Suggestions and articles' form on SayPeople.com

Now you can send your thoughts and writings, to us, directly from the SayPeople's blog....

We like to receive suggestions, websites, blogs, articles, jokes, ideas, news and nearly everything.

Hopefully, our connection will become stronger with this new feature.

Japanese scientists have developed robot to practice dentistry

Scientists from Japan have developed a robot, dubbed simroid, to practice dentistry. This robot comes with artificial intelligence and sensors that will cause the robot to behave like a human.

"It was impossible to practise correct bedside manner -- you know, before we encountered patients for real. So we developed this robot not just for technical practice, but so we could also study how we should adjust our behaviour." Akira Hamura, co-developer and professor of general dentistry, Nippon Dental University Hospital, said.

"We wanted to get it as near to a real human being as possible. When it's sitting still, talking to someone or opening it's mouth up wide, what we were after was to be as close as possible as genuine flesh and blood." Yukihiko Isokawa, Morita Manufacturing Group, Research and Development group leader, said.

Further Reading:

SayPeople

Mars could be habitable as reports are suggesting

Researchers have reported in the journal Science that the environment of Mars could be habitable for the life. They have hypothesized after the evidences of water flows, zinc deposits and veins of gypsum in the rocks.

“The rover discovered evidence for low temperature liquid water and environments that would be conducive for life,” said Scott M. McLennan, Professor of Geochemistry at Stony Brook University and one of the members of the team of the research.

He added, “If we found this on Earth there would be no question that you could find evidence of life,”

Further Reading:

SayPeople

iPad users have another news from Logitech

Logitech has announced a solar powered case with Bluetooth facilitated keyboard for iPad.

"Now that people are seemingly inseparable from their tablets, using them for everything from sending emails to watching videos, they want accessories powered to meet their needs," said Alexis Richard, director of product marketing at Logitech. "The Logitech Solar Keyboard Folio is a smart partner for your iPad. Its sleek built-in keyboard uses light to charge and it provides hassle-free protection for your iPad – both for the front and back. It gives you an ideal way to use and protect your tablet without adding bulk."

This case is available for preorders from the company.

Further Reading:

SayPeople

XPS 13 by Dell has been announced

Dell has launched its new Ultrabook XPS 13 with extra slim body and longer battery life.

From SayPeople,

XPS 13 is 18mm thin, i.e. 0.77 inches, while 6 mm at it’s thinnest with dimensions of 12.4 x 8.1 x 0.7 in. It has three pounds of weight which can goes up to reasonable 3.6 pound after addition of the AC adapter. It has a 13.3 inch of display, in a footprint similar to an 11 inch laptop, with 1366x768 pixels. It has 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD with a 1.6 GHz Intel core i7 processor. It has a battery life of up to 8 hours and 53 minutes.

It will be available from $999.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Canon's new EOS 5D Mark III camera

Canon has revealed new EOS 5D Mark III camera on March 2. This new camera comes with an update to full-frame 5D Mark II dSLR.

The camera has 22.3 MP CMOS sensor. It supports high ISO ranging from 100 to 25600 (expandable to 102400). This camera features wireless file transfer and Speedlite 600EX-RT is the Canon’s first flash unit.

The Camera will be available in the later part of this month at $3,499 body-only.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Zynga has rolled out on a new platform

Article first published as Zynga’s New Individual Platform for Social Gaming on Technorati.

Zynga, the leading provider of social games on Facebook, has announced a separate platform for the social gaming.

The new platform is Zynga.com, which according to the company will allow “new ways to play and more people to play with”. The new platform will also allow the third party developers to make the games to be played by the players of Zynga.

“We built Zynga.com to give our players more ways to connect with each other and play great social games whether built by Zynga or other talented developers,” said Mark Pincus, founder and CEO, Zynga. “Together with our platform partners, we look forward to bringing more play to the world on our platform.”

Although, Zynga gets 96% of its revenue from the world No. 1 social networking site through the sale of virtual goods to its customers on games such as CityVille, FarmVille and MafiaWars, but now it has planned to develop a separate identity.

Zynga will allow the players to login through Facebook ID and play games with not only their existing friends but also with other players, i.e. zFriends.

“Zynga.com was created based on listening to players and understanding what they want and need to make their play time more fun and meaningful,” said Manuel Bronstein, general manager of Zynga.com. “We are excited to give players a way to connect with other people who love to play the same games in a destination that is all and only about games. We will continue to listen to player feedback and provide even better ways for them to connect and play together.”

