Some TVs Go Directly Online for Streaming Movies

For more than a decade, tech and media companies have wrestled with how to deliver digitized movies directly over the Internet to consumers: how do you get the copy-protected files from the computer to the big screen in the living room?

Photo Illustration by The New York Times

The early answers didn’t inspire many couch potatoes to get off the sofa. You could either plug a laptop computer into your TV set (assuming the computer and the television had the right connections) or buy a box, called a media extender, for your home theater that received streaming files from your computer. Media extenders proved obstreperous and confusing: some files wouldn’t play on some extenders, the boxes were awkward to set up and movie downloads were painfully slow.

Since then, faster broadband speeds have become more common and companies have figured how to stream videos that start in seconds, inspiring consumer electronics companies to put Internet connections into TVs, Blu-ray disc players and other devices to tap into online-movie services from the likes of Netflix and Blockbuster. It’s an end run around the limited video-on-demand offerings from cable companies and eliminates the need for a separate black box.

“This is huge,” says Dan Schinasi, a marketing manager at Samsung Electronics America. “This is what we have been waiting for.” Samsung is doubtless enthusiastic, introducing Internet connectivity on 23 different TVs, starting at $1,600 for a 40-inch LCD model and three Blu-ray players priced from $200 to $350. Indeed, the trend is that such Internet connections will rapidly become standard. According to research analysts at NPD, 12 percent of flat-panel sets sold in September in the United States had networking capabilities, up from less than 1 percent a year ago. There are now Internet-ready models from LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony and Vizio.

The Samsung TVs, for example, access online movie services like Amazon Video On Demand or Blockbuster On Demand using Yahoo’s widgets, small icons that appear on the bottom of the screen and which also include popular Web services like Flickr, eBay and YouTube.

Blockbuster’s service offers movie rentals from $2.99 to $3.99, with purchases costing $7.99 to $19.99. At the moment, Blockbuster’s titles can appear in wide screen, but only in standard definition, rather than high definition. It took about 25 seconds to start up the Blockbuster service, which offered new titles like the Jack Black movie “Year One” for purchase at $19.99 and “Unmistaken Child” to rent at $3.99. When you choose a movie, the software does a quick check of your set’s connection speed and then starts playing your selection in under 10 seconds (easily beating cable video-on-demand from Time Warner in my tests). And while the cineaste in me wanted to shun anything less than HD, the standard-definition version of “Watchmen” was just fine, with instant gratification easily trumping any qualms I had about less-than-perfect image details.

Amazon Video On Demand was comparable, although it appeared to have a larger library of choices. The company claims to have more than 50,000 titles, with at least 2,000 of those in high definition. “Away We Go” was available to rent in HD for $4.99 (a standard-definition rental was $3.99). HD rentals were sharper and crisper to my eye, although a free stream of an episode of “30 Rock” in HD looked softer than the original live HD broadcast.

Other sets also offer Yahoo widgets and streaming movies from the Web. Sony offers the Yahoo feature on some sets and plans to offer Netflix streaming movies by the end of the year. LG Electronics has models that include Yahoo widgets and already include the online-movie services Vudu and Netflix. The former has the largest offering of HD movies to rent or own online and comes the closest in terms of picture quality and sound to true HD (1080p for the techie crowd). Rentals in Vudu’s HDX format have sharper picture details and better sound than other offerings, although I still find the downloads and streaming versions a little darker (and thus less crisp) than HD broadcasts.

Known primarily for its by-mail movie subscription business, Netflix has become a digital movie juggernaut by streaming movies to subscribers free of charge. The same $8.99 a month you pay for a by-mail subscription entitles you to watch as many of the company’s 17,000 digitized titles as you want, as often as you want, whenever you want. Its HD offerings lack the visual clarity of Vudu’s, but Netflix is a better value and is available on many different devices in the living room — the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 consoles, a stand-alone box from Roku, and TiVo machines. So if the Netflix option appeals to you, you don’t have to buy a new TV or Blu-ray player to get it.

But choice also means confusion: not all services are available on all devices. On some of its flat panels, Panasonic offers its own Internet services, which includes Amazon Video On Demand, but not Netflix or Blockbuster or Vudu. Samsung offers Blockbuster on its sets, but not Netflix. LG offers Netflix on its sets, but not Blockbuster. And even when they do offer the same branded service, not all the devices necessarily give you the same features.

