Karen Jackson, Author at Argyll Free Press

Is BlackBerry’s Future Bleak and Hardwareless?

March 31, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

BlackBerry is a Canadian telecommunication and wireless equipment company known to having gone on an unstoppable downwards spiral on the mobile phone market when smartphones began gaining popularity. Once a leader of mobile phone technology thanks to its practical QWERTY keyboards and texting-friendly build is now facing a perilous road as the solution to come up to the surface for a breather is far from appearing on the horizon.

These days, BlackBerry owns as little as 1% of the smartphone market. Although numerous attempts have been made at reviving its activity in the world of smartphone, through devices such as the BlackBerry Priv that incorporates both the utility of a touchscreen as well as the practical full keyboard native to the company, not much has changed. Last month’s Mobile World Congress has been an opportunity for phone makers to showcase their upcoming additions and products. However, while other companies were presenting what they have in stock for the near future, BlackBerry remained silent.

This comes as a surprise as BlackBerry had been rumored to be working on the next Android-powered handset, dubbed “Vienna,” which promised to appeal to the lower-end market through an affordable solution. However, no news of the mobile phone has been uncovered since January this year, with the last announcement being that the device would launch ‘later in the year,’ as it was stated by BlackBerry CEO, John Chen.

So what is in stock for the once-great company? While we can’t say with certainty that the lack of official announcements suggests that the Vienna project may have already been scrapped, it does mean that the company’s future may be heading in a completely different direction. Various analysts admit that the chances of BlackBerry making an 180-degree return onto the smartphone market with competitors such as Android and Apple on the horizon are close to 0.

However, the same analysts do see a possible return on the floating line of the BlackBerry company if they can let go of their current field of work and redirect their efforts towards enterprise software. If that happens, BlackBerry may no longer exist on the hardware market, but it will exist as a business. According to professional analysis studies, exiting the hardware market would allow BlackBerry to save nearly 30 to 50 percent of its current spending on research and development. With that amount of funding saved, BlackBerry could score a balance of as much as $1.4 billion, roughly 33 percent of that being free flowing funds that could be used for operations.

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Humanity Witnesses a Supernova Happening in Visible Light

March 22, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Even given the trillions and trillions of stars that exist in the known universe, scientists had yet to witness a star exploding with their own eyes until recently. Because of the rarity of the event as well as the long life span of stars, in general, being alive as a human is too short of a period to be lucky enough to ever catch one happening. Thanks to the Kepler exoplanet-hunting space telescope, however, one such event was spotted by scientists; even if the witnesses only saw it happening only 1.2 billion years later.

A supernova is an event where a star larger than 25 solar masses reaches the end of its life and explodes under the pressure of its own weight. As a star uses resources to create energy, it slowly transforms its vast quantities of hydrogen into helium, then the newly transformed helium into more and more complex elements such as carbon, oxygen, magnesium and so on.

However, when this fusion process reaches the stage in which it creates iron, the star slowly starts running out of fuel. Because iron fusion ends up absorbing energy and making the core temperature drop, the star gets heavier and heavier until it starts collapsing under its own weight and gravity. After there’s nothing left but iron inside, the star becomes very small then explodes.

A team of astrophysicists led by Peter Garnavich, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, however, managed to witness the shockwave sent out by an exploding star and are currently preparing to publish a study in the Astrophysical Journal regarding the event. But spotting such a shockwave is not a process that you just see.

The shockwave itself lasts less than an hour, but it still meant that scientists had to study data on the light recorded by the Kepler space telescope every 30 minutes over the length of 3 entire years in a zone as large as 500 distant galaxies. On such a huge scale of data, the scientists were lucky enough to spot not one, but two such supernovae, which was even more than expected.

The shockwaves that they spotted came from two massive red super giants – one called KSN 2011a and KSN 2011d – that are located nearly a billion light years away and are approximately 300 and 500 times the size of our sun, respectively.

