Google Patent Application Keeps Track of Your Moves to Automate Mobile Actions

A shimmy and a shake could be all it takes to launch apps in the future, that's if this latest patent application ever pans out. Filed back in October of 2011, the folks over at Google are looking to make accelerometers useful for more than just screen orientation. According to the claims, after a training phase where in this hypothetical program would associate specific application launches with geographic location data, your Pavlovian smartphone could then automate workflows and effectively anticipate your needs. 

Essentially, you'd have a mobile device that would know what to run wherever you were, hinging upon how you hold it. At least, that's the schematic covered in this USPTO document. Will it ever see the light of day? Hard to tell. Mountain View's just a-brimming with those 20 percent time projects. More here.

YouTube Wants More Videos to Have Background Music, Adds Audio Editor

Need something to fill in the awkward silence between your vlog's unscripted stuttering? YouTube's got your back. In yet another attempt to make your crummy videos just a little better, the streaming outfit has revamped its audio editing suite, giving users access to over 150,000 tracks and a simple sound mixer, to boot. Sure, YouTube's tracks may not be as catchy as your favorite Flaming Lips single, but at least you won't have to worry about copyright infringement.

Microsoft reveals the fourth version of Windows 8: Enterprise

As detailed in an official blog post, the new unique feature in Windows 8 Enterprise is Windows To Go, which is Windows on a stick. Basically it allows you to run your corporate image on a home PC or other personal devices -- the opposite of that USB disk you carry to work with portable versions of your favorite unsanctioned apps. 

Also new is the ability to automatically sideload internal Metro apps as well as enhancements to the virtual desktop client. Of course Windows 7 Enterprise features like DirectAccess, BranchCache and AppLocker are still there, but some features like BitLocker are now available in the Pro version of Windows 8 too. 

If you were thinking you might like these at home, don't forget that Enterprise is only sold with Software Assurance (Microsoft's perpetual upgrade program), but that does bring extra abilities too, like a free Virtual Desktop Access license -- you didn't think you got that for free did you -- and the optional Companion Device license that extends your VDI and Windows To Go rights to four more personal devices. 

Now, if it just included the ability to boot directly to the desktop, then most corporation's biggest concern with Windows 8 would be appeased. More here.

Electrons Can Split Into Two

Until now, electrons have been regarded as elementary particles—which means that scientists thought they had no component parts or substructure. But now, electrons have been observed decaying into two separate parts—causing physicists to rethink what they know about the particles.

The electrons split into two separate parts, each carrying a particular property of the electron. In layman's terms? The first, called a "spinon" carries its spin—which causes electrons to behave a bit like compass point. The second, called an "orbiton" carries its orbital moment—that's what keeps electrons moving around the nucleus of atoms. The result is reported in this week's issue of Nature. Jeroen van den Brink, one of the researchers, explains:

"It had been known for some time that, in particular materials, an electron can inprinciple be split, but until now the empirical evidence for this separation into independent spinons and orbitons was lacking. Now that we know where exactly to look for them, we are bound to find these new particles in many more materials."

The observations were made in the copper-oxide compound Sr2CuO3, a material peculiar because the particles in it are constrained to move only in one direction, either forwards or backwards. The electron-splitting was measured using X-rays to measure the energy and momentum of particles in the material.

Though the electrons can split, the resulting two parts can't escape the material in which they are produced. Regardless of that, the finding should transform our understanding of superconductivity—and could even eventually make high-temperature superconductivity a real possibility. More here.

How We Identify Single Voices in a Crowd

There are plenty of human abilities that we take for granted, but which are actually insanely complex. Like picking out a single voice buried amongst the noise of a crowded environment, a problem which has troubled scientists for decades. But now they've worked out how we do it—and it could revolutionize speech recognition technology.

The phenomenon—sometimes called the cocktail party effect—allows us to pick out the voice of somebody when all around us is noise. Now, a team of scientists from the University of California, San Francisco has performed experiments on patients undergoing brain surgery to discover how that works. The findings appear in this week's issue of Nature.

