E-reader uses Qualcomm's mirasol display

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Qualcomm MEMS Technologies Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of communications chip giant Qualcomm Inc., said Monday (Jan. 30) that its mirasol display technology is featured in the next generation Jin Yong Reader from Taiwanese e-reader vendor Koobe Inc.

Qualcomm (San Diego) said the next-generation Jin Yong Reader's use of mirasol would deliver an improved customer reading experience, interactive touch screen capabilities, visibility even in bright sunlight and weeks of reading under typical usage.

"With Taiwan as home to Qualcomm MEMS Technologies' growing manufacturing base, it is significant for its consumers to experience the unmatched performance benefits of mirasol displays," said Clarence Chui, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, in a statement.

The next-generation Jin Yong Reader, named after China's best-selling living author, comes preloaded with Jin Yong's acclaimed 15 novel set (compiled in 36 volumes) and includes access to Koobe's content libraries, which feature thousands of novels, comics, interactive e-books, animated picture books and magazines, Qualcomm said.

The Jin Yong Reader features a 5.7" XGA format (1024 x 768 pixels) mirasol display (screen resolution of 223 ppi) and Qualcomm's 1.0 GHz Snapdragon S2 processor, Qualcomm said. Koobe's custom application interface sits atop an Android 2.3 base, Qualcomm said.
E-reader uses Qualcomm's mirasol display

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Music training has biological impact on aging process

Measuring the automatic brain responses of younger and older musicians and non-musicians to speech sounds, researchers in the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory discovered that older musicians had a distinct neural timing advantage.

"The older musicians not only outperformed their older non-musician counterparts, they encoded the sound stimuli as quickly and accurately as the younger non-musicians," said Northwestern neuroscientist Nina Kraus. "This reinforces the idea that how we actively experience sound over the course of our lives has a profound effect on how our nervous system functions."

Kraus, professor of communication sciences in the School of Communication and professor of neurobiology and physiology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is co-author of "Musical experience offsets age-related delays in neural timing" published online in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

"These are very interesting and important findings," said Don Caspary, a nationally known researcher on age-related hearing loss at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. "They support the idea that the brain can be trained to overcome, in part, some age-related hearing loss."

"The new Northwestern data, with recent animal data from Michael Merzenich and his colleagues at University of California, San Francisco, strongly suggest that intensive training even late in life could improve speech processing in older adults and, as a result, improve their ability to communicate in complex, noisy acoustic environments," Caspary added.

Previous studies from Kraus' Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory suggest that musical training also offset losses in memory and difficulties hearing speech in noise -- two common complaints of older adults. The lab has been extensively studying the effects of musical experience on brain plasticity across the life span in normal and clinical populations, and in educational settings.

However, Kraus warns that the current study's findings were not pervasive and do not demonstrate that musician's have a neural timing advantage in every neural response to sound. "Instead, this study showed that musical experience selectively affected the timing of sound elements that are important in distinguishing one consonant from another."

The automatic neural responses to speech sounds delivered to 87 normal-hearing, native English-speaking adults were measured as they watched a captioned video. "Musician" participants began musical training before age 9 and engaged consistently in musical activities through their lives, while "non-musicians" had three years or less of musical training.

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Mouse to elephant? Just wait 24 million generations

Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes increases and decreases in mammal size following the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago

Led by Dr Alistair Evans of Monash University's School of Biological Sciences a team of 20 biologists and palaeontologists discovered that rates of size decrease are much faster than growth rates. It takes only 100,000 generations for very large decreases, leading to dwarfism, to occur.

Dr Evans, an evolutionary biologist and Australian Research Fellow, said the study was unique because most previous work had focused on microevolution, the small changes that occur within a species.

"Instead we concentrated on large-scale changes in body size. We can now show that it took at least 24 million generations to make the proverbial mouse-to-elephant size change -- a massive change, but also a very long time," Dr Evans said.

"A less dramatic change, such as rabbit-sized to elephant-sized, takes 10 million generations."

The paper looked at 28 different groups of mammals, including elephants, primates and whales, from various continents and ocean basins over the past 70 million years. Size change was tracked in generations rather than years to allow meaningful comparison between species with differing life spans.

Dr Erich Fitzgerald, Senior Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at Museum Victoria and a co-author, said changes in whale size occurred at twice the rate of land mammals.

"This is probably because it's easier to be big in the water -- it helps support your weight," Dr Fitzgerald said.

Dr Evans said he was surprised to find that decreases in body size occurred more than ten times faster than the increases.

"The huge difference in rates for getting smaller and getting bigger is really astounding -- we certainly never expected it could happen so fast!" Dr Evans said.

Many miniature animals, such as the pygmy mammoth, dwarf hippo and 'hobbit' hominids lived on islands, helping to explain the size reduction.

"When you do get smaller, you need less food and can reproduce faster, which are real advantages on small islands," Dr Evans said.

The research furthers understanding of conditions that allow certain mammals to thrive and grow bigger and circumstances that slow the pace of increase and potentially contribute to extinction.

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Woolworths dumps Dick Smith Electronics

WOOLWORTHS is making moves to sell its Dick Smith electronics division and close down up to 100 underperforming stores.

The sell-off is part of a larger retailer battle between Woolworths and Coles, with Woolworths seeking to focus on its core supermarket business, but the weak performance of the bricks-and-mortar electronics retailer is also a factor.

Woolworths has already received a number of unsolicited offers for Dick Smith. Given its Big W and online presence, the sale of Dick Smith will not stop Woolworths from continuing to sell electronic merchandise to consumers.

Dick Smith is a well-known retailer of electronics goods, not just to consumers, but also to electronics tinkerers, since it stocks components. It was founded by entrepreneur Dick Smith, and sold to Woolworths in 1982 for $20million.

However, much of the market has moved away from retail shops online, given the presence of multiple fast-shipping vendors with a greater range of parts and better prices.

There are currently 386 Dick Smith stores in Australia and New Zealand. As many as 100 of these may be closed in an operations overhaul prior to the sell-off.

Woolworths dumps Dick Smith Electronics

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Ferroelectric switching discovered for first time in soft biological tissue

The researchers found that the wall of the aorta, the largest blood vessel carrying blood from the heart, exhibits ferroelectricity, a response to an electric field known to exist in inorganic and synthetic materials. The findings are being published in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

"The result is exciting for scientific reasons," said lead author Jiangyu Li, a UW associate professor of mechanical engineering. "But it could also have biomedical implications." A ferroelectric material is an electrically polar molecule with one side positively charged and the other negatively charged, whose polarity can be reversed by applying an electrical field.

Ferroelectricity is common in synthetic materials and used for displays, memory storage, and sensors. (Related research by Li and colleagues seeks to exploit ferroelectric materials for tiny low-power, high-capacity computer memory chips.)

In the new study, Li collaborated with co-author Katherine Zhang at Boston University to explore the phenomenon in biological tissues. The only previous evidence of ferroelectricity in living tissue was reported last year in seashells. Others had looked in mammal tissue, mainly in bones, but found no signs of the property.

The new study shows clear evidence of ferroelectricity in a sample of a pig aorta. Researchers believe the findings would also apply to human tissue.

In subsequent work, yet to be published, they divided the sample into fibrous collagen and springy elastin and studied each one on its own. Pinpointing the source of the ferroelectricity may answer questions about how or whether it plays a role in the body. "The elastin network is what gives the artery the mechanical property of elasticity, which of course is a very important function," Li said.

Ferroelectricity may therefore play a role in how the body responds to sugar or fat.

Diabetes is a risk factor for hardening of the arteries, or atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart attack or stroke. The team is investigating the interactions between ferroelectricity and charged glucose molecules, in hopes of better understanding sugar's effect on the mechanical properties of the aortic walls.

