Steven Paul Jobs - Steve Jobs, co-founder, CEO and Chairman of Apple and Pixar Studios dies at the age of 56

"You've got to find what you love."

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple and Pixar Studios, June 12, 2005.

The entire population of Earth was struck by a saddening blow as Steve Jobs, co-founder, CEO and Chairman of Apple and Pixar Studios passed away early morning of October 5, 2011, at the age of 56. Apple did not list a specific cause, but Steve has been fighting pancreatic cancer and related illnesses since 2003. His death followed shortly after the Let's Talk iPhone event, passed away in Palo Alto, California. He was the charismatic visionary of the future, reshaping what were computing and entertainment industries in our history books.

"Apple had lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being," said Apple Inc. "Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will be the foundation of Apple." 

"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today. Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve. His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts." Apple's board of directors.

You may send you condolences towards Steve Jobs to the address rememberingsteve@apple.com.

Steve Jobs's presentations throughout the years has and had always been revolutionary and breath-taking. His immersive and powerful ways of conveying messages always brought a new light to Apple, every year, every event. His visions for the future are always mind-blogging and years after years, people's lives are changed because of Steve. Apple may or may not have the strongest hard/software point to start with, but Steve's marketing strategies and his understanding towards consumer's needs blows any other factors out of the way, taking Apple's products right into everyone's life. That's what Steve can do.

Steve might not be the typical Oxford PhD you might have guessed. He did not really graduate from any college or experienced any proper education process. The only reason he lives up to what he is today is based on what he believes in his heart. He realized his true interests and intentions in life and instantly fell in love with what he's doing. This contributes to his success through every stage of his life including the founding of Pixar Studios, which was eventually acquired by Disney, was one of his greatest visions of innovation towards man-kind - one of the most successful project being Toy Story. Back in 2005, Steve Jobs was present at a graduation ceremony in Stanford University. He then gave a speech regarding his life and provided three key stories to what he believes had shaped his figure today.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."

Steve Jobs is truly a legend and a legacy. He saved Apple from dying about a decade ago. He changed the world, he changed lives. Now with his departure, his spirits and legacy are believed to be continued not only in Apple, but truly in our hearts. It is rare to have someone with such compelling intelligence standing life-like right among us, and it would be no one else now than Steve Jobs.

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Let's Talk iPhone 2011 Keynotes - iPhone 4S, NO iPhone 5, iOS 5, iCloud and Tim Cooks, iPhone 4S Pricing and Availability Revealed

All times below are adjusted to GMT+8 time zone - Perth, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur etc.

Let's Talk iPhone event, Cupertino Campus, Oct 4 - Tuesday. Clock's ticking at 12.50AM, less than 10 minutes to the official launch of the event. Jump over the break for the complete live feed from the event.





1.00AM

• The presentation begins, as usual, with the giant Apple logo on screen.
• Tim Cooks takes the stage, expressing his love for Apple, his new position as the CEO, the changes and achievements over Apple in recent years and new stores which opened in LA and HK not long ago.
• Tim expresses the success of OS Lion, achieving 80% more downloads than that of Snow Leopard.
• Tim further expresses its success against Windows 7, which took a long time to reach the same goal.
• Tim emphasizes on the fact that many had been trying to copy the MacBook Air - which refers to none other than the Ultrabooks.
• The Year-over-year growth for PC remains at a low 4%, while Mac goes up to 23%
• iPod, the world leading music player launched in 2001 claimed 78% of music players worldwide - clearly the #1 music player in the world.
• Apple sold 45 million iPods in one year.

