iOS and OS X: Time for Some Real Convergence

OS X is great. So is iOS. But there's a certain disconnect between the two operating systems that feels very un-Apple-like. I'm ready for a better, more integrated convergence of the operating systems, something that lets me run all the same apps on the Mac as I run on the iPhone and iPad. Making Apple TV part of the mix wouldn't hurt, either. I'd like to see Apple really throw its weight around.

Lately I've found myself more frequently irritated and dissatisfied with my Mac than ever before. This is a weird feeling, made all the more powerful by the fact that Mac OS X Lion is the most useful operating system ever. With a simple two-fingered swipe on my Magic Mouse, I can flick my entire screen to a whole new desktop view, and with a swipe in the other direction, go back.

This feature alone is freakishly powerful for people who have a lot of different kinds of content on their Macs. It's an excellent way to focus, for instance, by leaving email back on another desktop so you can focus on a more important task.

Safari is also better than ever, letting me save groups of tabs (that feature took forever to arrive, despite other browsers having it), and I can now swipe with one finger on a Safari page to go back to the previous page. And it's fast

doing it.

The Mac App Store is bringing some really excellent applications front and center to Mac users, and I'm a big fan. I've already bought way more apps than I would have otherwise. Plus, I'm more willing to shell out a few bucks to experiment because I know exactly who is handling the transaction details.

The Mac App Store and iTunes finally have horizontal flickable elements built-in (again, with the Magic Mouse if you don't have a track pad), which is nice and intuitive. Back when Lion first came out and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) changed the scroll direction to mimic flicking a piece of paper around on a flat desk, I was having a hard time with the switch. Now, though, that action is so intuitive that I can barely use a PC or an older Mac running a previous version of OS X. The geniuses at Apple got that move right.

And Yet Something Is Wrong, Very Very Wrong

So the why the ongoing angst? If there's so much to love about my Mac, why am I irritated?

Mac OS X is not iOS. Or vice versa.

I'm so totally ready for a better, more integrated convergence of the operating systems that my teeth hurt from grinding them together.

First of all, there are great applications on my iPhone and my iPad. They've got nice clean interfaces, they are lightweight, they do just what they should and nothing more. I want them on my Mac -- the same interface, the same features. Sure, there are some companies that produce versions of their applications for the iPad and also for the Mac, but not enough. And they don't yet easily talk to each other to keep things in sync. With Apple's iCloud, there's a communication conduit just ready for this sort of thing.

Why can't I have the same weather, the same clock on my Mac as on my iPhone? These are simple things. With Mail, I can have essentially the same accounts on iOS as on my Mac, and they keep relatively in sync easily enough. But how about the awesome Reminders app on iOS? Sure, it integrates with my email and my Mac well enough, but there's no app for it. I can't, for instance, add or delete items on it with my Mac and keyboard; heck, I can't even open it up to look at it since it doesn't exist.

Instead, I have to understand how it connects with various applications under the covers, and that's not friendly at all. In order to work with Reminders, I have to hold my iPhone or tap away at it on my cradle next to my Mac's monitor. That's the opposite of elegance. Juggling devices. That whole issue is so un-Apple like. I might as well be controlling my TV and cable system with three different remotes.

Sure, some to-do applications have both iOS apps and Mac OS X apps, and they do a pretty good job of keeping them synced. But many of them suffer from either too much bloat or not enough power. Reminders hits the sweet spot.

So that's one nagging problem: There are lots of great apps for iOS that you simply can't run on your Mac.

The iPad Angle

This also goes with apps that were designed just for the iPad, which forces guys like me to pick either my iPad or my MacBook. Which one do I take with me? Or both? What's worse is when you do pick one then realize you really want to use an app that's only on the other device. Or you have to train yourself to use two different interfaces to accomplish essentially the same thing.

If this whole issue was focused on any company other than Apple, I wouldn't worry about it. It wouldn't cross my mind at all. Why? Because this kind of vision and integration is impossible for anyone else. It's not going to happen with Android and Linux and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows. OK, it might happen with Windows on the desktop and the smartphone, but it won't for a long, long time. But Apple, damn it, Apple can make the impossible seem possible. And as a loyal Apple buyer, I can start making connections.

Remember the famous Steve Jobs quote from years ago where someone asks him about not using consumer focus groups? His comment was something along the lines that consumer don't know what they want until Apple shows them what they want. Well, that was then. These days a good many consumers have some pretty good ideas about what they want.

Now that Apple has $97.6 billion in cash sitting around, I'm having a hard time seeing money as the challenge. I'd like to see Apple really throw its weight around and get some of these issues fixed.

I want a way to run an iOS app on my Mac. If that's a MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen ... perfect. If it's an iMac with a touch-sensitive screen, perfect. I should be able to seamlessly move from mouse to keyboard to touch ... all at the same time on my screen. If I want to flick my desktop to move to a new desktop, I ought to be able to do that by touching the screen too. Or my Magic Mouse.

And What About Apple TV?

Then there's my living room and my Apple TV. I love the thing, but it's maddening, too. It could so easily run apps that I don't understand why it doesn't. Oh, wait, it sort of does through AirPlay ... that's a great start. But again, why can't I have the same Weather application everywhere?

While where at it, why can't I have a Notification Center on my Mac? Notification Center, especially when you swipe down from the top of your iPhone, is awesome. Don't have it integrated with my Mac. And it's definitely not integrated with my Apple TV.

So what's my point?

Jobs and Apple dissed the fractured nature of Android with all the different devices and flavors, right? Well, it turns out that living in Apple Land isn't as seamless and integrated as it pretends to be. There's all sorts of ways that I have to have four different devices to get the kind of experience I want. And the user has to remember all these different devices, interfaces and passwords.


source: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/74273.html

Mizzu Features For Android

Are you the one to own a Honeycomb tablet, looking for a enhanced movie and video management system? If yes, then Mizzu, earlier known as Mizzu Movies is the perfect Android application for you which helps you to manage your favorite movies and television shows. The application recognizes movies automatically with title, cover art and plot and keeps all the information in a local database of your tablet. Check out our Mizzu review to know what this application has in store for you.

