#Global tablet sales dip for first time Tablet sales have fallen for the first time since the devices went mainstream in 2010,
so says research firm IDC. According to its most recent data, 76.1 million tablets were sold globally by tech firms during Q4 2014, down from 78.6 million for the same period a year earlier.
This represents a 3. 2 percent drop in sales overall, though take a look at the vendorsindividual figures and you notice some pretty wild variations.
Amazon, for example, saw its October-to-December Kindle Fire sales plummet by a whopping 70 percent compared to a year earlier
with only 1. 7 million units shipped during the most recent holiday season compared to 5. 8 million in Q4 2013.
Apple, too, experienced a drop, though of a less startling 17.8 percent, according to IDC. The company sold more tablets (21.4 million) than any other vendor during the quarter,
though it possible the recent release of its large-screen iphones impacted sales to some extent.
Rival Samsung sold about half as many tablets as Apple at the end of last year (11 million), while its fall in sales was slightly bigger than the Cupertino company at 18.4 percent.
In fact as the table below shows, four of the top five vendors saw a fall in Q4 slate sales,
with only Lenovo likely helped by its strong presence in Asia managing to buck the trend with a 9. 1 percent uptick in sales.
Commenting on the data, IDC senior research analyst Jitesh Ubrani described the tablet market as till very top heavyin that it continues to rely mostly on Apple
and Samsung to push it forward. The analyst added, lthough Apple expanded its ipad lineup by keeping around older models
and offering a lower entry price point of $249, it still wasn enough to spur ipad sales given the excitement around the launch of the new iphones.
Samsung struggles continue, Ubrani said, s low-cost vendors are quickly proving that mid-to high-priced Android tablets simply aren cut out for today tablet market.
One bright spot for the market showed up in the data for the whole of 2014,
which saw 229.6 million tablets shipped, marking a 4. 4 percent increase on 2013. So how is 2015 likely to pan out for tablet makers?
A myriad of factors are set to haul the business one way or the other, among them increased rivalry in emerging markets, saturation in established ones, the presence of Apple large-screen iphone 6 devices,
and the introduction of lighter, increasingly powerful, and competitively priced laptops. You never know, Apple expected supersized tablet might even shake things up a bit n
#IBM joins forces with Mars taps genomics to boost food safety Tech heavyweight IBM has joined forces with food manufacturing giant Mars in an attempt to boost global food safety.
Scientists from the two companies have founded the Consortium for Sequencing the Food supply Chain tapping advances in genomics to gain a better understanding of food safety.
IBM says that researchers will investigate the genetic fingerprints of living organisms such as bacteria fungi
and viruses examining how they grow in environments such as countertops factories and raw materials. The data will be used to investigate how bacteria interact with scientists hopeful the results will improve food safety management across the supply chain. t becoming extremely complex with the global supply chainjeff Welser lab director of IBM Almaden research center
in San jose Calif. told Foxnews. com. small problem in one place can travel quicklyhe consortium will conduct the largest ever study of metagenomics aiming to better categorize
and understand microorganisms and their impact in factory environments. Metagenomics is using genomics to identify the microorganisms in a sample to determine
whether they are healthy or notsaid Welser. t could be a piece of food or an ingredient for food or it could be taken a swab from a machine in a food processing plant.?
We have to figure out what microorganisms there arehe added. re the population sites healthy? Are they normal?
he first samples will be taken from Mars-owned production facilities. Scientists from U. C. Davis will sequence the sample data which will then be sent to IBM. e take it to do the work on the analytics
and algorithmssaid Welser. ver time we will build a database that we will use as a reference for
what is normal. BM is no stranger to handling vast quantities of complex data. Last year for example the company enhanced its Watson supercomputer famous for its appearance on the quiz show Jeopardy in an attempt to speed up the pace of scientific breakthroughs.
Welser told Foxnews. com that IBM is actively pursuing other partners to join the consortium with the support of Mars. ood safety is not a competitive issue all companies want food to be said safehe.
Follow James Rogers on Twitter@jamesjroger m
#Futuristic cargo vessel looks to revolutionize shipping Norwegian ship designer Lade AS has unveiled a futuristic new design for cargo vessels
which uses the shipshulls as a sail. Inspired by sailboats and aerospace the indskipwith its hull shaped like a symmetrical air foil is designed to use the wind for propulsion.
