Monday 29 April 2013

5 WAYS HACKERS COULD KILL U RIGHT NOW


Hacking Your Pacemaker


The hack
Pacemaker-hacking feels like a Hollywood plot. Assassinate someone by taking over the medical device that controls his heart? Surely that isn't possible in the real world.
Actually, it's totally possible. Last year, a researcher demonstrateda pacemaker hack in Australia, with a virus that could conceivably spread from one person to every electronically assisted heart within 30 feet.
The threat level
Probably limited to assassination targets. Think: high-profile people, who have pacemakers. It would be an elaborate attack, though, since you need more than just an internet connection to pull it off. Odds are that anyone interested in doing this could get a bomb or a pistol to the target cheaper and faster. This is Hollywood not because it's impossible, but because it's not very efficient.

Crashing A Plane


The hack
The prospect of a terrorist taking over an airplane is never a pleasant one, and given that today a plane can almost pilot itself, all that a potential hijacker has to do is get into the airplane's computers--he doesn't even need to be on the actual airplane.
This is well within the realm of possibility; there's going to be a demonstration on how to remotely hack an airplane at an upcoming security conference. This is apparently a particular worry for higher-end corporate jets, which may be more vulnerable than traditional commercial jets because they offer easier external access to internal computer systems--great for fast communication, but also for hackers.
Surely air traffic control is safe? Afraid not. Past security conferences have demonstrated that the future air traffic control console can be overwhelmed by false signals.
The threat level
The technological vulnerabilities are certainly worrisome, but airplanes really haven't been a popular terrorism target since 2001. Just because something is a passe target doesn't mean we should forget about it. But it makes more sense to understand what kinds of attacks terrorists like to do, and protect against those, rather than ones they could conceivably do but haven't done. These days, the popular attacks mostly involve bombs on the ground.


Breaking The Electrical Grid

The hack
Power outages kill more people than you'd think. Air-conditioning shuts off; stores, pharmacies, and hospitals close; cell phone service gets disrupted--all of which can be deadly, especially for vulnerable populations. According to a study on the human costof the 2003 power outage in New York, 90 deaths can be directly linked to the outage (that's 15 times more than New York's official total of 6). That blackout was caused by a small bug in a regional power company, but the consequences quickly spread and left up to 55 million people without power for three days.
What about a deliberate attack? Late last summer, hackers broke past a Canadian power company's security and gained access to the electrical controls. The hackers didn't wreak any havoc, but they could have. Internet-connected smart grids are especially vulnerable, because they are increasingly hooked up to the regular internet, giving outsiders easy access.
The threat level
The best a cyberattack could hope for is to hit a smaller power provider, mess with its controls, and have that spiral up into a much larger outage. But a small attack that mimics, say a power line failure, is what power companies spend time and money trying to prevent. And nowadays--especially since the 2003 outage--power companies have controls in place to avoid such mishaps. Chances are a small attack wouldn't provoke a bigger outage.
Power outages are also an incredibly imprecise way to attack a target, and it's hard for a terrorist group to claim credit for something that could easily have been a simple sensor error.
While it's possible to gain access to the controls of a small part of the grid, it'd be extremely difficult, time-consuming, and expensive for hackers to mount a larger attack. Writing for Motherboard, Brian Merchant says "In this case, it would be a terrorist cell hellbent on using a massive amount of time and resources to … cause a temporary blackout??"
Unlikely.

Wrecking Your Car


The hack
The same remote-controlled security systems that protect cars from burglars may open them up to cyber attacks. In 2010, researchers in automotive electronic security demonstrated that aphysical device could be installed in a car to give remote access to a malicious third party. Since then, the ability to take over a car's controls from afar has only grown. A study published in 2011 by the same researchers demonstrated that there are multiple wireless ways to access a car remotely. Systems like OnStar, which can disable and drive a car if it's reported stolen, can be accessed through cellular networks.
What can attackers do once they've gained access to your car? They could take over brakes, lights, and engines. That's a problem.
The threat level
The trick, like most of these cyber attacks, is that it's an elaborate way for an assailant to do something that's much simpler with a handgun. The amount of information you have to gather beforehand--to find the car of the person you want to kill and the times that person will be in his or her car--make for a good Hollywood montage, but that's about it.
What if some sadistic person just wanted to start hacking cars and driving them into things? That's a pretty irrational use of the skill it would take to do this, but if someone were so inclined, he or she would certainly ruin the lives of those involved in the crashes. For everyone else, it'd just make for another moderately bad commute.

