Technology Effect

London: Technology has made our world easier in more than one way. With the convergence of technology these days, you can expect one gadget to do several jobs, away from what it is actually meant to do. A case in point here would be a printer that will serve you food. Don't believe it? Read on. The scientists at Cornell University, New York are in the process of developing a 3D food printer that will have ink in the form of raw food. How it will work is the raw food ink is fed into the printer and then you need to load the recipe of the desired food item and just click a button. And there you have your food readyAn electronic blueprint guides you as to where will each material be placed. It is created by using computer aided design (CAD) software. The Daily Mail quoted Dr. Jeffrey Ian Lipton on the working of the printer, "FabApps would allow you to tweak your food's taste, texture and other properties. Maybe you really love biscuits, but want them extr...

London: Literary classics by Charles Dickens and Jane Austen are enjoying a revival, thanks to eBook gadgets like the Amazon's Kindle. Kindles were the biggest selling products this Christmas, Amazon affirmed, as Britain finally embraced the eBook revolution. Owners of eBook gadgets like the Kindle and the Apple iPad can snap up the works of many dead literary greats without paying a penny because they are out of copyright, reports the Telegraph.Coupled with the proliferation of these devices, titles such as "Pride and Prejudice" and "Treasure Island" have shot to the top of the eBook charts. The most popular e-Books over the Christmas period were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" and Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Even Homer's "The Iliad" made it into Amazon's top 20 of free Kindle eBooks last week. Amazon revealed that its...

More than 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices have been sold in the six weeks since the smartphone went on the market, Microsoft announced Monday. While far from the 300,000 daily activations attributed to the iPhone and phones powered by Google’s Android operating system, the Windows Phone sales figures met the company’s “realistic expectations”, Microsoft executive Achim Berg said in a web posting. The phone is seen as Microsoft’s attempt to get its foot in the door of the smartphone market after years in which the technology giant was eclipsed by Google, Apple and RIM’s Blackberry. Devices running Windows Phone 7 software are currently made by HTC, Dell, Samsung and LG and have been well reviewed by analysts.“We all know that the competition is extreme in this industry, and we have to compete on multiple fronts,” said Berg, vice president of business and marketing for Windows Phones. “We are on a path to begin releasing the first of several updates in the ...

London: With hundreds of thousands of applications available, smartphones allow users to do anything from checking their bank balance to booking a flight. But 71 percent of owners use them simply to make a call, text or log on to Facebook , a new study shows. The study by Envirofone, which recycles mobiles, revealed that a typical smartphone owner exploits only 10 percent of the phone's functions, reports the Daily Mail.The survey of 2,000 users also found more than half had felt pressured to get the latest or most popular smartphone such as Apple's iPhone4 or a BlackBerry . The devices, among top gadgets in this year's New Year shopping list, are really pocket computers. In addition to the capacity for the downloadable programs, known as "apps," they can also browse the internet and send and receive emails. The research estimates there are 11 million smartphones in the UK. While there are many useful "apps" offering train inform...

When Aparna (name unchanged), a lawyer, typed her name in Spokeo's search box, the results shocked her. The address where she had stayed in the United States — a piece of information she thought was not public — was there on the map for anyone to see. Spokeo (www.spokeo.com) says it is “not your grandma's phonebook.” It is true because the site does something your grandma's phonebook could never dream of — it mines the net collecting public information on a person, stitches the scattered bits of data together to weave a comprehensive snapshot of the person. You can obtain such a dossier on virtually anyone in the online world for as low as Rs.150 a month. Pipl, 123People, and Intelius are sites similar to Spokeo. “Informed consent,” is the key to sharing information online, says Balachander Krishnamurthy, a researcher with AT&T Labs Research, U.S., whose interests include Internet privacy and online social networks. Though the first step to informe...

