YOU CAN TURN ANY LCD MONITOR INTO A TOUCH SCREEN

Researchers at the University of
Washington’s aptly named
Ubiquitous Computing Lab can turn
any LCD monitor in your house into a
touchscreen, with nothing more
than a $5 sensor that plugs into the
wall and some clever software.
The technology, called uTouch,
works by measuring the
electromagnetic interference (EMI)
caused by your hand when it moves
near or touches an LCD monitor.
This might sound a little bit crazy,
but I’ll explain.

Basically, the
electricity running through the wires
in your house has a unique
electromagnetic signature. There is
the “carrier wave,” provided by the
power company and your nearby
substation, and then every single
kink and switch along the way
modulates the EM signature until it
is quite unique. What most people
don’t realize, though, is that every
device that is plugged into a wall
outlet also changes your EM
signature. Your TV doesn’t just suck
power from your house — it’s a
two-way street, with the electronic
components in the TV producing
interference that change your
house’s EM signature.
An EMI noise graph, showing a
touch event on a standard LCD
monitor
Now, by plugging an EMI sensor into
any wall socket, you can read your
house’s EM signature — and if you
continue to listen, you can detect
changes in the signature. Obvious
changes occur when a device is
switched on or off, but it also turns
out that simply moving your hand
close to an LCD monitor also alters
your house’s EM signature. It might
sound a bit unbelievable, that a
single finger moving towards an LCD
monitor can be detected by a sensor
at the other end of the house, but
that’s exactly what the University of
Washington researchers have
accomplished.

As for how a finger moving towards
or touching an LCD monitor creates
additional EMI, the simple answer is:
It’s very similar to how a normal
touchscreen works. Basically, every
LCD monitor has a massive matrix of
wires connected to every single
pixel. These pixels are updated row
by row, at a speed that’s dictated by the monitor’s row rate. The row
rate is generated by a row driver,
which oscillates at a very specific
frequency (say, 60KHz). If
something touches the row wires, or even comes close to them, the
capacitance (voltage) changes — just
like the Galaxy S4′s Floating Touch
feature . This capacitance causes the monitor’s row driver to work harder, which produces more EMI at that specific (60KHz) frequency.

Using that $5 sensor, which is
attached to a PC running some
clever software, the University of
Washington researchers are able to
discern between five different
gestures: full-hand touch, five-finger touch, hovering above the screen, pushing, and pulling.

Two years ago, the same research
group used the same technology to
turn CFL bulbs into proximity
sensors. Again, it’s quite hard to
believe, but when you walk into a
room it causes a minute change in
the wires inside the CFL bulb, which
causes detectable EMI on your
house’s power lines. This system,
called LightWave [PDF], could even
detect hand gestures made near CFL
bulbs.
The ultimate goal of the Ubiquitous
Computing Lab, as the name
suggests, is to find cheap and easy
ways of making everything around
us interactive. The uTouch
technology would probably never be
used on a standard desktop monitor
or laptop, but it could be useful in
the living room, commercial spaces,
and museums, where large,
expensive displays that could be
turned into touchscreens. Throw
LightWave into the equation, and it’s
easy to imagine dumb, non-
interactive spaces suddenly
becoming richly interactive.

Sadly, the Ubiquitous Computing Lab doesn’t intend to commercialize
uTouch, but co-author Sidhant Gupta
tells Technology Review that the $5
sensor uses off-the-shelf parts, and
the algorithms are included in the
paper, so it would be fairly easy for
you — or a commercial entity — to
recreate the uTouch system.

The EARTH'S CORE NOW HOTTER THAN THE SUN.

Using a delicious combination of
particle accelerators, X-rays, high-
intensity lasers, diamonds, and iron
atoms, scientists have worked out
that the inner core of the Earth is
actually 6,000 degrees Celsius —
some 1,000 degrees hotter than the
previous scientific estimate. This
means the core of our Earth is
actually hotter than the surface of
the Sun.

