PC Tech World: technology

Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Samsung explores touchless tablet interaction with brainwave technology

Try and wrap this one around your noggin. Samsung is currently working with researchers at the University of Texas on a project involving EEG caps that harnesses the power of one's mind to control tablets and smartphones, and if that weren't enough, the company's actually hoping to take it mainstream. Now, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's be clear: in its current stage, the system is cumbersome and aimed at those with disabilities, but Samsung's already proven that it's interested in alternative input methods, and this could certainly be the logical conclusion.

As is, participants are asked to wear EEG caps that measure the electrical activity along their scalp. Then, they're able to make selections by focusing on an icon that flashes at a distinct frequency from others, which the system recognizes as a unique electrical pattern. Overall, the accuracy of the system is in the ballpark of 80 to 95 percent, and users are able to make selections on average of every five seconds. In order to make the system more approachable, the researchers hope to develop EEG hats that are more convenient and less intrusive -- in other words, ones that people can wear throughout the day. We can't promise this type of futuristic tech will come anytime soon, but for a closer peek, hit up the source link for a peek at Samsung's next wild idea.

Via: BGR

Source: MIT Technology Review

Thursday, April 18, 2013

The technology of Stanford's Laptop Orchestra (video)

SLOrk's not the most elegant name, so far as acronyms go, but Stanford's weird and wonderful Laptop Orchestra wears it pretty well. The group dates back to 2008, an outgrowth of the school's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, culled together from a mishmash of parts, including car speakers, pillows and salad bowls, led by future Smule co-founder Ge Wang. Fittingly, the project made an appearance at a party thrown by the darlings of the music app scene, and we took the opportunity to speak with club member (and computer music doctoral student), Spencer Salazar, who told us how SLOrk transformed a golfing game peripheral into an instrument for strange and ethereal music creation. Check out that video after the break.

Source: SLORK

Friday, April 12, 2013

Google forms the Glass Collective to invest in eye technology entrepreneurs

Google forms the Glass Collective to invest in eyewear tech entrepreneurs

Google believes that it's naive to build a wearable technology like Google Glass and expect successful businesses to simply materialize from thin air; those firms will need a financial nudge, too. Accordingly, Google is forming the Glass Collective to invest in projects centering on its eyewear. The partnership will see Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers unite on seed funding for those US-based startups which show promise in areas like communication and navigation. The group hasn't named any targets for its cash, but it's obviously very early days for both Glass and the Collective -- Google needs more developers in the field before it can shower companies with support.

Update: According to TechCrunch, Google mentioned during the event that it hopes to get Glass hardware into developers hands "in the next month." Since it started preregistering folks at last year's I/O event, we'd also hope they will arrive in time for this year's Google I/O and inevitable skydive-to-stage live stream.

Via: Google Official Blog

Source: Glass Collective, TechCrunch

More Coverage: CNN Money

English Premier League to adopt goal-line technology next season, Hawk-Eye to be the provider

Football's ruling body, FIFA, has already decided that goal-line technology will be used at next year's World Cup in Brazil, which, in and of itself, was an indirect nod for other competitions to follow suit. Today, one of the globe's biggest leagues announced it too will implement the recently approved tech in its matches, with the Premier League letting it be known that the 2013-2014 season is set to be the first to adopt the new system. Speaking of which, the Football Association decided to go with Hawk-Eye, a technology currently present in professional sports like tennis and cricket -- one that provides seven fast-frame shooters around the two goals and uses software to quickly analyze if the ball indeed crossed the line. For the football (soccer) faithful, it's been along time coming, so here's hoping this makes the game less prone to errors. After all, Howard Webb and Mike Dean need all they help they can get.

[Image credit, Premier League]

Source: BBC Sport

More Coverage: Hawk-Eye

Friday, January 25, 2013

Toyota and BMW make it official, commit to green vehicle technology partnership

We're well aware Toyota and BMW are pretty good pals, but details of their ongoing study sessions on green vehicle tech have been vague thus far. The trickle of information continues, and today the companies met to autograph more bits of paper and clasp hands for the camera. New binding agreements were signed to reaffirm deals inked in March and June last year, and their research into next-generation lithium-ion batteries has been expanded to cover the lithium-air kind (hopefully, they are less flammable). Work on making vehicles lighter continues, and they expect to complete development of an inclusive fuel cell system by the distant target of 2020. Expect to see some fruits of BMW and Toyota's labor before then, though, as they intend to "define a joint platform concept for a mid-sized sports vehicle" by the end of the year. Don't get too excited -- we imagine that jargon means we'll be privy to a few bits of artwork and some inspirational words come the deadline. If you'd like to know more about the evolving partnership, check out the source links below.

when.eng("eng.perm.init")

Friday, December 28, 2012

Celebrate the year's technology triumphs with tech. magazine

Issue 5 out now!

