IT Manager at Faculty of Medicine Benghazi University. My favorites & lists talking about me. iPhoneographer and Techs Geek ^^ ►Instagram & kik ~ Almajbary◄
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Some of what the Sun spits out violently returns to its surface

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Material getting blasted off the surface of the Sun. Some of it will make a violent return trip.

The Sun may look like a calm, steady presence from the safe distance of our vantage point on Earth, but just a slight bit of magnification shows that its surface is seething with violent activity. And every now and then some of that violence gets sent towards Earth in the form of a coronal mass ejection, causing auroras and general worries about the safety of the people and hardware we have in orbit.

In focusing on the material that gets sent toward Earth, however, it's easy to overlook the fact that not everything that gets shot out of the Sun is energetic enough to escape its gravity. A lot of material obeys the dictum "what goes up must come down" and ends up crashing back to the surface of the Sun. Now, scientists have imaged these events as the ejected material returns and strikes the surface of the Sun. Using that, they built a model that shows what happens below the Sun's surface during these impacts, a model that may have applications to the processes that build stars in the first place.

Some video of the solar eruptions, showing the material that returns to the Sun's surface at high speed.

The basic process at issue is fairly simple: the eruptions of the Sun that power coronal mass ejection send a lot of mass away from the Sun, but not all of it has sufficient momentum to escape the Sun's gravity. So at a certain point, it comes to a halt and then reverses, heading back toward the surface of the Sun. A lot of it reaches free-fall speeds before it impacts—which, given the environment, is somewhere around 300-450 kilometers a second.

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Almajbary
4169 days ago
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AOL to Launch a Reader Product

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rss buttonA mere handful of days before Google kills off its Reader product, AOL just revealed that it is working on a Reader of its own.

It’s called — surprise! — AolReader, and it’s currently in private beta. You can sign up to request an invite or enter a promo code at the landing page, here.

Google announced the impending death of its Reader product months ago, and its sizable community of hardcore followers revolted en masse. It’s not a mainstream, massively popular product by any means, which is part of why Google is putting it down, along with Larry Page’s plan to simplify and streamline the projects that Google supports.

But the people who do use Google Reader are power users, understandably upset with Google’s decision to end the service after users spent years collecting and organizing RSS feeds inside the service.

Fortunately for those folks, there’s no dearth of copycats popping up in Google’s wake. Aside from AOL’s announcement today, Digg’s take on the Reader will launch in a matter of weeks, while other startups like Feedly have also tried to fill the gap with similar offerings.

Will AOL provide a compelling Reader with features that competitors can’t offer, or end up being just another also-ran service? I can’t tell you, as I’m not on the invite list quite yet. We’ll let you know if it’s worth it when we get a first look.

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Almajbary
4169 days ago
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Pirate Bay cofounder gets two years in prison for IT firm hack

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Gottfrid Svartholm Warg could face up to six years in prison in Denmark, in addition to prison time in Sweden.

As his defense attorney expected, a Swedish court has found Gottfrid “anakata” Svartholm Warg guilty of “invasion of Nordea's mainframe,” aggravated fraud, and attempted aggravated fraud. He was sentenced (Swedish) to two years in prison.

The Pirate Bay cofounder will also likely have to face related charges in a high-profile hacking case in neighboring Denmark, but the Swedish and Danish legal systems have not yet determined if or when he will be extradited.

“I think he will be [extradited]. It’s a matter of time,” Ola Salomonsson, Svartholm Warg’s defense attorney, told Ars, adding that his client had not decided whether to appeal the decision. “He just wants to read this sentence and consider everything. He could actually have a longer time in prison: the prosecutor asked for four years and he was sentenced to two years. You never know, an appeal could give him another year or so. Maybe that has an impact on Svartholm Warg. I don’t know yet.”

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Can't Decide Between Windows or Android? Samsung's ATIV Q Convertible Does Both.

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With the launch of Windows 8, we’ve seen the emergence of convertible devices — machines that twist, fold or detach so you can use them as a laptop or a tablet. But Samsung is giving new meaning to the term convertible.

ATIV Q

Announced today at an event in London, Samsung introduced the ATIV Q, a hybrid device that can run Windows 8 and Android Jellybean 4.2.2. The company said it designed the ATIV Q after its customers expressed a desire to access Android apps on a Windows PC. So, now users can switch between the two operating systems seamlessly.

You can even pin Android apps to the Windows 8 Start screen, and transfer and share files between Windows 8 and Android. (Asus also introduced a Windows-Android hybrid, the Transformer Book Trio, at Computex earlier this month.)

But that’s not where the covertible-ness of device stops. The laptop also features a hinge design that lets you use the machine in four different modes. You can use it as a regular laptop; you can lay the display flat over the keyboard to use as a tablet or flip it over to watch videos. Finally, you can pull the display away from the hinge and position it at different angles — sort of like an all-in-one PC.

Sound familiar? That’s because Acer offers a similar design with its Aspire R7 laptop, though the ATIV Q has a smaller form factor. It measures 0.5 thick and weighs 2.8 pounds compared to the Aspire R7, which comes in at 0.7 inch thick and 3.3 pounds. While thinner and lighter is better, these types of convertible devices often come with trade offs.

Samsung boasted that the ATIV Q’s 3,200 by 1,800 pixel touchscreen offers 2.8 times pixel density of full HD displays, can be viewed in bright sunlight and has a 178-degree viewing angle. The ATIV Q is powered by Intel’s fourth-generation Haswell processor and promises up to 9 hours of battery life.

IMG_0329

In addition to the ATIV Q, the company also introduced the ATIV Tab 3. Dubbing it the world’s thinnest (stop me if you’ve heard this before) Windows 8 tablet, the ATIV Tab 3 measures just 0.3 inch thick and weighs 1.2 pounds. It’s targeted for those looking for portable tablet to use on the go.

