Warrior of the Net

Did you ever wonder how the Internet works? How does a router look like? What color does a IP packet have? How does a IP packet travel through firewall. All the answers and many more can be found in the Warriors of the net move. It is the perfect tool for introducing Internet to novice users. It helps the newcomers visualize how the Net works.

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Microsoft to drop Messenger, switch to Skype

NEW YORK—Microsoft is dropping its instant-messaging program and forcing most users to switch to Skype.

Maintaining Windows Live Messenger made less sense after Microsoft Corp. bought Skype for $8.5 billion last year. A new version of Skype released a few weeks ago allows users to sign in with a Microsoft account. By merging the two services, people won’t have to maintain two separate contact lists.

Microsoft says much has changed in how people 

Microsoft is dropping its instant-messaging program and forcing mos

t users to switch to Skype. JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES/AFP

communicate. There’s more use of text messaging and social networking. 

Down but not out, Nokia hits back with Lumia

MANILA, Philippines—When Finnish electronics giant launched its Lumia line of smartphones, it signaled to the industry that the former world leader in mobile was not yet out of the game now dominated by Asian brands.

The Lumia line was the result of a partnership with software giant Microsoft, which itself was playing catchup in the mobile arena now ruled by Silicon Valley’s Apple Inc. and Google.

A the top of the new Nokia smartphone line is the Lumia 900, which remains, at least for the

IN A sea of iPhones and Samsungs, Nokia’s device appears to hold its own.

 Philippine market, the best Nokia phone money can buy. 

Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone sales pass 30M

SEOUL — Samsung says it has sold more than 30 million flagship Galaxy S III smartphones in about five months, making it one of the fastest selling smartphones in the world.

Samsung Electronics Co. launched the smartphone at the end of May, months before competitors began shipping the latest versions of their top phones.

The runaway demand for high-end smartphones fueled record profits at Samsung in recent quarters while other consumer electronics firms were hit by the global economic downturn.

Samsung, which also makes TVs, home appliances, semiconductors and display panels, got almost 70 

This handout photo taken and received by Samsung Electronics on

 October 12, 2012 shows a scaled-down, compact version of its 

flagship Galaxy S III for consumers looking for “more practical” smartphones. 

AFP /Samsung Electronics

Q Sensor: The data of our emotions

Adam Shaw checks out the Q Sensor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a wireless sensor, which measures electricity conducted through the skin.

It can detect whether people are bored, stressed or excited and can be used in market research, therapy or science

It is also being tested by autistic volunteers – it 

People are good at hiding their emotions. But now a device aims to make them visible for all to see. 

can read their feelings, where words fail to communicate their emotions. It’s helping those with seizures and autism better understand and manage their behavior. In fact anywhere there’s emotion; there could be an application for this kind of sensor – helping people across the globe better understand themselves.

source: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121121-reading-your-mind

Will the internet become conscious?

He argues that the physical wiring of the internet is much like a rudimentary brain and some of the actions and interactions that take place on it are similar to the processes that we see in the brain.

At the same time, he says, it is forcing us as humans to interact and think in new and different ways.

But, he tells BBC Future, this is just the beginning.  The internet is only going to become

 The internet is a new lifeform that shows the first signs of intelligence. So says brain scientist and serial entrepreneur Jeff Stibel.

 more and more intelligent, changing humans and society in ways which we are not yet able to understand.

source: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121121-will-the-net-become-conscious

world's lightest 14" Ultrabook – the ThinkPad® X1 Carbon

• Superior Mobility

  Inbuilt 3G wireless* provides the freedom to work anywhere, while Lenovo RapidCharge provides five hours of battery life in just 35 minutes.
  The new ergonomically designed keyboard includes keys with a 30% larger surface area, providing improved typing accuracy and comfort on a backlit keyboard. Intel® vPro™ technology makes remote management and repair a breeze.
  *3G connection is available in selected countries where Lenovo has a mobile access contract with the local telecommunications company.
  
  
  

IdeaPad Yoga 13: Meet the Convertibles

They Flip. They Twist. They Split

IdeaPad Yoga 13

Clever angles for viewing; laptop mode for creating. 13.3” screen.

What are Convertibles?

They’re laptops. They’re tablets. They offer unique modes to create, collaborate, and communicate. Convertibles merge our standard keyboard technology with flexible hinges, and add the power of touch to give you a unique Windows 8 experience.  

