Wednesday 31 July 2013

Blu-ray disc successor announced by Sony and Panasonic



In a brief press release, the Japanese company Sony and Panasonic announced their mutual cooperation in the development of a new optical memory. This is to make the existing capacity of a Blu-ray disc in the shade. Sony and Panasonic are working together on an optical memory with 300 GB of storage. For this, both of the companies have signed a contract that combines its experience in the development in the future. The capacity of the new-generation storage discs to at least 300 gigabytes (GB) in size and the end of 2015 on the market. Conventional Blu-ray discs store up to 50 GB is worth mention. They planning to find a new storage device which is more advanced and sophisticated are probably on good roads. Than this is a replacement for video or Blu-ray discs as a storage medium for high-resolution UHD Movies Instead, it could allow the professional long-term storage of data in companies. Other features of the new optical storage from Sony and Panasonic are not yet known. For UHD content, there are basically already a storage medium, the so-called BDXL disc. It can hold 100 GB of data, recordable blanks are to be had online from 25 €. However, there is no living room player for those discs, other than PC drives which cost above 70 Euros.

Monday 29 July 2013

Android 4.3; Permissions Manager and 4K Video Support in the future



At its conference announcing the new Nexus 7, Google took the opportunity to start talking about Android 4.3 which will be delivered by default with the tablet. There will thus be entitled to new small profiles, support for the "Bluetooth Smart" OpenGL ES 3.0 and DRM for the use of applications like Netflix. With the latest versions of Android, we got right to manage multi-user account, Android 4.3 will go a little further with the arrival of restricted accounts. These may be limited in their actions and will not have access to all applications. Furthermore an example is given in the interaction with in-app purchases. Thus, a father who has bought three levels may prevent his son to buy another while allowing him to play. That should reassure a lot of parents and put some pressure on Apple and iOS is still lacking largely such opportunities. It was also given a demonstration of support Bluetooth Smart and OpenGL ES 3.0, which will be managed easily and can be used by developers. Other options worth mention is advanced support DRM, which is a prerequisite for having rights on the possibility of offering 1080p streaming content, as we have known already. This new capability will be exploited first by Netflix.

Sunday 28 July 2013

Slingatron, a device to hurl satellites into space!



HyperV Technologies has developed a spin with which it would fling satellites and other payloads into space in the future. For the construction of the next prototype, it seeks support through crowd funding. Slingatron is the device to be carried into orbit the small satellite with such an ancient slingshot. This should cost significantly less than to transport them with a rocket. The Slingatron is a spiral metal strip, which is mounted on a base. The base is placed in a circular movement. The satellite is set into the center of the spiral, the spiral moves through and thereby accelerated so much that he flies up into orbit. It is equipped with a small drive, the lights on the apex of the flight path and brings the satellite into its proper orbit. The spiral rotates 40 - to 60 times per second. The speed at which the payload is to be accelerated is depending on the diameter of the spiral. To propel a payload, such as a Cubesat in a low earth orbit that is in Low Earth Orbit (Leo), this must be accelerated to about 7.6 kilometers per second. According to a spiral HyperV Technologies this speed can be achieved with a diameter of 200 to 300 meters. So far, the company has been built two prototypes. Of about one meter wide second prototype manages to accelerate a heavy part just under 230 grams to 100 meters per second.

The next prototype will have a diameter of five meters and be able to throw a 450 gram heavy payload of velocity of a kilometer per second in the air. At this rate it can approximately fly 51 km to high. To build this device, HyperV Technologies has requested financial help of the Internet community: the company of Chantilly, Virginia has launched a crowd funding campaign on the platform Kickstarter. The company needs at least $ 250,000 so far100 supporters ready to sponsors. The Slingatrons could in future carry satellites, supplies such as water or fuel and components for space vehicles or stations into space. The payload could be several tons explained by HyperV. However, the world cannot replace spin space rockets, the company say. Because of the immense G-forces in the spiral, not all payloads are suitable for a start on the Slingatron including human.

iKnife Intelligent Scalpel detects cancer!



