5 Reasons Cold Fusion is Bunk

                                              Fusion, the same process that powers stars including the sun, would be a relatively clean, safe and near-limitless source of power. Unlike the fission of nuclear reactors that splits atoms to make energy, fusion fuses atoms. In nature, a star's immense gravity works to do the job of crushing hydrogen nuclei, protons, to create the reaction. But on Earth, crushing hydrogen atoms is no easy matter. It typically requires a machine that generates plasma -- atoms stripped of their electrons -- and runs at ultra-high temperatures in the millions of degrees Fahrenheit range. In short, more energy gets put in than what comes out, and that is not efficient.

But some scientists are trying to figure out how to get a fusion reaction to occur at room temperature. If successful, a so-called "cold fusion" machine would require little energy to run, but conversely produce a tremendous amount. In 1989, two scientists, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman, said they managed to achieve cold fusion, but after some initial excitement, the general consensus was that they didn't achieve cold fusion and in fact probably never would.

In the last couple of years, Italian inventor and entrepreneur, Andrea Rossi, claims he has achieved cold fusion with his "Energy Catalyzer," or "E-Cat" machine. The latest news is a supposedly independent test that validates his claims of a machine that somehow emits more energy (as heat) than it gets from the electrical outlets it is plugged into. A paper describing the test was posted on the ArXiv, a site where scientists post research before it goes for full peer-review.

Although Rossi staged demonstrations in 2011 attended by several journalists and a few scientists, he hasn't shared details about the machine or any of the data with other scientists nor has he allowed independent parties to confirm that a nuclear reaction has happened. In fact at one demonstration, he specifically disallowed a physicist from testing for the presence of gamma radiation. Despite the criticism, there are still supporters; among them Nobel laureate Brian Josephson, who pioneered superconductivity research.

Some types of nuclear reactions can theoretically occur at near-room temperatures, and there's a lot of active research into low energy nuclear reaction, or LENR. But that type of reaction isn't the same as cold fusion. "Cold fusion has no merit," said Steven B. Krivit
, publisher and senior editor, of the New Energy Times, who has covered LENR research for nearly a decade and authored books on the subject.

The difference, Krivit said, is that low-energy nuclear reactions operate according to known principles of physics, largely involving weak nuclear force interactions and capturing neutrons. While there is still a good deal of scientific controversy over LENR, the research exploring it doesn't invoke any new physics. Cold fusion requires that at least a few basic principles, such as the Standard Model, be wrong. So far no experiments have shown that they are.

Here are five reasons that cold fusion probably can't work, at least according to the laws of physics.

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Victorian Era Brits Were Smarter Than Us

The average intelligence level of Victorian Era individuals was higher than that of people today, according to a new study.

We’re not all dumb, however, as another study in the same journal, Intelligence, found that intelligence has steadily increased in Saudi Arabia over the past four decades.

Why study these parts of the world in the first place? For the new study on Victorians vs. us, lead author Michael Woodley of Umea University in Sweden and colleagues Jan te Nijenhuis and Raegan Murphy offered the following:

“The Victorian Era was marked by an explosion of innovation and genius, per capita rates of which appear to have declined subsequently. The presence of dysgenic fertility for IQ amongst Western nations, starting in the 19th century, suggests that these trends might be related to declining IQ. This is because high-IQ people are more productive and more creative. We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations, using high-quality instruments, namely measures of simple visual reaction time in a meta-analytic study.”
The latter refers to reaction times to visual stimuli (called RT), which were measured in tests administered to people from the late 1800’s until 2004. The researchers couldn’t compare standard IQ tests because those have changed over the years.

The RT tests supposedly can reflect a person’s IQ. The faster the person reacts, the smarter he or she supposedly is.

Intelligence as we think of it today, though, is very complex, encompassing hard-to-measure traits like creativity, ability to reason, communication skills and more. A person’s thinking ability can also be influenced in the moment by nutrition, amount of sleep, distractions, stress and other factors.

