TV Band for Wireless Use Could be Opened with Google’s Plan

Google announced a plan that may allow wireless Internet devices to use vacant television airwaves without incommoding the current equipment.

Google offered suggestions on how the airwaves, known as white spaces, could provide an avenue for high-speed mobile access to consumers without interfering with wireless microphones and televisions. This was explained in Google’s letter to the Federal Communications Commision.

Google, like Microsoft, is part of the group that wants FCC to initiate the unlocking of the airwaves for unlicensed use after the conversion by broadcasters to digital signal in 2009. The proposal of Google could help ensure that late next year consumers anywhere would be able to use wireless devices on vacant airwaves.

Richard S. Whitt, the company’s lawyer,said in a conference call that
“Google is a strong believer in the potential of this spectrum to bring Internet access to more Americans,The spectrum is way too valuable to be wasted.”

20 things that you didn’t know about windows XP

You’ve read the reviews and digested the key feature enhancements and operational changes. Now it’s time to delve a bit deeper and uncover some of Windows XP’s secrets.

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type ’systeminfo’. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type ’systeminfo > info.txt’. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).

Do You Want Bionic Eyes?

Engineers at the University of Washington (www.washington.edu) are developing contact lenses imprinted with electronic circuits and lights. These contact lenses will allow the wearer to see generated images superimposed over the outside world. There are many possible uses that are cited for this like navigation information for drivers or pilots, virtual reality for video games, and watching porn while you go about your daily business. According to one of the researchers, Babak Parviz, “People may find all sorts of applications for it that we have not thought about.Our goal is to demonstrate the basic technology and make sure it works and that it’s safe.” Wow, it is like having bionic eyes! A prototype of the lens has been introduced in January at the IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro- Mechanical Systems. Though the the prototype’s display does not light yet, it has an electrical circuit plus some red LEDs. It has been tested on rabbits for about 20 minutes and no ill effects has been reported to have occured. Fully operational versions are not expected to obstruct the wearers’ vision, either, as “there is a large area outside of the transparent part of the eye that we can use for placing instrumentation.”

Student Wins $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Prize for Developing a New LED

Martin Schubert, a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student, has developed a new type of
light emitting diode (LED) that could lead to the widespread use of LED’s as light sources for liquid crystal displays (LCDs) which can be found on everything from computers and
televisions to cell phones and cameras. This is the first polarized LEd to be developed and this innovation could immensely improve LCD screens and pave the way for the next generation of ultra-efficient LEDs. Schubert, a doctoral student in electrical, computer, and systems engineering, has earned the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Prize for this innovation. The prize,which was first given in 2007, “is awarded to a Rensselaer senior or graduate student who has created or improved a product or process, applied a technology in a new way, or otherwise demonstrated remarkable inventiveness”.Schubert’s polarized LEd has the ability to have a better control of the direction and polarization of the light being emitted. Less energy is wasted when there is better control over the light because less light is scattered and more light reaching the desired location. Because of this, polarized LED is best suited as backlighting unit for any kind of LCD. The images that would be produced with focused light are more crisp, colorful, vibrant, and lifelike, and with almost zero motion artifacts.

The Green Cruiser

A New Zealand skipper, Pete Bethune, is planning to circumnavigate the globe in 75 days using a boat. The boat that he will use to do this is not just a boat, it is an eco-friendly powerboat that runs on biodiesel fuel made from renewable sources like soybeans and some secret ingredients like human body fat. Yes, human body fat. Bethune and two of the crew members, through liposuction procedure, made the very personal donation of about 10 liters of their own fat. The fat they donated is enough to propel the boat for about 15 kilometers.

Dispute in LED patent could hamper Blu-ray, cellphone import

The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) has instituted an investigation on a list of companies in the electronics industry who may have infringed some patents that cover “short-wavelength (e.g., blue, violet) LEDs and laser diodes that are used in products such as handheld mobile devices, instrument panels, billboards, traffic lights, HD DVD players (e.g., Blu-ray disc players), and data storage devices.” When we talk about companies earning from Blu-ray discs, LEDs and HD DVD players we know that the list could be quiet long. The list includes Hitachi, LG, Lite-On, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Pioneer, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. The person who holds the patents and is behind the lawsuit is Dr. Gertrude Neumark Rothschild. Rothschild is the Howe Professor Emerita of Material Science and Engineering and Professor Emerita of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University, where she’s taught and worked since 1985. She earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia in 1951. She was connected to Sylvania Research Laboratories and then with Philips Laboratories. She also holds several patents that cover the production of wide band-gap semiconductors in the blue/ultraviolet range (these are presumably the patents at issue, though patent numbers are not given), and she worked specifically in the development of gallium-nitride-based semiconductors.

