How Google Earth Images Are Made
An anonymous reader writes “The Google Librarian Central site has up a piece by Mark Aubin, a Software Engineer who works on Google Earth. Aubin explains some of the process behind capturing satellite imagery for use with the product. ‘Most people are surprised to learn that we have more than one source for our imagery. We collect it via airplane and satellite, but also just about any way you can imagine getting a camera above the Earth’s surface: hot air balloons, model airplanes – even kites. The traditional aerial survey involves mounting a special gyroscopic, stabilized camera in the belly of an airplane and flying it at an elevation of between 15,000 feet and 30,000 feet, depending on the resolution of imagery you’re interested in. As the plane takes a predefined route over the desired area, it forms a series of parallel lines with about 40 percent overlap between lines and 60 percent overlap in the direction of flight. This overlap of images is what provides us with enough detail to remove distortions caused by the varying shape of the Earth’s surface.’Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Future of Cinema – ‘Real’ 3D
GunSlinger writes “The IGN movies site is running a story on an old movie concept seeing a resurgence. 3D movies are making a cinematic comeback via new, more sophisticated techniques. Yes, you still wear glasses. No you don’t get a headache. Yes, the effect is fantastic. This story looks at the technology, past and future projects, and why just about every major studio is now planning in three dimensions. ‘There is indeed a revolution in cinema taking place. It’s quietly slipped under the radar of most technophiles, beginning its assault on the way we consume media clothed in thoroughly unassuming garb — the Disney Digital 3-D film, Meet the Robinsons … no, we don’t blame you for being skeptical. Most people in their mid-20s or later think of 3-D movies from the old school perspective — goofy red and blue coloured glasses, strained eyes, possible migraines. And most importantly, a so-so 3-D effect. No more.’”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Netvibes announce the Universal Widget API
Hello! The long-awaited Netvibes Universal Widget API has been released today!
Since Their announcement, it has been thousands to subscribe to announcement list.
“We believe at Netvibes that UWA can really change the way we produce and develop widgets. We’ve been working hard to release it. As you know, the Universal Widget API will replace the Mini-Module API that was used on Netvibes”.
The launch of the UWA effort starts with a new website, a great documentation and of course some cool examples. You will then be able to implement your widgets on Netvibes, and also to have them running on Google IG and Apple Dashboard. As promised, more platforms are currently in the process of being supported. The Opera and Vista support are just a few weeks away.
As you will experience, we have lead efforts to build a very simple API that let you leverage our Netvibes User Interface, and let you integrate HTML and Flash elements very easily.
The UWA relies on a soon-to-be-released open-source JavaScript runtime. Through JavaScript best practices, our components and templates, the UWA makes it easy to assemble a widget for any given web service. Since our primary announcement, some great platforms contacted us to collaborate on expanding the reach of UWA widgets.
Get started now! This is the place where you can find developer resources: UWA is now part of our new Developer Network website. http://dev.netvibes.com/
Social-networking sites link Hispanic youth
Indie rocker Eric Monterrosa checks his ElHood.com Web page at least three times a day, answering fans, surfing for other new Latin artists and keeping in touch with friends from his native Colombia.
ElHood is sort of a bilingual MySpace promoting the latest in Latin music, and for Miami-based Monterrosa, it has become a personal and professional lifeline. It is also the latest in a wave of Hispanic social-networking sites building links across the U.S., Latin America and Spain, all hoping to capture coveted advertising dollars.
“A lot of Latin artists are plugged in,” Monterrosa said. “So if you want to find them it’s easy. If you go to sites like MySpace, you have to go through all sorts of genres, types of music, and languages.”
About 56 percent of Hispanics in the United States use the Internet, compared with 71 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 60 percent of non-Hispanic blacks, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But the number of Hispanics online jumps to 67 percent among 18- to 27-year-olds — the group most likely to visit social-networking sites and one coveted by advertisers.
The online gathering spots allow users to post profiles and keep in touch with friends, as well as expand their circle of acquaintances. Ads and partnerships that help spread new music keep the sites afloat.
