Just like a magnet with a north and a south pole (left), electrons are surrounded by a magnetic field (right). This magnetic momentum, or spin, could be used to store information in more efficient ways.
Credit: Philippe Jacquod
In a recent publication in Physical Review Letters, physicists at the University of Arizona propose a way to translate the elusive magnetic spin of electrons into easily measurable electric signals. The finding is a key step in the development of computing based on spintronics, which doesn't rely on electron charge to digitize information.
Unlike conventional computing devices, which require electric charges to flow along a circuit, spintronics harnesses the magnetic properties of electrons rather than their electric charge to process and store information.
"Spintronics has the potential to overcome several shortcomings of conventional, charge-based computing. Microprocessors store information only as long as they are powered up, which is the reason computers take time to boot up and lose any data in their working memory if there is a loss of power," said Philippe Jacquod, an associate professor with joint appointments in the College of Optical Sciences and the department of physics at the College of Science, who published the research together with his postdoctoral assistant, Peter Stano.
"In addition, charge-based microprocessors are leaky, meaning they have to run an electric current all the time just to keep the data in their working memory at their right value," Jacquod added. "That's one reason why laptops get hot while they're working".
"Spintronics avoids this because it treats the electrons as tiny magnets that retain the information they store even when the device is powered down. That might save a lot of energy".
To understand the concept of spintronics, it helps to picture each electron as a tiny magnet, Jacquod explained.
"Every electron has a certain mass, a certain charge and a certain magnetic moment, or as we physicists call it, a spin," he said. "The electron is not physically spinning around, but it has a magnetic north pole and a magnetic south pole. Its spin depends on which pole is pointing up".
Current microprocessors digitize information into bits, or "zeroes" and "ones," determined by the absence or presence of electric charges. "Zero" means very few electronic charges are present; "one" means there are a number of of them. In spintronics, only the orientation of an electron's magnetic spin determines whether it counts as a zero or a one.
"You want as a number of magnetic units as possible, but you also want to be able to manipulate them to generate, transfer and exchange information, while making them as small as possible" Jacquod said.
Taking advantage of the magnetic moment of electrons for information processing requires converting their magnetic spin into an electric signal. This is usually achieved using contacts consisting of common iron magnets or with large magnetic fields. However, iron magnets are too crude to work at the nanoscale of tomorrow's microprocessors, while large magnetic fields disturb the very currents they are supposed to measure.
"Controlling the spin of the electrons is very difficult because it responds very weakly to external magnetic fields," Jacquod explained. "In addition, it is very hard to localize magnetic fields. Both make it hard to miniaturize this technology".
"It would be much better if you could read out the spin by making an electric measurement instead of a magnetic measurement, because miniaturized electric circuits are already widely available," he added.
In their research paper, based on theoretical calculations controlled by numerical simulations, Jacquod and Stano propose a protocol using existing technology and requiring only small magnetic fields to measure the spin of electrons.
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"We take advantage of a nanoscale structure known as a quantum point contact, which one can think of as the ultimate bottleneck for electrons," Jacquod explained. "As the electrons are flowing through the circuit, their motion through that bottleneck is constrained by quantum mechanics. Placing a small magnetic field around that constriction allows us to measure the spin of the electrons".
"We can read out the spin of the electrons based on how the current through the bottleneck changes as we vary the magnetic field around it. Looking at how the current changes tells us about the spin of the electrons".
"Our experience tells us that our protocol has a very good chance to work in practice because we have done similar calculations of other phenomena," Jacquod said. "That gives us the confidence in the reliability of these results".
In addition to being able to detect and manipulate the magnetic spin of the electrons, the work is a step forward in terms of quantifying it.
"We can measure the average spin of a flow of electrons passing through the bottleneck," Jacquod explained. "The electrons have different spins, but if there is an excess in one direction, for example ten percent more electrons with an upward spin, we can measure that rather precisely".
He said that up until now, scientists could only determine there was excess, but were not able to quantify it.
"Once you know how to produce the excess spin and know how to measure it, you could start thinking about doing basic computing tasks," he said, adding that in order to transform this work into applications, some distance has yet to be covered.
"We are hopeful that a fundamental stumbling block will very soon be removed from the spintronics roadmap," Stano added.
Spintronics could be a stepping stone for quantum computing, in which an electron not only encodes zero or one, but a number of intermediate states simultaneously. To achieve this, however, this research should be extended to deal with electrons one-by-one, a feat that has yet to be accomplished.
Cloud Computing
Sean McCoy founder of Cloud.CM together with his mother
Cloud.CM is a cloud computing website for people of all ages and backgrounds. Using leading-edge technology they have created an online virtual desktop that can be accessed anytime and from anywhere. Users can use Cloud.CM to create, store, and share files while simultaneously collaborating with friends, family, and colleagues in a secured and safe environment. They provide additional multimedia and social networking tools that serve to round out the ultimate online experience and offer users an all-in-one solution to their everyday online needs.
Features Include: File Sharing and Storage, Text and Video Chat, Media Player, Productivity Suite (Used to View, Edit, and Create Word Docs, PPTs, and Excel Docs), Event Planner and Organizer (Groups and Calendar), and Profile Explorer (Social Networking App)
Cloud.CM may well change the way students collaborate online and interact with peers, TA's, and professors alike. It will do this by providing an online virtual environment that combines many of the online service amenities that already exist as distinct and independent platforms onto a safe and secure online environment.
Students can work in groups through video conferencing while sharing and updating files in real time. Cloud.CM also gives them the ability to engage each other by using various modes of communication, such as text chat, video chat, message boards, etc, which would then serve to provide a more complete collaboration environment.
Students will also be able to broadcast conversations between them and a person of their choosing and have other parties engage in that conversation, even members not a part of their cloud, in real time by posting a link of that broadcast to other social networking sites such as "FaceBook", "Twitter", or in the social networking application provided in Cloud.CM.
To round out the experience, the site also provides a media application to play music and videos, and also provides an avenue for students to remain in touch with professors as the students' progress in their chosen careers.
Cloud.CM was founded by Sean McCoy, You can read an article about the founder published in Orange County Register.
Better Memory Chips
At the atomic scale, University of Michigan researchers have for the first time mapped the polarization of a cutting-edge material for memory chips.
Credit: Chris Nelson and Xiaoqing Pan
Engineering scientists at the University of Michigan have found a way to improve the performance of ferroelectric materials, which have the potential to make memory devices with more storage capacity than magnetic hard drives and faster write speed and longer lifetimes than flash memory.
