iRobot charged with improving public safety for Brazil 2014 World Cup

The Brazilian government says some of the security robots bought to improve public safety during the 2014 World Cup will be ready for the Confederations Cup in June.

The company iRobot says the 30 robots would be delivered by the end of the year, along with spares and other support gear. The government confirmed Thursday that some will already be in action in the six cities hosting Confederations Cup matches.

The company said Brazil signed a $7.2 million contract, which included the small unmanned ground vehicles which can provide surveillance, bomb removal and other law-enforcement missions.

The Confederations Cup is the first of a series of high profile events Brazil will host, including the World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Security at sporting events has become a hot topic after the recent bombings at the Boston Marathon, although Brazilian officials have said they didn't make significant changes to the country's security plans because of the incident in the United States. Brazil has never had to deal with terrorist attacks in the past.

The equipment being purchased by Brazil includes a type of multi-use robot "that has proven useful for a variety of law enforcement applications, including the inspection of potentially dangerous areas and objects, the removal of suspicious devices and the detection of chemical and explosive agents," according to iRobot.

The robots weigh about 60 pounds and are customizable to include a robotic arm and other feature. They are operated remotely with a small control unit that essentially is a ruggedized laptop with a game-style controller, the company said.

"The purpose of these robots is to keep the operator and other people safe while an investigation is being conducted," iRobot told The Associated Press in an email.

The company said it has "delivered more than 5,000 robots to military and civil defense forces worldwide."

Brazil plans to have between 3,000 and 5,000 soldiers in each of the 12 host cities during the World Cup, the first in Brazil since 1950. The 2016 Olympics in Rio will be the first in South America.

The Brazilian Air Force earlier this year said it invested nearly $25 million to purchase two Israeli-made drones to help provide public safety. It already had two of the unmanned planes since 2001. The air force said it will also have a new radar system in place.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff had already announced that security will be reinforced along the 10,000 miles of the country's borders in preparation for the Confederations Cup. About 20,000 troops are expected to be added to reinforce security in the region.

Brazil shares borders with 10 countries in South America. Most police action in the region involves combating drug traffic and the illegal entrance of goods.

How Intel blew the opportunity to be inside the original iPhone

As Intel's former CEO Paul Otellini hands over the charge to Brian Krzanich, he reveals that he missed a chance to get Intel's processor inside the first iPhone.

In an interview with The Atlantic, Otellini disclosed that Apple had approached Intel to source a chip that they wanted to put in the iPhone but there were differences in the price that Apple was willing to pay and what Intel estimated. 

"We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we'd done it," Otellini said.

He also added that his gut told him to say yes. There was also a sign of regret. "The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut," said Otellini. "My gut told me to say yes."

"The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do... At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn't see it. It wasn't one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought."

It's not clear from the interview if Apple wanted the iPhone to be powered by Intel's x86 chips or, as is more likely, Apple wanted Intel to manufacture ARM chips on contract. Going by the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, Jobs had his reasons for not going with Intel chips for the iPhone. 

"There were two reasons we didn't go with them. One was that they [the company] are just really slow. They're like a steamship, not very flexible. We're used to going pretty fast. Second is that we just didn't want to teach them everything, which they could go and sell to our competitors," said Jobs.

This implies that Apple did not choose Intel as it was not sure of the company's existing chips and of the company's ability to offer a customised solution in time. It also didn't want Intel using its know-how to help competitors.

He is quoted saying,"At the high-performance level, Intel is the best.They build the fastest, if you don't care about power and cost." Jobs also added that "We [Apple] tried to help Intel, but they don't listen much."

However the book also features a rebuttal from Otellini saying that the two companies did not agree on the price and on who'd control the design of the chip.

While Intel has been a late entrant to the smartphone chips segment as its early Atom chips were not optimised for offering a good battery life, there were some reports before the launch of the original iPhone that quoted an Apple executive saying that the phone runs on an Intel powered chip. Even Intel had said that Apple had committed to use its 'Silverthorne' chip in multiple products.

Apple's first iPhone ended up using an ARM chip produced by Samsung. Till the last generation, all iPhones ware powered by chips designed by Apple and manufactured by Samsung.

An year prior to the release of the iPhone, Apple had released the first Macs that were powered by Intel processors before moving to a completely Intel based architecture in 2009.

Meanwhile Intel is trying to get its share in the mobile chipsets segment partnering with device manufacturers to power Android based smartphones as it faces tough competition from the likes of Samsung, Qualcomm and even Nvidia.

Meteoroid impact triggers bright flash on the moon

Cape Canaveral, Florida: An automated telescope monitoring the moon has captured images of an 88-pound (40 kg) rock slamming into the lunar surface, creating a bright flash of light, NASA scientists said on Friday.

The explosion on March 17 was the biggest seen since NASA began watching the moon for meteoroid impacts about eight years ago. So far, more than 300 strikes have been recorded.

"It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before," Bill Cooke, with NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a statement.

