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2010-08-24T09:58:00.006+05:00

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NASA and Microsoft Provide Mars 3-D Close Encounter

2010-07-13T11:39:00.001+05:00

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA and Microsoft Research are bringing Mars to life with new features in the WorldWide Telescope software that provide viewers with a high-resolution 3-D map of the Red Planet.

Microsoft's online virtual telescope explores the universe using images NASA spacecraft return from other worlds. Teams at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., jointly developed the software necessary to make NASA's planetary data available in WorldWide Telescope.

"By providing the Mars dataset to the public on the WorldWide Telescope platform, we are enabling a whole new audience to experience the thrill of space," said Chris C. Kemp, chief technology officer for information technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The fully-interactive images and new NASA data will allow viewers to virtually explore Mars and make their own scientific discoveries. New features include the highest-resolution fully interactive map of Mars ever created, realistic 3-D renderings of the surface of the planet, and video tours with two NASA scientists, James Garvin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Carol Stoker of Ames.

Garvin's tour walks viewers through the geological history of Mars and discusses three possible landing sites for human missions there. Each landing site highlights a different geological era of the planet.

Stoker's tour addresses the question: "Is there life on Mars?" and describes the findings of NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander.

"Our hope is that this inspires the next generation of explorers to continue the scientific discovery process," said Ames Center Director S. Pete Worden.

The Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames Research Center developed open source software that runs on the NASA Nebula cloud computing platform to create and host the high-resolution maps. The maps contain 74,000 images from Mars Global Surveyor's Mars Orbiter Camera and more than 13,000 high-resolution images of Mars taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Each individual HiRISE image contains more than a billion pixels. The complete maps were rendered into image mosaics containing more than half a billion smaller images.

"These incredibly detailed maps will enable the public to better experience and explore Mars," said Michael Broxton, a research scientist in the Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames. "The collaborative relationship between NASA and Microsoft Research was instrumental for creating the software that brings these new Mars images into people's hands, classrooms and living rooms."

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reached the planet in 2006 to begin a two-year primary science mission. The mission has returned more data about Mars than all other spacecraft sent to the Red Planet. Mars Global Surveyor began orbiting Mars in 1997. The spacecraft operated longer than any other Mars spacecraft, ceasing operations in November 2006.

"Microsoft has a long-standing relationship with NASA that has enabled us to jointly provide the public with the ability to discover space in a new way," said Tony Hey, corporate vice president of the External Research Division of Microsoft Research.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego provided and operated the Mars Orbiter Camera.

India launches five satellites into orbit

2010-07-12T12:41:00.002+05:00

AFP...

BANGALORE, India — India successfully launched five satellites into orbit on Monday, three months after the country's space ambitions suffered a setback when a rocket crashed at lift-off.

The five satellites included an advanced remote sensing satellite called Cartosat-2B, as well as a satellite from Algeria.
Three other smaller experimental devices from India, Canada and Switzerland were also released.
"The rocket deployed the five satellites in the intended polar orbits after a textbook launch from the spaceport under perfect weather conditions," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) director S. Satish told AFP.
The launch site was at Sriharikota, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) northeast of Chennai.
In April an Indian rocket showcasing domestically-built booster technology crashed soon after lift-off from the same site.
The first Indian-made cryogenic powered rocket, a complex technology mastered by just five countries, fell into the Bay of Bengal due to a component failure.
India aims to launch its first manned space mission in 2016 and wants to grab a larger share of the multi-billion-dollar market for launching commercial satellites.
Last August India's first unmanned moon mission, launched amid much fanfare in 2008, came to an abrupt end when controllers lost contact with the craft.
But gloom turned to delight in September when data collected from the mission showed water on the moon, boosting India's credibility.
India began its space programme in 1963 and has developed its own satellites and launch vehicles to cut dependence on other countries.

Hidden Formulas Send Mixed Signals on Cellphones

2010-07-10T09:25:00.004+05:00

More bars in more places? As Apple Inc.'s blunder with its iPhone signal-strength display revealed, the number of bars on a phone has more to do with the whims of handset manufacturers than it does with hard calculations about network coverage.

There is no standard industry definition of what the number of signal bars shown on a cellphone should represent. Consumers who switch from one model or brand to another might find that the maximum number of bars has changed from four to five, and that seeing a maximum signal means something totally different on the new handset. Many wireless companies and phone manufacturers won't reveal the math they use to convert signal strength to bars, calling the information proprietary. And last week, after some consumers noticed that holding the iPhone a certain way made the number of signal bars decline, Apple disclosed that the formula it has been using was "totally wrong," causing the display to overstate cell signal strength.

"It's just a rough graphical presentation," Branimir Vojcic, professor of engineering and applied science at George Washington University, says of signal bars.

In theory, the bars represent the power of a phone's connection to its wireless network. Only a tiny amount of power is needed to complete a call or download data, yet most phones will get reception over a wide range of signal strength. A strong signal, obtained for example when a caller is standing near a cell tower, could be about 10 billionths of a watt, according to wireless engineers. (Thus it would take 10 billion such connections to power a 100-watt light bulb.) At the other end of the spectrum, a signal of 10 quadrillionths, or 0.00000000000001, of a watt (a quadrillion is a million billion) could be enough to complete a call. So a phone could still work when it shows one bar, even though it has one-millionth—and not one-fifth—the signal strength of that same phone when it shows five bars.

That one bar of signal strength might suffice, but it could lead to dropped calls, poor data transfers and other cellphone headaches. Cellphone users' ability to interpret the signal bars has been hampered by companies' varying definitions and a lack of full transparency about what the bars mean.

Apple hasn't disclosed details of the calculations it used or the new formula it plans to adopt based on the recommendations of its U.S. network provider AT&T Mobility, the wireless unit of AT&T. (An AT&T spokesman referred questions to Apple, and an Apple spokeswoman didn't respond to a request for comment.) Several tech enthusiasts, though, have tested their iPhones and reported that the company was showing four bars out of a maximum of five even with relatively weak signals. For instance, tech Web site AnandTech reported that signal strength as low as 80 quadrillionths of a watt corresponded to four bars. IPhoneRoot.com, an independent website for all things iPhone, ran separate tests and concluded that four bars could correspond to signal strength as low as 13 quadrillionths of a watt.

The Google Android, by contrast, shows three bars out of four only when signal strength is above 200 quadrillionths of a watt. That is roughly 2.5 to 16 times stronger than the threshold for iPhone to show four bars out of five.

Comparing the iPhone's formula with other devices is difficult because most manufacturers don't share their calculations either. The Android's software is available on the Internet, but representatives for Motorola Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Research in Motion Inc. and Nokia Corp. all declined to disclose the formula their handsets use or didn't respond to requests for the information. Representatives for the four major U.S. carriers—AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA—also declined to share formulas, with some saying it was left up to the handset makers.

"This was an extreme example," Simon Saunders, director of technology for Real Wireless Limited, a consultancy in Pulborough, U.K., says of Apple's misleading signal bars. He says he understands why a cellphone maker would show the maximum number of bars for all but the weakest signals. "For the majority of that range, everything sounds the same to you," Dr. Saunders says. The problem with that approach is that the consumer wouldn't know that a call is at risk of being dropped, something that is more likely with weaker reception.

Even the raw signal-strength number doesn't tell wireless users everything they need to know about reception. Other factors—such as interference with other cell towers, the type of wireless network and how many others are using the network—also are important. "The reasons calls get dropped are much more varied than simple signal strength," says Spencer Webb, president of AntennaSys Inc., an antenna-design company in Pelham, N.H. "We have done nothing to make this whole thing more quantitative."

Representatives for the Federal Communications Commission and CTIA, the wireless-industry trade group, say they have no rules or standards for signal bars. Matt Larson, marketing manager for wpsantennas.com, which sells antennas to boost cellphone signals, says he would like to see that change. "What if your battery indicator said it was full and all of a sudden it dropped to zero?" Mr. Larson asks.

Solar Powered plane stays airborne for 26 hours

2010-07-09T12:01:00.001+05:00

سورج کی کرنوں سے توانائی حاصل کر کے بدھ کو آزمائشی پرواز شروع کرنے والا ایک جہاز جو رات بھر کامیابی سے اڑتا رہا، جمعرات کو26 گھنٹے ہوا میں رہنے کے بعد با حفاظت سوئٹزلینڈ میں اتر گیا ہے۔

Some of you might remember when we first brought up the Solar Impulse and how it succeeded in making an 87-minute long flight at 5,000 feet. I’ve just learned that the Solar Impulse has completed a 26-hour flight, and it reached an altitude of 28,543 feet.

I believe that I reported a few months ago that they were hoping for a 36 hour flight as part of their next stop, and I am not certain if this last flight exceeds or lowers expectations.

Some of you are probably wondering how the Solar Impulse could achieve its historic flight of 26 hours when there isn’t 26 hours of sun on any given day. The answer is simple: batteries. I’m not certain if these batteries were charged before or during the flight, though.

Either way, it proves that solar power is a definite power source for the airways, which could change just about everything! Assuming that the program is still on track, there is a plan to get the Solar Impulse around the world in 2012.

Of course, you realize that the Solar Impulse is a light plane with 12,000 solar cells, and a jumbo jet would be a whole lot heavier. In other words, there is a whole lot of bugs to be worked out before we flying a solar-powered friendly skies.

Windows 8

2010-07-08T11:17:00.001+05:00

Windows 8, What you see above is a purportedly leaked slideshow that shows off Microsoft’s potential game plan for Windows 8. It was unconceivable a decade plus ago to see Microsoft and Apple being closely related in some aspects, but this leaked roadmap seems to see Microsoft give a strong nod to Apple, highlighting features such as a Windows app store and instant-on bootup. The slides also point to a one-second bootup that reminds you of the iPad’s instant-on capability, and it certainly points toward exciting times ahead when Windows 8 finally rolls out.

PTCL’s EVO coverage reaches 100 cities and towns

2010-07-07T09:31:00.002+05:00

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has extended the coverage of its CDMA-based wireless broadband service, which it offers under the ‘EVO Wireless Broadband’ banner. According to the Daily Times, PTCL now offers the service, which provides average downlink speeds of between 300kbps and 500kbps, in 100 major cities and towns across the country. Cities where the operator has boosted its wireless broadband footprint include: Karachi, Lahor, Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Hyderabad, Chakwal, Gujranwala, Muzzafarabad, Rawalakot, Mirpur, Okara, Sargodha, Sialkot, Multan and Faisalabad. Commenting on the development, Naveed Saeed, senior executive vice president of PTCL Commercial, said that the expansion reflected his company’s commitment to providing the best telecoms services to PTCL customers.

According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, PTCL announced the soft-launch of wireless broadband services over its CDMA network in January 2009, with the service only initially available in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Mirpur. It was more than a year later when, in February 2010, the operator announced a full commercial launch.

Pakistan censors Google, YouTube and Yahoo for their anti-Islam content

2010-07-02T09:20:00.000+05:00

Authorities blame online content providers for material that is offensive to Muslims and the Muslim religion. Anti-Islam links are blocked without blocking portals. Eight smaller websites are also attacked. “Google and YouTube are platforms for free expression, and we try to allow as much . . . content as possible on our services and still ensure that we enforce our policies,” Google spokesperson says.

Islamabad (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Pakistan has started to monitor the web for its blasphemous content. Internet giants like Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, Bing, Msnm and Hotmail have come under the scrutiny of Pakistani authorities for allowing online material that is offensive to Muslims and the Muslim religion.
Khurram Mehran, a spokesman for the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, said that under instructions from the Ministry of Information Technology, the Authority began monitoring and barring various sites as of 26 June, following a ruling by a judge in the city of Bahawalpur against YouTube and eight smaller websites deemed anti-Islam.

“If any particular link with offensive content appears on these websites, the (link) shall be blocked immediately without disturbing the main website,” Mehran said.

Pakistan claims that it is monitoring the world wide web for national security reasons and that no major search engine will be censored.

Google spokesman Scott Rubin said the company intends to monitor how Pakistan's new policies affect access to its services, which include the world's most popular search engine and the most widely watched video site, YouTube.

“Google and YouTube are platforms for free expression, and we try to allow as much . . . content as possible on our services and still ensure that we enforce our policies,' Mr Rubin said.

Yahoo! also responded to Pakistan's actions, calling them disappointing. The company is “founded on the principle that access to information can improve people's lives,” a Yahoo! spokeswoman said.

So far, 17 sites deemed anti-Islam and blasphemous have been blocked, including IslamExposed.blogspot.com, a blog created through Google's own Blogger service. The site features postings with headlines such as 'Islam: The Ultimate Hypocrisy' and links to anti-Islam online petitions.

Back in May, a top court put a ban on Facebook amid anger over a webpage that encouraged users to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. However, many young Muslim users of the social networking site reacted negatively to the ban, which was lifted after two weeks.

The government and the courts of Pakistan base their decisions on the country’s so-called ‘Blasphemy law’, introduced 25 years ago by then strongman Zia-ul-Haq. The ‘law’ imposes respect for the Prophet Muhammad and the Qur‘an.

The Catholic Church has fought against the law for many years because it victimises Muslims as well as members of religious minorities.

اندھیرے میں شمسی طیارے کی پرواز ملتوی

2010-07-01T11:49:00.001+05:00

شمسی توانائی سے چلنے والے طیارے کو رات میں اڑا کر ایوی ایشن کے شعبے میں نئی تاریخ رقم کرنے کا منصوبہ ملتوی کر دیا گیا ہے۔

ماضی میں شمسی توانائی سے چلنے والے روبوٹک طیارے تو اندھیرے میں پرواز کر چکے ہیں لیکن انسانی پائلٹ نے یہ کوشش ابھی تک نہیں کی ہے۔

طیارے کے پائلٹ آندرے بورشبرگ نے سوئس ہوائی اڈے سے پرواز کرنا تھا اور اسے چوبیس گھنٹے تک اڑنا تھا۔

بورشبرگ کے ایچ بی ایس آئی اے طیارے کو دن میں پرواز کے دوران اپنے بارہ ہزار شمسی سیلز کی مدد سے اتنی توانائی جمع کرنی تھی جو اسے رات بھر محوِ پرواز رکھ سکے۔

آندرے بورشبرگ اور ان کے ساتھی برٹرینڈ پکارڈ یہ ثابت کرنا چاہتے ہیں کہ ایوی ایشن کی صنعت میں شمسی توانائی ایک کارگر متبادل کے طور پر استعمال ہو سکتی ہے۔

ان کے طیارے کی شکل تو ایک گلائیڈر جیسی ہے تاہم وہ چوڑائی میں ایک جدید طیارے جتنا ہے۔ اس طیارے کو انتہائی ہلکے میٹریل سے بنایا گیا ہے اور یہ انتہائی کارگر شمسی سیل، بیٹریاں، موٹر اور پروپیلر استعمال کرتا ہے۔

اس طیارے کو گزشتہ برس سامنے لایا گیا تھا اور اس وقت سے دن کی روشنی میں اس کے تجربات جاری ہیں۔ اس طیارے نے سات اپریل کو دن کی روشنی میں اپنی پہلی مکمل پرواز کی تھی۔

بورشبرگ اور پکارڈ آئندہ دو برس میں شمسی توانائی سے چلنے والے طیارے پر بحرِ اوقیانوس عبور کرنے کا ارادہ رکھتے ہیں جبکہ سنہ2013 میں ان کا ارادہ زمین کے گرد چکر لگانے کا ہے۔

سترہ ویب لنک بلاک

2010-06-28T12:16:00.002+05:00

پاکستان ٹیلی کمیونیکیشن اتھارٹی یا پی ٹی اے کا کہنا ہے کہ اس نے اسلام کے خلاف مواد شائع کرنے پر مختلف ویب سائٹس پر موجود قریباً ڈیڑھ درجن لنکس یا یو آر ایلز کو بلاک کر دیا ہے جبکہ گوگل اور ایم ایس این سمیت چھ سرچ انجنز کی نگرانی کی جا رہی ہے۔

یہ قدم لاہور ہائی کورٹ کے جمعرات کے فیصلے کے بعد اٹھایا گیا جس میں عدالت نے چھ سرچ انجنز کے علاوہ ویڈیو شیئرنگ ویب سائٹ یو ٹیوب اور دیگر ویب سائٹس پر موجود کوئی ڈیڑھ درجن لنکس پر یہ کہہ کر پابندی عائد کرنے کا حکم دیا تھا کہ ان پر ایسا مواد شائع کیا جا رہا ہے جس سے اسلام کی توہین کا پہلو نکلتا ہے۔

ان سرچ انجنز میں گوگل، یاہو، ایم ایس این، بِنگ اور ایمیزن شامل ہیں۔

پی ٹی اے کے ترجمان خرم علی مہران نے بی بی سی کے ذوالفقار علی سے بات کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ وزارت انفارمیشن ٹیکنالوجی کی ہدایت پر مختلف ویب سائٹس پر موجود سترہ لنکس کو’اسلام کے خلاف مواد‘ شائع کرنے کی بنیاد پر بلاک کر دیا گیا ہے جبکہ چھ سرچ انجنز کے علاوہ یو ٹیوب کی بھی نگرانی کی جا رہی ہے۔

The Pakistan government, on Saturday, directed authorities to totally block 17 lesser known websites with blasphemous and anti-Islamic content, even as it asked for monitoring seven other major portals, including Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Youtube for sacrilegious materials.

The instructions were issued to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority after an inter-ministerial committee met to evaluate websites having anti-Islamic content. The committee decided to completely block 17 websites which are lesser known.