In ferroelectric memory the direction of molecules' electrical polarization serves as a 0 or a 1 bit. An electric field is used to flip the polarization, which is how data is stored.
With his colleagues at U-M and collaborators from Cornell University, Penn State University, and University of Wisconsin, Madison, Xiaoqing Pan, a professor in the U-M Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has designed a material system that spontaneously forms small nano-size spirals of the electric polarization at controllable intervals, which could provide natural budding sites for the polarization switching and thus reduce the power needed to flip each bit.
"To change the state of a ferroelectric memory, you have to supply enough electric field to induce a small region to switch the polarization. With our material, such a nucleation process is not necessary," Pan said. "The nucleation sites are intrinsically there at the material interfaces".
To make this happen, the engineers layered a ferroelectric material on an insulator whose crystal lattices were closely matched. The polarization causes large electric fields at the ferroelectric surface that are responsible for the spontaneous formation of the budding sites, known as "vortex nanodomains".
The scientists also mapped the material's polarization with atomic resolution, which was a key challenge, given the small scale. They used images from a sub-angstrom resolution transmission electron microscope at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. They also developed image processing software to accomplish this.
"This type of mapping has never been done," Pan said. "Using this technique, we've discovered unusual vortex nanodomains in which the electric polarization gradually rotates around the vortices".
A paper on the research, titled "Spontaneous Vortex Nanodomain Arrays at Ferroelectric Heterointerfaces" is available online at NanoLetters.
Growing nanolasers on silicon
The unique structure of the nanopillars grown by UC Berkeley researchers strongly confines light in a tiny volume to enable subwavelength nanolasers. Images on the left and top right show simulated electric field intensities that describe how light circulates helically inside the nanopillars. On the bottom right is an experimental camera image of laser light from a single nanolaser.
Credit: Connie Chang-Hasnain Group
Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a way to grow nanolasers directly onto a silicon surface, an achievement that could lead to a new class of faster, more efficient microprocessors, as well as to powerful biochemical sensors that use optoelectronic chips.
They describe their work in a paper to be published Feb. 6 in an advanced online issue of the journal Nature Photonics
"Our results impact a broad spectrum of scientific fields, including materials science, transistor technology, laser science, optoelectronics and optical physics," said the study's principal investigator, Connie Chang-Hasnain, UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences.
The increasing performance demands of electronics have sent scientists in search of better ways to harness the inherent ability of light particles to carry far more data than electrical signals can. Optical interconnects are seen as a solution to overcoming the communications bottleneck within and between computer chips.
Because silicon, the material that forms the foundation of modern electronics, is extremely deficient at generating light, engineers have turned to another class of materials known as III-V (pronounced "three-five") semiconductors to create light-based components such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers.
But the scientists pointed out that marrying III-V with silicon to create a single optoelectronic chip has been problematic. For one, the atomic structures of the two materials are mismatched.
"Growing III-V semiconductor films on silicon is like forcing two incongruent puzzle pieces together," said study main author Roger Chen, a UC Berkeley graduate student in electrical engineering and computer sciences. "It can be done, but the material gets damaged in the process."
Moreover, the manufacturing industry is set up for the production of silicon-based materials, so for practical reasons, the goal has been to integrate the fabrication of III-V devices into the existing infrastructure, the scientists said.
"Today's massive silicon electronics infrastructure is extremely difficult to change for both economic and technological reasons, so compatibility with silicon fabrication is critical," said Chang-Hasnain. "One problem is that growth of III-V semiconductors has traditionally involved high temperatures � 700 degrees Celsius or more � that would destroy the electronics. Meanwhile, other integration approaches have not been scalable".
The UC Berkeley scientists overcame this limitation by finding a way to grow nanopillars made of indium gallium arsenide, a III-V material, onto a silicon surface at the relatively cool temperature of 400 degrees Celsius.
"Working at nanoscale levels has enabled us to grow high quality III-V materials at low temperatures such that silicon electronics can retain their functionality," said Chen.
The scientists used metal-organic chemical vapor deposition to grow the nanopillars on the silicon. "This technique is potentially mass manufacturable, since such a system is already used commercially to make thin film solar cells and light emitting diodes," said Chang-Hasnain.
Once the nanopillar was made, the scientists showed that it could generate near infrared laser light � a wavelength of about 950 nanometers � at room temperature. The hexagonal geometry dictated by the crystal structure of the nanopillars creates a new, efficient, light-trapping optical cavity. Light circulates up and down the structure in a helical fashion and amplifies via this optical feedback mechanism.
The unique approach of growing nanolasers directly onto silicon could lead to highly efficient silicon photonics, the scientists said. They noted that the miniscule dimensions of the nanopillars � smaller than one wavelength on each side, in some cases � make it possible to pack them into small spaces with the added benefit of consuming very little energy.
"Ultimately, this technique may provide a powerful and new avenue for engineering on-chip nanophotonic devices such as lasers, photodetectors, modulators and solar cells," said Chen.
"This is the first bottom-up integration of III-V nanolasers onto silicon chips using a growth process compatible with the CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology now used to make integrated circuits," said Chang-Hasnain. "This research has the potential to catalyze an optoelectronics revolution in computing, communications, displays and optical signal processing. In the future, we expect to improve the characteristics of these lasers and ultimately control them electronically for a powerful marriage between photonic and electronic devices."
A Practical Path to Superfast Computing
On left is a scanning electron micrograph of a plasmonic Luneburg lens on a gold film. On the right, fluorescence imaging shows intensity of the SPPs propagated by the Luneburg lens (dotted circle). X marks the launching position of the electron beam and Z is the direction in which the SPPs propogate. (Image courtesy of Zhang group)
They said it could be done and now they've done it. What's more, they did it with a GRIN. A team of scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley, have carried out the first experimental demonstration of GRIN - for gradient index - plasmonics, a hybrid technology that opens the door to a wide range of exotic optics, including superfast computers based on light rather than electronic signals, ultra-powerful optical microscopes able to resolve DNA molecules with visible light, and "invisibility" carpet-cloaking devices.
Working with composites featuring a dielectric (non-conducting) material on a metal substrate, and "grey-scale" electron beam lithography, a standard method in the computer chip industry for patterning 3-D surface topographies, the scientists have fabricated highly efficient plasmonic versions of Luneburg and Eaton lenses. A Luneburg lens focuses light from all directions equally well, and an Eaton lens bends light 90 degrees from all incoming directions.
