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    Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
  • Computers Learn to Listen, and Some Talk Back

    “Hi, thanks for coming,” the medical assistant says, greeting a mother with her 5-year-old son. “Are you here for your child or yourself?”

    The boy, the mother replies. He has diarrhea.

    “Oh no, sorry to hear that,” she says, looking down at the boy.

    The assistant asks the mother about other symptoms, including fever (“slight”) and abdominal pain (“He hasn’t been complaining”).

    She turns again to the boy. “Has your tummy been hurting?” Yes, he replies.

    After a few more questions, the assistant declares herself “not that concerned at this point.” She schedules an appointment with a doctor in a couple of days. The mother leads her son from the room, holding his hand. But he keeps looking back at the assistant, fascinated, as if reluctant to leave.

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  • Apple iPhone 4 is the biggest upgrade

    With a revamped design, a sparkling new display, a speedy processor, and additional features, Apple iPhone 4 is the biggest upgrade to Apple's smartphone since the iPhone 3G. It's also the showcase handset for Apple's newest operating system, iOS 4, which adds a selection of long-overdue features, plus a selection of smaller tweaks that we weren't expecting.

    If they existed independently, iPhone 4 and iOS 4 wouldn't be much more than blips on the smartphone radar screen. When combined into one handset, however, the result is a sleek, satisfying, and compelling device that keeps Apple strongly competitive in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Indeed, the iPhone 4 is fast, the new hardware is a looker, and some of the new features blew us away. On other points, however, we have some concerns. Call reception still has its problems, and though we welcome multitasking with open arms, it has its drawbacks. Also, though the FaceTime video calling is more than noteworthy, we wonder if our interest will last more than a week.

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  • 10 Ways to Score an iPhone 4 on Launch Day

    With the iPhone 4 launching on Friday, Consumers and even some enterprise customers are undoubtedly excited to finally get their hands on Apple's new smartphone. Such excitement is understandable. The device is arguably the best iPhone, at least on paper, that Apple has ever released.

    Not only does it run the company's new iOS 4, which boasts multitasking, it includes a new feature called Face Time, which allows users to place video calls over Wi-Fi. Further, thanks to a new and improved display, the fidelity of the iPhone 4's touch screen should be second to none.

    But most folks already know that. Now, they want to know how they can get their hands on an iPhone 4 on June 24. For some, pre-ordering was the way to go. Those that were lucky enough to get through the trials of pre-ordering an iPhone 4 on June 15 should have their smartphones in-hand that day.

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  • Why Skin Cancer Is on the Rise??

    For years and years now, millions of sun worshippers across the country would hit the beaches during summer to work on the perfect, golden tan. However, the advent of indoor tanning salons now allows Americans to sport a sun-kissed look year-round. And as more and more people pursue a perpetual summer-style tan, dermatologists have begun noticing a significant rise in skin cancer incidents, especially among young women.

    Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, still makes up just 3 percent of all skin cancers, and results in about 8,000 deaths a year, according to the National Cancer Institute. But three factors have doctors alarmed: The rates of this cancer are rising; it has become the most common cancer for young people; and many of the cases result from the preventable, but addictive, behavior of indoor suntanning.

    "In the last few decades, it's certainly been on the rise. And some people think that may be a result of behavior, and UV exposure," said Jennifer Stein, an assistant professor of dermatology at New York University's Langone Medical Center. "This is a very serious cancer, and this is a behavior that's preventable."

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  • Apple's iOS 4 Benchmarked: Is It Faster?

    The new iOS 4 for the iPhone and iPod touch promises 100 new features, but we weren't sure if one of them would be speed. We're still not sure. After running some preliminary benchmarks on an iPhone 3GS and an iPod touch (3rd generation), we found mixed results with iOS 4, which made some tests run slightly faster and others slightly slower.

    Part of the ambiguity may be because the two native benchmarking apps we use, BenchTest and Benchmark, haven't yet been updated for iOS 4. So they aren't using the latest features. Along with those two native apps, we also tried two tests of Web browser processing power and checked how long it took to launch a complex game.

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  • Apple begins shipping early iPhone 4 orders

    Last friday, Apple began marking orders as "prepared for shipment," but now a variety of readers have reported getting iPhone 4 shipment notifications from Apple.

    Most of the reports indicate a "delivers by" date of June 24, the same day retail store sales begin, although some have said their shipment notifications state a ship by date of June 23.

    FedEx estimates an arrival time on the delivery date "by 4:30 PM." Apple may request shippers to send items in advance but then hold them for delivery until the launch date, but some readers were shipped iPads a day or two ahead of the planned ship date.

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  • iPad coming to church altars with daily missal app


    An Italian priest has developed an application that will let priests celebrate Mass with an iPad on the altar instead of the regular Roman missal.

    The Rev. Paolo Padrini, a consultant with the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said Friday the free application will be launched in July in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Latin.

    Two years ago, Padrini developed the iBreviary, an application that brought the book of daily prayers used by priests onto iPhones. To date, some 200,000 people have downloaded the application, he said.

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  • Kinect for Xbox 360 vs. Playstation Move. Which Will be a Leader

    The more time I spent with Playstation Move and Kinect for Xbox 360, the more I'm convinced that they're both hitting the market about six months too early.

    Not that there's anything wrong with the hardware. Kinect, a special camera that tracks motion, worked fine -- if not a tad laggy -- in the games I played on the show floor. Same goes for the Move, which behaves a lot like a Wii remote, but also with a camera that traces the positioning of the controller in 3D space, and of course the benefit of better graphics. But before the show, I , and neither the Move nor Kinect have it -- yet.

    I played two of Microsoft's Kinect games developed in-house -- a suite of mini-games called Kinect Sports and yet another suite of mini-games called Kinect Adventures -- plus Dance Central, essentially a full-body Dance Dance Revolution by Harmonix, makers of Rock Band. The Microsoft games felt like tech demos. While it was definitely neat to grab a virtual bowling ball out of thin air and see it move in my hands on the screen, it's still Wii Sports all over again, and the hurdle-jumping game I played was eerily similar to the Nintendo Power Pad from the late 1980s. Dance Central had more substance, but if the novelty of music games can wear off, the same will be said for aerobic dancing games.

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  • Nuclear Summit | Peace In The World Without Nuclear

    Nuclear Summit | Peace In The World Without Nuclear on Trends Hot Topics --- Make peace around the world without nuclear. Today, the leaders of 47 nations gather in Washington to talk about Nuclear Security Summit to discuss how to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.

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