World's Technology

Video: The Navy's 'Shoulder-to-Shoulder' Firefighting Robot's First Trial By Fire

2012-05-03T03:04:00.002-07:00

Octavia's Trial by Fire Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence

A couple of weeks back we first heard about Octavia, the Naval Research Lab’s (NRL) and Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) new firefighting robot designed to perform “shoulder-to-shoulder” firefighting operations with humans aboard Navy vessels. Today we get to see Octavia in action, fighting a simulated fire in a demonstration video that is somewhat less-than-confidence-inspiring.

Admittedly, the emphatic gesturing and unnatural command language that Octavia’s human handler must employ--under emergency conditions, no less--are a bit awkward and clunky, as user interfaces go. Octavia itself seems in no real rush to extinguish this simulated shipboard fire--and if there’s one thing all flesh-and-blood firefighters understand, it’s that there are no spare seconds when your ship is ablaze in the middle of the ocean.

But to be fair, this platform is brand new. The NRL is working on improving the interface to be more natural so human-machine interactions will come off much more organically, like an exchange between two human firefighters. And if all goes to plan, Octavia will someday be able to not only go where human firefighters simply can’t, but also to use various instruments to characterize the type and behavior of a particular fire in order to devise the proper strategy for putting it out quickly and effectively.

For the First Time, Electrons are Observed Splitting into Smaller Quasi-Particles

2012-05-02T02:54:00.002-07:00

An Electron Splitting In Two David Hilf, Hamburg via PhysOrg

We generally think of electrons as fundamental building blocks of atoms, elementary subatomic particles with no smaller components to speak of. But according to Swiss and German researchers reporting in Nature this week, we are wrong to think so. For the first time, the researchers have recorded an observation of an electron splitting into two different quasi-particles, each taking different characteristics of the original electron with it.
Using samples of the copper-oxide compound Sr₂CuO₃, the researchers lifted some of the electrons belonging to the copper atoms out of their orbits and placed them into higher orbits by manipulating them with X-rays. Upon placing them in these higher--and higher-velocity--orbits, the electrons split into two parts, one called a spinon that carried the electron’s spin with it, and another called an obitron that carried the electron’s orbital momentum with it.
Spin and orbit are--at least as our basic understanding goes--attached to each particular electron. So the fact that they have been separated is pretty significant. And while researchers have thought for a while that this kind of separation could be theoretically achieved, they’ve had a hard time proving it empirically until now. It’s a reminder that at the quantum level there are still things that more or less mystify us. But that’s not all it is. This particular observation of an electron splitting could have big-time implications in the field of high-temperature superconductivity. Understanding the way electrons can decay into quasi-particles could improve our overall understanding of the electron and how it moves, and thus help us figure out new ways of moving electrons--or electricity--around in bulk without losing large amounts of it as waste.

The Age of the Pico Projector is Upon Us (For Real This Time)

2012-05-01T02:51:00.003-07:00

MicroVision PicoP Gen2 Demo Device

There’s always been a lot to love about a pico projector. A palm-sized device that can port video from anything from a laptop to an iPod onto a large projected screen? Sign me up. Until now, though, picos only came is two forms: as a standalone box, or strapped onto the back of a device like a smartphone, rendering the gadget bulky and extremely power inefficient. Enter MicroVision’s PicoP Gen2 projector, debuting this week. The PicoP Gen2 is among the smallest pico system we’ve seen, and it’s incredibly power efficient--perfect for embeds in multi-function devices. Oh yeah, and it’s 720p high-def, too.

To start, the entire PicoP Gen2 setup is wafer-thin (about 6 millimeters)—I’d wager about half the size of the gen-one product. But MicroVision has crammed much, much more onto that small piece of hardware. The addition of a green laser (in addition to red and blue ones) brings the color gamut up to 64,000, while MicroVIsion’s newly-updated mirrors reflect up to 25 lumens. The kicker, of course, is the ability to project a 720p image as large as 20 feet across.

It’d be quite a shame for all that power to go to waste in simple standalone projectors. Naturally, MicroVision is talking to a number of OEM partners to get the PicoP Gen2 into more devices later in 2012, but there’s no official comment as to what, when, and how much. The company’s reference designs, though crude (read: projector setups literally strapped onto existing devices), do get the point across. First up was a PicoP attached to a Roku XS box, which could become a roving Netflix and Hulu showcase, if not a way to play large-screen Angry Birds anywhere. The company also showed us an OnLive cloud gaming demo; with a projector resting atop an Onlive console—itself about the size of a hard drive—the makeshift system became a mobile arcade theater.

Knowing that the PicoP Gen2 will likely project onto some rather rough walls and shabbily-hung sheets, MicroVision engineered the system to display consistent images on any surface. The engine, unlike most mobile projector solutions, renders each pixel of its 720p image one-by-one, which means that the image won’t warp if it’s on an uneven surface; pixels will land flush on whatever they hit. MicroVision showed us a quick demo of this using a 360-degree magic-carpet game; the player stands in the middle of the room, floating the rug and rider across the walls, floor and ceiling. As promised, the image never fractured or lost integrity.
Aside from smoothing images on rough surfaces, the PicoP’s pixel-by-pixel image-rendering allows for quick projected touchscreens. When a user points at the projected image with a stylus, the projector interprets the point as a mouse-click. Because it is seeing which pixel path has been interrupted, instead of constantly mapping the image plane as similar devices do, the PicoP requires no calibration to work. This mapping system is also less taxing on the processor, so whatever device the projector is emended into will still have somewhat decent battery life.

MicroVision PicoP Gen2 Touchscreen Demo:

MicroVision expects products running the PicoP Gen2 projector to begin hitting the market in the second half of 2012.

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-01/age-pico-projector-upon-us-real-time

Old Car

2012-04-30T02:47:00.001-07:00

May 1953

As lovers of science and innovation, few things delight us more than tinkering around with spare parts. In our 138 years of publication, we've showcased scores of similar-minded inventors who could turn scrap heaps into motorcycles, robots, and four-wheelers. These people aren't just hobbyists, they're visionaries capable of imagining great machinery from what others had deemed broken and useless.
While people have created a great number of things from scratch, cars stand out as the prime project for professional engineers and bored tinkerers alike. We don't blame them - who wouldn't enjoy taking their invention for a celebratory spin upon completion? Join us as we take a look at some of the more curious vehicles assembled in garages over the past hundred years, and decide for yourself whether they're clever or the work of a crackpot.

We begin in the spring of 1920, where a Pennsylvanian farm owner known simply as Mr. Geissinger has assembled a tractor from a stationary gasoline engine. In those days, stationary engines were used to run power tools and mechanisms like circular saws and pumps. An unlikely candidate for powering a car, sure, but its maker came up with enough scrap materials to convert it into a tractor. Granted, it doesn't look much like a tractor at all, but we won't spoil you -- take a look inside to see how Mr. Geissinger's work turned out.
Then you have your series of go-kart-like vehicles, your bicycle-automobile hybrids, and even a couple of cage-like cars. All of the cars we cover in this gallery were made for personal use, and out of amusement, but all of them reflect how mainstream vehicles have developed over the years. A "motorized Ark" built in 1927 might resemble a modern-day funeral limousine, but during that period, it was a novel camping trailer equipped with a toilet, a stove and a shower. Converting the chassis of a truck into a camping trailer is one thing, but to install a hotel room's worth of amenities speaks for the dedication its creator had to his craft.
Elsewhere, you'll find that most home-based automakers weren't professional engineers or mechanics, but teenagers and artists pursuing a practical diversion. Not all of us carry a lot of automobile know-how, but with a little ingenuity, research, and an enviable hodgepodge of scrap items, you'll be hosting joyrides in your washing machine-jeep hybrid in no time.

Click through our gallery to see how past hobbyists made their "midget autos," egg-shaped cars, kitchen-equipped Fords and more.

A Mouse Made Just For You Will Model Your Medical Problems

2012-04-29T03:01:00.000-07:00

When you check in to a hospital in the future, along with checking your vitals and ordering a blood panel, your doctors may assign you a personal mouse. The immune-deficient creature will receive a transplant of your tissue, which will allow it to mimic your immune system, or maybe your specific type of cancer. Then doctors can try out a cocktail of drugs or gene therapies to see what might work on you.

Two teams of researchers have been working on personalized mouse models, or mouse avatars, that can serve as test beds for doctors looking for the right treatments. Physicians could try different combinations of drugs to see what works best, and if they make some mistakes, it’s OK because it’s a mouse, not a human patient.

In one recent study, Australian researchers were working with a pancreatic cancer patient, trying to determine genetic mutations that could make his cancer susceptible to certain drugs, reports Nature News. They grafted a piece of the patient’s tumor tissue onto mice with depleted immune systems, so the mice would not reject the transplant. They tested a cancer drug that their gene screening suggested could work, and they were right — the tumor shrank after the mice were treated. Sadly for the patient, he died before he could be treated, too. The researchers presented their work at a conference last week.

In another study, doctors at Columbia University created a mouse avatar of a human immune system, which they believe could be used to study autoimmune diseases. Lead author Megan Sykes and colleagues transplanted human bone marrow stem cells and thymus tissue into mice that also had suppressed immune systems. The work took several weeks, but in the end, the mouse had a complete human immune system, including T cells, beta cells and myeloid cells, which create other immune cells. Sykes plans to use this personalized immune mouse to study type 1 diabetes, which is caused by errant T cells attacking insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. That paper was published last week in Science Translational Medicine.
Though personalizing a mouse is tricky and can take precious time — even too much time, as the Australian study shows — these studies herald a future when personalized medicine means more than just genetic profiles. If doctors can test their hypotheses on a virtual you, rather than testing you directly, they might feel free to take more risks. Ultimately, patients might receive better care, thanks to mice on the front lines.
[Nature, Columbia University Medical Center]

What Do Your Apps Know -- and Say -- About You?

2012-04-29T02:46:00.002-07:00

What Do Your Apps Say About You? via WSJ

What do you smartphone apps say about you? Not in the “who am I and what is my place in the world?” sense, but literally--what are your apps telling other people about you? Your location? Your identity? Your username and password? The Wall Street Journal has put online a pretty amazing, sometimes outraging, definitely interesting interactive graphic analyzing 101 popular iPhone and Android apps, telling you exactly what your apps are telling other people.

Those other people can be the application owners themselves, or they can be third parties like marketers or ad providers like Google AdSense. Different apps share different info with different entities. Some, like Tweetdeck, make sense--it shares information with Tweetdeck itself as well as things that interface with Tweetdeck, like Facebook, Imageshack, bit.ly, and--of course--Twitter.

Others are a bit more questionable. For instance, did you know that Pandora--according to WSJ--is sharing various information from your phone with eight different third parties? We didn’t either, but we hope it’s sharing our listening preferences as well so all that incoming marketing will at least be sonically pleasing. Take a spin through the interactive graphic at WSJ to see exactly what your apps are saying about you.