Mizzu Features

Honeycomb tablets are great for viewing movies and television shows, but movie and video management can be a problem as you have find out where the device is storing the files and where media players will find the files. Here is where Mizzu Movies come in handy. The application gives you detailed information about your media, pulling out information from your IMDB database. So you get detailed information about the particular movie, its ratings, information about actors and even viewing the movie trailer in Youtube.

Somehow if the application gives you wrong data, you can change it by telling about the movie you are putting in the collection. When you launch Mizzu for the first time, the program automatically locates all the media files and adds them to your database. You can also update it and it automatically pulls out the IMDB data.

File Formats Supported By Mizzu

The application supports a wide range of file formats such as 3gp, .aaf, .avi, .divx, .f4v, mpeg, .mpg, .mts, .ogv, .rm, .rmvb, .ts, .webm, .wmv, .xvid etc. However, you must note that some of the formats are not natively supported by Android and to play movies in that format you need to have a third party video player.

Mizzu Interface And Download

In the Android market, you will find both the free and paid version of Mizzu. The paid version costs approximately Rs 92 and this version allows you to choose different themes. The menu options are quite easy to navigate and are quite clean.

Download Mizzu For Free

Buy Mizzu

So if you are movie buff, then you will find using Mizzu frequently and the application manages your movie collection a dream.

Source: http://www.feelandroid.com/

The South African Beauty Secret

I'm currently on a month's holiday in South Africa, and I'm again on a beauty quest to find the secret that keeps South African women looking so gorgeous! I love discovering beauty treatments, ingredients and secrets from all over the world and here in this beautiful country, the secret is Rooibos Tea.

Used for generations by the Khoi and San people of South Africa, this tea grown only here is slammed full of rich antioxidants that help eczema, acne, aging and skin allergies. The mixture of all types of skintones here in this part of the world from very dark to porcelain seems to be line free and fresh looking. You can drink the tea or apply it to skin. Many South African beauty lines, like Inheritance Skin Care, uses Rooibos as their main ingredient.

The anti-aging enzyme superoxide dismutase is in Rooibos and is necessary for the production of healthy skin-producing cells. This tea also contains high levels of zinc and vitamin D 2 important vitamins and minerals for amazing skin. People with acne have reported that drinking the tea and applying it topically has helped decrease the amount of facial breakouts, and eczema sufferers apply the cool wet tea bags to their problem areas for instant relief. Expect this miracle tea to start popping up in more and more skincare products, like the famous Argan Oil. In the meantime, run to your local Whole Foods and stock up!

Source: http://www.dailymakeover.com/blogs/positively-beautiful/2012/01/the-south-african-beauty-secret.html

Internet Blackout Day on January 18

WordPress.org is officially joining the protest against Senate Bill 968: the Protect IP Act that is coming before the U.S. Senate next week. As I wrote in my post a week ago, if this bill is passed it will jeopardize internet freedom and shift the power of the independent web into the hands of corporations. We must stop it.


On January 18, 2012 many sites around the web — from small personal blogs to internet institutions like Mozilla, Wikipedia, reddit, and I Can Has Cheezburger? – will be going dark in protest and to drive their visitors to sites like americancensorship.org to take action and help fight the passage of the Protect IP Act. So will WordPress.org.


If you want to join the protest by blacking out your WordPress site or applying a ribbon, there is now a variety of blackout plugins in the WordPress.org plugins directory. While joining the protest in this manner is laudable, please don’t forget to also make those phone calls to U.S. Senators — they’re the ones with the voting power.

• Get a protest plugin
• Take action at americancensorship.org

Source: http://wordpress.org/news/2012/01/internet-blackout/

Health, Food Security Benefits From Climate Change Actions Shown By NASA Study

The research, led by Drew Shindell of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, finds that focusing on these measures could slow mean global warming 0.9 ºF (0.5ºC) by 2050, increase global crop yields by up to 135 million metric tons per season and prevent hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year. While all regions of the world would benefit, countries in Asia and the Middle East would see the biggest health and agricultural gains from emissions reductions.


"We've shown that implementing specific practical emissions reductions chosen to maximize climate benefits would also have important 'win-win' benefits for human health and agriculture," said Shindell. The study was published in the journal Science.


Shindell and an international team considered about 400 control measures based on technologies evaluated by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. The new study focused on 14 measures with the greatest climate benefit. All 14 would curb the release of either black carbon or methane, pollutants that exacerbate climate change and damage human or plant health either directly or by leading to ozone formation.


Black carbon, a product of burning fossil fuels or biomass such as wood or dung, can worsen a number of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. The small particles also absorb radiation from the sun causing the atmosphere to warm and rainfall patterns to shift. In addition, they darken ice and snow, reducing their reflectivity and hastening global warming.


Methane, a colorless and flammable substance that is a major constituent of natural gas, is both a potent greenhouse gas and an important precursor to ground-level ozone. Ozone, a key component of smog and also a greenhouse gas, damages crops and human health.


While carbon dioxide is the primary driver of global warming over the long term, limiting black carbon and methane are complementary actions that would have a more immediate impact because these two pollutants circulate out of the atmosphere more quickly.


Shindell and his team concluded that these control measures would provide the greatest protection against global warming to Russia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, countries with large areas of snow or ice cover. Iran, Pakistan and Jordan would experience the most improvement in agricultural production. Southern Asia and the Sahel region of Africa would see the most beneficial changes to precipitation patterns.


The south Asian countries of India, Bangladesh and Nepal would see the biggest reductions in premature deaths. The study estimates that globally between 700,000 and 4.7 million premature deaths could be prevented each year.


Black carbon and methane have many sources. Reducing emissions would require that societies make multiple infrastructure upgrades. For methane, the key strategies the scientists considered were capturing gas escaping from coal mines and oil and natural gas facilities, as well as reducing leakage from long-distance pipelines, preventing emissions from city landfills, updating wastewater treatment plants, aerating rice paddies more, and limiting emissions from manure on farms.


For black carbon, the strategies analyzed include installing filters in diesel vehicles, keeping high-emitting vehicles off the road, upgrading cooking stoves and boilers to cleaner burning types, installing more efficient kilns for brick production, upgrading coke ovens and banning agricultural burning.