While the actually spotting did not involve physically watching a star explode, and the deduction was made upon close study of an enormous amount of data, the University of Notre Dame released a concept video of what one of the stars exploding may have looked like. You can watch it here.

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New Horizons’ Flyby of Pluto Concludes into Five Papers

March 18, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Ever since New Horizons fulfilled the mission it set out for more than ten years ago – to do a flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto – scientists have been thoroughly caught with studying every single piece of data and image that the probe beamed back to Earth. It is not very clear why humanity feels a strong attraction to the small, frozen and distant planet of our solar system. However, ever since its discovery in 1930, scientists have put in superhuman efforts to understand the peculiar nature of one of the last known objects of the solar system we live in.

This week, New Horizons scientists have finally published no less than five papers regarding Pluto in the journal Science, detailing all findings that they have achieved following the probe’s flyby of Pluto’s system during last summer. What was previously believed to be a dark, cold piece of rock slowly drifting onto the very edges of the solar system is now depicted of having a complex world with active and varied geology, what appears to be an atmosphere that can generate clouds of unknown chemistry.

And as small as this dwarf planet is, it still manages to maintain an entire system of even smaller moons and shows what appears to be a very animated world, despite its location at an average 39.5 astronomical units (AU; 1 astronomical unit equals roughly 143 million kilometers or 93 million miles) from the sun.

The first set of papers that are being published following the staggering exploration of New Horizons, the space craft that literally has gone where no man had gone before, even if remotely, treat the various aspects of the numerous discoveries made by scientists from nearly 50 gigabits of data that was collected by the craft. Out of everything that New Horizons has seen and learned, researchers have compiled a list of several central points of their findings, as they are treated and explained in the papers.

The geologic analysis of Pluto’s surface revealed a planet that has been active in the past 4 billion years, while some of its geographical areas are smooth and lacking in craters, which suggests young and newly formed (in astronomical terms, 10 million years old does qualify as new) planes. Studying Pluto’s atmosphere revealed possible reasons behind the formation of what is now known as the planet’s haze players, as well as temperature levels and the composition that seems to different depending on altitude.

The summary of all the findings that the New Horizons made during its five months spent nearby Pluto’s system can be found in PDF form on the Science Magazine official website.

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NASA Reports on Temperature Records Scored in February

March 15, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Even if it wasn’t that apparent to everyone, it wasn’t only a few regions in the world that reported warmer temperatures than it was normally expected for February on average. However, recent studies on the matter have concluded in some shocking results that are downright puzzling. Scientists say that this past February was the hottest recorded in the past 135 years, at least according to NASA logs.

While that alone is slight worrying, the fact that concerned scientists even more was the very margin that this year’s temperatures have gone beyond the expected average of the last decades. The temperatures recorded this year were 2.43 degrees Fahrenheit or 1.35 degrees Celsius warmer than previously recorded averages between 1951 and 1980, and approximately 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the previous world record that took place in February 1998.

With this record, we are now in the 10^th month in a row that sets a record, and becomes the 2^nd time this has happened in the history of the last century. The last time there were temperature records being set 10 months in a row occurred in 1944.

Last time February temperatures scored a record is believed to have been caused by the El Nino event, which was described as a prolonged warming in the Pacific Ocean, raising the water temperatures slightly through the phenomenon known as ‘southern oscillation’. With higher water temperatures, global temperatures are bound to rise as well.

This time around, however, El Nino is nowhere present, so the culprit has been narrowed down to one remaining possible suspect: the high and still increasing levels of carbon dioxide found in the Earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide emissions are known to have drastically changed a number of factors that slowly led to the climate change we are dealing with in the present.