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-02/interactive-graphic-breaks-down-everything-your-apps-know-and-say-about-you

The World's First Transgenic, 'Handmade' Cloned Sheep is Alive and Well in China

2012-04-28T02:59:00.000-07:00

This is Not Peng Peng But's it's adorable, no? Donald Macleod via Wikimedia

The world’s first transgenic sheep produced via a simplified cloning technique, known as handmade cloning (seriously), is here. Peng Peng, named for the two principal scientists doing the cloning (who happen to have the same name), was successfully delivered back on March 26 and is developing so well that researchers have deemed him ready for the spotlight.
Peng Peng was more than two years in the making. Chinese researchers BGI Ark Biotechnology working with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shihezi University were working in some adverse conditions in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where climate and laboratory conditions were not ideal for conventional cloning. So they opted for a simplified method of cloning, known as handmade cloning (or HMC), that requires fewer sophisticated lab implements and simplified procedures.
The donor cells were collected from Chinese Merino sheep back in 2009, and a transgenic cell line was established. It took several tries, but in October of last year a successful procedure for HMC sheep cloning was developed. From that point, Peng Peng was the next step. HMC was first introduced in 2001, so the procedure itself is nothing new. Success with the procedure, however, is both new and proliferating. Successful clones have been previously made with cows, goats, pigs, and water buffalo, and with Peng Peng the world has its first HMC sheep. Which means two things. For one, scientists are getting better at this technique of animal cloning. And secondly: We’re likely going to see more of this going forward.

The Nissan Juke is Less a Family Hauler Than an Efficient City Car

2012-04-28T02:43:00.002-07:00

Micro Machine In test drives, the Juke proved compact and punchy—ideal for darting through New York City traffic. From $18,980; nissanusa.com Courtesy Nissan

The crossover SUV has reached a crossroads. Models like the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V have grown so large and homogenized that they’ve become the new family SUV. Bite-sized boxes such as the Scions, Kia Souls and Nissan Cubes have plenty of attitude, but they’ve never been sporty enough to be taken seriously. That’s what’s so refreshing about the Nissan Juke: it pushes the evolution of the crossover into something beyond the shrunken SUV—more like a unexpectedly sporty, cityfriendly super-hatchback in which every component represents the latest trickle-down of advanced technology into affordable vehicles.

At the core is Nissan’s new 1.6-liter DIG (Direct Injection Gasoline) engine. a turbocharger combines with direct injection to wring 188 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torque out of the little four-cylinder. As a result, the Juke can churn from 0 to 60 mph in about seven seconds. It can also get 27/32 mpg. Nissan’s continuously variable transmission contributes to that efficiency by using a beltand-pulley system to access a continuous band of gear ratios so that the engine can run at the most efficient speed at all times. Optional all-wheel drive comes with a torque-vectoring system like those usually found on pricey sports cars. Sensors measure wheel speed, steering angle, yaw rate and gear position, and a central computer independently adjusts the amount of torque applied to each rear wheel, keeping the car stable during quick turns and highway merges and on slick uphills.

Inside, in addition to the standard gadget array (Bluetooth, optional backup camera), Nissan’s digital I-CON (integrated Control) system switches between climate controls and a series of preset drive modes at the press of a button. and in a final flourish, an in-dash G-force meter measures acceleration forces, just for kicks.

How It Would Work: Creating a Quantum Computer

2012-04-27T02:57:00.000-07:00

IBM's 2-D Superconducting Qubit Mounted on a Chip IBM Research via Flickr

Silicon semiconductors have taken us a dazzling distance along the computing road. But even if they continue unabated to get faster and more powerful (and it’s growing more difficult to make that happen) there’s a limit to what classical computing can do.

The next real game-change in computing is quantum--tapping the quantum mechanical properties of materials to process information in ways that will make today’s biggest and baddest super computers look like pocket calculators. And for the first time scientists, at places like IBM, are moving beyond just theorizing about them to actually envisioning how a finished quantum computer would work. In labs across the globe, the first building blocks of the first quantum computers are slowly becoming real.

That's huge considering a working quantum computer would be the kind of thing that truly moves the ground beneath our feet. With a relatively modest quantum computer, scientists could slice through sophisticated encryption schemes, model quantum systems with unprecedented accuracy, and filter through complex, unstructured databases with unparalleled efficiency.

But first they have to build one. The idea of quantum computing was introduced in the early 1980s by physicist Richard Feynman, and the field is still very much in its infancy. But as a discipline it's turning a critical corner as the theoretical meshes with the practical. There’s more than one way to build a quantum computer, and it’s still far too early in the game to know which--if any--of these approaches will produce a working system. But between all of these varied approaches to tapping the quantum world, there’s one common thread: it’s all about the qubit.
Like their classical cousins, quantum computers rely on units of information. In the classical world, that’s a bit (a byte most commonly consists of eight bits), each of which can exist in one of two states: 0 or 1. All of your data--your MP3s, your texts, your documents, your Tumblr--are nothing more than lines of bits. The quantum analog for the bit is called a qubit. Unlike a bit, a qubit can exist as a 0, a 1, or in a state of superposition, which in quantum lingo basically means it is both a 0 and a 1 at the same time. This is where we enter the strange realm of quantum properties, where things are anything but intuitive. “You start with a sea of all possible answers in your quantum states, and you design your algorithm to peel away the wrong answers so that the right answer emerges,” says Matthias Steffen, manager of the experimental quantum computing research team at IBM Research. Rather than considering one solution to a problem at a time, you can consider multiple possible solutions simultaneously.

There are huge challenges standing between us and this mind-numbing computational payoff. Working at the quantum scale usually means working at extremely low temperatures, often bordering on absolute zero. Particles themselves are fickle. Coherence time--the amount of time the carefully cultivated quantum system is available to be read by the computer before the quantum state collapses--is measured in mere microseconds. And because there is an intrinsic margin of error in quantum computation in general, quantum computers must constantly correct themselves for errors.

Then there’s the problem of measuring quantum states, which tends to cause them to collapse. This requires a mastery of quantum correlation or entanglement--a strange quantum phenomenon that links the states of two particles together even across distances such that affecting one affects the other--so that researchers can actually measure their quantum systems without destroying them. Needless to say, absolutely none of this is easy.

That’s why researchers are starting small, pouring their brainpower and research dollars into developing a single, stable qubit--and eventually strings of tens, then hundreds, and then thousands and tens of thousands of qubits. So what might the quantum computer of the future look like? We’re not exactly sure yet, but there are a few different approaches showing a lot of promise.

Smartphones Will Become the Only Device Hardcore Gamers Need

2012-04-27T02:41:00.003-07:00

The Pocket Console Alison Seiffer

When Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo introduces a new videogame console, its obsolescence within six years is more or less assumed. Nintendo is likely to release the new Wii U later this year, and other console makers are rumored to be working on next-generation systems. But as early adopters line up to experience whatever new high-def graphics those systems may offer, the next-next generation of console is already gaining momentum. The device is the smartphone, and within a decade it could be powerful enough to replace conventional game systems for good.

Mobile gaming began in 1979 when the Milton Bradley Company introduced the Microvision cartridge-based system. Since then, Nintendo, Sega and Sony have released many more portable systems, from the Game Boy to the recent quad-core PlayStation Vita. Although many of these devices were a great success among gamers (to date, Nintendo has sold more than 50 million of its DS systems), they never gained a substantial following among the general public.

Then in 2008, Apple launched the App Store, providing a simple and accessible distribution platform for games. One year later, the company Rovio released Angry Birds. Within a year, 50 million people had downloaded the app, spurring developers to create more engaging portable games. Now 64 percent of smartphone owners download games, and 37 percent of iPhone owners say they play daily.
Smartphone games are still a far cry from the richly textured and fast-moving console experiences that hard-core gamers love, but that could change rapidly. Today’s fastest phones already have quad-core 1.5-gigahertz processors—a fraction of the horsepower of a PlayStation 3—and others can send full 1080p high-def to a TV over HDMI. Mobile processors are hitting the steep part of the Moore’s Law curve, where power increases sharply with every year. One day soon, a five-ounce phone’s specs could rival those of the current best laptop.

Such a sharp increase in mobile power will most certainly provoke further attrition in the gaming ranks. Android and iOS already claim 58 percent of the portable-gaming market, and console game sales are on the decline. But for smartphones to gain dominance, users will need better ways to access console-level games. Either cloud-based delivery services will license a broader range of titles, or flash memory will improve to the point that a phone can store many console games (at present, one game could consume half a typical phone’s 16 gigabytes of memory).

Once the barriers to access fall, though, the phone will become a dual-purpose game hub. Mobile gamers will probably continue to rely on app-based games—who would want to play Skyrim on a four-inch screen, anyway?—but home gamers will have a dramatically different experience. Rather than firing up an Xbox or PlayStation, they will pair their phones with their TVs and wireless controllers. Discs will become obsolete, shelf space in the home entertainment system will open up, and users will carry a self-contained game system wherever they go.

Nokia Lumia 900 Review: Bigger Is Not Always Better

2012-04-26T02:38:00.000-07:00

Lumia 900 and iPhone The Lumia is the bigger one. Dan Nosowitz

If you want to buy a phone right now, and you're shopping based on quality rather than price, you have two choices in terms of size. You can get the iPhone, with its 3.5-inch screen, or you can choose from a handful of top-tier Android and Windows phones, all of which will have, at the bare minimum, a four-inch screen. Most of them will be bigger--4.3 inches is much more common right now, and an increasing number are even larger, including the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (4.65 in), HTC Titan (4.7 in), and the Samsung Galaxy Note (which, at 5.3 inches, is more lunchtray than phone).
The Nokia Lumia 900 is essentially a 4.3-inch version of the Lumia 800, a phone I absolutely loved in its 3.7-inch iteration (a Europe-only model). So reviewing the Lumia 900 presents an interesting question: with most other specs remaining constant, how does the experience of using a phone change when it grows to the size most phone manufacturers insist we really want?

WHAT'S NEW

The Lumia 900 is Nokia's first "flagship" Windows Phone that's available in North America (the Lumia 710, a cheapie, has been available on T-Mobile for a little while already). It's the sequel to the much-admired Lumia 800 and its changes are mostly in size (of various sorts). It's got a 4.3-inch screen, compared to the Lumia 800's 3.7-inch screen; it has 4G LTE (on AT&T), compared to the Lumia 800's 3G; it has a bigger battery and a front-facing camera.

Nokia Lumia 900 and Plaid Sheets: Dan Nosowitz

WHAT'S GOOD

This is mostly a good phone. Windows Phone is a great operating system; it's still maturing, but it's very usable, and it's an interesting and distinctly different approach to a smartphone than iOS or Android. (More on that here.) The physical design is pretty good; it's inoffensive, at worst, and is weighty enough to feel sturdy rather than cheap and plasticky, as many Windows Phones do (especially those made by Samsung). It's also nicely thin, only a millimeter or two thicker than the iPhone. The screen, though not thrilling in its resolution, has great deep blacks, which is important when using an OS with a predominantly black interface by default.
AT&T'S 4G LTE continues to be great. This is the first phone using AT&T's LTE I've personally used, and it feels just as screamingly fast as Verizon's. It's startling how quickly things load--LTE is as fast or faster than many people's home internet connections, so apps download instantly, web pages load instantly, music and podcasts sync instantly. I was impressed with AT&T's coverage too--I used the Lumia 900 all over New York City and it never dropped out on me. And the giant 1830mAh battery will get you through a full day with normal use, which is not always the case with the current crop of LTE-capable phones.