Nevertheless, the researchers posit that RT can indicate the inherent intelligence of a person, likely referring to that individual’s genetically inherited brainpower. This is therefore not affected by things like education level, environmental influences and individual health.

At any rate, the study found that RT rates have dramatically increased over time, basically meaning people are becoming mentally more slow and stupid. Men went from 183 ms in the Victorian Era to 253 ms in modern times. Women went from 188 ms to 261ms.

I have to wonder that there was a glitch in the way that the times were measured, but will assume the increases are accurate.

The authors concluded, “These findings strongly indicate that with respect to g (the measure of general intelligence) the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations.”

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iTunes 11: I Want to Be More Impressed Than I Am

iTunes 11 remains an improvement because it's much faster than the old iTunes. It's snappier in navigation, and the elements load up and transition more quickly. The iCloud integration seems better, too. You can, for instance, set it up so that if you buy a TV show on your MacBook Pro, it'll download to your iOS devices, too. Like my iPhone. So I can download an episode of "Homeland" on my Mac, start watching it and pick up where I left off on my iPhone.

After the iTunes 11 delivery delay, I was hoping Apple was working through a seriously complicated redesign that would vastly improve my iTunes experience. Instead, we got iTunes 11, which looks like a huge improvement, but -- if anyone out in the world is at least somewhat like me -- is just a marginal improvement with some pretty shininess built into it.

Granted, iTunes has a lot of mistresses to keep happy: It's not only a jukebox hub for music, it holds movies, TV shows, podcasts, iTunes U content, books, apps, and even ringtones. Plus, it's the store for buying or renting all Apple-oriented media and a conduit for synchronizing with iPhones, iPads, and iPods, not to mention the Apple TV.

Still, after two years since the last update, you'd think a $100-plus billion company would have the resources to knock our socks off.

                           iTunes 11 has a more visual interface and better integration between devices.

So What Goes Wrong?

Let's start with the album art. I used to think I was as pretty visual guy, attuned to visual things, but viewing my entire music library as a massive grid of colorful albums seems like a good way to incite a seizure. The default view is alphabetical order, which helps, but getting me to actually recognize which album cover holds the songs I want underneath it? Personally, I've got a long way to go before I'll be navigating by album cover. At the same time, I appreciate the digital nod to album covers as an important statement as to the musical personality of an artist's music. I like that, just not for navigation.

And yet, I almost want to try to teach myself to navigate by album cover, because when you click on one -- boom -- you get a wicked-fast drop-down window that shows all the songs you have belonging to the album. You can click a play or shuffle button to start playing right away -- or even add the album your new "Up Next" playlist. And what's the Up Next playlist? One of the best features in iTunes 11, but I'll get to that later. There's more to say about the album view: When you click on an album and get the drop-down details, it's clear that someone at Apple had their thinking hat on because the background color behind the songs is a perfect match to the dominate color element of actual album art. It's a subtle and pleasing detail -- the sort of thing I love about Apple's best products.

Sorting by Artist view, you get album thumbnails with the songs that you own next to each album cover. It's visual and handy without being particularly efficient unless you are, again, an album-art visual thinker. It is fast, though, and that's its saving grace.

Consider Enabling the Sidebar

If you click on Songs to navigate, you'll get a more familiar spreadsheet sort of view of your music that's sortable by name, artist, album, genre, rating, plays, and even the length of time the track will play. You'll also likely see some little "download from iCloud" icons. In my case, I saw all the old music I previously bought from iTunes but now hate so much I tried to delete it from my life. With iCloud, that's hard to do. If I delete it here, will it show up next time I upgrade iTunes? I'll have to get into iTunes somehow and systematically try to hide these from view forever, if possible.

In addition, there are a lot of tracks that show up as duplicates for me -- I have a version that is on my hard drive in my library as well as the same track available for download from iCloud. I'm not sure what gives here. I used to be an iTunes Match customer, but did not renew my subscription -- I just don't have enough non-iTunes-purchased music that I need accessible via iCloud for US$25 a year. For a handful of songs, I can move them around manually.

The question you'll have right away is, "Where the heck are all my playlists!?"

