Portland cement
Portland cement is common and familiar type of cement nowadays which are open usage in many parts of the world, as it is a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco and most non-specialty grout. It is a fine powder made by grinding Portland cement clinker (more than 90%), a limited amount of calcium sulfate which controls the set time, and up to 5% minor constituents (as allowed by various standards). As defined by the European Standard EN197.1, "Portland cement clinker is a hydraulic material which shall consist of at least two-thirds by mass of calcium silicates (3CaO.SiO2 and 2CaO.SiO2), the remainder consisting of aluminium- and iron-containing clinker phases and other compounds. The ratio of CaO to SiO2 shall not be less than 2.0. The magnesium content (MgO) shall not exceed 5.0% by mass.". Portland cement sintering temperature, which is about 1450 °C for modern cements. The aluminium oxide and iron oxide are present as a flux and contribute little to the strength. For special cements, such as Low Heat (LH) and Sulfate Resistant (SR) types, it is necessary to limit the amount of tricalcium aluminate (3CaO.Al2O3) formed. The major raw material for the clinker-making is usually limestone (CaCO3). Normally, an impure limestone which contains SiO2 is used. The CaCO3 content of these limestones can be as low as 80%. Secondary raw materials (materials in the rawmix other than limestone) depend on the purity of the limestone. Some of the secondary raw materials used are: clay, shale, sand, iron ore, bauxite, fly ash and slag. When a cement kiln is fired by coal, the ash of the coal acts as a secondary raw material.Portland was developed from cements (or correctly hydraulic limes) made in Britain in the early part of the nineteenth century, and its name is derived from its similarity to Portland stone, a type of building stone that was quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. Joseph Aspdin, a British bricklayer, in 1824 was granted a patent for a process of making a cement which he called Portland cement. His cement was an artificial hydraulic lime similar in properties to the material known as "Roman Cement" (patented in 1796 by James Parker) and his process was similar to that patented in 1822 and used since 1811 by James Frost who called his cement "British Cement". The name "Portland cement" is also recorded in a directory published in 1823 being associated with a William Lockwood and possibly others. Aspdin's son William in 1843 made an improved version of this cement and he initially called it "Patent Portland cement" although he had no patent. In 1848 William Aspdin further improved his cement and in 1853 moved to Germany where he was involved in cement making. Many people have claimed to have made the first Portland cement in the modern sense, but it is generally accepted that it was first manufactured by William Aspdin at Northfleet, England in about 1842. The German Government issued a standard on Portland cement in 1878. The most common use for Portland cement is in the production of concrete. Concrete is a composite material consisting of aggregate (gravel and sand), cement, and water. As a construction material, concrete can be cast in almost any shape desired, and once hardened, can become a structural (load bearing) element. Users may be involved in the factory production of pre-cast units, such as panels, beams, road furniture, or may make cast-in-situ concrete such as building superstructures, roads, dams. These may be supplied with concrete mixed on site, or may be provided with "ready-mixed" concrete made at permanent mixing sites. Portland cement is also used in mortars (with sand and water only) for plasters and screeds, and in grouts (cement/water mixes squeezed into gaps to consolidate foundations, road-beds, etc).
Tidal energy
Let us thank moon for his kind gestures. Tidal energy is the one and only forms of energy whose starting place is the moon. Some other energy sources like nuclear power and geothermal energy for instance, have the Earth as their source. The remainder, fossil fuels, wind energy, biofuels, solar energy, etc. have the Sun as their source, directly or indirectly. The tidal power is produced by the gravitational pull of the Moon on water. Due to these gravitational forces the water level follows a periodic high and low. The height of the tide produced at a given location is the result of the changing positions of the Moon and Sun relative to the Earth coupled with the effects of Earth rotation and the local shape of the sea floor. The tidal energy generator uses this phenomenon to generate energy. The higher the height of the tide the more promising it is to harness tidal energy. Tidal power, sometimes called tidal energy, is a form of hydropower that uses the movement of water caused by tidal currents or the rise and fall in sea levels due to the tides. Although not yet widely used, tidal power has prospective for upcoming electricity generation and is more conventional than wind energy and solar power. In Europe, tide mills have been used for over a thousand years, mainly for grinding grains.