Schools says iPods becoming tool for cheaters
Banning baseball caps during tests was obvious — students were writing the answers under the brim. Then, schools started banning cell phones, realizing students could text message the answers to each other.Now, schools across the country are targeting digital media players as a potential cheating device. Devices including iPods and Zunes can be hidden under clothing, with just an earbud and a wire snaking behind an ear and into a shirt collar to give them away, school officials say.
“It doesn’t take long to get out of the loop with teenagers,” said Mountain View High School Principal Aaron Maybon. “They come up with new and creative ways to cheat pretty fast.”
Mountain View recently enacted a ban on digital media players after school officials realized some students were downloading formulas and other material onto the players.
Jobs: Apple customers not into renting music
via Reuters
Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs indicated Wednesday he is unlikely to give in to calls from the music industry to add a subscription-based model to Apple’s wildly popular iTunes online music store.
“Never say never, but customers don’t seem to be interested in it,” Jobs told Reuters in an interview after Apple reported blow-out quarterly results. “The subscription model has failed so far.”
His comments come as the company he co-founded gears up for contract renewal negotiations with the major record labels over the next month.
Since Apple launched iTunes in 2003, it has sold more than 2.5 billion songs and now offers increasing numbers of television shows and movies.
Many in the music industry hope iTunes will ultimately start, in effect, renting music online, so record companies can make more money from recurring income. But Jobs said he had seen little consumer demand for that.
“People want to own their music,” he said.
Waving the Phone To Pay…..
Nokia is joining the GSM Association’s “mobile wallet” initiative, which seeks to create a global standard based on an embedded, wireless chip in a cell phone that allows a user to pay for something simply by waving the phone over a wireless reader. Nokia joins others in the GSM Association, including AT&T, China Mobile, and NTT DoCoMo.
Because of feature-packed cell phones, users can leave their camera, music player, or portable game machine at home. If a growing consortium of cell-phone makers and operators is successful, users throughout the world will someday be able to forget their wallet as well.
The GSM Association (GSMA), a global trade group, announced Wednesday that Nokia, the world’s largest mobile-phone maker, and 10 mobile operators are joining an initiative to create a “mobile wallet” standard.
The “Pay-Buy Mobile” project was started in February by 14 operators, including AT&T (formerly Cingular Wireless), China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Telecom Italia, and others. In addition to Nokia, the new participants include European and Asian operators KPN, Maxis Communications, mobilkom austria, O2, Orange, SFR, SingTel, SKT, Vodafone, and Wind.
The project seeks to create a global standard based on an embedded, wireless chip that allows the owner to use a phone in places where one might otherwise use a regular credit card. To make a payment, a user would simply wave the phone over a wireless reader, or punch in a PIN number. A similar method of transaction is currently available for travelers on public transportation in London and Tokyo.
Nokia, Samsung, and LG said that they will embed the chip in their phones. Vodafone, AT&T, Bell South, and Telefonica already support the chips on the phones that are distributed for their networks.
GSMA has said that the initiative will build on the work of the credit card companies, which have created a global standard for payment. MasterCard is already involved.
Trials for the global standard will begin in South Korea and unspecified Asian and European countries later this year. The Korean test, led by KTF, will include end-to-end trials that involve handset manufacturers, circuit card manufacturers, banks, credit card providers, and retailers.
South Korea is one of the world’s most active marketplaces for mobile transactions. According to GSMA, that country already has some 12 million handsets capable of making mobile payments, as well as 80,000 terminal payment machines in retailers.
The project, according to the GSMA, will work on defining a common approach to using near-field communications to link mobile devices with payment systems. “Together with a SIM/Universal Integrated Circuit Card in a mobile handset,” the GSMA said in a statement, near-field communications can be used “to enable a wide range of secure, interoperable, and transparent services, such as credit and debit payments.”
Sony and NXP, whose formats are now used for access to buildings and to public transportation, will join the efforts to develop a global standard. NXP, formerly Philips Semiconductors, developed Mifare and Sony developed Felicia.
