Showing posts with label FACTS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FACTS. Show all posts
world’s costliest watch
One of the most complicated watches ever made, it also became the most expensive watch ever sold when it was hammered down for $11 million at Sotheby’s.The gold pocket watch features 24 complications, (Complications are mechanical functions of the watch other than the hours, minutes and seconds.)
The Worlds First Atomic Bomb
The Trinity Bomb is a replica of the first atomic bomb detonated in New Mexico at the Trinity Test site.
Dropped at the Trinity Test site in New Mexico, the Trinity bomb was the world's first atomic bomb. This particular replica was used as a prop for the BBC movie "Oppenheimer."
Melissa Theuriau world’s hottest news reporter
Melissa Theuriau is considered to be one of the world’s hottest news reporters. Readers of Maxim’s US edition voted her to be the “TV’s sexiest news anchor”!
Facebook gets another facelift
SAN FRANCISCO: Since he started Facebook in college 4 1/2 years ago, Mark Zuckerberg has learned--sometimes painfully--that he can't make significant changes to the popular online hangout without triggering an uproar among indignant users who preferred the status quo.
But Zuckerberg, still only 24, is hoping he has found a way to ease the journey down a different road so he won't have to issue public apologies like he did in each of the previous two years after springing new products on users.
His theory will face a major test today when Facebook will begin forcing its 100 million users to adapt to a redesigned Web site, whether they like the new look or not.
Since unveiling the makeover seven weeks ago, Facebook had left it up to users to decide whether they wanted to switch over. If they didn't like what they saw, the converts could just click on a link to switch back to the old format.
But that option will be taken away from all users by the end of the week, a shift that Zuckerberg already knows will alienate some of Facebook's audience and raise the risk of driving more traffic to rival social networks like MySpace and Bebo.
"Any change can be a big deal to our users because this how they connect with their family and friends," Zuckerberg said. "So when you move things around, it can be perceived as being not a positive thing even when it's a positive change."
About 40 million users already have checked out the new design and about 30 million embraced it without reverting to the old look, Zuckerberg said.
But the seeds of an uprising already have been planted on Facebook's own site, where several groups and petitions have cropped up to protest the change.
"It's not that we don't want change, period, it's that we don't like these particular changes," said Scott Sanders, 19, an Austin Peay University student who started one of the petitions opposing the redesign. "You have to navigate more and you have to click more to get to personal profiles. It's too much effort to get to basic information."
Facebook's facelift separates users' personal profiles into different areas of the site and provides more tools that are meant to make it easier to share information and photos.
The revisions also shift various applications to the bottom of a person's home page and clears up more white space -- a move that Sanders worries will lead to more intrusive advertising on the site, although Zuckerberg says that won't happen.
Hoping to minimise the sting of the anticipated backlash, Facebook announced the planned makeover in May and then waited until July to take the wraps off. The transition period since then was aimed at giving users time to make suggestions and get used to the change.
The gradual approach differed from how Zuckerberg and the rest of Facebook's unusually young management team have managed past revisions to the site.
In 2006, the Palo Alto-based startup infuriated thousands of users by introducing a tool called "news feeds" that automatically broadcast certain personal details.
Last year, Facebook faced another revolt when it rolled out a tracking device, dubbed "Beacon," that tracked and shared information about users' shopping habits and other activities at other Web sites.
In both instances, Zuckerberg wound up apologising for going too far and placated the protesters by giving more control over news feeds and Beacon. News feeds are now considered indispensable by many users, but Beacon still hasn't gained traction.
With Facebook's audience now roughly 10 times larger than when news feeds first came out two years ago, Zuckerberg understood he needed to do a better job preparing for changes.
"There is more weight on making things smooth when you are dealing with 100 million people," he said. "No one cared as much when a bunch of students from a few colleges were complaining about some changes to some Web site."
Although he is still hoping to persuade Zuckerberg to retreat from some of the changes included in the redesign, Sanders suspects resistance might be futile this time.
"I definitely won't stop using Facebook because it's still the best social network out there," said Sanders, who has been using the site for two years. "People will probably protest the changes in the beginning, but then they will just get used to them."
But Zuckerberg, still only 24, is hoping he has found a way to ease the journey down a different road so he won't have to issue public apologies like he did in each of the previous two years after springing new products on users.
His theory will face a major test today when Facebook will begin forcing its 100 million users to adapt to a redesigned Web site, whether they like the new look or not.