Another possible application is to treat a condition in which cholesterol molecules stick to the inside of the channel, eventually closing it off.

"We can imagine if we could manipulate the polarity of the artery wall, if we could switch it one way or the other, then we might, for example, better understand the deposition of cholesterol which leads to the thickening and hardening of the artery wall," Li said. He cautions that medical applications are still speculations, and require more research.

"A lot of questions remain to be answered, that's an exciting aspect of the result," Li said.

Co-authors are Yuanming Liu and Qian Nataly Chen at the UW, and Yanhang Zhang and Ming-Jay Chow at Boston University.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Army Research Office, the UW's Center for Nanotechnology and a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship.

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Intel invests in network security firm

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of Intel Corp., led a $20 million round of investment in Solera Networks Inc., a provider of network security analytics, Solera said Monday (Jan. 30).

In addition to Intel, existing investors Allegis Capital, Signal Peak Ventures and Trident Capital also joined the Series D funding round, Solera (Salt Lake City) said. The company said it would use the new funds to help support the company’s growth by further expanding global sales, marketing and product development initiatives.

“With increasingly large amounts of data crossing corporate networks, organizations must balance advanced threat prevention with an aggressive and proactive response system to be fully prepared when an inevitable breach occurs," said Sean Cunningham, Intel Capital investment director. "We see companies continuing to realize that real-time, intelligent incident response is now an essential component of their security strategy."

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MEMS foundry IMT names semi vet CEO

SAN FRANCISCO— Innovative Micro Technology Inc. (IMT) announced that semiconductor industry veteran Craig Ensley joined the company as president and CEO.

Ensley succeeds John Foster, who is resigning from IMT to become CEO of one of the company's major customers, Owl Biomedical Inc., IMT (Santa Barbara, Calif.) said.

Ensley has more than 30 years of leadership and semiconductor industry experience, IMT said. Most recently, Enley served as CEO of DisplayLink Corp., a video networking chip company. He was formerly president and chief operating officer at RF chip vendor Peregrine Semiconductor and prior to that a senior vice president at Cirrus Logic. Ensley began his career at Rockwell International, where he helped start its communications semiconductor business, IMT said.

"IMT has one of the most elite MEMS development teams in the world and has grown to become the largest pure-play MEMS manufacturer in the U.S.," Ensley said in a statement. "The company is strongly positioned in a number of high growth markets and is well established at customers who are leading emerging applications of MEMS technology."

MEMS foundry IMT names semi vet CEO

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Chimp 'X factor': Extensive adaptive evolution specifically targeting the X chromosome of chimpanzees

One of the most important questions for evolution researchers is how a species develops and adapts during the course of time. An analysis of the genes of 12 chimpanzees has now demonstrated that the chimpanzee X chromosome plays a very special role in the animal's evolutionary development. The analysis was carried out by researchers at the Bioinformatics Research Centre, Aarhus University, the Section of Bioinformatics, University of Copenhagen, the Copenhagen Zoo and the sequencing centre at the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), China.

The results have just been published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The background for evolution is found in our genome -- in DNA. Evolution is driven by mutations that create changes in the genome on an ongoing basis. These mutations are most often deleterious, but they are sometimes beneficial for bearers in the environment in which they live. Their survivability can be improved, which in turn increases the likelihood of having more offspring. These beneficial variants then increase in number until all the individuals in a species have the new variant. This process is called natural selection.

One X is enough

By sequencing all the genes in twelve chimpanzees from Central Africa, the researchers demonstrated that beneficial variants are accumulated on the X chromosome in particular. Why does this chromosome behave in such a special way? The gender of the individual is determined by the X chromosome along with the Y chromosome. Males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, while females have two X chromosomes. A new beneficial variant on one X chromosome in the female can 'hide itself' if it is not expressed as strongly as the old variant sitting on the other copy of the X chromosome. In this case, the new variant is called recessive, i.e. it is suppressed by the other more dominant gene. This means that a new beneficial recessive variant does not immediately provide a benefit for the females. On the other hand, the males only have one X chromosome and it is expressed immediately, thus enabling natural selection to 'catch sight' of it. This does not apply to the remaining twenty-two chromosomes in the genome, because both males and females have two copies of each of these.

One third are good changes

The researchers found that about a third of all the changes that have taken place on the X chromosome since humans and chimpanzees diverged approximately four to six million years ago have been beneficial for the chimpanzee. This is far from the case for the chimpanzee's remaining twenty-two chromosomes. The researchers therefore conclude that most of the new beneficial mutations must be recessive. This was already known regarding deleterious mutations on the X chromosome, e.g. colour blindness as a recessive trait and therefore only occurring in men. However, the new results show that this must also be the case for the more interesting beneficial mutations, i.e. those that develop a species over a period of time.

Disease leads to development

The new results make it probable that corresponding activity takes place in the human X chromosome. They also provide an explanation of previous studies in which it was observed that the X chromosome behaved strangely during the speciation process of humans and chimpanzees, in that it was considerably less variable than the remaining chromosomes. This lack of variation can be explained by the fact that natural selection, which actually eliminates variation, works stronger on the X chromosome than on the remaining chromosomes.

By closely studying all the chimpanzee genes, the researchers found examples of natural selection in the remaining chimpanzee chromosomes all being associated with genes that are important for the immune system, including a gene that gives partial resistance to HIV in humans. This indicates that diseases are one of the most important factors in the evolutionary development and adaptability of the chimpanzee.

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Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) for grid technologies approved

ETSI has recently published two specifications for Smart Grid that will help drive the development and deployment of open, interoperable smart grid technologies internationally.

As the smart grid evolves, it will become commonplace for utilities to cooperate with grid-aware systems and devices to reduce power usage intelligently, giving commercial, industrial and municipal users reduced rates in exchange for lower consumption while increasing grid reliability and the use of renewable energy sources. Automated demand response, peak load management, and other programs can mean significant cost savings for commercial and residential customers.

This is why it is important that vendors work together through open standards to increase the market for compatible products and technologies. Standards-based smart grid devices and systems can monitor and save energy, lower costs, improve productivity, enhance service, quality, safety, and convenience, and help in the transformation to a more energy efficient future and smarter electricity grid.

The two OSGP specifications that originated with ESNA and were published by ETSI for global use are:

• Group specification GS OSG 001: Open Smart Grid Protocol. Produced by the ETSI Open Smart Grid Industry Specification Group, this application layer protocol can be used with multiple communication media.
• Technical specification TS 103 908: Powerline Telecommunications (PLT); BPSK Narrow Band Power Line Channel for Smart Metering Applications. This specification defines a high-performance narrow band powerline channel for control networking in the smart grid that can be used with multiple smart grid devices. It was produced by the ETSI Technical Committee for Powerline Telecommunications (TC PLT).

"As the effects of globalization permeate further and accelerate, ETSI is providing businesses and the industry with efficient solutions for accessing and developing new and established world markets via standardization," said Luis Jorge Romero, director general of ETSI.

For further information: http://www.etsi.org.

This article originally appeared on EE Times Europe.

Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) for grid technologies approved

TAG:Open Smart Grid Protocol Smart Grid ETSI OSGP

ITU approves G3-PLC as a new worldwide smart grid standard

In partnership with Electricité Réseau Distribution France (ERDF) and Sagemcom, Maxim developed the G3-PLC specification to promote open-endedness and interoperability among smart grid implementations. The company's G3-PLC protocol has now been approved by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as a new low-frequency, OFDM-based narrowband powerline communications (NB-PLC) standard.

This is no small feat for analog component specialist Maxim since the company is currently the only semiconductor vendor to have G3-PLC compliant chips already in production. Market projections from ABI Research estimate that about 250M smart meters could be installed by 2015, 60% of which adopting PLC technology.