1.15AM

• iTunes - the #1 music store in the world, hands down at 16 billion songs downloaded.
• Tim begins to touch on the iPhone.
• iPhone shows a 125% annual growth compared to the 74% of smartphones.
• Mobile phone satisfaction chart - Apple tops it off at 70%, held second by HTC at 49%.
• iPhone is 5% of the overall mobile phone market. Tim hopes that all phones will move into the smartphone section - could this mean a cheaper iPhone is on the way?
• Tim now touches on iPad - it will be changing what the world does with it. Teachers, kids, parents and the likes. Even pilots, said by Tim.
• iPads are actually spreading to all corners of the world - hospitals, here, there and everywhere.
• iPad is the top selling tablet in the world, hands down.
• 250 million iOS devices are sold.
• Scott Forstall takes the stage.
• Since there are 250 million iOS devices sold, it's no doubt the top OS in the world.
• iOS dominates 61% of the mobile OS market.
• 500,000 apps on the app store.
• 140,000 and above for the iPad.
• Appstore experiences 18 billion downloads in mere 3 years - 1 b per month.
• Apple paid more than 3b for developers for apps.
• Apple created new app - called cards. You can now create cards on your phone and Apple takes cares of the rest, including printing and emboss. Various designs are available. Apple will even settle the mailing for you. Simple as that. All you need is to attach an address.
• Service begins 12th October.
• It's free.
• Now, iOS 5.
• Ten of the top 10 features.
• New notification center - separate notifications now pop up on the lockscreen, you swipe and go directly into it. 
• iMessage - messaging service between iOS users. You can sent text photos, video and much more.
• Reminders - You can customize your individual reminders on stuff to do, schedule and etc. They are location based integrated so you can use them depending on where you are.
• Deeper integration of Twitter.
• Newsstand - many new partners including top publishers have associated with it.

1.30AM

• Camera - integrated app launch, snapping photos with volume button, photo edit out of the phone.
• 67 million Game Center accounts.
• Reading list, tabbed browsing on the new Safari browser.
• Wireless synchronization with your PC/Mac and phone.
• iOS 5 begins rolling out on October 12.
• Eddy Cue is up and on iCloud.
• As you have already known, iCloud syncs all stuff among your iOS devices.
• It's free.
• You take a photo > goes to cloud > goes to all iOS devices under the same credentials.
• This includes documents.
• Apps included too.
• Backup on the cloud.
• Find my Friends - works something like Google Latitude. It's a location based programme which allows you to share your location and find your friends.
• Storage upgrades with an annual fee, starting off at 5GB. 10GB goes at $20 a year, 20GB for $40, 50GB for $100.
• iTunes matching system. If you have an iPad which has no music, just sync it to the cloud and you'll get everything - seamless.

1.45AM

• iTunes Match includes many other features such as immediate streaming, upgrades of matched songs, etc at the price of $24.99/year.
• October 12, restated.
• Commercial rolls.
• Now it's Phil Schiller's stage.
• He begins with the reintroduction of the iPod family.
• iPod Nano, launched last year - the interface is reduced to compact icons.
• The integrated Nike application tracks your walks and runs.
• Watches - going Disney? 
• $129 for 8GB, $149 for 16GB - just as we know it.
• iPod touch - most popular iPod.
• It has everything the iPhone has, except the telephony.
• It will run iOS 5.
• It's the #1 portable game player.
• The white iPod touch is confirmed. 8GB at $199.
• 32GB $299, 64GB $399 - beginning October 12.
• All we see is iPod shuffle nano and touch. Classic seems dropped.
• He said many had been trying to copy the iPhone 4.
• Phil is now confirming the iPhone 4S with A5 processor but remaining the same design.
• Dual-core graphics. 7x faster graphics.
• Mike Capps takes the stage - the president of Epic Games.
• He talks the Unreal Engine 3 - featured in Infinity Blade 2, the first installment earned $20 million in revenue.
• The visuals are shown off.
• Emphasizes on console-quality gaming.
• Epic shows off several scenes of Infinity Blade 2.
• Back to A5 talk - 2x Faster CPU.

2.00AM

• 8 hours of talktime, 14 hours of 2G talk, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 9 hours of Wi-Fi browsing.
• Wireless system has been upgraded. It will now switch between antennas to get better call quality, or better signal lock.
• Maximum data speeds has been increased from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4S - up to 14.4Mbps.
• 4G network. It is claimed that data even faster on the iPhone, with or without 4G.
• iPhone 4S will come in GSM and CDMA versions.
• Camera system. iPhone is the top uploader on Flickr.
• New camera sensor - 8 Megapixels up to 3264 x 2448 resolution. 60% higher resolution than the iPhone 4 of 5 MP.
• Improved sensor illumination - 73% more light. Think of what Exmor R does.
• Hybrid IR filter - better colour accuracy, more colour uniformity.
• Five element lens, 30% increased sharpness, f/2.4 aperture.
• Image Signal Processor enables face detection and 26% better white balance.
• The first photo could be taken within 1.1sec.
• Macro performance is increased.
• 1080p HD video recording.
• Video Image Stabilization and Temporal Noise reduction.
• AirPlay mirroring - think HDMI without wires (or wired if you desire).
• Shows off the new voice recognition service - Siri.
• Works just like the old voice recognition - hold Home button, Siri listens.

