New Technologies from Nissan

Leading Japanese car manufacturer Nissan announced Two new technologies World-First Electro-hydraulic Power Steering system and a new Intelligent Braking Technology.

Electro-hydraulic Power Steering system 

There are two technologies for power assisted steering which are generally used, one is the hydraulic power steering which is used in most of the cars in the world, it utilizes hydraulic pressure generated by a rotary vane pump driven by the engine to assist the driver for steering and the other is the Electric power steering which uses an electric motor to assist the driver, it works on complex electronics. It has more advantages than a Hydraulic one but can be less reliable at times. It is generally used in sports cars luxury cars and hybrids. Electric power steering is considered to be more fuel efficient of the two.

World's First End-to-End Silicon Photonics Connection from Intel

A couple of days ago Intel unveiled a new prototype which could probably change the era of electronics as we know it. Electronics works on the concept of moving electrons through conductive metals like copper wire etc.This technology has limitations of speed as only data at limited transfer rates (upto 10Gbps) can be transferred through conducting metals. Now with the advent of hi-definition video and audio formats coming closer to becoming standards our bandwidth usage is increasing at really high rates. Copper cables wont keep up with it soon. In facts it is already reaching to its limits as processing power is increasing at exponential rates and these cables are acting like a bottle neck. There is also this problem of signal loss and noise interference over long distances.

Woah! The" facebook directory" available as a torrent download!

Facebook has been always been in the news for some or the other privacy issues which really concerns a lot of users, Facebook recently went passed the 500 million user line.

This time its really bad stuff that has happened.

Information of over 100 million user is now available as a torrent download on thepiratebay.org. The torrent was uploaded yesterday (28/7/2010) on PirateBay by the username phatwarez.

Will the Computer Mouse Die?

Apple yesterday unveiled a new line up of stuff which includes the 27-inch Apple LED Cinema Display which will be available later in September this year, New line up of Mac Pros powered by Intel Xeon “Nehalem”  processor having 4, 6, 8, or 12 cores which is claimed to be the fastest Mac Pro ever they will also feature  the new SSD (Solid State Hard Drives) as an option for performance hungry users, it will be available next month. A new lineup of  iMac which feature the latest core i3, i5, i7 processors. The most interesting news here is the new Magic Trackpad which will make the mouse history for most mac users.

Magic TrackPad

Finally multi touch has made to the desktop as well, the magic trackpad is something like a touch pad in mac book pro grown big. It is the largest trackpad ever made. Its made out of wear resistant glass surface. It has a really great ergonomic design to it and fits in perfectly besides the Apple Wireless Keyboard so you can type and use the touch pad without any problem.

Batteries that charge themselves when given a shake

I have the Seiko 5 Superior Automatic wrist watch that runs without any batteries all it requires is a shake to keep it running no maintenance at all. What if that was same with most of your battery operated devices like your remote controls  led torches and other portable devices which run on AA/AAA size batteries. Thats what a Japan based company named Brother Industries Ltd revealed in an event (TEchno Frontier 2010) in Tokyo this past week. The company call it "Vibration-powered Generating Battery". The company mainly specializes in Printers and printing solution based products.

How It works?

Now when it comes to normal disposable batteries they consists of chemicals which undergo electrochemical reactions to generate electric current. The Vibration-powered Generating Battery however has no chemicals in it, it works on the electro-mechanical method like a dynamo found in a bicycle. The battery casing has a coil a magnet and a condenser (capacitor to store current). Whenever the battery receives a shaking movement the magnets slide up and down, a current is induced in the coil and is stored in the condenser for use. The batteries are not that powerful they can only run devices that require less power. The average power output is between 10 to 180mW  and the voltage output is around 3.2 volts from the two prototype batteries. It is good enough for a T.V.remote control which is under constant handling Brother industries said that for a T.V remote it would require a shake every 10-30 button presses. Not bad for a prototype.

Dell Streak Phone/Tablet Hybrid

A couple years ago we had a time when Mobiles phones were turning smaller and smaller, all of sudden with the advent of high end smart phone devices, tablet devices like iPad and especially the Android OS we have seen a considerable increase in the screen sizes in recent time and so we now have bigger phones like the Samsung Galaxy S, Motorola DROID X  and HTC EVO 4G. Forget phones we now have a Phone-Tablet Hybrid The Dell Streak.

Dell Streak is a device which has the capability of a fully functional table device plus a smart phone. The Dell Streak was first revealed at CES 2010, Dell Streak was launched in the U.K. over a month ago and expected to be launched in U.S. by the end of July.

Tape that creates an illusion of a hinge

Packaging tape is something which is very important in the packaging industry and our daily life to some extent. It comes in various colors and materials, despite the high end printing technology we have, we haven't seen any innovative stuff done with tapes. People always like something which has an innovative look to it  and looks good to the eye. 

