The iPhone is a popular platform for hackers who have developed software that takes advantage of the gadget's features. Here a person who downloaded the pocket guitar software, developed by Shinya Kasatani, plays music by pressing and strumming the phone's touch screen.
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YOUTHSPROUTS
Today and Tomorrow is Ours
Sunday, March 23, 2008
IPHONE APPS AND MORE.
The iPhone is a popular platform for hackers who have developed software that takes advantage of the gadget's features. Here a person who downloaded the pocket guitar software, developed by Shinya Kasatani, plays music by pressing and strumming the phone's touch screen.
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Atomic Magnetometers
www.youthsprouts.blogspot.com By Katherine Bourzac
Physicist John Kitching explains what his sensitive magnetic detectors do and how they work.
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Better Graphene Transistors. IBM ALWAYS GREAT
www.youthsprouts.blogspot.com Double-decker: IBM researchers have found that they can significantly reduce noise in graphene devices by stacking two layers together. Here, the noise produced from a single layer of graphene (left) is compared with that from two layers (right).
Credit: IBM
IBM researchers have discovered a way to massively improve the performance of transistors made out of sheets of the two-dimensional carbon material grapheme: they stack them up. By placing two layers of graphene on top of each other, they found that they can reduce the electrical noise of the device by a factor of 10.
The findings could help realize graphene-based chips that run faster, are more compact, and consume less power than today's silicon chips, says Yu-Ming Lin, a scientist at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, in Yorktown Heights, NY. IBM researchers are also investigating other promising successors to silicon, such as graphene-like carbon nanotubes. Graphene, which is made entirely out of carbon atoms arranged in a one-atom-thick honeycomb structure, has a number of properties that make it attractive for electronics, particularly for transistors that produce radio-frequency signals. But transistors created from the material have been plagued by noise, making the signals they produce less than ideal for communications. The researchers' discovery could help make graphene transistors practical.
__Probabilistic Chips- COMPUTER SCIENTISTS ARE GREAT
www.youthsprouts.blogspot.com
By Erika Jonietz
Krishna Palem
Credit: Brent Humphreys
Computer scientist Krishna Palem explains how permitting a small amount of error in computation could result in computer chips that consume much less power than today's designs, without compromising user experience.
Krishna Palem
Credit: Brent Humphreys
Krishna Palem is a heretic. In the world of microchips, precision and perfection have always been imperative. Every step of the fabrication process involves testing and retesting and is aimed at ensuring that every chip calculates the exact answer every time. But Palem, a professor of computing at Rice University, believes that a little error can be a good thing.
Palem has developed a way for chips to use significantly less power in exchange for a small loss of precision. His concept carries the daunting moniker "probabilistic complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology"--PCMOS for short. Palem's premise is that for many applications--in particular those like audio or video processing, where the final result isn't a number--maximum precision is unnecessary. Instead, chips could be designed to produce the correct answer sometimes, but only come close the rest of the time. Because the errors would be small, so would their effects: in essence, Palem believes that in computing, close enough is often good enough.
__Clothes That Clean Themselves
www.youthsprouts.blogspot.com
Australian researchers are developing a process that could lead to self-cleaning wool sweaters and silk ties.
Wine be gone: Wool fibers have to be chemically modified to receive a stable coating of titanium dioxide nanocrystals, which break down organic matter in sunlight. Red-wine stains do not leave uncoated fibers even after 20 hours (top right); unmodified nanocrystal-coated fibers show some stains (middle right). The stain is almost gone in chemically modified fibers because of the firmly attached nanocrystals (bottom right).
Credit: American Chemical Society
Researchers at Monash University, in Victoria, Australia, have found a way to coat fibers with titanium dioxide nanocrystals, which break down food and dirt in sunlight. The researchers, led by organic chemist and nanomaterials researcher Walid Daoud, have made natural fibers such as wool, silk, and hemp that will automatically remove food, grime, and even red-wine stains when exposed to sunlight.