2.15AM

• Asked the iPhone a question, replied with very accurate answers accompanied with even more integrated information.
• Think of it as an Artificial Intelligence - you ask it a question, it responds you with appropriate answers. For example, stock market, restaurant, places, navigation and practically everything.
• Demonstration of the amazing Siri AI is shown off again and again. Why type when your voice does everything for you?
• You can reply messages, plan new schedules and appointments, update your calender - all with Siri.
• Siri isn't only your personal secretary, but also your listening encyclopedia.
• "Search wikipedia for Neil Armstrong" - it brings up the astronaut's profile. "Define mitosis" - it brings up the definition for you.
• Scott asks Siri "Who are you?", Siri says "I am a humble personal assistant." Humble indeed, when it certainly outsmarts any ordinary human.
• Scott off the stage, reinstating the featured Siri.
• Phil returns to the stage.
• You will need a working connection for sure to use Siri.
• Works out of the box and improves over time, learning your voice and commands. Works for English, French and German - more languages to come.
• iPhone 4S once again gets reemphasized.
• iPhone 4S gets another commercial run.

2.30AM

• The commercial shows off all the features previously mentioned. Still no pricing and availability news.
• The pricing for the iPhone 4S is revealed. 
• 16GB - $199, 32GB - $299, 64GB - $399.
• iPhone 4 goes 8GB - $99.
• iPhone 3GS -  Free. All on two year contract.
• Pre-orders start 7th October, Ships October 14th. US, CA, AUS, UK, France, Germany and Japan gets it on 14th.
• Oct 28th spreads 22 more countries, 70 countries by the end of the year.
• Tim reappears on stage and speaks several words of affections.
• No iPhone 5. 
• That's it - the end of Let's Talk iPhone. There will be no iPhone 5.

Several important images courtesy of Engadget.

Event ends at 2.38AM, GMT+8.

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Tag Heuer Mikrotimer Flying 1000 Concept Watch - The Fastest Chronograph System in the World, at Unbelievably 500Hz.

Image source

Don't blink, you'll miss the moment. The Tag Heuer Mikrotimer Flying 1000 Concept Watch (wow, that's a mouthful) is the world's fastest chronograph watch ever created by mankind. The precision is so incredible that each second is stripped down to 1/1000 or at a rate of 500Hz - 300 times faster than a human could blink.

More details and demonstration after the break.

Your average Rolex watch could measure up to 28,800 beats an hour and probably couldn't exceed 50,000 beats - the mechanical system just could not handle the amount of beats. At 1/1000th of a second, the balance within the watch goes at 3.6 million times an hour and with that amount of beats any mechanical watch would probably shatter. That's a total of 60,000 beats per second!

Now frankly speaking, there really isn't anything yet which requires such incredible accuracy and precision - rendering it pretty much unnecessary when brought into real world usage as of now. The microsecond hand circles so fast it's impossible to track it with the naked eye. Not to forget the human response time is rather slow and the measurement prone to a significant delay. The actual watch isn't available since this is still in a conceptual stage. However several units of the Mikrotimer will be sold to lucky timepiece keepers - at an astonishing price of almost $90,000 with only ten units available until the end of the year. Attached is the video of the Tag Heuer Mikrometer Flying 1000 Concept Watch in action.



Source

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Could Einstein's Theory be Wrong Afterall? Scientists Discover Particles Moving Faster than Light - Neutrino

Albert Einstein, notably the backbone of modern physics, has claimed that if we could travel faster than time, the chances of time-travelling are possible. This claim, however, was made almost a century ago. Now scientists of the twenty-first century are making another claim to surpass Einstein's claim, making the speed of light second in place.

The latest discovery by a team of experimental physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, negates Albert Einstein's theory of relativity that directly certifies that light is the fastest mover in the world. Reports and details after the break.



