Achoshare: Technology

Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts

Japan Earthquake trigger crisis computer chip supplies

Four Japanese factories — Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. Ltd.’s Shirakawa facility and MEMC Electronic Materials Inc.’s Utsunomiya plant — have halted operations. Those four facilities alone make up a quarter of the global supply of silicon wafers used to make semiconductors, according to IHS iSuppli, a research company. Both companies supply wafers to semiconductor companies around the globe.

My Calculator Made From Bamboo ( slide rule )

William Oughtred and others developed the slide rule in the 17th century based on the emerging work on logarithms by John Napier. Before the advent of the pocket calculator, it was the most commonly used calculation tool in science and engineering. The use of slide rules continued to grow through the 1950s and 1960s even as digital computing devices were being gradually introduced; but around 1974 the electronic scientific calculator made it largely obsolete and most suppliers left the business.

Google Silently Patches Flash Vulnerability in Chrome

A recent vulnerability in Adobe’s Flash Player was discovered, to which Adobe replied that a patch would be available within a week. This bug works when you open an Excel file that contains an embedded malicious Flash file (Office 2010 is not affected). However, Google Chrome users can rest easy because their flash player has already been patched. Here’s why

Google Mobile iPhone App updated

Google has redesigned its iPhone app on Wednesday bringing with it new features and a new look.
“If you need to do a Google search on your iPhone or iPod touch it's now faster and easier when you use our redesigned Google Search app, formerly Google Mobile App,” says Google in a blog post on the news of the new app hitting the iTunes store.

Google Maps' Android app now routes drivers around traffic

Google announced that the Android version of its Google Maps app now automatically routes users around traffic when providing directions.

3D Multi Touch Computer Desk Design

Imagine a computer without mice, keyboards or controls – but more powerful and versatile than a small pad or tablet device. Drag-and-drop takes on a new meaning when it comes to this prototype workstation. Vertical displays and horizontal interfaces are radically reconsidered – ideas about pencils, pens, paper, mice and documents both digital and physical are creatively revisited.

How To Use FaceTime For Home Surveillance

Really simple for keeping an eye on your living room, all you need is a Mac and this AppleScript.

How to Turn Your iPod touch into an iPhone 4G Edition

The latest iPhone and iPod touch are nearly identical devices, ignoring the pesky reality that the latter isn't a phone. We can fix that. Here's how to turn your iPod touch into a viable (and cheaper) iPhone alternative out of the box.

Back in the day, turning your iPod touch into an iPhone required a jailbreak, but now, thanks to some wonderful apps and other tools, using your iPod touch as an iPhone alternative is a easy ( no jailbreak )

The iPhone and iPod touch have always been similar devices, but now that Apple's added a front-facing and regular camera to the iPod touch, they're practically identical. You can even make video calls on both devices. The only real missing feature is the phone. Thanks to VoIP (Voice over IP) apps like Skype and Line2 (see more details below), you don't even need to jailbreak to solve that problem.

Although it's easier than ever to use your iPod touch as a full-fledged iPhone, there's still a little work involved. You'll need the right apps and potentially some extra hardware. Let's take a look at your options and how you can work around the shortcomings of an iPod touch-turned-iPhone.

Hacker Spoofs Cell Phone Tower to Intercept Calls

A directional antenna is set up for a demonstration
by security researcher Chris Paget, center. (Photo: Dave Bullock)

LAS VEGAS — A security researcher created a cell phone base station that tricks cell phones into routing their outbound calls through his device, allowing someone to intercept even encrypted calls in the clear.

The device tricks the phones into disabling encryption and records call details and content before they’re routed on their proper way through voice-over-IP.

The low-cost, home-brewed device, developed by researcher Chris Paget, mimics more expensive devices already used by intelligence and law enforcement agencies – called IMSI catchers – that can capture phone ID data and content. The devices essentially spoof a legitimate GSM tower and entice cell phones to send them data by emitting a signal that’s stronger than legitimate towers in the area.

World's First "Car" Looks Like a Bike and Runs on Fire

Gottlieb Daimler's "Revolutionary Riding Car" of 1885 doesn't look like a car (in truth, it would be more analogous to what we recognize today as a motorcycle), but it did mark the very first inkling of the automobile age

What made the machine possible was the Grandfather Clock engine, so named because it resembled a clock. Daimler developed the single-cylinder four-stroke engine with Wilhelm Maybach in 1884. It displaced 265cc, produced 0.4 horsepower at 600 rpm and was remarkable for its relatively light weight."

The operation of the riding car was described as such:

Secret mobile phone codes cracked

Encryption is used on mobiles
to stop eavesdropping

A German computer scientist has published details of the secret code used to protect the conversations of more than 4bn mobile phone users.

Karsten Nohl, working with other experts, has spent the past five months cracking the algorithm used to encrypt calls using GSM technology.

GSM is the most popular standard for mobile networks around the world.

The work could allow anyone - including criminals - to eavesdrop on private phone conversations.

Mr Nohl told the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin that the work showed that GSM security was "inadequate".

"We are trying to inform people about this widespread vulnerability," he told BBC News.

"We hope to create some additional pressure and demand from customers for better encryption."

AN UNBREAKABLE TOUCH SCREEN FOR YOUR PHONE

Anyone with a smart phone or an iPad will tell you touch screens are the way of the future. But touch screens have some serious drawbacks, such as how expensive they are, not to mention easily breakable.

But a new type of touch screen could be less expensive and more durable. Researchers in South Korea and Japan write in the journal Nature that they can make large pieces of graphene films, up to 30 inches long, for touch screen phones and flat panel TVs.

IF YOU LIVE GREEN, WHY NOT DIE GREEN?

This may really irk all of you who recycle plastic and paper, conserve electricity by turning off the lights, drive hybrid cars and use cloth shopping bags: When you die, your burial process could nearly negate your green legacy.

Death has serious environmental downsides. But funerary folks are developing techniques to allow human remains to go quietly into that dark grave.

The problem with human bodies is that they're full of chemicals in life that turn into pollution in death. And there are the emissions. Take cremation. As New Scientist's Helen Knight points out, a typical cremation requires fuel to get the heat to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and, she writes, can result in about 330 pounds (150 kilos) of CO2 emissions. Although I'm sure that CO2 amount must vary widely, this all gets worse: Dental fillings that go through the process can even cause mercury to be released in the exhaust gases. I know. It's unpleasant on so many levels.

GROWING CROPS WITHOUT SUN OR SOIL

Shipping containers have been redesigned to become housing, offices and even health clinics, but now a startup in Tucson is transforming them into sun-free, soil-free greenhouses. Leaf lettuce from their test system shows they've got dark-green thumbs.

Verdant Earth Technologies has a plan to retrofit standard 20-foot shipping containers into mini farms. Each of their controlled environment agriculture systems -- or CEAs -- is fitted with five shelves, where the plants live. Instead of sitting in soil however, the plants sit in a nutrient-rich solution that also works to irrigate them.

Cofounder and CEO Josh Hottenstein says they're experimenting with different artificial lighting options, including one that uses solar concentrators and fiber optics to distribute light from LEDs. "Plants don't need the full spectrum of light," he says. Solar concentrators allow them to get the right wavelength and direct it.

WORLD'S MOST ADVANCED ELECTRIC SUPERBIKE

June 11, 2010 Even though this motorcycle looks like one of Tom Cruise's many toys in the "Mission Impossible" movies, this bike is a real-life bad ass electric machine: and now it's a first place winner in the world's toughest motorcycle race