People could form the backbone of powerful new mobile internet networks by carrying wearable sensors. The sensors could create new ultra high bandwidth mobile internet infrastructures and reduce the density of mobile phone base stations.Engineers from Queen’s Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology are working on a new project based on the rapidly developing science of body-centric communications.Social benefits could include vast improvements in mobile gaming and remote healthcare, along with new precision monitoring of athletes and real-time tactical training in team sports, an institute release said.The researchers are investigating how small sensors carried by members of the public, in items such as next generation smartphones, could communicate with each other to create potentially vast body-to-body networks.The new sensors would interact to transmit data, providing ‘anytime, anywhere’ mobile network connectivity.Simon Cotton from the i...

Washington: Computer scientists have developed a software that quickly edits "extreme resolution imagery," huge photographs containing billions to hundreds of billions of pixels or dot-like picture elements.Until now, it took hours to process these "gigapixel" images. The new software needs only seconds to produce preview images useful to doctors, intelligence analysts, photographers, artists, engineers and others. By sampling only a fraction of the pixels in a massive image - for example, a satellite photo or a panorama made of hundreds of individual photos - the software can produce good approximations or previews of what the fully processed image would look like, reported computer graphics journal, ACM Transactions on Graphics.That allows someone to interactively edit and analyse massive images - pictures larger than a gigapixel (billion pixels) - in seconds rather than hours, said Valerio Pascucci, associate professor of computer science at the ...

Britain’s “Facebook generation” — the 16 to 24-year-olds — are the loneliest among all age groups, a survey has revealed.In the survey, one in three said that they were bored with their lives compared to just eight per cent of pensioners and 28 per cent complained loneliness was making them unhappy and so they are taking to drinking.More than a quarter of the Facebook generation revealed they turned to alcohol for comfort, and half admitted to using junk food as an emotional crutch, found the poll conducted for ‘BBC Radio 3’ Asked what made them unhappy, 70 per cent of the 16 to 24 year-olds said finances topped their list of concerns. More than a third were worried about holding down a job, compared to a quarter of middle-aged respondents. One in three said they were tormented by family or relationship problems, and they were also the age group that were most likely to struggle over their social status. But money was the biggest cause of unhappiness across all age...

Apple had surpassed BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) and other companies, emerging as the fourth largest vendor on the global mobile phone market in the third quarter of 2010, research firm IDC said in a report released on Friday.Nokia maintained the top spot in the quarter with the shipments of more than 110 million devices, followed by Samsung and LG Electronics. RIM slipped to number five, one place down compared with the previous quarter.According to IDC, Apple shipped 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter while RIM sold 12.4 million units of Blackberry.The fact that Apple joined RIM to become the second smartphone - only vendor in the top five ranking further showed the growing popularity of smartphones, IDC analysts said. “The entrance of Apple to the top 5 vendor ranking underscores the increased importance of smartphones to the overall market. Moreover, the mobile phone makers that are delivering popular smartphone models are among the fastest growing firm...

Google drew international outrage after it emerged that its Street View cars, which take street-level photographs to illustrate the company’s popular mapping service, had also been scooping up e-mails, Internet addresses and passwords from unencrypted wireless networks.Google violated Britain’s data protection laws when its Street View mapping service recorded data from private wireless networks, the country’s information commissioner said on Wednesday.The American Internet search giant will escape any fines, however, so long as it pledges not to do it again. Google Inc. drew international outrage after it emerged that its Street View cars, which take street-level photographs to illustrate the company’s popular mapping service, had also been scooping up e-mails, Internet addresses and passwords from unencrypted wireless networks. Scotland Yard recently said it would not launch a criminal inquiry into the breach, which the company has described as inadvertent.Inform...

London: Mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse is introducing the ultimate throwaway accessory - the 99-pence mobile phone. Available in a range of colours, the handset is the perfect Christmas gift for the hard-up shopper. The retail chain claims the OT-209, made by French firm Alcatel, is the cheapest pay-as-you-go phone ever to be sold in Britain - cheaper probably than a cup of coffee.Customers, who are not tied to an expensive contract, will be connected to the Virgin network, the Daily Mail reported.The only catch is they will have to buy 10 pounds of credit to make calls. There are no more fees other than the cost of making calls and text messages. The phone is aimed at first-time users and people fazed by technology. It has just a few features and is uncomplicated to use.Charles Dunstone, Executive Chairman said, it is also useful for consumers to have as a back-up phone. "You have to remember at Christmas the one question we get asked the most in our store...

