Apple Multi-Touch Data Fusion Adds Camera, Voice, Force Sensors

Apple has been working in new multi-touch technology that combines touch interfaces with input from the camera and the microphone. For example: this will allow you to select text in the iPhone, say "copy," go to another application and say "paste" to make this task really easy. The most intriguing part, however, is the use of a camera in laptops and desktops.

This will require two cameras, one for video chat and the other for the "hand reading," but it opens a lot of possibilities. To start with, the entire keyboard can become a gesture control pad without even having to touch the surface. In addition to that, it can be combined with actual touch technology to identify single fingers on the surface, with the possibility of assigning specific functions to them.

The system even contemplates combining all this with accelerometers and force sensors, so the touch action can generate secondary data. One example of this may be applying a deformation effect to an image or a sound effect to a music track, giving it more or less strength depending on the force you use in your action

Source: Gizmodo.com

Evolution of Your DNA: New Software Traces the Very Code of Life

There's a new computer program that knows all about your history - but don't worry, it's not going to report those parking violations or tell your friends what you do at night.  It cares about your real history - the evolution of your DNA.

Researchers at Penn State have created the impressively named Gestalt Domain Detection Algorithm-Basic Local Alignment Tool (GDDA-BLAST to its friends - and yes, the team who are tracing the very code of life did just jam in an extra letter to make the name cooler).  This software, when it's not hunting Doctor Who, can contrast and compare multiple protein sequences called 'retroelements'.  These biological building blocks have existed for a long time, and since they make up half of YOU and many other things (genome-wise) they're pretty useful signposts.

The program can trace the relationships between organisms as varied as bacteria and HIV, producing an tree detailing the evolutionary "distances" between each.  It compares every single pair of sequences, and without the subjectivity (not to mention boredom) of human experts performing the same task.  Also, the program can operate in the less-than-25%-similar 'twilight zone' where other programs fear to tread.

Even better, these scientists are making the whole thing open-source - so that anyone who wants can trace phylogenetic pathways in their spare time (assuming they have access to a few million dollars of genetics laboratory).  Okay, maybe it isn't the sort of thing you'll see people swiping into their iPhones (until society gets good and GATTACA'd up), but the concept of spending years on an amazing program, then just making it free because it's useful, is a great one.

The researchers also report that the program is learning rapidly as it acquires new data, and has already evolved considerably since they first activated it.  But we're sure there's no danger in an evolutionary-minded, open-source and web-wide program that can do that.

Source: DailyGalaxy.com

Xbox 360 to be lowest-priced next-gen video game console

One of the the biggest selling points of Nintendo's Wii video game console since its launch nearly two years ago has been that it was the lowest-priced of the trio of next-generation machines, which also includes Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3.

To date, the Wii costs $249, while the lowest-priced Xbox, the so-called "Arcade," retails currently for $279. An 80GB PS3 sells for $400.

But Microsoft said Wednesday that it will drop the price of the Arcade on Friday to $199, breaking through what some have said is the all-important psychological price level of $200. At that price, industry observers say, the market opens up to mass levels of consumers.

Microsoft will also drop the price of its 60GB Xbox to $299 and its "Xbox Elite," which has a 120GB hard drive, to $399.

"The fact that the Xbox 360 is now cheaper than the Wii is definitely a big shift in the market," said Aaron Greenberg, director of product management for Xbox 360.

The news has been rumored for some time and was first reported as fact Wednesday by BusinessWeek.

For Microsoft, this is a crucial step along its path toward winning the next-gen console wars. At E3 in July, the company said in no uncertain terms that it will win the battle, at least with Sony. It hedged its bets on out-selling the Wii, which has been dominant over the last several months, according to industry analyst NPD Group.

In fact, BusinessWeek reported that Don Mattrick, senior vice president of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business unit (and the person who had been on-stage at E3 and committed to winning the generation), said that he doubted the Xbox could catch up to the Wii at this point.

"I'm not at a point where I can say we're going to beat Nintendo," Mattrick told BusinessWeek. "We will sell more consoles this generation than Sony."

Of course, some have said that the appeal of the Xbox, despite being the first to hit 10 million units sold in North America, is still limited and that over the next few years, the PS3 will eventually catch up to and surpass the Xbox.

Until now, Nintendo has shown little interest in lowering the price of the Wii, and thus its profit margin. And while Sony has effectively lowered the price of the PS3 by offering only an 80GB version for the same price as what was previously a less-powerful version, it has little room to maneuver on price given that it is still subsidizing the PS3 at its current level.