It also decided that seven other websites, including Google, MSN, Yahoo, Bing, Amazon and YouTube, would be monitored and links on them with offensive content would be blocked without disturbing the main portals. Acting on the directives of the committee, the Information Technology Ministry directed PTA to act against the websites without any delay, officials said.

The inter-ministerial committee also said that blocking of e-information needed by students and researchers should be avoided. The action taken by the government was a follow-up to an order issued recently by the Bahawalpur bench of the Lahore High Court. Acting on a petition, the court had directed authorities to take action against 24 websites for hosting blasphemous and sacrilegious contents.

Microsoft Kinect price unveiled

2010-06-23T10:19:00.002+05:00

The battle over motion-controlled video gaming has taken another step forward with Microsoft unveiling the price of its Kinect Xbox 360 add-on.

The company has made the system, which plugs into the Xbox 360 console, available for pre-orders on its website for $149 US. The pre-order terms said the Kinect's price could go up or down before its Nov. 4 launch, but the company will honour whichever price is lowest.

Spokespeople for Microsoft Canada could not officially confirm the Kinect's price, but the revelation will likely put to rest speculation about the maximum cost. Industry analysts had suggested the Kinect, which packs sophisticated motion- and voice-recognition technology, could be priced at up to $400.

Microsoft hopes the device, which allows for gaming and movie playback without any sort of controller, will help it expand the Xbox 360's audience beyond core video gamers. The console add-on is to be launched with 15 games, ranging from racing to fitness titles.

The Kinect will compete against Nintendo's Wii, which popularized motion control when it launched in 2006, and Sony's Move controller, launching this fall. Critics have said Microsoft and Sony are playing catch-up to Nintendo, which is winning the battle over the current generation of video game consoles. Nintendo has sold more than 70 million Wii units, compared with Microsoft's 40 million Xbox 360 consoles and Sony's 35 million PlayStation 3 units.

Craig Flannagan, Xbox Canada platform manager, said the Kinect will have an advantage over rivals because it is the only one that doesn't require a controller of any kind. Microsoft has also worked hard at securing the support of third-party developers, something Nintendo has had trouble doing, he said.

"If you look at the innovative experiences we've been able to pull off with Xbox Live [online gaming] and third parties in general, we really expect to have some pretty amazing games and some really great support for this," Flannagan said at media demonstration of Kinect in Toronto on Tuesday (see video at top right). "Those factors are all going to roll in the most robust support you've ever seen for a motion platform."

Some observers have said that a recent slowdown in Wii sales could spell trouble for Microsoft's and Sony's motion-control efforts, while others expect sales to be brisk. Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, recently predicted Microsoft will sell three million Kinect units by the end of the year.

Microsoft introduced Kinect under the working name Project Natal at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles a year ago. The company announced its official name and release date at last week's E3. Sony announced at E3 that its Move controller would go on sale Sept. 19, starting at $49 US.

Vodafone dividend could rise in 2012

2010-06-21T11:18:00.003+05:00

Telecoms giant Vodafone could receive a dividend from its stake in Verizon Wireless as early as 2012, boosting the British company's own ability to hand back cash to shareholders.

By James Quinn, US Business Editor
Published: 8:29PM BST 18 Jun 2010

John Killian, finance director of Verizon Communications – which owns a 55pc stake in the joint venture compared to Vodafone's 45pc – said the US mobile giant could begin making payouts to its owners the year after next.

The confirmation will come as welcome relief to Vodafone's army of small British shareholders, especially in light of BP's temporary cessation of dividend payments to fund its relief efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.
After BP, Vodafone is one of the top five dividend paying companies in the UK, and as such its income flows are closely watched.
Shares in Vodafone closed up 1¾ at 143p on the news, still below the company's year-high of 154.4p set in late March.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Mr Killian said: "It's a Verizon-controlled decision as to when we pay the cash out and how much we pay."
However, he noted that dividend payments could resume in 2012 as Verizon Wireless will have paid down its debt by then.
Vodafone has not received any money from Verizon Wireless since 2005, when payments were halted.
Robin Bienenstock, Sanford C Bernstein's telecoms analyst, noted: "This would have a transformative effect on Vodafone, increasing free cash flow by over 30pc."
She added that Verizon Communications may need to access Verizon Wireless's cash balance to fund its own dividend, after problems at the parent's landline division.
Although Mr Killian's comments appeared to be read by the market as an interesting development, sources close to Vodafone pointed to recent comments by Andy Halford, Vodafone's finance director, at the company's most recent results in which he noted that Verizon Wireless continues to maintain a strong cashflow. He went on note that the joint venture's debt was approximately $20bn (£13.5bn), and was decreasing at a rate of around $1.5bn a month because of the strong cashflow, suggesting that in just over a year the venture would begin to accrue significant amounts of cash.
Vodafone is due to make its final dividend payment of 5.65p a share on August 6, for all shareholders on the register on June 4, bringing its total dividend for the year to 8.31p a share, producing a yield of 5.8pc.
The company said in May it expects total dividends per share will be no less than 10.18p a share for the 2013 financial year.
A Vodafone spokesman declined to comment.

How many iPhones did Apple just sell?

2010-06-17T13:14:00.001+05:00

iPhone 4 queue in Tokyo. Source: IDG

.....................................................................................................................................

Technically, Apple (AAPL) hasn't sold any iPhone 4s yet -- the first sales won't be recorded until next week. But judging from the pre-orders recorded on Tuesday, it's heading for its best iPhone launch ever.

According to AT&T (T), Tuesday was "the busiest online sales day in AT&T history." Despite widely publicized server meltdowns, Apple's entire first production run had been called for by Tuesday afternoon, and orders placed after 4:30 p.m. EDT were pushed back to June 25 or later. On Apple.com, the iPhone 4 ship-by date has slipped from June 24 to July 2.

In a note to clients issued Wednesday morning, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster reminds us that last year and the year before, Apple managed sell 1 million iPhones within three days. Given that roughly 8.4 million iPhone 3Gs owners are eligible for an upgrade under AT&T's new rules, he believes an additional 1 million units is "achievable" next weekend, and he is raising his estimate of iPhone sales for Apple's third fiscal quarter to 9.5 million from 8.5 million (and up from 5.21 million the year before). Based on those estimates, he's also raising his price target for Apple's shares to $348 from $330.

But having famously over-estimated iPhone sales a few times before, Munster is probably hedging his bets. We're inclined to agree with Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer, who believes that this launch will be a blow-out. Frommer predicts that by the end of the four-day sales event that begins Thursday, June 24, Apple will announce that it has doubled its previous record and sold 2 million iPhone 4s.

Microsoft's Kinect for Xbox 360 is Doomed to Fail

2010-06-17T13:13:00.002+05:00

Renamed the Kinect at E3 this week, the product formerly known as Project Natal isn't likely to be much more than a neat gimmick.
Microsoft rolled out Kinect—the peripheral formerly known as Project Natal—this week at E3 in Los Angeles. Videos of the product have surfaced all over the Web, including over at my blog. The device is essentially a mechanism that that lets players become the game controller. I think the pause button is a hard slap to the forehead, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, while the device could forever end childhood obesity, it's doomed for a number of reasons—not the least of which is its Microsoft origins.
First of all, game play is typically a sedentary activity. You typically play games while already pooped out from the day's activities. The last thing you want to do is jump around like some ninny. The device is never going to catch on with the general gaming community for this reason alone. Kinect is also limited by what it can actually do. Serious gamers get into fine control with specialty controllers that can execute elaborate and accurate action. This will never happen with full-body control—it would be too hard to make it work, and no coders will ever put in the effort much past, "it kind of works. Ship it!"
Then there is the big bugaboo: hardwood floors. Unless your house has a slab floor of solid concrete, no one is going to tolerate the room and house shaking that will be produced by this "controller." This relegates the games to the cement floor basement playrooms that are rare in many parts of the country. Live in an apartment? Prepare to be evicted.
Many homes have a second floor where the children's bedrooms are. You can be certain that this device, and the Xbox that uses it, will never find its way to the upstairs bedroom where the house would be shaken to its foundation. You may as well buy the children a drum kit. Even with padded carpeting, this product will be a nuisance to anyone not playing—that will probably be most of the people in the house, since it appears the controller can only handle two people, not a mob.
And while the carpeted floor may dampen the annoying home-wide shaking, the carpet will be beaten to death and deep-rooted dust, mites, and god-knows-what else will be kicked up. You'll need an electrostatic precipitator or high capacity HEPA filtering system in the house if you are going to use this. Of course, Microsoft designed this for families in an environment with no real families: the Microsoft compound in Redmond. People who develop such things are usually single men with no real thought about how such things will go over in a real family environment.
Let me give them a hint. Shout the following as loud as you can, "hey, you're shaking the whole house! Turn that damned thing off and go outside if you want to jump around! Now!" A recording of that plea ought to be included with the product.
That said, I'm sure this device will be fun to pull out at a party. It will also be a great way to monitor calisthenics. It does seem like an amusing way to run in place and do other limited motion exercises. It has to be a natural for non-impact activities, too. The bowling game might be interesting. Tai-Chi fans might find this product ideal as well, though watching a video tape will probably offer the same benefits.
This all seems like Microsoft's answer to the clever Wii controller, with its built-in gyroscopes and accelerometers. But when all is said and done, game consoles were invented with game controllers in mind. The Wiimote is a modernized game controller. The Kinnect is a gimmick, and as gimmicks go, its popularity will be brief, unless the most compelling game in the world arrives built around it. And I do not see that happening.

100 things you didn't know about Apple and Steve Jobs

2010-06-14T10:58:00.001+05:00

If you're into interesting facts, few companies have as secretive, cool and intriguing histories as Apple and its leader, Steve Jobs. Anything missing? Leave a comment.

Apple didn't have two founders. It had three. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne.
Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive share the same middle name: "Paul."
Before working at Apple, Jonathan Ive worked for a company called Tangerine.
The original Apple 1 computer sold for $666.66.
The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan (the cube) is said to be one of the most photographed landmarks in the world.
Nine U.S. states don't have Apple stores: Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Before co-founding Apple, Steve Jobs worked for Atari.
Jonathan Ive has worn the same shirt in every Apple product intro video since 2000.
Steve Jobs is a Buddhist.
Steve Jobs' birth father was a Syrian Muslim, Abdulfattah Jandali.
Steve Jobs met Steve Wozniak when Jobs was 16 and Wozniak 21.
Steve Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas for $10 million and sold it to Disney for $7.6 billion.
Steve Jobs has four children: one son and three daughters.
Jonathan Ive has twins.
Steve Jobs originally denied he was the father of his first child, Lisa Brennan-Jobs.
Steve Jobs sold his apartment in New York City to U2 frontman Bono.
In 1998 Steve Jobs let Bill Clinton use his mansion in Woodside, California.
Steve Jobs underwent a liver transplant at a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee in 2009.
Apple was established on April Fools Day.
Apple has more than 35,000 employees worldwide.
Apple once disposed of 2,700 unsold Lisas in a Utah landfill. The computer originally sold at $10,000 each.
Only 30-50 of the original Apple 1 computers still exist, with originals selling for up to $50,000.
Apple's original logo in 1976 featured Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree.
Apple's current logo was designed by Rob Janoff.
First slogan: "Byte into an Apple."
Apple was the first company to introduce the mouse and the trackpad.
After being kicked out of Apple, Steve Jobs started an unsuccessful company called NeXT.
In 2001, Apple's stock price was less than $8 per share. In April 2010 the price reached $272.
In January 2007, Apple Inc. dropped "Computer" from its corporate name.
Apple.com is in the top 50 websites visited worldwide and in the top 30 visited in the United States.
Apple wasn’t started in a garage, it was started in a bedroom at 11161 Crist Drive in Los Altos.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak both worked together as summer employees at Hewlett-Packard.
The longest-lived Apple computer of all time was the Apple IIe, which was on sale for nearly 11 years.
Apple didn't sell a Windows-compatible iPod until nine months after the iPod was introduced.
The time shown on all of the devices in pictures on Apple's website is the same (9:41 a.m. for iOS devices and 10:50 a.m. for Macs). The time is coordinated with when the pictures will be shown during Steve Jobs' keynote address.
Apple once created a stand-alone game console called the Pippin.
The famous 1984 Macintosh ad was directed by Ridley Scott, director of Alien and Gladiator.
Apple created the Dogcow in 1983. The sound she makes is "Moof!"
Steve Jobs' largest parody Twitter account is @ceostevejobs.
Steve Jobs pays himself an annual salary of $1.
Steve Jobs' annual income from Disney shares is $48 million.
Despite being one of the biggest companies in the world, Apple's current board of directors (at six) is among the smallest in the Fortune 500.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is on Apple's board of directors.
Steve Jobs was a college drop out.
Steve Jobs was awarded the National Medal of Technology from Ronald Reagan.
Steve Jobs commonly dons a black long-sleeved mock-turtleneck made by St. Croix, Levi's 501 blue jeans (he owns more than 100), and New Balance 992 sneakers.
In 2008, Bloomberg accidentally published a 2,500 word obituary of Steve Jobs in its news service, leaving blank spaces for his age and cause of death.
Steve Jobs traveled to India looking for enlightenment in 1974.
Steve Jobs is dyslexic.
Steve Jobs said he let snakes loose in his third grade classroom and "exploded bombs."
While Steve Jobs worked at Atari, he was moved to the night shift because he had poor personal hygiene and smelled bad.
Steve Jobs and his wife are strict vegans.
Apples are Steve Jobs' favorite food.
Steve jobs convinced the president of PepsiCo to work for Apple.
During the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, Steve Jobs used the phone to call Starbucks and order 4,000 lattes to go.
Steve Jobs has big feet, at size 14.
Steve Jobs often parks in Handicap spaces at Apple headquarters.
Steve Jobs' sister, Mona Simpson, is a novelist.
Apple is now a $50 billion company.
Apple sells 91 percent of $1,000+ PCs.
Apple's idea for the graphical user interface actually came from Xerox.
John Hodgman, the PC in the "I'm a Mac" commercials, uses a Mac.
Apple has been in the retail store business since 2001.
Apple has had six CEOs: Michael Scott, A.C. "Mike" Markkula, John Sculley, Michael Spindler, Gil Amelio and Steve Jobs.
Philip W. Schiller, senior vice president of marketing, began but didn't complete a Ph.D. in English.
Steve Jobs was portrayed by Noah Wyle in the film "Pirates of Silicon Valley."
Macs last an average of six years. PCs last an average of four years.
The average PC owner spends 50 hours a year troubleshooting. The average Mac owner spends 5 hours a year.
Teachers and students using Macs are found to be 44% more productive.
When it was first released Steve Jobs gave every Apple employee a free iPhone.
Apple began work on a touch-screen tablet before work began on the iPhone. The iPad wasn't released until three years after the iPhone, however.
The iPod's codename was "Dulcimer."
Gonzo, Jedi, Malibu, Peter Pan, Rosebud, and Yikes! have all been codenames for Macs.
The signatures of the Macintosh hardware team were originally engraved inside the computer's case.
Steve Jobs originally considered "Macintosh" to be a code name and wanted to rename the project.
Time Magazine considered naming Steve Jobs "Man of the Year" in 1982, even sending a reporter for interviews multiple times, but instead, the magazine named "the computer" the machine of the year.
Susan Kare once created a computer icon of Steve Jobs while she worked on the Macintosh team.
Anya Major, a discus thrower, threw the sledgehammer at the screen in the famous 1984 commercial.
The 1984 ad was originally proposed to be used as a print advertisement in the Wall Street Journal to promote the Apple II.
Apple's Board of Directors hated the 1984 commercial when they saw it but decided to take the risk anyway.
The very first image shown on the Macintosh was of Disney character Scrooge McDuck.
In 2010 Apple's market cap exceeded Microsoft for the first time since 1989.
Apple's online store began on November 10, 1997.
The first Apple retail stores opened in Virginia and California.
Apple's Cupertino campus has six buildings that total 850,000 square feet and was built in 1993.
Steve Job's birthday is February 24, 1955.
When he was growing up, Steve Jobs lived on 45th Avenue in San Francisco.
In his childhood Steve Jobs swallowed a bottle of ant poison and had to go to the ER.
While in high school Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak made and sold Blue Boxes to get free calls from public telephone systems.
In 1972, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak took $3 an hour jobs dressed as "Alice in Wonderland" characters at the Westgate Mall in San Jose.
At the first Apple Halloween costume party, Steve Jobs dressed up as Jesus Christ.
When the first IBM PC debuted, Apple took out an ad in the Wall Street Journal with the words "Welcome, IBM. Seriously."
In 1982 Steve Jobs made Bill Gates and Microsoft promise never to work on any business software that would use a mouse unless it was for Apple.
Steve Jobs dated singer Joan Baez.
Steve Jobs once stared as President Roosevelt in a war-themed 1984 ad parody called 1944, where Macs start a war with IBM computers.
Paul Rand, the creator of the IBM logo, was hired to create the brand identity and logo for NeXT.
Steve Jobs and Laurene Powell were married ay the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park on March 18.
Jonathan Ive's first piece of work at Apple was the 20th Anniversary Mac.
Steve Jobs once sold the King of Spain a NeXT computer at a party, even before it was released.
Steve Jobs once tried to get NASA to let him ride the space shuttle

Jony Ive hasn’t changed his shirt in a decade

2010-06-11T10:58:00.000+05:00

Click on Picture

If you look closely at the intro videos Apple plays whenever it launches a new product, you’ll notice a few constants.

One: Apple’s design guru, Jonathan Ive, is in every single video.

Two: Ive hasn’t changed his shirt since 1997 when the original iMac launched.

Also, Cheryl Vedoe marks the only intro reel appearance by a female employed at Apple. And that was just once, in 2001.

