Korea Militarizes Samsung's Smartphone Apps

Korea Militarizes Samsung Smartphone Apps -- Tech Eye

Invade the North? There's an app for that

South Korea has been developing battlefield applications for Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S and other Android-based smartphones.

According to the Korea Times, nine apps have been completed with more coming.

The big idea is that the Koreans want to use smartphones in military operations and since it has a big smartphone maker close it thought it would use it.

Read more ....

My Comment: Expect even more apps with a military concept in the near future.

Biggest Laser Pulse Fired In Human History Could Power New Kind Of Nuclear Reactor

The future of energy? NIF Director Edward Moses said. 'It is fully operational, and scientists are taking important steps toward the quest for clean fusion energy.'

'Step Towards Clean Energy': Biggest Laser Pulse Fired In Human History Could Power New Kind Of Nuclear Reactor - And Solve Energy Crisis Forever -- Daily Mail

* 'Shaped pulse' of energy generated 500 trillion watts of peak power
* 1,000 times more than the whole United States uses at any given moment
* Array of 192 lasers aims for 'laser fusion' - a 'Holy Grail' of clean energy
* Facility aims to ignite controleld version of reaction found in heart of stars, and in hydrogen bombs

The most energetic laser shot in mankind's history was fired at the stadium-sized National Ignition Facility in California this month.

On July 5, an array of 192 lasers filed a pulse of ultraviolet laser light that deliver generated 500 trillion watts of peak power - 1,000 times more than the whole of the U.S. uses at any given time.

The pulse is a historic moment for the 'fusion' facility, which aims to generate power using a nuclear fusion reaction - similar to what happens in hydrogen bombs.

Read more ....

My Comment: They still have a long way to go before anything practical comes from this research.

Ever Heard The Sound Of A Nuclear Bomb Going Off?

The sound of the largest man-made explosion: A cinematographer films an atomic mushroom cloud on July 19, 1957 in Yucca Flat, Colorado

Ever Heard The Sound Of A Nuclear Bomb Going Off? Historian Unveils One Of The Few Surviving Audio Recordings Of Blast From 1950's Nevada Tests -- Daily Mail

They are surely the most horrifying offshoot of modern technology - nuclear warheads which can smite hundreds of thousands of people dead within seconds, and leave lasting scars on a landscape for generations.

And while most of us will have seen archive footage of nuclear explosions before, one thing we are unlikely to have heard is their sound.

For, according to one expert, most films we see of a nuclear blast use stock 'explosion' sound effects for the bang - and audio footage is few and far between.

Read more ....

My Comment: It sounds like hell.

Aerographite, The Lightest Material Ever Created

Video: Aerographite, Tthe Lightest Material Ever Created -- Popular Science

We've been impressed in the past by aerogel, a lattice-like solid that's almost entirely made of air but can support weight and also has tremendous insulating properties. Then last year an ultralight metal caught our eye, weighing in at 99.99 percent air, which leaves 0.01 percent solid.

Now we are excited to meet aerographite, a sponge grown of carbon nanotubes that's the least dense solid ever: a cubic centimeter of it weighs just two ten-thousandths of a gram.

Read more ....

Women Now Outperform Men On IQ Tests

Brainier Than The Male -- The Telegraph

Telegraph View: Women now outperform men on IQ tests. But were they always cleverer, just keeping quiet about it?

It was only a little over a century ago that it first occurred to psychologists to measure people’s brainpower. Since then, men have consistently outscored women – until now.

For the first time, women are doing better at IQ tests than the male of the species. According to the American academic James Flynn, the doyen of IQ measurers, the scores of both sexes have been rising since the turn of the last century, but women’s have risen faster.

Read more ....

My Comment: The women in my life are not surprised by this result.

Silicon Valley Exposed: Map To The Tech Stars’ Homes!

CSN Editor: The map can only be viewed at Vanity Magazine's site. The link is here.

The Original Logos Of Tech Companies Were 'Awful'

The Original Logos of Tech Companies Were All Terrible -- Gizmodo

A lot of the giant technology brands and companies you know and love today didn't look anything like they do now when they first started. Just look at their original logos: almost always butt ugly, but slowly grew into what they are now. Here are the humblest beginnings for all to see:

The fine folks at Stock Logos compared famous logos with their original forms, and it's hilarious to see how unrecognizable they all are now. They're universally awful. Who gave the okay on some of these? Were they made as a joke? See for yourself below.

Read more ....