Crashing A Drone Into Your Skull


The hack
Drones, that ubiquitous specter of technological doom covering front pages everywhere, can indeed be hacked. Or at least spoofed, which is like hacking if all a hacker could do was give the drone new directions and sometimes make it crash. The most famous case of this is when Iran allegedly captured the United States's stealth drone RQ-170, but similar stuff has happened stateside, too. Last summer, on a dare from the Department of Homeland security, students at University of Texas Austinspoofed a government drone.
In 2015, the FAA will clear new airspace for drones, and we'll truly be living in the drone age. Of course, researchers, police departments, and universities are already cleared to fly drones inplenty of places in the United States, so the possibility of a rogue spoofed drone already exists. This is a big concern for Congress, which wants to make sure that drones are not an excessive risk to add to our skies. The image of dozens of robots falling from above is nothing a politician wants to explain in a reelection campaign.
The threat level
You can only spoof one drone at a time, and there is only so much harm you can cause by feeding an unarmed machine the wrong GPS information. Given the average size of drones, like the Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 pictured here, the death total would be limited to one or two people. The story of Aeschylus, an ancient Greek playwright who died when an eagle dropped a turtle on his bald head, suggests that death-by-flying object isn't impossible, but it is very unlikely.

RAZER EDGE TABLET IS A SHORTCUT TO THE FUTURE OF GAMING



razeredge1

The Edge is a Windows 8 tablet that runs the latest PC games. It offers attachable game controls, and can also slide into an HDMI dock for playing on a television or desktop monitor. For $1,350 with all the accessories, the Razer Edge is a home video game system, portable console and gaming PC all in rolled into one.For any gamer who’s been kicked out of the living room so the rest of the family can watch TV, the Razer Edge wants to be your dream device.
It’s also a glimpse into the inevitable future of “core” gaming, when we’re no longer tethered to a bulky set-top box or PC tower, and we’re able to traipse freely from one screen to the next. But while other firms are experimenting with fancy wireless trickery and cloud-based streaming, Razer tried to deliver the future through brute force, and there are unintended consequences.
razeredge2
JARED NEWMAN / TIME.COM
Inside, the Edge packs a dedicated NVidia graphics card, a powerful Intel Core i5 processor and 64 GB of storage, at a base price of $1,000 without accessories. (A “Pro” model includes a faster i7 processor, Bluetooth 4.0 and double the storage for $300 more, or quadruple the storage for $450.) The Razer Edge Pro review unit I’ve been testing handled games like Far Cry 3 and Dishonored with more smoothness and fidelity than an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.
Not that you could actually play those games on a touch screen. Instead, you can tack on Razer’s $250 Gamepad, which clips onto the tablet like a pair of wings, each with their own thumbsticks, buttons and triggers. Or, you can just plug a wired gamepad or mouse/keyboard combo into the Edge’s full-sized USB port.
The result is a product that doesn’t look or feel futuristic. The Razer Edge is thicker than many thin-and-light laptops and heavier than a first-generation iPad. It has two large vents on the top edge that spew hot air during prolonged gaming sessions, and the bezel around the screen is wide compared to other tablets. The power brick is comparable to that of a full-sized laptop.
Also, the battery life is terrible. On 50% brightness, it lasts through about an hour of game time, and a little under four hours of regular computing.
However unfortunate, these are all necessary compromises. To deliver high-end gaming, the Razer Edge simply needs to run thicker, heavier and hotter than other tablets, and having a dedicated graphics processor always translates to lower battery life.
razeredge3
But the Edge’s other wounds are self-inflicted. For reasons unknown, Razer angled the Gamepad’s thumbsticks away from the player, making them harder to control. And because the face buttons are located directly underneath the sticks, they can be tricky to reach in the heat of battle. Razer needs to rethink the dual-wand design of these controls, and try to hew closer to the shape of existing game controllers. Also, the power cord doesn’t connect strongly enough to the tablet, and it’s prone to popping out when the nearest outlet is on your left side because of how the cable gets pulled the opposite way.
Re-purposing the PC as a portable or home gaming system brings software compromises as well. Some games should theoretically support a gamepad, but don’t. Occasionally you’ll run into the odd DirectX bug, or you’ll have to mess with video settings to get the best performance. The most annoying issue I ran into was a Steam message that popped up while playing Far Cry 3, which required pressing Shift-Tab to dismiss. Seeing as the GamePad has no Shift-Tab button, my only options were to let the message cover up part of the screen or plug in a keyboard to get rid of it.
razeredge4
To be fair, the Razer Edge has its glorious moments. Sitting in bed playing Borderlands 2 was a treat, and being able to transform the system into a home game console is well worth the $100 cost of the HDMI dock. (It also doubles as a handy way to watch Internet video sites like Hulu without paying for a subscription.) It’s also worth noting that because many games on Steam support cloud saves, existing PC gamers can play on their desktops and then pick up right where they left off on the Edge.
Still, despite my initial excitement over the Razer Edge, I didn’t touch the thing for more than a week of my loan period. It wasn’t because I lacked games to play — for part of the time, BioShock Infinite was at the top of my playlist — but because the experience didn’t come close to playing on my desktop PC. I only picked up the Edge again out of obligation, when Razer PR reminded me they’d be needing their review unit back soon, and I felt the need to log more play time.
razeredge5
JARED NEWMAN / TIME.COM
Now’s the time where I should express hope for a second-generation Razer Edge. An upgrade to Intel’s next-generation processors would bring significant battery life improvements, and in the meantime, Razer could fix the Gamepad’s (literally) sore spots.
But there’s a decent chance that the concept of a high-end gaming tablet will never really work. Integrated graphics are becoming good enough to handle many high-end PC games, without the drawbacks to weight, thickness, heat and battery life caused by a dedicated graphics card. (As some have noted, Microsoft’s Surface Pro already does an admirable job.) Attachable game controls and a docking station are great ideas, though, so maybe Razer can try to bring those accessories to a wider range of tablets.
As for the Razer Edge, several other reviews have dubbed it the Swiss Army knife of game consoles. Unfortunately, this metaphor works two ways: yes, it’s one package that serves many purposes, but the knife doesn’t cut as well, the scissors are tiny, the saw blade is ineffective and the screwdriver can be finicky. If it was cheaper, it could be worth the compromise. Right now it’s kind of like buying a gas station multi-tool at Leatherman prices.