By comparison, because the Xbox has been out a full year longer than both the Wii and the PS3, it has already achieved efficiencies of scale that have allowed it to slowly lower the Xbox's price.

To date, the 60GB Xbox has done about 60 percent of total Xbox 360 sales, said Greenberg, with the Arcade and Elite models each accounting for about 20 percent.

But with the Arcade's price dropping below $200, Greenberg said he thinks that model is "now picking up steam."

"Over 75 percent of all console sales historically were sold below $200," Greenberg said. "We know that there's tens of millions of PS2 owners who bought their systems when (the PS2) hit $199."

In other words, Microsoft is hoping that at $199, the Arcade can become the next PS2 and sell well over 100 million units.

Source: CNet.com

Photosynthesis Solar Tree Concept

Great concept from designer Vivien Muller for a modular, Lego-like little bonsai tree with 54 mini photovoltaic panels as leaves to soak up juice from the sun and charge your gadgets. 

Adapters get tucked away beneath a nice little tray, and your gadgets lay on top, basking in the shade. Vivien can you make this, please? I can't keep a real plant alive worth a damn, but this I think could place in the windowsill and be just fine with.

Source: Gizmodo.com

Courts Weigh LHC's Doomsday Possibility

Critics who say the world's largest atom-smasher could destroy the world have brought their claims to courtrooms in Europe and the United States - and although the claims are getting further consideration, neither court will hold up next week's official startup of the Large Hadron Collider.

The main event took place today in Honolulu, where a federal judge is mulling over the federal government's request to throw out a civil lawsuitfiled by retired nuclear safety officer Walter Wagner and Spanish science writer Luis Sancho.

Meanwhile, legal action is pending as well at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. Last week, the court agreed to review doomsday claims from a group of professors and students, primarily from Germany and Austria. However, the court rejected a call for the immediate halt of operations at the LHC.

What it's all about
In the U.S. as well as the European lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim that those involved in the particle collider's operation have not adequately addressed the idea that the LHC could create globe-gobbling microscopic black holes or other catastrophes such as matter-wrecking strangelets or magnetic monopoles. They're calling for further safety reviews to be conducted.

The defendants - including the U.S. Department of Energy as well as Europe's CERN particle-physics center - say such fears already have been knocked down in a series of safety reports. The reports, drawn up by leading researchers in high-energy physics, note that cosmic-ray collisions are many times more energetic and prevalent than the collisions expected at the LHC. If the LHC were capable of creating cosmic catastrophes, they would already have been seen many times over in the wider universe, even in the unlikeliest circumstances, the researchers say.

Past "big-bang machines" have faced similar legal challenges, but the worries are emerging anew because the LHC will smash protons together at energies seven times higher than the current world record, held by theTevatron at Fermilab in Illinois.

Physicists hope to gain new insights into mysteries of the universe ranging from dark matter to supersymmetric particles. The main quarry is an as-yet-undetected subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, also known as the "God Particle." The Higgs boson is the only fundamental particle predicted by current theory that has not yet been found. If it does not exist, that would add weight to alternative theories that depend onextra dimensions of space-time.

Theorists say the LHC could create microscopic black holes - or, more accurately, subatomic knots of ultra-concentrated energy - only if there are extra dimensions. Current theory also dictates that these knots wouldunravel instantly. The LHC's critics take issue with that particular claim.

In any case, the collider won't be in a position to create any type of black hole for months. The scheduled Sept. 10 turn-on would circulate only one beam of protons around the LHC's 17-mile-round ring at low energy. The first low-energy collisions won't occur until at least a month from now, and the device won't achieve its top collision energy until next year. That's why the courts are not rushing to rule on the critics' claims.

What's happening in court
Both sides in the federal lawsuit contributed to a flurry of filings in the days before today's hearing in District Judge Helen Gillmor's Honolulu courtroom.

The federal government's attorneys, representing the Energy Department, wanted Gillmor to dismiss the suit or render a summary judgment against Wagner and Sancho - on the grounds that the suit's outcome won't affect operations at the European collider, and that the plaintiffs missed their deadlines for legal filings.

In response, the plaintiffs insisted that their challenge was timely and said the defendants' past assurances did not ease their concerns about the safety issues. They called for the case to continue toward trial, with a tentative date of June 2009 already scheduled.