The scientists used computer models developed at GISS and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, to model the impact of emissions reductions. The models showed widespread benefits from the methane reduction because it is evenly distributed throughout the atmosphere. Black carbon falls out of the atmosphere after a few days so the benefits are stronger in certain regions, especially ones with large amounts of snow and ice.


"Protecting public health and food supplies may take precedence over avoiding climate change in most countries, but knowing that these measures also mitigate climate change may help motivate policies to put them into practice," Shindell said. The new study builds on a United Nations Environment Program/World Meteorological Organization report, also led by Shindell, published last year.


"The scientific case for fast action on these so-called 'short-lived climate forcers' has been steadily built over more than a decade, and this study provides further focused and compelling analysis of the likely benefits at the national and regional level," said United Nations Environment Program Executive Director Achim Steiner.


Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240299.php

Asia's Biggest MMOG: FIFA Online 2

Ask Electronic Arts or Konami about their bestselling sports title worldwide and chances are they'll bring up their respective soccer titles: the FIFA and Winning Eleven series (Pro Evolution Soccer for the latter if you live in North America). Both games represent the best aspects of video game soccer to a point where both franchises have their own divided fan base.

Naturally, a free-to-play version of this kind of game would blow any sports fan's mind. Such a notion exists, as FIFA Online 2 have been around since 2006 and tailor-made for casual Asian PC users with a particular affinity for the sport.

Overview: Released in Korea on 2006, FIFA Online 2 answers the question on what would happen if World of Warcraft and FIFA 06 had a baby together and made it available for free. The game plays like your standard soccer title and uses the FIFA 07 game engine; originally the game came out using the FIFA 06 engine.

The game is published by EA and developed by Neowiz Games and EA Singapore. Primary distributors and licence holders of the game are IAHGames, GameOn, Pmang (a game channel owned by Neowiz Games), and Chinese game operators The9.

FIFA Online 2 should not be confused with the 2010 title FIFA Online, which came out on January 30. That title officially shut down on March 25, 2011. We have yet to confirm as to why FIFA Online 2 was initially titled as such since it first launched in 2006.


Source: http://asia.gamespot.com/features/asias-biggest-mmog-fifa-online-2-6346984/?tag=updates%3Blatest%3Ball%3Btitle%3B1

JamBots: Soft Robots Based on Particle Jamming, Like this Hexapod from iRobot

iRobot has received ample attention for their particle jamming innovations (ie, the "Jamming Blob Robot" and "Jamming Gripper"), created under the now-expired DARPA Chembot program. 


However, if you're like me, their particle jamming actuators and hexapod "JamBot" probably alluded your attention -- and they're stinkin' cool!  That said, I'd like to introduce you to the "Hexapod JamBot" and the "Jamming Modulated Unimorph (JMU) actuator" created by researchers at iRobot and the Jaeger Group at the University of Chicago.


iRobot created some unique technologies as part of the (now-expired) DARPA Chembot program.  Specifically, they pioneered particle jamming techniques for robot locomotion (left) and robot grasping (middle and right):

However, you probably missed their more recent developments, unveiled at a press event in Manhattan last October.¹  In fact, I only found out about the new developments while surfing Annan Mozeika's homepage.  (Annan is an iRobot researcher.)  So, without further ado...

 

 

Hexapod JamBot: 

Regrettably, I've been unable to obtain a nice video of the Hexapod Jambot in operation.  The best video I could find was the one below.  (Note to iRobot folks: contact me if you locate a better video!)


I'm busy packing for my move to Duke University,² so I'm going to cop-out a little bit and rely on quotes...  From Charlie Vaida, PR Manager at iRobot Corporation, who also provided some of the higher-res photos above:

Jamming Modulated Unimorph (JMU) Hexapod:

The JMU hexapod robot platform utilizes six jamming modulated unimorph segments for legs.  The body is also composed of six individually addressable jammable chambers.  The jamming hexapod (JHEX) can either be completely soft (including body) in an unjammed state or rigid in a jammed state.  Some rudimentary tripod-like walking gaits were developed.  This legged robot is capable of entering a "completely soft" and compliant state.

Work continues with soft robots and utilizing jamming in mobile robotics. We continue to find additional applications for jamming in robotics, including a jamming manipulator.

Jamming Modulated Unimorph:

 

The Hexapod JamBot relies on six JMU actuators.  To quote a recent paper entitled, "Jamming as an Enabling Technology for Soft Robotics,"



The JMU uses a single linear actuator and a discrete number of jamming cells to turn the 1 degree of freedom (DOF) linear actuator into a multi DOF bending actuator.  The JMU uses a single linear actuator and a discrete number of jamming cells to turn the 1 degree offreedom (DOF) linear actuator into a multi DOF bending actuator.



The basic construction (heck, even the hexapod exemplar robot) strongly remind me of their electroactive polymer (EAP) counterparts: a "spring roll" artificial muscle actuator (left) and hexapod (right):



Additionally, it would seem that some researchers believe particle jamming is useful outside of robotics too.... to quote the Cornell Creative Machines Lab:

 Footnotes:

 

1:  The Hexapod JamBot was covered briefly by Technologizer, FastCompany, PC-World, and ChipChick back in October 2010 following an iRobot press event in Manhattan.  However, they failed to (1) follow up with technical details and (2) broadly expose the project to roboticists.  (I'm operating under the premise that if I haven't seen it, then you probably haven't either.  I read something like 600 RSS feeds, and I missed it the first time around!)  So we'll just assume this hasn't been covered before.  ;-)

2:  Yep, I finally finished my PhD -- I'm now "Dr. Travis Deyle."   The PhD defense went swimmingly, and I've turned in the official "camera ready" version of the dissertation (I'll write about it on Hizook after we get confirmation of journal paper acceptance).  Furthermore, I was awarded a prestigious NSF Computing Innovation (CI) Postdoc Fellowship to work under my long-time mentor, Dr. Matt Reynolds... so I'm off to Duke University. I'm not exactly sure what to call my new appointment, perhaps: "entrepreneurial scientist." Basically, I'm going to work on research projects with near-term commercial potential and try to shepherd them out of the lab.  The fellowship affords me a lot of freedom, so there's a strong likelihood that I'll double-down on Hizook too (develop real products, apply for an SBIR, perhaps some consulting, etc).  I've got a few things in the pipeline, but if you're interested in collaborating on a project, be sure to contact me.