This new data could
generate repercussions in the fields
of geophysics, seismology,
geodynamics, and other Earth-
oriented scientific disciplines.
From the outside in, the Earth
consists of the crust (which are all
standing on), the upper mantle
(solid), the mantle (mostly solid),
the outer core (molten iron-nickel),
and the inner core (solid iron-
nickel). The outer core is molten
due to very high temperatures, but
the increased pressure at the center
of the Earth means that the inner
core remains solid. The distance to
the center of the Earth is 6,371
kilometers (3,958 mi), the crust is
35 kilometers (21 mi) thick, the
mantle is 2855km (1774 mi) thick —
and get this: the deepest we have
ever drilled is the Kola Superdeep
Borehole, which is just 12km deep.
In truth, we have almost no direct
knowledge of anything beneath the
crust — all of our data is inferred
from the seismic waves of
earthquakes bouncing off the
various layers, and from various bits
of the Earth’s interior that bubble up
to the surface, such as volcanic
magma.
While we would love to dig down to
the core and take some exact
measurements, it simply isn’t
possible with our current drilling
technology — and probably never
will be. The Kola Superdeep
Borehole had to stop at 12
kilometers because the temperature
had already reached 180 Celsius
(356F), and was expected to reach
300C at the target depth of 15km —
at which point, the drill bit would
cease to work. There are no drilling
technologies that would even come
close to surviving in the mantle,
which ranges from 500C to 4000C
(plus, there’s no oil beyond the
crust, so there’s no need to develop
such technology…)

To work out the temperature of the
inner core, then, the French
researchers have essentially done
their best to recreate the ultra-high
temperature and pressure of the
core… in their very-well-equipped
laboratory. The hardest bit is
recreating the intense pressure of
the inner core, which is estimated
to be 330 gigapascals (GPa) — more
than three million times normal
atmospheric pressure. To do this,
they use a diamond anvil cell —
essentially a diamond-tipped vice
(pictured below) — to crush a tiny
sample of iron with 200 gigapascals.
The iron is then heated with a laser,
and then subjected to X-ray
diffraction analysis to see how the
iron shifts from solid to liquid under
these extreme conditions.

Finally,
the scientists extrapolate their data
from 200 GPa to 330 GPa, giving a
final estimate of 6230 ± 500 Kelvin
(5957 ± 500C, 10755 ± 932F) at the
inner core boundary. The
temperature at the actual core of
the inner core — the center of the
Earth — is probably even hotter.
Why is a revised temperature of the
Earth’s core important? Well, the
simple answer is that the Earth’s
magnetic field is generated by the
core, and a lot of what happens here
on the surface of the Earth is
affected by the magnetic field — for
one, it prevents our atmosphere
from being blown away by the solar
wind. Finding out that the Earth’s
inner core is actually 1000 degrees
hotter than expected won’t have
any immediate repercussions, but
that’s just how science goes. The
updated temperature will be fed
into the computer models of
seismologists and geophysicists, and
who knows: Maybe it will eventually
lead to some kind of planetary
science breakthrough.

In general, the better we understand the world
around us, the better our lives will
be.

WEIRD! Man arrested for selling grandson on Facebook

A grandfather in India was arrested this
week after selling his newborn grandson
on Facebook.

Feroz Khan, 47, of Ludhiana city in the
northwestern state of Punjab, allegedly
kidnapped his daughter Noori's son from
the hospital shortly after he was born on
April 3, according to Punjab Newsline. He
told Noori that her son had died.
With the help of two temporary
employees at the hospital where his
daughter gave birth, Khan arranged a
deal on Facebook to sell his baby
grandson for 45,000 rupees ($830),
according to the Agence France-Presse.

The newborn baby was sold to Amit
Kumar of New Delhi, according to the
Telegraph. Noori filed a police report that
her son had been kidnapped.
"We acted upon the complaint of the
mother, who alleged that her child was
stolen from the nursing home in
Ludhiana," Ishwar Singh, Ludhiana's
Commissioner of Police, told the
Telegraph. "After investigations, we
found the grandfather of the child had
struck a deal with a man in Delhi and
had roped-in the nursing staff to smuggle
the baby out of the nursing home.

