort, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness. Southern Ontario-based Nursing Practice Solutions Inc. conducted a study in Canada comparing average total costs required to treat patients with conventional dressings to the same costs required to treat patients with gauze- and foam-based NPWT, in cases for which NPWT was appropriate. The study found that the cost-per-patient treated with NPWT was 55% less than the cost-per-patient treated with conventional dressings, and that wounds treated with NPWT healed more quickly than wounds treated with conventional dressings. Among patients treated with NPWT, there was no difference in healing times between wounds dressed with foam and those dressed with gauze.

Some of the features include :-

Discrete carrying case
Weighs less than 3 pounds
Frosted 300cc canister minimizes the visibility of exudate
Multiple alarms and patient lock-out feature
Extended, 20-hour battery life
User-friendly digital settings
Source: Medgadget


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Facebook gets yet another facelift

It's one that will have the site looking and feeling a lot more like Twitter
NEW YORK - A bit of a facelift for Facebook.

And it's one that will have the site looking and feeling a lot more like Twitter. The online hangout is shifting around its home page so Facebook users can more easily choose the types of information they see.

The site will let users follow public figures like President Barack Obama or swimmer Michael Phelps or their favorite bands or sports teams.

Starting next week, Facebook will also launch a new home page that lets users get continuous updates from their friends, rather than getting them every 10 or 15 minutes.

And for those of us who have those friends who are always sending updates that we aren't all that interested in? Facebook will let you add a filter that will keep those updates at a minimum without "de-friending" them.

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Alien world conditions explored — on Earth

New national lab can compress hydrogen down to the density of copper

The target chamber of the National Ignition Facility. The facility debuts this year and will have the power to compress hydrogen down to the density of copper.

In its hunt for Earth-like worlds, NASA's Kepler telescope, which launched March 6, should tell us something about the planets that occupy sibling solar systems. Some scientists, however, are crossing that frontier without leaving their laboratories.

They have uncovered worlds where helium, normally a transparent gas that can't hold an electric charge, becomes fluid metal that can conduct electricity. They have probed the melting point of diamonds to understand the building blocks of icy planets like Neptune.

The experiments have been largely based on millions of computations, though that is about to change with the debut this year of a new national laboratory that has the power to compress hydrogen down to the density of copper.

"It's an extraordinary time for this type of science," said Gilbert Collins, a physicist with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, host to the new National Ignition Facility, which will use the power of 192 infrared lasers to demonstrate nuclear fusion.

Scientists plan to use the laser beams to hit a tiny target, creating conditions momentarily similar to what exists in the cores of stars and giant planets and inside nuclear weapons.

"Most of the planets we know about are outside our own solar system. They're large, they're in planetary systems that are bizarre — except, well actually, it's perhaps our planetary system that stands out as being a little bit bizarre," said planetary scientist Raymond Jeanloz, with the University of California at Berkeley.

Scientists' first look at Mother Nature's planetary toolkit began with Earth, where interior pressures are about 3.5 million times higher than on the surface. They then moved on to Jupiter, the solar system's largest world, with an interior pressure 70 million times stronger than Earth's.

Prodded by discoveries of extra-solar planets up to 10 times larger than Jupiter, physicists are beginning to explore how matter behaves at pressures that are millions or even a billion times greater than on Earth.

"We've had a real breakthrough experimentally in being able to begin to reproduce these kinds of enormous pressures in the laboratory so we can actually study the properties of matter in these conditions," Jeanloz said.

The transformation of helium into liquid metal occurs at 1 million atmospheres, such as what exists in Earth's core, Jeanloz added.

At that pressure, "The chemical bonding between atoms is dramatically altered," he said. "Materials have totally new properties at these conditions."

By Irene Klotz

updated 8:23 p.m. ET March 6, 2009


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micro robot that can work inside human body

Scientists in Korea have created a robot small enough to be able to explore the human body and is driven by the heart muscle.

Sukho Park of Chonnam National University, Korea, and colleagues have designed a micro-robot driven by the cell. Park to create a robot team is a network with the heart muscle from a rat in the framework of small-robot framework that is made from polidimetilsiloksana (PDMS). PDMS is a polymer biokompatibel thus making the robot suitable in practice biomedik.

A special on the robot, said Park, is they do not require an external energy supply. But the cells of heart muscle berelaksasi and berkontraksi that provide energy. Cells-heart muscle cells themselves get energy from a glucose culture medium. Cells pulse itself allows this robot is the sixth foot.

This robot has three legs before the short (length of 400 micrometer) and three feet behind the longer (1200 micrometer long), all mounted on a square body. At the heart cells berkontraksi, the back foot a longer bend to the inside. This difference in friction between the front foot and back foot, pressing the robot move forward. The researchers measure the average speed of robot is about 100 micrometer per second.

Park the robot-crab-like robot that can be used in the body cavity, or to clean the choke tube, with a release agent solvent to clean the stoppage of their skip.

