The New Windows 7 Release Is Of A Relative Size
The Windows 7 engineers have hinted that Windows 7 may be a minor release in the eyes of some users but a major one for others. While they haven't defined Windows 7 as being a minor or major release, they are suggesting it's somewhere in between.
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3 months ago
by Andrew Pociu
The Engineering Windows 7 blog has recently talked about how the scale of a new operating system release is relative to every type of users. While for end-users a major release typically comes with an upgraded or new PC, for developers the defining factor is the number of new capabilities and APIs introduced.
In weighting the advantages and disadvantages of re-architecting the Windows operating system in order to create a major release for everyone, one that performs better and takes full advantage of the latest technologies, the engineers at Microsoft agree that the key is a balance in the release of any operating system, including Windows 7.
The blog posters were careful in not categorizing the new Windows 7 operating system as either a minor or major release, and resorted to calling it an "awesome release."
zfxghd`

ITGS Mock Exam

Helo to everybody, my name is Chad Reynolds, announcing today that tomorrow is the expected Information Technology in the Gorgeous Society mock, that we have been waiting for te whole year. I leave with you people the Syllabus sow iu can stadi for de test.
gudBye.

DYLAN

http://itgssyllabus.blogspot.com/

the internet at school is not good at all
at ALL, it colgeits ol the time.
so, i cant post the good file
goodbye fellows, have a nice DEI

Pocket size fingerprint recognize

Security at Your Fingertips
Electrical Engineers Develop Pocket-Size Fingerprint Recognition

May 1, 2006 — A new pocket device reads fingerprints and validates them by wireless access to a computer. With this biometrics system, users can avoid using passwords, and get simpler and more secure access to bank balances, credit cards, and even buildings.

---

FAIRFAX, Va.--Online hackers can steal just about anything, from your identity, to your credit cards and bank balance. Now, consumers can fight back. Using the power of touch can protect your personal information.

Dominic DeSantis dares anyone to try and hack into his personal PC files. "I have different files on my desktop that you can't open without passwords," he says.

Tough password tactics may slow down a cyber thief, but it's not foolproof. Now, electrical engineers have developed this new security device that uses a one-of-a-kind access code -- your fingerprint.

"It becomes a personal identification device that you carry with you, and the device only works for you," says Barry Johnson, an electrical engineer at Privaris, Inc., in Fairfax, Va. "The fingerprint, being something that you are, is something you that you will not forget."

With the touch of a finger, online access is a cinch for credit card purchases, viewing bank balances, or checking e-mail -- all without remembering or typing a single password or PIN number. Once you scan your finger, the device compares the scan to your fingerprint data, or biometrics already stored in the device.

"The ability to not only store the fingerprint on the device, and only on the device, but to do that securely is a unique feature of the device," Johnson says. He says the new device can work with existing security systems and also works for access into buildings.

It's a unique way to help consumers like DeSantis stay secure with something he'll never lose.

BACKGROUND: "Spoofing" is the process by which individuals test a biometric security system by introducing a fake sample. This can help companies improve those systems in order to better protect their information and employees. The goal is to make the authentication process as accurate and reliable as possible.

HOW IT WORKS: Digits from cadavers and fake fingers molded from plastic, or even play dough or gelatin, can potentially be misread as authentic by biometric security systems. Electrical and computer engineers are addressing this issue by trying to "spoof" such systems in hopes of designing more effective safeguards and countermeasures. One such study found a 90 percent false verification rate; the scanning machines could not distinguish between a live sample and a fake one. The system was modified to detect the pattern of perspiration from a live finger, which reduced the false verification rate to less than 10 percent.

WHAT IS BIOMETRICS: Biometrics is the science of using biological properties such as fingerprints, an iris scan, or voice recognition to identify individuals. These unique "signatures" can be used to authenticate or determine identity. Biometric security systems are growing in popularity, popping up in hospitals, banks, even college residence halls to authorize or deny access to medical files, financial accounts, or restricted areas.