Netflix subscribers who use the streaming option on the XBox 360, for example, will find they can add movies to their queue from the TV screen (and they have to pay $50 a year for Microsoft’s Xbox Live Gold membership to do so). But if you want to change your streaming movie lineup on the LG or Sony sets, you’ll have to go back to your computer.

Buyers will also find that some sets, like those from Panasonic, Samsung and Sony, require a wired Ethernet connection for Web access. (Vizio’s Internet-ready sets, due out this month, will have built-in Wi-Fi.) Samsung dealers offer an optional Wi-Fi adapter (802.11n) for just $80, and there are high-speed adapters that just plug into an electrical outlet. I connected a set using Belkin’s 200 Mbps $100 Powerline AV Starter Kit without entering any codes or doing anything other than plugging the adapters in.

But we’re still a long way from being able to order any movie we want to watch whenever we want to watch it. Film studios are loath to release what they perceive will be blockbuster DVDs for digital distribution, for example, until months after release, and there are many more held back by copyright issues and concerns about piracy. And even the movies you can rent digitally from Blockbuster or Amazon are often subject to the dreaded 24-hour window, which means if you don’t finish watching on the same day you started viewing it, you’ll have to pay an additional charge.

Still, the option of streaming a movie from anywhere — Netflix, Amazon or whoever — is a major leap forward. It frees viewers from the yoke of the one-store-only approach taken by cable companies and products like Apple TV. Ultimately, it’s a liberating experience — if you think of never having to get off the couch again to pick a movie as liberating.

this article from new york times

Continued..

Google Now Scanning RSS, Atom Feeds, May Experiment With Real-Time Protocols in Future

According to a post on Google's Webmaster Central blog, Google is now discovering web sites by automatically scanning RSS and Atom feeds. This new process will help Google more quickly identify web pages and will allow users to find new content in search results as soon as it goes live. While not exactly "real-time," using feeds to identify updates to websites is an arguably faster method than than the traditional crawling techniques Google has used in the past. And Google may get even faster in the near future - the post also notes that the company may soon explore using mechanisms like the real-time protocol PubSubHubbub to identify updated items going forward.


The blog post doesn't say whether or not RSS and Atom discovery is displacing traditional web crawling for sites that are feed-enabled, but it's likely that, if given the choice, Google will opt for the faster method if available. As Vanessa Fox notes on the SearchEngineLand blog, since it's unknown at this time whether Google is using the feeds in place of traditional web crawling, it may make sense to use full feeds rather than partial ones in order to get your content indexed faster by Google's search engine.

Real-Time Web Crawling in the Future?

Although only briefly mentioned in the post, Google hinted that they may be begin looking into other mechanisms such as PubSubHubbub, an open protocol that provides near-instant notifications of change updates. No further details were provided beyond the one sentence, but the announcement clearly shows that Google has seen the writing on the wall and knows that the real-time web is the future. This is one trend the company isn't planning to ignore.

The real-time web, heavily influenced by the speed of Twitter and other other rapid-fire social networking updates, has created a desire among internet users for faster access to information. This desire has, in turn, led to the creation of new real-time protocols such as the above mentioned PubSubHubbub and its counterpart RSSCloud. If Google began to use these technologies for scanning the web, their search results wouldn't just be updated faster - they would be updated in real-time. That means information would become available in the search results listings as soon as it was published to the web.

That, of course, would lead to a whole new series of challenges for the search engine - most notably, how to rank the real-time results? Given that Google's search algorithm has been built on top of the concept of PageRank, a way to determine the relevance of a website by what other sites link to it, ranking search results that are so fresh that there is an absence of links could prove a difficult feat. However, Google is already doing this to some extent now. Over time, the PageRank algorithm has evolved and can now reward sites with fresher, more fitting content and rank them higher than sites with more links on some occasions. And if anyone can figure out the proper algorithm for mixing in real-time content and ranking it appropriately along with static pages, it's got to be Google. In fact, we'll probably soon see exactly how they plan on addressing this issue, when they incorporate Twitter search results into their index, as announced last week.