Read more: http://techland.time.com/2013/04/29/razer-edge-review-a-rocky-shortcut-to-the-future-of-gaming/#ixzz2RuU91Zpm

USING LASERS TO MANIPULATE BLOOD FLOW IN LIVING MICE

When you’ve got a clogged artery, your options are usually few and risky: anti-clotting drugs or surgery to unblock the clot or reroute blood flow past the blockage.
But researchers in China have figured out how to use a laser to clog and then clear a blocked blood vessel in a live mouse, without surgery. This is the first time scientists have been able to externally manipulate cells inside a living animal, and it could lead to a safer way to unclog arteries in the future.
The technique relies on a tool called optical tweezers. Each pair of pincers is actually made of a single, focused laser beam. Technically the optical tweezers don’t come into direct contact with the cells. Instead, they push them around using the small amount of momentum from the photons in the beam.
Researchers used the optical tweezers to manipulate red blood cells inside a mouse’s capillaries. Scientists zoomed in on capillaries in the mouse’s ear because these blood vessels are pretty shallow and easy to access. These blood vessels are so narrow that red blood cells have to flow through them single file.
By focusing the laser on a single blood cell flowing through the capillary, the researchers could trap it and stop the flow of blood. When the researchers turned off the laser to let go of the cell, blood began flowing again. Since the laser let the scientists work in all three dimensions, they were able to replicate this success in bigger blood vessels and with different types of cells, too.
Though the procedure is called a micro-operation, researchers didn’t have to cut the overlying tissue to get inside, and the heat of the laser didn’t cause any visible damage to the mouse’s cells. The study, published in Nature Communications today, is the first to demonstrate such non-invasive manipulation inside a live animal.
Having this kind of control from outside a living thing may one day help scientists improve targeted drug delivery and eventually lead to treatment for thrombosis, or blod clots, the researchers say. What’s more, optical tweezers can manipulate things as tiny as organelles, the smaller components that make up cells—so sub-cellular procedures could even be possible in theory.
Check out the video below to see the optical tweezers in action.

 

20 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT HAIR

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iStock
1. Here’s the bald truth: Fur and hair are essentially the same thing, constructed of identical protein building blocks called keratin. 
2. All mammals have hair at some point in their lives, be it the fuzz on a newborn whale, a shield of hard porcupine quills or your long locks. 
3. Insects can wear it, too. The microscopic belly hairs on the male freshwater Micronecta may help amplify its mating call. Some scientists think that when the bug rubs its penis against the tip of its abdomen, the hairs trap air and sound, making it the world’s loudest animal relative to its size. 
4. The leg hairs on hunting spiders and crickets function as ears. The hairs sense air motion and can “hear” low-frequency sounds — buzzing bees, for example — and medium-frequency ones, such as car horns. 
5. Human hair can “taste.” Our lungs and nasal passages have exquisitely tiny hairs called cilia that sweep out impurities. A University of Iowa graduate student discovered that lung cilia respond only to bitter flavors, such as nicotine. Upon tasting it, the hairs increase their rate of sweeping.
 
