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Top Gear UK is well known for its ludicrous activities, whether it’s their plan of building a food blender with a V8 engine or sending a Reliant Robin as a space shuttle Top Gear have always lived up to their “ambitious but rubbish” tagline. Recently they came up with an idea to spice up the humble lawnmower that would break speed records while managing to clean up grass, so instead of fooling about they decided to call in some expert assistance. Soon Honda answered their call and sent in their Team Dynamics to get cracking. The team started with a Honda HF2620 mower fitted it with a VTR 1000cc engine and steering rack from a Morris Minor. The wheels and the tyres were taken from a racing quad bike and the back axle was out of a 250 cc go-kart. Since the team has not yet put a seatbelt the machine has not been able to test its actual performance on a track but they have calculated theoretically that this little monster is capable of going from 0-60 mph (0-96.5 kmph) in about 4 seconds and with a power to weight ratio of 520 brake horse power (bhp) per tonne it can reach speeds up to 130 mph.
But what about the grass cutting objective, you say? The team has got rid of the standard metal blades as they were too complicated and they got in the way of the new transmission system. The replacement was done by two electric motors on which a length brake cable was attached that spins a four thousand rpm capable of cutting anything that come across it. To make sure that the powerful lawnmower does not disturb your neighbours, a chain tensioning system has been set between the engine and the rear axle and lined up with plastic. All that remains to see is how this machine will be used in a garden by the tame racing driver of Top Gear, The Stig.
While regular browsing and surfing on the internet, I came upon something fascinating. With an interest in window shopping and preparing a wish list for things I would like to buy later, I linger around online shopping portals frequently. The best part of online shopping portals is that you could right away compare the prices of a single product in various other portals and buy it from the one that offers you the cheapest price. I generally order things from Flipkart and books from Infibeam. I never trusted ebay, in reaction to all the terrible experiences people have had. And sometimes the biggest among these players, Amazon. This online shopping destination has been the most busiest in the world and the driving force of the e-commerce industry. And now they are entering India officially.
While looking up on Amazon, I felt the need that this service needs to be here in India so that people could order things without worrying about the huge shipping prices. So, just to check I entered the domain for Amazon with a .in and voila, I was brought to the Indian portal of Amazon. This was great since now I can see people buying things here without worrying about security and sharing their credit card details since Amazon is a favourite and trusted among users.
Currently, amazon[dot]in only has books and movies and the other products are coming soon. This not only means Amazon's entry into the Indian market with a better strategy, but also means serious competition to other Indian counterparts like Flipkart, Infibeam, etc. Though the Indian ones have captured most of the market here, but still Amazon has a strong brand value. Another delightful thing is they are not charging anything for shipping on any product, and they say it would be for a limited period of time only.
Well, I have already started adding a couple of books to my cart at amazon[dot]in, and I think you should too. As soon as rest of the products are available, I would totally start ordering them right away. Go and have a look amazon.in
Researchers at Stanford University have developed a better way to control the flow of ink during the electronics printing process. The new method allows fewer defects in the end-product and also improves its overall electrical efficiency. Printed electronics is used to create lightweight & low-cost solar cells and also in manufacturing flexible electronics screens. However, the big problem with current methods is that the efficiency of these products is far lesser than than traditional electronics products. New process developed at Stanford is called FLUENCE aka fluid-enhanced crystal engineering. The research team expects that this new innovation will accelerate further adoption of printed electronics.
Dr Ying Diao, the lead author of the paper published in Nature Materials says that FLUENCE allows the process to be scaled up to meet the industry requirements. It's interesting to note that printed electronic devices are generally formed using semiconducting crystals. These crystals are grown using special inks containing organic chemicals. The distribution and even flow of ink, which often gets disturbed during rapid printing leads to defects in the final products.
Diao has designed a new printing blade with very tiny pillars embedded in it. These pillars mix the ink in such a way that it forms a uniform film. She has also designed a series of chemical patterns on the organic substrate to make sure that the crystals grow in a regular & uniform pattern. X-Ray studies were carried out at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) and it allowed Diao to inspect the progress and keep making improvements in the process. Diao and her team were finally able to produce better arranged crystal which are at least 10x longer than the crystal created with traditional process.
Diao and her team now wants to exhamine the relationship between process & the material. This would provide even better control over the final electronic properties of the printed electronic films.
Iowa State University researchers are employing high-frequency sound waves to break down plant substances for creation of bio-fuel. The research includes pretreating a wide range of feedstocks like witch grass, corn stover, and soft wood with constant ultrasound, thus enhancing the necessary chemical reactions needed to tansform the biomass into high-value biofuels and chemicals. All these findings shall be presented at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2013) being held from June2-7 in Montreal.
