Famous Scientist ( Antonio Meucci )

-: Antonio Meucci :-

Antonio Meucci

Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci (Italian 1808–1889) was an Italian-American inventor and a friend of the revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. He was best known for developing a voice communication apparatus which several sources credit as the first telephone.

Meucci set up a form of voice communication link in his Staten Island home that connected its second floor bedroom to his laboratory. He submitted a patent caveat for his telephonic device to the U.S. Patent Office in 1871, but there was no mention of electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound in his caveat. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for the electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound by undulatory electric current.


Meucci was born at Via dei Serragli 44 in the San Frediano borough of Florence,Grand Duchy of Tuscany, (now in the Italian Republic), on 13 April 1808, as the first of nine children to Amatis and Domenica Meucci. Amatis was an officer of the local police and his mother was principally a homemaker. Four of Meucci's siblings did not survive childhood.

In November 1821, at the age of 15, he was admitted to Florence Academy of Fine Arts as its youngest student, where he studied chemical and mechanical engineering.[6] He ceased full time studies two years later due to insufficient funds, but continued studying part time after obtaining employment as an assistant gatekeeper and customs official for the Florentine government. Meucci later became employed at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence as a stage technician, assisting Artemio Canovetti.

In 1834 Meucci constructed a type of acoustic telephone to communicate between the stage and control room at the Teatro della Pergola. This telephone was constructed on the principles of pipe-telephones used on ships and still functions.
He married costume designer Esterre Mochi, who was employed in the same theatre, on 7 August 1834.

Meucci was alleged to be part of a conspiracy involving the Italian unification movement in 1833–1834, and was imprisoned for three months with Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi.

Meucci's wife Ester became increasingly frail and was invalided for approximately five years before dying in 1884.[58] Meucci became ill in March 1889, and died on 18 October 1889 in Clifton, Staten Island, New York City.

New look, faster browsing as Firefox returns to Android

The first major update to Firefox for Android (download) since January has arrived, and it brings with it a new interface, some new features, and a new approach to Android for Mozilla.

The company released the first stable version of Firefox for Android at the same time that it overhauled Firefox for PCs, back in March 2011. Barely six months after that, the company decided that the original Firefox for Android just wasn't good enough. With a responsiveness rarely seen by large organizations, Mozilla changed course and began to work on a different Android browser.

"In the fall of last year, we realized [the original Firefox for Android] was not good enough, not performing the way we wanted it to," Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla's director of Firefox engineering, explained over the phone yesterday. "So we made the call in October to rewrite it."

The new version of Firefox for Android continues the version numbering scheme that Mozilla has been pursuing since March 2011's debut of the rapid release cycle -- it's listed as version 14 -- but Nightingale confessed that it's really a new 1.0. More went into the browser, he said, than just building the interface on native code.

"Re-writing the native UI we knew would take three to four months, which gave us the instant start up," he said. The old Firefox for Android suffered from a severe lag from when you tapped its icon to the point where the browser finished loading. But, Nightingale said, "the panning and zooming performance required building a whole new architecture."

Additional problems included Adobe Flash integration. Nightingale said that Firefox engineers knew Flash had to be supported, because so many people who used Firefox were asking for it and because it was still used on a majority of sites that offer rich-media content. However, he said, coding Flash support for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is different than it is for Android 2.3 Gingerbread and Android 2.2 Froyo, all three of which are different from Android 3.0 Honeycomb.

Firefox 14 for Android includes Flash support, as well as tap-to-play for plug-ins. This lets a site load with a tappable icon for playing the Flash content at will. It's beneficial both for faster page loading and for cutting down on bandwidth usage during these data capped times.

Nexus 7 Tablet HD

Dell Launches Two XPS Laptops, One with Ultrabook Capabilities

Dell has unveiled two new additions to its XPS laptop lineup including a 14-inch clamshell that can be configured as an Ultrabook and a more high-powered 15.6-inch device. The new laptops feature thin aluminum casings, edge-to-edge displays with hardened Corning Glass, backlit chiclet keyboards and multigesture touchpads. Both of the new laptops are available now and the specs are pretty close to what leaked to a Chinese tech site earlier in June.

Dell Launches Two XPS Laptops, One with Ultrabook CapabilitiesShared specs between the XPS 14 and 15 include USB 3.0 ports, a mini DisplayPort, HDMI Out, a 3-in-1 media card reader, and a 1.3 megapixel Webcam. Both devices also come with an Ethernet jack, but Dell says the devices were too thin to offer a full Ethernet option. To get around this problem the company included a hinged Ethernet port that expands to fit a cable when you open it.

The XPS 14 standard configuration includes a 14-inch WLED display with 1600-by-900 resolution, dual-core 2.6 GHz Ivy Bridge Core i5-3317U, Intel HD Graphics 4000, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity. For storage options you can choose a 500GB hard drive, a 500GB hard drive with 32GB mSATA SSD, or a 512GB SSD. If you choose one of the SSD options, the XPS 14 qualifies as an Ultrabook, according to Dell’s chief blogger, Lionel Menchaca. Dell claims battery life for the XPS 14 is between 8 and 11 hours, depending on the configuration.

Dell Launches Two XPS Laptops, One with Ultrabook CapabilitiesTo keep the XPS 14 thin Dell decided not to include an optical drive; the laptop measures 0.81 inches thick. Despite the XPS 14's thin size you will still feel it when you throw this thing in a backpack as the weight for the base configuration is 4.6 pounds.

The XPS 15 features a 15.6-inch WLED display with 1920-by-1080 full HD resolution, a dual core 3.1 GHz Ivy Bridge Core i5-3210M or you can upgrade to a quad-core 3.1 GHz Ivy Bridge Core i7-3612QM. Standard features include a Nvidia GeForce GT 630M graphics card with 1GB GDDR5, a 500GB hard drive with 32GB mSATA SSD, 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and a slot load DVD-RW (Blu-ray drive upgrade option available). The XPS 15 base configuration weighs 5.79 pounds and measures 0.91 inches thick.

