Karen Jackson, Author at Argyll Free Press

Turing Phone Gives Up Android in Favor of Sailfish OS

February 3, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

The device that promises an unbreakable and unhackable build, the Turing Phone gives up Android in favor of Sailfish OS despite early announcements pertaining to the former. This may lead to a dwindle in numbers of interested customers considering the great amount of Android fans and the very low number of individuals who have even heard of Sailfish.

The Turing Phone is a device that was originally shown somewhere mid-2015 that features a 5.5 inch display and is completely made of liquidmorphium. Despite what the name of the alloy suggests, the material used is made to be even sturdier than steel and aluminum. Featuring an incredibly different design with sharp edges and cuts, it topped off the expectation list when it was also announced that it would come with the Android 5.1 Lollipop.

However, certain delays and issues have led the company to a delayed delivery date – originally set to December 2015, and now to the official announcement that on top of the new expected date of delivery being April 2016, users should not expect the Android operating system on it anymore.

The idea was scratched in favor of a more unusual OS that numerous people may have not even heard of before – Sailfish OS. Although not that popular, it features a great amount of quirky features and is certainly unique. The Sailfish OS is Linux based and created by a team of developers that used to be at the head of Nokia. You may have heard of this particular piece of software being used on the Jolla Tablet – a clever device that uses gesture and motion-based controls to do absolutely anything on it. Difficult to learn, but a lot of fun and fluidity once you get used to it.

But with the latest change, the Turing Phone may end up seeing a lot more trouble now that they opt for a less popular operating system. If before, it meant you were getting a strongly based and secure Android phone that at least Android fans could relate to, now you get an extremely secure phone with an OS that you may find difficult to use and extremely unfamiliar.

As an upside though, Turing Robotic Industries – the creative force behind the Turing Phone – claims that the phone will be able to run Android Apps on the Sailfish OS with no issues. But given the mere concepts that lie at the base of the operating system, the experience will probably differ by a large margin on the unbreakable phone.

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Scientists Advance On the Quest to Unravel the Human Brain Mystery

February 2, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Thanks to a full scale 3D printout of the human brain, scientists advance on the quest to unravel the human brain mystery. Or one of them, at least. The focus of this particular study was for the scientists involved to study the way the brain develops its characteristic folds when it starts developing. By creating a fake gel brain that mimics the exact way it looks in fetal form and studying it closely, several scientists at Harvard University may have unraveled some very important facts about the way the human cortex works.

The purpose of the study is the hope that some of the physical implications behind certain mental disorders could be explained in the end. Scientists have believed that some psychological issues may be at least partially caused by the structure of gray matter and either overfolding or underfolding of the human brain.

The experiment was done by using a 3D printing technique based on magnetic resonance images of the way the brain looks in human fetuses. Made from a special type of gel, it was then coated with another layer of a similar gel that swells when absorbing a solvent. The purpose of this was the emulation of constrained cortical expansion – just the way it does in developing human brains.

Once the fake brain was put in a solvent, it took mere minutes until the mold started slowly morphing into the very familiar wrinkly shape of the human brain, by first developing deeper regions in the top most part and then slowly compressing even further.

This is a very important experiment that has more applicability than it may seem. Firstly, it proves that brain development is reliant on more than just biochemical processes, also employing physical forces in its growth. This study could play a major role in neurodevelopment study, with the potential of gaining real life applicability in detecting, diagnosing, treating and even preventing a great number of neurological disorders.

The fold patterns that the human brain displays has been a major interest for scientists for a very long time; especially since it was discovered that it doesn’t seem to be a common factor between animals for example. According to various studies, the folded structure of the human brain actually enables a better connectivity across the cortex. The structure itself starts developing somewhere in the 23^rd week of pregnancy and continue to develop until soon after birth.

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Death Count Due to Cancer Rises in China

February 1, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Recent reports suggest the fact that the death count due to cancer rises in China with every year. In 2015, nearly 2.8 million deaths were accounted by cases of cancer inside the country alone – and that accounted for nearly one fifth of the worldwide deaths that occurred during the entirety of last year. 2.8 million deaths in a year translate into nearly 7,500 deaths on a daily basis over the length of 2015.