hair-2
6. Pathologists have noticed that nasal cilia continue to pulse for up to 21 hours after “their” human has died. 
7. On the outside, the average person has more than 100,000 head hairs, plus about 4.9 million more in assorted other places. 
8. Early humans probably shed their full body-hair suits because they were often infested with disease-carrying parasites like lice, fleas and mites, according to scientists at England’s John Radcliffe Hospital and University of Reading. 
9. When we lost our fur, the sun’s ultraviolet rays damaged our newly exposed skin, which reacted by producing melanin, a pigment that absorbs the sun’s solar radiation, explain anthropologists at Penn State. 
10. More prehistoric highlights: Some Neanderthals were redheads. A 2007 study at Harvard University and Germany’s Max Planck Society found a red-hair-coding variant of hair-color genes in 43,000- and 50,000-year-old Neanderthal remains.
11. Gingers were likely joined by blonds and brunets. The researchers note that, like modern-day humans, Neanderthals had variety in their hair genes. 
12. Is it true that blondes have more fun? In 2006, former Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan reported that in a sample of 101 toddlers, blond children were more withdrawn and shy. 
13. Hair knows when you are sleeping; it knows when you’re awake. “Clock genes” control our circadian rhythms, and the easiest place to extract evidence of their activity is from hair follicles, according to researchers at Japan’s Yamaguchi University. 
14. Follicles, or small clusters of cells, come out of the scalp when hair is plucked. Comparing follicles from different times of the day can reveal when genes were most active, and the pluckee most awake. 
15. Hair also knows where you’ve been. In 2010, University of Utah chemists found that tap water and locally bottled beverages in the 33 cities they tested contained a unique chemical signature that turned up in the hair of people who drank it.
16. If you pulled a heist in Denver but claimed you were in California, your hair could blow your alibi. Essentially, your 'do is a dirty rat. 
17. Maybe dirty isn’t so bad. Oily hair absorbs the air pollutant ozone seven times more than clean hair, according to environmental engineers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. 
18. The twist is that oily hair also interacts with air pollutants to create respiratory irritants such as formaldehyde and 4-oxopentanal. The actual health effects of these “personal clouds” remain unknown. 
19. One thing is certain: You don’t want to eat your hair. Trichophagia is a rare but potentially life-threatening compulsion to ingest hair. In 2012, doctors in India removed a 4-pound hairball from a 19-year-old girl’s stomach. 
20. Eventually, we may opt to induce baldness, or alopecia. Hair keeps us warm — something we won’t have to worry about in climate-controlled space stations. Astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell at University College London adds, “Hair can be very inconvenient as it floats around your head in zero gravity.”

SAMSUNG TO START MANUFACTURING OF GALAXY S4 IN INDIA SOON

Samsung India today said it will soon start manufacturing its flagship high-end smartphone Galaxy S4 in India.

"We are planning to start manufacturing of S4 soon at our Noida facility," Samsung Mobile and Digital Imaging Country Head Vineet Taneja said.

He, however, refused to share any time frame by when the production will start. The Noida facility is manufacturing about 35-40 million phones annually, ncluding 12 smartphones such as Galaxy S3. The company currently imports the recently launched Galaxy S4 from South Korea.

Sensing huge demand for Galaxy S4, the company is also looking to double up the high-end smartphone (above Rs 20,000) market size in India, which is currently contributing around 10-12 per cent of the overall smartphone market.

The Galaxy S4, which is packed with newer imaging features as well as 'gesture- control' technology, has a five-inch full HD super AMOLED touchscreen, 13 mega pixel rear and 2 mega pixel front camera and supports 3G networks.

Although Samsung is the market leader in smartphone market in India, competition from Apple, BlackBerry and Nokia has put pressure on it to add new software features to maintain its lead.

According to research firm IDC, the overall mobile phone market in India reached about 218 million units in 2012, growing 16 per cent year-on-year.

Of this, 16.3 million units were smartphones, but the category saw a growth of about 48 per cent. Samsung was the leader in the quadcore and 5-inch plus screen size models, IDC added. The demand for smartphones is expected to be around 34-36 million units this year.

Globally, Samsung had 30.3 per cent share of the smartphone market (with sales of 215.8 million units) in 2012, while Apple had a 19.1 per cent share with sales of 135.9 million units, according to IDC.

Maintaining Flavor with Long-Term Food Preservation— Japan's Advanced Freezing Technology


Small Ice Crystals—The Secret to Maintaining Flavor

Frozen food kept at temperatures below -18˚C can be preserved for years, as bacteria and mold cannot grow at such low temperatures. Freezing technology has enabled us to eat meat, fish and other foods imported from abroad, as well as ready-prepared frozen meals.








                       




                                        

                                          Rapid-frozen tuna from a ship arrives at port (Photo: JTB Photo Communications, Inc.)                                                                  
However, there has been a downside to conventional freezing. Once food is frozen, it does not taste as good as freshly picked or freshly cooked food. The main reason is that when food is frozen, ice crystals inside the food expand, causing the cells to burst. When they burst, the nutrients turn to liquid (called "drip") and seep out as the food defrosts. The texture of the food also changes.

Tuna sushi—familiar to everyone now, thanks to progress in freezing technology (Photo: AFLO)

In an attempt to solve this problem, a method called "rapid freezing" was developed. When the water inside food freezes, ice crystals develop at temperatures between -1˚C and -5˚C. If this temperature range is passed through quickly (ideally within 30 minutes), most of the ice crystals do not grow too large, and the cells are not damaged. This process is the rapid freezing technique.

In Japan, rapid freezing technology was immediately put to use around 1960 on fishing boats to preserve tuna and other catches. The flavor of the rapid-frozen tuna also lasts much longer when preserved at a temperature below -50˚C. This has greatly helped to make Japanese dishes using raw fish—such as sashimi and sushi—popular around the world.

The Search for Freezing Technology That Doesn't Damage Cells

However, freezing technology was not perfect. Even when using rapid freezing, some cell damage still occurred—it was not possible to completely avoid changes in color or quality in foods that had been preserved at very low temperatures.

