தலையில் பலத்த அடிபட்ட பின்னர் கணித மேதையாக உருவெடுத்த 'மிராக்கிள் மேன்'

 

வாஷிங்டன்: ஒரு விபத்து ஒரு மனிதனை முடக்கிப் போடும் என்பதுதான் கேள்விப்பட்டிருக்கிறோம்... ஆனால் ரவுடிகளால் மிகக் கொடூரமாக தலையில் தாக்கப்பட்டு பலத்த காயத்தைச் சந்தித்த பின்னரும் ஒருவர், மருத்துவ உலகையே ஸ்தம்பிக்க வைக்கும் வகையில் "கணித மேதை"யாக திகழ்கிறார் என்றால் நம்புவீர்களா?

நம்பித்தான் ஆகவேண்டும்.. அமெரிக்காவைச் சேர்ந்தவர் ஜசோன் பட்கெட்ஸ். 41 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பு சில ரவுடிகள் தெருவில் சென்று கொண்டிருந்த அவரைக் கடுமையாகத் தாக்கி தூக்கிப் போட்டுவிட்டனர். தலையில் பலத்த காயமடைந்த ஜசோனின் மூளை சேதமடைந்துவிட்டது என்று மருத்துவர்கள் கூறியதால் கல்லூரிப் படிப்பை தொடர முடியாதவராகிப் போனார்.

ஆனால் இப்போது கணித சூத்திரங்களை அத்துப்படியாக சொல்கிறார்.புதிய சூத்திரங்களை உருவாக்குகிறார். .புதிய கணித வரைபடங்களை போட்டுத் தள்ளுகிறார்...

தலையில் பலத்த அடிபட்ட ஒரு மனிதனால் இது சாத்தியமா என்றால், இதை ஒரு அரிய அற்புதம் என்று வர்ணிக்கிறது மருத்துவ உலகம்.. தலையில் பாதிப்பு ஏற்பட்டும் எப்படி அவரது மூளை இப்படி அற்புதமாக வேலை செய்கிறது என்று மூளையைப் போட்டுக் குழப்பிக் கொண்டிருக்கின்றனர் மருத்துவர்கள்..வெளிநாட்டில் இருந்தும்கூட வாஷிங்டன் வந்து அவரைப் பார்த்துவிட்டு போகின்றனராம்..

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Apple considered iPhone with physical keyboard? Wait, what?

According to former Apple engineer Tony Fadell, one of the proposals for the first iPhone was a hardware keyboard. 
                   

One little decision can provoke so much.

It seems that, in those days when everyone believed that BlackBerrys were the most extraordinary machines on the planet, Apple was still cogitating over its little iPod-phone thingy.

And apparently one of the options the company considered was to have a physical keyboard. Yes, like the BlackBerry. With real physical buttons.

This revelation came via Tony Fadell, an engineer who was working at Apple at the time.

In an interview with the Verge, Fadell -- who left Apple to create learning thermostat companyNest -- offered that there were three designs being considered -- one involving a hardware keyboard.

One imagines this might have involved the keyboard sliding out of the phone. You know, like, well, all those wonderful phones that still have that design.

Some might muse that it's something of a relief that Apple committed itself to touch-screen technology, something that makes using a smartphone peculiarly pleasant. However, what would have happened if Apple had gone with a physical keyboard?

Would everyone else have decided that because Apple is doing it, that must mean it's cool? Or would some other enterprising company have been the first to go with its instincts and created the first touch-screen smartphone?

Which company might that have been? Microsoft, surely.

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Woman with two vaginas: 'I lost my virginity twice'

An attractive, blonde, British woman recently revealed on a TV talk show that she has two vaginas and turned down a $1 million offer from porn production company Vivid Entertainment

Hazel Jones has a condition called uterus didelphys, which caused her to be born with two vagina's, as well as two uterus's and two cervix's. She first discovered her abnormality when her boyfriend noticed something different and advised her to seek professional medical opinion.Doctors have advised Jones that falling pregnant could be dangerous to her and her unborn babies health. Since she has two uterus's she may become pregnant in both which may lead to premature birth, miscarriage and excessive bleeding.On the light-hearted side Jones stated that although she would never contemplate starring in a pornographic film but she will gladly show off her condition to curious people.