Light, is emitted and absorbed in tiny "packets" called photons, which exhibits properties of both waves and particles. This property is referred to as the wave-particle duality. Atoms emit light when struck by particles which causes an electron to jump to a higher energy level. As the electron returns to its initial energy level, the energy absorbed previously by the electron is released in the form of a light photon.

Neutrino, on the other hand, is an electrically neutral elementary subatomic particle with mass so little yet non-zero. Neutrino can pass through ordinary matter unaffected as it is electrically neutral. Neutrinos are usually related to its similarity to electrons but the main difference in properties is that neutrino carries absolute zero charge - hence the "neu-" prefix. Neutrinos are released as a result of radioactive decay or nuclear reactions - naturally the Sun. Fact: About 65 billion solar neutrinos pass through every square centimeter per second perpendicular to the direction of the Sun in the region of the Earth. -source


If scientists have proven correctly, this exotic beam of particles which is 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light in vacuum will disregard Einstein's Law and the belief that time-travel is impossible. The calculation is done by Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA), a 1,300 metric ton particle detector. Their research clearly shows that a total of 15,000 beams of neutrinos were fired, the tiny particles travelled the 730-kilometer, 2.43 milisecond trip roughly nanoseconds faster than light as per claim. -source


"It's a straight-forward time-of-flight measurement," said Antonio Ereditato, a physicist at the University of Bern and spokesperson for the 160-member OPERA collaboration. "We measure the distance and we measure the time, and we take the ratio to get the velocity, just like how you learnt to do in high school. On the other hand, Stephen Hawkings appeared to be unconvinced as he said,"It is premature to comment on this. Further experiments and clarifications are needed.

As of now, these claims have not been internationally certified and proven. However Ereditato claimed high confidence in his results as his team has checked and rechecked the results. Keeping fingers crossed, I hope Ereditato's claim could be deemed true to pose another interesting challenge against the Father of Modern Physics.

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Scientists Strive to Improve Battery Tech to fit Demands for Higher Battery Capacity

Conventional rechargeable batteries generally incorporate Lithium-ion or Lithium-polymer technology, but their usability has almost reached a limit in ratio to their sizes due higher market demand.

Image copyright HowStuffWorks

Scientists are now trying to implement silicon technology into batteries to improve storage capacity even without increasing the size of current battery packs. More details after the break.

It's not that lithium-ion batteries are not great, but generally after sometime this technology will reach its limitation to power certain devices. Experts will then proceed in either increasing the battery size or improve mechanical efficiency. However, do bear in mind that lithium-ion batteries are actually already capable of storing up to 8 times more energy than conventional designs due to the new conducting material that doesn't break down after long-term repeated usage.

The limitation, still, of lithium-ion batteries is the amount of energy they are able to store. Scientists have proceeded in utilizing silicon technology as a material that can store up to 10 times higher capacity than conventional batteries BUT the main downside is that it swells upon charging and goes up to 3 times its initial volume at full charge and slowly shrinks upon discharging.

The main disadvantage isn't about bringing an expandable battery cover behind your laptop or tablet, it's because the continuous swelling and shrinking causes immediate break down on the electrical contacts in the anode which destroys the battery entirely. Scientist team Gao Liu and his colleagues at the Berkeley lab have discovered and developed a polymer which overcomes the problem. The new anode can absorb eight times the lithium of current designs and hasn't reported any breakdowns more than a year of tests and many hundreds of charge-cycles. This improved technology allows up to 2100mAh battery capacity per gram even after 650 cycles, impressive. It could probably take up to another 2 years for this new technology to be incorporated in our daily usage.

Source | Further Reading

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Scientists Attempt to Introduce 20 + 1 Amino Acids into Bacteria

For the better tomorrow of mankind. All organisms and life-forms on earth rely on the standard set of amino acid codes, called the Proteinogenic amino acid, made up of 20 specific codons. All amino acids are primarily built from carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen through a process called translation. They then assemble into various shapes and form larger polypeptides which carry out all major biological functions.

Now scientists have successfully integrated several "unnatural" amino acids to a strain of bacteria, a breakthrough on the path of genetically engineered microbes which create useful products for the benefits of human. More details after the break.


"We are adding components to the microbe so that it can do something that a natural one cannot do," Lei Wang at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies told. "We are trying to make it perform new tricks".

