Glow Headphones Will Beam Light, Pulse to Your Heartbeat

Innovation and advancement never tends to stop in the field of technology and mainly in the consumer product category. Innovators had turned their head towards making the music products much sleeker and smarter and charming in every way possible. Headphones had long been in fashion for listening to the music and other entertaining purposes based on sound. A new start-up named Glow LLC had launched an innovative headphone on Kickstarter which can glow as per the beat of music.

How The Headphones Glow

This new range of smart headphone is using an amazing new product called Corning Fibrance which is essentially a light-diffusing glass optical fibre. This fibre could be crafted into extremely thin, flexible and could emit beautifully vibrant light. Glow had used this Fibrance to pulse the diffused laser light as per the pulse to the beat of your music. Glowing headphone simply brings the visual beauty in user’s inner music world with a glow.

Features Of The Glow Headphone

The Glow team had worked hard on providing a glowing headphone with added features. These headphones boast a wide range of awesome feature for the Android users. Glow headphones give a 5-way remote which allows users to control the music and forward it through tracks like other headphones. Along with that this remote even allows users to take pictures and reply to different texts. This headphone even integrates the Google Now, Google Play Music and Pandora which could controlled with users phones via voice. Furthermore users can even handle voice calls by clicking on the center button of the headphone.

Kickstrater Funding Is Vital In Providing More Features

Glow already possesses a wide number of features but Glow LLC is vying to include more with better funding opportunities. Glow had kept some distinct goals ahead of itself on Kicstarter which would help in bringing in more functionality. If they could generate funding of $300,000 then it could provide an intuitive carrying case for keeping headphones safe. On reaching $500,000 Glow will be able to hire developer to make glow headphones integrated with Apple iOS platform. Finally on getting $750,000 Glow will be able to bring in Glow To Motion feature to its headphones which allows headphones to glow as per the pulse of the steps and movements. At $1,000,000 Glow would bring in a feature which lets the headphones glow as per the beat of user’s heart.

Glow Headphones Likely To Find Fans Globally

Glow can illuminates for over eight hours and gets charged extremely quickly via micro-USB in 30 minutes. This headphone even lets the user’s listen to music when battery runs out. Glow had invested highly in procuring the best quality sound by working with Knowles which is known as making audio parts for major manufacturers like Sennheiser. However it is yet to be seen whether glowing light and other functionality happens to perform perfectly in real time conditions but it is getting fans and appreciation from others and it is also getting more funding each passing moment.

IBM Identity Mixer Wants To Better Protect Your Personal Data from Hackers

IBM had finally developed a cloud-based cryptogram called Identity Mixer which will address the prevalent data breaches and theft in its own way. Identity Mixer would provide a safe haven for the users and it would keep them safe from any unwanted event of loss of personal data in any manner. This service is also going to make sure that suspicious and unwanted individuals don’t have access to the sensitive personal information.

In the years there had been several instances of loss of personal data such as in Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase and icloud hacking activities. Personal data today comprises of vast number of info which ranges from email address, phone numbers o credit card details. IBM Identity Mixer will help them securing those data in encrypted form.

Identity Mixer Could Help In Securing Personal Data To Great Extent

Identity Mixer provides solutions to the users in terms of giving out their personal data to different institutions in effective manner. It effectively uses the cryptographic algorithm which confirms automatically the user’s identity i.e. ‘who they are’ to the institution they wish to confirm without actually giving up personal information by themselves.

To across this dynamic solution straight forward lets consider that a person wishes to subscribe to a Netflix account. Netflix have it own terms and conditions such as users should be 18 years of age as well as live in a certain region in order to create an account. Identity Mixer comes in rescue for the users by providing an encrypted ID card which stores the personal information to such institutions without user’s requirement to do it manually.

Benefits Of Utilizing Identity Mixer

Identity Mixer will eliminate the need for the IT organisations to collect the personal information like age, nationality, address and most importantly the credit card numbers. Instead of manually declaring the data users will have a set of encrypted credentials in place which could be verified by Identity Mixer. This approach would also eliminate the use of sharing personal information by the users and at the same time it makes the process of identifying the user identities for any service provider on Web sphere. Identity Mixer is already working with AU2EU.

The Identity Mixer’s cryptogram could work with any other service which requires any kind of identification like the digital wallets which are gaining popularity these days. Having the Identity Mixer in place will make sure that user’s don’t have to input their credit card details into the digital wallets at all. In this respect this service also identical to the security system place in Apple Pay.

