Intel rebrands Atom line, early 14nm Cherry Trail benchmarks leak

When Intel first unveiled its Atom line of processors back in 2008, it split the product family into just two categories: Nettop and netbook. The nettop category was largely ignored, but netbooks caught fire and transformed the entire laptop industry. Over the past seven years the number and types of Intel Atom processors available on the markethave exploded, as have the myriad code names. This has led to a number of odd cases —  would you rather have an Atom Z3580 (quad-core, up to 2.33GHz, 12.8GB/s of memory bandwidth) or a Z3735D (quad-core, up to 1.83GHz, 10.8GB/s of memory bandwidth)? Finally, Intel is moving to simplify this situation with a new rebranding effort for the entire Atom lineup.

China’s New Spaceship-Like Futuristic Airport

Sprawled over a considerable 4.9 million square feet, the gleaming, futuristic terminal of Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport looks like it might itself be poised for takeoff. And if we weren’t otherwise informed, we’d perhaps think that this structure was a spacecraft from the latest science-fiction blockbuster, rather than China’s newest airport terminal.

Microsoft releases new Bing Maps app

Microsoft has reportedly rolled out a new Bing Maps app for the latest Windows 8.1 as a preview of the changes to its mapping service.

WASHINGTON: Microsoft has reportedly rolled out a new Bing Maps app for the latest Windows 8.1 as a preview of the changes to its mapping service.

Microsoft said that the new app has been built from the `ground up` to provide the detail and mapping features one can expect in a modern app and it supports the various Snap Views in Windows 8.1 and the notification features of the operating system, alongside Live Tile support.

An algorithm to help you find best dating partner

US researchers have developed an algorithm that uses a contact history to recommend partners with whom they may be more compatible.

US researchers have developed an algorithm for dating sites that uses a person's contact history to recommend partners with whom they may be more amorously compatible.
The team, led by assistant professor Kang Zhao, developed a model that combines two factors to recommend contacts: a client's tastes, determined by the types of people he/she has contacted; and attractiveness/unattractiveness , determined by how many of those contacts are returned and how many are not.

Those combinations, Zhao says, do a better job of predicting successful connections , because what people put in their profile may not always be what they're really interested in.

Google Chairman Tells You How To Move To Android From iOS

Google Chairman Tells You How To Move To Android From iOS

Chairman Eric Schmidt has posted a handy guide on Google+, which tells consumers how they can move their contacts and music from iOS to Android.    Android may be commanding the lion’s share of the smartphone market, but Google’s appetite seems bigger. Executive chairman, Eric Schmidt has recently posted on Google+, a step by step guide, which tells users how to make the switch from Apple’s iOS to Android. The guide contains everything from how to set up your contacts and change your email into Gmail. It even tells you how you can transfer your photos and music from the iPhone to an Android phone.

Face recognition: The next big tech leap

Internet companies like Facebook and Google are trying to use the technology to make it more user-friendly.

You open your laptop lid and instantaneously the operating system recognizes you and logs you in. Or, just as you enter your office, the camera over the door takes a look at you and opens the door after seeing you are an employee.

These may not be popular, but the face-recognition technology, on which they are based, is not a futuristic concept either. Though not widely publicised, engineers have been working on it for long.

Ice Cream Glows, Lights Up When Licked

Tired of ho-hum flavors available for ice cream? Chocolate-chip cookie dough? Bleh. Mocha almond fudge? Been there, done that. Premium churned reduced-fat, no-sugar-added caramel turtle truffle? Uninspired.
Okay, well, how does bioluminescent jellyfish sound? Ice cream entrepreneur Charlie Harry Francis, founder of the U.K.-based Lick Me I’m Delicious, has developed the first-ever ice cream that glows in the dark. It was developed using a protein that gives the jellyfish its bioluminescence.
Why? Tell Me Why!: Brain Freeze

UK researchers in race to develop 5G technology

Mobile device users in the UK are about to be offered mouth watering deals to entice them to shift to faster data rate services as competition finally comes to the 4G market. 02 has just launched its LTE based (Long Term Evolution) services, while Vodafone and 3G UK – the other operators with 4G licences – will follow on shortly as they try to make up ground on Everything Everywhere, which was allowed to use its 1800MHz spectrum last October.

But another long term battle is being opened up as Britain, if not necessarily British companies, stakes a claim for R&D leadership in what is being loosely referred to as 5G.

