It isn’t that Google has failed; I think it will never fail, but some of its products aren’t something the company will be proud of. Google is known for creating impeccable products; it has revolutionized the way we search, no matter what Microsoft says. Bing is not even close to what Google search engine is. Google also industrialized the online adverts developing personalized ad – catering you with the ads which are more relevant to you.

But, things have changed, not everything they dish out is gold, anymore. Here are some examples where Google failed to hit the bull’s eye.

The pirate treasure hunt AKA Google X

It all started back in 2005, when Google Labs released a project named “Google X”, only to shut it down within a day. It was sort of a tribute to Apple’s OS X. Google software engineer Chikai Ohazama put dock look-a-like icons which on hovering, used to magnify. On the bottom it said, “Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you”.

Back in those days, Google and Apple weren’t competing for any service. They weren’t arch rivals fighting for domination in smartphone world. Neither there was any Chrome OS, nor was Google working on sneaking in making computers. You can still see how the product looked and worked on this page.

Google Web Accelerator which failed to accelerate on the interwebs

In 2005, Google launched Google Web Accelerator, a desktop tool that was intended to speed up browsing for people running on slow internet connections. It used to grab the content and download its cached pages from Google’s servers to your Windows computer. This way it would take significantly less time when you visit a page which has been cached into your computer before.

The software had tragic bugs and did some horrendous slip-ups. It was reported to send the credential of users back to Google servers and then distribute that data to other users. Though Google patched the issues, the tool had already become infamous. Moreover, it lacked support for Firefox users, and nose-dived at playing videos on YouTube.

Google Answers didn’t had answers to its own existence

Do you use Yahoo! Answers? Well, if you do, then you should know that back in 2002, Google too tried something similar, only that it wasn’t really free. You write your questions, pay some price for it, and, then you had to give the researcher who helped you with your question some money as well. The process was quite simple though, how often do you hate it when you can’t find the exact thing you are looking for? So, this was nothing but hiring people to do that job for you. By December 2006, Google decided to shut down the service for good.

Google Wave couldn’t predict the tide

It was rather sad to hear Google Wave’s demise. It was one of the most anticipated, overhyped and yet another approach from Google to reinvent email, instant messaging, and social networking. In a sense, it was putting all the social media and our other villas into one single apartment. Launched in 2009, maybe it was way ahead of its time, maybe had Google tried it last year, or this year it may have worked. It was so complicated for most users, add the invitation requirement to access it, Google blew it. Before anyone noticed, Google handed over the project to Apache Software Foundation.

Google Buzz, something which failed to buzz

The idea was quite novel, seeing the dominance of Facebook and Twitter, Google, which has shrill repute over blogging platform Blogspot, in 2010, made a micro-blogging and social sharing service, Google Buzz. Google had learned an important lesson from the fiasco of Google Wave, where it couldn’t do justice with over hyped voice and limited user readiness. Google made this service available to every Gmail user, only to witness another setback.

The problem with Google Buzz was that it tampered with people’s privacy without their consent. People didn’t like the idea of sharing everything they see on the internet with their friends, colleagues and family. With that said, the attitude to impose this service on every user only made things worse. Google soon saw it on dialysis and in December 2011, had no choice but to pull the plug off.

Google Plus, minus.

Finally, a fully-fledged, re-mastered, intuitive approach from Google to build a giant social network, something that was intended to shoo Facebook and Twitter, Google Plus has failed to make a good impression on people. Though it has its own essence at how we want to share our things. But, it all comes down to adaptability and where our friends are. Google again enforced the service to its every Gmail user.

Google Plus integrates many of its services like Google Talk, YouTube, and Blogger with your Plus account. It also has some unmatched services like Google Hangout. But, again, people don’t see much use of it. It has become a tenacious obsession of Google to not let things go. Google in the last few months has done so many things to make it work, but at this point it only seems as a dead end.

Google Reader is going down

As a blogger and a reader nothing of the above listed things ever mattered to me, yeah, well Google Plus could have been better, but something that was completely dreadful and bigoted from Google’s behalf was to kill its super awesome minimalistic yet dominant RSS feed managing software, Google Reader. It ruled the RSS space for years. People were angry, they all went mad. MG Siegler from TechCrunch wrote about the role of Google Reader at driving traffic to sites. He explains,

On my own site, I’ve always been surprised to see Reader constantly in the top five of traffic referrers day in and day out. If I tweet out a link or share one on Facebook, it leads to large spikes, but Reader is my rock. It’s steady traffic each and every day.