Scott Forstall is the only other one currently on the repeat wearer list. He’s worn the same jacket in the iPhone and iPad launch videos.

hehehehehehehe

Apple New iPhone 4G Released: Apple Shacked The Smart Phone Industry

2010-06-10T17:01:00.001+05:00

WWDC 2010 catch up the event through Live Streaming Online. Steve Jobs appear on WWDC 2010 at 10AM PT (1PM ET). Apple Announcement New Iphone, Apple Conference 2010′ For More Updates’ iphone 4g, apple, iphone, new iphone release, new iphone 4g. Steve Jobs has announced the ‘fastest roll out ever’ for a new iPhone with the release of the iPhone 4.The official iPhone 4 release date is set to June 24th on AT&T Wireless with pricing (in the US at least) set at $299 for the 32GB version, 16GB $199 and 8GB $99 all on contract – which is likely to be somewhat mirrored in the UK.

The device which is full of new features gave a clear message to industry that Apple is dedicated to keep its phone fresh.Meanwhile, The release of Verizon iPhone was not expected in the WWDC 2010.Apple company, provided glimpse of Apple iPhone share in US and then provided strength of iPhone application. So far, Apple iPhone has 185k applications on the iPhone.

Analysts: No big surprises in iPhone 4

2010-06-09T11:18:00.001+05:00

Leaks and a misplaced iPhone prototype took some of the wind from Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs' Monday presentation of the iPhone 4.

Several analysts already expected to see some of the new iPhone's capabilities, such as a camera on the front of the smartphone, video conferencing and longer battery life. But they were pleasantly surprised at the popularity of the iPad, Apple's version of the tablet computer.

William Blair analyst Ralph Schackart said the new iPhone hardware and software were "largely in line with expectations," citing a blog preview of Apple's hardware and Apple's own preview of the software in April that made sure investors were apprised of what was coming.

But he said iPad's popularity supported his view that Apple would sell 3.15 million units in fiscal 2010. Schackart is forecasting shipments of 36.9 million iPhones this year.

Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt said the iPad is "extremely successful" and the number of applications downloaded to the iPad are "remarkable and may be the real story of the day."

More than two million iPads have been sold since early April with 35 million apps downloaded, he said. About $1 billion has been generated by developers of iPhone apps. Apple gets a percentage of the revenue.

Oppenheimer analyst Yai Reiner has a more upbeat view of the new iPhone's features, saying that it "catapults the smartphone category forward along every axis of relevance to consumers."

The arrival of competing phones seemed to have "sparked an almost fierce level of innovation at Apple," the analyst said in a research note.

Space snapshot

2010-06-08T15:35:00.002+05:00

Anchored to a Canadarm2 mobile foot restraint, NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman uses a still camera during a May 17 spacewalk at the International Space Station. Spacewalkers replaced six batteries on the station, installed a spare communication antenna and added a spare parts platform to the station's exterior.

New Lexus Sports Car

2010-06-04T09:59:00.003+05:00

New Lexus Sports Car: The $ 350 000 Lexus LFA was one of the most buzz-generating vehicle for ultra-luxury “Gallery” exhibition in the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week. Invented the “two-seat supercar” by Lexus, the car sits on top of Lexus’s “F” portfolio, his series of high-end performance sports cars.
The new sports car from Lexus is powered by a 4.8-liter V10 engine. The car costs three times as much as a Porsche 911 GT3, and is almost double the price of the Ferrari 458 Italia.
On the way to LFA could accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.6 seconds with a top speed of 202 km / h, thanks to its 10-cylinder 552 hp engine. The car is also made of strong, lightweight carbon fiber-reinforced polymer that makes it about 220 pounds lighter than a comparable aluminum design.
But only the $ 350,000 to buy one of the 500 disadvantaged areas Lexus plans to produce will not be enough: Buyers will be used by the Company to be owners. People chose to buy the car will be based on factors like the other cars they own, where they live and how often and how they drive. Potential buyers must use an authorized Lexus dealer.

NASA TV Streaming Now Available On iPhone And iPad

2010-06-03T09:31:00.001+05:00

If you are into space and have an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch or any HTML5/H.264-compatible device, you got lucky: Now you can watch NASA TV in real time. The quality is quite good, as you can see in this capture:

Now I will be able to watch shuttle launches whenever I’m in the bathroom, live. Every single one of the two of them left. But don’t worry: American manned space exploration may be dead but I’m sure that at one point they will replace the shuttle launches with stock footage and Apollo XIII reruns.

Backwards Black Holes Might Make Bigger Jets

2010-06-02T12:20:00.002+05:00

This artist's concept shows a galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its core. The black hole is shooting out jets of radio waves.Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltec

PASADENA, Calif. – Going against the grain may turn out to be a powerful move for black holes. New research suggests supermassive black holes that spin backwards might produce more ferocious jets of gas. The results have broad implications for how galaxies change over time.

"A lot of what happens in an entire galaxy depends on what's going on in the miniscule central region where the black hole lies," said theoretical astrophysicist David Garofalo of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Garofalo is lead author of a new paper that appeared online May 27 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Other authors are Daniel A. Evans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., and Rita M. Sambruna of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Black holes are immense distortions of space and time with gravity that is so great, even light itself cannot escape. Astronomers have known for more than a decade that all galaxies, including our own Milky Way, are anchored by tremendous, so-called supermassive black holes, containing billions of suns' worth of mass. The black holes are surrounded and nourished by disks of gas and dust, called accretion disks. Powerful jets stream out from below and above the disks like lasers, and fierce winds blow off from the disks themselves.

The black holes can spin either in the same direction as the disks, called prograde black holes, or against the flow – the retrograde black holes. For decades, astronomers thought that the faster the spin of the black hole, the more powerful the jet. But there were problems with this "spin paradigm" model. For example, some prograde black holes had been found with no jets.

Garofalo and his colleagues have been busy flipping the model on its head. In previous papers, they proposed that the backward, or retrograde, black holes spew the most powerful jets, while the prograde black holes have weaker or no jets.

The new study links the researchers' theory with observations of galaxies across time, or at varying distances from Earth. They looked at both "radio-loud" galaxies with jets, and "radio-quiet" ones with weak or no jets. The term "radio" comes from the fact that these particular jets shoot out beams of light mostly in the form of radio waves.

The results showed that more distant radio-loud galaxies are powered by retrograde black holes, while relatively closer radio-quiet objects have prograde black holes. According to the team, the supermassive black holes evolve over time from a retrograde to a prograde state.

"This new model also solves a paradox in the old spin paradigm," said David Meier, a theoretical astrophysicist at JPL not involved in the study. "Everything now fits nicely into place."

The scientists say that the backward black holes shoot more powerful jets because there's more space between the black hole and the inner edge of the orbiting disk. This gap provides more room for the build-up of magnetic fields, which fuel the jets, an idea known as the Reynold's conjecture after the theoretical astrophysicist Chris Reynolds of the University of Maryland, College Park.

"If you picture yourself trying to get closer to a fan, you can imagine that moving in the same rotational direction as the fan would make things easier," said Garofalo. "The same principle applies to these black holes. The material orbiting around them in a disk will get closer to the ones that are spinning in the same direction versus the ones spinning the opposite way."

Jets and winds play key roles in shaping the fate of galaxies. Some research shows that jets can slow and even prevent the formation of stars not just in a host galaxy itself, but also in other nearby galaxies.

"Jets transport huge amounts of energy to the outskirts of galaxies, displace large volumes of the intergalactic gas, and act as feedback agents between the galaxy's very center and the large-scale environment," said Sambruna. "Understanding their origin is of paramount interest in modern astrophysics."

The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages JPL for NASA.

Computex 2010

2010-06-01T10:25:00.001+05:00

Computex 2010 updates :- Asus has debuted a sleek Windows 7-based tablet with a 10 hour battery life at Computex 2010.
The 12″ device – which is powered by a CULV Intel Core 2 Duo processor – functions as a multimedia player (yes, Flash is supported), e-reader and compact computing device.
Asus touts Windows 7 tablet at Computex 2010As expected, the Eee Pad EP121 is capable of effectively handling (true) multitasking, video conferencing and the simultaneous processing of Microsoft Word and Excel documents.
The company also introduced a smaller, more cloud-oriented 10″ Pad dubbed EP101TC which runs Windows Embedded Compact.

Karachi hosts first ever blogging awards

2010-05-29T09:38:00.001+05:00

One of Raja Islam’s well known photographs. His blog on photography won. PHOTO: KARACHI METBLOGS

KARACHI: Pakistani bloggers across the country and abroad would have never imagined a day when they would be awarded for their “hobby”. But on Friday, 33 winners took home shields in the first-ever Pakistan Blog Awards organised by Google Pakistan and CIO Pakistan.

“I could not have imagined that my blog would be declared the best,” said Raja Islam who shared the best photo blogger award. “Taking photos and sharing with people is my hobby. I love taking pictures.” Sadly, as flickr is not available in Pakistan, supporters were not able to log on Friday. He shared the award with Awais Yaqoob who according to the host Rabia Gharib not only posts pictures but also explains technical details.

Best gossip blog ‘RoofExpress’ went to Lahore’s Rafaeel Akbar for the topic he touched and the innovation he brought to his work. Irfan Ahsan was declared the best Fashion blogger of the country. He has thoroughly covered topics such as bridal dresses providing every minute detail. Tazeen, who is presently living abroad, was nominated as the best humour blogger by the judges. The lovers of music were also rewarded for their services. Hammad Dar’s blog was declared the best music blog. Though Hammad was out of the country at the time, five of his friends were there are the ceremony and celebrated his victory with a loud “Yes!”

Pakistan first blog awards ‘UnConference’ were held at Regent Plaza on Friday with bloggers from across the country and corporate managers rubbing shoulders. With the emergence of the internet as an alternate media in the country, Pakistani bloggers have caught the attention of the international community. According to Bushra Iqbal, a brand manager, the number of internet users has crossed 18 million.

According to the organisers, with the evolution of traditional media in Pakistan, blogging and citizen journalism has provided people a way to hop over barricades like censorship and present their views and facts. This marks the begining of the media revolution in the country, they said, as more and more people are turning to the internet to get news and present their opinions. This is the reason why the organisers thought it was necessary to admire the services of the bloggers in the country and reward them.

The Pakistan Blog Awards showcased more than 200 blogs across 33 categories and had 10,000 votes in support. Experts from across the globe were involved in the job of adjudication including Columbia University, Harvard University, The Future Foundation, UNICEF, Cisco, DELL, YouSendIt.com and Demotix.com. http://blogawards.pk/.

NASA Spacecraft Penetrates Mysteries of Martian Ice Cap

2010-05-27T10:53:00.002+05:00

This image, combining data from two instruments aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, depicts an orbital view of the north polar region of Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

PASADENA, Calif. -- Data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have helped scientists solve a pair of mysteries dating back four decades and provided new information about climate change on the Red Planet.

The Shallow Radar, or SHARAD, instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed subsurface geology allowing scientists to reconstruct the formation of a large chasm and a series of spiral troughs on the northern ice cap of Mars. The findings appear in two papers in the May 27 issue of the journal Nature.

"SHARAD is giving us a beautifully detailed view of ice deposits, whether at the poles or buried in mid-latitudes, as they changed on Mars over the last few million years," said Rich Zurek, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

On Earth, large ice sheets are shaped mainly by ice flow. According to this latest research, other forces have shaped, and continue to shape, polar ice caps on Mars. The northern ice cap is a stack of ice and dust layers up to two miles deep, covering an area slightly larger than Texas. Analyzing radar data on a computer, scientists can peel back the layers like an onion to reveal how the ice cap evolved over time.

One of the most distinctive features of the northern ice cap is Chasma Boreale, a canyon about as long as Earth's Grand Canyon but deeper and wider. Some scientists believe Chasma Boreale was created when volcanic heat melted the bottom of the ice sheet and triggered a catastrophic flood. Others suggest strong polar winds carved the canyon out of a dome of ice.

Other enigmatic features of the ice cap are troughs that spiral outward from the center like a gigantic pinwheel. Since the troughs were discovered in 1972, scientists have proposed several hypotheses about how they formed. Perhaps as Mars spins, ice closer to the poles moves slower than ice farther away, causing the semi-fluid ice to crack. Perhaps, as one mathematical model suggests, increased solar heating in certain areas and lateral heat conduction could cause the troughs to assemble.

Data from Mars now points to both the canyon and spiral troughs being created and shaped primarily by wind. Rather than being cut into existing ice very recently, the features formed over millions of years as the ice sheet grew. By influencing wind patterns, the shape of underlying, older ice controlled where and how the features grew.

"Nobody realized that there would be such complex structures in the layers," said Jack Holt, of the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics. Holt is the lead author of the paper focusing on Chasma Boreale. "The layers record a history of ice accumulation, erosion and wind transport. From that, we can recover a history of climate that's much more detailed than anybody expected."

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched on Aug. 12, 2005. SHARAD and the spacecraft's five other instruments began science operations in November 2006.

"These anomalous features have gone unexplained for 40 years because we have not been able to see what lies beneath the surface," said Roberto Seu, Shallow Radar team leader at the University of Rome. "It is gratifying to me that with this new instrument we can finally explain them."

The MRO mission is managed by JPL for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Headquarters in Washington. The Shallow Radar instrument was provided by the Italian Space Agency, and its operations are led by the InfoCom Department, University of Rome. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

ایپل دنیا کی سب سے بڑی ٹیکنالوجی کمپنی

2010-05-27T09:36:00.001+05:00

ایپل مائیکروسافٹ کو پچھاڑ کر دنیا کی سب سے بڑی ٹیکنالوجی کمپنی بن گئی ہے۔

یہ سنہ 1989 کے بعد پہلا موقع ہے کہ ایپل مائیکروسافٹ سے آگے نکلنے میں کامیاب ہوئی ہے۔

بدھ کو بازارِ حصص میں آنے والی تبدیلیوں کے نتیجے میں ایپل کمپنی کی کل مالیت دو سو بائیس ارب امریکی ڈالر کے مساوی ہوگئی جبکہ سرمایہ کاروں نے مائیکروسافٹ کی حالیہ مالیت دو سو انیس ارب ڈالر لگائی ہے۔

کسی کمپنی کی مالیت جسے مارکیٹ کیپیٹلائزیشن کہا جاتا ہے اس کے تمام حصص کو ان کی قیمت سے ضرب دے کر حاصل کی جاتی ہے۔

بدھ کو بازارِ حصص میں اگرچہ ایپل کے حصص میں اعشاریہ چار فیصد کی کمی ہوئی لیکن اس کے ساتھ ہی مائیکروسافٹ کے حصص بھی چار فیصد کی شرح سے گرے۔

نوے کی دہائی میں مائیکروسافٹ نے انتہائی تیزی سے ترقی کے مدارج طے کیے تھے تاہم اس کے بعد سے اس کی بڑھوتری کی شرح اتنی تیز نہیں رہی ہے۔ تاہم اس کے باوجود آج بھی دنیا کے نوّے فیصد سے زائد ذاتی کمپیوٹرز میں مائیکروسافٹ کے ہی آپریٹنگ نظام نصب ہیں۔

ایپل کمپنی کی مالیت میں اضافہ سنہ 2001 میں کمپنی کی جانب سے آئی پوڈ میوزک پلیئر کی تخلیق کے مرہونِ منت سمجھا جاتا ہے۔ تاہم بعد ازاں آئی فون کی تخلیق بھی کمپنی کی مقبولیت میں اضافے کا سبب بنی ہے۔

ایپل کی دنیا کی سب سے بڑی ٹیکنالوجی کمپنی بننے کی خبر ایک ایسے وقت میں سامنے آئی ہے جب امریکہ کے بعد رواں ہفتے میں ایپل کی تازہ ترین تخلیق آئی پیڈ ٹیبلٹ پی سی کو برطانیہ سمیت آٹھ ممالک میں فروخت کے لیے پیش کیا جا رہا ہے جبکہ آئندہ ماہ ایپل اپنے مشہورِ زمانہ آئی فون کا نیا ماڈل مارکیٹ میں لا رہا ہے۔

Microsoft unveils Office 2010

2010-05-26T09:19:00.001+05:00

ISLAMABAD: Microsoft Pakistan on Tuesday announced the next generation of productivity applications, making Pakistani users part of the 90 million existing business customers from all over the world. The announcement was made at a launch ceremony held in Lahore, revealed a press release issued here on Tuesday. The new applications include Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010.

WISE Makes Progress on its Space Rock Catalog

2010-05-25T10:35:00.002+05:00

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, is busy surveying the landscape of the infrared sky, building up a catalog of cosmic specimens -- everything from distant galaxies to "failed" stars, called brown dwarfs.

Closer to home, the mission is picking out an impressive collection of asteroids and comets, some known and some never seen before. Most of these hang out in the Main Belt between Mars and Jupiter, but a small number are near-Earth objects -- asteroids and comets with orbits that pass within about 48 million kilometers (30 million miles) of Earth's orbit. By studying a small sample of near-Earth objects, WISE will learn more about the population as a whole. How do their sizes differ, and how many objects are dark versus light?

"We are taking a census of a small sample of near-Earth objects to get a better idea of how they vary," said Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NEOWISE, a program to catalog asteroids seen with WISE.

So far, the mission has observed more than 60,000 asteroids, both Main Belt and near-Earth objects. Most were known before, but more than 11,000 are new.

"Our data pipeline is bursting with asteroids," said WISE Principal Investigator Ned Wright of UCLA. "We are discovering about a hundred a day, mostly in the Main Belt."