WIND POWER
Wind power means the simple conversion of wind energy into electricity, using wind turbines. In windmills, wind energy is directly employed to crush grain or to pump water. In 2006, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 73.9 gigawatts. Although wind currently produces a mere over 1% of world-wide electricity use, it accounts for approximately 20% of electricity production in Denmark, 9% in Spain, and 7% in Germany. Globally, wind power generation more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006.Wind power is produced in large scale wind farms connected to electrical grids, and in individual turbines for providing electricity to remote isolated locations. Wind energy is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions when it displaces fossil-fuel-derived electricity. The intermittency of wind seldom creates insurmountable problems when using wind power to supply up to roughly 10% of total electrical demand (low to moderate penetration), but it presents challenges that are not yet fully solved when wind is to be used for a larger fraction of demand. There are many thousands of wind turbines operating, with a total capacity of 73,904 MW of which wind power in Europe accounts for 65% (2006). The average output of one megawatt of wind power is equivalent to the average electricity consumption of about 250 American households. Wind power was the most rapidly-growing means of alternative electricity generation at the turn of the 20th century. World wind generation capacity more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006. In some countries (Spain and Denmark) wind supplies 10% or more of the nation's electricity. 81% of wind power installations are in the US and Europe, but the share of the top five countries in terms of new installations fell from 71% in 2004 to 55% in 2005.By 2010, the World Wind Energy Association expects 160GW of capacity to be installed worldwide, up from 73.9GW at the end of 2006, implying an anticipated net growth rate of more than 21% per year. India ranks 4th in the world with a total wind power capacity of 6,270 MW in 2006, or 3% of all electricity produced in India. The World Wind Energy Conference in New Delhi in November 2006 has given additional impetus to the Indian wind industry. The windfarm near Muppandal, Tamil Nadu, India, provides an impoverished village with energy for work. India-based Suzlon Energy is one of the world's largest wind turbine manufacturers.
Artificial pacemaker
Artificial pacemaker is a sophisticated medical accessory which employs electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to control and monitor the beating of the heart. The primary purpose of a pacemaker is to regulate an adequate heart rate, either because the heart's native pacemaker is not fast enough, or there is a blockade in the heart's electrical conduction system. Modern pacemakers are externally programmable and give freedom for the cardiologist to select the optimum pacing modes for every individual patient. Some combine a pacemaker and implantable defibrillator in a single implantable device. Others have more than one electrode stimulating differing positions within the heart to enhance synchronization of the lower chambers of the heart. There exist different methods of pacing namely Percussive Pacing, Transcutaneous pacing, Transvenous pacing (temporary) and Permanent pacing. Lots of research has been made to improve the control of the pacemaker after implantation. Many of these enhancements have been now possible by using microprocessor controlled pacemakers. Pacemakers that control the ventricles and the atria are now common. Pacemakers that control both the atria and ventricles are called dual-chamber pacemakers. Although these dual-chamber models are rather expensive, timing the contractions of the atria to precede that of the ventricles improves the pumping efficiency of the heart and can be useful in congestive heart failure.
Keyboards are a essential part of today’s computers. But may be not for much longer. A group of European scientists have used acoustic sensors to turn wooden tabletops and even three-dimensional objects into a new type of computer interface. Sound vibrating a windowpane or through a tabletop is something most people practice daily. Sound waves pass through well through most solid materials. Now, European researchers have demoralized the excellent propagation of sound waves through solids to turn everyday objects – including 3D objects – into a new kind of computer interface.By fixing sensors to solid materials, were able to locate exactly and track acoustic vibrations. Tapping on discrete areas of a whiteboard could generate musical notes on a computer. Tracking the sound of a finger scrawling words on a sheet of hardboard could translate, in real time, into handwriting on a computer screen. There is no need for overlays or intrusive devices.Sensing vibrations in a solid and changing them to electrical pulses is the easy bit. Exactly locating the source of that vibration in a solid material is where it gets complicated. The problem is that the complex structures of solids make wave propagation difficult to model. Wood knots in a desktop, for example, will alter how acoustic vibrations scatter.
Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2008 security suite ($70 for up to three PCs) is easy to use and comes with a host of extra security features, such as a separate Security Inspector scan that warns about unsafe browser settings and other potential security holes. It was the only suite in our testing for "All-in-One Security Suites: Tried and Tested" that didn't cry wolf by reporting at least one false positive.It detected an above-average 91 percent of AV-Test.org's 674,589 malware samples. This results put the Norton suite close behind the Avira Premium Security Suite, BitDefender Internet Security 2008, Checkpoint ZoneAlarm Internet SecuritySuite 7.1, and Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 packages, each of which detected 95 percent or more of the malware samples. Nevertheless. a 4 percent difference in detection rates represents a difference of 26,983 undetected samples. Symantec's suite produced the second-worst showing on AV-Test's heuristic tests, catching only 10 percent of samples when required to use one-month-old signature files to detect unknown malware based on similarities to existing code.