On Tuesday, the world celebrated the space station’s 10th birthday — the longest period of time of continuous human habitation outside Earth’s atmosphere.The three Russian and three U.S. astronauts who currently live aboard the International Space Station celebrated the occasion with a special meal and a congratulatory call from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.Bolden spoke of the “toehold in space” provided by the orbiting station and the international cooperation used to create it. “As we enter the station’s second decade, our path forward will take us deeper into space and expand humanity’s potential farther,” he said. “The lessons we learn on the station will carry us to Mars and beyond. I want to give a heartfelt thank you to the six crew members on orbit and all the teams over the years that have helped us get to this milestone day.” It began on November 2, 2000, when an American and a Russian astronaut floated side by side into the ISS that orbits more than ...

Indians have shown the highest level of user concern for mobile security issues at 90 percent among the 16 countries, included in a global consumer survey.Brazil and Russia (88 per cent each), Germany (86 per cent) and China and Italy (both at 85 per cent) were the other countries with high level of security concerns while respondents in Hong Kong (70 per cent), Belgium/Netherlands (74 per cent) and the U.S. and Japan (77 per cent each) were the least concerned by comparison.The global consumer study by Juniper Networks found that four out of five people cite “level of security” as a top or high priority when buying or using smartphones and tablet computers and more than half are anxious about losing their mobile devices, protecting their identities and protecting their families with parental controls.At the same time, nearly three out of four people surveyed use their mobile devices to share or access sensitive personal or business information.The research, commission...

Anyone who plans to resell a used computer memory device like a hard drive, memory card or a USB stick should be sure to use a special programme to wipe the storage device first. Not doing so risks having your personal data reconstructed by prying eyes, warns German computer magazine Computer Bild. In a test organized by the magazine, experts purchased used storage devices and managed to reconstruct private data like bills, emails, contact data, addresses, tax declarations and photos. That’s because, on Windows, when items are thrown into the wastebasket, they don’t really disappear from the device. Even formatting the hard drive does not get rid of the directory: the data can always be recovered with special programmes. Thus, people need to buy special programmes to completely erase their mobile storage devices before they sell them on. In the magazine’s test of eight cleanup programmes, the free HDShredder 3.8 was the champion.Nonetheless, wiping a drive takes time. Al...

Better late than never. That was Microsoft’s unspoken mantra on Monday as its Windows Phone 7 went on sale in the US in a bid to challenge the dominance of arch-rivals Apple and Google in the smartphone market. The launch comes amid a pivotal period for Microsoft. The company has been coasting for years on the coattails of Office and Windows. But last week it launched its game-changing video-game controller Kinect that allows users to manipulate xBox games with their body movement, handing the company an important advantage in its battle with Nintendo and Sony. Windows Phone 7 has also been well received by reviewers, many of whom have been openly derisive of Microsoft’s past efforts in the smartphone space. But whether the Windows Phone will ever gain enough impetus to be the top dog in mobile, as the Windows operating system is in PCs, is doubtful, and that could spell trouble for the ageing software giant from Seattle. True, PCs are not going to disappear any t...

Bangalore: Japan based electronics manufacturer, Toshiba has launched a new internet tablet computer, Toshiba Folio 100 in UK. The Android-powered Folio 100 will be getting its dose of Adobe Flash 10.1 Mobile support comes this Wednesday, November 10th. Although the retail packaging for the device makes mention of Flash, Toshiba didn't include Adobe Flash support out of the box in order to get the device ready for launch by the holiday shopping season. According to a company Business Manager for the Northern Europe region, "The plan is that the Flash 10.1 plugin will be available by 10th November latest - that's this Wednesday."

