The Samsung Omnia smartphone uses a touch screen

The technology for touch screens comes in a variety of different forms. There is resistive, surface acoustic wave, capacitive which includes surface capacitance and projected capacitance touch (PCT), infrared, strain gauge, optical imaging, dispersive signal technology, and acoustic pulse recognition. PCT touchscreen technology is used in a wide range of applications including smart phones, kiosk, and point-of-sale systems.

Most touch screens are typically operated by using the finger to interact with the images on the screen. However in some situations touch screens can suffer from the problem of fingerprints on the display. Also the images all buttons that need to be selected on the touch screen can be very small, such as in smart phones, making it difficult to use the finger. In that situation a stylus is quite often use. Even the fingernail can be used as a stylus if it is long enough.

Touch screens combined with haptics provides the user feedback when certain keys are pressed on the screen. For example the Samsung Omnia smart phone can make a slight vibration and buzzing sound to let the user know that a key has been selected. Study shows that is this reduces input errors and increases input speed.

Some people do find touch screens a little bit difficult to use with their fingers where the display is small. However when ergonomically designed, touchscreens make it easier for the user to interact with the device or gadget while saving space which would otherwise be used with a keyboard or mouse. Touch screens are definitely here to stay.

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Toshiba 200GB Portable HDD

Toshiba is going to start selling portable hard drives in addition to laptops and DVD players. The USB 2.0 external hard disk will be available in capacities ranging from 100 GB to 200 GB – the largest capacity yet available in a portable, compact form factor.

The device itself is less than 2.5 cm thick and smaller than a 10×15cm photo. It is designed to be used as a back up for computer documents, photos, videos, and music files. With its size, it is also rugged enough to be able to carry on business or leisure trips.

The price is thought to be around $130 for the 100 GB up to $230 for the 200 GB model. The previous top capacity for a portable hard disk was 160 GB.

Toshiba is already the 5th leading manufacturer of hard drives, and while the 200 GB disk makes it have the largest portable, it certainly won’t be long before capacities reach and surpass it.

Portable hard disks are a growing specialized market niche – 3.8 million units were sold in 2006, with over 6 million predicted to be sold in 2009. Then so much more in 2010. Stay tuned for the latest portable hard drive figures as soon as we get them.

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1. Seagate Encrypting Hard Drives Offered By ASI

Google Phone

In what is sure to affect their stock ratings, Google has admitted to having a “phone project” in the works. Now, in typical google fashion, they are rather tight lipped about the details, and speculation has people guessing that they’re introducing their own phone to compete with Apple’s upcoming iPhone. However, there is a pretty good chance that the phone project has nothing to do with hardware, and will instead focus on what has already made Google billions – advertising.

Google already has a number of applications that take advantage of mobile browsing. And with exponentially more people using cell phones than the internet, it’s only a matter of time before more people starting browsing the web from their cell phones.

Other sources, however, have claimed that it will be an actual phone – and not like the iPhone, Apples ultra expensive, ultra trendy upcoming device. Instead, it will be a mass market phone aimed at bringing the search engine to users who don’t necassarily have a PC. It is thought that if Google chooses this approach, it will be partnering with an existing handset maker and not doing all the development on its own.

If Google does develop its own phone, it has the potential to make it even more money. With the mobile internet market still relatively undeveloped, if Google gets a foothold in the door early on, it will be exceedingly difficult to get it out, much like Microsoft is with its operating system.

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British inventor William Sturgeon was the inventor of a device that would be the foundation for later electronic communications. This invention was called the electromagnet. The power of this was demonstrated when he used a seven once piece of iron with wires wrapped around it to lift nine pounds – the electric current was generated by a single cell battery.
Then, in 1830, Joseph Henry, an American, sent an electronic current over one mile of wire to which caused a bell to ring. This can be thought of as the moment that the telegraph was born. Next up was Samuel Morse.

In 1835, while he was a professor at New York University, Morse proved that signals could be transmitted via wire. By using pulses of currents to deflect an electromagnet, he was able to move a marker and produce written code on a piece of paper – commonly known as Morse Code. The following year, the device was modified to include dots and dashes. In 1838 he gave a public demonstration, but it was not until 1843, five years later, that he received $30,000 to construct an experimental telegraph line from Washington D.C. to Baltimore, a distance of 40 miles.