...But Until Then, Google Delivering Faster, Fresher Results Instead

Although the PubSubHubbub mention may have been the most exiting part of the announcement, real-time search results aren't here just yet. In the meantime, we have to just be content with sped up results instead. The post advises website owners who are blocking Google's search bot software known as Googlebot from crawling their RSS/Atom feeds to unblock it via their robots.txt file. If unsure, webmasters can test their feed URLs with the robots.txt tester in Google Webmaster Tools, as the post recommends.

this information from here

Continued..

Windows 7 Keeps the Good, Tries to Fix Flaws

Windows 7 comes out Thursday. And if the programmers at Microsoft have any strength left at all, they are high-fiving.
Their three-year Windows Vista nightmare is over. That operating system’s wretched reputation may have been overblown; at the outset, it was slow, intrusive and incompatible with a lot of gadgets, but it’s been quietly improved over the years. Nonetheless, the corporate software buyers who order copiesof Windows by the gross weren’t impressed. As recently as this summer, at least two-thirds of corporate computers were still running the positively ancient Windows XP.

Windows 7 is a different story. It keeps what’s good about Windows Vista, like security, stability and generous eye candy, and addresses much of what people disliked.

Item 1: Sluggishness. As Microsoft’s triple redundancy puts it, Windows 7 offers “faster, more responsive performance.”

Item 2: Hardware requirements. They’re no steeper than Vista’s three years ago (the standard edition requires 1 gigabyte of memory and 1 gigahertz processor; more is better).
Item 3: Nagging Windows 7 is far less alarmist than Vista, which freaked out about every potential security threat. In fact, 10 categories of warnings now pile up quietly in a single, unified Action Center and don’t interrupt you at all.

Best of all, Windows 7 represents a departure from Microsoft’s usual “success is measured by the length of the feature list” philosophy. This time around, it was, “Polish, optimize and streamline what we’ve already got.” That seems to be the industry mantra for 2009 — see also Apple’s Snow Leopard release in August — and it’s fantastic news. There are three ugly aspects of Windows 7, so let’s get them out of the way up front. Upgrading from Vista is easy, but upgrading from Windows XP involves a “clean install”— moving all your programs and files off the hard drive, installing Windows 7, then copying everything back on again. It’s an all-day hassle that’s nobody’s idea of fun.

Microsoft doesn’t think XP holdouts will bother; it hopes that they’ll just get Windows 7 preinstalled on a new PC. (It’s no accident that new operating systems come out right before holiday shopping.) The second bit of nastiness is the insane matrix of versions. Again, there are five versions of Windows 7 — Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate — each with its own set of features, each in 32-bit or 64-bit flavors (except Starter), at prices from $120 to $320. Good luck figuring out why some cool Windows 7 feature, like the much-improved, TiVo-like Windows Media Center, isn’t on your PC.
(No wonder a raft of books about Windows 7 is on the way. A disclosure: I’m writing one of them.)

Finally, out of fear of antitrust headaches, Microsoft has stripped Windows 7 of some important accessory programs. Believe it or not, software for managing photos, editing videos, reading PDF documents, maintaining a calendar, managing addresses, chatting online or writing e-mail doesn’t come with Windows 7.

What kind of operating system doesn’t come with an e-mail program?

Instead, you’re supposed to download these free apps yourself from a Microsoft Web site. It’s not a huge deal; some companies, including Dell, plan to preinstall them on new computers. But a lot of people will be in for some serious confusion — especially when they discover that the Windows 7 installer has deleted their existing Vista copies of Windows Mail, Movie Maker, Calendar, Contacts and Photo Gallery. (Mercifully, it preserves your data.)

Otherwise, though, Windows 7 is mostly great news. The happiest developments help Windows live up to its name: there are some slick, efficient new features for managing windows.
You can drag a window’s edge against the top or side of your screen to make it fill the whole screen or half of it. You can give a window a little shake with the mouse — kind of fun, actually — to minimize all other windows (or to bring them back again) when you need a quick look at your desktop.

The taskbar now resembles the Dock in Apple’s Mac OS X. That is, it displays the icons for both open programs and those you’ve dragged there for quick access. (Weirdly, though, you can’t turn individual folders and documents into buttons on the taskbar, as in Mac OS X, only programs.)

