‘Apple plans to make screen a fingerprint sensor’

Apple's new TouchID fingerprint sensor is one of the key features of the new iPhone 5S, but its functionality is limited to unlocking the device and authenticating app purchases. However, it looks like Apple is planning to further build this biometric technology and may make the whole touchscreen a fingerprint sensor. 

As per a patent application filed with the World International Property Organization, Apple wants to patent a technology that enables it to use the Home button as a trackpad (similar to the one seen in BlackBerry Curve phones). This technology also transforms the touchscreen into a fingerprint scanner. 

Apple's technology will allow users to navigate the menu and apps using just the Home button. This patent filing has led to speculation that the trackpad technology would debut with a large-screen iPhone. Apple is said to be currently working on iPhones with 4.8-inch and 6-inch screens. 

With this technology, users will be able to move to the right or left directions by "twisting" or "revolving" their thumbs on the Home button. An upwards swipe on the Home button would open the multitasking menu. The patent filing also shows that it can be used as a joystick while playing games. 

Though the technology has provision for making the whole touchscreen into a fingerprint sensor, the patent filing says that only a select portion of the display will be used as a scanner. For example, apps like Mail and Banking, which require more security, will scan the fingerprint to confirm the identity of the device's owner. 

The technology will also allow users to create shortcuts via on-screen gestures. Thus, they will be able to launch and return to commonly used apps like Mail and Camera from any app they are using with specific gestures. The patent filing also shows that touch-typing will be improved in upcoming Apple gadgets as the technology will recognize users' typing patterns on the screen. 

Google funded-project to teach PCs 'common sense'

Researchers are trying to plant a digital seed for artificial intelligence by letting a massive computer system browse millions of pictures and decide for itself what they all mean.

The system at Carnegie Mellon University is called NEIL, short for Never Ending Image Learning. In mid-July, it began searching the internet for images 24/7 and, in tiny steps, is deciding for itself how those images relate to each other. The goal is to recreate what we call common sense - the ability to learn things without being specifically taught.

It's a new approach in the quest to solve computing's Holy Grail: getting a machine to think on its own using a form of common sense. The project is being funded by Google and the Department of Defense's Office of Naval Research.

"Any intelligent being needs to have common sense to make decisions," said Abhinav Gupta, a professor in the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute.

NEIL uses advances in computer vision to analyze and identify the shapes and colors in pictures, but it is also slowly discovering connections between objects on its own. For example, the computers have figured out that zebras tend to be found in savannahs and that tigers look somewhat like zebras.

In just over four months, the network of 200 processors has identified 1,500 objects and 1,200 scenes and has connected the dots to make 2,500 associations.

Some of NEIL's computer-generated associations are wrong, such as "rhino can be a kind of antelope," while some are odd, such as "actor can be found in jail cell" or "news anchor can look similar to Barack Obama."

But Gupta said having a computer make its own associations is an entirely different type of challenge than programing a supercomputer to do one thing very well, or fast. For example, in 1985, Carnegie Mellon researchers programed a computer to play chess; 12 years later, a computer beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a match.

Catherine Havasi, an artificial intelligence expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said humans constantly make decisions using "this huge body of unspoken assumptions," while computers don't. She said humans can also quickly respond to some questions that would take a computer longer to figure out.

"Could a giraffe fit in your car?" she asked. "We'd have an answer, even though we haven't thought about it" in the sense of calculating the giraffe's body mass.

Robert Sloan, an expert on artificial intelligence and head of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois, Chicago, said the NEIL approach could yield interesting results because just using language to teach a computer "has all sorts of problems unto itself."

"What I would be especially impressed by is if they can consistently say `zebra, zebra, zebra' if they see the animal in different locations," Sloan said of the computers.

Gupta is pleased with the initial progress. In the future, NEIL will analyze vast numbers of YouTube videos to look for connections between objects.

"When we started the project, we would not sure it would work," he said. "This is just the start."

Neither Mountain View, California-based Google nor the Office of Naval Research responded to questions about why they're funding NEIL, but there are some hints. The Naval Research website notes that "today's battlespace environment is much more complex than in the past" and that "the rate at which data is arriving into the decision-making system is growing, while the number of humans available to convert the data to actionable intelligence is decreasing."

In other words, computers may make some of the decisions in future wars. The Navy's website notes: "In many operational scenarios, the human presence is not an option."

