Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
The launch date and price have not yet been decided.
China Telecom Corp Ltd will start selling Microsoft Corp's Xbox One gaming console in China from September through an exclusive contract, the country's third-largest telecommunications company said in a statement on Friday.
The launch date and price have not yet been decided, China Telecom spokesman Ivan Wong told Reuters by telephone.
The Xbox One will be the first gaming console to be released in mainland China since the government banned console sales in 2000, citing games' effects on mental health.
In September last year, Microsoft reached a deal with Chinese internet TV set-top box maker BesTV New Media Co Ltd to form a joint venture to manufacture the consoles in Shanghai's Free Trade Zone.
Released in November, the Xbox One has trailed in sales to Sony Corp's Playstation 4 which was launched around the same time.
To spur sales, Microsoft in June began selling the Xbox One without the Kinect motion sensor for $399, or $100 below the price of the full bundle.
A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to provide immediate comment.
NASA has said that earth survived near-miss from a powerful solar storm in 2012.
Back in 2012, the Sun erupted with a powerful solar storm that just missed the Earth but was big enough to "knock modern civilization back to the 18th century," NASA said.
The extreme space weather that tore through Earth s orbit on July 23, 2012, was the most powerful in 150 years, according to a statement posted on the US space agency website Wednesday.
However, few Earthlings had any idea what was going on.
"If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire," said Daniel Baker, professor of atmospheric and space physics at the University of Colorado.
Instead the storm cloud hit the STEREO-A spacecraft, a solar observatory that is "almost ideally equipped to measure the parameters of such an event," NASA said.
Scientists have analyzed the treasure trove of data it collected and concluded that it would have been comparable to the largest known space storm in 1859, known as the Carrington event.
It also would have been twice as bad as the 1989 solar storm that knocked out power across Quebec, scientists said.
"I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did," said Baker.
The National Academy of Sciences has said the economic impact of a storm like the one in 1859 could cost the modern economy more than two trillion dollars and cause damage that might take years to repair.
Experts say solar storms can cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything from radio to GPS communications to water supplies -- most of which rely on electric pumps.
They begin with an explosion on the Sun s surface, known as a solar flare, sending X-rays and extreme UV radiation toward Earth at light speed.
Hours later, energetic particles follow and these electrons and protons can electrify satellites and damage their electronics.
Next are the coronal mass ejections, billion-ton clouds of magnetized plasma that take a day or more to cross the Sun-Earth divide.
These are often deflected by Earth s magnetic shield, but a direct hit could be devastating.
There is a 12 percent chance of a super solar storm the size of the Carrington event hitting Earth in the next 10 years, according to physicist Pete Riley, who published a paper in the journal Space Weather earlier this year on the topic.
His research was based on an analysis of solar storm records going back 50 years.
"Initially, I was quite surprised that the odds were so high, but the statistics appear to be correct," said Riley.
"It is a sobering figure."
The sets of tyrannosaur footprints are the first ever to be found in proximity to one another.
Scientists in western Canada have discovered the fossilized footprints of three tyrannosaurs that suggest these fearsome predators may have hunted in packs.
The sets of tyrannosaur footprints are the first ever to be found in proximity to one another and are the only clear evidence so far that these dinosaurs may have been social rather solitary animals.
"The evidence is as strong as you can get with any fossil evidence that tyrannosaurs were pack animals," Richard McCrea of the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre, who led the excavation, told AFP on Thursday.
"It shows that these were three animals travelling together, all going in the same direction," he said.
Previously, only individual tyrannosaur footprints have been uncovered in the United States, Canada and Mongolia.
The parallel tracks leading into a rock cliff near Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia indicate the three were walking in a group, "bearing southeast within an 8.5 meter-wide corridor," according to a study published by McCrea's team in the journal PLOS ONE.
The researchers cited "similarities in depth and preservation" of the tracks as proof that they were made by animals "walking concurrently in the same direction."
The three-toed footprints of these very large bipedal carnivores with powerful jaws and small clawlike front legs were discovered by a local guide and outfitter in 2011 in what would have been soft mud 70 million years ago.
