I love technology.  I hate technology.  I was going to write that I have a “love-hate” relationship, but that wouldn’t be quite right.  I find the ability to “jack-in” to the Internet almost anywhere (that you Iowa DOT) comforting.  However, at the same time I find it annoying.  The ubiquity of technology allows people privileged enough to be able to afford it a constant distraction from the real world.  I find that technology often gives me something to do, but nothing productive.  I am especially interested mobile technology.  The iphone, WI-FI, oh my.  At the same time that I am amazed at the possibilities I am saddened by the end game status of technology: social networking.  To be clear I recognize that social networking allows some traditionally limited people (i.e. those with disabilities) a way to communicate and ‘move’ throughout the world.  However.  People who send, literarily, thousands of text messages a month are abusing this technology.  Social etiquette seems to be a victim of mobile technology. 

I find it rude, and in poor taste, to take a phone call in a restaurant.  I am especially bothered when I see a parent take a call when they are dinning with a child.  I would fully support the idea of expelling people from school if their cell phone rings in class. 

It is because of this imbedded rudeness (or politics as Winner might say)  in the device that I got rid of my cell phone two years ago.  If other people want to use their phones to stay connected constantly, then that is their prerogative.  However I would think the world would be a much better place if people were not so quick to jump on their cell phones and start “chatting-up” their friends.  

Since my days at Crayola, this has always been one of my favourite design research tools, Drawing the Experience. It works particularly well with children who often resort to single word answers to questions. Armed with a box of crayons, they'll give you some pretty deep insights into how they feel about anything. While working with an airport in Ireland, we asked passenger's children to draw what they liked and didn't like about airports, and what would their perfect airport would have in it. All of this was geared toward helping to create a more family-friendly user experience.

Armed with some simple tools you can better understand the needs of the people you're trying to create better products and services for.

Related: See how children created their own paper laptops. Are any computer manufacturers listening?

Who could have done this dastardly deed? It couldn't have been Dennis; he was doing time in juvie hall. What other suspects are available?

Not Trixie. Trixie has never destroyed anything in her life, apart from a few squirrels and her own fur.

Not Trouble. Destroying a pillow would involve getting out of her box and cat cup, and we know that's not going to happen.

Not the fish. If they come out of their tank, they pretty much shrivel up and die.  That leaves us with our likely perpetrator:

And why might Tucker go on such a rampage? Well, there was the little matter of Dennis's new AKC "Fox" toy:

Tucker showed no interest in the fox toy at the store (and turned up his nose at all the other toys that my wife showed him), but once we got home he decided he wanted it. Unfortunately Dennis wouldn't let him have it, resulting in much chin-quivering and pouting, and it looks like the poor pillow has paid the price.

It's the dining room table incident all over again!

Specifications of Inspiron Mini 9

• Display - 8.9 Inch LED backed display.
• Processor - 1.6 GHz Atom N270, 512KB L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB
• Storage -  Solid state device (SSD) 4 GB, 8 GB and 16 GB.
• Memory -  512 MB RAM upgradable to 1 GB.
• Other features - Intel 965 Chipset, Bluetooth, 802.11g
• Battery - 4 Cell 32 Watt/Hour Li-Ion battery
• USB 2.0 ports - 3 Nos
• Integrated 10/100 LAN (RJ45)
• 4-in-1 Card reader
• Laptop anti-theft lock
• Integrated 3G card - Could be useful with linking to telephone carriers for surfing the net.
• Screen resolution - 1024x600
• 0.3 MP or 1.3 MP webcam - Optional

Apart from the above features, Dell has also partnered with the online storage company Box.net to provide free 2 GB online storage to all the owners of Inspiron Mini 9. The Inspiron Mini 9 provides over 4 hours of battery life while keeping the weight of the system under 2.3 pounds.

Source : Dell Inspiron Mini 9 site

Weighing at 1.3 kg, the Asus 1P017E is an extremely light dignified subnotebook. This fashionable Nobel mini laptop has a case of very high-quality made of lustrous precious metal shared with spendthrift black leather. This notebook has loads to desire, to know it better read on.

In reality the whole thing of the Asus emerges to be first-class and gracious. The lid is completed of a magnesium-aluminum-alloy and is similar the palm rest areas and the frame in the region of the keyboard entirely covered with black cowhide. Even the front rim of this subnotebook is due to a brushed metal molding an authentic eye-catcher. In addition, chromed flowering elements draw consideration in the plane or in the hotel lobby.

Regardless of the majority of the up-to-date core constituents, the Asus 1P017E is not tuned for pinnacle presentation. In fact, being an authentic ultra portable laptop, the Asus 1P017E should work extremely energy-efficient while providing a travelable overall performance. Planted with Intel's energy-saving CPU, a Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage U7500 (1.06 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 2 Mega Byte L2 cache) and incorporated GMA X3100 video chip the Asus U2E is also exceptionally unbeaten in this portion.
The diminutive ultra portable Asus 1P017E comes at slightest with a 120 GB 1.8 inch SATA hard disk, a Spin point HS122JB by Samsung. This small 1.8 inch hard disk weighs only 59 gram and is thus fluffy. However, this 4200 rpm hard disk attains only a transmit rate of 24.4 MB/s in the hard disk yardstick HD Tune, which is a feeble standard data transfer rate. However, this minuscule Asus laptop is also planted with an ultra thin 8x DVD burner, an GSA-U10N by LG Electronics, which makes DVD entertainment on-the-move achievable.

Verdict:
The 1P017E, presented by Asus, is with 1.3 kilogram a light and incredibly packed in noble subnotebook in a noble black skin cover. The Asus U2E influenced by elite materials and an ideal workmanship. Considering it is an ultra portable laptop, the Asus 1P017E proffers many interfaces, counting a mini DVI port for an exterior flat screen.