Further Reading:

Zynga

AMD has taken SeaMicro

Article first published as AMD Acquires SeaMicro, Enhances Cloud Based Computation on Technorati.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc. announced yesterday that it has reached an agreement to acquire SeaMicro for $334 million, of which $281 million will be paid in cash.

The strategy behind this acquisition is to improve cloud based computation while using the energy efficient and high bandwidth microservers of SeaMicro.

“By acquiring SeaMicro, we are accelerating AMD’s transformation into an agile, disruptive innovator capable of staking a data center leadership position,” said Rory Read, president and CEO, AMD.  “SeaMicro is a pioneer in low-power server technology.  The unmatched combination of AMD’s processing capabilities, SeaMicro’s system and fabric technology, and our ambidextrous technology approach uniquely positions AMD with a compelling, differentiated position to attack the fastest growing segment of the server market.”

AMD has reported that a range of different processors and platforms will be launched, by combining the technologies of both the companies helping to reduce the cost consumption, energy utilization, and data center complexity while enhancing the performance. First AMD Opteron processor-based solutions combined with SeaMicro technologies will be revealed in the second half of this year.

IDC predicted that cloud data centers would be the fastest growing part of the server market through 2015 and SeaMicro technologies give pronounced benefits in cloud environments and large data centers.

“Cloud computing has brought a sea change to the data center--dramatically altering the economics of compute by changing the workload and optimal characteristics of a server,” said Andrew Feldman, SeaMicro CEO, who will work as general manager of AMD’s newly created Data Center Server Solutions business. “SeaMicro was founded to dramatically reduce the power consumed by servers, while increasing compute density and bandwidth.  By becoming a part of AMD, we will have access to new markets, resources, technology, and scale that will provide us with the opportunity to work tightly with our OEM partners as we fundamentally change the server market.”

Further Reading:

AMD

New privacy policy by Google

Article first published as New Privacy Policy by Google; Views From Around the World on Technorati.

Google is moving to the new privacy policy from March 1, 2012. In this privacy policy, Google would combine 60 privacy policies for different services into one and the data collected from one Google service will be shared to its other services, websites and products such as Gmail, YouTube and Blogger. Moreover, users will be able to make a comprehensive profile with this new privacy policy.

Fox News has reported that the new privacy policy will allow the company to get even more personal information of its 1 billion users around the world. However, that information will help the search giant to develop more powerful search engine and to improve many other features by the company.

Allan Chiang Yam-wang, Privacy Commissioner in Hong Kong, said that although the new privacy would help Google to get better advertising by understanding the internet users’ web browsing habits but users should have a choice to share their data.

"There is no problem them enhancing the efficiency of their advertising service, but they also need to maintain the autonomy of individual customers" he said. "For example, if I do not want to combine all my data in your services, is there any convenient means for me to opt out?"

Last week privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, in Canada, told Google to explain clearly the privacy issues as there may be some defects in the policy, which must be considered. In a letter to Stoddart, Google has reported that users have not to worry about the new privacy policy.

European regulators warned Google on Tuesday that the new privacy policy by the company is violating the privacy rules and they told them to delay the launch of the privacy policy. France’s data protection agency (CNIL) officials said on behalf of European Union members to the Google chief executive Larry Page,reported that it will investigate the new policy and would send questions by mid-March. “Google’s new policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection.” The CNIL has

In all these circumstances, users are searching for something to be protected, so Abine may give some solution to the internet users around the world. It is a browser add-on to control privacy online. Moreover, Google has also reported how to keep the data security online.

Facebook's usage of Yahoo's technology

Article first published as Yahoo! Warns Facebook Over Patent Issues on Technorati.

The New York Times has reported that Yahoo has warned Facebook over utilization of many of the technologies already filed by Yahoo in 10 to 20 patents.

Yahoo has reported that some of the companies, who utilized the technologies in the Yahoo’s patents, have resolved the issues related to patents by licensing them and Facebook has also to resolve the issue by giving the licensing fees or Yahoo will sue against Facebook.

Yahoo stated that Facebook’s ads, news feed, messaging services and privacy controls are working on some of the technologies mentioned in Yahoo’s patents.

Representatives of the two companies have met on Monday.

"Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property," the company said.

“Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property,” a Yahoo spokesman said in an e-mailed statement (to The New York Times). “We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights.”

Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, said in a statement: “Yahoo contacted us the same time they called The New York Times and so we haven’t had the opportunity to fully evaluate their claims.”

I think meeting of the representatives of two companies is best thing, as negotiation can lead to better solution as compared to patent fight.