The researchers discovered that they could substantially up the efficiency of removing lignin (the substance that binds cellulose and hemicellulose together in plant cell walls) from biomass in solution. Generally enzymes or chemicals do the trick, but this time the researchers removed lignin by pretreating the plant matter with ultrasound. Once the lignin is removed via this technique, freed sugar gets dissolved within minutes for further processing into biofuel. The team also discovered that hydrolysis of corn starch could be greatly accelerated with ultrasonic. Traditionally, ground corn is steamed with jet cookers at high temperatures, to break down the corn and the remaining starch mash is then cooled and reacted with enzymes to release glucose for fermentation. Ultrasonically, the corn was grounded so small that it provided more surface area for enzymatic action. Economic rewards of this method are great, with less than an year payback period since installation.
A third application for ultrasound in biofuel production is the speeding up of transesterification, the major chemical reaction that transforms oil to bio-diesel. Ultrasounding soybean oil transformed it into bio-fuel within a minute, and not the regular time of 45 minutes.
Indian car maker Mahindra is all set to launch the new Verito Vibe tomorrow. The price of the car is expected to be about Rs. 5.3 Lakh ex-showroom in Delhi for the base varient. Looking at the teaser, it appears that Mahindra Verito Vibe is a compact saloon. It'll be a smaller (<4m) modification of the company's flagship sedan Verito. The company is expected to enter competition with the likes of Maruti Suzuki Swift, Ford Figo, Nissan Micra and others. The car is expected to be made available with Diesel engine at the launch and no Petrol varient has been planed. We'll only have to wait for official word on this tomorrow.
Because of the form factor and a smaller Renault K9K 1.5 liter dCi Diesel engine that outputs 68bhp, Vibe will enjoy excise duty benefits which will allow the car to be priced competitively. The car was first spotted during its trial run and suddenly gathered mixed reviews about its design.
AutocarIndia reports that the car was earlier expected to be a hatchback, but from the teasers, it seems to be a compact saloon with the boot hinged at the bottom of the rear windscreen. Mahindra has given the car a 2-box appearance instead of the 'chopped saloon' like that of Indigo eCS or Swift Dzire.
Mobile TeleSystems or MTS, the wireless voice, broadband Internet, messaging and data services company headquartered in Delhi, India is here with a new product of its own. The MTS Duet is a Dual SIM smartphone that supports CDMA as well as GSM networks. The company says that this is its 'strategy to offer greater choice' to users. Powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the MTS Duet features a 3.5-inch (8.8cm) display with capacitive touch screen that has a HVGA resolution of 320 x 480 pixels. As you can see the price cut has lead to a this low-end feature look of this smartphone.
The budget-friendly piece is running a top a Android 2.3 aka Gingerbread OS and gets booted up by driving power from a 1200mAh battery. There's an average 3 megapixel camera on the rear side and there’s no front lens. No word on the RAM or internal memory, but potential customers can expect a microSD card slot for expanding the hoarding space up to 32GB. The company’s Chief Marketing and Sales Officer for the country, Leonid Musatov, says that part from this CDMA- and GSM-happy dual SIM handset, there are plans to launch many more dual mode devices.
At a price in India of Rs. 4,799, the company is offering whatever good it can. There's a deal for unlimited data and local calls over 2 months to tempt the young audience who can't get their hands off SMS and prefer to be connected to their peers 24x7. So, interested buyers can choose to sign up for this bundle that costs Rs 599. Just two weeks back MTS had launched a dual-SIM budget phone which also works on CDMA and GSM technologies for its customers in Kolkata and West Bengal. The device is priced at Rs. 1699.
To make it easy for you to read the important, here are the tech specs at a glance -
- Android Gingerbread 2.3
- 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 processor
- 3.5-inch display of 320 x 480p HVGA resolution and capacitive touch
- 3MP camera
- Dual SIM: CDMA and GSM networks
- 32GB expandable memory
- 1200mAh battery
Image processing has undergone many innovations with time, which has always boosted up the quality. But it has always followed the same principle that it works on, that is, using a lens to create an image and a recorder to capture all the photons. Though the way these captured photons go through imaging has drastically changed with better and efficient algorithms, a new technique may bring in a revolution. The people at Bell Labs, New Jersey are calling it 'Compressive Sensing', which means that the data taken from the images are not much different from each other, but only have fractional changes in their measurements and are redundant. With compressive sensing they have built a camera with no lenses, using only a single sensing pixel, and the best part being that the image is never out of focus.