In the next legal volley, Bruce Strauss, who was the Energy Department's associate program manager for the LHC construction project, took aim at Wagner's credentials as well as his arguments. Strauss wrote that assessing the LHC's safety would "require competency in the field of high-energy physics, not health physics or nuclear medicine." Strauss also questioned Wagner's claims about his role in research, citing recent searches of scientific literature.

Strauss said that the federal lawsuit would have no effect on LHC operations because the federal role in building the collider ended a while ago. He said federal funds were now slated to go only toward supporting research activities at the LHC, to the tune of $10 million a month.

On the safety issue, Strauss said CERN's recent report, which was reviewed by outside experts, covered all the realistic scenarios for out-of-control black holes as well as the other doomsday scenarios - and he pointed out that experts at the American Physical Society recently endorsed the report's conclusions. Two Nobel laureates (Sheldon Glashow and Frank Wilczek) as well as a prominent Harvard physicist (Richard Wilson) have also taken the government's side as friends of the court.

Wagner responded to the government's volley just before today's hearing with yet another round of documents. He contended that the LHC would search for strangelets, insisted that yet-to-be-published research"absolutely refutes" claims that the LHC is safe and complained about Strauss' "ad hominem" attacks - while adding a little hominem of his own. For example, Wagner said Strauss once was searching for evidence of magnetic monopoles himself and was "apparently rankled that my work was successful, while his was not."

If this sounds to you like a blizzard of documents, you're not alone. At today's hearing, Judge Gillmor took both sides to task for filing so many disjointed documents and for failing to follow the local rules of the court, Justice Department spokesman Andrew Ames told me. (I've left a phone message with Wagner to get his side of the story.)

Gillmor took the case under advisement and will decide whether or not to dismiss the case at a later, not-yet-determined time. If the case goes forward, the next step would be to consider the plaintiffs' requests for a preliminary injunction against LHC operations as well as for a summary judgment against CERN.

Will the judge weather yet another storm of paperwork? Maybe not. "She doesn't want any more filings without her permission," Ames told me.

Update for 6:50 p.m. ET Sept. 3: In the wake of Tuesday's 55-minute hearing, Judge Gillmor agreed with the federal government's claim that it is immune from any legal action based on European legal documents (specifically, the European Council's Precautionary Principle and the European Commission's Science and Society Action Plan).

She also denied the request to enter a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the three physicists because she received no legally admissible evidence (such as an affidavit) that the physicists were actually involved in the filing.

Source: MSNBC.com

Mozilla CEO uncertain about future relationship with Google

Mountain View (CA) - Google was widely speculated to sacrifice Mozilla’s existence, which it supports quite extensively, in its quest to launch another assault at Microsoft. The simple fact that Google is now pursuing its own browser could leave Mozilla scratching its head. And quite apparently, Mozilla has not quite figured out how its relationship with Google will work out over the next few years.

But Mozilla CEO John Lily said that “it should come as no real surprise that Google has done something here - their business is the web, and they’ve got clear opinions on how things should be, and smart people thinking about how to make things better.” Lily believes that Chrome “will be a browser optimized for the things that they see as important, and it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves.”

The executive agrees that Google’s Chrome will have a competitive effect on Mozilla. “As much as anything else, it’ll mean there’s another interesting browser that users can choose,” he wrote in a blog post. “With IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc — there’s been competition for a while now, and this increases that. So it means that more than ever, we need to build software that people care about and love. Firefox is good now, and will keep on getting better.”

That being said, Lily noted that” Mozilla and Google have always been different organizations, with different missions, reasons for existing, and ways of doing things.” While they are tied together in certain collaborative efforts such as security features as well as a financial commitment from Google until 2011, the executive hinted that the future relationship between the two organizations is not ironed out yet. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens over the coming months and years. I personally think Firefox 3 is an incredibly great browser - the best anywhere - and we’re seeing millions of people start using it every month,” he wrote in his blog 

“It’s based on technology that shows incredible compatibility across the broad web - technology that’s been tweaked and improved over a period of years.”

Lily’s blog is carefully worded, but it surely seems that Google will be aiming to gain the upper hand in this relationship and at least ask Mozilla to adopt key features of Chrome features for Firefox. Mozilla could be caught between a rock and a hard place: Play with Google or compete against them and the mighty Microsoft? There is no need to answer this question immediately, as the first version of Chrome seems to be very rough around its edges and appears to be lacking key features that would let Google compete with Firefox 3 and IE8 in a much more serious way.

