(thenexweb) -- Microsoft suddenly has a fantastic sense of humor.
First, they sent flowers to the funeral of IE6. Now they’re rolling out a new webcomic series called “Where’s the ‘Any’ Key?” The site allows IT professionals to share their worst fail moments from their time doing tech support. From there, users can vote on these anecdotes.
The highest-rated anecdote every week wins its author a Sony Vaio X, £100 in gift certificates to the Microsoft store, and the anecdote is turned into the site’s weekly comic strip.
Why has Microsoft suddenly gotten a sense of humor?
It’s actually surprisingly simple. Microsoft knows that it has to do something to shake its reputation as being both the butt of jokes and the evil empire at the same time. By poking fun at its own flaws, it’s managed to put a human face on a previously imposing corporation.
As you can see from the above comic, it seems like Microsoft’s finally sticking to its core competencies regarding humor, as explained in this page (yes, that really is a MSFT page).
28 April 2010
Microsoft Understands How IT Guys Feel
A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms
In Hong Kong, one residential hi-rise looks much like the next. Tiny box-like apartments are home to most of the city's seven million people. Architect Gary Chang is one of them, although his place is just a little different. Read More......
Night Vision Coming Soon To Cell Phones, Eyeglasses
(Discovery) -- Adapting technology found in flat screen television sets, scientists have created a thin film that converts infrared light into visible light. The technology could give cell phones, eyeglasses and car windshields cheap, lightweight night vision.
"This device can convert any infrared image into a visible image and would weigh no more than a pair of eyeglasses," said Franky So, a scientist at the University of Florida who describes his new night vision technology in a recent article in the journal Advanced Materials that was funded in part by advanced technology powerhouse DARPA.
Most night vision devices today use massive amounts of electricity -- often several thousand volts, according to So -- and heavy, glass lenses that maintain a vacuum to make the night come alive. So's device takes a radically different turn, replacing glass with thin plastic, eliminating the vacuum and using energy-efficient, organic LEDs.
So does this by using technology borrowed from flat screen TVs. Infrared light enters the film and is detected by the first of seven separate layers, which generates a slight electrical charge. Additional electrical energy -- about three to five volts -- amplifies that signal, which is then converted back into visible light.
Like most of today's night vision cameras, So's device emits an eerie green light. Unlike most night vision technology today, however, So's design would weigh less than 100 grams (less than a quarter of a pound). Part of that weight is the proof of concept small size -- about one square centimeter -- but So says that even a full scale device could weigh as little as 10 grams and be only a few microns thick.
In other words, heavy and bulky night vision goggles could be replaced with a thin, lightweight coating weighing less than half a deck of playing cards.
It will take about 18 months to scale up the device for practical applications, such as car windshields, lightweight night vision eyeglasses and cell phones cameras.
"Ten years ago when people talked about putting cameras in cell phones, people asked why would you want to do that," said So. "Now you cannot find a cell phone without a camera. In the future, you might not be able to find a cell phone without night vision."
Night vision cell phones could be just the start. So said his team also plans to create cell phones that can see, and more importantly, measure heat as well. A cell phone equipped with heat vision could instantly take a patient's body temperature to see if they had a fever. A car windshield could make pedestrians crossing the street much easier to see and avoid.
Other scientists are enthusiastic about the new research. "This has a high potential to revolutionize night vision," said Yongli Gao, a professor at the University of Rochester. "It could be very useful in detecting heat loss from homes to reduce energy consumption, and for military applications as well."
27 April 2010
Japan unveils humanoid robot that smiles, frowns
A model (R) smiles to her double -- a humanoid robot "Geminoid-F" (L) at a press conference in Osaka. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
(Xinhuanet) -- Japanese researchers have developed a humanoid robot that can laugh and smile as it mimics a person's facial expressions.
By receiving electric signals from the person it is modelled on, the robot can move its rubber facial skin to imitate expressions like a smile, a laugh and a grim look.
"I felt like I had a twin sister," the model said.
A model (R) smiles to her double -- a humanoid robot "Geminoid-F" (L) at a press conference in Osaka. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
Tiny Japanese spacecraft scheduled to land in Australia
A Japanese spacecraft the size of a basketball carrying material from an asteroid is set to touch down in Woomera in June. The Hayabusa spacecraft, which weighs only 17 kilograms, will be the first craft to bring asteroid materials back to Earth. The craft, which first made contact with the asteroid Itokawa in 2005, will land in Australian defence land, at the Woomera Prohibited Area in Southern Australia.