The first public message sent was on May 1, 1944, when Henry Clay was nominated at the Whig party national convention. Morse’s partner, Alfred Vail, wired this news to the capital, thus making it the first ever news dispatched via electronic telegraph.

The message sent, “What hath God Wrought?” was sent from the old Supreme Court Chamber to Baltimore opened the line telegraph line on May 24, 1844. Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of one of Morse’s friends, chose the message from Numbers XXIII, 23. The early Morse telegraph produced a paper printout of dashes and dots, which were then translated by an operator.

By this time Morse and his partners began to receive private funding to extend the line to Philadelphia and New York. Smaller telegraph companies also began to spring up throughout the US. In 1851, another landmark accomplish occurred – trains were dispatched using the telegraph. Western Union also began business in this year, and in 1861 completed the first transcontinental telegraph line.

Originally, Morse code was printed on paper. Eventually this advanced to trained operators who could receive transmission by ear, and tape was discarded in favor of human operators, who could transmit up to 50 words per minute.

Advancements continued with the Telegraph, but it all started with a British inventor.  Samuel Morse applied what was already known in a different, and ultimately brilliant fashion.

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1. Mayan Inventions

Amazing architecture of a Mayan Temple

Mayan inventions include a calander and a complex heiroglyphics system. While it cannot be said that they were the sole inventors of such advancements, they did invent them independently in the Western Hemisphere, and their calendar and wrintings differed from that of the Egyptions and Chinese.

While not strictly an invention per se, Mayan art is widely considered to be some of the most beautiful created in the ancient world. The jade pictured can be seen to be inscribed with very specific details.

Also interesting is that the Mayans independently developed a concept of zero in their numbering system. While not generally considered a civilization known for their mathematics, they did nonetheless have an advanced grasp of it. Many of their dates and measurements are surprisingly specific.

Astronomy is another field that the Mayans. Again, the Mayans are not as well known as other ancient civilizations for their astronomy, but data suggests they were surprisingly advanced in their findings. They are thought to be the only pre-telescopic society that realized the Orion Nebula is fuzzy. While this is not known for certain, the information comes from a folk tale that references the Orion constellations part of the sky.

The Mayan’s were a surprisingly advanced race, and usually are not mentioned with the likes of the Chinese and Ancient Greeks for inventiveness. But they actually had much in common with their European and Chinese counterparts.

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Last year, a number of high-profile cases brought the issue of data encryption in the limelight. Laptop thefts resulted in the release of personal information from more than 540,000 N.Y. state workers, 13,000 Washington, D.C., ING retirement plan participants, 196,000 Hewlett-Packard employees in a Fidelity benefit and defined contribution plan, and 17,000 patients of Mount St. Mary’s Hospital in Buffalo, N.Y. Perhaps the most notorious was the lost of a U.S. Veterans Administration USB hard drive and a laptop with more than 26 million records.

Thus far, only ASI has announced use of Seagate’s encrypted hard disks. The hard drives are expected to cost 30-40% more than the non-encrypted ones.

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Weather in space doesn’t mean exactly the same thing as your local 7 day forecast though.  Whereas you might be concerned with rain and how it will affect your picnic, scientists developing satellites must be concerned with how their machinery will stand up to solar winds, energy particles from eruptions on the sun, and geomagnetic storms.  Suddenly a little rain doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

To say nothing of the importance of keeping astronauts safe, many of these satellites have data on their onboard chips that simply cannot be lost.  Having a rogue electromagnetic storm wipe out one of NASA’s intelligence satellite could be a very, very bad thing.

There’s quite a bit more about NASA’s newly launched STEREO satellites in this article.

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Called the NW-A800 series, it will go on sale in Europe in April of this year.  There are plans to release the walkman in other markets as well, but the exact dates have not been announced.

There are currently 3 release models planned – NW-A805, A806 and A808 – which differ in the amount of flash storage: 2 gig, 4 gig, and 8 gig respectively.  The screen will be a 2 inch LCD with a resolution of  240×320.  Videos can be viewed both horizontally and vertically on the screen.

The battery life, a long time sore spot for iPod owners, will be around 30 hours for music files.  It drops significantly for video files however, showing between a 6 and 7 hour life, depending on the decoding on the video.  Its measurements are 44mm wide by 88mm high and is 9mm thick. It weighs 53 grams.

The current planned retail price for the Europe release will be around $240 US.

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