This technique could change optical, infrared and millimetre wave imaging. The camera is made up of only two components, an aperture assembly, and a sensor. The LCD panel allows the light to pass and a single sensor detects the three light colors of the image. Lesser the data in the scene, lesser data is recorded for imaging.
This device has many benefits over the conventional camera we have been using until now. There is less amount of data generated, no problems for bad focus since the whole image would be in focus and it would be cheap since the team has used cheap components to build the camera. The only thing bothering them is that the device takes a lot of time to collect the data and process the image of only still screens and the team is researching to overcome this. Another good thing about this would be that this principle can be used for the other wavelength of light too like infrared and millimetre waves, which could make it relatively cheaper.
If you are a busy businessman who doesn't want to wast time (and don't mind spending money to save time) then you might just look at the beautiful beast called Saker S-1. It's military jet inspired personal jet that aims to reach 0.99 aka almost equal to the speed of sound. The company says that it will cruise at a speed of Mach 0.95 and reach the top speed of Mach 0.99. This two seater plane will shave an hour off a 1500 nautical mile flight (approximately 2778 km) as compared to its closest competitor.
The Saker S-1 is designed to take off and land on runways as short as just 1500 ft. It can climb at the rate of 14,000 ft/min and have a service ceiling of about 45,000 ft. S-1has a maximum range of about 1600 miles (approximately 2575km) with its 1890 liter tank. The designers have added two external 380L tanks to increase the range to about 2200 miles (~3540 kilometers).
The craft has a wingspan of about 27ft and length of about 40.5 ft. It's 15 ft high and has empty weight of 2495 kg. The S-1 can carry maximum payload of about 2720 Kg. Two Williams FJ44-4 engines will power the aircraft and will serve for about 500 hours before needing an overhaul. The company says that the operational cost is about US $2 per nautical mile. It's also the aircraft that uses 20% lesser fuel than its competitors.
Looks like we've a war of the hard disks. Seagate recently announced the world's thinnest 500GB HDD that is just 5mm thick. The ultra-thin HDD looks like SSD and costs just $89. In the meanwhile, Western Digital too announced a 500GB HDD with very similar specs as that of Seagate. It's likely to find place in the new machines from ASUS and Dell. What's more interesting is that Western Digital has just announced another 'world's thinnest' 1TB hard drive that is just 2 mm thicker than its younger brother, at just 7mm.
The company claims that it features StableTrack which secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce vibrations during operations and improve tracking. In addition there are dual-state actuators viz. electromagnetic for coarse displacement and piezo for the finer movements. SecurePark technology will keep the heads clear of the disk surface and also improve resistance to shocks. The company had demonstrated it at the IDF in 2012. The price of the 1TB model (WD10SPCXX) is $139 and that includes a 2 year warranty. Check the official press releases below -
WD® DELIVERS WORLD'S THINNEST 1 TB HARD DRIVE
New, 7 mm Slim 2.5-inch Hard Drive Delivers Industry's Highest Capacity Storage Giving Customers a High Capacity Option for Thin and Light Mobile Devices
IRVINE, Calif. – June 3, 2013 – WD®, a Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) company, today announced it is shipping the world's thinnest 1 TB hard drive with its new 2.5-inch WD Blue™ 7 mm hard drive. Offering OEMs, channel integrators and consumers a unique storage solution for thin and light systems, slimmer notebooks, as well as compatibility with the industry-standard 9.5 mm drive slots of mainstream notebooks, the WD Blue hard drive family, in capacities from 320 GB to 1 TB in the 7 mm height, now provides a singular option of thin design and high capacity storage.
"Users with large portfolios of content no longer need to sacrifice capacity when buying and Ultrabook or upgrading to a thin and light notebook," said Matt Rutledge, Vice President and General Manager for client storage products at WD. "This most compact 1TB hard drive to-date offers manufacturers of systems an upsell path for their customers who will now be able to choose systems offering both sleek design and high capacity.
"Intel is introducing its fourth-generation Intel Core processor family (codenamed Haswell) to deliver faster and more efficient performance to both desktop and notebook platforms, with significant gains benefitting portable systems" said Roger Bradford, Capabilities Marketing Manager at Intel. "The release of the WD Blue 7 mm hard drives offers a new level of storage capacity that further enriches the computing experience for users of Ultrabooks, All-in-Ones and other thin and light PCs."
