Aurora 3D Presentation : Best 3D Interactive Business Presentation Software

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description : 

When you want your audience to truly be interested in your material, you don’t try to get your message across in mere words! You use snappy graphics, and charts, and images! But instead of juggling a smorgasbord of presentation applications for different uses, why not just consolidate all of your 3D interactive presentation magic-making into Aurora 3D Presentation? 

Aurora 3D Presentation gives you access to powerful techniques that you can harness to develop impressive, professional, and effective presentations in a number of formats! With Aurora 3D Presentation, you’ll be able to produce solutions that incorporate images, text, video, and data in a way that will capture the attention of your audience. Even if you aren’t very creative, it’s easy to get started with Aurora 3D Presentation, thanks to the included templates and styles.

So, what can you do with Aurora 3D Presentation? 

How about an interactive menu that automatically launches slideshows, websites, or executable programs? Or a wall of pictures and information, arrayed in a circle or a gracefully curving animated arc around the viewer? Spice up those boring spreadsheets by importing CSV files into Aurora 3D Presentation and animating tables and data, or create animated charts and graphs, even 3D models!

Everything that you could ever ask for in a presentation product is here with Aurora 3D Presentation! Import images, create albums, use 2D and 3D text for impact, and play around with special particle effects and backgrounds! There’s no limit to your creativity with Aurora 3D Presentation!

Find more here and let us know what you think. Subscribe on our RSS feed for even more updates and news sent directly to your email. Do not miss also our Daily Newsletter with trending news, Big Stories and other Exclusives. Thank you for your support! :) 

*by andreascy*

Apple Submits Mobile Hydrogen Fuel Cell Patent

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description :

Apple has submitted a patent request to the US Patent and Trademark Office that aim to replace lithium batteries in handheld computers with hydrogen fuel cells.

Until now we’ve only thought of hydrogen fuel cells in cars, but there is no reason why they couldn’t work in any device. The replacement cells would in fact be smaller and provide power for days or weeks! Microprocessor manufacturers like ARM are constantly battling to not only create faster chips, but also ones which use less power. A better power source could potentially allow them to drastically increase the speed of mobile devices.

Apple justifies the new technology saying that the United States is required to maintain relationships with corrupt governments which supply the chemicals in lithium batteries. They’ve obviously also sparked by the recent oil spill of which an oil rig, subcontracted by BP, caused massive damage to the US coastline. 

According to two published Apple patent applications, called "Fuel Cell System to Power a Portable Computing Device" and "Fuel Cell System Coupled to a Portable Computing Device," Apple is looking to build lighter and smaller mobile devices like MacBooks (Air, Pro) by replacing current batteries with a fuel cell system.

This may not come as a surprise to many, since Apple has filed other patent applications for lighter hydrogen fuel cells. Those patents, which were brought to light this past October, described a building process where multiple fuel cells are connected by a power bus in a parallel pattern, and a voltage-multiplying circuit is added for additional voltage to the stack. 

Now, Apple hopes to utilize these lighter, more efficient fuel cells in its mobile products in an effort to promote renewable energy sources and offer devices with the ability to run for days or even weeks without refueling, according to the patent applications. The devices will also be lighter and less bulky due to the lack of traditional batteries.

The first patent application, "Fuel Cell System to Power a Portable Computing Device," states Apple's case for wanting to use fuel cell technology in their devices. While current fuel cell technology for mobile products requires the user to carry a fuel cartridge for recharging purposes, Apple wants to integrate fuel cells right into their electronics.

The second patent application, "Fuel Cell System Coupled to a Portable Computing Device," describes how the fuel cell system would work with a rechargeable battery where one would power the other when necessary, and vice versa.

"This eliminates the need for a bulky and heavy battery within the fuel system, which can significantly reduce the size, weight, and cost of the fuel system," said the second patent application. "This fuel system includes a fuel stack cell which converts fuel into electrical power. It also includes a controller which controls operation of the fuel cell system."

One challenge will be creating a hydrogen fuel cell system that is cost-effective, according to Apple. 