Famous Scientist ( Antonio Lanzavecchia )

-: Antonio Lanzavecchia :-

Antonio Lanzavecchia

Antonio Lanzavecchia (born October 9, 1951) is an Italian immunologist. He was born in Varese, Italy.

In 1976 he obtained his degree with honors in Medicine at the University of Pavia where he specialized in Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases. From 1983 to 1999 he was a member of the Basel Institute for Immunology and in 1999 became director of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona, Switzerland.

He has been Professor of Immunology at the University of Genoa and at the University of Siena. Dr. Lanzavecchia’s research has covered several aspects of human immunology: antigen processing and presentation, dendritic cell biology, lymphocyte activation and traffic and, more recently, the cellular basis of T and B cell memory and the production of human monoclonal antibodies. He awarded the EMBO medal in 1988, the Cloëtta prize in 1999 and he has been nominated Cavaliere della Repubblica in 2001.

Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille Luminy (CIML), SAB member The Wistar Institute, SAB member International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), SAB member Istituto Nazionale di Genetica Molecolare (INGM), SAB member Micromet, SAB member Trubion Pharmaceuticals, SAB member Pevion Biotech, SAB member Z-cube, SAB member Humabs, founder and BOD member Synapsis Foundation, SAB member Claudia Von Schilling Foundation, SAB member

Google's futuristic glasses.....

Google helped create a world brimming with digital distractions for people spending more of their lives tethered to the Internet. It’s a phenomenon that seems unlikely to change so Google is working on a way to search for information, read text messages, watch online video and post photos on social networks without having to fumble around with a hand-held device.

The breakthrough is a wearable computer a pair of Internet-connected glasses that Google Inc. began secretly building more than two years ago. The technology progressed far enough for Google to announce “Project Glass” in April. Now the futuristic experiment is moving closer to becoming a mass-market product.

Google announced on Wednesday that it’s selling a prototype of the glasses to U.S. computer programmers attending a three-day conference that ends Friday. Developers willing to pay $1,500 for a pair of the glasses will receive them early next year.

The company is counting on the programmers to suggest improvements and build applications that will make the glasses even more useful.

“This is new technology and we really want you to shape it,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin told about 6,000 attendees. “We want to get it out into the hands of passionate people as soon as possible.”

If all goes well, a less expensive version of the glasses is expected to go on sale for consumers in early 2014. Without estimating a price for the consumer version, Mr. Brin made it clear the glasses will cost more than smartphones.

"We do view this is as a premium sort of thing," Brin said during a question-and-answer session with reporters.

Brin acknowledged Google still needs to fix a variety of bugs in the glasses and figure out how to make the battery last longer so people can wear them all day.

Those challenges didn't deter Brin from providing conference attendees Wednesday with a tantalizing peek at how the glasses might change the way people interact with technology.

Google hired skydivers to jump out of a blimp hovering 7,000 feet above downtown San Francisco. They wore the Internet-connected glasses, which are equipped with a camera, to show how the product could unleash entirely new ways for people to share their most thrilling - or boring - moments. As the skydivers parachuted onto the roof of the building where the conference was held, the crowd inside was able to watch the descent through the skydivers' eyes as it happened.

"I think we are definitely pushing the limits," Brin told reporters after the demonstration. "That is our job: to push the edges of technology into the future."

ACi launches laptop...

ACi, a laptop specialist brand from the U.K., on Wednesday, unveiled the lowest-priced and fully-functional laptop computer for the Indian market.

The ACi Icon 1100 is a fully-functional high resolution 10.2-inch screen laptop computer priced at Rs.4,999.

ACi is represented in India by Allied Computers International (Asia) Ltd., which will market the products here and is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Speaking to The Hindu, Hirji Patel, Chairman, Allied Computers International (Asia), said, “The ACi ICON 1100 is the lowest-priced fully-functional laptop in India. It is Windows-compatible with an expandable memory up to 1 GB.”

The low-priced product is among a range of seven products that the company unveiled on Wednesday and the other products are mid-to-high-end laptops.

On the company’s ability to sell the product at such a low cost, Mr. Patel said, “as is the case with most of these products across the globe, component sourcing as well as manufacturing is done from the Far East, and our margins are very thin.”

Mr. Patel said the company expected to sell 2 lakh units of the ACi Icon in a year.

“That is a conservative estimate, and we may sell that many this calendar year itself. We are planning to launch the ‘model B’ of the base model ACi Icon here in the next two or three months,” Mr. Patel said.

The company has an existing dealership of 200 . “In the next two months, we want to add around 500 more dealerships across India,” he said.

Zynga's chief technology officer sets out its long-term game plan

The social video game firm Zynga poses a dilemma. On the one hand its titles are some of the most popular on Facebook and app stores.

It says it attracts 182 million unique players every month - all of them potential customers for its virtual goods.

On the other it is a loss-making developer with huge ambitions but a questionable future, in part because its fortunes are so closely tied to Facebook.

These doubts are reflected in its stock, which is currently more than 40% below its flotation price.

To discuss the San Francisco-based company's future the BBC spoke to Cadir Lee, Zynga's chief technology officer:

Zynga always aimed to be social gaming company. What lessons did it learn along the way?
Cadir Lee Cadir Lee is responsible for developing Zynga's technology platform

We started with the premise that social matters. And over time we have seen how important that is.

We have this thing called the Active Social Network, and one of the things that we have seen is that your likelihood to play and to continue to play is directly related to the number of people you are engaged with.

We do a considerable amount to make sure that the difference between playing by yourself and playing with even just one person is significant.

There's a huge step up in terms of the numbers of days you play, how engaged you are. And it keeps going as you have three, four, five or six people.

It really shows that if you have this core group with a half dozen or a dozen people that they're going to be much more engaged in the game.