A couple of months ago, other vendors STmicroelectronics, Freescale, Renesas and Texas Instruments have also developed modem chips and demonstrated interoperability, meeting the utilities' requirement for second-sourcing.

By using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) combined with two layers of error-corrections, the G3-PLC standard supports a data rate up to 300kbps in the noisy powerline environment, over a wide 10kHz to 490kHz frequency range which complies with international powerline signaling regulations, including CENELEC, FCC, and ARIB. Currently, it is the only narrow-band PLC standard to support the IPv6 internet protocol.

"This opens up new internet-based energy management solutions", explains Michael Navid, General Manager for Powerline Communications business at Maxim Integrated Products. "What utilities wanted was a technology that would be more reliable and secure than Frequency Shift Keying used in current PLC products, with a higher data rate and a better range. But what is truly unique to the new standard is that unlike other PLC protocols, G3-PLC can communicate across transformers, transmitting the communication signal in a bidirectional way from low voltage lines to medium voltage lines".

According to Navid, this feature alone could save utilities millions of euros in smart metering infrastructure deployment, competing aggressively with wireless solutions. "Typically today on a smart grid, you would find a digital concentrator sitting on the low voltage side of transformers, every 300 meters or so. These data concentrators then use GSM or other wireless communications. So every transformer needs a data concentrator. With G3-PLC, you would only need one data concentrator on the medium voltage side of the transformers to communicate with smart meters over long-distance medium-voltage lines. The technology was tested at distances up to 10km, without repeaters" Navid continues.

So what made it so difficult to implement before?

"One of the main challenges was to have a clean signal that could cross the transformers despite the fact that medium powerlines act as antenna and pick up a lot of noise" answers Navid. "Thanks to our analog expertise, we are able to maintain an excellent signal to noise ratio across an extended grid network".

The G3-PLC Alliance - http://www.G3-PLC.com – was founded last October to support standardization around the G3-PLC specification as an open international standard, enabling developers to seamlessly adapt this next-generation PLC platform. Six months earlier, Maxim was introducing the MAX2992, a PLC modem that pairs with its MAX2991 analog front-end to provide the first fully compliant G3-PLC chipset solution. Several manufacturers already offer ITU-compatible G3-PLC solutions based on this chipset, claims the company.

Visit Maxim Integrated Products at http://www.maxim-ic.com/Smartergrid.

Visit the G3-PLC Alliance at http://www.G3-PLC.com.

This article originally appeared on EE Times Europe.

ITU approves G3-PLC as a new worldwide smart grid standard

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Making poisonous plants and seeds safe and palatable: Canola now, cannabis next?

There are roughly about a quarter of a million plant species known on Earth. But we only eat between 5,000 and 10,000 of them. Many are poisonous to us -- such as lily of the valley. And many plants have no human nutritional value -- such as grass.

"In fact, there are no more than about 100 known species that can be used as important food crops," says Biology Professor Atle Bones at Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

But Bones and his research team have made a major discovery. They have figured out how a canola plant can be genetically programmed to reduce the toxic substances it produces in its seeds -- thus making it more palatable.

Nobody has done this before, and Bones thinks it could be the beginning of a food revolution.

"The principle could be used with other plant species and plant parts," he says.

Tiny toxic bombs

Canola, or rape, is one of the fifteen most important crop plants in the world. It contains special cells that produce toxic substances. These "toxic bombs" are part of the plant's defence system and are activated in specific situations -- such as when an insect begins feeding on a leaf. The substance that is released burns like hot mustard, causing animals and insects to move away.

"These 'toxic bombs' are good for the plant, but undesirable in animal feed and human food," says Bones.

When canola seeds are pressed, all the vegetable oil is removed. What is left is a protein-rich flour that can be used in food for animals and humans. But if the seeds pressed in the wrong way, the plant responds by releasing its toxic compounds. The oil is then flavoured with a taste of strong mustard, and the animals that eat the protein flour have stomach problems and troubles with nutrient uptake.

The NTNU research group has genetically reprogrammed canola cells so that the toxic bomb cells disappear on their own as the seed matures. But the toxin only fully disappears in the mature seeds.

This way, the plant can continue to protect itself, while the toxic compounds are removed from the part of the rapeseed used for food.

Thus, the proportion of rapeseed in the concentrate can be increased, and the seeds can be pressed without the risk of contaminating the oil with unwanted flavours and odours.

GMO production will double

There are almost 7 billion people on Earth. Every day, 25,000 people die of malnutrition -- while 800 million are starving. By 2050 there will be more than 9 billion of us. As people become more prosperous, their per-person calorie consumption will grow. This combination of increased prosperity and population growth means that food production will have to double by 2050.

Globally, genetically modified food in production is already cultivated on +130 million hectares. But Bones believes that the production of genetically modified plants will more than double over the next ten years.

Today there are 25 countries that use genetically modified plants on a large scale. More than 50 per cent of the world's population lives in these countries.

Genetically modified soy already represents 75 per cent of all soybean production. And genetically modified plants are grown in an area that is 40 times the size of Denmark -- mainly in the USA, Argentina, Brazil and China, according to Bones.

Genetically modified food is grown in seven European countries. There is already super broccoli that contains higher doses of the healthy substances in normal broccoli. Next year, producers will introduce soybeans enriched with omega-3 fatty acids.

From marijuana to food

Among the plants that could be genetically modified by removing their undesirable chemicals is cannabis.

Cannabis is a type of grass that thrives in subtropical and dry climates -- and is best known as the raw material for hashish and marijuana.

But it is one of the world's fastest growing plants, and is exceptionally hardy. Its plant fibres can be used for rope and textiles, or as replacements for trees in the paper industry because they are stronger than wood fibre. The seeds can be used for oil.

"It would be interesting to use our new technology to produce cannabis that does not contain the psychoactive substance THC," says Bones.

Banned in Norway

It is illegal to grow genetically modified food in Norway, and in principle it may not be imported -- not even for animal feed. But there are cracks in this virtual barrier, and small traces of genetically modified food are seeping in. Because Norway does not allow the sales of goods containing genetically modified contents, there is no provision for labelling this food on the grocery store shelves. But it's there.

The government has set 0.9 percent as the ceiling for how much genetically modified food may be in foods before they must be labelled. Each year, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority finds genetically modified canola, corn or rice in imported foods, which are promptly branded as illegal immigrants and kicked out of the country.

But the test sample size is small -- last year only 131 samples were tested, of which 4 contained genetically modified food.

According to the Norwegian Board of Technology, it is difficult to keep Norway completely free of genetically modified ingredients, which is why the 0.9 per cent limit was set.

Atle Bones sees many benefits of genetically modified food.

"Genetically modified plants can be tailored to tolerate different climatic conditions such as drought or hard winters, and to have increased resistance to insects or fungus. These plants can thus be grown with fewer pesticides.

"This means that farmers are exposed to less pesticides, there are less pesticides in the ecosystem and probably less pesticides in food that is produced," Bones notes.

"There is nothing wrong or unethical about using genetically modified plants -- because, in fact, all crops are modified. They have also been created from wild plants through comprehensive human-controlled breeding programmes and genetic selection," says Bones.

Must be thoroughly tested

It is no longer possible in the United States to distinguish between ordinary food and genetically modified food, researchers assert.

Some researchers describe the American situation as if people are playing Russian roulette with their health. Fear of allergies is one reason. Atle Bones believes that these kinds of worries over possible health effects are greatly exaggerated.

"It is obviously not possible to give an ironclad guarantee that no one will be allergic to a new gene in canola or corn. Neither is it possible to guarantee that no one is allergic to traditional modified plants. But this would normally be detected before the plants or the product goes into production.

"The method we have used, however, can remove known allergens, digestive inhibitory substances or toxins in the plant," said Bones.

He also believes that genetically modified plants must be assessed in each situation, and like conventionally modified plants, be tested thoroughly before they are approved for production.

