NASA's Mars rover ready to "drive, drive, drive"

Pictures from protests against Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu





By Irene Klotz

PASADENA, California | Fri Sep 14, 2012 3:24am IST

(Reuters) - The Mars rover Curiosity was due to wrap up an exhaustive, weeks-long instrument check on Thursday, clearing the way for its first lengthy drive to determine whether the Red Planet has ever been hospitable to life, NASA officials said.

The six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover landed five weeks ago inside a giant impact basin called Gale Crater, near the Martian equator, to conduct NASA's first astrobiology mission since the 1970s-era Viking probes.

For its final equipment check, Curiosity will maneuver its robot arm so its close-up camera touches the tray where processed rock and soil samples will be analyzed.

The rover, equipped with an array of the most elaborate laboratory instruments ever sent to a distant world, also has a bit of sightseeing on its agenda. Scientists want to obtain video footage of the Martian moon Phobos passing by the sun.

Starting Friday evening, the plan is to "drive, drive, drive" until scientists find a suitable rock for the rover's first robotic "hands-on" analysis, mission manager Jennifer Trosper told reporters during a conference call on Wednesday.

It will stop when scientists find suitable soil to scoop up and run through Curiosity's onboard chemistry lab.

All the while, the rover will be heading toward a site scientists have labeled "Glenelg," where three different types of rock intersect. Glenelg, which lies about 1,312 feet away from Curiosity's current position, was named by mission geologists after a rock formation in northern Canada.

The overall purpose of the $2.5 billion Mars Science Lab mission is to search for places where microbial organisms could have evolved and been preserved. In addition to ferreting out the chemical and geologic footprints of water, Curiosity will hunt for organic compounds and other ingredients believed to be necessary for life.

Curiosity, which is designed to last two years, will venture about 4.3 miles from its landing site to climb a 3-mile-high mound of layered rock rising from the floor of Gale Crater. Dubbed Mount Sharp, it is believed to be the remains of sediment that once filled the 96-mile wide (154-meter) basin.

The rover has racked up 358 feet on its odometer during test drives. Before setting out for Mount Sharp, scientists expect to drive Curiosity about 131 feet a day during its planned trek to Glenelg, with several stops for science observations.

(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Steve Gorman and Stacey Joyce)

Digital catwalk: where fashion meets technology

Fashion designer Henry Holland talks augmented reality magazines and live streaming at London Fashion W


Henry Holland. Photograph: Frank Baron/Guardian


How are you using new technologies to improve customer experience and drive sales in-store and online?

We're using social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to build a direct relationship with our consumers and bring to life the House of Holland experience. We monitor where our customers are coming from, how they shop, what they are buying and when they make purchases – from this we can see that a large proportion come from these channels. One key move for us was to integrate our online store within our Facebook profile, allowing customers to shop directly through Facebook as well as the main website.

Can you tell us a bit more about the augmented reality app with Aurasma and InStyle from last year?

We worked with Aurasma to create an augmented reality magazine cover – this was a first for the industry and as far as I know, one of the first augmented reality magazine covers in the world. This season we are looking forward to the SS13 pre-collection for which we are developing similar technology using motifs used within the clothing, allowing us to animate and bring to life T-shirt graphics and placement prints.

With the wave of a hand, Intel wants to do away with passwords

By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO | Fri Sep 14, 2012 3:32am IST

(Reuters) - Passwords for online banking, social networks and email could be replaced with the wave of a hand if prototype technology developed by Intel makes it to tablets and laptops.

Aiming to do away with the need to remember passwords for growing numbers of online services, Intel researchers have put together a tablet with new software and a biometric sensor that recognizes the unique patterns of veins on a person's palm.

"The problem with passwords -- we use too many of them, their rules are complex, and they differ for different websites," Sridhar Iyengar, director of security research at Intel Labs, said at the annual Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco on Thursday. "There is a way out of it, and biometrics is an option."

Iyengar demonstrated the technology, quickly waving his hand in front of a tablet but not touching it. Once the tablet recognizes a user, it can securely communicate that person's identity to banks, social networks and other services where the person has accounts, he said.

Making laptops, tablets and smartphones responsible for identifying users would take that requirement away from individual websites and do away with the need to individually enter passwords into each of them, Iyengar said.

"We plan to work with service providers to take full advantage of this," he said.

Why mobile Japan leads the world

A combination of an urban lifestyle and infrastructure advantages mean that the fixed internet is being left behind by the mobile
Michael Fitzpatrick
The Guardian, Thursday 27 September 2007

Japanese commuters while away the journey by watching TV on their mobiles. Photograph: David Sacks/Getty


The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Tuesday October 9 2007

Bouygues Telecom, rather than Telecom France, has had success with mobile internet services. The QR bar codes that can be read by mobile phones are Quick Response, rather than Quick Read, codes. These did not make their debut in the UK last month. Kerrang! magazine used them in November 2006. The second of these three errors has been corrected.