Lade AS says that the ship hull will generate aerodynamic lift giving a pull in the ship direction.
The hybrid merchant vessel will also use a Liquid Natural gas electric propulsion system which takes the ship to the necessary speed to generate aerodynamic lift on its hull.
Additionally the Vindskip will employ a specialized computer program to analyze meteorological data and calculate the best sailing route based on available wind energy.
Terje Lade manager of Lade AS told Foxnews. com that the Vindskip concept is being tested using wind tunnels and computational fluid dynamics.
Testing of a model in a water tank is scheduled to begin in April he explained in an email.
Lade AS plans to eventually license the Vindskip concept to shipping companies ship consultants and shipyards.
The Alesund-based company has already been awarded two patents for the hull ability to generate aerodynamic lift
which it describes as its Wind power System. Lade told Foxnews. com that the Vindskip development project will be finished by the fourth quarter of 2015
and estimates that engineering and construction will take approximately 2 to 3 years. Our estimate is that it should be sailing in 2019 he added.
The project has attracted already the attention of at least one shipping industry heavyweight. A spokesman for Wilhelmsen one of Norway's largest shipowners told Foxnews. com that the company's technical department has been involved in brainstorming related to the Vindskip
although there has been no formal involvement or investment in the project. Some years back our technical team developed our concept vessel (Orcelle)
--and based on this we were invited into the Vindskip project he explained in an email. Our vision is'shaping the maritime industry
'and we value sharing some'futuristic'thoughts and ideas on how shipping can develop some years ahead.
Lade AS estimates that the Vindskip design could generate fuel savings of 60 %and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80%compared to a traditional ship.
The designer says that the design is suited particularly well to a number of passenger and container vessels.
However Chris Cheetham founder of Soter Advisors a fuel and energy risk management consultancy specializing in the shipping industry said that a number of factors could impact potential savings.
What these designs will come down to is'how much does it really cost?''he told Foxnews. com. You have to relate that to the cost of building
and charter rates for shipping. Cheetham cited the huge pullback in oil prices and the inventory of traditional ships that are scheduled already to be built as factors that companies will need to consider before licensing a revolutionary design such as the Vindskip.
Story updated from Jan 19 with comments from Lade AS Wilhelmsen and Soter Advisors. Follow James Rogers on Twitter@jamesjroger s
#US Air force confirms Boeing's electromagnetic pulse weapon For the last few years, the creative minds of Hollywood had outpaced seemingly the reality of technological and scientific advances in the weapons field.
But no longer. Stepping out of the realm of science fiction and into reality is the joint U s. Air force and Boeing electromagnetic pulse weapon,
capable of targeting and destroying electrical systems without the collateral damage often associated with traditional firepower.
As Don Cheadle noted in the ever-relevant Ocean's 11, this new weapon"is a bomb--but without the bomb."
"Known as the"CHAMP, "or Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project, the American military project is an attempt to develop a device with all the power of a nuclear weapon but without the death and destruction to people and infrastructure that such a weapon
causes. Theoretically, the new missile system would pinpoint buildings and knock out their electrical grids, plunging the target into darkness and general disconnectedness.
The project has been in the works for a few years now, and has met with significant success in preliminary trials.
In 2012, it was reported that a CHAMP mission in Utah managed to hit and subsequently disable seven separate targets in one mission,
demonstrating its accuracy and precision. Indeed, it is this capacity to target individual buildings and not cities at large that makes the new weapon so effective,
as it would allow military members to cut off electricity supplies to enemy parties while keeping civilians out of the melee.
According to Air force Research Laboratory commander Major general Tom Masiello, CHAMP is"an operational system already in our tactical air force."
"While it appears that the Laboratory has only commissioned five such devices with Boeing, with the Air force's recent confirmation of the weapon's existence,
there may be more in the works in the future. Military forces have been actively developing next-generation weapons that take warfare well beyond the guns
and rockets that populate modern arsenals. Lasers have been a key area of advancement: Lockheed martin test fired a laser weapon in March that took out a truck engine from a mile away,
while the Navy deployed a Laser weapon System (Laws for short) on a vessel in the Persian gulf in December.