"With the release of WD's 1 TB capacity in a 7 mm drive height, Acer customers now have the best of both options and no longer have to choose between the lightness of thin, sleekly designed systems or those with high capacity storage," said Tiffany Huang, BG President, PC Global Operations at Acer Incorporated.
"As ASUS develops new super-slim solutions, reliable storage options such as the WD Blue 7 mm 1 TB hard drive provide us with an ideal capacity to offer our customers," said S.Y. Shian, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of NB Business Unit at Asus. "WD has eliminated the capacity limits heretofore endured by thin and light personal computers while keeping the reliability and data-protection of a traditional hard drive."
Features of the WD Blue 7 mm hard drives include:
- Shock Tolerance – WD's ShockGuard™ technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks.
- Cool and quiet - WD's exclusive WhisperDrive™ technology enables quiet performance.
- StableTrac™ – The motor shaft is secured at both ends to compensate for system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking during read and write operations which enables consistently higher performance.
- Dual Stage Actuators – Leveraged from enterprise-class drives, dual stage actuators utilize two actuators to improve positional accuracy over the data track(s). The primary actuator provides coarse displacement using conventional electromagnetic actuator principles. The secondary actuator uses piezoelectric motion to fine tune the head positioning to a higher degree of accuracy.
- Reliable – WD's SecurePark™ parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down, and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear, and improved non-operational shock tolerance.
- Compatibility Tested - WD performs tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in its FIT Lab™ and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give customers confidence that drives will work in specific systems.
Price and Availability
Shipping now through select distributors and resellers, the new 1 TB WD Blue 7 mm 2.5-inch mobile hard drive is covered by a two-year limited warranty. MSRP for the 1 TB, model#: (WD10SPCXX) is $139.00 USD. Additional information about WD Blue mobile hard drives and limited warranty terms may be found on the company website at http://www.wd.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=800
INDUSTRY GIANTS LINE UP FOR SEAGATE ULTRA-THIN 5MM HARD DISK DRIVE
Laptop Ultrathin HDD Set to Redefine the Tablet and Mobile Computing Market
CUPERTINO, Calif. - June 3, 2013 -Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ:STX), a world leader in storage solutions, today announced it's shipping its thinnest hard disk drive (HDD) ever to OEM partners - the Seagate® Laptop Ultrathin HDD. Just 5mm thin, the Laptop Ultrathin HDD is designed to be integrated into ultra-thin, lightweight mobile computing devices and tablets all while delivering high capacity storage at an affordable price.
"When we originally demonstrated this solution last September, we knew we had a truly innovative product that would empower our partners to reimagine mobile applications," said Steve Luczo, president, CEO and chairman of Seagate. "The strong support from our OEM partners indicates we have delivered on our vision and look forward to a new wave of innovative solutions enabled by this revolutionary product."
The 2.5- inch drive is just 5mm thin and weighs a mere 3.3oz- making it about as thin as four stacked credit cards and lighter than a deck of cards. It delivers up to 500GB of capacity in 25 percent less space than its previous-generation 7mm counterpart, freeing up valuable real-estate within portable devices to accommodate additional designed-in features such as longer-life batteries and better air circulation. An affordable alternative to SSD storage, Laptop Ultrathin HDD helps blur the lines between notebook and tablets by enabling new emerging applications like convertible and detachable storage.
"The new Seagate Laptop Ultrathin truly raises the bar, enabling us to finally create high-capacity, thin and light laptops that consumers crave at mass-market price points they can afford," said S.Y. Shian, corporate vice president and general manager of Asus' notebook business unit. "The drive's capacity, coupled with its ultra-slim, lightweight footprint, empowers our engineers to think out of the box and create truly ground-breaking, innovative system designs- it's a win- win for both us and the consumer."
Delivering the best cost per GB and cost per millimeter in the industry for ultrathin applications, the svelte high-capacity drive can support over 100,000 photos, 125,000 songs or 62 hours of high-definition video. The Laptop Ultrathin incorporates a 6GB/s SATA interface for fast data transfer rates and comes with the industry standard SATA connection for easy integration into existing laptops supported by both hard drive and SSD storage. SED encryption is available on the 500GB capacity version.
The Seagate Laptop Ultrathin has a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $89. For more information on the new Seagate Laptop Ultrathin HDD please visit http://seagate.com/www/ultrathin.
Strong Industry Support
"Dell's heritage is built on empowering our customers to do more with their technology investments with our unbeatable back-end expertise and cost-effective, tailored solutions that empower end-users and IT administrators alike," said Kirk Schell, vice president, personal computer product group, Dell. "Our partnership with Seagate on hard disk drive technology enables us to provide our customers with reliable, leading-edge, thin and light ultrabook and laptop designs with long battery life and uncompromised storage capacity."
