Science & Technology

Who needs pockets when you can put it in your arm

German Tim Cannon, a “biohacker” has stuck a giant computer chip beneath his skin. The Android power device transmits his biometric data to other Android devices. The chip is kept safe because it’s sealed inside a protective case. The device is powered via a battery, which needs to be charged. Thankfully this has some wireless charging technology built in.

The craziest part about all this is that, as he explains in an interview with Motherboard, no certified doctor could ever perform the operation required to get the chip inside his arm. My guess is a doctor probably likes their license too much to attempt something like this. So he instead had to get help from “body modification enthusiasts”, the type of people who put stuff like horns under their foreheads. As you do.

The guy who ended up doing the job was one such enthusiast by the name of Steve Haworth. Because Steve isn’t a medical professional, he wasn’t licensed to use aesthetics. The device, called a Circadia, is going on sale soon for around $500. installation price not included.

Why buy a 7 year old Mac Mini?

I’m sure seeing the title of this post you’ll thinking that there really is no good reason to buy hardware that’s so old, and normally I would agree with you. So why have I just splashed some cash on a 7 year old Mac Mini on eBay?

A few weeks ago I started to clear out some garage space and came across my old Amiga collection. I have an A500+ and an A1200 still. Having spent so much time with them in my youth I simply cannot bring myself to throw them out, they are the main reason I ended up doing what do now.

Seeing these old machines got me thinking.

I knew that the Amiga brand had gone through numerous other companies including Escom in 1994 and Gateway 2000 in 1997. The current trademark owner, Amiga Inc, licences the rights to sell hardware using the Amiga or AmigaOne brand to computer vendors Commodore USA, Eyetech Group, Ltd. and A-Eon Technology CVBA.

Since I last booted up my Amigas, maybe 8 years ago, a couple of AmigaOS 4 systems have been released and most recently, in 2012, A-EON made the AmigaOne X1000.

What has that got to do with an old Mac Mini I hear you ask. Well with a sense of nostalgia I started reading up on the still alive-and-kicking Amiga scene. I came across MorphOS. MorphOS is an Amiga compatible operating system that has been continuously developed since 2008 and the latest version, 3.1 was released less than a year ago. The interesting thing about MorphOS that since version 2.4 in 2009 it has supported G4 Mac Mini’s.

I went on to eBay and found myself a bargain Mac Mini G4 for just under £80. I picked up the last version of the G4 with the 1.5GHz CPU and the 64MB graphics card.

The Mini arrived with OSX Leopard pre-installed but with just 512MB of RAM it ran like a proverbial dog and was pretty much unusable. Not to worry though as I didn’t want it to run OSX.

Having downloaded the trial ISO of MorphOS I booted the Mac from its DVD drive and set about installing MorphOS. The process took about half an hour and was soon ready for its first boot.

This is where it really surprised me. The boot time from cold with MorphOS is about 5 -10 seconds. The OS is blisteringly fast breathing new life in to that old hardware.

There’s good networking support, a webkit browser and mail client as well as various other tools and applications that make MorphOS a completely usable OS. There’s also a whole raft of other applications out there that cover almost every topic and if that not enough, you can still run the majority of Amiga applications on there.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that MorphOS is going to be a contender against the likes of OSX, Windows or Linux but for anyone like me that grew up with their Amiga it’s definitely worth having a play with and is a great lightweight alternative to Linux.

If you have a Mac Mini sitting around then you can bring that box back to life with a usable OS and can download a trial version of MorphOS for free.

Have Fun!

Posted by: Matt

Dishonored: Knife of Dunwall DLC

Xbox 360 and PC gamers Mark April 16th in your diaries as this is the day of the second piece of three DLC packs for the Bafta award winner Dishonored will be released, sorry PS3 owners you will have to wait a whole extra day to get your hands on this digital download, but it sounds like it will be worth that little wait.

With a pocket friendly price tag of £7.99 and 800 Microsoft points respectively, this could be worth having a go at because the main campaign was absolutely fantastic and in this piece of DLC you get to play one of the bad guys..we all like to be bad now and then right?

Gamers will play this story driven DLC pack as Daud the Assassin who murdered the empress at the beginning of the original story, you will discover the mystery of Delilah and you will also receive brand new weapons, powers and gadgets which drive the gameplay and helps with the players choices within the game.
Players will also be able to explore new locations/areas such as the Rothwild Slaughterhouse, you will also receive abilities such as the ‘Summon Assassin Power’ which allows you to summon whalers, one of the coolest additions are unique upgrades to all of the current powers.

Exiting stuff!