We
have arrested four people including the
grandfather. We have also booked the
buyer from Delhi."
Police found the baby at Facebook buyer
Kumar’s Ranjit Nagar home on Tuesday,
according to the Hindustan Times. The
baby was ill and undergoing treatment at
Sir Gangaram Hospital.
"All three people who conspired to sell
the child have been arrested and we will
be interrogating the businessman who
paid the money to buy the baby," Satish
Malhotra, a senior police officer in
Ludhiana, told AFP. The three face seven
years in jail if convicted for kidnapping.

Punjab Newsline reports that Khan
wanted his daughter, who divorced her
husband last year, to get an abortion
when she became pregnant. His plan to
sell the baby on Facebook was apparently
part of "a bid to facilitate the second
marriage of his daughter," according to
Punjab Newsline.

MAKING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR TIME

MAKING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR TIME

In the fast paced world that we now live in, people are faced with a myriad of responsibilities and tasks to complete everyday. It’s a busy world out there.

While many people are able to easily get through the day with many achievements to show at the end of the day. Others achieve very little. Experts say those that are more productive are the ones who have found ways to mange time. They, however, stressed that time management is not about doing things faster, rather, ways time can be used productively. To better use your time, consider the following tips

Focus:         You may be wondering what focus has to do with time management. It has a lot to do. According to experts, when people get their focus wrong, they tend to let them slip away. They argue that when people focus on how busy they are, rather than on getting the task done, they may not get much done.

          To help you focus, it is best to skip multi-tasking as you are more likely to lose concentration when you multi task. When that happens, it will take you a longer period to get things done and at the same time, loosing accuracy. Speed and accuracy are two important but controversial factors in any task execution. Before you engage in the former, master the later.

          It is therefore necessary for you to have a clear understanding of what is important, this will help you determine what to focus on.

Know What You Have To Do:       what are the tasks you have to complete? When is the deadline for getting each of them done? Make a list covering everything, including that two minutes stop to get a newspaper. Do not just list the things you have to do, categorize them according to priority and decide how you will go about accomplishing them. It is also wise to a lot specific time to each task.

          There is a saying that if you do not know where you are coming from, you may not know where you are going to. Similarly, if you do not know what you have to do, you can’t plan.

Plan Each Day:   If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Soldiers would always tell you that embarking on a war without a plan is suicidal. It is advisable to take time to think of what you have to do before setting out. You must also be careful not to spend most of your time planning.

Set Out Early, With a Great Attitude:     How you start your day matters. Failing to get up early in a busy day is a huge set-back, as it means you have cut short your productive time. Experts advise that by setting out early, you stand a better chance of getting your task completed. They warn that procrastination would only put you under pressure and render your plan useless.

          They add that it also important to set out with a positive attitude. For instance, instead of looking at your busy schedule or challenges and lamenting, you can decide to take them as opportunities by considering what you will achieve at the end of the day if you overcome those challenges.

Learn To Manage Stress:      for you to effectively manage time, you have to also learn to manage stress. When you are stressed up, you can easily become depressed and frustrated and that will make it difficult for you to focus, plan or execute a plan. In today’s working environment, people are often under immense pressure, a development experts say can take a toll on them physically and mentally.

Review Your Day Half Way: Experts observe that its easier to plan than to execute. It is therefore common to see people stray from their plan at some point during the day. This is regardless of how great or effective the plan is. This is why it is advised that in planning your day, you should make provision for, and take time off your numerous activities and review your day at some point – preferably, half way through. This is to give you a clear picture of whether you are making progress or make some adjustments to ensure you don’t fail to achieve your goals after all.

Be Realistic:         Each day, you are expected to achieve certain goals; some you set for yourself, others are set for you by your employer. Having prioritized and come up with a plan to achieve them, you will find that in the course of executing those plans, you may likely need the help of others. Similarly, many people will come to you for help and that may mean taking time off your own schedule. It is fine to help out when you can but you must learn to decline when you can’t especially when it affects your own schedule badly. For example, it doesn’t make sense to put your job on the line just because you wanted to answer the good Samaritan.

          Also avoid distractions on different platforms like social media, chats and games when possible, and in that way, you would be saving a considerable amount of time to meet your daily goals.

