Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group

Though Google marked deal to sell Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.9 billion, motorola's best division - Advanced Technology and Projects group was not sold and it was left behind with Google. Since then this group have been working on two major projects - Project Tango & Project Ara.

Project Tango is an Android-based prototype 5-inch phone and developer kit with advanced 3D sensors. With the sensors, the phone is capable of tracking motion, and can build a visual map of rooms using 3D scanning. Google wants to combine these 3D sensors with advanced computer vision techniques that will help fork out newer innovations for indoor navigations, games and so on. Looks like Google wants to build something like the Sony Kinect or Playstation Move, into a small 5-inch phone.

Google is using Movidius’ Myriad 1 vision processor platform for Project Tango. These sensors were considered very expensive and difficult to employ earlier. They are reportedly also known to drain the phone’s battery rapidly. However, the new generation vision processors consume significantly lesser power. This is one of the reasons, why Google finally went ahead with this project.

The Project Tango devices will be available for developers so they can play around and build apps related to “indoor navigation/mapping, single/multiplayer games that use physical space, and new algorithms for processing sensor data.” However, initially, select 200 developers will be able to access these phones. Developers will have to give Google some cool app ideas for the device by March 14, 2014. It should be noted that Google is not looking for simply leap-motion based or gesture-based apps.

On the other hand, Project Ara is a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. It comes with a structural frame that holds smartphone modules of the owner’s choice, such as a display, keyboard or say the battery. The approach allows users to swap out malfunctioning modules or upgrade as new innovations emerge. This also means that the handset can potentially last much longer than normal smartphones do.

Google, the software giant, will also be marking Google’s first hardware launch from its Advanced Technology and Projects group with Project Tango while working side-by-side on Project Ara.

Mako : A robot designed to operate computers

A new artificial intelligence robot that can navigate through almost any computer programme and across the internet has been developed.

Mako, created by 18-year-old Michael Ghandour in Chino, California, has voice recognition and responds to even the slightest command with super speed.

It can create powerpoint presentations from scratch, search anything on Google and give updates on the local weather. The robot can also read out long passages on a screen.

According to its Kickstarter page, MAKO is multilingual; it can speak in five different languages, which is soon to be 30, 

 
The page lists Mako's numerous abilities - it can open any website/programme, define any word, type anything you say, retrieve any online image, Google search anything, switch windows to other programmes, empty recycle bin/delete any file/words, do math equations of all kinds and write a report on any subject, among other functions.

Ghandour who spent seven years working on artificial intelligence programmes like this, believes Mako will "revolutionise how we interact with the technological world.

Sony and Panasonic working together on a 300GB optical media

If you thought the time of the optical disk was over - think again. Especially if you happen to work for Sony or Panasonic.

The two tech giants have announced they they will jointly work to produce the next generation of disks. The new disks will be capable of storing at least 300GB per disk - if not more. Currently the storage limit is of 50 GB hold at the moment by dual-layer blue-ray disk.

As per Sony officials, optical discs have excellent properties to protect them against the environment, such as dust-resistance and water-resistance, and can also withstand changes in temperature and humidity when stored. They also allow inter-generational compatibility between different formats, ensuring that data can continue to be read even as formats evolve. This makes them a robust medium for long-term storage of content.

Mainly aimed at professionals, the disks could be used to back up HD films, move large amounts of data or perform essential maintenance.

Indeed, and to be deliberately generous to Sony and Panasonic, if a flight to New York takes about 7 hours 50 minutes, you'd need a transfer rate of about 10 mb/s to send 300GB of data faster than sticking it on a plane.

Now get alert on your smartphone when satellites are watching you

In the modern era of technology, we are surrounded by a number of satellites in their orbits spying on us 24X7. You never know, when your privacy is being invaded and some satellite is zooming around you, tracking your moves and recording your actions.

In this scenario, a mechanism which may notify us while being watched could be something really great. Sticking to the same need, an smartphone app has been developed in US that tells you when and what imaging spacecraft might be watching you. The app, SpyMeSat, provides notifications when spy satellites and unclassified imaging satellites are zooming above your head and may be taking your picture. 

All of the imaging satellites in SpyMeSat are in low-Earth orbit at an altitude of about 805 kilometres, SPACE.com reported. Enabled SpyMeSat satellites include such zoom-lens notables as GeoEye, the French space agency's SPOT-5, India's CartoSat-2A, DigitalGlobe's WorldView satellites and Canada's RADARSAT-2. 

The idea for the app sparked to Alex Herz, president of Orbit Logic in Greenbelt, Maryland, which developed the app. It was originated while talking to his friends outside the aerospace industry who were always very interested in space and satellites and imaging from space. 

The app uses available public information about commercial and international imaging satellites. It also uses orbit data from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). However, SpyMeSat does not include all imaging spacecraft. No classified imaging satellites, from any nation, have their orbit information published, so these satellites do not show up in the app.

Himalayan yeti(a.k.a. Hima Manava) mystery unveiled

Yetis have been in discussions over a long period of time now. We have seen footprints and other signs of their existence in Himalayan regions but no one has ever seen them alive, though scientists claim that they are still there. Recent research by a British scientist shows that Yetis may actually be a sub-species of brown bear.

DNA tests on hair samples carried out by Oxford University genetics professor Bryan Sykes found that they matched those from an ancient polar bear. He subjected the hair samples to the most advanced tests available. He says the most likely explanation for the myth is that the animal is a hybrid of polar bears and brown bears. Prof Sykes told the BBC that there may be a real biological animal behind the yeti myth.

The sample had a 100% match with a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway, that dates back to between 40,000 and 120,000 years ago - a time when the polar bear and closely related brown bear were separating as different species. The species are closely related and are known to interbreed where their territories overlap.

The hair samples from Laddakh came from the mummified remains of a creature shot by a hunter around 40 years ago, while the second sample was in the form of a single hair, found in a bamboo forest by an expedition of filmmakers around 10 years ago.