Mouse Scanner something more than just a mouse

This mouse will not just serve as a scroll and click functionality, it is still able to scan various documents. More precisely, of course, the documents are not in full, and in part because the size of the mouse does not allow this. So if you want to scan a couple of pages, rather than a whole stack of documents, then this mouse is just what we need. As well as the OCR technology to convert scanned text will allow for editorial purposes.
Mouse scanner, of course, not completely replace a large scanner, but will in any case not more than gadget. The mouse is able to scan at a high resolution of 320 dpi.



source: http://h-i-g-h.org/mouse-scanner-something-more-than-just-a-mouse/

Nikon Coolpix S800c Is An Android-Powered, WiFi-Equipped Compact Camera

Nikon taps Google for a seriously smart camera

The concept of shoehorning WiFi and phone-like features isn't new, but Nikon is clearly taking the concept seriously, pushing a full version of Google's Android Gingerbread operating system into the Coolpix S800c. It's certainly not the first connected camera, but it is a bit refreshing in a time when buggy, proprietary connectivity systems are the norm.

From the back, the camera is a lot like a phone. It uses a big 3.5-inch touchscreen OLED display that can be used to watch video, surf the web, and pretty much anything else you can do on a typical Android device. It prefers to be connected via the integrated WiFi, but if there's no open network around, it can send images and videos wirelessly to a compatible tablet or smartphone so they can be uploaded using the data network. It's a bit like the WU-1a wifi adapter that was announced in concert with the D3200 DSLR. It even has built-in GPS like a smartphone.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta Now Available for Download, We Go Hands-On

Faster performance, video editing, and a new look are some of the upgraded features from CS5

Lightroom 4 has been available for a couple weeks now, so Adobe has decided it's time to give Photoshop CS6 the public beta treatment. The final release is slated for some time in the first half of this year, but if you're willing to help Adobe test out a near-final version, you can mess around with it now for free. At least for a while.

The jump to CS6 isn't a granular one. In fact, upon opening the program, you'll notice that it has gotten a very new look. The UI has been darkened a bit in order to give you a more neutral workspace against which you can view your images. Of course, you can always switch if the new look isn't for you, which is something Adobe seems to pride themselves on at almost every level, and rightfully so. With so many dedicated users having used their software for years, there's always bound to be push back to change.

Samsung's Cool/Weird Android-Running Galaxy Camera Will Cost $500

The goofy Samsung Galaxy Camera--a point-and-shoot with a 4.8-inch touchscreen and a full version of Android--came out of nowhere and actually impressed us. The interface is fast and efficient for changing settings, the screen is great, and the camera has some pretty decent optics to book (21x optical zoom lens, 16MP CMOS sensor). And we just got an email from AT&T telling us the camera will cost $499.99, either with or without a 4G data plan. Yoooouch. That's even more than the $450 Canon S110, the reigning champ of advanced compacts. We'll

Samsung Galaxy Camera Front and Back Samsung

 

have a full review soon so you can see if it's worth it.
  
source: http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-11/samsungs-coolweird-android-running-galaxy-camera-will-cost-500

Canon EOS 60Da For Astrophotography

Canon's new DSLR has been tweaked to help it capture all the beautiful stuff out there in space

Like the EOS 20Da that came before it, Canon's EOS 60Da shares many of its features with its non-astronomical sibling. They have made a few tweaks, however, to facilitate taking photos of the heavens.

The 60Da has a modified infrared filter as well as a sensor that has been adjusted to reduce noise over long exposures while increasing its sensitivity to hydrogen alpha (sometimes known as H-alpha). There's plenty of H-alpha floating around in space even though our eyes -- and most traditional digital camera sensors can't see it. It usually plays a pretty pivotal role in those awesome images of the sun we've been seeing lately that depict the wild solar storms and flares. The 60Da's APS-C sensor is roughly three times more sensitive to H-alpha with some help from the modified infrared filter. The final result is a 20-percent increase in transmittance of the hydrogen alpha line.

Sony NEX-5R Interchangeable-lens Compact Has Hybrid AF, Built-In WiFi, Apps

A new sensor and a wireless connection for Sony's popular ILC

The pre-Photokina new camera blitz continues today with Sony's new NEX-5R interchangeable-lens compact. The name might not sound like much of an upgrade, but there are some substantial differences from its predecessor, the NEX-5N.

The biggest new change from a photographic standpoint is the 16.1-megapixel sensor. It maintains the APS-C size, but they have now added 99 phase-detection AF sensors, giving it the ability to use both phase detection and contrast AF, similar to the Nikon 1-series and the Canon EOS-M and Rebel T4i cameras. Set to Speed Priority Continuous mode, it's capable of maintaining AF tracking up to 10 FPS, which continues Sony's emphasis on sheer shooting speed.

Microsoft Surface Will Start At $500

You'll get more for your money than you would with an iPad, though.
Microsoft's Surface--the company's first in-house Windows 8 computer, or tablet, or whatever it is, goes up for pre-order today. This is a gadget you should care about! It's designed to be a do-everything device--you can use it like a tablet, with superfast touch gestures and apps and stuff, or like a computer, with a keyboard and a full web browser and Flash and Microsoft Office and stuff. It's also startlingly beautiful; Microsoft is much better at making hardware

Microsoft Surface Tablet Microsoft

than most people realize, but this is their crowning achievement. (Our friend Sam Biddle at Gizmodo gushed over it.) It looks awesome.