London: A new internet browser that requires a Facebook log-in has been unveiled, aimed squarely at social networking users. Called RockMelt, it has been set up by Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape . Based on Google's Chromium software, Rockmelt is designed to let users share everything they do with the friends on Facebook and Twitter.Down the side of each web page visited is a selection of each user's most-used Facebook Friends and Twitter contacts, reports the Daily Mail.A statement on the firm's blog read: "With RockMelt, we've re-thought the user experience, because a browser can and should be about more than simply navigating Web pages. "Today, the browser connects you to your world. Why not build your world right into your browser?" The browser makes it particularly easy to share links with friends by dragging pictures, URLs or videos onto one of the small photos, known as 'edges' that line the browser's window.Becau...

Scientists at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute have designed a system to prevent drivers from nodding off at the wheel, developer Frank Klefenz told German Press Agency dpa on Tuesday. The technology, which tracks eyelid and pupil movements, is to be installed in test vehicles early next year. “The system would not affect or impair the driver in any way, but would immediately notice if they get tired or briefly close their eyes,” Klefenz said. It can be connected to various warning devices such as a flashing light or a sound to alert the driver. The system, called Eye Tracker, is being unveiled at the Vision fair in Stuttgart, Germany.

Bangalore: The working life of consumers is changing and it results in a fast rate of growing laptop market. The sales of laptops are increasing these days because of the need for "anytime anywhere" access to information. According to a top official of HCL Info Systems, in the whole PC market, the market share of laptops would be 35-40 percent in the next two years. In this ever growing laptop market where new models are arriving every other day, the most common question that consumer faces is - "What laptop should I buy?" Here is a list of top five laptops that excel in their specific category and are creating a buzz in the laptop market.Apple MacBook Pro Spring 2010 With the iconic unibody aluminum construction and a large glass multitouch trackpad, Apple Mac book pro spring 2010 offers major internal changes, including an optional Intel Core i7 CPU, making it a very serious portable powerhouse. It has 4GB, 1066MHz DDR3 RAM and 500GB hard disk....

With co-CEO Jim Balsillie Wednesday announcing that the company’s PlayBook tablet will be priced under $500, shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) soared on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Wall Street. RIM unveiled the PlayBook tablet in September to take on Apple’s iPad. It will hit the market early next year. The price announcement sent RIM stock up 5.68 percent on the TSX to close at $58.61 and 7.53 percent up on Wall Street to close at $59.14.Balsillie said in Seoul — where he is attending the G20 CEO summit — that the PlayBook tablet will be priced competitively below $500 to challenge Apple’s iPad which has sold millions of copies since its launch in April.Apple sells iPad Wi-Fi-only for $499 and 3G iPad sells from $699 to $829. BlackBerry’s PlayBook tablet will stand apart from Apple’s iPad for not only its size — it has a seven-inch display as against iPad’s 9.7 inches, but also its Adobe Flash for running video and graphic works. Apple has shun...

When a dauntingly technical lawsuit thumped onto the tables of a small district court in Wisconsin on November 9, the global mobile phone industry sat up and took notice. The suit, in which Spansion, a maker of flash memory chips, alleged that Samsung smartphones infringe one of its patents, was not just a local spat but the latest battle in the smartphone wars that have drawn in the industry’s biggest players.Billions of dollars are at stake for companies including Apple, Google, BlackBerry maker RIM, Nokia and Microsoft. The legal struggle could even lead to the iPhone being banned from sale in the U.S. - if Nokia gets its way in one dispute that has gone to the International Trade Commission (ITC).Only 28% of U.S. and European users have a smartphone that can browse the web, use email and run apps. (The biggest penetration worldwide, estimated at 40%, is in Italy.) Apple, RIM (maker of the BlackBerry) and Nokia together made $3.8bn of profit in the past quarter.W...