Ah, there's now a top navigation item for Playlists. Click it and a left sidebar will appear with your playlists in it. But there's no way to click on elements of your Library, like Music, to see all your songs. To do that, you'll need to change your view scheme back to Songs with the top horizontal navigation bar. But what if you want to see all your TV shows? Ah, there's a selectable button for that at the top left, which, if you're following me, is on Music. Click it and you can select TV Shows, which drops you into the icon/album-like art view of your TV shows. Click on an icon and you also get the cool drop-down info, which gives you the episode list. You can also sort by Unwatched, Genres, and simply, a spreadsheet-like List view.

Movies functions in a similar way, but select Books, for example, and you get the pretty covers and little else. Why? You can't, for some reason I still can't fathom, read a damn iBook on your Mac. It is 2012, is it not? But iTunes will store them for you with a handy glass shield over the content. You can unlock it with an iOS device though. Handy? Hardly.

Meanwhile, the Nav Starts Growing on You

As I got used to the new navigation, there was still a sense of something missing. I didn't realize what it was until I tried to load up a bunch of holiday music on my old iPod nano: The left sidebar is gone, and when it's gone, it's hard to figure out how to find the right music to sync to the iPad nano. I was seriously lost for five minutes. Eventually, I created a new playlist, then found my list of big songs, then sorted by genre, then added the songs to the playlist, then synced it up with my iPod nano. Intuitive? Not like it was before. Maybe it was just as fast, but I'm not sure.

Either way, how can you avoid this? Show the old sidebar. Go to the View menu and select Show Sidebar. Whew! You get your familiar left side sidebar with easy access to all your stuff! Nice.

Except, what happens? If you show this sidebar, you effectively erase two new navigation elements -- the left horizontal selectable content button and the far right iTunes Store button. Yes, these links are now available in the old-school left side column, so they aren't redundant. But what happens? Learn to navigate the new way? Or stick with the old? I'm of the mind that important software programs like iTunes should nudge users into the new styles of navigation the creators believe is important moving forward. Give us the redundant buttons and hope that we'll start using the right-side iTunes Store button and move with the future. Simple as that.

The New Store

There's not a lot to say here. It's definitely faster, which in itself in a fantastic improvement, as well as a little prettier. Is it fundamentally better or easier to navigate? Not really. Take, for instance, your Wish List feature. Say that you see a movie that you want to rent and watch, but just not now. Can you put it in your Wish List? Nope! Oh wait, you can if you want to buy the movie but you can't if you want to rent it. Apple has been asleep at the wheel with the Wish List for years. Even Amazon.com has this down. I can dump something into my shopping cart at Amazon.com then save it for later where it's handy to me. But what if Amazon stops selling it? No problem. They leave it there for me and say it's no longer for sale or that price changed from when I first put it in. Easy. Nice. Handy. But with Apple? No freaking way. You either buy it now, rent it now, or forget it ever existed.

Ah, but isn't there a new feature for this? In the upper right, there's a "History" icon list button. Click it, and it'll show you the items you bothered to preview in iTunes. So a song that you previewed a week ago but didn't actually buy, but now that you've hear it on the radio a few more times, ok, you're ready to find it again and buy it. You can find it easily through this little History feature. I like it. Does it solve the evaluation-before-you-buy need? No. How about the save-for-later need? No.

With features like this, I get the feeling that iTunes is marvelous for customers with unlimited iTunes buying budgets.

So What's Right About iTunes 11?

Despite the disappointments, iTunes 11 remains an improvement, first and foremost because it's much faster than the old iTunes. It's snappier in navigation and the elements load up and transition more quickly. I love this.

The iCloud integration seems better, too. You can, for instance, set it up so that if you buy a TV show on your MacBook Pro, it'll download to your iOS devices, too. Like my iPhone. So I can download an episode of "Homeland" on my Mac, start watching it, and if my iPhone had enough time to download it, I can pick up where I left off in the episode on my iPhone.