Better yet, if you point to a program’s icon without clicking, you see Triscuit-size miniatures of all the windows open in that program. And if you point to one of these thumbnails, its corresponding full-size window flashes to the fore. All of this means easier navigation in a screen awash with window clutter.

Windows 7 also introduces libraries: virtual folders that display the contents of up to 50 other folders, which may be scattered all over your system. Libraries make it easy to keep project files together, back them up en masse or share them with other PC’s on the network.
Speaking of which, networking is also more refined in Windows 7. Handling of Internet hot spots is much better than before, and the new HomeGroups feature lets you unify all Windows 7 computers and printers on your home network without having to mess with accounts or permissions. You just enter the same long, one-time password on each machine. (Only at Microsoft do “user-friendly” and “write down this password: E6fQ9UX3uR” appear in the same sentence.) Once that’s done, each computer can see the photos, music and documents on all the other ones. It’s a little buggy, but it’ll get there.

Compatibility is excellent. I connected a couple dozen cameras, phones, iPods, printers and scanners, and Windows 7 recognized them all. Recent, brand-name apps fare well, too, but there are no guarantees. I found a couple of smaller, older programs that wouldn’t work in Windows 7.

Some Windows 7 developments fall under the heading, “If you build it, they might come... eventually.” For example, the updated Windows Media Player program can now send music playback to another gadget on your network: an Xbox, digital picture frame, another Windows 7 machine and so on. The catch: the other gadget has to be D.L.N.A.-certified, which you’re supposed to know refers to an industry compatibility standard.
Or take the new Device Stage screen. When you connect a gadget to your PC, you’re supposed to see its actual photograph, model name and list of relevant features. But until all the gadget makers get on board, you sometimes see only generic icons here.

Even the multitouch feature of Windows 7 falls into that hit-or-miss category. On new laptops and even desktop PCs with multitouch screens, you can drag two fingers on the screen to rotate photos, scroll and zoom, exactly the way you do on an iPhone.

Alas, software programs have to be rewritten to understand these gestures; for example, they all work in Microsoft’s Photo Gallery, but only the zoom gesture works in Google’s Picasa. You’re in for many “Doh!” moments as you realize you’ve reached out awkwardly with your arm, dragged around on the touch screen, and produced nothing but gross grease streaks.

Now, Windows 7 is still Windows. It’s still copy-protected, it still requires antivirus software and its visuals still aren’t consistent from one corner to another.

On the other hand, it’s still Windows in a good way, too, meaning that it’s your ticket to a world of choice — a huge catalog of software and computer options. This Win is a win if you’re in the market for a new machine, or if you’re running Vista now and you’re not thrilled by it.

Above all, Windows 7 means that Microsoft employees can show up in public without avoiding eye contact. Looks like 7 is a lucky number after all.

this information from here

Continued..

Seeing the Future in 3-D Television

By HIROKO TABUCHI

Published: October 9, 2009

TOKYO — Flat-panel television screens can’t get much flatter and consumers don’t want the screens to get much wider, so Japanese television makers are banking on a whole new dimension to buttress their lineups.

Yoshikazu Tsuno/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Toshiba prototype of a 3-D television. A poll conducted by the research firm In-Stat found that 64 percent of respondents showed at least some interest in watching 3-D programming at home.

High-definition three-dimensional TV is the future, or so Panasonic and Sony hope, as they seek to stem a slide in prices and re-energize a market slowed by the global recession.

The biggest problem the companies face, however, is staring them right in the face. Viewers will need to wear those goofy, ill-fitting glasses, just as they have to when watching 3-D movies in a theater. Without them, the screen looks nauseatingly blurry.

The expected high price of 3-D systems — the special television screens, glasses and Blu-ray DVD players — could also discourage all but home theater buffs.

Neither Sony nor Panasonic has announced a price for their 3-D offerings. Panasonic said market research had shown that its 50-inch model might sell for $2,000. And at $50 a pair, a family of four would be paying as much for the glasses as a small high-definition television costs.

A poll from the research firm In-Stat found that while 64 percent of respondents expressed at least some interest in watching 3-D programming at home, 25 percent of those interested said they would not pay more than for a regular television.