You have bought or opened studios in Bangalore, Beijing, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Dublin and London outside of the US. Is this about making sure you understand local markets or are you just securing talent?
“Start Quote

    We actually had some little slogans around saying 'keep calm and carry on' which was to remind people you can work to make the business better and you're not going to change anything about the share price until we do that”

End Quote Cadir Lee Chief technology officer, Zynga

Facebook to launch 'Find Friends Nearby' feature

WASHINGTON: Social networking giant Facebook is testing a new feature that would allow users to connect more easily by logging on to a page on the site that shows people nearby.

Ryan Patterson, the Facebook engineer who built the feature, named 'Find Friends Nearby' told TechCrunch that he and a colleague wanted to make it easier to connect with people you have just met.

"I built Find Friends Nearby with another engineer for a hackathon project. For me, the ideal use case for this product is the one where when you're out with a group of people whom you've recently met and want to stay in contact with," the Telegraph quoted Patterson, as saying.

"Facebook search might be effective, or sharing your vanity addresses or business cards, but this tool provides a really easy way to exchange contact information with multiple people with minimal friction," he added.

The feature does not show all of your friends who are nearby.

Only those who have the page open are listed, meaning that attendees at a conference, for example, could connect to each other quickly by all visiting the page.

To access the service one has to log on to the page, give Facebook permission to use your location and wait for the search to determine who else is nearby.

It is, however, unclear how close somebody has to be to count as 'nearby'.

Famous Scientist ( Carlo Gambacorti Passerini )

-: Carlo Gambacorti Passerini :-

Carlo Gambacorti Passerini

Carlo Gambacorti-Passerini (born 1957) is an Italian oncologist and hematologist known for his contributions to cancer research. He is presently Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Milan Bicocca in Italy and Director of the Clinical Research Unit at S. Gerardo Hospital, Monza, Italy.

Previously he was Senior Investigator and Head of the Oncogenic Fusion Proteins Unit at the National Cancer Institute, Milan Italy (1990–2003), Professor of Oncology and Hematology at McGill University, Montreal, Canada (2004–2007).

His main scientific contribution relates to the preclinical and clinical development of imatinib. His publications between 1997 and 2000 are among the earliest original reports on this revolutionary drug.


Specifically, he showed that apoptosis, or programmed cell death, was the predominant mechanism through which imatinib eliminates leukemic cells, that leukemic animals could be cured using imatinib, and that resistance to imatinib could be mediated by gene amplification of BCR-ABL1.

Dr. Gambacorti-Passerini is the Chairman of the ILTE (Imatinib Long Term side Effects) study, an independent clinical study aimed at assessing the long term effects of imatinib in 948 CML patients worldwide, which showed for the first time that CML patients in remission have a normal life expectancy.

He is also the first researcher who (in June 2010) successfully treated a patient affected by ALK+ lymphoma with an ALK inhibitor (crizotinib).

Huawei Ascend D Quad delayed by production glitch...

 A latecomer to the quad-core battle, the unfortunately named Huawei Ascend D Quad (don't say it too fast) looks to have been delayed by manufacturing issues, the Verge reports.

The news comes via comments from Huawei chief Yu Chengdong, posting on Chinese microblogging site Weibo. Peering through the fog of Google Translate, it looks like "technical problems" have held back the D-Quad's production back until August.

The issues appear to stem from the phone's chip, though it's mentioned that Huawei is "stepping up efforts" to get the phone ready for its debut.

I'm keen to see the D Quad go on sale, as I thought it was definitely one of the funniest more impressive mobiles on show at this year's Mobile World Congress extravaganza.

In design terms, Huawei's gone for a simplistic, rounded style and I was particularly keen on the red accents present around the camera and grilles on the back of the 8.9mm thick D Quad.

The phone is a bit smaller than its quad-core competitors, stretching our rulers at 4.5 inches on the diagonal, and packing 720x1,280 pixels. The 1.5GHz quad-core processor certainly pulled its weight when I tried playing graphically demanding games, and I'm keen to see how it fares against the Samsung Galaxy S3 and HTC One X in our benchmark tests.

Facebook Changed Everyone's Email

Facebook Changed Everyone's Email to @Facebook.com; Here's How to Fix It.

Famous Scientist ( Georges Brossard )

-: Georges Brossard :-

Georges Brossard

Georges Brossard, CM, CQ (born in 1940 in La Prairie, Québec, Canada) is a famed entomologist and founder of the Montreal Insectarium (Insectarium de Montréal).

An insect enthusiast from a very early age, Brossard held a career as a notary until the age of 38. He then started to travel, and on his travels studied the insects he came across with deep interest. In 1989, after having collected over 250 000 specimens, he solicited the then mayor of Montreal, Jean Doré, to open an insectarium.

He and Pierre Bourque, then director of the Montreal Botanical Gardens, began a partnership to govern and operate the Montreal Insectarium. Georges Brossard has also founded four other insectariums across the globe, some of which are located as far as Shanghai and South Africa. Since the opening of the Montreal Insectarium, his collection, which he continues to amass through his travels, has grown to over 500 000 specimens.

Brossard has also written and directed 20 episodes of Mémoires d'insectes (Insect Diaries), and was the creator and host of the televised series Insectia. He is the cofounder and copresident of Montreal's Cinéma IMAX les Ailes.

In 2004, he was the subject of the fiction film Le Papillon Bleu The Blue Butterfly (film), directed by Léa Pool, based on an event in Brossard's life which occurred in 1987. Working for the Children's Wish Foundation of Canada, Brossard traveled to South America with a boy in the terminal phase of cancer.

It was the boy's dream to catch a mythical Blue Morpho butterfly, which Georges goes to great lengths to find in the vast jungles, even putting his and the boy's lives in danger. They finally catch the butterfly, and upon returning to Québec, the cancer which had been slowly killing the child miraculously receded.

HTC Desire C now in India

Announced in May, the newest smartphone from the Taiwanese manufacturer sports entry-level specs at a mid-range price point, but ships with the latest Android firmware. The Desire C is the fifth phone from HTC’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones from 2012 - starting with the HTC One X, V, S, and the dual sim Desire V.

