Since I’ve claimed this is not just another Swine Flu piece, I must back my claim by emphasizing how important this article is for the public good. In order to understand its relevance better, let’s take the example of the Mayan Civilization and its calendar. The B’ak’tun Cycle started on 11th or 13th August, 3114 BC, marking the beginning of the Mayan Calendar. Now, archaeologists have found inscriptions that claim the calendar was created up to 13 B’ak’tuns and no further, which corresponds to 5125 years roughly. Typical of their presumptuous trait, said dirt diggers automatically assumed that the Mayan calendar ends after 5125 years, and further stretched this hypothesis to conclude that the world would end after that amount of time. Eventually, some Hollywood director stumbled upon this whacky idea, made into a movie called 2012 that had spectacular effects and an equally spectacular lack of a plot, and laughed all the way to the bank carrying his millions.
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For the average Indian music lover, Bose Corporation is to music what the T-Rex is to dinosaurs. It’s another matter altogether that this perception persists largely due to the lack of penetration of high-quality speaker systems in the market. In all fairness though, if you’re looking for a legitimate high-quality system that comes with a warranty, Bose is an excellent choice.

Coming to the portable category, Bose has six models across headphones and earphones — also called “headphones” by the manufacturer for reasons that aren’t immediately apparent. From what I can gather, products with Bose’s patented TriPort Acoustic Structure get termed as “headphones”. In effect, the company terms earphones it develops with said technology as a “compact in-ear headphone design” or “Earbud-style headphones with silicone tips that rest gently and securely in your ears“. Damn, ain’t Bose smart and different. Anyway, let’s leave the debating of semantics to anal-retentive audiophiles, and instead focus on the product.
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Many people use Tom Tom, Garmin and Magellan’s GPS based navigation systems. They buy the device, then also pay for a voice-guided navigation service. The whole thing costs thousands of rupees. What’s worse, these devices can only be used in a specific region. If you happen to be touring another country, you’ll have to buy map data for that country.

If you’re pissed off about this issue, you’re not alone. A guy named Anssi Vanjoki also hates the idea of carrying multiple gadgets, such as a mobile and sat-nav device.  Like you, he too dislikes the fact that they are limited to the map software you’ve loaded. Well, what makes this guy so special?

Unlike you, he can do something about it, since he’s the Executive Vice President of Nokia. Which is good for you. In a recent press release, he put forward the idea: “Why have multiple devices that work only in one country or region? Put it all together and make it free!”. His statement was enough to reveal Nokia’s plans to make high-end, walk-and-drive navigation free on its smartphones.
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What good is the internet if it can’t teach you a thing or two? In case you haven’t achieved your quota of learning something new every day, here are two new scientific findings:

Woolly Mammoths Stayed On Earth Longer Than Thought

Woolly mammoths and prehistoric horses grazed on the North American plains several thousand years longer than hitherto presumed. This is shown by samples of ancient DNA, analyzed by an international team of research scientists under the leadership of Eske Willerslev, Professor at Copenhagen University.
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The Indian Air Force (IAF) will have a central network in the next two years to process data that will help during critical operations, Chief of Air Staff PV Naik recently said. “I am looking at two years’ time to have a net-centric environment to process data in real-time for combat operations and optimal performance”, Naik told reporters on the margins of an air force event at Bangalore, dropping jargon with the alacrity of an Su-30K dropping cluster bombs on terrorist camps in POK (not that they actually do that, mind you).
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Unfortunately, it’s not what you think. Reliance mobile subscribers can now browse through comic strips on their cellphones while on the move. Reliance Communications has tied up with Cartoon Network to launch Archies, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Ben 10, Johny Bravo, Dexter’s Laboratory, and Powerpuff Girls for its subscribers at Rs 1 per day.