Excavation, which is continuing, has uncovered seven footprints in all.
They are believed to have been covered up and preserved by volcanic ash, only to be exposed eons later by the erosion of the cliff.
The footprints -- each half a meter long -- belong to adult animals of different sizes. They predate the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but Albertosaurus and Daspletosaurus -- ancestors of Rex -- once roamed foothills east of the Rocky Mountains.
The discovery also provides valuable new information on how tyrannosaurs moved.
"Their gait was very narrow, with very little rotation of the foot," McCrea noted. "It's quite an efficient locomotion: very long strides, almost four meters.
"We had no idea they walked like that," he said.
"There's been speculation about their biomechanics but prior to the discovery of these trackways, all we had were bones, and theories about how their joints rotated and so on.
"Now we have trackways that we can use to put those hypotheses to the test.
"That's the next step."Scientists in western Canada have discovered the fossilized footprints of three tyrannosaurs that suggest these fearsome predators may have hunted in packs.
The sets of tyrannosaur footprints are the first ever to be found in proximity to one another and are the only clear evidence so far that these dinosaurs may have been social rather solitary animals.
"The evidence is as strong as you can get with any fossil evidence that tyrannosaurs were pack animals," Richard McCrea of the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre, who led the excavation, told AFP on Thursday.
"It shows that these were three animals travelling together, all going in the same direction," he said.
Previously, only individual tyrannosaur footprints have been uncovered in the United States, Canada and Mongolia.
The parallel tracks leading into a rock cliff near Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia indicate the three were walking in a group, "bearing southeast within an 8.5 meter-wide corridor," according to a study published by McCrea's team in the journal PLOS ONE.
The researchers cited "similarities in depth and preservation" of the tracks as proof that they were made by animals "walking concurrently in the same direction."
The three-toed footprints of these very large bipedal carnivores with powerful jaws and small clawlike front legs were discovered by a local guide and outfitter in 2011 in what would have been soft mud 70 million years ago.
Excavation, which is continuing, has uncovered seven footprints in all.
They are believed to have been covered up and preserved by volcanic ash, only to be exposed eons later by the erosion of the cliff.
The footprints -- each half a meter long -- belong to adult animals of different sizes. They predate the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but Albertosaurus and Daspletosaurus -- ancestors of Rex -- once roamed foothills east of the Rocky Mountains.
The discovery also provides valuable new information on how tyrannosaurs moved.
"Their gait was very narrow, with very little rotation of the foot," McCrea noted. "It's quite an efficient locomotion: very long strides, almost four meters.
"We had no idea they walked like that," he said.
"There's been speculation about their biomechanics but prior to the discovery of these trackways, all we had were bones, and theories about how their joints rotated and so on.
"Now we have trackways that we can use to put those hypotheses to the test.
"That's the next step."
Apple denied creating any “back doors” for intelligence agencies.
Personal data including text messages, contact lists and photos can be extracted from iPhones through previously unpublicized techniques by Apple Inc employees, the company acknowledged this week.
The same techniques to circumvent backup encryption could be used by law enforcement or others with access to the "trusted" computers to which the devices have been connected, according to the security expert who prompted Apple s admission.
In a conference presentation this week, researcher Jonathan Zdziarski showed how the services take a surprising amount of data for what Apple now says are diagnostic services meant to help engineers.
Users are not notified that the services are running and cannot disable them, Zdziarski said. There is no way for iPhone users to know what computers have previously been granted trusted status via the backup process or block future connections.
“There’s no way to `unpair except to wipe your phone,” he said in a video demonstration he posted Friday showing what he could extract from an unlocked phone through a trusted computer.
As word spread about Zdziarski’s initial presentation at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference, some cited it as evidence of Apple collaboration with the National Security Agency.
Apple denied creating any “back doors” for intelligence agencies.