Sources : CNET, Apple Insider

*by andreascy*

AMD's Radeon HD 7970 super GPU is here

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description :

We've talked on an older post about AMD's Radeon HD 6950 & 6970 high end Video cards. Today we' ll talk about Radeon HD 7970, AMD's first high end card release in their 7000 series, which is built on the latest 28nm manufacturing process. The Radeon HD 7970 represents the fastest single - GPU video card from AMD with a new core design and architecture.

AMD’s HD6970 was a huge success for the company, so the replacement card is certainly going to get a lot of media attention over the coming weeks. AMD claim it has ‘significantly more compute power than the HD6970′ with a brand new revolutionary architecture. With new technologies such as ‘ZeroCore’ power saving, is this the discrete solution to start 2012 with a bang?

The high end graphics sector has certainly no shortage of lightning quick, expensive products. Dual GPU discrete solutions such as the HD6990 and GTX590 have been leading the performance charts since they were released. In the single GPU sector it would be fair to say that AMD have not been able to oust Nvidia’s GTX580 from the top slot, instead targeting the HD6970 at a lower price point. I have had a soft spot for the GTX580 now for a long time, it is one of my favourite video cards of all time.

AMD’s HD7970 has been designed from the ground up redress the imbalance and to ensure that AMD remain competitive when Nvidia release their GTX580 replacement, shortly. The HD7970 has 2,047 stream processors and 3GB of GDDR5 memory connected via a 384 bit memory interface, so it certainly doesn’t seem to be cutting any performance corners, but is it enough to claim the performance throne as we head into 2012?

Specifications :

MANUFACTURER : AMD

SPECS STATUS : Official

SERIES : Radeon HD 7000

GPU MODEL : Tahiti XT

RELEASE DATE : Q4 2011

INTERFACE : PCI-E 3.0 x16

CORE CLOCK : 925 MHz

MEMORY CLOCK : 1375 MHz (5.5GHz)

MEMORY BANDWIDTH : 264 GB/sec

MAX POWER DRAW : 250 W

MEMORY SIZE : 3072 MB

MEMORY TYPE : GDDR5

MEMORY BUS TYPE : 384 bit

DIRECTX : 11.1

OPENGL : 4.0

PROCESS : 28 nm

FRAGMENT PIPELINES : 2048

TEXTURE UNITS : 128

RASTER : 32

The 7970's numbers are heavy as hell on paper : 3 GB of RAM, up to 32 internal computing units, the first use of PCI - E Gen 3, Direct X 11.1 support, and a fat, CPU-style L2 cache. That adds up to a potential six monitors gaming at once. And that's just with one—you can sling together up to four of these things at once. AMD is promising enormous gains over Nvidia's top cards - billing it as the world's fastest - but we'll hold off on judgment until we have something firmer than internal, synthetic benchmarks. Still, there's no reason to think this thing will be anything less than incredibly powerful, with both games (of course) and the bevy of desktop software it's capable of accelerating.

But it's not all about power! The 7970 is power with responsibility, or something. It's capable of ramping up its power consumption when needed - and scaling it down to practically zero when your desktop has been idling for a while. And it'll be quiet, unlike many GPU powerhouses - no leaf blower, if AMD is to be believed. They claim a new fan design and smarter ventilation angles will mean softer cooling. With all that horsepower, we hope so!

Again, we'll have to wait until the 7970 drops on January 9th (for $550) to see how the card stacks up IRL. If you want to punch Battlefield 3 down into submission, be excited. [AMD]

Enjoy the video :

Reference info on :

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7970/Pages/radeon-7970.aspx

*by andreascy*

Washington: 2 Utilities Win Approval For Nuclear Power Plants

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description :

 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission unanimously approved a radical new reactor design on Thursday, clearing away a major obstacle for two utilities to begin construction on projects in South Carolina and Georgia.

The decision, a milestone in the much-delayed revival of plant construction sought by the nuclear industry, involves the Westinghouse AP1000, a 1,154 Megawatt reactor with a so-called advanced passive design. It relies more heavily on forces like gravity and natural heat convection and less on pumps, valves and operator actions than other models do, in theory diminishing the probability of an accident.

