Naresh.Jois
Home of a professional developer & a aspiring photographer

3D Baseball Cards

I have collected my share of cards in my childhood, but boy this is something else, Each card costs somewhere around $2, and its cool just watch the video.

HTC Touch Diamond 2

I have been using the diamond since few months and this was the best winmo so far, Can’t wait for the updated one, the contact centric system demoed is great.

Missile Defense Agency’s MKV-L

Now how long have have been waiting to see kill bots hovering around and causing destruction (or anything else you wish ) Just watch the video and you are one step closer to that

Look at gOS

gOS is the fast booting linux which can be used as an instant on os. This will be very useful for just browsing and chatting , from the initial looks this really looks good.

Video Object Manipulation

I just saw a cool video of video object manipulation that adobe is dabbling about, things like drawing in a video seems so simple and achiveable for people like us, check out the cool video after the break, as he says at the end, there is no guarantee of when this becomes a commercial product reality, but i certainly have my fingers crossed for this.

Interactive Video Object Manipulation from Dan Goldman on Vimeo.

Researchers create light-based quantum circuit that does math

It looks like quantum computing could now be one step closer to some form of practicality, as a team of researchers from the University of Queensland have announced that they’ve created a light-based quantum circuit that’s capable of performing basic calculations. According to ZDNET Australia, that was done by using a laser to send “entangled” photons through a linear optical circuit, which allowed them to create a circuit consisting of four “qubits,” (or quantum bits, pictured at right), which in turn allowed them to calculate the prime roots of fifteen, three and five. Somewhat interestingly, the university’s research is funded in part by none other than DARPA, which the researchers themselves admit may be due to the technology’s potential for cracking otherwise uncrackable codes.

Amtek intros the iTablet T221 UMPC

For those of you lusting after a UMPC or tablet solution, you may want to pause and take a look at the new Amtek iTablet T221. The stylish, thin slate looks like a dream come true for Gatesian types who are after something a little more natural for their day to day computing. The system features a 12.1-inch XGA display, an active digitizer, resistive touchscreen, a 1.2GHz Intel Core Duo CPU, up to 2GB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g, and a GMA 950 graphics chipset. We don’t know when this baby is due in the States, or what it will be selling for, but we can tell you that the touch response looks quite frisky, and Vista seems to perform well on the tablet. Don’t believe us? Check the video after the break and see for yourself. With a price of about $2,237, you know certianly that we will not be getting one anytime soon.

Can saltwater be burned as fuel?

A gentleman from Erie named John Kanzius made a somewhat “shocking” discovery while he was working on a radio-wave generator he had developed for the treatment of cancer. While attempting to desalinate sea water using radio frequencies, he noticed flashes, and within a few days, had saltwater burning in a test-tube as if it were a candle. The discovery spawned interest from the scientific community, mostly concerned with whether or not the water could be used as a fuel, and of course, healthy doses of disbelief. Last week, a Penn State University chemist named Rustum Roy held a demonstration proving that the science is sound, noting that the water doesn’t burn, though the radio frequencies weaken the bonds holding together the salt, releasing hydrogen which is ignited when exposed to the RF field. Mr. Kanzius and Dr. Roy say the question now is the efficiency of the energy, and are presenting the technology to the US Department of Defense and Department of Energy to investigate how useful the technology will be. Of the plentiful maybe-fuel (which apparently burns so hot it can melt test-tubes) Dr. Roy says, “This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere,” and (without recognition of the poetic irony, as far as we can tell), “Seeing it burn gives me chills.” Check the TV report after the break to see the water in action.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf4gOS8aoFk]

Storing data in molecules: shifting atoms and flipping bits

As electronics continue to shrink, they’re constantly pushing up against the limits of our ability to craft increasingly tiny features. Processors rely on features etched with extremely high-energy light, and disk drives store information in ever-smaller clusters of atoms. As these features shrink, electrical, magnetic, and even quantum interference begin to dominate, and it becomes ever more difficult to maintain and detect signals such as the state of a memory bit. To avoid these issues entirely, scientists have started to explore the possibility of storing information in the chemical structure of single molecules. A team of European researchers reported a new approach to single-molecule storage that may bring these devices closer to stepping out of the lab.

Molecular memory will require chemicals that can switch back and forth between two stable states, much the way clusters of atoms switch magnetic states on the surface of disk drives. It’s relatively easy to find molecules that can behave the same way. So far, however, most of these molecular switches involve structural changes: large parts of the molecule move relative to each other when changing states. This can work well in lab settings, but it isn’t ideal in the real world, where it may not be compatible with a stable and reliable material that’s easy to manufacture. The approach described in the new research relies on a molecule that’s physically flat and changes states by shifting the location of hydrogen atoms without undergoing any structural changes. Even better, the memory states can be changed and read through the same technique used in electronics today: changes in electrical conduction.

The new work is based on a compound called naphthalocyanine, a cross-shaped molecule consisting of a number of interlocking ringed structures. At the center of the cross, four nitrogen atoms face inward; two of those nitrogens, located opposite each other, are bonded to hydrogen atoms. The key fact is that it doesn’t matter which two. There are two equally stable conformations of the molecule, termed tautomers, that differ only in the location of these hydrogen atoms.

The authors layered these molecules on an insulating surface and chilled them to five degrees above absolute zero. They found that a scanning-tunneling microscope could readily detect the axis of the molecule that included the two hydrogens. By manipulating the current tunneling out of the microscope’s tip, however, they were able to induce the hydrogens to swap locations. Because of the interlinked chemical structure of naphthalocyanine, energy pumped anywhere into the rings was able to induce this “tautomerization.” In fact, putting energy into the end of one of the molecule’s arms was the most efficient way of moving the hydrogens to a different location. Overall, the researchers claim that they can accurately set the state of these molecular bits 90 percent of the time.

The team was not content to stop at a single molecular bit, however. They used the tip of the tunneling microscope to push several naphthalocyanine molecules close enough that the electrons in their ringed structures formed linked orbitals. Depending on where current is injected in the rings, different members of the structure can be selectively switched. They suggest that similar arrangements might also either allow the coordinated switching of a number of atomic bits, or enable the state of one bit to influence the response of its neighbors.

Clearly, this approach is not ready for use on the desktop. It operates just a shade above absolute zero, requires a scanning-tunneling microscope, and only sets bits with 90 percent accuracy. Still, as the authors suggest, the basic approach—one where the molecule holding the bit remains largely unperturbed by changes in its value—is far more likely to produce usable technology than many of the approaches that have been described previously.