Then along came the development of "instant freezing." Water and food do not necessarily begin to freeze at 0˚C. If the water molecules or other substances that form the core of ice crystals are not present, then water and food do not begin to freeze even at -10˚C, a state known as "supercooling." When a supercooled liquid is agitated, everything freezes instantaneously. This is the process known as "instant freezing."

Left: Acerolas, so fresh you would not believe they were frozen. Right: Rice that has been frozen for 10 years shows no sign of cracking or yellowing. Both have been kept in a CAS freezer.
Left: Acerolas, so fresh you would not believe they were frozen.
Right: Rice that has been frozen for 10 years shows no sign of cracking or yellowing. Both have been kept in a CAS freezer.
With normal freezing methods, including rapid freezing, the food freezes from the outside to the inside. However, with instant freezing, the surface and the inside freeze at the same time. Therefore, the ice crystals freeze before they can clump together with other ice crystals to expand, so they remain small. This means that the cells are hardly damaged at all. Still, there remains an obstacle: the temperature range in which food supercools depends on the type of food and the specific part, so instant freezing cannot be used for every food.

In recent years, a groundbreaking instant freezing technology developed in Japan known as "Cells Alive System" (CAS) has been gaining attention as a method to address this problem. With CAS technology, the food is placed in a magnetic field that inverts repeatedly, so the food undergoes rapid freezing while being vibrated. According to scientists, the process of CAS freezing occurs instantaneously—just as with supercooling—with almost no time difference between the freezing of the surface and the inside. The ice crystals do not become too large, and the cells are hardly damaged, which means the original flavor, aroma, texture and color are maintained. In fact, fruit and vegetables that are difficult to freeze using conventional methods have been successfully preserved for long periods, maintaining their original fresh qualities. The mechanism behind CAS has not yet been fully clarified, but experts are considering various medical uses for the process, including the preservation of transplant organs and so forth.

From rapid freezing to instant freezing to CAS—nowadays, Japanese freezing technology is pushing the boundaries, making a substantial contribution to the improvement of the global food supply and the development of food culture across the globe.

Conventional freezing
Conventional freezing
(1) Water molecules in the material before freezing.
(2) Ice crystals near the surface expand before the whole item freezes, destroying the cell membrane as well as the nutrient and aroma elements inside the cell.
(3) Once defrosted, the phenomenon called "drip" occurs, meaning that the water, nutrient and aroma elements seep out of the cell.

CAS and other instant freezing
CAS and other instant freezing
(1) Water molecules in the material before freezing.
(2) The materials all freeze instantaneously.
(3) After defrosting, the molecules return to their original state, and the material retains its freshness.

Defrost an oyster from a CAS freezer, and you can almost smell the seashore…it's really fresh!
Defrost an oyster from a CAS freezer, and you can almost smell the seashore…it's really fresh!

(Updated in September 2011)

CAS freezers
CAS freezers made by ABI Inc., a Japanese company.

SPY CAMERA SUNGLASSES


If you know GFM you will know that we love spy gadgets that have practical uses. Yep we actually love them and these funky looking spy camera sun glasses are no exception. Hold up! A practical use for spy camera sunglasses? Honestly? Bear with us and all will be explained.
So lets start with the basics. They are essentially a pair of smart looking shades with 1GB of memory and a 1.3 mega-pixel covert camera built in. Our first thoughts were along the lines of; “How the hell are you going to be able to hide a 1.3 mega-pixel camera and all the rest of the electronics involved ‘covertly?
The glasses will be much bigger than usual and any numpty will easily be able to tell something is up!” – Yes, the arms of the shades are slightly oversized but not to the extent we were expecting.

They also have ear phones attached to each arm as the memory can act as an mp3 player. This is nothing new as Oakley did it years ago and music playing sunglasses are becoming ever more popular. And this is where the genius lies. When someone sees the larger than usual arms they may suspect something, but when they realise it is an mp3 player nearly all suspicion goes out of the window. The camera itself is surprisingly small and cleverly placed on the front right arm of the glasses.
In our opinion, if someone was to see the camera, they would have to have be stood that close you could have told them what they had for lunch by the remnants of it between their teeth. To take a photo you simply click a button, but not on the glasses (that would be hardly subtle).
The shades are supplied with a tiny RF remote that can easily be concealed about your person so you can snap away without anyone suspecting a thing. Because the camera captures photos in a 1280×1024 resolution you can store 10,000 pics on the 1GB of memory. That’s more photos stealthily taken on a pair of glasses than the average person takes in their entire life. We love it.
So we are back to the original claim of showing the spy camera sunglasses actually have a practical use. The first person to point one of these out was a friend of GFM who asked where he could get a pair to go cycling with. He said the mp3 player would hold enough tracks for a “mountain session” and the camera would be a nice addition to take photos of the views (we laughed and called him a girl).
You could also use these if your line of work requires, or is made easier by taking a lot of photos of whatever you are viewing e.g, private security, traffic wardens, doormen, government spys, stalkers etc… point proved? you decide.