So here is Wang's concept - if you can provide more building blocks, then you may be able to generate a new function for the proteins AND if you can create new functions for the proteins, then you may be able to synthesize new compounds using these proteins. All biological lifeforms on Earth relies on the dominant 20 amino acids. Humans can synthesize 11 of these 20 from each other or from other molecules of intermediary metabolism. The remaining 9 has to be obtained from diet. In reality, there are 22 standard amino acids but only 21 are found in eukaryotes. But everything related to major building blocks in any organism is mainly governed by the 20 types of amino acids.

Wang's team created an essentially expanded genetic code for the bacteria - a strain of E. coli, with instructions to use multiple unnatural amino acids in the construction of proteins. This allows the bacteria to synthesize new forms of protein for additional biological functions in the construction of polypeptides. The key is to put one unnatural amino acid at one place in the DNA has been around for about a decade.

However much like our body immune system, this poses a limitation to the utilization of the implemented unnatural amino acid. The bacteria produces another protein called release factor 1 (RF1) which stops the production of any protein containing unnatural amino acids in order to prevent unusual protein builds. To get around this, Wang's team removed the RF1 and altered another protein, named RF2, to keep the bacteria alive in absence of RF1.

"Now we can put unnatural amino acids at multiple places simultaneously and with very, very high efficiency and therefore increasing the chance of generating new protein functions AND therefore new biosynthesis ability from a simple microbe." Wang said.

E. coli plays an important role in modern biological engineering and industrial microbiology. The aim of the entire project is to produce microbes with abilities to carry out biosynthesis of materials that are currently not able to be done on conventional microorganisms. Wang believes that the project could bring advanced improvements to drugs, industrial chemicals and biofuels.

Source

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Apple's Next Media Event for the iPhone 4S or 5 Unveiling - Oct 4

It will be Tuesday, October 4th, 13 days from now. And it will be Tim Cook's stage now.


That would be the day Apple is currently expected to launched its next worldwide media event. Source There has been lots of speculations of the iPhone and currently it is scheduled for unveiling at the next media event. So this is it. Now this event isn't all only about iPhones, it's about the newly (not really, he has a long history in Apple) installed CEO Tim Cook's first product unveiling and this is where his impressions will grow, depending on which end you might tell.

Everyone is looking forward for the event, as always.

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Google+ Invitation

Hello readers! I have just been thrown into the world of circles and granted 150 invitations. Click on the link down below for the invitations!

Click here for the invitation link! It should work as of Google+ instructed me to. Have fun!

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nVidia Tegra, Qualcomm Snapdragon Development Roadmap

These two SoC-making giants have revealed their development roadmap for quite some time now, let's take a look at how these two companies have their future prep-ed up their sleeves.

AND

Jump right into the action after the break!



1. nVidia Tegra Series

Tegra 2 is the current most-used SoC in dual-core smartphones and tablets. The older generation Tegra 2, named Tegra 250 AP20H, is built on 40nm architecture and runs the ARMv7 instruction set. It's a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU coupled with ULP GeForce 300Mhz - comprising 4 pixel shaders and 4 vertex shaders. It lacks ARMs advanced SIMB extension, and is known to have problems decoding high profile 1080p videos. The old chip is used notably in LG Optimus 2x, Motorola Atrix 4G, Droid X2, Photon and Samsung Galaxy Z.

The newer chip, named Tegra 250 T20 has exactly the same specifications, except it has a GPU clocked at a higher 333Mhz. Up to this point, there has not been much improvements over the H.264 high profile decoding, as many have complained. It is expected to see much better improvements in Tegra 3 as it promises 1080p H.264 high profile video decoding. On the other hand, the Tegra series have reported extremely decent performance in terms of hardware accelerated flash rendering, for more information visit here.

Tegra 3 (codenamed Kal-El) is the hottest upcoming SoC for tablets and smartphones. Previews of its performance are jaw-dropping as it boosts a huge 5x performance in both CPU and GPU over its predecessor. It is now built as a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore clocked at 1.5Ghz with 12-core nVidia GPU bringing full support for 3D stereo. It continues to run on ULP GPU mode but now enhanced with advanced SIMB extension, known as NEON instruction. The build architecture is the same at 40nm. There had been some videos of of a Tegra 3 powered tablet displaying 1440p video output at 60fps to a LCD TV, and the maximum resolution goes up to 2560x1600 - much like GeForce standard GPUs. Tegra 3 supported smartphones are expected early 2012 while tablets as soon as October.

