Touchscreen to feel like keyboard
New research could allow your touchscreen keyboard to actually feel like a keyboard, scientists say. Northwestern University and Carnegie Mellon University researchers have made discoveries that could bring texture to your flat touchscreen.
The researchers said their new mathematical model and experimental results on “haptic illusions” could one day lead to flat-screen displays featuring active touch-back technology, such as making your touchscreen’s keyboard actually feel like a keyboard.
Tactile information also could benefit the blind, users of dashboard technology in cars and players of video games. Forces felt by the fingers as they travel along a flat surface can lead to the illusion that the surface actually contains bumps. This so-called “virtual bump illusion” is well known in the haptics field, said J Edward Colgate at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.
India connects billions on facebook
India is the key to connect billions across the world to the Internet, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said, as the social networking giant tied up with Reliance Communications to launch the Internet.org app in a country where smartphone sales growth is among the fastest globally. The app will offer users access to free basic Internet services for health, education, jobs and communication.
“One day, we will connect everyone, and the power of the Internet will serve every community across India and the world. That day is coming,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. “But to continue connecting the world, we have to connect India.” He was referring to the over 1 billion of India’s 1.2 billion population without an Internet connection, although most of them have mobile phones. As of December end, India had almost 944 million mobile phone users. Comparatively, India had over 243 million Internet users at the end of last year, of which 86 million had broadband access.
He also recounted his October visit to Chandauli, a small village in northern India, which recently got connected to the Internet.
Armstrong ‘stole’ these mementos
Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon, had kept a secret stash of personal mementos — hardware items from the 1969 Apollo 11 mission — which were supposed to be left behind on the Moon. The artifacts discovered by Armstrong’s widow, Carol, after his death in 2012, were objects flown in the lunar Module Eagle during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
These include a camera that recorded the first Moon landing, a waist tether that Armstrong used to support his feet during a rest period on the Moon, utility lights and their brackets, equipment netting and an emergency wrench.
“I received an email from Carol Armstrong that she had located in one of Neil’s closets a white cloth bag filled with assorted small items that looked like they may have come from a spacecraft,” Allan Needell, the Apollo curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, said in a blog post.
Four new fish species found in kerala
Four new fish species have been found in Kerala, the college professor who made the discovery said. The new species have been named Puntius nelsoni, Puntius nigronotus, Systomus chryseus and Systomus rufus, said Mathews Plamoottil, a zoology professor at Kollam’s Baby John Memorial Government College.
“Detailed articles describing the new species have been published in international publications like Journal of Research in Biology and International Journal of Fauna and Biological Studies,” said Plamoottil.
Elaborating, he said the body and fins of Puntius nelsoni are yellowish, the head is deeper, the snout shorter and the mouth wider. It was discovered at Kallumkal in Thiruvalla, at the place where Pamba and Manimala rivers merge.
The Kerala State Biodiversity Board — the custodian of the state’s rich biodiversity — said Kerala is home to 242 species of inland fish.