“We have designed iOS so that its diagnostic functions do not compromise user privacy and security, but still provides needed information to enterprise IT departments, developers and Apple for troubleshooting technical issues,” Apple said. “A user must have unlocked their device and agreed to trust another computer before that computer is able to access this limited diagnostic data.”
But Apple also posted its first descriptions of the tools on its own website, and Zdziarski and others who spoke with the company said they expected it to make at least some changes to the programs in the future.
Zdziarski said he did not believe that the services were aimed at spies. But he said that they extracted much more information than was needed, with too little disclosure.
Security industry analyst Rich Mogull said Zdziarski’s work was overhyped but technically accurate.
“They are collecting more than they should be, and the only way to get it is to compromise security,” said Mogull, chief executive officer of Securosis.
Mogull also agreed with Zdziarski that since the tools exist, law enforcement will use them in cases where the desktop computers of targeted individuals can be confiscated, hacked or reached via their employers.
“They’ll take advantage of every legal tool that they have and maybe more,” Mogull said of government investigators.
Asked if Apple had used the tools to fulfill law enforcement requests, Apple did not immediately respond.
For all the attention to the previously unknown tools and other occasional bugs, Apple’s phones are widely considered more secure than those using Google Inc s rival Android operating system, in part because Google does not have the power to send software fixes directly to those devices.
A 10-day ban imposed Thursday blocked any editing from an IP address at the US Capitol.
Wikipedia has blocked editing rights from some computers at the US House of Representatives for "disruptive" revisions on the online encyclopedia.
A 10-day ban imposed Thursday blocked any editing from an IP address at the US Capitol, which is shared among a number of computers.
"You have been blocked from editing for a period of 10 days for persistent disruptive editing," a Wikipedia posting said.
"You have been blocked from editing for a period of 10 days for persistent disruptive editing," a Wikipedia posting said.
The move came after unusual revisions were pointed out by Twitter account @congressedits, which describes itself as "a bot that tweets anonymous Wikipedia edits that are made from IP addresses in the US Congress."
The account was created by a software developer named Ed Summers.
Some of the changes, which were later undone, said that John F. Kennedy s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted "on behalf of Fidel Castro," and that the news blog Mediaite was "sexist" and "transphobic."
While Wikipedia allows users to contribute and edit entries, it also monitors for unverified or unsubstantiated comments.
A notice posted on one of the anonymous entries from Congress said, "Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia... Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted or removed. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox.
Administrators have the ability to block users from editing if they repeatedly engage in vandalism."
The suit comes at a time when Beats is being bought by Apple.
Audio technology veteran Bose Corporation on Friday sued Beats Electronics over patented technology for canceling noise in earphones.
The suit filed in federal court in the US state of Delaware pits the 50-year-old firm against an Internet Age youngster being bought by Apple in a deal valued at $3 billion.
"Bose brings this action against Beats to protect its valuable patented technology for noise-canceling headphones," lawyers for the company said in a copy of the suit obtained by AFP.
Attorneys said they had also filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission, which has the power to block imports of headsets found to infringe on patented technology.
Bose accused Beats of infringing on five of its patents for cutting out unwanted noise in headphones, particularly by cancelling it out with other sound waves.
The technology is referred to as active noise reduction.
"Beats has designed the infringing noise canceling functionality to be used automatically when a user is listening to music, and Beats instructs users on how to implement noise canceling functionality when a user only desires noise reduction," the lawsuit maintained.
Bose called on the court to order Beats to stop using the patented technology and to pay unspecified damages.
The suit comes at a time when Beats is being bought by a technology titan well experience in patent litigation.
Apple has been waging battles in courts around the world with Samsung over patented technology in iPhones and iPads.
Apple in May said it is buying Beats Music and Beats Electronics in a much-hyped deal worth $3 billion. The acquisition has yet to close.
Buying Beats was expected to help Cupertino, California-based Apple, a pioneer in digital music with its wildly popular iTunes platform, ramp up its efforts to counter successful models of streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and others.
The deal for the maker of high-end audio equipment and operator of a subscription streaming music service is Apple's largest acquisition ever.