WHAT'S BAD

Bigger is not better. Gadget makers will tell you I'm wrong--they'll point to sales numbers, saying that people have embraced big phones by the millions. But you could just as easily point to the iPhone, the most successful phone line in the country by a long shot, and say that it proves that people love smaller phones. Or you could remember that if you want a good Android or Windows phone, you are basically forced to buy a giant one. There are no longer any top-tier 3.7-inch phones. There are a rapidly decreasing number of 4-inch phones (the Motorola Droid 4, an above-average but not particularly special phone, is the only high-end 4-incher released in the past six months). If you're shopping Android or Windows, your choices are limited to big or bigger. And that's not necessarily for the better.
Most gadgets need to be of a particular size to fulfill their particular roles. A phone has to fit in your pocket or purse. An ebook reader has to display a page of text. A tablet has to provide a full web experience. You can't just stretch it out, like it's a Gumby made of silicon and glass and metal and plastic, and say it's a better device because of it. And that's exactly what the Lumia 900 is. The phone is big--not as big as a Galaxy Note, but big. It's actually wider and thicker than the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, a phone with a substantially bigger screen.

Nokia Lumia 900: Back and Sides: Clockwise from top left: right edge (buttons are a volume rocker, power/hold button, and camera shutter), top edge (with a headphone jack, microphone, and microUSB port, and SIM card slot), back, and bottom edge (speaker grille). Click here to get a bigger view of the other sides of the Lumia 900. Dan Nosowitz

I have small hands (we all have our hurdles in life), and for me, any phone with a screen bigger than four inches is more difficult to use than it's worth. In regular use, I find myself constantly readjusting my grip--I can't hold the phone and reach all parts of the screen with my thumb. Beyond the overall size increase, I don't think the bigger screen has any real benefits in this case. The Windows Phone keyboard is excellent; I never found it awkward to type on the smaller Lumia 800, so unless you have the sausage fingers of Billy Joel (YouTube it, the dude has ten kielbasas attached to his palms), I can't imagine this being a striking improvement. The screen is also mathematically worse than the Lumia 800's. It's the same exact screen--a PenTile AMOLED screen with 800 x 480 resolution and Nokia's ClearBlack tech, which, if you don't understand that, congratulations for not having so much nonsense rattling around in your head. What matters is that it's the same number of pixels stretched across a larger canvas—the opposite of Apple's approach with its Retina Display—which means a visible downgrade in image quality. So on the Lumia 900, the picture is worse. It creates a bigger bulge in my pocket. What's the point?
All the buttons are on the right edge of the phone, even the power/hold button, which is often found on the top edge. That's essential, because it's not really possible for anyone besides Hakeem Olajuwon to reach the top edge of the phone while holding it with one hand. But with it placed on the side, I found myself accidentally hitting the hold switch often, since it falls directly under your right thumb.
The design is also somehow not quite as enthralling as the sleek Lumia 800, even though it's nearly identical. It's the little things, which add up to a different impression when you're dealing with a very simple design presentation. Example: the 800's screen was curved, with the screen seeming to melt off into the sides of the phone like an infinity pool. The 900 has a typical flat screen, with a more definitive bezel between the screen and the sides of the phone, and a weird raise ridge around the edges. It's a very minimalist design, which worked for the 800, because it had nice little touches and felt compact and sharp. The Lumia 900 isn't bad-looking, and it's certainly well-crafted, but it's also not that interesting.
The camera remains not very good. I was surprised at this with the Lumia 800, and I'm still surprised--the Nokia N8, probably the worst phone I've ever reviewed, had a stellar camera, and Nokia is well-known for their phone cameras. The Lumia 900's is average at best--I love that it has a dedicated shutter button, and shutter speed is pretty good, but I wasn't impressed with image quality. The Lumia often came up with very dark shots, and color reproduction was sometimes off. And in lower-light situations, photos were extremely noisy.

Nokia Lumia 900 vs. iPhone 4S: Near and Far: A couple more comparisons: the Lumia 900 took the two photos on the left, while the iPhone 4S took the two on the right. You can see that the Lumia works okay in full sunlight, but still has troubles with shadows and differences in light (look at the slanted shadow on the building to the right of the Empire State Building, or how the daffodils blend into the brighter sidewalk in the upper left corner). Click here to get a bigger view. Dan Nosowitz

The hardware handles the Windows Phone operating system pretty nicely; it's responsive and fast, for the most part. The way it scrolls still feels not quite as organic as iOS--there's a little lag, and sometime the "flick" motion results not in a super-fast scroll, like you wanted, but a slow trudge downwards through a list. Otherwise the software has the same ups and downs (and it's mostly ups, to be clear) as any other Windows Phone, plus a few Nokia-specific apps (Nokia Drive, a free turn-by-turn GPS app; yet another mapping app, Nokia Maps; and a little Nokia-curated section of the App Marketplace).

THE PRICE

It's available on AT&T for $100 with a two-year contract. That's half the price of other 16GB phones like the iPhone, and probably a good way for Microsoft and Nokia to worm their way back into the public consciousness. It's a good deal, though given the fact that you're signing a two-year contract that'll cost you several thousand dollars in voice and data plans, it doesn't really make sense to care much about an extra $100 up front.

Nokia Lumia 900 Email App: Dan Nosowitz

THE VERDICT

The Lumia 900 is a pretty good phone--I still think the iPhone is a smarter buy on AT&T, due to its gigantic and thriving App Store, sleeker hardware, and more polished software, but the Lumia 900 is very nice. And yet I don't think it's as good a phone as the Lumia 800 (though the LTE speeds are delightful). It's a weird feeling to be disappointed while still recommending a product, but that's how it goes--the 900 doesn't live up to my expectations, but it's still the best Windows Phone in America. Still, it feels a little dull, where the Lumia 800 felt fresh and new and stylish. But most of all, I'm turned off by the size. Dear phone manufacturers: I know it's an easy sell to say that your phone is bigger and therefore better--but for some of us, it's simply not the case.

Source : http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-04/nokia-lumia-900-review-bigger-not-better

Why You Might Want a Multi-Core Tablet

2012-04-25T02:37:00.000-07:00

Tablet Devices Sam Kaplan

The current and next generation of tablets are getting into a core war: three, four, even five cores are going to be popping up in your Android (and possibly iOS and Windows) tablets. But what's the point of this numbers battle?

THE TREND

Most tablets fall into one of two categories: low-power devices that last for a day in standby mode but sputter when playing high-def games, and high-power models that handle demanding tasks but suck power in standby. Nvidia engineers combined a low-power single-core CPU and four high-performance CPUs onto the same die, allowing tablets to run efficiently in any situation. This Tegra 3 chip is already in high-end tablets, but manufacturers will use it in more devices, including phones, in the future.

THE BENEFIT

Because the Tegra 3’s cores run only when needed, tablets can last for as long as 12 hours on a charge. Additionally, its quad-core chip—prior devices were dual-core—will make games render faster and with more-realistic textures than before. Simpler media apps will run more smoothly, too; Photaf 3D Panorama, a popular Android photo app, renders twice as quickly as with previous chips.
Here are some of the features of the new crop of Tegra 3 tablets:
Quick Access: Software designers at Acer made a single modification to the stock Android operating system in their 10.1-inch tablet: a quick-access pop-up menu. From the circular menu, users can easily jump among tasks, apps and recently visited sites.

Acer A510 $450
Business-Ready: With its keyboard dock attached, the Transformer Prime morphs from a tablet into a de facto mobile workstation. The dock also houses an extra battery, which increases the tablet’s standalone runtime from nine to 16 hours.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime From $500; keyboard dock, $150
Media Savvy: Lenovo engineers built the LePad K2010 with two speakers flanking either side of the 10-inch high-def screen. The speaker drivers are programmed to use acoustic tricks that create the illusion of surround sound within three feet of the screen.
Lenovo LePad K2010 Price not set

Drones Won’t Be Taking Over Our Wars Anytime Soon

2012-04-25T02:27:00.000-07:00

Live Fighters Aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, pilots play a key role in shows of force and complex missions. Even as drones become integrated into the fleet, pilots will lead. U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tommy Lamkin

Early in 2008 on the Black Sea coast, a Georgian drone flying over the separatist enclave of Abkhazia transmitted an instantaneous artifact from the age of human flight—the video record of its own destruction by an attacking fighter jet. What happened that day was born of incendiary post-Soviet politics. The Kremlin backed Abkhazia and was furious that Georgia had bought surveillance drones to watch over the disputed ground. Georgia’s young government flaunted its new fleet, bullhorning to diplomats and to journalists like me what the drones were documenting of Russia’s buildup to war. I remember the Georgian bravado. We have drones. Ha! We have arrived. Tensions led to action. Action came to this: A Russian MiG-29 intercepted one of Georgia’s unmanned aircraft, an Israeli-made Hermes 450, which streamed live video of the fighter swinging into position. The jet pilot fired a heat-seeking missile. Viewed on the drone operator’s screen down below, the missile grew larger and its exhaust plume grew longer as it rushed near. Then the screen went fuzzy. Georgia’s drone was dead.
Decades from now, those few seconds of video might be cued for knowing laughs—remember when fighter jets ruled the skies, and drones were helpless before them? Cautious minds best not bet against that. But that day is long off. For now, the video delivers the opposite message. The Hermes 450’s lopsided encounter with a MiG served to remind people that, for the foreseeable future, the roles of traditional military fighter and attack aircraft—flown by men and women buckled inside—remain secure. Drones are a complement, not a replacement, to the aircraft flown by the people within.
There are many reasons for this. Stepping past the unsettled questions of morality and law, the restraints on drones are connected to a pair of stubbornly related facts: Technical limits restrict the missions that unmanned aircraft can perform, and drones, for all their abilities, are very vulnerable machines. Whatever futurists predict, in the arena of air-to-air warfare, drones can neither reliably defend themselves nor consistently elude a determined attack. The best models might excel at patient surveillance or electronic jamming, or be lethal to stationary targets on the ground. But when faced with another plane, they can’t really fight. This is why American drones have been used most extensively and successfully in places, most notably Afghanistan and Iraq, that offer politically permissive airspace or where the presence of friendly pilots keeps potential foes away.

Battle Tactics: In high-pressure situations—a dogfight or a bombing mission on or across enemy lines—pilots may steer by feel and familiarity with their craft. Ugur Demir/Getty Images

What this means is that drones present a new variable in an old equation. This is an age in which different types and classes of aircraft work alongside one another. Just as helicopters and fighter jets coexist (along with transport aircraft, re-fuelers, electronic warfare platforms and strategic bombers), unmanned aircraft fill niches in a complex force. Early this year, I lived aboard an American aircraft carrier for roughly three weeks and flew backseat on an F/A-18 combat sortie over Afghanistan. Drones crowded much of the airspace over Afghanistan, watching over American units, searching for the Taliban and occasionally dropping ordnance. But fighter and ground-attack aircraft crowded the skies, too, and pilots were in constant radio contact with the troops below, ready to provide strafing runs or air strikes for any unit that needed help—missions that drones do not do well. The roles for drones expand with each new design cycle. But beyond close air support, there are missions that cannot yet be flown remotely, and will not be flown remotely anytime soon.
Warfare drones can neither reliably defend themselves nor consistently elude a determined attack. Faced with another plane, they can’t really fight. Imagine, for a moment, a dogfight. Now imagine trying to design and manufacture a machine that can do what the combination of a trained pilot and weapon-system officer and modern strike fighter do. To understand how aerial combat is different from the many missions that drones have performed successfully, like the slow loiter over a target to watch a suspected Taliban gathering spot, it is helpful to distill what is required of a pilot and aircraft as they close in on another fighter plane. A dogfight comes to this: Whoever is operating the first aircraft must perceive the second aircraft, assess its capabilities, anticipate where that other aircraft will be—both in the next few seconds and beyond—and then maneuver into a position to counter any threats from the opposing aircraft and to make, to use the language of war, a killing shot.