The Symantec suite did outperform the other programs at getting rid of infections. It cleaned up 80 percent of all files and Registry entries added by malware. In particular, Norton was a champ at fighting rootkits--malware designed to hide other malware. It detected every active and inactive rootkit sample, and successfully neutralized those infections. Symantec's suite was one of only two programs (Checkpoint was the other) to detect and block unidentified malware based solely on the way it behaved, but even so it caught just one sample out of five.In our tests, on-demand (user-initiated) scans were more than 50 percent faster with Norton than with the next-fastest suite (Avira Premium), yielding an impressive data-analysis rate of 16.07 megabytes per second. And those on-demand scans look inside file archives, where crooks frequently hide malicious payloads. (On the other hand, Norton's automatic scans, which check files as your system saves them to the hard drive, won't check file archives unless you change the default settings).Symantec's firewall is polished. It successfully blocked attempts from outside to scan a protected PC for information, and it did better than most competing suites at refraining from issuing unnecessary warnings about benign apps such as Firefox and Internet Explorer.In addition, Norton Internet Security displayed an apt warning when it detected an unencrypted wireless connection, and it incorporates various safe-browsing features. For example, its Norton Confidential toolbar, designed for Firefox and Internet Explorer, blocks phishing sites; and its Browser Defender checks for known vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Though the suite's Identity Safe feature protects sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, from inadvertently leaving your PC, you'll must manually tell it what information to protect--a standard but laborious process. It has no antispam or parental controls, but those features are freely downloadable from Symantec's site.The interface is well laid-out, and the software's pop-up detection alerts are generally understandable, though they provide little information, such as where a threat was found. Its impressive log entries simplify the task of finding out what the program has been up to--but again they lack information about where a given threat was discovered.Our one major criticism of the suite is that when we uninstalled it, it left behind the separate LiveUpdate component. You have to know to go back and remove LiveUpdate as well.Norton Internet Security 2008 has a good design and an appealing feature set. It could be better at blocking malware, but it's the best choice of the eight we looked at.
iPhone 8GB Smartphone
iPhone is a revolutionary new mobile phone that allows you to make a call by simply tapping a name or number in your address book, a favorites list, or a call log. It also automatically syncs all your contacts from a PC, Mac, or Internet service. And it lets you select and listen to voicemail messages in whatever order you want . just like email. The iPhone features the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse. It.s an entirely new interface based on a large multi-touch display and innovative new software that lets you control everything using only your fingers. So you can glide through albums with Cover Flow, flip through photos and email them with a touch, or zoom in and out on a section of a web page . all by simply using iPhone.s multi-touch display
In one of the biggest advancements in fundamental transistor design, Intel Corporation revealed that it is using two dramatically new materials to build the insulating walls and switching gates of its 45 nanometer (nm) transistors. Hundreds of millions of these microscopic transistors -- or switches -- will be inside the next generation Intel® Core™ 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad and Xeon® families of multi-core processors. The company also said it has five early-version products up and running -- the first of fifteen 45nm processor products planned from Intel.The transistor feat allows the company to continue delivering record-breaking PC, laptop and server processor speeds, while reducing the amount of electrical leakage from transistors that can hamper chip and PC design, size, power consumption, noise and costs. It also ensures Moore's Law, a high-tech industry axiom that transistor counts double about every two years, thrives well into the next decade.Intel believes it has extended its lead of more than a year over the rest of the semiconductor industry with the first working 45nm processors of its next-generation 45nm family of products -- codenamed "Penryn." The early versions, which will be targeted at five different computer market segments, are running Windows* Vista*, Mac OS X*, Windows* XP and Linux operating systems, as well as various applications. The company remains on track for 45nm production in the second half of this year.Intel's Transistors Get a "High-k and Metal Gate" Make-Over at 45nmIntel is the first to implement an innovative combination of new materials that drastically reduces transistor leakage and increases performance in its 45nm process technology. The company will use a new material with a property called high-k, for the transistor gate dielectric, and a new combination of metal materials for the transistor gate electrode."The implementation of high-k and metal materials marks the biggest change in transistor technology since the introduction of polysilicon gate MOS transistors in the late 