These shocking results that NASA is forwarding come with a certain degree of urgency for something to be done regarding greenhouse gas emissions. Last year in December, 195 nations’ representatives met in Paris and agreed to start efforts of cutting down gas emissions to a net 0 by the year 2100; something that is hoped to be achieved through switching out fossil fuels as a primary resource for solar and wind power. However, the change is easier said than done, and seeing the rapid pace at which carbon dioxide emissions seem to affect our climate, scientists urge authorities to act faster.

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The Particle That Could Turn Everything We Know Around

March 11, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

While physicists can state that to an extent we can understand the way things work in the universe, everything changes when we turn our gaze to subatomic laws. Recently, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) found at CERN in Switzerland may have just discovered a new particle that changes even the little we knew about the state of affairs at subatomic level.

So far, the particle in question is far from confirmed, and researchers need to run extensive testing in order to do so. If, however, the particle will be confirmed, it would probably mean that scientists need to recreate an entirely new standard model to use in order to truly understand the workings of our universe.

The current standard model represents a series of theories that scientists have iterated regarding everything we know – or like to believe we know when in fact it’s mostly theorizing based on mathematical models – about subatomic level physics. However, change any of the parameters that the standard model works according to, and we would see our knowledge crumbling. And there are already certain principles of nature itself that still baffle us.

And that constitutes one of the most limiting flaws of the standard model too. For example, despite superhuman efforts to explain the most fundamental force in our universe, the gravity, the elusive particles that scientists have named gravitons have yet to be discovered. The theory that researchers have applied within the standard model works fine and seems to be accurate, except it does not account for gravity whatsoever.

The particle that was discovered at the LHC has been named B meson and behaved in ways entirely different to what was expected by scientists before they set out to study it. According to previous research based on data gathered between 2011 and 2012, B meson should decay at certain frequencies and angles. Instead, running the practical tests at the particle collider did not go according to what the researchers had predicted. Neither the frequencies nor the angles were right during decay, as they varied a whole lot more than previously expected.

The B meson is a particle that is made of a bottom antiquark and an up, down, strange or charm quark. Displaying unusually short lifespans, this particle is vital for understanding and studying quantum chromodynamics. Scientists believe that by studying how far off the standard model these particles can go, they can set limits on new particles and maybe gather a better understanding of how the subatomic universe works.

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Google Almost Plans Your Trips by Itself

March 9, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

The new Destination feature that is now part of Google can help anyone plan a business trip or a vacation with a minimal amount of effort on your end. And it’s all baked into Google too, making it easy for you to find destinations, find out flight and hotel prices and much more without any other necessary downloads or other apps. Its only downside is the fact that it’s only available on mobile alone.

Destinations is a very nifty tool that offers you instant information on your particular queries, allowing you to compare data on the go and help you make your choices on a well-documented basis. Places to go, costs of doing so, places to stay and flight information are all pieces of data the feature will provide you when you use it.

But the Destinations feature may not seem that easy to access as it has no direct widget or button to tap in order to be taken to it. Instead, the method you can access it is, as a matter of fact, even more intuitive. By adding the word ‘destination’ or ‘vacation’ to the end of a query, after you’ve specified a location will return you all the available options it has found. Afterwards, the feature provides you with several filters that you can use to refine your search. Flexible dates, ratings, prices and so on.

Selecting a location will provide you with an entire series of images and information regarding it: popular tourist sites, national holidays and events that you may be interested in.

Afterwards, by tapping on the ‘Explore’ button, you can find even more information that you may find relevant to you. Things such as weather conditions for the selected period, finding out when the destination of your choice is most popular based on the information that other users have provided. After the initial parameters have been chosen, the feature will allow you to ‘Plan a trip’, listing you the rates and prices for flights and hotels for the next half a year. Or your preferred date of choice, if you list it. Swiping left and right through the estimated trip price menu will display the fluctuation of how much it would cost you to visit your chosen country over a prolonged amount of time.

Lastly, once everything is good and decided, you can actually go ahead and book a flight from within the feature. The app refers to the airline’s own website to purchase your airplane tickets. Reservations can’t be made directly from Google Destinations, but you will be forwarded to the reservations center site.