It comes preloaded with Microsoft Office Home & Student, and like the Galaxy Note series, the tablet includes a stylus (called the S Pen), so users can take notes, make annotations and sketch doodles right on the device. The ATIV Q also supports the S Pen.

Samsung did not announce pricing or availability for either devices at this time. Also, unveiled today was the Android-based Galaxy NX camera.

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Study: Apple’s bet on the wrist might be smarter than Google’s bet on the face

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MobileBeat 2013
July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA
Tickets On Sale Now

Wearable computing has big potential, and not just on the face

A new Forrester study on Google Glass might just show that Apple’s apparent obsession with the wrist might be a better bet than Google’s focus on the face.

According to the study of 4,600 adults, 12 percent of us would want to purchase wearable technology, like glasses, on our face. That’s almost 22 million Americans. But more than twice as many — 28 percent — are interested in wrist-based wearable devices. That’s almost 50 million people.

Apple’s rumored wearable, of course, is the iWatch.

The post-PC wearable computing space is intensely interesting to Apple, CEO Tim Cook said recently. Apple has reportedly been testing 1.5″ OLED screens for iWatches and has recently filed trademarks for iWatch in Russia and other countries. Bitter global rival Samsung is supposedly working on a wrist-based computing device as well.

An iWatch prototype

An iWatch prototype

In a recent interview, Cook said the entire wearable computing space was “ripe for exploration” and as game-changing and revolutionary as the smartphone or the tablet:

“I see it as another very key branch of the tree.”

But while he was excited about wearable devices, Cook wasn’t so keen on the face, saying that Google Glass was limiting its potential based on the fact that it is, essentially, head-mounted — and most people don’t want to wear glasses.

“I wear glasses because I have to — I can’t see without them  – but I don’t know a lot of people that wear them that don’t have to,” Cook said. “People who do wear them generally want them to be light, unobtrusive, probably want them to reflect their fashion, their style … from a mainstream point of view this [pointing at his head] is difficult.”

The Forrester result syncs with an April study by ChangeWave, which said that a full one-fifth of U.S. consumers were interested in buying an Apple iWatch — sight unseen. And it fits with a recent trend towards personal fitness monitors such as Jawbone’s Up, the Fitbit, and Nike FuelBand … all of which are worn on the wrist.

But the wrist doesn’t come without some complications.

Google Glass
Source: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Google Glass

“I bought the Pebble wristwatch on Kickstarter,” a founder recently told me. “But I stopped wearing it because all the alerts and notifications caused me to look down at my wrist too often, and people I was meeting with or talking to thought I was being rude.”

Interestingly, even more people, 29 percent, are interested in wearable computing devices that are clipped onto their clothing. Startups like OMsignal in Montréal are embedding sensors right into your clothing to monitor your health, your exercise, and even your mood.

Whatever Apple has up its sleeve, the company better drop it down into the open and onto its wrist fairly soon. Google has said Glass will be commercially available this year, and Apple won’t want to let Google get a head-start on penetrating the market.

Unless, of course, we all cyborg ourselves and start wearing iWatches, Glass, FuelBands, and sensors in our clothing to boot.

Image credits: Forrester


Filed under: Business, Gadgets, Health, Lifestyle, Mobile
    


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Are coders worth it?

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Relax, you're at work. Photo by Jason Madara/Gallery StockThere’s this great moment in the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) when the world’s most celebrated sushi chef turns to his son, who is leaving to start his own restaurant, and says: ‘You have no home to come back to.’ Which, when you think about it, isn’t harsh or discouraging but is in fact [...]

The post Are coders worth it? appeared first on Aeon Magazine.

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Almajbary
4171 days ago
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4184 days ago
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7 public comments
JohnL4
4184 days ago
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I ran across this on G+ yesterday (G+/Newsblur synergy?) This is what I had to say:

Mmm. Well, not to be harsh or mean or anything, but this is fluff. Bright, young, presumably-privileged kid gets paid to do something with his mind that he finds easy, and wonders if his work has value (and whether it's fair for him to be paid what he's being paid). Oy.

(1) He doesn't have a conclusion, but he's going to keep on doing it.

(2) The market of which he speaks is, at this very moment, undercutting his "value" by farming his work out to places on Earth where bright, young, presumably-substantially-less-privileged kids will get paid to what he does for 1/5 of his wages, so there's the answer to the "value" question.

Next!
davenelson
4184 days ago
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I think this is the most telling part of the article "I don’t have the courage to say no to that. I have failed so far to escape the sweep of this cheap and parochial thing, and it’s because I’m afraid. I am an awfully mediocre programmer — but, still, I have a secure future. More than that, I have a place at the table. In the mornings I wake up knowing that I make something people want. I know this because of all the money they give me."
Atlanta, Georgia
sredfern
4184 days ago
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wow, amazing. must read
Sydney Australia
galmeida
4185 days ago
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artigo muito bem escrito...
fabuloso
4185 days ago
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great article
Miami Beach, FL
rafeco
4185 days ago
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I can't believe how much Rap Genius pays developers.
samuel
4185 days ago
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I loved this essay. I had two related thoughts while reading this: value is derived from scarcity, but only through a layer of abstraction. Scarcity is ultimately who can build this tool or service better than anybody else building similar tools and services. It is not necessarily just the scarcity of people who can build anything at all.

And that led me to the news reader wars that are heating up. In this context, while there are many readers (and I can glean from the grapevine that we haven't even reached the halfway mark to peak reader) there is a scarcity of quality readers. And that is where the value (read: money) comes from. But this essay mistakes the presence of lots of readers for a lack of scarcity, which isn't the case.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
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