Thursday 18 August 2016

Mozilla Firefox 48 Out Now with Multi-Process Electrolysis

Firefox 48

Firefox 48 –Designed to Enhance Stability/Security


Firefox 48, after seven years of progress is eventually enabling a multi-process feature which is similar to what Internet Explorer as well as Google Chrome has been offering as stable feature from 2009. Firefox 48 has recently shipped two long anticipated new features which have been designed to enhance the stability as well as security of the browser. Running their rendering engines in a distinct procedure from the browser shell, IE and Chrome have been steadier as well as secure.

To bring about a similar multi-process competence to Firefox, Mozilla had begun in 2009, the Electrolysis project, but the organization had taken longer than Apple, Google and Microsoft in shipping this feature. The delay of Mozilla was partially driven by altering importance in the organization and Electrolysis progress had been on hold in 2011 before it was restarted in 2013 and partly due to the historic extension architecture of Firefox which made this type of split-up difficult to accomplish. The old extensions of Firefox invasively tend to interfere with fragments of the browser and several assumed equal access to the rendering engine as well as to the shell of the browser.

Rollout of Electrolysis Controlled Conventionally


The developers of Firefox had to create a new extension system as well as create shim layers to provide the developers with a temporary system to continue assisting their old extensions. The multi-process system of Firefox even after all this time does not seem to match its peers. The roll out of Electrolysisis being controlled conventionally in spite of its successful beta. It is said that for the next few days, a part of a percent of Firefox 48 users by default would have Electrolysis turned on.

If this rollout turns to go well, the multi-process feature would be roll out to around half of all the users of Firefox 48 and would be prolonged in handling extensions which are known to be compatible in Firefox 50. Thereafter Electrolysis will be rolled out to the users of Firefox 51 with touchscreen devices, right-to-left languages as well as disable accessibility software thus making it accessible to most of the users of Firefox.

Rust Language of Mozilla – Similarity of Performance


The multi-process feature of Firefox still tends to fall short of what Chrome, Edge and Safari do, since it would be utilising an individual process for each tab. The other browsers employs one process for single tab which means that not only does a crash in the renderer seems to guard the browser shell, but also averts any contagion between tabs where one tab crashing seems to cause another one to perish.

Moreover, it also stops any leakage of data between tabs and provision for one process for each tab is presently due to be available in the first half of 2017. Once this has been accomplished, the extensions would be moved to single processes as well. Rust language of Mozilla is said to be designed to give the similarity of performance as well as control as C++ though minus the weakness of the C++ to security errors.
Rust code has been developed by the company to replace the C++ code which tends to presently handle difficult media formats and this replacement code is being shipped in the stable version of Firefox 48.

Wednesday 17 August 2016

Researchers Printed Energy Producing Photographs

Energy Producing Photographs

Picture/Text Can be Inkjet Printed as Solar Cell


Manufacture of solar cells have been done for a long time from economical substances with various printing procedures and biological solar cells and dye sensitized solar cells in particular have been appropriate for printing. A solar cell that comprises of both solar as well as non-solar sources of light like photons from incandescent bulbs is said to be a photovoltaic cell. Essentially the strategies requires to satisfy two roles namely photogeneration of charge carriers – electrons and holes, in a light captivating substance and separation of the charge carriers to a conductive contact which tends to transmit the electricity.

The conversion is said to be the photovoltaic effect and the arena of research linked to solar cells is called photovoltaic. With the process established in Aalto University,researchers have invented a system where any text or photograph could be printed as a solar cell. As per Aalto University News website, Janne Halme, University Lecturer commented that they wanted to take the idea of printed solar cells further and see if the materials could be inkjet-printed as pictures and text like traditional printing inks. Utilising the latest technologically advanced expertise, any picture or text can be inkjet-printed as a solar cell and when light is captivated in an ordinary ink, it causes heat.

Darker the Colour, More Electricity Produced


Photovoltaic ink though coverts a portion of that energy into electricity and the darker the colour, the more electricity tends to get produced since the human eye is said to be sensitive to that area of the solar radiation spectrum that has the maximum energy density. The most effective solar cell is thus pitch-black. The purpose of a colourful patterned solar is to combine the other properties which tend to take the benefit of light on the same surface like in the case of visual information and graphics.

For instance, this kind of solar cell, installed on an adequately low-powerelectrical device, could be a part of its visual design while simultaneously create the required energy, contemplates Halme. In the case of inkjet printing, the photovoltaic dye can be printed to a shape determined for a selected image file and could be adapted precisely with the darkness and transparency of the various sections of the image.

Postdoctoral Researcher Ghufran Hashmi has commented stating that `the inkjet-dyed solar cells were as effective and long-lasting as the corresponding solar cells prepared in a traditional way and endured more than one thousand hours of constant light and heat stress without signs of performance degradations’.

