The British Library has struck a deal with Google to make a portion of its enviable collection of 17th and 18th century texts available to search and view online.
Despite its stuffy connotations, the British Library has not shied away from the brave new digital world, with smartphone apps, Kindle deals and newspaper digitisation among its digital arsenal.
250,000 texts written between 1700 and 1870 are included in the Google deal, with the out of copyright books and manuscripts available to be read, searched and copied for free either on the British Library’s website or through Google Books.
The texts will be selected by the British Library, while Google will carry out and pay for all the digitising.
Education, education, education
Dame Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, stressed the Library’s focus on access to all:
“Through this partnership we believe that we are building on this proud tradition of giving access to anyone, anywhere and at any time. Our aim is to provide perpetual access to this historical material, and we hope that our collections coupled with Google’s know-how will enable us to achieve this aim.”
Meanwhile, Peter Barron at Google said that the project would bring old works to life in new ways:
“What’s powerful about the technology available to us today isn’t just its ability to preserve history and culture for posterity, but also its ability to bring it to life in new ways.
“This public domain material is an important part of the world’s heritage and we’re proud to be working with the British Library to open it up to millions of people in the UK and abroad.”
The deal also gives Google Books a leg up in the ebook catalogue stakes, setting it apart from competitors like the Amazon Kindle library and Apple’s iBooks.
It’s only really a bonus if you’re after 18th century texts, like an account of a stuffed Hippopotamus owned by the Prince of Orange, though.
If 19th century philosophy, history, poetry and literature are more your thing, you’d better head to the Kindle.
If you see a chap walking around the fields of the Glastonbury festival this week with a weird looking pocket on the front of his t-shirt showing off his mobile phone, don’t mock him for being a nerd – applaud him for his dedication to mother earth.
For you see, that chap won’t be wearing the latest must have geek-chic, but rather a bonkers phone charging prototype, dubbed the Orange Sound Charge.
The system works by harnessing sounds and turning them into energy that power up the phone within.
Don’t worry – it’s not 1 April, we checked.
It’s all down to the findings of “months of planning and development” between Orange and renewable energy expert GotWind.
By covering the phone in a Piezoelectric film, which is usually found hi-fi speakers, the makeshift microphone absorbs sound pressure waves that are converted via the compression of interlaced quartz crystals into an electrical charge.
With sound levels of around 80dB, the Orange Sound Charge will generate up to 6 watt hours (W/h) of power over the weekend which is enough to charge two standard mobile phones or one smartphone.
The Piezoelectric film panel and electronics are all fully removable too, which is handy as Glastonbury clothing tends to get a tad muddy.
Andrew Pearcey, head of sponsorship at Orange UK said: “In a vibrant festival environment such as Glastonbury, sound is such an obvious medium that it seemed like a natural fit to use it in the development of this year’s prototype.
“Orange’s commitment and ethos around innovation is as strong as ever and we envisage that this pioneering technology could really change the face of mobile charging in environments where eco charging solutions need to be found.
It could even influence trends in fashion, with designers looking to integrate this passive charging solution into clothing.
LulzSec and Anonymous, two of the most high-profile hacker groups in the world, have teamed up to focus their attentions on exposing the secrets of the worlds’ governments.
These groups are following the lead of WikiLeaks in “trying to discourage the tendency of governments to gather too much information and keep too much of it secret,” EMA’s Scott Crawford said.
Two ad hoc hacker communities often in the headlines of late — LulzSec and Anonymous — announced on Monday they intend to team up to attack government websites worldwide.
In its “Operation Anti-Security” manifesto, LulzSec said the top priority of this operation is “to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation.”
Anonymous had on Friday tweeted its solidarity with LulzSec.
“They’re going to go after U.S. critical systems without fear of retaliation,” warned Charles Dodd, a cybersecurity consultant who says he often briefs Congressional groups and the intelligence community.
“The level of sophistication and determination these guys have hasn’t been taken seriously,” Dodd Says.
However, these groups may be more interested in causing general disarray than pursuing a specific political aim.
“These are what people call chaotic actors, and that means their intention is to cause chaos among their targets,” Scott Crawford, managing research director at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA).
Children of the Lizard God
“Our Lulz Lizard battle fleet is now declaring immediate and unremitting war on the freedom-snatching moderators of 2011,” the Operation Anti-Security manifesto reads.
Encouraging attacks on “any government or agency,” the manifesto calls for defacement of government websites and urges attackers to flaunt the word “AntiSec” in their endeavors.
Although the top priority is to leak government information, the manifesto states that banks and “other high-ranking establishments” are the prime targets.
“If they try to censor our progress, we will obliterate the censor with cannonfire (sic) anointed with lizard blood,” the manifesto reads.
Axis of Cyber-Evil?
The teaming up of Anonymous and LulzSec is highly dangerous, Dodd said.
In addition to publicly stating on YouTube that it opposes United States policy, Anonymous has “hit MasterCard (NYSE: MA), Visa (NYSE: V), almost everyone you can think of, and did that with uncontested success,” Dodd stated.
“Then you get another group [LulzSec] that goes through CIA websites with no fear of retaliation,” Dodd added. “What happens if they go through our deeper, darker national security sites?”
The skill sets members of LulzSec and Anonymous possess “constitute a serious national security risk” if the group’s members decide to go for a darker motivation, Dodd warned.
“Their motivation’s changing, and they’re now going to go after U.S. critical systems without fear of retaliation,” Dodd said.
Activists Will Be Activists
However, there’s another way to view the situation, EMA’s Crawford contended.