With an official MOP of Rs 14,999, the main spec highlights for this phone include a 3.5-inch HVGA (320 x 480 pixel resolution display), complemented by an entry-level 600 MHz S1 series Qualcomm CPU, same as the one found on the HTC Explorer and Motorola Defy Mini XT320.

The 5-megapixel camera can also record VGA quality video, but lacks an LED flash. The phone has 4GB of onboard storage, expandable via a memory slot, and 25GB of cloud storage on Dropbox. Connectivity options include 7.2Mbps HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g, n, Bluetooth 4.0, and microUSB.

Specs wise, the the Desire C is outclassed the One V, which is priced marginally higher, but runs on a WVGA resolution screen and 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, with a camera that supports 720p recording and has an LED flash. The Desire C has a smaller 1230 mAh battery compared to the 1500 mAH battery on the One V, but is user-replaceable.

Facebook draws users anger with email switch

 

MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA: Facebook has changed your email address. That's how it appears after a quiet change in the way the company displays users' contact information.

Facebook replaced the email address users chose when they signed up with a facebook.com address. The Facebook email accounts allow users to communicate with outside email addresses via Facebook.

The changes were first pointed out by bloggers over the weekend, leading to complaints from users.

An email message to Facebook representatives seeking an explanation was not immediately returned.

The company said in a statement in April that it was ``updating addresses on Facebook to make them consistent across our site.''

Users are free to restore their former email addresses.

RIM to ditch keyboards for new BlackBerry 10 OS phones

Toronto: The first BlackBerry device running Research In Motion Ltd’s new operating software will not have a physical keyboard, only a touch-screen one.

The BlackBerry 10 software will be offered on devices with physical keyboards in the future, but RIM spokeswomen Rebecca Freiburger declined to say when. RIM is expected to start selling BlackBerry 10 touch-screen devices this year.

Many corporate users have stuck with the BlackBerry solely because of its physical keyboard, given a perception that it’s harder to type emails on a touch screen. The BlackBerry 10 system has already been delayed about a year, and with additional delays to get a physical keyboard, those people may not be willing to wait any longer, especially as the iPhone makes greater in-roads in corporate settings. Those users may simply get the new iPhone expected this fall.

The first BlackBerry device running Research In Motion Ltd's new operating software will not have a physical keyboard, only a touch-screen one. AP

RIM’s hopes hang on the BlackBerry 10 system, which is meant to offer the multimedia, Internet browsing and apps experience customers now demand. The Canadian company is preparing to launch the new software later this year, just as North Americans are abandoning BlackBerrys for iPhones and Android devices.

Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Financial, called it puzzling that RIM isn’t leading with its strength by releasing a keyboard BlackBerry first.

“The physical keyboard is the most dominant item that separates out Research In Motion from its competitors,” Gillis said. “If you are not playing to your historical strengths you may find it more difficult to get traction.”

Gillis said there is a spot in the market for RIM but the company “just got to get it together.”

But Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said BlackBerry 10 is all about touch and closing the gap with Apple, so people should not be surprised that the initial model will have only a touch screen.

“They are going to build a BlackBerry device with a keyboard, but it’s just going to take longer,” Misek said. “Maybe it will come a month or two after, but frankly it might be already too late.”

HP launches new range of Ultrabooks, Sleekbooks in India

NEW DELHI: Expanding its notebook portfolio, HP on Thursday launched a new range of Ultrabooks and Sleekbooks in India.

The new HP ENVY Ultrabook range is available in two colour options of red and black. As thin as 19.8 mm (0.78 inches) and starting from 1.75-kg, the new HP ENVY notebooks feature a soft-touch and slip-resistant base which make them easy to handle.

HP ENVY Ultrabook Envy 4 is available in 14-inch and Envy 6 is available in 15.6-inch diagonal display sizes. HP's latest offerings are powered by third-generation Intel Core processors and offer up to eight to nine hours of battery life respectively.

HP ENVY Sleekbook also comes in two variants — Envy 4 and Envy 6. Envy 4 Sleekbook sports a 14-inch (35.56 cm) display, while Envy 6 is available in 15.6-inch (39.62 cms) diagonal display and powered by the latest Intel Core processors. It also boasts up to eight to nine hours of battery life respectively.

HP has equipped its latest products with ImagePad. ImagePad is an advanced image sensor that replaces the traditional touchpad to provide better precision and improve gesture responsiveness.

Famous Scientist ( Bertram Brockhouse )

-: Bertram Brockhouse :-

Bertram Brockhouse

PBertram Neville Brockhouse, CC FRSC (July 15, 1918 – October 13, 2003) was a Canadian physicist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (1994, shared with Clifford Shull) "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter", in particular "for the development of neutron spectroscopy".

Brockhouse was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, and was a graduate of the University of British Columbia (BA, 1947) and the University of Toronto (MA, 1948; Ph.D, 1950).

From 1950 to 1962, Brockhouse carried out research at Atomic Energy of Canada's Chalk River Nuclear Laboratory.

In 1962, he became professor at McMaster University in Canada, where he remained until his retirement in 1984.

He shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics with American Clifford Shull of MIT for developing neutron scattering techniques for studying condensed matter.

In 1982, Brockhouse was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 1995.

In October 2005, as part of the 75th anniversary of McMaster University's establishment in Hamilton, Ontario, a street on the University campus (University Avenue) was renamed to Brockhouse Way in honour of Brockhouse. The town of Deep River, Ontario has also named a street in his honour.

The Nobel Prize that Bertram Brockhouse won (shared with Clifford Shull) in 1994 was awarded after the longest ever waiting time (counting from the time when the award-winning research had been carried out).

In 1999 the Division of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (DCMMP) and the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) created a medal in honour of Brockhouse. The medal is called the Brockhouse Medal and is awarded to recognize and encourage outstanding experimental or theoretical contributions to condensed matter and materials physics. This medal is awarded annually on the basis of outstanding experimental or theoretical contributions to condensed matter physics. An eligible candidate must have performed their research primarily with a Canadian Institution.

Google will allow Motorola Mobility its own space...