Other factors enter the scenario and give an aerial fight its context. These include weather, changes in terrain (such as the nearby presence of mountains), fuel levels, emotion, rules of engagement, the proximity and attitude of other aircraft (including commercial aircraft that could enter the battle area), the weapons and defensive packages on each combatant aircraft, and the ambient and background thermal conditions that influence some of them, especially heat-seeking missiles. Pilots and backseaters absorb all of these factors and make decisions at a snap, often as both aircraft fly through G-multiplying dives and turns at tremendous speeds. A ground-attack aircraft can rely on similar acrobatics. One pilot I saw being debriefed by an admiral after returning from an airstrike to help pinned-down American troops near the Pakistan border described rapidly planning an attack angle to release his bomb and then having to bank hard and almost vertically to prevent his F/A-18 from entering Pakistan’s airspace. This was a case of precision, high-speed flying that could prove impossible in the near future for a remotely piloted aircraft.
To be sure, fighter- and attack-aircraft crews praise drones, which they see as having carved out a vital place in modern air forces. They also see where drones might hit a set of design hurdles. The first would be to develop a full mix of sensors and a means to fuse all of the gathered data together, so that a remote pilot might have an idea of what is happening to, and around, an aircraft in a distant piece of sky. This technology does not exist. Even if a sensor suite were created to inhale this information instantly, detractors might say that no one could write the algorithms to handle the real-time permutations required for a remotely piloted aircraft to assess risk and make decisions as quickly as a human. Moreover, some of what happens in the mind of a pilot in a cockpit is guided by feel for his aircraft, something that comes from ability, training and experience. How do you capture that in an app?
The second design hurdle has to do with the limits of compromise. To make a drone more maneuverable, it would need a larger engine. A larger engine drives up size and weight, which means the aircraft must carry more fuel and will most likely lose in-flight loiter time. More sensors would probably change the profile of a drone, increasing its radar reflection and reducing its stealth. Almost every time features are added, the drone changes, and those changes come with costs.
“The biggest limitation that you’re talking about with drones is connectivity.” With remoteness, a pilot might lose the ability to control his craft.But the sensors and the software and the push-pull tension inherent in drone design are only part of it. Captain Dale Horan, a career Navy fighter pilot who recently served on a deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq as the commander of Carrier Air Wing 9, has an accommodating view about the technology and the programs that could be created. The real limit, he says, might not lie at the programmer’s cubicle. If the right sensor suite existed so that a pilot flying an aircraft remotely could see what he needs to see, and “if you have a high enough data rate, an algorithm probably can be generated to put the airplane in the right piece of sky to counter that threat.” (It is not lost on pilots, or anyone else, that skeptics of the computer age once said no machine could ever best the masters at chess.) But then came the catch. “If the net is jammed or the data link is bad, that drone is not going to be able to make that correction,” Horan says.

Costly Add-Ons: As drones move into certain roles once occupied by pilots, they grow in size and lose their stealth. A Reaper drone [above] has a wingspan nearly twice that of an F-22 Raptor [below]. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

And there is a limit not often discussed. Any sensor system that could seize and interpret all the data required for a pilot to fly a dogfight remotely would face a technical challenge: transmitting that much data, in two directions, in real time. To sketch a crude example, imagine using your smartphone to remotely pilot an unmanned aircraft 1,000 miles away, at night, in bad weather, in skies crowded with a mix of friendly and commercial aircraft in different aviation corridors and altitudes. Now imagine trying to fly that same aircraft remotely when it is under a complex attack, and your smartphone signal grew weak or spotty. The reasons for the frustrating signal could be many—deliberate jamming, environmental interference, a broken part on either end or anywhere in between, or all of the above. Lieutenant Commander Fran Catalina, of VFA-41, a Navy F/A-18 squadron, put it this way: “The biggest limitation that you are talking about with drones is connectivity.” With remoteness, a pilot might easily lose the ability to continuously pilot a complex aircraft—yet another reason fighter pilots are not going to be phased out anytime soon. A dogfight is only one example of a combat situation in which neither the sensors nor the data links would be robust enough. Similar problems would apply to attack aircraft flying into hostile airspace to strike a target. Consider an oft-discussed option: the laboratories of a nation’s nuclear program. For the sake of war-gaming, assume that the approach will be beyond what pilots call non-permissive. The crews expect to face anti-aircraft gunfire and missile attacks from ground defenses, along with communications jamming and the potential for fighter jets scrambling to meet the sortie en route.

F-22 Raptor: Stocktrek Images/Getty Images

Those who train for this kind of warfare know that no drone yet exists that could handle such a scenario. The drone would have to be alert to all of these factors, relay them to a remote pilot on the other side of the world, and make corrections in the time required to react. Missions like these will remain the work of the same classes of aircraft—and the pilots and weapon-systems officers who fly with them—who have been flying these missions for decades. With each design cycle, drones will no doubt be further integrated into the busy mix of a modern military air campaign and maybe, eventually, into missions over hostile airspace with anti-aircraft guns and enemy fighters. But humans will be up there with them, flying old-school pilot-on-the-ejection-seat flights and calling the shots. As that day perhaps draws near, the limits on where drones can fly will remain. The MiG that punched that Hermes 450 out of the sky laid out a fact unlikely to change soon. When the skies turned violent, all the Hermes could do, in the end, was watch—even its own fiery end.

C.J. Chivers, a former marine, is a senior writer for the New York Times and the author of The Gun, a social history of the AK-47.

Top Ten Tasty non Vegetarian Dishes

2012-04-24T00:42:00.001-07:00

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It is often said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Whereas, there are those who may want to debate the issue, the fact is it holds water not just to a man but to women too. Each society has its own culture that relates to food. There are some that have gained fame internationally, such as, Indian, Chinese and French cuisines. If you can’t find these locally, and love to travel, you need to make a point to try out the following tasty cuisines.

1. French Cuisine

Beginning with the Middle Years that which brought about plentiful feast to the French Revolution, where sophisticated methodologies were applied, French cuisine can be referred to as in the 21st as the “haute cuisine”. It is as widespread as the poetry. A hearty French meal can be compared to as a day at the theaters. One of the dominant components of French cooking is pastries. Cheese and Wine are also known to accompany a French meal. Contemporary restaurants get their inspirations from French culture.

2. Italian Cuisine

At number two and one of the oldest cuisines in the globe is Italian cuisine. Its roots can be traces to as early as the 4th century. It is regarded as part of the present century discoveries. It is regarded as the first cuisine to make use of multiple ingredients in its preparation, i.e. maize, pasta, potatoes, meat and tomato pepper amongst others.

3. Chinese Cuisine
Owing its roots to various parts of China, Chinese cuisine is on of the most sort after and eaten cuisine in the world today. Recent statistics reveal that it is consumed by a third of the population in the globe each day. The cuisine is the simplest to make, inexpensive and above all sumptuous. A majority of the meal is made in bite-size bits since the Chinese culture consider forks and knives to be weapons. Normally, each person sited at the table is handed a bowl of rice whereas the other foods are shared by all who are on the table. There are those meals that are prepared from endangered species, e.g. facai moss and some from animals you will want to avoid at all cost, e.g. dogs

4. Indian Cuisine
If there is a stylish and assorted cuisine the world over, then it has to be the Indian Cuisine. There is no part of the world where you will go to and miss the tasty Indian Cuisine. Indian foods are also referred to as Punjabi. Indian cuisines are divided into three main categories, i.e. South, East and West. Whereas there are those which are vegetarian, due to changing culture and the need to appeal to a global audience, there are some Indian dishes that include chicken, goat, fish and lamb meats. A distinct feature of Indian cuisine is the hot flavor. If it is your first time to eating spicy Indian food, it is recommended that you begin slowly.

5. Thai Cuisine
After tasting the Thai food made of hot, acerbic, tart and sweet taste, you will want to visit the country and see its rich culture. The dishes are identified by the utilization of fresh herbs and savors that range from fresh coriander to lime juice. It bears close resemblance to most Asian cuisines and as such, has rice as one of the main components. Some of the popular aspects of Thai cuisine include raw beef, fried insect larvae and tumult fish.

6. Mexican Cuisine
Mexican cuisines are well known for its range of flavors and spices. Its roots can be traced to the Spanish culture. A majority of the dishes are prepared according to the Spanish culture. Some of the meat dishes included in the Mexican cuisine include iguana, deer, monkey and rattle snake.

7. Japanese Cuisine
At number seven and fast gaining popularity worldwide is the Japanese cuisine. It is renowned for making food that appeal to a specific time of the year. The meat is well prepared though you can expect some raw food in the prepared dish.

8. Spanish Cuisine
Unlike other cuisines, the Spanish cuisine makes use of several types of meat, fish and seafood. Nonetheless, the type of seafood in your dish hinges on its availability from the immediate waters. In addition, it use of excess oil, distinguishes it from other neighboring cuisines. The food is accompanied by a popular local drink referred to as sangria.

9. Greek Cuisine
The Greek cuisine derives its source form the Turkish and Italian culture. The meat is prepared using olive oil and particular herbs that are only found from the Mediterranean area

10. Lebanese Cuisine

If you happen to be traveling to the Middle East, then the Lebanese Cuisine will offer you a sumptuous treat. The foods, i.e. meat and vegetables are basically Mediterranean. One of the most popular Lebanese dishes known world over is the appetizer mezze. The food is accompanied by lots of fresh fish and other sea food. It is also characterized by the presence of animal fat.

You do not have to travel the world to taste the above cuisine. Thanks to globalization, you can now pop into a restaurant serving the above cuisine and have a bite.

10 Differences Between iPad 2 and The New iPad 3

2012-04-24T00:39:00.002-07:00

Apple loyal followers, customers, and users have witnessed the transition, development, and series of modification of iPad. It became the first line of tablet computer that they have introduced in the market. It could be recalled that it was in April of 2010 when the first iPad was released wherein within 80 days where it has sold 3 million pieces. At the end of 2010, it was recorded 14.8 million were sold. Anticipation and excitement has increased of the launch of iPad 2 that happened in March of 2011 wherein they have sold more than 15 million pieces of the new unit. In fact, at the end 2011, they have recorded a total profit of $9.5 billion just for iPad alone. Now people are more zealous on the recently launched new iPad 3, which is also known as the new iPad or iPad 3. What are the things to check and differences between the iPad 2 and the new iPad 3. Check these out:

10. Price

This is least of the difference and it’s expected since there are major improvements made that added to the price difference of $100. An iPad 2 of 16GB Wi-Fi is sold at $399 while iPad 3 is priced at $499 and it varies as well according to memory options.

9. Power Consumption

iPad 2 has energy efficiency based on the mode components as to sleep, idle –display on, power adapter – no load, and power adapter efficiency. However, with iPad 3 as given based on the reviews, it is lower compared with iPad 2.

8. Bluetooth

In iPad 2, Bluetooth is 2.1 + EDR but with iPad 3, it is now Bluetooth Smart 4.0. In fact, you could find this kind of Bluetooth in some of the Apple products such as MacBook Pro, iPhone devices, and Mac Mini. The same feature is found at Motorola’s Droid RAZR and watch of Casio. This is the first tablet that has Bluetooth 4.0 that actually reduced greatly, the power consumption mode, which actually works best for remotes and watches. The range of communication increased up to 200 feet compared with iPad 2.