The GSM Association represents 700 GSM mobile-phone operators in 218 countries and, according to the association, its members serve 82 percent of the world’s mobile-phone users.
Sun can converts carbon dioxide into fuel
We all know that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a major impact on the Earth climate. But now, chemists at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) have developed “a device that can capture energy from the sun, convert it to electrical energy and split carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen.” As carbon monoxide can easily be converted to liquid fuel, this prototype device kills two birds with one stone: it helps saving fuel while reducing the concentration of a greenhouse gas.
robotic jewelry polishing system
If you live in Rapid City, South Dakota, and if you bring one of your old rings to a jewelry shop for cleaning, it’s highly possible that the job might be done by a robotic jeweler. An engineer at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) has built and brought to market a robotic system which can pick up a ring, polish and grind the ring, and replace the ring in its original tray before picking up the next ring. And of course, it’s able to do this faster than a human being: it can function about three times faster than a human operator when configured as a grinder and about four times faster when configured as a pre-polisher.
21 Wireless carriers concerned over FCC Plan on auction of 700MHZ
Debate grows over 700MHz auction
A group of 21 small and medium sized wireless and wireline carriers as well as state agencies are concerned that the FCC plan to favor large geographic wireless licenses over small ones during the 700 MHz auction in the fall. Alltel, Aloha Partners, Dobson, Leap Wireless, MetroPCS, U.S. Cellular and the Rural Cellular Association are among the concerned parties. The coalition descended on Washington this week to air their grievances with the House Telecom subcommittee.
Cellular South’s president, Victor Meena said, “”If the FCC does not have multiple small and medium blocks with paired spectrum, all small and regional carriers will be forced to compete against each other in one or two blocks of spectrum, while the large carriers will have the very large spectrum blocks to themselves because smaller carriers cannot compete in the auction for those licenses.”
The larger carriers have mixed reactions to the group’s concerns: T-Mobile USA and Sprint’s cable MSO JV, Spectrum Co., embrace the group’s call for a variety of spectrum blocks. Verizon Wireless, however, sent the FCC an economic study that proclaims large wireless service areas lead to efficiencies whereby cost and delays associated with organizing the smaller licenses disappear.
During an open meeting on April 25, the FCC plans to vote on the plan for the 700 MHz auction as well as petitions from companies like Frontline regarding public safety usage of the spectrum.
Cingular adds just 1.2M subs in Q1
For the first quarter, AT&T’s wireless unit, formerly known as Cingular, posted revenue of $10 billion, up 11 percent from last year thanks to data services that buoyed the average revenue per user. Some analysts expected about $9.9 billion in revenue. AT&T’s wireless unit also added 1.2 million subscribers during the quarter, which was just half the amount it added during the fourth quarter of 2006. Churn fell to 1.7 percent, which is 10 basis points better than the previous quarter. At the end of the quarter the carrier’s subscriber base boasted 62.2 million customers.
New Pictures of Sony Ericsson P700i
We have got our hands on some higher-quality photos of the upcoming Sony Ericsson P700i smartphone – courtesy of Mobile Cowboys. We love small, pixelated, fuzzy images just as much as you do – so we’re ecstatic about these new HQ pics. The deets are still lacking so we’ll just have to go on what we already know suspect about the P700i’s specs. Big ole’ pics after the link…
Nokia loose profits As Global Market Share Rises
It’s kind of a bitter-sweet announcement – Nokia saw its global market share for mobile phones increase to 36% (up from 35%), while at the same time experiencing a 7% decline in global profits. Nokia sold 979 million Euros worth of cell phone, down from 1.0 billion Euros worth of sales in the previous year. The slip in Nokia’s profits can be associated with “one-off costs and falling prices for its mobile phones.”
So, in all, Nokia is in a good position. The profit slide is reasonable and the Finnish handset giant is creeping upwards in their market share – even as Symbian OS is losing ground to Linux and Windows Mobile and the global slowdown of mobile phone sales.
A Pack of Spanish Dictionaries for blackberry
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Green planet – Lets Breathe Again- Build your business through effecient Media and PR Management
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