Bangalore: Facebook's web-based email service is reported to be at the verge of completion. The social networking giant is planning to announce its email service with @facebook.com addresses at an event in San Francisco, reports the Silicon Valley technology blog TechCrunch. This merger of e-mail and social network services would propel Facebook's popularity to new heights.The company is expected to unveil the email service code named 'Project Titan' at an invite-only event on Monday. This endeavor is likely a full-fledged e-mail service aimed to compete with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and other web-based e-mail services. Moreover, the industry experts feel that it will be a 'Gmail Killer' as Facebook and Google are in a deepening spat over exporting contact lists and are trying to establish their dominance on the Internet. Facebook e-mail service will provide a business marketing and communications platform, which would make its internet prominen...

London: A new software can now stop you writing e-mails or posting messages when you are drunk. The Social Media Sobriety Test poses a series of simple problems that are intended to be fiendishly difficult to complete when intoxicated. The test is designed to prevent alcohol-related posting to social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.It also stops people from using custom sites like Foursquare or blogs and web-basede-mail accounts such as gmail or hotmail, the Daily Mail reported.If the inebriated user fails one of the simple tests, a message can be posted on their Facebook or Twitter page that tells their friends that they are "too drunk to post right now". Developed by web security firm Webroot, the test's tagline is "Nothing good happens online after 1 a.m." And it is free to download.Users are able to personalise it to choose which sites to block and then select the hours of the day when they are most likely ...

China has built the world's fastest supercomputer, the Tianhe-1A, which is capable of 2.57 quadrillion computing operations per second, pulling ahead of the United States in the global supercomputing race.The lead of the China-made system was confirmed by the 36th edition of TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers, which was released Monday on the TOP500 list website.Tianhe-1A was followed by the former No. 1 system, the U.S.-made Cray XT5 "Jaguar" at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in Tennessee.The Jaguar system performs at 1.75 quadrillion per second, 92 percent slower than Tianhe-1A, running Linpack, the benchmark used to officially determine the speed of supercomputers.The Tianhe-1A is installed at the National Supercomputing Center (NSCC) in the north China port city of Tianjin, which specializes in super computing outsourcing services for complex work like the surveying of mines, the ...

London: If multi-function phones leave you dazed, here's the answer -- a mobile phone that just makes calls and does nothing else has been developed. No MP3, no apps and no, not even texts can be operated on it. "John's Phone" neither checks facebook nor follows Twitter feeds. It, however, has a battery life of three weeks and has a manual just one page long, the Sun reported Tuesday.There's more. The phone's address book is actually a pen and paper notepad that is tucked behind a flap on the back.A little smaller than an iPhone, it is 10.5 cm long. It is called the "anti-iPhone". Dutch advertising agency John Doe that created the phone is hoping that it will be a hit with buyers who are left confused by modern technology and youngsters who are buying their first phone.Costing from 59 pounds in white up to 67 pounds in pink or green, the sole modern feature is the ability to assign ten speed-dial numbers. "At a time when there i...

With Wink, the ‘desi' version of the e-reader now easily available, book reading will not be the same again. E-era is upon us. We talk, sorry, chat, buy things, see photos, share feelings, get cheated, work, read, listen to music, see movies, play games and learn online. Our online lives are so much longer than our offline experiences, our outdoor lives have shrunk. Now, the trip to the bookstore or the library may also be deleted from our agenda of the day. Store books For here comes the e-reader, which has been around in the last decade, but not so accessible to us folks in this part of the globe. The size of a single page, the pages of the novel you want to read will keep appearing on the e-reader and if you are too busy to read, a voice, male or female, will even read it for you, while you finish the chores.The e-reader lets users store many books and read them on its screen. Well, the reading experience is similar to reading from paper, unlike the c...

Nokia Corp. says its top N8 model, aimed at making up lost ground in the smartphone market, has had power problems with some handsets not turning on after recharging. Nokia spokeswoman Eija-Riitta Huovinen says the problem is limited to “a small number of handsets” and will be fixed in line with Nokia warranty rules. Huovinen says Nokia has identified the problem and “has taken immediate precautionary measures.” Nokia said on Friday that it has not had any other complaints about the N8 touch screen phone, which features a 12-megapixel digital camera and 3.5 inch display, since the company started shipping the handsets in September.