“With this, subscribers can now be transported to the imaginary world of comics at the mere press of a button, especially [sic] when they are on the move”, Krishna Durba, Head, Value Added Services, Reliance Communications, said. It was not immediately clear whether moving while reading a comic strip on your mobile would elicit more laughs as compared to standing still while doing so. Perhaps Reliance has been inspired by the recent Idea! campaign.
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The invention of a new laser may make faster and cheaper computers possible. “The on-chip light source will be key to enabling the simultaneous transmission of multiple data channels either on-chip or between chips in a single optical fibre, each at a different wavelength. Currently, information on a chip is shuffled around using electronic signals over copper wires, or interconnects. We know that metal is prone to “choking” on the bandwidth bottleneck”, says David Moss, Associate Professor, University of Sydney.
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The Union Cabinet today approved setting up a National Knowledge Network (NKN) that will connect all major educational institutions, such as Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), and top universities, for exchange of information and research. “One of the important recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) is to interconnect all knowledge institutions through a high-speed data network. This would encourage sharing of knowledge, specialized resources and collaborative research”, the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure said.

The government’s decision to set up such a network was announced in 2008-09, and an initial amount of Rs 100 crore was allocated to the Department of Information Technology, ministry of communications and IT. The architecture of the NKN will be scalable and the network will consist of an ultra-high speed core (multiples of 10 Gbps and upwards), to provide a nation-wide “information superhighway”.
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Sony India today said it planned to boost its leadership status in the compact camera segment by taking its market share from 42% to 45% in the coming fiscal. The company, which at a Cyber-shot camera launch in Kochi, also said the new product was in sync with its global strategy of designing and creating innovative products that strengthened its brand identity.

The new camera for instance, is equipped with two new technologies — Sweep Panorama, which allows capturing ultra-wide pictures with a field view of up to 270 degrees, and High Definition Movie, which enables shooting high-resolution videos. “The introduction of Sweep Panorama and HD Movie technologies will ensure that a wider consumer audience would be able to experience Sony’s technologically superior products”, said Takakiyo Fujita, Sony India general manager of marketing.
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A team of physicists has accomplished a remarkable feat by tying light into knots to understanding how to control it — something that has important implications for laser technology in a wide range of industries. The team is made up of physicists working at the universities of Bristol, Glasgow and Southampton.

“In a light beam, the flow of light through space is similar to water flowing in a river”, explained study author Mark Dennis from the University of Bristol. “Although it often flows in a straight line — out of a torch, laser pointer, etc — light can also flow in whirls and eddies, forming lines in space called optical vortices. Along these lines, or optical vortices, the intensity of the light is zero (black). The light all around us is filled with these dark lines, even though we can’t see them”, he explained.
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Panasonic has just announced the world’s “shortest” Blu-Ray player for the Japanese market, called the DMP-BD65. Yes, you read that right — this is the world’s shortest Blu-Ray player, not the slimmest. The dimensions of the player are 430 x 49 x 199 mm, the latter dimension giving it the ”shortest” tag. It is scheduled to hit store shelves on 15th February, with a price tag of $440 (Rs 20,000 approx). Too bad it’ll miss a Valentine’s Day launch; your nonexistent Jap girlfriend would’ve loved it to bits.
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While the government is conducting nationwide public consultations on whether genetically modified brinjal should be commercially released, the science ministry endorsed the product, calling it “safe for all”. “We support the clearance of the expert group. It is safe for all”, Science and Technology Minister P Chavan said at the social editors’ conference.

“Thirty top scientists have cleared it and we stand by it. I am a health professional, and let me tell you that BT Brinjal is absolutely safe for all mammals”, said MK Bhan, secretary in the department of biotechnology. “It’s safe for the human body and it’s safer technology”, he added. This is the first time a ministry has openly supported a genetically modified product despite protests across the country.
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Bacteria are a lot smarter in complex decision-making than earlier believed, new research says. Gladys Alexandre, associate professor of biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology at University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT-K), decided to look at Azospirillum brasilense, the more complex soil bacterium than the common bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli).