Daoud and his colleagues coat the fibers with a thin, invisible layer of titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Titanium dioxide, which is used in sunscreens, toothpaste, and paint, is a strong photocatalyst: in the presence of ultraviolet light and water vapor, it forms hydroxyl radicals, which oxidize, or decompose, organic matter. However, says Daoud, "these nanocrystals cannot decompose wool and are harmless to skin." Moreover, the coating does not change the look and feel of the fabric.
To make self-cleaning wool, Daoud and his colleagues use nanocrystals of titanium dioxide that are four to five nanometers in size. In the past, the researchers have made self-cleaning cotton by coating it with these nanocrystals. But coating wool, silk, and hemp has proved more difficult. These fibers are made of a protein called keratin, which does not have any reactive chemical groups on its surface to bind with titanium dioxide. __TR10: Modeling Surprise
TR10: Modeling Surprise
M. Mitchell Waldrop
Eric Horvitz, head of the Adaptive Systems and Interaction group at Microsoft Research, talks about surprise modeling.
Combining massive quantities of data, insights into human psychology, and machine learning can help manage surprising events, says Eric Horvitz.
Much of modern life depends on forecasts: where the next hurricane will make landfall, how the stock market will react to falling home prices, who will win the next primary. While existing computer models predict many things fairly accurately, surprises still crop up, and we probably can't eliminate them. But Eric Horvitz, head of the Adaptive Systems and Interaction group at Microsoft Research, thinks we can at least minimize them, using a technique he calls "surprise modeling."
| Credit: Photo: Bettman/Corbis; Graphics: John Hersey | ||
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| Who: Eric Horvitz, Microsoft Research Definition: Surprise modeling combines data mining and machine learning to help people do a better job of anticipating and coping with unusual events. Impact: Although research in the field is preliminary, surprise modeling could aid decision makers in a wide range of domains, such as traffic management, preventive medicine, military planning, politics, business, and finance. Context: A prototype that alerts users to surprises in Seattle traffic patterns has proved effective in field tests involving thousands of Microsoft employees. Studies investigating broader applications are now under way. |
Horvitz stresses that surprise modeling is not about building a technological crystal ball to predict what the stock market will do tomorrow, or what al-Qaeda might do next month. But, he says, "We think we can apply these methodologies to look at the kinds of things that have surprised us in the past and then model the kinds of things that may surprise us in the future." The result could be enormously useful for decision makers in fields that range from health care to military strategy, politics to financial markets.
__Google Maps for mobile gets native on UIQ
There you go, now all you UIQ3 types can finally raise your mobiles and celebrate a bit of native love by way of Google Maps for mobile designed specifically for your devices. For those that don't know -- or don't care -- the native app will likely be able to take advantage of your device's touchscreen, full screen mode, and will support My Location. Sure, we know that Palm, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, and iPhone have had this for just about forever in mobile terms -- since months is this biz is like years in others. Though, we feel that the UIQers left out in the cold deserve their day in the sun. So, go forth, install, and get properly oriented Google-style.
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Cell phone into microscope. -- A Mobile microscopy
www.youthsprouts.blogspot.com
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a modular, high-magnification microscope attachment for cell phones. The device will enable health workers in remote, rural areas to take high-resolution images of a patient's blood cells using a cell-phone camera, and then transmit the photos to experts at medical centers.
Mobile microscopy: A cell phone incorporating a microscope (top) developed at the University of California, Berkeley, can capture and transmit pictures such as this 23x-magnification image of the freshwater crustacean Cyclops (bottom). Researchers hope that the device will allow patients in remote areas to send images of red blood cells and other diagnostic information to medical specialists.
Credit: David Breslauer
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What is voip?
VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol but what does that really mean?
Basically… You must already have a home phone and an Internet connection so why not combine both and save yourself some money? Using your existing internet connection you can transfer over your home phone number to a VoIP service provider.
The Networked Pill----A new information system records what pills do to the body
A system that monitors pill taking and its effects is being engineered by a Silicon Valley startup. The technology consists of pills that report when they've been taken, and sensors that monitor the body's responses.