About 190 near-Earth asteroids have been observed to date, of which more than 50 are new discoveries. All asteroid observations are reported to the NASA-funded International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, a clearinghouse for data on all solar system bodies at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.

"It's a really exciting time for asteroid science," said Tim Spahr, who directs the Minor Planet Center. "WISE is another tool to add to our tool belt of instruments to discover and study the asteroid population."

A network of ground-based telescopes follows up and confirms the WISE finds, including the NASA-funded University of Arizona Spacewatch and Catalina Sky Survey projects, both near Tucson, Ariz., and the NASA-funded Magdalena Ridge Observatory near Socorro, N.M.

Some of the near-Earth asteroids detected so far are visibly dark, but it's too early to say what percentage. The team needs time to properly analyze and calibrate the data. When results are ready, they will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. WISE has not found an asteroid yet that would be too dark for detection by visible-light telescopes on the ground.

"We're beginning the process of sorting through all the objects we're finding so we can learn more about their properties," said Mainzer. "How many are big or small, or light versus dark?"

WISE will also study Trojans, asteroids that run along with Jupiter in its orbit around the sun and travel in two packs -- one in front of and one behind the gas giant. It has seen more than 800, and by the end of the mission, should have observed about half of all 4,500 known Trojans. The results will address dueling theories about how the outer planets evolved.

With its infrared vision, WISE is good at many aspects of asteroid watching. First, infrared light gives a better estimate of an asteroid's size. Imagine a light, shiny rock lying next to a bigger, dark one in the sunshine. From far away, the rocks might look about the same size. That's because they reflect about the same amount of visible sunlight. But, if you pointed an infrared camera at them, you could tell the dark one is bigger. Infrared light is related to the heat radiated from the rock itself, which, in turn, is related to its size.

A second benefit of infrared is the ability to see darker asteroids. Some asteroids are blacker than coal and barely reflect any visible light. WISE can see their infrared glow. The mission isn't necessarily hunting down dark asteroids in hiding, but collecting a sample of all different types. Like a geologist collecting everything from pumice to quartz, WISE is capturing the diversity of cosmic rocks in our solar neighborhood.

In the end, WISE will provide rough size and composition profiles for hundreds of near-Earth objects, about 100 to 200 of which will be new.

WISE has also bagged about a dozen new comets to date. The icy cousins to asteroids are easy for the telescope to spot because, as the comets are warmed by the sun, gas and dust particles blow off and glow with infrared light. Many of the comets found by WISE so far are so-called long-period comets, meaning they spend billions of years circling the sun in the frigid hinterlands of our solar system, before they are shuttled into the inner, warmer parts. Others are termed short-period comets -- they spend most of their lives hanging around the space near Jupiter, occasionally veering into the space closer to the terrestrial planets. WISE's measurements of these snowy dirtballs will allow scientists to study their size, composition and density. Measurements of the comets' orbits will help explain what kicks these objects out of their original, more distant orbits and in toward the sun.

Google Pac Man 30th Anniversary

2010-05-24T11:52:00.000+05:00

Google Pac Man 30th Anniversary: Google has today, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man’s Japanese release. The doodle (Google’s term for its event and holiday-specific logos) is accessible on its main page and is a full 255-level game complete with a 256th level “kill screen,” just like the original coin-op.

The interactive doodle — a first for Google — is the brainchild of senior user experience designer Marcin Wichary, whose earliest exposure to Pac-Man came at age five while traveling across his native Poland with his father, a game technician, to repair arcade machines. Wichary worked with Google doodler (yes, it’s a real job) Ryan Germick to create the finished design.

So, for today at least, you can tell your boss: “I may be browsing the web and playing a game, but I’m also being part of something historic.”

سائنسدانوں نے مصنوعی جاندار تیار کر لیا

2010-05-22T09:10:00.001+05:00

امریکہ میں سائنسدان ایک مصنوعی جاندار تیار کرنے میں کامیاب ہوئے ہیں۔

سائنسدانوں نے ایک بیکٹیریا کا ’جینیٹک سافٹ ویئر‘ تیار کر کے اس کو ایک خلیے میں ڈالا تو یہ بیکٹیریا خود بخود اپنی طرح کے اربوں بیکٹیریا پیدا کر سکا۔

مصنوعی بیکٹیریا کی تیاری کو سائنس کی دنیا میں ایک انقلابی قدم قرار دیا جا رہا ہے۔ تحقیقاتی ٹیم کے سربراہ ڈاکٹر کریگ وینٹنر نے اس کی اہمیت کو واضح کرتے ہوئے بتایا کہ یہ اس طرح ہے جیسے کے خلیوں کے لیے انہوں نے ایک نیا کمپیوٹر پروگرام تیار کر لیا ہو۔ ’ہم اس کو ایک ’مہمان‘ خلیے میں ڈالتے ہیں تو خلیا اس کو ایسے اپنا لیتا ہے جیسے کہ کمپیوٹر کسی سافٹ ویئر کو۔ یہ پہلی مرتبہ ہے کہ مصنوعی ڈی این اے نے مکمل طور پر کسی خلیے کا کنٹرول سنبھالا ہو۔‘

تحقیاتی ٹیم نے اس ’سِنتھیٹک‘ یعنی مصنوعی بیکٹیریا کا نام ’سِنتھیا‘ رکھا ہے۔ اس کا کہنا ہے کہ یہ ایٹم کے حصے بخرے کرنا اور سلیکون چِپ کی ایجاد جتنی انقلابی پیش رفت قرار دی جا سکتی ہے۔ ڈاکٹر وینٹنر کی بنائی گئی کمپنی نے اس مصنوعی بیکٹیریا کو تیار کیا ہے اور ان کا کہنا ہے کہ اس سے نہ صرف نئی ادویات بن سکیں گی بلکہ اس سے ماحولیاتی آلودگی کو صاف کرنے والے بیکٹیریا بھی تیار کیے جا سکیں گے۔

تاہم کچھ لوگوں نے اس تحقیق پر تنقید کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ یہ خدا سے ٹکر کے مترادف ہے اور انتہائی خطرناک ثابت ہو سکتی ہے۔

برطانیہ میں ’جین واچ‘ نامی تنظیم کی ڈاکٹر ہیلن والیس نے بی بی سی سے بات کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ یہ نیا بیکٹیریا خطرناک ثابت ہو سکتا ہے کیونکہ اگر اس کو ماحویاتی آلودگی ختم کرنے کے غرض سے ماحول میں ڈالا گیا ’تو کسی کو یہ نہیں معلوم کہ یہ پہلے سے موجود قدرتی اجسام کے ساتھ مل کر کیا شکل اختیار کرے گی۔‘

اسی طرح اس کے بارے میں یہ خدشہ بھی ظاہر کیا جا رہا ہےکہ اس کو دیگر منفی مقاصد کے لیے استعمال کیا جا سکتا مثلاً خطرناک ہتھیار بنانے کے لیے۔

اس تحقیق کی تفصیل جریدہ ’سائنس‘ میں شائع کی گئی ہے۔

Working of UPC Bar Codes

2010-05-21T15:04:00.003+05:00

The “Universal Product Code”, also known as UPC Bar Code can be found in almost all packages that you buy from department stores, grocery stores or any other stores.

In this post we will discuss on where these codes come from and their actual use.

Origin of UPC Bar Code
The UPC was first developed by a company called Code Council [UCC] so as to help the small scale department stores and grocery stores to speed up their checking out process and also to make a correct digital track of all the sales that happen in a period of time. The system turned out to be very successful that almost all manufacturers started using this method for all retail products.

The manufacturers have to get a permit from the UCC to use this system. The UCC helps the manufacturer to understand the whole process and gives him a 6 digit manufacturer identification number for an annual fee.

The Coding Process
An item number is assigned for each product and the number is unique until that particular product has stopped its sale in the market. All these unique numbers will be given by a UPC co-ordinator who will be employed by the manufacturer. Take a look at the figure below to know what a UPC bar code looks like.

A UPC code will be a 12 digit number which is divided into two parts.

The machine readable bar code.

The human readable 12 digit UPC number.

Out of the 12 digits the first 6 digits represents the manufacturer’s number and the next five represents the product number. The last number is called the check digit number.

As a result the UPC co-ordinator will have to make different codes for different sized packages of the same product as well. That is 100 gram toothpaste will not have the same barcode as 500 gram toothpaste [both being of the same manufacturer].

As explained earlier, the last digit of a UPC code is the check digit number. The last digit is very important as it allows the scanner to know whether the correct UPC is given for the product. You may be thinking how a single digit helps in verifying the whole number. Actually this single digit is calculated from all the other 11 digits. Take a look at the example given below.

UPC Code
........................................................................

Let the code of a certain product be 63938200039.

Step 1

Take the digits from all the odd positions and add them. That is add the 1st digit, 3rd digit, 5th digit and so on.

6 + 9 + 8 + 0 + 0 + 9 = 32

Step 2

Multiply the answer obtained from step 1 with 3

32 * 3 = 96

Step 3

Take the digits from all the even positions and add them. That is add the 2nd digit, 4th digit, 6th digit and so on.

3 + 3 + 2 + 0 + 3 = 11

Step 4

Add the answer obtained from step 4 to the value in step 2.

96 + 11 = 107

Step 5

This is the last step that determines the check digit.

Determine the smallest number that, when added to the answer in step 4, is a multiple of 10.

107 + 3 = 110

Thus the check digit is 3.

Each time a product is scanned by the scanner, this calculation showed above is performed. The scanner reads a check digit. If the calculated check digit is different from what it reads, then the scanner shows a false signal. Thus the manufacturer will have to recheck the UPC code or has to rescan till it gets the correct code.

Sometimes smaller products are only given smaller digit UPC bar codes called zero-suppressed numbers. Apart from the manufacturers ID, it will be followed by a lot of 0’s.

Product Price Determination
You must have noticed that the price of any product is not given its cover. There will only be a bar code. The idea behind this is that when the customer buys a product, he scans the bar code. Thus the information in the bar code is sent to the store’s central computer to look up the UPC number. The central computer sends back the actual price of the item at that moment.

Due to this method, the manufacturer can easily change the price of the product whenever he wants. This can be a disadvantage as well because the store keeper can easily fool the customer. But the idea was mainly intended to change prices when there is a change in the market price.

The first digit of the manufacturer’s identification number is special. It is called the number system character. The meaning of the different number system in a UPC code is shown below.

0 Standard UPC number (must have a zero to do zero-suppressed numbers)

1 Reserved

2 Random-weight items (fruits, vegetables, meats, etc.)

3 Pharmaceuticals

4 In-store marking for retailers (A store can set up its own codes, but no other store will understand them.)

5 Coupons

6 Standard UPC number

7 Standard UPC number

8 Reserved

9 Reserved

فیس بُک پر جُزوی پابندی

2010-05-19T10:00:00.000+05:00

پاکستان میں سماجی رابطہ کی ویب سائیٹ ’فیس بُک‘ کے ان حصوں کو بند کردیا گیا ہے جن پر پیغمبر اسلام کے خاکے بنانے کے مقابلے کا انقعاد کیا گیا ہے۔

یہ پابندی ملک میں انٹرنیٹ سروس فراہم کرنے والی کمپنیوں کو لائسنس دینے والے ادارے پاکستان ٹیلی کمیونی کیشن اتھارٹی نے ان احکامات پر عمل کرتے ہوئے عائد کی جو وزارت انفارمیشن ٹیکنالوجی نے جاری کیے تھے۔

دوسری جانب لاہور ہائی کورٹ نے اس درخواست پر نوٹس جاری کردیے ہیں جس میں پاکستان میں فیس بُک کی ویب سائیٹ کو بند کرنے کی استدعا کی گئی ہے۔

پاکستان ٹیلی کمیونی کیشن اٹھارتی(پی ٹی اے) کے ترجمان خرم علی مہران نے بی بی سی کو بتایا کہ انفارمیشن ٹیکنالوجی کی وزارت نے فیس بک کے کچھ حصوں کی بندش کا فیصلہ کیا ہے اور اس فیصلے کی روشنی میں پی ٹی اے نے فیس بک کے ان حصوں کو بند کردیا ہے ۔

ترجمان کا کہنا ہے کہ پی ٹی اے ملک میں انٹرنیٹ سروس فراہم کرنے کے لیے مختلف کمپینوں اور اداروں کو لائسنس جاری کرتا ہے اس لیے پی ٹی اے نے ملک میں لائسنس یافتہ انٹرنیٹ سروس فراہم کرنے والے تمام اداروں کو حکومتی فیصلہ کے بارے میں آگاہ کرتے ہوئے انہیں فیس بک کے کچھ حصوں کو بند کرنےکی ہد ایات کی ہیں۔

لاہور سے نامہ نگار عبادالحق نے بتایا کہ ہائی کورٹ کے جسٹس اعجاز احمد چودھری نے اسلامک لائیرز موومنٹ کے درخواست پر فیس بک کی بندش کے لیے دائر درخواست پر پی ٹی اے کو نوٹس جاری کیے ہیں

درخواست گزار تنظیم کی طرف سے چودھری ذوالفقار علی ایڈووکیٹ نے عدالت کو بتایا کہ بیس اپریل سے فیس بک پر خاکے بنانے کا ایک مقابلہ ہو رہا ہے اور فیس بک ویب سائیٹ استعمال کرنے والے ارکان کو اس مقابلے میں حصہ لینے کے لیے کہا گیا ہے۔

وکیل نے مزید کہا کہ پاکستان ایک اسلامی ریاست ہے اور آئین کے آرٹیکل ٹو اے کے تحت ملک میں کوئی ایسا کام نہیں کیا جاسکتا جو اسلام کے منافی ہو۔ ان کے بقول فیس بُک کے کئی ایسے پروگرام ہیں جو اسلام کے اصولوں کی نفی کرتے ہیں۔ وکیل کے بقول چین ، متحدہ عرب امارت اور سعودی عرب نے فیس بُک پر پابندی عائد کررکھی ہے۔

درخواست گزار وکیل نے یہ بھی بتایا کہ پاکستان میں اس وقت پنتالیس ملین افراد فیس بُک کو استعمال کر رہے ہیں اور اس ویب سائٹ کے عام ہونے کی ذمہ داری پی ٹی اے پر عائد ہوتی ہے۔ چودھری ذوالفقار علی ایڈووکیٹ کا کہنا ہے کہ پی ٹی اے نے ملک میں کئی ویب سائیٹ پر پابندی لگا کر انہیں بلاک کیا ہے لیکن فیس بُک کو بند نہیں کیا گیا۔

وکیل نے عدالت کو بتایا کہ فیس بُک پر خاکے بنانے کے مقابلے پر مسلمانوں میں گہری تشویش پائی جاتی ہے اور اس طرح کے مقابلے سے مسلمانوں کے جذبات مجروح ہورہے ہیں اور اسی وجہ سے زندگی کےمختلف شعبوں سے تعلق رکھنے والے افراد نے اس مقابلے کے خلاف احتجاجی مظاہرے شروع کردیے ہیں۔

درخواست گزار تنظیم کے وکیل چودھری ذوالفقار علی نے عدالت سے استدعا کی کہ پی ٹی اے کو حکم دیا جائے کہ پاکستان میں فیس بک نامی ویب سائیٹ پر پابندی لگائی جائے۔

Working of Facial Recognition System

2010-05-15T15:39:00.004+05:00

We have seen the use of facial recognition technology in many movies. A photo of the person to be identified will be obtained from some hidden camera. It will then be run in through the police database so as to find a match with their existing records. At last a match will be found and the criminal will be caught red handed. Though this may seem fascinating in movies, it may not be the same in real world.

The facial recognition system was equipped in cameras and was placed in some streets so as to cut down the number of crimes in the area. But, the technology failed to provide results as the people around the streets wore masks, prohibiting the cameras from getting a clear enough shot to identify anyone.

The facial recognition software’s have been upgraded well enough to provide 99% accuracy at present. In this post, we will discuss about the origin of this technology and also their enhancing capabilities for both governmental and personal use.

From the phrase facial recognition, it is understood that the software used for this purpose mainly recognizes a number of distinguished features of the face. All the features added together make almost 80 nodal points. The software used for facial recognition recognizes and distinguishes the face from its background by some of the common nodal points given below.

Distance between the eyes
Nose width
Depth of the eye sockets
Cheekbone shape
Length of jaw-line

The above nodal points are measured altogether to provide a common numerical code known as the face print.

Early Stages
As explained earlier, the software that is needed for the technology could only compare a 2-D image of a person with the existing database. The software was very weak in technicality as correct results were difficult to obtain if the photo was not taken in the correct lighting and with good facial expressions. As these types of photos are taken instantly and in a secretive manner there would be changes in orientation and click angles. When these photos were compared with the database, no results were ever found. Thus, this system was mostly rejected by all authorities.

3-D Facial Recognition Technology
To get a better understanding, take a look at the image below.

The above explained problems were all resolved with the evolution of 3-D Facial Recognition Technology. As a 3-D image of a person’s face helps to point out clearly the different nodal points, this method proved to be more accurate. All the valleys and bumps of the face are more apparent and this helps a lot in comparing with the database.

The 3-D method also removes the disadvantage of correct lighting aspects. Thus, the photo of the person can be taken even in improper lighting and that too in any angle [in a range of almost 90 degrees]. Given below are the different steps that take place when the identity of a person is verified with an existing database.

Detecting the person
To know the proper working of this process, take a look at the image shown below.

The image that is to e compared with the database is obtained either as a photo [2-D] or as a video image [3-D].

Alignment of image
For a 2-D image, the system can be accurate only if the angular position of the face towards the camera is at least 35 degrees. But for a 3-D image, the system can be accurate even if the angular position of the face towards the camera is at 90 degrees. The size and pose can also affect the accuracy.