1960s," said Intel Co-Founder Gordon Moore.Transistors are tiny switches that process the ones and zeroes of the digital world. The gate turns the transistor on and off and the gate dielectric is an insulator underneath it that separates it from the channel where current flows. The combination of the metal gates and the high-k gate dielectric leads to transistors with very low current leakage and record high performance."As more and more transistors are packed onto a single piece of silicon, the industry continues to research current leakage reduction solutions," said Mark Bohr, Intel senior fellow. "Meanwhile our engineers and designers have achieved a remarkable accomplishment that ensures the leadership of Intel products and innovation. Our implementation of novel high-k and metal gate transistors for our 45nm process technology will help Intel deliver even faster, more energy efficient multi-core products that build upon our successful Intel Core 2 and Xeon family of processors, and extend Moore's Law well into the next decade."For comparison, approximately 400 of Intel's 45nm transistors could fit on the surface of a single human red blood cell. Just a decade ago, the state-of-the-art process technology was 250nm, meaning transistor dimensions were approximately 5.5 times the size and 30 times the area of the technology announced today by Intel.As the number of transistors on a chip roughly doubles every two years in accordance with Moore's Law, Intel is able to innovate and integrate, adding more features and computing processing cores, increasing performance, and decreasing manufacturing costs and cost per transistor. To maintain this pace of innovation, transistors must continue to shrink to ever-smaller sizes. However, using current materials, the ability to shrink transistors is reaching fundamental limits because of increased power and heat issues that develop as feature sizes reach atomic levels. As a result, implementing new materials is imperative to the future of Moore's Law and the economics of the information age.Intel's High-k, Metal Gate Recipe for 45nm Process TechnologySilicon dioxide has been used to make the transistor gate dielectric for more than 40 years because of its manufacturability and ability to deliver continued transistor performance improvements as it has been made ever thinner. Intel has successfully shrunk the silicon dioxide gate dielectric to as little as 1.2nm thick -- equal to five atomic layers -- on our previous 65nm process technology, but the continued shrinking has led to increased current leakage through the gate dielectric, resulting in wasted electric current and unnecessary heat.Transistor gate leakage associated with the ever-thinning silicon dioxide gate dielectric is recognized by the industry as one of the most formidable technical challenges facing Moore's Law. To solve this critical issue, Intel replaced the silicon dioxide with a thicker hafnium-based high-k material in the gate dielectric, reducing leakage by more than 10 times compared to the silicon dioxide used for more than four decades.Because the high-k gate dielectric is not compatible with today's silicon gate electrode, the second part of Intel's 45nm transistor material recipe is the development of new metal gate materials. While the specific metals that Intel uses remains secret, the company will use a combination of different metal materials for the transistor gate electrodes.The combination of the high-k gate dielectric with the metal gate for Intel's 45nm process technology provides more than a 20 percent increase in drive current, or higher transistor performance. Conversely it reduces source-drain leakage by more than five times, thus improving the energy efficiency of the transistor.Intel's 45nm process technology also improves transistor density by approximately two times that of the previous generation, allowing the company to either increase the overall transistor count or to make processors smaller. Because the 45nm transistors are smaller than the previous generation, they take less energy to switch on and off, reducing active switching power by approximately 30 percent. Intel will use copper wires with a low-k dielectric for its 45nm interconnects for increased performance and lower power consumption. It will also use innovative design rules and advanced mask techniques to extend the use of 193nm dry lithography to manufacture its 45nm processors because of the cost advantages and high manufacturability it affords.Penryn Family Will Bring More Energy Efficient PerformanceThe Penryn family of processors is a derivative of the Intel Core microarchitecture and marks the next step in Intel's rapid cadence of delivering a new process technology and new microarchitecture every other year. The combination of Intel's leading 45nm process technology, high-volume manufacturing capabilities, and leading microarchitecture design enabled the company to already develop its first working 45nm Penryn processors.The company has more than 15 products based on 45nm in development across desktop, mobile, workstation and enterprise segments. With more than 400 million transistors for dual-core processors and more than 800 million for quad-core, the Penryn family of 45nm processors includes new microarchitecture features for greater performance and power management capabilities, as well as higher core speeds and larger caches. The Penryn family designs also bring approximately 50 new Intel SSE4 instructions that expand capabilities and performance for media and high-performance computing applications.