Pros:
+ 1.3 kg light and mega dense
+ Noble and elite materials
+ Faultless workmanship
+ Several ports including DVI
+ incorporated DVD drive
+ Even elucidation
+ Biometric Fingerprint reader

Cons:
- No HSDPA
- Noisy fan
- Gets extremely warm
- Sluggish hard disk

Sony said Thursday the recall involves 19 models in the Vaio TZ series manufactured between May 2007 and July 2008.

The Tokyo-based consumer electronics company said improperly placed wires near the hinge connecting the body of the laptop and its display could wear quickly, causing a short circuit and overheating. A flaw in a circuit board inside the display could also overheat its rim.

Sony has received 209 reports of overheating worldwide, including seven cases in which people received minor burns.

The laptop problem comes two years after Sony had to engage in massive recalls of laptop batteries, which also caused overheating or even burst into flames.

Sony's U.S.-listed shares fell 86 cents, or 2.3%, to $36.80.

The theories and discoveries of thousands of physicists over the past century have resulted in a remarkable insight into the fundamental structure of matter: everything in the Universe is found to be made from twelve basic building blocks called fundamental particles, governed by four fundamental forces. Our best understanding of how these twelve particles and three of the forces are related to each other is encapsulated in the Standard Model of particles and forces. Developed in the early 1970s, it has successfully explained a host of experimental results and precisely predicted a wide variety of phenomena. Over time and through many experiments by many physicists, the Standard Model has become established as a well-tested physics theory.

Everything around us is made of matter particles.These occur in two basic types called quarks and leptons.

The LHC accelerator was originally conceived in the 1980s and approved for construction by the CERN Council in late 1994. Turning this ambitious scientific plan into reality proved to be an immensely complex task.

Civil engineering work to excavate underground caverns to house the huge detectors for the experiments started in 1998. Five years later, the last cubic metre of ground was finally dug for the whole project.

Numerous state-of-the-art technologies were pushed even further to meet the accelerator's exacting specifications and unprecedented demands.

Anticipating the colossal amount of data the LHC's experiments would produce (nearly 1% of the world’s information production rate), a new approach to data storage, management, sharing and analysis was created in the LHC Computing Grid project.

For more than a decade, building the LHC had been a dream for many who have worked hard to bring it to completion. Finally we can retell the story of this adventure in a journey, from a dream to a reality…

Each group consists of six particles, which are related in pairs, or ‘generations’. The lightest and most stable particles make up the first generation, whereas the heavier and less stable particles belong to the second and third generations. All stable matter in the Universe is made from particles that belong to the first generation; any heavier particles quickly decay to the next most stable level.

The six quarks are paired in the three generations – the 'up quark' and the 'down quark' form the first generation, followed by the 'charm quark' and 'strange quark', then the 'top quark' and 'bottom quark'. The six leptons are similarly arranged in three generations – the 'electron' and the 'electron-neutrino', the 'muon' and the 'muon-neutrino', and the 'tau' and the 'tau-neutrino'. The electron, the muon and the tau all have an electric charge and a mass, whereas the neutrinos are electrically neutral with very little mass.

There are four fundamental forces at work in the Universe: the strong force, the weak force, the electromagnetic force, and the gravitational force. They work over different ranges and have different strengths. Gravity is the weakest but it has an infinite range. The electromagnetic force also has infinite range but it is many times stronger than gravity. The weak and strong forces are effective only over a very short range and dominate only at the level of subatomic particles. Despite its name, the weak force is much stronger than gravity but it is indeed the weakest of the other three. The strong force is, as the name says, the strongest among all the four fundamental interactions.

We know that three of the fundamental forces result from the exchange of force carrier particles, which belong to a broader group called ‘bosons’. Matter particles transfer discrete amounts of energy by exchanging bosons with each other. Each fundamental force has its own corresponding boson particle – the strong force is carried by the ‘gluon’, the electromagnetic force is carried by the ‘photon’, and the ‘W and Z bosons’ are responsible for the weak force. Although not yet found, the ‘graviton’ should be the corresponding force-carrying particle of gravity.

The Standard Model includes the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces and all their carrier particles, and explains extremely well how these forces act on all the matter particles. However, the most familiar force in our everyday lives, gravity, is not part of the Standard Model. In fact, fitting gravity comfortably into the framework has proved to be a difficult challenge. The quantum theory used to describe the micro world, and the general theory of relativity used to describe the macro world, are like two children who refuse to play nicely together. No one has managed to make the two mathematically compatible in the context of the Standard Model. But luckily for particle physics, when it comes to the minuscule scale of particles, the effect of gravity is so weak as to be negligible. Only when we have matter in bulk, such as in ourselves or in planets, does the effect of gravity dominate. So the Standard Model still works well despite its reluctant exclusion of one of the fundamental forces.

For the past few decades, physicists have been able to describe with increasing detail the fundamental particles that make up the Universe and the interactions between them. This understanding is encapsulated in the Standard Model of particle physics, but it contains gaps and cannot tell us the whole story. To fill in the missing knowledge requires experimental data, and the next big step to achieving this is with LHC.

A giant particle accelerator near Geneva at the European Center for Nuclear Research- built over the past 14 years, with a 17-mile circumference, at a cost of $8 billion -- is expected to begin experimental runs in the summer of September 10th 2008.

The objective is to explore phenomenon thought to be involved in the origins of the universe.

A lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court during last week of March alleges that the experiment could open up a black hole that instantly consumes the entire planet, and possibly much more. "Compression of the two atoms colliding together at nearly light speed will cause an irreversible implosion, forming a miniature version of a giant black hole."

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.A Particle Accelerators were invented to provide energetic particles to investigate the structure of the atomic nucleus. Since then, they have been used to investigate many aspects of particle physics. Their job is to speed up and increase the energy of a beam of particles by generating electric fields that accelerate the particles, and magnetic fields that steer and focus them.An accelerator comes either in the form of a ring (circular accelerator), where a beam of particles travels repeatedly round a loop, or in a straight line (linear accelerator), where the beam travels from one end to the other. A number of accelerators may be joined together in sequence to reach successively higher energies.

