Interview with Android Hacker JesusFreke

When T-Mobile first released the HTC G1, many of the early adopters were Linux users and fans of open source.  One of the most sought after features for Android, was the ability to gain root access to the G1.  After root access was gained, users began creating their own custom builds of the Android operating system and even replaced the system bootloader.  The most popular custom build, and the one I have flashed on my G1, was released by JesusFreke.  Since his first release months ago, JesusFreke has continued to push out new builds each time an official update is sent out from Google.
We were lucky enough to sit down with JF for a few minutes and get his thoughts on Android and the future of his releases.  If you are interested in learning more about “rooting” your phone, read to the end of the article where I include the appropriate links.  Root access is suggested for advanced users only.  You can break your phone if you do not know what you are doing.

Task Manager for Root Users

Android and Me: What are your thoughts on Android as a mobile platform?
JesusFreke: I really like that it is open source. I would say that was the #1 reason that I bought the phone. It’s unfortunate that we can’t currently build from source an equivalent build to the officially released ones, but it sounds like it will get to that point eventually. I really hope they make it so that we can at least run the Google apps on our own custom builds. I think a *lot* more people would be running a custom build if we could.

AAM: What inspired you to release your own builds for Google Android? Do you have a history of hacking phones or releases for other platforms?
JF: It was mostly a case of being in the right place at the right time, with the right knowledge. I had pre-ordered my G1 so I was one of the first people to get one. At first, we didn’t know about the infamous “root bug” of course, so once I had got my phone, I was bummed that I didn’t have root access. I spent some time looking around in the source, trying to find some way to get root. One of the areas that I had investigated heavily was the recovery image, so I had become familiar with it. A week or two later, the root bug was found and everyone was happy that they could get root on their phone. Then the dreaded RC30 came out which fixed the root bug. Since I was already familiar with the recovery image and how the updates worked, I was ready to dissect the RC30 update and create a new one with root access re-enabled. Shortly after my first “root-enabled” RC30 update, I released another version with a few more modifications and features.. and I just kept going from there.
I don’t have any experience with other mobile platforms. The G1/Android is my first “smart” phone, and the first phone/mobile community that I’ve been an active member of.
AAM: How would you rate Google’s relations with open source developers in respect to Android?
JF: I think it’s awesome that you can connect to #Android on freenode and talk to some of the very same developers that work on Android. Not to mention all the Android related google groups. There are certainly still some rough spots to be sanded out with their support for open source (can’t use google apps on builds from source), but I definitely feel that they are headed in the right direction in this area.

Superuser Whitelist

AAM: Can you share with us what you do when you are not are not writing code?
JF: I have some unusual hobbies. I enjoy unicycling, slacklining, playing the didgeridoo and playing various types of percussion – my current focus is on the Indian tabla. I also enjoy reading, mostly fantasy and science fiction books, and listening to various forms of world music (among other things).
AAM: Over 100k users have visited the forums where your Android releases were first posted. Do you have any idea how many people have downloaded and are running your work?
JF: Based on the downloads on the various mirrors that I release my firmware on, my best guesstimate is around 5k people.
AAM: I have seen quite a few users send you donations in appreciation for your work. Has this altered the amount of time you spend on your releases?
JF: Yeah, I’ve received a fair amount of donations, and I’m very appreciative to those who choose to donate. It does not affect the amount of time I spend though. This is a “fun” hobby project for me. I do it because I enjoy doing it, and the amount of time I put into it reflects that. For me, that usually means periods of very intense activity, followed by breaks of low activity as I recover.
AAM: Multi-touch is one of the features that got a lot of people interested in rooting their phones. Will you continue to add new functionality to the G1 when possible?
JF: Yes, I will continue to add functionality where it’s possible. Currently we are limited to what types of functionality we can add, because we can’t rebuild some of the components from source. Or rather, we can’t build them in a way that is compatible with the official releases. The multi-touch stuff was mostly done by lukehutch. He, ryebrye and zinx found a way to implement the underlying multi-touch support with changes just in the kernel, which is one of the components that we *can* rebuild from source. They also made changes in the Browser application to use the new multi-touch support.