Google says that there has been a decline in the usage of Google Reader. This is totally absurd. Google removed Adwords for feeds out of RSS, signing out of any monetary gain; they didn’t push any new feature to it in last couple of years. Still, people howled to see it go, what would be the reason Google? Sure, there are alternatives, but I don’t think any of them will ever be able to spike that status.

Sadly, this isn’t all; apart from dozens of other services where Google failed to make sense, there are many other places where this tech giant isn’t doing well, Last year, due to the mounting pressure from international rights-holders, Google decided to not promote any pirated content in its search result, yet, many months to it, a simple search will flourish you so many paths to that polluted space.

Google still has to figure the right algorithm for mobile friendly Search Engine Optimization. And at last, as awesome and enthralling Google Glass could be, it has already made some privacy fear into many hearts. ”You won’t know if you’re being recorded or not; and even if you do, you’ll have no way to stop it,” says Mark Hurst of doom-cries.

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Which is why we like apps like InstaPlace. Available in free (if ye will but put up with the odd ad, and make do without some of the caption options) and paid avatars for iOS and Android, the app lads a location-based layer to any picture you take. Well, in simple English, it adds location and a snazzy caption to your pictures, which you can then share over mail and social networks. It picks up the location automatically and if you are not content with what it displays, you can change it, with options from FourSquare and Facebook to help you on the way.

What works for the app is its sheer simplicity. You start off by taking a picturing or picking one up from your gallery, and within seconds of doing so, the app pastes the location of the picture in bold letters on the lower part of the image along with a caption (you can move it to the upper portion of the image with a flick of your finger if you wish), depending on the option you have chosen. You can choose from five layers or ‘skins’ as the app calls them: basic, travel, food, text and emotions. So you can have something looks like a license plate, italics, exclamations of yumminess (in case you decide to sound foodie) and the like. The catch is that you are pretty much restricted to the captions and layer designs found in the app itself – the location is the only bit of the app that you can twiddle, and that too depends on how well FourSquare or Facebook pick it up. Once you are happy with the caption and location, well, the social networking world is your oyster as you can share images over Facebook, Twitter, mail and if you are the filtering type, over Instagram as well.

No, InstaPlace is NOT the app for those who want to control every single aspect of an image that they want to share or save. Your choice of captions and locations is limited and there are no editing or filtering options to play around with. Top that off with the fact that autofocus does not seem to work within the app and some people will wonder if InstaPlace is worth a download. Our answer is: if you like to share where a picture was taken along with the picture itself, definitely it is. The layers and captions are well-designed and the interface is smooth and brisk enough to let you share both pic and place within seconds of taking a snap, especially if you are a person who is not over-enamoured of typing.

Available from: iTunes App Store, Google Play
Price: Free

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What’s interesting is that Nokia is part of the Graphene Flagship Consortium, amongst other 73 companies. Could this mean that in the future we’ll see other products from Nokia, different than smartphones? What’s very important about this material is that its development grant has been officially described by the European Commission as one of “the largest research excellence awards in history”, which highlights even more, the role of this wonder material. This nice animated video below should be able to explain everything in detail.

So, Mister G, the graphene, is the first 2D material which gives him unique properties: it’s also only 1 atom thin, which is unbelievable. And the discovery of graphene is very recent – in 2004, scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov discovered the material on the surface of an adhesive tape. For this simple discovery, they were both awarded, in 2010, with the Noble prize for physics. To resume, here are the super forces of graphene:

• First 2D crystal ever known to humanity
• Thinnest object ever obtained
• Lightest object ever obtained
• World’s strongest material (harder than diamond, 300x stronger than steel)
• Conducts electricity (even better than copper)
• Transparent material
• Bendable material (takes any form you want)

Derivatives from the graphene are already available and these are the ones that will be used in different industries, from smartphones, to airplanes. Looking at all the properties from the above, it’s easy to understand why it matters that much to the European Union and to everybody.

Nokia seems very interested

Nokia also seems very excited about this opportunity:

Nokia is proud to be involved with this project, and we have deep roots in the field – we first started working with graphene already in 2006. Since then, we have come to identify multiple areas where this material can be applied in modern computing environments. We’ve done some very promising work so far, but I believe the greatest innovations have yet to be discovered.