Yasuko San is aiming her mobile at a small, square tattoo on paper, clicking a little and peering happily at the result. Her prize? The latest novel written for the mobile, entitled "Teddy". Such serialised novels for mobiles are just the latest phone application that has caught the Japanese imagination, but - apart from neighbouring South Korea - few others.

Those printed square icons, however, made their debut in the UK earlier this month (to promote the DVD of the film 28 Weeks Later). Known as QR (quick response) codes, they have aided Japan's mobile revolution by making it easy to access a web page via mobile. Users can be directed to sites by snapping the codes printed in magazines, posters and even on biscuits.

On second thought: Maybe smartphones make us 'SuperStupid'?

By John D. Sutter, CNN
September 12, 2012 -- Updated 1506 GMT (2306 HKT) |



Some commenters say mobile phones are overpowering us.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Readers react to a CNN story on the powers of smarpthones
Instead of "superhuman," one reader says phones make us "SuperStupid"
Commenters raise issues of safety, health and social impact
"Smartphones have created a generation of narcissistic snobs"

(CNN) -- On Monday, I wrote a story arguing that smartphones have the potential to make us "superhuman." Commenters on the article sure didn't like that phrasing.

"Smartphones also make us SuperStupid," wrote one commenter, WWWYKI. "Just watch somebody with kids in the backseat as they text 'lol wut' and run red lights."

Fair point. For all of the benefits of an always-connected society -- one where phones help people in rural areas get information they never had access to, or bring medical professionals, at least virtually, into difficult-to-reach locations -- there are plenty of drawbacks, too.

As the commenters pointed out, these include physical dangers.

"The next time a teenager almost kills you while they are texting little love letters while driving you better hope you are superhuman!" wrote open400.

The battle of the smartphones

first look: Kindle Paperwhite an easy read

By Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY
Updated 4d 5h ago

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – I've only had a hands-on demonstration of the new Kindle Paperwhite electronic reader that Amazon announced on Thursday. Amazon didn't provide review units. But it is immediately obvious the first time you pick up the thin and light reader and look at its impressive display that these new Kindles are very sweet.



David McNew, Getty Images

Amazon unveiled the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Fire HD in 7- and 8.9-inch sizes, as well as a new price of the basic Kindle at $69.
Enlarge


David McNew, Getty Images

Amazon unveiled the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Fire HD in 7- and 8.9-inch sizes, as well as a new price of the basic Kindle at $69.

As a conventional monochrome e-reader, Paperwhite may not have the sex appeal of color tablets such as its new and more expensive siblings, notably the Kindle Fire HD devices. But if reading books is your primary purpose, the Paperwhite models have plenty to recommend them. The company sells two versions, one with Wi-Fi for $119; one with Wi-Fi plus 3G cellular for $179. Prices climb to $139 and $199, respectively, if you order the Kindles without what Amazon refers to as "special offers" — meaning ads. Units ship Oct. 1, though you can pre-order one now.

Amazon says the touch display on this fifth-generation Kindle boasts 62% more pixels (212 pixels per inch resolution) and a 25% increase in contrast over earlier versions, with whiter whites and blacker blacks. All this sounds good, well, on paper. But in fact it's all borne out when you examine the screen and see just how crisp the fonts look.

Student, 12, one of youngest to create app for iPhone

by Therese Apel, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger
Updated 1d 10h ago



Vickie D. King, Gannett

Charley Hutchinson, a 12-year-old student at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Jackson, Miss. has created a free iPhone application called, Friends of Flickr. He is among the youngest to have an app accepted by Apple's App Store.
Enlarge


Vickie D. King, Gannett

Charley Hutchinson, a 12-year-old student at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Jackson, Miss. has created a free iPhone application called, Friends of Flickr. He is among the youngest to have an app accepted by Apple's App Store.

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As Apple is expected to introduce a new iPhone on Wednesday, it will come with the next version of iOS, the iPhone operating system. With that introduction, iPhone users will be upgrading apps and trying out all of Apple's cool, new features.

One of those new apps users may download has been made by one of the youngest app developers in Apple history.

Charley Hutchison is a seventh-grader from Mississippi and his goal was to have an app in the Apple App Store before his 12th birthday.

"I've always been really interested in computers. Then my parents had an iPhone, and I really loved playing with apps on there, so I decided, why don't I make my own app?" Charley said. "If there's so many already on the store, surely I can make one myself."

Charley enjoys using his iPhone but is also a fan of the photo sharing website Flickr. He wanted to design a mobile app to sync an iPhone contact list with a corresponding Flickr account.