Tuesday 4 April 2017

Using a Smartphone to Screen for Male Infertility

male fertility test
Male fertility tests are not as simple and easy to perform as the female counterparts but latest innovation made by some researchers is all set to change the game. Most of the at home male fertility tests allows users to just check upon sperm count but it leaves a wide range of other characteristics which also effects the fertility. One of the major important characteristics usually left aside in the so called in-home male fertility tests includes sperm motility which signifies how much energetic are the sperm cell while they move around.

Researchers behind the automated male fertility testing system

The researchers at the Brigham & Women’ Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital had successfully developed a completely automated system which can effectively help in performing certain male fertility tests. This particular system is remarkable in accurately measuring the concentration of the sperm as well their motility ration by simply using a smartphone. It also requires some of the snap-on components which are quite cheap in nature.

The functioning of the automated system is quite simple wherein the users are required to place the semen sample in a disposable chamber of the snap-on component. The snap-on component is designed with precision and care and doesn’t’ looks odd at all rather it appears like a usual smartphone case. There is a disposable microchip placed in the component and the light source for effectively measuring the part of sample is the smartphones camera. The smartphone camera helps in illuminating the semen sample while sensing equipment placed in the component does the rest of the work.

A special app is required to be installed on the smartphone which in later stage makes use of the image and helps in carefully evaluating the number as well as activity of the sperm cells in the sample. However this isn’t the first of its kind male fertility testing system as there is already a similar technology called YO sperm test system which happens to be sold directly to the consumers.

How this technology works? 

Researchers have made use of as many as 350 clinical sperm specimens to analyse the results and improvise the technology with each iteration. They had made use of unwashed and processed liquefied semen in order to conduct tests. The sample were kept at less than 5-s which ensured lower processing time and helped in getting accurate results with about `98% accuracy. Under the World Health Organisation the test were conducted to ensure its integrity as well as the efficiency of the technology for global usage in the upcoming days.

Their research has also shed light to the fact that by simply integrating few microfluids along with the optical sensing accessories in the modern advanced consumer electronics smartphone can help in developing the remote semen testing equipment without much hassle. Therefore they opted for bringing the amalgamation of the technology on the smartphone which can be easily access by millions worldwide and an app has been developed to provide quick and accurate fertility test results right from the sample within shortest amount of time.


Google Play Gets a Free App of the Week Section

Google Play
Back in 2012, Apple started ‘free app of the week’ as a means of promoting some of the best titles in App stores. Google decided to follow Apple’s footsteps and has recently launched their own ‘free app of the week’ section. This new and exciting section is available on Google Play and has been launched, but not yet in India. However, this mega-tech pioneer has not yet committed to making this free application section, a full time feature. Google Play is currently testing their new approach to marketing apps only in the US, and will keep the format going for a time period of four weeks.

Free apps available 

One of the attractive features they had added on Google Play prior to this recent update was a unique feature that was greatly liked. This innovation allowed developers to display sales of their apps and other free offers on Google Play. While the recent ‘free app section also features a free download version of Card Wars by Cartoon Network for free which normally costs around $2.99. This is available on both mobile and desktop version.

This move is a wonderfully innovative approach that not only allows popularity of Google Play but gives an innovative platform to new developers. This program by Google is called the pilot program. Cartoon Network was approached by Google for offering the proposal of joining this latest venture by Google Play. Even though, CN was not thinking of running a sale, they agreed to participate in it.
Editorial selection process

An editorial selection process is being held by Google for deciding which apps will be featured in their new ‘free app of the week’ section. This editorial process is far better than some algorithm which will lead to the display of popular apps that have already been up for sale. For this program CN is giving some its popular apps for free but Google recompensing the publisher of the apps, for these downloads.

Tried and tested method 

Although, Google has decided to take up this new venture, it is not exactly ‘new’ for the company. As, back in 2015 Google had already tested the model by offering free apps in the family section. However, the format was a tad different, and Google Play was only offering free applications from PBS kids.