You can also use Apple's more visual navigation scheme if you can -- and revert to old helpers, like the sidebar, if you need to. That's smart. That will go a long way to helping guys like me out. iTunes is fundamentally decent, of course, especially given the wide variety of things it's able to do reasonably well.

Plus, if this isn't obvious to you now, it should be: Apple is "touchifying" its Mac applications, and iTunes shows a glimpse of the future: While you get irritated with the visual nature of the new iTunes 11, consider iTunes 11 on a touch-sensitive iMac screen. Suddenly the ability to touch and flick and select is much more intuitive and user-friendly.

If I were reviewing the new iTunes 11 on a touchscreen-based iMac, I'd be gushing.

Last of All, the 'Up Next' Playlist

With iTunes 11, Apple delivered on fantastic new feature: The Up Next playlist. Basically, this is a dynamic playlist that you can create or clear on the fly as you navigate through music. Say you have a big playlist but only have time or want to listen to a dozen work-friendly songs. You can step through the playlist and add those items to your Up Next playlist on the fly. Mess around with it, get used to it, and I'm guessing you'll start liking it. I do.

At the same time, a word of advice: Notice the little circle button with the ">" symbol inside of it. This little button gives you a popup window that lets you add items to Up Next as well as jump to other views. It's handy and important to your experience with the new iTunes 11. If you get on board with that little button, as well as appreciate Up Next, it'll jumpstart your appreciation for iTunes 11.

By Chris Maxcer
MacNewsWorld 
Part of the ECT News Network

source :www.technewsworld.com

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All Things Appy: Top 5 Android Shopping Tools

Scan barcodes from your groceries and pantry items. Fivefly's Shopping List app then provides a master list with check boxes, and you simply check a box when you've replenished supplies. Simple. TechNewsWorld thinks this checkmark system is superior to apps that make you scan or enter the product label text each time.

Welcome to All Things Appy -- infoa2z.net  analysis of the best apps proliferating on our devices today.

Indicative of the superiority of portable geo-friendly apps over Web search and Web browsing is the Shopping genre.

Here are infoa2z.net's suggestions for the top five store-agnostic free killer tools on the Android platform.

About the Platform

Google's Android OS is a mobile environment geared toward multitouch. Apps can be downloaded from the Google Play store.

From the device's app drawer, click on the Play icon. Then perform a search for the desired app.

No. 1: Barcode Scanner

The Zxing Team's Barcode Scanner boasts 50,000,000 to 100,000,000 installs, according to Google Play. It has an average rating of 4.2 out of a possible five from 305,129 reviewers.

Keep things simple with Barcode Scanner.

Scan the product barcode wandering the aisles and read up on the product via a Google Web search or Google's shopping Web pages.

That's it.

It's super useful when showrooming, in-store browsing, price-matching, or looking for independent reviews and specifications.

Barcode Scanner is No. 1 on our list because it's the fastest way to gather product intelligence, and it provides something previously unattainable.

No. 2: Shopping List

Shopping List from Fivefly is a shopping list manager with 500,000 to 1,000,000 installs, according to the Google Play store. It has a 4.3 average rating out of a possible five from 7,448 reviewers.

Scan barcodes from your groceries and pantry items. Fivefly's Shopping List app then provides a master list with check boxes, and you simply check a box when you've replenished supplies. Simple.

TechNewsWorld thinks this checkmark system is superior to shopping list apps that make you scan or enter the product label text each time.

Shopping List also features sharing and syncing, so family members don't duplicate purchases.

It's No. 2 on our list because it provides syncing and paperless efficiency.

No. 3: Coupons & Shopping -- GeoQponsShopping List

Coupons & Shopping -- GeoQpons is a coupon aggregator from publisher Most Useful Shopping App with 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 installs, according to the Google Play store. It has an average 4.4 rating out of a possible five from 6,655 reviewers.

GeoQpons is a highly comprehensive selection of retail and restaurant coupon links, as well as weekend newspaper-style specials ads. Don't go pounding the sidewalk locally without checking this app.

It contains many of the classic ads and coupons that clutter up our snail mail boxes and newspapers -- but with the advantage of app-driven favorite store alerts, search and geo-functions.