North American Eagle bids to become the fastest land vehicle

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For a brief period in 1964, when the rules governing land speed records were transitioning from wheel powered to jet propelled vehicles, the official land speed record was held by Donald Campbell in his Bluebird – and this was set in Australia. That apart, the record has been set for the past 80 years in America, principally at the Bonneville Salt Flats or, more recently, at the Black Rock Desert.

The importance of selecting the right package for a chip

There are a number of elements in the electronics world which have a higher priority than was the case some years ago – and it's certainly the case when it comes to packaging leading edge chips.

Patrick McNamee, vp of silicon operations for envelope tracking (ET) technology pioneer Nujira, explained: "The days have gone when you could finish a design, then look at what kind of package – bga or tqfp – you could put it in. Companies now have to know the package from the start of the design process. Even with our 'Gen 1' product, we were already pushing the design rules when it came to packaging."

'Gen 1' is the Coolteq.L NCT-L1300 ET power supply chip, which entered volume production earlier in 2013. This device is already being upgraded, with the working title of 'Gen 2'. And the Cambridge based company has to decide how to package it.

The fastest internet

Where does the U.S. rank on the list of the top 10 countries or regions with the fastest internet? Nowhere.

This is a look at the Akamai Technologies  rankings, which cover July through September of last year, are based on average peak connection speeds.

The U.S. landed at No. 14, partly because of its large landmass, which is difficult to fully cover with high-speed fiber. Click through the list to see which region snagged the No. 1 spot.

The fastest internet

The fastest internet #1. Hong Kong

With its high population density and strong government support, Internet access in Hong Kong is blazing fast. And unlike Internet lines just across the border, content censorship is virtually nonexistent. (China is ranked at No. 123, Belson said.) The average peak speed in Hong Kong was 54.1 megabits per second, according to Akamai, making it No. 1 on the list. At that speed, you could download the HD movie “Battleship,” which is set in Hong Kong, in about four minutes. But why would you want to?

The fastest internet #2. South Korea

Online gaming sucks up a lot of bandwidth, and there are few nations that love their games

more than South Korea. It is home to several gaming competitions, such as World Cyber Games, and has entire television channels devoted to “electronic sports.”
The average peak connection for the country was 48.8 megabits per second. And broadband, as in several of the top-ranked nations, is relatively cheap, too. People in Seoul can get 100 megabit-per-second lines for $31.90 a month, the report said.

“The pricing there is way more affordable,” Belson said.

The fastest internet #3. Japan

The country’s electronics industry may be losing its edge, but Japan’s telecommunications technology is still on top of its game.
The Japanese government has long prioritized Internet development as a national goal, Belson said. High-speed optic fiber runs through many parts of the country. Japanese connections reached 42.2 megabits per second on average, Akamai said.

The fastest internet #4. Latvia

When thinking about the most technologically advanced nations, Latvia probably doesn’t come to mind. But broadband lines there reached an average peak speed of 37.5 megabits per second, placing the country in the top four.”Some of the Eastern European countries that are on here have a good reputation for Internet connectivity,” Belson said. “They’re smaller. They have a lot of government backing.”

The fastest internet #5. Romania

Among those in the top 10, Romania was the only one to see its average peak speed fall from the previous quarter. The country’s average dropped 3.2 percent, compared with a global average decrease of 1.4 percent.
Still, most countries would love to have Romania’s broadband speed. With an average peak speed of 37.4 megabits per second, it was beat by Latvia by just a tenth of a megabit per second.

The fastest internet #6. Belgium

Belgium Internet connections peaked at an average of 32.7 megabits per second. At that speed, you could download the 2002 spy comedy “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” featuring Mike Myers’s Belgian baddie, in about six minutes.

The fastest internet #7. Switzerland

Befitting a major hub of the finance industry, Switzerland was clocked at 32.4 megabits per second on average. That compares with that other major hub, the U.S., which had an average peak speed of 29.6 megabits per second.

The fastest internet #8. Bulgaria

With its low taxes and cheap labor, Bulgaria is marketing itself as an attractive destination for global companies and investors. Another selling point? Its Internet speed. Bulgarian broadband reached an average of 32.1 megabits per second, an increase of 15 percent compared with the previous quarter.

The fastest internet #9. Israel

Web startup culture and fast Internet go hand in hand, said Belson, the Akamai editor. That’s why it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Israel made the list. The country’s average peak speed was 30.9 megabits per second.
“There’s good connectivity,” he said. “And there are smart, very technical people.”
A recent study conducted by researcher Startup Genome found Tel Aviv to be the best place for startups behind Silicon Valley.