During the surgeries, a thin sheet of 256 electrodes was applied to the temporal lobe—the auditory cortex of the brain—of the participants in order to record neuronal activity. Post-surgery, patients were played audio tracks with multiple voices, and asked to identify the words uttered by particular speakers while their brain activity was monitored.

The researchers then used software to reconstruct the brain's activity and assess how it varied when the patients were listening out for different speakers. Amazingly, the neural cortex only seems to respond to a single voice at a time when we're concentrating on making it out, effectively shutting out the rest of the acoustic environment which surrounds us. In other words, selective hearing is very much real—we only hear what we want or need to.

While it's a neat insight, the researchers are also hopeful that it could be a useful tool in assessing hearing impairment and attention deficit disorder. Not just that, they also hope to develop devices for decoding the intentions and thoughts from paralyzed patients that cannot communicate.

And then there's one last, and potentially very lucrative, application: voice recognition. One of the major stumbling blocks with Siri and its brethren is their inability to cope in noisy environments. If scientists can get to the bottom of how the temporal lobe itself filters out extraneous noise, consumer technology could make a huge leap forwards. More here.

This Is How the Tupac Hologram That Wasn’t Really a Hologram Worked

We already knew that the Tupac Hologram wasn't really a hologram but actually just a modern regurgitation of the old mid-19th century trick known as "Pepper's Ghost". If you were confused on how that illusion worked, be confused no more! Here it is.

Roxanne Palmer at the International Business TImes made this infographic that clearly illustrated how the whole hologram shenanigans worked. AV Concepts, the company behind the fauxlogram, used Musion Systems Ltd.'s Musion Eyeliner setup to project a 2D animated Tupac onto an invisible (to the audience) screen to make him look 3D. More here.

Why Friday the 13th Is So Unlucky

The origins of Friggatriskaidekaphobia (the fear of Friday the 13th) are a little muddled, but it's often associated with two ideas: that thirteen is an unlucky number, and that Friday is an unlucky day.

In numerology, the number twelve is favored for its association with completeness: twelves months in a year, twelve hours on a clock, twelve Apostles, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve gods of Olympus, etc. Thirteen, then, is the perversion of this perfect completeness; twelve's a party, thirteen a crowd. Some believe that seating thirteen people at a table will result in the death of one, a superstition inspired by both The Last Supper and an old Norse myth.

But why Friday? Bad end-of-week vibes can be traced back to as early as the 14th century, in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Stock market crashes and other disasters, since the 1800s, have been associated with Black Friday, and many believe it is inauspicious to begin projects, embark on journeys, or release products on––you guessed it!––Friday.

Friggatriskaidekaphobia affects an estimated 17-21 million people in the US, of which many are to scared to travel on planes, go to work, or even get out of bed. Either that, or it's just as good an excuse as any to play hooky.

Oakley Is Making Its Own Google Glasses

As dorky as you'll look wearing Google Glasses, the idea of augmented reality specs is dripping with potential awesomeness (and guaranteed hilarity). So it's not a surprise that Oakley, sunglass king, is working on its own Google Glasses competitor. Maybe they won't be as ugly as Google's?

If you're wearing glasses, it's a good idea to get the lenses right, right? This could work! Oakley told Bloomberg:

As an organization, we've been chasing this beast since 1997. Ultimately, everything happens through your eyes, and the closer we can bring it to your eyes, the quicker the consumer is going to adopt the platform.

The beast being Oakley's "heads-up" technology which puts smartphone features into glasses. According to Bloomberg, the glasses will function on its own while also working with a smartphone. The whole system might be controlled with Siri-like voice commands and is currently targeted for athletes first and branch out later. More here.

Prize Winning LED Lightbulb to Arrive Just in Time for Earth Day

Philips, the Netherlands-based lightbulb manufacturer who won a 2007 congressional contest to create an energy-saving replacement for the incandescent 60-watt bulb, plans to start selling their LED bulb (the "L bulb") in stores just in time for Earth Day, this Sunday.

It will retail for $60 at stores like Home Depot, with an instant $10 rebate to consumers, bringing the cost down to $50 for 30,000 hours of LED light. If used for four hours per day, that works out to 20 years of light! More here.