Source:

The New York Times

New level of Quantum computation

Article first published as Reaching New Horizons in Quantum Computation on Technorati.

IBM researchers have developed ways to overcome certain errors in quantum computation.

IBM researchers worked on the superconducting 3D qubits utilizing microfabrication techniques. Qubits are the basic units of information in quantum computing. They also worked on the 2D qubits to develop a “Controlled NOT gate” or CNOT gate, which is building block of quantum computation.

“The superconducting qubit research led by the IBM team has been progressing in a very focused way on the road to a reliable, scalable quantum computer. The device performance that they have now reported brings them nearly to the tipping point; we can now see the building blocks that will be used to prove that error correction can be effective, and that reliable logical qubits can be realized,” observes David DiVincenzo, professor at the Institute of Quantum Information, Aachen University and Forschungszentrum Juelich.

Researchers are considering this as a major leap in quantum computing.

“In the past, people have said, maybe it’s 50 years away, it’s a dream, maybe it’ll happen sometime,” said Mark B. Ketchen, manager of the physics of information group at I.B.M.’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. “I used to think it was 50. Now I’m thinking like it’s 15 or a little more. It’s within reach. It’s within our lifetime. It’s going to happen.”

IBM researchers will present this research at the annual meeting of American Physical Society taking place from February 27 – March 2, 2012 in Boston, Mass. Researchers will present that how close they are in solving the problems in quantum computation both by elevating the lifetime of the qubits of information and by improving the pace of computation.

Further Reading:

IBM

Image: Silicon Chip having three qubits (Credit: IBM)

iPad's trademark is the issue in Californian Court

Proview, the manufacturer of LED lights from China, has sued against Apple now in California's superior court about the trademark of iPad.

In 2000, Proview launched iPAD, i.e. Internet Personal Assistant Device, but that was not a market hit. The company is stating that the trademark is its property.

The press release reads: "The complaint provides evidence that the December 23, 2009 agreement that Proview Taiwan entered into was fraudulently induced by the concealment and suppression of material facts by Apple's agents, and that, as a result, the 2009 agreement is void. Once the agreement is voided for fraud, the iPad trademarks in the European Union, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam will revert back to Proview Taiwan."

"Among the many allegations in the U.S complaint are fraud by intentional misrepresentation, fraud by concealment, fraudulent inducement, and unfair competition," Proview said.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Nokia's new 41 MP sensor embedded smartphone

Article first published as Nokia’s "Smart Smartphone" Features 41 MP Sensors and Pixel Oversampling Technology on Technorati.

Nokia has announced a new "smart smartphone", dubbed Nokia 808 PureView, having high resolution 41 megapixel sensors with high performance Carl Zeiss optics and new pixel oversampling technology. With the release of this phone Nokia has shown that how much the company likes to focus on camera.

"Nokia PureView imaging technology sets a new industry standard by whatever measure you use," said Jo Harlow, executive vice president of Nokia Smart Devices.  "People will inevitably focus on the 41 megapixel sensor, but the real quantum leap is how the pixels are used to deliver breath-taking image quality at any resolution and the freedom it provides to choose the story you want to tell."

This device has 4-inches of display and support full HD 1080p video. Nokia Rich Recording allows the audio recording at CD-like levels of quality. With the Dolby headphone technology, personal surround sound experience can be achieved. The operating system in the phone is Symbian Belle. The device has 1.3 Ghz single-core chip and 360-640 (nHD) resolutions. There is 512 MB of RAM and 16 GB of storage , which is expandable by using microSD.

The phone is expected to reach the shelves in Europe at 450 Euros in the next quarter.

Further Reading:

Nokia

Intel's processor in Orange's smartphone

Article first published as Intel Powered Smartphone Unveiled by Orange on Technorati.

The world was looking for other companies to work in partnership with Intel Corporation to produce smartphones and Orange, a brand of France Télécom, took the lead.

Orange has revealed Intel Atom chip, codenamed Medfield, processed smartphone, codenamed as Santa Clara, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012. The phone will be available at “affordable” prices in the mid of this year. However, the company would change the name by “three to four months” when the phone will be launched.

"When we started working with them (Intel) it was a bit of a bet, there was no such product on the market, but we were willing to make that bet because we had a relationship with them and we also wanted to bring innovation — it's not about bringing the same thing as just anybody else," Patrick Remy, vice president of devices at Orange, said.