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The Morphing Electroluminescent Robots of the Future

March 4, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

A very recent invention which can only be described as a type of electroluminescent skin could give a whole lot more versatility to our future robots. And this new technology that was developed by a team of graduate students from Cornell University – and led by assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering Rob Shepherd – doesn’t even have to limit itself to robots.

This electroluminescent skin has the amazing ability to stretch up to more than six times its original size without losing any of its light-emitting properties. The previous prototype of this robotic skin, academically known as a hyper-elastic light-emitting capacitor (HLEC) could only endure half of what the current version can.

It is made of multiple payers of transparent hydrogel electrodes that cover an insulating elastomer sheet on both sides. The capacitors inside this material can continue to shine no matter the amount of pressure applied to it, the way it is stretched, rolled or deformed from its original shape and size. The original idea that inspired Robert Shepherd to start working on this material was studying the way octopuses behave in their natural habitat. They are capable of changing their color and their texture to match the surroundings they wish to blend in.

So the future utilities of such a material are very diverse and can go huge lengths. The first application that comes to mind is the use of this type of skin for our future robots of course. Because this kind of material can shape around any form and change its color, it could have a huge impact on our lives as robots slowly become part of it too. Scientists believe that a robot that can react to the mood of a room could play an imperative role in human-robot interactions.

Secondly, this type of technology could easily be used in smart devices such as smartphones. Imagine owning a phone the size of a Samsung Galaxy S6 that can stretch to the scale of a full-fledged tablet in a matter of seconds, without losing display quality of functionality.

Lastly, while not as thoroughly discussed, scientists have considered the possibility of using a material such as the electroluminescent skin for military purposes. The research that the Cornell University group underwent was funded by the Army and Air Force, so in reality, chances are very high that it will also end up being used as an advanced type of camouflage for missions.

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The Sound of Two Black Holes Merging

March 2, 2016 By Karen Jackson 1 Comment

The scientific discussion forums, publications and newsletters have been booming for two weeks regarding the discovery of gravitational waves. A discovery that was predicted by Albert Einstein nearly a hundred years ago but only experienced, found, tested and verified now. At least, that’s what most of us believe. Days prior to the announcement that gravitational waves had been discovered, scientists all over the world were murmuring hints at its validity.

Twitter and newsletters would occasionally be the host of a cryptic message or two regarding how there was something cooking in regards to gravitational waves. But the real event that triggered everything and set the research in motion had taken place months before, in two different corners of the United States, in the confines of the two Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatories – one in Hanford and the other in Livingston.

In the morning of September 14^th, 2015, a ripple caused by two black holes colliding and travelling from incredibly far away passed through the Earth and recorded by LIGO Livingston, only to be caught on its radar by LIGO Hanford 7 milliseconds later. Though the ‘impact’ manifested itself through a barely noticeable ‘thump’ that stretched and lasted for a mere two milliseconds, it was there, visible on the radar. An easy to miss thing almost.

It took researchers months to be able to study the events that had occurred and be able to confirm with a hundred percent certainty that they were not mistaken in thinking that the signal that the LIGO had picked up was indeed a gravitational wave. And after long and strenuous studies, they were finally able to do so: not only that gravitational waves existed, but this was the direct proof that binary black hole systems exist and that they can, eventually, end up merging into one gigantic black hole, distorting the space-time around it for billions of light years.

It has been calculated that the wave that hit the Earth on the early morning of September 14^th, 2015 had originated from a black hole merger nearly 1.3 billion years ago. So long ago, and yet the effect of the impact travelled so far – even if now only a small remainder of it remains.

The LIGO detectors had been built decades ago; a symbol of the arduous search that scientists had embarked on when they chose to chase the gravitational waves on the whims of another, brilliant scientist that lived a century ago. Only decades later, the LIGO project earned results. And now, with this new information on our hands, humanity can look at the universe differently, on the paved path that the gravitational wave discovery has emerged.