Progress of Decorative Product Building Integrated Solar Cells


The electrolyte and dye which seemed to be the best had been obtained from the research group in the Swiss Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, the place where Dr Hashmi had worked as a visiting researcher. Doctoral Candidate Merve Ozkan informs that the most challenging thing was to obtain appropriate solvent for the dye and the right jetting parameters which gave accurate and uniform print quality.

The results of the research have given rise to new possibilities for the progress of decorative product-building-integrated solar cells. The results had been published in the Energy & Environmental Science, the most renowned journal in energy research. The research had been financed mostly by the Academy of Finland and the SELECT + Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctoral Programme of the European Union.

Hackers Hijack a Big Rig Truck’s Accelerator and Brakes

truck

Discoveries of Unsettling Set of Tests – Industrial Vehicles


In recent years, when cyber security researchers had revealed that they could hack a Chevy Impala or a Jeep Cherokee in disabling the brakes of the vehicles or hijack their steering, the outcome seemed to be a distressing wakeup call to the customer automotive industry. At the Usenix Workshop on Offensive Technologies conference, a team of University of Michigan researchers intended to present the discoveries of unsettling set of tests on industrial vehicles.

On sending digital signals in the internal network of a hug rig truck, the researchers were in a position of doing everything from change the readout of the instrument panel of the truck, trigger unintended acceleration or to even disable a form of semi-trailer’s brakes. The researcher also discovered that evolving these attacks was in fact easier than consumer cars due to a common communication standard in the internal networks of several industrial vehicles, ranging from cement mixers to tractor trailers to school buses.

One of the researchers from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, Bill Hass has stated that these trucks tend to carry hazard chemicals and large loads. They are the backbone of the economy. If one could cause them with unintended acceleration, it would be too hard to figure out how many bad things could occur with it.

Unintended Acceleration – Tap of a Laptop Keyboard


A video of the researchers portrayed the consequences of unintended acceleration with only a tap of a laptop keyboard. The researchers had targeted several of their attacks on a 2006 semi-trailer though they had also attempted some hacks on a 2001 school bus. On connecting a laptop to the vehicles through their on-board diagnostic ports, they observed that they could look up most of the commands utilising the J1939 open standard which is said to be common to heavy vehicles.

This enabled them in duplicating signals on the networks of vehicles without the laborious reverse engineering other car hackers had to perform in order to replay commands within consumer vehicles, that lacked the calibration of industrial trucks. The other Michigan researcher, Leif Millar had commented that if one desired to hijack someone’s car, they would need to have the knowledge of the make and model and then adopt the attack. With trucks it seems to be all open so it is easy to craft an attack.

Disable the Brake of the Engine of Truck


It was for this reason that their complete truck-hacking project that had started as a University of Michigan class assignment had taken only two months. For the big rig truck that the J1939 standard permitted them in sending commands which accurately altered the statistics of almost any portion of the instrument panel. For instance they were capable of taking-off a full tank of gas when the truck was short of fuel or even avert a warning that the truck would be running out of compressed air in its air brakes, leading the vehicle to apply the emergency brakes without warning.

They could completely disable the brake of the engine of the truck, at 30 miles per hour or less, compelling the driver to rely on other form of brakes which is known as foundation brakes that tends to get overheated and fails. Most upsetting was the fact that the researchers managed to speed up the truck against the will of the driver on sending signals tricking the power train commands of the vehicle to limit the acceleration of the truck or max out its RPMs in any gear. They observed that they stopped short of attempting to put an end to the engine of the truck though they guessed it was a possibility.

Tuesday 16 August 2016

Alter: A Creepy Humanoid with Complete Control over Its Limbs and Facial Expressions

Alter

Humanoid Robot – Control over Limb Movement/Facial Expression


A creepy humanoid robot with total control over its limb movement as well as facial expression has been unveiled by Japanese scientists and the robot named `Alter’ has been implanted with electronic sensors which tends to imitate the neural network of the human brain. The arms, head and the facial expressions of Alter,is said to be controlled by these sensors that gives the robot a random pattern of movement, which is weirdly identical to a human.

Besides that Alter can also sing converting the casual movement of its fingers into a lingering synth melody. According to sources the big claim of Alter is that it is run by neural network wherein neural networks tend to be software which utilises information in making decisions on their own, informed by decisions which have been shown already. Here the form of neural network tends to shift between a set of movement mode and `chaos’ mode that moves the bot depending on proximity of people, humidity, temperature and noise. It is a difficult method of making the robot to move on its own though the movements seems to be merely conservative.