7. Battery Life

The iPad 2 has 25-watt-hour lithium polymer, which is rated for 10 hours. iPad 3 has increased by 17.5-watt-hour-lithium that makes it 42.5-watt-hour lithium polymer, which is rated for 10 hours, while 9 if it’s on 4G. Also, the battery is bigger although according to review, you could still expect the same performance at the end of the day.

6. Camera

The difference can be seen on the back part. For iPad 2, its 720p HD still and video camera 0.7 megapixel, 5x digital zoom and 30 fps. iPad 3 has increased in HD still of 1080, video camera became 5 MP, it still maintains the 5x digital zoom, 30 fps and its rear camera is auto focus while the iPad has fixed focus.

5. Dimensions

As to its thickness, iPad 2 is slightly thinner than iPad 3. iPad 2 is 0.346 inches (8.8 mm) while iPad 3 0.37 inches (9.4 mm).

4. Weight

The weight varies as well based on the model of iPad2 and iPad 3. For Wi-Fi with iPad 2, it weighs 1.33 pounds (601 grams) against 1.44 pounds (652 grams) for iPad 3. As to the weight, if it’s 3G for iPad with AT&T, it weighs 1.35 pounds (613 grams) against 1.46 pounds (662 grams) for iPad 3.

3. Wireless (Wi-Fi 3G/4G LTE)

For iPad 2 it has 3G Cellular HDSPA, 2G cellular EDGE, and 3G Models, while on iPad 3 has an improved 3G transitional LTE on 4G models, which explains that it is many times faster than 3G.

2. Processor

iPad 2 has 1 GHz, which is dynamically a clocked dual core Apple A5 system-on-a-chip, while the iPad 3 has a dual core A5X system-on-a-chip. It means that iPad 3 has higher performance, low-power system-on-a-chip with quad-core graphics.

1. Display

iPad 2 has 9.7 inches (250 mm) multi touch as same with the first generation of iPad that has a resolution of 1024×768 pixels with LED backlighting, scratch resistant, and finger coating. On the other hand, iPad 3 still maintains the 9.7 inches (250mm) but has a multi touch Retina display at a resolution of 2048×1536 with LED backlighting as well. It means that it has higher resolutions equivalent to 4 times.

Top 10 Best Laptops For College students in 2012

2012-04-24T00:30:00.000-07:00

best laptops for college students in 2012.

10. ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH72

Pros: Solid State Disk, fast processor, excellent design, convincing audio, super thin and super light Cons: Less memory size

Display: 13.3-inch HD Display

Storage: 256GB Solid State Drive

Processor: 2nd Generation Intel Core i7-2677M Processor with Turbo Boost

Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Intel UMA

Wireless: Wi-Fi Wireless Networking 802.11b/g/n

Audio: Stereo Speakers powered by Bang & Olufsen ICEPower

9. Apple MacBook Air MC968LL/A (Newest Version)

Pros: Brand name, Solid State Hard Disk, multi-touch trackpad Cons: Too expensive, memory too cramped, heavy despite of small size

Display: 11.6-inch LED-backlit Glossy Widescreen Display

Storage: 64GB Solid State Hard Disk

Processor: Intel Core i5 1.6GHz Dual-core Processor

Memory: 2GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Intel HD 3000 Graphics Processor 256MB DDR3 SDRAM

Wireless: Wi-Fi Wireless Networking (802.11b/g/n)

Audio: Built-in stereo Speakers with Omnidirectional Microphone, Headphone Port

8. Acer S3-951-6464

Pros: 0.51 inches thin, only weighs 3lbs Cons: $899.99 Price Tag

Display: 13.3 inches with Active Matrix TFT Color LCD

Storage: 320GB 5400rpm Serial ATA

Processor: Intel Core i5-2467M 1.6GHz Dual-core

Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 with DDR3 SDRAM

Battery and Power: 3260mAh 65W 3-cell Lithium Polymer Battery

Wireless: Wireless LAN IEEE (802.11b/g/n)

Audio: Built-in Stereo Speakers – Dolby Home Theater v4 Audio Enhancement

7. Acer Aspire 5334

Pros: Cheap, huge screen, quality graphics, and convenient disk size Cons: Intel Celeron processor T3100, 2GB DDR3 SDRAM, 3 hours battery life

Display: 15.6-inch HD high-brightness (200-nit) Acer CineCrystal™ TFT LCD

Storage: 640GB 5400rpm Serial ATA

Processor: Intel Celeron Processor T3100

Memory: 2GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Mobile Intel GL40 Express Chipset with Integrated 3D Graphics, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M with up to 1759 MB of Intel Dynamic Video Memory Technology 5.0

Battery and Power: 48.8 W 4400 mAh 6-cell Li-ion Battery, 65 W AC Adapter

Wireless: Acer InviLink Nplify 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi Certified

Audio: One built-in Mono Speaker, Built-in Microphone, MS-Sound Compatible

6. HP Pavilion DV6-6116NR

Pros: Huge 15.6-inch screen, CoolSense technology that diverts heat from going to the lap, Dolby Home Theater and Altec Lansing Speakers Cons: Practically none

Display: 15.6-inch HD BrightView LED Display

Storage: 640GB 5400rpm Serial ATA

Processor: 2nd Generation Intel Core i5-2430M Processor 2.40GHz with Turbo Boost

Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 1696MB Total Graphics Memory

Wireless: 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth

Audio: Dolby Home Theater and Altec Lansing Speakers

5. HP Pavilion DV6-6150US

Pros: Beats by Dr. Dre Audio, huge 750GB disk space, massive 6GB of RAM, 2^nd Generation Core i5 processor, long 6.5 hours battery life Cons: 5.78 lbs heavy

Display: 15.6-inch Wide Screen

Storage: 750GB 5400rpm Serial ATA

Processor: Intel Core i5-2410M 2.30GHz Processor

Memory: 6GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000

Battery and Power: 6.5 Hours 55Wh 6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery, 65W AC Adapter

Wireless: Wi-Fi Wireless Networking (802.11b/g/n)

Audio: Beats Audio with Integrated Digital Microphone and Internal Speakers

4. Apple MacBook Pro MD318LL/A (Newest Version)

Pros: Brand Name, huge 15.4-inch screen size, speedy quad-core processor, 7-hour battery life, lightweight Cons: Expensive

Display: 15.4-inch LED-backlit Glossy Widescreen Display

Storage: 500GB 5400rpm Serial ATA

Processor: Intel Core i7 Quad-core 2.2GHz

Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Graphic Switching Between AMD Radeon HD 6750M and Intel HD Graphics 3000

Wireless: Wi-Fi Wireless Networking 802.11b/g/n

Audio: Stereo Speakers with Subwoofers

3. Toshiba Protégé R835-P94

Pros: Dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, amazing 9-hour battery life Cons: Pricey at $800

Display: 13.3-inch Wide Screen HD TruBrite LED Backlit Display

Storage: 640GB 5400rpm Serial ATA

Processor: Intel Core i5-2450M Dual-core Processor

Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Mobile Intel HD Graphics with 64MB-1696MB Shared Allocated Memory

Battery and Power: 9 Hours 66Wh 6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery, 65W (19V 3.42A) Auto-sensing, 100-240V / 50-60Hz Input

Wireless: Wi-Fi Wireless networking (802.11b/g/n)

Audio: Headphone Jack (Stereo), Microphone Jack (Mono), Standard Stereo Speakers

2. Toshiba Satellite L755-S5271

Pros: Huge 15.6-inch LED screen, 5-hour battery life, reliable 640GB disk space, all in a great $600 value Cons: Weighs 5.7 lbs, only comes with a Core i3 processor

Display: 15.6-inch Wide Screen

Storage: 640GB 5400rpm Serial ATA

Processor: Intel Core i3-2310M Processor

Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Mobile Intel 64MB – 1696MB HD Graphics

Battery and Power: 5.7 Hours 48Wh 6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery, 65W Auto-sensing, 100-240V / 50-60Hz Input

Wireless: Wi-Fi Wireless Networking (802.11b/g/n)

Audio: Headphone Jack (Stereo), Microphone Jack (Mono), Standard Stereo Speakers

1. Apple MacBook Pro MD313LL/A

Pros: Big 500GB for a Mac, 7 hours battery life, speedy 2.4GHz Dual-core Core i5 Processor, Brand Name, multi-touch trackpad Cons: Expensive

Display: 13.3-inch LED-backlit Glossy Widescreen Display

Storage: 500GB 5400rpm Serial ATA

Processor: Intel Core i5 2.4GHz Dual-core Processor

Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Intel HD 3000 Graphics Processor 384MB DDR3 SDRAM

Wireless: Wi-Fi Wireless Networking (802.11b/g/n)

Audio: Stereo Speakers with Subwoofers

source: http://www.tiptoptens.com/2012/04/06/best-laptops-for-college-students-in-2012/

The Suit That Will Help Felix Baumgartner Withstand A 120,000-Foot Free Fall

2012-04-23T02:25:00.000-07:00

The Mach-1 Suit Jeff Newton

Sometime before the end of this year, skydiver Felix Baumgartner intends to climb into a capsule suspended beneath a helium balloon, rise 23 miles above Roswell, New Mexico, open the capsule door, and jump out.
On the 120,000-foot free fall—the longest ever attempted—he will face temperatures as low as –70°F and speeds of more than 700 miles an hour, becoming the first person to accelerate through the sound barrier without a craft. At the outset of the project, dubbed Stratos by its sponsor, Red Bull, no high-altitude full-pressure suit had ever been built specifically to withstand this kind of controlled free fall. Engineers at the David Clark Company, which builds full-pressure suits for NASA and the Department of Defense, spent four years developing one. Baumgartner’s jump will be the first live trial at Mach speeds.
Suit: It has four layers. The outer layer is made of Nomex, a fire-retardant material that will also act as an insulator. Under the Nomex is a mesh restraint, which holds a gas-filled bladder. The innermost layer is a breathable liner. Once pressurized, the suit will become rigid. Its vertical orientation will help Baumgartner maintain delta position (head down, feet up) throughout his free fall—crucial if he is to avoid a flat spin.
Pressure System: To avoid decompression sickness, hypoxia and tissue damage—all risks associated with drastic changes in atmospheric pressure—Baumgartner will be breathing pure oxygen, and his suit will maintain an internal pressure of 3.5 psi. As he falls, an aneroid valve and a pair of diaphragms will regulate the suit’s internal pressure. When he hits 35,000 feet, it will depressurize, giving him greater mobility.
Chest Pack: The technology hub of the suit, the chest pack contains a voice transmitter and receiver; a high-definition video camera with a superwide 120-degree view; an accelerometer; an inertial-measurement unit that reports pitch and angle; and twin sets of lithium-ion batteries, one to power the visor’s de-icing system and one to power the chest pack itself.
G-Meter: The jump will begin in the stratosphere, where falling objects, less hindered by air density and friction, tend to spin. But a violent spin could whirl Baumgartner into a G-force-induced loss of consciousness, called G-loc, and even rattle him to death. As a precaution, he will wear a G-force meter on his wrist. If it reads 3.5 or more Gs for a period of six seconds, the meter will trigger the release of a three-foot drogue parachute designed to stabilize spins.