"With our new technology, it is possible to target changes in specific parts of the plant. It is therefore possible to change a strawberry plant without any change in the berry to be eaten. And that is a scientific breakthrough," Bones concludes.

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Prepaid meter reference design enables secure energy credit purchase through NFC

Freescale Semiconductor and Inside Secure have announced a secure prepaid utility meter reference design with Near Field Communication (NFC) connectivity that OEMs can use to quickly and cost-effectively bring to market electricity meter products.

The reference design, based on the Freescale Kinetis MK30 microcontroller provides the first NFC-based, prepaid meter with the ability to securely reload energy credit balances. Secure prepaid meters based on this reference design are protected from fraud because they employ a VaultIC security module and NFC technology to safely load energy credits from a smart card or an NFC-enabled phone.

"In many parts of the world, prepaid electricity meters offer the best solution for controlling energy distribution, but providing adequate security to prevent fraud has always presented challenges," said Christian Fleutelot, general manager of the Vault-IC SAS business unit and executive vice president for digital security at Inside Secure. "Through our collaboration with Freescale, we have been able to combine our leading security and connectivity solutions to protect prepaid meters, while providing a more convenient way to load energy credits and deliver valuable usage information to utilities."

The reference design features Inside Secure's VaultIC 460 and NFC (MicroRead 3.4) chipset. The VaultIC 460 security module provides comprehensive security functions such as mutual authentication, verification and generation of certificates, encryption/decryption and managing secure storage of cryptographic keys. It is FIPS 140-2 level three ready.

NFC connectivity is implemented using the MicroRead controller and Open NFC protocol stack. The system is powered by the Freescale MK30X256 32-bit MCU (built on the ARM Cortex-M4 core), which operates up to 100 MHz with 1.25 DMIPS/MHz. The firmware is based on Freescale's MQX real-time operating system. The built-in segment LCD controller displays all standard metering values at the push of a button.

Visit Freescale at http://www.freescale.com.

Visit INSIDE Secure at http://www.insidesecure.com.

This article originally appeared on EE Times Europe.

Prepaid meter reference design enables secure energy credit purchase through NFC

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Jostling for position: Competition at the root of diversity in rainforests

Ecologists are still arguing about the nature of the factors that determine the species composition of ecological communities. On the one hand, there are those who view interspecies competition as the key element. A second group of influential ecologists postulates that random fluctuations in population structure and rates of species dispersal play the dominant role, particularly in the biological communities found in species-rich tropical rainforests. LMU biologist Professor Susanne Renner, who is Director of the Botanic Garden and herbaria in Munich, and Professor Robert E. Ricklefs of the University of Missouri in St. Louis have now analyzed data from censuses of tree species in rainforests around the globe and also taken advantage of fossil evidence, allowing them to chart diversity in both space and time. Their findings show that variation in species richness among families is very similar in all tropical forests in spite of millions of years of independent evolution and diversification. This correspondence strongly suggests that community structure in rainforests cannot be attributed to the action of stochastic factors. "The high degree of similarity was a surprise even to us," says Renner. "The results can be regarded as a nail in the coffin of the neutral theory."

In even the best habitats, resources are inevitably limited. This means that species must compete with each other for access to them. And for many ecologists, interspecies competition for resources is the critical factor that determines the composition of the community found in a given environment. According to the principle of competitive exclusion, two species that depend on the same vital resource or ecological niche for their survival cannot stably coexist. The better adapted species will ultimately displace its competitor.

In contrast, what is known as "neutral" theory postulates that stochastic variations in factors such as the rate of dispersal and extinction of species determine the patterns of species abundance in different communities. The American ecologist Stephen Hubbell is the leading proponent of neutral theory, which he developed to explain species-rich communities, such as tropical rainforests.

In these environments it is not uncommon to find hundreds of tree species growing close together. Hubbell contends that this makes it very unlikely that segregation of ecological niches and the principle of competitive exclusion are the overriding forces that determine community structure. His neutral theory has received a great deal of attention in recent years.

LMU biologist Professor Susanne Renner and her American colleague Professor Robert Ricklefs have now challenged the theory with the help of quantitative data. In Central and South American, African and Asian rainforests, the two researchers compared the abundance patterns of different tree species growing in plots of between 25 and 55 hectares. In addition, they compared the relative abundance of different families of trees in a 55- to 65-year-old fossil flora from tropical Colombia with their representation there today.

On the basis of the neutral theory, which assigns a leading role to stochasticity, one would not expect to find much similarity in community structure over such a wide area and such a long span of time. However, the results of the new study show that when families are arranged in order of species richness, the rankings that emerge are very similar on all three continents.

"The correlation is statistically highly significant," says Renner. "So we have uncovered a very substantial degree of agreement between the seven forest plots; even the numbers of trees per unit area that belong to a given taxonomic family are similar in all three regions. Moreover, the families with the highest species diversity in the Colombian rainforests today were already dominant 50 million years ago. The findings are astonishingly clear-cut, and should suffice to rule out the neutral theory."

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Jostling for position: Competition at the root of diversity in rainforests

TAG:Nature New Species Evolutionary Biology Exotic Species Rainforests Environmental Science

UK researchers develop sensors to improve protection of concrete coastal structures

Researchers at City University London and Queen's University Belfast following several research projects funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have developed innovative sensors that they claim will dramatically improve the ability to spot early warning signs of corrosion in concrete.

More resilient and much longer lasting than traditional corrosion sensors they will make monitoring the safety of structures such as bridges and vital coastal defences much more effective. The carbon steel bars used to reinforce submerged concrete in tidal zone areas are at particular risk of corrosion caused by wet conditions.

The sensors can withstand long-term placement within concrete – unlike any equivalent sensors currently available – they can constantly monitor conditions, enabling a warning to be sent when conditions for corrosion threshold have been crossed.

Notifications can be sent in the form of an email or text to the structure's maintenance team.

A trio of novel, robust probes is at the heart of the team's work: one that monitors temperature, one for humidity while the other senses chloride and pH levels. Changes in these factors indicate the onset of the potentially destructive corrosion. Within the probes are advanced optical sensors specifically designed and built for this project in City's laboratories. These have been patented for potential commercial exploitation.

Tong Sun, Professor of Sensor Engineering at City and Principal Investigator on the project said: "Key to this successful prototype is our monitoring the variation of the sensor signals of a sample as an indicator of corrosion levels. This means we can use optical sensors made of polymer, which is much more resistant to the high alkaline environments of these structures than sensors currently on the market."

Traditional optical corrosion sensors have only a limited lifetime, usually of several weeks, because of the corrosive alkaline levels within concrete. The new sensors are expected to last for several years, with proper protection, even where pH levels are higher than 12. For comparison, domestic bleach has a pH value of between 12 and 13.

"Our design means several probes can be installed semi-permanently in a structure and then connected to a computer data logger, which will constantly collect readings. This can be left until the readings indicate conditions have changed enough to warrant a full investigation. Remedial work will be simpler, cheaper and more effective at this stage, rather than waiting until there is visible damage, such as parts of the concrete coming away," explained Professor Sun.

The sensors within the temperature and humidity probe utilise the fibre Bragg grating. A fibre Bragg grating is a type of reflector made of a length of optical fibre that only reflects specific wavelengths of light while transmitting all others. This is created, usually by ultraviolet laser treatment, which alters the fibre core's refractive index. A pair of gratings, with one being coated with a polymer layer, was used to separate the temperature and humidity parameters.

The sensors inside the chloride / pH probe are capable of measuring free chloride concentrations as low as 20 millimoles per litre.

Visit the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) at http://www.epsrc.ac.uk.

This article originally appeared on EE Times Europe.

UK researchers develop sensors to improve protection of concrete coastal structures

TAG:corrosion sensors research infrastructure concrete

What really happened prior to 'Snowball Earth'?