What a year 2012 was. In the world of technology we had courtroom japes, patent problems and the rise and fall of some of the biggest companies in the world.

That's why the folk at tech. magazine have dedicated an entire issue to the goings-on in 2012 and what this means for the future of our gadgets.

Inside this special edition, everything that happened in the mobile, computing and home entertainment world in 2012 is mapped out, as well as a look at the biggest story of the year: Samsung vs Apple.

tech magazine

And if that wasn't enough, the issue also has The Gold List. Here you will find the greatest innovations and gadgets of the year – the kit that was either best in its class or is setting the pace for the rest of the industry.

Also in the tech., the most argued about tech topics of the year are revealed, all you need to know about Windows Phone 7.8 and the best kit of 2012 is reviewed.

Marc Chacksfield, editor of tech., said about the issue: "2012 was a year in which we saw a lot of changes in technology. Samsung rose to the top of the tech ranks, while Microsoft toughed it out in the phone market and brought touch to the world of Windows.

"Couple this with the huge growth in tablets, Apple making a mess of maps, and tech. magazine launching, and what you have is one of the most exciting tech years ever. Roll on 2013!"

Grab the latest issue of tech. from iTunes now. And don't forget that you can still get five issues free when you sign up for a subscription.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Google, Apple show off technology in holiday ads

Follow @salubriousdish

Christina is a contributor to media outlets such as Forbes.com, Inc.com, PCWorld.com, Auto Trader and The Minneapolis Star Tribune. She writes about a myriad of topics including technology, the automotive industry and health and fitness. Her talents outside of writing include photography, getting people to talk (although that certainly helps with writing) and gardening.
More by Christina DesMarais

Technology giants Google and Apple shared some holiday cheer and a little self-promotion online in the form of ads recently posted on YouTube.

GoogleMobile's ad -- a cheesy production that has garnered more than 125,000 views -- stars the little green Android guy who seems to feel left out of a holiday party.

In the spot, one observant Google employee notices the forlorn plastic icon and proceeds to surround him with Android devices that play video, including a snowy winter scene, a colorful Christmas tree and a roaring fire. Friends of the diminutive character magically emerge, all oddly wearing winter hats just like the Google employees.

Never mind that Google is headquartered in sunny California. And even though the Android icon doesn’t have a mouth, or fingers, you get the feeling he’s smiling and giving the nice man a smile and thumbs up at the video’s conclusion.

Look for cameos from Nexus 7 and 10 docks:

Apple’s ad is a bit more subtle and simply shows an iPad and an iPad mini next to each other on a white backdrop. On the tablets, which are sure to be found under plenty of people’s trees on Tuesday, a girl uses Facetime to sing “I’ll be Home for Christmas” to her grandfather. This one beats Android’s count with more than 180,000 views.

Sound off on which company does a better job showing off its technology.

Image from Nexus Google page

While you’re contemplating that answer you might head over to the Nexus account on Google+, where Android Police noticed Google has shared some lovely holiday images there.

The post reads, “We made some 'Happy Holiday Cards' to share with you this holiday season! Pass them along to friends and family by sharing this post and be sure to download the full high-resolution files ... they make great wallpapers for your phone, tablet or desktop. Enjoy!”

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 10:45 PM

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

IBM to showcase high-speed silicon nanophotonic technology at IEEE

A new IBM technology that has been in development for more than 10 years will be showcased this week at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco. It’s called silicon nanophotonics and according to the technology company, it could extend the life of networking equipment by a significant margin.

The technology uses pulses of light to transmit large amounts of data at very high speeds - up to 25Gbps per channel. Existing optical networks use individual silicon and photonic components but this new method would put all of that functionality onto a single chip.