ROVIO-ONLINE REMOTE CONTROLLED HOME SECURITY ROBOT


The Rovio is the perfect remote-controlled robot, featuring some pretty useful technology to make it a gadget you’ll get hours of fun from. Essentially, you control the robot by using a standard web browser, which can be on your PC, your laptop, your mobile phone or your games console.
The Rovio also includes a VGA camera and a microphone, allowing you to use it for a little spying around the home or office. And the best bit, when the Rovio’s batteries start to run low, it will automatically return to its docking station to charge itself up!
The Rovio robot connects to a standard Wifi router, allowing it to work without any wires whatsoever. When you first get the robot, you’ll need to configure it to talk to your wireless network by connecting it to your PC or Mac via a USB cable. However, setting up the robot only takes a few minutes. Once you’ve configured the Rovio, you’re up and running using the very simple software. The software works on all major web including Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.

Thanks to a 3-wheel system, the Rovio is very maneuverable. This wheel system allows you to move in the Rovio any direction you wish, whilst still keeping the camera and microphone pointed in one direction. For example, the Rovio can move sideways even whilst the camera is facing forwards. This is not something you typically get with a radio controlled car! The camera has a VGA camera, which gives you an image size of about 640 pixels by 480 pixels (width x height), which is perfect for navigating the Rovio around obstacles.
So as you drive the Rovio remote control security robot around the office or your home, you’ll see a live video feed of what’s in front of the Rovio. The camera is mounted on an arm which can be raised or lowered. You can change the height of the arm from ground level, to a height for looking over small objects, to a 45 degrees angle (ideal for looking at people standing up)


The Rovio makes use of a infrared location system, which allows the Rovio to determine where it’s located in a room. This means you can set up ‘checkpoints’ around a room. Once the Rovio knows about checkpoints, the robot can move between these checkpoints without you needing to manually control the robot to that part of the room. It’s almost like a programmed route. This is perfect for setting up the Rovio to do automated tours around an office or house. You can even set the Rovio up to capture images at predefined points on the route, and have it email those snapshots to you!
Thanks to the included microphone and camera, you can remotely observe your home in real time. If you want to talk to anyone around the robot, the Rovio also has a builtin speaker. So you just speak into your microphone on your computer, and it’s relayed to the robot over the internet and played on the speaker! And of course, if the batteries run low, the robot will automatically home in on the charging dock and recharge itself too!
So the Rovio remote controlled robot really is the ultimate in radio/remote controlled gadgets. You get a buggy that’s really easy to drive, plus an effective spy camera and microphone for realtime streaming, plus software that you can use anywhere in the world and the robot will keep itself fully charged. What more could you ask for?
This is a guest article by Dan Harrison who used to design Spy Gadgets for private detectives and the police. Now he spends his time researching and designing covert spy cameras.



Sunday 28 April 2013

JAPANESE INVISIBLE TECHNOLOGY




Japanese Technology Makes Craziest Invisibility Cloak Yet (VIDEO)



Cloak

If you are one of the many children, okay, adults, still waiting for your Hogwarts acceptance letter, we have good news! This insane video shows Japanese technology that has actually managed to create an invisibility cloak, just like good old Harry's. They call it the 'transparent cloak' and it is pretty amazing.
The cloak is made using Retro-reflective Projection Technology, a process that superimposes the virtual world onto the real world. They call it creating an 'Augmented Reality.' (Creepy, right?) So actually, the cloak is not invisible per se, but rather made of lots of tiny beads that reflect light only in the direction they came from.
A camera in the cloak takes in the scene behind the wearer. Then, according to Creator's Project: "A computer processes the background imagery and relays it to a projector that filters through a half mirror and projects the scene onto the wearer. From a certain angle, the cloaked person looks transparent to onlookers."
The scientist behind it all, Dr. Susumu Tachi, is hoping to expand this technology to cover blindspots in cars, planes and helicopters. Personally, we are content with the cloak, but we understand that this has wider implications. While science has had a go at creating an invisibility cloak many times before, and have recently even created a time cloak, this technology seems to be a work of digital art. What do you think: art, science or both?


Japanese Technology Makes Craziest Invisibility Cloak Yet (VIDEO)

Cloak
First Posted: 01/09/12 07:26 PM ET Updated: 01/09/12 07:26 PM ET

VEGETABLES GROWN IN FACTORIES


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Vegetables Grown in Factories



Key to Solving Food Shortage
 
The earth’s population, now seven billion, is said to exceed nine billion in 2050. Various problems need to be fixed to feed everyone. The conventional method of farming is influenced by weather, including hours of sunshine, temperature and rainfall. This method grows plants, which have their roots deep in the ground, while protecting them from diseases and insects, but it is difficult to assure a stable food supply. Under these circumstances, many factories where vegetables are grown indoors without using soil have been built in Japan. Fresh vegetables grown in these factories are being consumed in homes and restaurants. They have many advantages. One is that they are grown without using agricultural chemicals such as pesticide. The Japanese technology is attracting attention from overseas as well.