The Mach-1 Suit Helmet: Jeff Newton

Face Shield: When Baumgartner exits the capsule, the temperature will be –10°F. But by the time he drops to 60,000 or 70,000 feet, where the upper atmosphere begins to reflect heat from the sun, it could plummet to –70°. To prevent his breath from crystallizing on the inside of his faceplate, which would obscure his vision, engineers bonded 110 extremely thin heating wires to the plastic-composite shield. Parachute System: Baumgartner will carry three parachutes with him: a drogue, a main chute and a reserve. The main and reserve chutes are Baumgartner’s usual nine-cell and seven-cell designs but, for additional stability, are 2.5 times as large. He will have four release handles—two red and two yellow—that he can pull in different situations. For example, the red handle on the right side of his chest releases the main chute and jettisons the drogue; the yellow handle on that same hip cuts the main chute free so the reserve can deploy without tangling. If he goes into a spin and can’t pull his arms toward his body, he can deploy the drogue by tapping a release ring on the suit’s left index finger.

10 tips for improving your smile

2012-04-23T00:28:00.000-07:00

[Photo by Sean Jackson]

10. Use an electric toothbrush

If you haven’t got one already then it really is time to invest in an electric toothbrush. These can clean more thoroughly and many of them even have a timer so that you don’t absentmindedly brush them for too short a time! Buy one with a removable rather than a fixed head so that you can get longer use out of it and be willing to invest a little bit more money so that you can own one with a longer battery life.

9. Floss each day

It is firmly established in people’s minds that brushing twice-a-day can help guard against gum disease. However, flossing often gets over-looked despite several studies concluding that using floss to clean between teeth is more effective at reducing gingivitis than tooth-brushing alone.

8. Watch what you eat

It is always better for your teeth that you don’t snack in between meals. Advice from MRC Human Nutrition Research states: “If you do have sweets, eat them all at once”. This means, for example, eating a whole chocolate bar rather than constantly dipping into a bag of sweets.
Chocolate is certainly a popular snack to have after a meal but consider switching to cheese and biscuits instead. Cheese is a good food to eat as it helps produce saliva and kills the harmful bacteria which lurks around mouth.

7. Drink your way to good oral health

Your teeth are under attack for about an hour after you consume a fizzy drink –tooth decay and dental erosion can often result from excessive exposure to sugar.
Drinking with a straw can reduce fizzy drinks’ harmful contact with teeth and reduce the chance of tooth decay taking hold.
And all dentists agree that water and milk are both far more kind to teeth than those sugar-laden liquids which come in cans.

6. Give up smoking

Using nicotine products increases your risk of staining your teeth yellow and suffering from gum disease and tooth-loss. If you need any further motivation bear in mind that a survey conducted by National No Smoking Day found that 57 per cent of people are put off by the idea of kissing someone with smoker’s breath!

5. Establish a routine

Try to get a daily routine in place so that looking after your teeth becomes second nature. Your routine should include brushing your teeth at least twice-a-day and waiting a while after eating or drinking before picking up a tooth brush. Brushing too soon after a meal might damage your teeth as this is when your enamel is at its most vulnerable.

4. Book a dentist’s appointment

Just because you feel no pain in your mouth doesn’t mean that you don’t have tooth decay or other dental problems. That’s why it’s always best to see your dentist regularly so that problems can be detected at an early stage when they are easier to treat. Putney Dentist Dr Glafcos Tombolis said: “Sometimes, preventative measures such as an appointment with a hygienist can be more beneficial than a dental check-up as it keeps bacterial levels low.”

3. Check out teeth-whitening

Teeth can be whitened by home whitening or ‘in-office’ home whitening. Home whitening involves moulds of your teeth being taken so that teeth-whitening trays can be constructed and used at home.
‘In-office’ whitening normally involves teeth-whitening gel being applied to your teeth before the light of a powerful lamp is directed at your mouth. The procedure, which takes place on the dentist’s chair, normally takes about 90 minutes.
Dentist Dr. Glafcos Tombolis said: “A combination of home and in-office treatments is far more effective than having one treatment in isolation.”

2. Consider cosmetic treatment

Teeth-whitening is just one of many popular modern dental treatments which are available. Others include procedures involving veneers, crowns and Inman Aligners. Braces are also popular and, thanks to modern technology, they are far more discreet than the braces of yesteryear. Invisalign Braces for instance are nearly invisible – no one can tell that you are wearing them but everyone can see the benefit to your smile.

1. Don’t worry, be happy

And finally… don’t forget that the most obvious way to improve your smile is to be happy. Be healthy, enjoy your life and let the world see your smile!

top 10 best dslr cameras in 2012

2012-04-23T00:25:00.000-07:00

DSLR or Digital Single Lens Reflex cameras are all the hype these days because of the image quality, the performance, and the features that you can access, all in a less costly offer that can be comparable with modern-day smartphones or laptops. And because these cameras are hot, more and more brands are producing units that differ based on quality, ergonomics, ease of use, and other attributes that both professionals and amateurs will love. Nevertheless, you may ask what the 10 best DSLR cameras are for 2012. In case you wanted to know the lineup, then checking this list would feed your need for more info.

10. Olympus E-5

Pros: Weather resistant, dual card slots, embedded RAW File Conversion, wireless flash control Cons: low sensor pixel count, ISO lacks luster compared on other units

Sensor Size: 17.3mm x 13.0mm

Sensor Pixels: 12.3 million

Sensor Dust Removal System: Supersonic Wave Filter

LCD Screen: 3.0 inches, 920000 dots, HyperCrystal LCD

Video: HD 1920×1080 / 30 fps, HD 1920×1080 / 24 fps, HD 1280×720 / 30 fps , HD 1280×720 / 24 fps, VGA 640×424 / 30 fps

ISO: Auto, ISO 200 – 6400

White Balance: Lamp, Fluorescent, Daylight, Flash, Cloudy, Shade, Underwater, Kelvin Temp (2000K – 14000K)

Continuous Shooting Speed: 5 frames per second

Shutter Speed: 1/8000 sec.

Storage: SD, SDHC, SDXC, CF, UDMA

Battery: BLM-5 Li-ion Battery

9. Canon EOS Rebel T3

Pros: Ergonomically convenient, great battery life, solid build, lightweight, compatible with many lenses Cons: Slippery grip, plastic body, weak flash

Sensor Size: 22.0mm x 14.7mm

Sensor Pixels: 12.2 million

Sensor Dust Removal System: Appending and Acquisition Dust Delete Data, Manual Cleaning

LCD Screen: 2.7 inches, 230000 dots, TFT LCD

ISO: Auto, ISO 100 – 6400

White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten Light, White Fluorescent Light, Flash, Custom (Custom WB)

Continuous Shooting Speed: 3 frames per second (JPEG), 2 frames per second (RAW), 0.8 frames per second (JPEG+RAW)

Shutter Speed: 1/4000 sec.

Storage: SD, SDHC, SDXC, Eye-Fi Card, USB 2.0 HDD

Battery: Battery Pack LP-E10

8. Nikon D3100

Pros: Image quality, long battery life, ergonomically convenient, easy to navigate and use Cons: Video mode records too much noise

Sensor Size: 23.1mm x 15.4mm

Sensor Pixels: 14.2 million

Sensor Dust Removal System: Image sensor cleaning, Airflow Control System, Image Dust Off Reference Data

LCD Screen: 3.0 inches, 230000 dots, Wide Viewing Angle TFT-LCD

Video: HD 1920×1080 / 24 fps, HD 1280×720 / 30 fps, HD 1280×720 / 24 fps, VGA 640×424 / 30 fps, Movie with Sound

ISO: ISO 100 – 3200, Hi-1 (ISO 6400), Hi-2 (ISO 12,800)

White Balance: Auto, Cloudy, Direct Sunlight, Flash, Fluorescent (7 types), Incandescent, Preset Manual, Shade

Continuous Shooting Speed: 3 frames per second

Shutter Speed: 1/4000 sec.

Storage: SD, SDHC, SDXC

Battery: EN-EL14 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery

7. Pentax K-5

Pros: Compact, weather resistant, has shake reduction Cons: Expensive, terrible video, autofocus tracking

Sensor Size: 23.7mm x 15.7mm

Sensor Pixels: 16.3 million

Sensor Dust Removal System: DR II (ultrasonic vibration to low pass filter) with Dust Alert Function

LCD Screen: 3.0 inches, 921000 dots, Wide Angle Viewable

ISO: ISO 100 – 12800, 80 – 51200

White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Fluorescent (D, N, W, L), Tungsten, Flash, CTE Manual Mode

Continuous Shooting Speed: 7 frames per second

Shutter Speed: 1/8000 sec.

Storage: SD, SDHC, SDXC

Battery: Rechargeable Li-Ion battery D-LI90

6. Sony A580

Pros: Reliable metering and autofocus, good handling, tilt-screen, good dynamic range Cons: unreliable white balance, LCD prone to fingerprint, no program shift

Sensor Size: 23.6mm x 15.6mm

Sensor Pixels: 16.2 million

LCD Screen: 3.0 inches, 921600 dots, Low Temperature Polycrystalline TFT LCD

ISO: Auto, ISO 100 – 12800

White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Flash, Kelvin Temp (2500 – 9900K, 100K steps)

Continuous Shooting Speed: 7 frames per second

Shutter Speed: 1/4000 sec.

Storage: SD, SDHC, SDXC, MemoryStick Pro Duo

Battery: NP-FM50H0 Lithium-Ion Rechargeable Battery

5. Nikon D5100

Pros: Autofocus on video shooting, external microphone jack, HDR embedded, flip-out tilt screen Cons: Focus motor and image stabilization not available

Sensor Size: 23.6mm x 15.6mm

Sensor Pixels: 16.2 million

Sensor Dust Removal System: Image Sensor Cleaning

LCD Screen: 3.0 inches, 921000 dots, Wide Viewing Angle, Vari-angle TFT-LCD

Video: HD 1920×1080 / 30 fps, HD 1920×1080 / 24 fps, HD 1280×720 / 30 fps , HD 1280×720 / 24 fps, VGA 640×424 / 30 fps

ISO: ISO 100 – 6400, Hi-0.3, Hi-0.7, Hi-1 (ISO 12,800), Hi-2 (ISO 25,600)

White Balance: Auto, Cloudy, Direct Sunlight, Flash, Fluorescent (7 types), Incandescent, Preset Manual, Shade

Continuous Shooting Speed: 4 frames per second

Shutter Speed: 1/4000 sec.

Storage: SD, SDHC, SDXC

Battery: EN-EL14 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery

4. Canon EOS Rebel T2i

Pros: Quick start-up time, lightweight, portable, easy to use, excellent auto settings, good battery life Cons: Video mode records longer, autofocus hit or miss, noisy

Sensor Size: 22.3mm x 14.9mm

Sensor Pixels: 18 million

Sensor Dust Removal System: Self-Cleaning Sensor Unit, Image Appended Dust Delete Data, Manual Cleaning

LCD Screen: 3.0 inches, 1040000 dots, TFT LCD

ISO: ISO 100 – 6400, H: 12800

White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten Light, White Fluorescent Light, Flash, Custom

Continuous Shooting Speed: 3.7 frames per second

Shutter Speed: 1/4000 sec.