IBM To Enhance Its Identity Mixer

Currently IBM is running the public beta version of Identity Mixer on its state of art Bluemix cloud platform. But IBM has plans to make its Identity Mixer available to any provider of web service either through its own Bluemix or in the form of software deployed on their systems. IBM is even allowing the independent developers to try their hand on its Identity Mixer to make it better with new feature and highly secure in every aspect.

Google's Epic Space Documentary Hits YouTube

Google had recently released an adaption of its own short documentary which chronicles the history of space exploration in order to stimulate its efforts for creating new space race. Google had titled it Back To The Moon For Good-The New Space Race, a 24 minute film which is enhanced with Google’s indigenous special effects which makes it more real and awesome in every respect. This mini-documentary would inspire the competing teams in their effort for landing the spacecraft on the moon’s surface for its Lunar XPRIZE Contest.

Splendid Documentary with Enriching Special Effects

This documentary was first made for the planetariums as well shown in many of those in U.S. This documentary has been narrated by the reputed film and television start Tim Allen and it has been adapted for the YouTube by Google. This film shows the entire history of human lunar exploration from the beginning till today. This uses the 3D imagery, color infographics and superb animations which makes it much more real and authentic in appeal and cinematography.

Space Documentary Opens A New Avenue For Google
Better graphics along with use of infographics and animations helps in taking the viewer right in the middle of action as well as makes the watching entertaining and interactive rather than boring and preachy. It covers all the dull topics like how the moon’s resources are valuable for future missions and others through the use of live imagery.

This documentary is expected to give a dramatic recap of an epic adventure which translates all the even from the early space exploration days to the current advancement without few short minutes.

Inspiring the Contestants for Lunar XPRIZE

Google is trying to give much needed motivation to its contestants of its Lunar XPRIZE. It is a Google backed competition for the privately funded teams and they will be required to develop their own vessels capable enough of reaching the Moon’s surface.

Contestants not just have to get their vessels on the lunar surface but also had to transmit video and pictures from the surface after making it travel at least 500 meters.

The team which would be able to accomplish this incredible feat by December 31 deadline will be able to claim the grand prize of $20 million. The narrator justly has said in the epic discovery video that a large number of children had once played the role of astronaut while growing up but now they would be given opportunities to make it reality.


This documentary has been lauded and appreciated by large number of viewers and other analysts alike for its great video rendering and superb animation and special effects. It even firmly sets the Google against the major competitors like Amazon and Netflix which are actively moving into movie creation business. This incredible and stunning movie also show might of the Google in movie production and Google might itself think into investing in this avenue.

However watching in the 2D basically enhanced version on YouTube isn’t as great as the dome projection which was initiated in the planetariums earlier. But this documentary still have enough marvels to glue the audience.

Rosetta Spacecraft Raises New Questions About Comet’s Origin

Rosetta – To Orbit a Comet’s Nucleus

According to a new research released recently, Scientists using Europe’s comet-orbiting Rosetta spacecraft have discovered that its complicated ancient body is coated with simple organic molecules surrounded by a changing cloud of gases.Rosetta will be the first mission to orbit a comet’s nucleus to land and probe on its surface and will also be the first spacecraft to fly along with a comet heading towards the inner Solar System, to observe how a frozen comet gets transformed by the warmth of the Sun.

After a long journey of 10 years, Rosetta reached Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August, placing itself in an orbit for an unprecedented long term study. It released a piggyback-riding spacecraft in November which descended on the comet’s surface for various series of independent research.

Comets are presumed to be frozen leftovers from the formation of planets around 4.6 billion years back and the Rosetta mission would probably give us some understanding on the solar system’s early days, on studying one of its pristine comet remnants. Though the results from the Philae spacecraft experiments remains pending, scientists recently released 7 papers in the journal Science which provides information on Rosetta’s discoveries during its initial two months around 67P.

Discovery of Wide Variation in Gases

It was found that the comet’s body which is around 100 million time more massive than the International Space Station is covered in ripples and dunes with little water ice on its surface together with generous amount of hydrocarbons. Scientists are of the opinion that they are expecting to find more complex carbon containing molecule though have found mostly simple hydrocarbons.

This has led them to queries on how organic compounds could have been formed and spread through the solar system. The first thing that scientists need to figure out is how the comet has changed over a period of time, details of which will emerge as 67P travels towards the sun and heats up developing a coma or a visible atmosphere together with a tail.

Researchers have already discovered wide variation in the gases that are released from the nucleus, the comet’s body and the changes in the quantities of these gases seems to appear to be tied to speculation on a section of the rotating nucleus which is made of dust, rock and frozen gas, is in daylight or darkness.
Research – Understanding of Comet Formation & Evolution

According to Rosetta scientist, Myrtha Hassig of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonia, Texas, she states that seasonal effects could also be discovered over a period of time. These studies would have an ultimate impact on the scientist on their understanding of comet formation and evolution.