“From a consumer experience standpoint, I’m skeptical, because I can’t see consumers sitting at home wearing glasses,” said David Gibson, the head of research at Macquarie Capital Securities. “It’s a good idea, but it’s a niche market for now.”

Still, Panasonic is betting that its eye-popping imagery will win over more than a few fans. A prototype 50-inch Viera plasma 3-D set attracted long lines at the Ceatec electronics show in Tokyo this week. Beating rivals to the market could also provide a boost for its plasma technology, which has been losing out to liquid-crystal displays.

In a 3-D clip from “Toy Story,” Pixar’s computer-animated film, Rex the green tyrannosaurus looked so ready to leap off the screen that the crowd gasped.

The technology works by rapidly alternating between left and right frames of the video. Viewers wear glasses that sync with the television over an infrared signal. The right frame is seen only with the right eye and the left frame with the left eye, creating the illusion of depth.

“We are serious about the future of 3-D,” said Masayuki Kozuka, a leader on Panasonic’s 3-D team. “We will not have succeeded until half of all TVs we sell are 3-D TVs.”

Sony showed off a similar technology, which it hopes to deploy in some Bravia televisions and Vaio notebook PCs in 2010. PlayStation 3 video game consoles could also be fitted with 3-D technology, said Yutaka Nakamura, a Sony spokesman.

Samsung Electronics of South Korea has also shown a 3-D prototype.

The movie industry has been the biggest cheerleader of 3-D technology, and television makers are hoping that enthusiasm will help persuade consumers to replicate the 3-D experience at home. Hollywood raised its output of 3-D movies in recent years to lure people into theaters. There will be around 7,000 3-D movie screens by the end of 2009, according to Sony.

Hollywood, in fact, has long been obsessed with the technology. In the 1950s, a flurry of 3-D films like “Man in the Dark” and “House of Wax” were released. Another round of stereoscopic 3-D films that had viewers wearing red-and-green glasses hit screens in the 1970s. But with poor color quality and unsteady images that induced nausea, 3-D didn’t take off.

Hollywood hopes that the third time will be the charm. Studios are now eager to sell 3-D films on Blu-ray discs, too. Panasonic and 20th Century Fox worked together to promote the forthcoming James Cameron sci-fi thriller “Avatar,” the first major nonanimation film being released worldwide in both 2-D and 3-D formats.

Television makers, in turn, hope that by helping to promote 3-D technology on the big screen, broadcasters will follow Hollywood’s lead and start offering 3-D programming. Many stumbling blocks remain, however, including the added costs of filming and broadcasting 3-D images.

Some analysts are upbeat on the prospects for 3-D television. Alfred Poor, an analyst for the GigaOM Network of high-tech news Web sites, predicted in a recent report that TV makers could ship up to 46 million 3-D sets by 2013, adding that high sales volume would drive prices down. Analysts at Gartner played it safer in their “Hype Cycle” report, giving a fuzzier timeline of five to 10 years for 3-D to catch on.

Japanese electronics makers have for years been losing market share to competitors from South Korea, while more recently watching competitors from Taiwan and China take even more. By capitalizing on Japan’s technological prowess, manufacturers here can at least differentiate themselves from lower-priced rivals, who sell under brand names like Vizio and Haier.

It is a risky bet. High-end spending could be the last to rebound. “The world has become increasingly frugal, compounding the plight of Japanese producers, as demand for high-end manufactured goods dries up,” said Ryutaro Kono, chief economist for Japan at BNP Paribas.

The theme at the Tokyo electronics show was decidedly high-end. Toshiba’s Cell Regza 55-inch television does not yet offer 3-D, but can display eight high-definition broadcasts at once in eight windows. The set, which uses the Cell microchip found in PlayStation game machines, can also record all eight channels nonstop for 26 hours, according to a company spokeswoman, Kaori Hiraki. The price tag: about a million yen, or $11,000.

Meanwhile, a Hitachi prototype used a camera sensor to allow users to control the TV by gesturing.

“You’re saying to the TV, ‘Notice me,’ ” said Takashi Matsubara, a Hitachi spokesman.This information from New York Times

Continued..