ABOUT FINGERPRINTS: A fingerprint is an imprint made by the pattern of ridges on the pad of a human finger, believed to provide traction for grasping objects. When someone touches something with his fingers, he leaves behind a residue of the touched surface in the pattern of that fingerprint. Brushing the surface with a finely ground powder, like chalk or coal, can make the print visible because the powder adheres to the residue but not the surrounding surface. Invisible prints are called latent prints; there are other chemical techniques to make those visible. There are three basic patterns: the arch, the loop and the whorl. These can be broken down into other classifications. A person's fingerprints are believed to be unique. The practice of comparing fingerprints -- such as those found at a crime scene to those of a suspect -- is called dactyloscopy. The FBI maintains a large database of more than 49 million fingerprint records for known criminals

New Google search engine (jara)

Google's New SearchWiki Tool Lets Users Give Their Two Bits

By Walaika Haskins
TechNewsWorld
11/24/08 9:10 AM PT

Googlers now have the ability to re-rank, delete, add and comment about the results coming in on their queries. The hope is that with enough users chiming in and providing feedback, Google will be able to sharpen its accuracy in determining what exactly people are looking for. The tough part will be getting enough people using it.

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has released a new search editing tool that gives users more control over their results. SearchWiki enables users to customize their searches by re-ranking, deleting, adding and even commenting on their search results. Users will also be able to see how others have edited their searches; however, the edits will only apply to their personal searches.

"It will enable the end-user by contributing to the Wiki and the community aggregation to give Google more input on how the relevancy of search engine results," Gene Alavarez, a Gartner (NYSE: IT) Research analyst, told TechNewsWorld.

Alvarez likens the new tool to those ubiquitous product reviews and the "report this reviewer" feedback option.

"Now in the wiki environment, if I take my search results and start to play around with it, they get to take a look at how the aggregate has done that. And I'm sure over time they will be able to garner patterns from that which will help strengthen the relevancy ranking of all of the search results returned," he said.

Better Search

Google's SearchWiki will help users over time while also benefiting Google, according to Alvarez.

"It will improve the relevancy of results from Google because of the contributions they will provide over time," he noted.

In the long term, as increasing numbers of searchers use the Wiki and indicate what they believe the results should have been or would have liked them to be, Google can alter the search results to jibe with their input.

"Let's say a particular search term has been altered in the wiki 1,000 times, and 800 out of that 1,000 are pretty similar. Now when that search term is used, Google can say, for the majority, this result listing in this order is preferred and may also contribute to the 'I feel fucky' function better," Alvarez continued.

Everybody Wiki

The tough part that Google has to confront, however, is adoption, Alvarez stated.

"There are some types of users, including those developing around Google, that will be early adopters of the tool, but for those who use Google like it is a phone book, will they know what a wiki is? It's going to take a while for the general public to pick up on this," he pointed out.

The value in SearchWiki will come from large adoption of the tool by users.

"This is probably a good thing for Google users over time in terms of helping shaping relevancy of search results and it will pro bably be a profitable thing for Google in the long term in terms of its contribution to the engine search results. The toughest challenge will be the adoption," he concluded.

The following video is so cool:

Intelligence

IBM plans 'brain-like' computers

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Mimicking synapses like this one is crucial to the effort

IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains.

Part of a field called "cognitive computing", the research will bring together neurobiologists, computer and materials scientists and psychologists.

As a first step in its research the project has been granted $4.9m (£3.27m) from US defence agency Darpa.

The resulting technology could be used for large-scale data analysis, decision making or even image recognition.

"The mind has an amazing ability to integrate ambiguous information across the senses, and it can effortlessly create the categories of time, space, object, and interrelationship from the sensory data," says Dharmendra Modha, the IBM scientist who is heading the collaboration.

"There are no computers that can even remotely approach the remarkable feats the mind performs," he said.

"The key idea of cognitive computing is to engineer mind-like intelligent machines by reverse engineering the structure, dynamics, function and behaviour of the brain."

'Perfect storm'

IBM will join five US universities in an ambitious effort to integrate what is known from real biological systems with the results of supercomputer simulations of neurons. The team will then aim to produce for the first time an electronic system that behaves as the simulations do.

