Beyond Verses

My blog that specializes in Space Science and latest news from NASA

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Smartphones

The last 12 months has seen the launch of iconic devices such as the iPhone 3G, Google G1, Blackberry Storm and Nokia N97.

It also saw the emergence of the electronic ecosystems needed to get the most out of such handsets.

But all is not rosy in the smartphone garden. The popularity of these devices has brought to light several problems that look set to become acute in 2009.

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                                    Nokia N 95  

Use the Nokia N95 for connecting to mobile Broadband using WLAN or HSDPA (3.5G) with up to 10 times faster downloading than 3G. Find directions and locations with the integrated GPS and included maps. The Nokia N95 is a GSM/WCDMA dual mode portable multimedia computer supporting EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100 HSDPA. Use the Nokia N95 to take photos with a 5 megapixel autofocus camera and enjoy videos, music and graphics with crystal clarity on the 2.6” QVGA (240 x 320 pixels), 16M color display. Listen to music with enhanced “3D stereo” using the built-in dual speakers or for a big screen experience, connect the Nokia N95 to a compatible TV using direct TV out connectivity or via Wireless LAN and UPnP technology. Additional Nokia N95 features include USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR with A2DP stereo audio, and MicroSD memory card support.

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                                 Nokia N 96      

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Nokia today unveiled the Nokia N96, a multimedia computer truly optimized for video and TV. With a large 2.8" screen, 16 gigabytes of internal memory and support for high-quality videos in a wide range of formats, the dual-slide Nokia N96 represents an exciting new chapter in mobile media. The Nokia N96 multimedia computer is expected to begin shipping in the third quarter of 2008 with an estimated sales price of approximately 550 euros, before subsidies or taxes.Accessing internet videos is quick and simple. The Nokia N96 supports common video formats including MPEG-4, Windows Media Video and Flash Video, making favorite videos easy to view. Transferring and accessing videos is even faster with the high-speed USB 2.0 connection and WLAN and HSDPA support. In select markets, the integrated DVB-H receiver offers live broadcast TV with an automatically updating program guide. The massive memory can store up to 40 hours of video content. The storage capacity of the Nokia N96 can even be further expanded with an optional microSD card, such as the new Nokia 8GB microSDHC Card MU-43 which increases the available memory of the Nokia N96 to a total of 24 GB. For a superb music experience, the Nokia N96 features media keys, a 3.5 mm headphone 447876connector and built-in 3D stereo speakers. The Nokia Maps application offers richer maps with urban details and satellite views and has upgrade options such as City Guides, turn-by-turn pedestrian mode and voice-guided car navigation. The Nokia N96 boasts a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, flash and video light. It allows DVD-like quality video capture at 30 frames per second. Further, with the integrated A-GPS, consumers can now 'geotag' their pictures with location data and share them with their online communities. The Nokia N96 naturally supports the Ovi family of Nokia internet services, including maps, music, media sharing and more.

                                 

                                   Nokia N 97

          nokia-n97

Details are in, Nokia has a new flagship phone. The N97 packs  a 3.5-inch, 640 x 360 pixel (that's a 16:9 aspect ratio) resistive touchscreen display with tactile feedback and QWERTY keyboard into this sliding communicator with an "always open" window to favorite internet or social networking sites. Nokia calls it the "world's most advanced mobile computer." To back up the claim they've dropped in HSDPA, WiFi, and Bluetooth radios, A-GPS, a 3.5-mm headjack, 32GB of onboard memory with microSD expansion (for up to 48GB total capacity), and a battery capable of up to 1.5 days of continuous audio playback or 4.5-hours video. 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss glass and "DVD quality" video capture at 30fps, too. The specs are certainly impressive, let's see if the S60 5th Edition OS can support it. The N97 will launch with a retail price set at around €550 ($693) excluding subsidies and taxes, phone to ship in H1 2009.

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                                  Nokia N 98

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Upcoming in 2009 ............

  • 10 GB internal memory
  • CDMA 2100
  • 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
  • HSDPA
  • 3.2 inch screen with 16 million colors
  • WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, Mini USB 2.0 and infrared
  • full QWERTY keyboard
  • 6MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics and optic zoom
  • 3.5mm jack
  • Digital TV
  • FM Radio
  • GPRS
  • touchscreen and joystick navigation
  • motion sensor

                                  Nokia N-Series

For more Information Go to   www.nseries.com

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Ariane makes final launch of 2008

Europe's Ariane 5 rocket has wrapped up its 2008 campaign with another dual launch from the Kourou spaceport.

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The vehicle was carrying two satellites into orbit for the Eutelsat company.

The Hot Bird 9 and W2M platforms were put on a path to geostationary orbits, to provide a mix of TV, radio and other telecommunications services.

It was the sixth flight for an Ariane 5, in a year that also saw the rocket start to service the International Space Station (ISS).

Its primary role, though, will continue to be as launcher of commercial telecommunications satellites.

Lift-off for the Eutelsat mission was delayed by technical problems and left the ground at 2235 GMT, about three-quarters of an hour later than planned.

It is the first time that two platforms belonging to one of the major operators have been launched on the same rocket.

Eutelsat CEO Giuliano Berretta is a big admirer of the "excellent" Ariane; he is a frequent customer.

But in a wide-ranging interview ahead of Saturday's flight, he said satellite operators wanted to see more competition among launchers, to bring down prices. 

This article taken from BBC web site

by Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Friday, December 19, 2008

Image Building

New computer technology mines photo databases for missing imagery
Taking inspiration from Google, a team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation developed a powerful new algorithm that searches large collections of images located on the World Wide Web to create novel imagery or fill in missing information in existing photographs.

The algorithm uses a dataset of 2.3 million photographs downloaded from a community sharing Web site to find good scene matches for a given image. The pixels from these matching photos are then used to fill in the hole in a seamless and "semantically valid" way.

"It's seamless because the human eye can't detect the manipulation and semantically valid because the borrowed pixels appear in context," said Alexei Efros, a computer scientist at Canegie-Mellon University. "A motorcycle wheel and a Ferris wheel have the same basic shape, but one can't be substituted for the other when completing an image."

Unlike existing technology that requires the algorithm to go through a long learning process with constant feedback loops to improve its decision making ability, the new technique is a large-scale data-driven search engine like Google that learns to select data the easy way.

"It searches everything, all 2 million photos to find images that look similar to the given image," Efros said. How successful is it? "Images completed using the technique fooled a focus group two-thirds of the time, while the best competing technique only fooled them one-third of the time."

The researchers believe their algorithm suggests a new way of using large image collections for "brute-force" solutions to many long-standing problems in computer graphics and computer vision.

"Our chief insight is that while the space of images is effectively infinite, the photos people take are actually not that diverse," Efros said. "So for many image completion tasks, we are able to find similar scenes that contain image fragments which will convincingly complete the image."

The algorithm is entirely data-driven, requiring no annotations or labeling by the user and unlike existing image completion methods, the algorithm can generate a diverse set of image completions and allow users to select among them.

The underlying large-scale data-driven search engine for the scene completion technique has a potential application beyond correcting damaged or deficient images. It could be used by the military or law enforcement to estimate where a photograph of a terrorist or a kidnap victim was taken.

"A human expert would be better, but the algorithm could give a rough first pass and narrow down the location," Efros said. "It would help focus the available resources where they need to be."

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