The main components of an accelerator include:

• Radiofrequency (RF) cavities and electric fields – these provide acceleration to a beam of particles. RF cavities are located intermittently along the beam pipe. Each time a beam passes the electric field in an RF cavity, some of the energy from the radio wave is transferred to the particles.
• Vacuum chamber – this is a metal pipe (also known as the beam pipe) inside which a beam of particles travels. It is kept at an ultrahigh vacuum to minimise the amount of gas present to avoid collisions between gas molecules and the particles in the beam.
• Magnets – various types of magnets are used to serve different functions. For example, dipole magnets are usually used to bend the path of a beam of particles that would otherwise travel in a straight line. The more energy a particle has, the greater the magnetic field needed to bend its path. Quadrupole magnets are used to focus a beam, gathering all the particles closer together (similar to the way that lenses are used to focus a beam of light).

Collisions at accelerators can occur either against a fixed target, or between two beams of particles. Particle detectors are placed around the collision point to record and reveal the particles that emerge from the collision.

The job of a particle detector is to record and visualise the explosions of particles that result from the collisions at accelerators. The information obtained on a particle's speed, mass, and electric charge help physicists to work out the identity of the particle.

The work particle physicists do to identify a particle that has passed through a detector is similar to the way someone would study the tracks of footprints left by animals in mud or snow. In animal prints, factors such as the size and shape of the marks, length of stride, overall pattern, direction and depth of prints, can reveal the type of animal that came past earlier. Particles leave tell-tale signs in detectors in a similar manner for physicists to decipher.

Modern particle physics apparatus consists of layers of sub-detectors, each specialising in a particular type of particle or property. There are 3 main types of sub-detector:

1.Tracking device – detects and reveals the path of a particle
2.Calorimeter – stops, absorbs and measures the energy of a particle
3.Particle identification detector – identifies the type of particle using various techniques.

To help identify the particles produced in the collisions, the detector usually includes a magnetic field. A particle normally travels in a straight line, but in the presence of a magnetic field, its path is bent into a curve. From the curvature of the path, physicists can calculate the momentum of the particle which helps in identifying its type. Particles with very high momentum travel in almost straight lines, whereas those with low momentum move forward in tight spirals.

Tracking devices reveal the paths of electrically charged particles through the trails they leave behind. There are similar every-day effects: high-flying airplanes seem invisible, but in certain conditions you can see the trails they make. In a similar way, when particles pass through suitable substances the interaction of the passing particle with the atoms of the substance itself can be revealed.

Most modern tracking devices do not make the tracks of particles directly visible. Instead, they produce tiny electrical signals that can be recorded as computer data. A computer program then reconstructs the patterns of tracks recorded by the detector, and displays them on a screen.

They can record the curvature of a particle's track (made in the presence of a magnetic field), from which the momentum of a particle may be calculated. This is useful for identifying the particle.

Muon chambers are tracking devices used to detect muons. These particles interact very little with matter and can travel long distances through metres of dense material. Like a ghost walking through a wall, muons can pass through successive layers of a detector. The muon chambers usually make up the outermost layer.

A calorimeter measures the energy lost by a particle that goes through it. It is usually designed to entirely stop or ‘absorb’ most of the particles coming from a collision, forcing them to deposit all of their energy within the detector.

Calorimeters typically consist of layers of ‘passive’ or ‘absorbing’ high–density material (lead for instance) interleaved with layers of ‘active’ medium such as solid lead-glass or liquid argon.

Electromagnetic calorimeters measure the energy of light particles – electrons and photons – as they interact with the electrically charged particles inside matter.

Hadronic calorimeters sample the energy of hadrons (particles containing quarks, such as protons and neutrons) as they interact with atomic nuclei.

Calorimeters can stop most known particles except muons and neutrinos.

Two methods of particle identification work by detecting radiation emitted by charged particles:

• Cherenkov radiation: this is light emitted when a charged particle travels faster than the speed of light through a given medium. The light is given off at a specific angle according to the velocity of the particle. Combined with a measurement of the momentum of the particle the velocity can be used to determine the mass and hence to identify the particle.
• Transition radiation: this radiation is produced by a fast charged particle as it crosses the boundary between two electrical insulators with different resistances to electric currents. The phenomenon is related to the energy of a particle and distinguishes different particle types.

A cathode ray tube (CRT) television set has the basic features of  accelerators. A filament inside the glass vacuum tube of the television set acts as a source of particles. When the filament is heated, electrons are set free by the increase in energy. The electrons are accelerated and guided through the vacuum of the CRT by an electromagnetic field, generated by a coil of wires. The television screen acts as a particle detector. As the high-energy electrons hit the back of the screen, they are detected and made visible in the colour pixels that make up the image.The six experiments at the LHC are all run by international collaborations, bringing together scientists from institutes all over the world. Each experiment is distinct, characterised by its unique particle detector.

The two large experiments, ATLAS and CMS, are based on general-purpose detectors to analyse the myriad of particles produced by the collisions in the accelerator. They are designed to investigate the largest range of physics possible. Having two independently designed detectors is vital for cross-confirmation of any new discoveries made.

Two medium-size experiments, ALICE and LHCb, have specialised detectors for analysing the LHC collisions in relation to specific phenomena.

Two experiments, TOTEM and LHCf, are much smaller in size. They are designed to focus on ‘forward particles’ (protons or heavy ions). These are particles that just brush past each other as the beams collide, rather than meeting head-on

The ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb detectors are installed in four huge underground caverns located around the ring of the LHC. The detectors used by the TOTEM experiment are positioned near the CMS detector, whereas those used by LHCf are near the ATLAS detector.ATLAS is one of two general-purpose detectors at the LHC. It will investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter.

Alice:-For the ALICE experiment, the LHC will collide lead ions to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang under laboratory conditions. The data obtained will allow physicists to study a state of matter known as quark‑gluon plasma, which is believed to have existed soon after the Big Bang.