Magnetic Super-Paper Can Shrug Off Water and Bacteria

Without changing its physical or functional properties, researchers at Italy's Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia have created the superhero of papers that's waterproof, antibacterial, and magnetic. Which will completely revolutionize how your kids can stick their artwork to the fridge.

The secret lies with a special mixture of individual molecules, or monomers, in paper fiber and the future of seemingly all technologies—nanoparticles. The resulting compound, known as a polymetric matrix, is actually made with different types of nanoparticles, and when applied to regular paper it completely covers the fibers on the microscopic level, creating a protective shell.

When iron oxide nanoparticles are added to the mix, the resulting paper has magnetic properties. And when silver nanoparticles are added, the paper fights off bacteria and other microscopic organisms. The paper can even be turned fluorescent using the right particles, and is completely waterproof making it ideal for high security applications like bank notes, or for printing long-lasting historical documents. More here.

Samsung To Unveil Galaxy S III on May 3rd

Finally, after much rumour and speculation, a "new Samsung Galaxy" is officially coming. It'll be showing its presumably pretty face on the 3rd of May in London at a "Samsung Mobile Unpacked" event—if that doesn't scream Galaxy S III I don't know what does.

The event invite is a bit vague, of course; there's no mention of the Galaxy S III specifically, just a "come and meet the next Galaxy" strap line. There aren't many other Galaxy models Samsung would use an evening event in London to launch, apart from a flagship device.

If it's launching on May 3rd, we could expect it to hit the shops pretty soon after. It looks like those rumours of a late April launch weren't all that far off after all. More here.

Where Were You Hundreds Of Birthdays and Christmases Ago Tape Scissors?

It's obvious why these brilliant scissors with a built-in tape dispenser aren't available in every office supply store in the country. They want you to have to buy both products separately—increasing the store's profits while you sit at home fumbling your way through another botched attempt at wrapping gifts.

It's a bigger crime against consumers than Apple's alleged e-book price fixing. So just go buy a pair for $10 and be thankful the next time you need to wrap a present. And remember, sometimes you have to lose the occasional battle to win the war. More here.

Tiny Pies Are the Greatest Thing To Ever Be Jammed On a Stick

Candy apples? Your days are numbered. There's a new candidate for greatest treat-on-a-stick that doesn't try to sneak fresh fruit in with our calorie-laden snacks—the Babycakes Pie Pop maker.

You might want to sit a spell while your mind grapples what this machine is capable of, and what it can bring to your life. Namely, miniature pies you can eat off a stick. No plates, no forks, no napkins needed. In four minutes you can bake up six adorably miniature pies filled with whatever you want. Apples, cherries, or what the heck, even other smaller pies. It's obviously the best $25 investment you'll ever make. More here.

Take Notes While Saving Your iPhone’s Battery With This Nostalgic Case

Before touchscreens and tablets came along, Magna Doodle was the easiest way for a kid to draw without a pencil and paper. Which is why somewhere deep down we have a soft spot for what is otherwise a ridiculous iPhone case.

Its creators aren't trying to pull a fast one either. They realize the practical applications of this case are non-existant, and have dubbed it the iFoolish with hopes there's enough '80s nostalgia still in the world to bolster sales. And with a price tag of just $25 and an adorable mini magnetic stylus included. More here.

Heavily Armored iPhone Case Can Stop A .50 Caliber Round

It might add almost five pounds to the weight of your phone, but this armored iPhone case with one-inch of thick steel plating on the back is promised to stop a .50 caliber round. So what you're really paying $650 for is peace of mind.

Unfortunately you'll want to make sure any snipers are targeting the back of your phone when it's entombed in this case, because the front leaves your display exposed and is only protected by a thin aluminum facade. And even though the back is highly protected, there's still a hole bored out for the camera lens which means a particularly talented marksman could still take out your iPhone with a well placed shot. More here.

Thunderbolt Might Transfer to Windows by May

Ultra-fast, Apple-only Thunderbolt technology is about to get a little less exclusive. According to CNet reports, LaCie plans to unveil PC compatibility for the10gb/s Thunderbolt during the upcoming NAB 2012 trade show.