SAN FRANCISCO: Google intends to allow its newly acquired Motorola Mobility to keep its autonomy as it battles in the hotly contested smartphone market, executives said Thursday.

Google chief finance officer Patrick Pichette told the company's annual shareholder meeting that there is unlikely to be a integration of the mobile products firm.

"It's important it stays on its own battlefield," he said. "We are not integrating Motorola with Google, we're making sure it has everything it needs to win in its own space. You shouldn't expect a full integration of the two companies."

He added that the mobile products firm has "fantastic assets that need to be reset, reprioritized... and in that context think of Google in a way taking Motorola private."

Google chairman Eric Schmidt said of the deal: "We bought Motorola for the sum of the patents, the products, the people, the innovation."

Google completed the $12.9 billion deal last month for Motorola Mobility, a key manufacturer of smartphones and other devices that puts the Internet giant in head-to-head competition with Apple.

The completion of the deal dubbed "Googorola" follows approval by Chinese, US and European regulators, amid concerns on restrictions for Android, a Google-created free operating system for mobile devices.

Conditions from China's Ministry of Commerce included Google keeping its Android software for smartphones and tablet computers free and open for at least five years.

Micromax Funbook Android 4.0

Micromax funbook is Operating System.It runs on the latest Android version 4.0 also known as ICE CREAM SANDWICH. Android 4.0 ICS is the latest in Android arsenal and provides you faster performance, more flexibility, less bugs and Intuitive Interface which ensures you never have to look back at your PC again for malfunctioning of Apps. Micromax has also partnered with many international and national publishers (Pearson, Scholarshub etc) to provide content for students.

Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX Vs. Apple iPhone 4S: Head-to-Head Comparison.....

Recently, it was reported that the Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX had knocked the iPhone 4S off its perch as the top-selling phone for Verizon Wireless customers. This came as a surprise to most of us, including those who wouldn’t touch an iPhone with a ten-foot pole.

Which would be the better handset?

The Droid RAZR MAXX has the larger screen at 4.3 inches compared to the iPhone 4S’ 3.5-inch screen. Nevertheless, Apple’s fifth-generation handset has something the RAZR Maxx doesn’t have, and that is Retina Display. In terms of numbers, the iPhone 4S’ screen is capable of 960 x 640 resolution at 330 pixels per inch, as opposed to the Droid RAZR MAXX’s AMOLED screen (960 x 640, 256 ppi). We’re calling this one even.

The CPU of the Droid RAZR MAXX is a 1.2 GHz Cortex A9 paired with a TI OMAP 4430 chipset – this is more powerful than the iPhone 4S’ 1 GHz Cortex A9/Apple A5 combo. Note that these are both dual-core processors. The Droid RAZR MAXX also comes with 32 GB internal storage with an additional 32 GB  on microSD card. The iPhone 4S offers 16/32/64 options in terms of onboard storage. Advantage – Motorola.

As the iPhone 4S comes with the latest Apple platform (iOS 5.1) and the Droid RAZR MAXX ships with an older Android version (2.3 Gingerbread), Apple’s device has the better platform and user interface. This is especially true if you factor Siri into the equation.

No question about connectivity standards – we’re going with the Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX, which supports 4G LTE, unlike the iPhone 4S.

Both devices are even in terms of camera quality and performance (both have 8-megapixel rear cameras), but the Droid RAZR MAXX has undoubtedly the better battery. It’s no contest, really – 3,300 mAh for the RAZR MAXX versus 1,432 mAh for the iPhone 4S.

So there you have it – based on the specs, the Droid RAZR MAXX deserves its spot as Verizon’s top-seller. However, that may change soon with the Samsung Galaxy S3, and most likely when the iPhone 5 is released later on this year.

Windows Phone 8 to be launched by Samsung and HTC

Unveiled at Microsoft’s Windows Phone Summit in San Francisco, Windows Phone 8 will accompany the main PC and tablet operating system Windows Phone when it launches in October.

The support from a range of device manufacturers including HTC and Samsung will reassure app developers who had been fuelling the growth of Google’s Android and Apple's iOS at the expense of Windows Phone.

But it will present a further challenge to troubled BlackBerry because a host of the new features for Windows Phone 8 aim squarely at the corporate market. Nokia and Huawei will also be among the companies that help to launch Windows Phone 8 in 180 countries.

New features include security based on the same model as full desktop software because Windows Phone and Windows will share the same core ‘kernel’, as well as improved support for corporate email and integration with Microsoft’s suite of Office products. The Windows maker hopes that these will appeal to IT buyers previously keen on BlackBerry's platform.

The changes will also mean that developers will be able to write programmes once, but see them run on Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Xbox. Microsoft hopes that support for three screen resolutions will allow it to simultaneously make progress in the battle for users living rooms, laptops, tablets and phones.

Other changes include an update to the main ‘Start Screen’ interface to allow more of the screen to be taken up with the ‘Live tiles’ that Windows Phone users press to access apps, and which also show live information. For the first time, developers will also be able to design their own large tiles, a feature previously limited to Microsoft itself and manufacturers. Overall, the screen will appear substantially busier, which could lead users who praised the previous ‘clean’ interface design to be less enthusiastic.

Existing Windows Phone users will not, however, receive the upgrade to Windows Phone 8 free. Instead they will be offered a version called Windows Phone 7.8, which will offer some of the major interface improvements. The full version, however, will be accompanied by new devices offering improved hardware which will be unveiled nearer the launch.

Previous versions of Windows Phone lacked support for the multicore processors that increasingly power top of the range smartphones such as the quad-core Samsung Galaxy S3 and HTC One X. Now Windows will theoretically be able to support up to 64 mobile phone processor cores.

Famous Scientist ( Willard Boyle )

-: Willard Boyle :-

Willard Boyle

Willard Sterling Boyle, CC (August 19, 1924 – May 7, 2011) was a Canadian physicist and co-inventor of the charge-coupled device. On October 6, 2009, it was announced that he would share the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for "the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit—the CCD sensor".