The authors referred to a number of training studies that found non-gamers could improve their visual attention by playing video games, according to the Daily Mail.However, only fast-paced, action-based games provided this benefit. These games emphasised rapid responses to visual information and required divided attention. Study co-author Bjorn Hubert-Wallander said: "Just as drivers have to focus on the road, other cars and potential obstacles while ignoring other information, modern action games place heavy attentional demands on players. "These games require players to aim and shoot accurately in the centre of the screen while continuously tracking other enemies and fast-moving objects."The findings could have implications for military training as well as clinical rehabilitation programmes for conditions such as amblyopia or 'lazy eye'.

Bangalore: Cisco has launched the Linksys E-Series routers in India. E-series wireless routers will be able to connect all devices including notebooks, wireless printers, HDTVs and game consoles such as Xbox, Wii and Playstation. The new range of wireless routers addresses the productivity and entertainment needs of consumers. Linksys E2000 is preferable for connecting computers, gaming consoles, Internet enabled HDTVs and Blu ray players. Linksys E3000 is ideal for streaming video and other entertainment content to an Xbox 360, PS3 or other compatible device from USB connected storage devices. "India is at the forefront in adopting new wireless technologies fuelled by rapid broadband penetration and increase in shared content, online gaming and media downloads. With regards to wireless LAN space, Indian consumers are evolving and so do their needs for home networking devices that are easy to setup and use. Linksys E-series routers offer benefits of wireless network...

Bangalore: Thanks to the various malicious software and phishing scams, today no one can stay online without having the threat of stealing of personal details, hijacking of browser, malware attacks and many other security issues. A mere antivirus program is not just well enough to stop malicious software like malwares from infiltrating your computer. We need multi-functional security suites that target not only viruses, but all types of attacks. A number of security firms are offering much improved multi-functional security suites these days. Below are the top five security suites that are capable of securing your PC from multiple security threats.Symantec Norton Internet Security 2011 Symantec Norton Internet Security 2011 meliorates its already-excellent protection. The edition is very easy to install and use. Most of the tasks run in idle time. It is loaded with additional virus cleanup tool and an intelligent firewall. It also offers many Web-based products and...

Bangalore: The new Blackberry Bold 9780, running on the newest version of Blackberry mobile OS 6, is all set to hit the Indian markets soon. Although the most sources report the price of the Bold 9780 to be 26,900, the exact price and release date is not yet confirmed officially. The new OS provides major multimedia boosts to the Blackberry Bold 9780. Let us have a look at the specifications of the phone.The smartphone has a display screen size of 2.44 inch and packs in a 5MP camera with autofocus and LED flash features. The Bold 9780 is powered by a 624MHz processor and a RAM of 512MB. The phone ships with 256MB of internal memory, which can be expanded to 32GB with the help of microSD cards. The Bold 9780 supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, internet browsing and emailing. The battery gives a talk time of six hours in both 2G and 3G networks. The standby time in 2G is 528 hours while it is 408 hours in 3G. The phone has a full QWERTY keyboard and incorporates an optical mou...

London: Scientists have designed a Mars hopper that could explore the surface of the red planet by leaping half a mile at a time.It would be able to travel 400 miles during a six year mission, far more than what Nasa's intrepid Spirit Rover managed 15 miles over seven years.The innovative vehicle would move by sucking in carbon dioxide from Mars' atmosphere and compress it into fuel, before blasting it out in much the same way as a rocket, reports the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A.It would take a week for the vehicle to recharge. During this time it would carry out tests on Mars' physical and chemical surface and sub-surface, reports the Daily Mail.Nigel Bannister from the University of Leicester said: "At the heart of the vehicle is a radio isotope heat source (one that relies on nuclear decay)." "This heat source would be used in two ways. In one mode, the heat source would impart thermal energy into the propellant (fuel), which ...