Google Glass Exit from 'X' Research Lab Google

Despite a lot of fanfare & news coverage, the Google Glass Smart Glasses have largely been the but of a lot of good jokes

  Soon.however,it will be harder to have a laugh at the expense of a Glass wearer.Google announced on Thursday that the Glass project was graduating from the company's research division,called Google X, and would operate as a stand-alone division within Google. The company also said that, as on Monday, it would end its explorer program,which was a test version of Glass that cost $1.500 in its play store, and which was geared towards software developers and device aficionados.

This means, in essence, that regular people will n longer be able to buy Google Glass. The Company will still have its Glass at Work program,a pilot initiative to use the device in areas like hospitals and factories and the device will be available to "certified partners" who are developing software for it.

"After nearly two years, and an incredible amount of useful feedback about what works and what needs to be better, we're closing the program so we can focus on future versions of Glass," Google Said
 

Nokia's Digital Mapping may be its Secret Pearl

For the first time in more than three decades, Nokia faces the future without being a player in the global phone business. On Friday, the company completes the sale of its beleaguered handset business to Microsoft for $7.5 billion.

The deal’s closing puts a spotlight on what remains of Nokia, which includes the Finnish company’s mobile networking business and a research and intellectual property unit. But it is Nokia’s efforts to map the entire world digitally that could prove to be the company’s hidden gem — or at least emerge as a compelling, multibillion-dollar takeover target.

Nokia’s goal with its mapping system, known as Here, is simple but ambitious: to build the world’s most detailed and up-to-date digital maps. As more companies connect their products to the Internet, analysts say that mapping services will become increasingly important to more businesses, including those in transportation, shipping and retailing.

In smartphones, Here is outgunned by Google Maps, which has an estimated one billion mobile users and is aided by being standard issue on phones using Google’s Android operating system. Here, which is the default mapping application on Windows phones, has only about 100 million smartphone users.

In automobile mapping, however, Here dominates, with more than 80 percent of the global market for built-in car navigation systems — a field in which Google and Apple are scrambling to catch up.

Nokia contends that its mapping products, which are updated 2.7 million times a day, are more accurate than its rivals’ offerings, and that its ability to customize its maps for different customers sets Nokia apart.

Google, for its part, counters that it makes tens of thousands of changes to its maps daily and that it uses complex algorithms and external information from the likes of the United States Census Bureau to build maps for 198 countries.

While rivals like Apple have tried to break into the global mapping business, they have so far been largely unsuccessful, leaving Nokia’s 29-year-old Here mapping system as the only contender for companies and consumers looking for an alternative to Google.

“Mapping is an expensive business,” said Annette Zimmermann, an analyst at the technology research company Gartner in Munich. “If you haven’t already built what these guys have built, it doesn’t make sense to start now.”

Despite the strong position, though, Nokia’s mapping unit last year generated only 7 percent, or $1.2 billion, of the company’s total revenue, excluding its handset unit, according to corporate filings. The division also reported an operating loss of $212 million over the same period, as the company continued to invest in the mapping operation, which has 6,000 employees, or around 11 percent of Nokia’s remaining work force of 55,000.

The weak financial figures have led many analysts to question whether the company has the deep pockets required to keep pace in mapping, especially since it has few existing connections to Nokia’s other businesses. Besides its auto clients, Nokia licenses Here to companies including Microsoft, for its Bing search engine; to Amazon, for the Kindle Fire tablet; and to Yahoo for its Flickr photo service. FedEx now uses Here mapping data to manage its fleet of delivery trucks worldwide.

Already, there is talk that Nokia could decide either to sell or spin off the division, so the company can focus on its core mobile networking business. The networking unit, which manufacturers cellphone towers and other telecommunications hardware for carriers, will generate almost 90 percent of the company’s annual revenue after the handset deal is closed. That means Here might be more valuable to someone else than to Nokia.

“There are only a few mapping businesses in the world,” said Ehud Gelblum, a Citigroup analyst in New York. “It’s a valuable asset.”

Microsoft fought hard to buy the unit as part of the recent handset sale. But it could not agree with Nokia on a price, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Analysts say that Nokia’s mapping division, whose price tag could reach more than $6 billion, might be attractive to the likes of Samsung and other large handset makers to reduce their dependence on Android for smartphones and tablets.

Mad Game Controller Marries Tablet

The Wii U is Nintendo’s capitulation to the screen, the tyrant of the digital age. As the follow-up to the original Wii the nearly 100 million selling, get-off your couch console that upended the video game industry six years ago the Wii U does not deliver the sensation that its predecessor unleashed, the sense that something new had been wrought upon this earth. It was not always routine for grandparents and grandchildren to gather in front of the television to wield plastic sticks and pretend to bowl.

Instead, the Wii U feels like an accommodation to the new mode of living that Apple’s iPhone and iPad have introduced. That lifestyle was evoked by a New Yorker cover this summer that featured family members posing for a beach vacation snapshot while engrossed in their personal devices.

