Terahertz bandwidth could make cellphones 1,000 times faster

Forget 3G and 4G. In fact, forget about the gigahertz frequency altogether—a team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh say they've managed to devise a means of transmitting data thousands of times faster.

The team led by Hrvoje Petek, a physics and chemistry professor in Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, successfully created what they call a "frequency comb" that "spans more than 100 terahertz (THz) of bandwidth by exciting a coherent collective of atomic motions in a semiconductor silicon crystal."

The frequency comb is created by the division of "a single color of light into a series of evenly spaced spectral lines for a variety of uses."

What that means is that Petek and his colleagues have devised a structure that could theoretically transmit data to devices like cellphones and computers in the terahertz frequency region—and in fact observed reflected light oscillating at 15.6 THz during their experiments.

The research was published in the March 4 issue of Nature Photonics and summarized on the University of Pittsburgh website.

Petek said the team has discovered "a physical basis for terahertz bandwidth," which could potentially be used to leverage the "portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and microwave light" to transmit at rates several orders of magnitude faster than today's conventional wireless electronics with bandwidth limited to the gigahertz frequency.

"The ability to modulate light with such a bandwidth could increase the amount of information carried by more than 1,000 times when compared to the volume carried with today's technologies," Petek said.

"Needless to say, this has been a long-awaited discovery in the field."

The scientists worked with silicon, the material used to fabricate the semiconductors at the heart of computing's process technology. Petek said his team expected to hit 15.6 THz in its experiments, the "highest mechanical frequency of atoms within a silicon lattice."

The University of Pittsburgh researchers are actually aiming even higher, or rather faster. By studying the coherent oscillation of electrons, Petek and his colleagues believe they can harness "light-matter interactions" in the petahertz-frequency range, or 1,000 times faster again than the terahertz oscillations they've already achieved.

Source : Terahertz Bandwidth Could Make Cellphones 1,000 Times Faster

Facebook launches Interest List, allows users to create personalised newspaper

Facebook has announced a new feature called the Interest List that allows users to compile “interest lists” around topics, wherein the top stories from each interest will appear on newsfeed. The new feature will be rolled out in the coming weeks, and will allow users to create a list in which they can subscribe to their friends, brands, celebrities and others present on the social network. The new Interest List feature on Facebook is similar to Twitter's list feature or Google's Reader, which allows users to create a small list of subscribed social news. However, Facebook's Interest List is much easier to curate and customise news feeds. The social networking giant says its new feature turns the service into a personalised newspaper. Facebook users can create their own lists and share them, or can keep them private. Users can also subscribe to lists shared by others. "Interest lists can help you turn Facebook into your own personalised newspaper, with special sections—or feeds—for topics that matter to you. You can find traditional news sections like Business, Sports and Style or get much more personalized—like Tech News, NBA Players, and Art Critics," Eric Faller, a Facebook software engineer, wrote in a blog post. With the new Interest List, Facebook is now trying to fill up the gaps which it had left. The social networking giant recently updated its photo viewer. The new Interest List will definitely allow Facebook to grab attention of those who have been using other social networks such as Twitter and Google+ to create a personalised information.

Nikon D5100: First look video

Nikon D5100 Digital camera offers good image quality in an affordable price. It has a stylish Side-mounted tilt / swivel LCD screen, excellent sensor, good speed and battery life. It supports an in-camera HDR and filter effects and offers Full HD video capture with aperture control. The compact camera offers good audio levels control and comes with an external microphone jack. It is a versatile and consumer friendly camera.

Gaming News

The Two most awaited Games coming by the end of this October.

Ubisoft To Release Assassin’s Creed III On October 30

Ubisoft will release Assassin’s Creed III on October 30, it said during a call with investors on Wednesday.

Arriving less than one year after the release of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Assassin’s Creed III is expected to star an all-new protagonist in an experience Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said will be “the biggest launch in Ubisoft history.”

Guillemot explained that the developer has been working diligently on the new game for three years, describing what the team has achieved in that time as “fabulous.”

While Ubisoft has yet to reveal where exactly Assassin’s Creed III will take place, the game’s setting has been speculated to be anywhere from Ancient Egypt to the American Revolution. Imagine performing Assassin’s Creed‘s trademark Leap of Faith off the Great Pyramid of Giza. Of course, Assassin’s Creed III‘s storyline will also finally be bringing the story arc of the main Assassin’s Creed trilogy to its long-awaited conclusion.

Ubisoft has not said what platforms for which it will release Assassin’s Creed III, but it will most likely be coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC (and maybe Wii U).

EA to Release Medal of Honor Warfighter in October

Electronic Arts studio Danger Close is currently developing Medal of Honor Warfighter, the sequel to 2010′s military-themed first-person shooter, the company said on Thursday.

Along with the announcement, EA shared an image from the game of a rather angry-looking soldier gripping a rifle, which the company describes as “a visual inspiration and representation of this title.”

EA says it will release Warfighter this October. It is using the Frostbite 2.0 graphics engine to power its visuals, which was also used in Battlefield 3.

Aside from confirming the existence of Warfighter, EA promises to reveal more concrete details about the new game in “the next few weeks.” But if you can’t wait until then, the game is also featured on the front cover of the April 2012 issue of Official Xbox Magazine US, which hits newsstands on March 6.

2010′s Medal of Honor received mixed reviews. Let’s hope that EA addresses some of the previous game’s more glaring issues when it releases Warfighter later this year.

Android is coming to everything ... everywhere

We spend a lot of time talking about operating system market share and usage share, but could Android explode to the point where it make such data irrelevant?

When we talk about Android market/usage share, we’re usually thinking about devices like smartphones and tablets. It seems that knowing how many people use a particular thing is important to some people (I’m not sure why, maybe it helps people think they’ve made the right choice or something). But Android isn’t confined to just smartphones and tablets. Chances are that if you have a gadget like a personal media player or an ebook reader or an in-car GPS receiver, it’s powered by Android. It might not say Android anywhere, and people might not know that it’s Android, but it’s there nontheless.

Android is already all around us, and pretty soon the OS is going to be in a whole lot more places. The next device that Android is set to invade is the TV set. Given the operating system’s heritage in media it seems like a good fit. It’s going to take a long time for people to replace their dumb TVs with Android-powered ‘Smart TV’ sets, but it will happen (people on the whole seem to keep their TV sets for a lot longer than they do cellphones, tablets and PCs).

The TV is just the start of things in my opinion, and it’s the beginning of an in-home Android revolution. As the price falls on low-power computers it becomes feasible to fit make things ’smart’ … smart oven, smart microwave, smart refrigerator, smart washing machine. smart thermostat. Heck, why not go the whole hog and have smart lights and smart doors too?

Smart devices are the next step in evolution for devices that have traditionally been dumb devices. And one of the keys to making dumb devices smart is the a flexible operating system.

Android offers just that.

Note: One company is going to absolutely love it if Android is everywhere … Microsoft. The Redmond giant already pulling in millions every year from patent deals struck with smartphones and tablets makers.

I can see Android in other places too … watches (now there’s something that needs revolutionizing), cars, binoculars, telescopes, home automation devices, remote controls and much more. Android’s power is its versatility, and it is that versatility that allows the platform to be customized and tweaked for a whole variety of applications. It’s because of this that I see an explosion in Android usage over the next few years.

Do you see a day when Android is everywhere, or do you think that the whole ’smart’ revolution is wishful thinking by electronics manufacturers?