Another scientist, Stephen Fuselier, also from Southwest Research Institute, commented that they were taught that comets were made mostly of water ice and for this comet, the coma sometimes contains much more carbon dioxide than water vapour’.

Scientists are working in figuring out if the 67P which is shaped as a rubber duck, was actually two smaller comets which had melded together. Rosetta will carry on flying around the comet moving towards and then away from the sun, the closest approach being about 116 million miles away from the Sun on August 13.

How These Energy Geeks Are Re-imagining an Old School Utility

Utility Research Team – Testing Charging - Power by Solar Panels

A non-descript, 53,500 square foot building with a $12 billion utility research team are planning in testing everything from charging electronic vehicles through cell phones to devices that can smooth out the power created by rooftop solar panels.

There are around 60 projects in the works at Edison’s Advanced Technology division having a small annual budget of $19 million though its influence goes beyond that. Engineers from California’s largest utility are planning to insure the survival of it and also the survival of the nations’ other big utilities which are closely monitoring the project.

The lab was formed by Southern California Edison in 2009 after California had passed a landmark law, to lower its greenhouse gas emission to 1990 levels, sourcing one third of its electricity from renewable source by 2020. This resulted in more electric vehicles in the Golden State together with more solar as well as wind power that has got the state’s utilities and nationwide,trying to adapt to it.Power from solar and wind sources, unlike traditional electricity tend to fluctuate depending on the weather thus making it difficult to manage on the grid. Moreover, the cost of the solar power has reduced so much that several homeowners are now producing their own power thereby paying less to their utility.

Utility Death Spiral

California’s largest three utilities sourced around twenty three percent of their power from renewable sources in 2013 and Gov. Jerry Brown called for a target of fifty percent by 2030.According to North Carolina State University’s database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency, twenty nine states have laws needing more renewables.

Accenture states that with plenty of distributed energy on the grid, mainly from solar panels, the utility industry would foresee revenues fall between $18 billion and $48 billion per year by 2025 which is the reason why some have called it the utility death spiral. The reason for the lab’s work getting plenty of attention is that it is producing results as well as sharing the work with utility officials as well as researchers from faraway places like China.

Edison’s work designing cyber security systems and developing used for advance energy meters, for instances, have received high rating from other utilities according to Mark McGranaghan, Vice President at the Electric Power Research Institute.

Focus – Edison is Energy Storage

Moreover, the lab has also been a model for the others as well and the National Renewable energy Laboratory, wherein in 2013, itopened a $135 billion Energy Systems Integration Facility that complements Edison’s research. Besides this, the New York Power Authority has also been working in establishing a similar lab.

The focus of Edison is energy storage, automation and digital communication which could improve the efficiency as well as the reliability of the grid and the utility speculating that it will result in new revenue as the power demand flattens with more energy-efficient home and rooftop solar is on the rise. Ted Craver, CEO of Edison International, the utility’s parent company, states that `they are the only provider of the wires and these technologies will become more prevalent and feels that they are on the cutting edge’. Several of the technologies are yet to be commercialized though the market is growing.

 According to Navigant Research, smart grid spending would reach to $70.2 billion by 2023 from $44.1 billion in 2014, the reason for Edison in building nine labs here. Edison researchers replicated a complete power grid in one room which was used to troubleshoot while Edison had been working on new transmission line in order to connect its grid with other huge utility of California, Pacific Gas & Electric.

Edison to make Recommendation on Smart Grid Technologies 

While in another lab `smart’ inverters are testing the capabilities of smoothing out the voltage sent to the grid by solar panels and these devices are common in Europe though have yet to be rolled out in the United States.

The Advanced Technology group seeks project proposals every year, from the utility and one worth mentioning is a project which studied how the amount of wind and solar power could affect power restoration at the time of blackouts, while another, tested the different types of batteries to check on their performance while storing energy along the grid. Several of the updated technologies were taken for a test drive at the University of California, Irvine faculty housing – `The Irvine Smart Grid Demonstration’, which is a $79 million project that was launched and funded in part by the U.S Department of Energy in 2010 and will probably wrap up somewhere later this year.

Computer science professor, Crista Lopes, commented that the project cuts down her electric bill to zero in summer and the utility at her house with solar panels has around 50 LED light bulbs with new appliances such as smart refrigerator and she can track its power usage. The conclusion drawn is that Edison would make recommendation on smart grid technologies to the industry and the utility would then take the testing to bigger area probably to various homes.