Trial Touch. New Sony Technology. Pat Benetar-Heartbreaker, & How Quipid Lasagne got her name. Apple and Microsoft file patents for touchless controls. 28 October 2011Last updated at 15:30 Microsoft's Kinect gaming system uses gesture-controlled technology Apple and Microsoft are involved in a new patent race over touchless gesture-controls.
Recently released patent filings reveal new ways to control devices that do not involve physical contact. Microsoft describes waving one's hands to "draw" three-dimensional objects on a computer, while Apple's designs involve allowing users to "throw" content from one device to another. Securing patent rights allows the firms to claim ownership of the technologies. An Update on Google TV. In the 1970s, there were just a few networks on TV.
Cable changed things by adding hundreds of new channels like HBO, ESPN, and MTV. Look out: Fossil fuels may be out-innovating green tech. Scrappy green-tech start-ups aren't the only ones who make big bets on technology.
A spate of articles this week points to the fact that new technologies in the fossil fuel industry are making it harder for alternative clean energy technologies to get a larger foothold. A New York Times article this week says new techniques allow drillers to tap oil and gas from a variety of "unconventional sources" that were once considered too difficult, a shift that changes the global picture on energy supply. The most dramatic example in the U.S. is freeing natural gas from shale rock, largely in Pennsylvania and Texas, using a method known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking. " In just a few short years, the supply of shale gas has slashed the costs of natural gas--and brought the ire of people concerned about the impact on water supply. Without a doubt, low fossil fuel prices certainly aren't helping alternatives get off the ground. Fossil fuel technology doesn't stop at "fracking.
" Apple patents touchscreen unlock gestures. 26 October 2011Last updated at 14:58 Apple will likely argue that Android's pattern unlock violates its patent Apple has been granted a patent on unlocking a smartphone or tablet using a touchscreen gesture.
The application, which was filed in June 2009, covers a range of commonly used techniques including swiping and pattern entry. As well as on the iPhone and iPad, such systems are built into Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7. The patent is likely to become another weapon in Apple's arsenal as it continues to sue rival manufacturers. Devices using the Android operating system have been the focus of particularly aggressive litigation. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs believed that the product was a rip-off of iOS and vowed to "destroy" it, according to his recently released biography.
Google Kills Its Other Plus, and How to Bring It Back. Google+ is the fastest-growing social network in history, with 40 million users since its June launch.
To help them focus, Google’s quietly shuttered a number of products, removing iGoogle and Google Reader’s social features and closing Google Labs, Buzz, Jaiku and Code Search in the last two weeks alone. But in doing so, they also killed off one of its oldest and most useful tools, from its most popular product. On Wednesday, Google retired a longer-standing “plus”: the + operator, a standard bit of syntax used to force words and phrases to appear in search results. Android easily outpaces iOS on mobile ad network. Android captured 56 percent of all ad impressions on Millennial Media's mobile network over the third quarter, outshining Apple's iOS, which accounted for only 28 percent.
Looking at the third quarter as a whole, Millennial Media's latest Mobile Mix report crowned Google's OS the top platform in the Connected Device and Smartphone category, which includes both tablets and phones. Android scooped up the lead over the past year "due in part to their contrasting strategy to iOS, allowing multiple device manufacturers to have access to their platform," said the report. "Device manufacturers have created an Android device at every price point, resulting in rapid consumer adoption.
" Though in second place overall, iOS scored the top spot in the Connected Device category, which covers only tablets and devices, such as the iPod Touch. Apple has experienced huge growth on the mobile ad network from last year. Artificial intelligence community mourns John McCarthy. 25 October 2011Last updated at 18:45 Artificial intelligence researcher, John McCarthy, has died.
He was 84. The American scientist invented the computer language LISP. It went on to become the programming language of choice for the AI community, and is still used today. Renaissance learning that shaped Galileo's genius. William R.
Carbon Nanotubes Enable First Step Towards Artificial Skin. Researchers at Stanford University have devised a method by which they can spray single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) onto a thin layer of silicone and create a flexible and stretchable pressure sensor.
The researchers, led by Zhenan Bao, associate professor of chemical engineering, published their work in the journal Nature Nanotechnology this week under the title "Skin-like pressure and strain sensors based on transparent elastic films of carbon nanotubes. "