Could Nokia implement this technology in its upcoming phones? I really hope so, because when you think about it you realize that we want our phones and devices to have not only greater storage capabilities, powerful performances or awesome displays, but we’re in desperate need for more battery, for example, I wouldn’t say no to a smartphone that I can throw at my wall or drop without having to worry. And maybe graphene can help us here, the gadget lovers. This could also help open the gate for flexible and even transparent devices.

If you remember, Nokia had once delighted us with the Morph Concept which revolves around flexible and transparent devices. And the concept is still on Nokia’s website. And now we see that they’re the single big company to take part in this crucial movement. We can only hope it can become reality. Nokia’s advantage in this project is that they have the Nokia Research Center, which has more than 500 people across 13 cities all over the world. Here’s another concept-video detailing what could become our day-by-day gadgets:

But there are many other fields where graphene could be applied and where it could change our lives for ever, such as solar panels, computer chips and even electric windows. The research around the graphene is said to span across 10 years, so let’s hope that by 2025 we will be able to bend smartphone, drop tablets and do other awesome things that right now are impossible.

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And no – this is not the iPad 5. It’s still the iPad 4 with a lot of storage, in plain English. In what somebody could call a “silent” announcement, Apple informed us that a 128 GB model will hit the stores on February the 5th. But the prices aren’t easy on the pocket at all – the Wi-Fi one costs $799 and the Wi-Fi plus LTE model costs a whopping $929.

A lot of storage for a lot of money

From what we know so far and what has Apple told us, the storage is the single difference in this new iPad model. Why that much space, right? Phill Schiller answers:

With more than 120 million iPads sold, it’s clear that customers around the world love their iPads, and everyday they are finding more great reasons to work, learn and play on their iPads rather than their old PCs. With twice the storage capacity and an unparalleled selection of over 300,000 native iPad apps, enterprises, educators and artists have even more reasons to use iPad for all their business and personal needs.

So, basically, this launch is meant to target a niche of users, for example, those that use AutoCAD files, 3D CAD files, X-rays, film edits, music tracks, project blueprints, training videos and service manualsmulti-track music files. The $929 price is very near to MacBook Air’s base model price ($999) so I really doubt this model will have a lot of buyers.

Who will buy it?

Apple obviously targets entreprise customers and those that are involved with a lot of content, for example film makers, audio/video editors. Also, architects, designers and engineers will probably find the 128 GB iPad an useful tool, since they need a lot of storage for their projects. But why even these targeted users shouldn’t buy something else for this big amount of cash? I’ll make a guess – for many out there, storage is very, very important. Also, for many out there, portability is becoming to be crucial, especiall for the above mentioned categories. And even if the iPad doesn’t have the processing power of the MacBook Air or of an Ultrabook, for example, it has the “cool” factor. This is a bet that Apple could win.

But let’s compare it with other iPad models. Let’s say that you don’t necessarily need LTE, so the 800 dollars iPad is what you need. For 800 dollars you could buy:

• 2 base model iPad Mini units and still have $140 left
• exactly 2 base model iPad 2 units
• add 200$ more and get 2 base model iPad 4 units

And there are many other combinations for that amount of money, not to mention the expensive $929 version. It will be curious to see how will consumers react to this new model but I think Apple knows what it’s doing. Right now, even a “few” million sold iPads are vital to the company, in a moment when investors have their eyebrow raised.

This move is interesting, because it shows that Apple further wants to diversify its portfolio of products. Even the launch of the iPad Mini is a sign that Apple looks to extend its range of products. After a very, very successful conference call, Apple’s stock has went down, as a result of lack of trust from Wall-Street. Could this be an answer from Tim Cook and company?

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The All Quiet On The Western Front Award for the “Quietest” Company

When was the last time a company the stature of RIM spent an entire year without a single really big release, even while its rivals were busy as the Devil unleashing Hell (what else?) in the market. RIM had a very quiet year by tech standards, preferring to prepare the ground for what it hopes will be its saviour, BB 10.