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Apple TV set chatter heats up with rumored content talks

Apple's rumored to have been in talks with content provider Epix to bring content to the Apple TV and potentially even its TV set. 


                         

Apple is once again said to be talking up a TV set when trying to ink deals with content providers.

The latest target is said to be Epix, a joint venture of Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM. According toReuters, the movie channel has been in talks with Apple to bring its content to Apple's digital stores.

The interesting tidbit, Reuters says, is that Apple's been pitching a deal that would bring the content beyond its $99 set top box, and to "upcoming devices that stream content." That could be Apple's TV set, a product that hasn't been announced, but is largely expected to be sometime this year, Reuters suggests.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment, saying the report was "speculation."

Epix is already available on a wide variety of devices, including Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch andiPad, but like HBO GO -- and unlike Hulu Plus and Netflix -- it requires authentication from a supporting service provider. I.e., a user has to already subscribe to a cable or satellite channel.

In August, 2010 Epix and Netflix reached a multiyear deal that would bring Epix content to Netflix 90 days after it first appeared on pay TV and on demand channels. Reuters notes that that deal, which Netflix pays $200 million a year for, is up in September.

Apple is expected to make full use of its existing content deals, while possibly introducing new ones that would give would-be cord cutters a way to ditch their existing cable service to watch TV programming. Some analysts have even suggested Apple will offer a pay-by-channel model.

According to a story in The Hollywood Reporter in March, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs approached Les Moonves, CEO of CBS (the entertainment conglomerate and parent company of CNET) to pitch him on the idea for a subscription-video service seven months before his death. Moonves ended up shooting down the idea, reportedly telling Jobs "You know more than me about 99 percent of things. I know more about the television business."

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New BlackBerry phones a no-show at BlackBerry World

Research In Motion will use its upcoming conference to unveil its BlackBerry 10 platform, but don't expect any new products to make an appearance.
           
                       

The BlackBerry 9900 made its debut at last year's BlackBerry World event. No phones will be shown off this time around.

(Credit: CNET)

Eager to see Research In Motion's latest and greatest phones at BlackBerry World next week? Prepare to be disappointed.

RIM will be taking a software-heavy approach this year, using the event to formally unveil its BlackBerry 10 operating system.

"We are not unveiling any BlackBerry 10 hardware," a company representative confirmed to CNET.

There's never been a more crucial BlackBerry World than this next event. The annual confab is a chance for BlackBerry developers, product enthusiasts, and business partners to take in RIM's latest and future wares. This year, RIM has the added task of convincing its shrinking band of supporters that the company is still worth taking a chance on amid declining market share and the notion that it is too far gone to be saved.

Its single hope: the BlackBerry 10 platform build on QNX, which also powers its PlayBooksoftware. The platform represents a break from its older -- almost archaic -- BlackBerry operating system and is the company's best hope at mounting a comeback. CEO Thorsten Heins sees it more than simple software for phones; he said during the last quarterly conference call that he believes multiple devices beyond phones will emerge from BlackBerry 10.

His strategy isn't unique; Google's Android and Apple's iOS both power multiple types of mobile devices, while Microsoft's Windows 8 will be extended to PCs, laptops, and tablets.

RIM will make its case that it too should be included in the conversation next week at BlackBerry World in Orlando, Fla. The company plans to launch a beta version of its BlackBerry 10 toolkit. Developers in attendance will also be getting a Dev Alpha device, according to a RIM representative. The device, however, isn't a BlackBerry 10 phone, nor will it be running the software.

The event will also likely be a showcase for the apps that are currently being developed for BlackBerry 10. A few developers will be showing off demonstrations of what they are building for BlackBerry 10.

Still, the lack of hardware has to be disappointing to some BlackBerry fans who were expecting a strong showing at the event. Last year, RIM used the conference to debut its BlackBerry Bold 9900, its flagship phone last year. The phone marked the first device to use its BlackBerry 7 operating system, which was an update of its older platform.