Next stop, railguns, right t
#Researchers develop special fluorescent ink to reveal counterfeit products One day soon, the simple act of taking a photo with your smartphone could help fight crime,
and prevent you from getting ripped off in the process. With just one snap, you could instantly know
whether or not someone is trying to sell you a fake. How is this possible?
Northwestern University scientists have invented new advanced fluorescent inks revealed through a phone's ultraviolet light that serve as the product barcodes of the future.
Counterfeiting is a mega big business that totals up to 650 billion dollars in global losses every year, according to the International Chamber of commerce.
The research team discovered the fluorescent inks by a lucky accident. The water-based inks are prepared from simple and inexpensive commodity chemicals.
This discovery represents a creative twist on security and encryption the researchers have combined an encryption and authentication security system with inkjet-printing technology.
How does it work? Under natural light, this kind of ink is invisible, but is revealed when highlighted by a smartphone ultraviolet light.
To defeat counterfeiters, this ink could be applied to nearly anything, from the world most expensive handbags to rare liquor and even banknotes.
It could be used to stamp barcodes or QR codes to confirm authenticity. The researchers say that this new ink would be extremely difficult for counterfeiters to copy making it a great tool for both manufacturers and consumers.
Each manufacturer would possess its own distinctive ink and ink formula. e have introduced a level of complexity not seen before in tools to combat counterfeiters,
Sir Fraser Stoddart, Northwestern University professor and senior author of the research, said in a press release. ur inks are similar to the proprietary formulations of soft drinks.
One could approximate their flavor using other ingredients, but it would be impossible to match the flavor exactly without a precise knowledge of the recipe. reating Unique Colorsthere are three different ngredientmolecules present in these inks one of these ingredients is common household sugar.
it may be orange on printer paper. Recipe turned Encryption Toolthe inventors are calling this ink a built-in olecular encryptiontool.
Ballet dancer turned defense specialist Allison Barrie has traveled around the world covering the military terrorism, weapons advancements and life on the front line.
You can reach her at wargames@foxnews. com or follow her on Twitter@Allison barrie w
#IBM and Bon Appétit's Chef Watson app cooks up some surprising dishes Meet Chef Watson, the most versatile culinary genius around.
On Tuesday, tech giant IBM and foodie magazine Bon Appétit announced the public version of Chef Watson,
the new cognitive cooking app that brings the knowledge of the world-famous"Jeopardy"-beating supercomputer to the average household kitchen.
The free app provides a way for everyone, from the casual dinnertime experimenter to the more experienced chef,
to create dishes using the 10,000 recipes from Bon Appétit database that have been fed to Watson. hen we got started on this idea about a year ago,
distinguished engineer and director of IBM Watson Life, told Foxnews. com. ood plays such a crucial role in the social and cultural fabric of our society,
BM Watson ability to aggregate mass quantities of information has made the cognitive computing system a major player in a number of sectors
from oncological research to education. This latest collaboration makes Watson somewhat more tangible to the average person,
when she heard about IBM and the Institute of culinary education (ICE) food truck that made a splash at the 2014 South by Southwest festival in Austin.
Over a five-day period, ICE and IBM treated passersby to dishes that were prepared using Watson database of recipes from the culinary school.
Earlier this year ICE and IBM published a cookbook, ognitive Cooking with Chef Watson: Recipes for Innovation from IBM & the Institute of culinary education. or Rivera, it seemed like her publication resources could make for a great match with IBM technology.
Rivera and her team reached out to IBM, and a series of articles featuring Watson recipes were released.
Rivera and Abrams said they saw potential for a more comprehensive app that could give the magazine readers direct interaction with Watson capabilities.
They started to develop a beta version of the app and have been refining it with user feedback over the past year leading up to this week public launch. e have structured a very database of recipes that could give Watson this incredible resource,
Rivera told Foxnews. com. ver the past year, it been this amazing experience of refining the design language,
of gathering the user perspective. And throughout the year, we have created some really great food.
It about your lifestyle, the lifestyle that surrounds food. ow does it work? The app is fairly easy to use.
presenting the user with Bon Appétit recipes that use those ingredients. The user can then modify
or adjust those recipes, adding or subtracting ingredients. Essentially, Abrams said it is important to think of Chef Watson as the ultimate cooking aid.