All ordinary matter in today’s Universe is made up of atoms. Each atom contains a nucleus composed of protons and neutrons, surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Protons and neutrons are in turn made of quarks which are bound together by other particles called gluons. This incredibly strong bond means that isolated quarks have never been found.

LHCB:-The LHCb experiment will help us to understand why we live in a Universe that appears to be composed almost entirely of matter, but no antimatter.

It specialises in investigating the slight differences between matter and antimatter by studying a type of particle called the 'beauty quark', or 'b quark'.

Instead of surrounding the entire collision point with an enclosed detector, the LHCb experiment uses a series of sub-detectors to detect mainly forward particles. The first sub-detector is mounted close to the collision point, while the next ones stand one behind the other, over a length of 20 m.

An abundance of different types of quark will be created by the LHC before they decay quickly into other forms. To catch the b-quarks, LHCb has developed sophisticated movable tracking detectors close to the path of the beams circling in the LHC.

The LHCb collaboration has 650 scientists from 48 institutes in 13 countries (April 2006).

Collisions in the LHC will generate temperatures more than 100 000 times hotter than the heart of the Sun. Physicists hope that under these conditions, the protons and neutrons will 'melt', freeing the quarks from their bonds with the gluons. This should create a state of matter called quark-gluon plasma, which probably existed just after the Big Bang when the Universe was still extremely hot. The ALICE collaboration plans to study the quark-gluon plasma as it expands and cools, observing how it progressively gives rise to the particles that constitute the matter of our Universe today.

A collaboration of more than 1000 scientists from 94 institutes in 28 countries works on the ALICE experiment (March 2006).

With the same goals in physics as CMS, ATLAS will record similar sets of measurements on the particles created in the collisions – their paths, energies, and their identities. However, the two experiments have adopted radically different technical solutions and designs for their detectors' magnet systems. CMS:-Compact Muon Solenoid
The CMS experiment uses a general-purpose detector to investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter. Although it has the same scientific goals as the ATLAS experiment, it uses different technical solutions and design of its detector magnet system to achieve these.

The CMS detector is built around a huge solenoid magnet. This takes the form of a cylindrical coil of superconducting cable that generates a magnetic field of 4 teslas, about 100 000 times that of the Earth. The magnetic field is confined by a steel 'yoke' that forms the bulk of the detector's weight of 12 500 tonnes. An unusual feature of the CMS detector is that instead of being built in-situ underground, like the other giant detectors of the LHC experiments, it was constructed on the surface, before being lowered underground in 15 sections and reassembled.

CMS detector

• Size: 21 m long, 15 m wide and 15 m high.
• Weight: 12 500 tonnes
• Design: barrel plus end caps
• Location: Cessy, France. See CMS in Google Earth.

The main feature of the ATLAS detector is its enormous doughnut-shaped magnet system. This consists of eight 25‑m long superconducting magnet coils, arranged to form a cylinder around the beam pipe through the centre of the detector. During operation, the magnetic field is contained within the central cylindrical space defined by the coils.

A major breakthrough in particle physics came in the 1970s when physicists realized that there are very close ties between two of the four fundamental forces – namely, the weak force and the electromagnetic force. The two forces can be described within the same theory, which forms the basis of the Standard Model. This ‘unification’ implies that electricity, magnetism, light and some types of radioactivity are all manifestations of a single underlying force called, unsurprisingly, the electroweak force. But in order for this unification to work mathematically, it requires that the force-carrying particles have no mass. We know from experiments that this is not true, so physicists Peter Higgs, Robert Brout and François Englert came up with a solution to solve this conundrum.

They suggested that all particles had no mass just after the Big Bang. As the Universe cooled and the temperature fell below a critical value, an invisible force field called the ‘Higgs field’ was formed together with the associated ‘Higgs boson’. The field prevails throughout the cosmos: any particles that interact with it are given a mass via the Higgs boson. The more they interact, the heavier they become, whereas particles that never interact are left with no mass at all.

This idea provided a satisfactory solution and fitted well with established theories and phenomena. The problem is that no one has ever observed the Higgs boson in an experiment to confirm the theory. Finding this particle would give an insight into why particles have certain mass, and help to develop subsequent physics. The technical problem is that we do not know the mass of the Higgs boson itself, which makes it more difficult to identify. Physicists have to look for it by systematically searching a range of mass within which it is predicted to exist. The yet unexplored range is accessible using the Large Hadron Collider, which will determine the existence of the Higgs boson. If it turns out that we cannot find it, this will leave the field wide open for physicists to develop a completely new theory to explain the origin of particle mass.

In everyday life, we inhabit a space of three dimensions – a vast ‘cupboard’ with height, width and depth, well known for centuries. Less obviously, we can consider time as an additional, fourth dimension, as Einstein famously revealed. But just as we are becoming more used to the idea of four dimensions, some theorists have made predictions wilder than even Einstein had imagined.

String theory intriguingly suggests that six more dimensions exist, but are somehow hidden from our senses. They could be all around us, but curled up to be so tiny that we have never realized their existence.

Some string theorists have taken this idea further to explain a mystery of gravity that has perplexed physicists for some time – why is gravity so much weaker than the other fundamental forces? Does its carrier, the graviton, exist and where? The idea is that we do not feel gravity’s full effect in the everyday world. Gravity may appear weak only because its force is being shared with other spatial dimensions.

To find out whether these ideas are just products of wild imaginations or an incredible leap in understanding will require experimental evidence. But how?

High-energy experiments could prise open the inconspicuous dimensions just enough to allow particles to move between the normal 3D world and other dimensions. This could be manifest in the sudden disappearance of a particle into a hidden dimension, or the unexpected appearance of a particle in an experiment. Who knows where such a discovery could lead!

It’s perhaps natural that we don’t know much about how the Universe was created – after all, we were never there ourselves. But it’s surprising to realise that when it comes to the Universe today, we don’t necessarily have a much better knowledge of what is out there. In fact, astronomers and physicists have found that all we see in the Universe – planets, stars, galaxies – accounts for only a tiny 4% of it! In a way, it is not so much the visible things that define the Universe, but rather the void around them.