Source: TGDaily.com

New Firefox JavaScript engine is faster than Chrome's V8

One of the most impressive features in Google's open source Chrome web browser is V8, a high-performance JavaScript virtual machine that was developed by a team of specialists in Denmark. Although Chrome's performance beats the current stable version of Firefox, benchmarks show that Mozilla's next-generation JavaScript engine actually outperforms V8.

Mozilla is using tracing optimization techniques and Adobe's open source nanojit to increase the execution speed of SpiderMonkey, the JavaScript runtime engine in the Firefox web browser. The new engine, which is called TraceMonkey, delivers unprecedented JavaScript performance. The new optimizations have already landed in the latest Firefox nightly builds (but still have to be manually enabled) and will likely be included in Firefox 3.1.

JavaScript creator and Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks against Chrome and the latest TraceMonkey-enabled Firefox build, which includes some recent improvements. The benchmarks show that TraceMonkey is clearly faster than Google's V8. Mozilla believes that the optimization technique used in TraceMonkey has the potential to unlock even more performance improvements.

 
Data source: Mozilla

"As we continue to trace unrecorded bytecode and operand combinations, we will only get faster," Eich wrote in a blog entry. "What spectators have to realize is that this contest is not a playoff where each contending VM is eliminated at any given hype-event point. We believe that Franz & Gal-style tracing has more 'headroom' than less aggressively speculative approaches, due to its ability to specialize code, making variables constant and eliminating dead code and conditions at runtime, based on the latent types inherent in almost all JavaScript programs."

Eich also praises Chrome. He says that the V8 JavaScript engine is "very-well engineered" and he describes the multiprocess design as "righteous".

The results of the benchmark show that Mozilla is still a powerful force to be reckoned with in the browser space and that they will continue to innovate and remain relevant as new companies enter the market.

Source: ArsTechnica.com

Five Antisocial Gadgets That Should be Banned

Technology moves fast, and manners aren’t keeping up. In older times, real innovations were so few and far-between that social conventions had time to grow up around them. 

Did you know, for example, that there was a recommended greeting for use with the new-fangled telephone? People didn’t know what to say when they picked up the speaking-tube, so they were given a suggestion: “Ahoy!” I still do this today — it confuses the heck out of the telemarketers.

But now that tech is everywhere and ever evolving, people don’t know how to conduct themselves in public. The gizmos themselves are innocent, but the users are not. Here we list five gadgets that should be banned until people learn to use them.

Speakerphones

A speakerphone’s advantages are far outweighed by the fact that it can be used to play music. Specifically (and you might detect the voice of experience here), really bad rap music on the train to the beach. Back in the eighties, there was a penalty involved in portable tunes, and it came in the form of a backbreaking boombox equipped with around fifty D-Cell batteries. Now there is no barrier, and anyone can pollute public spaces with what they obviously believe to be music loved by everyone there.

Worse, the speakers are terrible. Bass becomes buzz, drums become tinny taps and vocals distort. At least the old 1970s boomboxes packed a decent punch.

Bluetooth Headsets

If the cyborg-like plug in your ear weren’t bad enough, you look like a crazy-person whenever you use it, muttering to yourself as you walk down the street. Throw it away, now.

Custom Ringtones

Closely related to the Speakerphone (and not strictly a gadget), the ringtone is the bane of modern existence, and reached a nadir with the release of the Crazy Frog, a ringtone based on a piece of music designed to piss people off (and actually called “Annoying Thing”).

Custom ringtones can be useful — I have the Gadget Lab office number set to play a silent tone so I am never disturbed by my tyrannical editors, for example. But they are invariably used as a way to make the owner of the phone somehow look smart or funny. This, as we know, never works. Even if you have downloaded the latest chart-topper to show your excellent tastes off to the world, we all know that you just spent more than the cost of the track itself on a tinny, truncated MP3.

E-Books

A strange one, you might think, given my love of the e-book. Lightweight, convenient and offering hundreds of titles in your pocket, the e-book is surely a perfect gadget. It can’t even annoy your fellow-travellers on public transport. But it has a secret agenda: to destroy romance itself.

You might remember that I hollowed out a Moleskine notebook to hide my iPod Touch, the theory being that while a handsome young man reading a paperback and sipping a coffee at a pavement café would attract the ladies, a nerd reading an e-book would not.

My theory was proved correct this week. Sipping a glass of wine and looking very intellectual, I finished reading the last page of my book (something by Paul Auster, if you must know). I switched to my iPod Touch (without the Molekine prophylactic). Just then, the pretty girl at the next table turned around and, with a flirtatious smile, asked what I was doing.