Post by: Chris

PlayStation Store update

Today marks the next content and offers update for both the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita stores, this list adds to the already quite frankly amazing list of available content on the PlayStation stores.

Earlier this month Sony released their PlayStation plus instant games for the month of March, this list included Mass Effect 3 of all things! for all PlayStation plus subscribers this game is absolutely free for One Month from March 6th! The other additions to the PS Plus instant collection are Joe Danger 2:the Movie and Dead or Alive 5 and these are again in addition to a further 8 free titles! Incredible value, as well as these games for PS3 there are some instant games for the PS Vita that you can already download: Uncharted Golden Abyss, Gravity Rush and Lumines: Electronic Symphony, with a special addition which you will see below too.

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is Official- Details and Screenshots

It has finally been announced! After the successes of Assassin’s Creed 3 Ubisoft announced last week that they would announce their new game with a trailer today Monday 4th of March, and they have done so much more than simply announcing the game they have brought us information about their new character, the settings and even how many development teams have been working on the game.its a huge 8 studios by the way! and they have been hard at work since 2011 so this game should be flipping good, and if Assassins creed 3 is anything to go by then gamers should be in for an incredible game.

In Assassins Creed 4 black flag you will play as Edward Kenway, Father of Haytham Kenway and grandfather to Connor Kenway the main character in Assassins Creed 3, now Edward is what you would call a ‘Loveable rogue’ he is a Pirate first and foremost but he is a Pirate who has evidently been trained by Assassins, but he is still a pirate at heart and such he is a womaniser also and he is also (oddly i might add) friendly with Blackbeard who in turn is scared stiff of Edward.  Edward carries 4 pistols, hidden blades and who can forget the two swords he carries too! So this Pirassassin (like what i did there?) is someone you don’t want to mess with.

The game is going to focus on around a 60/40 split between land gameplay and naval gameplay which will come as great news to those gamers (including myself) who absolutely loved the naval gameplay in Assassins Creed 3, but from what i can muster this naval gameplay will be much harder and there will be much more of it in the game which can only be a good thing, considering that the main character is a pirate after all!

Tixeo launches appliances for 3D video and web conferencing

Now then, I’m not one for this whole new 3D Web Conferencing, not because I’m old or stuck in the past but I believe that meetings should be face to face. Having said that this newly launched product from Tixeo does slightly impress me. It’s like second life taken to a whole new level.

PRESS RELEASE
For instant diffusion: 09 / 10 / 08
Montpellier, France

Tixeo launches appliances for 3D video and web conferencing

Tixeo launches its new offer WorkSpace3D Enterprise Edition Appliance, solution for video and web
conferencing to be installed on companies’ network. This solution gives full control to companies
willing to manage their infrastructure, respect network policies and keep autonomy regarding hosted
service providers. WorkSpace3D Enterprise Edition Appliance is the richest video conferencing and
collaboration solution provided by Tixeo. Sharing applications during a voice and video
communication (over IP) with dozens of other participants, exchanging documents in real-time inside
a 3D virtual meeting room, all of this is now made possible with WorkSpace3D EE Appliance.
Hardware or virtual appliance for video and web conferencing
Tixeo’s appliances are designed for a fast and efficient setup of companies’ web conferencing
services. Two appliances offers are available:

The first one, a hardware appliance that you just have to plug to start meeting, is designed to be
upgradable. This appliance is sized to host up to 100 people distributed in different meetings at the
same time. Tixeo indicates that 100 seats can fit online meeting usage of about 2 000 users. For any
wider deployment, these appliances are clusterisable and distributable, allowing to increase with no
limit the amount of meetings.

  

The second offer is for all companies having opted, or forecasting to opt for server virtualization.
Tixeo proposes its video and web conferencing appliances as ready-to-use virtual machines, which
are available for VMware and Xen.

About Tixeo

Tixeo is a video and web conferencing solution editor since 2003.
The solution WorkSpace3D, soon available in its version 2.7, allows communicating with up to 30
people at the same time with voice and video over Internet. This solution embeds rich collaboration
capabilities like application sharing, document sharing, slide shows or whiteboards.
One of the unique features of Tixeo’s solutions is to make possible online meetings in 3D virtual
environments. The third dimension sharply enhances communication and collaboration.
Tixeo has many SME and corporate customers as Airbus, Raytheon, Flagstar Bank, BNP Paribas,
Conforama, Sogeti, DGAC…

For those of you with a business or the really techy guys out there who live for things like this why not pop over to http://www.tixeo.com for more info or contact them directly:

Renaud GHIA, CEO
Cap Omega – CS39521
Rond Point Benjamin Franklin
34960 Montpellier
France
Phone: +33 467 750 431
Fax: +33 467 130 010
E-mail: [email protected]

Posted by: John

DSL Router with 3G HSDPA Backup

Sarian Systems has announced the launch of the first enterprise router to offer compatibility with both the very latest broadband networks and HSDPA, 3G, EDGE and GPRS mobile networks.