Portland cement is common and familiar type of cement nowadays which are open usage in many parts of the world, as it is a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco and most non-specialty grout. It is a fine powder made by grinding Portland cement clinker (more than 90%), a limited amount of calcium sulfate which controls the set time, and up to 5% minor constituents (as allowed by various standards). As defined by the European Standard EN197.1, "Portland cement clinker is a hydraulic material which shall consist of at least two-thirds by mass of calcium silicates (3CaO.SiO2 and 2CaO.SiO2), the remainder consisting of aluminium- and iron-containing clinker phases and other compounds. The ratio of CaO to SiO2 shall not be less than 2.0. The magnesium content (MgO) shall not exceed 5.0% by mass.". Portland cement sintering temperature, which is about 1450 °C for modern cements. The aluminium oxide and iron oxide are present as a flux and contribute little to the strength. For special cements, such as Low Heat (LH) and Sulfate Resistant (SR) types, it is necessary to limit the amount of tricalcium aluminate (3CaO.Al2O3) formed. The major raw material for the clinker-making is usually limestone (CaCO3). Normally, an impure limestone which contains SiO2 is used. The CaCO3 content of these limestones can be as low as 80%. Secondary raw materials (materials in the rawmix other than limestone) depend on the purity of the limestone. Some of the secondary raw materials used are: clay, shale, sand, iron ore, bauxite, fly ash and slag. When a cement kiln is fired by coal, the ash of the coal acts as a secondary raw material.Portland was developed from cements (or correctly hydraulic limes) made in Britain in the early part of the nineteenth century, and its name is derived from its similarity to Portland stone, a type of building stone that was quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. Joseph Aspdin, a British bricklayer, in 1824 was granted a patent for a process of making a cement which he called Portland cement. His cement was an artificial hydraulic lime similar in properties to the material known as "Roman Cement" (patented in 1796 by James Parker) and his process was similar to that patented in 1822 and used since 1811 by James Frost who called his cement "British Cement". The name "Portland cement" is also recorded in a directory published in 1823 being associated with a William Lockwood and possibly others. Aspdin's son William in 1843 made an improved version of this cement and he initially called it "Patent Portland cement" although he had no patent. In 1848 William Aspdin further improved his cement and in 1853 moved to Germany where he was involved in cement making. Many people have claimed to have made the first Portland cement in the modern sense, but it is generally accepted that it was first manufactured by William Aspdin at Northfleet, England in about 1842. The German Government issued a standard on Portland cement in 1878. The most common use for Portland cement is in the production of concrete. Concrete is a composite material consisting of aggregate (gravel and sand), cement, and water. As a construction material, concrete can be cast in almost any shape desired, and once hardened, can become a structural (load bearing) element. Users may be involved in the factory production of pre-cast units, such as panels, beams, road furniture, or may make cast-in-situ concrete such as building superstructures, roads, dams. These may be supplied with concrete mixed on site, or may be provided with "ready-mixed" concrete made at permanent mixing sites. Portland cement is also used in mortars (with sand and water only) for plasters and screeds, and in grouts (cement/water mixes squeezed into gaps to consolidate foundations, road-beds, etc).
Tidal energy
Let us thank moon for his kind gestures. Tidal energy is the one and only forms of energy whose starting place is the moon. Some other energy sources like nuclear power and geothermal energy for instance, have the Earth as their source. The remainder, fossil fuels, wind energy, biofuels, solar energy, etc. have the Sun as their source, directly or indirectly. The tidal power is produced by the gravitational pull of the Moon on water. Due to these gravitational forces the water level follows a periodic high and low. The height of the tide produced at a given location is the result of the changing positions of the Moon and Sun relative to the Earth coupled with the effects of Earth rotation and the local shape of the sea floor. The tidal energy generator uses this phenomenon to generate energy. The higher the height of the tide the more promising it is to harness tidal energy. Tidal power, sometimes called tidal energy, is a form of hydropower that uses the movement of water caused by tidal currents or the rise and fall in sea levels due to the tides. Although not yet widely used, tidal power has prospective for upcoming electricity generation and is more conventional than wind energy and solar power. In Europe, tide mills have been used for over a thousand years, mainly for grinding grains.