Storage: SD, SDHC, SDXC

Battery: One Battery Pack LP-E8

3. Canon EOS Rebel T3i

Pros: Image quality, easy to use, bright LCD, simple controls, quick start-up time Cons: Noisy, short battery life, heavy and bulky

Sensor Size: 22.3mm x 14.9mm

Sensor Pixels: 18 million

Sensor Dust Removal System: Automatic Sensor Cleaning, Image Appended Dust Delete Data, Manual Cleaning

LCD Screen: 3.0 inches, 1040000 dots, TFT LCD

ISO: Auto, ISO 100 – 6400, H: 12800

White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten Light, White Fluorescent Light, Flash, Custom

Continuous Shooting Speed: 3.7 frames per second

Shutter Speed: 1/4000 sec.

Storage: SD, SDHC, SDXC, Eye-Fi Card, USB 2.0 HDD

Battery: Battery Pack LP-E8

2. Sony SLT-A77

Pros: High resolution, has deep features, ergonomic, utilizes unique imaging technologies, good battery life Cons: Noisy on some settings, menu a bit confusing, laggy menus

Sensor Size: 23.5mm x 15.6 mm

Sensor Pixels: 24.3 million

Sensor Dust Removal System: Charge Protection Coating Image, Sensor-Shift Mechanism

LCD Screen: 3.0 inches, 921600 dots, TFT Xtra Fine LCD

Video: 1920 x 1080 (60p/ 28Mbps/ PS, 60i/ 24Mbps/ FX, 60i/ 17Mbps/ FH, 24p/ 24Mbps/ FX, 24p/ 17Mbps/ FH), 1440 x 1080 (30fps/ 12Mbps), 640 x 480 (30fps/ 3Mbps)

ISO: ISO 100 – 16000, 50 – 25600

White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent (Warm white /Cool white/ Day white/ Daylight), Flash, Kelvin Temp (2500 – 9900K, 100K steps)

Continuous Shooting Speed: 12 frames per second

Shutter Speed: 1/8000 sec.

Storage: SD, SDHC, SDXC, MemoryStick Pro Duo

Battery: NP-FM500H Lithium-Ion Rechargeable Battery

1. Canon EOS 1Dx

Pros: High-speed image processors, HD video recording at 1080p, RJ45 connectivity, embedded RAW File Converter, 2 CF Card Slots makes it a best DSLR Camera in 2012 Cons: Very heavy, pixels fewer than expected

Sensor Size: 36mm x 24mm

Sensor Pixels: 18.1 million

Sensor Dust Removal System: Self Cleaning Sensor Unit, Appending and Acquisition Dust Delete Data, Manual Cleaning

LCD Screen: 3.2 inches, 1040000 dots, TFT LCD

Video: 1920 x 1080: 30 fps / 25 fps / 24 fps, 1280 x 720: 60 fps / 50 fps, 640 x 480: 30 fps / 25 fps

ISO: Automatically set: ISO 100-51200, Basic Zone modes: ISO 100-51200 set automatically, Extension settable: ISO 50; 102400 and 204800

White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten Light, White Fluorescent Light, Flash, Custom, Color Temperature setting

Continuous Shooting Speed: Super High-speed: 14 fps, High-speed: 12fps, Low-speed: 3fps

Shutter Speed: 1/8000 sec.

Storage: SD, SDHC, SDXC, Eye-Fi Card, USB 2.0 HDD

Battery: One Battery Pack LP-E4N or LP-E4

source: http://www.tiptoptens.com/2012/04/10/best-dslr-cameras-2012/

10 interesting solar system facts

2012-04-23T00:22:00.001-07:00

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. Of the many objects that orbit the Sun, most of the mass is contained within eight relatively solitary planets whose orbits are almost circular and lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic plane. Here are facts about Solar System.

1. The Solar System only has 8 planets
Only 8 planets there are Mercury, Venus, Earth,Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. That’s because the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006. Why is Pluto not a planet? To qualify as a planet, an object needs to orbit the Sun, have enough mass to pull itself into a spherical shape, and have cleared out its orbit of other material. It’s this third requirement that Pluto hasn’t fulfilled, it’s just a fraction of the mass in its orbit, while the other planets are millions of times more massive than everything else in their orbits.

8 planet

2. The Solar System has 4 dwarf planets
Pluto has been downgraded, but there are now 4 dwarf planets in the Solar System: Ceres, Pluto, Eris and Makemake. Dwarf planets are objects that orbit the Sun and have enough mass to form a sphere, but they share their orbit with other objects. And as telescopes improve, more dwarf planets will be discovered. There might eventually be more dwarf planets than planets.

dwarfs

3. The influence of the Solar System extends out for almost 2 light-years
The theoretical size of the Solar System goes out as far as the the Sun’s gravity overpowers anything else in the region; and this is almost 2 light-years away, nearly halfway to the nearest star. It’s thought that the Oort Cloud – a region where the long-period comets come from – extends out to 100,000 astronomical units from the Sun (1 astronomical unit, or AU, is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun).

The influence of the Solar System

4. Most of the mass of the Solar System is the Sun
In fact, the Sun contains 99.86% of the mass in the Solar System. And the Sun is 73% hydrogen, so most of the matter in the Solar System is hydrogen, with the remaining amount being mostly helium, oxygen and carbon. Everything else, like the metals and rocks is just a tiny fraction of a fraction of the mass in the Solar System.

Most of the mass of the Solar System is the Sun

5. The Solar System is 4.6 billion years old
Since the Earth is constantly resurfacing itself, we can’t find out how old it is, but there’s another way to find out. Meteorites, which date back to the formation of the Solar System, have been raining down on Earth for millions of years. Scientists have sampled meteorites and learned that they’re all 4.6 billion years old. That means that everything in the Solar System formed around the same time – give or take a few million years.

The Solar System

6. Everything orbits in the same direction
All the objects in the Solar System orbit the Sun in a counter-clockwise direction. This matches the theory that the Solar System formed all at once from a cool cloud of hydrogen. As the gas came together, it began to spin, so that the Sun collected in the middle, surrounded by an accretion disk of gas and dust. All the planets and other material in the Solar System formed within this rotating disk. There are a few exceptions, however, like Halley’s Comet.

Everything orbits in the same direction

7. The Sun is just one star in 200 billion in the Milky Way
Our whole world is just one planet orbiting one star in a galaxy of 200 billion stars.

the Milky Way

8. They’re really far apart
There are only a few stars within 10 light-years of the Sun. The closest system is the Alpha Centauri system, 4.4 light-years away. Barnard’s Star is 5.9 light-years away, and then Wolf 359 (7.8 light-years), Lalande 21185 (8.3 light-years), Sirius (8.6 light-years), Luyten 726-8 (8.7 light-years), and finally Ross 154 at 9.7 light-years away. Interstellar travel will be difficult when you’re dealing with these distances.

scale

9. Astronomers used to think the Earth was the center
You take it for granted that the Sun is the center of the Solar System, but astronomers used to think that the Earth was the center of the entire Universe. It wasn’t until the 17th century, when Nicolaus Copernicus first presented the concept, and showed how it accurately predicts the positions of the planets.

Earth

10. Humans have sent spacecraft almost everywhere
Spacecraft from Earth have visited or orbited every planet in the Solar System, and more are on their way to visit some of the dwarf planets. We’ve explored the Sun, the Moon, and many asteroids. And now some of the oldest spacecraft still active – NASA’s Voyager spacecraft – have almost reached the Sun’s heliosphere, the point where the solar wind slows down as it bumps against the interstellar wind. Its’ the facts about solar system.

Goce Spacecraft

Video: Design, Program, and Build a Customized Army of Robots In a Day

2012-04-22T02:33:00.003-07:00

Origami Fish This fish is an example of how to produce programmable machines on-demand, using refined 3-D printing techniques. Jason Dorfman, CSAIL/MIT

The robots I've personally used are just vacuum cleaners and toys, but even so, these creations took their designers years and countless sums of money to build. But a new project aims to let anyone design and create a custom automaton from the comfort of home.

Printable Programmable Machines is a scheme to democratize robot manufacturing. You wouldn’t need to be a CAD expert, a tinkerer or a programmer — you could just fiddle with a computer a little bit, maybe sketch something out, and automated software would design your concept and prepare it for creation. A home additive-printing system, like maybe a souped-up Makerbot, would extrude your new plastic pal.
The PPM project is built on the notion that it takes too long and it costs too much to build a robot, in part because there are few universally adopted standards. This project could work like an API for robots, enabling faster and more streamlined creations.

“This research envisions a whole new way of thinking about the design and manufacturing of robots, and could have a profound impact on society,” explains MIT professor Daniela Rus, the project’s leader. To build the technology that would make this possible, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has a new $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation, which kicks off today.

Researchers at CSAIL and at Penn already have a simple programming system and are testing various materials to figure out ideal combinations. They built some quick prototypes to demonstrate how it might work, including the robot fish above and the below gripper, which could potentially be useful for people with mobility limitations. They also built an origami insect-bot, which you can see crawling around in the video below. It looks sort of delicate, but it really works.

Printable Gripper: Jason Dorfman, CSAIL/MIT

The best part: Once the designs were in hand, it took less than two hours to build these prototypes, according to CSAIL. Two hours for a fully functioning robot is pretty impressive. The team wants to automate the design process, too, making it even simpler to bring something from concept to creation. The practical applications are many and varied, but if this project really does result in a universal bot-building kit, then the creations are only limited by imagination. If you could dream up any robot you might want, roughly sketch what it might look like, and build it yourself, what would you make?

Top 10 Most Luxurious Cars in 2012

2012-04-22T01:50:00.000-07:00

Luxury is not just about the speed, torque, and the high horsepower of the vehicle, but it should also include features that provide the best of comfort, convenience, and pleasure even if you are a passenger or the driver that bonds with the car. It can be seen with the performance of the engine, the quality of the interiors, the lossless beats of the sound systems, integrity of the brakes, materials of the seats, and other inclusions. If you are curious to know that what are the best and most luxurious cars in the world, then check this top 10 list and see if you can handle the features that can equate with the hefty price tag.

10. Aston Martin Rapide Luxe

The Aston Martin Rapide Luxe has a 6.0L V12 engine that can shift speeds with a Touchtronic 2 auto transmission, with 477hp and 600Nm of torque. Hand built and crafted to precision, the Rapide’s body is made of aluminum and composite body panels. It has bi-xenon headlights, clear LED rear lamps, and four-door body style with four individual seats. Wheels are 20-inch alloy silver with Bridgestone Potenza tires. The interiors are excellent with heated four seats, OEL displays, Bluetooth telephone setup, parking sensors, and tire pressure system. Sounds are of 1000W Bang & Olufsen Beosound Audio System with Icepower Technology, where it can support iPods, and a USB Connector for multiple device support. There is even an exclusive watch that serves as a sensor for interacting with the car and driver.

9. Maybach Landaulet

The Maybach Landaulet is one of the perfect examples of class, luxury, and sophistication due to its unprecedented looks. It flaunts a Bi-turbo V12 engine, thicker front and rear stabilizers, AIRMATIC DC suspension, reprogrammed ESP, ASR stability, and traction control systems for smoother driving. The brake system is a unique Sensotronic Brake Control and headlights are intelligent Bi-xenon, which can illuminate curves for as much as 90%, and also moves at every turn. Seats are heated, interior finish is made of Grand Nappa leather, and the seats can adjust with fore/aft, height, seatback and cushion angle, cushion length and head restraint height. An amazing 21-speaker Bose Sound System, with an output of 600 watts also graces the ride, and it even has its own rear refrigerator.