Cosmological and astrophysical observations indicate that most of the Universe is made up of invisible substances that do not emit electromagnetic radiation – that is, we cannot detect them directly through telescopes or similar instruments. We detect them only through their gravitational effects, which makes them very difficult to study. These mysterious substances are known as ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. What they are and what role they played in the evolution of the Universe are a mystery, but within this darkness lie intriguing possibilities of hitherto undiscovered physics beyond the established Standard Model.

Dark matter makes up about 26% of the Universe. The first hint of its existence came in 1933, when astronomical observations and calculations of gravitational effects revealed that there must be more 'stuff' present in the Universe than telescopes could see.

Researchers now believe that the gravitational effect of dark matter makes galaxies spin faster than expected, and that its gravitational field deviates the light of objects behind it. Measurements of these effects show that dark matter exists, and they can be used to estimate the density of dark matter even though we cannot directly observe it.

But what is dark matter? One idea is that it could contain ‘supersymmetric particles’ - hypothesized particles that are partners to those already known in the Standard Model. Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider may be able to find them.

Dark energy makes up approximately 70% of the Universe and appears to be associated with the vacuum in space. It is homogenously distributed throughout the Universe, not only in space but also in time - in other words, its effect is not diluted as the Universe expands.

The ‘case file’ of antimatter was opened in 1928 by physicist Paul Dirac. He developed a theory that combined quantum mechanics and Einstein’s special relativity to provide a more full description of electron interactions. The basic equation he derived turned out to have two solutions, one for the electron and one that seemed to describe something with positive charge (in fact, it was the positron). Then in 1932 the evidence was found to prove these ideas correct, when the positron was discovered occurring naturally in cosmic rays.

So if matter and antimatter annihilate, and we and everything else are made of matter, why do we still exist? This mystery arises because we find ourselves living in a Universe made exclusively of matter. Didn't matter and antimatter completely annihilate at the time of the Big Bang? Perhaps this antimatter still exists somewhere else? Otherwise where did it go and what happened to it in the first place?

Such questions have led to speculative theories, from a break in the rules to the existence of an entire anti-Universe somewhere else! The way to solve the baffling disappearance of antimatter, and to learn more about this substance in general, is by studying both particles and antiparticles to find and decipher the subtle clues. The mystery demands teams of ‘scientific Sherlock Holmeses’ to conduct thorough detective work, to uncover a logic that is ultimately “elementary”.

For the past 50 years and more, laboratories  have routinely produced antiparticles, and in 1995 CERN became the first laboratory to create anti-atoms artificially. But no one has ever produced antimatter without obtaining the corresponding matter particles also. The scenario must have been the same during the birth of the Universe, when equal amounts of matter and antimatter must have been produced in the Big Bang.

The even distribution means that dark energy does not have any local gravitational effects, but rather a global effect on the Universe as a whole. This leads to a repulsive force, which tends to accelerate the expansion of the Universe. The rate of expansion and its acceleration can be measured by observations based on the Hubble law. These measurements, together with other scientific data, have confirmed the existence of dark energy and provide an estimate of just how much of this mysterious substance exists. 

More than 1700 scientists from 159 institutes in 37 countries work on the ATLAS experiment (March 2006).

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can achieve an energy that no other particle accelerators have reached before, but Nature routinely produces higher energies in cosmic-ray collisions. Concerns about the safety of whatever may be created in such high-energy particle collisions have been addressed for many years. In the light of new experimental data and theoretical understanding, the LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) has updated a review of the analysis made in 2003 by the LHC Safety Study Group, a group of independent scientists.

LSAG reaffirms and extends the conclusions of the 2003 report that LHC collisions present no danger and that there are no reasons for concern. Whatever the LHC will do, Nature has already done many times over during the lifetime of the Earth and other astronomical bodies. The LSAG report has been reviewed and endorsed by CERN’s Scientific Policy Committee, a group of external scientists that advises CERN’s governing body, its Council.

The precise circumference of the LHC accelerator is 26 659 m, with a total of 9300 magnets inside. Not only is the LHC the world’s largest particle accelerator, just one-eighth of its cryogenic distribution system would qualify as the world’s largest fridge. All the magnets will be pre‑cooled to -193.2°C (80 K) using 10 080 tonnes of liquid nitrogen, before they are filled with nearly 60 tonnes of liquid helium to bring them down to -271.3°C (1.9 K).

At full power, trillions of protons will race around the LHC accelerator ring 11 245 times a second, travelling at 99.99% the speed of light. Two beams of protons will each travel at a maximum energy of 7 TeV (tera-electronvolt), corresponding to head-to-head collisions of 14 TeV. Altogether some 600 million collisions will take place every second.

To avoid colliding with gas molecules inside the accelerator, the beams of particles travel in an ultra-high vacuum – a cavity as empty as interplanetary space. The internal pressure of the LHC is 10^-13 atm, ten times less than the pressure on the Moon!

The LHC is a machine of extreme hot and cold. When two beams of protons collide, they will generate temperatures more than 100 000 times hotter than the heart of the Sun, concentrated within a minuscule space. By contrast, the 'cryogenic distribution system', which circulates superfluid helium around the accelerator ring, keeps the LHC at a super cool temperature of -271.3°C (1.9 K) – even colder than outer space!To sample and record the results of up to 600 million proton collisions per second, physicists and engineers have built gargantuan devices that measure particles with micron precision. The LHC's detectors have sophisticated electronic trigger systems that precisely measure the passage time of a particle to accuracies in the region of a few billionths of a second. The trigger system also registers the location of the particles to millionths of a metre. This incredibly quick and precise response is essential for ensuring that the particle recorded in successive layers of a detector is one and the same.