It's No. 3 on our list because this app saves you cash. However, be aware that some of the ads may need printing out.

No. 4: ShopSavvy Barcode Scanner

ShopSavvy Barcode Scanner from publisher ShopSavvy boasts 10,000,000 to 50,000,000 installs according to Google Play. It has an average rating of 4.2 out of a possible five from 89,590 reviewers.

This app provides super-fast scanning of product barcodes with instant online prices. It's not so great on local store price comparisons, but it's a superior barcode look-up nonetheless.

It earned a runner-up position, because unlike Barcode Scanner, its product descriptions and specifications are poor.

No. 5: GasBuddy - Find Cheap Gas

GasBuddy - Find Cheap Gas from GasBuddy boasts 10,000,000 to 50,000,000 installs and has an average rating of 4.6 from 387,245 reviewers.

With gas prices varying wildly, even around the block, GasBuddy provides geo-tagged gasoline prices graphically represented on a map.

Press one button and the app shows you the nearest gas prices. Sort by price and you can save money by picking the nearest cheap gas. It's crowd-sourced data and a killer app for traveling.

It's a runner-up because TechNewsWorld thinks cheapskates already know where their local discounted gas stations are.

source:www.technewsworld.com

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Europe Joins Free Internet Chorus

Europe Joins Free Internet Chorus

There may be a lot of fulminating at next week's UN conference on Internet regulation, but it's not likely to have a major impact. "I expect very little of substance to change," said law professor Derek Bambauer. "This is partly because of the nature of this type of international conference, and partly because there is no consensus on change, and partly because the U.S. still has a practical veto."

The European Union announced on Friday that it would oppose attempts to increase regulation of the Internet at a United Nations conference that will take place next week in Dubai. This move comes as some countries have called for tighter rules on Web service providers and phone operators.

The International Telecommunications Union, an agency within the United Nations, is hosting the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) beginning Monday. The goal of the event is to update the International Telecommunications Regulations, a decades-old treaty. Representatives from 190 governments will meet in Dubai to hash out their differences, with some expected to push for tighter control of the Web.

"The WCIT-12 conference is going to be fascinating," said Derek E. Bambauer, associate professor of law at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law. "It is in many ways going to refight the battles of the World Summit on the Information Society meetings."

The European Commission did not respond to our request for further details.

Can the Web Be Reined In?

The first notable consideration is whether it is even possible to more tightly regulate the Web, even if a treaty were to call for it.

"You can legislate but not control it," said Billy Pidgeon, senior analyst for Inside Network. "If someone breaks the law, you can take them to court, but you can't really control the Internet."

However, that may not stop some nations from trying.

"There is the control such as what Syria has done, where you shut it down -- but it isn't something that is a major cause for worry," Pidgeon told TechNewsWorld.

"But there is no reason to do it," he added. "There are probably industry groups and countries that will want to increase regulations, but it isn't something anyone should want. As long as there are organizations that oversee the Internet that remain independent -- and they should remain so -- any sort of legislation is going to be ineffective anyway."

Some nations may see it another way, though -- such as "China, Russia, and other countries that are concerned about the impact of free speech on their governments," said Josh Crandall, principal analyst at Netpop Research.

More Than Flame Wars

When individuals get into disputes online -- whether in a forum, chat room or other discussion-type setting -- things can get heated, resulting in so-called flame wars. Could a similar war of words erupt at the WCIT-12?

"There are a number of issues that could heat up," said Bambauer. "I think there are likely to be three that will flare."

The first could involve tariffs and fees for Internet connectivity, as a number of entities -- such as ISPs and even some governments -- could likely look to change the cost structure for connections, Bambauer told TechNewsWorld.

"Right now, both sides of the connection pay for bandwidth," he noted. "Google pays for its connectivity -- I pay for mine. But Google does not pay directly to access me or any other user. Telecommunications companies would like to charge more to companies whose content comprises a larger share of their traffic."

This isn't just an international political issue, Bambauer stressed, as implementing it could likely lead to significant shifts in costs and would require some architectural changes to put metering in place.