RIM has maintained that it plans to launch the first BlackBerry 10 phone in the second half, withsome speculation that it may emerge in August and hit stores in October.

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Twitter sets its sights on 2 billion users

by Dan Farber  April 27, 2012 1:33 PM PDT 


Twitter VP of products Satya Patel says that with 140 million users today, the company has to make it simpler for users to get close to what's most meaningful to them, in order to attract billions of adherents. 


                                  

"Everything we are doing is oriented around getting to 2 billion users."

You might think that statement was from Mark Zuckerberg, as Facebook approaches 1 billion active users on its social network and focuses on the next billion. But it was Satya Patel, Twitter's vice president of products, outlining the goal his company has set for itself.

With an estimated 140 million users today, producing 340 million tweets a day, 2 billion people using Twitter at least once a month isn't a near-term goal. Based on its current growth rate, which is accelerating as hashtags and @ signs become more embedded in everyday life, Twitter will likely reach 200 million active users in August.

Patel wouldn't tell me when he expected Twitter to reach 2 billion users, which today would include nearly everyone on the Internet around the world. But he knows what success would look like. "Success is if everybody in the world wakes up and checks Twitter," he said.

"Get big as fast as you can" is the mantra of Silicon Valley -- as well as any other valleys where technical innovation and opportunism meets venture capitalism. It may not be the ultimate road to immediate profit, but it's a well worn road for those who want a chance to own a significant chunk of digital real estate. Google's done as much in search, Facebook in the social web, Apple in mobile devices, Amazon in e-commerce, and Microsoft on the desktop. 

The path to becoming more mainstream and attracting 2 billion tweeters is making the product more approachable to mere mortals, Patel said.

"There is incredible awareness of Twitter, but the gap between awareness and ability to extract value is too great. We have to make it simpler for users to get close to what is most meaningful to them and easier to discover information."

Twitter has focused on its Discovery feature as a way to attract users and help them become more fluent in the service. Discovery analyzes signals, such as who users follow as well as their interests and engagement on Twitter, to "personalize the experience and display stories without any user intervention," Patel said.

Twitter's Discovery feature surfaces content that it determines a user might have an interest in viewing, including from sources that a user doesn't follow. Like many personalization features and applications, Twitter Discovery is hit and miss in separating the noise from the signals.

He acknowledged the challenge of keeping Twitter simple as the volume of feature requests escalates. As Twitter CEO Dick Costolo phrased Twitter's goal, "We are going to offer simplicity in a world of complexity."

"We add via subtraction and look at how to reduce the number of steps to get value from the product. Consistency across devices is also important -- you shouldn't have to relearn the product for each device," Patel said.

Patel, who came to Twitter from Google, where he led the development of Google Ad Manager,also said that advertising has fit into the Twitter simplicity mold. Twitter's main advertising vehicle, promoted tweets, "are just content.... and in some cases people  want to pay so a broader audience can see them. It has to be built off of the organic nature of the platform," he said.

In our conversation, Patel stressed that Twitter deals with a different use case than a social network like Facebook. "It's a real-time public conversation, bringing everybody in the world closer to the people and topics they care about. It requires the conversation and information to be public. I think we do the best job in the world in addressing this single-use case," he said.

But not everything on Twitter is public. The direct messaging feature allows Twitter users to have private conversations. Patel's view is that direct messaging is "useful to a subset of users, but not core to the use case that will be most important to 2 billion people who use Twitter every day." Nor does Twitter have any current plan in the works to offer real-time group chat.

Facebook is on the cusp of a billion users eight years after it launched. Six years into its existence, Twitter has around 140 million. Two billion is a long way off, but there isn't much in the way, outside of being locked out of China, to prevent reaching that goal, eventually.

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Galaxy phones power Samsung to record $5.2 billion profit

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics posted a record $5.2 billion quarterly profit as it shifted over 20,000 Galaxysmartphones an hour in January-March, outselling Apple's iPhone in a duel for the lucrative high end of the mobile industry.