The device has a 4-inch display having Intel Atom Z2460 processor with HSPA+ connectivity. The smartphone also supports Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. It has an 8-MP camera with the facilitation of taking 10 pictures in less than second and capturing HD videos. The phone has less weight than iPhone 4S and weighs 117 gm or 4.1 ounces with dimensions of 123 mm x 63 mm x 9.99 mm. The phone operates on Android 2.3 version i.e. Gingerbread and has the ability to be upgraded to Android 4.0 version i.e. Ice Cream Sandwich.

"With Intel we have the price positioning that will allow us to address more than 60% of our customer base," said Yves Maitre, Orange's senior vice president of mobile multimedia and devices. "It really is in the middle range in terms of price, but is a high-end phone in terms of features, quality and speed."

"We firmly believe that all our customers should benefit from the smartphone revolution, and we remain committed to delivering innovative content and services across a wide range of devices to help customers stay connected and get more from their phone," Yves Maitre, senior vice president of mobile multimedia and devices at Orange, said in a statement.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 is in two models

Article first published as Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 series have two models on Technorati.

(Image: 10.1 inch model of Samsung Galaxy Tab 2)

Samsung has introduced the Galaxy Tab 2 series for this year with two options for the customers i.e. 7 inch version and 10.1 inch version. These tablet PCs will be available from March. Sale will be started from U.K. and then in the world.

The Galaxy Tab 2 series are available for exhibition at Samsung stand (Hall 8), Mobile World Congress (MWC).

Samsung has reported that this series of tablets are 3G and WiFi versions, in which 7 inch model is easy to handle while in travelling and 10 inch model is suitable for home and family use.

Both the tablets in the series have 1Ghz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity, front camera (VGA), rear camera (3MP) and 21Mbps HSPA+ connectivity, if you choose 3G model instead of WiFi.

(Image: 10.1 inch model of Samsung Galaxy Tab 2)

The differences in the tablets are in the screen resolution and battery. The screen resolution is 1280x800 and 1024x600 in 10.1 inch screen model and 7 inch screen model respectively. Battery is 4,000 mAh and 7000 mAh in 7 and 10.1 inch screen model respectively.

The tablets are running on IceCream Sandwich and will be presented in two models i.e. 16 GB and 32 GB. However, the memory can be expanded to 32GB with microSD Card.

(Image Credit: Samsung)

Mozilla's new Marketplace

Article first published as Mozilla’s Marketplace for App Submission to be Launched at Mobile World Congress on Technorati.

Mozilla has announced on Wednesday that the app store, the Mozilla Marketplace, will be launched for developers at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in the end of February.

Mozilla has reported that the Mozilla Marketplace will build "open Web technologies like HTML5 and Mozilla-proposed APIs". The Marketplace will compose of games, music, media, productivity apps and much more.

The test version of Marketplace is online but as the number of testers has reached its maximum, Mozilla is not accepting new registrations. There is a link to know how to submit an app to the Developer Preview.

"The Web is the largest platform in the world. We are enabling the Web to be the marketplace, giving developers the opportunity to play on the biggest playing field imaginable," said Todd Simpson, Mozilla's chief of innovation, in a statement. "By building the missing pieces, Mozilla is now unlocking the potential of the Web to be the platform for creating and consuming content everywhere."

The Marketplace will be included in Mozilla Web Apps platform, which will also include the undisclosed APIs. Those standards of technology will be submitted to the W3C for standardization as reported by Mozilla. Mozilla also develops a "new identity system for the Web that puts users in control of their content, tying apps to the user and not the device or platform".

The app, which will be made by developers, will be featured in the launch later this year.

Apache HHTP server 2.4 version has been released

Article first published as Latest Version of Apache HTTP Server on 17th anniversary of ASF on Technorati.

Apache Software Foundation (ASF), foundation established in 1999 and working on 150 open source projects, has celebrated its 17th anniversary with the release of the new version of Apache HTTP server i.e. 2.4 version.

The foundation released the 2.2 version in 2005. Its 2.3 version was a development only version. So, this version is the first big release by the foundation in six years.

Apache web server is operating on approximately 398 million sites across the net with operation on 65% of all sites across the web as reported by web research firm Netcraft. At this time, Microsoft’s IIS (Internet Information Services) operates about 15%, Russian open source web server NGINX is at 10% and Google’s custom-built server operates about 3%.

“This release delivers a host of evolutionary enhancements throughout the server that our users, administrators, and developers will welcome”, read a statement from Eric Covener, vice president of the Apache HTTP Server Project. “We’ve added many new modules in this release, as well as broadened the capability and flexibility of existing features.”

 This version is available under the Apache 2.0 open source license and uses less system resources, less memory with more control on concurrent operations.