A NASA satellite orbiting the moon is now on a hunt for the newly formed crater, which scientists estimate could be as wide as 66 feet (20 meters).

The flash was so bright that anyone looking at the moon at the moment of impact could have seen it without a telescope, NASA said.

After reviewing digital recordings made by one of the program's telescopes, scientists determined the space rock was about 1 foot (0.3 meters) in diameter, and traveling about 56,000 mph (90,123 kph) when it slammed into the moon and exploded with the force of five tons of TNT.

That same night, cameras detected an unusually high number of meteors blasting through Earth's atmosphere as well. Most meteors burn up well before reaching the ground.

But not always. In February, an asteroid estimated to be about 66 feet (20 meters) in diameter exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, damaging buildings and shattering glass, leaving more than 1,500 injured. It was the largest object to strike Earth since 1908.

"The Russian fireball was many orders of magnitude larger and possessed 100,000 times more energy," than the lunar impact, Cooke wrote in an email to Reuters.

He believes the lunar impact and the March 17 meteor shower on Earth are related, the result of both bodies traveling together through a region of space sprinkled with small rocks and dust.

"We'll be keeping an eye out for signs of a repeat performance next year when the Earth-moon system passes through the same region of space," Cooke said.

THE ROAD MADE UP OF WASTE PLASTIC

Pune gets first road made from plastic waste

Pune: It is a known fact that waste generated from discarded plastic items is hazardous to the environment, but what is seldom known is that waste plastic can also be utilised in constructing roads in the city. The Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) recently repaired half a km of the road outside Hutchings High School near Old Golibar Maidan.

This was done by integrating plastic with tar known as polymer-modified bitumen, thus making good use of discarded plastic and preventing further damage to the environment.  This move has been carried out with the advocacy of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to prevent the persistent problem of potholes on the roads and to increase the resistance to water at a lower construction cost.

New initiative
PCB Vice President, Prasad Kedari said, "It's comparatively cheaper than the usual road making cost and since it is on a trial basis we are planning to carry it out on roads that are not used extensively. This is our new initiative." Such road constructions were earlier carried out in the South and this is the first time it has been experimented in the city. "By using plastic we are recycling it and preventing further damage to the environment," he added.

According to the contractors, 90 per cent of bitumen is amalgamated with 10 per cent of plastic that includes everyday waste ranging from carry bags to miscellaneous items like biscuit and gutka packets. These products are shredded into small pieces and mixed with the liquid before laying it on the road. Contractors say that the cost of the entire process is not more than Rs. 325 per metre.

"Even if 10 per cent plastic is mixed, it could save up to the equivalent quantity of bitumen. We'll have to wait and see if it provides any better results," said R Khetarpal, the contractor who has undertaken the project.

If the project is successful then the board that holds eight wards including Ghorpadi, Market Yard and MG road in the Cantonment area, covering almost 20 km of the road, will repair all roads with polymer-modified bitumen.

Is plastic better?
Plastic-cum-tar roads is 25 per cent better than unmodified roads and is almost 200 per cent resistant to soaking up water. The maintenance cost of the road is very low, while its durability is high. The roads reportedly need no repairing for at least five years. 

European data watchdogs target Google over privacy

Six European data protection agencies are contemplating legal action over Google's privacy policy.

The threat comes as a four-month deadline to change the policy expires with Google making "no change" to the policy.

Google's perceived failure to act is being looked in to by data watchdogs in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.

In a statement, Google said its privacy policy "respects European law".

'Full engagement'

In late October 2012, a European Commission working party reported that Google's privacy policy did not meet Commission standards on data protection.

The report said Google should do more to let users see what information was held about them, provide tools to manage this data and take more care to ensure it did not store too much data about users.

The investigation was kicked off by Google's decision to update its privacy policy so it had one set of guidelines for every service it ran.

Google was given four months to comply with the working party's recommendations to bring the policy into line with European law.

"After this period has expired, Google has not implemented any significant compliance measures," said French data watchdog CNIL in a statement. CNIL headed the probe into the privacy policy.

In addition, said CNIL, Google was warned about the potential for action on 19 March in a meeting with officials from six data watchdogs. "No change," was seen following this meeting, said CNIL.

As a consequence, all six data protection bodies were now opening new investigations into Google and how it handled privacy. The UK's Information Commissioner confirmed it was looking at whether the policy complied but said it could not add further comment because the investigation was ongoing.

A Google spokesman said: "Our privacy policy respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services."

"We have engaged fully with the DPAs involved throughout this process, and we'll continue to do so going forward," added the spokesman.

News of the action comes as Google's privacy director, Alma Whitten, steps down from her job. Ms Whitten was appointed as the search giant's first privacy director in 2010, following a series of mistakes by Google that had led to user data being exposed.

China's Communist Party and its more than two-million-man army aren't supposed to like video games.

Home-video consoles, that were growing in popularity through the 1990s, were officially banned in 2000 for fear that they were corrupting Chinese youth.