Terminal Emulator on 

Android

AAM: Do you have any future plans for your releases you can share with us? Will we be seeing an auto-updater in the next major release?
JF: I don’t plan to include an auto-updater in my build, but there is one that is being developed that users will be able to install from the market. In general, I don’t include Android applications in my builds, at least not ones that can be installed seperately, because I think it’s better to give the user the choice to install it or not. Additionally, when I include an application in the firmware, it makes it harder to upgrade or uninstall it. Finally, space in /system is at a premium, so it’s better to have applications like that installed normally, so they are stored in /data on the phone, rather than /system.
The 2 exceptions are the Superuser application, because it provides a more secure way to get root access on the phone, and the Terminal Emulator application, which I consider an “essential” application.
I would definitely like to add the ability to restore backups directly from recovery mode, instead of having to use fastboot to do the restore. Other than that, I only have a few minor changes currently planned, but nothing too major.

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Tablet High On Felt!

The HiLo is quite an interesting concept; it is a 10” OLED Tablet with a wireless felt keyboard. Now the thing about the keyboard is that it’s styled as a jacket to hold the tablet. At the same time it features fused (hot pressed – embedded circuitry) keys on the outside. Naturally, you use the keyboard as desired, however I’m getting a kick out of the casual interaction between the protective jacket and the tablet. It’s just too awesome!

Materials

Keyboard: Felt
Tablet Shell: aluminum and ABS plastic
Size: 280 x 160 x 14 mm
Weight: 1 kg

Designer: Roni Margolin

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Coming Backtrack 5R1 Arriving On 10th August

Well here is another exciting news for all penetration testers and backtrack lovers, Backtrack will launch backtrack r1(release one) on 10th august, According to offensive security team backtrack r1 will come with around 100 bug fixes and in addition to it backtrack 5 rc1 will also include over 30 tools and numerous package updates.

According to offensive security team:

We have a few exciting items to announce in the upcoming month, one of them being BackTrack 5 R1 (Release one) which will be available for download on the 10th of August,2011. This will complete our first 3 month cycle since the last release. With over 100 bug fixes, numerous package updates and the addition of over 30 new tools and scripts – BackTrack 5 R1 will rock. We will have a pre-release event of BackTrack 5 R1 at the BlackHat / Defcon Conference a few days earlier.

Articles from offensive website.

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A Battery You Can See Through

Transparent batteries could lead to designs for cell phones and other gadgets.


Researchers at Stanford University have made fully transparent batteries, the last missing component needed to make transparent displays and other electronic devices.

Stanford materials science professor Yi Cui, who led the work, says a tremendous amount of research goes into making batteries store more energy for longer, but little attention has been paid to making them "more beautiful, and fancier."

Researchers have previously made transparent variations on other major classes of electronics, including transistors and the components used to control displays, but not yet batteries. "And if you can't make the battery transparent, you can't make the gadget transparent," says Cui.

Some battery components are easier to make using transparent materials than others. The electrodes are the tricky part, says Cui. One way to make a transparent electrode is to make it very thin, on the order of about 100 nanometers thick. But a thin electrode typically can't store enough energy to be useful.

Another approach is to make the electrode in the form of a pattern that has features smaller than the naked eye can see. As long as there is enough total electrode material in the battery, this type of electrode can still store a significant amount of energy. Cui designed a mesh electrode where all the lines of the mesh are on the order of 50 micrometers, effectively invisible, and the squares inside the mesh contain no battery materials.

Fabrication is also tricky, since the usual methods for making components at this resolution require harsh chemical processes that damage battery materials. The Stanford group instead used a relatively simple method to make the transparent mesh electrodes, which are held together inside a clear, squishy polymer called PDMS.

They start by using lithography to make a mold on a silicon wafer. Then they pour liquid PDMS over the mold, cure the polymer to solidify it, and peel it off the mold. The PDMS sheet is then engraved with a grid of narrow channels. Next they drip a solution of electrode materials onto the surface of the PDMS. Capillary action pulls the materials in until they have filled all the channels to create the mesh. The researchers used standard lithium-ion battery materials to make their electrodes.

To make the complete battery, they sandwich a clear gel electrolyte between the two electrodes, and put it all inside a protective plastic wrapping. The Stanford researchers created prototypes, and used them to power an LED whose light can be seen through the battery itself.

Cui says these batteries should, in theory, be able to store about half as much energy as an equivalent-sized opaque battery, because there is a trade-off between energy density and transparency. They can lay down a thicker mesh of electrode materials to store more energy, but that means less light will get through.

So far, his lab's prototypes can store 20 watt-hours per liter, about as much energy as a nickel-cadmium battery, but Cui expects to improve this by an order of magnitude, in part by reducing the thickness of the polymer substrate, and by making the trenches that hold the electrode materials deeper.

Another way to store more energy without sacrificing transparency would be to stack multiple cells on top of one another in such a way that the grid of the electrodes lined up, allowing light to pass through. So far, the group has made electrodes that are about an inch across, but Cui says they could be made much larger, and the material could simply be cut to the desired size.