Source:http://www.hizook.com/blog/2011/11/28/jambots-soft-robots-based-particle-jamming-hexapod-irobot

Why Ice Cream Sandwich won't be able to save Android tablets

For the last day, I’ve been tinkering around with Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) 4.0.3 OS on my Motorola XOOM.

Motorola hasn’t yet released the updated software for its tablet officially, but I was able to get the latest version of Android running due to work being done by various open source community teams at XDA-Developers, a popular forums site for Android development and hacking.

I’ve actually managed to try three separate ICS builds for the XOOM, just to get a sense of what stage the code is currently in. Motorola is reportedly now testing its official software release for their tablets with a pilot group of users, so that means if you own a XOOM, you should be receiving it via an over-the-air (OTA) update within a month.

Right now, all of the builds that are out from the community are essentially “Vanilla” based on code from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) although they have a few additional tweaks for things such as overclocking if you really want to dive into that sort of stuff.

There are other community-supported unofficial ICS builds out for other tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Asus Transformer — all of which of course require “rooting” your device and installing ClockWorkMod on it, an open source firmware manager utility.

Unless you know what you’re doing, I don’t suggest going this route with your Android tablet.

Currently, the three “team” builds I have looked at do not have functioning cameras/HDMI ports and have a number of other minor issues, but for the most part the aesthetics and general operation of the software more or less closely reflects what will end up being released within several weeks by Motorola as well as by other Android tablet OEMs.

With the acknowledgement that what I’m playing with right now does have bugs and in no way should be considered a production software release or an officially supported build by Motorola, overall, Ice Cream Sandwich is definitely an improvement over Honeycomb.

The software runs considerably faster, the user interface is more responsive overall and the browser renders pages more fluidly, which has always been one of my major complaints about the OS.

However, while existing Honeycomb tablet owners will see this software as a welcome improvement to what they were using before, I don’t see Ice Cream Sandwich as being some sort of magic bullet that is suddenly going to propel Android tablets into major market share territory (with the one major exception being Amazon’s Kindle Fire).

Right now, all of the Honeycomb tablets currently in use which are due for the ICS upgrade only occupy about a 3.3% share of the total Android install base. That’s not a heck of a lot. Most of the Android that’s out there is running on handsets.

• Also Read: Why Android Tablets Failed, A Postmortem (Jason Hiner)
  

Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which has supposedly sold millions of devices over the 2011 holiday season, runs on a modified version of 2.3.5, aka Gingerbread. As such it’s heavily supplementing the large percentage of 2.3.x smartphone devices that are already in circulation as reported by Google — most of which will not be upgraded to ICS.

[Note: If you didn't understand that last paragraph, it means that the Kindle Fire is not even being counted in Google's metrics, but by virtue of selling millions of units, it vastly increases the amount of 2.3.x Gingerbread in the wild. Capische?]

Also Read:

• Latest Android Figures Paint Dismal Tablet Picture (James Kendrick)
• Amazon’s Kindle Fire: The Tablet’s Volkswagen Moment
• Only Google can sort out the Android update mess (Adrian Kingsley-Hughes)
  

The last time I compared Android as a tablet OS versus Android as a smartphone OS side by side back in April of last year, the two implementations were not at version parity. Until now, the most current smartphone implementation was version 2.3.x (Gingerbread) and the most current tablet implementation was Honeycomb (3.x).

Also Read:

• Motorola XOOM returned, Honeycomb Half-Baked at Best
• Dear Google: Here’s Your Roadmap Out of Android Honeycomb Hell
  

The initial release of Honeycomb 3.0 was absolutely rife with problems. The OS had all sorts of application compatibility and overall stability issues which made the original XOOM I owned (and subsequently returned) a nightmare to use.

Over the course of that year 3.1 and later on 3.2 improved stability issues considerably. For testing purposes, I tried my luck again with the Wi-Fi version of the XOOM, when my ZDNet colleague Scott Raymond decided to sell me his for a generous discount when he decided he wanted a thinner, but very similar Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 instead.

Boys must have their toys, you know.

Had Scott not decided to give me a nice break on his barely-used XOOM, I would have never spent full price on the tablet, even at the $500.00 price parity with iPad 2 they were selling the devices at the time.

Today, you can pick up a 32GB Wi-Fi XOOM for about $450 and a 16GB Galaxy Tab for about the same. The Asus Transformer which is based on the same nVidia Tegra 2 guts will run you about $400.

The Asus Transformer Prime, which sports the new nVidia Tegra 3 Kal-El quad-core processor, will set you back about $500. Like the XOOM and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 it’s also due for a Android 4.0 update shortly.

[EDIT: I had previously stated that the Transformer Prime cost $600, but that was for the 64GB version.]

With the exception of Amazon’s Kindle Fire, I still think all Android tablets are seriously overpriced. Software update or not, that’s still going to be a major issue with consumers making decisions about what tablet to buy this year.

At least one major Android tablet manufacturer that I know of is due to release an 8GB 10.1 inch device in the next several days in the sub-$330.00 range. I think that’s a good start, but it’s not enough.

So then why is everyone so jazzed about the new software update? It’s because Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) version 4.0.3 finally brings Android smartphones and tablets into a single unified codebase.


Source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/why-ice-cream-sandwich-wont-be-able-to-save-android-tablets/19584?tag=mantle_skin;content

A New Wild Ginger Discovered from the Evergreen Forest of Western Ghats of South India

ntensive botanical explorations for taxonomic studies on the members of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) in India by V.P. Thomas and M. Sabu of the University of Calicut, have resulted in the discovery of an interesting species of Amomum (Cardamom) from Silent Valley National Park on the Western Ghats of Kerala. 

The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

The ginger family consists of 53 genera and over 1,200 species, many of which are widely used as spices, for medical purposes, or simply for decoration. Amomum Roxb. is the second largest genus within the Zingiberaceae, comprising about 150-180 species, including several types of cardamom. Widely distributed in Southeast Asia, the genus is represented by 23 species in India, mostly restricted to North-East India, South India and the Andaman-Nicobar Islands.