NEIL's motto is "I Crawl, I See, I Learn," and the researchers hope to keep NEIL running forever. That means the computer might get a lot smarter.

Cardinal sins of emailing revealed

With an estimation of people spending nearly a third of their time at work keeping up with their emails, there are reportedly 10 cardinal sins which are crucial to email etiquettes. 

To keep sanity in place, one must not be so reliant on the technology's lofty speed so as to forget that after sending a mail there would be an instantaneous reply, and if the waiting period is driving one impatient, a polite follow-up is always better. 

According to Huffington Post, one of the long list of annoying emailing habits include sending emails to employees on the weekend, which nearly two-thirds of workers admit receiving. 

Another crucial aspect of emailing is appropriate attention to the subject line, as leaving it blank or filling it merely for the sake of it with random phrases like 'Happy Monday' would determine the importance of the content and prompt the receiver hit the read or trash button accordingly. 

Expecting people to reply soon and reminding them in person of having sent the email is equally annoying and saying that one has received it but not looked at it is as meaningless as the verbal reminder. 

The report said that complete reliance on emails and not using any alternative form of communication is another awful habit which one should keep in check else complain about an overflowing inbox.

How to create new themes for your Android phone

Your Android phone can look just like a Scrabble board. The OS is endlessly customizable, down to the last pixel. 

But creating the most striking and novel Android interface is a baffling chore. Take a look at the many 'how to tutorials' on YouTube, where Android theme designers — or themers , as they are known — offer step-by-step instructions so you can replicate their handiwork. 

A new app, Themer, hopes to bring Android customization to the masses. Users download Themer, which is free, and immediately have a library of smartphone themes, any of which can be installed with a single click of a button. 

Hit "apply", and your phone could, for instance, have the 'In A Row' theme, which is a column of white lettering against a black background, with fonts in the style of a hip restaurant menu. 

There is a 'Grand Theft Auto' theme, a 'Game of Thrones' theme, and even one that uncannily recreates the look of iOS 7, in case for some reason, you want the iPhone look on your Android device. 

To anyone who's ever tried the long-way route to installing such labour-intensive designs, Themer feels like a magic trick.

New artificial intelligence can do everything on your PC

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 even read out long passages on a screen, 'The Mirror' reported. 

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

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."

Website that tells if your house is haunted

A US-based website reportedly claims to provide answers if there might be spirits in someone's house. 

The site called DiedInHouse.com intends to help people in their quest to discover if someone once ceased existing within their home's walls. 

According to Cnet, the site claims to search all 50 states for evidence of expiration and assures users of a 'certified report' for a single search that costs 11.99 dollars. 

However, the site has a disclaimer which states that the materials appearing the website or owned application could include technical, typographical, or photographic errors and does not warrant if any of the materials are accurate, complete or current. 

It further claims that it does not guarantee to have all deaths that have occurred in or at a specific address; it is an informational use only type of service. 

The site apparently appears to be a way of relieving people's fears about the strange noises they believe comes from the second bedroom.

Now, software that helps blind do yoga

Eye Free Yoga

A team of computer scientists have developed a software program that watches a user's movements and gives spoken feedback on what to change to accurately complete a yoga pose. 

The program, called Eyes-Free Yoga, uses Microsoft Kinect software to track body movements and offer auditory feedback in real time for six yoga poses, including Warrior I and II, Tree and Chair poses. 

Project lead Kyle Rector, a UW doctoral student in computer science and engineering wrote programming code that instructs the Kinect to read a user's body angles, then gives verbal feedback on how to adjust his or her arms, legs, neck or back to complete the pose. 

The result is an accessible yoga "exergame" - a video game used for exercise - that allows people without sight to interact verbally with a simulated yoga instructor. 

Rector and collaborators Julie Kientz, a University of Washington assistant professor in Human Centered Design and Engineering, and Cynthia Bennett, a research assistant in computer science and engineering, believe this can transform a typically visual activity into something that blind people can also enjoy. 

Each of the six poses has about 30 different commands for improvement based on a dozen rules deemed essential for each yoga position. Rector worked with a number of yoga instructors to put together the criteria for reaching the correct alignment in each pose. 

The Kinect first checks a person's core and suggests alignment changes, then moves to the head and neck area, and finally the arms and legs. It also gives positive feedback when a person is holding a pose correctly. 

The technology uses simple geometry and the law of cosines to calculate angles created during yoga.