"This past year, we used computer simulations to demonstrate that with only moderate modifications of an isotropic dielectric material in a dielectric-metal composite, it would be possible to achieve practical transformation optics results," says Xiang Zhang, who led this research. "Our GRIN plasmonics technique provides a practical way for routing light at very small scales and producing efficient functional plasmonic devices".
Zhang, a principal investigator with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and director of UC Berkeley's Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center (SINAM), is the corresponding author of a paper in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, describing this work titled, "Plasmonic Luneburg and Eaton Lenses." Co-authoring the paper were Thomas Zentgraf, Yongmin Liu, Maiken Mikkelsen and Jason Valentine.
GRIN plasmonics combines methodologies from transformation optics and plasmonics, two rising new fields of science that could revolutionize what we are able to do with light. In transformation optics, the physical space through which light travels is warped to control the light's trajectory, similar to the way in which outer space is warped by a massive object under Einstein's relativity theory. In plasmonics, light is confined in dimensions smaller than the wavelength of photons in free space, making it possible to match the different length-scales linked to photonics and electronics in a single nanoscale device.
"Applying transformation optics to plasmonics allows for precise control of strongly confined light waves in the context of two-dimensional optics," Zhang says. "Our technique is analogous to the well-known GRIN optics technique, whereas prior plasmonic techniques were realized by discrete structuring of the metal surface in a metal-dielectric composite".
Like all plasmonic technologies, GRIN plasmonics starts with an electronic surface wave that rolls through the conduction electrons on a metal. Just as the energy in a wave of light is carried in a quantized particle-like unit called a photon, so, too, is plasmonic energy carried in a quasi-particle called a plasmon. Plasmons will interact with photons at the interface of a metal and dielectric to form yet another quasi-particle, a surface plasmon polariton (SPP).
The Luneburg and Eaton lenses fabricated by Zhang and his co-authors interacted with SPPs rather than photons. To make these lenses, the scientists worked with a thin dielectric film (a thermplastic called PMMA) on top of a gold surface. When applying grey-scale electron beam lithography, the scientists exposed the dielectric film to an electron beam that was varied in dosage (charge per unit area) as it moved across the film's surface. This resulted in highly controlled differences in film thickness across the length of the dielectric that altered the local propagation of SPPs. In turn, the "mode index," which determines how fast the SPPs will propagate, is altered so that the direction of the SPPs can be influenced.
"By adiabatically tailoring the topology of the dielectric layer adjacent to the metal surface, we're able to continuously modify the mode index of SPPs," says Zentgraf. "As a result, we can manipulate the flow of SPPs with a greater degree of freedom in the context of two-dimensional optics".
Says Liu, "The practicality of working only with the purely dielectric material to transform SPPs is a big selling point for GRIN plasmonics. Controlling the physical properties of metals on the nanometer length-scale, which is the penetration depth of electromagnetic waves linked to SPPs extending below the metal surfaces, is beyond the reach of existing nanofabrication techniques".
Adds Zentgraf, "Our approach has the potential to achieve low-loss functional plasmonic elements with a standard fabrication technology that is fully compatible with active plasmonics".
In the Nature Nanotechnology paper, the scientists say that inefficiencies in plasmonic devices due to SPPs lost through scattering could be reduced even further by incorporating various SPP gain materials, such as fluorescent dye molecules, directly into the dielectric. This, they say, would lead to an increased propagation distance that is highly desired for optical and plasmonic devices. It should also enable the realization of two-dimensional plasmonic elements beyond the Luneburg and Eaton lenses.
Says Mikkelsen, "GRIN plasmonics can be immediately applied to the design and production of various plasmonic elements, such as waveguides and beam splitters, to improve the performance of integrated plasmonics. Currently we are working on more complex, transformational plasmonic devices, such as plasmonic collimators, single plasmonic elements with multiple functions, and plasmonic lenses with enhanced performance".
This research was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation's Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center.
Supercomputer unravels structures in DVD materials
Eventhough the storage of films and music on a DVD is part of our digital world, the physical basis of the storage mechanism is not understood in detail. In the current issue of the leading journal Nature Materials, scientists from J�lich, Finland, and Japan provide insight into the read and write processes in a DVD. This knowledge should enable improved storage materials to be developed. (DOI: 10.1038/NMAT2931).
Storage of information is done in a DVD in the form of microscopic bits (each less than 100 nanometres in size) in a thin layer of a polycrystalline alloy containing several elements. The bits can have a disordered, amorphous or an ordered, crystalline structure. The transition between the two phases lasts only a few nanoseconds and can be triggered by a laser pulse. Common alloys for storage materials such as DVD-RAMs or Blu-ray Discs contain germanium (Ge), antimony (Sb) und tellurium (Te) and are known as GST after the initials of the elements. The most popular alloys for DVD-RW are AIST alloys, which contain small amounts of silver (Ag) and indium (In) as well as antimony (Sb) and tellurium (Te).
"Both alloy families contain antimony and tellurium and appear to have much in common, but the phase change mechanisms are quite different", explains Dr. Robert Jones of Forschungszentrum J�lich, who has collaborated with an international team on the problem. In addition to experimental data and x-ray spectra from the Japanese synchrotron SPring-8, the world's most powerful x-ray source, the team used extensive simulations on the J�lich supercomputer JUGENE. The combination of experiment and simulations has enabled the structures of both phases to be determined for the first time and allowed the development of a model to explain the rapid phase change.
The phase change in AIST alloys proceeds from the outside of the bit, where it adjoins the crystalline surroundings, towards its interior. In Nature Materials, the team explains this using a "bond exchange model", where the local environment in the amorphous bit is changed by small movements of an antimony atom (see figure). A sequence of a number of such steps results in reorientation (crystallization), without requiring empty regions or large motions. The antimony atoms, stimulated by the laser pulse, have simply exchanged the strengths of the bonds to two neighbours, hence the name �bond exchange" model.
The team had clarified the phase transition in GST materials in earlier work (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.80.020201). Here the amorphous bit crystallizes via nucleation, i.e. small crystallites formed in the interior grow rapidly until they covered the whole bit. The speed of the transition can be explained by observing that amorphous and crystalline phases contain the same structural units, "�ABAB" rings. These four-membered rings contain two germanium or antimony atoms (A) and two tellurium atoms (B) and can rearrange in the available empty space without breaking a number of atomic bonds.