The fastest internet #10. Singapore

With an average of 30.7 megabits per second, Singapore cracked the top 10 with a peak speed that is nearly double the global average of 15.9 megabits per second.
Thanks in part to its fast broadband, Singapore “is a tech hub,” said David Belson, who edited the report. The country is also home to well-known techie Eduardo Saverin, who moved there and renounced his U.S. citizenship before last year’s initial public offering of Facebook, which he co-founded.

1st Fully Bionic Man Walks, Talks and Breathes

The Bionic Man is the world's first robot human made entirely of prosthetic parts. Credit: Courtesy of Smithsonian Channel View full size image

He walks, he talks and he has a beating heart, but he's not human — he's the world's first fully bionic man.
Like Frankenstein's monster, cobbled together from a hodgepodge of body parts, the bionic man is an amalgam of the most advanced human prostheses — from robotic limbs to artificial organs to a blood-pumping circulatory system.
The creature "comes to life" in "The Incredible Bionic Man."

Roboticists Rich Walker and Matthew Godden of Shadow Robot Co. in England led the assembly of the bionic man from prosthetic body parts and artificial organs donated by laboratories around the world.
"Our job was to take the delivery of a large collection of body parts — organs, limbs, eyes, heads — and over a frantic six weeks, turn those parts into a bionic man," Walker told LiveScience during an interview. But it's not as simple as connecting everything like Tinkertoys. "You put a prosthetic part on a human who is missing that part," Walker said. "We had no human; we built a human for the prosthetic parts to occupy."
The robot, which cost almost $1 million to build, was modeled in some physical aspects after Bertolt Meyer, a social psychologist at the University of Zurich, in Switzerland, who wears one of the world's most advanced bionic hands. [See Photos of the Bionic Man]
The bionic man has the same prosthetic hand as Meyer — the i-LIMB made by Touch Bionics — with a wrist that can fully rotate and motors in each finger. The hand's grasping abilities are impressive, but the bionic man still drops drinks sometimes.
"He's not the world's best bartender," Walker said.
The robot sports a pair of robotic ankles and feet from BiOM in Bedford, Mass., designed and worn by bioengineer Hugh Herr of MIT's Media Lab, who lost his own legs after getting trapped in a blizzard as a teenager.
To support his prosthetic legs, the bionic man wears a robotic exoskeleton dubbed "Rex," made by REX Bionics in New Zealand. His awkward, jerky walk makes him more Frankensteinian than ever.
Factory-made organs
But it doesn't end there — the bionic man also has a nearly complete set of artificial organs, including an artificial heart, blood, lungs (and windpipe), pancreas, spleen, kidney and functional circulatory system.
The artificial heart, made by SynCardia Systems in Tucson, Ariz., has beenimplanted in more than 100 peopleto replace their ailing hearts for six to 12 months while they wait for a transplant, Walker said. The circulatory system, built by medical researcher Alex Seifalian of University College London,consists of veins and arteries made from a polymer used to create synthetic organs of any shape.
While it might not satisfy the Scarecrow from "The Wizard of Oz," the bionic man's "brain" can mimic certain functions of the human brain. He has a retinal prosthesis, made by Second Sight in Sylmar, Calif., which can restore limited sight in blind people. He also sports a cochlear implant, speech recognition and speech production systems.
The engineers equipped the bionic man with a sophisticated chatbot program that can carry on a conversation. The only problem is, it has the persona of "an annoying 13-year-old boy from the Ukraine," Walker said.
The most unnerving aspect of the bionic man, though, is his prosthetic face. It's an uncanny replica of Meyer's face. In fact, when Meyer first saw it, he hated it, describing it on the show as "awkward."
The bionic man successfully simulates about two-thirds of the human body. But he lacks a few major organs, including a liver, stomach and intestines, which are still too complex to replicate in a lab.
The bionic man brings up some ethical and philosophical questions: Does creating something so humanlike threaten notions of what it means to be human? What amount of body enhancement is acceptable? And is it wrong that only some people have access to these life-extending technologies?
The access issue is especially troublesome, Walker said. "The preservation of life and quality of life has become basically a technical question and an economic question."
The bionic man made his U.S. debut at New York Comic Con Oct. 10-13, and he will be on display at Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. this fall.