However, this is hardly news for the Chinese populace as the country has been dealing with the increasing mortality rate due to cancer for nearly 6 years. The most common forms of cancer seem to be lung cancer, gastric cancer, liver and esophageal cancers – forms that are hardly prominent in other countries, such as the United States; here, the aforementioned forms only sum up to be roughly 20% of the cases. In China, they represent 57% of the total cases of cancer.

The reason behind this the ghastly number of lung cancer incidents goes deep within other issues that the country is currently facing. It is common knowledge that China is facing one of the worst cases of air pollution in the entire world. On top of that, the second reason behind the great number of occurrences is also the large percentile of smokers in the populace.

A research led by author Dr. Chen Wanqing has concluded that most cancer occurrences in the Chinese population are created by air pollution, while most of the preventable cancers are the result of bad habits such as smoking – which can manifest as lung or stomach cancer, and even spreads to both in some cases.

As terrifying as the cancer-inflicted death count in China was in 2015, it doesn’t even come close to the fact that 4.3 million new cancer cases were found in the country over the past 12 months. The cancer cases seem to be diagnosed in men at as much as a 2:1 ratio in comparison to women and are 10% more likely to occur in rural places.

For example, out of all the deaths recorded in 2015, 165.9 cases were recorded in males versus 88.8 in females for every 100,000 citizens in rural areas. Urban areas scored 149 male cases versus 109.5 female cases for every 100,000 citizens – a worrying increase in exposure to the latter category.

While air pollution is the most well-known and worrying factor that leads to cancer cases in China, smoking only coming in second, the issue spreads to even more worrying factors such as soil and water contamination.

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Friends on Facebook are Almost Entirely Illusory

January 25, 2016 By Karen Jackson 1 Comment

Whether you have ten or one thousand connections on the social media platform, you should know that your friends on Facebook are almost entirely illusory. The newest study on the matter has proved that one person cannot have more than 150 friends at a time. This limit is also named “Dunbar’s Number” after Robin Dunbar, the British study author and professor.

Dunbar explained that this 150 layer is the one that differentiates the people that can do you favors and towards whom you feel you have obligations from the ones that you do not have reciprocated relationships with. Furthermore, his study approached other boundaries among circles of friends on Facebook. It seems each person has 1500 people they can recognize on the social media platform, 500 acquaintances, 150 friends, 50 good friends, 15 best friends and only five intimate friends.

Dunbar’s study states that we tend to add anyone we recognize on Facebook, and even a couple of people that we’ve never seen in our lives. The research included 3375 participants with ages between 18 and 65. They were all asked how many real friends they have. The average was 27.6 per cent. However, the next question was about the friends who would help them in the case of a crisis. Here, the numbers dropped dramatically to only four friends. The answers were the same no matter how many friends the participant had on Facebook.

Surprisingly, the study also showed that younger users of the social media platform are thinking of migrating to others such as Instagram, WeChat, Flickr, Vine and Snapchat. If we take a look at official data, we can see this is true: in 2013 Facebook had 86 per cent of its population aged between 18 and 29, while in 2015 the percentage has dropped to 82 per cent. On the other hand, the number of users older than 65 years old has risen in 2015, reaching 48 per cent of the total number of Facebook users. Daniel Miller, University College London Lead Anthropologist believes that young adults are starting to leave the platform because their parents have begun to use it.

Unfortunately, this use of social media has also led to the decrease of face-to-face communication and the deterioration of friendships. Since there is no way of avoiding social media in the information age, Dunbar suggested that the best way to keep our friendships is to combine the virtual interaction with the real one. Most of your friends on Facebook are almost entirely illusory, so you should make sure to keep the genuine ones close.

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Google Cardboard Receives Serious Upgrades

January 18, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Google Cardboard will soon come quite close to reality.

As virtual reality piques the interest of more and more people, Google Cardboard receives serious upgrades from the multinational technology company. The latest pieces of information on the matter are that the Cardboard feature will soon have surround sound, that Google has partnered with GoPro and that it has created a new arm for virtual reality.

Google is extending its reach over numerous other fields, as it has recently announced its involvement in self-driving cars. One such field is virtual reality, which is gaining more popularity with each passing day. You do not need to go to a museum or have a complex device in order to enjoy this experience, since it is also available on your smartphone. All you have to do is buy a Google Cardboard, encase your phone into it and look through the two small lenses. The low price of the device has made it extremely popular, and thus Google has decided to make some improvements.

