Valve's SteamOS coming!

In the first of three scheduled announcements for this week, Steam has unveiled a free operating system designed for the living room that the company promises will combine the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen. It’ll be a combination of Steam’s current platform and Linux and according to company brass, there are hundreds of titles in the pipeline for next year.

With SteamOS, Valve said they have achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing. Moving forward, they are working on audio performance and reductions in latency at the operating system level.  The company said developers are already taking advantage of these gains as they target SteamOS for their new releases.

In addition to the new operating system, the company announced four new features that will be available for the current Steam platform in addition to SteamOS: family sharing, streaming, parental restrictions and options for media like movies and music.

SteamOS will be available soon as a free download for users and as a freely licensable operating system for manufacturers. The company encouraged fans to stay tuned in the coming days for more information.

With one announcement down and the foundation laid, one has to expect that at least one of the two pending announcements will be hardware-related. Talk of a Steam Box has been brewing for close to a year now and it’s no secret that Valve chief Gabe Newell intends to take on next generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft head-on.

Now use Bacteria to store loads of pictures and music!

Researchers at Hong Kong's Chinese University have found what might be the safest way to store data: not in a safe, not in the cloud, but in bacteria!

Biostorage, the term for storing and encrypting information in organisms, has only existed for close to a decade, but scientists say the method could soon allow for text, images, music, or even video to be "recorded" in E. Coli, according to Discovery.

By encoding data in bacterial DNA, the information has a virtually limitless lifespan. As each bacteria reproduces, the data could be copied thousands of times. By mapping E. Coli's DNA, that data can be easily found and isolated.

Perhaps more importantly however, bacteria isn't susceptible to intrusion.

"Bacteria can't be hacked," Allen Yu, a student instructor, told Discovery.

"All kinds of computers are vulnerable to electrical failures or data theft. But bacteria are immune from cyber attacks. You can safeguard the information."

The data can be split into chunks and distributed between different bacterial cells, which helps overcome any storage space issues.

The most amazing part? Capacity.

Just one gram of data-storing bacteria could hold the same amount of data as up to 450, 2,000 GB hard drives, according to Computerworld.

In addition, researchers have also developed a three-tier security fence to safeguard the data, and created an encoding mechanism that ensures the data can't be disturbed by mutations in bacterial cells.

 After all, electronically-stored data is susceptible to electromagnetic pulses (EMPs), flooding, fire, power outages, and the age-old “having a building collapse on top of the server.”

The lyrics to “It’s a Small World After All" song was translated into a code based on the four letters that comprise DNA—A, G, T, and C—and manufacturing this code into artificial DNA, which was then inserted into bacteria such as E. coli. When the bacteria reproduced, the message was passed on through each generation, rendering it near-immortal. Even better, some types of bacteria can survive extreme conditions such as those that you’d find in a post-apocalyptic wilderness!

The Samsung galaxy Smart-watch!

Wrist watches, smart or otherwise, are simply not for everyone -- there are more smartphone users in the world, many times over, than there will ever be smartwatch owners. Despite the limited market for such a device, however, Samsung's decided it's time to join in on the fun. 
The Galaxy Gear, as we've known it to be called for a few weeks now, was hardly guarded with a level of secrecy that's become standard for a flagship smartphone, but as the device is finally official -- and expected to launch in more than 100 countries within weeks -- just how does it perform? Find our take after the break.

The centerpiece of the Galaxy Gear, as you may have read by now, is a 320 x 320-pixel, 1.63-inch AMOLED touchscreen. There's a speaker and a pair of mics for recording and playing back video content and communicating with a caller via the built-in dialer, which works with the native phone app in your connected Galaxy device. The Gear includes an 800MHz processor, a 315mAh battery, and -- in a somewhat surprising twist -- a BSI sensor and autofocus lens mounted in the wrist strap that's tasked with capturing 1.9-megapixel stills and 10-second video clips at 720p, 640 x 640 or VGA resolution with sound. That camera, designed for on-the-go captures where convenience, not image quality, is a priority, is paired with a pre-installed app called Memographer. That application, and dozens of others that will be available at launch, are key to boosting the Gear's appeal, and setting it apart from the competition.

Like other smartwatches we've seen and reviewed, such as the monochrome Pebble, the Gear organizes apps, watch faces and other pages in swappable cards. With such a limited display resolution, it's only possible to display one at a time, and that's where touch comes in. To navigate through the wearable's many cards, you can swipe with a finger. There's a single button, located on the right side. Press it once to go to the home screen. A double press launches S Voice, and a triple tap activates the "safety assistance" feature, which sends your location info to a saved contact, along with a message notifying them that there's an emergency.