Hayabusa (はやぶさ, Hayabusa? literally peregrine falcon) is an unmanned space mission led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa (dimensions 540 meters by 270 meters by 210 meters) to Earth for further analysis.
The Hayabusa spacecraft, formerly known as MUSES-C (ミューゼスＣ, Myūzesu Shī?), was launched on 9 May 2003 and rendezvoused with Itokawa in mid-September 2005. After arriving at Itokawa, Hayabusa studied the asteroid's shape, spin, topography, colour, composition, density, and history. In November 2005, it attempted to land on the asteroid to collect samples but failed to do so. Nevertheless, there is a high probability that some dust swirled into the sampling chamber, so it was sealed, and the spacecraft is slated to return to Earth by June 2010.
The spacecraft also carried a detachable mini-lander but it failed to reach the surface. Read More......
Lost iPhone prototype spurs police probe
(CNET) -- Silicon Valley police are investigating what appears to be a lost Apple iPhone prototype purchased by a gadget blog, a transaction that may have violated criminal laws, a law enforcement official told CNET on Friday.
Apple has spoken to local police about the incident and the investigation is believed to be headed by a computer crime task force led by the Santa Clara County district attorney's office, the source said. Apple's Cupertino headquarters is in Santa Clara County, about 40 miles south of San Francisco.
Editors at Gizmodo.com, part of Gawker Media's blog network, said in an article posted Monday that they paid $5,000 for what they believed to be a prototype of an impending iPhone 4G. The story said the phone was accidentally left at a bar in Redwood City, Calif., last month by an Apple software engineer and found by someone who contacted Gizmodo, which had previously indicated it was willing to pay significant sums for unreleased Apple products.
The purpose of an investigation is to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to file criminal charges. Spokesmen for Santa Clara County and San Mateo County--home to the Redwood City bar--declined to comment. Representatives for Apple and Gawker Media did not immediately respond to interview requests.
CNET has not been able to confirm whether the investigation is targeting Gizmodo.com, its source who reportedly found the iPhone in a bar, or both. Apple acknowledged that the lost device is their property and asked for its return; Gizmodo has since said that it has returned the device.
Late Friday, Bloomberg reported that it spoke to Gaby Darbyshire, Gawker's chief operating officer, and she said that law enforcement officials had not spoken with anyone at the company. The wire service also reported that a San Mateo County prosecutor would not confirm an investigation but said that, "if there is a case that is investigated and able to be submitted for prosecution, it will be handled by this office."
The tale of a lost iPhone may sound trivial, but Apple goes to great lengths to protect the secrecy of its products, and the company has not been afraid to take aggressive legal measures in the past. It filed a lawsuit against a Mac enthusiast Web site, for instance, to unearth information about a leak. A state appeals court ruled in favor of the Web sites.
Apple argued in that case that information published about unreleased products causes it significant harm. "If these trade secrets are revealed, competitors can anticipate and counter Apple's business strategy, and Apple loses control over the timing and publicity for its product launches," Apple wrote in a brief.
Under a California law dating back to 1872, any person who finds lost property and knows who the owner is likely to be but "appropriates such property to his own use" is guilty of theft. If the value of the property exceeds $400, more serious charges of grand theft can be filed. In addition, a second state law says that any person who knowingly receives property that has been obtained illegally can be imprisoned for up to one year.
Any prosecution would be complicated because of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press: the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that confidential information leaked to a news organization could be legally broadcast, although that case did not deal with physical property and the radio station did not pay its source.
The computer crime task force is called REACT, which stands for Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, and was established in 1997 with a goal of working closely with Bay Area technology companies. In the past, for instance, Apple has contacted REACT to report an employee who sold over $100,000 worth of computers on eBay. REACT also has investigated denial-of-service attacks targeting local firms.
26 April 2010
Sony to stop selling floppy disks from 2011
(BBC) -- Sony has signalled what could be the final end of the venerable floppy disk.
The electronics giant has said it will stop selling the 30-year-old storage media in Japan from March 2011.
In March the firm stopped sales of the disks in most international markets due to dwindling demand and competition from other storage formats.
The slow death of the "floppy" or "diskette" began in 1998 when Apple decided to not include a floppy drive in its G3 iMac computer.
Since then various other firms have stopped support for floppy disks, including computer giant Dell in 2003.
Computing store PC World stopped selling them in 2007.
However, Sony has continued to sell the disks, and continues to ship them in the millions.