Big City, Big Troubles

There’s something that most iPhone owners who are having problems with their service have in common: they tend to live in large cities. Ken Harker, senior manager of Internet technologies at Keynote Systems, a company in San Mateo, Calif., that tests and monitors the performance of mobile services, said he found that AT&T’s network was holding up just fine.

“AT&T hasn’t shown any real signs of stress due to the iPhone,” said Mr. Harker. “We haven’t seen any hit that would correlate with the introduction of the 3G phone.” However, Mr. Harker did note that Los Angeles and Manhattan were the carriers’ worst-performing markets. “The end-user experience might be very different in various markets,” he said.

Which is why iPhone owners living in Minnesota or Virginia may not be emitting their own howls of protest about the service — which several of our readers wrote in to me to address.

Joe Powell, a reader in Laguna Hill, Calif., wrote: “I have had the 3G iPhone since July 2008 and I am in the Orange County area, which is 3,000,000 in population. Not once I have had even one problem of the type you described, and the phone works 100% perfectly since day one.”

Even Taylor Sbicca, one of the iPhone owners interviewed for Thursday’s article, said that while he rarely gets service in San Francisco, in Oakland, a city just a few miles away, the service works fine.

In other words, the bark of the problems is worse than its bite.

Of course, that’s cold comfort for those living in a place like Manhattan with poorer service and paying the same price for a data plan as those able to make crystalline-clear calls and receive speedy downloads.

Could AT&T have prepared better in anticipation for the second-generation of the iPhone, which runs on the 3G network? John Donovan, the chief technology officer of the company, assured me that “it’s not a question of conviction or spend levels or commitment. We have a unique usage profile to the iPhone and growth rates to match. That is brand-new to the communications world.”

And Gene Munster, a securities analyst with Piper Jaffray, said to me in an interview, “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated that usage. It even far exceeded our forecasting for data usage,” he said.

The solution to AT&T’s network problems, as Craig Moffett, a senior analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said is adding more towers to the areas badly in need of additional capacity and coverage and upgrading AT&T’s network infrastructure — which AT&T says it will be addressing in an $18 billion capital improvement program this year alone. AT&T’s most recent efforts involve lowering the radiofrequency of its 3G cell towers from 1900mHz to 850mHz, which should amplify cell reception indoors and in denser cities with a lot of buildings

But, as the article noted, building cell towers is a lengthy process and once upgrades are completed, it can take several months for consumers to notice any improvements in their service.

The real question is, as Mr. Munster said, “Which is worse — no service or no iPhone?” this information from here

Continued..

New microprocessor runs on thin air

There's no shortage of ways to perform calculations without a standard electronic computer. But the latest in a long lineMovie Camera of weird computers runs calculations on nothing more than air.

The complicated nest of channels and valves (see image) made by Minsoung Rhee and Mark Burns at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, processes binary signals by sucking air out of tubes to represent a 0, or letting it back in to represent a 1.

A chain of such 1s and 0s flows through the processor's channels, with pneumatic valves controlling the flow of the signals between channels.
Valve computer

Each pneumatic valve is operated by changing the air pressure in a small chamber below the air channel, separated from the circuit by a flexible impermeable membrane. When the lower chamber is filled with air the membrane pushes upwards and closes the valve, preventing the binary signal flowing across one of the processor's junctions.

Sucking out the air from the chamber reopens the valve by forcing the membrane downwards, letting the signal move across the junction.

The two researchers used the valve-controlled channels to produce a variety of logic gates, flip-flops and shift registers, which they linked together to create a working 8-bit microprocessor. That means that the longest discrete pieces of data it can handle are eight binary digits long, like the processors used in 1980s consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System.

It's even possible to watch the pneumatic components in action, because the valve membranes reflect light strongly whenever they are forced downwards (see movie).
Lab helper

But the air processor is far from just being a computational curiosity, say Rhee and Burns: it has the potential to improve the "lab-on-a-chip" devices tipped to automate complex chemistry tasks and improve disease testing, DNA profiling and other lab jobs.

These pocket-scale microfluidic devices are yet to be much practical use, say the Michigan team, perhaps because they typically require a large number of bulky and expensive off-chip components to control their operation.