The American Beauty Award for Most Gorgeous Product of the Year

No, it did not exactly have the kind of software that we thought it would have but when it comes to sheer design, the iPhone 5 had us gaping. Incredibly thin with those diamond-polished edges and a camera covered by sapphire crystal. And in spite of all this, it remained surprisingly lightweight. Oh, and it added the word “chamfer” to our tech vocabulary.

The Slumdog Millionaire Award for the Price Warrior of the Year

A quad core processor driven device for under two hundred dollars? With Google’s branding? Yep, the Nexus 7 delivered all that. We do not know if it gets better than that. Take a bow, Asus and Google!

The Castaway Award for Worst Tech Desertion

No, it was not a CEO getting walking orders, but Microsoft turning its back on thousands of Windows Phone 7 users when it announced that they could not upgrade to Windows Phone 8. Ironically, the announcement came just as people were beginning to appreciate the Nokia Lumia 900 – even SIRI called it the best smartphone ever. Talk about rendering your flagship obsolete within months of announcing it.

The Dark Knight Rises award for the Comeback of the Year

It was supposed to have been dead and buried by the eighties, but the trusty LP turntable made a surprisingly strong return to the music market. At a time when most people were talking about music going digital, vinyl made a pleasant comeback. We are not betting on how long it will stay, but what the heck, it is wonderful to see those massive folders!

The Gone With The Wind Award for Product that Came…and Went

The much-hyped Chrome OS netbooks never really got around to making their presence felt in the market. Samsung made one but nothing in the notebook market stirred in spite of all the promise of a largely cloud-driven OS on very affordable and fast performing devices.

The Hollow Man award for the Product That Did Not Live Up to Its Hype

Microsoft making its own tablet? With a keyboard that also acts as its cover? Which will run Windows 8? It HAD to be a winner. Alas, the Surface RT tablet was anything but that, with people complaining of its price and its performance. Will the Surface Pro turn things around for the Surface brand?

The Honey I Shrunk The Kids Award for Best “Shrunk” Version of Original

Every Inch an iPad? We are not too sure about that – blame it on our addiction to the retina display – but when it comes to coming out with a smaller sized version of a product, Apple scored with the iPad mini. The device was brilliantly designed and worked a treat, although we DID want a retina display…

The You’ve Got Mail for Best E-Mail Communication of the Year

A high profile CEO apologising for a product? Not just that, but also suggesting alternatives to it made by competitors? Apple’s Tim Cook did all that when his company stumbled massively with the maps app on iOS 6. That takes nerve.

The Inspector Gadget Award for the Device That Tried To Be Too Many Things

It was a smartphone with a decent camera. It was a tablet. It was a sort-of ultrabook. It was a pile of battery power. Yeah, the Asus Padfone was one versatile device. Our only problem – after a while, even WE forgot what it really was. And making the tablet a dumb terminal to a dual core phone was not the smartest move we have seen from a hardware company we have learnt to admire for its innovation in hardware.

The Hangover Award for The Problem That Refuses to Go Away

We have been talking about it for a couple of years and things keep getting worse. We are talking about Android fragmentation – where different users are using different versions of the most popular smartphone OS in the world. And worse, have no idea if they will ever get updates. The Nexus wave never really swept the market and manufacturers preferred making users cough up for a new device instead of updating the software on existing ones. No solution in sight!

The Have You Heard About The Morgans Award for The Strangest Tech Relationship

So Google got Motorola. So the Nexus phones should logically be from Motorola? They were not. Well, never mind. At least all Motorola devices would get Android updates fast? Nope, they did not. Does Google plan to get into phone and tablet manufacturing using Motorola’s manufacturing muscle? Not clear. A lot of people out there are actually wondering WHY Google bought Motorola. Was it just about the patents, after all?

The Kramer vs Kramer Award for Best Courtroom Drama

Someone won in the US. Someone else won in the UK. Someone won again in some third country. Everyone appealed. Everyone claimed to have won. The Samsung-Apple saga is getting more like Lord of the Rings than Perry Mason with every passing suit and decision. And just like Tolkien’s epic work, we reckon it is going to become the stuff of tech legal legend once it is finally done and dusted. When with THAT be? Ah…

The Expendables Award for the Product We REALLY Could Have Done Without

Much has been written about Apple’s iOS Maps boo boo. We will not add to it except say one more time that we really cannot believe that a company like Apple let something like this. It did Google a world of good, though!