In this regard, the company has created a special arm that focuses exclusively on virtual reality. The division is helmed by Clay Bavor, the man who came up with the idea of Google Cardboard and also worked on Google Docs and Gmail. The division will include people from other famous companies, such as GoPro, which is masterfully developing small, efficient cameras. We can only assume that the virtual reality content will be filmed using their cameras and later incorporated into Google Cardboard. Lastly, the feature will come as close as it can to reality thanks to the new system that includes surround sound. No, you will not need speakers in every corner of your room, the sounds will still come solely from your smartphone.

The competition in the virtual reality field is tough as it includes huge companies such as Microsoft and Facebook, and highly acclaimed displays like HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. As a result, Google has another project set to aid filmmakers in creating 360-degree videos, involving the GoPro Odyssey, a 16-camera array.

Google Cardboard can be downloaded from the Apple Store for iOS devices, or from Google Play for Android phones. You can buy the cardboard online, either from the company’s website or other online stores. However, if you enjoy a challenge you can build the device yourself after reading the instructions found on the Google website. You will need some cardboard, velcro, a rubber band, magnets and lenses, but the website lists everything that you need and the places where you can find them.

Google Cardboard receives serious upgrades from its makers also because it has proven useful for other purposes than entertainment. It seems it can truly help children suffering from autism, and thus it is only rational to improve it in order to help as many people as possible.

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New Autonomous Cars from Renault-Nissan Alliance

January 12, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

It seems that a new producer will enter the competition of building the vehicles of the future, as there has just been an announcement about new autonomous cars from Renault-Nissan Alliance. The plan of the company is to create ten self-driving car models, which seems to be the future direction for many car manufacturers.

Renault-Nissan’s project is expected to be finished by 2020, with autonomous cars driving on the roads of the United States, Europe, China and Japan. At the moment, the company’s engineers are tuning the fine details of the automated technology, while managers are kept busy with safety concerns and regulations. The first line of self-driving cars should be ready by the end of this year, and they are expected to have the capability of steering on a highway single lane. However, the cars should be able to drive across many highway lanes by 2018. Lastly, it seems that by 2020 we could all be relaxing in autonomous cars while traveling to work through the city.

Although the fact that quite soon we will not be needing to drive ourselves comes as exciting news, Renault-Nissan Alliance is not the first company to tackle this matter. Tesla Motors has already set into motion the grand plan, and at the moment their cars are able to shift into a self-driving mode while traveling on the highways. Furthermore, some vehicles can even park themselves, and this has been achieved several years ago. Other companies that are working towards the same goal while competing with each other are General Motors, Toyota, Ford Motor, Google Inc., Lyft and Uber, and many believe that Apple Inc. might soon make a similar announcement.

But what is the purpose of self-driving cars? Many people enjoy driving, but there are many situations when this can become boring or annoying, especially when you are stuck in traffic or you have to travel a very long distance. Why not fill this time with useful or pleasant activities? Sooner than expected you will be able to spend traveling time reading, watching movies or TV series, preparing for work or school and so on.

With the introduction of new autonomous cars from Renault-Nissan Alliance, the only issue that remains is the safety of the passengers. Researchers believe that switching from automatic driving to manual control creates a perilous situation, since people become absorbed in other activities and cannot focus all of a sudden on driving. Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn declared that the transition will take place in waves, because the new technology must first be accepted, then understood and finally used.

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Qualcomm Starts 2016 Big: The Snapdragon 820 Chipset and Grabs Audi as Customer

January 6, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Qualcomm starts 2016 big: the Snapdragon 820 chipset and grabs Audi as customer. These announcements were made during the CES 2016 event, which takes place in Las Vegas.

CEO of Qualcomm, Steve Mollenkopf, gave away crucial information about the first smartphone to be powered by the company’s new Snapdragon 820 chipset.

The smartphone is called LeTV Le Max Pro – an odd name if I’ve ever seen one.

LeTV is a Chinese tech behemoth that has not expanded outside of the Middle Kingdom, yet. The LeTV Le Max Pro comes with an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, which can be found at the back of the handset, and Qualcomm’s chipset will enable it to support WiFi 802.11 ad, also known as WiGig, notes Android Police.