Using logic circuits is one way to bring most of those controls onto the lab-on-a-chip itself and reduce running costs. But because many microfluidic systems have no electronic components, adding standard electronic valves to the device would require a new fabrication process, says Burns.

"Many microfluidic systems use pneumatic valves to control liquid flow, so adding the pneumatic control circuits should be relatively simple and inexpensive," he says.

Although the device still requires an off-chip vacuum source to operate, the volume of the microprocessor is so small that the required vacuum can be generated by a hand pump.
Versatile approach

Andrew de Mello, a microfluidics expert at Imperial College London, UK, thinks that the simplified method of operation could lead to useful microfluidic devices for developing countries.

"The fact that you can generate that vacuum from a hand pump means these devices are low power, and suited for remote locations," he says.

However, the device is unlikely to have applications beyond its use in microfluidics – the "air" or "vacuum" signals are very sluggish compared with the lightning-quick flow of electrons through a standard circuit.

"Shrinking the device would mean that the signals would travel shorter distances and thus operate at higher 'clock speeds'," says Burns.

Journal reference: Lab on a Chip, DOI: 10.1039/b904354c

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to. this article from here

Continued..

World's first computer may be even older than thought

Marchant, consultant

From Swiss Army knives to iPhones, it seems we just love fancy gadgets with as many different functions as possible. And judging from the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism, the desire to impress with the latest multipurpose must-have item goes back at least 2000 years.

This mysterious box of tricks was a portable clockwork computer, dating from the first or second century BC. Operated by turning a handle on the side, it modelled the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets through the sky, sported a local calendar, star calendar and Moon-phase display, and could even predict eclipses and track the timing of the Olympic games.

I gave a talk on the device at London's Royal Institution last night. One new clue I mentioned to the origin of the mechanism comes from the Olympiad dial - there are six sets of games named on the dial, five of which have been deciphered so far. Four of them, including the Olympics, were major games known across the Greek world. But the fifth, Naa, was much smaller, and would only have been of local interest.

The Naa games were held in Dodona in northwestern Greece, so Alexander Jones of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York has suggested that the mechanism must have been made by or for someone from that area.

Intriguingly, this could mean the device is even older than thought. The inscriptions have been dated to around 100 BC, but according to Jones the device may have been made at latest in the early second century BC, because after that the Romans devastated or took over the Greek colonies in the region, so it's unlikely that people would still have been using the Greek calendar there.

But the highlight for most of the audience - judging from the spontaneous round of applause it received - was this breathtaking new animation (below) of the gearing inside the mechanism. It has been made by Mogi Vicentini, an Italian astronomer and computer scientist, and it brings the device to life brilliantly.



Judge for yourself, but I think it shows that the mechanism would hold its own against the best of today's luxury gadgets.Jo Marchant is author of Decoding the Heavens, a book about the Antikythera mechanism. It has been shortlisted for the 2009 Royal Society Prize for Science Books, and is out now in paperback.
This information from here

Continued..

Make Money on the Computer

This is why it is a good idea to explore the options and find a good opportunity that interests you. The great thing about using your computer to make money is that it can easily be done from home. This allows you to build up your own schedule and to have more time for your family. If you are not sure where to begin, here is a look at some of the ways out there that you can make money on computer.

Trading Online

Many people interested in being able to make money on computer have started looking into trading online. There are a variety of sites out there where you can go, even if you are a beginner, and you can get involved with online trading. Quite a few of them will provide you with helpful information and the information you need to get started. Of course you won't want to get involved with trading online until you have taken the time to research and learn more about it. While it definitely provides a great way to make a lot of money, you must know what you are doing or you can end up losing money.

Surveys Online

Taking surveys online is another great way to make money on computer. There are many companies all over the world that want to know more information about their current markets. Although you probably won't make millions, this provides you with an easy way to make some extra income. Quite a few sites are available that specialize in online surveys. You can sign up and you'll be directed to the surveys that are right for you. With some work on your part, you can make a nice amount of income.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a big way to make money on computer. There are so many companies that want to use affiliates to help them market their products and increase their sales. Usually you won't have to pay anything to get involved in affiliate programs, and when people sell through your link or ID number, then you will make money from the referral. If you work it right, you can make a nice income with affiliate marketing. Many people have already been successful in this type of business, and you can be successful as well.

