Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Monday, August 20, 2007

Researchers using pulses of light to quickly decipher codes

from Engadget by Darren Murph

While we imagine most Wolverines are focusing their efforts on gathering up the requisite tailgating gear for the onset of fall, a team of researchers at the University of Michigan are busy finding ways to decipher encryption codes "within seconds." The crew has apparently discovered that by "using pulses of light to dramatically accelerate quantum computers," these systems could not only crack "highly encrypted codes" in moments versus years, but it could also "lead to tougher protection of [sensitive] information." Additionally, the findings rely on "quantum dots and readily available, relatively inexpensive optical telecommunications technology to drive quantum computers," which could lead to quicker implementation of quantum level applications. Hackers, meet your dream machine.

[Via TGDaily, image courtesy of Technovelgy ]

Read

New search engine "listens" to music to help you find new tunes

from Engadget by Nilay Patel Peer-recommendation services like Last.fm and Pandora are pretty good at leveraging the power of the community to help you discover new music, but a recent grant from the National Science Foundation to the College of Charleston aims to take the concept to the next level, by creating a search engine that "listens" to music and creates critical comparisons between works. The system, as described by Ars Technica, involves a neural network that is trained to recognized the composer and style of music, an evaluation engine that's supposed to simulate human taste, and a set of objective metrics like pitch, tempo, and and duration. The results are then combined and the system can then recommend matches to find similar music. The researchers have already demoed a similar system with good results, so here's hoping the grant money helps them refine things further -- we've been looking way too long for the next Wham!

[Image from O'Reilly's Digital Media Blog]

Read

Sarotech's latest HD DivX player, portable HD, and photo storage unit

from Engadget by Nilay Patel

We don't usually hear the name Sarotech around these parts, but the company has some interesting products in its catalog -- including the three it released today. The Cutie Slim ditches the fingerprint reader of the previous Cutie we looked at to weigh in at just half an inch thick and three inches wide, while the DSR-281 Plus photo storage unit lets you offload your SD cards to its internal 120GB drive, and includes SDHC compatibility. The real monster, however, is the abigs DVP-570 HD Lite, an external media bridge that supports virtually every format we can think of, including HD DivX at 1080p resolutions, and also includes USB host mode, DVI-out, 5.1 channel digital out with DTS passthrough, and even a freaking FM transmitter, for some reason. If that's not enough to keep you entertained, the 570 also features an ebook reader, so you can curl up on the couch and read a book on your big screen. We're aching to get our hands on one of these, but sadly it looks like these are Korea-only for now. Damn. Read - abigs DVP-570 HD Lite Read - Cutie Slim Read - DSR-281 Plus photo storage unit

Jabra BT8030 bluetooth headset works as a speaker too

from Engadget by Conrad Quilty-Harper

While the kids at the back of buses everywhere may already be aware of the fact that headphones can act as speakers if turned up loud enough, the rest of humanity tends to keep the volume down, and is therefore unawares. Jabra has latched onto this concept and created the BT8030, which can act as a bluetooth headset when you're on the move, and then switch into a speakerphone mode for Skype at your laptop. The speaker / headphone combo will also play music over Bluetooth, lasting up to 26 hours in music mode, 32 hours in talk mode, and sitting in standby for up to 25 days. It'll retail for $249.99, although we're not sure when you'll be able to pick one up. [Via FarEastGizmos]

Canon's 21.1 megapixel EOS 1Ds Mark III: thanks, Amazon

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

Not only did Amazon loose the goods on Canon's EOS 40D, they've also activated the page for Canon's 21.1 megapixel EOS 1Ds Mark III for the pros. That's an 11 megapixel jump from their EOS 1D Mark III (pictured) announced in February... Shazam! Canon's hope is to supplant the medium-format cameras dominating fashion and commercial photo studios with this relatively light-weight, full-frame DSLR. We're talking a 36 x 24-mm self-cleaning CMOS sensor; a pair of DIGIC III image processers operating in parallel; improved 45-point advanced autofocus; 5fps continuous shooting (for bursts of up to 45 Large/Fine JPEGs or 15 RAW images); sRAW image support; 3-inch Live View LCD with 5x or 10x magnification; and CF, SD/SDHC storage options. Of course, it won't come cheap when (and if) it ships on December 10th. In fact, you'll be looking at $8,000 for the body (only) according to Amazon's site. While it's not an official announcement, it's close. Besides, we've been waiting for this thing to get official since we first heard about it in February. So expect one of two things to happen next: either Canon will officially announce in the next few days or Amazon will pull their pages. Update: Amazon pulled the price and delivery date. No worries, we've got the screengrab after the break. Update 2: Oops, the whole page is gone now. No probs, we've captured the specs to the gallery below.

Gallery: Canon's 21.1 megapixel EOS 1Ds Mark III: thanks, Amazon