Six Chulalongkorn University students have become famous by making music using only apps for iPad and iPhone. The Thai girls band called 'Walnut Apple Band' became popular after posting a video on YouTube with impromptu music. The video became a viral hit and has more than 200,000 views.
Their songs are performed by simulating the sound of piano and other instruments played on the screen of the tablets. Banana Records, a Thailand recording studio, has hired the band and the members are preparing to release their first album in December 2012.
Alan Turing was one of the first people to think of the possibility of a theoretical model for a universal computer. The British mathematician was a visionary, without whom the modern world of iPhone, smartphones and Facebook could not have become a reality. Born June 23, 1912, he would have been 100 this year.
Turing created the Turing Machine, which was one of the first concepts of algorithm and computation. He is therefore considered the 'father' of modern computing. He also created what may be considered the first computer chess program and devoted himself to chemistry, physics and biology. Turing is also known for his role in World War II: His team cracked the codes used by Nazi Germany to communicate.
Turing was chased by the British government for being a homosexual, which was illegal and considered a disease a hundred years ago. Shortly prior to 42 years, Alan Turing died from suicide, although Turing's mother has argued that his death was accidental. In September 2009, after an Internet campaign that raised thousands of supporters, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly apologised on behalf of the UK government for the shameful treatment given to Alan Turing.
The "Alan Turing Year" is organized by the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee and has events almost every day in different places. You can find in the centenary of Turing's site a list of conferences, exhibitions, debates, contests, projects and other activities, including music, literature and videos.
The astronaut Don Pettit is responsable for some of the most impressive pictures of the space. The pictures were took during Expedition 31, about 240 miles from the Eath.
When asked how he produced such amazing pictures, Don Pettit said: "My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do: I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure."
All Don Pettit's pictures taken from orbit can be seen on the collection "Star Trails". Click here to see the whole collection.
The British telecommunications company Vodafone has launched an new umbrella concept, which promises to recharge phones while it improves the signal quality. The prototype, called "Booster Brolly", was devoleped by Dr Kenneth Tong, in partnership with University College London.
The carbon fiber umbrella is affixed with 12 hand-stitched silicon solar cells that charge a battery stored in its handle while the phone is connected to the Booster Brolly through a USB port. The electric current generated from the panels works as a phone charger and also feeds a signal that increases microantena 3G.
The umbrella will be tested in UK on June 22nd, at Isle of Wight music festival, in UK.
Back to the Future II got to the theaters in 1989 and it was supposed to be about life in 2015. 27 seven years after the movie was made, are the things that they predicted happening right now?
Do you remember the shark that jumped out the movie theatre in front of Marty McFly? Like in the movie, holograms are also a reality nowadays. Sony Pictures projected a Loch Ness monster at the Tokyo bay to promote the movie 'The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep'.
Zemeckis also thought of a revolutionary pad to replace pen and paper when he created a scene were McFly was approached on the street to sign a petition and instead of a regular paper a guy showed him an electronic tablet, where people can sign, make notes, among other things. The iPad has many more features, but the original idea may have started after the movie.
The movie also predicted that in the future people would make calls by video chating instead of phones. Although phones are still an important communication device, nowadays we have many other options that make another Zemeckis dream become true. Cellphones and webcams are a great example of it.
Last but not least, Back to the Future II also predicted the creation of LCD tvs, because in 1989 people had to deal with small tvs with bad video quality.
Although Back to the Future II had predicted 27 years ago many technologies that are part of our lives today, there was some cool stuff that we are still hoping to get one day. For example: any kid who watched the movie in the 80's always dreamed of Marty McFly's flying skateboard! We have not seen anything like that yet, but some flying board prototypes are being developed. An example is McFly's skateboard replica created by French artist Nils Guadagnin.
We also haven't seen any flying cars or a time machine yet. However does anybody doubt that many other technologies predicted in Back to the Future II are going to become a reality soon ?
The number of people who prefer online shopping than going to shopping centers increase every year, which makes e-commerce a very profitable way of buying and selling products. In 2009 the e-commerce profit in the USA was around 155 billion dollars!
Americans have appreciated shopping by distance for over 250 years, when the first printed shopping catalogs were launched. After the internet launch, the companies started to put their catalogs on websites and the begining of the e-commerce was immediate.
However, e-commerce sellers cannot forget the most important aspect of online shopping: safety. Statistics say 35% of online purchases are not completed because some people are still afraid of giving their credit cards information to a website. The online shopping websites need to have in mind that security and reliability are key points to a successful e-commerce.
That's why you can trust in BidPlayers.com: the protection of your data is very important to us. We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your information when you access our site.
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Remember when you were young and used to watch movies about the future? There were so many cool things going on that made you think: the future is so far away! Will we ever have cool technologies like that?
Well.. welcome to the future!
The technology is so advanced that now computers are even able to help the police to catch a thief!
A man was caught red-handed after he theft of a laptop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The thief (who is 19 years and was known by local police) ended up being caught when a computer application took a picture of him and sent it to a security site.
The man stole the computer and tried to login as a guest when he had his picture taken by the application Orbicule. His picture and personal information were sent to a security website and the police were called.
The future is here! Let's make use of all the technologies that are offered to us! After all, we never know when a cool application or great technology can save our lives.
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The first Penny Auction site was started in Munich, Germany in 2005. Telebid was a revolutionary idea that brought Auctions to the online world. In 2008 Telebid changed the name for Swoopo and expanded around Europe and U.S.
Swoopo had a controversial beginning, being heavily criticized. The critics used to say that the Penny Auction site was a legalized way of gambling. Some people used to think that winning Auctions involved skills and luck. However, the argument about "skill" was put down when The Washington state attorney general's office defended Penny Auctions sites concluding that they don't constitute gambling under state law.
Swoopo also revolutionized the Penny Auctions world by being the first site which allowed the bidders who lost an Auction to get back all lost bids towards purchasing. Another curiosity: Swoopo's first name was Telebid because users would bid on the Auction by phone!
Penny Auctions sites quickly became a great idea and many other sites started to compete with Swoopo for the bidders market. Once the competition was established the sites started to invest in better products to be auctioned, new marketing channels, greater efficiency of existing channels and new geographic markets.
Besides the competition Swoop also started to have financial problems. In 2011, the site became inaccessible and Swoopo's company filed for bankruptcy. There is no information regarding whether the site will reopen or close permanently.
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You probably have already heard rumors about a Facebook smartphone. However, according to the columnist of the New York Times, Nick Bilton, the rumors are about to become true. Bilton says that Mark Zuckerberg has been hiring Apple's engineers, who helped to create the iPhone and iPad, to develop the Facebook phone to be launched in 2013.
After the New York Times news, tech sites around the world contacted the Facebook directors, who have only answered " Facebook does not comment on rumors or speculations."
However, the Business Insider also posted news about the Facebook phone a few weeks before the New York Times. The columnist Jay Yarow said "Facebook is building a smartphone in front of us". According to Yarow, Facebook's recent purchases of startups and launch of apps (like 'Camera') is evidence that the company is thinking of a much larger market than social networking.