“Reading” I said

“Reading?” she asked, tipping her lovely head to a rather coquettish angle.

“Yes,” I replied, “I’m reading a book on my iPod.”

She glanced down at the device in front of me.

“Reading a book on your iPod?”

As I nodded she simply turned away, brow slightly furrowed. I went home alone.

Satnav

This one comes from my brother, a motorbike rider who commutes daily. His problem: Morons. He thinks that most of the time people know where they are going and don’t actually need a satnav unit. Further, he argues, owners use them when they don’t need to, to justify the purchase.

I don’t necessarily agree, but I can’t argue with the theory in this one case: My brother saw a colleague pull up to work – a place he has driven to daily for years – with his GPS unit switched on. When challenged, he said it was for traffic avoidance. The problem? On his trip to work, there is only one route he can take, whatever the traffic conditions.

Over to you. Which gadgets most annoy you? Rants should go below, in the comments.

7 Really Awesome Things About Google Chrome

I didn’t expect this. I fired up Google’s Web browser, Chrome, expecting very little except a stripped down early beta with a plethora of bugs. After playing with it for a while, it’s too early to say that I’m blown away, but I must admit that I’ve stumbled onto some impressive feats which show that the team that built Chrome was intelligent, mature and forward-thinking. Here they are, in no particular order.

1. Blazing fast

Chrome actually uses WebKit for rendering Web pages, the same rendering engine as Safari, which is known to be very fast. Put that in a simple, well optimized, stripped down shell and you get the fastest Web browser around. It loads fast, it displays pages fast, and we’re talking noticeable differences here, which really makes it a joy to use. Don’t just take my word for it, check out some early benchmarks.

2. Chews code like there’s no tomorrow

This one goes hand in hand with being fast, but it’s a little different. Today, it’s not all that important for a browser to render a lot of HTML quickly; browsers are now platforms in which you run applications: two, three, perhaps even a dozen at a time. Therefore, a good browser can handle dynamic content without stuttering and crashing, and from what I’ve seen, Chrome passes the test with flying colors.

True, I haven’t had enough time to test this thoroughly, but the folks over at scriptNode have put together some benchmarks and it seems that Chrome not only handles good code well, it also excels at handling errors.

3. Incognito mode

Click the control icon in the upper right corner of the browser and you’ll get the option to open a new tab, a new window, or a new incognito window. Incognito window will fire up without appearing in browser or search history, and it won’t leave cookies or any other traces of your activity, except files you’ve downloaded or bookmarks. Yes, Safari has it, too, but it’s a nice jab at Firefox which skipped some similar privacy features in version 3.0.

4. Easy to switch

When you’re entering a saturated market with a new product, you can’t change everything. You must carefully balance the features you want to blatantly copy with the ones you want to innovate in. I was pleased to see that Google Chrome was built with this in mind; for example, it’s easy to switch from Firefox, but it does bring enough novelties to make you stick around. Importing your bookmarks from Firefox is easy and works well; and other details, like keyboard shortcuts, are the same. Therefore, Chrome’s learning curve is virtually non-existent; start it up and you’ll be browsing as usual in no time.

5. Intelligent start page

Although not completely original (Opera has got a similar approach to quick bookmarking), Chrome’s start page is a pleasant surprise. Besides the ubiquitous search bar, it gives you a list of most commonly visited Web pages to fire up quickly. Granted, I’ve always hated suggestions of that ilk (for example, I’ve never, ever used the commonly used programs feature in Windows), but here it just works, because the pages you frequently visit really are the ones you want to open first.

6. Has its own task manager

Chrome treats tabbed windows as separate processes. Nice, we’ve already seen that in IE8, right? But Chrome also has a nifty way to see what’s going on: a task manager. Similar to the task manager in Windows, it lets you see which processes are active (inside Chrome), and how much memory, CPU, and network resources they use. Beautiful. You can access it by right clicking Chrome’s title bar.

7. Dragging tabs out and back in again

It’s a little thing, but it warms my heart. You can drag a tab out of Chrome into a separate window, and you can drag a separate window back into tab bar, where it’ll be happily received by Chrome. Stuff like this turns geeks into converts, and Google’s dev team knows that.

Source: Mashable.com

iTunes 8: What's New?

A new source comes forward w/this info:  (this is consistent w/everything I've heard)

What's new in iTunes 8

iTunes 8 includes Genius, which makes playlists from songs in your library that go great together. Genius also includes Genius sidebar, which recommends music from the iTunes Store that you don't already have.