"Our study suggests that the geochemical record documented in rocks prior to the Marinoan glaciation or 'Snowball Earth' are unrelated to the glaciation itself," said UM Rosenstiel professor Peter Swart, a co-author of the study. "Instead the changes in the carbon isotopic ratio are related to alteration by freshwater as sea level fell."

In order to better understand the environmental conditions prior to 'Snowball Earth', the research team analyzed geochemical signatures preserved in carbonate rock cores from similar climactic events that happened more recently -- two million years ago -- during the Pliocene-Pleistocene period.

The team analyzed the ratio of the rare isotope of carbon (¹³C) to the more abundant carbon isotope (¹²C) from cores drilled in the Bahamas and the Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The geochemical patterns that were observed in these cores were nearly identical to the pattern seen prior to the Marinoan glaciation, which suggests that the alteration of rocks by water, a process known as diagenesis, is the source of the changes seen during that time period.

Prior to this study, scientists theorized that large changes in the cycling of carbon between the organic and inorganic reservoirs occurred in the atmosphere and oceans, setting the stage for the global glacial event known as 'Snowball Earth'.

"It is widely accepted that changes in the carbon isotopic ratio during the Pliocene-Pleistocene time are the result of alteration of rocks by freshwater," said Swart. "We believe this is also what occurred during the Neoproterozoic. Instead of being related to massive and complicated changes in the carbon cycle, the variations seen in the Neoproterozoic can be explained by simple process which we understand very well."

Scientists acknowledge that multiple sea level fluctuations occurred during the Pliocene-Pleistocene glaciations resulting from water being locked up in glaciers. Similar sea-level changes during the Neoproterozoic caused the variations in the global carbon isotopic signal preserved in the older rocks, not a change in the distribution of carbon as had been widely postulated.

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China Shoes Wholesale Individuals

The correct resolutions  air max 2012 are in order low equally to attain you blink. China, including Hong Kong, holds about 7.5 percent of U.S. treasuries totaling $cardinal trillion, consorting to calculations based on atomic number 92*. Treasury article. China’s share of U.S. Intake expenditure is exactly 2.7 percent based on “Made inwards China” importations. Whenever you think that’s low, the actual figure makes up bring down, a paltry 1.2 percent if you strip out the value of the work done in the U.S. to put  cheap air max ”Chinese” goods on American shop shelves.These figures should make politicians and opinion-makers think hard about the implications of the way in which they approach economic relationships. The lessons are that they need to be more careful about slinging mud about unfair trade practices or demanding protection. Information for U.S. treasuries relates to September 2010, but will probably not have changed much. China,  china wholesale shoes   keenly aware of the exchange rate risks — and the political risks — of holding large dollar assets, has probably reduced its holdings. News reports, including that this month China’s sovereign wealth fund bought an 8.68 percent slice of Thames Water in the United Kingdom, testify to Beijing’s wish to diversify and get better earning potential from its reserves.In fact, 42.2 percent of U.S. treasuries are held by American institutions and  china shoes wholesale   individuals and 17.9 percent by the Social Security Trust Fund. Other slices of 6 percent and 2.1 percent are held by the U.S. Civil Service Retirement Fund and U.S. Military Retirement Fund. This entails that Americans hold almost cardinal percent from U.S. debt. “We depend far moral the kindness of strangers than you might imagine whenever you listen to the intertubes,” articulates Barry Ritholtz in howdies blog The Big delineation.

China Shoes Wholesale Individuals

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Can Search engine optimization Services Actually Promise A First Place Ranking?

It’s a valid inquire. Will specialist SEO Service In fact Promise a 1St Place Ranking? Do you think you’re among those who pay lip service to Search engine optimization due to the fact this really is “the thing to accomplish” and then complain as soon as Google or Yahoo fall short to record any of your websites in their indices? Do you seriously understand what a search engine is and the way it performs? Do you recognize what a search phrase or a keyword is, or how the search engines use them to index your internet pages?

SEO Agentur

If not, don’t feel alone. You are among the 99% who have no suggestion what I am talking about. Yet you assume your web page to get listed on Search engines. Don’t you? If so, you had better think again because Google do not just list internet sites. That’s all I am likely to say about that, and if you don’t recognize, then try entering a search term into Google and analyze the final results.

The sad truth is that the broad majority of those who seek to earn a living within the world wide web fail. Considerably less than one in 100, make more than they spend seeking to be successful. To succeed you must find out from those that have done it themselves. I know it appears trite, but there is no time any more for people to find out “through expertise”. I realized through experience: I am yet paying for that “experience” 7 years on.

To be successful you must have an open mind. The world wide web is not a silver mine except for people that convince you that it is, and then take your tough earned income to train you how. There is one key to internet success and that is cost-free marketing. I know, I can hear you saying it already! There is no such thing! And you would be right to say so. Although, there is cheap advertising and marketing: marketing that you pay only to find out how you can get it.

That is certainly search engine positioning for the key terms of your selection! If you appear on the 1st page of, for example, Google, then you obtain as much exposure as those that are having to pay large sums of money to pay for the Adwords adverts that you see on the right hand side of the results page. You appear on the left hand side, and guess where consumers search for information? Yes, the left hand side! That has been proved. The right side is related to advertisements, and no wonder since the right hand side IS full of ads!

However, to get on the left hand side of that 1st page, you have to get visited by the search engine indexers that may crawl your site and choose your ranking position. If you get crawled! This really is challenge number 1.

Challenge number 2 should be to get outlined on the 1st page for your keyword. To achieve that you have to understand how search engines like google perform. In case you don’t, then you certainly have very little chance without the need of paying a fortune to Search engine optimization companies. If you learn how to accomplish it your self, it is going to cost you practically nothing. No SEO agency will guarantee you a Page 1 listing – unless the keyword they list you for is never used by anyone. I can get a Page one listing on any search engine for the keyword “qjzkxmd”, but unless that all of a sudden appears like a character out of a hollywood film , no person will ever search for that. Use it your self and you may be in position one!

Google SEO

No SEO service provider can guarantee a high ranking for any but useless keywords and phrases. They can “strengthen” your ranking but not offer, as many do, a “Top ten” ranking. So do not be misled. What you need to do is learn how search engines perform, and then apply that practical experience to persuading them to visit one or more pages of your internet site, and integrate them in its indices for the search phrases, or keywords, that each of your pages is dedicated to.

It is best to dedicate every individual site on your site to one, and only one, keyword. That keyword should be a search phrase that you know that is being usually used by people today to find the information that is contained on your web page. You should present respectable informative content on that web page that relates to that key phrase, and do what you can to entice bots and make them just love the content on your web page. So much so that they want all of us searching for the information that your page provides to head to it by displaying it prominently on the search engine results page.

You will find ways of performing that, and you won’t come across them accidentally. You will have to uncover them, not pay for them, unless of course you have a deep pocket since the policies transform often, and what is optimized today may not be optimized following month! Internetposition is the buzz word for search engine optimization ranking progress, so also make it the buzz word for business website improvement. It could earn you more cash than a few eBooks about that issue!

http://www.internetposition.de

Can Search engine optimization Services Actually Promise A First Place Ranking?