"Portable devices have a voracious appetite for data, yet at the same time, owners demand thinner and lighter systems. Seagate has solved both by productizing the Laptop Ultrathin HDD," says Richard Doherty, research director for The Envisioneering Group. "Slimmer than a pencil, this revolutionary new hard disk drive gives freedom to designers and convenience to consumers and businesses alike."
"Our primary focus is to create IT solutions that deliver value. With consumers ever-increasing demand for high-capacity mobile computing devices, coupled with today's data-intensive applications, cutting-edge technologies such as Seagate's 5mm HDD are crucial for meeting end-user's expectations," said Wentao Yang, vice president of Lenovo global procurement. "And this new drive delivers on all fronts- not only enabling higher performance in many applications but also delivering high-capacity storage and providing consumers with a premium computing experience."
Intel recently announced their 4th-Generation Core Processor codenamed Haswell and PC makers are already making news about including them in their upcoming systems. Among them Asus has announced their next desktops and all-in-ones which would be housing the Haswell chips right before Computex trade show, which is to be held at Taipei. The other companies include Cyberpower and MicroCenter. At Computex, other PC makers are expected to display their new PCs including the major manufacturers like Dell, Acer and others.
The Haswell chips add about 10 to 15 percent increase in their performance compared to the previous 3rd-Generation Core Processors codenamed Ivy Bridge. These chips are said to have lesser power consumption and lower heat generation and a considerable increase in the efficiency in battery life in laptops also.
Intel has announced only 4th-Generation Core i5 and i7 processors, with several others to be announced later at Computex. Among the two, the latter is the most powerful. Gaming desktops with Haswell processors, along with graphic cards would be able to handle any high demanding games out there. The Haswell has better speed and power efficiency over the previous Ivy Bridge processors which is equal to the same jump it had from the Sandy Bridge processors. With Haswell, consumers could have a mean desktop computer in their homes.
Haswell processors are expected to be rolled into the upcoming desktops and laptops soon, and will eventually make their way into ultrabooks. It didn't take long for the 4th-Generation Processors to be released after the previous Ivy Bridge Processors which came out just last year. Intel has always dominated the desktop and laptop processor market with AMD fighting with their processors and APUs. With the fabrication of these processors going down and the efficiency going sky high, a lot is expected for the future architecture of processors fron Intel. People might have always thought why Intel hasn't entered the mobile processor domain where Samsung and Qualcomm are leading the race, but who knows, Intel may have something up its sleeve, hidden from us.
From today, June 3rd, Yahoo will get rid of its "Classic" Mail once and for all. In fact, beginning this week Yahoo! Mail will no longer support older versions. It's either the new, upgraded version of Yahoo Mail or no Yahoo Mail at all. The company has sent out emails informing its users of the same and has notified them of the pending upgrade. Until now, Yahoo had allowed its users to continue using the old versions of the Mail even though the webmail interface was redesigned sometime around last year. But, it seems that this upgrade is more concerned with the refurbishing of the company's goals than the technical up-to-dateness. With the proposed upgrade comes the prerequisite of accepting the Communications Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. This grants Yahoo the permission to scan and analyze your incoming and outgoing mails, quite like Gmail does. This automated content scanning is purposed to deliver product features, relevant advertising, and abuse protection to the customers. If you're not interested in contextual-based advertising, you could change the settings using the Ad Interest Manager.
Now, if for some reason, you absolutely do not wish to upgrade, you are left with two options. The first option is to download your Yahoo Mail using IMAP, which will allow you to access your email from a different email program, such as Outlook, Mac Mail, or your mobile app. This, however, does not count as an exception and you'll still have to accept the Communications Terms of Service. If you don't want to do that, then as you might have guessed it, the only option is to close your account and leave. What would you choose?
At its seventh annual Visual Networking Index, Cisco suggested the possibility of a drastic increase in the global internet traffic. According to the company, a growth rate of 23 percent is expected between 2012 to 2017. This dramatic burst isn't supposed to last but will be enough to aggregate to 1.4 zettabytes (ZBs) of global traffic by 2017. That amount alone is greater than the history of internet from 1984 to 2012 (1.2 ZB). Cisco predicts that by the year 2018, almost half of the world's population will be online. The surge in online activity could be attributed to more users, users connecting more devices, growing network and broadband speeds and more media-rich content in the next few years. With that many users, comes the need of sustainability. The average internet speed is expected to go up too. Mobile connections will target 8Mbps by 2017 and Wi-Fi speeds are anticipated to reach 30Mbps.
