Intel ultrabook to replicate tablet like features

Ultrabook is Intel's new family of notebooks thin, light and beautiful in design less than 20mm in thickness. With these design specification, ultrabooks already sound very similar to Apple's MacBook Air.

Intel claims that these computers will marry the performance and capabilities of today's laptops with tablet-like features and deliver a highly responsive and secure experience, in a thin, light and elegant design.

If we look for the attributes of this new model, we found it highly exciting with a less than 20mm think design and weighing less than two pounds, it replicates the portability features of tablets. But at the some time performance is kept in par with the today's laptops with instant resume and quick response unlike most of the tablets. And this is not yet the end of the story, with all such amazing features Ultrabook price is targeted to be under $1000.

It sounds real good to have a model as portable as tablets and as performance rich as laptops and at the same at par in price with other available notebooks. So hold your nerves till winter this year when Intel has announced to release the ultrabooks in market.

Microsoft needs to empower itself to be in tablet market

Microsoft is assumed to launch its new OS for tablets in a week or so. As all the tablets these days are running ARM processors and the latest Windows release i.e. Windows 7 does not support ARM processors, Microsoft is likely to release Windows 8 for tablets.

As per the rumors, the next release of Windows will be launched soon in the market probably by mid June and it will support ARM technology as well to empower the tablet platform. Though Microsoft officials are tight-lipped over this and as per them by the end of this June, we may expect a demo of tablets running Windows 8 from Microsoft. Previously, Windows 7 has already been modified a number of time to fulfill the customer requirements and Windows 8 is supposed to be pre-loaded with all those features.

Be it true or not but one thing is sure, Microsoft need to be very quick to come up with an amazing tablet platform to be in tablet market as Apple's iPad and Google's Android have collectively dominated the market and they have already captured more than 85% of the total tablet market eliminating Blackberry and smartphones running Windows.

SplinterBike : Wooden bicycle to set world speed record

If one talks about riding a wooden bicycle then it may sound to you as awkward as a square wheel but a British craftsman has not only manufactured a working wooden bicycle model but also claims to set a land speed record with this. Michael Thompson, the craftsman started working on this model last year.

The bicycle, named Splinterbike is made up of hardwoods and plywood and model is weighing around 31 kg (approx. 68 lbs). There have been wooden bikes before including Audi Duo, the most popular among them. But none of them featuring no plastic, rubber or metal at all. This is the first such model and the designer claims to set a land speed record with it.

You can imagine how tough it would be to design a chain the bike needed to have a high gear to theoretically reach speeds of over 30 miles per hour (48 kmph). Eliminating all such huddles, Thompson managed to build a working model with 128-tooth gear cog connecting the pedals to the rear hub.

The intention of the designer is to break a speed record with this creation, but whoever will test it should be aware of the fact that the SplinterBike has got no brakes. After knowing such facts, would you like to buy this one-gear bike?

Paypal sues Google for stealing its Mobile payment Technology secret

Former Employees currently at Google

Seems that IT is turning around to be a business of controversies and lawsuits these days, at least for Google. Google released Android, Oracle and Apple both filed case against Google. Facebook is always on heat because of regular filing of lawsuits against it. Recently Apple sues Samsung for making models similar to the Apple patented iPhone model. And here is one more...

The lawsuit filed against Google corroborates the same fact, it all started when Google unveiled a phone-based mobile payment system - Google Wallet. The system was unveiled by Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius, currently working at Google and ex-employees of Paypal. Paypal has accused Google for allegedly stealing its employees and trade secrets that may have led to the launch of Google's mobile payment service.

The 28 page lawsuit filed in a superior court in California, accuses Google and the two former PayPal employees of implementing PayPal's confidential trade secrets related to mobile payment technology. The case was filed on last Thursday and Google issued a statement on next day saying it will fight the case.

If the lawsuits and suing each other continues at this rate, we will very soon see IT companies looking to hire more lawyers and associated than the developers and designers.

Nook - The latest android based ebook reader tablet

Around seven months back, we saw the launch of Nook color tablet - an android based ebook reader from Barnes and Noble and now it has unveiled a a newer version of Nook which cuts down its bulky shape, weight and previous physical buttons.

