A Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked. The Story Behind Corning's Vision.

A glimpse into the near future, by Corning.

Great vision.

If only the whole technology enablers can work together towards this vision, all these can be as near as tomorrow.

Spherical Flying Machine Developed by Japan Ministry Of Defense

*Speechless*

This is awesome. Reminds me of the flying machines project that my TA and my PHD friend is doing.

Re: TechCrunch | HP To Apple: You Win.

Very true. Apple is dominating the market, be it PC, HP, or Tablets, everywhere. (Its going to be "Umbrella Corp" soon... Haha)

 Well, Apple is indeed doing great job at the moment, just like Microsoft 10/20 years back.

 One of the torn for other companies is the patent issue. (Most of it are simple design concepts, which I think the patent shouldn't be granted in the first place.) Thats why there is this Googorola coming up to defend Android, and its developers.

 The only company that is doing great in hardware now is Samsung. The mobile phone (SGS2) are great, but the tablet sales got halted by Apple's patent lawsuit in some countries, preliminary court order though. 

Anyway, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is available in Singapore! The pricing model is exactly as iPad2! Just that hardware specs are better!
1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor. :)
1GB RAM
7000mAh
3MP (main) camera :(

:)

A Day Made of Glass

This video is made by Corning.

The idea of integrating displays into our almost every aspects in our life. Imagine how much programming and AI can be put into use to help us manage our daily task, schedule, trips... and most important how these large screen displays can help enhance effective communication between people.

Just imagine how we can express our idea by merely moving our finger tips, voice command, gesture or even brain wave, aided by AI to help us sort out our ideas.

Can wait for that day to come :)

Life, what is it all about?

Saw this video posted by a lot of friends in Facebook.

Most people's first reaction/impression is that - This is a very noble project - It educates people about what we only need everyday - Food, Energy, Medicines, Entertainment (in the form closest to nature). On top of that energy saving, reduce waste consumption...

But what comes into my mind is rather different after watching this video.

It make me worry for those people who live-life-simple and not willing to update themselves to technology. I'm not suggesting that we should buy phones for kids, but rather, educates them how to harvest knowledge using technology. There are just so much we can do with technology to find information very quickly, communicate and share ideas with the rest of the world - To improve this world.

The best real-life example now is the political shift in Egypt. Its because of social media technology like Facebook, and Twitter. Knowledge can flow to people around the country. And power-greedy dictators around the world can no longer keep people in the dark and keep on manipulating them. People start to speak up and rights can be protected.

These kind of shift of paradigm is what important to improve the world.

Just imagine what will happen if everyone starts to live-life-simple... there bound to be tragic incident like Second World War, where hundred thousand of helpless civilians in Nanking were murdered; or in Libya now, where innocent citizens were shot because Colonel Gaddafi ordered to battle against rebels "till the last bullet"; or in China, were the central government block and filters access of information to its people in order to counter "'Jasmine Revolution", some of the activist even got caught and never returned ever since.

This world is still full of power-hunger people. And it will always be if not everyone has access to knowledge. Only technology enables every single person with equal chances to reach out to knowledge.

The next trend - Web on TV

Many, including me, believe that this is the next big thing. Google TV, Apple TV... In fact, I find many of my tech savvy friends already plugged their LCD/LED TV to CPU, and watch movie from harddisk / ppstream.

Maybe its about time the conventional TV channels to join the list of elimination, just like news papers, radio channels...

Find out more about Google TV here.

Life-like AIST Robot

4 years, from Asimo (movement) to full facial expression. Just left with development of unsupervised-AI-learning. Then we will have a complete human android.

Disconnect to Connect

People spent most of their time on the net, follow the happs in the virtual world. Often, the missed out things around them, those things that is physically close to them.

This reminds me on #Foound again... haha...

Productivity in Future - Microsoft

Yeap, pretty realistic. A lot of projects similar to whats in the video, for example sixthsense - reading interactive newspaper, boarding ticket that updates on the move, drag and drop to and from desktop to mobile devices, or else from physical object to computer devices...

Just once thing I think is missing from the video, which currently is actively under research by many people - Brain Computer Interface (BCI). One of the demo is here.

Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves

This is the NEXT GENERATION of computing!!!

The first few minutes might be boring for some of you, its about brain structure, but the demo at the end is just STUNNING!



I'm speechless watching this.

Can't imagine whats coming in the coming few years, and what will the whole era of computing looks like.

Looking forward to the FUTURE!

new Windows Live Essentials beta - SUPER CHIO!

The BETA version - Download it from http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta

Need not to explain whats new in this beta version of Messenger, let the screenshots do the talking.

The login screen.

Facebook and Myspace integration.

Woala! The new messenger layout!

Don't like the new layout? Change back to "compact view" with just a click!

~*~*~*~*~

Snyc - the new add-on along with Live Essential installer, which is think is VERY useful

Grab it now from http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta!

Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360

Kinect for Xbox 360, or previously called Porject Natal, is the new "controller-free gaming and entertainment experience" by Microsoft.