Well, this is also not something new for the Android users as they’ve already had the experience of downloading paid content for free. Amazon Underground was a program launched by Amazon in 2015 where Android users were able to download premium apps for free from the Amazon Appstore. App publishers in an effort to increase their Google Play ranking and for boosting downloads also sometimes offers exciting sales.

Google, however, has decided to not make comments on this business model surrounding the ‘free app of the week’ venture. A spokesperson has however stated that it is Google Play’s constant endeavor to offer their customers with the best services on Google Play. Considering the shining success of Google’s earlier efforts to boost app rankings, this new venture will be quite successful.

Monday 3 April 2017

Heated Pavement Technology Tested at Des Moines International Airport

 Heated Pavement
We are living in future or future is dawning upon the humankind. The line is blur and the amount of scientific, technology advancement we are experiencing it will become highly difficult to pinpoint the moment we will step into the future. A team of researchers from the Iowa State University have been successful in deploying the fully functional electrically conductive concrete pavement installed on an America airport. The lead researcher going by the name Halil Ceylan has to simply run an app on his smartphone in order to begin the successful testing on the full scale heated pavement installed at Des Moines International Airport.

Winter season is round the corner the technology implemented by the Ceylan team will help in turning on heated pavement system which will allow snow and ice to melt away. All this is done through an app and it can be seen in real time due to its video capability.

How much it costs?

Most of the people are amazed by the technology and are hooked on learning about the cost incurred in developing it. Ceylan has clarified that the success of the heated pavement slabs has shown that benefits are far greater than the cost. Researchers have carefully calculated the number at the operating cost of just 19 cents per square meters which is unbelievably cheaper.

How the testing slabs were made?

The test slabs designed for the installation at the airport are made up of 1percent of the carbon fiber along with a special mix of the cement, rocks and sand. The use of carbon fiber in the heated pavement technology allows concrete to conduct electricity which ultimately helps in creating heat.

A team member has prepared hundreds of concrete samples in order to come up with the right combination of comprehensive strength, electrical conductivity, tensile strength and workability required for its success. The test slabs are wired with varied kind of sensors which includes strain gauges, temperature probes, humidity sensors as well as it has two surveillance camera mounted near it. These test slabs are powered by the hangar’s power supply which helps in its smooth functioning.

Why testing on an airport?

The reason which prompted Des Moines Airport for testing heated pavement because it’s a part of Federal Aviation Administration sustainability program. In a bid to boost the sustainability and a partnership was established way back in 2012 which brought together a number of credible researchers from the Purdue University as well as other core members from Iowa State. This brings together a number of FAA’s centres of excellence along with the federal government, universities and industry in an established one-of-a-kind cost-sharing research partnership.

This program is currently about $2.2 million for Iowa State to bring about a full scale demonstration of unique airfield d pavements as well as heated pavements for future usage. Earlier a prototype of the heated pavement was successfully placed at the campus lab which showed promising results and feasibility to integrate for the large scale studies.

Intel Launches Optane Memory M.2 Cache SSDs For Consumer Market

Intel
Intel finally unveiled its first Optane product called SSD DC P4800X enterprise drive just a week ago and today it has brought the Optane Memory product which is targeted for the consumers. This product is essentially a low-capacity M.2 NVMe SSD which can only be used as a cache drive in the systems for simple tasks and performance boost.

How does Intel Optane Memory SSD works?

Intel has simply launched two variant of the Optane Memory SSD which makes use of either one or two single die packages of the 3D XPoint which happens to be the non-volatile memory. And this product will be made available only in the 16 GB and 32 GB models. Without going into the fine technical details of the Optane Memory let’s focus on the performance which Intel is proclaiming to be selling point of these device. The Optane Memory drives are of very low capacity which means they can’t be used like the traditional SSDs. The best part about these new drives is that it is designed to be used specifically with the caching capability of its Rapid Storage Technology. Intel has made this technology available way back in 2011 with the Smart Response Technology.

