United States Military Twitter and YouTube Accounts Hacked
The Twitter and YouTube accounts for the United States Central Command, responsible for activity in the Middle East and Central Asia, were hacked earlier today by a group calling itself the CyberCaliphate. Two videos were posted to YouTube and a single message was posted to Twitter before the account was taken down. A statement from Centcom said "We can confirm that the Centcom Twitter and YouTube accounts were compromised earlier today. We are taking appropriate measures to address the matter. We have no further information to provide at this time."
Source: CNET
Read More ...
IBM Obtains Most Patents For 22nd Consecutive Year
Newer technology companies are frequently in the news these days with talk relating to patents, but when it comes to new patents the old guard reigns supreme as IBM has obtained the most new patents for the 22nd consecutive year. In doing so it set the record for most patents obtained in a year with 7,534, a 10.6% increase from 2013. The top five was rounded out by Samsung, Canon, Sony, and Microsoft. The rankings only include technology inventions patents and don't take into account design or plant patents. Of all patents awarded by the US Patent and Trademark Office, 49.1% were handed out to foreign inventors.
Source: Corporate Counsel
Read More ...
Building 3D Silicon Microarchitectures
Many modern technologies rely on two dimensional components, such as electronics that consist of flat components in layers. There is a great interest in moving to three dimensions though, as it could allow for greater capabilities, efficiencies, and more applications. Building 3D microstructures is hardly child's play though, but researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are making it like a child's book.
Modern techniques for creating electronic circuits, build them in two dimensions. To bring them into the third dimension, the researchers use a soft substrate to pop them up, like a pop-up book. By pre-stretching the substrate and controlling where it binds to the semiconductor material, like silicon, it is possible to control the shape it will form. The stress the substrate puts on the semiconductor surface can then cause it to buckle and detach from the substrate, thereby popping up.
As these mechanical processes are already well understood, the whole thing can be modelled and designed with a computer to form any number of intricate shapes. Potentially this could be used to create devices for electronics, biomedical devices, microelectromechanical components, photonics, metamaterials, tissue scaffolds, and more.
Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Read More ...
Specifications Revealed for Co-op Shooter Evolve
Turtle Rock's upcoming co-op shooter Evolve has a little under a month remaining before we can dive in, and if you're curious about what kind of computer you need to play it, wonder no more. The specifications for Evolve have been released, and the good news is most people will be able to run it without major issue. It only requires something like an Intel Core2Duo E6600 or an AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400 and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 or AMD Radeon HD 5770, so it certainly won't be breaking the bank for many gamers. The rest of the specs can be viewed below, with both the minimum and recommended accounted for.
MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:
INTEL CPU: Core 2 Duo E6600
AMD CPU: Athlon 64 X2 6400
SYSTEM RAM: 4GB
NVIDIA VIDEO CARD: GeForce GTX 560
ATI VIDEO CARD: Radeon HD 5770
VIDEO MEMORY: 1GB
HARD DRIVE: 50GB
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
RECOMMENDED REQUIREMENTS:
INTEL CPU: Core i7-920
AMD CPU: A8-3870K
SYSTEM RAM: 6GB
NVIDIA VIDEO CARD: GeForce GTX 670 or GTX 760
ATI VIDEO CARD: Radeon R9 280
VIDEO MEMORY: 2GB
HARD DRIVE: 50GB
Like I said, these requirements won't be breaking the bank for many gamers, as I am sure many people will be able to play it right away. It is nice to see yet another game require a 64-bit version of at least Windows 7, but not so nice seeing that 50GB hard drive requirement. The folks at Turtle Rock also had some other questions to address concerning Evolve, with a screenshot of the graphics settings answering the one about what we can tweak. It covers everything from texture, shader, and model detail to shadow quality and anti-aliasing, among others. Turtle Rock also said the game supports resolutions up to 4K, but at launch will not support either SLI or CrossFire. The team is working on support for multiple video cards, but nothing is definitive just yet.
Evolve arrives on February 10 for the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Source: Evolve Blog
Read More ...