We haven't been blown away by any smartwatch's performance, and that's much the case here. The Gear feels awfully sluggish, whether you're launching an app such as Evernote or Path, or swiping down from the home screen to activate the camera. Watch faces, which you can upload from the Gear's Android companion app, performed well, as did the Music card, which simply serves as a remote for any music app (native or third-party) currently active on a connected device.

The Gear is very much a first-generation device when it comes to usability, too; you can only load a total of 10 third-party apps, for example, due in no small part to the limited 4GB of built-in storage. The interface also feels a bit clunky and unpolished at times, and the S Voice feature, which responds to commands just like its smartphone and tablet counterparts, can only be activated by tapping the home button twice -- hardly convenient when you're running or riding a bike.

As for the device's physical appearance, it's a bit svelter than leaked reports would suggest, but it's still a substantial product. Some colors, such as Rose Gold and Mocha Gray, were designed with female users in mind, but with a design that's significantly larger than many traditional watches, it may be a bit too cumbersome for petite wrists. That said, we didn't find it too large for male users, who might prefer the JetBlack or Oatmeal color schemes. According to Samsung reps, sporty types might opt for Wild Orange or Lime Green, and considering third-party apps like RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal, along with the bundled pedometer, athletes are clearly a target demographic here.

Samsung opted for an industrial design instead of a more elegant finish. There are four visible screws above and below the face, for example, and the metal buckle, which houses the speaker, doesn't feel terribly well made. Many of the colors are a bit too "sporty" to be an appropriate fit for formal occasions or business attire, so unless you opt for an all-black Gear, you may end up leaving the watch at home more often than not. That wouldn't be a terrible call, however -- the embedded battery is rated for a day of "regular" use, which means more active users will be spending a lot of time attaching the watch to the bundled micro-USB-equipped plastic charging dock, which connects to the device through five metal leads on the rear.

As we've come to expect with many first-generation devices, the Gear has quite a few shortcomings, some of which likely have yet to come to light. The prototype devices we used were noticeably sluggish and occasionally unresponsive, S Voice is not entirely hands-free, and battery life has been pegged at a full day, at best. Perhaps the biggest setback, however, is that the Galaxy Gear is only compatible with the Note 3 and the new Note 10.1, and while it will likely work with the GS4 once that device gets an Android 4.3 update, we don't expect that it'll ever function with non-Samsung smartphones and tablets. Gear begins shipping on September 25th. Update: The gear will cost $299 when it starts shipping, though, customers in the US and Japan will have to wait 'til October to get their hands on one.

Source: Engadget

The Technology behind Transformers: A Nanotech dream?

It must be a good 20 years since I pondered the (fictional) technological underpinnings of Transformers, which has a Hollywood movie called the "Revenge of the Fallen."

For one: how could the main bad guy, Megatron, turn from an "arm-mounted fusion cannon" (huh?!) into a hulking beast of an evil robot? 

At an early age, I was chalking it up to fantasy and I suspended my disbelief while I watched the cartoons after school while eating a bowl of Froot Loops. But some are more willing to try to explain the technology and science behind the Transformers, I learned this morning. There is a Wikipedia entry on Transformers technology that, right now, is striving to bridge the gap between science and fantasy. One of my favorite sections ponders the notion of death among Transformers:

Death of a Transformer can follow irreversible (mortal) stasis lock or be caused by a sudden traumatic injury (such as a close-proximity nuclear explosion, or spark excision). A few weapons, such as a high powered fusion cannon, are known to be powerful enough to cause severe enough damage to immediately terminate a Transformer. Also, while the utter destruction of a body can and usually does cause death, a Transformer can often survive total dismemberment. Notable examples include Optimus Prime (during the Generation 1 series), Ultra Magnus (during the movie), and Waspinator (repeatedly).

 The technology behind Transformers involves advanced nanotechnology and even femtotechnology, a largely theoretically area involving the "manipulation of excited energy states within atomic nuclei."

Hey, we've got a lot of folks in Maryland working in the nanotech field. If using this tech to build robots that change from boring cars to steely warriors isn't likely, then why bother?

Haha. Kidding.