“As bacteria’s ability to make decisions goes, E coli is kind of dumb, which makes it easy for researchers to study sensing and information processing — essentially, decision making — in this bacterium”, says Alexandre. E coli has only five receptors that direct its decision-making process about movement, while Azospirillum has 48, making it comparatively easier to detect changes in its environments and make complex decisions regarding where to move. What scientists have not known and have been unable to study until now is how the individual receptors, by sensing their environment, directly affect bacterial behaviour and ability to adapt to their environment, said a UT-K release.
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In what will come as a relief to lakhs of subscribers across Jammu & Kashmir, the central government has lifted the ban on prepaid mobile phones, a home ministry official said today. The ban was imposed last year after the government cited security reasons in the terror-riven state.

“We have asked for stringent identity checks of prepaid mobile subscribers, after which telecom operators can issue prepaid SIM cards”, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Source: IANS

Nokia India workers, on strike after 55 employees were suspended earlier this week, refused to end their agitation today despite being asked by the labour commissioner’s office to resume duty. “The strike started on Tuesday after the management suspended 35 employees. On Wednesday, another 20 employees were suspended”, an official of the Nokia India Employees Progressive Union told IANS.

Workers were expected to resume work today following a conciliatory meeting at the labour commissioner’s office the previous day. The labour commissioner had issued an advisory to the union to resume work and also directed the management to sort out the row by 25th Jan. M Shanmugam, general secretary of the Labour Progressive Front (LPF) — of which the Nokia union is an affiliate — had earlier told IANS that the issue had been sorted out. “Production will resume immediately”, he had said. LPF is the labour wing of the ruling DMK party.
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Researchers have developed a highly-sensitive, miniaturized, mobile ozone sensor that can be used not only in the air, but also in water and near explosive gases. Ozone is a powerful oxidising agent that can cause a wide range of symptoms in humans, including irritation of the mucous membranes in the mouth, throat, and bronchial tubes, headaches, coughing, and even deterioration in lung function.

One particularly important area of application involves the regular measurement of ozone content in the air and other media. Project manager Volker Cimalla of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF (Germany) explained: “Since ozone is an agent with high application potential, novel sensors are required, which have to be compact and affordable”.
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Ever wondered why some people are not able to recognize faces? It’s because face recognition is heritable, and that too separately from general intelligence or IQ, research says. Some people are unable to recognize even their closest friends (a condition called prosopagnosia), while others have a near-photographic memory for large numbers of faces.

A twin study by collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and in Beijing shows that face recognition is heritable, and that it is inherited separately from general intelligence or IQ. The finding plays into a long-standing debate on the nature of mind and intelligence. The prevailing generalist theory, upon which the concept of IQ is based, holds that if people are smart in one area they tend to be smart in other areas, so if you are good in math you are also more likely to be good at literature and history. Also, many specialized cognitive skills, including face recognition, seem to be localized to specialized brain regions. Jia Liu, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Beijing Normal University, China said: “Some cognitive abilities, like face recognition, are shaped by specialist genes rather than generalist genes”.
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Plasma jets capable of destroying tooth decay-causing bacteria could be an effective and less painful alternative to the dentist’s drill, says a new study. Firing low temperature plasma beams at dentin — the fibrous tooth structure underneath the enamel coating — was found to reduce the amount of dental bacteria by up to 10,000-fold.

Plasmas are known as the fourth state of matter after solids, liquids and gases, and have an increasing number of technical and medical applications. They are common everywhere in the cosmos, produced when high-energy processes strip atoms of one or more of their electrons. Stefan Rupf from Saarland University, who led the research, said the recent development of cold plasmas that have temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius showed great promise for use in dentistry. “The low temperature means they can kill microbes while preserving the tooth. The dental pulp at the centre of the tooth, underneath the dentin, is linked to the blood supply and nerves, and heat damage to it must be avoided at all costs”, he explained.
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The premier National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (Nimhans) in Bangalore said they would like to study Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu’s brain to unravel the mystery of his agility even in old age. “Jyoti Basu was 95 when he passed away, yet until the last moment he was very agile and active. Therefore, we would like to study his brain for research”, said D Nagaraja, director of Nimhans.

