Well yeah, scientists now claim to be ready to turn female bone marrow into sperm, cutting men out of the process of creating life!!!!
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23139620-401,00.html
The breakthrough paves the way for lesbian couples to have children that are biologically their own.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Think the MacBook Air is thin? Check out the thinnest 8-megapixel digital camera
All the world is abuzz about Steve Job’s pulling an Apple MacBook Air out of an interoffice envelope at MacWorld 2008 this week, but for digital camera fans the Air isn’t the only new skinny in town. BenQ’s new DSC X800 claims to be the world’s thinnest 8-megapixel digital camera (and I certainly haven’t seen any others this thin). At 100 x 63.7 x 14 mm (or 9.8mm on it’s slimmest side), it’s a touch too large to fit into an Altoids tin as the Pentax Optio S famously did, but it’s so thin you could stack two and not be much thicker than an Altoids tin. And as Jobs proves, large is just fine as long as you’re thin.
Despite the super-slim profile of the DSC X800, the camera includes a 3x optical zoom lens (38-114mm, f/3.5-4.5) which, like many other (non-Canon) ultracompact cameras, operates internally using a prism mechanism. BenQ isn’t known for great optics or anything (okay, so that’s an understatement), but it’s pulled out all the stops to improve your chances of getting a good shot by including image stabilization (they call it SSF, or Super Shake Free), face-tracking autofocus for up to nine faces, and high sensitivity up to ISO 4000, among other features. Other perks include a 3-inch LTPS LCD and a portable media player function that lets you watch video and listen to MP3s, though there’s only 12MB of internal memory, so you’ll have to pack some extra SD cards if you want to use it that way. Available in Q1 2008, the camera will come in black or red steel and pricing is yet to be set. Fashion accessory more than serious camera for sure, but hey, thin is in these days.
Cheers
Jim
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Undersea Cable To Speed Up Broadband...
A NEW 6900 kilometre, $200 million undersea data cable from Sydney to Guam announced yesterday will mean cheaper and faster broadband for all Australians, its makers say. Guam is one of the Pacific's two major exchanges that transfer data between Asia and the US. The optical cable of PIPE Network will be the fourth such link from Australia to the US — and the first not owned by Telstra or Optus parent SingTel.
It will halve the cost of a data connection to the US — meaning better internet access deals for Australians, said PIPE Networks' Lloyd Ernst. It also removes a speed bottleneck, allowing faster downloads from the US and making the Federal Government's planned national fibre-to-the-home optical network more worthwhile. "It's no use buying a Ferrari and finding the speed limit is 15km/h," Mr Ernst said. "International connectivity is an important part of the equation." He said there would be "quite a difference" in real download speeds, as congestion cleared on the international pipes.
Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy, who attended the announcement of the project in Melbourne, said the new cable would benefit consumers, businesses, and researchers. "This is great news for Australian internet users because the result will be faster and cheaper broadband," he said. More diversity on the international data market would drive broadband prices down, he said — though he declined to directly accuse Optus and Telstra of artificially keeping prices high by restricting the capacity of their international links. Though the cable will not go online until June 2009, it should affect the prices Australian pay for the internet much sooner.
Australia's increasing internet use has driven total data downloads up by 50 per cent every year, putting upward pressure on internet access prices. But this announcement has reversed that pressure, said Simon Hackett, managing director of internet service provider Internode. Mr Hackett said the cable's existing competitors were already "sharpening their pencils" to discount the price of international data, to ensure they did not lose customers to the new venture.
ISPs including Internode, iiNet and Primus meet with providers in Hawaii this week to negotiate new contracts for international data access — and would expect prices "a quarter better" than before, Mr Hackett said. All three ISPs have contracted to buy capacity on the new cable. Senator Conroy said the new cable was a "very neat fit" with the Labor Government's plans for a national optical fibre network, which will speed up domestic internet access. The Government will announce a competitive bid process to build the $8 billion network in the next few weeks, Senator Conroy said.
The Age
It will halve the cost of a data connection to the US — meaning better internet access deals for Australians, said PIPE Networks' Lloyd Ernst. It also removes a speed bottleneck, allowing faster downloads from the US and making the Federal Government's planned national fibre-to-the-home optical network more worthwhile. "It's no use buying a Ferrari and finding the speed limit is 15km/h," Mr Ernst said. "International connectivity is an important part of the equation." He said there would be "quite a difference" in real download speeds, as congestion cleared on the international pipes.
Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy, who attended the announcement of the project in Melbourne, said the new cable would benefit consumers, businesses, and researchers. "This is great news for Australian internet users because the result will be faster and cheaper broadband," he said. More diversity on the international data market would drive broadband prices down, he said — though he declined to directly accuse Optus and Telstra of artificially keeping prices high by restricting the capacity of their international links. Though the cable will not go online until June 2009, it should affect the prices Australian pay for the internet much sooner.
Australia's increasing internet use has driven total data downloads up by 50 per cent every year, putting upward pressure on internet access prices. But this announcement has reversed that pressure, said Simon Hackett, managing director of internet service provider Internode. Mr Hackett said the cable's existing competitors were already "sharpening their pencils" to discount the price of international data, to ensure they did not lose customers to the new venture.
ISPs including Internode, iiNet and Primus meet with providers in Hawaii this week to negotiate new contracts for international data access — and would expect prices "a quarter better" than before, Mr Hackett said. All three ISPs have contracted to buy capacity on the new cable. Senator Conroy said the new cable was a "very neat fit" with the Labor Government's plans for a national optical fibre network, which will speed up domestic internet access. The Government will announce a competitive bid process to build the $8 billion network in the next few weeks, Senator Conroy said.
The Age
Macbook Air: Price, Specs, Release Date Revealed!!!
After much speculation and hype, Apple today announced their new ultra-slim laptop, the MacBook Air. Measuring just 0.16″ to 0.76″ thick (when closed), the 3-pound machine is touted as the “world’s thinnest laptop”.
The new MacBook Air features a striking aluminum case design, and is skinny enough to fit inside of a standard manilla envelope. To put it’s size in perspective, the iPhone is about 0.45″ thick, so the average thickness of the MacBook Air is virtually the same as the iPhone.
In addition to its gorgeous exterior, the Air features a 13.3-inch widescreen (1280×800) display with LED backlighting, which minimizes power consumption, as well as providing an instant-on picture when the lid is opened.
Battery life is rated at 5 hours, with Wi-Fi active, but in order to keep things thin, the battery is built in and not user-replaceable (let’s hope these batteries last a really long time). Connectivity includes 802.11n wireless, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), a single USB 2.0 port and a micro-DVI connector for hooking up an external monitor. Apple also left out the DVD drive to help lighten the load. If you must use CDs or DVDs, you can either pick up a $99 external DVD burner (the Air SuperDrive), or mount discs wirelessly from another computer.
Pricing for the MacBook Air starts at $1799 for the base model with a 1.6GHz CPU and an 80GB hard drive. For an additional $1300, you can upgrade to a 1.8GHz CPU and a super-speedy 64GB solid state drive, but the $3098 price tag makes that model cost-prohibitive. Apple is taking pre-orders now, and they should start shipping orders by 1/31/2008.
The new MacBook Air features a striking aluminum case design, and is skinny enough to fit inside of a standard manilla envelope. To put it’s size in perspective, the iPhone is about 0.45″ thick, so the average thickness of the MacBook Air is virtually the same as the iPhone.
In addition to its gorgeous exterior, the Air features a 13.3-inch widescreen (1280×800) display with LED backlighting, which minimizes power consumption, as well as providing an instant-on picture when the lid is opened.
Despite its slim form-factor, the MacBook Air manages to include a full-size keyboard, with solid tactile feedback. What’s super-cool is the fact that the keyboard offers backlighting which automatically turns on in darkened locations. There’s also a huge trackpad that’s the first to offer multi-touch capabilities similar to those found on the iPhone. Apple also managed to squeeze in a built in iSight camera for online video chat sessions.
The system runs on a brand new Intel Core 2 Duo processor, available in either a 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz speeds. In order to cram all those brains into such a tiny body, Apple worked with Intel to shrink the size of the processor by about 60% from previous models. Both models include 2GB of RAM, which does not appear to be expandable at this point.
Battery life is rated at 5 hours, with Wi-Fi active, but in order to keep things thin, the battery is built in and not user-replaceable (let’s hope these batteries last a really long time). Connectivity includes 802.11n wireless, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), a single USB 2.0 port and a micro-DVI connector for hooking up an external monitor. Apple also left out the DVD drive to help lighten the load. If you must use CDs or DVDs, you can either pick up a $99 external DVD burner (the Air SuperDrive), or mount discs wirelessly from another computer.