WIND POWER
Wind power means the simple conversion of wind energy into electricity, using wind turbines. In windmills, wind energy is directly employed to crush grain or to pump water. In 2006, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 73.9 gigawatts. Although wind currently produces a mere over 1% of world-wide electricity use, it accounts for approximately 20% of electricity production in Denmark, 9% in Spain, and 7% in Germany. Globally, wind power generation more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006.Wind power is produced in large scale wind farms connected to electrical grids, and in individual turbines for providing electricity to remote isolated locations. Wind energy is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions when it displaces fossil-fuel-derived electricity. The intermittency of wind seldom creates insurmountable problems when using wind power to supply up to roughly 10% of total electrical demand (low to moderate penetration), but it presents challenges that are not yet fully solved when wind is to be used for a larger fraction of demand. There are many thousands of wind turbines operating, with a total capacity of 73,904 MW of which wind power in Europe accounts for 65% (2006). The average output of one megawatt of wind power is equivalent to the average electricity consumption of about 250 American households. Wind power was the most rapidly-growing means of alternative electricity generation at the turn of the 20th century. World wind generation capacity more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006. In some countries (Spain and Denmark) wind supplies 10% or more of the nation's electricity. 81% of wind power installations are in the US and Europe, but the share of the top five countries in terms of new installations fell from 71% in 2004 to 55% in 2005.By 2010, the World Wind Energy Association expects 160GW of capacity to be installed worldwide, up from 73.9GW at the end of 2006, implying an anticipated net growth rate of more than 21% per year. India ranks 4th in the world with a total wind power capacity of 6,270 MW in 2006, or 3% of all electricity produced in India. The World Wind Energy Conference in New Delhi in November 2006 has given additional impetus to the Indian wind industry. The windfarm near Muppandal, Tamil Nadu, India, provides an impoverished village with energy for work. India-based Suzlon Energy is one of the world's largest wind turbine manufacturers.
Artificial pacemaker
Artificial pacemaker is a sophisticated medical accessory which employs electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to control and monitor the beating of the heart. The primary purpose of a pacemaker is to regulate an adequate heart rate, either because the heart's native pacemaker is not fast enough, or there is a blockade in the heart's electrical conduction system. Modern pacemakers are externally programmable and give freedom for the cardiologist to select the optimum pacing modes for every individual patient. Some combine a pacemaker and implantable defibrillator in a single implantable device. Others have more than one electrode stimulating differing positions within the heart to enhance synchronization of the lower chambers of the heart. There exist different methods of pacing namely Percussive Pacing, Transcutaneous pacing, Transvenous pacing (temporary) and Permanent pacing. Lots of research has been made to improve the control of the pacemaker after implantation. Many of these enhancements have been now possible by using microprocessor controlled pacemakers. Pacemakers that control the ventricles and the atria are now common. Pacemakers that control both the atria and ventricles are called dual-chamber pacemakers. Although these dual-chamber models are rather expensive, timing the contractions of the atria to precede that of the ventricles improves the pumping efficiency of the heart and can be useful in congestive heart failure.
Keyboards are a essential part of today’s computers. But may be not for much longer. A group of European scientists have used acoustic sensors to turn wooden tabletops and even three-dimensional objects into a new type of computer interface. Sound vibrating a windowpane or through a tabletop is something most people practice daily. Sound waves pass through well through most solid materials. Now, European researchers have demoralized the excellent propagation of sound waves through solids to turn everyday objects – including 3D objects – into a new kind of computer interface.By fixing sensors to solid materials, were able to locate exactly and track acoustic vibrations. Tapping on discrete areas of a whiteboard could generate musical notes on a computer. Tracking the sound of a finger scrawling words on a sheet of hardboard could translate, in real time, into handwriting on a computer screen. There is no need for overlays or intrusive devices.Sensing vibrations in a solid and changing them to electrical pulses is the easy bit. Exactly locating the source of that vibration in a solid material is where it gets complicated. The problem is that the complex structures of solids make wave propagation difficult to model. Wood knots in a desktop, for example, will alter how acoustic vibrations scatter.
Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2008 security suite ($70 for up to three PCs) is easy to use and comes with a host of extra security features, such as a separate Security Inspector scan that warns about unsafe browser settings and other potential security holes. It was the only suite in our testing for "All-in-One Security Suites: Tried and Tested" that didn't cry wolf by reporting at least one false positive.It detected an above-average 91 percent of AV-Test.org's 674,589 malware samples. This results put the Norton suite close behind the Avira Premium Security Suite, BitDefender Internet Security 2008, Checkpoint ZoneAlarm Internet SecuritySuite 7.1, and Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 packages, each of which detected 95 percent or more of the malware samples. Nevertheless. a 4 percent difference in detection rates represents a difference of 26,983 undetected samples. Symantec's suite produced the second-worst showing on AV-Test's heuristic tests, catching only 10 percent of samples when required to use one-month-old signature files to detect unknown malware based on similarities to existing code.