The calculation of the structure of amorphous AIST is the largest yet performed in this area of research, with simulations of 640 atoms over the comparatively long time of several hundred picoseconds. Some 4000 processors of the J�lich supercomputer JUGENE were used for over four months in order to obtain the necessary precision. In addition to sheer computing power, however, experience in scientific computing and the simulation of condensed matter is essential. Jones notes: "Forschungszentrum J�lich is one of the few places where all these aspects come together."
The deeper theoretical understanding of the processes involved in writing and erasing a DVD should aid the development of phase change storage media with longer life, larger capacity, or shorter access times.
Replacing Cable Television Service with Satellite Internet
obody likes bills. And with the number of "must-need" services rising, thrifty consumers are looking for ways to consolidate services and shave off unnecessary expenses. One such move that more people are making is cutting out the cable bill and getting their entertainment fix via satellite internet. For some, it's a savings of nearly $100 each month, which can add up pretty quickly in today's economy. But how exactly is this done? Here are some ways consumers can replace traditional cable television service with satellite internet:
- Streaming television shows. Major networks like ABC, NBC and FOX offer their newest television shows in the most current season for free online. If viewers don't mind waiting, the latest sitcoms, dramas, and reality TV shows are typically posted on network sites like ABC.com or Hulu.com the very next day after they're first aired.
- Downloading premium content. For archived television seasons and movies, satellite internet consumers can access them readily through content providers like Amazon through the Video-on-Demand service, or Apple through iTunes. They're available for purchase by full seasons or a la carte per episode, giving viewers the flexibility to pick and choose what to watch.
- Streaming sports. Until recently, sports programming has been difficult to access with a satellite internet connection. With the launch of ESPN3 and peer-sharing sites like Justin.TV and UStream, its becoming increasingly easier to find live sports programming over the internet.
- Getting a set-top box or an Wi-Fi ready television. Home entertainment products are now coming ready to connect to the internet and to access online content. Look for Blu-Ray players or HDTVs with either Wi-Fi capability or an Ethernet port, making it easy to connect to the internet on your TV. Tech companies like Google, Apple, Boxee, Roku and Western Digital are also jumping into the home entertainment fray, offering standalone set-top options that connect to sites like YouTube and Netflix. <
- Subscribe to Netflix. Netflix is a subscription-based media provider, which, for a fee, will send DVDs to customers via mail. A large segment of their subscribers take advantage of their instant streaming service, which enables customers to instantly stream the latest movies and television DVDs through a satellite internet connection to any compatible device—laptop, desktop, HDTV, set-top box, Blu-Ray player, gaming console, tablet, or even phone.
Better control of building blocks for quantum computer
(Beeld: Artist's impression of the spin-orbit qubit. Like in a yo-yo toy, by moving the electron one controls its spin. Credit: Gemma Plum)
Researchers from the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology and Eindhoven University of Technology have succeeded in controlling the building blocks of a future super-fast quantum computer. They are now able to manipulate these building blocks (qubits) with electrical rather than magnetic fields, as has been the common practice up till now. They have also been able to embed these qubits into semiconductor nanowires. The scientists' findings have been reported in the current issue of the science journal Nature (23 December).
Spin
A qubit is the building block of a possible, future quantum computer, which would far outstrip current computers in terms of speed. One way to make a qubit is to trap a single electron in semiconductor material. A qubit can, just like a normal computer bit, adopt the states '0' and '1'. This is achieved by using the spin of an electron, which is generated by spinning the electron on its axis. The electron can spin in two directions (representing the '0' state and the '1' state).
Electrical instead of magnetic.
Until now, the spin of an electron has been controlled by magnetic fields. However, these field are extremely difficult to generate on a chip. The electron spin in the qubits that are currently being generated by the Dutch researchers can be controlled by a charge or an electric field, rather than by magnetic fields. This form of control has major advantages, as Leo Kouwenhoven, scientist at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at TU Delft, points out: "These spin-orbit qubits combine the best of both worlds. They employ the advantages of both electronic control and information storage in the electron spin".
Nanowires.
There is another important new development in the Dutch research: the researchers have been able to embed the qubits (two) into nanowires made of a semiconductor material (indium arsenide). These wires are of the order of nanometres in diameter and micrometres in length. Kouwenhoven: "These nanowires are being increasingly used as convenient building blocks in nanoelectronics. Nanowires are an excellent platform for quantum information processing, among other applications".
Waterproof Shower Notebook
This Waterproof Shower Notebook is the perfect way to grab and hold those inspirational thoughts that seem to come only when you’re standing with a head full of suds and loofer in hand. Sure, you could keep a Sharpie for scribbling on the wall tiles, but why not show a bit more class and save on cleaning fluid for the maid? $12.99.
Brilliant ideas are never again forgotten, just use the hang strap to store our Waterproof Shower Notebook on your shower head for easy access! Our Waterproof Shower Notebook and pencil has 80 tear out, no smudge pages so you can take your ideas away with you! Think waterproof multi tasking! Use it under water, around water, near water, it doesn’t matter – it’s 100% waterproof and loves to get wet!
Tech Solutions Start With Pattern Recognition
Buy something online, enter your credit card number and mailing address. Simple. Then you come to the box with the CAPTCHA, the Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart. Here, the website attempts to confirm that you're a human, not some robot about to commit a cybercrime. You dutifully copy down the warped, watery-looking letters.
Incorrect. Another captcha appears. You try again. Also incorrect. A third captcha appears. You start rethinking your purchase.
University at Buffalo computer scientist Venu Govindaraju, who, along with his UB colleagues, pioneered machine recognition of human handwriting, believes that this annoying 21st-century problem has a decidedly old-fashioned solution: handwriting.
"Here at UB's Center for Unified Biometrics, we're the only ones who have proposed and thoroughly studied handwritten captchas," says Govindaraju. "Our perspective is that humans are good at reading handwriting, machines are not. It comes naturally to humans. But computer researchers typically consider handwriting a hopeless case, until someone comes along and shows them that it isn't".
Govindaraju should know. Research he and his UB colleagues conducted in the 1990s helped the U.S. Postal Service establish the first machines that could read handwritten addresses, a feat that a number of at the time -- particularly in industry -- said simply could not be done. In 1996, after years of research, the UB research enabled the USPS to be able to start machine-reading of handwritten addresses, boosting efficiency and saving the agency millions of dollars each year.
Govindaraju believes a similar success can occur with captchas. One of his doctoral students at UB has graduated and was hired by Yahoo! on the basis of his work developing "simulated" handwritten captchas.
"We developed an archive that can automatically generate as a number of different styles of handwriting as we want," says Govindaraju.