Since unveiling the makeover seven weeks ago, Facebook had left it up to users to decide whether they wanted to switch over. If they didn't like what they saw, the converts could just click on a link to switch back to the old format.
But that option will be taken away from all users by the end of the week, a shift that Zuckerberg already knows will alienate some of Facebook's audience and raise the risk of driving more traffic to rival social networks like MySpace and Bebo.
"Any change can be a big deal to our users because this how they connect with their family and friends," Zuckerberg said. "So when you move things around, it can be perceived as being not a positive thing even when it's a positive change."
About 40 million users already have checked out the new design and about 30 million embraced it without reverting to the old look, Zuckerberg said.
But the seeds of an uprising already have been planted on Facebook's own site, where several groups and petitions have cropped up to protest the change.
"It's not that we don't want change, period, it's that we don't like these particular changes," said Scott Sanders, 19, an Austin Peay University student who started one of the petitions opposing the redesign. "You have to navigate more and you have to click more to get to personal profiles. It's too much effort to get to basic information."
Facebook's facelift separates users' personal profiles into different areas of the site and provides more tools that are meant to make it easier to share information and photos.
The revisions also shift various applications to the bottom of a person's home page and clears up more white space -- a move that Sanders worries will lead to more intrusive advertising on the site, although Zuckerberg says that won't happen.
Hoping to minimise the sting of the anticipated backlash, Facebook announced the planned makeover in May and then waited until July to take the wraps off. The transition period since then was aimed at giving users time to make suggestions and get used to the change.
The gradual approach differed from how Zuckerberg and the rest of Facebook's unusually young management team have managed past revisions to the site.
In 2006, the Palo Alto-based startup infuriated thousands of users by introducing a tool called "news feeds" that automatically broadcast certain personal details.
Last year, Facebook faced another revolt when it rolled out a tracking device, dubbed "Beacon," that tracked and shared information about users' shopping habits and other activities at other Web sites.
In both instances, Zuckerberg wound up apologising for going too far and placated the protesters by giving more control over news feeds and Beacon. News feeds are now considered indispensable by many users, but Beacon still hasn't gained traction.
With Facebook's audience now roughly 10 times larger than when news feeds first came out two years ago, Zuckerberg understood he needed to do a better job preparing for changes.
"There is more weight on making things smooth when you are dealing with 100 million people," he said. "No one cared as much when a bunch of students from a few colleges were complaining about some changes to some Web site."
Although he is still hoping to persuade Zuckerberg to retreat from some of the changes included in the redesign, Sanders suspects resistance might be futile this time.
"I definitely won't stop using Facebook because it's still the best social network out there," said Sanders, who has been using the site for two years. "People will probably protest the changes in the beginning, but then they will just get used to them."
Five facts about 'Big Bang' lab
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, on Wednesday began an experiment to recreate conditions akin to Big Bang, which scientists believe gave birth to the universe.
Its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will seek to collide two beams of particles at nearly the speed of light in a series of experiments spread over next six weeks. Scientists will circulate a beam in one direction around the accelerator, then the other, later sending beams both ways to cause collisions. Following are some facts about the Big Bang and CERN's particle-smashing experiment which is also set to be the biggest data crunching exercise ever undertaken by mankind.
The final tests involved pumping a single bunch of energy particles from the project's accelerator into the 27-km (17-mile) beam pipe of the collider and steering them counter-clockwise around it for about 3 km (2 miles).
The collider aims to simulate conditions milliseconds after the "Big Bang" which created the universe around 13.7 billion years ago. The collisions, in which both particle clusters will be travelling at the speed of light, will be monitored on computers at CERN and laboratories around the world by scientists looking for, among other things, a particle that made life possible.
The elusive particle, which has been dubbed the "Higgs Boson" after Scottish physicist Peter Higgs who first postulated nearly 50 years ago that it must exist, is thought to be the mysterious factor that holds matter together.
Recreating a "Big Bang," which most scientists believe is the only explanation of an expanding universe, ought to show how stars and planets came together out of the primeval chaos that followed, the CERN team believes.
Its essential feature is the emergence of the universe from a tiny speck about the size of a coin but in a state of extremely high temperature and density. The name "Big Bang" was coined in 1949 by British scientist Fred Hoyle to disparage a then emerging theory about origins that countered his own "steady state" view: that the universe had always existed and was evolving but not expanding.
According to the Big Bang model, the universe expanded rapidly from a highly compressed primordial state, which resulted in a significant decrease in density and temperature. Soon afterward, the dominance of matter over antimatter (as observed today) may have been established by processes that also predict proton decay. During this stage many types of elementary particles may have been present. After a few seconds, the universe cooled enough to allow the formation of certain nuclei.