With iTunes 8, browse your artists and albums visually with the new Grid view; download your favorite TV shows in HD quality from the iTunes Store; sync your media with iPod nano (4th generation), iPod classic (2nd generation), and iPod touch (2nd generation); and enjoy a stunning new music visualizer.

Source: KevinRose.com

Sony Ericsson releases SDK for Xperia X1 Panel Interface

We know what you're thinking -- it's Windows Mobile 6.1 fool, we've got the developers kit already. True, but not the SDK that allows developers to create custom, interactive panels for the touchscreen QWERTY's Panel Interface. 

Sony Ericsson claims that, "The Xperia X1 will offer the richest mobile user experience, putting the world at the fingertips of the user." In other words, the expectations have been set, developers, so you'd best get to to downloading the free SDK -- you've got your work cut out for you. Sony Ericsson will offer a panel download service in the future, showcasing all the panels built by you, Google, and other partners.

The Panel Applications are meant to be simple, rich, and fully-interactive allowing quick access to your data -- eMail, calendar, multimedia, games, IM... you name it.

Source: Engadget.com

Gish creator McMillen back with free game Aether

Video game designer Edmund Mcmillen made his mark when the action-strategy side scroller Gish invaded the market on 2005. The creator is now back with a new freeware called Aether. Here's what he has to say about the new game:

Venture into space! Exploring distant planets and solving their puzzles to change the way the world views you, become a hero!

Each planet has a puzzle to solve, when you figure out what it is and solve it the planet will regain color and the screen will flash.

Aether is an "Art Game" about personal childhood feelings and experiences. Please keep and open mind when playing, relax and enjoy the game.

If the game is running slow for you, there is a link on the title screen to a standalone PC/Mac version that will run a lot faster on slower computers.

If you want to try the flash version, click here. If you want to download it for free, click here.

Five Enterprise Apps for the iPhone

Since the launch of Apple's App Store, a steady stream of business-oriented applications has flooded in for iPhone users. Most of the developers are independent third-party start-ups, but big-name software vendors are now clamoring for a piece of the pie.

Names such as Oracle, SAP, and Sybase have released iPhone versions of applications that allow users to tap some of the functionality afforded with the traditional desktop versions.

Most of the applications can be found on the App Store, Apple's online market--which opened in July--where iPhone users can browse and download applications built for their devices.

Fresh off a second wave of global launches, the iPhone 3G has been deemed ready for enterprise workers by Gartner analysts--albeit with some caveats.

According to the research firm, the iPhone 3G "does not deliver sufficient security for custom applications," so businesses wanting to deploy such applications will likely have to bear with a lower level of security.

Nonetheless, the overall iPhone software market has been coined a success by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who said the online collection drummed up some $30 million in sales a month after it launched. It could prove to be a lucrative market, too, with iPhone sales expected to hit 25 million in 2009, as Apple said it will ramp production up to 40 million units a year.

ZDNet Asia looks at five enterprise apps that the big software houses are hoping will catch the attention of the growing iPhone user base, though none has yet to make it to the top downloads list on App Store.

Oracle Business Indicators
Oracle released its native iPhone application in July, becoming one of the first to release an enterprise application when the App Store opened its doors.

The business intelligence tool is available as a free download, but customers must have licensed copies of Oracle's BI software running on their company's servers because the mobile app draws reports and analytics from the on-premise software.

According to reports, Oracle last month said the software clocked 23,055 downloads since it became available.

Sybase iAnywhere Mobile Office
The database giant's iAnywhere software connects users to company e-mail server, based on Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange platforms.

According to Sybase's Web site, the software is touted to help secure a company's messaging platform by providing access to e-mail and contacts "without requiring changes to an enterprise's (main) messaging infrastructure."

Offline e-mail access is also supported. The company also said it plans to upgrade the app based on version 2 of the iPhone SDK (software development kit).

SAP
The business management software maker released its iPhone version of a sales force automation suite, ahead of other platforms such as the BlackBerry.

SAP said in a statement that the software will load business contacts, information on sales prospects, and account data onto the device.

Salesforce.com Mobile
One of the earlier vendors to release an iPhone app, Salesforce.com in March showed off a preliminary version of its CRM product based on the beta version of the iPhone SDK.

The software connects users to their CRM records. The free version allows users to search and view contacts and accounts, but users need to sign up for the paid version to edit their data, according to Salesforce.com's Web site.