Born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, he was the son of a medical doctor and moved to Quebec with his father and mother Beatrice when he was three. He was home schooled by his mother until age fourteen, when he attended Montreal's Lower Canada College to complete his secondary education.Boyle attended McGill University, but his education was interrupted in 1943, when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II. He was loaned to the Britain's Royal Navy, where he was learning how to land Spitfires on aircraft carriers as the war ended. He gained a BSc (1947), MSc (1948) and PhD (1950) from McGill University.

After receiving his doctorate, Boyle spent one year at Canada's Radiation Lab and two years teaching physics at the Royal Military College of Canada. In 1953 Boyle joined Bell Labs where he invented the first continuously operating ruby laser with Don Nelson in 1962, and was named on the first patent for a semiconductor injection laser. He was made director of Space Science and Exploratory Studies at the Bell Labs subsidiary Bellcomm in 1962, providing support for the Apollo space program and helping to select lunar landing sites. He returned to Bell Labs in 1964, working on the development of integrated circuits.

In 1969, Boyle and George E. Smith invented the charge-coupled device (CCD), for which they have jointly received the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1973, the 1974 IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award, the 2006 Charles Stark Draper Prize, and the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics. The CCD allowed NASA to send clear pictures to Earth back from space. It is also the technology that powers many digital cameras today. Smith said of their invention: "After making the first couple of imaging devices, we knew for certain that chemistry photography was dead."

Boyle was Executive Director of Research for Bell Labs from 1975 until his retirement in 1979. In retirement, he split his time between Halifax and Wallace, Nova Scotia where he helped launch an art gallery with his wife Betty, a landscape artist. He was married to Betty since 1947, and has four children, 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Motorola launches Razr Maxx, Razr V coming soon to India....!

 

As expected, Motorola Mobility has officially launched the Razr Maxx in the Indian market, pricing the device at Rs. 31,590. Furthermore, Motorola has also announced that they will soon launch the dual-core Razr V in the Indian market sometime in the future.

The Motorola Razr Maxx looks very similar to the sleek Android–powered Motorola Razr, except for a slightly thicker back due to its enormous 3,300 mAh battery. This device is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex A9 processor and includes 1GB of RAM.  Storage can be expanded by 32GB using a microSD card, to add to the built-in 8GB capacity. It sports a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced display, runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, an 8 megapixel rear camera and a secondary front facing 1.3 megapixel camera.

The Motorola Razr V is quite similar specifications-wise to the Razr Maxx, but runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box. Sporting a 4.3-inch display with Gorilla Glass protection and Kevlar fiber back, it is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 8 megapixel rear camera with autofocus and LED flash, and a front facing VGA camera. The Razr V packs a 1750 mAh battery and is 8.35mm thick.

The Motorola Razr Maxx is now available for purchase in the Indian market while the company has not revealed much about the pricing for the Motorola Razr V, except that it will launch in Indian sometime in Q3 2012.

Facebook to allow users to pay in local currencies soon...

Facebook will soon allow users worldwide to pay in their local currencies for various paid applications and games on the popular social networking site, a move that would help it in diversifying revenue streams.

"...We are updating our payments product to support pricing in local currency (ex: US dollar, British pound and Japanese yen) instead of Credits," Facebook said on its website.

"By supporting pricing in local currency, we hope to simplify the purchase experience, give you more flexibility, and make it easier to reach a global audience of Facebook users who want a way to pay for your apps and games in their local currency," it added.

In 2009, Facebook, introduced a payment system 'Facebook Credits' or a virtual currency was mainly used to buy virtual goods in games like FarmVille. Last year, 15 million users bought virtual goods on the site using its payments service.

"We will release local currency support for in-app payments in the next few months. Any apps or games that sell virtual items will be required to use local currency by the end of the year," the company said.

Famous Scientist ( Albert Bandura )

-: Albert Bandura :-

Albert Bandura

Albert Bandura (born December 4, 1925, in Mundare, Alberta, Canada) is a psychologist, the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. Over almost six decades, he has been responsible for contributions to many fields of psychology, including social cognitive theory, therapy and personality psychology, and was also influential in the transition between behaviorism and cognitive psychology. He is known as the originator of social learning theory and the theory of self-efficacy, and is also responsible for the influential 1961 Bobo doll experiment.

A 2002 survey ranked Bandura as the fourth most-frequently cited psychologist of all time, behind B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and Jean Piaget, and as the most cited living one. Bandura is widely described as the greatest living psychologist, and as one of the most influential psychologists of all time.

In 2008 Bandura won the Grawemeyer Award in psychology.

Bandura was born in Mundare, in Alberta, a small town of roughly four hundred inhabitants, as the youngest child, and only son, in a family of eight. The limitations of education in a remote town such as this caused Bandura to become independent and self-motivated in terms of learning, and these primarily developed traits proved very helpful in his lengthy career. Bandura is of Ukrainian and Polish descent.

The summer after finishing high school, Bandura worked in the Yukon to protect the Alaska Highway against sinking. Bandura later credited his work in the northern tundra as the origin of his interest in human psychopathology.

Bandura is married and has two children.

Bandura was initially influenced by Robert Sears' work on familial antecedents of social behavior and identificatory learning. He directed his initial research to the role of social modeling in human motivation, thought, and action. In collaboration with Richard Walters, his first doctoral student, he engaged in studies of social learning and aggression. Their joint efforts illustrated the critical role of modeling in human behavior and led to a program of research into the determinants and mechanisms of observational learning.

Bandura has received more than sixteen honorary degrees, including those from the University of British Columbia, Alfred University, the University of Rome, the University of Lethbridge, the University of Salamanca in Spain, Indiana University, the University of New Brunswick, Penn State University, Leiden University, and Freie Universitat Berlin, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Universitat Jaume I in Spain, the University of Athens and the University of Catania.

VLC Media Player Coming with Android-OS....

VLC have announced on their Twitter account that  they are bringing their media player to the Android platform.

VLC Media Player has been available for desktop PC's for years where its famous for being able to play pretty much any type of video and audio file. This is great news for Android device owners because we assume VLC will be bringing the same support to smartphones and tablets.