With reduced size, the all new Nook will measure 5 inches by 6.5 inches, weighs under 7.5 ounces (35% lighter than the Nook first edition), and sports a 6-inch touchscreen that marries infrared technology with a Pearl e-ink display to let user navigate with taps and swipes. Powered by Android 2.1, the Nook will include 2 gigabytes of on-board storage allowing for 1,000 downloaded books and an SD card slot for additional storage, and run on an 800 MHZ Texas Instruments OMAP 3 processor which the company says enables a much smoother reading experience, including quicker page transitions and 80% less ghosting or page flashing. It also will last two months between charges which makes it quite amazing on battery.

Nook has several better features compared to its nearest competitor Kindle 3. The Kindle 3 features just one month of battery life compared with the new Nook's two and the number of physical buttons is 38, 37 more than the all-new Nook.

With all these amazingly enhanced look and battery life, the cost for new Nook is just $139 and it is available for pre-order.

Rahul Sharma : The only hero of PWI this IPL

Just like previous IPLs, it has been a batsmen knock this year. Sachin, Gayle, Gilchrist, Sehwag and Valthaty they all have scored centuries this IPL but most of them have fallen short and lost their wicket to one common opponent bowler Rahul Sharma who has been a difference in this IPL for an otherwise very disappointing Pune team.

He has been outstanding through out the tournament with 16 wickets in 13 games(one washed out of rain) and an economy rate of 5.46, the best for any full time bowler. An economy of 6 or less is very respectable in this shorter version of cricket where average run rate lies around 8. When we talk about other Indian leg-spinners, particularly the two most prominent: Amit Mishra 7.07, Piyush Chawla 7.71, he has given a tremendous performance.

Rahul's performances against Mumbai Indians, 2 for 7 and 1 for 14, prompted even Tendulkar to compliment him. Not bad for someone who, after being diagnosed with a facial nerve disorder a season ago, had to use eye-drops after every delivery to give himself a chance of spotting the next one in the field. He had serious problems in last season because of dodgy vision in one of his eyes which troubles him in batting, fielding and the most in bowling but the game spirit pushed him to play.

That's not all about his performance this IPL. He has also maintained the top bowling average of 17.06 this series better than most of the IPL bowlers(excluding only one full time bowler - Malinga). Even after this, if you will have a closer look, not one of Rahul's 16 victims has been a bowler this tournament. The mode of his dismissals is revealing of the restricting fuller line he bowls. Almost all the batsmen have gone either bowled, stumped, leg-before, caught behind or caught at long-off and long-on which shows his bowling skills at its pick. The subtle turn and quicker pace for a leg-spinner have inevitably brought comparisons with Anil Kumble, whom Rahul treats as his guru.

Though, the tournament was terrible for Pune Warriors this year but surely it has yielded an outstanding bowler in future for team India. The one who can follow the path led by legend spinner Anil Kumble.

Android users open to major security risk

Android had been an outstanding platform for smartphone users. Google had almost dominated the smartphone market with the release of Android OS. But issues keep coming for Android since its inception.

At first stage, it was legal and now its technical. There seems to be a major security threat for almost 97% of Android users globally which can access all your private info on your smartphone. This threat is dangerous for all Android phones running Android 2.3.3 or previous versions. Only 3% of the total android phones are above this release and so the risk is real big.

All these smartphones can be accessed remotely when connected to unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Sneakers can remotely access your contacts, calendar and to-dos like personal stuffs and not only this they can even delete it. So beware all Android users before you connect to any Wi-Fi network.

When asked Google about this, Google officials said we are aware of the issue and we are working on the fix. The fix will be out very soon and it will be upgraded automatically on all Android users running below the 2.3.3 release. So no need to patch or trick anything on your own as the fix is on its way.

In general, Android has been amazing smartphone OS with an increasing outnumbered fans including me.

Need for a common online video call platform

Technology evolves itself day after another, enhancing and optimizing the way we perform any operation making it easier and efficient with time.

When email was in its early days, people could send emails only to the persons having email on the same server. Like AOL user could not send mail to a user on some other email server. Similarly, when cell phones were in early days pictures and video messages could not be sent on a mobile on another network. But with time, we came out of the limitation finding out the solutions which offer us a common platform removing these communication barriers.