In the new species, the authors show some similarities with A. masticatorium, although the two are clearly distinct. The new plant's name refers to its locality, i.e. Nilgiri hills, a part of Western Ghats and one of the hotspots of the Indian subcontinent. The most notable feature of the plant is the presence of long ligules that reach up to 9 cm long and small flowers with a long corolla tube. Almost all parts of the plant are hairy.

It is a high altitude species (found above 1,200 m), and attempts to conserve it outside its natural locality were unsuccessful. The conservation status evaluation revealed that it falls under the critically endangered category of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2001. Conservation measures are to be carried out very urgently to recover the plant from extinction.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120106110537.htm

Find more than 1,300 eco-friendly fabrics on the new Source4Style

For many years, designing clothing with fabrics that didn't pollute rivers, weren't made from nonrenewable petrochemicals, and didn't contribute to habitat loss or worker abuse (i.e., conventional fabrics) was almost impossible. Sure, there were organic cottons, naturally dyed wools and hemp textiles out there, but they were (very) hard to find and often came in limited colorways.


Plenty of designers, especially smaller, independent outfits that were already stretched to the limit on time and money, simply couldn't afford to spend the extra energy to find sustainable fabrics. And many others didn't even know they existed.

 

To solve that problem — which is not so much one of supply and demand (as the global public has demanded more Earth-friendly fabrics, companies small and larger have brought new options to market) but one of access and education — sustainability expert (and eco model) Summer Rayne Oakes teamed up with her best friend, Benita Singh, to put together a platform, Source4Style, wherein designers could simply and easily search for more sustainable fabrics, by color, type of fabric, country of origin, or aspect of sustainability. So, for example, I searched the site for a red knit fabric from the United States, and six options came up, some in organic cotton, some organic wools, and a blend of the two, which is exactly the kind of flexibility a designer needs.

After a year of testing and tweaking, the site launched Dec. 12.

 

"Our goal is to provide the most cutting-edge tools to facilitate commerce between two groups that are currently disconnected in the global market — the leading sustainable suppliers and the designers looking for them. Suppliers all over the world — whether they be a cooperative of artisans or an emerging sustainable mill — can apply to showcase on Source4Style’s platform and be opened up to the growing community of designers and apparel brands, which currently come from over 70 countries around the world," according to the Source4Style site. 

 

The site offers swatches of fabric, but doesn't keep inventory and sell the fabric (Source4Style isn't a middleman), but rather connects buyers and sellers in a simple, seamless way. And fabric's just the start. Soon button, trim, zippers and yarn will be searchable, too.
 

 

"As a vetted and curated supplier-generated site, pricing and inventories are all updated in real time, along with the most comprehensive material specs online," says the site. So now ethically minded designers can spend more time designing, and less time worrying about the negative impact of their business, or setting up their own complicated supply lines for each fabric they want to use, meaning they can do more of what they love to do — creating great clothes for us all to wear.


Source: http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/natural-beauty-fashion/blogs/find-more-than-1300-eco-friendly-fabrics-on-the-new-source4st

iPad 3 expected to come with 9.7-inch screen and A6 processor

The market is abuzz with speculations that Apple is going to launch the iPad 3 towards the end of January and will be providing the same with A6 processor.


The report has also stated that the latest iPad is going to be designed for multiple market segments. This means that variants of the iPad 3 will be offered for base level, medium range as well as top end markets. Screen size is also going to be enhanced at 9.7-inch, much larger than the initially rumored screen size of 7.85-inch. The screens are also to be provided with very high 1,536×2,048p QXGA resolution. Brightness of its panels is going to be strengthened using twin LED light bars.


Sources are suggesting that Sharp is going to be the major supplier of iPad 3 panels, whereas iPad 3 Display,  LG and Samsung are going to receive some orders also. Samsung, however, will be the major supplier of the CMOS Image Sensors for a particular version of this latest iPad, which is expected to come with a 5MP lens. The other model, having 8MP lens, will be provided its Image Sensor by Sony.


The iPad 3 is expected to be provided with high capacity batteries of 14,000mAh. Two companies have been identified for ordering the same. They are Dynapack International Tech. and Simplo Technology.


Source: http://www.ipad3-release.com/2012/ipad-3-expected-to-come-with-9-7-inch-screen-and-a6-processor/

Canal network could be used to transport biomass for power plants

Britain's network of Victorian canals could once again play a major industrial role, in a revival driven by the demand for green energy.

There are hopes that inland waterways that are now the preserve of walkers, barge-owners and holidaymakers may finally undergo a rebirth as freight transport routes to meet the needs of power stations run on biomass plants, where electricity is produced from wood and waste byproducts.

A scheme by the energy services company Dalkia that uses the Aire and Calder Navigation canal system in Yorkshire to carry timber for the power industry is being repeated in other parts of the country, according to the Freight Transport Association (FTA).

"It is perhaps not right to call it a renaissance yet but there is huge potential for carrying biomass fuel, civic waste and building materials on the waterways. It can make commercial and environmental sense," said a spokesman for the FTA.

Biomass has become more important as the UK strives to meet a European Union target of generating 15% of energy from renewable sources by 2020. But the moves come amid uncertainty over the future administration of the canal network as the government plans to disband the publicly owned British Waterways and transfer its work to a new Canal and River Trust.

The river Thames and Manchester Ship Canal are already in regular use but the narrow gauge canal system – built in the Victorian period – has been out of favour for decades because vessels are slower than trains or trucks. However, according to British Waterways, which oversees 2,200 miles of canals and inland waterways, 1.5m tonnes of freight was carried last year and this figure is expected to rise. In their industrial heyday, canals carried nearly 40m tonnes a year.

British Waterways is currently working with the East Midlands Development Agency and others on a number of pilot schemes to see whether goods can be taken off the road and on to water.

Dalkia, owned by the French companies EDF and Veolia, has just announced plans to move 360,000 tonnes of wood products a year on the Aire and Calder to feed furnaces at a planned new biomass plant in Pollington, south of Leeds. The plant will provide renewable power to light and heat 60,000 homes.

A spokesman for Dalkia said that canals were a "cleaner" way of moving fuel than by road and the company wanted to make the wider £120m biomass scheme as environmentally friendly as possible.

