New Modular Phone Concept - Phonebloks

Most electronic devices are abandoned due to a fault that is usually the result of one component going bad. This results in a lot of electronic waste full of devices that are otherwise fully functional save for one or two failed components. So what if you had a phone where you could just replace one component if it goes bad? Or build a phone with just the components you want?

So while the concept is great and I’d love to see it become a reality, it’s obvious that’s never going to happen.

Japan building robot that would pass college exams

Researchers have teamed up to create an AI that would be smart enough to pass the notoriously difficult entrance exams to the University of Tokyo. Don't expect it to help with your homework though.

It isn't enough that machines can beat the best of us at chess, Jeopardy, and a billion other things. Now they want to rub our faces in our inferiority by getting into our universities and scoffing at us.

Boffins at Fujitsu Labs are teaming up with Japan's National Institute of Informatics (NII) to create an artificial-intelligence system that would be able to pass the entrance exam for the University of Tokyo, one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

The project aims to build an AI that can do well on Japan's nationwide university entrance exams by 2016, and then pass the more difficult exam for Todai, as the top college is known, by 2021.

Human students have to do well on both tests to get into the university, which is known for its brutal admission requirements. It placed eighth in the latest QS Asian University rankings.

It's unclear whether the "Todai robot" will be a humanoid robot. Whatever its form, it will have to master subjects such as physics, chemistry, and history, and answer questions on foreign languages.

NII hopes the project, led by Noriko Arai, will yield insights into human intelligence and foster groundbreaking AI innovations.

Fujitsu, which built one of the fastest supercomputers in the world last year, is helping to improve the robot's math skills.

"NII and Fujitsu Laboratories jointly aim to develop the technologies needed for human-centric IT," Fujitsu said in a release. "These include formula recognition methods to recognize and interpret problem texts and put it into a data format that a computer can understand; natural language processing to generate a formula representation that the formula solver can understand; and formula-processing technology that can solve the composed formula quickly and accurately.

"The hope is that the technologies developed as part of this project will enable anyone to easily use sophisticated mathematical analysis tools."

Sounds like the perfect cover to me.

Google set to buy the GoGooroa Island

A "huge move" in the search engine landscape!
Google, the famous search engine, is set to buy the Island of GoGooroa early next month. This island, located in the Pacific Ocean, has two very special characteristics that attracted the company:

- The island is shaped like the letter "G", strongly ressembling the first letter of the Google name and corporate logo (refer to the attached map).

- It is geographical owner of the ".go" domain, which is coveted by many web site editors around the world.
The search engine company, which is currently headquartered in Mountain View (California), is looking forward to this new site in the Pacific Ocean, on this island which will be officially renamed Googlandin a few weeks.

Its search engine homepage will be also be moved to the "google.go" domain name in the near future.

Google Cooling Entire Data Center With Seawater

Any PC building enthusiast will know the merits of water-cooling. Now Google is taking it to the next level by water-cooling an entire data center.

In 2009 Google purchased a former building of a paper mill in Finland. Since then, the search giant has been hard at work designing a water cooling solution that would take the seawater into the data center and then channel it back out with minimal environment impact.

WORLD's YOUNGEST MICROSOFT CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL (MCP) ARFA KARIM PASSES AWAY...

Arfa Karim Randhawa, born 1995 in Jatt Randhawa family was a student from Faisalabad in Pakistan, who in 2004 at the age of 9 years, became the youngest Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) in the world, a title she kept until 2008. She was invited by Bill Gates to visit the Microsoft Headquarters in USA.

On returning to Pakistan, Arfa had numerous interviews on almost all of the

 country's known television channels and newspapers. In August 2005, Arfa Karim received the Fatimah Jinnah Gold Medal in the field of Science and Technology, presented by the Prime Minister of Pakistan at that time. She also received the Salaam Pakistan Youth Award again in August 2005 by the President of Pakistan. Arfa Karim was also the recipient of the President's Award for Pride of Performance. This is a very high level civil award granted to people who have shown excellence in their respective fields over a long period of time. Arfa is till now the youngest recipient of that award ever.