Scheduled to release end of this year. Cool eh? ;)

I think computing experience already shifted towards controller-free devices. SixthSense (2009) for example:

and Future of UI by John Underkoffler


I think the only limitation is the lack of holographic projection technology. As a result we still need a screen for the purpose of display. This will ultimately limits the capability and the functionality of controller-free devices.

Just imagine what will the world be if we can physically interact with digital data? It would be exactly like the environment in Iron Man 2! There will be no limit to how we can pull and manipulate data!

3D Holographic display from "Iron Man 2"

But still these are the first step - gesture and voice recognition for digital data manipulation,  that will lead us to the next generation of computing world. :)

TED: Kelvin Kelly tells technology's Epic Story

A very good talk on what technology is about.

Some of the phrases that caught my attentions:

1. The confusion about new technology: Now the new default position about a new technology that come about is the "precaution principal"... when you meet a new technology, you stop, until it can be proven that it brings no harm.

2. The better way is the "proactionary principal": You engage with technology, you try out -
try to anticipate it,
constantly assess it,
evaluate the risks,
fix it, and
relocate it.

3. The response to a "bad idea" is a "better idea".

4. Technology brings us:

Thats why people leaves villages to the cities, because people always gravitating towards increasing choices of possibilities.

5.

if we allow it to :)

---

Great talk!

The Most Useless Machine / Leave Me Alone Box

This is totally kweelllll! Gonna make 1 when I'm free.



Instructions to construct here.

Google and China

My thoughts on Google's "A new approach to China".

---

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.

1. I didn't know there are parties that go to the extent to hack accounts of human rights advocates in China.
2. Google have done a great job in ensuring the security of its users' account. The attacks only results in account information (such as date of account was created and subject line) being compromised. Rather than the contents.

..We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

+ Google.cn shutdown means 20% China's search market will be affected.
+ Hundreds of companies, shareholders, and Chinese people will support Google.
+ China gov does not immediately pull plug on google.cn shows Google's weight in China.
+ I support Google in this. China's censorship on search engines has been a-pain-in-the-ass for the Chinese. Too much informations covered-up by the Gov.
- Google will lose $600 million revenue now and $10billion long-term.


More here. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html

---

p/s: This is still surprising. I thought phishing scam or malware from links in instant messages and email are the most common way, that people should already know that "not to click links from unknown/unconfirmed source".
Anyway, I think its quite clear that who are the ones behind this security attack :)

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.

The lost civilization - Friendster

Internet Archaeologists Find Ruins Of 'Friendster' Civilization

This video reminds me of the news of MOL (a Malaysian Payment Company) purchasing Friendster that I heard when I went back Malaysia earlier this month. I wonder why MOL decided to acquire 100% of the "ancient" social network earlier this month when its obvious that everyone has shifted to Facebook.

CrunchBase Information

Friendster

Information provided by CrunchBase

Hope MOL have a really good plan for that, else will be just wasting money to try to prolong something on the verge of death.

More from TechCrunch http://bit.ly/74LsC6

Intel Atom 32nm Chip in Q4

Really surprise me when saw the articles. I thought my semicon lecturer told us that its very hard to shrink the Gate Length of MOSFET beyond 45nm. Imagine the technical challenges that one will face, how they going to fabricate the chip in terms of photolithography. The wavelength of shortest visible light source (violet - 380nm) which is used in the process is way bigger than the gate length of the MOSFET.

Anyway, more readings here.

• http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/MDXOrl_nqPY/arm-attacks-atom-with-2ghz-a9-can-servers-be-far-behind.ars
• http://laptopcom.blogspot.com/2008/12/intel-sets-release-date-of-32-nm-chip.html
• http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20081209006560&newsLang=en

The Facebook OMG! news that has been circling around

'Lindsay' updated her status with “OMG, I HATE MY JOB!!” before losing it.

This woman who updated her status in FB got herself a P45.

Morale of the story - never mix social network with work-related personnel.

Source: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/

Samsung Omnia 2 review

Samsung Omnia 2 i8000

Samsung Omnia 2 pros:

1. Full touchscreen with 3.7″ AMOLED display.
2. HSUPA 5.76Mbps, HSDPA 7.2Mbps and WiFi 802.11 b/g capabilities
3. Storage of up to 48GB.
4. 800MHz CPU.
   

Samsung Omnia 2 weakness:

1. Can't send Contact Cards via SMS.
2. Can' send SMS to numbers that are NOT in "mobile phone" field, and can only set 1 mobile number per contact.
   
   • Non-mobile numbers can receive SMS nowadays.
     
   • Most people have multiple cell phones nowadays.
     
3. Very weak GPS receiver.
   

But I guess some of these (weakness 1 & 2) can be resolve by upgrade/updating the software.

What Google Thinks of Twitter

As of now (2009-08-15), google search auto-complete shows the following.

Google thinks that Twitter is...

Google thinks Twitter is

• over capacity
• retarded
• down
• useless
• lame
• pointless
• slow
• a waste of time
• for twits
• crap

:p

I still tweet all the time though :)