The Symantec suite did outperform the other programs at getting rid of infections. It cleaned up 80 percent of all files and Registry entries added by malware. In particular, Norton was a champ at fighting rootkits--malware designed to hide other malware. It detected every active and inactive rootkit sample, and successfully neutralized those infections. Symantec's suite was one of only two programs (Checkpoint was the other) to detect and block unidentified malware based solely on the way it behaved, but even so it caught just one sample out of five.In our tests, on-demand (user-initiated) scans were more than 50 percent faster with Norton than with the next-fastest suite (Avira Premium), yielding an impressive data-analysis rate of 16.07 megabytes per second. And those on-demand scans look inside file archives, where crooks frequently hide malicious payloads. (On the other hand, Norton's automatic scans, which check files as your system saves them to the hard drive, won't check file archives unless you change the default settings).Symantec's firewall is polished. It successfully blocked attempts from outside to scan a protected PC for information, and it did better than most competing suites at refraining from issuing unnecessary warnings about benign apps such as Firefox and Internet Explorer.In addition, Norton Internet Security displayed an apt warning when it detected an unencrypted wireless connection, and it incorporates various safe-browsing features. For example, its Norton Confidential toolbar, designed for Firefox and Internet Explorer, blocks phishing sites; and its Browser Defender checks for known vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Though the suite's Identity Safe feature protects sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, from inadvertently leaving your PC, you'll must manually tell it what information to protect--a standard but laborious process. It has no antispam or parental controls, but those features are freely downloadable from Symantec's site.The interface is well laid-out, and the software's pop-up detection alerts are generally understandable, though they provide little information, such as where a threat was found. Its impressive log entries simplify the task of finding out what the program has been up to--but again they lack information about where a given threat was discovered.Our one major criticism of the suite is that when we uninstalled it, it left behind the separate LiveUpdate component. You have to know to go back and remove LiveUpdate as well.Norton Internet Security 2008 has a good design and an appealing feature set. It could be better at blocking malware, but it's the best choice of the eight we looked at.
iPhone 8GB Smartphone
iPhone is a revolutionary new mobile phone that allows you to make a call by simply tapping a name or number in your address book, a favorites list, or a call log. It also automatically syncs all your contacts from a PC, Mac, or Internet service. And it lets you select and listen to voicemail messages in whatever order you want . just like email. The iPhone features the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse. It.s an entirely new interface based on a large multi-touch display and innovative new software that lets you control everything using only your fingers. So you can glide through albums with Cover Flow, flip through photos and email them with a touch, or zoom in and out on a section of a web page . all by simply using iPhone.s multi-touch display
In one of the biggest advancements in fundamental transistor design, Intel Corporation revealed that it is using two dramatically new materials to build the insulating walls and switching gates of its 45 nanometer (nm) transistors. Hundreds of millions of these microscopic transistors -- or switches -- will be inside the next generation Intel® Core™ 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad and Xeon® families of multi-core processors. The company also said it has five early-version products up and running -- the first of fifteen 45nm processor products planned from Intel.The transistor feat allows the company to continue delivering record-breaking PC, laptop and server processor speeds, while reducing the amount of electrical leakage from transistors that can hamper chip and PC design, size, power consumption, noise and costs. It also ensures Moore's Law, a high-tech industry axiom that transistor counts double about every two years, thrives well into the next decade.Intel believes it has extended its lead of more than a year over the rest of the semiconductor industry with the first working 45nm processors of its next-generation 45nm family of products -- codenamed "Penryn." The early versions, which will be targeted at five different computer market segments, are running Windows* Vista*, Mac OS X*, Windows* XP and Linux operating systems, as well as various applications. The company remains on track for 45nm production in the second half of this year.Intel's Transistors Get a "High-k and Metal Gate" Make-Over at 45nmIntel is the first to implement an innovative combination of new materials that drastically reduces transistor leakage and increases performance in its 45nm process technology. The company will use a new material with a property called high-k, for the transistor gate dielectric, and a new combination of metal materials for the transistor gate electrode."The implementation of high-k and metal materials marks the biggest change in transistor technology since the introduction of polysilicon gate MOS transistors in the late 1960s," said Intel Co-Founder