Dalkia has already built 200 biomass facilities across continental Europe, where the wider canals were more obvious arteries for moving fuel around. Meanwhile British Waterways expects to be wound up by next summer and be relaunched as a charity with a reduced cash grant.

Britain's inland waterways are used mainly for leisure, with about 13m visitors a year. The canals were constructed largely in the late 18th century and flourished over the next 100 years until the coming of the railways.

The Aire and Calder Navigation Company made the River Aire navigable as far as Leeds in 1704 with the construction of locks. Two years later, the company made the River Calder navigable from Castleford to Wakefield. The Aire and Calder Canal still connects Leeds with Goole on the coast, 33 miles away, but in the past it allowed coal to be moved from the Yorkshire collieries for shipping overseas. Now coal tends to be brought from abroad and then carried by rail for use in big power stations such as Drax at Selby.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/01/canals-biomass-transport-power

2011's hidden cinematic gems

Every year there are movies that slip through the cracks -- say, the documentary that appears only briefly at a festival or the art film that quickly flashes across the marquee before it's pushed off by the latest Michael Bay monster. So, here's a little holiday break homework for you while you bask in the seasonal glow: a list of little gems from the past year that are too good to miss. Hope your local video store is well-stocked and your popcorn maker at the ready.

Another Earth

Another Earth is a sci-fi film where the idea is the biggest special effect. An accident stands between a young woman and a grieving composer, but the discovery of a parallel existence opens a world of possibilities.

Attack the Block

There's a reason this British import is making many of 2011's best-of lists. A first-time filmmaker serves up a manic romp that does justice to the action flicks of the '80s, without any of Super 8's audacious effects. A monster with glowing teeth meets ghetto gang-bangers: really, what else do you need to know?

Beginners

Much more than Christopher Plummer playing a gay man, Beginners is a touching, whimsical ode to love, life, healing -- and it has a talking dog.

Bill Cunningham New York

A documentary with a deft touch, Bill Cunningham New York is about a man who changed the way New Yorkers see themselves. Cunningham is the photographer behind the long-running New York Times fashion column On the Street. An urban sociologist of sorts, he has spent decades documenting how we dress. This is a movie about fashion, fads and the complicated man behind the camera.

Four Lions

Fearless and funny filmmaking at its best, Four Lions follows a terror cell of British Jihadists planning an attack in London -- that is, if they don't blow themselves up first. It's The Three Stooges-meets-suicide bombers, and no target is safe.

The Guard

Don Cheadle and Brendan Gleeson star in this most unusual of buddy movies. When a drug-smuggling ring makes inroads into rural Ireland, a FBI liaison is forced to work with a cantankerous county cop. Though it might sound conventional, The Guard -- just like Gleeson's character -- is never what it seems.

A Separation

From Iran comes a film that is utterly real and tragic. A husband and wife seek a divorce. An elderly parent's decline requires daily care. A caregiver, with a daughter, is hired. These are just the strands of the tale, but the way director Asghar Farhadi ties them into knots would do Anton Chekov proud. A Separation demonstrates heartbreaking, but unfussy, filmmaking that speaks to the claustrophobia of his country.

Pina

Filmmaker Wim Wenders has created a moving memorial to his friend, the late choreographer Pina Bausch, that will change the way you think about dance and 3D movies. The film is dance reduced to its basic elements: raw and vital, but also playful. As Bausch herself says: "Dance, dance...or else we are lost."

The Trip

A semi-improvised road movie about an actor and a comedian partaking in fine dining across North Britain, The Trip is my pick for funniest film of the year. Though silly, it also offers a shockingly bitter undercurrent that's easy to miss when you're crying with laughter.

The Whistleblower

Forgive the painful set-up and awkward exposition at the beginning of this film. Wait, because there are moments to come that will take your breath away. Based on Kathryn Bolkovac's true story, The Whistleblower sees Rachel Weisz play a U.N. peacekeeper who discovers a sex-trafficking ring in Bosnia. A typical film might have the heroine crash in, guns blazing -- The Whistleblower isn't that kind of film. Instead, director Larysa Kondracki explores what happens when a woman discovers something horrifying and is powerless to prevent it.

Rare Exports (A Christmas bonus)

You'll never view Santa the same way again.


Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/things-that-go-pop-blog/2011/12/2011s-hidden-cinematic-gems.html

The LHC Has Discovered Its First New Particle

Though researchers think the Higgs boson is running out of places to hide, the LHC has yet to provide conclusive proof of its existence. But the ATLAS experiment at the LHC--one of the two main experiments taking precise measurements of particle collisions--has found what is thought to be the first observation of a new particle at the world’s largest science experiment. Known as c_b(3P)--or Chi-b (3P)--observations of the particle should yield new insights into the strong force that holds atomic nuclei together.

The c_b(3P) particle is a newly observed means of combing what’s known as a beauty quark with its antiquark equivalent. It’s considered a boson like the Higgs, and like the Higgs it has long been thought to be there, theoretically speaking. It’s a more excited state of Chi particles already witnessed in previous collider experiments. But no one had actually seen it until now.

The as-yet unpublished research should be a jumping off point toward a greater understanding of what holds the universe together. The Higgs gets a lot of air time, as it has proven the most elusive of the Standard Model puzzle pieces and is thought to be the particle that gives all others mass. But once a theory establishes how the universe got mass, it still has to demonstrate how that mass is held together at the fundamental level. That means understanding the strong force and the roles of particles like c_b(3P).

Geek out on some hard physics over at arXiv.


Source: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-12/lhc-discovers-its-first-new-particle

A Familiar Face in Uncharted: Golden Abyss

If the 97 stories haven't tipped you off, IGN has the PlayStation Vita. We've been using the thing nonstop, and at the top of our playlist is Uncharted: Golden Abyss. I've already written impressions about my first few hours with Nathan Drake's latest adventure, but as the chapters roll by, the juicy information keeps coming.


If you were like me, you probably wondered if Golden Abyss -- a tale set before the events of the original Uncharted game -- would feature familiar faces from the franchise. Today, I can tell you that Victor "Sully" Sullivan is in the game and looking quite a bit younger than he did in the original title. Take a look at the screenshots below and let me know in the comments how many years you think this is set before the first Uncharted game.