Previously she filed a suit against both Toyoda Gosei and Philips Lumined over some alleged infringement of US Patent No. 4,904,618 (“Process for Doping Crystals of Wide Band-Gap Semiconductors”) and 5,252,499 (“Wide Band-Gap Semiconductors Having Low Bipolar Resistivity and Method of Formation”). Rothschild and the two companies eventually settled out of court

Sony and the other big companies named in the suit haven’t responded to the allegations yet.

 

Windows Vista SP1 Now Available

 

The final version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is now available for download . You can download standalone installers for X86 and X64 systems from Microsoft are already available for download since yesterday. Along with this, Microsoft has also released a series of documents detailing the changes that are in Service Pack 1. But despite tha “changes” you won’t actually notice any major difference after installing SP1 because it looks and operates a lot like the original version of Windows Vista. Majority of the tweaks made are under the hood, you won’t see them, you will just feel the changes, you will just notice that you PC becomes more reliable, lesser crashes. You will also notice that your computer works better with all of your peripheral hardware devices and third party software. Microsoft did not forget to add some security updates as well.

The standalone installers weigh in at 435 to 550MB, depending on how many languages are included in the version you download. You’ll only have to download about 65MB If you upgrade using Windows Update.

Those who are running a pre-release version of Windows Vista SP1, will need to uninstall it before installing the newest version.

LimeWire Launches its Own Music Store

LimeWire launched its own music store last Monday. But in this music store don’t expect to find your latest pop 40 hits or something that would rival iTunes’ catalog. This music store will have is 256 kb/sec encoded MP3s, no DRM, with full interoperability with any of your electronic gadgets. Whether you would have it with your Palm Pilot’s MP3 player, or your Pocket PC, an iPod, or your desktop computer, the tracks you would be purchasing from LimeWire’s store will work just fine.
But there are things that makes this music store somewhat different from other music stores. First, all the music is from independent artists. You won’t find your superstars here, just unknown independent artists trying it out in the open. Also, the pricing plan is obviously designed to match with the way the online world thinks. The are many payment packages: the 99 cent pay as you go option, and if the end user decides to pay a monthly rate of about $20, he or she can then purchase 75 songs for 27 cents a download which is much cheaper than what most would expect of online music stores.

Obviously, the music store will be integrated into the LimeWire client. It’s not known if LimeWire plans to expand their lineup to include mainstream acts.

It seems that LimeWire is contradicting itself, while it maintains its commitment to providing a free service it opens a store.

Create a Flash Rollover Button with KoolMoves

I discovered KoolMoves 3 years ago by accident. I was looking for a cheaper alternative for 3D Studio Max when i bumped into it in one forum for graphic artists. I though it was a 3D software because the person who was raving about it talked about a 3d animation lesson with KoolMoves. But when i read the whole tutorial it came out that he was actually talking about how to create a “psuedo 3D” animation with this small but very powerful flash authoring software called KoolMoves. I tried the software and fell in love with it because it is easy to use yet very powerful.

Here’s a little tutorial that would get you started with KoolMoves.

In this tutorial we will learn how to create the most important navigational tool, the button. Rollover effect is what makes a button a good button so we will learn how to make it happen in our button.

This basic tutorial will define the steps necessary to create a roll-over effect using a rectangular button with a gradient fill. We start by drawing a rectangle. Choose from the toolbar the rounded rectangular shape tool (click and hold the button to show the other buttons nested below the first one) as shown in the picture below:

Flash for Windows Mobile

Microsoft thinks that by dismissing flash, iPhone’s Steve Jobs made a big mistake. Yesterday, Adobe and Microsoft announced an agreement between the two companies to license Flash Lite and Adobe Reader LE for Windows Mobile devices. Flash Lite now becomes a plug-in for Pocket IE and people will be able to view pages with embedded Flash on Windows Mobile devices. According to Adobe 80% of desktop flash pages will work on Pocket IE so you will be able to browse Youtube in you mobile device in the near future.

But Microsoft hasn’t given an exact timeline as to when this would be available. I hope this would not become one of Microsoft’s many stunts that turned into joke.