The Snapdragon 820 will come packed with a home-grown quad-core Kryo proc that runs at 2.2 GHz. The graphics department will be handled by the insanely powerful Adreno 530 GPU. Qualcomm’s chipset will also support tri-band Wi-Fi, Quick Charge 3.0, and LTE Category 12 connectivity – the latter has proven to provide massive data speed.

The chip manufacturer hasn’t revealed any other information, apart from the proc details. There’s no info regarding pricing nor a set release date. Yet, we are hopeful that Qualcomm will shed some light on everything during the CES 2016 event, which is currently taking place.

Phone Arena picked a few rumours that suggest that the LeTV Le Max Pro will come with Google’s Android 6.0 Marshmallow, that the smartphone will showcase a 5.5-inch Quad HD display that’s capable of outputting a resolution of up to 1,400 x 2,400 pixels.

In other news, Mollenkopf also announced that the company has just signed a deal with Volkswagen AG’s Audi unit so 2017 model vehicles will have built-in Qualcomm-developed processors.

Mollenkopf continued to add that [the company] as well as Volkswagen, understands that the car is currently being reinvented, and technological advancements are changing how a vehicle is used, sold and even serviced.

And this is just the beginning, notes Qualcomm’s Chief Executive Officer.

Audi will make use of the chipmaker’s 620 chipset in its 2017 models, as well as their newly announced 820A processor that is specially designed for vehicles. The chip helps to power the car’s communications and infotainment.

The San Diego-based company is trying its hardest to broaden its horizon by slightly moving to other mediums outside of the smartphone industry, from where it gains the majority of its income.

Qualcomm has lost quite a lot of marketshare over the last year as competition in chipmaking in the mobile industry has been increasing. Stocks dropped 33 percent in 2015, and it marks the worst annual performance for the company since the tech bubble burst that took place in 2001.

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Ice Wheels Lexus NX

December 22, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

It’s the season to be jolly, and Lexus, the Japanese car company, certainly had some jolly good time with their latest marketing stunt, involving their Lexus NX model.

You see, most automakers would give a polite nod to the Winter Holidays by making a winter-themed add, or maybe adding some visual elements to some of their models, etc.

Not Lexus. They thought such things are a bit passé. So they took the bold and engineering-wise problematic decision to replace the wheels on one of their NX cars with ice wheels.

And no, that’s not some fancy euphemism, metaphor or plain exaggeration. They actually replaced the original wheels with ones made entirely of ice.

More so, the car was meant to be driven around on said wheels, which it was.

Now, granted, the driving itself took place in a controlled environment within a place warded off from the public and it wasn’t quite fast (more like parking speed). But that’s due to the fact that the wheels had to bear the 2 ton car on top of them, so it’s understandable why the company and driver weren’t really keen for any racing, despite the acrylics that were put inside the wheels to make them more solid and capable of bearing the load.

Anyway, the transition of the ice wheels Lexus NX from a nice concept to reality wouldn’t have been possible without the efforts of 4 master ice sculptors which worked an average of 36 hours on each wheel. They are all part of a company with 35 years of specialized expertise in this field, the “Hamilton Ice Sculptors”.

The finished ice wheels resembled the original ones up to tiny details like the tread pattern, because they were built using laser scans previously taken of the original wheels. And the artists took it further, by inserting LEDs inside them so they light up in the darkness, for an extra cool visual effect.

The work required to make the ice wheels Lexus NX consisted of three months of research, design and testing. And the most creative and risky trick employed to keep it all together for its short drive was to chill the car at -30 degrees Celsius for five whole days prior to its run for glory.

As you might expect, there was a non-negligible chance that the car wouldn’t start after being frozen at such a temperature for 5 days. But, as the company proudly points out, it not only started but did so on the first try and drove as intended.

Of course, such confidence as manifested both in the marketing stunts it pulls (the ice wheels Lexus NX is just the latest) and its tone is polarizing people. Some like their brash courage. Others see it as pointless arrogance.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

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Google D-Wave 2X Quantum Computer Controversy

December 14, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Last week, Google’s AI team announced that its tests at NASA’s Ames Research Center on the D-Wave 2X quantum computer yielded exceedingly pleasing results: it was 100.000.000 times faster at solving the problems set to it than a conventional computer using quantum annealing as opposed to the simulated annealing conventionally used for such problems.