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Phone App Could Keep an Eye on Your Ride

Intel is testing technology that would issue an alert if someone hit your parked car, and could capture video if a thief made off with it.

Remote control: An Intel researcher demonstrates a way to securely link a phone app to a particular vehicle. 

When Victor Lortz's phone buzzes, it may not be just an e-mail or text message. He gets updates from his car, too. Anytime something hits or shakes his parked Infiniti sedan with significant enough force, an app on his smart phone lets him know, and streams live video from the vehicle.

Lortz is a senior research scientist at chipmaker Intel's research labs in Santa Clara, California. He's working on a project that connects the electronics inside a car to the Internet, so that mobile apps can provide a car owner with updates on his vehicle when the two are apart.

The system developed by Lortz and colleagues at Intel involves installing a custom circuit board with Atom mobile processors (the type used in some notebook computers). That board interfaces with the car's electronics, and connects the car to a cloud server over a mobile network.

Intel researchers have developed apps for Android and Apple phones to make use of this new connectivity; they can access data from the car and also send commands to it. The apps can be used for simple things, for example, opening the car door or starting the vehicle, as well as for more sophisticated tasks, like sending an alert and streaming video when the car's motion sensors or alarm are triggered. The owner can view the live feed immediately, but the video is also archived in the cloud so it can be viewed later.

"The idea of being notified when something happens to your car has a lot of appeal," says Lortz. "It's something that's just not possible today." 

Intel is also considering how a car with the system could share data on the car's performance with the manufacturer. A person's driving behavior could also, conceivably, be shared with insurers or local transportation authorities. "We're looking at how you could collect that without compromising the privacy of the driver," says Lortz.
In the past year, many car manufacturers, including BMW, Ford, and Toyota, have made it possible for a car to make use of a smart phone's Internet connection, enabling the car to use Web radio services like Pandora. But no carmaker has yet developed a security app like Intel's.

Dominique Bonte, an analyst who specializes in connected-car technology at ABI Research, says Intel's approach is promising. If it finds favor with multiple manufacturers, it would be easier for software developers to write applications that could be used on many different vehicles, just as different Android phone models can use the same apps. However, he notes, drivers shouldn't count on their car always being able to contact them. "There are big gaps in mobile coverage across the U.S., especially the high-bandwidth coverage needed for video," he says.

A recent survey by ABI showed that safety and security features were the most popular connected-car technologies among consumers, suggesting that Intel might be on to something with its proof-of-concept security app. But Bonte thinks that, as car manufacturers make it easier to build apps for their vehicles, less serious apps will also take off. "We found entertainment to be the fastest growing category," he says. He predicts that the market for in-car apps will mimic the market for phone apps, and will be similarly dominated by music and games.

One big challenge for such technology is that driver attention is constrained, says Bonte. "Car manufacturers are investing a lot in speech technology and are also starting to look at ideas like heads-up displays [which layer information onto the windshield] and gesture recognition," he says. Such technologies could potentially address the driver attention problem.

Lortz says finding ways to introduce computer interfaces into cars, where they haven't traditionally appeared, is something Intel's researchers are focusing on. One example is their attempt to make it easy for drivers to securely link an app with a vehicle. Lortz and his colleagues' solution is to have a car display a bar code on its dashboard. When a smart phone reads the code, it is instructed to download the app and authenticate with that vehicle only. Phones with short-range wireless data transfer technology—like that used byGoogle Wallet—can do the same when tapped on a car's dashboad.

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Motorola ATRIX a smartphone, net book and entertainment center

The Motorola ATRIX, one of the most innovative smartphones on the market combines a smartphone with Android 2.2, 11.6 inches screen netbook with full size keyboard, a trackpad and a file manager and full-fledged Mozilla Firefox browser and full office suite and a sterio speaker for playing the music and videos and 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and a front camera for video calls and 6-8hr battery life, . All these additionals with phone add an additional 1.1 kg weight. This bundle of smart phone, laptop and the entertaintment center cost below $1300.

see the two models Motorola ATRIX lapdock model and Motorola ATRIX HD Multimedia dock.

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Critical Vulnerabilities in Facebook and Picasa discovered by Microsoft

Critical Vulnerabilities in Facebook and Picasa discovered by Microsoft

Microsoft security researchers have identified critical vulnerabilities in Facebook and Google Picase which led to account compromise and arbitrary code execution.