The research is based on pattern recognition, a subfield of machine learning in computer science that is concerned with developing systems based on detecting patterns in data.
Similar issues are being studied by Govindaraju and his UB colleagues in order to develop "smart room" technologies, supported by an HP Labs Innovation Research award.
"Smart rooms" are indoor environments equipped with sensitive, but unobtrusive devices, such as cameras and microphones that can identify and track the movements and gestures of inhabitants for a broad range of applications, from providing supplemental supervision in assisted living facilities for the elderly or disabled, to monitoring office workplaces and retail establishments for security. Eventually, the goal is to extend "smart room" features to larger arenas, such as shopping centers, airports and other transportation centers.
Biometrics that CUBS scientists are studying for "smart room" applications include hand gestures as well as the more common biometrics of facial, voice and gait recognition.
"This, too, is all pattern recognition," Govindaraju says, "but instead of letters, here, we're trying to standardize gestures.
"It's like developing an alphabet of gestures so machines can be programmed to do gesture recognition. The idea is to control objects on a monitor without technology," he says.
Since its founding in 2003, CUBS has attracted approximately $10 million in federal and industry funding and has produced 17 doctoral-level graduates. The center advances machine learning and pattern recognition technologies to build engineered systems for both civilian and homeland security applications. It develops new methods for customizing devices that use data from physical biometrics, such as fingerprints, hand geometry and iris scans; behavioral biometrics, such as signature, voiceprint and gait; and chemical biometrics, such as DNA and body odor.
Netbooks Versus the Competition
Sometimes, in life, the answers are very apparent, but that is not always the case. The matter of choosing the gear to outfit your office is not always as easily settled as one might think. Is it best to go with a PC or a Mac? Can I really afford the price associated with some of these models? What about the printer? Is the thought of printing the number of pages required in my office really practical given the cost of ink cartridges?
These are the sorts of questions that can arise when trying to make those initial decisions to build an office, or even the decisions regarding replacement of the out of date goods of yesteryear. Another question that many are finding themselves asking today is "Notebook, netbook, or tablet?" Consider this article for information to make that decision easier.
What are my options?
Buying a computer today is nothing like what it was ten years ago. First of all, walking out of the store with a computer might only mean carrying a small, traditional plastic bag. After all, many of the tablets and even some notebooks are so thin and light weight today that they could easily fit in a woman's purse and be carried without the person even feeling the added weight. Added to that, however, is the furthered agony of decision making. No longer is it as simple as choosing between five or ten desktop models in the local electronics store. Instead one is faced with a number of options for portable computing, including netbooks, notebooks, and the tablet. Most are familiar with all that a notebook (aka laptop) can do, so consider these evaluations of how the others stack up.
The newest thing in computer land is the tablet. These low cost, light weight handy devices are perfect for those looking for a secondary computer, or those who wish only to use the computer for photos, music, games, and email. They do have the internet as well, and a number of fun, functional, and funky applications, but they also have a couple major drawbacks. The first is that there is not yet a real functional version of traditional word processing and spreadsheet softwares that work on the tablet. Surely that will change in the near future, but as of now, that it something that one should not expect to accomplish on the tablet. Even Google Docs and Microsoft's online versions of word processing are not where they need to be to make this device functional in that way. The second major flaw is printing. You are not going to easily find ink cartridges that will work with these mini computers. This is going to change in the very near future as wireless printing has started to become a possibility, but you will still be limited when compared to the other computers that offer a wide variety of printer from ink cartridge or toner, wired or wireless, all-in-one or single function.
Netbooks, similarly, are newer to the market and have a number of advantages and disadvantages as compared to the more traditional notebook. These are not going to feature many of the added perks of a traditional computer, such as the DVD/CD drive and extended keyboards. However, the ultra-mini models, are light weight and easily carted from one venue to another, where they can be flipped open to do most everything that a traditional laptop can do, taking up a fraction of the space. The best part is, that unlike the tablet, these USB supporting mini pads are able to work with nearly every printer on the market, which means that you, like the rest of the computer world will also have another decision to make. Which brand? Which model? Ink cartridge or toner? Manufacturer's ink or third party?
A computer may drive your car someday
NeuFlow is a supercomputer that mimics human vision to analyze complex environments, such as this street scene. (Image: Eugenio Culurciello/e-Lab)
Navigating our way down the street is something most of us take for granted; we seem to recognize cars, other people, trees and lampposts instantaneously and without much thought. In fact, visually interpreting our environment as quickly as we do is an astonishing feat requiring an enormous number of computations-which is just one reason that coming up with a computer-driven system that can mimic the human brain in visually recognizing objects has proven so difficult.
Now Eugenio Culurciello of Yale's School of Engineering & Applied Science has developed a supercomputer based on the human visual system that operates much more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Dubbed NeuFlow, the system takes its inspiration from the mammalian visual system, mimicking its neural network to quickly interpret the world around it. Culurciello presented the results Sept. 15 at the High Performance Embedded Computing (HPEC) workshop in Boston, Mass.
The system uses complex vision algorithms developed by Yann LeCun at New York University to run large neural networks for synthetic vision applications. One idea-the one Culurciello and LeCun are focusing on, is a system that would allow cars to drive themselves. In order to be able to recognize the various objects encountered on the road-such as other cars, people, stoplights, sidewalks, not to mention the road itself-NeuFlow processes tens of megapixel images in real time.
The system is also extremely efficient, simultaneously running more than 100 billion operations per second using only a few watts (that's less than the power a cell phone uses) to accomplish what it takes bench-top computers with multiple graphic processors more than 300 watts to achieve.
"One of our first prototypes of this system is already capable of outperforming graphic processors on vision tasks," Culurciello said.
Culurciello embedded the supercomputer on a single chip, making the system much smaller, yet more powerful and efficient, than full-scale computers. "The complete system is going to be no bigger than a wallet, so it could easily be embedded in cars and other places," Culurciello said.
Beyond the autonomous car navigation, the system could be used to improve robot navigation into dangerous or difficult-to-reach locations, to provide 360-degree synthetic vision for soldiers in combat situations, or in assisted living situations where it could be used to monitor motion and call for help should an elderly person fall, for example.
Other collaborators include Clement Farabet (Yale University and New York University), Berin Martini, Polina Akselrod, Selcuk Talay (Yale University) and Benoit Corda (New York University).
Google Android Net Books - The next generation PCs?