10 new features of Android KitKat

Android KitKat 4.4

The launch of Android 4.4 is just around the corner, with rumours hinting at October 31 launch for the next version of Google OS. But you don’t have to wait that long to know what new features Google is bringing in the next version of its new mobile OS name KitKat. 

SMS integration in Hangouts

One of the biggest changes in Android KitKat will be the integration of SMS and MMS into Google Hangouts app, which recently replaced Google Talk. The new app update will indicate whether any particular message has been sent as a SMS, MMS or instant message (online chat).


Notification and Navigation Bars

The Notification Bar, which have remained solid black in colour till now, will be transparent and icons like battery, signal strength etc will be white in Android 4.4. Same is the case with Navigation Bar, where the Home, Back and App Switcher software keys are located.


Always listening

The report says that Google Now will have the 'always-on' functionality of Moto X in Android 4.4 and may accept commands in several languages, not just English.


Camera icon on lock screen

With Android 4.2, Google made it possible for users to access the Camera app from the locked screen by swiping to the right. While that option remains in Android 4.4, the new OS also features a Camera icon on the lower right corner for easy access, similar to iOS 7.


Design tweaks

The updated operating system will also bring a flatter look to the icons of apps like YouTube, Settings, Google Settings, Google and Voice Search and Settings. There are also a few tweaks to the font and designs in Downloads, Timer, Stopwatch and Clock apps.


QuickOffice integration

Android KitKat is expected to come preloaded with QuickOffice, the productivity app that Google purchased recently. The company has already made it free for Android and iOS platforms.


Smoother UI

It also states that Android 4.4 is much lighter and faster than Android 4.3 and older versions. This is in line with rumours that the next version of Google’s mobile OS will be optimized for low-end phones.


Quick-start apps halved in number

The quick-start applications have been limited to just two in Android KitKat; previously, users could add up to four apps of their choice or create folders for more apps to access commonly used apps from any Home Screen.


Menu wallpaper

In the app menu, the background -- which used to be black in colour in previous Android version -- now has the look of the Home Screen wallpaper.


Cloud Printing

In Android 4.4, users will be able to send print commands over the web via Cloud Print, a service that was launched in June this year. It will allow them to send commands to print documents from their tablets, smartphones and laptops to connected printers.

Touch ID: Apple brings biometrics into mainstream

By adding a fingerprint scanner to its newest mobile phone, Apple is offering a tantalizing glimpse of a future where your favorite gadget might become a biometric pass to the workplace, mobile commerce or real-world shopping and events.

Although Apple's executives said at Tuesday's launch that its Touch ID technology embedded into the iPhone 5S' home button would only provide fingerprint access to the phone and its own online stores, analysts said Apple's embrace of such technology, called biometrics, would be key to wider adoption.

"It really propels biometrics into the mainstream," said specialist Alan Goode, the UK-based managing director of research consultancy Goode Intelligence.

Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior vice president of design, hinted of its future in a video presentation at the launch.

"Touch ID defines the next step of how you use your iPhone," he said, "making something as important as security so effortless and so simple."

Passwords and personal identification numbers (PINs) have long been the mainstay of access to devices, bank accounts and online services, despite their poor record. Many passwords can easily be guessed, while others can be hacked by brute-force attacks - essentially a computer program running through all possible permutations.

They also involve one too many steps for lots of users: Apple said that half of smartphone users don't bother to password-protect their devices.

Hence the appeal of biometrics, which take something unique to the individual - a fingerprint, an iris, voice or facial features - as authentication.

Comfort for commerce
Apple's move may not have an immediate impact beyond improving the way users unlock their devices and interact with Apple services like iTunes and its App Store.

But that is itself a significant step. Apple has more than 500 million iTunes accounts. Anything that increases security and removes steps in the payment process is bound to boost online purchases.

It will also raise the comfort levels of companies supplying the content to a mobile commerce sector expected to reach $40 billion next year in the United States alone, according to Euromonitor estimates.

Users afraid of using their mobile device to make purchases online or in the real world because they fear it will be stolen or their password seen may feel liberated using a fingerprint, said Michael Chasen, CEO of SocialRadar, which is building location-based mobile applications for social networking.

For mobile commerce, he said, that could "be the missing piece".

Beyond the web, Apple could combine the Touch ID with its existing "Passbook" app that stores coupons, tickets to events and boarding passes on an iPhone and allow event organizers and airline companies to validate those documents, said Sebastien Taveau, chief technology officer at California-based Validity Sensors, which makes sensors for other manufacturers.