You can listen to the sound of two black holes merging 1.3 billion years ago here.

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Hubble Captures Blue Bubble Star 30,000 Light Years Away

February 29, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

NASA’s news feed recently posted an image of the endeavors of the space telescope as Hubble captures ‘blue bubble’ star 30,000 light years away. Scientists call it the most detailed photo ever of the WR 31a star. The reason it was dubbed the blue bubble was because it is encased in a gigantic blue cloud that is theorized is made up of hydrogen, dust, helium and other gases.

The star in question is found in the Carina constellation and is part of the Wolf-Rayet (hence the WR abbreviation) set of stars, a group that is known to display unusual spectra. They are also known as plasma spheres that are distinguishable thanks to their emission lines of helium, carbon and nitrogen that reach temperatures of 30,000 to 200,000 degrees Kelvin. Some of them are massive enough to be visible to the naked eye.

The stars belonging to this category tend to have short life spans, explosive births and equally spectacular deaths. Researchers believe that the WR 31a star was born around 20,000 years ago and yet still continues to expand at an approximate speed of 136,700 miles per hour – hence the still very visible cloud.

However, it is believed that the cloud will not persist much longer as the lifespan of stars such as these doesn’t exceed around 100,000 years. It is believed that once the life of the star is over, it will turn into a supernova that will, in time give birth to new generations of stars. On a cosmic perspective, this is incredibly short; just comparing it to our own sun, that is already believed to be 4.5 billion years old and expected to live for another 5, most of the WR type stars barely last long enough for a cosmic breath. And because those stars are nearly 20, 30 times bigger than our own sun, it makes the phenomenon even more impressive.

The stunning-looking blue cloud surrounding the WR 31a star is a result – at least according to theorizing done by scientists that have been studying these stars for a lifetime – of fast-moving stellar winds. When they interact with the outer layers of hydrogen that the WR stars eject, the gloriously large nebulas are formed as a result. Very few nebulas in the part of the universe that our telescopes can see are results of Wolf-Rayet stars.

The image that was posted by NASA on their official website is an enhanced and slightly edited version of what the Hubble Space Telescope was able to capture earlier this month.

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The Internet of Things Is Expanding at a Steady Pace

February 26, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

There are plenty of studies and researches looking into IoT – which is believed to be the future that awaits us – and the Internet of Things is expanding at a steady pace, it would seem. As a matter of fact, simply watching the world change with every CES or other technological change in common items we use is the best idea you can use to be able to witness how things are changing.

The Internet of Things is occasionally referred to as being the next Industrial Revolution because as it develops in our society, it changes the way a huge amount of things work. And with these changes come new opportunities, of course. However, not every business out there is looking in this direction, and chances are that while it can still work to run a business that doesn’t implement IoT solutions for now, in a few years from now, things will be very different.

The Internet of Things: Examining how the IoT Will Affect the World is a study that had managed to make some estimates regarding how things will be in a few years from now. The study estimates that the IoT devices connected to the internet will triple by 2020, reaching a total number of 34 billion. Out of that number, only 10 billion will consist of traditional devices such as smartphones, tablets and so on.

Another point made by the study is the fact that governments will be the second-largest adopters of IoT solutions after businesses, with the consumer sector lagging behind the most. And that is the case even when we think about how in years from now on we will have heavily connected devices that allow us to control our surroundings and appliances from a single control hub. About how we will start requiring to do things in person a lot less than we do these days.

While studies estimate that the machine to machine and IoT ecosystem market will grow exponentially by 2020 (estimated somewhere at $250 billion), there currently is a noticeable trend in businesses. To be more specific, it would appear that at the current time, executives who are actively adopting it are very few in number. The study suggests that the reason behind it is a reluctance towards IoT security. In a world where everything is connected, breaching into one piece of the puzzle is rather easy.

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