Web-based apps: Netsuite, SugarCRM, Zoho
These apps are not native iPhone apps but meant to be launched via the phone's Web browser. Some of the big names offering non-native apps include CRM vendors NetSuite and SugarCRM, which have released Web-based ERP (enterprise resource planning) versions of their product offerings.

The apps are available in both hosted and on-premise versions.

Online office suite Zoho, has also launched a mobile version of its productivity suite for the iPhone. This includes word editor, spreadsheet, and e-mail programs. Users can view existing documents but not edit them or create new ones.

Source: CNet.com

Google Chrome (BETA) for Windows Available Now

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

Download here.

Seven of the World's Most Expensive Cell Phones

Can you imagine that the cost of cell phone is more than that of a flat? Who dares to buy such phones? Only rich people can afford them. Here is a list of such cell phones.


Cobra - Vertu

The cost of Cobra - Vertu is $310,000. It was designed with jeweled snakes by the French jeweler Frederic Boucheron. Only 8 such phones exist in the world. Another version Vertu-Python is availbale for $115,000 and only 26 such phones exist.

Why this phone is expensive: This phone is made out of gold and decorated with one pear-cut diamond, one round white diamond, two emerald eyes and 439 rubies.


Sony Ericsson Black Diamond

The cost of Sony Ericsson Black Diamond is $300,000. Only 5 such phones have ever been made.

Why this phone is expensive: This phone is very useful gadget that is featured with a Intel Xscale de 400 Mhz processor, a 4MP digital camera, touch screen and can be connected to the internet thorugh WiFi. This phone has excellent body with mirror-finish cladding and diamonds.


Diamond Crypto Smartphone

The cost of Diamond Crypto Smartphone is $130,000. This phone was desinged by Austalian designer Peter Aloisson.

Why this phone is expensive: This phone is made out of platinum and covered with 50 diamonds, 10 of which are rare blue diamonds. The phone is featured with powerful encryption technology to provide social security.


GoldVish Le Million

The cost of this phone is $1.3 million. This is officially recognized as the most expensive phone in the world by the Guinness World Records. The company manufactured only 100 pieces.

Why this phone is expensive: It is made out of 18 carat white gold and coated with 120 carat diamond. The features include MP3, camera and 2GB memory.


Nokia 8800 Arte with pink diamonds

The cost of Nokia 8800 Arte is $134,000. It was designed by Australian designer Peter Aloisson.

Why this is most expensive: The cell phone is decorated with 21 carats of pink and white diamonds. The features include 3.15 MP camera with autofocus and video, Music plyer, Bluetooth, voice memo etc.


Vertu Diamond

The cost of Vertu Diamond is $88,000. The company plans to make only 200 cell phones, so only 200 people can get this.

Why this is expensive: The body of this phone is designed with platinum and encrusted with diamonds.


Motorola V220 with Diamonds

The cost of Motorolla V220 is $51,800. This phone is designed by Australian designer Peter Aloisson and suitable for football players and film stars.

Why this phone is expensive: This phone is studded with 1200 diamonds. It has 18 carat gold keyboard. The features include VGA camera, USB, WAP Browser etc.


Source: Quazen.com

Third generation Zune pictures leak: 120GB and 16GB flavors

The third generation of Microsoft's Zune portable media player product line has been talked about and speculated for quite a while now, but very little has managed to leak out of Redmond, until now. A Canadian has supposedly somehow gotten his hands on both 16GB and 120GB flavors of the Zune, both of which are expected to be released under Zune 3.0 (recall that the original Zune 30GB is considered first generation and that the Zune 4, Zune 8, and Zune 80 are considered second generation). Zunited has four pictures the lucky Canadian supposedly took with a 2.0MP camera:

If you doubt the authenticity of these pictures because the 16GB box is in English as well as French, recall that this is likely because the Zune came to Canada back in June. There really isn't much else to glean from these images, other than the fact that the third generation Zune really doesn't seem to have anything new going for it on the outside, except for maybe a little gloss on the front.

Microsoft probably isn't trying to stray away too much from what it currently has hardware-wise, because it is likely hoping to again roll out the new firmware version to previous generations (like it did when it released the second generation Zunes). The first generation Zune was really a modified Toshiba 1089, and only in the second generation did Microsoft truly take over the hardware, and give the firmware and software a serious revamp. The third generation will likely only have minor hardware tweaks, and of course a new firmware version. Zunited claims that it has "undeniable proof from an exclusive and disclosed source that the 120gb model is running 2.5 firmware."