Same is the case with Video Chat these days. Most popular video chat engines namely Skype and Google Chat and even the less popular ones, they all lag in one common factor - Cross platform video chat. A user using Skype cant call a person using GMail for video chat with his GMail friends. There is an enormous need for an open video chat platform which is common to all video chat engines. A video chat platform which is ubiquitous so that users on various servers can communicate with each other.

About 11 months back, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs had announced about FaceTime, which was expected to offer common video call platform and it was full of open standards. Apple announced to make it an open video call standard but failed to proceed any further in this line even after long 11 months though Apple officials deny for the same. The prospect behind FaceTime was to unite all video call servers to a universal platform so that a person on Google server can communicate with someone on Skype server. But the idea is yet to be realized and there is no such progress or any news about the same. Meanwhile, Microsoft has purchased the very popular Skype last week which is already having 170 millions users worldwide. Microsoft is also putting efforts into generalizing the Skype for non-windows platform but the need for the common video call platform is still the same.

Top three IT giants namely Apple, Google and Microsoft are all into video call technology more or less but still we are lacking for the common platform like we have in emails and cellphones.

Winklevoss twins to go to supreme court against Facebook and Zuckerberg

Seems that problem is never gonna end with Facebook and its well known founder Mark Zuckerberg. The two twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss who are suing Mark since early days of Facebook are claiming again that Zuckerberg stole their idea of Facebook.

They have already  fought the case in Ninth Circuit court and they ended up with a settlement amount and the court finally told them to drop the case and never raise it again. But the twin brothers are not happy with this as now they are raising the same case in supreme court.

They have full intention to file the case again in the supreme court and they hope that supreme court will take their case differently and do justice as per their expectations. While asked why are you so confidence about wining the case this time, the twin brothers' lawyer said there had already been a conflict between Ninth Circuit court decision over a couple of issues. Here are the exact details of the issue as stated by the lawyer :

"The first is the Court's holding that a party who is defrauded into entering into a settlement agreement cannot challenge the contract on the ground of fraud. Federal and state courts have long held that a settlement founded on fraud must be set aside. The Court's decision conflicts with that body of precedent."

"The second issue is the Court's holding that a routine agreement to hold statements made in a mediation confidential bars proof that Facebook committed securities fraud in the mediation. Numerous federal precedents, and the text of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act, hold that an agreement to directly or indirectly waive rights under federal antifraud provisions of the securities laws is void. The Panel's decision conflicts with that body of precedent."

So now they are confident enough to win the same case in supreme court. Lets see what future holds for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.

Japan to use Smart Grid Technology for energy-saving

After the severe tragedy in Japan on March 2011, due to the earthquake which led to the tsunami and then the nuclear crisis the whole world heard about, Japan has been recovering itself at a very fast rate.

Another important step in this recovery is the new energy policy of Japan. Due to the nuclear tragedy, the major energy source i.e. nuclear plants are no longer a better option for Japan and they are looking forward for renewable sources of energy which can not only provide enormous energy but also are safe from any natural hazards. Being surrounded with ocean tidal energy can be a better option for Japan.

Not only this, Japan is also implementing smart grid technology to save energy and minimize its consumption with a zero wastage target. Smart grid technology can be taken as a simple upgrade of power grids used in last century which broadcast power from a few central power generators to a large number of users. Smart grid provides a digital solution for the same with use of computerized meters to regulate power us. It provides a better approach to regulate, route and respond to the different situations that occur in power distribution.

Check out this for more details about Smart Grid Technology.

Control your home using Google Android

Google have been impressing all of us since its inception with its absolute dominance in every platform first web with its efficient search engine then the smartphone world with Android OS and now its going to dominate your home with Android Home OS.

Ever worried with lots of electronic gadgets around you from different brands and each controlled with their own remote ending up a number of remotes around you making you helpless. Google will be able to help you very soon with this with the new Android Home OS for your home controlling all gadgets connecting them together in a wireless network and you will be able to control everything using your favorite android smartphone.

The concept is to consider your home as a network of accessories connected together in a wireless network and let the OS controlling them all be Android. Now all we need is a device to control all these accessories. What else could be a better device than the handy smartphone powered by Android which you always keep close. That's why Google thought of integrating all he devices with our phone with a little fun with the current Android framework and it is all set to go.

The technology is tested and its just need to be implemented. Very soon you will be able to connect to all electronic devices around you and control them using your android phone.