Measurement of face
The face recognition software makes templates on the different curves of the face. The face will be measured in micrometer scales.

Transfer of Measurement
The measurement taken is then transferred into a unique code. This code makes each template unique and thus represents the different features of the face.

Matching with database
The comparison of the image with the database can occur in two ways. If both the image taken and the image in the database are 3-D, then there is no problem in the matching process.

But, as the database in most government offices and other places are present in 2-D form, the comparison becomes more complex. The 3-D image has to be converted to a 2-D image before comparison. A 3-D image will be live and moving when compared to a still and stable 2-D image. So, when a 3-D image is take, it is converted to 2-D by taking measurements from some distinguished points from the face. These measurements will then be converted to an algorithmic form and thus will be converted to a 2-D image.

Comparison
The comparison can be classified into two according to its purpose. One of them is verification and the other is identification.

If a person is to be identified as one who claims to be an employee of a particular office, it is called verification. This type of comparison will with the database will only take place in a 1:1 ratio. That is,

For the identification of a thief or a culprit, the image received will be compared to all the images in the database in a 1: N ratio. Take a look at the comparison process shown in the image below.

The comparison process is usually done in three different templates. They are

Vector Template – This template is used for quick search with the database in both the 1:1 and 1:N ratio.

Local Feature Analysis [LFA] – This template mostly follows the vector template. This search is a little more complex.

Surface Texture Analysis [STA] – This is the most complex search template of all the three. It comes after the LFA and the search is based on the skin features of the image, which contains the most detailed information.

When these templates are combined in the facial recognition software, the system is able to recognize and identify the person even if there are changes in his expressions like smiling, frowning and also blinking. Even a moustache growth or beard will not affect the accuracy of the software.

But, there are disadvantages as well. A glare from the person wearing eyeglasses can cause problems. If the person is disguised as one with long hair in such a way that it covers the front part of the face, it will be difficult to identify him. Very poor lighting during the time of photography may cause the face to be under exposed. This can also be a problem.

Uses of Facial Recognition System
This technology was first used by law enforcement agencies so as to identify people from huge crowds. This system was also adopted to catch people trying to fraud while voting. The system was also used in airports to check whether the foreigners visiting the country had any resemblance to criminals or suspects.

Another important application of this technology is in ATM’s and check-cashing security. Before transacting the money, a photograph of the person is taken and is verified with the database to see whether the customer is valid. Thus identity theft and fraudulent transactions can be avoided. This system is very useful as there will be no need of personal identification number for any person. But this type of a transaction process is yet to come in many places.

Facebook loses friends over privacy

2010-05-15T12:59:00.000+05:00

The number of Facebook users considering deleting their accounts has spiked after a week of controversy around the social network's approach to privacy.

According to figures from Google, the world's largest search engine, global queries for "delete Facebook account" have more than doubled in the past week, reaching an all-time high. Most of those searches came from the US.

Twitter Hacked

2010-05-12T09:07:00.002+05:00

For Those of you who such users look at Twitter as Ashton Kutcher & Justin Bieber you will be pleased to know that You would have all had the same amount as them as followers – Zero. The reason for this was due to the micro-blogging site Being hacked this morning.
Twitter did not wait long to resolve the issues and fixed The problem this morning. The hack allowed others Twitter users to force them to follow, as a result the website all users forced followers to zero – this certainly would have come as a surprise to the big hitters like those mentioned above.
Thankfully now the followers have been restored – But you decided to Bieber send a little message to those who caused the hack in the 1st place. Basically I have said that they angered 2 million teenage girls – something that nobody wants to do.
According to PC mag originally WHO learned of the news via appscout, Twitter said that was not leaked information during the hack? were you worried about the hack, had you thought that you lost all of your followers?

'First non-Latin web addresses launched'

2010-05-07T15:18:00.001+05:00

In a "historic" move to make the world wide web fully live up to its name, the first Internet addresses to use non-Latin characters have been launched for the first time.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have become the first countries to have so-called "country codes" written in Arabic scripts, paving the way for Chinese, Thai and Tamil speakers to surf the web in their own language.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) President Rod Beckstrom described the move, that marks the culmination of several years of work behind the scenes, as "historic", the British media reported.

In fact, more than 20 countries have already requested approval for international domains from Icann. Although some countries, including China, had already developed systems that allowed entire web addresses to be entered in their own language, non-Latin scripts had yet to be properly integrated into Internet infrastructure and so did not work on all computers.

"All three are Arabic script domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left," said Kim Davies of Icann wrote in a blog post.

Before the change was announced, Icann had expressed concerns that the web may split between those who could access Western sites and those who used primarily Arabic languages.

Suborbital Spacecraft Aims To Take Civilians Into Space

2010-05-07T09:42:00.002+05:00

Dassault Aviation are working on a spacecraft that is designed to take civilians into space, and their new spacecraft is based on NASA’s X-38 experimental plane.

The new spacecraft is reusable and it will be launched off the wing of a commercial aircraft which is flying at about 25,000 feet in the air.

Suborbital Spacecraft Aims To Take Civilians Into Space

This new Suborbital spacecraft is designed to take up to six passengers at Mach 3.5 up to 62 miles high, which is just on the edge of space, they passengers will then remain in space for just three minutes and then glide back down to earth, the spacecraft will be able to land like a commercial aircraft.

There are no details on how much these space flights will cost, but we suspect they will probably cost more than your house, and no details on when you will actually be able to travel into space.

گمنام انٹرنیٹ تبصروں پر پابندی پرغور

2010-05-06T12:02:00.001+05:00

چینی حکام کا کہنا ہے کہ وہ گمنام افراد کی جانب سے انٹرنیٹ پر تبصرے بھیجنے پر پابندی لگانے کا ارادہ رکھتے ہیں۔

چین کے سٹیٹ کونسل انفارمیشن آفس کے ڈائریکٹر وانگ چین کے مطابق اس پابندی کی زد میں وہ بلیٹن بورڈ بھی آئیں گے جو عوامی بحث کا مرکز ہیں۔

وانگ چین کا کہنا تھا کہ بڑی نیوز ویب سائٹس اور بزنس پورٹل پہلے ہی اس قانون پر عمل کرتے ہیں کہ کسی گمنام فرد کا پیغام شائع نہیں کیا جائے گا۔

چین میں بلیٹن بورڈز کو مقامی مسائل اجاگر کرنے کے لیے استعمال کیا جا رہا ہے۔

خیال رہے کہ چین میں حکومت انٹرنیٹ کے استعمال کی سخت نگرانی کرتی ہے اور وہاں ٹوئٹر اور فیس بک جیسی سوشل نیٹ ورکنگ ویب سائٹس کے استعمال پر بھی پابندی لگائی جاتی رہی ہے۔

New Chrome browser fastest Google beta yet

2010-05-05T17:01:00.002+05:00

The new beta of Chrome for Windows is nearly a fifth faster than its more stable sibling, but still lags behind speed leader Opera, benchmark tests show.

According to tests run by Computerworld, the Chrome beta, which Google launched yesterday, is the second fastest of the major Windows browsers. Chrome 5.0.375.29 also renders JavaScript about 17% faster than Chrome 4.1.249.1064, the current "stable" edition. Google simultaneously supports three lines of Chrome, ranked in descending order of stability as its stable, beta and dev channels.

But Opera Software's Opera 10.53 remains the king of JavaScript, with benchmark scores about 16% faster than those by the newest Chrome beta. The Norwegian browser first took the crown last February, when the browser debuted a new JavaScript engine dubbed Carakan, and surged past Apple's Safari for Windows and Chrome, the former No. 1 and No. 2 browsers.

Other browsers held their usual spots in the latest round of tests. Safari 4.0.5 was only slightly slower than the stable edition of Chrome, and so held down the No. 3 spot, while Mozilla's Firefox 3.6.3 was just over half as fast as Safari and Chrome. Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), as usual, brought up the rear as the slowest of the five browsers in JavaScript rendering: IE8 was more than 12 times slower than Opera 10.53.

Computerworld ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite in Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (SP3) three times for each browser, then averaged the scores to arrive at the final rankings.

On Tuesday, Google said the newest Chrome beta was 35% faster on the SunSpider tests than the beta of its earlier version 4.0 for Windows. Computerworldwasn't able to verify that claim -- Google updates its browser automatically, without user intervention, making it difficult to keep Chrome on a specific version -- but also tested the newest beta against the previous beta, marked as Chrome 5.0.342.8.

The update boosted Chrome's speed by 6% over that beta, which Google released in late March.

Other additions include support for several HTML5 features, such as geo-location and drag-and-drop; synchronization of browser settings to effectively "clone" Chrome on multiple machines; and the ability to use extensions when working in Chrome's "Incognito" private browsing mode.

This beta also introduces the integration of Adobe's Flash Player to Chrome's beta channel.

Google debuted built-in Flash in developer builds at the end of March, when it announced a partnership with Adobe, and said it was packaging Flash with Chrome downloads and would silently update the often-patched media player using the browser's background mechanism.

The move, Adobe said at the time, would keep Chrome users safer since they wouldn't have to remember to update or deal with update notifications.

Chrome 5.0.375.29 beta can be downloaded from Google's Web site for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

فلیش ٹیکنالوجی استعمال نہیں کر سکتے:اپیل

2010-05-03T14:04:00.002+05:00

کمپیوٹر بنانے والی بین الاقوامی کمپنی اپیل کے سربراہ نے ایک کھلے خط میں کمپنی کے اس فیصلے کا دفاع کیا ہے جس کے تحت اپیل کی متعدد مصنوعات میں فلیش ٹیکنالوجی کا استعمال نہیں کیا جائے گا۔

اپیل کے سربراہ سٹیو جوبز کی جانب سے لکھے گئے خط میں کہا گیا ہے کہ فلیش ٹیکنالوجی کے بڑے پیمانے پر انٹرنیٹ پر ویڈیو اور اینیمیشن کے استعمال کی وجہ سے اس کا استعمال آئی پوڈ، آئی فون اور آئی پیڈ میں نہیں کیا جائے گا۔

انھوں نے کہا فلیش پی سی اور میک کے دور کے لیے بنایا گیا تھا لیکن جب اسے ٹچ سکرین اور سمارٹ فون میں استعمال کیا گیا تو اس نے بری کارکردگی کا مظاہرہ کیا۔

اپیل کے سربراہ کی جانب سے یہ دفاعی خط ایک ایسے وقت سامنے آیا ہے جب فلیش کو بنانے والی کمپنی ایڈوب نے اعلان کیا ہے کہ وہ ایسے ٹولز بنانے بند کر دے گا جو جلد ہی ڈپویلپیرز کو اجازت دیتے ہیں کہ وہ اپیل کی مصنوعات پر استعمال کے لیے فلیش کوڈ ٹرانسلیٹ کر لیں۔

اس تبدیلی کی وجہ سے ڈویلپیرز پر آٹومیٹک ٹرانسلیٹ ٹولز بنانے پر پابندی ہو گی اور اب انھیں دو اپلیکیشنز بنانا ہوں گی ایک اپیل کی مصنوعات کے لیے اور ایک دوسری تمام دیگر مصنوعات کے لیے۔

ایک طویل خط میں فلیش کے بارے میں بات کرتے ہوئے ایپل کے سربراہ نے کہا کہ فلیش جدید موبائل فونز کے اس دور کے لیے برا ہے کیونکہ یہ ملٹی ٹچ سکرین نظام کو سپورٹ نہیں کرتا ہے اور موبائل فونز کی بیٹری کو جلد ختم کرنے کا باعث بنتا ہے۔

اس کے علاوہ فلیش میں سکیورٹی مسائل کی وجہ سے یہ میک سسٹم کے کریش ہونے کا سبب بناتا ہے ۔انھوں نے کہا کہ اب فلیش ٹیکنالوجی کے متبادل موجود ہیں خاص طور ویب ویڈیو کے لیے۔

ایڈوب کے چیف ایگزیکٹو نے وال سٹریٹ جرنل کو بتایا کہ اب ڈیویلپیرز کے کام میں اضافہ ہوگا اور انھیں دو دو کام کرنے پر مجبور ہونا ہو گا۔انھوں نے فلیش کی خرابی کی نمایاں کرنے کو اپنی خرابی کو چھپانے کی کوشش کہا ہے۔

ایڈوب کے کے سربراہ کا کہنا ہے کہ اگر فلیش کی وجہ سے اپیل کی مصنوعات کریش کر رہی ہیں تو ایپل کو آپریٹنگ سسٹم کے ساتھ کچھ کرنا پڑے گا۔ انھوں نے اپیل کے سربراہ کے اس بیان کو دلچسپ قرار دیا کہ فلیش ایک کلوز پلیٹ فارم ہے۔

انھوں نے وال سٹریٹ جرنل کے ساتھ بات کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ دنیا کے لیے ان کی مختلف رائے ہیں ہماری رائے ہے کہ دنیا ملٹی پلیٹ فارم ہے۔

فلاپی ڈسک کی فروخت بند کرنے کا فیصلہ

2010-04-28T16:57:00.001+05:00

دنیا کی چند بڑی الیکٹرانک کمپنیوں میں شامل کمپنی سونی کا کہنا ہے کہ وہ مارچ سنہ 2011 سے جاپان میں فلاپی ڈسک کی فروخت بند کر دے گی۔

سالِ رواں کے آغاز میں سونی نے زیادہ تر بین الاقوامی مارکیٹوں میں اس تیس برس قدیم ڈیٹا سٹوریج نظام کی فروخت بند کر دی تھی۔

فلاپی ڈسک کے استعمال میں کمی سنہ 1998 میں اس وقت آنا شروع ہوئی تھی جب ایپل نے یہ اعلان کیا تھا کہ وہ اپنے جی تھری آئی میک کمپیوٹر میں فلاپی ڈرائیو نہیں لگائے گا۔

اس کے بعد سے متعدد دوسری کمپنیوں نے بھی اس پر عمل شروع کیا اور ڈیل نے سنہ 2003 میں اپنے کمپیوٹرز میں فلاپی ڈرائیو لگانے کا عمل ترک کر دیا۔

یہی نہیں بلکہ سنہ 2007 میں کمپیوٹر مصنوعات فروخت کرنے والے سٹور پی سی ورلڈ نے بھی فلاپی ڈرائیوز کی فروخت منقطع کر دی۔

تاہم اس سب کے باوجود سونی یہ ڈسکس اور ڈرائیوز فروخت کرتا رہا۔

تاہم اب سنہ 1981 میں ساڑھے تین انچ کی پہلی فلاپی ڈسک بنانے والی اس کمپنی نے آن لائن سٹوریج اور یو ایس بی ڈرائیوز کی مقبولیت کی وجہ سے فلاپی ڈسک کی تیاری اور فروخت مکمل طور پر ختم کرنے کا فیصلہ کیا ہے۔

’اجنبی مخلوق سے دور رہیں‘

2010-04-26T19:48:00.001+05:00

مشہور برطانوی سائنسدان سٹیفن ہاکنگ نے کہا ہے کہ اجنبی مخلوق کا وجود تقریباً یقینی ہے لیکن انسان کی عافیت اجنبی مخلوق سے دوری میں ہی ہے۔

سٹیفن ہاکنگ نے کہا کہ اجنبی مخلوق سے رابطہ انسان کے لیے اتنا ہی نقصان دہ ثابت ہو سکتا ہےجتنا کہ امریکہ کی دریافت کے بعد وہاں پہلے سے آباد لوگوں کے لیے ہوا۔

پروفیسر ہاکنگ ’موٹر نیورون ڈزیز‘ کے مریض ہیں اور وہ عرصے سے معذوری کی حالت میں ویل چئر تک محدود ہیں۔

ہاکنگ کے خیال میں انسان کی طرف سے اجنبی مخلوق سے رابطے کی کوششیں اس مخلوق کو زمین پر دھاوا بولنے پر مائل کر سکتا ہے۔

پروفیسر ہاکنگ کےخیال میں انسان کو اجنبی مخلوق سے رابطہ کرنے کی کوششں کرنے کی بجائے زمین پر انسانی زندگی کو جاننے کی کوشش کرتے رہنا چاہیے۔

انسان نے ماضی میں خلائی تحقیقاتی مشن کے دوران ایسی معلومات اور نقشے روانہ کیےگئے تھے کہ اگر کسی اجنبی مخلوق کا ادھر سےگزر ہو تو اسے زمین پر زندگی کے بارے میں معلومات حاصل ہو جائیں اور وہاں پہنچنے کا راستہ بھی معلوم ہو جائے۔

پروفیسر ہاکنگ نے کہا ہے علم ریاضی کے مطابق اجنبی مخلوق کا ہونا تقریباً یقینی ہے لیکن اجنبی مخلوق کی شکل و صورت کا پتہ چلانا ہی اصل چیلنج ہے۔

اجنبی مخلوق کی مختلف ہیتوں کے بارے میں ڈسکوری چینل پر ایک پروگرام میں حصہ لیتے ہوئے پروفیسر سٹیفن نے کہا کہ انسان کے لیے یہ پتہ چلانا بہت ضروری ہے کہ اجنبی مخلوق کیسی نظر آتے ہیں۔ کچھ اندازوں کےمطابق اجنبی مخلوق دو ٹانگوں والے سبزی خور ہو سکتے ہیں جبکہ کچھ اندازوں کے مطابق اجنبی مخلوق گرگٹ کی ساخت کی بھی ہو سکتی ہے۔

Androids Will Challenge the iPad

2010-04-25T12:54:00.001+05:00

Apple's iPad is certain to grab headlines when it hits stores next month. But a number of touch-screen tablets powered by Google's Android operating system will also debut this year. Competing with Apple's latest consumer gadget won't be easy, but analysts say the software behind these devices could give them a few key advantages.

