Iran unveils world’s first flying saucer

Fars news agency illustrated its story with a photo of a flying saucer Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367204/Iran-builds-worlds-flying-saucer-Looks-like-belongs-1950s-B-movie.html#ixzz1HWRecECC

An official press release by Iranian state-controlled news site Fars News, claims that remarkably enough the Islamic Republic has managed to be the first nation ever to build a flying saucer. And no, I didn’t google the image from above, it’s been used instead officially by the news agency to illustrate the press release, although the crooked looking 1950s B-movie screenshot isn’t sourced.

Dubbed Zohal, which means Saturn in Persian, the flying saucer was built for surveillance and defence purposes. Unveiled in a special state ceremony, “the flying machine is equipped with an auto-pilot system, GPS (Global Positioning System) and two separate imaging systems with full HD 10 mega-pixel picture quality and is able to take and send images simultaneously,” according to Farce Fars News.

Photo used by the Iranian Students’ News Agency to illustrate Zohal.

Iranian Students’ News Agency, which has also published a press release about Zohal, has a more “rational” photo attached to its news piece, but they also insist on naming the cuadrotour surveillance flying object as “flying saucer”.

Teheran is dabbling a lot in scientific projects lately, some quite impressive and ambitious, aside from this obvious flying saucer mascaraed. For instance, their space program has sent a number of flying missiles in space, which have caused a lot of alarm in the western world for fear of them being used as intercontinental ballistic missiles some day.

Last year, Iran successfully fired a rocket that carried a mouse, a turtle and worms into space, and who doesn’t remember the Iranian humanoid dancing robot Surena 2.

Back to the subject at hand… flying saucers?!?!?!?

Read more: http://www.zmescience.com/science/iran-unveils-worlds-first-flying-saucer-35254312/#ixzz1I4TsIRJu

Are Next Generation AirPlanes Concepts Environment Friendly?

In 2011, NASA comes up with a plan to integrate a fuel efficient airplanes in their line-up that produce less noise and Cleaner exhaust. Three aircraft manufacturing companies Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and The Boeing delivered their demos to NASA that will likely to be operational in 2025. Moreover, each aircraft will fly with a speed of sound; cover the area of 7000 miles and carry the load of 50,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds either passengers or cargo.

All the contestants are exploring, testing, simulating and discarding technologies for the whole year and comes up with a ultimate winning model. The core demands of NASA is aircraft fly in air for longer period of time, consume less energy and should be fuel efficient. All is happening for the betterment of environment to preserve the mankind and innovate the technologies in a healthier atmosphere.

Amazon Cloud Drive is a Mean Right Hook to Apple's Jaw

This is a big one, folks. Amazon has just declared outright war on iTunes. Earlier today the company sent out a press release announcing the launch of Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. The Cloud Drive is an online storage system for music, movies and pictures. 5 GB is totally free, and you gain an extra 20 GB free the first time you purchase an Amazon MP3 album. The Cloud Player allows you to access your media from any Mac, PC or Android device.

It seems Amazon has finally hit upon a music retail / consumption solution that rivals iTunes for utility. And the press release is littered with mean little barbs against the current leading online music storefront. Like this one:

"The launch of Cloud Drive, Cloud Player for Web and Cloud Player for Android eliminates the need for constant software updates as well as the use of thumb drives and cables to move and manage music."

Bill Carr, VP of Movies and Music, might as well have said, "Our service is easier than dealing with iTunes updates and plugging your phone into your computer."

That wasn't the only dig either-

"Customers don't need to worry about regularly updating software on their computer to enjoy music, and Amazon MP3 customers can continue to use iTunes and Windows Media Player to add their music to their iPods and MP3 players."

This is a crafty bit of PR wordsmanship. First, Amazon assures us that their service will be free of cumbersome updates. Immediately after, they mention Windows Media Player and iTunes. It's hard not to read into that.

Amazon's Cloud Player certainly sounds like a solid system for keeping your playlist together across a variety of devices. The ability to get 5 GB of free storage for nothing but a registration isn't bad either. But the "20 GB free with one album purchase" deal isn't quite as good as it sounds. With Amazon's Cloud Drive service, you purchase data on a yearly basis. Buying an album only gets you 20 GB free for one year.

In subsequent years, you'll need to either pay up or lose your extra data. Amazon's also selling additional 20 GB slots for $20.