Two reactors are planned for the Southern Company’s plant near Augusta, Ga., and another two at the Summer plant of South Carolina Electric and Gas in Fairfield County, S.C. In an unusual step, the commission waived the usual 30-day waiting period before its approval becomes official, so its decision will be effective in about a week. That moves the utilities closer to the point where they can start pouring concrete for safety-related parts of the plant. The decision also moves the industry toward the first test of a streamlined procedure in which the commission will issue a combined construction and operating license. Up to now reactors had to obtain a construction license and then undergo a long wait for an operating license, resulting in expensive delays in starting up reactors that had essentially been completed.

Many of today’s operating reactors were one of a kind. Under the new system, the utility will use a standard design preapproved by the commission, like the one endorsed on Thursday. The only remaining issue will be whether the utility was faithful to the authorized design. Southern and South Carolina Electric and Gas could get combined licenses soon. The new licensing procedure is intended to cut costs, which ran so high in the last round of construction, in the 1970s and 1980s, that many projects were abandoned half-built.

In the emerging round of construction, Southern and South Carolina Electric and their partners have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars digging foundations for the projects. They have also brought in cooling water and taken other early steps that do not require approval of the reactor design.

In a statement welcoming the commission’s decision, Westinghouse said that about 3,000 high-paying construction jobs would be created at each plant site and that workers manufacturing components at factories around the country would benefit as well. Of the 104 operating power reactors in the United States, the youngest entered service in 1996.

The four reactors to be built are the only survivors in what had been envisioned as a bigger field of new plants that narrowed over the last three years as investors ran into financial and other obstacles. In fact, it is not clear whether ground will be broken on any additional reactors soon; industry experts say the biggest obstacle is that the price of natural gas remains quite low, making it difficult to produce electricity from a reactor at a price competitive with electricity from a gas-burning plant. Congress has approved $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for new reactors and there is considerable support for even more, but it is not clear that borrowers will emerge.

Among other design improvements, the Westinghouse AP1000 is supposed to shut down safely in the event of a loss of all electrical power, which is what befell the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami in March. Westinghouse says that a combination of automatic systems and design features would keep the reactor safe for three days without human intervention and that its core could be kept from melting indefinitely with only minimal operator effort.

The regulatory commission approved an earlier version of the AP1000 in 2006, but the design was later ruled out for American utilities when the agency adopted a rule in 2008 requiring newly constructed reactors to be able to withstand the impact of a crashing aircraft. China is in advanced stages of constructing four units of an earlier version of the AP1000. The first unit is scheduled to go online in 2013, about three years before the first one would begin operating in the United States. Westinghouse predicts that certification of the design by the regulatory commission will make it easier for the company to market the model around the world.

Opponents of the reactor, among them the North Carolina group NC Warn, have argued that no new designs should be certified until the lessons of the Fukushima accident have been fully absorbed. And Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, and others have drawn attention to concerns raised by an engineer at the commission that a building surrounding the reactor containment might fail under some circumstances. But the chairman of the commission, Gregory B. Jaczko, said that all of the panel’s safety concerns had been fully addressed.

“The design provides enhanced safety margins through use of simplified, inherent, passive or other innovative safety and security functions, and also has been assessed to ensure it could withstand damage from an aircraft impact without significant release of radioactive materials,” he said in a statement.

The decision is a rare instance of agreement among the commissioners, who have split this year over policy and management issues. Last week four of them testified before Congress that Dr. Jaczko had limited the flow of information to them and tried to cut them out of important decisions.

ALSO OF INTEREST: The Newest Eco-Friendly Apartment Building Trends

Thanks for reading!

*by andreascy*

 

30 Stunning Photos of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description :

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France. Here is a collection of photographs from CERN, showing various stages of completion of the LHC and several of its larger experiments, over the past several years.

(1) 

(1) Combining two major ATLAS inner detector components. The semiconductor tracker is inserted into the transition radiation tracker for the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. These make up two of the three major components of the inner detector. They will work together to measure the trajectories produced in the proton-proton collisions at the centre of the detector when the LHC is switched on. Photo taken on February 22nd, 2006. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN)

(2) 

(2) Views of two step of an ultrasound and induction welding to interconnection between two LHC magnet at sector 3-4 during repair operation on March 26th, 2009. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(3)

(3) Visible damage to the LHC magnets in sector 3-4 of the LHC on November 12th, 2008. On September 19th, 2008, as the LHC was being switched on, a faulty electrical connection between two of the accelerator's magnets caused a large helium leak, which violently vented 6 tons of helium into the tunnel. The resulting temperature rise damaged some 53 magnets. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(4) 