My Comment: The RCA Victor logo is OK.

Too Many Memories Cause Amnesia?

Image: Muharrem Oner/iStockphoto

Memories Clutter Brain In Amnesia -- Science News

Complex patterns slow down object recognition in patients with disorder.

In a paradoxical twist, people with amnesia can get bogged down by too many memories. Unwanted, irrelevant information crowds in and prevents amnesiac patients from recognizing objects, scientists report in the July 12 Neuron. The finding suggests that amnesia isn’t strictly a memory problem, and may even point out ways to help people with the disorder live more normally.

Read more ....

My Comment: I can identify with this story.

Creeped Out By Robots? This Might Be Why (Video)

Tackling Wine Allergies

Tech Tackles Wine Allergies -- Discovery News

Some people are allergic to certain wines -- that nice Loire Valley red gives them a rash or headache, or that California Chardonnay makes them sneeze. The University of British Columbia's Wine Research Center might have found a way to solve this problem.

The team at UBC has modified two genes of a strain of yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which has been used in winemaking for decades (if not centuries). The yeast was modified to eliminate the need for a species of bacteria needed for the winemaking process. That bacteria produces chemicals that cause allergic reactions. About 30 percent of the population has some allergy to wine.

Read more ....

My Comment: What struck me about this article was the following stat .... about 30 percent of the population has some allergy to wine. that's a big market being left out.

New Wi-Fi Hotspots For New York City

A pilot program will turn 10 New York City payphone kiosks into wireless hotspots, with more to follow.

Wi-Fi Hotspots To Revive NYC Payphones -- CNN

(CNN) -- Remember payphones? This might sound crazy, but if New York City has its way, people might actually start using them again to communicate with each other.

The city announced Thursday that it has created Wi-Fi hotspots at 10 payphone kiosks in three of the city's boroughs. It's the first step in a pilot program designed to make wireless access available to as many people as possible in the city.

The kiosks (seven in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn and one in Queens) have antennas that create Wi-Fi hotspots providing free wireless service up to 300 feet away. More will be added in the coming months, according to the blog post announcing the program.

Read more ....

My Comment: If it is free .... it will succeed.

Apple Goes Green Again

Thanks to its non-removable battery, Apple's MacBook Pro with retina display may be difficult to recycle or disassemble.

Apple: No Wait, We're Green Again -- CNN

(CNN) -- Calling its decision to abandon a green certification system for electronics "a mistake," Apple on Friday announced it would again submit its products for EPEAT certification.

"We've recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system," Apple's senior vice president for hardware engineering, Bob Mansfield, said in a statement. "I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT."

Read more ....

My Comment: This was a screw-up.

Evidence Of 'Dark Galaxies' Discovered

Ultraviolet light from a quasar (in the red circle) causes hydrogen gas in dark galaxies (blue circles) to fluoresce. ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2/S. Cantalupo (UCSC)

First Evidence Of 'Dark Galaxies' Discovered -- The Telegraph

Astronomers in Chile have observed what appears to be evidence of the existence of dark galaxies, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced on Wednesday.

Dark galaxies are small, gas-rich galaxies from the early universe that are believed to be the building blocks of today's bright, star-filled galaxies, said the ESO, an intergovernmental organisation supported by 15 countries.

"For the first time, dark galaxies – an early phase of galaxy formation, predicted by theory but unobserved until now – may have been spotted," the ESO said in a statement.

"Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team thinks they have detected these elusive objects by observing them glowing as they are illuminated by a quasar," it said.

Read more ....

How Did Dinosaurs Mate?

Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs mating - like most dinosaur species, the creatures mated like dogs

The Joy Of T-Rex: Scientists Show How Dinosaurs Had Sex (Tricky, When You Weigh 30 Tonnes And One Crucial Part Is 12ft Long) -- Daily Mail

Palaeontologists answer many tricky questions about dinosaurs - but perhaps the most interesting is how did 30-ton animals larger than four-storey buildings have sex.

A surprising amount of research has been devoted to the subject - and most researchers have concluded that dinosaurs made love like dogs

'All dinosaurs used the same basic position to mate,' said Dr Beverly Halstead, an English researcher who was one of the first to tackle the subject. 'Mounting from the rear, he put his forelimbs on her shoulders, lifting one hind limb across her back and twisting his tail under hers.'

Read more ....

My Comment: 12 feet long?

Native American Settled The New World In Three Major Waves

Americas 'Settled In Three Waves' -- BBC

The biggest survey of Native American DNA has concluded that the New World was settled in three major waves.