Yes, an orange can be a battery — and it's

There's plenty of talk about alternative energy options out there, but this battery powered by an orange has to be one of the more interesting attempts at it. The result is pretty cool looking to boot.
The orange battery was created by photographer Caleb Charland, who has made a project out of using fruits and veggies — and other objects — to create light as the subjects of his photography.
The electricity powering the bulb hidden in the center of the segments comes from the chemical reaction between the citric acid in the orange and the zinc nails in the segment.
As you might expect, the power coming from an orange and a few nails isn't going to be enough for it to be your new light fixture. The amount of light produced from this experiment is so low that the photo you see here is the result of a 14-hour exposure.
Even if it isn't a scientific breakthrough, it is a pretty cool little experiment on generating energy and an otherworldly example of long exposure photographyE, with a little steampunk style thrown in.

source: http://dvice.com/archives/2012/11/yes-an-orange-c.php

IBM's Sequoia Supercomputer is Now the World's Fastest Computing Machine

he latest TOP500 supercomputer rankings, released today, place America's 16-plus-petaflop machine at the top.
The latest TOP500 ranking of the world’s fastest supercomputers is out this morning, and America is (finally) back on top. After nearly three years trailing supercomputers abroad--Japan’s K computer reigned supreme for most of last year, with China’s Tianhe-1A close behind--the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has stolen the top spot via Sequoia, a 16.32 petaflops (that’s a quadrillion

The Department of Energy's Sequoia Supercomputer NNSA

 

floating point operations per second) IBM machine built from 96 racks containing 98,304 computing nodes and 1.6 million cores.

Simulated Brain Ramps Up To Include 100 Trillion Synapses

IBM is developing a cognitive computing program under a DARPA program and just hit a major high.

Neurosynaptic Cores This network of neurosynaptic cores is derived from wiring in the monkey brain. The cores are clustered into regions, also inspired by the brain, and each core is represented by a point along the ring. Arcs connect the different cores to each other. Each core contains 256 neurons, 1024 axons, and 256×1024 synapses. IBM

The Sequoia supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, recently crowned world champion of supercomputers, just simulated 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections among them--the most powerful brain simulation ever. IBM and LLNL built an unprecedented 2.084 billion neurosynaptic cores, which are an IBM-designed computer architecture that is designed to work like a brain.

http://techie-pinoy.com/2012/10/19/lenovo-ideatab-lynx-hybrid-windows-8-tablet/

Lenovo is back with its latest technology in the form of the IdeaTab Lynx. It is the first Windows 8 tablet powered with dual core Intel Clover Trail platform. The Lynx features a 11.6-inch IPS five-point multi-touch screen display for easy navigation and 400 cd/m2 brightest with 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, an Intel Atom Z2760 Clover Trail processor, a 2GB of RAM, and a 32GB to 64GB of flash storage.

The Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx has a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, a microUSB port, a microSD card slot, a micro HDMI, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and dual stereo speakers. It also features an optional keyboard dock transforming it to a laptop mode with additional 2 USB ports to connect external devices and to add an extra juice on its overall battery life up to 16 hours of use.  The Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx retails for $599, but if you add a keyboard dock then you’ll have to pay additional $150.

source: http://techie-pinoy.com/2012/10/19/lenovo-ideatab-lynx-hybrid-windows-8-tablet/

Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810

Logitech has launched its latest technology in the form of a Illuminated Keyboard that is optimized for Microsoft’s new operating system Windows 8, complete with shortcut keys. The Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 actually works with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating system, pairing with up to three devices simultaneously, letting you switch among your Windows 8 PC, iPad and android phone at the push of a button without any hassle.

This rechargeable keyboard uses bluetooth connectivity to pair with your smart devices and features an auto-adjusting illumination that ensures the laser-etched key characters are always bright and easy to read. The Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 uses proximity detection to turn on the lighting when your hands approach it, turning the backlight off as you start to type up automatically according to the light level in the room, thus saving battery power.

Regarding power, this illuminated keyboard is said to deliver 10 days of battery life on a full charge.  The keyboard itself sports a brushed-aluminium finish and Logitech says its concave designed keys will help ensure “whisper-quiet typing”. Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 is now available in the US for $99.99 each.

source: techie-pinoy.com/2012/10/18/logitech-bluetooth-illuminated-keyboard-k810/

ASUS Maximus V Extreme E-ATX Motherboard Review

Asus Maximus V Extreme E-ATX is the latest addition of the company to its Republic of Gamer (R.O.G) series motherboards.  It is equipped with the latest I/O technology onboard called Thunderbolt, an industry first technology set to revolutionize the speed of peripherals and display giving a boost on transfer rate of data and much higher image resolutions. Thunderbolt onboard technology is said to provide an ultra-fast transfer speed of 10GBps, which is twice faster than USB 3.0. and resolution up to 2560 x 1600 using the DisplayPort. Another unique technology is the daisy-chain technology, wherein user can connect up to 7 high-speed devices without the need for hub or switch, perfect to avoid messy cabling. Here are some of the core specifications of the Asus Maximus V Extreme E-ATX motherboard.