Net books have always been the enviable gadgets, which gives us the ability stay connected while we are on the move. They are quite appealing and fashionable at the same time. They have grown more in popularity after the release of wireless Internet broadband through the USB ports.
The advent of 3G technology gives us the power to have full fledged wireless broadband connections on portable devices, without having to rely only on the Wi-Fi zones.
The manufacturing companies are introducing some of the most sophisticated net books to meet the requirement of every individual, be it for official purposes or for the gaming purposes.
PC tablet net books are slowly but steadily eating up into the PC market. The hype created over the release of Apple's Ipad has brought about a lot of awareness on this technology. The gadget freaks are lining up to get their hands on some of the latest devices that are being introduced into the market.
Google does not want to be left behind by either, plus their Android operating system will work as their main advantage.
Laptops and notebooks are a little on the expensive side when compared to the personal computers, but the net books are more on the cheaper side, with the price ranges starting from just $150.00.
Now Google has gone one step ahead by introducing their operating system on mobile devices other than the mobile phones. They have also introduced Android OS on the PC Tablet net books now. The devices are exceptionally good and the scopes for using the apps are plenty.
In this article, I will provide you with the information on Android powered net books, particularly the ones that are 7in and 8in.
Some of their main features are:
- Web browsing with Google Chrome
- Webmail services like Hotmail
- PDF reader
- Office file processors for word, excel and PowerPoint files
- VOIP facilities to make free long distance calls
- Latest games
- Rotation screens to view from 4 sides
- More than 25 languages and lots more
The devices use Android 1.6 operating system, and they have the DDR2 RAM with speed of 128 MB. They are available both in 7in and 8in LCD screens.
These devices have a color resolution starting from 800 * 480 depending on the models. They provide an inbuilt hard drive space of 2GB. However, all their models are also compatible with the extended memory cards, with which you can enhance the storage buy 32 more GBs.
They are Wi-fi enabled with the latest certifications for network connectivity. The microphone is built-in, and you could also watch the streaming videos on YouTube.
The battery gives you a standby time of 4 hours and the working time of 2½ hours. I feel that this is very decent for a portable device which provides so many computing abilities. The weight of the devices very upon the models, and they are usually between 300g to 600g.
If you are seeking more information on the Google Android powered net books and PC Netbook Tablets, you might want to check out the website, www.mondetech.com. They offer some excellent discount offers on some of the latest net books.
Spintronics' for next-generation computers
Using powerful lasers, Hui Zhao, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas, and graduate student Lalani Werake have discovered a new way to recognize currents of spinning electrons within a semiconductor.
Their findings could lead the way to development of superior computers and electronics. Results from their work in KU's Ultrafast Laser Lab would be reported in the recent issue of Nature Physics, a leading peer-evaluated journal, and was posted online in early August.
Zhao and Werake research spin-based electronics, dubbed "spintronics."
"The goal is to replace everything - from computers to memory devices - to have higher performance and less energy consumption," said Zhao.
The KU investigator said that future advancements to microchips would require a different approach for transmitting the sequences of ones and zeros that make up digital information.
"We have been using the charge of the electron for several decades," said Zhao. "But right now the size of each device is just 30 to 50 nanometers, and you don't have a number of atoms remaining on that tiny scale. We can't continue that way anymore because we're hitting a fundamental limit".
Instead of using the presence or absence of electronic charges, spintronics relies on the direction of an electron's rotation to convey data.
"Roughly speaking, an electron can be viewed as a tiny ball that spins like a baseball," said Zhao. "The difference is that a baseball can spin at any speed, but an electron can only spin at a certain speed - either counterclockwise or clockwise. Therefore, we can use one spin state to represent 'zero' and another to represent 'one.' Because a single electron can carry this information, this takes much less time and much less energy".
However, one major hurdle for spintronics scientists has been the difficulty in detecting the flow of spinning electrons in real time.
"We haven't been able to monitor the velocity of those spinning electrons, but velocity is linked to the spin current," Zhao said. "So there's been no way to directly detect the spin current so far".
The discovery by Zhao and Werake changes that.
The KU scientists have discovered that shining a laser beam on a piece of semiconductor generates different color lights if the spinning electrons are flowing, and the brightness of the new light is correlation to the strength of the spin current.
The optical effect, known as "second-harmonic generation," can monitor spin-current in real time without altering the current itself. Zhao compares his new method with a police officer's radar gun, which tracks a car's speed as it passes.
This vastly improves upon spin-current analysis now in use, which the KU researcher says is akin to analyzing still photographs to determine a car's speed, long after the car has sped away.
"Spintronics is still in the research phase, and we hope that this new technology can be used in labs to look at problems that interest researchers," said Zhao. "As spintronics become industrialized, we expect this could become a routine technique to check the quality of devices, for example".
Small wires make big connections
University of Illinois engineers have developed a novel direct-writing method for manufacturing metal interconnects that could shrink integrated circuits and expand microelectronics.
Integrated chips are made by wiring multiple transistors and electronic components together to perform complex functions. The connections between chips and circuit boards traditionally are made from pre-fabricated metal wires that connect to a designated bonding pad on a chip.
"Integrated functions require a number of wire connections. It's tedious and time-consuming to make and increases cost," said Min-Feng Yu, a professor of mechanical science and engineering at Illinois.
In addition, the bonding pad for traditional wire bonds takes up a substantial area of space. As technology has moved toward smaller electronics, shrinking wiring has been a substantial obstacle. A number of microelectronic devices are much smaller than the mandatory 50-by-50 micron square bonding site, prohibiting integrated functions on the very small scale.
"There's no existing cost-effective technology that would allow you to wire-bond microstructures," said Yu, "so let's get rid of those wires, and instead, why not directly produce them on-site between the connection points?".
Yu and graduate student Jie Hu developed a direct-write technique that produces tiny pure metal wires much smaller in diameter than traditional wires and requiring two orders of magnitude less bonding area. In a paper appearing in the July 16 edition of Science, they demonstrate as a number of as 20 of their new wires bonded to a single standard bonding site.
"This technique means the pads can be much smaller than what's needed for traditional wire-bonding technology," Yu said. This reduction in area could allow manufacturers to produce more chips per wafer of semiconductor material. It could also enable more complex integrated functions in microelectronics.
The pair have demonstrated their technique with both copper and platinum wires, and plan to explore the technique with other metals.
Yu likens their technique to writing with a fountain pen. "People's mindset is that you draw a line on a surface, but what we're doing is writing to 3-D space," he said.