But the majority of today's indigenous Americans descend from a single group of migrants that crossed from Asia to Alaska 15,000 years ago or more.

Previous genetic data have lent support to the idea that America was colonised by a single migrant wave.

An international team of researchers have published their findings in the journal Nature.

Read more ....

A New Way to Treat Diabetes?

Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered a chemical that offers a completely new and promising direction for the development of drugs to treat metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes -- a major public health concern in the United States due to the current obesity epidemic. (Credit: Image by Peter Allen, UC Santa Barbara)

Discovery of Chemical That Affects Biological Clock Offers New Way to Treat Diabetes -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (July 12, 2012) — Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered a chemical that offers a completely new and promising direction for the development of drugs to treat metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes -- a major public health concern in the United States due to the current obesity epidemic.

Their discovery, detailed in a paper published July 13 in an advance online issue of the journal Science, initially came as a surprise because the chemical they isolated does not directly control glucose production in the liver, but instead affects the activity of a key protein that regulates the internal mechanisms of our daily night and day activities, which scientists call our circadian rhythm or biological clock.

Read more ....

My Comment: A promising direction to help type 2 diabetes patients.

Robotic Hand Also Doubles As A Human Exoskeleton

Festo's robotic ExoHand also works as a human augmentation device.

Sophisticated Robotic Hand Also Doubles As A Human Exoskeleton -- Singularity Hub

It may be time to jettison the notion that robots in the future will have grippers or claws for hands. The German robotics company Festo recently unveiled the ExoHand, a sophisticated robotic hand that is capable of the fine motor skills that allows the human hand to have a delicate touch or perform complex manipulations.

The ExoHand comes in two forms: as the extremity of a robotic arm or a wearable exoskeleton glove. The system is designed so that the glove can aid assembly line workers performing repetitive tasks with their hands or be used for the remote manipulation of the robotic arm by a user wearing the glove.

Read more ....

Scientists Bring 500 Million-Year-Old Bacteria Back To Life

The new 'chimeric' bacteria has mutated rapidly - and some have become stronger and healthier than today's germs

Jurassic Park In A Petri Dish: Scientists Bring 500 Million-Year-Old Bacteria Back To Life - What Could Possibly Go Wrong? -- Daily Mail

* 'Frankenstein' germ spliced with gene from 500-million-year-old bacteria
* Bacteria is now thriving in lab
* Some of the 'chimeric' E Coli is now stronger than normal bacteria
* Scientists hope to 'restage' evolution
* Will answer questions about how and why organisms evolve

A 500 million-year-old bacteria has been brought back to life in a laboratory at Georgia Tech in an experiment with echoes of Jurassic Park's disastrous recreation of the dinosaurs.

The researchers have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene and inserted it into a modern E Coli bacteria.

The 'Frankenstein' germ has thrived. In the lab, the creation has now lived through 1,000 generations.

Read more ....

My Comment: It's only a matter of time before they start working on larger gene sequences.

Giant Sunspot Shooting Out Intense, X-Class Solar Flare Detected

Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite image of solar flare (NASA)

Giant Sunspot Shoots Out Intense, X-Class Solar Flare -- Washington Post

UPDATE, 3:30 p.m.: NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) just posted the following:

The R3 (Strong) Radio Blackout today at 12:49 EDT (1649 UTC) was accompanied by an earth-directed CME. Hampered by limited observations of the event, SWPC forecasters are now anticipating the passage of the [coronal mass ejection] around 1:00 a.m. EDT, Saturday, July 14. G1 (minor) Geomagnetic Storm activity is expected to then ensue through the rest of the day.

In short, NOAA is predicting minor effects from this space weather event - no major impacts on the power grid or satellites anticipated - although we remind you forecasting space weather is difficult and surprises are possible. Sky watchers in northern U.S. (and high latitudes) may have an opportunity to see aurora late Friday night into early Saturday morning.

Read more ....

Your Facebook Chats Are Not Private

Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity -- Mashable

Facebook and other social platforms are watching users’ chats for criminal activity and notifying police if any suspicious behavior is detected, according to a report.

The screening process begins with scanning software that monitors chats for words or phrases that signal something might be amiss, such as an exchange of personal information or vulgar language.

Read more ....

My Comment: Should not be surprised by this news. Our online activity is monitored for advertising purposes .... so for law-enforcement and Facebook .... the technology is already there for them to use.