Introduction

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WHY STUDY COMPUTER ORGANIZATION AND ARCHITECTURE?

1. Suppose a graduate enters the industry and is asked to select the most cost-effective computer for use throughout a large organization. An understanding of the implications of spending more for various alternatives, such as a larger cache or a higher processor clock rate, is essential to making the decision.

2. Many processors are not used in PCs or servers but in embedded systems. A designer may program a processor in C that is embedded in some real-time or larger system, such as an intelligent automobile electronics controller. Debugging the system may require the use of a logic analyzer that displays the relationship between interrupt requests from engine sensors and machine-level code.

3. Concepts used in computer architecture find application in other courses. In particular, the way in which the computer provides architectural support for programming languages and operating system facilities reinforces concepts from those areas.

Reference:

Computer Organization and Architecture
Eight Edition

William Stalling

Data and Signals

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* Data must be transformed into electromagnetic signals prior to transmission across a network.

* Data and signals can be either analog or digital.

* A signal is periodic if it consists of a continuously repeating pattern.

* Each sine wave can be characterized by its amplitude, frequency, and phase.

* Frequency and period are inverses of each other.

* A time-domain graph plots amplitude as a function of time.

* A frequency-domain graph plots each sine wave’s peak amplitude against its frequency.

* By using Fourier analysis, any composite signal can be represented as a combination of simple sine waves. 

Introduction

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* Data communication is the transfer of data from one device to another via some form of transmission medium.

* A data communications system must transmit data to the correct destination in an accurate and timely manner.

* The five components that make up a data communications system are the message, sender, receiver, medium, and protocol.

* Text, numbers, images, audio, and video are different forms of information. 

Information Systems in the Enterprise

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Key System Applications in the Organization

Since no single system provides all the information an organization needs, a number of systems have been developed to serve different organizational levels and functions. Operational, knowledge, management and strategic-level systems are designed to meet a variety of different information needs.

  Operational level systems support operational managers needs for current, accurate and easily accessible information primarily used to keep track of the elementary activities and transactions of the organization.

          Knowledge-level systems help the organization integrate new know- ledge into the business and help the organization control the flow of paperwork. Management-level systems are designed to serve the monitoring, controlling, decision- making, and administrative activities of middle managers.

          Strategic-level systems help senior managers with long-range planning needed to meet changes in the external and internal business environment.

          There are also different information needs for the various business functions: sales and marketing, manufacturing, finance, accounting, and human resources. A large organization typically has operational, management, knowledge, and strategic level systems for each of these functional areas. 

Reference:

 Management Information System
Managing the Digital Firm
Seventth Edition

Kenneth C. Laudon
Jane P. Laudon

Managing the Digital Firm

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Why Information Systems?

Information systems have taken on a vital role in the competitive global marketplace because of powerful worldwide changes in the business environment. Leading industrial countries are transforming from industrial-based to knowledge-and information-based economies. Knowledge and information work now account for 60 percent of the American gross national product, and nearly 55 percent of the U.S. labor force. 

These post-industrial, knowledge-and information-based service economies require powerful information and communications systems to compete in the post-industrial era. The emergence of global economy requires far-reaching information systems to manage business on an international scale. Business enterprises are undergoing transformations in organization and management favoring smaller more flexible organizations where employees are empowered by information and knowledge.

Reference: 

		Management Information System Managing the Digital Firm Seventth Edition Kenneth C. Laudon Jane P. Laudon

MySpace taps big data for turnaround

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As visitor traffic wanes, the social networking site has turned to massively parallel database analytics to get inside the minds of its members

MySpace was one of the first social networks to penetrate mainstream consciousness, and between 2006 and 2008 it had more members than any other. In July 2005, the site was acquired by News International for $580 million, and celebrated its 100 millionth member soon after.

Can A&P Renew Itself with New Information Systems?

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Is A&P, the most famous supermarket chain in the United States, about to disappear? Maybe, but if it happens, it won't be immediately because management is fighting hard to survive. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A&P's official name), headquartered in Montvale, New Jersey, had about 750 stores in 16 states, Washington D.C., and Ontario, Canada. These stores include the A&P chain but also the Food Emporium, SuperFresh, and Waldbaum's chains. They have about 24,400 full-time employees plus 56,600 part timers.