The duo loaded a micropipette - a device that dispenses tiny amounts of liquid - with a copper electrolyte solution. When the pipette comes into close contact with the surface, a liquid bridge forms between the pipette tip and the bonding pad. The scientists then apply an electric current, which causes the copper in the solution to deposit as solid metal. As the tip moves through space, copper continues to deposit from the solution in the pipette, like ink from a pen, creating a wire. The challenge for Yu and Hu was calculating the correct speed to move the pipette tip to maintain the liquid bridge between the nozzle and the growing wire.
"It's liquid, so it can easily be shaped," Yu said. "As long as you maintain your speed within a certain range, you will always be able to produce uniform, high-quality wires."
They also had to figure out how to "write" the wires laterally for chip-to-chip bonding. Typical micropipette nozzles are flat at the end, but too much tilting breaks the liquid contact. The Illinois duo observed that a notched nozzle, with a 90-degree cut in the side, allowed lateral movement, meaning that the wires can arc from one bonding site to another, even if the chips are stacked or tiered.
The process is automated, so Yu hopes to develop arrays of micropipettes to produce wire bonds in bulk for more efficient manufacturing.
"An advantage is that you can do this in parallel," he said. "Instead of one nozzle, suppose you have 10, 20 or 100 working simultaneously. In one step, you can make tens or hundreds of bonds, and that is cost-saving."
In addition to wire bonds, the technique could produce a myriad of metal microstructures for various applications.
"The ability to fabricate metallic structures in 3-D can open up a number of other opportunities," Yu said. "It has lots of desirable properties aside from the electrical ones. You can imagine the structures that take advantage of the different properties of metal."
Asus Eee PC 2G Surf
Image courtesy of Reviewheaven.net
The ' Asus EEE PC 2G Surf' is a sleek netbook designed by ASUS. They say it is Easy to learn, Easy to Work and Easy to play. The Eee stands for these three E qualities of this net book. The Asus Eee PC 2G Surf is manufactured by Pegatron Technology and developed by ASUSTek Computer Inc. This netbook measures 8.86 inch x 6.30 inch x 0.79-1.26 inch and weighs 2.0 lbs. There's a 4400 mAh Battery of 4-cell that comes with this netbook. There are three versions of this model and they are the 2G, 4G and 8G units. They are available in the following colors, black, white, pink, blue and green. This netbooks comes with a restore disk, driver disk (for Windows installs) and documentation. The Asus Eee PC 2G Surf can be purchased at a starting price of $299.
Specifications
Asus has always promoted the Eee netbook series to be easy to work, easy to learn and easy to play. It has 10/100 Ethernet and 802.11b/g wireless. It comes with a VGA port and an SD Card Slot that supports SDHC. The Celeron-M 800 MHz operates at 571 MHz. System memory of this Eee netbook is at 512MB. There's a flash memory reader slot whereby users can use an SD memory card to write or read. This netbook comes with a 4400 mAh 4-cell unit that can last for about 2.5 hours. The battery can be upgraded to a 5600 mAh which can last for about 3.5 hours.
Display
The display is a 7-inch LCD monitor that comes with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels.
Barrier to faster integrated circuits
College Park, MD (June 29, 2010) -- Integrated circuits, which enable virtually every electronics gadget you use on a daily basis, are constantly being pushed by the semiconductor industry to become smaller, faster, and cheaper. As has happened a number of times in the past and will continue in the future, integrated circuit scaling is perpetually in danger of hitting a wall that must be maneuvered around.
As per Maxime Darnon, a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, in order to continue increasing the speed of integrated circuits, interconnect insulators will require an upgrade to porous, low-dielectric constant materials. Darnon and his colleagues discuss the details in the Journal of Applied Physics, which is published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP).
"The integration of a replacement, porous SiCOH (pSiCOH), however, poses serious problems such as an unacceptable 'roughening' that occurs during plasma processing," explains Darnon. "This is considered a 'showstopper' to faster integrated circuits at the moment, so a fundamental understanding of the roughening mechanisms that occur during the etch process of integrated circuit manufacturing is highly desirable to material designers and etch-process engineers.
Darnon's research team proposes a mechanism for the roughening of pSiCOH materials etched in a fluorocarbon-based plasma. They've shown that the problematic roughness results from a cracking of the denser top surface under ion bombardment, and that this roughness propagates through a slower etching of the dense top surface than the modified porous material beneath it. Perhaps more importantly, the team recommends ways to minimize this phenomenon so that the "showstopper" will only be a speedbump on the road to faster integrated circuits.
How laptops can enhance learning
Despite the distraction potential of laptops in college classrooms, new research shows that they can actually increase students' engagement, attentiveness, participation and learning.
To achieve this, however, the instructor must set the right stage, says University of Michigan professor Perry Samson.
Samson is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences who has received honors for his educational technology work.
He has developed robust interactive student response system called LectureTools that utilizes students' laptops. A paper about how students report that LectureTools affected their learning is reported in the May edition of the journal Computers & Education.
"If you allow laptops in the classroom without a plan for how you'll use them, you can potentially invite disaster. It's unlikely that students will be so entranced by class material that they won't wander off to their favorite social networking sites," Samson said. "The key is to deliberately engage students through their computers. LectureTools does just that".
LectureTools is an interactive student response system and teaching module. Instructors at more than 400 colleges and universities have set up accounts to use it.
Samson recently surveyed close to 200 students who, over the past three semesters, have taken his Extreme Weather lecture course that utilized LectureTools. Students reported that while they did sometimes stray from in-class tasks, laptops with LectureTools made them feel more attentive, engaged and able to learn, compared with classes that don't use the system.
"Our surveys showed that while laptop computers can be a distraction, students of this generation feel that they are capable of productive multitasking," Samson said.
Through LectureTools, laptops serve as robust "clickers," providing drastically more interaction than the class polling that clicker-based student response systems offer.
LectureTools also allows students to take notes directly on lecture slides. Students can anonymously ask the instructor's aide a question through a chat window during class, and others can see these questions and answers. Students can also rate their own understanding of each slide, giving the professor valuable feedback.
"It is the first successful instance I've seen of dramatic use of information technology to augment the real-time classroom experience," said John King, vice provost for academic affairs and the William Warner Bishop Collegiate Professor of Information. "LectureTools significantly increases the interactivity between the student and the instructor without disrupting the flow of the class. The instructor gets a lot more detailed information about where the students are while maintaining normal operation in the class".