“When people don’t recognize the ad hoc nature of this kind of threat, they’re missing the point,” Crawford pointed out.
Because Anonymous and LulzSec lack a formal structure, they “don’t necessarily have specific objectives like capturing sensitive information, though they may do that,” Crawford remarked.
Often, their motivation is to call attention to activities they think should be brought to light.
These groups are following the lead of WikiLeaks in “trying to discourage the tendency of governments to gather too much information and keep too much of it secret,” Crawford said.
The Threat of Collateral Damage
Probably the greatest danger these groups pose directly is the collateral damage they could cause.
For example, they might end up placing the lives of our troops at risk, Crawford said. Or, as Dodd pointed out, they might cause a breakdown of our emergency systems, costing lives.
The emergence of these ad hoc groups also gives rise to an indirect form of collateral damage — the rise of cyber-vigilantism.
A group calling itself “Web Ninjas” has set up a blog on which it has exposed, or claims to have exposed, LulzSec members.
“Web Ninjas decided to give them a taste of their own medicine, and we have shown them that they are not the Internet Gods they think they are,” the blog reads. “Web Ninjas does and will stop LulzSec.”
The emergence of cyber-vigilantes worries Dodd.
“Part of me says, yes, they have a value, but the other part says, if we say they’re a good thing we’ll kick off cybervigilantism,” Dodd fretted. “You don’t want to start cyberwars over critical infrastructure because people will begin testing their testosterone online. That could be deadly.”
Windows is a name that has ruled the whole computer world since its first launch in November 1985. Since then it is like a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
With many advanced versions of Windows available today such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, it is the most used operating system in the world. In 2010, Microsoft is going to launch WINDOWS 2007, but now here is time to experience a yet another technology of operating systems.
Yes, microsoft is working on a new generation of operating systems called Cloud-Based Operating System and rumors are there that midori will be their first such operating system, which will replace Windows fully from computer map.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE
midori is an offshoot of Microsoft Research’s Singularity operating system. In this the tools and libraries are completely managed code. midori is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), will be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.
midori can be also seen as microsoft’s answer those competitors who are applying “Virtualization” as a mean to solving issues within contemporary computing.
The main idea behind midori is to develop a lightweight portable OS which can be mated easily to lots of various applications.
IMPORTANCE OF MIDORI
For knowing the importance of midori you have to think about, how an operating system is loaded on a computer.
Actually operating system is loaded onto a hard disk physically located on that machine.
In this way, the operating system is tied very tightly to that hardware.
As Windows is dependent on hardware, it might face opposition from contemporary ways of working because people are extremely mobile in using different devices in order get diverse information.
Due to this trend installing different applications on a single computer may led to different compatibility issues whenever the machine require updating.
The new operating system will solve these problems by the concept of Virtualizing. This will solve problems such as widespread security vulnerabilities, unexpected interactions among different applications, failures caused by errant extensions, plug-ins, and drivers and many more.
ERIC RUDDER, Senior Vice President, Technical Strategy
The importance of this project for MICROSOFT can be understood by the fact that company choose Eric Rudder , former head of Microsoft’s server and tools business and a key member of Chairman Bill Gates’ faction of the company, to handle it.
WHEN WILL IT BE LAUNCHED
Just Wait and See.
Microsoft has not declared any such date about launching of midori, but there are rumors that this project is in incubation phase.
Scientist at University of Rochesterb have developed a new generation of Computer Processors.
These processors are based on 3-Dimensional Circuits in contrary to 2-Dimensional Circuits of today.
This can be said as the next major advance in computer processors technology.
The latest 3-D processor is running at 1.4 gigahertz in the labs of University.
PAST ATTEMPTS VS LATEST RESEARCH
In the past attempts of making 3-D chips, scientist were just making a stack of regular processors.
But at University of Rochesterb it was designed and built specifically to optimize all key processing functions vertically, through multiple layers of processors, the same way ordinary chips optimize functions horizontally.
This design means that every tasks such as Synchronicity, Power Distribution, and Long-Distance Signaling are all fully functioning in three dimensions for the first time.
EBY FRIEDMAN: THE MAN BEHIND 3-D CHIPS
Eby Friedman and his students has designed this chip, which uses many of the tricks of regular processors, but also accounts for different impedances that might occur from chip to chip, different operating speeds, and different power requirements.
According to Eby Friedman, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rochester and faculty director of the pro of the processor says:-
“I call it a cube now, because it’s not just a chip anymore. This is the way computing is going to have to be done in the future.
When the chips are flush against each other, they can do things you could never do with a regular 2D chip”
TODAYS INTEGRATED CHIPS AND PROBLEMS
The problem with today’s technology of integrated circuits is that, beyond a limit it is impossible to pack more chips next to each other which limits the capabilities of future processors.
So number of integrated circuit designers anticipate someday expanding into the third dimension, stacking transistors on top of each other.
IMPORTANCE
Vertical Expansion of chips has lots of technical difficulties and the only solution to this is to design a 3-D chip where all the layers interact like a single system.
According to Friedman: Getting all three levels of the 3-D chip to act in harmony is like trying to devise a traffic control system for the entire United States-and then layering two more United States above the first and somehow getting every bit of traffic from any point on any level to its destination on any other level-while simultaneously coordinating the traffic of millions of other drivers.
Now if we replace the two United States layers to something more complicated like China and India where the driving laws and roads are quite different, and the complexity and challenge of designing a single control system to work in any chip begins to become apparent.
The 3-D Chip is essentially an entire circuit board folded up into a tiny package.
With this technology the chips inside something like an iPod could be compacted to a tenth their current size with ten times the speed.