Like the iPhone OS, which will power the iPad, Android was originally developed for cell phones. This means it will be fast and low-power. "Android is very responsive; it's instantly available," says Jeff Orr, a senior analyst for mobile devices at ABI Research.

It can also make use of apps already developed for Android phones. "The real benefit [of using Android] is that it taps into this ecosystem of developers that have latched onto Android," says Carl Howe, analyst and director of the Anywhere Consumer Research division of the Yankee Group. Most importantly, some of these Android devices come with features that the iPad currently lacks--the ability to run Flash, for example, as well as a webcam and software multitasking.

Several companies showed off Android-based tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. Taiwanese computer makers Compal, MSI, and Quanta all gave demos of Android-powered devices with screens between seven and 10 inches and powered by Nvidia's Tegra 2 microprocessor.

Also at CES was an Indian company called Notion Ink, which demonstrated an Android tablet called Adam. The company showed two versions--one featuring a lower-power Pixel Qi display with three display modes, and the other featuring a regular LCD. The Adam also uses the Tegra 2, features a rotating webcam, and is expected to cost between $327 and $800. It is scheduled to go on sale later this year.

French computer maker Archos already sells an Android tablet with a five-inch screen called the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, for $499. And, perhaps most significantly, the third-largest computer maker in the world, Dell, is rumored to be developing a five-inch, multitouch, Android-driven tablet, which may be announced later this year.

A Boston-based technology and design firm called Tap 'n Tap is partnering with undisclosed OEMs to develop a customized interface for Android-powered tablets. Dubbed "home Internet devices," they should be available in the second half of 2010. One device will have a seven-inch LCD touch screen and will cost about $299. Some versions will have 3G and GPS, while others will have just Wi-Fi, according to Tap 'n Tap founder Javier Segovia who demonstrated the seven-inch prototype for Technology Review.

Rather than a blank screen with a list of icons, Tap 'n Tap's prototype has a home page with "portlets"--customizable areas that can showed weather, news and pictures. "A mobile phone spends most of the time in your pocket, but these devices are on the kitchen wall or a table in your bedroom, so we want the screen to be useful other than just being a launcher," says Segovia.

The prototype has a web camera, can play Flash, and can run more than one program at once. The user interface is smooth and intuitive. A bar at the bottom of the screen can be used to launch applications: web browser, calendar, contact book and a Facebook app. "Tap 'n Tap's bet is similar to Apple's in that we also believe in the power of the third-party app developer ecosystem and the consumer dynamic of downloading apps," says Segovia.

Yankee Group's Howe says the issue for all these touch-screen devices will be how much consumer demand there is. "The real questions are, what is the consumer use for these devices, and what essential need do they fulfill," says Howe.

Developers and analysts agree that this new class of device will most likely be used around the home, and primarily for entertainment rather than work or communications. "We expect there will be around four million devices shipped this year," says Orr. About 100,000 media tablets were shipped from vendors last year. In comparison, four million e-readers and 35 million netbooks were shipped.

Hubble space telescope turns 20

2010-04-24T14:52:00.002+05:00

The Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 20th anniversary Saturday and NASA has released a new photograph from the orbiting observatory of a cosmic pillar of gas and dust piled high in the Carina Nebula galaxy.

The Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 20th anniversary Saturday and NASA has released a new photograph from the orbiting observatory of a cosmic pillar of gas and dust piled high in the Carina Nebula galaxy.

Three light-year-tall towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the wall of the nebula, the US space agency said, in a scene that is reminiscent of Hubble’s classic “Pillars of Creation” photograph from 1995.

Hubble, named after the astronomer Edwin P Hubble (1889—1953), was launched into low—Earth orbit on April 24, 1990.

Since then, it has been sending back some of the most spectacular images of galaxies - helping scientists to place the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years, learn that black holes are at the centre of most galaxies, monitor planetary formation and discover that the universe is expanding at an ever-faster pace.

To date, Hubble has looked at over 30,000 celestial objects and amassed over a half million pictures in its archive.

In May, a revamped Hubble provided colourful images and crisper pictures of distant stars and galaxies after a servicing mission that installed new instruments and repaired broken ones that had hampered the world’s most famous telescope.

Despite its storied past, Hubble had looked set for the junk heap until the space shuttle Atlantis’ repair mission that sought to extend the telescope’s life until at least 2014, and possibly beyond.

NASA had originally decided against the maintenance mission because of the risks involved and pressures to complete International Space Station construction by the end of 2010, when the shuttle is to be retired.

But US politicians and world astronomers fought to keep alive the instrument that has expanded knowledge of space.

“Most of us humans ... will never travel physically to some of the exotic places that we see in Hubble,” said Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator, earlier this year. “What Hubble has done is enabled our hearts, our minds, our spirits to travel throughout the solar system even billions of light years to the very beginning of time.” Hubble fans worldwide are being invited to share the ways the telescope has affected them — they can visit the “Messages to Hubble” page on http://hubblesite.org. The messages will be stored in the Hubble data archive along with the telescope’s many terabytes of science data.

Windows 7 On More Than 10% Of PCs Worldwide Say Microsoft

2010-04-24T12:55:00.002+05:00

This isn’t exactly new news to us all, we’ve already reported on the fact that Windows 7 holds more than 10% of the current market share and broke this barrier more than a month ago. However these stats and figures only came from Net Applications, and why they are just about as an accurate a result you could hope to get, it’s nice to hear it coming from Microsoft themselves.

On the Windows Team Blog resident in house blogger for Microsoft, Brandon LeBlanc made a post stating that Windows 7 was installed on over 10% of PCs worldwide. Just off the back of announcing impressive earnings for the third quarter ending March 31st 2010, he confirmed that they had sold well over 100 million licenses which has led to the 10% market share after just 6 short months.

Today we reported our third quarter earnings for the period ending March 31st, 2010 with a record $14.5 billion in revenue. You can read our earnings results here. Windows 7 continues to be a growth driver for Microsoft and people continue to be excited about Windows 7. How excited? Exactly 6 months after the launch on October 22, 2009, we’ve sold well over 100 million licenses of Windows 7. To put that in context, more than 10% of all PCs worldwide are already running Windows 7 today. That’s amazing!

Windows 7 seems to be well on its way and it’s certainly delivering the results that Microsoft are looking for and the consumer seems to be happy enough as well.

ZONG offers low-cost internet mobile solution

2010-04-21T08:34:00.001+05:00

KARACHI (April 17 2010): ZONG has announced an innovative mobile Internet package - the Daily Bundle - for mobile Internet in Pakistan. The Daily Bundle service offers the most affordable and convenient package for mobile Internet which is a first in Pakistan.

There is a huge market for dial-up Internet in Pakistan, as compared to mobile internet which is relatively costly. ZONG's Daily Bundle is an attractive package which offers users the benefits of Internet on one's mobile at a very low cost of Rs 5+tax / day.

It also allows the users the flexibility as they can pay on a daily basis, and most importantly, the privacy of mobile internet - something which the users do not get on a desktop computer. Furthermore, given the increased frequency of power outages in the country, this service offers the convenience of browsing the internet on your mobile 24/7.-PR

One in four countries block some Google services

2010-04-20T12:55:00.000+05:00

Google's services are blocked or censored to some degree in one-fourth of the countries where it operates, the company said Monday.

"China is the most polarizing example, but it is not the only one. Google products -- from search and Blogger to YouTube and Google Docs -- have been blocked in 25 of the 100 countries where we offer our services," wrote Rachel Whetstone, Google's vice president of global communications and public affairs, on the company's European public policy blog.

"In addition, we regularly receive government requests to restrict or remove content from our properties," she wrote, adding that Google has argued to narrow the scope of such requests when it believes the request is "overly broad."

Google made headlines earlier this year, when executives announced plans to shut down a censored version of its search engine that it developed for the Chinese market. After failing to reach a compromise over censorship with the Chinese government, Google closed the censored search engine in March, redirecting traffic to an uncensored search engine in Hong Kong

China has long had one of the most sophisticated programs designed to control Internet access for local users. Chinese laws require Internet companies that operate there to block or remove objectionable content, which includes pornography as well as information relating to human rights and other topics.

But China isn't the only country that wants to manage Internet content. For example, Australia is proceeding with plans to block access to Internet sites with material on sexual abuse of children and information that could be used to commit crimes, after tests showed blocking access to blacklisted sites didn't slow down Internet access for users.

Opponents have objected to the Australian plan, noting that the list of blocked sites includes links that extend beyond the intended scope. In addition, users are able to circumvent the blacklist to access these sites, just as Chinese users are able to circumvent censorship controls there.

Apple IPhone To Get Multitasking

2010-04-10T16:21:00.002+05:00

Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad devices will soon be able to run more than one program at a time, an ability that phones from Apple’s rivals already offer and that iPhone owners have long sought.
Currently, users must return to Apple’s home screen, effectively quitting the open program, before starting a new task.
“We weren’t the first to this party, but we’re going to be the best,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said. The iPhone already permits some multitasking, but that’s largely limited to Apple’s own programs. Apple had not given users ways to seamlessly switch among all the software “apps” available from outside software companies, the way phones from rivals Palm Inc. and Google Inc. already do.
Jobs said that the company waited so long because it wanted to offer multitasking in a way that didn’t drain the iPhone’s battery or reduce the phone’s performance.

’ڈسکوری آخری سفر پر روانہ‘

2010-04-05T21:48:00.001+05:00

خلائی شٹل ڈسکوری اپنے آخری مشن کے لیے بین الاقوامی خلائی سٹیشن (آئی ایس ایس) کی طرف روانہ ہو گئی ہے۔

ڈسکوری کو فلوریڈا کے کیننڈی خلائی مرکز سے پیر کے روز مقامی وقت کے مطابق صبح چھ بجکر اکیس منٹ پر روانہ کیا گیا۔

ڈسکوری ایک کنٹینر کے ذریعے خلائی سٹیشن کے لیے ضروری سامان لے کر روانہ ہوئی۔

یاد رہے کہ اس سفر کے بعد ڈسکوری شٹلز کو خلاء میں بھیجنے کا سلسلہ بند ہو جائے گا۔

اس مشن میں خلابازؤں کو چہل قدمی کے لیے تین مواقح فراہم کیے جائیں گے جس کے دوران وہ خلائی سٹیشن کی مرمت اور دوسرے تجربات کریں گے۔

یاد رہے کہ ڈسکوری کے حالیہ ٹیسٹوں میں بے قاعدگیوں کے باوجود ناسا کے خلائی مشن کی ٹیم نے ہفتے کے روز متفقہ طور پر اس مشن کی منظوری دی۔

دوسری جانب انجینئرز کا کہنا ہے اگرچہ ڈسکوری کے ٹیسٹ میں بے قاعدگیاں سامنے آئیں مگر اِن سے اس مشن میں کوئی رکاوٹ نہیں ہو گی۔

خلائئ شٹل کے مینجر مائیک موز نے بتایا ’ہم اس مشن کے بارے میں بہت پر امید ہیں۔ ہم آئی ایس ایس کے ذریعے اپنی مرضی کے مطابق کام کر سکیں گے۔‘

خلائی شٹل کے ڈائریکٹر پیٹ نکولنکو نے بتایا ’ہر چیز بہتر حالت میں ہے۔ ہماری ٹیم صحیح طرح کام کر رہی ہے۔ ہم درست راستے کی طرف جا رہے ہیں۔‘

خلا باز رِک ماسٹرایچو اور کلے اینڈرسن گاروسکوپ نامی خلائی سٹیشن میں آنے والی فنی خرابی کو دور کرنے کی کوشش کریں گے۔

ایم پی ایل ایم کے ذریعے خلائی سٹیشن میں تقریبا سات ہزار سات سو کلو گرام کارگو مہیا کیا جائے گا۔

Weather Balloon Space Snaps Stun NASA

2010-03-30T13:31:00.001+05:00

NASA was stunned by space photos snapped with an ordinary camera mounted on an ordinary balloon on.
Robert Harrison, an IT director from Highburton, West Yorkshire, has an unusual hobby: Using duct tape, weather balloons, and a used camera from e-Bay, he builds high-altitude balloons that snap space photos so gorgeous, they’ve caught NASA’s eye.
The method and materials behind Harrison’s feat are stunningly simple: The contraption comprises an ordinary Canon camera mounted on a weather balloon.
Using free software downloaded from the internet, Harrison reprogrammed the camera to wake up every five minutes and take eight photographs and a video before switching off for a rest.
NASA took interest in Harrison after he posted photos from his experiments online.

Samsung Monte Review

2010-03-30T10:38:00.001+05:00

Sometimes when a new handset is released, it is instantly clear where it fits into that particular manufacturer’s line-up of existing handsets, but every once in a while a new product is announced that, whilst being a fine device in its own right, seems to be nothing more than a filler handset, just another variation on an existing phone. The Samsung S5620 Monte is a device that fits into this category. I mean, it is indeed a fine handset, with an impressive array of features, but I do wonder just who it will appeal to, what is the market segment it is aimed at? Perhaps, though, the S5620 isn’t designed to attract a specific type of user, and will instead offer a broad appeal across the market. It will be interesting to see just where this phone sits when it is released.
As I said, the feature setup on the handset is very good, with a solid if not spectacular line-up. Very lightweight, at just 92g, the Samsung Monte measures in at a comfortable 109 x 54 x 12.5mm, very much among the norm for a mid range device. With a full touch enabled display, using capacitive technology, the Monte delivers a TFT screen measuring in at a good 3.0 inches, supporting up to 256,000 colours and with a pixel resolution of 240 x 400. The handset runs on the proprietary Samsung TouchWiz user interface, which is a simple, icon driven menu system that makes navigation simple for even the newest of mobile phone users. The device has a built in accelerometer for auto display rotation, and there is a turn to mute option included too, which handily allows you to mute incoming calls by simply flipping the phone over. Another nice inclusion is the Smart Unlock option, which allows you to unlock the phone and instantly launch a chosen application by simply ‘drawing’ a pre selected shape on your phone’s display. So for example, drawing an ‘M’ could launch the music player, or an ‘S’ could launch the SMS feature, and so on.

Space Technology Run Australia’s Mining Miracle

2010-03-29T22:20:00.002+05:00

The heavy clank of machinery rings out across a seemingly deserted Outback mine site as an invisible satellite signal fires Rio Tinto’s production line into motion.
Massive stackers and reclaimers begin the task of sifting through rust-coloured piles of rich iron ore, readying them for the rail journey hundreds of kilometres from mine to port.
It’s an industrious scene — with hardly a living being in sight.
“People frequently ask whether we have anyone working here at all,” one miner at Rio’s Dampier operations told AFP.
“Due to automation and stuff most people are pretty well tucked away from the heat. There’s not a lot of manual workers.”
Automation has long been a part of the mining industry, but advances in satellite, motion-sensor technology and robotics have made the stuff of science fiction a fact of everyday life.
Machines which scoop the ore, dump it on a conveyor belt and hose it down are now controlled from the air-conditioned comfort of Rio Tinto’s Perth operations centre, 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) away from the arid mine pit.
Hundreds of specially trained operators who once directed machines from on-site offices watch and direct the action from afar using satellite technology, with surveillance cameras feeding into some 440 monitors.
Once fully operational — currently scheduled for June — the operations centre will allow all of Rio’s rail, mine and port systems to be coordinated from one place.
Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto is one of the world’s biggest mining companies, with aluminium, copper, diamonds, gold and iron ore among its major products.
“Process plants have long been managed from a console — it’s just as if this task is now performed with a much, much longer extension cord,” Rio said in its latest innovations update.
“But never before, on anything like this scale, has the huge number of tasks been accomplished in full view and full knowledge of everyone else involved.”
The operations centre in Perth is central to Rio’s “Mine of the Future” programme, which aims for driverless trucks and trains, and sensor-fitted “smart drills” that can be operated remotely.
Since December 2008 it has been trialling automation technologies at a test site called “A-Pit”, where robotic trucks with artificial intelligence “learn” the layout of the mine and use sensors to sense and avoid obstacles.
Australian government scientists are working closely with the mining industry, drawing inspiration from space exploration to troubleshoot, explains researcher Ian Gipps.
“It sounds crazy but quite a few of the problems in space and in remote mining can be similar,” said Gipps, from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
“You don’t necessarily want to have people there… so a lot of exploration on planets requires automated and remote operating systems, particularly automated.”
Current research was focusing on the use of robots fixed with radar and light-spectrum technology to detect and gauge the quality of minerals, he added. It could be available in as little as two years.
“We want to be able to put sensors on machines that can look at the (rock) face and say, ‘the ore’s on one half of the face and not the other half of the face and the ore’s of a particular grade’,” Gipps said.
“You can’t just take a sample and send it off to a lab and get it back in 24 hours or 48 hours and say, ‘ok, we want to mine that area’. We want to know that within a couple of seconds of being there,” said Gipps.
The shift to automation is not without its challenges — chief among them securing vast satellite networks against cyber-attacks — but Gipps said it was critical to addressing chronic labour shortages.
“If the industry wants to keep on advancing then it has to make employment more attractive,” he said.
In the cyclone-prone and brutally hot Pilbara, the “A-Pit” trial is due to finish later this year. Its findings will form the basis for an operations-wide rollout of remote and driverless technologies.
Chief executive Tom Albanese hopes to position Rio as the world’s most technologically advanced mining company, describing it as key to the company’s ambitions to boost annual iron ore production above 600 million tonnes.
“Rio Tinto is changing the face of mining,” he said at the Mine of the Future’s 2008 launch.
But will humans ever be removed entirely from the equation? Gipps is sceptical.
“A lot of the challenge is getting machines to understand what’s happening around them,” he said. “It’s remarkable how clever a human is in doing that.”