Google introduces Chrome OS based notebooks - ChromeBooks

Google's popular web browser Chrome captured the market in a few years and its one of the three most popular web browsers.

And now Google is launching Chromes OS based Samsung and Acer notebooks tomorrow, 15th of June. Not only this, Google also has plan to lease the OS to corporations and schools with both hardware and software support and maintenance. The good news is that the product and services both are quite affordable. Chrome powered notebooks ranges from $349 onwards and lease subscriptions monthly rates are $20 onwards.

The new release has definitely proved Chrome as a tremendously valuable product for Google. OS is another enhancement of the Chrome browser with some extra features like connecting digital camera and offline usage. Not only this Chrome also serves as a platform for various Google applications like Gmail, Google Map and others.

The notebooks will run Web-based apps and store files in the cloud instead of on a hard drive. All apps, games, photos, music, movies and documents will be accessible wherever you are and you won't need to worry about losing your computer or forgetting to back up files. Its  not that good though specially if you are residing at some place where you don't get internet connection up all the time.

The Chromebooks will go on sale next month at Best Buy and on Amazon.com in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. Google launched the Chrome Web Store, which is a directory and marketplace for web apps, in several new countries on Wednesday, encompassing 41 languages. A market of webapps just like Android market for smartphones.

First web, then mobile and now its time for notebooks....

Google had almost owned Skype before Microsoft's $8.5 bn deal

We all know that Microsoft is buying Skype making it its biggest ever deal of $8.5 billion but if you see Skype's history, Google had almost owned Skype. When Google came to know that eBay is selling Skype, executives jumped on the opportunity and began negotiating

But Google's product manager Wesley Chan went Europe to see Skype firsthand and he became convinced that the purchase was a bad idea for Google. He concluded that one of Skype's key assets its peer-to-peer technology was a mismatch for Google, which worked on the newer paradigm of cloud computing. Peer-to-Peer never worked with Google as it eats up bandwidth and Google takes it as a past generation technology.

So even if Google would have bought Skype, it will have to re-write the whole platform which will take around 1-2 years. This is why Chan decided to sabotage the deal in a top executive meeting and the co-creator of Ad-Words, Salar Kamangar backed him up in this. They came up fully prepared even with a powerpoint design to support their point and executives started getting really negative towards the deal. The point put up by Chan was : Why would I want this risk? We have a team capable of building the carrier, we have the users, we have hundreds of millions of Gmail users, why do we need to have Skype?

This is how Google almost owned Skype before Microsoft finalized the deal. Only future can tell us this decision of Google is going to be a fortune for Microsoft or another failure of its we division.

Google's another billion dollar business - Display Ads

Google the $30 billion company till date thinks its next billion dollar business is going to be display advertising which includes banner ads, video ads and in-app mobile ads.

Just in three years of display advertising business, Google has stunned everyone with record $2.5 billion annual sales. Day by day it is becoming a very important business for Google turning out to be a revolutionary sector, the growth engine of future. Google runs its display ad with a different business automatizing the process while others (YAHOO, Microsoft and AOL) uses manual process. Anyone can use display ads online using credit card payment.

For the time, Google's share in display ads is just 15% which is very less compare to its search advertising which is 60% of total market. Even this 15% is enough to beat Yahoo which previously held the top position for a long time.

Google already considers it as a big business but admits the fact that there is still tremendous room to grow in this sector to make it very large business is coming future. Google targets to grow its display business by 40% by the end of this year. In just one year 2009 to 2010, Google's 1,000 largest advertisers increased their display purchases by 75%. Forecasts says that by 2014, Google will grab 91% internet traffic which is 40% now.

Display ad business emphasizes on imaginative and interactive skills and requires high level creativity which makes it harder to make and even harder to monetize. But Google solves all its hurdles with its tools and technologies for example its recent purchase of Teracent allows companies to launch a single ad campaign with dozens of variables that can be altered based on conditions like location, weather, and a user's tastes. This is the reason why Google is able to maintain its momentum while others are struggling in the same line.

Google to launch amazing online music and video services

Google announced on Tuesday about its new cloud-based music and movie services to compete with current service providers like Apple and Amazon.