The computer is not replacing the human cook but instead offering the best possible options for creating unique, sometimes counterintuitive, recipes.
and brings it down to a concrete level. You look at Watson ability to help pharmaceutical researchers,
to help oncologists find targeted diagnoses. In each of these cases, Watson reads and understands more and more of the published literature
This is an interesting way to bring those capabilities to the kitchen, he added. Part of what is especially impressive,
is Chef Watson understanding of food chemistry, of its ability to offer targeted cooking solutions that can meet usersdietary restrictions.
If an individual has a condition like celiac disease Chef Watson can pull up gluten free recipes. While superficially, the app can be used to create interesting, delicious dishes,
Rivera suggested that it is most impactful as a lifestyle guide that can help people make better informed decisions about
and how they cook. t not a computer telling you how to cook, but is instead a computer helping you cook.
There a difference, Rivera added. Rivera and Abrams said they have worked to make the app more user friendly over the past year,
and that many of the adjustments have been made to make it more interactive and a tool that can be enhanced through social media.
Abrams said that the app emphasizes that ultimately, food is a ocial experience. o, what are the best dishes Abrams
#Ambitious new tech aims to revolutionize touchscreens The ambitious GHOST (Generic, Highly-Organic Shape-Changing Interfaces) research project is building technology that will let consumers use their fingertips to literally drag data out of touchscreen displays,
bringing it into the 3d world. GHOST is the brainchild of four universities in the U k.,Holland and Denmark.
Launched in 2013, the E u.-supported project and could have a massive impact on future gadgets.
The project imagines a future where we can use our fingertips to pull objects or data out of the hard screen and then manipulate it
while it is suspended in the air. And here the kicker--your fingertips will feel the data like a physical object
when you manipulate the hostobjects in the air. The team has achieved already a number of breakthroughs.
Researchers have worked on screens that can automatically change shape, a way to take things out of a screen into the air
and creating the so-called hoststhat you can touch and feel. How do you get the data out of the screen?
According to the researchers, GHOST is made possible by advances in deformable screens and ultrasound levitation technology.
Once pulled out of the digital 2d world, 3d objects that can be manipulated. t's not only about deforming the shape of the screen,
but also the digital object you want to manipulate, maybe even in mid-air, explained GHOST Coordinator and University of Copenhagen Professor Kasper Hornbaek, in a statement. hrough ultrasound levitation technology, for example,
we can project the display out of the flat screen. And thanks to deformable screens we can plunge our fingers into it. ow can you feel a GHOST?
Users will be able to handle objects and data in an entirely new fashion. A brain surgeon, for example, could use GHOST to create a virtual version of the brain that he
or she could touch and work with prior to surgery, according to the researchers. GHOST researchers are also working with sponges
and pads as deformable interfaces that a musician could flex in order to direct speed, timbre and more.
Although still in its relative infancy, the GHOST research has yielded already a number of intriguing prototypes.
The mergeprototype, for example, lets users pull bar chart data out of a screen using their fingertips.
Once pulled out of the screen the data can be manipulated by hand into different patterns. It can also be broken down individually, by row and by column. orpheesis another prototype,
which uses flexible mobile devices made with Lycra or alloy displays. These can bend, stretch and change shape automatically.
If a user needs to enter credit card details or a social security number while in a public area,
the screen could automatically bend to shield your fingers so that others cannot see your private data entry.
The potential consumer uses of GHOST technology are vast. If a user, for example, wants to watch a movie on a bigger screen
the device can row itselfto a larger size and then shrink back when the movie is over. isplays
which change shape as you are using them are probably only five years off now, noted Professor Hornbaek,
in the statement. f you want your smartphone to project the landscape of a terrain 20 or 30 cm 8 to 12 inches out of the display,
that's a little further off--but we're working on it! allet dancer turned defense specialist Allison Barrie has traveled around the world covering the military, terrorism, weapons advancements and life on the front line.
You can reach her at wargames@foxnews. com or follow her on Twitter@Allison barrie
#Darwin Finches Found To Have interbred Repeatedly Genetic Study Say In a broad genetic study, Charles darwin Galapagos Island finches have been uncovered to have a rare and complicated evolutionary history.