Cherry Announces MX Board 6.0
Cherry has officially announced its latest keyboard offering, the MX Board 6.0. The MX Board 6.0, which is being marketed to gamers, professional typists, and software developers, includes a standard 102-keyset, macros, complete N-key rollover, an ingot-shaped metal body, and a palm-rest that can be magnetically attached. The latest keyboard from Cherry also includes RealKey technology, which provides reduced latency thanks to the bandwidth capabilities offered by USB 3.0.
The Cherry MX Board 6.0 comes with a three-year warranty and will be available to purchase this spring for $219.
Source: TechPowerUp
Read More ...
Twitter Reveals Interest in Generating Advertisement Revenue from Other Companies
Twitter, who five months ago implemented video advertisements into the timelines of its own users, has recently revealed to media buyers through a presentation at CES that it is interested generating advertisement revenue through external sources. According to individuals familiar with the matter, Twitter is planning to capitalize on people who see tweets across the Internet but who do not actually use the social media service. In order to do this, Twitter is planning to sell advertisements within streams of tweets on mobile applications and websites of other companies. While it is not known which publishers Twitter is currently attempting to make agreements with, the presentation that outlined the idea made references to the SportsCenter application offered by ESPN, as well as Flipboard. According to those familiar with the matter, revenue generating from the advertisements would be shared between Twitter and the publisher, thereby benefitting both entities.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Read More ...
Pushing Quantum Data Storage to New Limits
It may be many years before we fully realize quantum computers, but some quantum technologies may be here much sooner, including quantum networks. In theory these networks would be able to send quantum information across the globe with unbreakable security. That data has to be stored though and quantum information tends not to survive long, but researchers at the Australian National University have set a record of six hours.
One of the ways currently used to store quantum information is with laser beams in optical fibers, and works with networks around one hundred kilometers long. This new method instead stores the information in the spins of europium atom nuclei, and preserves it by applying fixed and oscillating magnetic fields to the crystal. These fields isolate the europium spins so that the information cannot leak away, which is how the new storage time record is 100 times the previous one. Compared to the laser method, someone could walk with the crystal and have it suffer less loss, for a given distance.
While this quantum optical hard drive could have a serious impact on quantum networks, it could also affect our understanding of quantum mechanics. The phenomenon at work for the networks, quantum entanglement, has never been tested at as great of distances as this method allows.
Source: Australian National University
Read More ...
President Obama to Announce New Initiatives Surrounding Cybersecurity and Internet Access
According to White House officials, President Obama is set to announce a variety of new initiatives next week that will address online security as well as increased access to broadband Internet across the United States. The announcement will take place over a series of speeches, where President Obama will outline the need for increased identity theft protection, better privacy protection, more robust cybersecurity, and increased access to high-speed Internet. The news of the announcement comes roughly one week before the President is set to deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, and just months after the recent hack on Sony Pictures. As more and more companies experience data breaches due to increased cybersecurity attacks, the soon to be announced initiatives will address not only governmental cybersecurity but private sector as well.
Source: The New York Times
Read More ...
Understanding How to Trap Light with a Twist
If someone needs to trap light, often they will turn to mirrors or photonic crystals that will hold the photons in place. Last year though, researchers at MIT found a way to stop light by having it cancel out its own radiation fields. Now the team has figured out how this happens and what it could mean.
Central to this new method is the polarization of the light involved, as the light-trapping photonic crystals used actually change the direction of the polarization. The change is dependent on the direction of the light beam, which causes a vortex to form, similar to tornadoes and water swirling down a drain. This forms a singularity, or topological defect, at the center of the vortex, which traps the light at that point. To the researchers' surprise, this trapped state is actually rather robust, which makes it easier to create than many expected.
From this research it may be possible to create vector beams, which are a kind of laser that could be used for small-scale particle accelerators. It could also lead to ways of transmitting more channels through an optical fiber and super-resolution imaging.
Source: MIT
Read More ...
Facebook Acquires QuickFire Networks
Facebook has officially acquired QuickFire Networks, a technology startup based out of San Diego that employs proprietary technology to decrease the overall size of video files without degrading video quality. QuickFire Networks firmly believes that the current network infrastructure is incapable of supporting the growing demand for online videos. Facebook for example is currently seeing more than one billion video views on average every day, with that number likely to grow even larger in the near future. The social media giant plans to utilize the technology developed by QuickFire Networks to reduce the overall size of videos posted to Facebook, thereby reducing the amount of bandwidth needed.