The new service Music Beta will allow users to store 20,000 songs on Google's servers and access their music online and on their Android smartphones and tablets. The good news is its a free service for now but you need to have invitation just like we had gmail in early days. Music Beta is similar to Amazon's cloud drive and the plus point is it also comes with iTunes features as well. There is a feature called Instant Mix, which will automatically select 25 tracks from your library that go together similar to Apple's Genius. Users can pick iTunes or Windows Media Player libraries and automatically upload their music to this Google's online service.

In a few weeks. you will also be able to rent movies from Google with rates as low as $1.99. Downloaded movies will be available for a 30-days rental period, and once users start watching the films, they will have 24 hours to complete viewing it. The service can be streamed or downloaded on Android devices as well as on Computer.

It will be great to store around 20000 favorite songs on Google and access it for free from almost anywhere on the planet. I am sure you guys are going to fall for it. Just look forward for an invitation.

Microsoft to take over Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion

You can call it a vital move by Microsoft to fire up its sinking online services division. Microsoft is about to execute an $8.5 billion deal to buy Skype Technologies SA to add Internet-calling tools to its online services.

CEO Steve Ballmer seems to have a plan to use Skype's services in a bid to lure Web users and narrow Google Inc.'s lead in Internet advertising. This deal is going to be Microsoft's largest ever deal dwarfing its previous $6 bn for AQuantive.

Skype, the world's largest provider of international calling with 663 million global users, will surely help Ballmer in reviving Microsoft's online services division, which had an operating loss of $726 million in the last three months whereas the web giant Google dominated Web search and related advertising.

Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis with investment from giants like EBay Inc. and Andreessen Horowitz. In 2005, it was sold to EBay itself which was based in San Jose, California for $2.6 billion.

Skype since its inception has been leading video call service provider in the world and it is currently developing premium services such as group video calling and pursuing corporate accounts.

Here comes Internet Kissing Machine for remote lovers...

Staying away from your soul-mate and dying to get her and kiss her passionately. Here is the new invention specially for you which will let you kiss your loved one over the web.

This eKiss created by a Japanese lab will let the user waggle his tongue on a plastic straw, thereby making another plastic straw waggle remotely on someone else's tongue. Sounds Hot? Look at this internet kiss video of a graduate student and researcher at the university, manipulating the plastic tube on one device with his tongue causing its tube to move presumably in someone else's mouth.

As stated its just the beginning of what could become a full-on person-to-person experience over the Internet. The current Kiss Transmission Device as shown in the video resembles to a police Breathalyzer. Using this device, Kiss information can be recorded and replayed, presumably meaning someone could save and share a "kiss" over and over.

I know what you guys are thinking about. Unfortunately you are damn right, even the researchers seem to realize that most people might not exactly find licking a plastic tube a suitable replacement for sucking face but refinements are on its way. The refinement which will offer you sense of taste, the manner of breathing and the moistness of the tongue, all elements you get in a real kiss.

Well, i am not sure how much the technology is going to help remote lovers but this is surely a noble effort towards helping lovers in long term relationships.

Tethering applications blocked in Android market

Google is about to block some of the apps from android market which let Google Android users use their smartphones as modems for internet usage without paying the services charges to the wireless carriers. In last few days, several blogs have reported that free Android phone tethering apps that are typically found in the Android Market are not available for Android phones on some of the USA's giant wireless carriers.

Sprint customers apparently are still able to access many of these tethering apps from the Android Market. As per Google they are making it unavailable for download on certain carrier networks at the request of those carriers. If an application is in direct violation of the terms and conditions of a usage contract, a carrier can request Google to make the app unavailable and for that particular network that app will be blocked.

In other words, the apps are still on the Google Market, but they are just not visible to users on certain carrier networks. Apps are only hidden from view if they are in direct violation of the carrier's terms of service.

The good news is still you can use such apps if you are fetching it from somewhere outside android market. What need to be done is the developer distributes the apps out of Android market and it is side-loaded into your device.

Stealth helicopters used to hunt down Osama Bin Laden

There have been numerous facts and myths so far about the mission raiding Laden in Pakistan at his mansion. One such story lies behind the helicopters used in the mission.

As said by US military officials, there were two black hawk helicopters who carried 25 soldiers to the compound where Laden was shot dead in a 40 minute secret operation. But there are few unanswered questions lying beneath this story :

• How these helicopters evaded the radars at Pakistani Air Force base without getting detected?
• Why the US soldiers destroyed one of the helicopters when it got damaged due to improper landing?