Yes, you read that right. Google partnered with NASA, a consortium of universities (the Universities Space Research Association – USRA) and with D-Wave Systems Inc. in 2013 so that the first three organizations could test and refine the latter company’s quantum computers to further the development of AI and space travel.

Since its Orion prototype quantum computer, presented around 2007 D-Wave has gradually increased the technology’s capabilities. If the Orion prototype worked on a 16-qubit processor, the current D-Wave 2X works on one with more than 1000 qubits.

The way quantum computers are supposed to work is that, because of the strange phenomena that take place at a quantum level, qubits can have both a 0 and 1 value as well as an additional 0 and 1 at the same time value, due to superposition.

Since conventional processors operate with just 2 alternative values (1 or 0), quantum computers should theoretically be way faster.

And judging by Google’s announcement last week, the theory proved out as their AI team demonstrated these incredible speeds using the D-Wave 2X quantum computer.

Or did they? Because here’s the catch.

Ever since its first claims at having built a functional quantum computer, D-Wave has been consistently surrounded both by awe, excitement and praise, as well as by criticism, accusations and dismissal by respected scientists.

The first camp is pretty clearly defined by the Google, NASA and USRA scientists working with the computers and other non-affiliated ones.

But the second one shouldn’t be neglected either, boasting prominent names such as Umesh Vazirani (one of the founders of the theory of quantum complexity), Wim van Dam of UC Santa Barbara and Scott Aaronson of MIT, the latter proclaiming himself the “Chief D-Wave Skeptick” (with a short hiatus) for quite some time.

Making matters more confusing is that an article published in Nature in 2011, does support D-Wave’s technological claims, stating that the company’s chips do show some of the quantum mechanical properties required for quantum computing.

But does that mean that D-Wave computers actually operate on a quantum level? Wim van Dam and others believe there is no way to tell for sure at the moment. And the more hardcore critics like Varizani or Aaronson say that D-Wave misunderstood some quantum principles, that its claimed speedup flat out isn’t true and that they inflate their results.

Still, Google claims that the results are real and really quantum. And hints at future applications like fast and optimized space travel plotting, drug testing, airport coordination, encryption and many others.

Time will tell. What do you think?

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Take a Look at Karma, the New Drone From GoPro

December 10, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Here is the wonderful quality the new drone from GoPro can capture.

GoPro is well known for the brilliant cameras they produce. Millions of travelers were able to better document their voyages thanks to the company. What you might not know is that you can also capture breathtaking images by using flying cameras. Take a look at Karma, the new drone from GoPro.

The drone was announced last Thursday on the official website of the company. It even has its own webpage, where those of you who are interested can subscribe in order to receives information and updates on Karma. An even better reason to sign up is that GoPro wishes to give away one hundred drones to those of you who submit their email address.

Furthermore, if you need any more convincing, you can view footage filmed with Karma on the company’s website. The video demonstrates in 61 seconds its quality and the amazing ability of stabilization of the camera. GoPro has assured the viewers that no post production editing tools have been used to enhance the video.

Unfortunately, you will not be able to consider it as a gift for holidays, because it is scheduled for release in the first half of 2016. Some reports state that GoPro is expected to sell almost one million quad-copters.

In other news, GoPro has also updated the applications it owns on both Android and iOS devices. You can connect your camera to your smartphone via Wi-Fi, in order to use it as a remote. The commands include transferring the video, as well as starting or stopping the recording.

Among the updated apps is also the Apple Watch application, which has previously disappeared after its presentation in September. The app enables the user to control cameras by using their smartwatch. However, a WiFi connection is necessary. You can also add HiLight tags in order to easier find videos when editing. Furthermore, it gives you the option to preview shots and adjust certain settings.

GoPro has added new features to its other apps, especially the editing tools. These include saving one single video frame as an image, as well as scrolling through videos. Additionally, you will be able to find specific clips much faster, as the company has improved the filtering content as well.

Overall, it is worth to take a look at Karma, the new drone from GoPro, especially if you wish to record the best images you can with the advanced technology of today.

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