Technological advances will broaden the aspects of connectivity with more and more devices connected to the Internet. Cisco also forecasts a potential rise of M2M (Machine to Machine) products. It highlights the increasing interaction of quotidian devices with the real-world. For example, a refrigerator that can talk to people or is able to interact with other machines. 2017 is likely to see a total of 8 billion devices connected as M2M, combined with the support of IPv6-capable devices.
Just a couple of weeks back, the tech specs of Acer Iconia W3 tablet were revealed on the company’s Finnish site. And now, ahead of the Computex 2013 showcase event, Acer has launched this Windows 8 featuring 8.1-inch tablet. Acer's Iconia series has been a hit. Coming pre-installed with Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 (that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote), the Iconia W3 belongs the price tag of €139 (approx. Rs. 10,200 in India). The trend of having a keyboard that attached to the tablet, that was popularized by the Microsoft Surface is now being carrying forward by Acer. So, the tablet comes with an optional full-size Bluetooth keyboard that holds it upright for typing. Pretty useful. And of course, there's a virtual keypad, ideal for on-the-go thumb typing.
At tech specs of 540 gms and 11.35 mm thin, the device is slim and light. The 8.1-inch LED-backlit display has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels and the two web camera - front and rear are both good enough at 2 megapixels. Powered by the Intel Atom Z2760 mobile-optimized processor, Acer has suggested that 8 hours of battery life can be expected and extended using the Connected Standby mode. Thanks to Windows 8, using the Live Tiles right on the start page is possible.
The Acer Iconia W3 has support for the 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi networks and hotspots and a micro-HDMI port means that you can connect this tablet to the TV or external display for sharing presentations, photos and video. That tablet is available in either 32 GB or 64 GB variants of internal storage and the micro-USB port is available. As far as the pricing is concerned, the 32 GB version comes at Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price of €329 (Rs. 24,000) and 64GB versino at €379 (Rs. 28,000). Available at retail and online stores June onwards, the optional keyboard will be available for a price of €69.- and the case will be available for €24.90 (grey) and €27.90 (white).
In direct cut-throat competition with Asus at the Computex 2013 event in Taipei, it is going to be a war of the tech giants to reveal their extraordinary products and gain maximum attraction. We are hooked to our screens to find out the details. How about you? Share your views, hopes and expectations from the event and the companies in comments below.
3D printing experiment is being done in the space under zero gravity conditions at the ISS. If the experiment is successful, we'll soon see a new era of manufacturing parts in the space. 3D print will use extrusion additive manufacturing that builds objects layer by later from polymers and other materials. NASA and a California based firm 'Mad In Space' have joined hands to begin the experiment in the next year. It'd be the first 3D microgravity experiment to be carried out in the International Space Station.
One of the aims of the experiment will be to test the technology to reduce cargo weight and volume. In future, the astronauts will be able to print the tools or components they need while in space. NASA believes in the potential of 3D printing technology and believes that one day, it will allow humans to manufacture entire spaceship in the space. This would eliminate the design constraints caused by the launch-related restrictions.
The importance of 3D printing technology is growing every day. NASA believes that this technology will be incredibly useful in our mission to send humans to Mars.
Alongside the Acer Iconia W3 Tablet, the Taipei based Taiwanese manufacturer has also launched a first-of-its-kind phablet called the 'Acer Liquid S1'. Designed to be your companion in travel, the huge 5.7" HD (1280 x 720 pixel resolution) screen is supposed to help you increase your productivity levels on-the-go. A 'mobile wireless office' is how Acer describes its self-proclaimed phablet. And if or not rightfully so, this smartphone-tablet combo has support for dual SIM cards and is running over the latest Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Powered by a quad-core 1.5 GHz processor, Acer thinks, and we try to believe, that the phablet's battery sustains a day full of usage.
The company has tried to fit-in a lot many features of its own to make its product appealing for the users who love to multi-task and want to do a lot more with their phone other than making-receiving calls or playing games. The support for AcerCloud Docs lets the business people wirelessly retrieve their files and Acer Remote Files makes sure that users can also remotely access files from their main PC. Th Acer Float User Interface has been set up to allow using several app windows at once. Moreover, by just pressing a key Float Apps shortcut springs up and then the apps on a translucent screen float over the function being used. Other than that, there's a Float Caller notification that pops up when you get an incoming call, while the Acer Auto Profile makes sure you don't have to fiddle with the network settings. Especially when you are at a frequently visited location, Liquid S1 switched among the predefined profiles for networks.