Basu died on Sunday at the age of 95 after battling multiple illnesses. He donated his body for the use of medical science and, after a state funeral, it was handed over to a government medical college in Calcutta on Tuesday. “We have a brain bank and our neuro-pathology department is eager to study the brain of such an active man. Generally, with age the brain also ages, but in the case of Jyoti Basu, it’s different”, explained Nagaraja, who is currently in Delhi. “We want to study the neuron cells and other parts of his brain to understand the functioning of human brains. We can know the mystery and it would be educative for us as well”. He added that his institution is in touch with the Kolkata medical college and would really like to have their cooperation.
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In a predictable response to Indian officials’ allegations of trying to crack into government computers, China said that reports of attacks by Chinese crackers were “without basis”. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said at a press briefing in Beijing that China is one of the biggest victims of cracker attacks, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website. Attacks on China from outside the country rose 148% in 2008, Ma was quoted as saying.

Earlier, MK Narayanan, India’s National Security Advisor, said his office and other government departments were targeted by hackers on 15th Dec, as reported by London-based The Times. “People seem to be fairly sure it was the Chinese. It is difficult to find the exact source, but this is the main suspicion. It seems well-founded”, the report quoted Narayanan as saying.

Source: IANS

In 1984, Koss Corporation went nearly bankrupt after making a net loss of around $6 million. The company, which had started off manufacturing headphones, did something revolutionary that same year, which probably ended up saving it. 1984 was the year when Koss launched the Koss PortaPro, a pair of headphones with an extremely simple design, available for cheap, and fitted with a “rare earth magnet structure”, or so the official website claims. While the phrase might sound creepy to a layman (that would be you), it’s only a Neodymium Iron Boron magnet, which due to its strong magnetic power, has found use in almost everything magnetic around nowadays. These headphones have the classic old-school design — two round plastic cups held together by an overhead metal strip. However, the old-school features end there. Priced currently at Rs 3870 in India by the official dealers of Koss Stereophones, it comes with a “No Questions Asked Limited Lifetime Warranty” by Koss, tempting even the biggest sceptic to buy it. OK, not really if bought from here, but some amreeki return can get it at nearly 2/3rd the Indian MRP.
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Intel’s fourth-quarter earnings breezed past Wall Street’s expectations, and its rosy profit outlook for 2010 was another sign that a lasting recovery for the recession-battered personal computer market is under way. As the first major technology company to report its results for the last quarter, Intel is seen as a barometer for the PC market and for technology spending in general. Its revenue beat the market, as did its gross margin, which can measure how well Intel managed costs.
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China’s population of Internet users, already the world’s largest, soared nearly 30% last year to 384 million, as the number of people surfing the web by mobile phones more than doubled. The 28.9% growth rate was below 2008’s eye-popping 41%, but still among the world’s highest, despite government controls highlighted by this week’s dispute with Google over internet censorship.

The number of people going online via mobile phones rose 106% to 233 million, spurred by the launch of 3G services that support video and other web products, said the government-sanctioned China Internet Network Information Centre. It also said 8% of web surfers use only mobile phones to go online. Online commerce in 2009 totalled 250 billion yuan ($37 billion), CNNIC added.
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Americans spent a record $5.53 billion on video games in December, the most money in a single month, according to market researcher NPD Group. But even that wasn’t enough to make up for the rest of 2009, and so the year ended with a sales decline. It has been a rough 12 months for the industry, as the recession led people to cut back on discretionary spending and many gamers’ attention turned to cheaper or free online games.
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Apple Inc is inviting reporters to an event next week to see what it calls “our latest creation”. The company e-mail offered no specifics about what it would display at the invitation-only 27 Jan event in San Francisco. However, word on the street has it that Apple is close to unveiling a tablet-style touchscreen computer that is bigger than an iPhone but smaller than a standard laptop.

Tablets are one-piece computers with big screens and no keyboards. Such devices have been around since the early 1990s, but haven’t seen much success in the mainstream. An Apple spokesman declined to provide more details on its plans.