The company behind the technology, Proteus Biomedical, of Redwood City, CA, calls its technology the Raisin system. George Savage, Proteus's cofounder and a former ER physician, says that the company was motivated by the fact that so many medical problems stem from drug compliance problems. According to Savage, 40 percent of hospital readmissions for heart failure happen because patients fail to take their medications properly.
Even when a regimen is followed, it may not be the best regimen. According to Leslie Saxon, a cardiologist at the University of Southern California, who works as a consultant for Proteus, the dosages of drugs used for heart failure are derived from large clinical trials and may not meet a particular patient's needs. "Imagine a situation where drug ingestion is tracked, and heart pressure before, immediately after, and later are known," says Saxon. "That represents real, individualized, tailored drug therapy."
__WIFI A GREATE RANGE FROM NOW. FOOD FOR RURAL INTERNET.
| Message received: This Wi-Fi router from Intel uses specialized software to send data to a receiving radio more than 60 miles away. The goal is to connect sparsely populated rural areas with urban cores. Credit: Intel |
Intel has announced plans to sell a specialized Wi-Fi platform later this year that can send data from a city to outlying rural areas tens of miles away, connecting sparsely populated villages to the Internet. The wireless technology, called the rural connectivity platform (RCP), will be helpful to computer-equipped students in poor countries, says Jeff Galinovsky, a senior platform manager at Intel. And the data rates are high enough--up to about 6.5 megabits per second--that the connection could be used for video conferencing and telemedicine, he says.
The RCP, which essentially consists of a processor, radios, specialized software, and an antenna, is an appealing way to connect remote areas that otherwise would go without the Internet, says Galinovsky. Wireless satellite connections are expensive, he points out. And it's impractical to wire up some villages in Asian and African countries. "You can't lay cable," he says. "It's difficult, expensive, and someone is going to pull it up out of the ground to sell it."
__HOW TO PAY GTalk2VoIP? Here, it is easy again
www.youthsprouts.blogspot.com
While most of GTalk2VoIP services are available free of charge, some of them require payments (credits on your balance).
To buy credits you have to:
1. Open your beloved Google Talk, MSN/Live or Yahoo Messenger and type MYPAGE to service@gtalk2voip.com (or to gtalk2voipXXX@yahoo.com).
2. Follow the link you are displayed. This will lead to your personal account page.
3. Click on "buy credits" link in the top of the page.
4. Choose the way you would like to pay (at the moment we accept "PayPal" and "WebMoney") then click a desired amount button.
Example:
GTalk2VoIP AND Talkonaut
www.youthsprouts.blogspot.com We are at GTalk2VoIP Team continously working on making our voice services more robust and easy to use. Though all our services can be used from your existsing beloved instant messenger without any additional downloads, we developed some software products for you, to expend capabilities of our gateway. These products are:
- Talkonaut - A Google Talk like application for mobile phones (Java capable). Allows you to chat, to make voice calls to IM clients, SIP phones and PSTN.
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google talk to GVOIP. AGAIN GREAT THING FROM GOOGLE
An Internet user should have an email account and uses Instant Messenger (IM) of any kind; it could be Yahoo! Messenger, MSN, Jabber, Google Talk, Skype , Gizmo, etc…
It has been obvious that the primary use of Internet, aside from information retrieval, is communication. Instant Messenger is always there for a real-time chat and talk. And we can still make use of these IMs to work with the VoIP infrastructure. GTalk2VoIP provide this service, bridging the gap of IM compatibility.
GTalk2VoIP provides both premium/paid and free services. GTalk2VoIP free services includes free incoming calls from PSTN, free outgoing calls to SIP phones, free incoming calls from SIP network, free internet radio broadcasting, voice mail service, voice conferencing service, free off-line messaging, free Instant Messaging interoperability, call from the Web service, and GTalk2VoIP for Your Domain service.
Paid service includes all free services mentioned about and on top of that, subscribers can do outgoing calls to mobile and landline phones (PSTN), callback initiated by IM message, and SMS service. For more details of these services, click here.
Rates may vary from country to country and the service provider.
GTalk2VoIP infrastructure uses the VoIP technology which can be depicted in two parts: VoIP Gatewaying core and Finite State Machine.