Therefore the Optane Memory is better suited for the 3D Point memory performance which brings a definite flexibility advantage usually missed in the flash memory. Secondly the Optane Memory comes with the NVMe remapping feature which has become a staple feature in the Intel’s Skylake generation 100-series chipsets. Thirdly the Optane Memory caching capability is only limited to the Windows 10 64 bit and that also for the boot volume which might be a bummer for a large number of consumers.

Optane Memory SSDs are expensive 

Intel’s market share has taken a hit by the recent rise in the adoption and popularity of the AMD’s processor and chipsets. Therefore it has envisioned a world where Optane Memory equipped system are running the show which also ends up giving a remarkable performance over the hard drive only system which has become a norm in today’s society.

The pricing for the Optane Memory drive has been kept at $44 for 16GB version while $77 for the 32GB version. Over the years the prices for the flash memory drive has declined rapidly which had made it possible to buy the SSDS for ordinary usage with pretty ease.

Therefore Intel Optane Memory will get a stiff competition for the Flash drive which happens to be first choice of the consumers at the world. Pricing will play a major role in the overall success of the Optane Memory products. Currently buying a 32 GB Optane Memory drive will costs as much as 256 Gb class SSDs while 512 GB class will cost as much as the 25TB hard drive. Intel is hoping that the performance driven Optane Memory will help in creating a niche market for it in upcoming days.

Saturday 1 April 2017

Twitter Explores Subscription-Based Option for First Time

twitter

Tweetdeck Convenient Twitter Experience

Recently the company had mentioned that Twitter Inc. had been planning to build a premium kind of its well-known Tweetdeck interface targeted at professionals thereby raising the likelihood that it would collect subscription fees for the first time, from some users. Tweetdeck provides a much convenient Twitter experience by enabling the user to see various timeline in an easy interface comprising of various advanced features to benefit the most of Twitter.

 It also helps in managing numerous accounts, schedule Tweets for future posting build Tweet collections and much more. Similar to the other Twitter applications it interfaces with the Twitter API thus enabling the users in sending as well as receiving tweets and observe profiles. Tweetdeck tends to comprise of sequences of customisable columns that tend to be set up displaying the Twitter timeline of the user, mentions, direct messages, trends, list, search results, hastag, or all the tweets by or to an individual user.

Since its launch 11 years ago, Twitter like most of the other social media companies has focused on building a big user base for a free service with the help of advertising. It had reported last month that it had 319 million users all over the world.

Twitter Unsuccessful in Drawing Adequate Advertising Revenue

However unlike Facebook Inc. Twitter seemed to be unsuccessful in drawing adequate advertising revenue to gain profit in spite of its popularity with Donald Trump, the U.S. President while the other celebrities have made the network an endless hub of attention. A subscription fee could be helpful from a type of Tweetdeck, a prevailing interface which could be beneficialto users in exploringTwitter.

A survey is being done by Twitter to assess the interest in an updated and much more enhanced kind of Tweetdeck according to a spokeswoman Brielle Villablanca in a statement recently. She added that they conduct user research frequently in collecting feedback regarding the user’s Twitter experience as well as to improve their product investment decision.

They have been exploring a number of methods of making Tweetdeck more treasured for professionals. No indications have been provided stating that Twitter would consider charging fees form its users. Announcement of the survey had been disclosed on Twitter earlier wherein a journalist associated with the New York Times had displayed screenshot of what a premium version of Tweetdeck would probably appear like.

Advertising Revenue Progress – Lag User Growth

This kind of version would comprise of more powerful tools enabling marketers, professionals, journalist together with the others in the community to identify of what could be happening across the globe in a quicker manner, as per one of the screenshots displayed on the account @andrewtavani. The description had stated that the experience would be ad-free.

Social media firms like Microsoft Corp’s, MSFT.O, LinkedIn unit, have already tiered memberships together with subscription types which provide better access as well as data. Twitter had posted the slowest revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 2016 since it had gone public four earlier ago where the revenue from the advertising had dropped year after year.

The company had also informed that advertising revenue progress would remain to lag user growth during 2017. Last year, financial markets wondered regarding the sale of Twitter though no concrete bids have come up.