It calls for Beats co-founders Dr. Dre, a Grammy-winning hip-hop pioneer, and Jimmy Iovine, a veteran music executive, to join the California company.
Since launching five years ago, Beats has become a popular brand for audio equipment and has attracted the likes of Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj, who have designed their own customized Beats headphones and speakers.
Fashion designers and street artists such as Alexander Wang, Futura and Snarkitecture have collaborated on some products.
The deal, which has been rumored for weeks, is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed later this year.
Beats was reported to have claimed 60 percent of the billion dollars spent on top-end earphones in the US last year.
Ebola has infected some 1,100 people and left 660 dead in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Nigeria was on alert against the possible spread of Ebola on Saturday, a day after the first confirmed death from the virus in Lagos, Africa s biggest city and the country s financial capital.
The health ministry said Friday that a 40-year-old Liberian man died at a private hospital in Lagos from the disease, which has now killed more than 650 people in four west African countries since January -- the deadliest outbreak in history.
The victim, who worked for the Liberian government, collapsed at Lagos international airport after arriving on a flight from Monrovia via the Togolese capital Lome on Tuesday, according to the Nigerian government.
He did not come into contact with the public in Lagos other than health workers before being isolated at the hospital, they added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that efforts were being made to track down people the victim may have come into contact with on his journey from the Liberian capital.
"Contact tracing under way -- Liberia, Nigeria, Togo. WHO deployed staff to Nigeria to help w/ this & safe handling of remains," the global health body s African region said on its Twitter account @WHOAFRO.
Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu had previously said all passengers who travelled with the victim on the Togo-based carrier ASKY from Lome had been traced.
Meanwhile an emergency operations centre has been set up, coordinated by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (CDC), and all hospitals have been equipped to handle emergencies and suspected cases, the minister added.
Borders have not been closed but health specialists have been deployed to all sea ports and international airports to identify any passengers displaying symptoms associated with Ebola.
In Lagos, Yewande Adeshina, the special adviser on public health to the Lagos State governor, said: "We have taken delivery of 30 personal protective equipment (sets) from the federal ministry of health and they have promised to give an additional 220 for our medical personnel to protect them from any risks.
"We are also reaching out to private clinics, hospitals and health facilities in the state to promptly report any suspected case to the authorities."
Information Minister Labaran Maku said a radio and television public awareness campaign about Ebola has been running for several months on state media and would continue.
- Tracing contacts key -
Ebola, a form of haemorrhagic fever that can have a 90 percent fatality rate, has infected some 1,100 people and left 660 dead in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone since the start of the year.
Spread by close contact with an infected person through bodily fluids such as sweat, blood and tissue, it can fell victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, vomiting and diarrhoea -- and in some cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding.
Ebola s arrival in Lagos has prompted fears of its spread, since the overcrowded megacity is a regional and international transport hub and a base for many foreign multinationals with offices in Africa s largest economy.
It is also home to more than 20 million people, but public sanitation and health care facilities are poor.
Doctors working in the under-funded and poorly equipped public health sector have been on strike since July 1 over pay and conditions.
One of Britain s leading virologists said while Ebola s arrival in Lagos was "certainly not welcome", Lagos more developed public health care infrastructure and accessible population compared to affected rural areas could work in its favour.
"The important thing to remember is that Ebola is not a virus that transmits easily, for example, by respiratory droplets.
There has to be very close or physical contact," Professor Ian Jones told AFP in an email exchange.
"If this is prevented the outbreak can be stopped in its tracks. In this regard the authorities statement that all contacts have been traced and quarantined is very reassuring," said Jones, from the University of Reading, west of London.
"I wouldn t want to dismiss this case. It s a significant alarm call, but I would be hopeful that it is a rare incident and will not lead to the virus spreading more widely."
WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said tracing people who have been in contact with an infected person was key in both rural and urban areas, although that may prove more complicated in cities.
"When there is an outbreak, it is important to see whom the people have been in contact with and follow them for 21 days," he said by phone from Sierra Leone.