Now, the firm - which claims to have produced the first 3.5in (9cm) disks in 1981 - has decided to halt sales completely faced with competition from online storage and portable USB drives.
Stephen Hawking: alien life is out there, scientist warns
(telegraph) -- One of the world's leading scientists makes the claim in a new television documentary series, beginning on the Discovery Channel next month.
Hawking says that in a universe with 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars, it is unlikely that earth is the only place where life has evolved.
"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said, according to The Sunday Times.
"The real challenge is working out what aliens might actually be like."
Hawking says that they could be microbes – basic animals such as worms which have been on Earth for millions of years, but suggests that extraterrestrial life could develop much further.
"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet," Hawking said.
"I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach."
The scientist, who is paralysed by motor neurone disease, warned that contact with alien life could spell disaster for the human race.
"If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the American Indians."
Dennis Hong: My 7 species of robot
(TED) -- At TEDxNASA, Dennis Hong introduces seven award-winnning, all-terrain robots -- like the humanoid, soccer-playing DARwIn and the cliff-gripping CLIMBeR -- all built by his team at RoMeLa, Virginia Tech. Watch to the end to hear the five creative secrets to his lab's incredible technical success.
Ancient Asphalt Domes Discovered Off California Coast
Chris Reddy (left) of WHOI and Chief Scientist Dave Valentine of UCSB hold a large chunk of undersea asphalt collected with one of the robotic arms of the DSV Alvin. The sample was surprising light in weight compared to rock. (Credit: Photo by Molly Redmond, UC Santa Barbara)
(ScienceDaily) -- They paved paradise and, it turns out, actually did put up a parking lot. A big one. Some 700 feet deep in the waters off California's jewel of a coastal resort, Santa Barbara, sits a group of football-field-sized asphalt domes unlike any other underwater features known to exist.
About 35,000 years ago, a series of apparent undersea volcanoes deposited massive flows of petroleum 10 miles offshore. The deposits hardened into domes that were discovered recently by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and UC Santa Barbara (UCSB).
Their report -- co-authored with researchers from UC Davis, the University of Sydney and the University of Rhode Island -- appears online April 25 in the Journal Nature Geoscience. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy and the Seaver Institute.
"It was an amazing experience, driving along…and all of a sudden, this mountain is staring you in the face," said Christopher M. Reddy, director of WHOI's Coastal Ocean Institute and one of the study's senior authors, as he described the discovery of the domes using the deep submersible vehicle Alvin. Moreover, the dome was teeming with undersea life. "It was essentially an oasis," he said, "almost like an artificial reef."
What really piqued the interest of Reddy -- a marine geochemist who studies oil spills -- was the chemical composition of the dome: "very unusual asphalt material," he said. "There aren't that many opportunities to study oil that's been sitting around on the bottom of the ocean for 35,000 years."
Reddy's unique chance came courtesy of UCSB earth scientist and lead author David L. Valentine, who first came upon the largest of the structures -- named Il Duomo -- and brought back a chunk of the brittle, black material in 2007 from an initial dive in Alvin, which WHOI operates for the US Navy. Valentine and Reddy were on a cruise aboard the WHOI-operated research vessel Atlantis, following up on undersea mapping survey by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and the work of UCSB earth scientist Ed Keller.
"The largest [dome] is about the size of two football fields, side by side and as tall as a six-story building," Valentine said. Alvin's robotic arm snapped off a piece of the unusual formation, secured it in a basket and delivered it to Reddy aboard Atlantis.
"I was sleeping," Reddy chuckled. "Somebody woke me up and wanted me to look at the rocks and test them."
It turned out to be quite an awakening. "I was amazed at how easy it was to break," Reddy recalls, "which confirmed it wasn't solid rock" and lent credence to Keller's theory that these structures might be made of asphalt.
Without access to the sophisticated equipment in his Woods Hole lab, Reddy employed a "25-cent glass tube, the back of a Bic pen and a little nail polish remover" to analyze the crusty substance. He used the crude tools like a mortar and pestle to grind the rock, "and literally within several minutes, it became a thick oil."
"This immediately said to me that this was asphalt," Reddy said. "And I remember turning to Dave [Valentine] and saying, 'We've got to back. Please take me back there'" to the dome.
After making some schedule changes, Valentine cleared the way for him and Reddy to take Alvin back to several sites in 2007. This work also set the stage for a follow-up study in September 2009, when the investigators returned to the domes with Alvin and the Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (AUV) Sentry to study the unique structures. They were joined by, among others, WHOI collaborators Dana Yoerger, Richard Camilli and Robert K. Nelson and Oscar Pizarro, now at the University of Sydney.