The GTalk2VoIP gateway can be logically devided into two separate and/or independent parts: 1) VoIP gatewaying core and 2) Finite State Machine. What are they and how do they interact to each other to accomplish required effect we will try to briefly describe here. The figure below is also provided to ease the explaination.
1. VoIP Gatewaying core.
The Core in essence is our own implementation of a VoIP soft-switch. It consists of a number of VoIP signal processing stacks, like: H.323, SIP (including Yahoo's and Microsoft's perverted "dialects") and Jingle Audio of course. It also includes media codecs, transcoders and conferencing rooms (the last are just a subtype of transcoders). 
Signalling stacks can initiate and receive VoIP connetions from a TCP/IP network (which Internet is) and produce a number of operational events to upper level - to Finite State Machine. Signalling stacks can be connected to each others using conference rooms or transcoders, so media streams from one type of stack can go through another, thus implementing a VoIP gatewaying between different type of VoIP networks. Control over signalling stacks interconnections is driven by operational commands which are generated by FSM. Transcoders also do conversions of voice compression algorithms (media codecs) used in voip networks.
For example, when GTalk user is talking to SIP user, media data from GTalk are usually encoded by iLBC codecs. These data are getting decoded by transceder into linear PCM16 format then encoded back into G.726 or GSM format (codec).
2. Finite State Machine.
Finite State Machine (also can be refered as Sinite Automatoc) is a very important part of any PBX or a soft-switch. FMS is a logical machine, the commonly used technology, aimed to handle a large number of events and to control states of some operational objects. FSMs usually can be configured by a set of rules and procedures (predicative logic).In terms of GTalk2VoIP gateway, the FSM is used to handle a numerous calls states and to control call processing objects (H.323 and SIP stacks) by generating control commands. When a call from GTalk arrives, a Jingle Audio stack emmits an INCOMING_CALL event to FSM. The Machine, according to configuration rules loaded into it, then generates ACCEPT command to Jingle Audio stack, and CALL commant to SIP stack (or H.323 stack, depending on how call must be treated). When CALL command initiated, another event comes to FSM, this time it indicates call progress state. The process continues till the call ends.
Finite State Machine also handles incoming messages from GTalk users and threat them like commands to execute. When you type CALL message, the Machine initiates a call to your GTalk using Jingle Audio and do the rest stuff.
__VoIP Tools: Softphones & Hardphones, the basic differences. ALL FOR FREE
When talking about VoIP, you should know what are Softphones and Hardphones. Basically, they are devices that accepts your voice/audio inputs and delivers outputs as well.
Softphones are those VoIP software applications provided by your VoIP service provider. For instance, we can have Skype, Talkety, and Gizmodo as softphones. Other that the mentioned softphones, we have XLite by Counterpath . I have tried using XLite when I was required by our office to do private calls using our SIP networks . Well, we now know that Softphones are software; allowing you to make VoIP calls directly from your desktop screens. Of course, you need speakers and microphones to do the call. Once you are connected to a TCP/IP network, then most probably you can have that Softphone worked and start making calls.
Hardphones are like the regular landline phone set we have; the physical phone with dialing pads and a small screen. They are sometimes referred to as IP Phones. They are usually connected to some devices like router, hub or specialized modem. Some notable sellers of hardphones in the market today are Skype Phones, Netgears WiFi Phones, Broadcom IP Phones, Polycom, and Vonage V-Phone. In addition to that, there are many independent sellers of IP Phones in the market for you to choose from. Try also to ask your ISP provider if they have VoIP service bundled with any of their plans, maybe they have their IP Phones as well.
More likely, you now know what’s the basic difference between the two and in simple differentiation: softphones are software-based while hardphones are hardware-based. Easy!
__Google wants unused tv spectrum.THE WHITE SPACE IN TV BAND
Google is planning a conference call with journalists on Monday to discuss a company filing with the FCC regarding the use of unused portions of the TV spectrum band, known as white spaces.
On the 11:30 a.m. EST call will be Rick Whitt, Google's Washington telecom and media counsel.