(4) Detail of some of the damage done to the LHC magnets in sector 3-4 on September 19th, 2008. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(5) 

(5) Moving and placement of a quadrupole at sector 3-4 in the LHC tunnel on April 30th, 2009. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(6) 

(6) A replacement magnet for LHC sector 3-4 being lowered in the tunnel on January 19th, 2009. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(7) 

(7) Moving and placement of a quadrupole at sector 3-4 in the LHC tunnel on April 30th, 2009. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(8) 

(8) Transporting a quadrupole through sector 3-4 in the LHC tunnel on April 30th, 2009. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(9)

(9) Installation of a new dipole in the LHC tunnel at sector 3-4 on April 6th, 2009. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(10) 

(10) Detail of one of the LHC's 18-kW 4.5-K refrigerator units, part of the larger cryogenic system used to maintain superfluid helium temperatures of about 1.9k (-271.25° Celsius or -456.25° Fahrenheit). Photograph taken on April 28th, 2008. (Mona Schweizer, © CERN) 

(11)

(11) The silicon strip tracker of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) nears completion. Shown here are three concentric cylinders, each comprised of many silicon strip detetectors (the bronze-coloured rectangular devices, similar to the CCDs used in digital cameras). These surround the region where the protons collide. (© CERN) 

(12)

(12) An automated magnetic tape vault at CERN computer center, seen on September 15th, 2008. The tapes are used to store the complete LHC data set, from which a fraction of the data is copied to overlying disk caches for fast and widespread access. The handling of the magnetic tape cartridges is now fully automated, as they are racked in vaults where they are moved between the storage shelves and the tape drives by robotic arms.(Claudia Marcelloni; Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(13)

(13) Final work is done on the detectors inside the L3 magnet of the ALICE experiment on July 10th, 2008. (Mona Schweizer, © CERN) 

(14)

(14) View of the CMS Detector before closure on August 17th, 2008. (Maximilien Brice; Michael Hoch; Joseph Gobin, © CERN) 

(15)

(15) Portrait of Lyn Evans, LHC project Leader, on December 3rd, 2008. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(16)

(16) Shielding of the L3 magnet, ALICE experiment on July 10th, 2008 (Mona Schweizer, © CERN) 

(17) 

(17) Final preparations on a replacement magnet ready to be lowered into sector 3-4 on November 27th, 2008. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(18)

(18) A tunnel with part of one of the beam dumps of the LHC at point 6. Beam dumps are absorption mechanisms where the powerful beams can be extracted completely from the LHC, consisting of a 7m segmented carbon cylinder, 700mm in diameter, contained in a water-cooled steel cylinder, surrounded by about 750 tons of concrete and iron shielding. The sign at top warns of the presence of helium, argon and/or nitrogen in nearby pipes - gases that (if they leaked out) could displace oxygen and cause unconsciousness. (Maximilien Brice; Claudia Marcelloni, © CERN) 

(19)

(19) Insertion of a Time Of Flight (TOF) module in the upper part of the spaceframe for the ALICE experiment. Charged particles in the intermediate momentum range are identified in ALICE by the TOF detector. The time measurement, in conjunction with the momentum and track length measured by the tracking detectors is used to calculate the particle mass. (Mona Schweizer, © CERN) 

(20)

(20) Detail of the LHCb Magnet, seen on September 5th, 2008. (Peter Ginter, © CERN) 

(21)

(21) A collimater for the LHC. The powerful LHC collimation system protects the accelerator against damage due to unavoidable regular and irregular beam loss. (Claudia Marcelloni, © CERN) 

(22)

(22) View of the LHC machine in the tunnel at the junction part with the beam dump at point 6 on July 25th, 2008. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(23)

(23) View of the CMS Detector before closure, on August 17th, 2008. (Maximilien Brice; Michael Hoch; Joseph Gobin, © CERN) 

(24)

(24) Last views of the L3 magnet before its closure on June 28th, 2008. Installation of the mini frame of ALICE on 15 May 2009. (Maximilien Brice; Mona Schweizer, © CERN) 

(25)

(25) Closing of the 30-inch-thick, 430 ton L3 door on the I side, ALICE experiment, on June 11th, 2008. (Mona Schweizer, © CERN) 