Pricing for the MacBook Air starts at $1799 for the base model with a 1.6GHz CPU and an 80GB hard drive. For an additional $1300, you can upgrade to a 1.8GHz CPU and a super-speedy 64GB solid state drive, but the $3098 price tag makes that model cost-prohibitive. Apple is taking pre-orders now, and they should start shipping orders by 1/31/2008.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Bank Scams in Second Life!!
Well, it seems Second Life has closed all banks after months of financial scandals and fraud allegations... the virtual banks have now got their eviction notices from Linden Lab.The about-face came six days after Technology Review posted a story that described avatar losses and cited the possibility that one virtual-bank meltdown may have produced aggregate losses of some $700,000 in real money to many hundreds of Second Life "residents" in a manner that would be illegal in the real world.
It's quite interesting to see that when you create a virtual world real enough for people to quit their day jobs, and earn a crust selling virtual objects... Along comes virtual crime too!!
I tried signing up to Second Life yesterday, to see what mischief I could get up to in there, however I had some difficulties connecting to the server... So Stay Tuned for Part 2 of Bank Scams in Second Life!
Will MyLiveSearch Survive?
Well with the second release of MyLiveSearch not too far away, there doesn't seem to be as much hype around as when beta 1 was released in August 2007.Dubbing itself the “world’s first live search engine” it promised to show us the 4/5 of the web that Google doesn’t index - this includes the grey web of dynamically created web pages as well as real time indexing of more traditional pages.
Claiming: “Searching the internet will never be the same!” I wonder what will be in store for the new release. I feel that people have now lost interest in this search engine.
Cheers
Jim
Facebook VS MySpace
OK, now I am just new to this whole social networking arena. However over the past couple of years, I have heard a lot of conversations amongst friends (and also people who aren't my friends) asking the question "Hey, are you on Facebook?" or "How many friends do you have on MySpace?" So not being completely blind to what these social networks are, I recently decided to sign up to them and check out what all the 'hoo haa' is about.
So I'll start with MySpace... When I was browsing through peoples profiles, the first thing I noticed, was there was a lot of multimedia! People had lots of images on there pages, video clips, and even their favourite songs playing in the background. However I did notice that many pages were fairly unstructured, and it was difficult to read stuff because people had crazy backdrops with bizarre font colours olerlayed. Hence I kinda lost interest after an hour or so.
So I'll start with MySpace... When I was browsing through peoples profiles, the first thing I noticed, was there was a lot of multimedia! People had lots of images on there pages, video clips, and even their favourite songs playing in the background. However I did notice that many pages were fairly unstructured, and it was difficult to read stuff because people had crazy backdrops with bizarre font colours olerlayed. Hence I kinda lost interest after an hour or so.So then I signed up to Facebook. The thing I found really interesting with Facebook, was the way that you can add applications to your wall... and you could literally choose from thousands if not tens of thousands of applications! In my opinion I found Facebook to have a more structured layout, and was a piece of cake to navigate. I also thought it was neat how your page keeps a history log of what changes you have done to your wall... but wait.. also what your friends are doing... whether they updated their wall or even sent a message to one of their friends who isn't even in your own friends list. Crikey!, if I went back 3 hours later, it didn't give that stale feeling to my page. I can see why so many people are getting addicted!
Being a software developer I then went on to browse how the whole "application plugin" thing works. One of the first things I read in one of the forums was that a company wanted to pay a deveoper to create an application whereby their employees could log their hours worked. It was now when I thought geez, facebook has really opened up its site to all comers. I mean... people using Facebook for their businesses, and also developers getting jobs out of it! It really seems like Facebook's business plan has gone past the point of just providing a platform for social networking.
Personally, I have been using Facebook quite a bit since signing up, and have also managed to track down lots of people I went to school with. Which one do you prefer? are there others?
Being a software developer I then went on to browse how the whole "application plugin" thing works. One of the first things I read in one of the forums was that a company wanted to pay a deveoper to create an application whereby their employees could log their hours worked. It was now when I thought geez, facebook has really opened up its site to all comers. I mean... people using Facebook for their businesses, and also developers getting jobs out of it! It really seems like Facebook's business plan has gone past the point of just providing a platform for social networking.Personally, I have been using Facebook quite a bit since signing up, and have also managed to track down lots of people I went to school with. Which one do you prefer? are there others?
Jim
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