Inside of the vegetable factories in Japan

Year-round Vegetable Production Possible

 Vegetable factories are buildings in which they grow vegetables while artificially controlling the light, temperature, humidity and nutrients with computers. Some of them open their roofs to use natural sunlight, but what is attracting attention in Japan are those in which artificial lights, such as fluorescent lamps and light-emitting diodes (LEDs), are used instead of sunlight in a totally closed environment. Instead of soil, water in which nutrients are added is used to grow vegetables. As this method is not influenced by sunshine hours or temperature, it can grow plants all year round regardless of the season or location. Because vegetables are grown indoors, they are free from diseases, insects and weeds. So, a big advantage of this method is that it does not use agricultural chemicals and can produce vegetables safe to eat. Recently, studies are being made to grow more nutritious vegetables by, for example, controlling the wavelength of LED lighting.

 At present, it is said that there are more than 30 vegetable factories in Japan which grow plants using only artificial lighting. Plans to build such factories are spreading very rapidly to many parts of the country.
20,000 Heads of Lettuce per Day

One of the largest vegetable factories in Japan
One of the largest vegetable factories in Japan © Spread Co. Ltd.
 A leading vegetable factory in Japan is in Kameoka City, Kyoto. It is a four-story building, where four layers of shelves are built on each floor to grow lettuce. The total area of cultivation is 21,400 square meters. The factory ships about 20,000 heads of lettuce every day for sale at supermarkets and other stores. Since the building is four stories high, it can use the land very efficiently. Harvest per unit of space is 100 times greater than that of conventional ground farming.

 Sixty people are working in this plant. People who grow vegetables are all dressed in clean, white work clothes and wear masks and white caps. Before they enter the area where vegetables are grown, they thoroughly disinfect their hands with alcohol and take an air shower so they do not bring into the production area diseases, insects, viruses or bacteria that will harm the vegetables. These workers look entirely different from farmers who grow vegetables on the ground. As the temperature, humidity, sunshine hours and water with nutrients are all controlled with computers, the factory looks like a plant that makes precision machinery or medicines rather than a farm.

Taking an air shower before entering the area where vegetables are grownTaking an air shower before entering the area where vegetables are grown 
© Spread Co. Ltd.
A grower checking how lettuce is growingA grower checking how lettuce is growing
© Spread Co. Ltd.

Growing Vegetables in City Buildings

 There are vegetable factories in many places in Japan, but the most unique location is the Showa Base at the South Pole, which Japan has built for polar observation. Built in 2008, it is small, but grows lettuce, basil and other vegetables, using mostly fluorescent lamps as a source of light. As the South Pole is a harsh environment, where the temperature sometimes drops to almost minus 40 C, meals eaten by observation team members had tended to be mostly freeze-dried or retort-packed food. The vegetable factory has made them very happy because they can now eat fresh vegetables all year round.

社内に植物工場を持っている企業の本社ビル)
The headquarters building of a company in the center of Tokyo operating an in-house vegetable factory © Pasona Group Inc.


Vegetables grown in the hall on the first floor. Lighting is adjusted according to the speed of growth.
Vegetables grown in the hall on the first floor. Lighting is adjusted according to the speed of growth. 
© Pasona Group Inc.
 Meanwhile, there are companies growing vegetables in urban buildings. In a business district of Tokyo, a major company that dispatches temporary workers to businesses has built a vegetable factory in the company premises and supplies harvested vegetables to an employee cafeteria. Moreover, it grows lettuce and other vegetables on the first floor of the building and also in part of a conference room so visitors can see.

 In addition, it grows cucumbers on the ceiling above the reception area and tomatoes on the ceiling of a reception room. Once, the company grew rice as an experiment. It proves that it is possible to grow plants in urban buildings if the vegetable factory technology is used.

 Faced with an explosive population increase, many countries have to worry about their food supply. Against that background, vegetable factories in Japan receive an increasing number of visits and inquiries from overseas. The day appears near when Japan’s vegetable factory technology will contribute to solving the global problem of food shortage thanks to its advantages such as the absence of influence by the weather or environment and no soil pollution.

Vegetable-growing facility on the wall of a conference room. Harvested vegetables are supplied to an employee cafeteria.Vegetabl
VEGETABLE-growing facility on the wall of a conference room. Harvested vegetables are supplied to an employee cafeteria. © Pasona Group Inc.
Tomatoes are grown on the ceiling of a reception room.
Tomatoes are grown on the ceiling of a reception room. © Pasona Group Inc.


Saturday 27 April 2013

Japan's Cutting-Edge Eco-Ships on Voyage


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Japan's Cutting-Edge Eco-Ships on Voyage






Everywhere you go in Japan, you see cars and home electronics products made to be friendlier to the global environment. And not just on land. By using the most advanced high technology in the world, Japanese companies are building ocean-going vessels called "eco-ships" which use less fuel and release less CO2 into the air. Japan is a shipbuilding superpower; one in every five ships made in the world is built in Japan. Building eco-ships is one of the ways in which Japan intends to contribute to preserving the global environment.