Tegra 4 (codenamed Wayne) is yet another 40nm but now boosting a quad/octa-core ARM Cortex A15 MPCore capable of performing up to 2.5Ghz. In fact, ARM has confirmed that the Cortex A15 is 40% faster than the A9 in terms of CPU. However according to ARM (again), A15 cores were meant to be built on 32nm or 28nm process and even down to 20nm. I have currently no information as to why nVidia is building Tegra 4 chips on 40nm but it comes with true GeForce GPU support for DirectX 11+, OpenGL 4.X, OpenCL 1.X and PhysX engine on a astonishingly improved 24 (quad) and 32 to 64 (octa) GPU cores. It's claimed to perform 10 times faster than Tegra 2 and scheduled for release late 2012.

Tegra 5 (codenamed Logan) is the next generation SoC by nVidia finally going down to 28nm process and promises huge GPU improvements. There has been further information except its scheduled reveal in 2013 and is said to be 50 times faster than Tegra 2.

Tegra 6 (codenamed Stark) has even less revealed information, scheduled to be in 2014 and claims 75 times higher performance than Tegra 2.

Tegra Grey series is a specially built SoC with integrated 3G/4G baseband scheduled for release in 2012. This has some similarities with Qualcomm's S4 class SoC.


2. Qualcomm Snapdragon Series

Snapdragon S1 has been the first commercially most-used single-core processor to date, ranging from the oldest QSD8250 bundled Adreno 200. Examples of such utilization were mostly first generation Android phones, such as the Xperia X10 and HTC Desire. The Adreno 200 does not support hardware accelerated Flash. It only has very limited compatibility and API support. Chips of this generation have low tolerances and should not exceed 1.3Ghz with base of 1.0Ghz.

Snapdragon S2 is basically what powers almost all our single-core smartphones out there. It comes bundled with its mate Adreno 205 - now enhanced with hardware accelerated flash for better browsing experience. As compared to Adreno 200, it has programmable function pipeline and streaming textures with API support for OpenGL ES 2.0, 1.1, Open VG 1.1, EGL 1.3, Direct 3D mobile, SVGT 1.2 and DirectDraw. The early generation in S2 is known as the MSM8255 45nm chipset, while later on it offers MSM8255T for devices like the Xperia Arc S and Samsung Galaxy S Plus. Now the interesting thing behind Snapdragon processors is that even with sub-par benchmark results, the Snapdragon performs outstandingly well on behalf of its underlooked specs. It provides a wide chip tolerance and capable of running up to 1.8 - 1.9Ghz overclocked.

Snapdragon S3 is Qualcomm's answer to dual-core processor for Android devices, notably the HTC Sensation and the upcoming Sensation XE, HTC EVO 3D, Puccini as well as the HP TouchPad. Now according to Qualcomm, Adreno 220 which comes bundled with Snapdragon S3 chipsets provide 5 times or more the graphic performance of Adreno 200. It comes with upgraded API support and higher max clock speed.

Snapdragon S4 is the newly announced next generation SoC by Qualcomm up to 2.5Ghz quad-core while offering dual-cores of up to 1.2Ghz. All of these new generation chips are build on 28nm. The Adreno 305 is packaged with the dual-core line-up, however quad-core will be mating with Adreno 320. Qualcomm also claimed 3G/4G integrated support, similar to the Tegra Grey series. So far there has been not much information revealed regarding Adreno 320, but hopefully it poses a challenge with nVidia's Tegra.

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All in all, these are very promising developments in ARM development. However current blunders are that even dual-cores have not been fully utilized and the processing power is rather laid to a waste with current software handling. So hopefully in the near future operating systems like the upcoming Windows 8 and Ice Cream Sandwich would put these powerful beasts to good use.
Let me know what you guys think.