The data recorded by each of the big experiments at the LHC will fill around 100 000 dual layer DVDs every year. To allow the thousands of scientists scattered around the globe to collaborate on the analysis over the next 15 years (the estimated lifetime of the LHC), tens of thousands of computers located around the world are being harnessed in a distributed computing network called the Grid.

When the LHC begins operations, it will produce roughly 15 petabytes (15 million gigabytes) of data annually – enough to fill 100 000 DVDs a year!

Thousands of scientists around the world will want to access and analyse this data, so CERN is building a distributed computing and data storage infrastructure: the LHC Computing Grid (LCG). The data from the LHC experiments will be distributed around the globe, with a primary backup recorded on tape at CERN. After initial processing, this data will be distributed to a series of large computer centres with sufficient storage capacity for a large fraction of the data, and with round-the-clock support for the Grid.

These centres will make the data available to other facilities, each consisting of one or several collaborating computing centres for specific analysis tasks. Individual scientists will access these facilities through resources such as local clusters in a university department or even individual PCs, and which may be allocated to the LCG on a regular basis.

The Experiment takes place on 10 september 2008 almost 3 days from now.The world’s largest physics experiment, the Large Hadron Collider, is expected to be launched as planned in Geneva, despite new concerns being raised over its safety, according to the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. It follows news that a lawsuit has been filed in the European Court of Human Rights. The scientists behind the latest allegations say they remain concerned over claims the experiment could create black holes which might swallow up the earth. They say there are not enough guarantees that the experiments planned  will be safe. however, says there is nothing new in the scientists’ claims and the organisation is still planning to launch the experiment on 10th September.The European Court of Human Rights has rejected a complaint against the planned launch of the world's most powerful particle accelerator near the Swiss-French border.

Opponents, including the German biochemist Otto Rössler, tried to block the experiment due to begin on September 10, saying it would result in black holes that could suck up the Earth.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) welcomed the court ruling on Friday. It dismisses accusations that the experiment is irresponsible and risky.

The court is still to decide on allegations that the experiment with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) violates the right to life.

The machine, housed in a circular tunnel near Geneva, will try to recreate conditions just after the so-called Big Bang - the presumed birth of the universe.

by

Gyandotcom

Here is a pic of one..

Lamborghini..

The recall affects the following models made between May 2007 and July 2008:

VAIO VGN-TZ100 series.VGN-TZ200 series.VGN-TZ300 series.VGN-TZ2000 series.

The company has learned of 15 computers overheating, including one injury involving a minor burn.

The computers were made in Japan and the U.S.

Consumers should stop using the notebook computers and contact the company for an inspection and repair if necessary.

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Technology developed into colorful mediums of expression ever since. We first see it in colorful cell phones, mp3 players, video cameras, and digital cameras that have blue, pink, red or green exteriors. Apple’s iPods are always distributed in different colors for the consumer to choose from, which has become a great marketing tactic in a world where black, white and steel gray were normally the colors available in retail stores. People thought this alone was enough to get everyone into the color hype, but now even laptops, a.k.a. notebooks, are becoming customized and are released in colors of blue, red, brown, gold, and the rest. Colored laptops can finally be purchased by college students, professionals, and business travelers in local or online stores nationwide. With leading brands like Sony, Dell and HP pioneering for this new techie trend, we can expect a rainbow display of colored laptops in a matter of weeks from today.

[caption id="attachment_41" align="alignright" width="440" caption="Blazing Red Sony Vaio"][/caption]Two of the best brands to have manufactured colored laptops are Sony Vaio and Dell. I personally am hoping for Sony Vaio’s CR colored laptops not only for their awesome and sleek paint jobs but also with the specs and features included in it. I am a big fan of the devilish red colored laptops, so you can just imagine what my reaction was when I saw just how sleek and sexy the blazing red Vaio laptop looked. The other colors of the CR series are also eye candies for the younger generations. They can pick from electric blue, rose pink, gold, angelic white and sleek black, whichever suits their personality. Dell has also produced quality colored laptops with their XPS and Inspiron series with the flamingo pink as their most popular color. Their colored laptops are all equipped with advanced specs, features, and are coated with that glossy fingerprint-resistant paint finishing that makes them one of the most in-demand colored laptops manufacturers in the world.

[caption id="attachment_42" align="alignleft" width="285" caption="Dell Inspiron colored laptops"][/caption]Customization does not stop with just varieties of color. Laptops with awesome abstract designs are also in demand now for the cool effect they produce. HP’s laptops for instance are famous for their l’amour designs in their limited edition laptops, earning the company that prestigious reputation they deserve. With design combined with color, the world of technology has evolved from mere work tools to fun and exciting expressions of personality. Many teenagers can finally choose which color and design would look best for their laptops, simply basing it on what their personal preferences are. A great marketing strategy and an opportunity for self-expression, colored laptops have finally made the world a little brighter than before.

En TECH:consumer hemos tenido la oportunidad de probar a fondo el nuevo Aspire One, la primera sub-notebook de bajo costo de Acer, un dispositivo pensado para acceder a Internet y comunicarnos sin complicaciones gracias a un sistema Linux de diseño propio, y que está gobernado por Intel Atom y las primeras versiones integran discos sólidos a costos muy baratos.

Conoce más de este análisis aquí.

The OLPC will call on Amazon's experience with delivery and despatch

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation has signed a deal with Amazon to sell its low cost laptops.

The online retailer will help with its next Give 1 Get 1 (G1G1) programme that is due to begin in late November.

Under this scheme people can buy one of the XO laptops for themselves and donate the other to a school child in a developing nation.

It is hoped the deal with Amazon will iron out the problems OLPC encountered when it ran the G1G1 programme itself.

Novel model

Dreamed up by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte, the OLPC was set up to create and build a powerful laptop for school children in developing nations that sold in the millions and cost less than $100 (£56).

The resulting XO laptop sports distinctive green and white livery, has wi-fi built in, can be powered by a pull cord, and comes loaded with educational software.

Many nations have expressed an interest in using the XO but relatively few started big projects that gave the machine to students and school children.