Always one of the most important and most daunting questions in cancer surgery is; Does the surgeon removes the tumor actually quite? Or maybe retarded but a few malignant cells? The iKnife is to eliminate these uncertainties quickly and correctly. The iKnife is an intelligent smart scalpel. During an operation in near real time, it determines whether the surgeon cuts in cancer or the normal tissue. The knife is a so-called electrocautery, - a standard tool of surgery that burns rather than cuts through tissue. "Since there is electro surgery to doctors complain about the smoke here," said Zoltan Takats from Imperial College London. Burned tissue is not only smelly, smoke also contains toxic substances. Modern appliances suck up the smoke. Zoltan Takats, who developed the iKnife responsible, recognized the unwelcome by-product of electro surgery diagnostic tool. "Our iKnife while also sucking the smoke but then we fish out our various ions and direct them into a mass spectrometer." There they are chemically treated. And feedback to the surgeon follows within seconds.

 That beats the usual method of analysis of suspicious tissue during surgery. The traditional histology with microscope can take more than 20 minutes but this iKinife do it within seconds. In the mass spectrometer hundreds of molecules are tested for their tissue distribution. "We are particularly important substances of the cell envelope. For examples fats or phospholipids, "says Zoltan Takats. The totality of the molecules results in a pattern, as a signature. The interpretation left to the researcher’s pattern recognition software. At the end of this process, a pattern is derived from the tissue intended. How do they discriminate the chemical patterns of healthy and diseased tissue, should be known first. The researchers tested the iKnife in the laboratory on 1624 cancer and 1309 healthy tissue samples from a total of 302 patients. And then they dare tentatively into the operating room. In 91 operations the iKnife was used in parallel to the traditional histological methods for the tissues intended. The result is astonishing histology goes with iKnife quite astounding 100 percent. "We were very surprised," says Jeremy Nicholson, head of the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College London. "When you reach 100 percent in some studies already?" He believes the identification of chemical patterns with the iKnife could be valuable far beyond the surgery also. "Perhaps the abnormal chemical signatures of smoke provide future targets for therapies. Because if you know how this biochemical change occurs, one might, however, can develop new drugs. " The first, sensational study of the team that developed the iKnife, turned Although procedures other to cancer, but the researchers have at least tested in the laboratory, such as the iKnife behaves in the tissue drying Berke other diseases. "We can distinguish the iKnife whether Crohn's disease or another inflammatory bowel disease is present," says Jeremy Nicholson.

 These traditional methods often fail, and it can take weeks months until patients are diagnosed correctly. However, the chemical signature of the smoke is clear and unambiguous. "If we unravel faster diagnoses, the patient is doing well. And also comes cheaper the health care, "says Jeremy Nicholson. With this argument, the researchers also justify the high price of iKnifes. The prototype cost 300,000 Euros. The researchers are currently preparing clinical trials with thousands of patients.

Saturday 27 July 2013

Intel confirms the Haswell chip with 4.5W SDP




In the previous IDF San Francisco, Intel promised: Haswell will go down to 4.5 watts of SDP. While the first models announced earlier during the launch failed to reach such figures, but internal documents evoked such product have just been confirmed. Haswell (Core Processors fourth generation) will be of only a few watts! If the information seems to surprise some, it is not really surprising. Intel had indeed indicated that there is nearly a year that the chip goes beyond Ivy Bridge. The latter was to 7 watts of SDP for some particular models, and 10 watts to TDP. The Atom and his successors, they are limited to about 2 watts in terms of the products currently covered by the mark in terms of mobility. In June, we already learned that the purpose was reached already down to 6 watts for 2-in-1 and the Ultrabook, warning that he did not intend to stop there. And it's now official; there will also be versions of 4.5 watts only SDP that will emerge during the second half of 2013. And they will "build the first 2-in-1 passive based on Core architecture." It remains to know the price of this product and its performance. These will necessarily be limited, especially as the SDP wants a realistic indicator of power consumption under conditions of use. Hopefully accessible products may be right and it is not only for mini-luxury machines.