                                           

An employee poses with Samsung Electronics' Galaxy phones at a store in Seoul March 14, 2012. SAMSUNG/ REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

Chairman Lee Kun-hee's South Korean group, whose $190 billion market value is 11 times that of Japanese rival Sony Corp, sold 93.5 million handsets in the first quarter - more than one in every four sold around the world - according to Strategy Analytics. That included 44.5 million smartphones, giving it a 30.6 percent share of the high-end market. Apple's sales of 35.1 million iPhones gave it a 24.1 percent share.

"Samsung and Apple are out-competing most major rivals and the smartphone market is at risk of becoming a two-horse race," said Neil Mawston, an analyst at Strategy Analytics.

The near duopoly in high-end smartphones is not expected to change much this year or next, according to Bernstein analysts, and Samsung will look to keep that momentum going next week with the launch in London of a third generation of the flagship Galaxy S, hoping to boost sales ahead of the summer Olympics, where the group is among the leading sponsors.

"The Galaxy S 3's specifications are expected to be sensational and it's already drawing strong interest from the market and consumers," said Brian Park, an analyst at Tong Yang Securities.

The new Galaxy will be powered by Samsung's quad-core microprocessor, which the company hopes to see used in handsets sold by Nokia, HTC and Motorola, as well as Apple, its biggest customer for components.

"We anticipate very strong demand for the Galaxy S 3," Robert Yi, Samsung's senior vice president and head of investor relations, told analysts. "When there's strong demand in the market, we don't necessarily need to spend a lot of marketing dollars to promote sales."

While Apple said this week that iPhone 4S sales boosted its quarterly revenue in China five-fold, there are more Samsung handsets than Apple phones in the world's biggest mobile market.

Samsung said it increased its China smartphone market share to just above its global average, suggesting it took more than 30 percent share of a market where, unlike Apple, it already has deals with all three big telecoms operators.

Samsung's quarterly handset division profits nearly tripled to 4.27 trillion won ($3.8 billion), accounting for 73 percent of total profit, and operating margins jumped to 18.4 percent from 12 percent in the preceding quarter on strong sales of the Galaxy S and the Note phone/tablet, the surprise consumer hit of recent months.

MOBILE WARNING

In a sign that high-end smartphones are where the mobile action, and money, is, Foxconn International Holdings warned of a deepening first-half loss on weak orders. While Taiwanese parent Foxconn Technology Group assembles iPads and iPhones, Foxconn mainly assembles handsets for Motorola, Sony and others.

Samsung, the world's top technology firm by revenue, has overtaken Nokia, the long-time global mobile phone leader, and is outmuscling Japanese rivals in TVs and memory chips.

"Samsung's smartphone success in the first quarter was the flip-side of Nokia's disappointment," Matt Evans, CLSA analyst, said in a recent report.

January-March operating profit nearly doubled to 5.85 trillion won and was up from 5.3 trillion won in the previous quarter, sending Samsung shares up 2.9 percent to a record 1.38 million won ($1,200).

Tong Yang's Park said Samsung's handset earnings growth may slow later this year, with the likely launch of Apple's iPhone 5, "but the recovery of chips and displays will more than offset potential drops, sustaining earnings momentum."

BUT THE CHIPS ARE DOWN

Samsung competes with Sony and LG Electronics in TVs, Toshiba and SK hynix in chips and LG Display in flat screens.

Profits from semiconductor sales more than halved to 760 billion won, hit by tumbling computer memory chip prices, while the TV and home appliance business boosted profits sharply to 530 billion won from a razor-thin 80 billion won a year ago.

Samsung and its home rival LG Electronics are among the few global TV manufacturers making money and winning market share on the back of sleek design, crisp displays and new technologies, such as 3D and organic light emitting display (OLED) sets. Sony, Panasonic and Sharp expect to have lost a combined $21 billion in the business year just ended.

Samsung will also merge its Samsung Display liquid crystal display (LCD) unit with its OLED production unit Samsung Mobile Display.

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