The most brilliant feature here is the fact that Amazon MP3 albums do not count towards your data storage limit. Meaning consumers now have a very compelling reason to buy from Amazon, rather than Apple. Cloud storage is extremely useful, but also expensive for large amounts of data. Free cloud storage for your Amazon-bought media, plus another (2)5 GB free works out to one hell of a deal. iTunes users are about to find their loyalty sorely tested.

iPhone 5 Fall Release makes Room for White iPhone 4 Spring Release

The never ending white iPhone 4 delay is supposed to come to an end this Spring. Apple's Phil Schiller tweeted recently that the white iPhone 4 will be available this Spring. It is also supposed to be a beauty. In February I wrote that its best to pass on the white iPhone 4. Why buy a white iPhone 4 that will be replaced a couple month later with the iPhone 5. Now things look a bit different. New rumors around the WWDC 2011 conference suggest that Apple will not release the iPhone 5 as expected in June. Apple is supposed to release it in Fall with iOS 5.

Now the white iPhone 4 release can be seen as a hold over for those who cannot wait until Fall to get a new iPhone. The question is if the white iPhone 4 will have anything different besides the color. The white iPhone 4 will likely be almost a year delayed. I expect Apple to start selling it in May. By adding just a little bit Apple could make the white iPhone 4 more enticing. How about a better antenna design or the A5 CPU that is inside the iPad 2 already?

The problem will be that Apple is not going to confirm that the iPhone 5 is coming this Fall. So when you buy the white iPhone 4 on contract in May, you might get stuck with an outdated iPhone come WWDC 2011 in June. Sometimes when the rumors before a big Apple event turn into a very different direction, Apple could be behind it. A good example was the sudden rumors about the $1,000 price tag of the original iPad. When Apple announced that the iPad was only $499 the surprise effect was huge.

About the iPhone 4:
The Apple iPhone 4 measures 4.5" x 2.31" x 0.37" and weighs 4.8 ounces. It can be had in 16GB or 32GB capacity and records 720p video and has a 5MP still camera. FaceTime video calls can be made on the phone and it has WiFi, Bluetooth, and lots more.

Android Honeycomb: 17 Tablet Apps?

As Steve Jobs was very keen to tell us earlier this month, iOS currently holds some 65,000 tablet applications. He contrasted this impressive figure with the number of Android Honeycomb apps: 100. The great disparity between these two numbers has fuelled countless columns and opinion pieces across the Internet. And now, news has broke that things may be even worse for Android than they seem.

Justin Williams of CarpeAqua has counted up all of the Honeycomb apps that were more than just resized versions of normal applications. He came up with far fewer than 100. In fact, only 17 apps met his criteria of being "specifically designed for a tablet experience". Williams justified his standards by saying, "There is little point in buying a $600-$800 device just to run larger versions of apps you run on your phone."

And he's right. Tablets are larger, more powerful devices and users deserve applications that do more than just mimic something on their phone. Most of Justin's remaining apps were things like "CNN App for Android" or "USA Today for Tablet" or "WeatherBug". The thumb keyboard got a mention, as did the excellent DrawFree app and the game Vendetta Online. You'll notice that many of these apps- like CNN, were featured in the Honeycomb launch event. Vendetta even makes an appearance in the first Xoom ad.

What this all means is very simple: Android users are being asked to spend hundreds of dollars on a device that can't yet offer them much more functionality than their phones. If the larger display size is the only real benefit of an Android tablet, something isn't quite right.

Android tablets are undergoing a chaotic adolescence. Manufacturers and marketers will gradually learn to push away from the aggressive "spec dump" tactics they used with the Xoom. Google will eventually recognize the need for a more carefully crafted user experience. Developers on Android will catch-up with iOS. But all of these things are a few years in the future. For now, Android tablet early adopters will just have to grin and bear it.

My Top Ten iPad Apps Tips for deepening your tablet addiction.

It's been over a week since I returned from Guatemala. And nearly three weeks since I purchased the iPad 2, my first ever Apple product. In that time, I've tried my hand at quite a few tablet applications. Coming from Android, the sheer selection and quality of App Store offerings was a little staggering. With some work, I've managed to narrow my favorite apps down to ten.

10. GarageBand: Even if you aren't a musician- and I most certainly am not, GarageBand is an incredibly entertaining application. It keeps kids entertained and also allows you to have an easily portable selection of instruments ready at any time. Don't want to lug your guitar and case across the world on a Trans-Atlantic flight? GarageBand may lack the aesthetic feel of a real guitar- but it works.



9. Pages: The Pages app turns your iPad into a functional productive office device. It allows you to create a variety of different document styles and save those documents as Word files or PDFs. It also lets you open .doc files (and more). There's nothing too flashy about Pages, but it deserves a mention for its sheer usefulness. The iPad 2 isn't wildly comfortable to type on, but it makes for far more enjoyable editing and research than any other form factor I've explored.

8. Flow Paper: This is one of my two favorite doodling apps. Flow Paper allows you to adjust the length, flow and opacity of your strokes to create layered geometric waveforms of varying colors. It is multitouch compatible and more than capable of sucking several hours of idle time down the drain.