The longer-term goal is to create a system with the level of complexity of a cat's brain.

Dr Modha says that the time is right for such a cross-disciplinary project because three disparate pursuits are coming together in what he calls a "perfect storm".

We are going not just for a homerun, but for a homerun with the bases loaded Dharmendra Modha IBM Almaden Research Center

Neuroscientists working with simple animals have learned much about the inner workings of neurons and the synapses that connect them, resulting in "wiring diagrams" for simple brains.

Supercomputing, in turn, can simulate brains up to the complexity of small mammals, using the knowledge from the biological research. Modha led a team that last year used the BlueGene supercomputer to simulate a mouse's brain, comprising 55m neurons and some half a trillion synapses.

"But the real challenge is then to manifest what will be learned from future simulations into real electronic devices - nanotechnology," Dr Modha said.

Technology has only recently reached a stage in which structures can be produced that match the density of neurons and synapses from real brains - around 10 billion in each square centimetre.

Networking

Researchers have been using bits of computer code called neural networks that seek to represent connections of neurons. They can be programmed to solve a particular problem - behaviour that appears to be the same as learning.

But this approach is fundamentally different.

"The issue with neural networks and artificial intelligence is that they seek to engineer limited cognitive functionalities one at a time. They start with an objective and devise an algorithm to achieve it," Dr Modha says.

The ultimate goal is to create a circuit with the complexity of a cat's brain

"We are attempting a 180 degree shift in perspective: seeking an algorithm first, problems second. We are investigating core micro- and macro-circuits of the brain that can be used for a wide variety of functionalities."

The problem is not in the organisation of existing neuron-like circuitry, however; the adaptability of brains lies in their ability to tune synapses, the connections between the neurons.

Synaptic connections form, break, and are strengthened or weakened depending on the signals that pass through them. Making a nano-scale material that can fit that description is one of the major goals of the project.

"The brain is much less a neural network than a synaptic network," Modha says.

First thought

The fundamental shift toward putting the problem-solving before the problem makes the potential applications for such devices practically limitless.

Free from the constraints of explicitly programmed function, computers could gather together disparate information, weigh it based on experience, form memory independently and arguably begin to solve problems in a way that has so far been the preserve of what we call "thinking".

"It's an interesting effort, and modelling computers after the human brain is promising," says Christian Keysers, director of the neuroimaging centre at University Medical Centre Groningen. However, he warns that the funding so far is likely to be inadequate for such an large-scale project.

That the effort requires the expertise of such a variety of disciplines means that the project is unprecedented in its scope, and Dr Modha admits that the goals are more than ambitious.

"We are going not just for a homerun, but for a homerun with the bases loaded," he says.

Robotics+Legos+Microsoft=FUN

Microsoft's latest robotics release

Microsoft released the latest revision of its robotics development software platform at the RoboDevelopment Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, Calif., on Monday.

Robotics Developer Studio 2008 is intended to satisfy the gamut of roboticists from hobbyists looking to program things like the iRobot Create to professionals developing commercial robots for sale.

As such, there are three versions of the software: Express, Standard, and Academic.

The Standard version for professionals will be available for $499.95, with the Express hobbyist version offered as a free download. (Pricing for an Academic license was not disclosed.)

This latest version of the software platform offers increased runtime performance, including faster load times and increased throughput.

The platform's Visual Programming Language tool, Microsoft's drag-and-drop authoring tool, has been updated for greater ease of use when working with distributed applications, according to Microsoft.

Simulations can now be recorded and played back using the Visual Simulation Environment tool to see what things might go wrong before testing applications out on hardware.

The new version also includes support for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

Another difference is in the licensing restriction. Pros and academics who buy the license for the 2008 version will be allowed to distribute an unlimited number of copies of the Concurrency and Coordination Runtime and Decentralized Software Services runtime components, whereas the previous version restricted licensees to 200 copies.

Redmond has been increasing efforts in robotics, announcing earlier this year that it will lead several initiatives to promote the robotics industry as a whole, as well as double its investment in its Robotics Group.