In a bid to boost the take-up of the XO laptop, the OLPC started the G1G1 programme in November 2007 that let US residents buy two of the machines for $398.

While many people expressed interest in participating the OLPC group hit problems in getting XO machines to customers. Production delays and delivery glitches led to many people cancelling orders while OLPC sorted out the problems.

The new round of the G1G1 programme is due to start in late November and run until the end of 2008. It will only be open to US residents.

At the same time the OLPC group said it planned to launch the second generation of its laptop in 2010.

The XO-2 does away with a keyboard in favour of two touch screens one of which can be converted to a touch type screen.

OLPC hopes that the new version will also get closer to its long-stated ideal of producing a computer that costs less than $100.

The current versions of the XO laptop cost about $200 but the new generation is expected to be available for about $80.  ]]> http://gallaudetblog.wordpress.com/?p=444 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:27:55 +0000 gukahlila http://gallaudetblog.wordpress.com/?p=444 I'm curious on your opinions on which laptops are better? Macbook or Dell. I have heard Dell has always been the best. Which laptops would you suggest anyone to get?

Most fascinating is the video that shows one of Apple's rare (is it the only ever?) concept products: the 'Knowledge Navigator', a laptop-style device that connects to a proto-internet and scrapes and organizes data from various ('online'?) sources.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=100196171226719096&hl=en]

It's interesting to see how most of these notions have by now been implemented, either by Apple itself or by various other hard and software providers.

Notebooks

Laptops, notebooks and subnotebooks - they're everywhere these days. And they're getting smaller, thinner and lighter. We now have the MacBook Air, the EEEPC and recently the new Dell Mini 9 - among many, may others.

Email, calendar, todo

We get all our productivity tools online these days, from web-based email to AIR apps or widgets for our todo lists. With GMail, Basecamp, Remember the Milk... we often don't know what to do first - nevermind the social media networks.

Make sure to take in that upper right icon: does it stand for 'multimedia'? If nothing else, our current computing environment is based on almost soley that.

Search

Well, does this need clarification? Although... intelligent search has seen some interesting advances, based on the concept of semantics, ranging from Cuil's new magazine-style interface over Powerset's new algorithm for searching Wikipedia, to the amazing Freebase Parallax.

Maps

Google maps is old news, Google Earth looks great, but it's mashups that are talk of the town, such as Twittervision. But think of combining those... in your GPS.

Or how about mashing Surface with WorldWide Telescope, and Google Earth 3D with PhotoSynth... Maybe it would get you something like this:

It's nothing less but handheld augmented reality but on your iPhone: excited yet?

Touch

This is an area in which concepts abound, but real products are still scarce. We've seen the Minority Report-style interfaces and Microsoft's Surface, but those are not widely available, for now. Closest we've come today are the iPhone and the HTC. Obviously, rumours of a MacBook Touch abound...

Video and chat

Video is everywhere, as are video video chat, and online video streaming. Now micro blogging has been heading towards video as well - think Twitter meets YouTube - in services such as Seesmic, and it's gone mobile with Qik.

Apple may not 'do' concepts, but if this was their vision of 2008, you'd certainly want them to do more of those.

Its not really that big of a surprise that Dell announced this new line of netbooks Michael Dell was spotted carrying one of these things around LAST MAY, Talk about being Dell's worst kept secret. But at least it did help their stocks go up ever so slightly on Thursday.

Specs include an Atom 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM and 16GB SSD. This lone model will run Windows XP Home with an 8.9-inch display screen (1024×600 pixel resolution) weighing 2.28 pounds.

Check out their site for more  details 

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-inspiron-9?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

If you own a Vaio please visit this link to find out if your laptop is affected.  http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/news-item.pl?template_id=1&news_id=272

Sony has recalled 440,000 laptops (73,000 from the US) because of a wiring flaw that could cause overheating. They've said improperly placed wires near the hinge connecting the body of the laptop and its display could wear quickly, causing a short circuit and overheating. A flaw in a circuit board inside the display could also overheat its rim. According to Sony they've received 15 reports of TZ series overheating from the US and 209 worldwide. 

Dear Valued Sony VAIO Customer, 

Sony takes pride in the quality of its products. Recently, we became aware of a potential issue affecting the following notebook PC models:

• VGN-TZ100 series
• VGN-TZ200 series
• VGN-TZ300 series
• VGN-TZ2000 series

 

The issue involves a small number of units which may overheat due to a wiring problem. Sony has initiated a voluntary program to perform a free inspection and, if necessary, a repair to ensure these units meet our high quality standards. 

On a personal note, I'm still wondering whats so special about these Sony laptops. They're usually way too overpriced compared to other laptops of similar specs. Sure you get to flaunt the Sony Vaio logo, you get nice design, and some nice creative software but we already have Apple Macbooks to take care of all of that.

So I had a laptop which stopped working for no reason. None of the lights come on except the charger light when the battery & charger were connected. The power button didn't do anything.

I assumed it was dead because the CPU fan wasn't spinning up when pressing the power button (like in desktop computers). I tried opening the laptop up anyway, and hooking everything up outside of the case, which then got it working (miraculously! I'd done this once before about a month previously and had no such luck). However, the CPU fan still doesn't spin up at boot time on this laptop, it only spins up when the computer gets busy (usually after windows gets loaded up).

Simple Checks

Something you can try first is to find the documentation for your laptop/notebook. Go online and find the manuals for your machine. Try to find the service manual as well. This can be very useful.

First of all, check your battery. If you're lucky and you have a friend who has the same laptop, you can test your battery with their machine. Otherwise, get hold of a multimeter and check out the voltages and currents coming out of the battery terminals. Sometimes (for example on an old IBM Thinkpad I looked at) the expected voltages/currents are written in the service manual. This way, you can tell if the battery is dead or not. If your battery isn't dead, it should allow you to start the laptop, even if the charger is having problems.