The DR6000 Series, which is designed for enterprise use and can be offered as part of a service provider’s managed service, provides future-proof, high-speed broadband, and is fully compatible with all ADSL, ADSL 2 and ADSL 2+ broadband services. In addition, the router can be equipped with built-in automatic failover to wireless networks – including HSDPA – to ensure business continuity in the event of a wired connection failure.

While the battle to secure new broadband customers continues to rage – with many mobile operators now offering their own broadband packages – a large number of businesses are still reluctant to migrate due to concerns about day-to-day performance and reliability. The DR6000 Series helps remedy these issues by offering service level agreement (SLA) policing, whereby the router is able to log and record details about real-time broadband performance. For the enterprise, this means that it is possible to tell whether the service provider is meeting the SLA; for the provider, the router can be configured to give advance notification in the event of any performance issues, so that immediate action can be taken to resolve them.

“While most companies recognise the benefits of broadband, there’s still continued anxiety over its reliability, which is proving to be a major barrier for broadband service providers,” said Andy Hood, managing director at Sarian Systems. “By incorporating the DR6000 Series into their broadband offering, service providers will not only be able to respond to user issues at greater speed, but they’ll be able to overcome one of the biggest barriers to broadband adoption, by demonstrating that they can provide accurate, trustworthy and transparent SLAs.”

The DR6000’s multiple serial ports make it capable of supporting legacy serial devices including point of sale terminals and telemetry devices and is compatible with all known future ADSL updates, with a physical download capability of more than 50Mbits/s as networks advance.

The router is also able to effectively migrate ISDN users over to ADSL, without upgrading their existing ISDN lines, whilst the integration of an HSDPA compatible GSM module means that with the DR6000 Series even bandwidth-hungry business applications will continue functioning if the broadband connection fails.

“It’s vitally important that organisations have a viable business continuity strategy – if their mission-critical systems go down, it can mean saying goodbye to both sales and customers,” continued Hood. “The DR6000 Series provides peace of mind, offering multiple back-up options so that communication is never compromised. In fact, such is the speed and reliability of HSDPA that in the event of a fixed line failure, companies probably won’t even notice any degradation in performance.”

As with all Sarian products, the new router contains several unique security and redundancy features to ensure the smooth running of mission-critical communications. These include dual SIM card slots to provide automatic failover in the event of mobile coverage issues and the ability to simultaneously transmit data while monitoring/controlling real-time router performance, so that business-critical data transfer is not interrupted. As it is built on Sarian’s own operating system, SAR/OS, the DR6000 Series can also be customised to support bespoke business applications.

The DR6000 Series is available worldwide, from Sarian partners or direct from Sarian. Prices start at approximately 500 GBP per unit.

Matt

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Sarian, wireless, 3G, Tracy & Matt]

Intel’s Transistor Technology Breakthrough

In one of the biggest advancements in fundamental transistor design, Intel Corporation today revealed that it is using two dramatically new materials to build the insulating walls and switching gates of its 45 nanometer transistors. Hundreds of millions of these microscopic transistors — or switches — will be inside the next generation Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad and Xeon families of multi-core processors. The company also said it has five early-version products up and running — the first of fifteen 45nm processor products planned from Intel.

The transistor feat allows the company to continue delivering record-breaking PC, laptop and server processor speeds, while reducing the amount of electrical leakage from transistors that can hamper chip and PC design, size, power consumption, noise and costs. It also ensures Moore’s Law, a high-tech industry axiom that transistor counts double about every two years, thrives well into the next decade. Curious about switchboard upgrade cost? Edelect provides transparent and competitive pricing for all switchboard upgrades. Ensure your electrical system is safe and up-to-date with Edelect’s expert services.

Silicon dioxide has been used to make the transistor gate dielectric for more than 40 years because of its manufacturability and ability to deliver continued transistor performance improvements as it has been made ever thinner. Intel has successfully shrunk the silicon dioxide gate dielectric to as little as 1.2nm thick — equal to five atomic layers — on our previous 65nm process technology, but the continued shrinking has led to increased current leakage through the gate dielectric, resulting in wasted electric current and unnecessary heat.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Windows Mobile blog, Intel, Processors, Tracy & Matt]