SCIENCE AND THE IMPOSSIBLE

SCIENCE AND THE IMPOSSIBLE

Innovators are guided by a simple motto: ‘the possible we do today, the impossible takes a little longer’. The statement is paradoxical only on the surface. Contemporary life is replete with its illustration.

Flight by humans was once impossible. Today, people jet across the continents in matters of hours. Travel to space was inconceivable. Today, there is a permanent space station that is regularly inhabited and a spacecraft roving the surface of Mars and gathering information.

Not long ago, the idea of being able to call others around the world with a small wireless gadget was far-fetched. Today, it is the norm of ordinary people’s lives.

The idea that information anywhere in the world may be retrieved from anywhere else used to be the stuff of science fiction. Today, we call it a google search among other things.

It is all because there are people who think the impossible can be done, if only they invest enough time and brain energy. There are the theoreticians such as Isaac Newton, Albert Eistein and Claude Shannon. And there are the inventors like Michael Faraday and Thomas Edison.

What they all have in common is a deep conviction about the order of nature and the human capacity to discover them. And then there is their singular dedication and the commitment to building on the knowledge others had established.

‘We imagine that inventions occur in a flash, with a eureka moment that leads a lone inventor towards a startling epiphany’ writes Jon Gertner in the “The idea factory,” a book about the Bell Labs that led to several innovations in telephone and digital communication.

“In truth, large leaps forward in technology rarely have a precise point of origin.” Innovations crystalise “as a group of people and ideas coverage, until over the course of months or years (or even decades) they gain clearity and momentum….”

Newton refers to this cumulative nature of intellectual innovations when he said, ‘if I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulder of giants.”

Sometimes those giants stumbled through a myriad of false paths, which nonetheless provide useful insights as to what is possible and what isn’t. a visit to a museum of flight, for instance readily demonstrates that the path to jet flight was filled with failures, some which in retrospect will seem whimsical and even foolish.

Early in human history, innovators thought that humans can fly like birds by constructing and attaching wings. It is an idea that is captured in the Greek mythology of Icarus, who met his death while flying with such wings. According to the Legend, Icarus’s was that he flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax that glued his wings. In reality, of course, anyone who attaches wings and tries to fly like birds would come crashing in split seconds.

Indeed, the history of aviation is the history of failures and tragedies. But that never deterred the quest. Every failure served as the impetus for subsequent success. Even now, the Aerospace giant Boeing is trying to make a battery that can safely power its new super jumbo jet across the world. The overheating batteries have defiled all solutions. But it is almost a given that the behemoth of a plane will be ferrying passengers across the world again very soon.

The people who make these technological wonders possible are often cultural and social misfits. They are the kind of people our societies disdain. Einstein, who is widely acclaimed as the brightest mind of the 20^th century, indulged in eccentricities. For instance, he reportedly would pick up cigarette butts from the streets, retrieved the tobacco for his pipe and smoked while riding his bicycle carefree like a boy.

Edison, the inventive genius, was known for going for days without taking a bath. The resulting body odour made him not too pleasant to be around. He routinely put in 16-hour work days, sometimes catching a nap by stretching out under a table. His understanding wife had to have a bed installed in his workplace.

Shannon whose mathematical theory of information was the impetus of our digital age, was a shinny introvert who shunned social interactions even with his colleagues at the Bell Labs. Shannon’s colleagues where skeptical about his postulate that all information may be reduced to their bare essentials and transmitted digitally without loss of detail. But they rose to the challenge of transforming the theory into practice. The chess master turned his back on their efforts, becoming pre-occupied instead with developing a computer that could play chess is gaining wide application in everything from weather forecast to medical diagnosis. Just like every other aspect of life, it can only take time.

THE AGE AND HISTORY OF THE EARTH

 GEOCHRONOLGY is the field of scientific investigation concerned with determining the age and history of the Earth's rocks and rock assemblages. Such time determinations are made and the record of past geologic events is deciphered by studying the distribution and succession of rock strata, as well as the character of the fossil organisms preserved within the strata.