 The Wii U, which is to be released on Sunday, works with the motion-control remotes you probably already own from the original Wii, and it plays most of the original games. What’s new — beyond high-definition graphics and some Internet-enabled features that won’t be turned on until Sunday — is the Wii U GamePad, a roughly 10-by-5-inch touch-screen controller. With a six-inch display surrounded by thumbsticks, buttons and triggers, the GamePad is the offspring of an iPad Mini and a traditional video game controller.

 In its marketing buildup to the Wii U introduction, Nintendo emphasized the benefits of two-screen gaming, particularly competitions in which the player with the GamePad sees something different from what the other players watch on the television. In so doing, Nintendo played down a simpler concept, one more easily understood by casual players and Apple fans: the touch screen.

 By merging touch-screen gaming with a video game system that is designed to live next to your TV set rather than be carried around in your pocket or purse, Nintendo is not merely acceding to the cultural tide. It is also trying valiantly, perhaps quixotically  to stem it. After creating a world in which we are no longer bowling alone (because we are all Wii-bowling together), Nintendo is seeking to invent a new way for us to commune with our screens. The company’s hope is that the Wii U will bring families together in their living rooms for touch-screen gaming rather than leave them isolated with their tablets and smartphones.

 Touch has always been a part of gaming, of course, because the physical interaction between player and device is central to the medium. But in recent years the growing complexity of the standard controller has become an obstacle for new players who did not grow up adapting to each iteration: the shift from one button to two buttons to four, or from one joystick to a directional pad to two thumbsticks and a directional pad  not to mention triggers and bumpers and start and select buttons. Easy, right?

 Simplicity was a large part of the broad appeal of the first Wii, and though playing with the Wii U is not quite as uncomplicated as standing up and waving your arms around, the touch screen is straightforward compared with the controllers used with an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3. Selecting songs in Sing Party, a karaoke game published by Nintendo, is done by swiping through tiles on the GamePad’s touch screen and then tapping the song you want. The same goes for Ubisoft’s Just Dance 4, with the added wrinkle that a player can use the touch screen to choose dance moves, midsong, for the other players to perform.

 In Balloon Trip Breeze, one of the mini-games bundled on the Nintendo Land anthology that comes with the $350 Wii U deluxe edition, the player uses a stylus to make quick swipes familiar to anyone who has played Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja  to make a character pop balloons on the television. In Takamaru’s Ninja Castle, another Nintendo Land game, similar swipes hurl martial arts stars at cartoonish cutouts. In Pikmin Adventure, from the same disc, enemies are defeated by tapping on them as they appear on the GamePad screen. In Yoshi’s Fruit Cart players scrawl a path on the touch screen and then watch a character follow it on television.

 The touch screen also allows the GamePad to morph swiftly into a TV remote control; you can adjust the volume on your set or quickly check the score of a football game without reaching for a separate device. And if you like what you see on cable, or if you want to allow someone else to watch TV in the same room, you can switch from playing a game of New Super Mario Bros. U on television to watching it unfold on your GamePad.

 As that last trick indicates, the GamePad is more than just a touch screen, and Nintendo Land provides a sketch of other possibilities. The camera inside the GamePad is used in the game Octopus Dance to project the player’s genuine, human face onto the television, a merger of the virtual with the corporeal that goes by the name “augmented reality.”

 Lightly blowing into the GamePad’s microphone in Donkey Kong’s Crash Course turns a windmill that moves a cart skyward. The GamePad can be used as a viewfinder in Metroid Blast and the Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest to target enemies for destruction. And in some other Nintendo Land games, characters can be moved by turning or tilting or lifting the GamePad into the air, another technique borrowed from mobile and tablet gaming.

 Equally promising, if not more so, are the possibilities the GamePad presents for intensive, single-player gaming. In Ubisoft’s ZombiU, the GamePad transforms, if not eliminates, some of the metaphors gamers are accustomed to: The map is no longer a tiny icon in the lower-right corner of your television, nor a menu that must be reached by punching a sequence of buttons. It is something you hold in your hands and look down at, something that draws your attention away from the world (of zombies) around you.

 Your inventory the items you carry also becomes less abstract as you peer into your GamePad to see what’s in your backpack and then physically move, say, a pistol into your hand by sliding it with your finger into an open slot. Similarly, digging through lockers, file cabinets and suitcases in the game world becomes closer to a genuine interaction.

 Then again, when the first Wii console felt new, as with Microsoft’s Kinect more recently, many decreed that motion controls would be swiftly and widely integrated into long, narrative games. Surely the intuitive interface of Wii Sports would be merged with storytelling ambition. By and large, that didn’t happen. So, spoiler alert: I have no idea what the Wii U augurs, or whether it will permanently alter how we play, alone or together.

Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0

Intel has optimized Intel Turbo Boost Technology1 to provide even more performance when needed on 2nd Generation Intel Core processor based systems. Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 automatically allows processor cores to run faster than the base operating frequency if it's operating below power, current, and temperature specification limits.


Dynamically increasing performance:

Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 is activated when the Operating System (OS) requests the highest processor performance state (P0).

The maximum frequency of Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 is dependent on the number of active cores. The amount of time the processor spends in the Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 state depends on the workload and operating environment.

