Gadget & Tech

The Nokia E90 is a quad-band GSM & 2100 Mhz HSDPA device. It has two 16mil color TFT screens, one QVGA external and one 800×352 internal landscape. It has 128 MB of internal flash, 128 MB RAM, a microSD hotswap port, and it runs on 330 Mhz ARM CPU. It comes with Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support and an IrDA port. It uses the Nokia connector for charging, but for data exchange it’s using a standard miniUSB 2.0 port. It also comes with a 2.5mm headphone jack, full GPS support, Push to talk for usage outside of USA, FM radio, a 3.2 MP camera with autofocus, and a secondary QCIF video-call camera. The smartphone weighs 210 grams, although it doesn’t feel too big because of its ultra-wide design.

Read More

All humans originated from a single point in Africa and migrated across the world, say British researchers at the University of Cambridge.

Previously, there were two theories on the origin of humans. One theory said that all humans originated in Africa. The second theory said that different populations of humans evolved from different areas of the world.

But in a new study published in the July 19 issue of Nature, researchers say they have proven the single origin of humans theory by combining studies of global genetic variations in humans with skull measurements across the world.

The researchers studied genetic diversity of human populations around the world and measured more than 6,000 skulls from across the globe, kept in academic collections.

They found that losses in genetic diversity the farther a population is from Africa are mirrored by losses in variation in physical attributes.

Variation in the physical attributes of the skulls was highest among the sample from southeastern Africa, and it decreased at the same rate as the genetic data the farther the skull was away from Africa.

“The origin of anatomically modern humans has been the focus of much heated debate. Our genetic research shows the further modern humans have migrated from Africa, the more genetic diversity has been lost within a population,” lead researcher Andrea Manica, from the university’s department of zoology, said in a prepared statement.

“However, some have used skull data to argue that modern humans originated in multiple spots around the world. We have combined our genetic data with new measurements of a large sample of skulls to show definitively that modern humans originated from a single area in sub-Saharan Africa,” Manica said.

Read More

This got to be the funniest thing i’ve ever seen : )

The Cingular 8525 has proved to be a popular model with AT&T, but it’s starting to show its age. Rumor has it that this device will soon be replaced by a device based on the HTC Kaiser.

This model — supposedly to be called the AT&T 8925 — will, at first glance, look a great deal like the 8525. It will have a tablet shape with a QWERTY keyboard hidden below the 2.8-inch, QVGA screen.

But unlike its predecessors, when the screen is slid aside to expose the keyboard, it will flip up at an angle, making the device look something like a mini laptop.

Read More

A camera-toting tipster saw what appeared to be a giant armada of Chevy Cobalt cars in the Google parking lot, getting ready to take pictures of the entire world (or thereabouts) with special 360
° cameras. The tipster says he followed a Google camera van as it cruised back to its Mountain View, California lair yesterday after that van finished a se

read more | digg story

Dutch researchers using the software recently for a consumer test project seconded what wise men have always known: Sweets are the surest way to make a woman smile.

Some 300 women in six European countries were filmed as they ate five foods: vanilla ice cream, chocolate, cereal bars, yogurt and apples. Not surprisingly, ice cream and chocolate produced the most happy expressions across the Old Continent.

Researchers chose women — who tend to be more expressive than men — at universities, shopping malls and city centers to test foods at face value. Cameras first recorded volunteers noshing, then participants provided a “posed” version of the expression they felt to give a more emphatic face for comparison.

Marketers increasingly use technology to determine what gives consumers bliss. Food and consumer goods giant Unilever, which used brain scans to demonstrate why we all scream for ice cream, hired software developers Theo Gevers and Nicu Sebe from the science department of the University of Amsterdam to run the European tests after reading about their experimental work deciphering the Mona Lisa’s smile.

“We know ice cream is a real pleasure food; we turned to technology to back that up,” said Mandy Mistlin, consumer scientist at Unilever UK. The software may eventually be used to test reduced-fat and -calorie ice creams to see if they maintain the “pleasure principle,” she added.

The software, or others like it, may put a new face on market surveys. For professor Deborah Small of The Wharton School, who recently examined the effects of facial expressions in charity ad campaigns, excitement surrounding these technologies is considerable. The real test, she says, is whether they can become sophisticated enough to predict our responses.

Read More

Water has been discovered on a planet beyond our solar system for the first time, enhancing the prospect that life could be found elsewhere in the Universe.

Observations with the orbiting Spitzer space telescope allowed astronomers to detected water vapour in the atmosphere of a gas giant 64 light years away from Earth, an international team led by a British university reported yesterday.

The planet has the unromantic name HD 189733b and orbits a star in the constellation of Vulpecula, the Fox. Although the Jupiter-like planet on which water has been identified is not likely to be habitable – it is composed chiefly of gas and it is so close to its parent star that parts of its atmosphere are as hot as 2,000C (3,630F) – the discovery suggests that water may be a common presence on planets throughout the galaxy.

The same techniques that were used to pick up the signature of water could also be used to examine more promising homes for life, particularly on smaller, rocky, Earth-like worlds once more powerful telescopes are able to find them.

Read More

Life as we know it on Earth is not the only kind possible in the universe, scientists reminded NASA in a report released today.

Issued by the National Academy of Sciences and sponsored by the space agency, the 116-page report reviews current research into what life is and what it needs to survive, as well as the way life might differ on other worlds.

“Our investigation made clear that life is possible in forms different than those on Earth,” said committee chair John Baross, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Despite UFO reports, scientists have not yet found any evidence for life beyond Earth.

The report committee, made up of 11 scientists from diverse fields, worry that researchers have already limited their scope of thinking about where extraterrestrial life might be found.

The assumption that life requires water, for example, has limited the search for life on Mars to those “habitats” where liquid water is thought to be present or to have once flowed. But recent research suggests liquids such as ammonia or formamide could serve as an alternative to water for some alien organisms.

For this reason, the committee recommends that increased priority be given to a follow-up mission to probe Saturn’s moon Titan, a world now known to be covered in lakes and rivers of liquid water-ammonia mixtures.

Read More

If you like taking Pictures of fireworks but it never comes out like you want to, head on over to NYIP (The New York Institute of Photography) to get a very helpful tips of fireworks photograph.

Have a very Happy and safe Fourth of July!!