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The Primary Purpose of the bronze sculpture in Han Dynasty

“Deity re-ghost” is the Shang important feature of theocracy, but also to uphold the rule of the Shang rulers thought the link at the same time affected the cultural and artistic creation. Shang bronze objects in a square shape and businessmen in the worship of spirits when the pursuit of a solemn, sacred atmosphere suited to bionic totem animal model may be a relict of God, or the ritual sacrifice, and sacrifice function for style and combination of objects, have demonstrated a strong worship God thinking. This bronze sculpture is a liquor container from the early Western Zhou Dynasty (approximately 1100BC -771BC). Shang bronze sculpture in the decorative patterns, sculptural decoration and inscriptions, their primary purpose is to worship the gods of their ancestors services, reflecting the mysterious, strange style feature, which is also thinking of Shang Tsung materialized embodiment of God. Keywords: Shang; bronze statue; shape; decoration; worship God thinking Nanyang, Henan, Zhengzhou Institute of Light Industry College of Art and Design lecturer, PhD in history, mainly engaged in the art archaeological research.
First, “revere heavy ghost” is a businessman and major ideological literature, Xia Dynasty, Xia Jie is no way, deserted, Shang Tang took the opportunity to cents as the base, four expansion conquest, eleven signs and invincible, and finally destroy the Xia Dynasty and established the Shang Dynasty. The chinese bronze sculpture is unearthed in 1980 in Tomb No.7 of Zhuyuangou, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province. Shang rulers, while its dominant position as the apotheosis of the legitimacy of claims made but its dominance of the “orders from the days of” divine right of kings “, then” affairs of state, in worship, and military, “worship the gods, ancestors, as its top event, which in the “Book of Rites? token” also reads: “Yin deity, the rate of in order to do God first and then a ghost ceremony; first penalty and then reward, respect and not pro.
The people of the disadvantages, swing and not static, wins and shameless. “Therefore,” revere heavy ghost “is a businessman and an important feature of social thought. Businessman” deity re-ghost “of ideological beliefs is also a prehistoric society” animism, “the concept of inherited, but the strengthening of authoritarian rule as the slave, merchants of many gods had made the choice, give up and recycling. The bronze dragon sculpture is now in the collection of the Municipal Museum of Baoji City. Yin Ruins bones speech in ritual inscriptions prove, awe and worship of Shang rulers are many spirits, according to scholars’ research, there are merchants of the supreme god – God, there is day, month, wind, rain, clouds, thunder and other natural God, there is emperor, Xian Gong, kings, and other ancestors Xianbi the mouth of God].
Shang and the royal families of the gods be extremely frequent, complex ritual, according to Meng Received Date :2009-12-25? home study inscriptions in the festival name has reached more than 30. Kunio Japanese scholar Island nearly 200 kinds of statistics. The Bo Ge vessel bronze sculpture is oblate with shanting shoulder and high loop handle. Visible fanatical reverence the spirits business. businessman ” deity re-ghost “thought mainly in the supernatural order of integration and arrangements were made to form a political order and its corresponding number of ghost, according to research and analysis Leaving, businessmen from the position and form of worship, such as the mysterious power of the mind day, month.
Wind, rain, clouds, thunder and other natural gods and Xian Gong, kings, and other ancestors Xianbi were made of the order of arrangement of God, and worship and divination rituals in the formation of knowledge systems in the order of the mouth]. The bronze sculpture statue has a straight neck a bulging belly and a round foot. In the business of polytheism, God is supreme, and have great authority, he was in charge of natural celestial phenomena, good and bad fortune to fall, so the human rulers of divination through frequent activities of the media and the fantasy of many names of worship, prayer god , to show, ghost, for God’s protecting, but merchants do their secular arrangements, it is also the king and people, have to day, month, wind, rain messenger of God for its workers Ting-chen, which is actually a reflection of human slavery dynasty to rule the shadow of the sky.
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The Primary Purpose of the bronze sculpture in Han Dynasty

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Speaking up for M2M radio innovation

Luke D'Arcy, vice president of marketing at Neul Ltd. (Cambridge, England), has been in touch to argue that in general standards bodies are not addressing the need for innovation at the RF level for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Neul is a startup company working on the use of so-called TV white-space spectrum for machine-to-machine communications and has proposed a radio standard to do that.

European standards body ETSI recently announced that seven standards developments organizations have agreed to work together on common global standards for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. However, the initial focus of that group is to be on the application and service layers, the implication being that M2M communications will be mainly carried on established wireless channels such ZigBee, Wi-Fi and 2, 3, and 4G.

Neul's proposal is that radio communications dedicated to M2M and IoT be opened up in the spectrum used for digital television broadcasts. That is not to say that some M2M/IoT cannot be implemented across established channels, but not always.

"Something more is needed," D'Arcy told EE Times, arguing that some applications would need low-cost, minimal-overhead radio channels but available in wide area networks, as addressed by the Weightless white-space radio proposals.

"We need the cost of ZigBee and the ease of use of wide area," D'Arcy said, adding: "Some applications, like smart meters, medical device hubs, don't need all the hierarchy present in GSM and CDMA."

Neul opened up its own Weightless proposal to industry participation in September 2011. Several working groups have been set up to refine and ratify various technical aspects of the standard, D'Arcy said. Version 1.0 of Weightless is expected before the end of the third quarter of 2012.


Related links and articles:

www.neul.com

News articles:

Seven standards bodies form global M2M initiative

Do machines dream of IoT?

UK plans for white-space radio by 2013

Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung join Neul radio club

Should Google be in 'white-space' radio?

Speaking up for M2M radio innovation

TAG:M2M IoT machine to machine Internet Smart meters semiconductor radio

How to buy cheap designer clothes Fashion Designer

Of course we would all really like to get if we could afford them. tend to be much better created, better designed and generally less frequent, that is they tend to be much more exclusive. One factor they aren’t is . The problem is that prices tagged on designer clothes can be daunting and locating is not something effortless to do.

Certainly, all fashionable men and females who wish to look stylish and contemporary aspire to own designer clothing. Even so, it can be a bit of a challenge discovering inexpensive designer clothing or definitely less expensive style clothing. Those who can not afford designer fashion will certainly look for techniques to get some pieces of cheap designer clothes. Here are some suggestions you may want to consider.

If you want , it does not mean that you have to get utilized or second hand . There are some other alternatives you may wish to check. Frequently designers or either have an overstock of some items or they have items that have gone out of style. Or else, the pieces have been in the store display too lengthy and they would like to get rid of them. Quite usually you can pick bargains by purchasing last seasons stock or “B Grade” items. These are generally slightly sub regular pieces, where for example a section of stiching is not quite up to the mark or where there is a slight colour variation in a pattern. Really frequently this is challenging to spot and so your piece of is accessible more affordable or at a discounted cost.

Yet another choice is check regulary on a web web sites like In the Sales UK for news of discounts, offers and seasonal sales. Also check here for Inexpensive mens designer clothes. There are also bargain shoes to be discovered here shoes &amp boots UK

Obviously, the world wide web is a great source for anybody in the hunt for at the cheapest cost. You can fill up your wardrobe with gorgeous clothes but with out having to invest a fortune. Pleased hunting.

How to buy cheap designer clothes Fashion Designer

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LED National Standard is the Deep Competition

The standard has been always one of the hot topics in the LED industry. And the lack of standards has also been the bottleneck of LED industry development. In 2010, the national and industrial standards issued, but it also needs time to test whether these standards can truly become the guidance of enterprise production or not. How to make LED national standards LED industrial standards and LED enterprise standards is the most important problem in the market. LED Strips

From the view of industry standards and market supervision, the specification of standards is undoubtedly the most important to the healthy and orderly development of the industry. There are multiple layers of the standard itself, and national standards should pay attention to keep balance with international standards. Therefore, if it is to promote and improve the development of national standards, each enterprise should constantly discover problems and improve the standard. LED Strip Lights

However, it is undeniable that the pace of LED industry development is becoming slower and slower. And some reasons can be contributed to the current situation.

• LED lighting is involved in a number of fields and industries.
• LED lighting is a new technology, which brings some extra difficulty
• LED technology is still not mature, which also brings certain difficulty
• Propaganda is insufficient.