It was a kind of King Canute communism -- an attempt to hold back the rising tide of capitalism and the inflow of Western cultural products.

Of course, in the end it failed and the shrill warnings about "electronic heroin" were drowned out by consumer demand.

Consoles remained available on the grey market and the gaming industry simply moved online.

Today it's an industry that's worth more than 50bn Chinese RMB ($7.9bn; �5.2bn) a year and the Communist Party and its army are now well and truly in on the act.

Since its public release a few months ago, Glorious Mission, a video game initially designed for and by the Chinese military, has been downloaded more than a million times.

It might look like just another shoot 'em up blood-fest but it is, in fact, China's latest propaganda tool.

Why China's military has turned to gaming

By John SudworthBBC News, Shanghai

Continue reading the main story

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China's Communist Party and its more than two-million-man army aren't supposed to like video games.

Home-video consoles, that were growing in popularity through the 1990s, were officially banned in 2000 for fear that they were corrupting Chinese youth.

It was a kind of King Canute communism - an attempt to hold back the rising tide of capitalism and the inflow of Western cultural products.

Of course, in the end it failed and the shrill warnings about "electronic heroin" were drowned out by consumer demand.

Consoles remained available on the grey market and the gaming industry simply moved online.

Today it's an industry that's worth more than 50bn Chinese RMB ($7.9bn; £5.2bn) a year and the Communist Party and its army are now well and truly in on the act.

Since its public release a few months ago, Glorious Mission, a video game initially designed for and by the Chinese military, has been downloaded more than a million times.

It might look like just another shoot 'em up blood-fest but it is, in fact, China's latest propaganda tool.

Military dreams

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Most young boys, from the bottom of their hearts, want to be a soldier ”

Gu KaiGiant Network Technology

It was designed as a training aid for Chinese soldiers and state-run television has show pictures of ranks of them merrily gaming away, controlling virtual People's Liberation Army troops in various battlefield scenarios.

Interestingly, the virtual enemy they're taking on appears at times to bear at least a passing resemblance to the US and its allies, raising questions about exactly what real-life scenarios they're training for.

But whatever the effect on soldiers, the decision to make the game available to the wider public was taken in order to instil patriotic values, the "core values" of the military, according to army sources.

Gu Kai, vice-president of the software developers behind the game, Giant Network Technology, says that he believes the game will help drum up new army recruits.

Online gaming is extremely popular in China

"I would hope that somebody will play the game and fulfil their dream," he says.

"Most young boys, from the bottom of their hearts, want to be a soldier. They like to fight, they like to win, and if this video game can make that dream come true, I won't be surprised."

The propaganda appears, in places, less than subtle. One of the game's stages recreates the "fiery atmosphere of camp life", according to one news report.

War of ideas

In one Shanghai internet cafe, almost every one of the 100 or so terminals is busy with someone locked in intense online combat with a wide variety of foes; goblin, alien or human.

One young man says he spends more than 10 hours a week in here, and he agrees that online games might be a powerful tool for influencing thoughts and ideas.

"It's possible," he says. "Most of the players here are young. A military video game could make you feel familiar with and then develop an affinity for the army."

Glorious Mission, then, is a swift about-face for the Chinese military as well as a sign that China isn't just censoring the internet, banning search terms and deleting posts which it does routinely, but also now trying to harness its power.

The country already has an army of Communist Party bloggers posting comments in support of the government.

The seemingly rehabilitated gaming industry is simply the latest weapon.

Gu Kai says that the officials he's met are no longer opposed to gaming

This year, reports on state media suggest that the authorities might be about to officially abandon their moral scruples about the gaming industry altogether, with the consoles ban apparently coming up for review.

Gu Kai from Giant Network Technology tells me that he thinks China is now well and truly over it.

"I've met some of the officials," he says. "They stopped worrying about video games years ago."

"Most of them are promoting gaming as a new, hopeful and fast growing industry. At least here in Shanghai all the officials are very open and supportive."

China isn't the first to design a video game for military training purposes - Glorious Mission bears some resemblance to a game made 10 years ago, as a tool for the US military and also as a lure for army recruitment.

But influencing the thoughts of the wider public and attempting to mould and foster nationalist sentiment and loyalty is a more ambitious fight, and in China's virtual world, it's a fight that's likely to intensify.

World’s strongest magnet is 500,000 times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field

The world’s strongest magnet has been created and sits in the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University. According to researchers, it has the potential to revolutionize scientific research. The custom built split magnet took $2.5 million to complete, and operates at 25 Tesla – which is 500,000 times stronger than our planet’s magnetic field. If are ever caught in one of these devices, let’s just say you probably won’t live to tell the tale.

The previous world’s strongest magnet was only 17.5 Tesla and was set in France in 1991. The scientists will be using the magnets to probe the unusual properties of materials under extreme conditions of heat and pressure. The strong magnetic fields should make it easier for researchers to observe atoms or molecules much more easily then if they were under less extreme conditions. I wonder what sort of breakthroughs we’ll get from this device. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.