Developed by Hanson Robotics, Jules is their latest humanoid creation, which made its official debut at NextFest 2006. Have a look at Video.

This one has camera eyes that can track human faces, can recognize speech, and is loaded with “conversational persona” software that gives him an uncanny realism. But this is just the beginning. Jules describes himself as “a baby”.

 

via TechEBlog

A group of researchers led by the University of Tokyo has broken Internet speed records — twice in two days. Operators of the high-speed Internet2 network announced Tuesday that the researchers on Dec. 30 sent data at 7.67 gigabits per second, using standard communications protocols.

The next day, using modified protocols, the team broke the record again by sending data over the same 20,000-mile path at 9.08 Gbps.

That likely represents the current network’s final record because rules require a 10 percent improvement for recognition, a percentage that would bring the next record right at the Internet2’s current theoretical limit of 10 Gbps.

However, the Internet2 consortium is planning to build a new network with a capacity of 100 Gbps. With the 10-fold increase, a high-quality version of the movie “The Matrix” could be sent in a few seconds rather than half a minute over the current Internet2 and two days over a typical home broadband line.

Researchers used the newer Internet addressing system, called IPv6, to break the records in December. Data started in Tokyo and went to Chicago, Amsterdam and Seattle before returning to Tokyo. The previous high of 6.96 Gbps was set in November 2005.

Speed records under the older addressing system, IPv4, are in a separate category and stand at 8.8 Gbps, set in February 2006.

The Internet2 is run by a consortium of more than 200 U.S. university. It is currently working to merge with another ultrahigh-speed, next-generation network, National LambdaRail.

The announcement of the new record was made at the Internet2 consortium’s spring meeting, which ends Wednesday in Arlington, Va.

Zaha Hadid’s design for the Dancing Towers confirms the role of Business Bay Development at the very forefront of Dubai’s rapidly changing future. The three towers rise above the creek and project themselves as an icon for the surrounding developments and for the gulf region.

The tower’s striking design creates a new presence that punctures the skyline with a powerful recognizable silhouette. The fluid character of the towers is generated through an intrinsically dynamic composition of volumes.

The towers are inter-twinned to share programmatic elements and rotate to maximize the views from the site towards the creek and neighbouring developments.

The design quality of the towers to act as a symbol and icon extends beyond their scale and location. These qualities are derived from the boldness of the architectural concept, from the ‘choreographed’ movement that combines the three towers in one overall gesture and ‘weaves’ with a series of public spaces through the podium, the bridges and the landscape beyond.

The project was launched last year and, when complete, will consist of three interlinking towers containing offices, apartments and a hotel.The towers, which share a single podium, will form the centrepiece of the Business Bay development.

Source Business Bay

Image experts have long tried to create technologies that would allow us to view an artificial world in a full 3-dimensional view. Computer games have gone 3D from their flat past, and now displays are available that could allow us to view movies of the future in 3D without the need to wear 3D goggles or using expensive virtual reality units. So why should still digital images be left behind?

Making it real

Enter Fotowoosh (http://fotowoosh.com). This service will soon allow you to turn flat digital images into 3D. It manages to put the real back in otherwise lifeless digital images. All you need to do is, upload a digital picture it could be any image, say of your car parked on one side of the road or of your friends standing at a distance. Next, your uploaded image is converted into a 3D image format called VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language). This 3D image can now be downloaded as a Flash widget on to your desktop.

Inner works:

This is how it works: Using VRML and Fotowoosh’s own systems in place, any flat image is broken up into different parts. For instance,
the top area, which could consist of the ceiling or the sky; the middle area which might include the subject; and the bottom part which could comprise of the ground covered in mud, tile or grass. Fotowoosh then fabricates simple ‘pop-up’ 3D models from the flat image.


The system marks the various parts of the image as ground, or sky horizontal or vertical and so on. These different parts are then popped up and finally the image is texture mapped onto the model. What the technology actually tries to determine is the area where the various vertical surfaces such as buildings, cars, towers come into contact with the ground in any particular given image. This information is used to collect details about the depth of those surfaces, thus creating a 3D model. The final result is achieved by simply texture mapping from the original image onto the model.

Coming soon:

Fotowoosh will offer its full service once the site moves out of its beta stage. But currently, you can enjoy the sample images and videos on the site. The end result a 3D world constructed with a simple flat digital image is truly astonishing.
You will require a VRML reader, like Cortona, to view the final VRML files. You can get it from www.parallelgraphics.com/products/cortona.

via TOI

Intel has advanced its enthusiast-level quad-core processor family with the introduction of the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800.

The company’s twelfth quad-core processor, QX6800, runs at 2.93 GHz - the fastest native clock speed yet reached.
Intel said that the new processor is ideal for those gamers, digital design professionals, and enthusiasts who crave the highest performing computers they can get their hands on.

At the recent Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, several software developers demonstrated new games that have been “threaded” to take advantage of multiple processor cores and threads.

Intel believes that the increased performance of its new processor can help deliver smoother game play, more realistic game effects, and more life-like artificial intelligence.

Some of the most exciting titles of the year such as Crytek’s Crysis, Gas Powered Games’ Supreme Commander, and Flagship’s Hellgate London have undergone substantial joint engineering efforts to use more than two processing threads to their advantage.

In fact, one of the first games ever developed for the PC, “Flight Simulator X,” is also entering the quad-core era, and according to Intel, is a great match for extreme multi-core processing delivered by the new Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor.

The latest version of the game with service pack one (SP1) is due to be out later this month.

The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800 is based on Intel’s industry-leading 65 nanometer process, key to enabling the large 8 megabyte cache. A 1,066 MHz system bus is supported, and the processor is available now at a cost of $1,199

This is amazing! A GPS site where you can type in a mobile phone number and it finds exactly where the location

person is (assuming the mobile is switched on).

Try it out - it’s pretty accurate.

Put in the first 4 digits in the first fields, and the remaining digits in the other field.

To experience this click on the link
http://www.sat-gps-locate.com/
Let me know if this worked for you.. it worked quite well for me.