The platform has been supported by a long list of robotics hardware manufacturers and component suppliers, including favorites like iRobot and Lego.

According to Microsoft's own statistics, over 250,000 copies of its Windows-based development platform have been downloaded since its first version release.

The Battle Of The Touchscreen Cellphones

Battle of the Touchscreen phones: Nokia Tube, Apple iPhone, LG Renoir, Samsung Omnia

Four phones, four touchscreens - whi

ch one has the best spec?

So the Nokia Tube has finally dropped, and you know wh

at? It's actually quite good. This isn't the high-end N Series touchscreen we all hoped it would be, but it's still a very tasty product with an amazing touchscreen nonetheless. So how does it fare up against its button-forgoing rivals? H

ere's the vitals stats:

Storage capacity

Nokia Tube: 8 juicy gigabytes to fill up.

Apple iPhone: 8 or 16GB fla

sh options await, b

ut there's no card port for expansion.

LG Renoir: 8GB out of the box, with the option to expand via micro SDHC.

Samsung Omnia: Comes jum

ping out of the box with a competitive 8GB, but 16 is reachable through micro SD card.

Display

Nokia Tube: 3.2″ 640x360 pixel resolution, 16M colour touchscreen display, with haptic feedback.

Apple iPhone: A glorious 3.5"

touchscreen with 480x320 pixel resolution.

LG Renoir: A 3.0" 240x400 pixel TFT number

Samsung Omnia: 3.2" TFT T

ouchscreen tech running 240x400 pixel resolution.

Camera

Nokia Tube: The Tube isn't the most snap happy of the bunch, but a 3.2mpx autofocus camera with dual LED flash has the iPhone licked.

Apple iPhone: The skeleton

in the iPhone's closet, the 2.0 megapixel camera is almost archaically weak in comparison to the others here. There's not even a flash!

LG Renoir: A simply stonking 8.0 Megapixels of photographic prowess nestle in the Renoir's bowels. Auto-focus, face recognition, a 16x digital zoo

m and Xenon flash also join in for the ride.

Samsung Omnia: A handsome

5.0 Megapixel cam with LED flash produces some top drawer images.

Connectivity

Nokia Tube: 3G UMTS/HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetoot

h and GPS

Apple iPhone: Super-fast 3G HSDPA, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and A-GPS with Google Maps (sadly without 3d mapping).

LG Renoir: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G HSDPA

mean Geo-tagging, speedy surfing and GPS are all accounted for.

Samsung Omnia: 3G HSDPA, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a custom GPS satnav system with 3D mapping..

Media player

Nokia Tube: As part of Nokia's XpressMusic range, so comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack and a penchant for tunes, as well as an old timey-FM radio.

Apple iPhone: The meat the iPhone's meat stew, music is handled supremely well by a built in full iPod and connectivity to

the all-powerful iTunes. The only gripe is Apple's budget bundled earphones.

LG Renoir: There's no radio, but MP3 and AAC are taken care of by LG's own player. In terms of video, there's DivX playback and Dolby

technology.

Samsung Omnia:

The Omnia sells itself as a real jack-of-all, so there's a decent music and video player in there for a myriad of file types. The only gripe is the poor touchscreen that suffers from some serious lag.

Operating System

Nokia Tube: Nokias first phone with the S60 Symbian touchscreen operating system doesn't feature multi-touch technology, but is very slick all the same. Big plus points are won for its love of all things Flash.

Apple iPhone: OS X iPhone keeps everythin

g

running smoother than a swimmer's cap. The m

ulit-touch tech makes zooming, pinching, grabbing, turning and surfing so easy it's like you were born with it.

LG Renoir: There's no sign of

a Windows OS, S

O IT APPEARS THAT THE Renoir is runnin

g on a custom built LG OS. Could be a fatal mistake.

Samsung Omnia: Windows Mobile

http://www.t3.com/news/battle-of-the-touchscreen-phones-nokia-tube-apple-iphone-lg-renoir-samsung-omnia?= 36834