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Apples with extra healthy punch on
the way Prof Yash
Pal This universe
Trends |
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Future phones will sense
your mood Ultra-smartphones that react to your moods and televisions that can tell it’s you who’s watching are in your future as Intel Corp’s top technology guru sets his sights on context-aware computing. Chief technology officer Justin Rattner stuffed sensors down his socks at the annual Intel Develop Forum in San Francisco on Wednesday to demonstrate how personal devices will one day offer advice that goes way beyond local restaurants and new songs to download. “How can we change the relationship so we think of these devices not as devices but as assistants or even companions?” he asked. Handheld devices could combine already common geographic location technology with data from microphones, cameras, heart and body monitors and even brain scans to offer their owners advice that today only a friend or relative could give. “Imagine a device that uses a variety of sensory modalities to determine what you are doing at an instant, from being asleep in your bed to being out for a run with a friend,” Rattner said. “Future devices will constantly learn about who you are, how you live, work and play.” Rattner also demonstrated a television remote control that figures out who is holding it based on how it is held, and then learns the viewer’s entertainment preferences. The world leader for decades in microchips for servers and desktop computers, Intel is hurrying to catch up in the lucrative market for smartphones like Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s Blackberry. Telephones with email, global positioning and media players are pointing the way toung, is likely to sell 270 million phones this year and grow 25 percent in 2011, according to market research company IDC. “I think you can expect to see features that support context-aware computing starting to appear in Intel products in the not-too-distant future,” Rattner said. But analysts say Intel faces an uphill battle getting its microchips into new phones as Nvidia, Marvell and Qualcomm have already made headway with cheap, lower-power processors based on designs by ARM Holdings. Rattner conceded that questions about privacy and people’s willingness to be intimate with their computers will have to be resolved before the future generation of smartphones he described takes off. “If you think identity threat is a problem today, imagine when your whole context is readily available on the Net,” he said. |
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Apples with extra healthy punch on the way Scientists have cracked the genetic code for Golden Delicious, a variety of apple, that paves the way to crunchier, juicier, healthier fruits. The breakthrough is already being used to breed red-hued apples with more anti-oxidants, known for a host of health benefits. Researcher Roger Hellens of New Zealand firm Plant & Food Research said: "We will be able to identify the genes which control the characteristics that our sensory scientists have identified as most desired by consumers - crispiness, juiciness and flavour." More than 60 million tonnes of apples are grown worldwide each year, the equivalent of nine kilos per person, reports the Daily Mail. Although apple farmers try to breed only the best plants, they are able to know the outcome only eight years later, thanks to the slow growth of apple tree. Now breeders will be able to screen seedlings for key genes, vastly speeding up the process. Traits that hamper production can also be more easily bred out, reports the journal Nature Genetics. A sweeter version is under development and could be on sale by 2015. Other plans include boosting the amounts of an appetite-suppressing compound already present in apples. The decoding of the apple's DNA by a team of almost 100 scientists from five different countries has also shed new light on its roots. The finding indicates a plant that evolved into the apple tree was born around 65 million years ago, when a comet is believed to have exterminated the dinosaurs. — IANS |
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This universe Light travels faster than sound. However, when we switch on our television sets, sound comes before the picture. Why does this happen? Is it due to the cathode ray tube (i.e. oscilloscope)? You are quite right. The culprit is the cathode ray tube used in most TV sets. Light and sound signals reach the TV set at the same time because they come by electromagnetic waves. The cathode ray tube begins to light up a little late because its filament, that emits the electrons, takes time to heat up. You would not see such a delay when you have a liquid crystal display. The same frequency of sound can be generated by guitar or harmonium or sitar etc. but we can distinguish between all these sounds and identify the source. What is the thing which differentiates one from the other, as the frequency amplitude and phase can remain same? Music does not limit itself to any one basic frequency as a tuning fork does. It becomes music when it is mixed with various harmonics of the same frequency. Different harmonics are mixed at different levels. This is the difference between the notes of the same basic frequency coming from different instruments. The quality of instruments as also the human voice of a performer, depend on the science and art of the manner in which such mixing is done. Has Einstein’s e=mc2 failed? I think you wanted to ask whether Einstein formula E = mc2 has been proved. The answer is that it has been. The most spectacular and rather evil demonstration is in atomic bombs. But we also prove it in nuclear reactors for generating electricity. |
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Trends ATLANTA: Boeing Co plans to offer passengers the chance to fly into space on a craft it is developing for travel in low-Earth orbit, the aerospace company said. Boeing said it reached an agreement with Virginia-based Space Adventures to market passenger seats on commercial flights aboard Boeing’s CST-100 space vehicle being developed for NASA. Gene therapy appears to help patient with anemia
WASHINGTON: A patient with a rare genetic form of anemia is getting by without blood transfusions after experimental gene therapy, French and U.S. researchers reported. The case, reported in the journal Nature, is a rare success for the troubled field of gene therapy, although the researchers and other experts said it still needs fine-tuning. Scientists see risks and benefits in nano foods
LONDON: In a taste of things to come, food scientists say they have cooked up a way of using nanotechnology to make low-fat or fat-free foods just as appetizing and satisfying as their full-fat fellows. The implications could be significant in combating the spread of health problems such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Tiger “clusters” seen as last hope for species
SINGAPORE: Asia’s tiger population could be close to extinction with fewer than 3,500 tigers remaining in the wild and most clustered in fragmented areas making up less than 7 percent of their former range in Asia, a study says. The study in the latest issue of the online journal PLoS Biology says saving tigers living in 42 sites across Asia from poachers, illegal loggers and the wildlife trade is crucial to prevent the species becoming extinct in the wild. Argentina sells DNA as world demands more beef
DUGGAN, Argentina: Tipping the scales at more than a ton, Montecristo would yield a lot of prime Argentine steak. But ranchers are not interested in sending bulls like him to slaughter — his semen is far more valuable. With newly affluent consumers from Brazil to China eating more meat, Argentine ranchers are honing their centuries-old cattle-breeding traditions to meet growing global demand for semen, embryos and genetics know-how. Mars Inc, IBM and USDA map genome for cocoa plant
NEW YORK: Candy maker Mars Inc., computer company IBM Corp. and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have mapped the cacao genome in an effort to improve cocoa crop quality and sustain the world’s supply of the key ingredient for chocolate. The companies and the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service has released the preliminary genome sequence for the cacao tree, which produces cocoa beans used to make chocolate. High radiation raises risk of second cancer
CHICAGO: Atomic bomb blast victims lucky enough to survive one cancer have a high risk of developing a second, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday, in a study that offers new insights about cancer risks from radiation exposure. The findings are important because researchers use information gained from atomic bomb survivors in Japan to predict the risks of radiation exposure from other sources, including cancer risks from medical imaging. — Reuters |