How would you like a free 7 part email course on make money from home in uk online? 1000poundperday.com is one of the biggest money making websites online and gives you all the information you need to be successful. For your free 7 part email course on information publishing visit http://www.1000poundperday.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lee_Mckenna

Continued..

Remote Computer Repair 101

It is becoming one of the most popular ways to get your computer fixed for problems that previously took a long time to figure out and fix. Remote computer repair can quickly solve computer questions, email setup, data recover, virus removal, spyware removal, malware removal, antivirus updates, network issues, basic computer problems, computer diagnostics, software installation, software configuration and more.

But what exactly happens when you want to make a choice about having this work done to your computer? First, the basic premise is that you must allow your computer to receive the software that runs the remote computer repair diagnostics program. You will be prompted to accept the installation, after which the remote location can access your computer, see the screen as well as control the keyboard and mouse.

Allowing remote access does not take away your control of the computer. This is important to remember for those who are concerned that confidential information may be compromised. You are witness to the actions being taken right as they happen. Because remote computer repair is conducted by a live person on the other end, you have the opportunity to end the connection at any time if you wish. Once the call is concluded, the software should automatically uninstall, ensuring no security risk to you.

Remote computer repair makes optimum use of the Internet by providing affordable services to fix your computer by companies who typically do not charge a fee if they cannot fix your problem. This provides added security because the company is most interested in getting your computer fixed so that they can get paid.

128-bit encrypted technology is what runs the software that accomplishes remote computer repair from your computer to another at a remote location. The remote phone call allows to briefly discuss the problems you are having with your system and in as little as a few minutes, your problem may be fixed. At the very least, you will be connected to another system and a professional technician will start to work on finding the problems that are making your system dysfunctional.

With many remote repair companies, the Internet allows them to provide services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is very important to people who work on their computers at night or for the unexpected system breakdowns that occur in the early morning hours.

This remote form of computer repair is becoming increasingly competitive and with just a little research you can secure some of the best services available for a moderate charge. It is also seldom that you will have to pay for services before they are rendered or that there is a charge only when your computer has been repaired.

Some computer issues that arise are basic in nature and can be fixed in a matter of seconds. The key is in knowing how to diagnose the problem and the proper steps to take to remedy the problem. Remote repair specialists can do this quickly and effectively.

OnlineComputerHelpers.com - Remote Computer Repair

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Keith_Reig

Continued..

How to Speed Up a Slow Computer Instantly

Does your computer respond like a snail? Does it take forever to start a program? Are you like many people who are tired of having to spend a long time trying to get something done? If yes, then you are lucky, because I am about to present very simple yet very effective method of speeding up your computer.

The three main reasons why computers slow down are:

- There is no space in the Hard disk
- Your computer is infected with virus or spyware
- The registry of your computer is overcrowded with missing or invalid entries.

If hard disk space is a problem, then you need to uninstall some unused programs and/or delete some large files. If you have a lot of music or video files, it's a good idea to go through them and remove those that you no longer want. But before you even start deleting any files, you must first find out whether the hard disk space is the cause of computer slow down. Go to "My computer" and click on each of your drives and look on the left to see if there is enough space. Usually, a computer runs fine if you have at least 100 Mb space in the drive that contains the Windows installation files (in most cases it is C://).

You computer can also be slowed down by a virus or a spyware. If this is the cause you must remove the virus or spyware. Start your antivirus program and run a full system scan. The program will go through each and every file in your system to find out if there is a virus or a malware hiding there. If you don't have a antivirus or antispyware program, go to http://spywareshoot.info/ to get a free one.

Another reason why most computers are slow is a messy registry. A registry is a log book of the Windows system, and the computer slows down considerably if the registry contains a lot of unnecessary or invalid entries. This is because the operating system wastes time going through unnecessary files, and therefore keeps the important programs waiting for their turn. This is why it is important to clean and repair your computers registry every once in a while. The best way to do this is by using a registry cleaner. If you don't have one already, you can get a free one from http://registry-booster.info/

Follow these steps and I assure you that your computer will run considerably faster and you can get your work done on time.

The author, Kamran, writes about computers and softwares.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=C._Kamran

Continued..