Seriously, nanotech is a young but choppy field. There are detractors and skeptics on one side, who either think a lot of it is overstated marketing bunk, or potentially dangerous. (One guy wrote a book called "Nano-Hype: The Truth Behind the Nanotechnology Buzz."

On the other side are businesses, universities and researchers who are pushing for breakthroughs that could be brought to market and maybe save lives, if nanotech gets more incorporated in medical practice. Johns Hopkins' Whiting School of Engineering has a nanotech research area, and the university has its own Institute for NanoBioTechnology, too. And the University of Maryland has its own Nanocenter.

Do they see a Transformers future?

Toyota gives 'space robot' a voice!

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Toyota robonaut Kirobo strikes a typical tourist pose at a porthole on the International Space Station, with its notoriously temperamental solar panel array in the background.

In 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first man to speak from space. Fifty-two years later, Toyota has helped give a voice to the first robot to talk while orbiting the earth.

Toyota "Robonaut" Kirobo's first words echoed Neil Armstrong's iconic moon-landing: "On August 21, 2013, a robot took one small step towards a brighter future for all."

Toyota provided Kirobo's voice recognition software and plans to use experience gained from the orbital experiments to improve the range of interactive conversation technologies it uses in its cars.

Kirobo, just 34cm tall, left earth on 4 August from Japan's Tanegashima Space Centre in the Kounotori 4 cargo vehicle, which docked at the International Space Station after six days in orbit.

CHAT ROOM

Kirobo will be joined later this year by Koichi Wakata, who will become the first Japanese astronaut to take command of the orbiting space station, and will take part in the first conversation between a human and a robot in space, in the Japanese Experiment Module, nicknamed "Kibo" after the Japanese word for hope.

Kirobo and his earth-bound twin Mirata are two humanoid communication robots developed under the Kibo Robot Project, a joint research project between Toyota, Dentsu, Robo Garage, the University of Tokyo's Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency!

Tesla's Earthquake machine!

Nikola Tesla is primarily thought of as an electrical genius, but he also was responsible for a number of mechanical devices. One of the most notorious of these was his "Earthquake Machine" otherwise known as the Tesla Oscillator. The machine which Tesla tested was small, around seven inches long, and weighing only one or two pounds; something "you could put in your overcoat pocket". In 1898, Tesla's New York lab was nearly shaken to pieces with this ittle device, operated by only five pounds of air pressure acting against a special pneumatic piston device. The whole assembly was designed to be powered by steam pressure. Tesla was experimenting with ways to transmit motive power through the Earth! Large versions of these oscillators, weighing perhaps 200 pounds, and being about three feet high could transmit usable motive power anywhere on te entire planet. As fantastic as it sounds, this device can also locate ships, submarines and buildings anywhere on a global scale.

Steam would be forced into the oscillator, and exit through a series of ports, the net effect of which was to cause the armature to vibrate at high speed, within is casing. The casing was by necessity very strong, as temperatures due to pressure heating in the upper chamber exceeded 200 degrees, and the pressure reached 400psi. Other versions of the machine were created, designed to produce electrical power, both alternating and direct, (without the need for rectifiers).

The Plan!

With this in mind, I began to think of a way in which I could build one of these oscillators more easily than with a steel pressure vessel. Since the air piston relies on compressed air to effect the oscillating motion, it seemed to me that another way of forcing the piston to move might be useful. I hit upon the idea of using a magnetic field to create part of the motion. Having variable frequency AC would be the perfect solution to this problem, allowing flawless tuning of the oscillation frequencies with a simple coil setup, without the need for air or steam at all.

How it works is as follows. Compressed air entering the inlet port forces the piston head upwards. However, the piston shaft is impeded from moving upwards by the action of opposing magnetic fields between the two coils. The current in the coils can be varied to create a field of specific strength, and therefore amount of force required for the piston to rise. The field pushes down and the air pushes up. When the air push exceeds the field push, the piston will shoot upwards, but as soon as the piston head rises above the air vent port, the cavity will de-pressurize. When that happens, the field will slam the piston downwards, and the hammer head will strike the steel plate at the base. By varying the air pressure and magnetic field strength, any range of frequencies desired could be created.

Bringing the House Down!