Source: ArsTechnica.com

Mozilla Not Worried About Google Browser

In response to today’s news that Google is releasing its own browser, code-named Chrome, I decide to call John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla Corp., the folks behind the fast-growing Firefox browser. My intention was to find out what Lilly thought about this development, especially since Mozilla has been viewed as close personal partner of Google’s.

The open-source browser maker depends heavily on a lucrative financial deal it has signed with the search company. The pair recently renewed the deal to last through 2011. Was Lilly worried about yet another browser in the market?

After all, the emergence of Linux has had an equally deflationary impact on the UNIX market. Can a Google browser, promoted on Google homepage and pushed through Google’s mobile OS, become a sticky wicket for Mozilla Firefox?

“We collaborate with them on a bunch of things and we have a financial relationship,” Lilly says. “So there is another browser and that makes for a more competitive world. Of course we would have to compete.”

Given that Microsoft still controls about 72 percent of the browser market, Google can’t afford to leave that business to chance. Web is its business, and the browser is a necessary weapon for the company. “It is not surprising that they are doing a browser. Google does many things (servers, energy) that touch their business,” he said. “They feel that they can make a better browser by starting from scratch…advances in browsers are good.”

Lilly pointed out that most of the other browser vendors — Microsoft, Apple and now Google — have other businesses and thus another agenda. For Mozilla, Firefox was the only agenda. “Our only agenda is to make web better — it is our single mission,” Lilly says. With over 200 million users worldwide and a development team made up mostly of volunteers, Lilly says he isn’t worried about Chrome just yet. “I really don’t know how it will impact us,” he says.

He is right to take a wait-and-see attitude. For one, browser market share doesn’t change overnight. Google, despite its awesome reach, has a history of launching products that tend to lose steam. It has yet to hit home runs that rival its search and contextual advertising businesses.

Not having seen Chrome, I will withhold any final judgement myself, but I would look at the privacy implications of Chrome very, very carefully. I have long since stopped buying into the “do no evil” drivel the company keeps espousing.

This tussle between Mozilla and Google is going to get more gripping in coming years. Mozilla has a services strategy — Project Weave – that could eventually compete with Google’s suite of services. Whatever it is, it seems like Mozilla is ready for the challenge. And just when we thought the world of browsers was getting boring.

Source: GigaOM.com

Large Hadron Collider Goes Live On September 10

The only data the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has produced thus far is a powerful (but debunked) urban myth—that the particle accelerator buried under the Swiss-French border will generate apocalyptic black holes.

But today, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has announced that the LHC will go online on September 10. On that day, researchers will activate particle beams within the 17-mile-long ring, and the world’s most powerful—and most talked about—particle accelerator will begin collecting experimental data.

The LHC’s research potential is staggering, with physicists hoping to use the accelerator’s extremely high-energy proton collisions to generate a range of theoretical particles. Some of those particles could help us to understand the nature of mass, including the as-yet-undetectable dark matter that accounts for so much of the universe’s mass. Other particles might prove the existence of extra dimensions, or lead to entirely new theories or physical laws (this musical explanation gives a good introduction to the LHC).

Until its debut in September, and possibly for the entire lifespan of the LHC, rumors of its doomsday potential are likely to persist, fueled by reports of its unprecedented power and potential. Physicists have pointed out that the microscopic black holes the collider could generate would disappear almost instantly, without wreaking any havoc on the accelerator or the rest of world.

But for anyone convinced that the LHC’s impending activation is a countdown to doomsday, the hand-wringing should commence this weekend, when the accelerator will host its first actual particle beam. As part of a scheduled injection test, the LHC will be closed off this Friday, and researchers at CERN will fire protons through one of the eight sectors that make up the sprawling concrete-lined collider tunnel.

The purpose of this test? “It’s, ‘Let’s see what happens,’ ” says Judy Jackson, head of the Office of Communications at Fermilab. “It’s a very complex machine. This is a step towards getting ready.”

As the LHC quietly marks a milestone this weekend, its inaugural run on September 10th will arrive with considerably more fanfare. The Bataiva, Illinois-based Fermilab, a Department of Energy-funded physics lab, will host what Jackson calls “a pajama party” for researchers and members of the media.

So when the accelerator goes online at 9 am in Europe., it will be 2 am in Illinois, and data will begin simultaneously streaming into Fermilab’s remote operations center, an exact replica of the LHC control room. Champagne will no doubt be raised—on more than one continent—and new scientific frontiers might be reached. And the world, we are assured, will not end.

Source: PopularMechanics.com