The Earth's surface is a complex mosaic of exposures of different rock types that are assembled in an astonishing array of geometries and sequences. Individual rocks in the myriad of rock outcroppings (or in some instances shallow subsurface occurrences) contain certain materials or mineralogic information that can provide insight as to their “age.”

For years investigators determined the relative ages of sedimentary rock strata on the basis of their positions in an outcrop and their fossil content. According to a long-standing principle of the geosciences, that of superposition, the oldest layer within a sequence of strata is at the base and the layers are progressively younger with ascending order. The relative ages of the rock strata deduced in this manner can be corroborated and at times refined by the examination of the fossil forms present. The tracing and matching of the fossil content of separate rock outcrops (i.e., correlation) eventually enabled investigators to integrate rock sequences in many areas of the world and construct a relative geologic time scale.

Scientific knowledge of the Earth's geologic history has advanced significantly since the development of radiometric dating, a method of age determination based on the principle that radioactive atoms in geologic materials decay at constant, known rates to daughter atoms. Radiometric dating has provided not only a means of numerically quantifying geologic time but also a tool for determining the age of various rocks that predate the appearance of life-forms.

Early views and discoveries

Some estimates suggest that as much as 70 percent of all rocks outcropping from the Earth's surface are sedimentary. Preserved in these rocks is the complex record of the many transgressions and regressions of the sea, as well as the fossil remains or other indications of now extinct organisms and the petrified sands and gravels of ancient beaches, sand dunes, and rivers.

Modern scientific understanding of the complicated story told by the rock record is rooted in the long history of observations and interpretations of natural phenomena extending back to the early Greek scholars. Xenophanes of Colophon (560?–478? BC), for once, saw no difficulty in describing the various seashells and images of life-forms embedded in rocks as the remains of long-deceased organisms. In the correct spirit but for the wrong reasons, Herodotus (5th century BC) felt that the small discoidal nummulitic petrifactions (actually the fossils of ancient lime-secreting marine protozoans) found in limestones outcropping at al-Jīzah, Egypt, were the preserved remains of discarded lentils left behind by the builders of the pyramids.

These early observations and interpretations represent the unstated origins of what was later to become a basic principle of uniformitarianism, the root of any attempt at linking the past (as preserved in the rock record) to the present. Loosely stated, the principle says that the various natural phenomena observed today must also have existed in the past (see below The emergence of modern geologic thought: Lyell's promulgation of uniformitarianism).

Although quite varied opinions about the history and origins of life and of the Earth itself existed in the pre-Christian era, a divergence between Western and Eastern thought on the subject of natural history became more pronounced as a result of the extension of Christian dogma to the explanation of natural phenomena. Increasing constraints were placed upon the interpretation of nature in view of the teachings of the Bible. This required that the Earth be conceived of as a static, unchanging body, with a history that began in the not too distant past, perhaps as little as 6,000 years earlier, and an end, according to the scriptures, that was in the not too distant future. This biblical history of the Earth left little room for interpreting the Earth as a dynamic, changing system. Past catastrophes, particularly those that may have been responsible for altering the Earth's surface such as the great flood of Noah, were considered an artifact of the earliest formative history of the Earth. As such, they were considered unlikely to recur on what was thought to be an unchanging world.

With the exception of a few prescient individuals such as Roger Bacon (c. 1220–92) and Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), no one stepped forward to champion an enlightened view of the natural history of the Earth until the mid-17th century. Leonardo seems to have been among the first of the Renaissance scholars to “rediscover” the uniformitarian dogma through his observations of fossil marine organisms and sediments exposed in the hills of northern Italy. He recognized that the marine organisms now found as fossils in rocks exposed in the Tuscan Hills were simply ancient animals that lived in the region when it had been covered by the sea and were eventually buried by muds along the seafloor. He also recognized that the rivers of northern Italy, flowing south from the Alps and emptying into the sea, had done so for a very long time.

In spite of this deductive approach to interpreting natural events and the possibility that they might be preserved and later observed as part of a rock outcropping, little or no attention was given to the history—namely, the sequence of events in their natural progression—that might be preserved in these same rocks.