As per BBC News, authors of a study distributed in the Nature journal sequenced the genomes of 120 different birds of 17 species. Darwin backed his Theory of Natural selection with the finches,
as their beaks developed to better devour the food around them. his is an exciting case where mild mutations in a gene that is vital for typical development prompts phenotypic observable advancement,
lead analyst Leif Andersson, a professor of functional genomics at Uppsala University, the Swedish University of Agricultural sciences, said in a press release.
Supporting Andersson in the study, among others, was Peter Grant and his wife Rosemary, both professors at Princeton university.
They particularly examined differing beak shapes in Darwin finches and distinguished a gene called ALX1,
According to the reports, the laser is prepared with the simulated atoms, notably known as quantum dots. The study is published in the Science journal.
while exploring the use of semiconductor material pieces as parts for quantum computing. The study was begun to investigate the quantum dots,
and not lasers. Quantum dots act like single atoms as segments for quantum computers. An associate professor of physics, Jason Petta at Princeton and the lead author of the study,
said, t is essentially as little as you can go with these single-electron gadgets. The revelation will enhance the continuous endeavors of researchers over the world to utilize semiconductor materials to construct quantum computing frameworks. consider this to be a truly imperative result for our long haul objective,
which is entanglement between quantum bits in semiconductor-based gadgets, said Jacob Taylor, a subordinate associate professor at the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland-National Institute of Standards and Technology.
The analyst included that they were intrigued at first by investigating the use of quantum dots together. That implies two quantum dots joined together as quantum bits or qubits.
Qubits are the basic unit of data in quantum computing. e composed dots to emanate photons
when single electrons hop from a higher to a lower energy level over the dual dot.
It is similar to a line of individualscrossing a wide stream by jumping onto a rock so little that it can just hold one individual.
They are compelled to cross the stream one at a time. These dual quantum dots are zero-dimensional as far as the electrons are concerned they are caught in each of the three spatial dimensions
clarified Petta. A single electron caught in a semiconductor nanostructure can structure the most fundamental of building blocks for a quantum computer.
Though, before practical quantum computers can be acknowledged, researchers need to create a versatile architecture that permits full control over individual electrons in computational arrays p
#China Updated Great Firewall: Bans Numerous Internet service providers It appears as if China wants to create a boundary wall around its cyber space.
In the past few years the Chinese government has blocked multiple popular sites like Gmail Google Facebook Instagram Flicker and much more.
Recently the concerned authorities have updated its Great Firewall in order to save"cyberspace sovereignty"."In the latest upgrade the government has banned
and disrupted numerous virtual private networks (VPN) such as Astril and Strong VPN. These services were the only means to access Google and other blocked sites.
Since last few months these services were working like a very useful alternative for the people living in China.
Therefore the sudden block of these services infuriated a large number of people. They believe that country is trying to forcefully sell local services under the name of cyber sovereignty.
Wen Ku the director of telecom development at the Ministry of Industry and Information technology discussed the recent attacks.
He states that the government is trying to impose new policies only for the safety of cyberspace.
The free use of internet gives birth to numerous crimes and problems all around the country.
On the other hand the government spokesman informs that authorities have blocked merely sites that are not obeying the rules and regulation.
#New Fingerprint Technology Launched by Qualcomm In an effort to offer more security to mobile devices
and beef up the amenities users can enjoy Qualcomm is offering a new type of fingerprint technology.
The new technology made its debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Currently on the market mobile devices have more of a touch based type of fingerprint technology.
This new type offers a more governmental grade using ultrasonic technology. The fingerprint scanning could detect a number of different variations in the finger making it much more difficult to hack into a cellphone.
The new technology is called Snapdragon Sense ID 3d and will increase the level of security on mobile devices.
By using this new type of technology on mobile devices passwords will quickly become of thing of the past making your cellphone more secure.
Due to its high powered processing capabilities the technology can acquire the scan through aluminum plastic
and glass in order to read your fingerprint. Spectators will not see anything else like this on the market right now.
Additionally any website that supports FIDO will be compatible with this new technology allowing you to log in with no password d
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011