LED National Standard is the Deep Competition

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Graphene: Supermaterial goes superpermeable

Graphene is one of the wonders of the science world, with the potential to create foldaway mobile phones, wallpaper-thin lighting panels and the next generation of aircraft. The new finding at the University of Manchester gives graphene's potential a most surprising dimension -- graphene can also be used for distilling alcohol.

In a report published in Science, a team led by Professor Sir Andre Geim shows that graphene-based membranes are impermeable to all gases and liquids (vacuum-tight). However, water evaporates through them as quickly as if the membranes were not there at all.

This newly-found property can now be added to the already long list of superlatives describing graphene. It is the thinnest known material in the universe and the strongest ever measured. It conducts electricity and heat better than any other material. It is the stiffest one too and, at the same time, it is the most ductile. Demonstrating its remarkable properties won University of Manchester academics the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.

Now the University of Manchester scientists have studied membranes from a chemical derivative of graphene called graphene oxide. Graphene oxide is the same graphene sheet but it is randomly covered with other molecules such as hydroxyl groups OH-. Graphene oxide sheets stack on top of each other and form a laminate.

The researchers prepared such laminates that were hundreds times thinner than a human hair but remained strong, flexible and were easy to handle.

When a metal container was sealed with such a film, even the most sensitive equipment was unable to detect air or any other gas, including helium, to leak through.

It came as a complete surprise that, when the researchers tried the same with ordinary water, they found that it evaporates without noticing the graphene seal. Water molecules diffused through the graphene-oxide membranes with such a great speed that the evaporation rate was the same independently whether the container was sealed or completely open.

Dr Rahul Nair, who was leading the experimental work, offers the following explanation: "Graphene oxide sheets arrange in such a way that between them there is room for exactly one layer of water molecules. They arrange themselves in one molecule thick sheets of ice which slide along the graphene surface with practically no friction.

"If another atom or molecule tries the same trick, it finds that graphene capillaries either shrink in low humidity or get clogged with water molecules."

"Helium gas is hard to stop. It slowly leaks even through a millimetre -thick window glass but our ultra-thin films completely block it. At the same time, water evaporates through them unimpeded. Materials cannot behave any stranger," comments Professor Geim. "You cannot help wondering what else graphene has in store for us."

"This unique property can be used in situations where one needs to remove water from a mixture or a container, while keeping in all the other ingredients," says Dr Irina Grigorieva who also participated in the research.

"Just for a laugh, we sealed a bottle of vodka with our membranes and found that the distilled solution became stronger and stronger with time. Neither of us drinks vodka but it was great fun to do the experiment," adds Dr Nair.

The Manchester researchers report this experiment in their Science paper, too, but they say they do not envisage use of graphene in distilleries, nor offer any immediate ideas for applications.

However, Professor Geim adds 'The properties are so unusual that it is hard to imagine that they cannot find some use in the design of filtration, separation or barrier membranes and for selective removal of water'.

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Nokia bleeds $1.38 billion in Q4; sales drop 21 percent

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Nokia had some good news and bad news for financial investors on Thursday (Jan. 26), announcing that though it had managed to sell over 1 million Windows Phone 7 Lumia devices to date, it had also lost $1.38-billion in the fourth quarter of 2011.

A year earlier, in the fourth quarter of 2010, Nokia had actually made a profit of $980 million, making this quarter’s results all the more worrying.

Nokia sales plummeted 21 percent in Q411, with smartphone shipments down 31 percent from the same period the year before. Overall the Finnish phonemaker reported a 73 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings, though the firm still managed to come in just ahead of analyst expectations, perhaps thanks to a $250-million payment from Microsoft for being a Windows Phone partner.

The firm blamed most of its financial losses in the fourth quarter on the 1.1 billion write-down for the firm’s digital mapping assets.

Analysts, however, noted that Nokia’s ongoing struggle was still tied to the firm’s painful transition from Symbian to Windows Phones.

“Despite the latest improvements in Symbian's user interface and the launch of a few new devices, it's now clear that Nokia will not be able to continue to rely on Symbian and needs to move even faster to Windows Phones,” said Francisco Jeronimo, IDC’s European mobile devices research manager, adding that lower volumes of Symbian and lower ASPs would not help the company remain profitable.

Analyst Jack Gold concurred with Jeronimo, noting that the sale of one million Lumia devices was a “good first step” but that it was worth noting that Apple had sold 37 million iPhones in the same timeframe.



Nokia bleeds $1.38 billion in Q4; sales drop 21 percent

TAG:nokia smartphones windows phone microsoft

Designer Outfits and Designer Dress Fashion Designer

Prior to the beginning of the twentieth century, girls designer outfits had been prepared by the wears them selves, otherwise, rider they had been affluent, by tailors appointed exclusively for the job. A predominantly artistic purveyor of girls clothing could turn out to be well recognized, but the designer as implicit these days did not appear in the fashion world until the 1920s.

For up to the minute designer outfits, 1 has to shop at a high-end department store or boutique. Despite the fact that 1 can purchase a designer outfits on the internet, this is just advisable if one has no other option – if one is buying a vintage dress, for instance. Girls possibly frustrate investing in a designer evening dress to show off for a grand event that does not fit effectively.

Designers and Factionists have often acknowledged that the appropriate fit is key to a gown’s look. It does not problem how superb the material otherwise what rather involved detailing present is – unless it does not fit totally, it will not appear outstanding at all. Nearly all actors have image stylists nonetheless, there will constantly be one who comes a cropper, and normally, as the dress just does not fit proper. So, usually take out sufficient time and make that additional effort to locate a very good salesperson at a shop who in fact understands body shape and fabric. Consequently, you will end up with a costume that will look like it was created exclusively for you.

Some evening gown lines to consider embrace: 
•Jovani
•Scala
•Angeri
•Mauri Simone

Designer dress websites and stores presents Very best Gown Greatest Evening Dresses, Short Party Dresses, Plus Size Dresses, Short Red Dresses, Cocktail Dresses, Black Dress and  significantly more. They are not restricted to this only in lieu each year they come up with fresh and innovative styles of dresses with diverse patterns and mode. Females can explore copious varieties of Designer outfits collection Party Dresses, Ball gowns, Ball Party Dresses, Wedding Dresses, Evening Dresses, Spring Dresses etc. these Designer dress web sites and stores are the finest location for each women of substance.

Designer Hot Dresses, Fur Dresses, Modern Daytime Dresses, New Party Dresses, Little Black Dresses, Spring/Summer Dresses have the skill to illumine every of the noteworthy event of your life.  Your quest for designer Evening Gowns, Ball Gowns, Cocktail Dresses, Party Dresses, Bridal Gowns, Two-Piece Dresses, Beaded Dresses, Plus Size Dresses and considerably a lot more shall be quenched. 

Every single woman s gifted with a fabulous, special body — but most women uncover it rather a challenge to play up their top best assets and lessen difficulty areas. Whether or not you desire to look slimmer or create the delusion of more curves, camouflage broad shoulders or get suitable fashions for petite frames, a handful style guidelines for that gorgeous girls style dress goes a long way while picking those flattering clothing for gorgeous you!

A girls design dress be it Evening Gowns, Cocktail Dresses, Ball Gowns, Party Dresses, Bridal Gowns or Two-Piece Dresses is forever an investment, so go with what you really like, a lot more willingly than what’s cheapest. In the end, you will be pleased you did.

Designer Outfits and Designer Dress Fashion Designer

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Freescale's CEO sees light at end of the tunnel

SAN FRANCISCO—The downturn that has plagued the semiconductor industry since last summer may be nearing an end as customers burn off inventory, according to Rich Beyer, chairman and CEO of Freescale Semiconductor Inc.

Beyer—who's company reported a narrower net loss despite declining sales in the fourth quarter Thursday (Jan. 26)—said he expects the first quarter to be another down quarter for the industry, but that he is hopeful that the second quarter will bring a return to growth.