Another great thing about the VLC player is that its always been free and doesn't even have any adverts. The VLC user-interface has consquently always been very clean and concise, whilst video playback is always smooth and reliable.

No precise details were given about what to expect from the Android version of VLC or when it'll be released. However, what we do know is that any new media applications becoming available is good news,  especially if they add support for previously unsupported codecs and video files.

3G will keep you up to date on all the latest news regarding the release of VLC's Media Player for Android devices.

Lava Xolo X900 review:

There's something significant about this Android smartphone from Lava - it says Intel Inside on the back cover. In fact, Lava's Xolo is the first Android smartphone powered by an Intel processor - a processor based on Intel's Atom processor, which still does duty in netbooks. But what does this mean for you?

The new platform is codenamed Medfield and even though it's a single architecture, it promises performance to match and even better many dual core smartphones. Making processors for smartphones is way different from making processors for desktops or laptops. That's why the Atom processor here is modified for higher efficiency.

The Xolo is based on an Intel reference design. This means that it looks good and performs well. The flipside to this is that there may be other phones with exactly the same design. The device itself has a smart silver-black design and an even thickness throughout - similar to the current iPhone. The bright and responsive 4-inch screen has a 1024 x 600 pixel resolution which makes it very sharp. The 8MP camera also does 1080p video in acceptable quality. Battery life is about one day with normal use. We faced no issues with call quality.

You will notice that the phone is not very thermally efficient - the lower half of the device tends to get uncomfortably warm during extended use - especially when you're taxing it with a game or HD movie. The battery is not user replaceable and we felt the device could do with better build quality. Coming to the price - it's roughly Rs 22,000. This puts the Xolo at a disadvantage.

LG Optimus L7 review

The Optimus L7 headlines LG’s new L-Style line of Android phones, designed for users that want the latest software and features but don’t have the budget for the more expensive Optimus smartphones. The L-Style range is LG’s first to come with Android 4.0 out of the box, and arrives before the company’s flagship Optimus 4X HD next month.

While it may not compromise on software, hardware is a different matter altogether. While other Optimus devices are powered by dual- and quad- core devices, the L7 has a 1GHz single-core processor paired with 512MB of RAM. It does have the edge on screen size though, offering a spacious 4.3-inch display, far larger than its contemporaries.

LG has a bad history with skins and bloatware on its devices, and it’s not shipping a stock Android 4.0 experience with the L7. So has LG learned from its mistakes? And how does LG’s interpretation of Android 4.0 stack up when compared with HTC’s Sense 4.0 and Samsung’s Nature UX? Read on to find out.


This is by no means a luxury device, but that doesn't have to be an issue — there's a difference between something feeling cheap and being built to a price.

The L7 bears somewhat of a resemblance to the Prada Phone 3.0, and features the same "floating mass" design language, which separates the phone into three parts. There's a 4.3-inch WVGA (800 x 480) display up front, along with a physical home button, a pair of capacitive keys, and a VGA front-facing camera.

The L7's 4.3-inch WVGA (800 x 480) display is an IPS NOVA unit as seen in many of LG's devices. Like most IPS displays, it has great viewing angles and accurate color reproduction, and is also protected by Corning's scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass. WVGA over 4.3 inches is a bit of a stretch, and you'll be able to make out pixels from time to time.

This is the first device from LG to come with Android 4.0 pre-installed, and was released before LG announced its Optimus UI 3.0 skin for ICS. Although it’s missing a couple of features announced alongside the new Optimus UI, this is almost exactly the experience LG will be giving all its Android 4.0 devices.

LG has made another big change to Android with the menus. The basic layout and style is the same, but LG has switched to a white, rather than black, background. On my white review unit the color scheme makes sense, but you do get the feeling that this is a case of differentiation for differentiation’s sake.

The L7’s 1GHz single-core Snapdragon SoC is simply incapable of running Android 4.0. The Snapdragon MSM7227A isn’t the S4 that was smashing benchmark records earlier this year; nor is it the capable S3 that featured in some of last year’s flagship devices; it’s not even an S2, as found in the HTC One V; no, this is a Snapdragon S1, a Cortex-A5 chip that can also be found (albeit with a reduced clock rate) in the ultra low-end Lumia 610 — and Android 4.0 is a lot more demanding than Windows Phone 7.5.

The L7 maintains LG's reasonably high standards when it comes to call quality. The speaker is loud and crisp, and no one I spoke with had any issues hearing me. The loudspeaker was loud enough, although I found myself having to shout in order for people to hear me. Signal strength is a major strong point, and the L7 consistently held signal better than the Xperia P, Galaxy S II, iPhone 4S, and Razr that I had on hand. 3G performance was equal to all of the aforementioned devices, maxing out at 7.1Mbps down and 2.4Mbps up.

Sandisk launches Extreme USB 3.0 Pen Drive

Sandisk is known name in the market especially for its wide range of portable data storage offering. The company has now launched new USB 3.0 capable Pen Drive in the market and dubbed it as Sandisk ‘Extreme’ USB Pen Drive.

This new offering from Sandisk promises up to 190MB/s data transfer speed and comes in sizes starting from 16GB and going up to 64GB.  The pricing for these ranges from $65 and goes as high as $160.

Additionally Sandisk has also launched updated version of its Cruzer and Glide line-up with storage capability going as high as 128GB. The Glide will be available sometime later in Q3 2012 and will be priced at $249.99 while the smaller 4GB variant will can be purchased for just $19.99.

The Facet USB Flash drive which comes in a stainless steel body as well as the Cruzer Pop series which is available in a few color options starts from $32.99 for 8GB and goes up to $84.99 for 32GB of storage space.

All these USB drives are equipped with Sandisk’s SecureAccess software for encryption and security and it comes pre-loaded on the devices.

Famous Scientist ( Sidney Altman )

-: Sidney Altman :-

Sidney Altman

Sidney Altman (born May 7, 1939) is a Canadian American molecular biologist, who is currently the Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and Chemistry at Yale University. In 1989 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas R. Cech for their work on the catalytic properties of RNA.