TAIL SECTION

Surviving tail section of the destroyed helicopter reveals modifications to muffle noise and reduce the chances of detection by radar indicating that US probably have used stealth helicopters for the mission. Not only the tail but the cover on the rotor that looks like a dishpan or a hubcap in the news photographs may have also helped reduce so-called radar signature of the craft. 

The stealth features, similar to those used on advanced fighter jets and bombers, also help explain how two of the helicopters sped undetected through Pakistani air defenses before reaching the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad.

Stealth helicopters are devised to be used in conventional warfare during the cold war but it seems that this secret mission has come out to be an exception. Though it was never discussed yet by US Government that the mission sneaking Osama Bin Laden involved stealth radar-evading helicopters.

Plasmons & Optical Properties of matter

We have seen the cloaking technology which covers another milestone towards achieving complete invisibility. The concept behind cloaking technology moves around Plasmons.

Now the question is - What are plasmons?
Just like photons and phonons which are quantization of light and mechanical vibrations respectively, the plasmons are quantization of plasma oscillations. So, Plasmon is a quantum of plasma oscillation or we can call it as collective oscillations of the free electron gas density.

Plasmons are the major contributor in deciding the optical properties of metals. Let us see HOW?
Plasmons decides the plasma frequency at the surface and light of frequency below this plasma frequency is reflected by the material, because the electrons in the metal screen the electric field of the light. All light waves with frequency more than plasma frequency will get transmitted and electrons wont be fast enough to respond and screen them. For most of the metals we see around, plasma frequency lies in the ultraviolet range which makes them shinny in the visible range as they reflects the light waves of visible range. Whereas metals like copper and gold have electronic interband transitions in the visible range, which makes them absorb specific light energies(lying in some specific color range). Due to this, they reflect some distinct color. Similarly in semiconductors, the valence electron plasma frequency is usually found to be in the deep ultraviolet, which is why they too are reflective.

Since plasmons are the major factor in deciding how objects yield different colors and shines, so the first step to achieve invisibility was to alter the plasma frequency in such a way that the visible light could easily get through the objects. This can be done if we can reduce the plasma frequency far below the visible light frequency. This is what cloaking technology is all about.

How the mission killing Osama Bin Laden carried out?

May 1,2011 - The day most popular as Labor day and now the day when Osama was killed at Abbottabad near Islamabad in Pakistan. As per reports, US Intelligence was aware of Osama hiding in Pakistan since Sep, 2010 and since then he was being watched closely for his first visual and the commandos were waiting for the GO signal from higher officials.

The secret mission which hunted down Osama was planned in a meeting held around one month back in March 2011, called by Obama with CIA, which made all the arrangements to execute the mission. Final call was to this mission was called by none other but Obama on 29th April,2011.

The US Navy's Special Force wing called SEALS Team 6 was assigned to do the task. SEALS full form is United States Navy SEa, Air and Land Teams and they are under the Naval Special Warfare Development Group.

On May 1 early morning, US Commandos arrived in 4 Helicopters and landed outside and inside the compounds of the house where Osama Bin Laden was hiding. There was gun fight between Commandos and Body guards of Bin Laden. US Commandos fought bravely and killed the terrorists and broke into the house in matter of minutes. Osama Bin Laden was hiding behind a lady and guards while fighting against commandos. The guard and this lady got killed first. Later Osama Bin Laden got hit with bullet on his forehead and another bullet in chest which took his life.

The entire commando operation took place for only 40 minutes after which Osama Bin Laden's dead body was taken by US Helicopters to Afghanistan and buried in sea to prevent any monuments being created in the name of Bin Laden. After the end of fire fighting Osama Bin Laden was killed along with 3 Al Qaeda militants and one lady. In this entire missiong, one US Helicopter was damaged and partially destroyed during the operation. There were about 60 people inside the house and majority of them were arrested by America.
 

The dead body of Osama Bin laden was recovered and samples were sent for DNA test. It was confirmed that Osama Bin laden was dead and after that Barack Obama announced that 'Osama Bin Laden is No More and Justice was done to the Victims of 2011 September 11 attacks'.