"Apple wants to make deals with music and entertainment companies with very strong opinions on digital rights management," Taveau said. The fingerprint scanner, when used in transactions with these companies, could "reassure all these industries".

Biometric security should also appeal to enterprises nervous about allowing the personal devices of employees on the office network, analysts and industry insiders said.

"If this has been implemented right, every enterprise that enforces a password or PIN lock on the device will begin using the fingerprint sensor instead," said Song Chuang, Singapore-based research director at Gartner.

Apple is not the first to try to make biometrics work for the consumer.

Fingerprint scanners have already found their way into laptops, external hard-drives and electronic wallets. Companies like Motorola Mobility Holdings, Fujitsu and Pantech have incorporated fingerprint scanners into their mobile phones.

But none has really taken off.

Partly, that's because of cost and partly because there's been little in the way of an ecosystem to build support for the products.

"Biometrics have been historically viewed as a more expensive 'nice to have' component, rather than a 'must have'," said Bill Morelli, an analyst at IHS.

Also, fingerprint scanners have tended to make things harder rather than easier for users.

Chuang at Gartner said it could take users up to six swipes for a sensor to 'learn' a user's fingerprint. "This is not a great user experience," he said.

All things, say some, that Apple was put on this earth to fix. Ben Thompson, a Taipei-based industry observer who writes a blog at stratechery.com, said Apple was focusing on the apparently trivial problem of entering a password - but one that irked users dozens of times a day.

"It's classic Apple to expend tremendous energy on simplifying a small irritation, even if it's not a classic feature list item."

Badly kept secret boosts industry
The badly kept secret of Apple's biometric plans had already given the industry a boost long before Tuesday. The company has been filing patents on biometric security since at least 2009.

"Apple has been working on it for more than two years and they have extremely competent engineers," said Validity's Taveau.

Apple reached out two to three years ago to Microlatch, an Australian company, to license and test its peripheral fingerprint sensors. Apple asked it to build a Bluetooth connection to the phone and accompanying software, Microlatch managing director and founder Chris Burke said, so Apple could gauge user reactions and habits, particularly in e-commerce strongholds like China.

"In their roadmap it was clear there would be fingerprint scans, so they'd plot their course, rather than just trying something," Burke said in a phone interview.

Last year Apple also paid about $350 million for AuthenTec, a key player in fingerprint sensors and until its purchase a supplier to Samsung Electronics, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo Group and Fujitsu.

Apple's moves have reawakened interest in the space.

Swedish biometric component maker Fingerprint Cards AB, for example, has seen its share price rise 1,400 percent in the past year. The company predicts the industry will ship up to 100 million consumer electronic devices embedded with fingerprint scanners this year, rising to more than 1 billion in 2015 as biometrics finds its way into TV remotes, gaming consoles and cameras.

Downside of nice, not necessary
There are downsides to fingerprint technology. It is not as accurate as companies touting its benefits make it sound, and PINs and passwords can be reset or changed if someone steals them.

"Fingerprint recognition is not perfect," said Geppy Parziale, biometrics expert and CEO of Invasivecode, a firm that develops applications for Apple's mobile devices. Then there's the problem of the fingerprints themselves: acquiring a large enough set of them to test the accuracy of such devices is complicated by privacy and legal issues, Parziale said.

But if anyone can bring this technology into the mainstream, experts say, it's Apple. It has, for example, embedded the scanner into the iPhone's home button, while other mobile devices usually have it on the back, making it awkward for the user and increasing the number of failed attempts.

Samsung and fellow South Korean electronics manufacturer LG Electronics have had problems incorporating the technology into finished products.

LG's head of domestic marketing, Ma Chang-Min, last month said the company had abandoned efforts to include a fingerprint sensor to the back cover of its flagship G2 smartphone "as we need more work to improve reliability and usability".

That gives Apple a headstart. It can also build the sensing and security deep into its operating system and the A7 mobile chip which Apple itself designed, putting it ahead of rivals such like Google, which develops the Android mobile OS and licenses it to manufacturers like Samsung, said Taipei-based KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

But its edge may not last.

Microsoft, for one, is building fingerprint recognition into the latest update of its Windows operating system and, said Taveau of Validity Sensors, "it is fair to assume that the Android community won't be long to react".