The Dumb and Dumber Award for Stuff That Just Refused to Work

A year and a half ago, voice commands were supposed to be the way ahead, right? Samsung had S Voice, Apple had SIRI and just about everyone and their granny claimed that we would be talking more and touching and typing less on our handsets in tablets. Has not happened. Does not look like happening.

The Shrek Award for the Least Attractive But Still Adorable Product

All right, we know people teed off at its shape and bulk, but after a software refresh (and a price cut!) we must confess we are beginning to like the Nokia PureView 808 with its 41.0-megapixel sensor. Hey, it was not anorexic but it took great pictures and after the software rejig, worked a whole lot better. The sound was neat too. Beauty is skin deep, sirs!

The Jerry Maguire Award for Startling Honesty From A Tech Person

He could have talked about things being “promising”, of “all being well”, or even resorted to the normal “well, we do not have the stats to share yet” line but Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer did neither when asked about the initial sales of the Surface RT. He said they were ‘modest.’ The marketers winced, the campaign for truth applauded.

And finally…

The 300 Award for the Product That Refuses to go Away in Spite of Overwhelming Odds

Leonidas and his 300 Spartans held off a massive Persian army at The Hot Gates in 480 BC. And 2012 saw a product continue to sell in spite of having been around for a decade, and facing competition from products that are far, far superior on paper. We are talking of the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2), which simply refuses to go away and still gets its share of new titles every year – hey, it got FIFA 13. Stick around, fella. We still love you.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

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That is until now. Some brilliant minds over at Omote 3D have developed the world’s first 3D photographic technique that can create actual three dimensional figurines of people. Think of them like tiny action figures of yourself that you can hang on your wall. How neat is that?

What technology do they use?

In order to create these 100% accurate figurines, down to the tiniest detail and color, they scan every inch on your body with laser scanners and compile the images inside a computer to create an accurate replica of the subject. The process is time consuming and it kind of brings back memories from the early days of photography when people had to stay still for quite a while for a simple photograph (in this case, a full body scan will take approximately 15 minutes).

The scans are processed by computers and when the 3D representation is complete, they are transferred to a 3D printer that actually prints the photo. After the printing is complete, the figurine undergoes a form of treatment and it is finally ready for delivery. As for the moment, there are three sizes that people can opt for: 10cm, 15cm and 20cm (in height), but the designers are confident that they will try to come up with other sizes in the future.

If you want to receive a tiny figurine of yourself, I’m sad to say that you will have wait until as late as February of 2013 for one, for the fact that they are completely booked at the moment. If you are restless to make a reservation, keep an eye on their website to see if a spot is open. By the way, their website is in Japanese, so better arm yourself with a translator.

How much will it cost?

If you were already drooling at the idea, know that this interesting service does not come cheap. The prices differ depending on the size of the 3D photo and on the number of people that it will contain. Here are the prices:

As you can see, the technology is quite expensive at the moment, but as with all newly developed technologies, the prices should drop soon. But, the result is well worth the large sum of money you put down, the figurines have great detail and they look awesome! We can hardly wait for this technology to pick up, and as creator of PARTY, the lab that came up with the idea, Masashi Kawamura related in an interview:

We have several uses in mind, but can’t tell you yet. Personally, I’d love to have a 3D model made of the Dalai Lama. I can see 3D scanning and 3D printing becoming cheaper and with even better resolution. Also, there should be more variations in size and materials in the future.

So, there you have it! The 3D photo booth, a thing that we have been dreaming of for many years has now become a reality!

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Although it’s highly unlikely to see football matches on three iPhones linked to one another, there are high chances that someone would really use a tablet linked to a smartphone at his workplace or say, for gaming.

This is how Pinch looks like on three smartphones

How exactly the Pinch interface works?

Well, Pinch was developed more out of curiosity and ingenuity by a research group at the Tokyo University of Technology, to help developers construct applications that can be shared between several screens and that can work with a symbiosis of smart mobiles. In a few words, the Pinch interface connects one smartphone to another by simply aligning the two and pinching the screen.

When the user places and index finger on a device, the thumb on the other and then draws them together, the two products will be linked by Pinch and they will act as an single panel. As developers put, there could be an extended market for this future application, one which includes the following uses:

• Advertising – mainly for presentation uses, where people could place two devices next to each other while discussing about products
• Applications – although people usually own just a smartphone, there are enough cases when two phones could be used to play a great game or enhance productivity
• Music listening
• Watching movies

For the record, this project has only been revealed to developers with the purpose of creating a new kind of applications and to invoke imagination, overall.