Reportedly, LaCie will debut PC-compatible versions of the Little Big Disk SSD and the 2big Thunderbolt mass storage devices. LaCie has recently helped to create the Thunderbolt Standard, which governs devices' interactions with the cables, which "can transfer a full-length HD movie in less than 30 seconds," according to Intel. Intel has reportedly already begun shipping its latest iteration of Thunderbolt controllers and is planning to roll out Cactus Ridge, a Windows-compatible Thunderbolt chip, when Ivy Bridge debuts in two weeks. More here and here.

Future Internets Will Be Powered by Quantum Particles

Like quantum physics? What about quantum computers? Or quantum computers in a diamond? Then you should know that researchers at the Max Planck Institute have appropriately devised a way to create a quantum network in which a photon is exchanged between two atoms. Future!

According to Time, the two atoms transmit the photon over a 60 meter fiber optic cable and is said to be the first to send, receive and store information without failure. More here.

Professor Ignacio Cirac, a director at MPQ, proposed the framework for the experiment. In his team's quantum network, individual rubidium atoms were lodged between two highly reflective mirrors placed less than a millimeter apart - a setup referred to as an "optical cavity." The team then fired a laser at one of the atoms, calibrated so as not to disturb it and instead cause it to emit a photon, which then traversed the 60-meter fiberoptic cable to be absorbed by the second atom, transferring the first atom's quantum information.

Solar Panel-In-a-Tube Generates Power and Hot Water At the Same Time

Solar photovoltaic cells and solar thermal collectors both capture the sun's rays. The first one turns the light into electricity, while the other turns it into hot water for heating. They usually battle for rooftop real estate, but Naked Energy has found a way to merge them both into a single solar solution.

The British company's Virtu tubes gain efficiency by operating in tandem—it's teamwork, just like you learned as a kid. Inside each vacuum-sealed tube is a power-producing photovoltaic wafer. Sunlight hitting the wafer generates extra heat, which then transfers to the tube's solar thermal collector using the company's patented thermosyphon technology.

The transfer keeps the photovoltaic cells close to their optimal operating temperature, with the shared benefit of a hot water supply that can be used to help heat a building on the cheap. In other words, the hybrid design makes a Virtu up to 46 percent more efficient at turning sunlight into energy than traditional solar panels.

At the moment, Naked Energy is still refining and improving the product's design. Developers are working with professors at the Imperial College in London to further increase their efficiency. The company intends to create a commercially available product once it's happy with the solar cell's performance. More here.

Don’t Forget To Pack This Highly-Detailed Moon Globe For Your Next Lunar Vacation

Space tourism is just getting under way, but before we know it spending a weekend on the moon will be commonplace. (If you have a kabillion dollars.) So in addition to warm socks, you'll want to make sure you pack Sky & Telescope's new detailed Moon Globe if you're planning to explore.

Previous moon globes have used airbrushed artistic renderings of the moon's surface, which aren't incredibly accurate. But Sky & Telescope used over 15,000 images snapped by Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter when creating the imagery for its new $100 globe.

Thanks to over 850 labels, you can also use the globe to easily find all the neat touristy locales, including craters, valleys, and even the Apollo landing sites. And remember, besides the globe you'll also want to pack your Visa card, because the moon doesn't take American Express. More here.

Lumia 900 Costs More to Build Than the iPhone 4S

The Lumia 900 is a hell of a phone. Plus, it's cheap: just $100 regularly, and temporarily FREE while Nokia works out some software issues. But it's not for lack of quality parts: iSuppli crunched the numbers and determined it costs $217 to build and manufacture. That's more than the iPhone.

For comparison's sake, the iPhone 4S's 16GB model costs an estimated $188 to build and retails for $200. The Lumia's component prices are about the same, but strangely, it shoots ahead with an expensive screen compared to the iPhone. The Lumia's screen is larger physically, but has a much lower pixel density than the iPhone's retina display.

Nokia—and its partner in crime Microsoft—desperately wants to get a foothold with the Lumia line of Windows Phones. That's why the Lumia 710 was just $50 on T-Mobile, and why the regular price for the 900 is just $100. Nokia's willing to subsidize hardware to gain market share. If this works, it'll be absolutely worth it. If not, well, that's a mighty big bill Nokia just stuck itself with. More here.