So there you have it — in a week’s time, Apple will launch another stylish but overpriced gadget with fundamental flaws that will make people all across the world trip over themselves in their haste to buy it.

Source: AP

Online marketplace operator eBay Inc will report its fourth-quarter results tomorrow. According to data from market research firm comScore, e-commerce sales from 1st Nov to Christmas Eve rose 5% over 2008. During the same period, overall retail sales rose 3.6%, according to MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse. This growth compares with a drop in sales on and off the web a year earlier.

eBay tried to lure customers by focusing on holiday deals from sellers that included free shipping and guaranteed returns on new items. It also promoted products that were new but not the latest models, emphasizing another way shoppers could get name-brand products at savings. Also during the quarter, eBay wrapped up the sale of its Internet phone service Skype in November for about $2 billion to an investor group that included the founders of the service. Just before that, eBay settled a legal fight over critical software with Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis that cleared the way for completion of the deal. eBay sold 70% of Skype for about $1.9 billion plus $125 million it will get at a later date. It is keeping the remaining 30%.
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In a sign of increased hardening of its stance against Chinese censorship, Google has indefinitely postponed the planned launch of its Nexus One mobile phone in China amid a dispute with the government over internet censorship and e-mail hacking that the search giant says may force it to leave the country.

“It is postponed”, Google Inc spokeswoman Marsha Wang said about the much-awaited launch. She said a launch ceremony planned for Wednesday was cancelled, but declined to give a reason for the decision, or to say when the launch might be rescheduled.
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The Chinese managed to hack Google accounts of human activists and many businesses thanks to flaws in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) browser, according to recent reports. Google has threatened to close its operations and offices in China after hacking and phishing attempts to break into Gmail accounts of US, China and Europe based Chinese human rights activists. The company, which agreed to censor Google.cn on its launch in 2006, has also said it is “…No longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn”.

Recent reports quoted security researcher McAfee Inc as saying that Chinese cyber attacks on Google accounts were engineered by using an unknown flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. According to McAfee, phishers fooled users into clicking on a link to a website. This website then secretly downloaded malicious software onto their computers. The spyware allowed the hackers to take remote control of the computers.
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Simple insects, which can crawl uphill or downhill with their six legs, have inspired scientists to invest robots with similar skills. Scientists from Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience (BCCN), Germany, have now developed a walking robot, which can easily switch between different gaits, as required. A small and simple network with just a few connections can create very diverse movement patterns. To this end, the robot uses a mechanism for “chaos control”.

In humans and animals, movements like walking or breathing are controlled by small neural (nerve, brain cell) circuits called central pattern generators (CPG). Scientists have been using this principle in the development of walking machines. To date, typically one separate CPG was needed for every gait.
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In a new research, a team of materials scientists has found new facts about a tiny snail that lives on the ocean floor, which could help scientists design better armour for soldiers and vehicles. The team, led by MIT Associate Professor Christine Ortiz, report that the shell of the so-called scaly-foot snail is unlike any other naturally occurring or manmade armour. The study suggests that its unique three-layer structure dissipates energy that would cause weaker shells to fracture. Copying various aspects of the structure could help scientists design better armour for military use, according to Ortiz, who is a member of MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies.
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An apparatus that converts sound to vibrations makes it possible for individuals who are deaf and blind or severely hearing-impaired to perceive and recognize sounds with their skin. The method, which can also be adapted for infants, has been developed by engineering researcher Parivash Ranjbar, who is submitting her findings in a new dissertation at Örebro University in Sweden. Individuals who are both deaf and blind are a vulnerable group that find it difficult to understand what is going on in their surroundings. But the new aid, which has been named Monitor, enables them to distinguish different kinds of sounds, such as voices, telephones, birdsong, cars, thunder, rain, and wind.