Altman was born on May 7, 1939 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His parents were immigrants to Canada, each coming from Eastern Europe as a young adult, in the 1920s. Altman's mother was from Bialystok in Poland, and had come to Canada with her sister at the age of eighteen, learning English and working in a textile factory to earn money to bring the rest of their family to Quebec. Altman's father, born in Ukraine, had been a worker on a collective farm in the Soviet Union. He was originally sponsored to come to Canada as a farm worker, but later, as a husband and a father of two sons, he supported the family by running a small grocery store in Montreal. Sidney Altman was later to look back on his parents' lives as an illustration of the value of the work ethic: "It was from them I learned that hard work in stable surroundings could yield rewards, even if only in infinitesimally small increments."

As Altman reached adulthood, the family's financial situation had become secure enough that he was able to pursue a college education. He went to the United States to study physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at MIT, he was a member of the ice hockey team. After achieving his bachelor's degree from MIT in 1960, Altman spent 18 months as a graduate student in physics at Columbia University. Due to personal concerns and the lack of opportunity for beginning graduate students to participate in laboratory work, he left the program without completing the degree. Some months later, he enrolled as a graduate student in biophysics at the University of Colorado Medical Center. His project was a study of the effects of acridines on the replication of bacteriophage T4 DNA. He received his Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of Colorado in 1967.

Altman was married to Ann Korner in 1972. They are the parents of two children, Daniel and Leah. Having lived primarily in the United States since departing Montreal to attend MIT in 1958, Altman became a U.S. citizen in 1984, maintaining dual citizenship as a Canadian citizen as well.

After receiving his Ph.D., Altman embarked upon the first of two research fellowships. He joined Matthew Meselson's laboratory at Harvard University to study a DNA endonuclease involved in the replication and recombination of T4 DNA. Later, at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, Altman started the work that led to the discovery of RNase P and the enzymatic properties of the RNA subunit of that enzyme. John D. Smith, as well as several post-doctoral colleagues, provided Altman with very good advice that enabled him to test his ideas. "The discovery of the first radiochemically pure precursor to a tRNA molecule enabled me to get a job as an assistant professor at Yale University in 1971, a difficult time to get any job at all."

Altman's career at Yale followed a standard academic pattern with promotion through the ranks until he became Professor in 1980. He was Chairman of his department from 1983–1985 and in 1985 became the Dean of Yale College for four years. On July 1, 1989 he returned to the post of Professor on a full-time basis.

While at Yale, Altman's Nobel Prize work came with the analysis of the catalytic properties of the ribozyme RNase P. RNase P is a ribonucleoprotein particle consisting of both a structural RNA molecule and one (in prokaryotes) or more (in eukaryotes) proteins. Originally, it was believed that, in the bacterial RNase P complex, the protein subunit was responsible for the catalytic activity of the complex, which is involved in the maturation of tRNAs.

During experiments in which the complex was reconstituted in test tubes, Altman and his group discovered that the RNA component, in isolation, was sufficient for the observed catalytic activity of the enzyme, indicating that the RNA itself had catalytic properties, which was the discovery that earned him the Nobel prize.

Although the RNase P complex also exists in eukaryotic organisms, his later work revealed that in those organisms, the protein subunits of the complex are essential to the catalytic activity, in contrast to the bacterial RNase P.

HCL 3G+WiFi ICS tablet in August

The tablet will comes with Android 4.0 operating system.

PC manufacturer HCL, which has already launched two 7 inch tablets, will add one more Android tablet to its portfolio in August. The new HCl tablet, called Y2, will not only have a SIM slot for accessing 3G network but also will have WiFi connectivity.

Gautam Advani, executive vice president, head mobility at HCL Info Systems said, "HCL will be launching an Android Ice Cream Sandwich based 7 inch tablet, code named Y2, with WiFi and 3G (SIM slot) capabilities in August for Indian consumers."

He further said, "The price of the tablet will be revealed during the launch time but it will be priced less than Rs 15,000."

The Y2 tablet, apart from Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, is expected to have a 1 GHz Arm Cortex A8 processor,512 MB RAM and access to HCL Me App Store from where users can download applications.

However, both the tablets did not have access to Android Market (which is now known as Google Play Store). Instead, the tabs have access to HCL Me App Store from where users can download applications.

Microsoft "Surface" The Possibilities

Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Corp.'s first commercially available surface computer, breaks down the traditional barriers between people and technology to provide effortless interaction with all forms of digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects instead of a mouse and keyboard.

Famous Scientist ( Ernest Cormier )

-: Ernest Cormier :-

Ernest Cormier

Ernest Cormier, OC (December 5, 1885 – January 1, 1980) was a Canadian engineer and architect who spent much of his career in the Montreal area, erecting notable examples of Art Deco architecture, including his home in the Golden Square Mile, Cormier House.

He was born in Montreal, the son of a medical doctor, and he studied civil engineering at the École Polytechnique in Montreal. After graduation in 1906, he worked in the research department of the Dominion Bridge Company in Montreal. In 1909, he studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the atelier of Jean-Louis Pascal.

In 1914, he was the recipient of the Henry Jarvis Scholarship, awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Through its British Prix de Rome, Cormier spent two years in the Eternal City, where he studied the ancient works. Following his return to Paris in January 1917, he was employed by the engineering firm of Considère, Pelnard et Caquot, specialists in concrete, and he graduated as an architect of the French Government (DPLG).

He was a professor at the École Polytechnique in Montreal (1921–1954).

In addition to showing a great balance, in most of his buildings, between the disciplines of engineering and architecture, Cormier also had great skills as a painter and illustrator. He has left us many stunning renderings of his works, done in the planning stages.

In 1974, Cormier was inducted into the Order of Canada by Governor General Jules Léger, and received numerous honours and awards. The Édifice Ernest-Cormier, the Quebec Court of Appeal building in Old Montreal, is named in his honour.