Solomon Assefa, a nanophotonics scientist for IBM Research, says silicon allows for very dense integration. Instead of having just a single lane, this technology could allow for 50 different lanes, exponentially increasing bandwidth in the process.

Big Blue says the technology will ultimately replace interconnects currently used in data centers, servers and supercomputers. Experts are concerned because computers are becoming faster than the methods used to help them communicate with each other, introducing an unnecessary performance bottleneck that needs a solution before hardware could be pushed further.

This isn’t the first we have heard of silicon nanophotonics as IBM published a proof of concept in 2010. Since then, however, they have figured out how to build the components using current generation fabrication processes (90 nanometer, in this instance) while still maintaining the same level of performance and reliability that was originally conceived. They also claim that the technology can become a reality without incurring excessive cost.

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 12:01 PM

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Intel, HP tout newest Itanium server technology

1 of 2. A woman walks past an Intel logo at the 2012 Computex in Taipei June 5, 2012. Computex, the world's second largest consumer electronics trade fair, runs from June 5 to 9.

Credit: Reuters/Yi-ting Chung

By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Nov 8, 2012 2:00pm EST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel and Hewlett-Packard Co unveiled new server technology based on the high-end niche Itanium processors at the center of a recent dispute between Hewlett-Packard and Oracle Corp.

The future of servers built with Itanium chips was thrown into doubt last year due to a bitter legal battle between long-time partners HP and Oracle and it remains unclear to some experts even after a California state court judge ruled in favor of HP.

Intel and HP held a news conference on Thursday announcing the availability of the newest version of Itanium and introducing new HP servers using the chips.

HP will keep offering its customers choices between servers based on heavy-duty Itanium chips and Intel's more widely used "x86" chips, said Ric Lewis, vice president and interim general manager of HP's Business Critical Systems.

Rory McInerney, vice president of Intel's architecture group said that future Itanium chips would be built using some of the key features found in the company's more widely used Xeon server processors. He did not say when future chips would be released.

Once envisioned as a high-end processor that could become pervasive across the server industry, Itanium suffered a series of setbacks and was eventually overtaken by 64-bit chips based on Intel's x86 architecture, which is now widely used in the PC industry. Software created for x86 servers is not compatible with Itanium servers, which are mostly sold by HP.

In August, a California state court judge ruled in favor of HP and against Oracle over the latter's decision to end support for servers HP makes using Itanium chips.

Oracle has since said it would support Itanium servers.

The dispute began after Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, which put Oracle into the server hardware business in competition against its partner, HP.

Oracle had said it would no longer make new versions of its database software compatible with Itanium servers because the chip family was nearing the end of its life.

Asked about the long-term viability of Itanium chips in an industry where x86 is dominant, Intel's McInerney said, "I think that whole thing was litigated and I think the message back is that Oracle is supporting Itanium."

Codenamed Paulson, the new Itanium 9500 has up to 2.4 times the performance of the previous generation, has twice as many cores and consumes less power, McInerney said.

HP's Itanium-based servers are mostly used by large corporations with rigorous computing needs.

(Reporting By Noel Randewich; Editing by Bernard Orr)

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 7:17 PM

Intel, HP tout newest Itanium server technology

1 of 2. A woman walks past an Intel logo at the 2012 Computex in Taipei June 5, 2012. Computex, the world's second largest consumer electronics trade fair, runs from June 5 to 9.

Credit: Reuters/Yi-ting Chung

By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Nov 8, 2012 2:00pm EST

Intel and HP held a news conference on Thursday announcing the availability of the newest version of Itanium and introducing new HP servers using the chips.

In August, a California state court judge ruled in favor of HP and against Oracle over the latter's decision to end support for servers HP makes using Itanium chips.

Oracle has since said it would support Itanium servers.

The dispute began after Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, which put Oracle into the server hardware business in competition against its partner, HP.

Oracle had said it would no longer make new versions of its database software compatible with Itanium servers because the chip family was nearing the end of its life.

Codenamed Paulson, the new Itanium 9500 has up to 2.4 times the performance of the previous generation, has twice as many cores and consumes less power, McInerney said.

HP's Itanium-based servers are mostly used by large corporations with rigorous computing needs.

(Reporting By Noel Randewich; Editing by Bernard Orr)

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 4:31 PM