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Selling for the price of a cheap smartphone, the Samsung Chromebook may prove to be a little more than what can be seen at a glance, and may even develop into a Kindle-like competitor of the laptop segment. Besides its attractive price, the Chromebook comes with a pleasant and simple design which integrates some very slim curves, decent components and a high degree of mobility – one that will surely appeal to thousands of people.

Google’s Chromebook built by Samsung– the short story

The Samsung Chromebook has just been introduced as a Google product that does not generate any hassle, does not require software updates, nor expensive software to buy and comes with great Google-made apps, downloadable right from the browser. The laptop is very portable, weighting slightly under 2.5 pounds (that’s around 1.1 kg) and being 0.8-inch thin. Also, the large battery can supply about 6.5 hours of continuous use, which surpasses most laptops and achieves even the marks of some ultra-books Here is the list of technical specifications:

• Size: 11.4″ x 8.09″ x 0.69″, weights 2.43 lb
• OS: Google Chrome OS
• Processor: Dual-Core Samsung Exynos 5 clocked at 1.7 GHz and with a 1MB CPU cache
• Display: 11.6-inch wide LED HD with a 1366 x 768 resolution
• Storage: SSD with 16GB of memory
• RAM: 2GB DDR3L
• Graphics: Integrated GPU with shared memory
• Battery: 2 cell Li-Po of 4080 mAh capable of 6.3 hours
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, 3G WWAN, HDMI, USB 2.0, SD slots, 0.3 MP camera ( the 3G model costs $330 )

Chromebook as the easy option

Chromebook has the same potential that the first Kindle Fire had against seasoned competitors like iPad, Samsung Tab and others, by basing on several advantages. Right from the start, the Chromebook will not aim for the same segment of the market that looks for specifications when purchasing a laptop, but for those who simply need a laptop to stay connected, watch a movie and why not, even do their work or study on the machine. Here’s what is hidden in plain sight:

• Highly portable: although the size may not seem much as first, it’s worth more than nothing that this laptop weights half as a regular one and can be safely compared to a tablet. The latest iPad for example is just a few hundred grams lighter, and offers a bit more hours of use. A laptop that can stay lighten for 6 and a half hours is a jewel for me, and that slim design will surely turn some eyes.
• The operating system: coming with Chrome OS, this may be seen as a serious downside for many customers. But someone who wishes to use this machine for simple tasks and doesn’t need the headache of installing software updates, nonetheless paying for them, may resort to Chrome. The beauty of any OS stands in compatibility, and more apps every day are added in the Chrome market.
• Connectivity: Google signed a contract with Verizon which ensures two years of mobile internet for every Chromebook sold, limited to 100MB per month. Yes, the quantity may be low, but extend this data plan to a bit more and you’ve got yourself an embedded broadband modem, without the care of carrying one.
• The Price: this factor alone will weight heavy in the balance  because $250 is more than affordable for an every-day student, parent or elder. Those long roads on a train will surely pass faster with something to watch a movie on, one that also transforms into a modest working station at home.

In our view, this can become a device suitable for those who lack a laptop at the moment, and simply want one to help them in easy work, or stray the boringness away. With such an affordable price and good looks, it becomes a serious threat even to tablets. Kudos, Google.

Update: apparently, Chromebooks have already sold-out (at least on Google Play)! When we are surrounded by such devices as the iPad Mini, Surface and many others, Google manages to get consumers interested with a product that’s apparently meant only for online use. We don’t know how many units have been ordered and will be sure to update you with fresh information.

First reviews are in

CHRIS ZIEGLER, THE VERGE

• The new Chromebook capitalizes on ARM’s stratospheric ascent — both in popularity and horsepower — to extricate Intel from the machine, reducing cost, power consumption, and heat dissipation in the process.
• The trackpad is light years ahead of the terrible component that Samsung specced on the original Series 5 — smoother, much larger, and far more able to capture gestures like two-finger scrolling.
• From full charge to dead, I got 6 hours, 45 minutes of battery life, matching Samsung’s claim of “over 6.5 hours.”
• Scrolling webpages quickly often resulted in the classic “checkerboard” pattern, the browser’s way of telling you “hang on while I render this.”
• If there’s any part of that unabashedly bizarre philosophy that sounds appealing to you, skip all the other Chromebooks: ARM is the processor architecture that Chrome OS was waiting for, and the Series 3 executes it very well.