The bug in Picasa that the MVR team found could allow an attacker to gain complete control of a user's machine if he could entice the victim into downloading a malicious JPEG file. It's not the most complex exploitation scenario, and in the current age of people sharing, downloading, emailing and re-posting photos on a variety of platforms, it might not be too difficult for an attacker to accomplish.

"A vulnerability exists in the way that Picasa handles certain specially crafted JPEG images. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause Picasa to exit unexpectedly and execute arbitrary code. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the logged-on user. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights," Microsoft said in its advisory.

The vulnerability in Facebook involves a problem with the way that the site implemented its protection against clickjacking attacks. An attacker could use the vulnerability to gain full access to a victim's account.

"A vulnerability exists in the way Facebook.com had previously implemented protection against clickjacking attacks. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to circumvent Facebook privacy settings and expose potentially sensitive user information. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of a user’s Facebook.com account and could perform any action on behalf of the user such as read potentially sensitive data, change data, and delete contacts," the MVR advisory said.

UPDATE : Facebook has fixed the problem, Just after release of Advisory.

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Harvard researcher arrested on hacking charges

Harvard researcher arrested on hacking charges

 

A Harvard researcher Aaron Swartz has been arrested in Boston for broke into the computer networks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to gain access to JSTOR, a non-profit online service for distributing scholarly articles, and downloaded 4.8 million articles and other documents - nearly the entire library

Swartz was something of an internet folk hero as a teenager when he helped create RSS, a computer code that allows people to receive automatic feeds of online notices and news. He has emerged as a civil liberties activist who crusades for open access to data.

In 2008, Mr Swartz released a ''Guerilla Open Access Manifesto'', calling for activists to ''fight back'' against the sequestering of scholarly papers behind pay walls.

''It's time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture,'' he wrote. One goal: ''We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file-sharing networks.''

He faces up to 35 years in prison and $US1 million ($932 million) in fines for charges including wire fraud and computer fraud. He was released on a $US100,000 unsecured bond.

he indictment also alleges that on January 6, Swartz went to the wiring closet to remove the laptop, attempting to shield his identity by holding a bike helmet in front of his face, and seeing his way through its ventilation holes. It said that he fled when MIT police tried to question him that day.


An MIT spokeswoman said the school had no comment on the apparent breach.
McGregor said JSTOR recognizes it's very difficult for any institution at any level to protect its data.

''Hacking is rampant,'' she said. ''Protecting systems is a huge challenge right now for any industry, and in the academic space it's especially challenging because we all want to be as open as we can and have policies that promote use.''

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ISI Chief - Ahmed Shuja Pasha Email ID hacked by Indian Hacker

ISI Chief - Ahmed Shuja Pasha Email ID hacked by Indian Hacker

An Indian Hacker "creatrix" Claim to hack into the email id of ISI Chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha's .The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (more commonly known as Inter-Services Intelligence or simply by its initials ISI), is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan. The ISI is the largest of the three intelligence service agencies of Pakistan, the others being the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Military Intelligence (MI).

Hacker provide some screenshots of Inbox and Documents .

Proof of Hack and some Documents :

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એફબીઆઈએ 16 હેકર્સની ધરપકડ કરી

વૉશિંગ્ટન : 20, જુલાઈ અમેરિકી અધિકારીઓએ સાઇબર ક્રાઇમના આરોપસર 16 લોકોની ધરપકડ કરી છે. આમાંથી 14 લોકો એવાં છે જેમણે પેપાલ વેબસાઇટ પર ઓનલાઇન હુમલો કર્યો હતો. તમામ સભ્યો 'એનોનોયમસ' હેકિંગ ગ્રુપ સાથે જોડાયેલા છે. 
    ન્યાય વિભાગે જણાવ્યું છે કે 14 હેકરો પર પેપાલ પર હુમલો કરી સેવામાં વિઘ્ન પહોંચાડવા (ડીડીઓએસ)નો આરોપ મૂકવામાં આવ્યો છે. અમેરિકી અધિકારીઓએ એક નિવેદનમાં જણાવ્યું છે કે પેપાલ પર હુમલો કરનારા સંદિગ્ધોની અલબામા, એરિઝોના, કેલિફોર્નિયા, કોલોરાડો, વોશિંગ્ટન ડીસી, ફ્લોરિડા, મેસેચ્યુસેટ્સ, નેવાદ, ન્યૂ મેક્સિકો અને ઓહિયોથી દરોડા પાડી ધરપકડ કરવામાં આવી છે. તેમાં જણાવવામાં આવ્યું છે કે બે અન્ય શંકાસ્પદોને સાઇબર ક્રાઇમના જ અન્ય કેસમાં પકડવામાં આવ્યાં છે. તેમના પર ફ્લોરિડા અને ન્યૂજર્સીમાં આ પ્રકારના ગુના આચર્યાનો આરોપ છે. આ સિવાય બ્રિટિશ પોલીસે એકની અને ડચ પોલીસે ચાર વ્યક્તિઓની ધરપકડ કરી છે.    
                     એફબીઆઈએ જણાવ્યું કે સાઇબર હુમલાની તપાસ બાબતે તેના એજન્ટોએ સમગ્ર અમેરિકામાં 35 સ્થળો પર દરોડા પાડ્યાં છે. 'એનોનોયમસ' એક આંતરરાષ્ટ્રીય હેકર્સ ગ્રુપ છે જે 'ચર્ચ ઓફ આઈન્ટોલોજી' સાથે જોડાયેલી વેબસાઇટ્સ પર સીરિયલ અટેક કરવાની બાબતે ચર્ચામાં આવ્યું હતું.