Launches US Telecoms Satellite Into Space :Russia

2010-03-25T14:26:00.002+05:00

A Russian Proton-M rocket launched a US EchoStar 14 telecommunications into orbit Sunday, the Khrunichev space centre announced.
“The satellite had been placed in orbit about 36,000 kilometres above the Earth,” said the senior official at the centre, the Interfax agency reported.
The Proton launch took off from the Russian cosmodrome at Baikonur in Kazakhstan at 1827 GMT Saturday.
EchoStar 14, built by Space Systems/Loral for the DISH Network, will help broadcast high-definition television to 14 million viewers in North America.
The 6,379-kilogram (14,034-pound) satellite has an expected lifespan of 15 years, Interfax.

Yahoo ,Google Criticize Australian Internet Filter

2010-03-24T22:09:00.001+05:00

Internet giants Google and Yahoo have criticized Australia’s proposal for a mandatory Internet filter, calling it a heavy-handed measure that could restrict access to legal information.
Their statements, among 174 comments from the public submitted to the Department of Communications on the filtering proposal, come amid a struggle between Google and China over censorship-free content.
Lucinda Barlow of Google Australia on Wednesday called the Internet blocking measures of Australia and China “apples and oranges” but said her company was deeply concerned about Australia’s proposal because of its mandatory and sweeping nature.
Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says the filter would block access to sites that include child pornography, sexual violence and detailed instructions in crime or drug use. The list of banned sites could be constantly updated based on public complaints.
If adopted into law, the screening system would make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among the world’s democracies, and the proposal has put the country on the Reporters Without Borders annual “Enemies of the Internet” list.
“Our primary concern is that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide,” Google wrote in its submission, also suggesting the filter would slow browsing speeds.
The company said it already had its own filter to block child pornography.
“Some limits, like child pornography, are obvious. No Australian wants that to be available — and we agree,” Google said. “But moving to a mandatory ISP level filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material is heavy-handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.”
Google’s Barlow told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the proposal raised the possibility of banning politically and socially controversial material and went beyond filters used in Germany and Canada, which block child pornography and, in Italy, gambling sites.
Yahoo made a similar contention, saying the filter would block many sites with controversial content — such as euthanasia discussion forums and gay and lesbian forums that discuss sexual experiences.
“There is enormous value in this content being available to encourage debate and inform opinion,” Yahoo said.
The filter would not block peer-to-peer file-sharing nor prevent predators approaching children in chat programs or social networking sites, and both Google and Yahoo backed a national campaign to educate parents and children about safe use of the Internet.
Comments on the proposal came from Australian telecommunication companies, lobby groups and individuals. Conroy said his department would take the comments into consideration before sending a proposal to Parliament later this year.
The discussion over Internet restrictions in Australia comes as Google is battling online censorship in China.
Google said last month it would stop censoring searches for the Chinese government, and this week began routing searches through Hong Kong. In response, the communist government has blocked people on the mainland from seeing search results or Web sites dealing with such forbidden topics as the pro-democracy movement.
David Vaile of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Center at the University of New South Wales said China and Australia had markedly different approaches to restricting the Internet.
“China’s filter is explicitly about discouraging access to and discussion of certain clearly political topics,” he said, while Australia’s filter would focus on specifically restricted material.
While some critics of Australia’s filter have said it puts the nation in the same censorship league as China, Vaile pointed out that the freedom-of-speech argument used by American companies follows a legal tradition that other countries do not necessarily share.
Yahoo and Google are accustomed to the protections of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and elevates it to a very high legal status, Vaile said.
“In Australia there is no equivalent,” Vaile said. “There is no law that says you’ve got free speech. Having a lack of any legal protection for free speech for any effective restraint on (filters) is something that’s worrying.”

FBI To Monitor Criminals On Facebook, MySpace, And Twitter

2010-03-21T13:19:00.001+05:00

US intelligence agency FBI has turned its guns towards social networking sites for monioring individuals. It appears that law enforcement officials may use the social networking site as a new source of surveillance. The US Department of Justice sent out a PDF that confirmed that they plan to use Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter as a new way to monitor individuals.
While it is not clear exactly how the government will track criminals on the social networking sites, many believe that they will use fake friend requests to gain information about their targets. Also, in the PDF that was released, the Department of Justice revealed that Facebook is quite open with the government when it comes to releasing information. On the other hand, Twitter has more of a reputation for only releasing information when an individual is facing legal proceedings.
This is obviously not the first attempt by the government to use the internet to follow criminals. In the past, the FBI has followed sexual predators online.

Tracker:Facebook beats Google for visitors

2010-03-17T21:26:00.002+05:00

SAN FRANCISCO : Social-networking star Facebook surpassed Google to become the most visited website in the United States for the first time last week, industry analysts showed.
Facebook’s homepage finished the week ending March 13 as the most visited site in the country, according to industry tracker Hitwise.
The “important milestone,” as described by Hitwise director of research
Heather Dougherty, came as Facebook enjoyed a massive 185 percent increase in visits in the same period, compared to the same week in 2009.
By comparison, visits to search engine home Google.com increased only nine percent in the same time — although the tracker does not include Google property sites such as the popular Gmail email service, YouTube and Google Maps.
Taken together, Facebook.com and Google.com amounted to 14 percent of the entire US Internet visits last week, Dougherty said.
Google has been positioning challenges in recent months to Facebook and the micro-blogging site Twitter by adding the social-networking feature Buzz to its Gmail service.
In what could signal an escalating battle between Facebook and Google, the leading social-networking service celebrated its sixth birthday earlier this year with changes including a new message inbox that echoes Gmail’s format.
Facebook boasts some 400 million users while Gmail had 176 million unique visitors in December, according to tracking firm comScore.

Nasa:Space Shuttle Can Fly Beyond 2010, If Money is There

2010-03-11T10:43:00.002+05:00

WASHINGTON : The US space shuttle fleet can continue flying beyond Nasa’s September 30 deadline if the money is made available to keep it going, a US space agency official told reporters on Tuesday.
“I think the real issue that the agency and the nation has to address is the expense,” said Space Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon, noting the shuttle fleet costs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 200 million dollars per month to maintain it in working condition.
“Where that money comes from is the big question,” he added.
Shannon’s briefing was about Nasa’s April 5 Discovery mission to the orbiting International Space Station (ISS), one of three shuttle flights remaining before the program is shut down at the end of September after 29 years of service.
Several lawmakers have recently urged the shuttle program be extended to reduce US dependency on Russia’s Soyuz spacecrafts in order to continue building the ISS until the shuttle’s successor can take off by 2015 at the earliest.
Taking up her colleagues’ concerns, Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison last week presented a bill calling for extending the shuttle program beyond its termination deadline.
On presenting his 2011 budget plan in January, US President Barack Obama confirmed the shuttle fleet’s demise this year, as well as dropping the Constellation program his predecessor George W. Bush announced in 2004 to return Americans to the moon by 2020.
Constellation included the development of the Ares 1 rocket, and its abandonment has also put into question the feasibility of the shuttle’s successor spacecraft.
Obama also asked Nasa to partner with the private sector, using funds from an economic stimulus package to develop low-cost, primary services transporting astronauts to the ISS.

چاند پر برف کے ذخائر کی دریافت

2010-03-04T14:46:00.000+05:00

بھارتی خلائی جہاز چندریان سے کیے گئے ایک ریڈار تجربے کے ذریعے چاند کے قطب شمالی کے قریب برف کے ذخائر دریافت کیے گئے ہیں۔

امریکی خلائی ادارے ناسا کے ’منی سار‘ تجربے میں ایسے چالیس چھوٹے گڑھے ملے ہیں جن میں برفیلا پانی موجود ہے۔

یہ بات ٹیکساس میں منعقد ہونے والی اکتالیسویں ’لونر اینڈ پلینٹری سائنس کانفرنس‘ میں بتائی گئی۔

برف کے ان گڑھوں کا قطر دو کلومیٹر سے پندرہ کلومیٹر (ایک سے نو میل) تک ہے۔ ناسا کا کہنا ہے کہ یہ برف موٹائی میں کم از کم چند میٹر ہوگی جس کے باعث اسے کے آثار چندریان کے ریڈار پر نظر آئے ہیں۔

ہیوسٹن میں قائم لونر اینڈ پلینٹری انسٹیٹیوٹ کے ڈاکٹر پال سپوڈس کے اندازے کے مطابق ان گڑھوں میں چھ سو ملین میٹرک ٹن برفیلا پانی موجود ہو سکتا ہے۔

انہوں نے اس مقدار کی مثال دیتے ہوئے صحافیوں کو بتایا کہ اتنی مقدار میں راکٹ ایندھن سے دو ہزار دو سو سال تک ہر روز ایک خلائی جہاز خلاء میں بھیجنے کے لیے کافی ہوگا۔

ان سب گڑھوں میں مشترک بات یہ ہے کہ ان کے اندرونی حصے تک سورج کی روشنی نہیں پہنچتی۔ ان گڑھوں میں سے کئی پر مستقل اندھیرا رہتا ہے اور درجہ حرارت پچیس کیلون (منفی 284 سینٹی گریڈ، منفی 415 فارن ہائٹ) تک گر سکتا ہے۔

سائنسدان اب چاند کے قطب جنونی سے حاصل کیے گئے اعداد و شمار کا مشاہدہ کر رہے ہیں۔

China rejects claims of cyber attacks on Google

2010-02-22T09:44:00.001+05:00

China has denied any state involvement in alleged cyber attacks on Google and accused the US of double standards.

A Chinese industry ministry spokesman told the state-run Xinhua news agency that claims that Beijing was behind recent cyber attacks were "groundless".
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked China to investigate claims by Google that it had been targeted by China-based hackers.
The US search giant has threatened to withdraw from China.
"The accusation that the Chinese government participated in [any] cyber attack, either in an explicit or inexplicit way, is groundless. We [are] firmly opposed to that," the unnamed spokesman of China's ministry of industry and information technology told Xinhua.
"China's policy on internet safety is transparent and consistent," he added.
Separately, China's state-run China Daily newspaper said America's internet strategy was "to exploit its advantages in internet funds, technology and marketing and export its politics, commerce and culture to other nations for political, commercial and cultural interests of the world's only superpower".
It also described the US government as being hypocritical, saying the country's "certain government agencies" had reportedly illegally checked a massive number of personal e-mail accounts.

Clinton's speech

On Thursday, Mrs Clinton urged Beijing to investigate the alleged cyber attacks on Google.
"We look to Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions," she said.
Mrs Clinton added that companies such as the US giant should refuse to support "politically motivated censorship".
Again in reference to China, she said that any country which restricted free access to information risked "walling themselves off from the progress of the next century".
Google said on 12 January that hackers had tried to infiltrate its software coding and the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, in a "highly sophisticated" attack.
The California-based company, which launched in China in 2006, said it would quit the country unless the government relaxed censorship.
On Tuesday, the Chinese government said Google and other foreign companies had to obey the country's laws and traditions.
The same day, Google said it was postponing the launch of two mobile phones in China.
When Google launched google.cn four years ago, it was criticised for agreeing to Beijing's demands to make certain search results off-limits - including those relating to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Tibetan independence or Falun Gong.
China has more internet users, about 350 million, than any other country and provides a lucrative search-engine market worth an estimated $1bn (£618m) last year.
Google holds about a third of the country's search market, with Chinese rival Baidu having more than 60%.

1 Feb 20 Years of Adobe Photoshop

2010-02-20T16:00:00.001+05:00

Photoshop has been a part of every web designer’s life since they picked up their first mouse.
On February 10th, 2010, Photoshop turns twenty. To mark this anniversary, we’ve come up with an article that takes you through the evolution of Photoshop from its modest beginnings as a bundled program sold with scanners to its current version.
For each version and major feature listed, we couldn’t help but think “did Photoshop ever exist without that feature?”.
Some of the minor details are fun too, such as the one-liner Easter Eggs that Photoshop developers hid in some versions and the fact that the most current versions of Adobe Photoshop CS are equipped with anti-counterfeiting measures for multiple world currencies.

ایکسپلورر کی جگہ متبادل براؤزر کی سہولت

2010-02-20T14:38:00.000+05:00

مائیکروسافٹ کے اعلان کے مطابق انٹرنیٹ ایکسپلورر ویب براؤزر استعمال کرنے والے لاکھوں یورپی صارفین کو یکم مارچ سے متبادل براؤز کے استعمال کی سہولت میسر ہوگی۔

یہ فیصلہ دسمبر 2009 میں مائیکروسافٹ اور یورپی مسابقتی کمیشن کے درمیان قانونی معاہدے کے بعد کیا گیا ہے۔

اس معاہدے میں مائیکروسافٹ اس بات پر تیار ہوئی ہے کہ وہ اپنے ونڈورز پی سی استعمال کرنے والے صارفین کو انٹرنیٹ ایکسپلورر کو بطور ڈیفالٹ ویب براؤزر استعمال کرنے کی بجائے ان کی مرضی کا براؤزر انسٹال کرنے کی اجازت دے گی۔

اعدادوشمار کے مطابق دنیا میں انٹرنیٹ استعمال کرنے والے افراد میں سے نصف سے زائد انٹرنیٹ ایکسپلورر استعمال کرتے ہیں۔

مائیکرو سافٹ کے اس متبادل براؤزر کی اجازت کے اپ ڈیٹ کا تجربہ برطانیہ، بیلجیئم اور فرانس میں شروع ہو چکا ہے اور ادارے کے نائب صدر ڈیو ہائنر کے بلاگ کے مطابق ونڈوز ایکس پی، وسٹا اور سیون استعمال کرنے والے صارفین کو یہ اپ ڈیٹ خودبخود موصول ہوجائے گی۔

بلاگ کے مطابق اس اپ ڈیٹ میں صارف کو ایک چوائس سکرین دکھائی جائے گی جس کی مدد سے وہ اپنی پسند کا براؤزر چن سکے گا۔ دیگر براؤزر کی فہرست میں گوگل کا کروم، موزیلا کا فائرفوکس، سفاری اور اوپرا نامی براؤزر شامل ہیں۔

بی بی سی کے نامہ نگار برائے ٹیکنالوجی روری کیلن جونز کا کہنا ہے کہ ’لاکھوں افراد جنہوں نے پہلے کبھی یہ سوچا بھی نہیں تھا کہ وہ کونسا براؤزر استعمال کرتے ہیں اب انہیں ایک براؤزر چننا پڑے گا اور اس سے مائیکروسافٹ کے مسابقتی اداروں کو مارکیٹنگ کا نادر موقع ملے گا‘۔

Innovation which leads to Green Revolution's !!!

2010-02-20T12:33:00.004+05:00

printer that 'prints' with pencil lead--from actual pencil stubs. Which means any pencil you have worn down to the stub laying around the house can be used to the last drop with the pencil printer. Even better, the design features an eraser mechanism, and you'd be able to erase sentences quickly and efficiently.

The only patch cable you will ever need

2010-02-20T12:05:00.004+05:00

Just rotate the center to the cable you need

If you're a member of the IT crowd, it's sometimes hard to explain to your management why you need things. Especially if they're the type of people who think the internet is a black box with a red LED on top or people who believe that if you type "Google" into Google you'll break the internet. Try explaining to them that every time you need a patch cable that you have to dig through the giant box of everything cable-shaped for an eternity before finding the right one. To them, all cables are the same.

So here's what you're going to say... ready? "Hey, last time I had to find a patch cable, it cost you $50 worth of my time. Buy me one of these and I'll never have to waste that time again." They don't need to know that the Universal Network Cable adapter allows you to change wiring standard with just a click. They won't care about going from straight through to crossover. Their eyes will glaze over when you mention Cisco or T1 or DDS. Just tell them that the Universal Network Cable is THE essential tool for the IT crowd, and that you'll save them tons of wasted man/grrl hours a year. (Don't tell them that you'll spend those newly-found hours playing World of Warcraft. Bad idea.)