It’s $1,000 worth of design made with $100 worth of materials

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Researchers at the Harvard University have managed to create a circuit that can be molded in a 3D form and allow cells to grow on it. The researchers worked with a 2D substrate on which they added an organic polymer as a mesh that covers the nanowire.

Impressive breakthrough brings us closer to cyborgs

These nanowires are the sensing materials of the entire circuit and along with an array of nanoelectrodes, they make up the nanomesh that senses the electrical impulses sent by the cells. The mesh can “read” the information sent by the cells and pass it along to other equipment that can process it.

After the circuit is complete, the organic polymer is dissolved and the mesh remains intact. These remains can now be molded into 3D objects and introduced into a live tissue. As the scientists said, the process is not that different from the one used in microprocessor fabrication.

Related Article: 3D Printed Houses Might be Closer Than You Thought

The team successfully merged these nano-circuits with heart and nerve cells and were able to retrieve information directly from the cells themselves. Although not a cyborg in the true sense of the word, this is a huge step in nanotechnology and biometrics. In the past, this kind on integration of a biological tissue with an electrical circuit always ended up with damage being done to the tissue, but this technology can offer perfect integration between the two. Professor Charles M. Liebe, head of the team in charge of this project, commented:

“The current methods we have for monitoring or interacting with living systems are limited. We can use electrodes to measure activity in cells or tissue, but that damages them. With this technology, for the first time, we can work at the same scale as the unit of biological system without interrupting it. Ultimately, this is about merging tissue with electronics in a way that it becomes difficult to determine where the tissue ends and the electronics begin.”

How will this technology help us?

The possibilities that this technology opens are practically unlimited. Although for now it can only retrieve information from cells, thus giving pharmaceutical companies a means to test drugs on actual living cells and retrieve a better response and more accurately retrieve information from the affected cells.

In the near future, we could expect nano blood vessels to be something that anyone who suffers from blood vessel disease could benefit from. Scientists managed to create such blood vessels and see different information sent by the cells to the electrical circuit.

What does the future hold?

In the future, we could see bioengineered organs and nanobots that can heal wounds from the inside and cure diseases that today have no cure. This technology promises a bright future indeed for humanity, where diseases are a thing of the past and aging could be dramatically reduces or even stopped.

[via] Harvard School of Engineering

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A typical net-savvy user will have at-least two internet connections. A broadband connection at home and a 2G/3G/4G connection for smartphone/tablet. And not to forget the free (but slow) WiFi at the coffee shop or the ultra-fast ethernet connection at office. How cool it’d be to combine any (or all) of these connections to get a much faster and much more reliable internet connection? Well, that is exactly what the team at Connectify is trying to do.

Connectify Dispatch

Back in 2009, just when the Windows 7 was released, a simple to use PC WiFi hotspot software took the world by storm. That was Connectify. 3 years on, the team behind Connectify are working on the reverse use-case, with their software – Dispatch.

Dispatch is a new Kickstarter project which aims to combine all the available internet connections, be it the WiFi or ethernet or mobile broadband or even the dial-up connection into one super-fast wireless connection.

There is no restriction on how many different types of connections you can combine in one go. So if you are in an airport cafe, you can combine the airport’s free WiFi, cafe’s complimentary WiFi and your own 3G/4G mobile broadband for increased speed and reliability. What’s more? You can set different priorities for certain networks & also get access to detailed statistics and graphs via analytics dashboard.

Important things to note

• As any other Kickstarter project, Dispatch is still a work-in-progress. Though they have the ideas ready, they still need to implement it successfully which should take a few months. But the good thing is the team has previously executed Connectify WiFi hotspot with stupendous success.
• If you plan to combine multiple WiFi connections, you’d need additional WiFi cards or USB modems. Connectify is providing a free USB WiFi card for anyone pledging $100 or more on Kickstarter.
• Dispatch is a PC-only software. But they plan to bring Dispatch for Mac if they can raise at-least $2 million on Kickstarter.

Check out Dispatch on Kickstarter.

© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2012. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |

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