Source: http://vita.ign.com/articles/121/1215496p1.html

Best Strategy Games for iPad

In case you do not know, there are some really good strategy games for the iPad. Here is my top 10 best strategy games for iPad.

1. The Merry Manor HD

– Build your own merry manor with your own farm, grow fruits and vegetables and the most important part, go through all sorts of fun adventures! Your neighbours are Operator, a business cat, Oops Bunny, the owner of a local joint The Barn and Nostradramus, a restless scholar of a raccoon. They are always happy to help. Together you will find yourselves in many fun situations, tackle day-to-day challenges and build, build, build!High quality graphics, bright colours and ideal sound will satisfy even the most demanding player!You are offered whatever is required to create a unique and beautiful manor!See the transformation from a small farmer to a king, it isn’t easy but you can do it.


2. Pretty Pet Salon HD

–The best -selling salon sim in iTunes goes HD and is now availabale in iPad. Get ready to run your very own Pet Salon. Serve customers, earn money, and make your shop bigger. Hire your staff, and new employees with personality. Exciting achievements for you to collect. Keep an eye out for two celebrity customers, they will give your pet Salon a real surprise.Get to compete with your friends all over the world for the best and most successful Pet Salon out there!An addictive pet grooming game that will be a sure fire hit for pet lovers.

3. SimCity™ Deluxe for iPad

– Manage and build your dream city now available in iPad. Made for both dedicated and casual players alike, let your inner urban planner run wild with the world’s favorite city building simulation. As Mayor and City Planner, take delight in the immersive visuals, the bigger display, and responsive touch controls – all designed just for the SimCity™ Deluxe experience on iPad. With HD-quality graphics and realistic animation that provides vividly textured terrain that you’ll want to reach out and touch. Easily “fingerpaint” masses of trees, water, and land with a simple swipe of your finger. Think big and live larger with customized controls.Be ready to take on demanding challenges.

4. Battle for Wesnoth HD

–If you’re after something that merges both strategy and RPG, you’ve found the right game. Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based hex game set in the land of Wesnoth where you command mythical units like fire-breathing dragonfolk, griffin-mounted dwarves and elite elven archers. If you’re a fan of the desktop version, then this is definitely something you should add to your homescreen.

5. CityVille Hometown

–Create your CityVille Hometwon. Help the delightful characters, follow their stories, and be rewarded with special items. Watch your town grow with a wide variety of houses, businesses, and fantastic decorations that you can choose from. Name your businesses and residents to as you want to make your town unique.

6. Crime City HD

– Are you up to building criminal empires and crush your rivals?Want to become the toughest Mob Boss in Crime City HD! Rise through the ranks of the mafia and take over the city! Build up your hood, do heists, beat up people and fight other players! Get to explore HD exclusive areas, buildings and much more. Own 160+ Powerful weapons and cars that you can buy. Get to collect massive incomes from your properties, and get to enjoy it’s gorgeous graphics.

7. Wedding Dash 4-Ever

– It’s up to best friends Quinn and Flo to keep everything under control, when Quinn’s mom unexpectedly arrives in town and shakes up her home, business, and love life. While Mom is making suggestions at every turn, help quinn manage more weddings, keep the bride and groom happy, plan dream weddings and get more in Play First’s most romantic time management game. Get to host weddings in 5 trendy venues like a Japanese Garden and Vineyard. Up for a challenge, get to tackle 9 wedding day disasters including Bridezilla, Groom Kong, and a Food Fight before they upset the guests and happy couple!


8. Tower Defense: Lost Earth HD

–While searching for resources that have been exhausted on Earth, you followed the probe across the galaxy searching for habitable planets. Take command of towers and special weapons to hold your defense against endless waves of enemies on the hostile alien planet. Tower Defense: Lost Earth takes classic defense games to a whole new world. With 4 different game play modes with different objectives. 5 Different World Themes and 10 enemies with different behaviors.A game that supports English, français, Deutsch.

9. Sentinel 3: Homeworld

–Take the fight to the alien homeworld and unleash a massive arsenal of weaponry, A challenging campaign featuring 20 levels across 14 distinctive & demanding maps. Get endless modes for all maps with online highscores. The classic mode allows you to compete for scores in a pure skill-based mode. Comes with stunning graphics &fx, with high redolution Retina Display support.Also offers 15 level campaign, new commander, new weapons, new enemies and more.

10. Hotel Dash 2: Lost Luxuries

–Start your adventure with Hotel Dash 2: Lost Luxuries, PlayFirst’s wildest time management game! This year, DinerTown is a strong candidate to host the International French Fry Festival. Get to help Flo and Quinn excavate themed hotels built many years ago, and turn them into retro-chic resorts! Tap and slide to glide down zip lines, prep rooms, cater to guests’ requests, and renovate each hotel with unique accents. Will you restore enough hotels to host the festival, or will a sneaky competitor sabotage your efforts. Get to restore all five nature-themed hotels: Swiss Chalet, Bubbly Submarine, Chilly Ice Palace, and more. Get to meet unique guests like the scuba diver, genie, and snowboarder.

Source: http://www.ipad3-release.com/2011/best-strategy-games-for-ipad/

BenQ launches E2200HD in India

BenQ corp has launched the first 22 inch or so to say 21.5 inch 1080p Full HD LCD monitor. The monitor is equipped with a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution with 300 cd/m2 brightness. It comes with VGA and HDMI inputs with a headphone jack.

The LCD has a 16:9 aspect ratio and has a 10,000:1 contrast ratio.

The E2200HD comes with integrated speakers and can render content from STBs, camcorders and DVD players. The LCD Monitor will be available for only Rs. 13,500 which is a pretty neat price for what you are getting.

Source: http://technews.in/reviews/plasma_and_lcd/benq_launches_e2200hd_in_india/

Paul McCartney has new album for Valentine's Day

Paul McCartney has collaborated with Diana Krall, Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder on an album of standards to be released in time for Valentine's Day.

McCartney announced the project Monday, as he released the first of two original songs on the album to fans on his website. There are only two new songs on the album – My Valentine and Only Our Hearts.