The theory predicts that definite amounts of hydrogen, helium, and lithium were produced. Their abundances agree with what is observed today. About 1,000,000 years later the universe was sufficiently cool for atoms to form.
When two beams of protons collide, they will generate temperatures more than 100,000 times hotter than the heart of the Sun, concentrated within a miniscule space. Meanwhile, the cooling system that circulates superfluid helium around the LHC's accelerator ring keeps the machine at minus 271.3 degrees Celsius (minus 456.34 degrees Fahrenheit).
Smaller colliders have been used for decades to study the makeup of the atom. Less than 100 years ago scientists thought protons and neutrons were the smallest components of an atom's nucleus, but in stages since then experiments have shown they were made of still smaller quarks and gluons and that there were other forces and particles.
To collect data of up to 600 million proton collisions per second, physicists and scientists have built devices to measure the passage time of a particle to a few billionths of a second. The trigger system also registers the location of particles to millionths of a meter.
The data recorded by the LHC's big experiments will fill around 100,000 dual-layer DVDs each year. Tens of thousands of computers around the world have been harnessed in a computing network called "The Grid" that will hold the information.
CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, is one of the world's largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works.
Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe's first joint ventures and now has 20 member states, plus 6 actively participant observers including the United States and Russia.
Inside the all new iPod
The spotlight's back on iPods. In a hotly-awaited and speculated announcement the company refreshed its popular iPod line-up. The revamped iPod nano and Touch come with a host of new features and changes in the appearance.
While the company termed the new nano, “thinnest-ever,” the new iPod Touch is called “the funnest iPod ever."
The company also pleases fans on the pricing front. Along with feature additions, the new iPods also boast of reduced pricing. Here's a look into the new line-up.
Sleek seems to be the buzzword at Apple, after thinnest laptop, Apple has removed `flab' from iPod nano. In a revamp of its iPod line-up, the company launched what it termed as ‘thinnest’ ever iPod nano.
The fourth-generation nano is oval shaped at the edges, giving it a sleeker and slimmer look, unlike the previous compact design.
Measuring 3.6 x 1.5 x 0.24 inches, the new nano weighs 36.8 grams, vis-a-vis present model's 2.75 x 2.06 x 0.26 inches in dimensions.
The player has a 2 inch (diagonal) LCD display with blue-white LED backlight and 320 x 240 pixel resolution. Users can now view content in both portrait and landscape modes.
iPod Touch too has gone sleeker in design. It now sports a rounded chromed-steel back that wraps around the sides a la the 3G iPhone. Measuring 4.3 x 2.4 x 0.33 inches, the second-generation iPod Touch weighs 115 grams (5 grams less than previous model). The player has a 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen multi-touch display with 480 x 320-pixel resolution at 163 pixels per inch.
There were strong speculations that Apple will increase the memory capacity of iPod Touch to 64GB. But, Apple has disappointed with no memory upgrade to the iPod Touch. Apple will continue to sell Touch in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB models.
The Apple's best selling iPod nano will come in two model versions: 8GB and 16GB. The third-generation nano comes with a memory capacity of 4GB and 8GB model.
Apple claims that the new 16GB model can store up to 4,000 songs in 128-Kbps AAC format3, up to 14,000 iPod-viewable photos, and up to 16 hours of video content.
The new nano comes with a "shake to shuffle" feature that changes songs as the user shakes the player. Another addition is the built-in accelerometer which flips the screen orientation, a feature already available in iPhone. Users can now view photos and video in both horizontal and landscape mode.
As speculated, Apple has retained the wheel-based control for navigation. The new nano will come with a 3.5mm headphone jack and USB cable connector placed at the bottom. The hold button is on the top panel of the player.
The new categorisation feature lets users create a playlist based on one song, matching it with similar choices from their music library. Apple claims that the new nano will provide up to 24 hours of audio and 4 hours of video on a single charge.
The second-generation iPod Touch too comes with a slew of new features. These include support for on-device Genius playlist creation, Microsoft Exchange Push email, multi-language keyboard, dictionary support, MobileMe, multiple calendar management, contacts search and a scientific calculator.
Popularly termed iPhone cousin, iPod Touch now has a volume rocker switch on the sides for making quick volume adjustments without touching the screen. There's also a built-in speaker added. Apple claims the new iPod Touch will support up to 36 hours of music and 6 hours of video.