How to protect yourself from apps that make Wi-Fi hacking simple

Using public or open Wi-Fi networks without taking your security into consideration is a bad idea. You don't even have to crack the network's passwords to grab tons of data from unsuspecting users on the network-We've shown you how to do it, and how to stop it from happening to you. Now, dSploit, a security toolkit for Android, makes that process so simple anyone can do it. Here's how it works, and how to protect yourself.

What is dSploit?
dSploit is actually a suite of security tools bundled together in one application. It runs on rooted Android (2.3+) devices, its code is freely available at GitHub, and it's actually a great utility if you're a security professional or otherwise enjoy the ins and outs of network security, hacking, and penetration testing. We want to be clear that we're not villainizing the tool here; unlike apps like Firesheep, Faceniff, and Droidsheep, dSploit isn't made for the sole purpose of cracking networks or hijacking user sessions. It can certainly sniff out passwords transmitted in plain text on an open network, and it can crack poorly secured Wi-Fi networks. It can also scan networks for vulnerabilities, crack keys on common routers, and of course, hijack browser, website, or social network sessions and hold on to them. You can see a full list of the tool's features here.

For a security professional, an amateur looking for an affordable way to learn more about network security (or who's been tasked by their office to secure their Wi-Fi but can't afford professional pen-testers), or someone looking to protect their own network, dSploit can be a valuable resource. It can also be a valuable resource for people looking to steal your data. That's why we're going to talk about how it works and how you can protect your passwords and private data from anyone else using it.

How dSploit (and other apps like it) work
dSploit makes it easy to do two things: Sniff out passwords being sent unencrypted, and hijack active browser sessions so you can masquerade as someone who's already logged in to a site or service. In both cases, they're really one-touch operations once you have the app installed. The former is easy to do. If someone is visiting a site, or logging in to a service without using HTTPS or SSL, your password is likely being sent in clear text. Anyone sniffing packets on a network can capture them without having to do any real kind of packet inspection, and once they have it, they'll try it on as many sites and services as possible to see if you use it for other accounts. The video above, from OpenSourceGangster, explains how the app works in detail, and how to use it.

The latter is a bit more intricate. If you're not familiar with session hijacking, it's the process of capturing cookies to exploit a valid active session that another user has with a secured service in order to impersonate that other user. Since no sensitive data like a login or password is transmitted in the cookie, they're usually sent in the clear, and in most cases they're used by web sites and social networks as a way of identifying a user with a current session so the site doesn't forget who you are every time you reload. This is the most common attack vector for apps that sniff out passwords and sessions via Wi-Fi. We showed you how this works when Disconnect, one of our favorite privacy protecting browser extensions, added protection against widget jacking and session hijacking, if you want to see an example.

dSploit approaches session hijacking in a similar manner to the other tools we've mentioned, mostly because it works well. The folks over at MakeUseOf explain how the app works in further detail, including some of the things you can do with it. Many web sites just encrypt your username and password, and once that handoff is made, everything else is unencrypted. While many sites have moved to HTTPS (and there are tools to help that we'll get to a little later), most require you to activate their HTTPS features. Many other sites haven't bothered moving to HTTPS universally at all.

What's the real risk here?
The real risk from tools like this varies. The odds of you encountering someone in your local coffee shop running dSploit, Firesheep, or any other app like them to capture passwords and hijack sessions is pretty slim, but as we've mentioned, it only takes one person to ruin your day.

Someone could just capture as many Facebook or Twitter sessions as they can (after which they can change a user's password and keep the Facebook account for themselves), hijack Amazon shopping sessions and grab address and credit card information, read your email and chats, and so on. The risk goes up with more and more tools available that are easy for anyone to use, and with the number of people out there who simply don't protect themselves by encrypting their data.

How can I protect myself?
Protecting yourself from these tools like it is actually remarkably easy if you put in the effort to actually do it:

* Turn on HTTPS on every site that allows you to connect with it, and install HTTPS Everywhere. This will make sure you're using HTTPS at all times, whenever possible, and none of your web browsing traffic is sent unencrypted.

* Get a privacy-protecting browser extension like Disconnect, which also protects against widget jacking or side-jacking. Disconnect is our favorite, but it shouldn't be the only tool in your toolkit.

* Use a VPN when browsing on public, free, or other open networks. We've explained why you should have a VPN before. We've even explained how to tell if a VPN is trustworthy. Using a VPN is the best way to make sure all of your data is encrypted and safe from anyone else on the same network, whether it's wired or wireless, public or private.