"With that combination, we were able to go in and do very detailed mapping of the site and very detailed sampling at the seafloor," Valentine said. Using mass spectrometers and radiocarbon dating in their respective laboratories, the scientists were able to confirm the nature and age of the domes.
"To me, as an oil-spill chemist, this was very exciting," said Reddy. "I got to find out what oil looks like after… 35,000 years."
What it looked like was "incredibly weathered," said Reddy. "That means nature had taken away a lot of compounds. These mounds of black material were the last remnants of oil that exploded up from below. To see nature doing this on its own was an unbelievable finding."
A few asphalt-like undersea structures have been reported, says Valentine, "but not anything exactly like these…no large structures like we see here." He estimates that the dome structures contain about 100,000 tons of residual asphalt and compares them to an underwater version of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, complete with the fossils of ancient animals.
The researchers are not sure exactly why sea life has taken up residence around the asphalt domes, but one possibility is that because the oil has become benign over the years that some creatures are able to actually feed off it and get energy from it. They may also be "thriving" on tiny holes in the dome areas that release minute amounts of methane gas, Reddy says.
The scientists plan to continue studying the domed structures. "We have some very fundamental questions that remain," Valentine says. "It would be nice to know what is going on deep down under these things.
"One future direction is to try and actually drill into them," he says. "We also need to turn it over to some geologists to figure out where this oil is really coming from. More fundamentally, we're going to look at the actual degradation of the oil by microorganisms and maybe even see what organisms are trapped in this…very much like the La Brea Tar Pits."
From a chemical point of view, Reddy says he will continue to probe the question of exactly which of the chemicals that make up the domes "stayed around" all these years.
"Instead of this taking place at a refinery, nature used a variety of its own tools," he said, to manufacture the asphalt substance. With some heating and a few chemical tweaks, he added, this is essentially the same material that paves highways and parking lots. After all, it is California.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans' role in the changing global environment.
Scientists uncover deep ocean current near Antarctica
A mountain is reflected in a bay that used to be covered by the Sheldon glacier on the Antarctic peninsula, January 14, 2009. The glacier has shrunk by about 2 km since 1989, probably because of global warming. Picture taken January 14, 2009. Credit: Reuters/Alister Doyle
(Reuters) -- A team of Australian and Japanese scientists, in a study published in Sunday's issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, found that the current is a key part of a global ocean circulation pattern that helps control the planet's climate.
Scientists had previously detected evidence of the current but had no data on it.
"We didn't know if it was a significant part of the circulation or not and this shows clearly that it is," one of the authors, Steve Rintoul, told Reuters.
Rintoul, of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center in Hobart, said it proved to be the fastest deep ocean current yet found, with an average speed of 20 cm (7.9 inches) a second. It was also found to carry more than 12 million cubic meters a second of very cold, salty water from Antarctica.
"At these depths, below three kilometers (two miles) from the surface, these are the strongest recorded speeds we've seen so far, which was really a surprise to us."
He said the current carries dense, oxygen-rich water that sinks near Antarctica to the deep ocean basins further north around the Kerguelen Plateau in the southern Indian Ocean and then branches out.
GLOBAL CONVEYOR BELT
The current forms part of a much larger network that spans the world's oceans, acting like a giant conveyor belt to distribute heat around the globe.
Oceans are also a major store of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that is emitted naturally and by mankind, mainly from burning fossil fuels.
For example, the Gulf Stream brings warm water to the North Atlantic, giving northern Europe a relatively mild climate. Failure of the current, which has occurred in the past, would plunge parts of Europe into a deep freeze, scientists say.
"The deep current along the Kerguelen Plateau is part of a global system of ocean currents called the overturning circulation, which determines how much heat and carbon the ocean can soak up," Rintoul said.
A key part of the circulation is the creation of large volumes of the very cold, salty water in several areas along coastal Antarctica that then sinks to the bottom and flows to other ocean basins.
The team deployed measuring devices anchored to the sea floor at depths of up to 4.5 km (3 miles) and recorded current speed, temperature and salinity for a two-year period.
"The continuous measurements provided by the moorings allow us, for the first time, to determine how much water the deep current carries to the north," Rintoul said.
He said a key issue for predicting climate was whether the overturning circulation was going to stay at its present strength or whether it was sensitive to changes as climate changes.
That meant further improving measurements of the speed and volume of the cold, salty water that is created around Antarctica.