D-Wave Computer's Solution Raises More Questions

Does the computer owe its high performance to bizarre quantum effects? Credit: Photo courtesy of D-Wave Systems, Inc. View full size image

(ISNS) – An experimental computer made by a Canadian company has proved its ability to solve increasingly complex mathematical problems. But the question remains — just how much of this calculating power is actually due to the strange properties of quantum mechanics?
In theory, quantum computers can perform calculations far faster than their classical counterparts to solve incredibly complex problems. They do this by storing information in quantum bits, or qubits.
At any given moment, each of a classical computer's bits can only be in an “on” or an “off” state. They exist inside conventional electronic circuits, which follow the 19th-century rules of classical physics. A qubit, on the other hand, can be created with an electron, or inside a superconducting loop. Obeying the counterintuitive logic of quantum mechanics, a qubit can act as if it’s “on” and “off” simultaneously. It can also become tightly linked to the state of its fellow qubits, a situation called entanglement. These are two of the unusual properties that enable quantum computers to test multiple solutions at the same time.

But in practice, a physical quantum computer is incredibly difficult to run. Entanglement is delicate, and very easily disrupted by outside influences. Add more qubits to increase the device's calculating power, and it becomes more difficult to maintain entanglement.

Not Just CGI: The Incredible Tech of Horror-Movie Monsters

Mark Coulier, the director of Coulier Creatures, and colleagues said they had to do nearly 5,000 makeups in "World War Z" during a zombie scene. "Basically you've got these guys running down the street and there's a hundred of them and you may glimpse a makeup on one of them, so you have to do the hundred, really," Coulier said. Credit: Paramount Pictures View full size image

His eyes were black as night, his teeth jagged, his nostrils unnaturally large. It's said that when movie audiences first saw him, they fainted in fright.
Lon Chaney's 1925 portrayal of the Phantom of the Opera was spooky indeed — and an impressive testament to what the actor could do with greasepaint and a bit of thin wire to pull back his nostrils, mimicking the open nose of a skull. Today's special effects, however, require a bit more technical savvy. That's not just because audiences want to see more gore; high-definition cameras have also turned movie make-up into an art form requiring incredible attention to detail.

Computer-generated imagery might be replacing some of the shuffling zombies and rubber-suited monsters of yesteryear, but the technology of special effects isn't all in a central processing unit, according to Andrew Clement, the owner of Creative Character Engineering in Van Nuys, Calif. [Making Monsters: Images of Spooky Special Effects]

A machine which can read your mind

“We have developed so called brain-computer interfaces which allow the user to control different devices and programmes without hands, by means of the user’s thoughts.”
That is how Christoph Hintermüller of the Project Management and Research team at g.tec Guger Technologies sums up a machine which can quite literally read the mind.
It is intended for disabled patients, and the system made up of electrodes which sit on the scalp translates user intentions into electronic commands.
“A brain-computer interface captures various electrical impulses from the head of the user, and decodes them into specific tasks and actions,” continued Christoph Hintermüller.
That allows the user to play an online computer game, hands-free. The user selects the commands by simply looking at the blinking arrows on the screen. The frequency of the flashing is reproduced in the brain cortex and read by the electrodes.
“As soon as we have understood the electroencephalography patterns produced by the groups of neurons in the brain, we can map the brain activity to any commands for any device, like a television or a motorised system for the home,” said Arnau Espinosa Manzanal of the Research and Development department, g.tec Guger Technologies
Developed within a European research project, this technology makes home electronics more accessible. A user can navigate through various on-screen menus by simply focusing attention on the commands.
This way even severely disabled people can compose text messages to communicate with others in social networks on the Internet.
With further improvement, this system will allow to remotely control robotic assistants and even personal transportation vehicles such as electric wheelchairs.
“The system will be further developed to easier integrate with many more systems and programs, and also to use additional electrical and mechanical impulses from the whole body, because some patients still have residual motor functions and they’re comfortable also using them, and this system can be designed to include such signals,” concluded Christoph Hintermüller.

Opel Adam Becomes a Talking Car Thanks to Siri Eyes Free

Opel says the it's integrated Apple's Siri Eyes Free systems into the Adam, making it the fist talking car in it class. Siri Eyes Free can send messages, make appointments and play your music, all without you having to use the computer.

Using a steering wheel-mounted button, customers with a compatible iPhone running iOS 6 (either the 4S or the 5, of course) can direct Siri Eyes Free to perform a number of tasks while they keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel.