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Smarter Phase Change Memory Beats Flash

• Using a variety of solid-state memory technologies, IBM Research recently demonstrated a flash substitute that is 100 times faster and will last 3,000 times longer than the flash memory, which has replaced hard disks in everything from smartphones and touch-screen tablets to high-end enterprise servers and cloud-based data centers.
• Solid-state flash memory has largely replaced mechanical hard disks in mobile devices and even in high-performance server farms such as those at Answer.com, but now IBM has demonstrated a new, faster alternative to flash that lasts longer and can store four times as much information per bit-cell.
  Flash memory has almost driven the hard drive makers out of business, with only two major manufacturers left, Seagate and Western Digital. However, hard drives have been hanging on because of the longevity of their spinning metal disks, which experience no wear since their read-write heads never touch the disk's surface. Flash memory, on the other hand, is faster to access, more compact and much lower power. Unfortunately, flash memory bit-cells wear out in as few as 3,000 cycles, making them suitable only for relatively short-lived mobile consumer devices (although server farms use them by monitoring their wear and implementing complex algorithms to map around bad cells until a point of diminishing returns when they have to be replaced.)
  
  
  
  IBM's phase change memory test chip was fabricated in its 90-nanometer complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process.
  
            Now IBM scientists have demonstrated a solid-state alternative to flash memory that solves most of its problems, plus offers a clear migration path to higher performance, higher density and greatly expanded longevity. The key to this breakthrough memory technology--called phase-change memory--is its ability to store up to four-bits per memory cell. Flash memories have likewise, of late, started storing multiple bits per cell, albeit without solving its short lifetime problem.
  "As organizations and consumers increasingly embrace cloud-computing models and services, whereby most of the data is stored and processed in the cloud, ever more powerful and efficient, yet affordable storage technologies are needed," states Dr. Haris Pozidis, Manager of Memory and Probe Technologies at IBM Research – Zurich. "By demonstrating a multibit phase-change memory technology which achieves for the first time reliability levels akin to those required for enterprise applications, we made a big step towards enabling practical memory devices based on multi-bit PCM."
  IBM's innovation involves several architectural breakthroughs which together solve all the outstanding problems with flash while boosting its performance by 100-times. Phase change memories work in a manner similar to rewritable optical media, that is by heating and cooling a polymer so that it can take on two states--either crystalline (transparent) or amorphous (opaque). The difference with solid-state phase change memories is that these changes are performed electrically rather than with a laser as with optical disks.
  By enlisting not only the phase change from crystalline to amorphous, but also the analog change in resistance of the electrodes between which the memory cells are sandwiched, IBM was able to encode four-bits per cell.
  "We apply a voltage pulse based on the deviation from the desired level and then measure the resistance. If the desired level of resistance is not achieved, we apply another voltage pulse and measure again--until we achieve the exact level,” explains Pozidis.
  Through this iterative process, the IBM scientists were able to demonstrate the longevity of their technique while simultaneously showing that even in the worst case access time will be no worse than 10 microseconds, which is still 100-times faster than flash.

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Griffin Helo TC iPhone Controlled Helicopter

We’ve seen a plenty of this stuff already utilizing the popularity of the iOS devices, like the the Parrot AR Drone Quadricopter and a lot more. This could be endless if we’ll talk about all of them but today Griffin outed a new Helo TC RC Helicopter, part of their AppPowered line, which is of course controlled by your supported iOS devices.