(26)

(26) A radiofrequency chamber of the LHC. Radiofrequency chambers give a kick to the protons once per circuit to increase their speed. Original here. (Wikimedia user Rama / CC BY-SA) 

(27) 

(27) A fireman examines emergency exit signage in the LHC tunnel on February 21st, 2008, during an exercise with French, Swiss and CERN firemen. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(28)

(28) Work on the ATLAS semiconductor tracker barrel. Precision work is performed on the semiconductor tracker barrel of the ATLAS experiment. The semiconductor tracker will be mounted in the barrel close to the heart of the ATLAS experiment to detect the path of particles produced in proton-proton collisions. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

(29)

(29) Integration of the three shells into the ATLAS pixel barrel, the innermost tracking device of the experiment. (Claudia Marcelloni, © CERN) 

(30)

(30) Installing the ATLAS calorimeter in November of 2005. The eight torodial magnets can be seen on the huge ATLAS detector with the calorimeter before it is moved into the middle of the detector. This calorimeter will measure the energies of particles produced when protons collide in the centre of the detector. (Maximilien Brice, © CERN) 

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*by andreascy*

Will Super Capacitors and Batteries be Coupled to a Hybrid Soon?

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description :

Almost everyone is familiar with the annoying need to replace the battery or to charge it. It can be the notebook during a presentation, a wireless or cellular phone stopping during a very important conversation with a customer, or a camera in the middle of taking pictures. There are endless incidents of that kind that we face as consumers and users. 

In Industrial Electronics there are many, most harmful battery failures, causing disturbances and security threats. From one side, batteries are not capable supplying high current pulses, from the other side most communication devices are power hungry, demanding high current pulses. Batteries are aimed to supply voltage continuously while delivering high current pulses is damaging their chemistry and shortening life time.

Many electronic devices are using communication protocols that are defined by various current pulses like GSM , Zigbi and WiFi. Other electronic devices such as digital camera or Smartphone need high current during a snapshot to operate the shutter, the flash led or data transmission. One of the best existing solutions today for extending battery life is Pulse Supercapacitors (SC).

A pulse supercapacitor is an “Energy storage” component with high capacitance and low internal resistance (ESR) that unlike a battery is built to deliver pulses of current almost endlessly (hundreds of thousands of charge/discharge cycles) and can be calmly recharged by a battery during the standby time between the pulses.

Hybrids of Battery and SC are coming more and more popular and recognized by the engineers. There are three limiting issues though :

1. Size and shape

Most of Pulse SCs in the market are cylindrical and large in size to be integrated in the miniature trendy market.

2. Environment friendliness

Some of the Pulse SCs contain organic electrolytes and solvents are harmful, flammable and not accepted environmentally (i.e. Acetonitrile which is used in organic electrolyte based SCs).

3. Cost

Pulse SCs are known to be expensive and as so, are not able to join most of consumer electronics bills of materials.

All these three issues were challenged by Cellergy Ltd. Cellergy manufactures its SCs by implementing Printing technology that enables to build flat, thin and in a wide range of sizes down to 12X12.5 mm, yet the smallest form factor of Pulse SCs in the market. Their SCs contain aqueous electrolyte and are green products.

Cellergy’s patented manufacturing process is based on Automation and Robotics, which helps to reduce costs to a level that enables them to be integrated not only in industrial products but also in consumer electronics. Partial list of Cellergy’s SCs applications can show the large penetration into the electronic industry. Check it out :

(a) Industrial Electronics :

- Automated metering (AMR)

- GSM/GPRS Modules

- M2M communication

- Active RFID for animals tracking, vehicles tracking, prisoners tracking, medical equipment tracking, and container tracking, etc.

- Medical drug delivery pumps

- Fuel Automated payment solutions

- Wireless computers mouse and keyboards

- Home security

- Home Automation

- Electronic locks

- Irrigation control

Energy harvesting for sensors

- Energy harvesting for mechanical movement operations

- LaserRangefinders for civil and for military applications

- Military pulse applications

- Cellular communication and led flash

(b) Consumer Electronics :

- Personal Pagers

- Sound improvement of loudspeakers

- Wireless audio devices

- PDA’s

Supercapacitors contribute to a breakthrough in power management design. The combination of batteries and supercapacitors enables the transmission of pulses of the many electronic devices surrounding us, and results in extending the life of batteries of those devices, thus lowering end customer expenses and making it affordable for use.