World's First Solar Power Ship

The Auriga Leader, a car carrier, which put solar energy into actual use for the first time in the world. © Nippon Yusen K.K.
Large cargo ships carry many things, including foods such as wheat and soybeans, liquefied natural gas (LNG), iron ore and cars. The largest car carrier made in Japan has 14 floors, is about 200 meters long, and can carry 6,400 cars on a single voyage.

 A giant ship like that needs a lot of fuel because it is heavy and because it faces great resistance from the waves. Eco-ships reduce CO2 emissions by using less fuel and reducing wave resistance.

 One way to do so is to use solar energy. The Auriga Leader, a Japanese car carrier which went into service in December 2008, is the world's first ship to put solar energy to actual use. The ship has 328 solar panels, spread over 250 square meters on the deck. Solar energy provides less than 1% of all the energy the ship uses. However, for the first time in the world, the Japanese ship also has large-volume batteries to store solar energy.                                                        
                                                                                                
                                                          
              
                        

                                                   The Emerald Ace, a car carrier, with 768 solar panels installed on the deck
                                                                        

                                                                       
                                                                           A closer view of the solar panels aboard the Emerald Ace. © Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Inc.
 In June 2012, the Emerald Ace, also a car carrier, went into service with 768 solar panels on its deck. This ship does not need fuel to generate electricity when in harbor. While out at sea, the ship generates electricity by solar energy and stores it in lithium-ion batteries on board. Once in harbor, its diesel generators are stopped and solar power is used. The onboard solar panels can generate about 160 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power about 50 homes. Ships just began to take advantage of solar energy and more solar ships are on the horizon.


Curbing Wave & Wind Resistance
The Yamato, a module carrier, uses air bubbles to decrease friction resistance with seawater. © NYK-Hinode Line, Ltd.
An artist's sketch of the Mitsubishi Air Lubrication system (MALS), showing air bubbles blown at the bottom of a ship. 
© Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.

Eco-ships are also built to reduce the frictional resistance of waves and wind. In probably the most interesting way of doing so, some Japanese ships have a system for generating air bubbles at the bottom of the bow and sending them by a blower from bow to stern. The bubbles reduce frictional resistance between the ship and seawater, helping to propel the vessel. The bubble effect was known theoretically before, but it was Japan that actually built ships to take advantage of air bubbles for the first time in the world. Three bubble ships entered service since 2010, including the Yamato, a “module carrier” that transports modularized heavy and large loads. The ships have proven to reduce CO2 emissions by about 6%. It is a unique idea that a ship rides on air bubbles, isn't it?

Also, the City of St. Petersburg, a car carrier commissioned in December 2010, has a hemisphere-shaped bow. The rounded bow of the ship, which travels back and forth across the North Atlantic carrying a Japanese carmaker's vehicles, helps reduce wind resistance by up to 50%, slashing CO2 emissions by about 2,500 tons per year as a result.

The City of St. Petersburg, an energy-saving car carrier built by Kyokuyo Shipyard Corporation, which has a hemispherical bow to reduce wind resistance.

There is an ongoing plan to combine the two technologies – the hemispheric bow and solar panels on board – to build very fuel-efficient ships capable of curbing wind resistance and taking advantage of solar energy.

 In addition, Japan is recently experimenting with new methods for painting the ship hull. Inspired by Mother Nature, new sorts of surface painting, such as one likened to the skin of sharks moving swiftly through the water or to lotus leaves repelling water, are being developed with nanotechnology. Alloys such as aluminum as well as carbon fiber used for aircraft are also under consideration to reduce ship weight.

Dream Eco-Ship Planned

 There is a plan in Japan to build a "Super Eco-Ship" using both solar and wind power by 2030. The ship, 352 meters long, will have solar panels as well as eight large masts to take advantage of wind propulsion. It looks like a honeybee gliding on the water.

An artist’s sketch of the future container ship NYK Super Eco-Ship 2030.
An artist’s sketch of the future container ship NYK Super Eco-Ship 2030. © Nippon Yusen K.K.
 In additional to these natural energy sources, the ship is supposed to mainly use fuel-cell power derived from LNG. The ship will have a total of 16 modular fuel cells, each the size of a standard freight container, which can be replaced with new ones during a port call.

 In 2030, the dream eco-ship will be partially powered by LNG. Compared with current ships powered by diesel engines which burn heavy oil, the dream ship will cut CO2 emissions by 69%. Eventually, the ship will aim at zero waste emission.

 Ships all over the world are said to emit 1.05 billion tons of CO2 per year, accounting for 3.3% of total global CO2 emissions. That is more than the total amount of CO2 emitted by Germany per year. Now that emerging countries are developing rapidly, the world's ocean-going ships in 2050 will be emitting 2.5 times more CO2 than today, according to some experts. There is much hope in the world for Japan's eco-ship technologies to help preserve the global environment.