Check your charger. Again, if you have a friend with the same machine, ask them to test the charger. It's possible, but not safe to check if you're getting any voltages/currents out of the charger terminals with a multimeter, just to see if it's supplying any power or not. Check if the fuse has blown on the charger plug.

Sometimes your charger is fine, but the charger connector on the laptop is messed up. In this case, you'll have to wiggle the wire around, and wait until the charging light shows. Make sure the battery is plugged in when you do this, otherwise the charging light wont show at all. Sometimes, a bit of pressure upwards/downwards or sideways does the trick and gets your charging light showing again.

If you are sure your battery isn't dead, your battery holds charge, and/or your charger is working, then you can try the power button. Try holding it down for a couple of seconds, and wait around 10 seconds to see if it's having any effect.

If your power button isn't helping, you can try reseating the RAM module. You should consult  your manual on doing this. OR Google it.

If reseating RAM doesn't help, you may have a problem with the graphics card/display. Some machines overheat after long periods and this screws up some of the parts which get hot, such as the graphics chip. There's not much I know about this, so you're on your own. Post a comment if you have suggestions.

Major Surgery

You might have a laptop which isn't worth spending alot of money on to have it repaired. In this case you can take apart the laptop to take a closer look. You'll need a service manual to do this the first time, because some of the screws and tabs and stuff are hard to spot, but you can get the thing open without it if you try hard or google. Keep a log of the order in which you take out screws, and keep each group of screws seperate. For example, I'd write,

Step 1: remove 3 screws securing keyboard to top of case, and then place them together

This way it makes it alot easier to put it back together, you just follow the steps backwards. Don't lose/mix up the screws, you won't remember which ones go where.

Having a working battery and charger is useful when you've opened up the laptop, and want to check if the board is fried or not, by checking the lights on the laptop.

My Dead Laptop Came Back To Life Thank God

On the machine that I had, I just took the whole laptop apart, out of the casing and connected up the battery and charger. This is probably quite a dangerous thing to do. It can easily short out and screw the board/components.

I was getting an orange charger light if I pushed the charger cable down in the charger socket. There was a green light with a plug icon above it which flickered green when I applied power. When I tried the power button, I got nothing.

When I took it apart, there was a small daughter board attached to the motherboard, which I'll call the power board, into which the charger went. This board was connected to the main mother board via a connector with about 20-40 golden pins.On my machine this was the problem. When this power board was connected, and held up at an angle, and the charger cable pushed down a bit (it was quite tricky) I began getting a green power light (the one with a plug icon above it).

At this point I connected the hard drive, RAM and keyboard, and the hard drive began whirring. I tried booted the laptop with the power switch but it wouldn't respond, or would turn on and off.

I found a second switch near to where the charger was connected to the main board, which is pressed down when you close the lid. I pressed this switch down, and then pressed the power button, and the laptop booted, but the screens backlight was off (i guess because it thought the lid was shut), so I could see very faint text, and the laptop starting into windows.

When I let go of the lid switch, the laptop powered off again (I guess this was because the daughterboard or charger got moved out of place, but I have no idea why this happened). I booted it up again with the lid switch pressed, then let go of the lid switch (not the power button) and the screen came on fully.

I don't know how or why this worked. I'd tried it once before without taking it out of the case, but it didn't boot. Once it worked, I put the machine back together, had a bit of trouble getting the power board to sit properly in the case, but now it's good as new.

This post needs a bit of cleanup. Suggestions/comments very welcome.

Sony Corp. said the recall involves 19 models in the Vaio TZ series manufactured between May 2007 and July 2008.

The Tokyo-based consumer electronics company said improperly placed wires near the hinge connecting the body of the laptop and its display could wear quickly, causing a short circuit and overheating. A flaw in a circuit board inside the display could also cause the rim to overheat, it said.

Sony has received 209 reports of overheating worldwide, including seven cases in which people received minor burns, a Sony spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity, citing company policy.

Five people suffered minor burns in Japan and one each in the US and Italy, she said.

She said 373,000 of the laptops were sold in 48 countries, including the United States, and the remaining 67,000 in Japan.

The laptop problem comes two years after several computer makers were forced to recall a total of more than 10 million laptop batteries made by Sony because of possible overheating. The recall cost Sony about $430 million.

Sony reported in July that its April-June profit plunged by about half from a year earlier, in part because of slowing electronics sales growth.- AP ]]> http://eideard.wordpress.com/?p=5007 Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:00:08 +0000 eideard http://eideard.wordpress.com/?p=5007
Sony Engineering review meeting

Sony is recalling 440,000 Vaio laptop computers worldwide because of wiring faults that could cause overheating. Sony said wires have been put in the wrong position near the hinge, while a flaw in the circuit board that controls the screen also may cause overheating...

Sony has received 209 reports of overheating worldwide, including seven incidents where people received minor burns, Associated Press reported.

This ain't just bad batteries, folks. Someone screwed up the assembly design.

This is not what should reach the marketplace as everyday production from one of the leading consumer electronics firms on the planet.

They are recalling 74,000 units in the United States and 440,000 units worldwide according to Reuters. The recall is for the models VGN-TZ100, VGN-TZ200, VGN-TZ300 and VGN-TZ2000 series. Sony has had poor battery quality in the past and many computer companies such as Dell, Apple, and Toshiba have had to recall their Sony batteries due to it being a fire hazard.

On another note, it seems like Sony is making a lot of errors in the technology department. Playstation 3 is still putt-putting along in sales, the PSP is constantly being revamped and just recently getting more popular, and now their laptops are having to be recalled. I used to really like Sony as a top product, but now they are more like a joke. Why pay so much for a company you know isn't making a quality product? Then again, this stuff happens and even Apple has been making boo-boo's lately on their equipment. Sometimes you have to give these companies the benefit of the doubt, especially if they are willing to give good customer service and fix the problem.

If you have a Sony Vaio with the above model, I would consider looking into this further to get your laptop fixed (or maybe even get a better deal).

Posted by Alcamadus