The helicopter is controlled via an on-screen flight stick or via the built-in accelerometer of your iOS devices which they called “tilt-to-fly”. Then if you think that you have already perfect the flight routine you have an option to record the controls up to 3 different flight routines which can be reflown in single push of a button. Now that’s a bit interesting if you’ll be giving a flight exhibition to your friends.

The Helo TC can fly for around 8-minutes for a single 30-minute USB-charge and once happen that you accidentally crash damaging the rotors there’s a spare included in the box. The Helo TC is listed for $56. (£34.99) –a perfect gift.

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This 45-Mile 'Wi-Fi' Could Connect a Smarter Power Grid

A startup's wireless technology sends low-bandwidth signals over long distances, even underground.

Long-distance link: This device can send a signal at the same frequency as Wi-Fi 45 miles, while using much less power.
Credit: On-Ramp Wireless

If your home Wi-Fi router wasn't cooped up indoors, it could send a signal about a 20th of a mile before the signal became too weak and distorted for a computer to receive it. Technology developed by San Diego startup On-Ramp Wireless uses the same frequency, but less power, to send data signals 45 miles, thanks to algorithms that make the signals very resistant to noise.

The technology, called Ultra-Link Processing, transfers data at a very low rate compared with a home broadband connection. But On-Ramp intends to offer it as a way to enable "smart energy" grids, in which simple sensors installed in home energy meters, for example, report local activity back to utilities, allowing them to manage power generation and distribution more intelligently.

Smart-grid infrastructure is needed to cope with the fluctuating output of renewable energy sources at large scale, and it could make feasible micro-generation, whereby consumers make their own power and sell any surplus back to the grid. Today's smart-grid sensors typically use Wi-Fi-like technology with Wi-Fi-like ranges, or unlicensed radio bands that can reach a couple of miles. Cellular networks can also be used, but these connections are under growing pressure from data-hungry phones and tablets.

"There's no technology available for devices that just need a trickle of connectivity over long distance," says On-Ramp's chief technology officer, Ted Myers, who says that with a clear line of sight, On-Ramp's technology can send a signal 45 miles. He is targeting devices that use less than 50 bits per second, roughly 100,000 times less than the average U.S. broadband speed of five megabits per second.

A trial network in San Diego requires just 35 strategically located access points to collect data from smart meters and other devices equipped with On-Ramp's technology across a 4,000-square-mile area. "It boils down to a cost advantage," says Myers. "You need fewer access points this way." California utility PG&E is currently rolling out smart meters based on more established technology which will require over 1,000 access points to cover the same area, Myers claims.

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Android or Windows? Now You Don't Have to Choose

A startup lets smart-phone apps run as fast as normal on a PC or laptop.

A startup called BlueStacks wants to end all your worrying about whether an app will run on a specific operating system. The company's technology, which it's showing off at trade shows, lets users run apps on operating systems they weren't designed for.
The  software lets Android apps run on Windows, and lets Android apps run within the browser on Google's ChromeOS. It can run Windows on top of Android or vice versa. The company will make the software available for download, but it can also be built into apps, and will come preinstalled on some hardware. "We don't care about the operating system anymore," says BlueStacks CEO Rosen Sharma. "It's all about apps."
Software "emulators" already make it possible to run software designed for one operating system on another, but emulators tend to run slowly because they translate code from one form into another. Sharma says the performance hit can make them 10 to 100 times slower than an application running within its native environment. In contrast, the BlueStacks software interfaces directly with the device's hardware, meaning apps can run more smoothly and with better performance.
Many people now think of their smart phones and tablets as their main computing devices, a trend that is likely to accelerate as the power and variety of mobile devices increases. "For kids these days, their first computing experience is the phone," Sharma says, adding: "All the cool apps are on Android and iPhone." He also believes that many apps could benefit from having access to a larger screen, keyboard, or mouse.
BlueStacks's technology could also let tablet manufacturers hedge their bets by providing a device that can run Windows for business applications, but can also run Android apps. According to the BlueStacks website, the forthcoming ViewSonic ViewPad Pro 10 tablet, which runs both Windows 7 and Android, will be powered by BlueStacks. Sharma also says that a version of BlueStacks will be available for users to download at the end of June—it would enable them to run Android apps on existing Windows devices.

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Tomorrow's Transistor, Built Atom by Atom

A more precise manufacturing method will help as electronics shrink ever smaller.