Technology companies want to be able to use the spectrum between the TV channels for Internet access, and the FCC is considering opening up the white spaces for use by unlicensed Internet devices. But broadcasters oppose the move, saying it will cause interference.
The FCC has been running tests to see if the white spaces can be used without interfering with TV broadcasts. Microsoft has submitted a prototype device that would use the spectrum for high-speed broadband access.
Google, which is a member of the White Spaces Coalition with Microsoft, Intel, HP, and a few others, may have something similar up its sleeve.
USB Skype Mouse. skype phone in a mouse
www.youthsprouts.blogspot.com
You will surely love this VoIP gadget, a USB Skype Mouse from USB Geek. This is a combo gadget, USB mouse with Skype VoIP Phone at affordable price, $35.
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How would you change the outcome of the 700MHz auction? FCC USA.
CISCO- LINUX BASED BLADE SERVERS. IBM, HP, DELL AND VMWARE?
Cisco is set to shake up the blade server market again, bundling in with their Nexus 7000 Series data center switches. They already have Linux-based blades for their Catalyst 6500 Series switches, which is in competition with other provides of blades and networking ie IBM, HP, Dell and VMware. Though it would seem this sort of consolidation will make manageability easier with compatible software and easier support, it remains to be seen if this is the correct way forward. Let’s hope customers will change their mindset as this is sort of a new business model that may just make enterprise data center simpler.
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Call for clarity on code patents
The patent covers software buried deep inside a phone
The ruling overturns a refusal by the UK Intellectual Property Office to give the mobile phone firm a patent.
The case is being watched with interest because before now it was rarely possible to patent dedicated computer programs in Europe.
The UK IPO has launched an appeal to get guidance on the circumstances in which it can grant such patents. __Mobile calls on Emirates flights
Emirates says that voice calls will be restricted during night flights
Emirates said the first permitted mobile phone call was made on a flight between Dubai and Casablanca.
The aircraft, an Airbus A340, is fitted with a system which stops mobiles from interfering with a plane's electronics.
Emirates plans to extend the system to more aircraft and later this year add BlackBerry and other data services.
According to the airline, the mobile service will only be activated when the aircraft is at cruising altitude and the cabin crew will be able to monitor and control the use of the system.
Passengers will be able to receive and send text messages, but the crew will be able to prevent voice calls at certain times, such as during night flights.
Passengers will also be requested to keep their phones on "silent" mode, said the airline.
High demand
Emirates said it decided to introduce the use of mobile phones in its fleet after experiencing high demand for the phones already installed in aircraft seats.
The airline had to obtain approval from international air safety organisations before adopting the system, which was developed by the AeroMobile company.
"We have gone to considerable lengths to ensure that all safety and regulatory issues have been fully addressed", said AeroMobile Chief Executive Bjorn-Taale Sandberg.
Emirates flies to more than 60 countries and is owned by the government of Dubai. __Cheney backs Israel over security
Mr Cheney is nearing the end of a Middle East tour
US Vice-President Dick Cheney has given strong backing to Israel ahead of talks with Palestinian leaders. Mr Cheney said the US would never put any pressure on Israel over issues he said would threaten its security.
Speaking in a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, he described America's commitment to Israel's security as "unshakeable".
Mr Cheney will visit the West Bank town of Ramallah on Sunday for talks with Palestinian leaders.
"America's commitment to Israel's security is enduring and unshakable, as is our commitment to Israel's right to defend itself - always - against terrorism, rocket attacks and other threats from forces dedicated to Israel's destruction," Mr Cheney said.
"The United States will never pressure Israel to take steps to threaten its security."
__MOBILE RSS RIGHT HERE. PHONE IS COMPUTER AGAIN
Sick of having to keep RSS feeds as bookmarks on the iPhone? Don't like having to browse to a website to check your feeds? Ever wanted a native RSS reader on the iPhone/Touch?
Well this project is here to fix all of that.
The goal of Mobile-RSS is to create a native iPhone application which will remember all your feeds and give you an easy interface for viewing, adding, and removing.
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