Arfa Karim had also represented Pakistan on various international forums, she was invited by the IT Professionals of Dubai for a stay of two weeks in Dubai. A dinner reception was hosted for her there, which was attended by the diagnostics of Dubai including the Ambassador of Pakistan. During that trip, Arfa was presented with various medals and awards. She also flew a plane in a flying club in Dubai at the age of 10, and received the first flight certificate.

In November 2006, Arfa was invited by Microsoft to be a part of the keynote session in the Tech-Ed Developers conference held in Barcelona. The theme of the conference was "Get ahead of the game" and Arfa was presented as a true specimen of being ahead of the game. She was the only Pakistani among over 5000 developers in that conference.

As of 2011, at the age of 16, Arfa Karim was studying at Lahore Grammar School Paragon Campus in her second year of A Level. She suffered from cardiac arrest after an epileptic seizure on December 22, 2011 and was admitted to Lahore's Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in critical condition.

On January 2, 2012 Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani visited the hospital with his daughter Fiza Batol Gilani to inquire about the health of Arfa Karim Randhawa.

On January 9, 2012, Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, has made contact with Arfa's parents, and directed his doctors to adopt "every kind of measure" for her treatment.

On January 13, 2012, The condition of world's youngest MCP Arfa Karim improved and some parts of her brain showed signs of improvement. Arfa fell desperately ill last month and doctors said she had suffered brain damage, leaving her in a coma at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Lahore. Her father, Amjad Karim Randhawa, said Microsoft had raised the possibility of flying Arfa to the US for care.

On January 14, 2012 Arfa Karim Passed away at 9:50 PM (Pakistan Standard Time) at Combined Military Hospital (CMH) Lahore. She had remained in intensive care unit at Combined Military Hospital (CMH) after suffering an epileptic seizure and cardiac arrest a few weeks ago.

Rest in peace Arfa! We will be proud of you always. Today the world has lost an IT gem for sure.

Latest Technology Mouse

Intel unveils new Reference Design Smartphone

 Intel came out with a great big bang at the first day of CES 2012. Paul Otellini, President and CEO, Intel Corporation, graced the keynote floor to give tech enthusiasts some exciting news. After a brief introduction from the President and CEO of CES, David Shapiro, Otellini took centre-stage, in stark contrast to Steve Ballmer who shared the limelight with Ryan Seacrest.

Not with ultrabooks or PC computing, but Otellini kicked off his CES keynote with Intel’s focus on smartphone computing. Promising the audience that the best of Intel computing will now be available for smartphones this year, he went on to unveil the new Intel Reference Design Smartphone, kind of a platform to ensure the best end user experience on a smartphone.

Gary Shapiro CEO of CES (right) invites Paul Otellini, Intel CEO, to begin his keynote.

To drive home his point in the jubilant and expectant crowd of journalists assembled in The Venetian ballroom, Otellini welcomed on stage Liu Jun, Senior Vice President and President of Mobile Internet and Digital Home Group, Lenovo, to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Mr. Jun wasted no time in pulling out the Lenovo K800, the world’s first Intel architecture smart phone to instant applause within the crowd. The phone is based on the 1.6-GHz Intel Medfield processor, has a 4.5-inch 720p display, and runs Android 2.3. The Lenovo K800 also sports an 8 MP camera with support up to ISO 3200. It will be launched in China in Q2 2012 and shortly after the rest of the world.

Some of the highlights of Intel’s Reference Design Smartphone are smart phones touting an 8MP camera, 15 fps compatibility, HDMI 1080p video playback 6 hours, audio playback of up to 45 hours, as well as 3G talk time of 8 hours, and standby time of 14 days. Plus, it’s more energy efficient. Without a doubt, Intel has built a great platform to build upon.

After a brief hands-on demo of the Reference Design Smartphone, Otellini also invited on stage Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility to announce a strategic, multi-year partnership between Intel and Motorola. Under this development, Motorola will start shipping smart phones based on the Atom and Android platform by the second half of 2012.

So without a doubt, Intel came out with all guns blazing to signal its intent to enter the smart phone market with a huge bang.