گوگل لائبریری کیس: فیصلے میں تاخیر

2010-02-20T10:15:00.000+05:00

انٹرنیٹ سائیٹ گوگل کی جانب سے دنیا کی سب سے بڑی ڈیجیٹل لائبریری بنانے کا منصوبہ جوں کا توں ہے کیونکہ امریکی جج نے اس کیس پر فوری فیصلہ نہیں دیا۔

عدالت میں اس منصوبے کے حق میں اور خلاف دلائل دینے کے بعد جج ڈینی چِن نے کہا کہ وہ تحریری فیصلہ دیں گے۔

اس منصوبے کے نقادوں کا کہنا ہے کہ گوگل کی امریکی پبلشرز اور مصنفوں کے ساتھ معاہدے سے گوگل کو آن لائن پر کتابوں کی فروخت پر اجارہ داری حاصل ہو جائے گی۔

ایک سو پچیس ملین ڈالر کے اس مقدمے میں جج چِن نے اب تک پانچ سو گزارشات پڑھی ہیں۔

پانچ سال سے گوگل اس معاہدے کو مکمل کرنے کی کوشش میں ہے اور کئی ماہ سے فریقین عوامی سطح پر اپنے اپنے دلائل پیش کر چکے ہیں۔

نیو یارک میں سماعت کے آغاز پر جج چِن نے کہا کہ ’میں اس تجسس کا خاتمہ کردوں کہ میں اس مقدمے کا فیصلہ آج نہیں کروں گا‘۔ ’معاملات کو سمجھنے کے لیے بہت سا مواد موجود ہے اور میرا ذہن کھلا ہے۔‘

دو ہزار چار میں جب گوگل نے اس منصوبے پر کام شروع کیا تو اس کا آتھرز گلڈ آف امریکہ اور ایسوسی ایشن آف امریکن پبلشرز کے ساتھ تنازعہ شروع ہو گیا۔

واضح رہے کہ امریکہ میں اجارہ داری کے خلاف تحقیقات کرنے والے حکام کتابوں کے جملہ حقوق کے مسئلے پر گوگل اور کتابوں کے پبلشرز کے ساتھ 125 ملین ڈالر کے معاہدے کی تحقیقات شروع کی تھیں۔

ان معاہدوں کے مطابق جملہ حقوق رکھنے والوں کو کچھ رقم ملے گی اور گوگل کو آن لائن پر کتابوں کی فروخت اور اشتہارات کا حصہ ملے گا۔

نیویارک کی ضلعی عدالت کو لکھے گئے ایک خط میں امریکی نائب اٹارنی جنرل ولیم کیوانا نے کہا تھا کہ اس معاہدے کے متعلق مزید انکوائری ہونی چاہیئے۔

کچھ افراد کا خیال ہے کہ اس معاہدے کے بعد گوگل آن لائن پر کتابیں بیچنے کا سب سے بڑا ذریعہ بن جائے گا۔

اکتوبر 2008 میں گوگل نے کتابوں کے ناشر اور مصنفوں کی تنظیم ’آتھرز گلڈ اینڈ دی ایسوسی ایشن آف امیریکن پبلیشرز‘ کے ساتھ یہ معاہدہ کیا تھا۔

Bloodhound cellphone detector

2010-02-18T12:36:00.001+05:00

Heard of Berkeley Varitronics Systems before? Never? Well, take note of the company now as they have just annonuced a new advanced hand-held cellphone detector, where it is aptly known as the Bloodhound, paying homage to our four-legged friends who fall under that category, boasting a keen sense of smell. The Bloodhound is able to empower security officers to scan real-time for unauthorized cellphone activity in correctional facilities, helping detect the precise location of the caller courtesy of a Direction Finding Antenna.

Interestingly enough, I just found out today that security officers are losing the battle since contraband cellphones get more commonplace, being smuggled into correctional facilities so that criminal activity can continue behind the bars. Locating and confiscating contraband cellphones which are being smuggled can be a tricky task, even with the help of monitoring sensors, X-ray scanners, metal detectors, drug and bomb dogs. Even cellphone jamming isn’t sufficient to address the growing problem of handset smuggling, which is why the Bloodhound cellphone detector was invented. It is definitely a boon since it is capable of detecting a cellphone within a correctional facility without interfering with citizens’ or public safety communications.

Just like its flesh-and-blood counterpart, the Bloodhound was designed to track down and pinpoint contraband cell phones without interfering with authorized communication channels. It uses a high speed scanning multi-band receiver harnessed to a DF-Direction Finding Antenna, enabling security officers to ’sniff out’ the RF energy – similar in method as to how an actual Bloodhound dog is able to detect a scent which a human could never discern. The Bloodhound’s special algorithm can trigger on to a cellphone while it is still active, and a headphone jack with a progressive audible alert tone and an accompanying vibrator is able to alert security officers of cellphone activity whenever they get closer to the source. Don’t you think that teachers in schools and lecturers at colleges would love to get their hands on the Bloodhound as well?

موبائل فونز کے لیے ’فیس بک زیرو‘

2010-02-17T14:13:00.002+05:00

دنیا کی سب سے بڑی سوشل نیٹ ورکنگ ویب سائٹ فیس بک نے موبائل فونز کے لیے فیس بک کا ’ٹیکسٹ اونلی‘ ورژن لانے کا اعلان کیا ہے۔

اس ورژن کو ’فیس بک زیرو‘ کا نام دیا گیا ہے۔

کم بینڈ وڈتھ پر مشتمل یہ سائٹ ان لوگوں کے لیے بنائی گئی ہے جو اپنے موبائل فونز پر فیس بک استعمال کرتے ہیں اور اس کا افتتاح آئندہ چند ہفتوں میں کر دیا جائے گا۔

فیس بک منتظمین نے حال ہی میں یہ اعلان کیا تھا کہ اب سو ملین سے زائد افراد اپنے موبائل فونز سے فیس بک استعمال کرتے ہیں۔ برطانیہ کی جی ایس ایم ایسوسی ایشن کا کہنا ہے کہ برطانیہ میں لوگ اپنے موبائل فونز کی مدد سے جتنا وقت انٹرنیٹ پر گزارتے ہیں اس میں سے نصف فیس بک پر صرف ہوتا ہے۔

فیس بک کا کہنا ہے کہ نئی سائٹ میں زیادہ ڈیٹا استعمال کرنے والی ایپلیکیشنز جیسے کہ تصاویر شامل نہیں ہوں گی۔ فیس بک کے ترجمان کا کہنا ہے کہ ’ہم اس پر بات چیت کر رہے ہیں کہ موبائل ویب پر فیس بک تک ہر کسی کو ہر جگہ رسائی ہو‘۔

خیال رہے کہ فیس بک پہلے ہی اپنی ویب سائٹ کا ایک کم ایپلیکیشنز والا ورژن لانچ کر چکی ہے جس کا نام ’فیس بک لائٹ‘ ہے۔ اس ورژن کا مقصد ترقی پذیر ممالک میں سست رفتار انٹرنیٹ کنکشنز پر فیس بک کے استعمال کو آسان بنانا ہے۔

Oracle Completes Acquisition of Sun

2010-02-17T11:09:00.000+05:00

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) announced today that it had completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Combination of the local entities worldwide will proceed in accordance with local laws.
Oracle will host an all-day live event, which also will be webcast, for customers, partners, press and analysts today at 9:00 AM Pacific time, at its headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. Details are available here.

Researchers describe how the cholera bacteria becomes infectious

2010-02-13T12:06:00.002+05:00

In a new study, Dartmouth researchers describe the structure of a protein called ToxT that controls the virulent nature of Vibrio cholerae, the bacteria that causes cholera. Buried within ToxT, the researchers were surprised to find a fatty acid that appears to inhibit ToxT, which prevents the bacteria from causing cholera. Cholera, which causes acute diarrhea, can be life threatening, and, according to the World Health Organization, cholera remains a serious threat to global health.

Doctors have known that bile, found in the intestine, inhibits the expression of the virulence genes in V. cholerae, but until now, the mechanism behind this was not completely understood. This study provides a direct link between the environment of the gut and the regulation of virulence genes, and it also identifies the regulatory molecule.
"Finding a fatty acid in the structure was quite a surprise," says F. Jon Kull, associate professor of chemistry at Dartmouth and senior author on the paper. Kull is also a 1988 graduate of Dartmouth. "The exciting thing about this finding is that we might be able to use a small, natural molecule to treat and/or prevent cholera. We will also use the structure of the fatty acid as a framework to try and design a small molecule inhibitor of ToxT."
The study, "Structure of Vibrio cholerae ToxT reveals mechanism for fatty acid regulation of virulence genes," appeared in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of February 1.
Kull's co-authors on the paper are Michael Lowden and Maria Pellegrini with the Department of Chemistry at Dartmouth; Michael Chiorazzo, a summer undergraduate research fellow; and Karen Skorupski and Ronald Taylor with the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Dartmouth Medical School.
The researchers used X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of ToxT. The process involves taking DNA from V. cholerae and using non-pathogenic E. coli bacteria to produce large amounts of the target protein, in this case, ToxT. Once protein has been purified, it is concentrated and crystallized. Then the crystal, which is an ordered array of protein molecules, is subjected to a powerful X-ray beam. The pattern of diffracted X-rays is collected on a detector and then analyzed using mathematical algorithms, eventually revealing the atomic structure of the protein.
Co-author Taylor also notes that "The results of the study are exciting from the points of view of both the mechanistic aspect of the complex regulation of V. cholerae virulence gene expression and the potential medical impact as we now move forward to apply this new knowledge to influence this mechanism to control infection in humans."

Provided by Dartmouth College

’دلکش خاتون کے روپ میں وائرس‘ فیمبٹ وائرس

2010-02-12T13:21:00.002+05:00

انٹرنیٹ کی سکیورٹی پر نظر رکھنے والے ماہرین نےاکیلےانٹرنیٹ استعمال کرنے والے صارفین کو خبردار کیا ہے کہ فیمبٹ نامی وائرس ان کے کمپیوٹر کو خراب کر سکتا ہے۔

ماہرین کا کہنا ہے کہ فیمبٹ نامی وائرس خود کو خاتون ظاہر کرتا ہے اور فوری طور پر پیغام کے ذریعے بات چیت کرنا چاہتا ہے اور اس دوران صارف کے کمپیوٹر کو خراب کر سکتا ہے۔

سکیورٹی ماہرین کے مطابق صارفین کو اس بات پر راضی کیا جاتا ہے کہ وہ ذاتی معلومات ظاہر کریں جس کے ذریعےانہیں دھوکا دیا جا سکے۔یہ وائرس پہلی بار سنہ دو ہزار سات میں سامنے آیا تھا مگر اس کے بعد اسے زیادہ نہیں دیکھا گیا۔

ایسے آثار ہیں کہ یہ وائرس ویلنٹائن ڈے کے موقع پر دوبارہ منظرِعام پر آ جائے۔

( Bach ke yaro larki ke chakar me khud ko na phasa lena ;) )

Spirit's Last Moves Before Winter

2010-02-11T17:02:00.003+05:00

Embedded video from

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology

موسم خراب نئی دوربین روانہ نہیں ہوسکی

2010-02-11T15:40:00.001+05:00

امریکی خلائی ادارہ ناسا سورج اور اس کے پیچیدہ دائرہ عمل کے بارے میں تفصیلی معلومات حاصل کرنے کے لیے نئی دوربین کا خلائی سفر تیز ہواؤں کے باعث ملتوی ہوگیا ہے۔

دوربین بدھ کوگرینیچ کے معیاری وقت کے مطابق سہ پہر تین بجے کے قریب اپنے سفر پر روانہ ہونے والی تھی۔ نئے اوقات کا ابھی اعلان نہیں کیا گیا۔

خلائی دوربین سٹیشن یا آبزرویٹری پانچ برس تک خلا میں رہے گی۔ یہ سٹیشن چوبیس گھنٹے میں زمین کے گرد اپنا چکر مکمل کرے گا اور اس دوران تصاویر ناسا کو بھیجتا رہے گا جن کی مدد سے سائنسدانوں کو سورج کے گرد معمولی سے معمولی تفصیل کا پتہ چل سکے۔

سائنسدانوں کا کہنا ہے کہ وہ یہ جاننے کی کوشش کریں گے کہ سورج پر رونما ہونے والی تبدیلیاں ہمارے نظام شمسی میں درجۂ حرارت اور توانائی کی سطحوں پر کیسے اثر انداز ہوتی ہیں۔ یہ تبدیلیاں جنھیں سائنسدان ’سپیس ویدر‘ کہتے ہیں کرۂ ارض کے مواصلات اور سیاروں کے سگنل اور توانائی فراہم کرنے والی لائنوں میں خلل ڈال سکتی ہیں۔

گوگل کی نئی سوشل نیٹورکنگ سائٹ

2010-02-10T11:01:00.002+05:00

گوگل نے’ بز‘ نامی ایک سوشل نیٹورکنگ سائٹ کا افتتاح کیا ہے۔

گوگل کی ای میل سروس ’جی میل‘ سے منسلک یہ سماجی نیٹورکنگ سائٹ فیس بُک اور ٹویٹر سے مقابلہ کرے گی۔ فیس بُک کی سائٹ سنہ دو ہزار چار میں شروع کی گئی تھی اور اب اس کو تقریباً چالیس کروڑ افراد استعمال کرتے ہیں اور یہ دنیا کی سب سے بڑی سوشل نیٹورکنگ سآئٹ ہے۔

توقع کی جا رہی ہے کہ جی میل استعمال کرنے والے تو ضرور ’بز‘ کا استعمال کرنا پسند کریں گے۔ اس وقت تقریباً سترہ کروڑ لوگ جی میل استعمال کرتے ہیں۔

صحافیوں کا کہنا ہے کہ یوں معلوم ہوتا ہے کہ اس سوشل نیٹورکنگ سائٹ کا افتتاح کر کے گوگل اس کوشیش میں ہے کہ انٹرنیٹ کی سماجی سرگرمیوں میں وہ فیس بک کا ڈٹ کر مقابلہ کر سکے۔

بونا پلوٹو سرخ ہو رہا ہے

2010-02-10T11:00:00.001+05:00

ناسا کے سائنس دانوں کا کہنا ہے کہ پلوٹو سیارہ، جو ہمارے نظامِ شمسی کے کنارے پر محوِ گردش ہے، کافی تیزی سے سرخ ہوتا جا رہا ہے۔

ہبل دوربین سے اس چھوٹے سیارے کی جو تصاویر لی گئیں ہیں ان سے ظاہر ہوتا ہے کہ پلوٹو ماضی کی نسبت اب تقریباً بیس گنا زیادہ سرخ ہے۔

ماہرین کا خیال ہے کہ اس سرخی کا سبب وہ تبدیلیاں ہیں جو اس بونے سیارے کی برفانی سطح پر ہو رہی ہیں۔ اور ان تبدیلیوں کی وجہ ماہرین کے مطابق یہ ہے کہ سیارہ پلوٹو اپنی گردش کے دوران ایک نئے زاویے پر آگیا ہے۔ خیال رہے کہ پلوٹو کا ایک سائیکل یا سورج کے گرد ایک چکر دو سو اڑتالیس سال پر محیط ہے۔

نئی تصاویر سے پتہ چلتا ہے کہ پلوٹو کے شمال میں منجمد نائٹروجن گیس چمک رہی ہے جبکہ سیارے کے جنوب میں یہ گیس نسبتاً گہرے رنگ کی ہے۔

Can battlefield robots take the place of soldiers?

2010-02-09T14:54:00.004+05:00

Can war be fought by lots of well-behaved machines, making it "safer for humans"? That is the seductive vision, and hope, of those manufacturing and researching the future of military robotics.

With 8,000 robots already in use, they believe they can bring about a military revolution.
Most of the robots currently deployed on land deal with non-combat tasks such as bomb disposal - unlike lethal aerial drones.
But Bob Quinn, who works for the US subsidiary of the British robot manufacturer QinetiQ, says the future promises more armed robots on the battlefield, including driverless vehicles.
"The closer you are to being shot, the more you understand the value of having a remote weapons capability," he says.
Anyone who has seen the Terminator films may find this vision scary. Quinn admits that, even among senior military figures, "science fiction movies caused a great deal of angst".
He stresses the need to make sure "that the weaponised robots only operate under the control of the soldier and never independently".
But the speed of modern warfare can make direct human control difficult, says Peter Singer, author of Wired for War.
Take the automated counter-artillery system deployed in Afghanistan.
"The human reaction time when there's an incoming canon shell is basically we can get to mid-curse word… [This] system reacts and shoots it down in mid-air. We are in the loop. We can turn the system off, we can turn it on, but our power really isn't true decision-making power. It's veto power now," Singer says.

FLOWER BUD COMPUTER WORKSTATION SHELL

2010-02-09T14:49:00.001+05:00

Can ergonomic and architectural quality be combined into one product?
Born of ¡°flower bud¡± influences, this adjustable computer workstation is made for a user of any age, male or female. Those who are on the move and may require a computer workstation that offers a wide range of adjustability and comfort. My design is a modern fibre glass seat, styled in contemporary colours, which provides a relaxing environment with an adequate level of privacy. The rotating chair provides easy access, and when not in use the sections slide neatly together forming a compact shell.

Astronauts inspect shuttle on way to space station

2010-02-09T14:36:00.002+05:00

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Endeavour's astronauts inspected their ship early Tuesday for any launch damage as they raced toward a 200-mile-high rendezvous with the International Space Station.
Barely a day after blasting into orbit, the space shuttle crew used a 100-foot, laser-tipped boom to check the thermal shielding on the wings and nose. A few pieces of foam insulation broke off the external fuel tank during Monday morning's launch, including a narrow 1-foot strip. But there was no indication anything hit the shuttle.
Commander George Zamka and his crew performed the routine survey to make sure the launch cameras did not miss something. A foam strike brought down Columbia in 2003, and orbiting astronauts have carried out exhaustive inspections ever since.
The long, laborious process got under way late Monday and was expected to stretch well into Tuesday morning.
Endeavour will catch up with the space station early Wednesday, performing a slow-motion pirouette for the cameras before docking. The close-up pictures of the shuttle's belly — impossible to see any other way in such detail — will provide even more information regarding Endeavour's health.
The shuttle is delivering a new room to the space station, as well as the biggest window ever launched, part of a fancy domed compartment. Together, the additions are worth more than $400 million.
The five space station residents couldn't wait to see their six shuttle friends.
"Yeah! Endeavour is on our way!" Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi cheered in a Twitter update.
It's been nearly three months since the last shuttle visit. Five missions are on tap this year, then NASA plans to retire the three remaining shuttles.
The space station will be 98 percent complete once the new room, Tranquility, and seven-windowed dome are installed by Endeavour's crew. It will be the final major construction job at the station.
Tranquility eventually will house life-support and exercise equipment, and a toilet. The dome — resembling a big bay window — will provide unprecedented views of Earth, outer space and the space station itself. The round central window is 31 inches across; the six surrounding windows are smaller.
The European Space Agency provided the Tranquility and dome.
The first of three spacewalks to install those compartments is set for Thursday night.
NASA has been flying space shuttles for 29 years and building the space station for 11 years.