Applied Materials, the world's leading supplier of manufacturing equipment to chipmakers, has announced a new system for making one of the most critical layers of the transistors found in logic circuits.
Applied Materials' new tool, announced at the Semicon West conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, deposits a critical layer in transistors one atom at a time, providing unprecedented precision.
As chipmakers scale transistors down to ever-smaller sizes, enabling speedier and more power-efficient electronics, atomic-scale manufacturing precision is a growing concern. The first chips with transistors just 22 nanometers in size are going into production this year, and at that size, even the tiniest inconsistencies can mean that a chip intended to sell at a premium must instead be used for low-end gadgetry.
Transistors are made up of multiple layers: an active silicon material topped with an interfacing layer and then a layer of a material called a dielectric, which makes up the "gate" that switches the transistor on and off.
Applied Materials sells equipment for depositing these layers, called the gate stack, on top of silicon wafers. In the switch from today's 32-nanometer to the next generation of 22-nanometer transistors, it's become trickier to make the gate. The interface and dielectric layers both have to get thinner, and the behavior of the layers can be affected by tiny flaws where the materials touch. And as the layers get thinner, tiny flaws can be magnified even more than in larger transistors made from thicker layers.
Manufacturing accuracy will be even more important in the next-generation three-dimensional transistors that chipmaker Intel will begin producing later this year. In these devices, the active area is a raised strip that the interface and gate layers contact on three sides. This increased area of contact helps these devices perform better, but it also means an increased vulnerability to flaws.
The process uses atomic-layer deposition, or ALD, which lays down a single atomic layer of the dielectric at a time. This method is more expensive, but it's become necessary, says Atif Noori, global product manager of Applied Materials' ALD division. For the heart of the transistor—the gate—to work, "you have to make sure you're putting all the atoms right where you want them."
One source of inconsistencies in microchips is exposure to air. In Applied Materials' new tool, the entire process of depositing the gate stack is done in a vacuum, one wafer at a time. Making the gate stack entirely under a vacuum also leads to a 5 to 10 percent increase in the speed at which electrons travel through the transistor; this can translate into power savings or faster processing. Ordinarily, there's significant variation in the amount of power it takes to turn on a given transistor on a chip; manufacturing under a vacuum tightens that distribution by 20 to 40 percent.

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Google+ Set to Cross 20mn Users This Weekend

According an estimate, based on the analysis on data about surname popularity from the US Census Bureau, there is one US user for every 2.12 non-US users, and Google + is now 10 million strong.

BANGALORE, INDIA: Google+, the new social media venture from Google, may have already crossed the 10 million user mark, according to an analysis by Paul Allen, founder of Ancestory.com, a genealogy website.

Estimates have also put that Google+ is on track for 20 million by this weekend, said media reports citing his study.

According to his estimates, based on the analysis on data about surname popularity from the US Census Bureau, “ The social networking service has seen a 30 per cent jump in growth and 2.2 million people could have joined in the last 35 hours alone” he said on July 4.

Considering that momentum, it could have already touched the million mark and by this weekend it could achieve the 20 million user mark, as per his estimates.

“My model is simple. I start with US Census Bureau data about surname popularity in the U.S., and compare it to the number of Google+ users with each surname,” he said about the methodology, which he claimed to have 99 per cent accuracy level.

“I split the U.S. users from the non-U.S. users. By using a sample of 100-200 surnames, I am able to accurately estimate the total percentage of the U.S. population that has signed up for Google+. Then I use that number and a calculated ratio of U.S. to non-U.S. users to generate my worldwide estimates,” he added.

He said the ratio is 1 US user for every 2.12 non-US users and that ratio was calculated on July 4.

Google is yet to release any official figures for the service.

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Three Blasts in Mumbai, Ten Reported Dead, 60 Injured | Watch Live | First Pics

• Home Ministry confirms terror attack
• IED used in all three explosions: Home Ministry sources
• Zaveri Bazaar blast at 6.45 pm, Opera House at 6.47 pm, Dadar was last blast
• At least 60 injured: Maharashtra Home Secretary
• Four killed in Dadar, 6 in Zaveri Bazaar: Reports
• Chaos everywhere, says Manohar Joshi
• National Investigation agency team sent from Delhi to investigate, collect forensic evidence
• Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore on high alert
• 1st Bomblast zaveri Bazar 
• 2nd  dadar police station 3
• 3rd Charni Road Opera House

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Cool “Lenovo Ice” at CES 2011

Name: Lenovo Ice
Modder: James Fishar
PC used: Lenovo IdeaCentre K320
This Mod is designed for participating in the exhibition CES 2011
Original design sketch


The Modder showed the prototype of the "Ice" chassis at the exhibition

 

Highlights of the Mod:

1. Exact acrylic mold of original chassis
2. Special lighting to show performance modes of the fans throughout the case( There are three colours: blue, red, green)
3. Custom water cooling and reservoir to cool components while running optimal overclock
4. ATI eyefinity system with custom acrylic 3 monitor bracket

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Computer Water Cooling RESERATOR 1 V2

Whenever you are finding Computer Water Cooling RESERATOR 1 V2 pic, reviews or features we take them here for you to watch. We primarily collect the high-top quality Computer Water Cooling RESERATOR 1 V2 pic, information or reviews for our users to use. Sclick staff and users continually supply latest cool gadgets reviews.