Governance Issues

The second issue that could come out of the conference is governance, which is likely to remain a perennial hot-button issue.

"Right now, governance is highly distributed, but the flashpoint around IP addresses and domain names is ICANN," said Bambauer.

"ICANN emerged out of the initial fights over Internet governance in the 1990s and has had a complicated relationship with the U.S. government," he explained. "It is perceived by many other countries as being too tied to the U.S. -- effectively giving the U.S. a veto over governance decisions."

At present, the leading contender to take over some or all of ICANN's functions is the ITU, which Bambauer noted may want in on the Internet since its current role -- coordinating the international telephone system -- is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

"The ITU is seen by the U.S. and civil society groups, though, as too closely tied to governments and insufficiently concerned with other stakeholders," explained Bambauer. "ICANN tries hard to paint itself as a multi-stakeholder institution, [while] the ITU is trying hard at the moment to downplay questions of Internet governance, which is a sure sign that it's a live issue at WCIT."

Censorship Controversy

The last issue is censorship, said Bambauer, with countries such as Russia recently having moved to tighten controls over free expression online.

"In many ways, this is also tied to governance, since censoring countries want deference to national governments over online controls, and also want to be able to frame questions of censorship as part of national security or information security initiatives," he stressed.

Given the design of the Internet, this prompts the original question: whether any amount of regulation can actually resolve anything.

"From its birth, the Internet was designed to be a multi-nodal, resilient system, capable of withstanding nuclear war," Crandall told TechNewsWorld.

"Data traveling through the Internet wants to be free, and many products have been developed to ensure the security of messages flowing through it," he said.

"If a government thinks it's necessary to restrict transmissions, it can set up roadblocks, as China has done with its Internet Great Wall," Crandall emphasized. "But those systems tend to be the result of internal domestic policies rather than international agreements."

So, will anything actually get accomplished, even as the EU has stated it opposition to regulation?

"In terms of the range of outcomes, I think it is ironically quite narrow," said Bambauer. "I expect very little of substance to change. This is partly because of the nature of this type of international conference, and partly because there is no consensus on change -- and partly because the U.S. still has a practical veto over many of these decisions, given its relationship with ICANN."

source:www.technewsworld.com

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Microsoft Bets on Surface Pro's Business Bona Fides

Microsoft Bets on Surface Pro's Business 

BonaFides

The Microsoft Surface running Windows 8 Pro is more powerful and designed to integrate with enterprise applications. "Microsoft has a great chance of being successful in the enterprise market with these devices," said Eric Ogren, principal at the Ogren Group. "Every business runs on Windows applications with a Microsoft infrastructure, especially Active Directory."

Microsoft on Thursday laid out the specifications and pricing of its Surface tablet with Windows 8 Pro, which goes on sale in January.

It will offer the 64 GB standalone version at US$899 and the 128 GB standalone version at $999, both including a Surface pen with Palm Block technology. Palm Block prevents pen-based input from being interrupted when users place their palms on the tablet's screen.

Surface tablets running Windows 8 Pro are 64-bit tablets based on third-generation Intel Core i5 processors with an Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU. The tablets' 10.6-inch ClearType displays have a 16:9 aspect ratio and run at 1920 x 1080 full HD resolution.

They weigh less than two pounds, and will be 13.5mm thick.

Mixed Responses

"This is a no-compromise platform compatible with current security and administrative processes and backwards compatible with Windows 7 and legacy applications in addition to the new modern user interface tile style," Jeff Orr, senior practice director at ABI Research, told TechNewsWorld.


"Microsoft's claim that this is a no-compromise tablet is just marketing speak," said Carl Howe, research vice president at theYankee Group. "The Surface Pro is ultimately a compromise device trying to split the software baby between the desktop and tablet worlds."
"This is more of a laptop alternative than an iPad alternative," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, remarked. "It is targeted at the unhappy MacBook Air users that were disappointed in the iPad."
Microsoft did not respond to our request for more details.