The company has also bundled Nike+ hardware and software in iPod Touch, which would allow users to sync iPod Touch via iTunes and transfer their exercise data to nikeplus.com. This will help them can track their workouts.
The new nano will now come in nine colours, with many of them in flashy tinge. The colours include bright yellow, hot pink, deep indigo, silver and basic black models.
Presently, iPod nano comes in silver, turquoise, mint green, black, red and pink colurs. iPod Touch has not got any new colur variants.
The only addition is the chromed-steel colour back that wraps around the sides as well, just like the 3G iPhone.
Apple has delighted fans with a major price cuts in most models. The thinnest iPod nano will sell at $149 for 8GB memory and $199 for 16 GB version. Incidentally, the current third-generation iPod nano sells for $149 for 4GB version and $199 for an 8GB model.
The biggest surprise is the iPod Touch pricing. The 8GB version of the iPod Touch will sell for $229 (down from $299), 16GB for $299 (down from $399), and 32GB for $399 (down from $499)
Termed `the funnest iPod ever' by CEO steve Jobs, Apple wants users to look at Touch as a portable gaming device. iPod Touch's huge screen isn't just for Coverflow or video viewing anymore, the company visualises it for games and apps.
With support for multi-touch, accelerometer, real-time 3D graphics and 3D positional sound, Apple claims that the iPod Touch is `the best portable device for playing games.'
The new iPod range also boosts Apple’s Green goals. Adding another first, the new iPod nano is the cleanest iPod ever.
Terming it highly recyclable, the new nano is mercury free, toxic free, PVC free and uses arsenic-free glass. It uses recyclable aluminum.
Here's again where speculations went slightly awry. Most blog sites had speculated that Apple will completely take iPod Classic off the shelf. However, Apple has retained iPod Classic.
Though it has reduced the iPod classic line to just one model-- a 120GB model which will sell for $249. Previously, the classic line came in two versions: 80GB ($249) and 160GB ($349).
The iPod revamp may have enthused the users, however, it has so far failed to click with the markets. The investors were less than energised by the product announcements which were largely expected. This sent Apple's shares down by $4.96, or 3.1 percent, to $152.96 in afternoon trading.
The stock had been off just over $40, or a little over 20 per cent in the year-to-date, but has weathered the sell-off in stocks tied to the US credit crunch far better than most other shares, including many technology names.
By contrast, Google Inc is off almost 40 per cent this year. Rival Research in Motion Ltd, maker of the Blackberry smartphones has gone down by 9 per cent in 2008 on Nasdaq. In a succinct verdict, Shaun Collins, an analyst with CCS Insight said, "Interesting, but underwhelming."
ARTIFICIAL RAIN! In Dubai
DONE BY THE METEOROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT AT THE NATIONAL CENTRE OF METEOROLOGY AND SEISMOLOGY (NCMS) TO REMOVE THE AIR POLLUTION ON DUBAI'S ATMOSPHERE..
IT IS CALLED 'CLOUD SEEDING' A LATEST TECHNOLOGY TO CUSTOMISE WEATHER..CLOUD SEEDING, A FORM OF WEATHER MODIFICATION, IS THE ATTEMPT TO CHANGE THE AMOUNT OR TYPE OF PRECIPITATION THAT FALLS FROM CLOUDS, BY DISPERSING SUBSTANCES INTO THE AIR THAT SERVE AS CLOUD CONDENSATION OR ICE NUCLEI. THE USUAL INTENT IS TO INCREASE PRECIPITATION, BUT HAIL SUPPRESSION IS ALSO WIDELY PRACTICED. SILVER IODIDE AND DRY ICE ARE THE MOST COMMONLY USED SUBSTANCES IN CLOUD SEEDING TECHNOLOGY.
AN AIRCRAFT IS PUTTING DRY ICE ON CLOUDS WHICH MAKES ARTIFICIAL RAIN
Tech's Most Powerful women
Chairman and CEO of Xerox Corp, Anne M Mulcahy tops the list of the most powerful tech women. She became CEO of Xerox in August 2001, and chairman on January 1, 2002. Mulcahy is credited of having pulled Xerox out of a near-fatal slump in 2002. Her ideas include colour printing, eco-friendly technologies and lucrative consulting services. To compete with rivals like Canon and Hewlett-Packard, Mulcahy doubled Xerox's software R&D budget to $1.5 billion. She began her Xerox career as a field sales representative in 1976 and assumed increasingly responsible sales and senior management positions. From 1992-1995, Mulcahy was vice president for human resources, responsible for compensation, benefits, human resource strategy, labor relations, management development and employee training. Mulcahy became chief staff officer in 1997 and corporate senior vice president in 1998. Prior to that, she served as vice president and staff officer for Customer Operations, covering South America and Central America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Mulcahy earned a bachelor of arts degree in English/journalism from Marymount College in Tarrytown, NY. In addition to the Xerox board, she is a board director of Catalyst, Citigroup Inc, Fuji Xerox Company, Ltd, Target Corporation, The Washington Post Company, and is the chairman of the corporate governance task force of the Business Roundtable.