7. Photogene: If you're looking for a powerful, intuitive image editing app, this is it. Photogene allows you to adjust color levels, exposure, contrast, and saturation. You can apply filters- to sharpen or curve the image, and you can also crop, resize or rotate your picture. There are also a variety of options for things like text balloons and watermarks.



6.Drawin...ds HD: Yes, it's another drawing app. This one simply provides you with a black canvas that you can scrape away to reveal a psychedelic background. Yes, it is silly. That doesn't stop me from loving it dearly.

5. Copia E-Reader: No other reader app on the market handles the social dimension quite as well as Copia. By turning reading into an up-to-the-page, social activity it adds a competitive urge to make progress on your library. And the lively community gives readers of all stripes- Marxists and Dickens fans and Sci-Fi nerds- a place to discuss their favorite books as they read them.



4. PhotoBooth: As simple as it is, you wouldn't expect PhotoBooth to stay interesting for long. And yet, whenever I hand my iPad 2 over to a friend it is the the first app they open up. And whenever I end up somewhere new and beautiful, out comes my iPad and up opens PhotoBooth. I've used it to snap mind-bending shots of an east Texas sunrise and the heat rising up from cracks in the Pacaya Volcano. Can you say...best free app ever?



3. iMovie: I hate editing video together. iMovie for the iPad 2 may be the least painful way I know to edit simple videos together. It isn't as powerful as Adobe Premier, but it does everything the average user needs, and then some.

2. Fluid Monkey: I've never seen anything quite like this app before. You'll have your choice of populating the screen with multicolored gases and liquids that move around based on the direction and tilt of the tablet. You can also throw little balls up in there that bounce around as well. The sheer number of options and the aspect of physical control make this an app capable of hypnotizing a large number of people, under the right (booze) circumstances.

1. The Browser: I realize this may sound like a cop-out, but the browser really is the iPad's leading "killer app". I spend as much time surfing on my tablet as I do on every other task combined. The iPad 2 has replaced my laptop, desktop and smartphone as a preferred browsing device. Whenever I can justify using it for work, I do. Being able to lean back in a couch and lose myself in the Internet's sprawl is enough to justify that $499 price tag several times over.

Apple MacBook Pro MC700LL/A Great on the go Laptop

Everyone these days uses a computer. Whether it is a desktop or a laptop, you know what you need. If you are on the go a lot then a laptop is the best way to go. It offers you freedom to move around and still have all your information for you. It is perfect for the businessperson on the go or the student who needs a laptop for classes. The Apple MacBook Pro MC700LL/A may be the perfect laptop for you. 

The 13-inch MacBook Pro has the state-of -the-art dual-core Intel i5 processor that delivers up to 2x faster performance over the previous generation of MacBook Pro. The new Thunderbolt technology lets you connect high-performance peripherals and high-resolution displays to a single port, and transfer files at lightning speeds. In addition, with the new built-in FaceTime HD camera, you can make astonishingly crisp HD video call. This version of the 13.3-inch MacBook MC700LL/A features a 2.3 GHz Core i5 "Sandy Bridge" dual-core processor, 320 GB hard drive, and 4 GB of installed RAM. Other features include integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 graphics, ultra-fast Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking, Bluetooth connectivity, an SDXC card slot, and a FireWire 800 port. It also comes with the Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system as well as the iLife software suite, which includes the latest version of iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand. This is a great new computer you should be sure to buy yours today.

The Apple MacBook Pro is available at Amazon for $1,184.00.

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CES 2011: Gefen debuts new GefenTV VGA to HD Scaler

Gefen unveils a new GefenTV VGA to HD Scaler at the CES 2011 next month. The VGA to HD Scaler outputs audio/video in the HDMI format so users can view video coming from low resolutions down to 320x240 upscaled to 1080p full HD on any HDTV display or projector. Via adapters you can connect your iPad, iPod or iPhone to the box as well to watch content in high definition on your TV.

The Gefen VGA To HD Scaler is equipped with one VGA, one coax, one TOSlink and L/R RCA audio inputs. Audio/video inputs are output as 1080p full HD video. Dynamic video adjustments are controlled through the front-panel buttons including noise reduction and detail enhancement to generate exceptional image quality.

About Gefen:
Gefen delivers advanced technologies with multi-platform extension, integration, optimization, distribution and conversion capabilities. Gefen equipment is valued around the world in professional AV/IT and consumer electronics/home theater environments. Their add-on hardware maximizes system functionality by enabling AV systems to operate beyond their original capabilities.

The CES 2011 will open its doors on January 6th in Las Vegas. We will of course provide in-depth coverage all new CES 2011 announcements. Expect the first major CES News already in December. Find all CES 2011 News on our CES 2011 Hub.