Search tags: nvidia tegra 2 3 4 5 6 grey qualcomm snapdragon s1 s2 s3 s4 soc arm cortex adreno roadmap development cpu gpu core smartphone tablet flash opengl directdraw open vg 

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Induced Minor Shock Will Improve Brain Functions and Cure Stroke

Press release

There has been speculations and research on how induced electricity of low-voltage could possibly improve brain functions. It is somewhat true, due to the brain exhibiting low-voltage by itself from synaptic linkages. Research experts ultimately led to a probable cure for stroke, which, as of now, has no effective cure.

According to the article released, attaching nine-volt battery to electrodes on your scalp can speed up the process of learning how to do sequences of button-presses such as learning to play the piano, found by a study conducted. Full details after the break.


This "electrical stimulation" of the brain is somewhat familiar with what people used to do in torture chambers, except using commercial AC currents. Now this has become a medical study whereby experts aim to improve the brain to perform above-normal conditions by stimulating a particular segment of the brain by passing a low-voltage DC current in the correct orientation. In medical context, the human brain has an incredible number of synapses as for every 10^11 (100,000,000,000) neurons has an average of another 7,000 synaptic connections to other neurons. A child is born with 10^15 synapses (1 quadrillion) and they are not fully linked or appear to all be functional. This is where the DHA in milk you have seen in advertisements come in place. The faster the synapses link, the higher chance you will have a smarter brain when it stabilizes down by adulthood, ranging down to 100 to 500 trillion.

For your information, DHA (Docosahexaenoic acid) is an omega-3 fatty acid that is the primary structural component of the human brain and retina. The actual source of DHA synthesis comes from photosynthetic and heterotrophic microalgae found in sea waters. But since babies cannot really "eat" fish - as they probably can't chew yet, and neither properly digest - it is essential that babies are fed with maternal milk. Mothers' milk contains DHA ranging from proportions of 0.07 to 1.0% of total fatty acids. Mothers in maternity are recommended to consume more fish products - exclude tinned fish, to provide babies with sufficient DHA content for brain development. The time frame between newborns and 24-months old is crucial for brain development as the synapses start to link to each other. However, nowadays mothers chose not to breastfeed, and opt for commercial milk products instead. Ultimately, nothing still beats the nutrition of maternal milk. Research indicates low levels of DHA will result in Alzheimer's disease.

Back on topic. Professor Johansen-Berg at the University of Oxford stated in the press release that "In future, we hope to utilize this, for example, to train sports people faster at tennis or rowing, simply by stimulating the brain." He then added, "We targeted a specific area of the brain that affects motor function, but is possible that similar technology can be used to make children do better at school, which might lead to ethical or moral questions". In short, these technology could easily be abused and misused and do bear in mind that inappropriate or inexpert usage might lead to adverse effects.

The current research aims to bring a whole new level to curing stroke-affected patients with paralyzed motor functions. The stimulation, called Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, or simply TDCS, is targeted at the motor segment of the brain. Stroke-affected patients are generally still intelligent, however due to the severe lack of movement and ability of speech their capability to move and talk might get seriously damaged in the long run. This targeted stimulation aims to recover the synaptic links between neurons and stimulates the release of brain chemicals that strengthen vital connections between brain cells. Brains cells have a life span of 1 life-time, for each cell that dies it will perish forever.

Our brains work just as how computer processors do. Or maybe put it this way - the computer processor is designed as to comply with how our brains work. Studies have proven that the better you get at a certain task, the less demanding it is for your brain to carry out the same function again. Researcher Heidi Johansen-Berg aims to show that brains damaged by stroke can be trained to become better at triggering movements. Professor also said that within 5 to 10 years, home kits could be available however certain precautions has to be taken. For example, the kits has to ensure the current passes in the correct orientation (DC current, remember?) - reversed direction could damage the brain performance overall, rendering it retarded. Studies have also indicated that applying shock to the wrong parts of the brain will severely alter one's brain functionality and result in mental retardation.

In the future we'll probably wear caps fitted with batteries and bring chargers to school. Each class has to fit 40 wall-plugs for rechargable batteries. Parents will start feeding their children with milk on top of the home ki at the same time. However, it is proven that the modern human brain has been shrinking over the past 28,000 years.

Written by XW with references one, two, three and four.

Search tags: electric shock, brain, shock to brain, current to brain, electric brain, applying shock to brain, brain function, dha, transcranial direct current stimulation, tdcs, stroke cure, advanced stroke relief, future human study power, how to improve brain function

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