White iPhone 4 is no bigger than Black iPhone 4

Well, it seems that the story of white iPhone 4 is never gonna end. Already delayed by approximately 10 months, white iPhone4 received another shock when several recent independent reports stated that it is about 2 millimeters thicker than the black model that's been out since last summer.

Though apple backed the matter and Apple's chief marketing executive, Schiller reportedly responded to a person via a private message on Twitter that the white iPhone 4 is not thicker. Schiller even responded to some tech sites who claimed their tests found white iPhone 4s to be thicker than black ones.

This whole story came to an end when Consumer Reports posted on its site that when they compared a white iPhone 4 with a black iPhone 4 in the Yonkers, NY, lab using high-quality calipers, we found they were both the same thickness (0.37 inches). They also reported that even the casing made for iPhone black fits perfectly over the white iPhone. This report has supported the response of Schiller and opposes the various other reports which seems to be rumor for now.

The white iPhone 4 had been delayed 10 months due to design and manufacturing complications. Apple executives have said the white version required significant retooling to properly tune the device's sensors to its glass shell. But there are no difference in the size and it is now proved after this report. Hope this will bring an end to the drama started right after White iPhone 4 release.

Internet traffic soared globally soon after death of Laden

Global internet traffic witnessed a record rise soon after the death of the Osama Bin Laden was announced. Here are some of the statistics which witness the enormous raise in www traffic.

Twitter, the microblogging site records its second highest number of tweets related to a particular even when people tweeted at the rate of 5106 tweets per second at the peak time of the event. It was the highest sustained rate of tweets per second in the twitter history. On the total time span average tweets per second was around 3000.

Twitter always spreads the news earlier than news media. On sunday also, Keith Urbahn, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's chief of staff, spread the word via Twitter just before it was announced publicly in white house. A Pakistani IT consultant named Sohaib Athar, who lives in the city of Abbottabad where bin Laden was killed, unwittingly live-tweeted the event as it was happening and he even beated Urbahn and tweeted long before him.

Google also received similar response and ranked the keywords "osama bin laden dead" as "volcanic," the highest level it assigns for a trending topic. Osama topic has already been Google's hot topic back in 2006 when there were rumours that Osama had been killed.

Following Twitter and Google, other news agencies also received the similar kind of response the whole night. Here is a brief report(top) from Akamai representing the global traffic rise for the top news agencies over the web. The bin Laden story resulted in a peak of more than 4.1 million page views per second on the news websites as per Akamai. The peak occurred at about 11:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, right as President Obama's made his live, televised statement. Just an hour before the news broke, there were roughly 2.5 million page views per second on those pages.

To the biggest surprise, all of the largest peaks in the top 13 were from events that occurred in 2010 or 2011, since Internet usage continues to rise globally. No. 14 high ranking is for the election of President Obama, which occurred in November 2008.

Barack Obama watching live the raid of Osama Bin Laden

While military troops were operating on the special mission about 7000 miles away from US, President Barack Obama with other major coordinators of this mission was watching it live in a room just like some Hollywood screenplay. The complete mission which killed Osama Bin Laden was remotely monitored.

Though Obama arrived after sometime to watch the live monitoring but top officials were monitoring the situation since the beginning of the mission. Obama entered the room after other mission leaders were assembled there but he was early enough to watch the complete attack on bin Laden's mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He was just in time to witness the complete operation.

As per the U.S. counter-terrorism chief, John Brennan, the president along with team heads monitored on a real-time basis the progress of the operation, from its commencement, to its time on target, to the extraction of the remains with regular updates from the troop to ensure that we had real-time visibility into the progress of the operation.

It was a complete Hollywood style mission live monitored in a cabin filled by top operation officials and the President Obama.

Cloaking technology : A step towards invisibility

Researches are going on since yore to make things invisible. There have a number of movies including StarTrek and others which shows the cloaking technology to make things invisible.

The basic requirements for being invisible are :

• It has to be able to bend light around itself, so that it casts no shadow.
• It must produce no reflection.

Bending waves using cloaking technology

Bending light around an object requires a material to have a negative refractive index. The refractive index is a property that dictates how light passes through a medium; it's the reason a stick will look bent when placed in water. If water had a negative refractive index, it would make the stick look as though it were bending back on itself. Designs have been developed and demonstrated both theoretically and practically made up of very thin conducting wires that could have an effect on the electric and magnetic fields of microwaves, causing them to bend in unnatural ways. Such materials are called metamaterials. Theoretically it has been proved that cloaking effect can bend lights for these metamaterials in such a matter that they become invisible to human eye.

