July 19, 2007, 10:27 PM CT

Multi-gigabit wireless computers

New research at the Georgia Institute of Technology could soon make that tangle of wires under desks and in data centers a thing of the past.

Researchers at the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at Georgia Tech are investigating the use of extremely high radio frequencies (RF) to achieve broad bandwidth and high data transmission rates over short distances.

Within three years, this multi-gigabit wireless approach could result in a bevy of personal area network (PAN) applications, including next generation home multimedia and wireless data connections able to transfer an entire DVD in seconds.

The research focuses on RF frequencies around 60 gigahertz (GHz), which are currently unlicensed -- free for anyone to use -- in the United States. GEDC scientists have already achieved wireless data-transfer rates of 15 gigabits per second (Gbps) at a distance of 1 meter, 10 Gbps at 2 meters and 5 Gbps at 5 meters.

The goal here is to maximize data throughput to make possible a host of new wireless applications for home and office connectivity, said Prof. Joy Laskar, GEDC director and lead researcher on the project along with Stephane Pinel.

GEDCs multi-gigabit wireless research is expected to lend itself to two major types of applications, data and video, said Pinel, a GEDC research scientist......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:38:32 GMT

PC That Saves Energy

The world is moving towards technological advancement overlooking many priorities, and it is evident now that we are moving ahead at the cost of our own future. Carbon emissions are inarguably growing into an epidemic, while sources from all walks of life strive a bit in the direction to curb the headed catastrophe players from the Silicon Valley too feel the need to catch up, cutting on their energy consumptions and the carbon footprints.

With energy conservation as brainwave, Zonbu has resorted to the idea of detested subscription based PC, with all amenities - it is an ultra mini PC thatll be a sale for $99 with the subscriptions priced between $12.95 to $19.95 per month.

Zonbu (certified by the Green Electronics Council) can be purchased through its website, zonbu.com, and is a perfect deal cause the 15watt PC can save up to $10 a month in electricity capered to the standard 200watt PC.

Zonbu the energy efficient PC, comes with an intel powered microprocessor from VIA technologies of Taiwan with 512 MB RAM plus 4 GB flash memory instead of the regular (power consuming) disk drive. The PC also uses the Gentoo version of the Linux operating system that allows a free upgrade to latest version of all the applications, the device comes without the power-consuming fan as well.

Grgoire Gentil and Alain Rossmann are the names that have devised this device with a green twist, setting an example for the computer related equipment manufacturers to build products that are more energy-efficient. It may be difficult to fathom consumers going in for the energy efficient device that sells on the much unappreciated subscription system, yet, the two designers believe the PC will sell like cellphones with people paying out of their monthly earnings.

Zonbu is without the keyboard, mouse and monitor, which the company will sell as options. This PC fits in the category of the second PC at home and can surely be a good solution to curb power consumption, giving your kids a PC in the kitchen.

[Image credit: Gizmodo]

[Source: NYTimes] Posted by: Bharat      Read more     Source

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:35:18 GMT

Free ACV HD to DV Transcoder Software

Source:www.elecard.com

If you have an HD camcorder and want to do more than just go straight to viewing an unedited tape then this free software from Elecard is for you.

This program will quickly convert the latest HD format videos to DV format to allow editing on any video editing program such as the venerable Windows Movie Maker, which is free to everyone.

Remember that this free software is only available until midnight tonight so get it now.

Here's the page with the download link.

Take a camera with you whenever possible, and look around, you'll find a picture somewhere. Posted by: jim      Read more     Source

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 00:22:56 GMT

The Complete New Yorker Portable Hard Drive

Via LEVENGER - All 80 years of The New Yorker magazine....in your pocket.Perhaps the only thing better than holding a New Yorker magazine in your hands is being able to hold every New Yorker in your hands. Every Talk of the Town. Each Profile. The many Shouts and Murmurs, reviews, theater news. All those wonderful covers, in color. And every one of those beloved cartoons. Posted by: Zinzi      Read more     Source

July 11, 2007, 5:36 AM CT

Web images to add realism to edited photos

Computer graphics scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have developed systems for editing or altering photographs using segments of the millions of images available on the Web.

Whether adding people or objects to a photo, or filling holes in an edited photo, the systems automatically find images that match the context of the original photo so they blend realistically. Unlike traditional photo editing, these results can be achieved rapidly by users with minimal skills.

We are able to leverage the huge amounts of visual information available on the Internet to find images that make the best fit, said Alexei A. Efros, assistant professor of computer science and robotics. Its not applicable for all photo editing, such as when an image of a specific object or person is added to a photo. But its good enough in a number of cases, he added. Why Photoshop if you can photoswap instead".

Efros and colleagues will present papers on two related systems at the Association for Computing Machinerys Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) annual conference Aug. 59 in San Diego.