If those features have failed to impress you, let us take you through the mundane routine of the general tech specs - Along with support for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G, while the photo taking, video recording is made possible using the rear camera, the the front camera with 88° wide viewing angle plus the 24 mm lens can capture Wide Front Shot and do the video calling back home. Thanks to Voice Unlock, users will be able to directly open the apps or interfaces by recording and using personal voice commands. Coming to the audio - there is Studio Sound for an extra-wide stereo image with DTS Studio Sound. The 2-way Live Screen app means users can invite friends for temporary live group sharing.
As Acer puts it, the phone is designed minimally for the target audience of "assertive businesspeople and passionate explorers". And if that involves you, you should know that the Acer Liquid S1 comes in two colors - matte black or white. Starting to ship from third quarter of 2013, the phablet will be available in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Ukraine, Russia, UK and Germany, followed by Spain and Italy. There's no official word about the exact release date or about the U.S. Launch. At a price of €349 (approx. Rs. 26,000), do you think this phone reaches anywhere in the best buy bracket? Let us know your reactions in comments below.
The budget-restrained techies have got something really exciting to look forward to. ARM, the mobile processor design giant, is foraying into the mid-range smartphone segment where they've kept a selling target of 580 million devices by 2015. To tone up that segment of $250-$350 prized smarts, the company is developing the ARM Cortex-A12 CPU design that houses future chips to look after your processing requirements while ARM Mali-622 GPU and ARM Mali-V500 video processor shall cater to your graphic needs.
The basic aim for designing these chips into the mid-range devices is to expand all content creation work like video editing, adding special effects creation in photographs, etc in the budget-friendly segment as well. Not only these, but features like natural language processing, handwriting recognition and hardware-based security that's presently enjoyed on high-end models shall be making its way in mid-range too, thus offering the best of both worlds to the customer.
The mid-range chips shall be so designed that they'll also offer a better display pixel resolution, better battery life, better camera quality, increased storage and memory plus additional sophisticated technology. And Cortex A-12's energy-efficient tag makes it the most obvious choice for its inclusion in mid-range smartphones. With support from ARM POP technology and the ARM Development Studio 5 toolchain, ARM partners can deliver smartphones and tablets with higher efficiency and reduced time to market. According to ARM, Cortex-A12 CPU gives 40% better performance as compared to Cortex-A9, while the ARM Mali-T622 GPU is smaller and 50% more energy efficient than Mali-T600 series graphics chips. Mali-V500 video processor supports HD (1080p) processing and is the first ARM design ever to support TrustZone secure video, which offers anti-piracy benefits to video distributors, and disallows protected videos to be decoded/streamed on phone. The chips are expected to be incorporated into mobile devices mid-2014 onwards.
With the power in their hands to be backing the 580 million mid-range mobile devices over the next two years, while keeping in mind the fact that the mid-range market is projected to exceed the number of premium smartphones and tablets beginning in 2015, ARM Architecture is sure taking steps in the right direction. And for the consumers who don't care about flagship devices and are willing to wait till mid 2014, this news could definitely mean something significant. What say you?
Continuing our Computex coverage, we have ASUS debuting its two Desktop PCs G10 and M51 with fourth generation (Haswell) Intel Core i7 processors, NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics. But the feature that makes these features standout is the ASUS Power Pack. The ASUS Power Pack is a removable battery that acts like a mini UPS for the PC providing 25 seconds of power backup and after the 25 seconds it automatically deploys hibernate mode to save the user session. This Power Pack can also be removed from the desktop to act like a portable rechargeable battery pack for smartphones and tablets.
For enhancing the gaming experience the G10 has been equipped with NVIDIA GeForce GTX680 graphics with 3D Vision Surround capable of supporting up to four monitors at once. It also has indicator LEDs to show the operational state of any attached USB storage device. For audiophiles, ASUS has enhanced audio with SonicMaster technology and provided its AudioWizard interface that allows custom sound settings.
ASUS G10 Desktop PC
Both these PCs come with ASUS Smart Cooling System that automatically controls the fan speed to achieve the perfect balance between cooling and noise reduction. ASUS Universal Storage Module hot-swap drive bay makes for easy and fast data sharing. Front mounted USB 3.0 ports with Ai Charger technology for rapid charging of mobile devices. The M51 also comes with an additional wireless charging tray.
ASUS M51 Desktop PC
We are still waiting on the availability and pricing details but it can be safely assumed that it will be on the pricey side.
