Bacterial Spores Power Small Engine
A car that runs on bacteria? It might not be quite the kind of car you’re imagining, but researchers report they have built a rotary engine powered by bacterial spores.
A spore lengthens as it soaks up water from the air and shortens with evaporation. To harvest energy from those natural movements, biophysicist Ozgur Sahin and his Columbia University colleagues glued spores to both sides of small tapes, shown in yellow. When dry, the spores make the tapes curl; in humid surroundings, they stretch out.
The team arranged about 100 tapes evenly around a wheel scaffold and encased it in a moist shell that covers half of the wheel. After they rigged it up to a toylike car that weighs as little as a small apple, their contraption, reported in Nature Communications, actually propelled the car — albeit at less than 4 inches per minute.
A Web of Nouns
The trouble began because iRobot doesn’t want its customers to have to do any physical labor — not cutting the grass and definitely not digging the trenches for the underground wires that most autonomous lawn mowers use to sense the edge of their domain. iRobot applied to the FCC to be allowed to use wireless broadcasters instead, at radio frequencies between 6240 and 6740 MHz. Problematically, though, space-based methanol also broadcasts radio waves at those frequencies. Methanol traces star formation and tells us about the evolution of our galaxy, which (taken to its extreme) tells us how we got here. To protect that band, the FCC says “all practicable steps shall be taken to protect the radio astronomy service from harmful interference.” And within that band, it prohibits “fixed outdoor infrastructure.” The National Radio Astronomy Observatory says iRobot’s guiding beacons violate that prohibition and insist the mower-bot stay 55 miles away from its telescopes. iRobot says nuh-uh, “there is
Blackberry is back, and this time with Android’s backing
The company has launched an Android based ‘Phablet’, after the failure of its operating software BB10. The device is named ‘Blackberry Priv’, where the word ‘Priv’ has been used for privacy.
The phone is trying to cash on its security feature through the introduction of its its own ‘Patented Picture Login’. This feature gives BB an all round security and a perfect blend of ease. For the first time this phablet will also support third party options from Google Play and various BB apps like BB Meeting, WatchDox etc.
The phone has been launched in the US and it has been confirmed by the authorities that the phone is now available on pre-order on Blackberry’s official website. The delivery process will begin from today and the price tag it carries is of $699.
The Blackberry Priv’s body is a combination of Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge’s shining back and a bold black look with stunning edges. This phone has pulled it off for Blackberry.
Specifications:
Body: With a weight of almost 192 grams this phone this
Why the Smartwatch Trend is Here to Stay
The growing trend of buying Smartwatches reveals the changing consumer behaviour. World’s technology giants like Apple, Garmin, Vivoactive, Samsung Gear etc. have introduced their own smartwatches to club with their smartphones or other compatible devices. As stated by the director of Android Wear, David Singleton, in the next 50 years of time everyone would learn to live a life with wearable technology and all of us would be living like this. The rising demand of smartwatches has immersed with the growing need of consumers. People demand a gadget which can keep them accountable, and fitness monitors are a bonus for most. This leads them to invest in wearable devices like Fitness bands and Smartwatches.
What Does the Current Trend Say
If the facts and figures are to be believed, the smartwatch technology will witness a tremendous growth and will amount to 70% of the total wearable technology shipments by 2019. As per another data published by International Data Corporation (IDC), the shipment of wearable devices has seen a whopping increase of 67.2% since 2015, which is quite a big number.
Another study made by Garner Inc. points on the same lines and it says that smartwatches sales
Why Project Management Tools Must Change
Personal productivity tools make managing your own workload easier. And project management tools help with wrangling group work. But there’s a big gap between th
Think about all the tasks on your plate for the next week or so. Some of those tasks belong only to you. They’re your responsibility, and you’re the one tracking their deadlines. Some probably belong to a personal project of yours, and some are just one-off tasks that need to get done. Also, some of your tasks are probably part of group projects. On these tasks, a company leader or project manager also monitors your progress, and your work impacts others.
Hopefully, you’re already using a good personal information manager to enhance your productivity. Because of the scope and complexity of knowledge work today, online PIMs like Outlook or the Apple suite (Calendar, Address Book, Reminders, Apple Mail) are good choices.
Beyond your personal productivity system, chances are you also have to use your company’s project management tools when you’re involved in group projects. Some popular examples of these tools are Microsoft Project, Asana, Basecamp and Trello.
Here’s where the problem comes in. If you have to check both your personal task manager and
Forms Self-Driving Car Alliance
he top Chinese Internet search firm, has formed a broad alliance to promote self-driving cars, pitting its Apollo platform against Alphabet Inc’s system, it said on Wednesday, in hopes of getting the vehicles on the road in China by 2019.
The alliance includes partnerships with automakers, suppliers, startups, universities and local governments and is built around Baidu’s Apollo self-driving platform, which was developed at itstech center in California’s Silicon Valley. Apollo is aimed at Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving package.
Among the key development partners on Apollo are Nvidia, which specializes in microprocessors and artificial intelligence, and mapping expert TomTom NV.
In mid-morning trade, Nvidia shares were up 2.6 percent to $142.94 and Baidu US shares rose 2.3 percent to $184.15. In Amsterdam, TomTom was up 3.2 percent to EUR 8.85.
Ford Motor and Daimler AG also are partners, Baidu said, as well as supplier Delphi Automotive and chipmaker Intel.