Under the Surface

The tablets will include a full-size USB 3.0 port, and a Mini DisplayPort. The latter will let users hook them up to an external display with a resolution of up to 2560 x 1440 pixels. The tablets also have a microSDXC card slot and a cover port.
The Surface with Windows 8 Pro tablets have 10-point multitouch screens. They will have a Dark Titanium VaporMag casing and a kickstand like their counterparts in the Windows RT line. They will also have a font-facing and a rear-facing cameras offering 720p HD capability with TruColor, and volume and power buttons.
Don't expect to be able to use the full 64 GB or 128 GB of built-in storage the tablets have; Microsoft warns that the "system software uses significant storage space" and the amount of storage available will depend on system software updates and app usage.
The tablets offer WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and come with dual 2x2 MIMO antennae. Both have an ambient light sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope and compass.
They come with preloaded apps for Windows Mail and Messaging, SkyDrive, IE 10, Bing, and Xbox Music and Games.
The Surface with Windows 8 Pro tablets will run current Windows 7 desktop applications and Microsoft Office. However, Office has to be purchased separately, as does the keyboard cover.

Who'll Need this ?

"Microsoft has a great chance of being successful in the enterprise market with these devices," Eric Ogren, principal at the Ogren Group, told TechNewsWorld. "Every business runs on Windows applications with a Microsoft infrastructure, especially Active Directory." However, Surface "will fail if it becomes bloated and tries to be all things to all people."
The Surface with Windows 8 Pro may find a niche with IT departments charged with deploying tablets running existing enterprise apps, Howe told TechNewsWorld. "I think of it as a gateway tablet designed to move businesses gradually into a touch environment."
However, businesses probably won't account for any significant purchases until the middle of next year, by which time they will have been able to budget for the purchases and try the devices out, ABI's Orr remarked.
It's not likely that consumers will go for the Surface tablets with Windows 8 Pro because "the price delta, particularly when you take into account the price of Microsoft Office, which isn't included, is going to be difficult for consumers to get over," Enderle told infoa2z.net.

source:technewsworld.com

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The DIY Kid-tracking Drone

 The DIY Kid-tracking Drone
Building an Arduino-based gyrocopter that 

can follow a child

By PAUL WALLICH  

 

                                                       On school-day mornings, I walk my grade-school-age son 400 meters down the hill to the bus stop. Last winter, I fantasized about sitting at my computer while a camera-equipped drone followed him overhead.


So this year, I set out to build one. For the basic airframe, I selected a quadcopter design for its maneuverability and ability to hover. Construction was straightforward: You can buy a quadcopter kit with all the pieces or, as I did, get parts separately and spend more time on system integration. 


On the mechanical side, there’s a central frame to hold the electronics, spars of aluminum to support the motors and propellers, and legs to cushion the quadcopter’s landing (I made a few extra sets of legs out of foam board for easy replacement). 


On the electronics side, there’s a main control board plus sensors, batteries, a power distribution board, power controllers for the motors (which draw tens of amperes, not what you’d manipulate with ordinary microcircuitry) and a radio receiver for standard remote-control flying, plus an RF modem for computerized control—I got both control systems for redundancy. 


For the main control board, I chose an ArduPilot Mega, mostly because it integrates everything I needed—the CPU, input/output ports, a three-axis gyroscope and accelerometer, and a barometric altitude sensor. A daughterboard soldered on top holds a thumbnail-size GPS unit, a magnetometer (compass), and a slot for microSD card storage. The whole board is powered by a 5-volt feed from one of the motor controllers. (When programming it on the ground, you can power the board via a USB connection.) 


To see the world from the quadcopter’s point of view, you can put together a fancy video-transmission rig, or just do as I did—strap on a smartphone and fire up your favorite video chat app. The motors I got can lift a few kilograms, but my surveillance drone’s total weight comes closer to 1 kilogram, for a good margin of maneuverability.


As for the software, open-source enthusiasts have been working for several years on code that not only keeps a copter stable in flight but also maintains whatever altitude the controller commands (based on barometric sensing or an ultrasonic range finder). It can also fly an autonomous course through whatever GPS waypoints you choose to upload. 