When you seal flaps of a box with a tape it acts similar to a hinge so why not make it look like a hinge. That's what Jeong-Min Lee & Hyoung-Min Park from a South Korean based design collective studio have come up with. They have printed a realistic looking hinge design on a 50mm x 45mm on Opp material tape. It creates  an illusion of a hinge which gives packaging a tough look, its cool.

Robot that works on biomass eats and poos like an organism

Robots in general require batteries and have a limited run time this limits their ability to work autonomously. The only solution to this problem is to make use of available energy resources like solar energy, that too has its own limitations. But what if I say we already have Robots that create their energy by eating stuff and poo too.. Yeah you heard it right. 

A team of researchers, professors and scientists from the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK  have created what is called the EcoBot III (Eco-bot 3). The Eco-bot 3 is the latest version of robot which works by creating energy from biomass.Ecobot III, contains a fully functional digestive system capable of ingesting biomass, turning it into energy, and then excreting waste. Ecobot is also called "The  BREADbot" (Bio-Regulation and Energy-Autonomy with Digestion), the earlier version the EcoBot 1 and EcoBot 2 worked by relying on sugar and flies diet respectively.

How does EcoBot III work?  

Ecobot III basically works by converting sewage (biomass) into energy with the help of what is called Microbial Fuel Cell technology (MFC). It is a kind of Fuel Cell which basically mimics real digestion. It makes use of complex chemical reactions which generate hydrogen, this hydrogen provides electrons to generate the electric current which powers the robot, while hydrogen ions are sent to a separate chamber where they mix with oxygen to create water. The robot is powered by a stack of 48 such Microbial Fuel Cell.

The robot excretes out the waste biomass  At the end of a complete cycle (approximately after 24 hours) a peristaltic pump evacuates the waste that has accumulated in the bottom of the conical artificial stomach.

Lg introduces New 3D products

Lg recently added new 3D products to its fleet, a 3D note book, a 3D PC monitor and a 3D projector.

LG XNote R590 3D

This is the first note book from Lg to feature 3D. It features the powerful Intel Core i7 processor with a Nvidia Geforce GT335M graphic card it has a HM55 chipset. It is an ultra portable note book with a 15.6 inch screen.

It also features SRS TruSurround HD. It has an optional Bluray drive which allows you to view HD movies in 2D and 3D.
The most exciting thing is the fact that it comes with preloaded Tri Def software which converts 2D to 3D in real time it comes with  Polarized glasses which are best for watching 3D content as they produce minimum eye fatigue, they are light weight too. 

Rexbionics takes bionics technology to another level

People who are bound to use a wheel chair face a lot of problem in their daily life. Seemingly simple tasks like getting over a side walk or climbing a couple of steps can be really difficult and almost impossible without someones assistance. That's about to change for good, a new bionic exoskeleton developed by a New Zealand based company Rex Bionics has taken bionics to another level. Exoskeletons aren't something new we have seen them in movies, they have been developed for military applications by big companies. But it wasn't until now that it was used for handicapped people.

The whole concept came about to founders and high school friends Richard Little and Robert Irving, when Robert Irving received a diagnosis for Multiple Sclerosis, he realized that he would need a wheel chair one day. Both of them belong to Engineering backgrounds, so they undertook the task of developing a  realistic standing and walking alternative to wheelchairs. So after 7years of hard work they have come up with REX.

New Nvidia GeForce 460GTX gaming chip for $199

Nvidia has been a leading manufacturer when it comes to Graphic cards, in fact Nvidia was the Company to first invent the concept of GPU (Graphic processing Unit) back in 1999 and introduce the world with the power of high end computer graphics to personal computers.

On 12th July Nvidia announced an addition to its high end 400 series GPUs,  the GTX460 chip which just costs $199. The Graphics card  has been received by analyst and reviewers and most of them claim it to the best card when it comes to value for money. What makes this card so special is the fact that it is based on Nvidia's new Fermi design, which was originally marketed as a supercomputer chip. The Chip has created a lot of buzz among the gamer's community.
Nvidia was a bit left behind in the race of power at price, but now Nvidia's competitors ATI seems like its left behind in the "Bang  for Price war".

Samsung Galaxy Beam worlds first phone with a projector

Smart phones got it all, High resolution cameras, GPS navigation, High speed Internet, touch screens almost everything that could be crammed in.

Leading Smart phone manufacturer Samsung  recently announced the official  release date of the world's first smart phone which features a projector!, yeah a projector which actually projects on a surface. Its name Samsung Galaxy Beam (Model: GT-I8520). Samsung first unveiled this smart phone at the Mobile world congress earlier this year in February under the name Halo.

Self cleaning roads which clean the air too

Pollution is a serious problem all across the world, wouldn't it be great if the streets clean themselves and also the air around them. A new kind of concrete mixture researched by the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands  has shown some significant figures resulting in decrease in the concentration of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 25 to 45% , NOx is what results in acid rain which is very dangerous for the fertility of soil and human skin.

