Thursday, January 17, 2013

Google dreams up laser projection system to control Project Glass

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/17/google-project-glass-laser-projector-patent/

Google seeks patent for a laser projection system to control Project Glass

A virtual touchpad projected onto limbs and other everyday surfaces? That's the type of crazy idea we'd normally expect to see from Microsoft Research, not Google. Heck, maybe we even did. But Google has applied to patent the concept specifically in relation to Project Glass. The system would use a tiny laser projector mounted on the arm of the spectacles to beam out QWERTY and other buttons, and then the built-in camera and processor would try to interpret finger movements in the region of those buttons. Hey presto! No more fiddling with your face.

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Source: USPTO

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How to stop the Zorpia spam

If you got this message, seemingly from someone you know... and you clicked on the button .. 


and you accidentally gave Zorpia access to your gmail and contact list by clicking on the following blue button



you need to immediately go into your google account and REVOKE access, otherwise it will continue to have access. 







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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Facebook's Open Compute Project splits up monolithic servers with help from Intel, more

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/16/facebook-open-compute-project-splits-up-monolithic-server-designs/

Facebook's Open Compute Project splits up monolithic server design with help from Intel, more


As much as it's important to have every component of a PC stuck together in a laptop, that same monolithic strategy is a major liability for server clusters: if one part breaks or grows obsolete, it can drag down everything else. Facebook and its Open Compute Project partners have just unveiled plans to loosen things up at the datacenter. A prototype, Atom-based rackmount server from Quanta Computer uses 100Gbps silicon photonics from Intel to connect parts at full speed, anywhere on the rack. Facebook has also garnered support for a new system-on-chip connection standard, rather affectionately named Group Hug, that would let owners swap in new mini systems from any vendor through PCI Express cards. The combined effect doesn't just simplify repairs and upgrades -- it lets companies build the exact servers they need without having to scrap other crucial elements in the process. There's no definite timeframe for when we'll see modular servers put to work, but the hope is that a cluster's foundations will stay relevant for years instead of months.

Continue reading Facebook's Open Compute Project splits up monolithic servers with help from Intel, more

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Source: Open Compute Project

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Listen to 150,000 Different Animal Sounds in This Humongous Online Library

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5976446/listen-to-150000-different-animal-sounds-in-this-humongous-online-library

Listen to 150,000 Different Animal Sounds in This Humongous Online LibraryThis is more or less like the grown-up, nerded-out scientist version of those spinny roulette toys you had as a kid that taught you that The Cow Goes Moo. Except the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library tells you that the katydid goes, uhhh, "dial-up modem noise"?

More or less. The Macaulay Library just went live with 150,000 sounds (7,500 hours-worth) from 9,000 different animals—totally centered around birds, as you'd expect from an Ornithology department. The library also contains almost 50,000 videos—and you can contribute your own field recordings too. It's a perfectly geeky way to waste an hour or 7,000 today. [Cornell via PopSci]

Image Credit: Dan Kitwood / Getty Images News

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Fusion-io brings Fusion ioScale SSD to small, speedy server clusters

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/16/fusion-io-brings-fusion-ioscale-ssds-to-smaller-servers/

Fusionio brings 32TB Fusion ioScale SSDs to sma server clusters

Fusion-io has made a name for its Fusion ioDrive solid-state drives by selling them to the largest of enterprises -- the sort that crave thousands of servers. Not everyone wants that level of computing muscle, though, which is why the pro-grade storage firm is now selling the Fusion ioScale to a much wider audience. Cloud service hosts and other, smaller companies just have to buy a (relatively) paltry 100 or more of the PCI Express-based drives, which include both slim 1.6TB and full-size, 3.2TB versions. Neither will be cheap for datacenters when prices start at $3.89 per gigabyte, although Fusion-io is vowing better deals for those buying in buik. We also suspect that the time saved by moving to fast flash storage could be worthwhile in itself.

Continue reading Fusion-io brings Fusion ioScale SSD to small, speedy server clusters

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Source: Fusion-io

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