On the ground control side, the flight software can connect to a number of PC-based graphical user interfaces that overlay the quadcopter’s position and other data on a map in real time. The Mission Planner Utility, the best-documented ground station software, is Windows only, but others, such as Qgroundcontrol, run on Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. I installed Mission Planner on a Windows desktop to initialize the ArduPilot Mega’s firmware and calibrate all its sensors and controls. I used Qgroundcontrol on the Linux box in the basement and on my spouse’s MacBook during actual flight.


     Getting the quadcopter built and into the air was almost too easy. The hard part was getting it to locate and track its quarry. After looking into long-distance RFID systems, I decided to go with a GPS beacon instead. Reading an RFID tag from meters rather than centimeters takes more amplification and a fancier antenna than I was willing to have my quadcopter carry. And the open-source flight software already has a “follow-me” mode that will keep the copter an arbitrary distance from a GPS position delivered by radio. 


So my attention turned to creating a beacon that could fit unobtrusively in my child’s backpack. Initially I thought I would have to tie a GPS chip and radio transmitter together using a microcontroller, but some recent innovations simplified the job. 


A conventional RF modem can only pass on data that’s sent to it, but the latest generation (such as the Synapse Wireless RF266 [PDF]) can also run scripts in a tiny-but‑useful subset of the Python programming language, cutting out the separate microcontroller entirely. You can easily program the modem to transmit a GPS position to the copter only when the beacon has moved, and to go to sleep (and send the GPS chip to sleep too) when the beacon hasn’t moved for a few minutes. It makes for a smaller beacon—mine is about the size of a large thumb—powered by a coin-cell battery. Depending on your target’s movement patterns, a single coin cell might last for a week. 


So, did it work? Mostly. The copter is skittish when it’s windy, and GPS guidance is good to 10 meters at best. Because my particular front yard is only about 15 meters across, with a long, tree-edged driveway leading to the street, I either have to follow automatically above the treetops—where I can’t really see what’s going on—or else supplement the autopilot with old-fashioned line-of-sight remote control. Which somewhat defeats the original plan of staying warm and dry while a drone does my parenting. 


I have fixes in the works: more sonar units for collision avoidance, maybe even an “optical flow” sensor for better position control—some enthusiasts have figured out that the same tiny image array that lets a mouse figure out how fast it’s moving over your desktop surface can be augmented with a longer lens to determine how fast a copter is passing over the landscape. But the hardware and the software are both still in flux, so probably not this flying season.


The other big problem is the quadcopter’s rechargeable battery life. Just hovering in the air requires 2 to 3 amperes; moving around or fighting a breeze expends twice that or more. A typical 2200-milliampere-hour lithium-ion battery gives me just enough time to fly to the bus stop, wait a few minutes for the bus, and fly back, so no following to the school playground. (Attaching more batteries at roughly 200 grams per pack pretty quickly runs into diminishing returns.)


So until the batteries improve by another order of magnitude or so, I’ll have to do most of my watching the old-fashioned way, in person.

This article originally appeared in print as "Arducopter Parenting."

About the Author

Paul Wallich, an IEEE Spectrum contributing editor, frequently writes about his home-brew projects. He says the drone’s four propellers gave him pause: “I am not at all sure I like building devices with sharp, fast-moving parts!”

source: http://spectrum.ieee.org

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BEST EBOOKS FREE DOWNLOAD !!

Top 20 websites to download free ebooks 

By  LOGESH ,

Reading books keeps us away from the loneliness .Some of the books we read seems to be boring , this feel can be removed by digitalising this ...

This thought came to the one who finally gave the idea of creating & spreading ebooks instead of printing it .Nowadays this also became a problem we are unable to get free ebooks .

So what i have done is i have compiled a list of top 20 best websites for downloading free ebooks , it would be very great if u get benefit of this post

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Free ebooks in eBookLobby are divided into different categories. Categorys range from business, art, computing and education. Select the category appropriate to the e-book you’re looking for.

ENJOY READING YOUR FREE EBOOKS :):)

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