One system, called Photo Clip Art (http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/photoclipart/), was developed with graduate students Jean-Franois Lalonde and Derek Hoiem, and with Carsten Rother, John Winn and Antonio Criminisi of Microsoft Research Cambridge. It uses thousands of labeled images from a Web site called LabelMe as clip art that can be added to photos. A photo showing a vacant street, for instance, might be populated with images of people, vehicles and even parking meters derived from the LabelMe database (http://labelme.csail.mit.edu/)......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

July 11, 2007, 5:30 AM CT

Supercomputing On Demand

Somewhere in Southern California a large earthquake strikes without warning, and the news media and the public clamor for information about the temblor -- Where was the epicenter? How large was the quake? What areas did it impact?

A picture is worth a thousand words - or numbers - and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego is helping to provide the answers. Caltech computational seismologist Jeroen Tromp can now give the public movies that tell the story in a language that's easy to understand, revealing waves of ground motion spreading out from the earthquake -- and he can deliver these movies in just 30 minutes with the help of a supercomputer at SDSC. But he can't do it by submitting a job to a traditional computing batch queue and waiting hours or days for the results.

Tromp is an example of the new users in today's uncertain world who require immediate access to supercomputing resources. To meet this need, SDSC has introduced OnDemand, a new supercomputing resource that will support event-driven science.

"This is the first time that an allocated National Science Foundation (NSF) TeraGrid supercomputing resource will support on-demand users for urgent science applications," said Anke Kamrath, director of User Services at SDSC. "In opening this new computing paradigm we've had to develop novel ways of handling this type of allocation as well as scheduling and job handling procedures."........ Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:19:05 GMT

Google Acquires Web Phone Service

Google announced yesterday that it had acquired GrandCentral Communications, a service that lets people use a single number for all their phones. Terms of the sale transaction were not divulged.

GrandCentral users can also create a single mailbox, accessible over the Internet, for all their phone messages, Google said on its Web site. Users register their phones and can set all or some of them to ring based on who is calling.

The Fremont, Caliornia-based GrandCentral was founded in 2005 by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet, two executives who worked for Dialpad Communications, a Web phone company that was purchased by Yahoo in 2005.

"GrandCentral's technology fits well into Google's efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users," said Google, which is based in Mountain View, Calif. According to the company's Web site, GrandCentral's investors include Minor Ventures, a venture capital firm in San Francisco. Posted by: noel      Read more     Source

July 5, 2007, 9:10 PM CT

Coaching Computer Canines

The mutts are metal, the size of toy poodles, with four pointy feet ending in little balls. They need to learn how to make their way on those little feet across a treacherous terrain of broken rocks. University of Southern California roboticist Stefan Schaal has just won renewal of a $1.5 million DARPA contract to train them to do so.

Schaal, an associate professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering department of computer science, began working on the problem more than a year ago.

Four- and six-legged robots have been walking around for years, he noted - but most just on smooth surfaces where wheels are a more efficient of getting around.

"What you really want legged robots for is to negotiate difficult terrain," he says. " This project is designed to push that envelop".

Boston Dynamics builds the 'bots, which come with an onboard computer chip connected to sensors.

The robot is continually aware of the location of its center of gravity.The strategy for walking, as explained in a paper Schaal presented at the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, was "to adjust a smooth walking pattern generator with the selection of every foot placement such that the center of gravity..... follows a stable trajectory"......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:15:50 GMT

New Software Technology Helps Small Businesses Think BIG

Web Tools and Technology, after 5 years of development, finally released Site Search Architect, a next-generation content management software (CMS) program to help small- to medium-sized businesses think BIG to rival large corporations.

According to the company, Site Search Architect gives its users the ability to create professional web sites without the need to know any HTML coding. But even more impressive, Site Search Architect automatically incorporates proven and reliable search engine optimization techniques into every Web page it creates. Also, the software technology allows users to easily create professional-looking Web pages that are automatically optimized for higher rankings in popular search engines.

"We developed Site Search Architect to make it easier for smaller businesses to launch successful search engine marketing campaigns," said Dave Barry, President and CEO of Web Tools and Technology. "We used the knowledge and expertise of leading SEO practitioners to develop a cost-effective CMS that actually 'thinks' like an SEO expert." Posted by: noel      Read more     Source

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:10:53 GMT

Microsoft Ends Support For Windows 98 and ME

It looks as if Windows 98 and Windows ME have both reached the end of the tunnel as Microsoft announces it is to stop backing them as of this month.

Microsoft, on its Web site announced:
July 11, 2006 will bring a close to Extended Support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Me as part of the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy. Microsoft will retire public and technical support, including security updates, by this date.

Existing support documents and content, however, will continue to be available through the Microsoft Support Product Solution Center Web site. This Web site will continue to host a wealth of previous How-to, Troubleshooting, and Configuration content for anyone who may need self-service.

On October 10, 2006, Microsoft will end all public assisted support for Windows XP Service Pack1 (SP1). After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide any incident support options or security updates for this retired service pack under the policies defined by the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy.
The existing operating systems that will continue to receive support are
Windows 2000, Windows XP home/professional, Windows 2003 (server) and Windows
Vista. All of these systems are based on Windows NT technology.

The decision by Microsoft to withheld support for Windows 98/ME has been anticipated
for quite some time, but came with very little warning. Posted by: noel      Read more     Source