8. Lexus LFA

A rare offering of luxury by the Lexus LFA is a unique 4.8L V10 engine that can speed up to 552hp, where it can reach zero to 60 in 3.6 seconds, in 202mph at max. Its body is made of an extensive carbon fiber, and its brakes are made of carbon ceramic material. It has a lightning-quick six-speed Automated Sequential Gearbox and a choice of driving modes such as Auto, Sport, Normal, and Wet for various conditions. Wheels are made of 20-inch aluminum shod with Bridgestone tires. The cockpit houses a tachometer that uses a Thin Film Transistor with LCD panel and movable rings.

7. BMW 6 Series Coupe

One of the most notable in a BMW is its conceptual lights, such as seen in the 6 Series Coupe where it uses Adaptive LED Headlights that are great for high beams, corners, and even accents. The wheels are also light thanks to its 19-inch aluminum alloys with star spokes. This has one of the biggest control displays, even 10.2 inches that is mounted on an electroplated frame, which also carries a comprehensive navigation system. Audio is well provided by a Bang & Olufsen Surround Sound system. The engine is far from the rest, being a TwinPower Turbo V8 with petrol direct injection that can accelerate at 407hp max with torque of 600Nm.

6. Porsche Panamera S

The engine of the Porsche Panamera S is a 4.8L naturally aspirated V8 engine with direct fuel injection, VarioCam Plus, and a variable intake, which can speed up at 400hp with a max torque of 369 lb-ft. Despite of the powerful engine, it is also environment friendly with a low CO2 emission per hp. For handling and control, there is the Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control and the Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus to guide drivers on the road. The Panamera S has its own set of exclusive 18-inch wheels, where all four tires can have their pressure checked on an interface close to the dashboard. There is also a Sport Button that can change the precision and performance of the engine, including response of gears.

5. Hyundai Equus

From the bottom up, the Hyundai Equus has 19-inch chrome wheels; a forward-view cornering camera located on the front grill, and HID xenon headlights on the outside. Inside the vehicle, you can see leather all over, a microfiber suede headliner, a navigation system, a 608-watt Lexicon 7.1 Discrete Surround Sound Audio System, and a 12-way adjustable driver seat. There is an 8-inch VGA display can open the Driver Information System, driving functions, data recognition, and driver control. It carries The Tau 5.0L V8 engine can boost up to 429hp and a transmission system that can switch on auto or SHIFTRONIC manual mode.

4. Lexus LS 460 L AWD

The Lexus LS 460 L AWD has all the luxuries you need in a car. For starters, you can go in to a locked car, without touching anything but the door handle, where it also starts on its own and open all doors upon entry. It also has a memory system that adjusts the seat, outside mirrors, and the steering wheel based on user data. Seat temperatures are adjustable, has lumbar support, and headrests are adjustable on control. Communications are also set up such as Bluetooth device compatibility, voice command, backup camera, 10-speaker premium sound system, and auto sound levelizer. Safety features are also of high caliber such as a Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management, Vehicle Stability Control, and Traction Control. Tire pressure can also be checked on screen. It has a 4.6L V8 engine with 380hp and 367 lb-ft of torque, all-wheel drive, AVS, and electronic power steering.

3. Mercedes SLS AMG Coupe

Inside and out, the Mercedes SLS AMG Coupe has features to boot, justifying the entire price and the luxury. It has gull-wing doors, light alloy wheels, retractable rear wing, LED tail lamps, and bi-xenon headlamps for the exterior. The interiors can be made of piano black lacquer or carbon fiber finish, an AMG Drive Unit that has settings for suspension, drive modes, and the 3-stage ESP. Seats are made of hand-selected Designo exclusive leather that are supported by magnesium frames. The steering wheel is made of thick padding and premium leather, and has controls that can keep the hands on the wheel while taking care of everything else. Lastly, the engine is an AMG 6.3L V-8 that can go at 563hp with 479 lb-ft of torque.

2. Aston Martin One-77

The engine of the Aston Martin One-77 is a 7.3L naturally aspirated V12 that has a dry sump lubrication system, which can boost up at 700hp with a torque of 750Nm. Its transmission is rear mid-mounted; with six speed Automated Manual Transmission with a choice of Auto or Select Shift that can be controlled with an electro-hydraulic system. The body is made of a carbon fiber monocoque structure, and its exterior body panels are made of handcrafted aluminum. Its suspension is ride height adaptive and is pushrod actuated, just like F1s. Brakes are or carbon ceramic matrix and driving employs Dynamic Stability Control and traction.

1. Cadillac CTS-V Sedan

The Cadillac CTS-V Sedan has a 6.2 Liter Supercharged V8 engine that can step up to 556hp and 551 lb-ft of torque. Its intercooler is an Eaton-Roots type, which cools the air before the intake is being mixed into the fuel. Its brakes are of the famous Brembo brand, which measures 15.1-inch with six pistons at front and 14.7 four pistons at the rear wheel. Its transmission can be a surprising TREMEC six-speed manual with dual-disc clutch. Its driving control system, the dual-mode magnetic mixes the shock absorber fluid with magnetic particles that can flex both Tour and Sport Modes. There are more features such as the G-meter for quick RPM reading, a glide-up touch screen navigator, Recaro Seats, and a sueded microfiber trim.

Scary Halloween Pumkin Carvings

2012-04-22T00:34:00.002-07:00

Ray Villafane is famous for creating 3D pumpkin carvings every Halloween.
Using sharp knives, the artist carves terrifying three-dimensional portraitsinto regular pumpkins. [Ray's pumpkin carving tutorial]

source

top 10 best theme parks in the world

2012-04-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

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Theme parks and Amusement parks are always the type of attraction for Children, Teenagers and Adults consisting of different rides that people enjoy. People normally go there to enjoy the roller coaster rides and the Water rides which is a great source of fun for them.
So, for you people I have made this list of top 10 best theme parks in the world, which also includes some most visited theme parks too.
Enjoy the list and keep visiting

10. Alton Towers Staffordshire, UK

Alton Park is the world’s 10th amazing theme park and the most visited theme park in UK, Alron Towers is a resort that has the theme park plus hotels, Waterpark and many other places to enjoy. It has total 33 rides with 8 roller coasters and 5 water rides.

9. Universal Port Aventura Tarragona, Spain

Universal port Aventura is an amusement park and is one of the most visited theme parks in the world and was opened in 1995, it has total 30 rides with 5 roller coasters, 3 water rides with 2 hotels.

8. Busch Gardens Williamsburg Virginia, US

This [ark was started in 1975 and is based on the theme of old-world Europe. The park has 53 rides with 5 roller coaster and 4 water rides and they say “Make a Connection in a Whole New Direction”. This park is famous for its 5th best steel roller coaster in 2010

7. Knoebels Pennsylvania, US

Knoebels is an amazing amusement park with 57 rides; it started in 1926 and is famous for its unique rides. It is the park which also has a kid roller coaster along with 3 other plus 2 water rides. The Knoebels park say “It’s My Kind of Fun!”

6. Six Flags Magic Mountain California, US

Six Flags Magic Mountain was started in 1971 and is the second theme park that has the most roller coasters in the world. It has 52 rides with 17 roller coasters and 3 water rides. The name of the park Six Flag is basically because of the company who bought this park.

5. Blackpool Pleasure Beach Lancashire, UK

“ See it, Feel it, Love it”, Blackpool Pleasure Beach is one of the best amusement parks in the world and is among the top twenty most visited amusement parks. It consists of 38 rides with 10 roller coasters and 4 water rides.

4. Holiday World Indiana, US

Holiday World is a theme park with four different sections for each special day ride, and these special days are Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Fourth of July. The Holiday World Indiana has 40 rides with 4 roller coasters and 25 Water rides; it is just not a theme park but also a Water park that says “#1 for Family Fun!”

3. Europa Park Baden Wuerttemberg, Germany

It is the one of the best theme parks in the world and the largest one in Germany. The people who come to Germany to visit the Disneyland also come to visit this place as it is behind it. The Park consists of 54 different rides with 10 roller coasters and 5 water rides.

2. Islands of Adventure, Florida, US

This theme park was opened in 1999 and consists of two hotels, Universal Studio Florida and a resort. This theme park is based on exploration. There are six islands of this park and each island is based on a different theme. It has 28 rids with 4 roller coasters and 3 water rides.

1. Cedar point Ohio, US

Cedar point takes the top spot among the top ten best amusement parks in the world. It was started in 1870, and has more than 75 rides and 17 roller coasters. It also includes a water park, a white sand beach, two marinas, a challenge park consisting go-karts, miniature gold, skyscraper and Ripcord. It is the best theme park to visit if you visit Ohio

Top 10 iPhone apps to make free calls

2012-04-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

Let’s face it. Even before games, apps, and music players have been embedded to cellular phones, its main purpose, which is to make and receive calls, is still the number one reason why phones are all the rage. And with the development of internet connections over the air, WiFi, and applications that take advantage of modern technologies, there are more and more ways of enjoying old features in a newer perspective. In case you are missing out with iPhone these days, then you should know that there are 10 iPhone apps to Make Free Calls

iPhone Apps to Make Free Calls

10. Vopium

It carries the tag of having the same calling experience just like using your standard calling service, except it is much cheaper for international calls, free for local calls, and has excellent voice call quality.

9. Truphone

Another contender that functions just like Talkatone is Truphone, as it merges Skype, GTalk, and fellow Truphone users of the same privilege of free calls without any charges or fees. However, you can get your own number, use Twitter, and even utilize texts and instant messaging.

8. Talkatone

You may already enjoy Google Voice, GTalk, and Facebook VOIP as separate services that are launched by different apps of their own. Talkatone makes it possible for these three apps to be managed into one app and it gives you so much more as you can also send and receive texts.

7. magicJack

In case you are living in the US or in Canada, then you can install the magicJack app and call home phone or cellphone numbers without consuming your cellphone minutes. You do not even have to pay for the app where you can make calls using WiFi, 3G, or 4G LTE connections.

6. Vonage Mobile

From the famous VOIP service in the US that provides cheap and quality phone services for local and international calls, Vonage Mobile also invades the iPhone and Android. It works over internet connections and it also uses the existing address book, which avoids codes, usernames, and other runarounds.

5. Freephoo

Just like any other iPhone call app, Freephoo can help you make free calls to fellow app users anywhere. It can also make calls for Facebook and LinkedIn users. One account can be used for any device.

4. Fring

Everything else can make and receive calls for free over WiFi and 3G or 4G LTE networks, but nothing so far has made it possible to make group voice and even video calls, or even group chatting. This is how Fring beats the rest of the competition.

3. Skype

A considered classic by many fans out there, you can make free calls for anyone who has installed Skype on their phones, whether on iPhone or in Android devices. Video calls have anti-shake features that does not make video calling so wobbly.

2. Viber

Having this app installed on your iPhone and the iPhone of your loved ones or friends, you can make free calls and you can even send texts, photos, and even inform your location, no matter where you are in the world.

1. iCall

Being used by over 4 million iPhone and iPod Touch owners worldwide, iCall makes it possible for you to call US and Canadian numbers over WiFi or 3G, even without the presence of cellphone signals. You do not even get charged for roaming minutes.