QuickFire Networks, which currently employees roughly 20 individuals, will wind down its business operations as some of its key team members join Facebook to deliver high-quality videos to its massive user base.
Source: PCWorld and QuickFire Networks
Read More ...
Google May Soon Offer an Auto Insurance Comparison Service in the United States
According to a research analyst, Google may soon offer automotive drivers located in the United States with an auto insurance comparison tool. Google is already providing drivers within the United Kingdom with an auto insurance comparison service called Google Compare, thanks to the acquisition of BeatThatQuote.com in 2011. Ellen Carney, an analyst with Forrester Research that is responsible for the speculation, notes that the United States version of Google Compare was expected to launch last month in California but has been delayed. Carney backs up her claims of Google Compare coming to the United States with an entity known as Google Compare Auto Insurance Services, which is already licensed to do business in over half of the United States. Additionally, Carney notes that Google is already authorized to do business with a variety of insurers, including Dairyland, MetLife, Mercury, Permanent General Assurance, Viking Insurance of Wisconsin and Workmen’s, further promoting the idea.
Source: PCWorld
Read More ...
Leap Second Could Cause Computer Troubles
This year will have a leap second, an extra second that will be recorded at 11:59 pm on June 30 to allow the spin of the Earth to sync with atomic clocks. Atomic time is constant while the Earth is slowing down at a rate of two thousandths of a second per day. A leap second last occurred in 2012 and negatively impacted a large part of the Internet, taking down a number a large websites such as Reddit and Yelp, and also hit the Linux Operating System. As more computers are being synced to atomic clocks to maintain accurate time, the number of potentially affected systems increases. Google managed to avert the leap second last time around by updating its servers to anticipate the event and will take the same action this year. If you are worried then it may be best to avoid your computer during that time frame.
Source: USA Today
Read More ...
Creating Uniform Quantum Dots for Solar Power
Order can be very useful, especially when trying to build things, but achieving it is not always easy. Quantum dots are nanoscopic crystals that have properties that would make them exceptional for solar panels, but making them the same size is somewhat difficult. At least it was as researchers at MIT have now found a way to make lead sulfide quantum dots of uniform size.
In the nanocrystals, the lead and sulfur atoms are roughly one-to-one, but the researchers found that it is best to start with a 24 to 1 mixture. This leads to the uniform size, which is useful for creating films of the quantum dots, as dots of the same size will self-assemble into an ordered lattice. Also better control of the size of the quantum dots can improve their performance, as the researchers found that the distance between the centers of the nanoparticles impact the amount of time electrons remain excited. The shorter the distance the greater the diffusion length, and that means more time to put the electron to use.
The researchers also found that while uniformity improves diffusion length, an amount of disorder can improve energy diffusion. Small variations in the quantum dots’ sizes can also cause energy variations, and higher energy electrons will try to move to areas of lower energy. This gets them going sooner than if the energy plane were flat, speeding up the process.
Source: MIT
Read More ...
NVIDIA Shows Off DRIVE Computers for Automobiles
NVIDIA brought a pair of new computers targeted at the automotive market to CES, the DRIVE PX and DRIVE CX. The computers are "equipped with powerful capabilities for computer vision, deep learning and advanced cockpit visualization." The DRIVE PX is targeted at the development of auto-pilot capabilities through the use of computer vision. Powered by a pair of Tegra X1 chips, the DRIVE PX is capable of processing up to 1.3 gigapixels per second from up to 12 high resolution cameras. One feature of the DRIVE PX is Auto-Valet, which enables a car to park itself in a crowded garage and later return to the driver. It also has the ability to learn the differences between different types of cars such as police cars, ambulances, and regular vehicles. The DRIVE CX is targeted at "navigation, infotainment, digital instrument clusters and driver monitoring," and also carries the ability to give a full 360 degree view of the car, eliminating blind spots. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said, "Whether finding their way back to you from a parking spot or using situational awareness to keep out of harm's way, future cars will do many amazing, seemingly intelligent things." The computers have an expected availability of the second quarter of this year.
Source: Tweak Town
Read More ...
Available Tags:Twitter , YouTube , IBM , 3D , Other , Facebook , Google , NVIDIA ,
No comments:
Post a Comment