But love is clearly in the air for the former Beatle, who married American Nancy Shevell in October.

His song list includes romantic works from the American Songbook, by composers such as Cole Porter and Harold Arlen. And it comes out just ahead of Valentine’s Day on Feb. 7.

McCartney says he and John Lennon were inspired in their own writing by some of the standards, which he first heard when his father performed them at home on piano.

McCartney worked with Vancouver-based Krall and her band in recording the as-yet-untitled album, and Clapton and Wonder also make appearances.

McCartney says he’s been thinking about the project for 20 years and, at age 69, figured “if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it.”

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2011/12/19/paul-mccartney-valentine-album.html

Touchless smartphones and TVs could be on sale in 2012

So you've lost your TV remote control. Again.

Not to worry, says a tiny Israeli start-up company called XTR3D - soon you'll be able to flick through channels and adjust the volume using only... your hand.

You'll just have to turn your palm towards the screen, and zap away without ever getting off the couch.

And no need for under-the-skin electronics or fancy microchips.

Instead, the TV - or rather gesture recognition software installed inside - will "read" your moves and execute appropriate commands, without any need for physically pressing any buttons.

Based in Tel Aviv, XTR3D is one of the developers of such motion capture technology, and it has just received $8m (£5m) investment bound to give "touchless" tech another push - and according to the firm, bring the first motion control smartphone into the market as early as next year.

US electronics giant Texas Instruments is among the investors.

Although the Israeli firm follows in the footsteps of Microsoft's Kinect, the multi-directional gesture control gaming console that was launched last year and has since been selling like hot cakes despite the average $200 price tag, its technology is quite different.

The Kinect has depth sensors, multi-array microphones and RGB cameras that provide the software with the information it needs to track both voice and gestures.

XTR3D, on the other hand, uses ordinary 2D cameras - such as a webcam of a computer or the one in your smartphone - to extract 3D out of a 2D image.

This creates the same three-dimensional effect as on the Kinect.

According to the Tel Aviv start-up's spokesman Roy Ramati, XTR3D's technology has all the advantages of a 3D camera without any of the disadvantages - it can work in broad daylight, is much cheaper and uses a lot less power.

"And it can be installed into any consumer electronics device," adds Mr Ramati.

Dor Givon, XTR3D's founder and chief technical officer, adds that it is even possible to play a proper Kinect game on a regular laptop that has the software, touchlessly controlling the device from a distance of a few centimetres to up to 5m away.

And, he says, anyone will be able to afford it.

"Our target is to penetrate the market, so it will be something for everyone to try out," says Mr Givon.

"New devices will have the interface embedded in them, with older ones you will be able to download the software from the app store."

Besides gaming and switching TV channels, the existing prototypes include a PC where it is possible to flip through a PowerPoint presentation just by waving your hand, a tablet and a smartphone that have features such as using gestures to create the effect of a joystick, to click, swipe, zoom in and out with a pinch gesture, and a GPS device that can be controlled touchlessly while driving.
Ultrasound and optical

Despite being at the forefront of gesture-controlled technology, XTR3D is not the only firm aiming to make our world touchless.

Various kinds of motion detection have been around for a while.

For instance, simple gesture recognition such as hovering your hand near a water tap or a toilet flush to activate them are becoming more and more common.

And after Microsoft paved the way with Kinect, bringing new digital dimensions to the gaming world, other companies followed.

Microsoft itself is now actively trying to expand Kinect's use into other industries.

Recently, it announced that it would release a commercial version of the Kinect software development kit in early 2012.

Microsoft has also teamed up with about 200 businesses in more than 20 countries - among them car manufacturer Toyota and digital advertising firm Razorfish - for Kinect to reach well beyond gaming.

"The Kinect can sense your entire body for interaction with the device, and we're only scratching the surface of what can be done because beyond computing there's a lot of scenarios where this kind of natural user interaction could be really powerful, a real paradigm shift," says Shahram Izadi, a researcher from the Microsoft Research Centre in Cambridge, England.

And the creator of the chip that powers the motion-sensing part of the Kinect, an Israeli company called PrimeSense, is now selling a gadget that has the same hardware as Microsoft's device.

Once hooked up to a regular computer, it can provide a Kinect-like experience without the Kinect.

Apple has also filed patents that involve allowing users to touchlessly "throw" content from one device to another, for example from a tablet onto your TV screen.

Another electronics giant, mobile chip maker Qualcomm, has recently bought a small Canadian firm GestureTek.

It targets three devices: tablets (including eReaders), smartphones and TVs, and uses a combination of cameras and ultrasound.

Ultrasound sensors are there for close range "no-look" gesture control - they pick up movements with help of a microphone instead of an optical camera, explains Qualcomm's director of technology Francis MacDougall.

"One issue the Kinect has is an inability to track close to a device. The default design can track no closer than 50cm - great for TVs but not so good for tablets and smartphones," says Mr MacDougall.

"So Qualcomm has placed multiple audio sensors - microphones - into their handset designs to isolate the voice location in 3D space while filtering out everything else.

"This technique is extremely low power and can track the hand within one to 15cm of the phone."
Touchless world

Imagine that you are driving a car and your child is on the back seat watching a movie on a tablet - you don't have to divert your attention from the road, but just by making a gesture near the tablet you would be able to pause it or turn it off.

And such possibilities are endless, says Mr MacDougall.

For instance, how about answering a phone when you're cooking, eating or driving without touching the screen or even having to look at it? Or turning pages on an eReader with swipe gestures? Or skipping to the next song with a swipe or pausing it with a palm raised?

These touchless features are pretty much what other companies working in the area have been promising to deliver, but one that relates to TV control is quite unique to GestureTek.

"We're working on face recognition that will be used to identify each member of the family and bring up custom interfaces as part of a next generation 'smart TV' interface," says Mr MacDougall.

To achieve that, the firm is turning to optical solutions, similar to those used by XTR3D - the standard forward-facing 2D camera and in some cases a stereo set-up - two standard 2D camera sensors spaced a small distance apart to calculate the 3D location of any features in the scene.

However the companies around the world are doing it - with regular or infrared cameras, or with ultrasound sensors, one thing is certain, says Mr MacDougall.

"Gesture is definitely heating up!"

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15970019