Cloaking technology works majorly on plasmons - tiny electronic excitations on the surfaces of some metals to cancel out the visible light or other radiation coming from an object.

Though the idea was to hide the object completely but there are a few limitations to the technology which prevent it from attain complete invisibility. Cloaking ability widely depends on an object's size, so that only with very small thing, the visible light can be rendered in such a manner to make it impossible to detect. Larger objects like the one we use in  real life can also be made invisible using this technology but for the waves of larger wavelengths such as microwaves but not for the visible light. Similarly gigantic objects such as a spaceship can be made invisible for radiowaves or some other long wavelength detectors.

As we have seen, there are limitation to the current cloaking technology for making things invisible but the step is another milestones towards achieving the goal. Scientists are working are researches are going on to attain the complete invisibility.

An effective solution to traffic and parking issues in urban cities

The traffic problem in urban cities is majorly(30%) caused due to the cars hunting for parking spaces and some of the most valuable real estates goes hidden beneath parked cars.

Enter Streetline, a 30-employee company in San Francisco that creates and installs wireless sensor networks to monitor parking spaces. Each sensor uses a magnetometer to detect the presence of large metal objects nearby. The sensors communicate wirelessly, signaling whether spots are occupied or vacant, gradually collecting data to reveal local parking patterns. That information allows cities to price their parking spaces according to their actual value, factoring in supply and demand as they would with any other piece of real estate. With that data, cities can both help ease congestion and boost their meter revenue.

Streetline charges its clients a monthly usage fee of $25 to $30 per sensor. The fee covers installation, maintenance and management of the software that collects and distributes parking data. The company does not publicly disclose financial information, but Streetline is now raising its second round of funding and expects to see its annual revenue rise by 75% for 2011.

So far Streetline has set up networks in areas including parts of Los Angeles, Roosevelt Island in New York City, the parking lots at Fort Totten Metro station in Washington, D.C., and a garage at the conference center in Salt Lake City's Temple Square. The company has also released an iPhone application called Parker, which shows drivers how many parking spots are available on blocks within the sensor network. An Android version is in development.

Streetline was launched in 2007 by a team of five entrepreneurs; in 2010, the company was named IBM's Global Entrepreneur of the Year. IBM executives were highly impressed by the potential of real-time parking data to help cities to solve major problems.

More cities are coming around to his way of thinking. During its first four years of business, Streetline closed only two deals. In the past six months, it closed six of them. So the idea is getting popular and we can hope it to see in our cities as well in a year or two eliminating traffic rush and parking problems which is increasing day by day.

Microsoft profit soars despite of drop in PC sales

Microsoft officials keep talking about how its business does not rely on personal computer sales and this quarter they have proved it as Microsoft's profit rose 31% even when consumer PC sales dropped by 8%. The company's overall sales were up 13%, to $16.4 billion.

Affected by the drop in PC sales, Windows sales dropped 4%, and earnings from that division sank 10% in the quarter ended March 31.

Normally, it should lead Microsoft to trouble but Microsoft's other products helped save the day. Sales of the Xbox and the controller-less Kinect add-on were incredibly strong. Revenue in Microsoft's entertainment division rose 60% to nearly $2 billion, as it sold 2.7 million Xboxes and 2.4 million Kinects.

Not only entertainment, but the server products like Sharepoint also helped drive sales and profit, with revenue in that division rising 11%. Not only this but Office sales also kicked up to 21% with a number of businesses deploying Office 2010 at a rate five times faster than they adopted the previous version, Office 2007.

On the other hand, the bad news was that sales of netbooks fell a stunning 40% in the quarter, and Windows still hasn't deployed on enough tablets to be taken seriously as an iPad or even an Android competitor.

Online search engine Bing posted yet another hugely disappointing quarter, losing $726 million in the quarter and nearly $2 billion in nine months. Despite steady share gains in search and a partnership agreement with Yahoo, Microsoft's relative revenue is disappointing compared to its competition, and Microsoft still has yet to turn a profit in that five-year-old unit.

Overall, Microsoft's fiscal third-quarter net income rose to $5.2 billion, or 61 cents per share, for the period ended March 31.