Tellurium is a rare Earth element also present in distant stars

Article first published as Tellurium, Rare Earth Element, Observed in Three Ancient Stars on Technorati.

Researchers, including researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), have found that “tellurium” – a brittle and semiconducting, very rare element on Earth – is present in three stars that are present few thousand years away from Earth and are almost 12 billion years old.

Researchers have used the spectrograph from the Hubble Space Telescope, which enabled the light to be split into spectrum of wavelength. The dips in spectrographic data told about the presence of atoms of the rare Earth element as the atoms absorbed certain wavelengths of starlight and gave rise to dips.

This research has also supported the theory that heavier elements in periodic table originated as a result of nuclear fusion from a rare type of supernova.

"We want to understand the evolution of tellurium — and by extension any other element — from the Big Bang to today," says Anna Frebel, an assistant professor of astrophysics at MIT and a co-author on the paper. "Here on Earth, everything's made from carbon and various other elements, and we want to understand how tellurium on Earth came about."

Researchers have also observed that the ratio of barium and strontium is same in all three stars.

"If you look at the periodic table, tellurium is right in the middle of these elements that are hard for us to measure," Jennifer Johnson, an associate professor of astronomy at Ohio State University said. "If we need to understand how [the r-process] works in the universe, we really have to measure this part of the periodic table. It's really cool that they got this element in this sea of unknown-ness."

This research has been published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Source:

MIT

Cloud computing by Microsoft has taken another step

Article first published as SkyDrive App's Integration in Windows 8 on Technorati.

Microsoft is going to integrate a desktop app version of SkyDrive, its cloud storing service, for Internet Explorer in Windows 8, as announced by Microsoft’s official Building Windows 8 blog.

SkyDrive service is storing about 10 petabytes of data and is in use by 17 million people at this time.

Mike Torres and Omar Shahine, group program managers for SkyDrive, have written in a company blog post that Microsoft is going to change SkyDrive "from a website today into a true device cloud for Windows customers."

"With Windows 8, we wanted to make sure that your files would be instantly available and up-to-date as you move between PCs — without configuring add-ons or using a USB drive," they further wrote.

This SkyDrive app is included in the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 and is available to use from any Metro-Style app. Consumer Preview of Windows 8 is going to be launched on February 29.

"This will bring a file cloud to every Metro style app, allowing you to open files in your SkyDrive and save them right back to your SkyDrive just like you would on your local hard drive," the blog post says.

Microsoft is also featuring "drag-and-drop upload and download support for SkyDrive, anywhere access to your data, offline access, and the power of Windows Explorer to manage your files and folders."

The blog post has also announced to fetch files through SkyDrive.com. Through the fetch files feature, users will access the files of their own desktop, from any computer, if the SkyDrive feature is on.

Omar Shahine and Mike Torres has described this as,

When designing the new SkyDrive, we knew not everyone would want to put 100% of their files in the cloud just yet. People are selective, and while some will move all of their files into SkyDrive, others will want to start slowly and use SkyDrive just for roaming some important documents and pictures from their Windows Phone camera roll. Knowing that most people would still have files on a remote PC that weren't available through SkyDrive, we built a new feature that allows you to "reach across" the Internet to access any file, stream videos, or view photo albums from a remote PC that is running SkyDrive on the desktop. For any remote folder or file, you can also choose to "copy to SkyDrive," so that you'll always have it across your devices.

Single atom transistor

Article first published as Transistor Made of Single Atom on Technorati.

Scientists from the University of New South Wales have developed the world’s smallest transistor that is made up of a single atom.

The team of researchers precisely placed the phosphorus-31 isotope on the Silicon base in an ultra-high vacuum chamber with the help of a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) and developed a single atom transistor, which could be a better foundation for scalable quantum computing. Scientists have precisely positioned the atom, so that it must be at an effective place with reduced error margin.

“Our group has proved that it is really possible to position one phosphorus atom in a silicon environment - exactly as we need it - with near-atomic precision, and at the same time register gates,” lead author Dr. Martin Fuechsle from UNSW said.

Phosphorus-31 has been selected by the researchers as it has two possible nuclear spins and it could be an ideal isotope for solid-state quantum computing. Moreover, phosphorus and silicon would be compatible with the CMOS sensors used in processors these days.

“But this device is perfect”, says Professor Michelle Simmons, group leader and director of the ARC Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at UNSW. “This is the first time anyone has shown control of a single atom in a substrate with this level of precise accuracy.”

Single atom transistor would come in the processors in the near future as it is still a very expensive technology.

This research has been published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.