If you liked this article then feel free to discover even more here and share it with your social circles. Subscribe on our RSS feed for future updates straight to your inbox. Thank you for your support!

*by andreascy*

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, Neo V And Ray - Ice Cream Sandwich Update

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description :

Great news for Sony Ericsson Xperia Phone owners, surprisingly the company who got a bad history on updating their devices with latest Android software, just released an official Ice Cream Sandwich Alpha Build for it’s unlocked Xperia™ phones spiced with TimeScape UX. 

In a blog post Sony Ericsson (and now Sony Mobile Communications) stated : 

"To show our continuous support to the open developer community, and get your valuable feedback, we are today (December 17, 2011) making an alpha ROM of Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.1) for Xperia™ arc S, Xperia™ neo V and Xperia™ ray available for download. This is something we have not done before, and we are obviously very excited about it.". 

The ROM will not work on original Xperia arc or Xperia neo, hopefully the developers will make it installable on other Sony Ericsson Phones as well. This Ice Cream Sandwich Alpha ROM is not yet ready for everyday use and only targeted to advance user. But, if you can’t wait to see Android 4.0 glory on your Xperia arc S, Xperia neo V and Xperia ray and you got some knowledge in flashing or modding your phone then follow the instructions below.

1. How To Install Guide 

Important information: 

Since this is far from the final software upgrade roll out, there are a few things to pay close attention to before you download and install the ROM. 

You should be an advanced developer with extensive knowledge in how to install, and switch between different ROMs.If you are a consumer without these developer skills, then we strongly recommend you not do try this as you may damage your phone. 

You must be using Xperia™ arc S, Xperia™ neo V or Xperia™ ray, running the latest Sony Ericsson software release (which is 4.0.2.A.0.42). Please note that you can’t use the original Xperia™ arc or Xperia™ neo, as they have different partition layouts. 

You must unlock your phone using Sony Ericsson’s Unlock boot loader service, and agree to all the legal and warranty conditions that apply. Please note that you may void the warranty of your phone and/or any warranty from your operator if you unlock the boot loader of your phone. Sony Ericsson can then no longer guarantee the full functionality of your phone, and will not be responsible for any unusable functions or loss of personal data associated to the alpha ROM being flashed to the phone. Please pay special attention to the following legal statement before downloading (the full statement is available on the download link): 

“You must acknowledge that the software is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, express, or implied, and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.” 

Also, if you unlock the boot loader, you will not be able to download and install the final Ice Cream Sandwich software upgrade from Sony Ericsson. For additional information on limitations and warranty, please see the Sony Ericsson Unlock boot loader service. 

You should have read through and acknowledged the limitations of the software described below. 

You must read and accept the end user license agreement on the download link, before you can download the alpha ROM zip file. 

2. Limitations and Functionality

The number of features and functionalities working and turned on in this alpha ROM are very limited. This is because many features are not yet certified, and in a few cases because we have more work to do on certain features, as they are still in the Bring up phase. These are some of the features turned off or not yet working in this alpha ROM: 

 - Google Mobile Services (GMS) apps are not included (for example, Gmail, Google Maps, etc.). 

- Modem is turned off and SIM card will therefore not be recognised (this also means you can’t make any phone calls). 

- Bluetooth™ is turned off. 

- Wi-Fi® is turned off. 

- ANT+ is turned off. 

- FM-radio is turned off. 

In other words, this software is not intended for ordinary everyday usage - it is for demonstration purposes only. However, this alpha ROM includes a number of new features: 

- New “Roboto” font. 

- New “Holo” theme is supported (you are able to test apps written to make use of the Holo theme). 

- Music player control from lock screen. 

- Updated UI in the Settings menu. 

- Updated UI in the web browser. 

- Updated UI and interaction with the new messaging action bar. 

- Updated UI for improved multitasking. 

- Swipe to dismiss notifications, tasks and browser tabs in the Notification menu. 

Check out the video above to see a demo of some of these features! 

3. Download and Install

Follow the instructions below to download and install the alpha ROM. Please note that it only works with Xperia™ arc S, Xperia™ neo V and Xperia™ ray. 