* Use your head, and practice good internet hygiene. Hone your phishing and scam detection skills, turn your BS detecter up to max, and learn how to protect yourself from online fraud. Someone doesn't have to hijack your session or passwords to get to you-they could just as easily replace the website you're on with one that looks like it but insists you give it a ton of data first. Be smart.

* It doesn't take much to use HTTPS everywhere you can, fire up a VPN if you're going to be working from the library, or just not to use public Wi-Fi and wait until you get home or tether to your phone instead (that's always another option). However, if everyone did it, unscrupulous use of tools like these wouldn't' be an issue and only the people who needed them would use them. However, as long as they're so effective, it makes sense for you to take the necessary steps to protect yourself.

e-ball Computer Technology

A new concept of pc is coming now that is E-Ball Concept pc. The E-Ball concept pc is a sphere shaped computer which is the smallest design among all the laptops and desktops. This computer has all the feature like a traditional computer, elements like keyboard or mouse., dvd, large screen display. E Ball is designed that pc is be placed on two stands, opens by pressing and holding the two buttons located on each side of the E-Ball pc , this pc is the latest concept technology. The E-Ball is a sphere shaped computer concept which is the smallest design among all the laptops and desktops have ever made. This PC concept features all the traditional elements like mouse, keyboard, large screen display, DVD recorder, etc, all in an innovative manner. E-Ball is designed to be placed on two stands, opens by simultaneously pressing and holding the two buttons located on each side. After opening the stand and turning ON the PC, pressing the detaching mouse button will allow you to detach the optical mouse from the PC body. This concept features a laser keyboard that can be activated by pressing the particular button. E-Ball is very small, it is having only 6 inch diameter sphere. It is having 120×120mm motherboard.
E Ball concept pc don't have any external display unit,it has a button when you press this button a projector will pop and it focus the computer screen on the wall which can be adjusted with navigation keys. If there is no wall then it has a paper sheet holder that divides into three pieces like an umbrella just after popping up,and it will show desktop on the paper sheet. Also, the E-Ball PC supports a paper holder and the paper sheet on the holder could act like a screen where you can watch movies or something. This concept PC will measure 160mm in diameter and it was designed for Microsoft Windows OS, sorry about the others. For the moment there is no word on pricing or when it’s going to be available, however, I am sure that everybody would like to see a small spherical PC like this one

Elements of E-Ball

Aren’t you tired of your PC? By his ugly shape and the way that it looks? Well, this is exactly what designer Apostol Tnokovski was feeling when he decided to create the smallest PC ever made. It’s not going to be like a PDA, it’s going to be a PC with all conventional components (mouse, keyboard, normal screen). The concept PC is called E-Ball and it’s shaped like a sphere because in Tnokovski’s opinion this is the best shape in nature and it draws everybody’s attention.E-Ball will feature a dual core processor, 250-500GB HDD, 2GB of RAM, integrated graphic card and sound card, 2 x 50W speakers, HD-DVD recorder, wireless optical mouse and laser keyboard, LAN and WLAN card, modem, Web cam and integrated LCD projector.

It contains wireless optical mouse and laser keyboard, and LCD projector.It has around 350-600GB of Hard Disk Drive.It contains 5GB RAM. It has two 50W speakers. It has LAN and WLAN card and a Web cam. When you want to carry it around you can easily “pack it” into a ball. This is a futuristic concept, and this, I think, is how the future computers will look like. This device has an optical keyboard and an holographic display. So you don’t have a physical keyboard and no monitor! Still, the mouse is physical but it fits in to the computer when you want to carry it around. The bad thing about using a virtual keyboard is that you need a smooth surface, otherwise I don’t know how will you be able to use it. It is strange enough to call this device a computer, because it is so small, but as far as I know it doesn’t lack any hardware part and tends to be a future machine found in any house or office. I don’t know exactly how this computer will be powered but I think it will have a powerful battery so you will have a great stand by time.

Working of E-Ball :

E Ball concept pc don't have any external display unit,it has a button when you press this button a projector will pop and it focus the computer screen on the wall which can be adjusted with navigation keys. If there is no wall then it has a paper sheet holder that divides into three pieces like an umbrella just after popping up,and it will show desktop on the paper sheet. Also, the E-Ball PC supports a paper holder and the paper sheet on the holder could act like a screen where you can watch movies or something. This concept PC will measure 160mm in diameter and it was designed for Microsoft Windows OS, sorry about the others. For the moment there is no word on pricing or when it’s going to be available, however, I am sure that everybody would like to see a small spherical PC like this one.

