A few weeks ago Google announced the beta launch of its new social network Google + which is expected to give a tough time to Facebook and Twitter.

Just after a few days of Google + beta launch, Google has announced the availability of Google + app for the Windows Phone 7.

The Google + app is not much different from the Facebook app, just some considerable differences have been seen which includes editing of a post after it has been posted, unlike Facebook. The Google + app allows user to easily upload pictures directly from the app which is not possible with the Facebook app. It has also enhanced its chat function.

Google + has the edge over Facebook over its privacy features which enables users to share stuff they want to selected circles (groups) they want.

The Google + app for iOs was also introduced a few days ago and the app for Android was introduced the same day when social networking launch was made.

I am not sure about the current status of this product but have no doubt that this could one day become feasible when the technology is ripe and go on to revolutionaize the future of PC/Latop technology. It may seem that such creations are part of sci-fi movies where computerised screen is projected virtually and all actions are performed by interacting with the virtual input screen. But what you see in below photos show what Japense brains were upto in shaping the technology to make such dreams come real. The photos should not be seen as showcasing a working product but as an illustration of the concept (I have no way of verifying the authenticity of these photos!). See photos and you will know what I am talking about.

The product concept looks really cool but I can foresee few issues those who developed the concept could have faced when they attempted to implement a working prototype. The foremost that comes to my mind is the power requirements. Has technology advanced and aligned enough to come up with minuscule batteries that would power up the projections and cpu processing. I doubt so. Also how error prone would be the virtual keyboard and how it could interpret finger movements, depressions and mouse movements etc from random hand movements. These are things to ponder about. Suprisingly I was unable to find of the fate of this concept on net.

For now enjoy the photos and be dazzled by what could be your future in case you have not seen these images before ….

Arun

Editor hardwareinreview.com

Even this kid could tap into the wealth of information.

An increasing number of colleges have started using technology to distribute audio and video of college lectures, class notes, and otherwise previously unavailable content to the masses, via the internet. And the price of all this valuable college-level content? Absolutely free, aside from the basic costs of internet access itself, but since you’re presumably reading this blog online right now, probably not a problem. All of this is outlined in this Washington Post article, published today.

“Berkeley’s on YouTube. American University’s hoping to get on iTunes. George Mason professors have created an online research tool, a virtual filing cabinet for scholars. And with a few clicks on Yale’s Web site, anyone can watch one of the school’s most popular philosophy professors sitting cross-legged on his desk, talking about death.”

These are pretty big universities, expensive tuitions, why are they making all these college classes free? Well there are a few benefits for educational institutions: attracting potential students to apply, spreading the name of the university (as if Berkley and AU aren’t well-known enough), impressing donors, among others.

Some institutions are trying to do this gradually, maybe uploading a few videos to YouTube or Apple’s iTunes U, others take the bull by the horns. MIT, for example, has made 1,800 classes freely available on an online database. Pretty much their full curriculum. Steve Carson of MIT OpenCourseWare said that nearly 35 million people have tried their online courses. Nearly half of those people weren’t even affiliated with the school, just curious people who wanted to learn and get a taste of what a college lecture there is really like.

Yale has a similar set up of open courses on their website. Instead of using their own site, Berkley uses YouTube to host their videos.

Sure, you’re not going to earn a college degree from watching a bunch of YouTube videos and downloading segments from iTunes U. Most will agree however this was a step, if not a leap, in spreading education to all, especially those that can’t afford it.

Scientists at LS9, Inc. hard at work

A recent recent article on The Washington Post went into detail about how the idea creating artificial life forms through artificial DNA may be soon turned reality. Up until recently, even the most advanced laboratories couldn’t really do much more than add a few extra genes to something like a corn plant to make it more resistant to drought.

“Scientists in Maryland have already built the world’s first entirely handcrafted chromosome — a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.

In the coming year, they hope to transplant it into a cell, where it is expected to “boot itself up,” like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding. And while the first synthetic chromosome is a plagiarized version of a natural one, others that code for life forms that have never existed before are already under construction.”

It seems big corporations are already trying to patent these DNA creation technologies in hopes of monopolizing this potentially huge industry. You can’t help but make the comparison to the early days of computer programming. Pretty scary that a rogue DNA programmer might be able to create a malicious virus with this, except instead of infecting computers, it infects you.

This orangutan could probably use some

Coffee drinkers everywhere, rejoice! A nasal spray containing the naturally occurring hormone known as “orexin A” appears to reverse the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys. These sleep deprived monkeys performed similarly to well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests, researchers said.

“Orexin A is a promising candidate to become a “sleep replacement” drug. For decades, stimulants have been used to combat sleepiness, but they can be addictive and often have side effects, including raising blood pressure or causing mood swings. The military, for example, administers amphetamines to pilots flying long distances, and has funded research into new drugs like the stimulant modafinil and orexin A in an effort to help troops stay awake with the fewest side effects. The monkeys were deprived of sleep for 30 to 36 hours and then given either orexin A or a saline placebo before taking standard cognitive tests. The monkeys given orexin A in a nasal spray scored about the same as alert monkeys, while the saline-control group was severely impaired.

The study, published in the Dec. 26 edition of The Journal of Neuroscience, found orexin A not only restored monkeys’ cognitive abilities but made their brains look “awake” in PET scans.”

So where can you get your hands on some of this stuff, you may be wondering? Hold your horses, because any commercial use of this treatment will have to be approved by the FDA, which could take over 10 years.