Close to half of students surveyed said that having a laptop in class increased the amount of time they spent on tasks uncorrelation to the lecture. But a full 78 percent agreed that laptops in class made them more engaged. Approximately half said that having their laptops made them more attentive. Seventy percent said laptops had a positive effect on their learning.
LectureTools significantly increased class participation as well. The system allows students to chat with an instructor's aide, posing questions without raising a hand and having to speak up in front of their peers.
"You can ask the dumb question without fear," Samson said.
More than half of the students asked at least one question during the semester, which is a much higher percentage than Samson saw in classes without LectureTools, he said.
The paper is called "Deliberate Engagement of Laptops in Large Lecture Classes to Improve Attentiveness and Engagement".
Recover Lost Hard Drive Data
Here's the latest free hard drive data recovery program to be offered, and as always I advise you to maintain separate, removable media, to back up your precious digital photo files.
Of course the use of removable media for backup extends beyond your photo files and should include all files that you consider "must haves."
The "iCare", "Data Recovery 3.6" Software, is a bit more advanced than some past free offerings and deserves a look, particularly since it's free.
Besides the usual data loss recovery feature "iCare's", "Data Recovery 3.6" Software allows you to recover deleted hard drive partitions, perform "deep scan recoveries" and "format recoveries."
Get your free iCare Data Recovery 3.6 Software before the offer is rescinded at midnight tonight.
Take a camera with you whenever possible, and look around, you'll find a picture somewhere.
Photo Source: www.giveawayoftheday.com.
World's first multitouch gaming laptop
The Battalion Touch Notebook is apparently the world’s first multi-touch gaming laptop computer. The rest of the spec seems fairly standard for a 15.6 inch laptop, so we’re wondering exactly what market really wants to swap the lean back ease of use you get with a mouse and keyboard for the hunched over finger stretching hassle that comes with multi-touch screen technology?
Sure it’s cool for mobile phones, but a notebook computer? Really? Anyhoo, those of you with an urge to smear your screens while scrolling down the eBay listings go ahead, knock yourself out. Cough up $999.00 first please.
Experience a new dimension of interactive gaming, media organization, and content creation with the Battalion Touch series. Featuring a full multi-touch screen, the Battalion Touch series allows you to interact with your system in new ways and take full advantage of the built-in multi-touch capabilities of Windows 7. With the growing popularity of the multi-touch interactive platform, the Battalion Touch series provides the capabilities to support the increasing number of multi-touch optimized game and software titles.
Do computers understand art?
This a painting of a seated woman with bent knee by Egon Schiele (1917).
Credit: Egon Schiele
A team of scientists from the University of Girona and the Max Planck Institute in Gera number of has shown that some mathematical algorithms provide clues about the artistic style of a painting. The composition of colours or certain aesthetic measurements can already be quantified by a computer, but machines are still far from being able to interpret art in the way that people do.
How does one place an artwork in a particular artistic period? This is the question raised by researchers from the Laboratory of Graphics and Image in the University of Girona and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, in Gera number of. The scientists have shown that certain artificial vision algorithms mean a computer can be programmed to "understand" an image and differentiate between artistic styles based on low-level pictorial information. Human classification strategies, however, include medium and high-level concepts.
Low-level pictorial information encompasses aspects such as brush thickness, the type of material and the composition of the palette of colours. Medium-level information differentiates between certain objects and scenes appearing in a picture, as well as the type of painting (landscape, portrait, still life, etc.). High-level information takes into account the historical context and knowledge of the artists and artistic trends.
"It will never be possible to precisely determine mathematically an artistic period nor to measure the human response to a work of art, but we can look for trends", Miquel Feixas, one of the authors of the study, reported in the journal Computers and Graphics, tells SINC.
The scientists analysed various artificial vision algorithms used to classify art, and observed that certain aesthetic measurements (calculating "the order" of the image based on analysing pixels and colour distribution), as well as the composition and diversity of the palette of colours, can be useful.
The team also worked with people with little knowledge of art, showing them more than 500 paintings done by artists from 11 artistic periods. The participants were "surprisingly good" at linking the artworks with their corresponding artistic period, showing the high capacity of human perception.
Beyond the implications for philosophy and art, the researchers want to apply their research in developing image viewing and analysis tools, classifying and searching for collections in museums, creating public informative and entertainment equipment, and in order to better understand the interactions between people, computers and works of art.
Beauty, order and complexity
The earliest work of this kind was done in 1933, when the mathematician George D. Birkhoff tried to formalise the notion of beauty with an aesthetic measurement defined as the relationship between order and complexity. After this, the philosopher Max Bense converted this into a measurement of information based on entropy (disorder or diversity).
As per Bense, the creative process is a selective process ("to create is to select"), within a range of elements (a palette of colours, sounds, phonemes, etc.). The creative process can be seen as channel for transmitting information between the palette and the artist and the objects or features of an image. This concept provides a powerful tool for analysing composition and the visual attention ("saliency") of a painting.
How to Make Your Computer Live Longer
© psd
Sometime I think losing a laptop is almost as traumatic as losing a pet. You spend so much time and effort getting to know what it, trying new things. You waste hours of your life playing with it. It even follows you around.
Okay, so I might be pushing the analogy, but the truth is, most of us don"t have the money to get a new laptop every 6 months. We"d like to keep the one we have alive and running for as long as possible.
So here are a few useful little tips that might extend the life your computer. Don"t worry, you probably already know them, but reminders never hurt anyone:
1. Shut it Down: This may sound simple but a number of of us just close the lid, turn of the monitor or set it to sleep mode. Completely shutting your computer down will keep it from overheating and leaking memory. Think of your computer like your brain, it can"t function without a good night"s sleep.
2. Defrag!: Again, another simple "duh" moment. Defrag your computer. Most PCs will even let you set up a regular defrag schedule once a week. Cleaning up your files on a regular basis will also keep your computer functioning at optimal speed.
3. Keep it Clean: During your regularly scheduled defrag, go ahead and run a scan for viruses, spyware, malware, all that bad stuff you can pick on the internet. Find a good program to keep your PC"s health good.
4. Don"t Drop It: Look, be nice to your laptops. Keep them in safe places, don"t expose them to weird temperatures and be sure not to eat or drink near them if possible. Also pets. I lost a laptop a few years ago to a cat pouncing on and then hairballing all over my keys, it broke my screen and something gross seeped into the circuitry. Trust me, helping your computer and your pets avoid each other is a good idea.
These might not be the most enlightening tips, but they"ll go along way in keeping your computer chugging along for an extra year or so.
Do you have tips for adding an extra life to your laptop?
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