Fleas were very large in size in Jurassic era

Researchers have found the fossils fleas of Jurassic era in China and have found that those were very large as compared to the present day fleas.

The present day fleas are of the size of 1-10 mm but the primitive fleas of Jurassic and Cretaceous era were 8-21 mm long. They have no jumping specializations and were lacking in smooth jaws of modern fleas as they were armored with saw-like projections in siphoning mouthparts.

“The mouthparts are certainly overkill for piercing the hides of early mammals and birds,” says Engel. “It really appears as though they were specialized for working their way into some heavy hides, such as those on dinosaurs.”

George Poinar, a palaeoentomologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, agrees that without jumping legs, the fleas “would have to crawl or run to find a host”. He adds that “they could have attacked dinosaurs or possibly pterosaurs”.


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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.

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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.

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Fossils of tallest and fattest penguin have been reconstructed

Scientists have successfully reconstructed the bones of 25 million years old penguin. They have found that those Kairuku pnguins were the tallest and fattest of all the known penguins.

"Kairuku was an elegant bird by penguin standards, with a slender body and long flippers, but short, thick legs and feet," said co-author Dr. Dan Ksepka, from North Carolina State University, US.
"If we had done a reconstruction by extrapolating from the length of its flippers, it would have stood over 6ft tall. In reality, Kairuku was around 4ft 2ins tall or so."


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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.

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Nokia

Roche has extended tender offer for Illumina

Article first published as Roche’s Extension of Tender Offer and its Response by Illumina on Technorati.

Roche, Swiss Pharmaceutical Company, has announced the extension of tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Illumina Inc., a company working for life sciences tools and systems, at $44.50 per share, to 6:00 p.m., New York.

Roche started the tender offer on January 27, 2012. The offer was $44.50 per share in cash or an aggregate of about $5.7 billion on a fully diluted basis.

The company has reported that at the end of February 24, 2012, almost 102,165 shares had been tendered including 44,152 shares to be delivered within the next three working days of NASDAQ.

Illumina responded to the extension of the Roche’s tender offer as,
City time, on March 23, 2012, while all the terms and conditions are same. Previously, the offer was ending at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, at the end of the day on February 24, 2012.

The extension by Roche was expected. An extremely low number of shares have been tendered, consistent with our view – and that of our stockholders – that Roche’s offer does not reflect Illumina’s unique leadership position, business performance and future prospects.

We remain focused on continuing to develop breakthrough products that expand existing markets and create new ones. The potential of our industry is enormous, with major new markets emerging in medical diagnostics, reproductive health and cancer management.

Roche invested about 8 billion Swiss francs in R&D in 2011 and over 80,000 people were working for Roche in the world in 2011. Company shows interest in Illumina to expand the business of diagnostics.