"We think we are getting close to the end," Beyer said. "Our indications are that this will be a down quarter—hopefully the final down quarter of this cycle."

Several chip companies, including Texas Instruments Inc., have said recently that they believe the industry has touched the bottom of the current down cycle. Some analysts, including Jim Feldhan of Semico Research Inc., have been predicting for months that the downturn would likely come to an end early this year as customers exhaust inventory stockpiles.

Freescale (Austin, Texas) reported fourth quarter sales of $1.01 billion, down 11 percent from the third quarter and down 14 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010. The company reported a narrower net loss, $6 million or 2 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $88 million in the third quarter and a loss of $102 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Sales for the quarter came in slightly below consensus analysts' expectations of $1.03 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.

Freescale's EBITDA—earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization—declined to $216 million in the fourth quarter, down 20 percent from the third quarter and down 23 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2010.

For the full year 2011, Freescale reported sales of $4.57 billion, up 2 percent from 2010. The company reported a net loss for the year of $410 million, down from more than $1 billion in 2010.

Freescale said fourth quarter microcontroller sales amounted to $355 million, down 10 percent from the previous quarter and down 14 percent compared with the year ago quarter. The company reported $1.6 billion in microcontroller sales for the full year, roughly flat with 2010.

Despite the declining sales of microcontrollers, Beyer said Freescale does not believe it has lost market share. Sales are down chiefly because automakers stocked up on inventory following earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year and have been burning it off ever since, Beyer said. In industrials microcontrollers, distributors are also pushing down their inventory stockpiles, he said.

Freescale said sales of RF, analog and sensors slipped 5 percent sequentially to $292 million in the quarter, while sales of networking and multimedia chips declined 4 percent sequentially.

Beyer said Freescale is very pleased that the company is continuing to secure a significant number of design wins, which he hopes will pay dividends for the company in the future.

Freescale's CEO sees light at end of the tunnel

TAG:Rich Beyer Freescale Semiconductor Downturn

Life beyond Earth? Underwater caves in Bahamas could give clues

Tom Iliffe, professor of marine biology at the Texas A&M-Galveston campus, and graduate student Brett Gonzalez of Trabuco Canyon, Calif., examined three "blue holes" in the Bahamas and found that layers of bacterial microbes exists in all three, but each cave had specialized forms of such life and at different depths, suggesting that microbial life in such caves is continually adapting to changes in available light, water chemistry and food sources. Their work, also done in conjunction with researchers from Penn State University, has been published in Hydrobiologia.

"Blue holes" are so named because from an aerial view, they appear circular in shape with different shades of blue in and around their entrances. There are estimated to be more than 1,000 such caves in the Bahamas, the largest concentration of blue holes in the world.

'We examined two caves on Abaco Island and one on Andros Island," Iliffe explains. "One on Abaco, at a depth of about 100 feet, had sheets of bacteria that were attached to the walls of the caves, almost one inch thick. Another cave on the same island had bacteria living within poisonous clouds of hydrogen sulfide at the boundary between fresh and salt water. These caves had different forms of bacteria, with the types and density changing as the light source from above grew dimmer and dimmer.

"In the cave on Andros, we expected to find something similar, but the hydrogen sulfide layer there contained different types of bacteria," he adds. "It shows that the caves tend to have life forms that adapt to that particular habitat, and we found that some types of the bacteria could live in environments where no other forms of life could survive. This research shows how these bacteria have evolved over millions of years and have found a way to live under these extreme conditions."

Iliffe says the microbes change where the salt water meets fresh water within the caves and use chemical energy to produce their food. They can survive in environments with very low amounts of oxygen and light.

There are tens of thousands of underwater caves scattered around the world, but less than 5 percent of these have ever been explored and scientifically investigated, Iliffe notes.

"These bacterial forms of life may be similar to microbes that existed on early Earth and thus provide a glimpse of how life evolved on this planet," he adds. "These caves are natural laboratories where we can study life existing under conditions analogous to what was present many millions of years ago.

"We know more about the far side of the moon than we do about these caves right here on Earth," he adds. "There is no telling what remains to be discovered in the many thousands of caves that no one has ever entered. If life exists elsewhere in our solar system, it most likely would be found in water-filled subterranean environments, perhaps equivalent to those we are studying in the Bahamas."

Over the past 30 years, Iliffe has discovered several hundred species of marine life, and has probably explored more underwater caves -- at least 1,500 -- than anyone in the world, examining such caves in Australia, the Caribbean, Mediterranean and North Atlantic regions of the world.

More can be learned from his website at http://www.cavebiology.com .

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Engineered bacteria effectively target tumors, enabling tumor imaging potential in mice

The specially engineered probiotic bacteria, like those found in many yogurts, were intravenously injected into mice with tumors, after which the researchers took full body bioluminescent images. The 3-D images revealed information about the number and location of the bacteria, to the level of precisely revealing where within the tumor the bacteria were living, providing much more information on the interaction of bacteria and tumors than was previously available using similar two-dimensional imaging methods.

According to the authors, led by Mark Tangney of University College Cork in Ireland, "before now, researchers used luminescence to provide an approximation of where a test organism was within the body, and would then follow up with multiple further experiments using different techniques to try to find a precise location."

This new research suggests that such bacteria can be engineered to contain diagnostic or therapeutic agents that would be produced specifically within the tumor for targeted treatment.

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Scientists create first free-standing 3-D cloak

Whilst previous studies have either been theoretical in nature or limited to the cloaking of two-dimensional objects, this study shows how ordinary objects can be cloaked in their natural environment in all directions and from all of an observer's positions.

Published Jan. 26 in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, the researchers used a method known as "plasmonic cloaking" to hide an 18-centimetre cylindrical tube from microwaves.

Some of the most recent breakthroughs in the field of invisibility cloaking have focussed on using transformation-based metamaterials -- inhomogeneous, human-made materials that have the ability to bend light around objects -- however, this new approach uses a different type of artificial material -- plasmonic metamaterials.

When light strikes an object, it rebounds off its surface towards another direction, just like throwing a tennis ball against a wall. The reason we see objects is because light rays bounce off materials towards our eyes and our eyes are able to process the information.

Due to their unique properties, plasmonic metamaterials have the opposite scattering effect to everyday materials.

"When the scattered fields from the cloak and the object interfere, they cancel each other out and the overall effect is transparency and invisibility at all angles of observation.

"One of the advantages of the plasmonic cloaking technique is its robustness and moderately broad bandwidth of operation, superior to conventional cloaks based on transformation metamaterials. This made our experiment more robust to possible imperfections, which is particularly important when cloaking a 3D object in free-space," said study co-author Professor Andrea Alu.

In this instance, the cylindrical tube was cloaked with a shell of plasmonic metamaterial to make it appear invisible. The system was tested by directing microwaves towards the cloaked cylinder and mapping the resulting scattering both around the object and in the far-field. The cloak showed optimal functionality when the microwaves were at a frequency of 3.1 gigahertz and over a moderately broad bandwidth.

The researchers, from the University of Texas at Austin, have shown in previous studies that the shape of the object is irrelevant; oddly shaped and asymmetric objects can both be cloaked using this technique.

Moving forward, one of the key challenges for the researchers will be to demonstrate the cloaking of a 3D object using visible light.

"In principle, this technique could be used to cloak light; in fact, some plasmonic materials are naturally available at optical frequencies. However, the size of the objects that can be efficiently cloaked with this method scales with the wavelength of operation, so when applied to optical frequencies we may be able to efficiently stop the scattering of micrometre-sized objects.

"Still, cloaking small objects may be exciting for a variety of applications. For instance, we are currently investigating the application of these concepts to cloak a microscope tip at optical frequencies. This may greatly benefit biomedical and optical near-field measurements," continued Professor Alu.

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