Update – According to reports from Engadget, The G10 comes with 8GB of RAM and a 1TB HDD paired with a 128GB SSD. An in terms of connectivity it has a 16-in-1 memory card reader, a DVD burner, six USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 connections, HDMI-out, DVI-D and VGA. And it would make its way to shelves in the 3rd or 4th quarter of 2013.
India's leading engineering institute IIT Madras has a Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC), a unit of the Research and Development, that has come up with a new affordable eye screening technology called 'Eye PAC' that helps ophthalmologists do their work faster. Up till now, patients with eye problems had to spend a whole day at the hospital for just the screening. With what they've developed here, the process takes just five minutes. Eye PAC is a software that extracts clear information from eyes and in turn help screen a large number of patients and send only the needy ones for further treatment. Thus, the eye doctor can focus on giving immediate diagnostic solutions.
HTIC unit's head Mr. Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam shared his concern by saying that "Over 80 per cent of cases of blindness in our country are preventable, if only there was no lack of qualified ophthalmologists." Therefore, using the Eye PAC technology what we essentially achieve is the bridging of gap of the shortage of ophthalmologists in the country.
The IIT's HTIC unit has worked on this project by collaborating with the Department of Biotechnology of Government of India. This project also supports '3nethra' -a low cost, portable, and highly integrated ophthalmology device for pre-screening and identification of potential eye diseases, developed by Bangalore-based med-tech firm Forus Health. 3nethra has been already installed in many locations across 10 countries such as India, China, France, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Mauritius and Somalia. As we frequently read about the i-tech innovation across the world, in India we are seeing a lot of eye-tech innovation. Recently, we saw how four engineering students from Srinivas Institiute Of Technology, Mangalore came up with 'Eye Mouse' - a hands-free device that aims at letting the differently abled people use mouse on their computer screen in hands-free mode.
We look forward to more innovative solutions from India's leading technical institutes and organisations. What are your opinions? Share with us in comments.
Aakash 4 specifications & features list is ready and and the draft describing the same is soon to be submitted to the Government for approval. J Satyanarayana, secretar of Department of Electronics & IT informed the PTI. The government is already rolling up sleeves for the fourth generation of the Aakash tablet while the fate of Aakash 3 isn't clear yet. J Satyanarayana further said that the tablet specifications are beging finalised keeping the cost factor in mind. "We should not add so many features that the cost will go beyond", he said.
With that in mind, what can we expect in terms of hardware and software from Aakash 4? Let's try & make a guess based on the finalised specs for Aakash 3. Here's what we think would get featured in Aakash 4.
Unless Aakash 4 offers features what we've guessed, we believe the upgrade won't be worth it. It'd also be interesting to see which firmware does Aakash 4 will ship with. It's high time that the latest version of Jelly Bean Android finds its way to the tablet.
Aakash tablet was a brainchild of Kapil Sibal, who currently leads the law ministry in India. The idea was to provide a budget-friendly gadget to students in India so that they can have Internet access for educational purposes. The contract to design and develop the tablet was handed over to a Canadian company 'Datawind'. The first version of Aakash was rolled out in October 2011. The section generation was launched last year. We don't yet have concrete information on the status of Aakash 3 tablet.
When asked whether any private players have shown interest in manufacturing or assembling the tablet in India, Satyanarayana said that no company has come forth yet, but once the specifications are finalised, proposals would come in.
We'd love to hear reviews and feedback about Aakash tablet from oure readers & members. Chinese computer giant Lenovo had backed out from submitting proposals stating that it was almost impossible to offer a better user experience in the price bracket set by the Government. Do Aakash owners think that the tablet offers value for money? Share your opinion with us through comments.
Motorola thinks that humans are wasting a lot of energy & time in remembering & typing passwords. Motorola has a fix - using body tatto or an FDA approved pill which will allow authentication without you having to do anything extra. The technology will eliminate the need of entering passwords to authenticate yourself with various computing systems - be it your personal computer, your electronic home security, your phone, tablet or wristwatch. Speaking at the D11 conference, Regina Dugan who was the first female head of DARPA showed off a tattoo on her arm - which by no means is your ordinary tattoo.
The stick-on electronic tatto on her arm comprised of a wireless power coil, ECG, temperature sensor, phone sensor and a small LED with wireless antenna border. She said that Motorola is currently working with inventors, Universities and a Massachusetts firm "MC10" to design the rubber-stamp based tattoos. Of course, the users will have a wide variety of designs.
The tattoo will last for about 2 weeks before it needs a replacement. The connections between the sensors and silicon are designed to flex by about 200%. Of course to prevent the system from potential damage from water; it will be sprayed with a plastic composite.
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