In the Vauxhall ADAM equipped with the IntelliLink infotainment system, owners can use Siri Eyes Free to:

• Make voice-activated, hands-free calls to Contacts on their iPhone
• Play chosen songs in their iTunes libraries without having to spend time scrolling through menus – and therefore being distracted while driving
• Listen to, or compose and send an iMessage, text message or mail to a phone number or anyone in saved Contacts
• Access Calendar and add appointments, read incoming notifications as well as configuration for alarm and notification settings
• And, of course, Siri also answers simple questions such as game scores, weather or the dates of national holidays

Ford Introduces Electronic Brake Light System

Ford Europe is working on a new Electronic Brake Light system which will use car-to-car communication technology to help prevent accidents.

Designed to warn drivers when a car ahead of them is about to brake suddenly, the system has a dashboard light which becomes active when such a situation occurs. Ford claims the Electronic Brake Light will help drivers avoid collisions by braking earlier.

"In case the vehicle has to do a hard brake, the action is detected by the system and sent out as a wireless message to the other vehicles," says Christian Ress, technical expert connectivity at Ford Research Center.

Besides the Electronic Brake Light, Ford is also developing other new systems, such as Traffic Sign Assistant and Obstacle Warning technology.

UK Company Builds Better, Cheaper Fuel Cells

British company ACAL Energy has revealed that its new hydrogen fuel cell system, which has passed 10,000 hours of testing, can reduce the cost of a fuel cell by 20 percent.

ACAL Energy announced that it has managed to reduce the need for platinum as a catalyst by 80 percent when compared to current systems, a breakthrough that will lead to cheaper hydrogen fuel cells. In addition, the company claims it’s new hydrogen fuel cell will power an automobile as efficiently and effectively and for just as long as a conventional engine.

Recent durability testing also revealed the system lasted double the US Department of Energy’s target for fuel cell vehicles to last 5,000 hours (150,000 miles) with a degradation threshold of around 10 percent.

"With our technology, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can drive over 500 miles per tank of fuel, and can be refueled in less than five minutes. For a driver, the only difference from driving an internal combustion engine car is what's going in the tank, but for the environment the significance of zero carbon emissions is enormous," said Greg McCray, CEO of ACAL Energy.

According to a company spokesperson, ACAL is in talks with six major automakers to license the new technology, but no names were revealed.

Ford Developing New Technology for Low-Volume Automotive Applications

Detroit-based automaker Ford has developed a new technology that will allow engineers to rapidly form sheet metal parts for low-volume production applications.

The company says that, once developed, the new technology “will allow for lower costs and ultrafast delivery times for prototypes”, which will take only three business days instead of the “anywhere from two to six months” span provided by present day conventional methods.

“The F3T sheet metal forming process is one of many advanced manufacturing technologies under development at Ford,” said Randy Visintainer, director of Ford Research and Innovation. “We developed this process during the past four years for small-scale applications in a laboratory setting, and the DOE award enables us to scale the process for larger applications and a full prove-out for manufacturing feasibility.”

Plantronics Savi 740 Wireless Headset System for Unified Communication

Plantronics Savi 740 Wireless Headset System for Unified Communication

Buy here: http://amzn.to/111EaQf
Communicate Easily Through Multiple Devices

With three-way, multi-device connectivity, the Savi 740 allows you to easily manage your PC, desk, and mobile phone calls (software may be required to get call control with certain softphones; see Plantronics.com for more information). The headset system automatically routes mobile audio to whichever device you pick up--headset or mobile phone. With the press of a button, you can easily transfer audio from the headset to the mobile phone, allowing you to leave the office and take calls on the road.

The system also enables you to join audio between any two of your three connected devices or conference in up to three additional Savi 740 headsets. Automatically subscribe a new headset to the base simply by docking it.

Wireless Range of 350 Feet with DECT

The Savi 740 comes equipped with DECT 6.0 technology, allowing you to talk hands free up to 350 feet away from the base. DECT offers exceptional audio quality and is designed to eliminate interference from Wi-Fi networks. One-touch controls on the headset allow you to answer or end calls and adjust or mute the volume across devices. Bluetooth technology lets you connect the headset's base station to your mobile phone.

Three Wearing Styles to Suit Your Needs

The Savi 740 sports a sleek, lightweight design and has been comfort-tested. It can be worn three different ways, whichever suits you: over-the-ear for a discreet look, behind-the-head, or over-the-head for maximum stability.

Designed for Outstanding Sound Quality

In addition to DECT technology, the Savi 740 offers wideband audio for clearer PC and desk phone conversations. The headset's noise-canceling microphone filters out background noise and enhanced Digital Signal Processing (DSP) makes voices sound more clear and natural.

Charging Base and Adaptive Power System

A sleek charging base with magnetic...