Gestures Set by 42 Pneumatic Actuators


The gestures of Alter are set by 42 pneumatic actuators together with `a central pattern generator, a network that imitates neurons which can sense proximity, temperature and oddly humidity. Though the unbalanced gestures of Alter do not seem as yet humanoid, there is something certainly upsetting about the robot which can reason for itself. Researchers have stated that Alter is an attempt in creating a robot which can `will’ for itself to move and the head, arm movement and posture can adapt and alter according to choice of the system.

For instance, the torso tends to shudder if the proximity sensors seem to identify lots of people around. Kouhei Ogawa, Osaka University Professor had stated that the amazing thing regarding Alter is its capability of predetermining its own movements. He had informed RT News that Alter does not look like a human and does not really move like a human but it positively tends to have a presence.

Designing Alter – Significant Scientific Achievement


Professor Ogawa had mentioned that designing Alter had been a significant scientific achievement. He had informed engagdet that making android talk or interacts for 10 minutes presently needed an incredible amount of hard work only to program something to react for so long.Alter is said to be kept on display at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo till August 6. The disturbing part of Alter is the fact that only a portion of its hands and face are covered with silicon to look alike to skin though several of its mechanical components are left exposed for people to wonder at its complex movements.

Though the irregular gestures of Alter do not seem as yet human, there is something certainly worrying about the robot which can think for itself. At the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, Alter had been unveiled to the public on July 29 in Tokyo. Alter had been designed at the Osaka University and the University of Tokyo by the engineer. The movement of Alter has been described as weird by one of the researchers who has not been involved in the project.

Seven Amazing Facebook 'Secrets' You Probably Didn't Know About

Facebook

We all tend to use Facebook in order to get connected and be in contact with our friends, acquaintances and relatives who could be at any location of the world. Some of the features may tend to impose on us. Most of us may not be aware of some of the awesome features which have not drawn much of our attention. There are a few hints, tricks and tips which several users are unaware of Facebook though it has been around for over a decade. Facebook which is a social media behemoth, tends to have more than 1.44 billion active users per month where American seem to spend about 40 minutes daily on it which accounts for almost 20% of overall time online. However in spite of all the usage, there seems to be several features which the user may not realize Facebook tends to have. Here one can get some insight from the Facebook inbox right to getting a preview into the lives of strangers across the world:

1. See all who have rejected your request

If the user wants to know who have rejected their friend requests on Facebook there is a method in doing so. Devoted users of the social network for several years would have come across one or two rejections in creating a friend list which could comprise of ex-primary school mates, work colleagues as well as distant relatives. The process tends to take less than 60 seconds which can be done by opening Facebook, in the browser and not the app. Then you could click on the friend request tab and select `view all’ in the drop down menu and finally click on `view sent requests’.

2. Connect with strangers around the world 

You may have come across excess of Facebook Live videos coming into your New Feed during the past months though there is another lesser-known live streaming feature on the site. On clicking the icon on Live Video below the App section on the left-hand navigation bar the user has the capability of accessing people’s feed that tend to record clips all over the world.
3. Access your `other’ box

When Facebook considers that something could be possibly a spam, it tends to diverts it to your Message Request inbox where it could remain endlessly. You could view these messages by opening up Facebook Messenger on your phone and click the `Me’ section towards the bottom right of the screen and go to the `People’ section. Select `Message Requests’ and hit the link `See filtered messages’.

4. Play the secret football game 

Facebook had launched an addictive football game, at the beginning of June in order to celebrate the summer of Soccer as Euro 2016 had started. To play the football game, you could update your Messenger version and send a football emoji to any of your friends. On tapping the emoji once it is sent, you could start playing
football.

5. View all photos your friends have liked on Facebook 

A Simple way of viewing every photo you have liked on Facebook and the photos your friends, family and many other have liked is by heading to the tool bar towards the top the Facebook profile and explore `Photos liked by me’. If you wish to view all the photos your friends have liked then you could type in `Photos liked by, followed by the name of the person. You could also filter the images according to the year, place and who they had been posted by. Besides these you could also look out for posts which could have been hashtagged in Facebook by just adding the tagged word towards the end of the web address for instance https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/. You would get various results on typing post with hashtag `clarkson’ in the search box of Facebook. It could be worth attempting it.

6. Play Chess 

You could also play chess by utilising Facebook Messenger. On opening a conversation with an individual you intend to play with, just type `@fbchess play’. Then a board tends to appear and your opponent is invited to make the first move. You could select a piece by using K for king, Q for queen, B for bishop, N for knight, R for rook and P for pawn.

7. Remotely log out of Facebook

If the user tends to remain logged on to Facebook on a public computer, through oversight, you could log out from another location by going to Setting-Security to where you’re Logged In and hit `end activity ‘in order to log out.

Conclusion 

Facebook had been created in order to help viewers to get connected with their colleagues, friends, family and relatives and many others. The fact is that it is even better when one tends to get connected with them on their own terms.