Everything in nature vibrates at a certain frequency. When an object is vibrated at its natural resonance, it begins to undergo severe shock, as it tries to shake itself apart. It would be ludicrous to imagine that a tiny oscillator could by itself bring down a building, if not for the principle of resonance. Like a child on a swing, only a very small force is required to maintain a fairly large reciprocating motion. A major vibration could be established in a house by coinciding each stroke of the piston with the return of the individual vibrations through the building to where the oscillator is. Every time the piston hits, it magnifies the force a little more. At frequencies of 1000Hz, the force build-up can be very appreciable! The frequency of resonance is linked to the time it takes for the vibrations to spread out through the building, reverberate, and the "echoes" to return to the oscillator again. By finding the correct frequency, ANY structure can be destroyed. In fact, the larger it is, the lower the resonant frequency is, so the easier it is to destroy. Tesla once joked that he could split the Earth with one of these devices, and no-one ever knew if he was joking!

Rinspeed sQuba World’s first Underwater-Submarine Car!

World first Submarine Car sQuba was design and made by Rinspeed.

Rinspeed is a Swiss based automobile manufacturer and tuning designer company was founded in 1979 by Frank Rinderknecht. Rinspeed have specialization in restoring the classic and vintage cars, tuning and modify the modern cars like Porsches and Subarus. Each year they design the exotic concept car for the Geneva Motor Show.

sQuba is a Rinspeed concept car debuted at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, built around the Lotus Elise is the world’s first car that can be driven both on land and underwater.

Rinspeed founder and CEO Frank M. Rinderknecht sQuba concept car were inspired by the 1977 James Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me”. James bond drive the animated Lotus Esprit in the movie. Rinspeed founder wanted to build a car that could move underwater like a submarine. It took founder 30 year to accomplish his desire.

sQuba call as the first real submersible car is a zero-emission all electric vehicle. It got three electric motors one for to drive on land and two motors to drive underwater. It can be submerged to a depth of 10 metres (33 ft), the car’s top land speed is 120 km/h (75 mph). On the surface of water, the top speed is 6 km/h (3.2 kn; 3.7 mph) and underwater it is 3 km/h (1.6 kn; 1.9 mph). According to Rinspeed, sQuba is made open cockpit to allow the occupants to escape easily in case of emergency

The price of the sQuba is $172,000: Check the price at the Rinspeed official site.

Nokia no more!

So, it finally happened!

That was more or less my first reaction to the news of Microsoft buying Nokia's handset business as I read it on Twitter during my morning commute. It's an outcome many have feared, some have expected and that no one was really able to prepare for. 

I was surprised to find myself also relieved – Nokia would no longer be kept a prisoner of its past, having to explain to Finland on a quarterly basis why it is losing the game in the handset business. The company has enjoyed such success in the past that the general public has not given up hope that Nokia would regain its spot as the No 1 phone manufacturer. That Finnish distortion field has now dissolved.

It's hard to try and form an honest opinion on today's news. Nokia has surprised Finns in the recent years with multiple rounds of layoffs, a partnership with Redmond and now this sale of its its best-known business to the controversial giant Microsoft.

Entrepreneurs live with constant change, and thus are usually able to see the opportunities in situations like this – perhaps more so than the public at large.

Nokia, however, is such an integral part of Finnish society that it keeps on bringing out new sides to people, even those close to me. It's a subject everyone has an opinion on, possibly more than our national politics.

It does have to be acknowledged, however, that Nokia and its staff have played a key role in supporting Finland on several levels. Much of our mobile industry owes its success to the presence of Nokia and its willingness to source services and applications from local companies. This has generated a huge pool of talent that continue to bear fruit for the Finnish technology space.

Nokia has also supported recently successful entrepreneurs, those who leave the firm to start their own companies with enough money to set up for the first 12 to 18 months. It has been said more than once that Nokia's severance packages make it the largest early stage investor in Finland.

While Finns are beginning to overcome cultural taboos around failure – and, in the case of some startups, celebrate failure with champagne – it would be madness to celebrate failure of this magnitude. It's a sad day to have to acknowledge that the once so mighty Nokia and its widespread handset business is no more. 

After the emotional rollercoaster on comments on Twitter and Facebook when the news broke, discussion and analysis became more rational; the consensus now is on the future, and what Nokia will do with the fresh cash in its coffers.

Working in the technology field, I do believe this is perhaps the best way to reboot the company for the future, and I'm personally optimistic that the legacy and burden of its previous success is now gone and Nokia is able to start fresh and light.

Perhaps a status update I saw earlier today sums up the prevailing general view quite well: "Nokia's catastrophe may be a good opportunity for Finland – we're a nation that tends to get stronger the heavier we're kicked between the legs."