Gordon Moore.Transistors are tiny switches that process the ones and zeroes of the digital world. The gate turns the transistor on and off and the gate dielectric is an insulator underneath it that separates it from the channel where current flows. The combination of the metal gates and the high-k gate dielectric leads to transistors with very low current leakage and record high performance."As more and more transistors are packed onto a single piece of silicon, the industry continues to research current leakage reduction solutions," said Mark Bohr, Intel senior fellow. "Meanwhile our engineers and designers have achieved a remarkable accomplishment that ensures the leadership of Intel products and innovation. Our implementation of novel high-k and metal gate transistors for our 45nm process technology will help Intel deliver even faster, more energy efficient multi-core products that build upon our successful Intel Core 2 and Xeon family of processors, and extend Moore's Law well into the next decade."For comparison, approximately 400 of Intel's 45nm transistors could fit on the surface of a single human red blood cell. Just a decade ago, the state-of-the-art process technology was 250nm, meaning transistor dimensions were approximately 5.5 times the size and 30 times the area of the technology announced today by Intel.As the number of transistors on a chip roughly doubles every two years in accordance with Moore's Law, Intel is able to innovate and integrate, adding more features and computing processing cores, increasing performance, and decreasing manufacturing costs and cost per transistor. To maintain this pace of innovation, transistors must continue to shrink to ever-smaller sizes. However, using current materials, the ability to shrink transistors is reaching fundamental limits because of increased power and heat issues that develop as feature sizes reach atomic levels. As a result, implementing new materials is imperative to the future of Moore's Law and the economics of the information age.Intel's High-k, Metal Gate Recipe for 45nm Process TechnologySilicon dioxide has been used to make the transistor gate dielectric for more than 40 years because of its manufacturability and ability to deliver continued transistor performance improvements as it has been made ever thinner. Intel has successfully shrunk the silicon dioxide gate dielectric to as little as 1.2nm thick -- equal to five atomic layers -- on our previous 65nm process technology, but the continued shrinking has led to increased current leakage through the gate dielectric, resulting in wasted electric current and unnecessary heat.Transistor gate leakage associated with the ever-thinning silicon dioxide gate dielectric is recognized by the industry as one of the most formidable technical challenges facing Moore's Law. To solve this critical issue, Intel replaced the silicon dioxide with a thicker hafnium-based high-k material in the gate dielectric, reducing leakage by more than 10 times compared to the silicon dioxide used for more than four decades.Because the high-k gate dielectric is not compatible with today's silicon gate electrode, the second part of Intel's 45nm transistor material recipe is the development of new metal gate materials. While the specific metals that Intel uses remains secret, the company will use a combination of different metal materials for the transistor gate electrodes.The combination of the high-k gate dielectric with the metal gate for Intel's 45nm process technology provides more than a 20 percent increase in drive current, or higher transistor performance. Conversely it reduces source-drain leakage by more than five times, thus improving the energy efficiency of the transistor.Intel's 45nm process technology also improves transistor density by approximately two times that of the previous generation, allowing the company to either increase the overall transistor count or to make processors smaller. Because the 45nm transistors are smaller than the previous generation, they take less energy to switch on and off, reducing active switching power by approximately 30 percent. Intel will use copper wires with a low-k dielectric for its 45nm interconnects for increased performance and lower power consumption. It will also use innovative design rules and advanced mask techniques to extend the use of 193nm dry lithography to manufacture its 45nm processors because of the cost advantages and high manufacturability it affords.Penryn Family Will Bring More Energy Efficient PerformanceThe Penryn family of processors is a derivative of the Intel Core microarchitecture and marks the next step in Intel's rapid cadence of delivering a new process technology and new microarchitecture every other year. The combination of Intel's leading 45nm process technology, high-volume manufacturing capabilities, and leading microarchitecture design enabled the company to already develop its first working 45nm Penryn processors.The company has more than 15 products based on 45nm in development across desktop, mobile, workstation and enterprise segments. With more than 400 million transistors for dual-core processors and more than 800 million for quad-core, the Penryn family of 45nm processors includes new microarchitecture features for greater performance and power management capabilities, as well as higher core speeds and larger caches. The Penryn family designs also bring approximately 50 new Intel SSE4 instructions that expand capabilities and performance for media and high-performance computing applications.
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