E-Ball concept pc has a laser keyboard that is fully a concept keyboard that is visible when the pc is in working. The keyboard is not physical - it is interpreted by lasers that appear after you press the respective button. It recognizes your fingers with the help of an IR sensor when you are typing at a particular place, while the mouse is a pop out wonder making this an exiting piece of technology.

The software interface of E-Ball concept pc is highly stylized with icons that can be remembered easily that support all type of windows operating system. E-Ball concept pc work very easy while you are making video presentations, listening music watching large screen movies, and chatting on the net.

As years passes, the computer size is becoming smaller. This ball is known as E-Ball and its design is given by Apostol Tnokovski. He was trying to create the smallest PC in the world when he came across this idea.It is shaped like a sphere because in Tnokovski’s opinion this is the best shape in nature and it draws everybody’s attention. you'll see the pop-out laser mouse, a pico projector inside that illuminates either the wall or a sheet of paper for a screen, and that laser keyboard that would almost certainly be a clumsy input device. Fix that, and find a motherboard that’ll fit inside this palm-sized baby, and Apostol might be onto something here.E-Ball will feature a dual core processor, 250-500GB HDD, 2GB of RAM, integrated graphic card and sound card, 2 x 50W speakers, HD-DVD recorder, wireless optical mouse and laser keyboard, LAN and WLAN card, modem, Web cam and integrated LCD projector.

Soon, PC chip that mimics human brain

WASHINGTON: Scientists, including one of Indian origin, are developing a computer chip that mimics the human brain. Today's computing chips are incredibly complex and contain billions of nano-scale transistors, allowing for fast, high-performance computers, pocket-sized smartphones that far outpace early desktop computers, and an explosion in handheld tablets, the researchers said.

Despite their ability to perform thousands of tasks in the blink of an eye, none of these devices even come close to rivalling the computing capabilities of the human brain. But a Boise State University research team could soon change that.

Electrical and computer engineering faculty Elisa Barney Smith, Kris Campbell and Vishal Saxena have taken on the challenge of developing a new kind of computing architecture that works more like a brain than a traditional digital computer.

"By mimicking the brain's billions of interconnections and pattern recognition capabilities, we may ultimately introduce a new paradigm in speed and power, and potentially enable systems that include the ability to learn, adapt and respond to their environment," said Barney Smith, principal investigator of the study.

The project's success rests on a memristor - a resistor that can be programmed to a new resistance by application of electrical pulses and remembers its new resistance value once the power is removed.

Memristors were first hypothesised to exist in 1972 (in conjunction with resistors, capacitors and inductors) but were fully realised as nano-scale devices only in the last decade.

The team's research builds on recent work from scientists who have derived mathematical algorithms to explain the electrical interaction between brain synapses and neurons.

"By employing these models in combination with a new device technology that exhibits similar electrical response to the neural synapses, we will design entirely new computing chips that mimic how the brain processes information," said Barney Smith.

These new chips will consume power at an order of magnitude lower than current computing processors, despite the fact that they match existing chips in physical dimensions.

This will open the door for ultra low-power electronics intended for applications with scarce energy resources, such as in space, environmental sensors or biomedical implants.

LI-FI Technology: Amazing extension to the WI-FI

Whether you’re using wireless internet in a coffee shop, stealing it from the guy next door, or competing for bandwidth at a conference, you’ve probably gotten frustrated at the slow speeds you face when more than one device is tapped into the network. As more and more people and their many devices access wireless internet, clogged airwaves are going to make it increasingly difficult to latch onto a reliable signal. But radio waves are just one part of the spectrum that can carry our data. What if we could use other waves to surf the internet? One German physicist,DR. Harald Haas, has come up with a solution he calls “Data Through Illumination”—taking the fiber out of fiber optics by sending data through an LED light bulb that varies in intensity faster than the human eye can follow. It’s the same idea behind infrared remote controls, but far more powerful. Haas says his invention, which he calls D-Light, can produce data rates faster than 10 megabits per second, which is speedier than your average broadband connection. He envisions a future where data for laptops, smartphones, and tablets is transmitted through the light in a room. And security would be a snap—if you can’t see the light, you can’t access the data.