Disadur from: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/


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CAN a smartphone make you a smart driver?

Most BlackBerry owners, for example, know they can improve their Interstate I.Q. by using the navigation function of their smartphones, and people with a Web browser on their phone can check out World Traffic Cams to see if there is congestion at the Lincoln Tunnel before heading into Manhattan.

Indeed, our love affair with cellphones is increasingly being coupled with our love affair with the automobile, spawning applications — some silly, some sublime — that drivers can download to their mobile handsets for little or no money.

On the practical side, there are programs that help with the more mundane aspects of automobile ownership. One free application for the iPhone, for example, tries to demystify repair bills. Tap in the make and model of your vehicle along with what ails it (for instance, worn brake pads and rotors) and RepairPal spits out estimated parts and labor costs ($417 to $516 in New York City). It does not include diagnostic fees and taxes, but it does offer a list of nearby repair shops with customer ratings, should you want to comparison shop.

Conversely, on the pure fun side, there’s Dynolicious. Using the same kind of technology that enables a Nintendo Wii game controller to follow your gestures, this $12.99 application uses an iPhone’s built-in accelerometer to gauge 0-to-60 times (to within 0.08 of a second) and other performance characteristics, including lateral G-forces. Like competing programs such as g-tac pro ($19.99), Dynolicious will also let you assess your vehicle’s top speed, but to get precise results you’ll need to secure the phone in a cradle.

These programs are designed to be used on closed road courses, of course, but for those who can’t resist the temptation to test posted speed limits on public roadways, there are programs like the Njection speed trap alert application for the iPhone. The program, which costs $2.99, compiles reports from other drivers to pinpoint speed traps along your route, but the information is only as good as what your fellow speeders provide.

For those looking to decrease rather than increase their carbon footprint, there are several car-related applications that can help. Ecorio is a free program written for Google Android-based smartphones, the first of which is the G1 from T-Mobile. The application will trace your travels and, depending on your mode of transport (Hummer or subway?), keep a running tally of your carbon footprint. By tapping into Google Transit, the program can also suggest the most efficient commuting routes (less time in traffic translates into fewer carbon emissions) and in some locales like San Francisco it offers carpooling information.

For iPhone owners, another eco-friendly but less ambitious program is greenMeter ($5.99). It can estimate the number of barrels of oil your car is consuming and produce graphs illustrating fuel economy at different speeds and rates of acceleration. (As you might expect, a lighter foot will produce better fuel efficiency.) For 99 cents there’s also AccuFuel for iPhone hypermilers who mainly just want to track fuel efficiency.

Keeping up with maintenance can also help extend efficiency — and the life of your vehicle. Gas Cubby ($4.99 for the iPhone) is a maintenance and mileage program that offers service reminders and can store vehicle records that can be exported to Excel spreadsheets. Identically priced Car Care also lets you track oil changes and service expenses.

Trying to track business expenses? Trip Cubby ($9.99) and MileBug ($3.99) help iPhone owners log miles, tolls and parking for expense reports and tax purposes. You can even e-mail reports to the boss from the phone. BlackBerry users can try MileageTracker Pro. An annual subscription costs $29.90.

There’s also hand-held help for those of us who are bedeviled by senior moments, especially when it comes to parking the car. Much like a feature now available on many portable navigation devices, there are free programs like ParkMark for G1 owners that remember where you parked. Press a button to note the precise location of your car using the device’s GPS, then later, using Google Maps it will lead you back to the appropriate spot.

And for those who are reminded of the looking-for-a-bathroom Seinfeld episode, the answer is, yes. There’s a smartphone application for that, too. SitOrSquat is a free program for iPhones and BlackBerrys that locates public restrooms. It even includes user reviews and connects to Google Maps to offer directions.

If you still have trouble finding your wheels, it may indicate that you’re in no shape to drive. To track how much you’ve had to drink —and how it may be affecting your judgment—there’s .08? Blood Alcohol Content Calc, a simple but free application for the G1 that estimates your blood-alcohol level based on your weight, sex and the number and types of drinks you’ve consumed. Similar programs warn in advance that they are “for entertainment purposes only,” but Mark Britton, chief executive for the legal site Avvo, emphasizes that his company’s free iPhone application isn’t a game. Called Last Call, “it’s about helping consumers not step over that line,” he said.

Last Call calculates your blood alcohol and flashes red if you exceed the legal limit. The program will then find nearby taxi services that you can dial directly. Should you still fail to heed its advice and get pulled over by the authorities, Last Call will put you in touch with a local lawyer who handles drunken-driving cases.

Finally, should you have an accident, there’s iWrecked. This $1.99 iPhone program helps you gather all the information you’ll need should the unthinkable happen, including the location, time, names and insurance information of other drivers. You can also then use your phone to take photos of the damage and the position of the cars. Assuming, that is, that after all your travails your phone is still working.



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