Mr Jos Brouwers a professor of building materials at the Eindhoven University of Technology reveled this in his inaugural speech, he sees numerous potential applications for this technology. The concrete stones used in the tests are made by paving stone manufacturer Struyk Verwo Infra, and are already available for real world applications. 

Pranav Mistry's new innovation the invisible computer mouse.(Mouseless)

After coming up with the popular invention of Sixth sense technology Pranav Mistry, Pattie Maes and Liyan Chang from MIT's Media Lab have come up with a new innovation the Invisible computer mouse. No Doubt mouse is a very important peripheral of the computer, over all these years it has steadily gone through changes from  losing the tracker ball to getting laser tracker for improved precision, becoming wireless to turning in to a touch sensitive pad found in a laptop and there are a ton of other mouse design concept that people have come up with, but no one had every thought of turning it invisible.

How Invisible Mouse works

The invisible mouse is no alien technology! There have been a lot of advancement in multi-touch,  gesture interface technologies but all these technologies have not been explored to their full potential. The mouse still has the same kind of buttons since it was first made. When it comes to Pranav Mistry's mouseless interface it consists of  two major components, an Infrared (IR) laser beam and an Infrared camera. Now the laser beam is modified by fitting it with a line cap which creates a plane of infrared laser just above the surface where the computer is placed. Now the user has to place their hand like they are holding a real mouse, the IR beam covers the hand. Now the IR (infrared) camera detects  the hand movements and creates what is called blob (interpreted by computer) the change in the IR created by the hand movements is thus detected by the computer and the cursor thus move the way you move your hand on the surface just like a real mouse. When you tap your index finger it is able to detect a click.

Hardware trojans another way to steal data

Ever wondered if your mouse keyboard or other USB peripherals could transmit sensitive data. Yes this is possible with what is called "Hardware Trojan". Hardware Trojans are compromised hardware devices which can send data to a remote thief. Until now Hardware Trojan was considered as modified electronic circuitry like if it has been fabricated in the factory to do so but, a recent finding by engineers at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario suggests that a flaw in the USB could be used to sack into data from the hard disk.

The USB's plug and play functionality allows any device being plugged in to report its identity correctly. If the swapped device belongs to the same manufacturer and model the computer will not even notice a change in the device. Any USB device like a keyboard or a mouses could be swapped to a hacked one without  the user knowing it. The engineers at Royal Military college successful designed a USB keyboard that successfully transmitted  binary data from the Hard Drive via led flashing which could be encoded using Morse Code and by encoding data as a subtle warbling output from the sound card.

Toshiba and Intel to commercialize an educational-use tablet PC for school kids

Toshiba and Intel recently announced the launch of a tablet PC  in Japan for elementary and junior high schools kids named CM1. The tablet is focused to foster ICT (Information and communication technologies) skill among kids. The CM1 came up due to The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan which set out a policy of providing digital textbooks for all elementary and junior high school students by 2015.

Microsoft Instaload technology lets you put batteries the way you want.

You might have come across times when you insert batteries in the wrong way and the device wont start. It happens with a lot of people but no one came up with a solution, but the IT giant Microsoft with its new technology called InstaLoad.

How Instaload works

You might wonder it works on complex electronics but the fact is its a purely mechanical design that makes it work. It has a set of positive and negative contacts at both ends, unlike only positive at one end and only negative at the other end. So always the battery either interfaces with a positive contact or a negative contact. Check out the contact design diagram.

How to trace the location of a host server

Whenever you visit a website you are routed through various servers and locations before ending up to the final host server here's a method to trace the location of a host server through a really simple command and a website which can be used on any Windows PC.

Step 1
Click on Start and go to command prompt by typing cmd in the run box. OR Simply go to Accessories and click on Command Prompt.

Step 2
In the Command Prompt Type tracert followed by the address of the website you want to trace. For example if you want to trace the routes for my website-- 

tracert www.mytechcenter.co.cc
OR  tracert www.yahoo.com  

(Remember only type address beginning with www don't type the url with http://)

Now my website is hosted on blogger so it is hosted on google servers. It takes almost 18 routes before reaching my website from my internet connection.

Step 3

Now that we have traced the host server IP ie. the last line before trace complete, in my case as you can see it is 74.125.95.121 we can easily trace the server location and other details. Now you can't use copy in Command Prompt so just write down the IP address  on a piece of paper or type it on notepad and then put in the Lookup IP Information box on the website  

http://ip-address-lookup-v4.com  and hit enter.

It will show you all the details of the website like its location on google maps ,the hosting service, company name and a ton of other stuff.

You can also trace the location of the routes you went through by putting in the route IP addresses. 

Have fun tinkering and finding server locations of your favorite websites! If you have a problem doing it, put it in the comments and i can help you out.