“After brief training, one of my trial subjects could even understand what was being said in a conversation”, says Ranjbar. The apparatus works by registering sounds and converting them to lower frequencies that the skin can perceive as vibrations, without the sound losing its distinct character. While human hearing can perceive sound frequencies between 20 and 20,000 Hz, the skin cannot sense frequencies higher than 800 Hz. Moreover, it cannot distinguish between sounds that are too close to each other.
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Sitting still for long periods of time and lack of “whole body muscular movement” are strongly associated with obesity heart disease, cancer and diabetes, say researchers. In order to beat this, the boffins say, office workers who spend most of their days glued to their seats should go for regular exercise, make regular trips to the printer, coffee machine or to chat with colleagues, reports The Independent.

Writing in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Elin Ekblom-Bak and colleagues from the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm said that sitting still should be recognised as a risk to health, independently of taking too little exercise.
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Monkeys can carry out basic math in their heads, says a new study, which suggests that basic mathematics is “hard-wired into evolution”.

Professor Andreas Nieder, who led the study at the University of Tubingen, Germany, said: “It is a primitive version of maths which we think has a survival advantage. If you are foraging then it is an advantage to choose a tree with more berries on it. Similarly, it is important that a monkey knows the number of individuals in his or her social group and compares it with rival groups, to know whether to attack or retreat”.
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The world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones has recently been losing some of its market share in the high-end segment. In my not-so-humble opinion, there were three reasons behind it. 1. Samsung dropped its prices insanely; 2. People actually bought the iPhone; 3. Blackberry started making phones that weren’t fugly. Now, the Market Leader (Nokia) had cause to worry. It needed to come up with something extraordinary, a feat that’s not unknown to it. True to expectations, it has brought out its ”silver bullet” in time — the N900.
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Taiwanese computer vendor Acer is planning to introduce an Android-based smart phone by the end of the year to add to the ten phones based on Windows Mobile already in the works for 2009, reports Bloomberg. Acer’s head of mobile-phone products Aymar de Lencquesaing said that the world’s third largest computer maker had made no formal announcements around Android, though “it’s likely that we’ll have one in 2009.”
Source: Moco News
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Looky here, it’s yet another smallest flash drive ever! The EagleTec Nano flash drive measures a minuscule 19 x 15 x 6mm and weighs only 3 grams. It manages to stuff as much as 8 gigs of memory in there somewhere… To be fair, I can’t really see how a flash drive could get much smaller than this without being totally impractical and an accidental inhalation risk. But, I have faith that those issues aren’t going to prevent it from happening anyway. The EagleTec Nano flash drives comes with 4 gigs for $22, or 8 gigs for $33.
Source: Oh! Gizmo

Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon’s $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project — the Defense Department’s costliest weapons program ever — according to current and former government officials familiar with the attacks. Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force’s air-traffic-control system in recent months, these people say. In the case of the fighter-jet program, the intruders were able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems, officials say, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft.
Source: Wall Street Journal
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Samsung has just announced their new 6, 7 and 8 LCD TV series with LED as well as non-LED LCD-TVs. Now we have gleaned the first info on the new 9 LED series. Besides the 6, 7 and 8 LCD TV series with the LED, the new high-end – and replacement for the A950 series – 9 series is on its way. At the moment we do not have the entire spec list but the 9 series will be launched in summer/autumn 2009 with the official name B9000.
Source: FlatPanelsHD
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Researchers at the Centre of Molecular Materials for Photonics and Electronics (CMMPE) (part of the Department’s Photonics Research Group at the University of Cambridge) are leading the way towards the development of extremely high colour resolution laser displays using liquid crystal laser technology. CMMPE has been performing extensive research into a new form of laser technology based on liquid crystals.
Source: OLED Display
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The Nokia 1100 was never an especially alluring device, even at its launch, but a select few versions of the simplistic cellphone are said to be changing hands for up to €25,000 ($32,328) among criminals. According to unconfirmed reports, the specific 1100’s each show a specific software flaw that, with the correct reprogramming, allows them to intercept the one-time passwords used to authorize online bank transactions.
Source: SlashGear
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