 Li-Fi is a VLC, visible light communication, technology developed by a team of scientists including Dr Gordon Povey, Prof. Harald Haas and Dr Mostafa Afgani at the University of Edinburgh. The term Li-Fi was coined by Prof. Haas when he amazed people by streaming high-definition video from a standard LED lamp, at TED Global in July 2011. Li-Fi is now part of the Visible Light Communications (VLC) PAN IEEE 802.15.7 standard. “Li-Fi is typically implemented using white LED light bulbs. These devices are normally used for illumination by applying a constant current through the LED. However, by fast and subtle variations of the current, the optical output can be made to vary at extremely high speeds. Unseen by the human eye, this variation is used to carry high-speed data,” says Dr Povey, , Product Manager of the University of Edinburgh's Li-Fi Program ‘D-Light Project’. 
 

Introduction of Li-Fi Technology

In simple terms, Li-Fi can be thought of as a light-based Wi-Fi. That is, it uses light instead of radio waves to transmit information. And instead of Wi-Fi modems, Li-Fi would use transceiver-fitted LED lamps that can light a room as well as transmit and receive information. Since simple light bulbs are used, there can technically be any number of access points.
This technology uses a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is still not greatly utilized- The Visible Spectrum. Light is in fact very much part of our lives for millions and millions of years and does not have any major ill effect. Moreover there is 10,000 times more space available in this spectrum and just counting on the bulbs in use, it also multiplies to 10,000 times more availability as an infrastructure, globally.

It is possible to encode data in the light by varying the rate at which the LEDs flicker on and off to give different strings of 1s and 0s. The LED intensity is modulated so rapidly that human eyes cannot notice, so the output appears constant.
More sophisticated techniques could dramatically increase VLC data rates. Teams at the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh are focusing on parallel data transmission using arrays of LEDs, where each LED transmits a different data stream. Other groups are using mixtures of red, green and blue LEDs to alter the light's frequency, with each frequency encoding a different data channel.

Li-Fi, as it has been dubbed, has already achieved blisteringly high speeds in the lab. Researchers at the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany, have reached data rates of over 500 megabytes per second using a standard white-light LED. Haas has set up a spin-off firm to sell a consumer VLC transmitter that is due for launch next year. It is capable of transmitting data at 100 MB/s - faster than most UK broadband connections.

 

Genesis of LI-FI:

Harald Haas, a professor at the University of Edinburgh who began his research in the field in 2004, gave a debut demonstration of what he called a Li-Fi prototype at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh on 12th July 2011. He used a table lamp with an LED bulb to transmit a video of blooming flowers that was then projected onto a screen behind him. During the event he periodically blocked the light from lamp to prove that the lamp was indeed the source of incoming data. At TEDGlobal, Haas demonstrated a data rate of transmission of around 10Mbps -- comparable to a fairly good UK broadband connection. Two months later he achieved 123Mbps.

How Li-Fi Works?

Li-Fi is typically implemented using white LED light bulbs at the downlink transmitter. These devices are normally used for illumination only by applying a constant current. However, by fast and subtle variations of the current, the optical output can be made to vary at extremely high speeds. This very property of optical current is used in Li-Fi setup. The operational procedure is very simple-, if the LED is on, you transmit a digital 1, if it’s off you transmit a 0. The LEDs can be switched on and off very quickly, which gives nice opportunities for transmitting data. Hence all that is required is some LEDs and a controller that code data into those LEDs. All one has to do is to vary the rate at which the LED’s flicker depending upon the data we want to encode. Further enhancements can be made in this method, like using an array of LEDs for parallel data transmission, or using mixtures of red, green and blue LEDs to alter the light’s frequency with each frequency encoding a different data channel. Such advancements promise a theoretical speed of 10 Gbps – meaning one can download a full high-definition film in just 30 seconds. 

TTo further get a grasp of Li-Fi consider an IR remote.(fig 3.3). It sends a single data stream of bits at the rate of 10,000-20,000 bps. Now replace the IR LED with a Light Box containing a large LED array. This system, fig 3.4, is capable of sending thousands of such streams at very fast rate.

 

Light is inherently safe and can be used in places where radio frequency communication is often deemed problematic, such as in aircraft cabins or hospitals. So visible light communication not only has the potential to solve the problem of lack of spectrum space, but can also enable novel application. The visible light spectrum is unused, it's not regulated, and can be used for communication at very high speeds.