Co-President of Oracle Corporation, Safra A Catz ranks at no. 15 on the list. An Oracle veteran, she served as an Executive Vice President from November 1999 to January 2004, and as Senior Vice President from April 1999 to October 1999. Safra A Catz has served as a President since January 2004, as Chief Financial Officer since November 2005, and as a Director since October 2001. The magazine praises Catz for overseeing Oracle's numerous acquisitions -- the company's stock was recently trading near its five-year high. An Israeli, Catz held a key role in $10.3 billion takeover of software rival PeopleSoft. Prior to Oracle, Catz was at Donaldson and Lufkin & Jenrette, global investment banks. A bachelor's degree holder from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, she later pursued law from the University's Law School.
Head of Hewlett-Packard's $38 billion division, Ann Livermore ranks at no. 33 in the list of Forbes list of most powerful women. Among the 25 highest-paid women, her group includes servers, storage, software, and services for corporate clients. The products and services from this organization reach business and public sector customers of all sizes in more than 170 countries. Livermore rose through the ranks in sales, marketing and research and development. She was on the short list of possible HP chiefs to replace Carly Fiorina. For more than two decades, Livermore has been involved with building solutions to help HP customers manage and transform their technology. Livermore was elected a corporate vice president in 1995 after holding a variety of management positions in marketing, sales, research and development, and business management. She joined the company in 1982. Livermore holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master's degree in business administration from Stanford University. In 1997, Livermore was elected to the board of directors of United Parcel Service.
A first timer on the list is President of Yahoo Inc, Susan Decker. Ranked at no. 50 on the list, according to the magazine, Decker has used the turmoil caused by Microsoft Corp's attempted acquisition of Yahoo to reorganise her company. As the president of Yahoo Inc, Decker is a key participant in determining Yahoo's business strategy and vision. She is responsible for all of the global business operations of Yahoo, including sales, product marketing, product, and distribution across the three major customer groups of audience, advertisers and publishers. Prior to that, from December 2006 -- June 2007, she served as the head of one Yahoo's two major business units, the Advertiser and Publisher Group (APG). Prior to her APG role, Decker was executive vice president and chief financial officer from June 2000 -- June 2007, managing all aspects of the company's financial and administrative direction within key functional areas, including finance, facilities, investor relations (and human resources and legal through December 2006). Before Decker joined Yahoo in June 2000, she was with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) for 14 years. Most recently, she served as the global director of equity research, a $300 million operation, where, among other things, she was responsible for building and staffing a non-US research product based on global sector teams. Before serving as DLJ's global and domestic head of research, she spent 12 years as an equity research analyst, providing coverage to institutional investors on more than 30 media, publishing, and advertising stocks. In this capacity, she received recognition by Institutional Investor magazine as a top rated analyst for ten consecutive years. Decker holds a Bachelor of science degree from Tufts University, with a double major in computer science and economics, and a master of business administration degree from Harvard Business School.
At no. 97 on the list is the senior vice president, IBM Global Business Services, Virginia Rometty. The division encompasses IBM’s consulting, systems integration and applications businesses, with 2007 revenues of $18 billion and a workforce of more than 100,000 professionals worldwide. During her tenure, Rometty led the integration of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting -- the largest acquisition in professional services history -- creating the industry's largest team of business consultants and services experts to help clients apply information technology to optimise business performance. Prior to this, she was general manager of IBM Global Services, Americas, where she led a team of more than 75,000, and was responsible for strategic leadership, operations and client relationships. Rometty has also served as the general manager of strategy, marketing and sales operations for IBM Global Services worldwide. Before joining IBM's services business, Rometty was general manager of IBM's Global Insurance and Financial Services Sector, where she led IBM's business strategy for the worldwide insurance marketplace, with responsibility for marketing, sales and consulting. She also supervised the operations of IBM's Insurance Research Centers in New York, Switzerland and Japan, and was in charge of IBM's insurance solutions development worldwide.
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