Baidu said at a briefing in Beijing it is partnering with five Chinese vehicle manufacturers, including Chery Automobile, BAIC Motor, FAW Group Corp, Chongqing Changan Automobile and Great Wall Motor. All but Great Wall are state-owned.
German suppliers Robert Bosch, Continental Automotive and ZF Friedrichshafen are also part of the alliance.
Baidu has said its goal is to
Think back to the mobile phone you owned before 2007
It probably looked something like this: A silver clamshell device with numeric keys on the bottom and a low-resolution screen on the top. It probably had a simple camera, a calendar, and was capable of running a few basic games, but you used it primarily for voice calls and texting. In the early 2000s you might have upgraded to a BlackBerry 6210 — a favorite among text-obsessed teens and corporate employees tied to their email inboxes.
But in 2007 the cellphone industry was sundered. In hindsight, there is only before and after the iPhone. “An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator,” Steve Jobs famously said on stage at Macworld in 2007 when unveiling the first iPhone. “Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device.”
The original iPhone, which went on sale 10 years ago on June 29, laid the foundation for the modern smartphone, forever changing the way we access the world’s information. It introduced two very important
Alphabet Inc’s Google unit expects
.Tellenes wind farm, a 50-turbine strong wind farm of 160-megawatt (MW) capacity that is currently under development, will become Norway’s largest wind farm and Google’s biggest in Europe.
“We’ll purchase power as soon as the wind farm becomes fully operational, which we expect will take place in early September 2017,” a Google spokesman told Reuters.
Google last year signed a 12-year deal to buy 100 percent of the plant’s output. The company, which has four European data centres in Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland, said the wind power will be used to supply one or several of them.
The Tellenes wind farm’s first turbine will begin to generate power by next week, said Olav Rommetveit, a spokesman for farm maker Zephyr, although Google will not receive the initial output.
“Google will not immediately get the supply. It has an exclusive contract for 12 years and they will begin getting the electricity at some point after commercial operations begins,” said Rommetveit.
The electricity produced until Google starts receiving the farm’s full capacity, will be sold on the Nord Pool power exchange, he added.
BlackRock, which provided the project’s equity financing, confirmed the
The Future of Tactile Touch Screens
As he swipes his finger over the touch screen, Joseph Quintanilla senses a subtle bumpiness. Rubbing back and forth, he feels the roughness give way to what seems like a flat glass surface. “Yeah, I can feel it getting smoother,” says Quintanilla, who is blind.The touch pad in his hands displays a snowy, frosted window that his finger wipes smoother with every pass. It’s an effect created in part by Ali Israr, an engineer at Disney Research labs. Israr specializes in haptic engineering, which focuses on applying tactile stimulation to our interactions with computers.
The texture under Quintanilla’s finger doesn’t mimic the exact feeling of snow under fingertips — the temperature shifting, solid becoming liquid but it does convey the feeling of a rough texture becoming smooth and even. Once Israr describes the image, Quintanilla immediately gets it. “Oh yeah, I can picture it now,” he says. “That’s very cool.”
Quintanilla, who works at the National Braille Press as its director of major gifts and planned giving, is looking for a tool that could help blind children read maps and graphs when taking standardized tests. Currently, these students use sheets of paper with raised lines to
Product Startup Exploride Seeks Crowdfunding to Turn Your Car into a Smart Car
With an aim of making driving safe and a pleasurable experience for everyone, Exploride a US-based startup founded by Sunil Vallath, is launching a new product that the company calls a heads-up display for any car. It allows users to access maps, music, calls, texts & more with its transparent display and hands free controls. With the help of gestures and voice recognition, it grants drivers the ability to take or decline calls, access music and maps, change volumes, hear texts, and even monitor vehicle diagnostics like speed, fuel, and more, all from one place.
The idea to design and launch such a product came to Sunil after he had a disturbing experience. Talking about it, he said, “My fiancee and I used to talk on the phone sometimes, while driving. On one such occasion, while talking on the phone, she got into a car accident. Luckily, she was unharmed. But the incident shook me up. It drove me to look for a solution where I could remain in touch with my loved ones while driving, without putting myself or them at risk of injury.”
Xiaomi Redmi 4A to Be Available for Purchase via Amazon India Today
Xiaomi Redmi 4A, one of the most popular budget smartphones in the market today, will be made available to purchase in the country on Thursday, via Amazon India. The Redmi 4A flash sale starts at 12pm IST, and the smartphone will be offered in three colour variants – Gold, Dark Grey, and Rose Gold. To recall, the smartphone was first launched in India back in March at Rs. 5,999, and comes in only one configuration: 2GB RAM and 16GB storage.Since its March launch, the smartphone has been either made available to buy via weekly flash sales, or via special one-off sales.
Xiaomi Redmi 4A specifications
Featuring a polycarbonate body, the Redmi 4A (Review) bears a hybrid dual-SIM card slot, and runs MIUI 8 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The smartphone features a 5-inch HD (720×1280 pixels) display, and is powered by a 1.4GHz quad-core Snapdragon 425 SoC coupled with the Adreno 308 GPU and 2GB of RAM.
It sports a 13-megapixel sensor with PDAF, a 5-lens system, an f/2.2 aperture, and is backed by a LED flash. There is a 5-megapixel sensor with an f/2.2 aperture on board as well. The Redmi 4A comes with 16GB of inbuilt storage that