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Noisy computer? This Reserator come to rescue with style. The sleek cooling aparatus comes with a sylo reservoir and heat radiator. The built-in water pump ciculates coolant between various mount inside your computer to draw heat to the raditor.

Fanless water cooling system
Optimal heat dissipation design
Exceptional cooling performance even through natural convection cooling
Anodized and comes with a custom coolant to prevent corrosion
CPU Water Block (ZM-WB3 Gold) and VGA Water Block (ZM-GWB2) enable the setup of a complete Water Cooling System
CPU Water Block
VGA Water Block

 

Computer Water Cooling RESERATOR 1 V2

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SmoothCreations Neptune Xtreme Machine

This is the Danger Den MC-TDX for Core i7 sockets. Possibly not the very best waterblock on the market, but in no way bad either.  The CPU is an Core i7 965 Extreme, and it came clocked at a fairly strong 3.9GHz.  The cooling system didn't get anything near warm, though, and the CPU stayed around 44C idle (the lab is pretty damn warm) and with Far Cry2, Fear2, and the 3DMark08 benchmarks, it would shoot up to about 60C load.  We'll look into this in more detail later in the synthetic benchmarks.

Let's take a look at the RAM. 

Stuffed to the gills.  Ack, I couldn't resist.  The Neptune is unbelievably pun inducing.  Yeah, I'll take a long walk off a pier for that.  See what I mean?  They just won't stop!  I'm not even fishing for them.  Yes, taking advantage of the triple memory controller of the Core i7, the Neptune has 12GB of Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 memory.  I had nothing but awe for these.  It ran at 616MHz, 1234MHz DDR, with latency timings at 4-8-8-20 timings or even 1600 MHz at CAS8, but again, we'll get to the specs on these a little later. 
They are conservatively clocked here, and offer a lot of room for tweaking.  These were also the putting out a good bit of heat, but had a nice strong breeze from the radiator fans.

Here is the custom painted Silverstone ZM1200M modular PSU with a monstrous 1200 watts on tap.  Yup, that ought to do it.

This is the SilverStone ZM1200M PSU.  This is a monster PSU.  It's around 85% efficient, in case you're wondering, and it will have no problems powering two or three video cards.  It did put out some heat.
Sitting on the PSU is the power driver for the white CCFL.  Very neat and as clean as a system like this can be.  You don't realize how much went into putting this thing together until after you take a long look at the insides.  Since the DD Tower 26 is clear acrylic, there are very few spots to hide cables and things.

There is an LCD display that goes along with the Rampage II mobo.  I wasn't able to verify that it did anything useful, because the placement of it did make checking readings a tad difficult.  Once past POST, though, you'll be concentrating on the OS loading anyway.

Lastly, the storage system.

SmoothCreations shipped the Neptune in a fairly standard RAID configuration, a 600GB RAID 0 for OS, and a big 1TB RAID 1 for data.  The OS RAID 0 consists of two 300GB VelociRaptors, which I wouldn't expect anything less, and a RAID 1 of Western Digital 1TB drives. 

On this last RAID, a little QC funny business because one drive was a WD Caviar Green, and the other a Caviar Black.  I dunno, Intel's Matrix RAID didn't really mind and I don't mind either.  However, if you were to build such a storage system as Smooth Creations built with the Neptune, you would consider using RAID specific drives, such as Seagate ES or WD RE2/3, since this is your data.
Then there's also the fact that these onboard RAID solutions aren't really RAID (you can make an array, but I wouldn't count on the reliability), it does make sense to get the most reliable hard drives you can afford.  Since my day job has me working with RAID 5, RAID 1, and even a couple RAID 50 devices, it's not a fault of SmoothCreations at all, just a philosophical difference I believe worth boring you all about.  Hey, you're drooling on the keyboard.

Hilbert: Yeah we .. call this fakeraid in Guru land, partially software based RAID. It is very reliable for normal usage though, it hogs CPU cycles though.

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