Make sure your phone is running the latest software release, which is build number 4.0.2.A.0.42. If not, upgrade your phone through PC Companion. If you can’t upgrade to this build number, it is not possible to try the Ice Cream Sandwich alpha ROM for Xperia™ phones. 

Unlock the boot loader of your phone. To do this, you must read through and agree to all the legal and warranty conditions that apply. 

Download the Ice Cream Sandwich alpha ROM for Xperia™ arc S (133MB), the Ice Cream Sandwich alpha ROM for Xperia™ neo V (131MB) or the Ice Cream Sandwich alpha ROM for Xperia™ ray (136MB), depending on your phone model. 

Extract the downloaded zip file to your Android Fastboot directory. For example: ..\android-sdk\fastboot\Xperia_arcS_ICS_alpha. 

Open a command prompt and go to your Fastboot directory: ..\android-sdk\fastboot\ 

Flash the three alpha ROM files one at a time using Fastboot. Use these three commands (replace the folder name if you are using Xperia™ neo V or Xperia™ ray) : 

fastboot flash boot ..\Fastboot\Xperia_arcS_ICS_alpha\boot.img 

fastboot flash userdata ..\Fastboot\Xperia_arcS_ICS_alpha\userdata.img 

fastboot flash system ..\Fastboot\Xperia_arcS_ICS_alpha\system.img 

Once done, please reboot your phone.  If you need some help, feel free to contact us for more details and support. 

If you liked our post, then kindly leave your constructive feedback and share it with your friends. 😊

*by andreascy*

Earth : Scientists discover new metal type at Earth’s core

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description : 

Scientists have discovered that one of the most abundant materials deep inside the Earth can change how it conducts electricity without changing its structure. This discovery could forever change how we understand the Earth's interior and impacts our planet's magnetic field - something scientists have never been able to completely explain. 

Ronald Cohen of Carnegie's Geophysical Laboratory co-authored the study and found when extreme heat and pressure were applied to the iron oxide (the second-most abundant material in the Earth's lower mantle), it changed how it conducted electricity without the metal changing its structure. Normally, a change in conductivity would mean a change in atomic or subatomic structure, too.

"The fact that one mineral has properties that differ so completely - depending on its composition and where it is within the Earth - is a major discovery," said Russell Hemley, director of the Geophysical Laboratory.

By putting the iron oxide in conditions that are similar to the Earth's core-mantle boundary (1.4 million times atmospheric pressure at sea level and temperatures up to 2,200 C), Cohen and his team saw first-hand that the metal can change from being an insulator to a conductor depending on the heat and pressure it's exposed to.

"At high temperatures, the atoms in iron oxide crystals are arranged with the same structure as common table salt," Cohen said. "Just like the table salt, iron oxide at ambient conditions is a good insulator - it does not conduct electricity." 

"Our new results show, instead, that iron oxide metallised without any change in structure and that combined temperatures and pressure are required. Furthermore, our theory shows that the way the electrons behave to make it metallic is different from other materials that become metallic." 

*by andreascy*

M.I.T. Camera Captures Speed of Light : A Trillion-Frames-Per-Second

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description :

Think of it as the ultimate slow - motion movie camera. Researchers at M.I.T have developed an imaging system so fast it can trace the motion of pulses of light as they travel through liquids and solids. To put it into perspective, writes John Markoff in The New York Times, “If a bullet were tracked in the same fashion moving through the same fluid, the resulting movie would last three years.”

 

The research was directed by Ramesh Raskar of the Camera Culture group at the M.I.T. Media Lab. In an abstract, the research team writes :

"We have built an imaging solution that allows us to visualize the propagation of light. The effective exposure time of each frame is two trillionths of a second and the resultant visualization depicts the movement of light at roughly half a trillion frames per second. Direct recording of reflected or scattered light at such a frame rate with sufficient brightness is nearly impossible. We use an indirect ‘stroboscopic’ method that records millions of repeated measurements by careful scanning in time and viewpoints. Then we rearrange the data to create a ‘movie’ of a nanosecond long event."

 Watch the video below by Melanie Gonick of the M.I.T. News Office.

You can learn more by visiting the project website. 

*by andreascy*