Any of the following can set the upper limit of Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 on a given workload:

Number of active cores

Estimated current consumption

Estimated power consumption

Processor temperature

When the processor is operating below these limits and the user's workload demands additional performance, the processor frequency will dynamically increase until the upper limit of frequency is reached.

Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 has multiple algorithms operating in parallel to manage current, power, and temperature to maximize performance and energy efficiency.

Sticky Bit: Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 allows the processor to operate at a power level that is higher than its rated upper power limit (TDP) for short durations to maximize performance.

Another Try by Google to Take On Facebook

Google has tried several times, without much success, to take on Facebook and master social networking. Now it is making its biggest effort yet.

Google introduced a social networking service called The Google+ On Tuesday(30-06-11).Which happens to look a lot like Facebook. The service, which is initially available to a select group of Google users who will soon be able to invite others, will let people share and discuss status updates, photos and links, much as they do on Facebook.

But the Google+ project will be different in one significant way, which Google hopes will be enough to convince people to use yet another social network.

It is meant for sharing with groups, Like colleagues, roommates or hiking friends — not with all of one's friends or the entire Web. It also offers group text messaging and video chat.

In social networking, Google finds itself in an unusual position, one that its competitors in Web search know all too well: playing catch-up with a service that dominates the market.

The debut of Google+ will test whether Google can overcome its past stumbles in this area and deal with one of the most pressing challenges facing the company. At stake is Google's status as the most popular entry point to the Web. When people post on Facebook, which is mostly off-limits to search engines, Google loses valuable information that could benefit its Web search, advertising and other products.

But Google+ may already be too late. In May, 180 million people visited Google sites, including You Tube, compared with 157.2 million on Facebook, according to comScore. But Facebook users looked at 103 billion pages and spent an average of 375 minutes on the site, while Google users viewed 46.3 billion pages and spent 231 minutes.

Advertisers pay close attention to those numbers — and to the fact that people increasingly turn to Facebook and other social sites like Twitter to ask questions they used to ask Google, like a recommendation for a restaurant or doctor.

Analysts say that Facebook users are unlikely to duplicate their network of friends on Google+ and post to both sites, but that they could use them for different types of communication. Google+ could also attract Facebook holdouts who have been uncomfortable sharing too publicly.

Handling Threads in quad core processor

This depends on the exact processor line and model.

Intel's Core i7, i5, and i3 series can handle 2 threads per core, so any quad-core model could handle 8 threads.

AMD's Athon, Phenom, Sempron, and Opteron chips, on the other hand, are designed around a 1-thread-per-core model.

At the other extreme end, are the SPARC Niagara series of server chips, which can handled anywhere from 8 to 16 threads per core.


All this isn't free. Thread count per core comes at a cost - the more threads per core, the lower performance each individual thread has. That is, using the same hardware, if I run one thread on a core, that thread will run faster than 2 similar threads, even if the threads are independent.

Intel Core i7 Processor Extreme Edition

Hardcore multitaskers rejoice. Fly through everything you do on your PC - from playing intense 3D games to creating and editing digital video, music, and photos. With the high performance platform capabilities of Intel® X58 Express Chipset-based motherboards, along with faster, intelligent multi-core technology that applies processing power dynamically when its needed most, PCs based on the Intel® Core™ i7-980X processor Extreme Edition deliver incredible performance with a rich feature set.

Wield the ultimate gaming weapon for greater performance in 3D gaming applications. Experience smoother and more realistic gaming made possible by distributing AI, physics, and rendering across six cores and 12 threads, bringing 3D to life for the ultimate gaming experience. And take digital content creation to a whole new level for photo retouching and photo editing. Unlock your full potential with Intel's top-of-the-line desktop processor and experience total creative freedom that's limited only by your imagination.

Product information:-

Intel® Core™ i7-980X processor Extreme Edition

3.33 GHz core speed

Up to 3.6 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology

6 cores and 12 processing threads with Intel® Hyper-Threading

12 MB Intel® Smart Cache

3 Channels DDR3 1066 MHz memory

32nm manufacturing process technology

Intel® Core™ i7-975 processor Extreme Edition

3.33 GHz core speed

Up to 3.6 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology

4 cores and 8 processing threads with Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology

8 MB Intel® Smart Cache

3 Channels DDR3 1066 MHz memory

45nm manufacturing process technology


FEATURES & BENIFITS:-

Get extreme with your gaming and advanced multimedia.

Intel Core i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in six-core performance and feature the latest innovations in processor technologies:

Intel Turbo Boost Technology maximizes speed for demanding applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your workload-more performance when you need it the most.

Intel Hyper-Threading Technology enables highly threaded applications to get more work done in parallel. With 8 threads available to the operating system, multi-tasking becomes even easier.

Intel Smart Cache provides a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem. Optimized for industry leading multi-threaded games.

Intel QuickPath Interconnect is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec with the Extreme Edition processor.

Integrated memory controller enables three channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, resulting in up to 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. This memory controller's lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for data-intensive applications.

Intel HD Boost significantly improves a broad range of multimedia and compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4 optimized applications.

AES-NI Encryption/Decryption Acceleration provides 6 new processor instructions that help to improve performance for AES encryption and decryption algorithms.