Latest Mac OS X 10.6.3 beta adds OpenGL 3.0 support

Since the release of Apple’s latest operating system, Snow Leopard (10.6), there have been two main patches. These have both been relatively minor in terms of fixes and changes, though the latest update, 10.6.3, aims to be a bit more substantial when it comes to upgrades.

As discovered by Hardmac forums, the beta of the 10.6.3 update includes OpenGL 3.0 support, bringing many more graphical capabilities to the operating system. As AppleInsider noted, graphics cards found in Mac computers support OpenGL 3.0, so the only step now is to improve the software somewhat; a step being taken in the latest update. So far, 22 out of 23 extensions are now supported, though the majority of the associated OpenGL 3.0-specific functions are yet to have support in 10.6.3.

Backwards compatibility is said to be there in 10.6.3, as one would expect; in addition to that, support for OpenGL 3.1 is at 12 percent, whereas OpenGL 3.2 is a bit further, sitting currently on 33 percent. If you’re a Mac user, the latest update will hopefully become available soon, as Apple seems to be progressing quickly with it.

Fourth generation iPhone to have gesture enabled casing

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple’s upcoming fourth-generation iPhone may have a “touch-sensitive casing.” Much like Apple’s Magic Mouse, the phone’s body may support finger movements for actions such as scrolling, zooming, and other useful navigation. “‘Apple’s going to put a lot of innovation, not just on the hardware, but also on the software of the new iPhone,’ said Taipei-based Chen, a member of Asia’s top-ranked technology hardware research team. The handset will feature a new plastic casing similar to that used for Apple’s touch-panel Magic Mouse released last year, he said.”

Chen also re-affirmed the public that the next iPhone will go into production as early as April, and be available to the general public in June or July. He also hinted at an updated version of the iPhone OS and an overhauled App Store. However, no further details were given.

Assuming Chen is right, Apple has sure held back a lot of juicy details from the public (and we expect nothing less). If the next iPhone does, indeed, have this new body, it would not only make sense, but it would also allude to the fact that AT&T is still a big part of the picture. Just this past week, AT&T announced their upcoming, Android based, Motorola Backflip phone. This is the first phone to have a touch sensitive gesture area built into the body. This would make AT&T the only carrier with, not one, but two gesture body enabled phones. Perhaps this means that the new gesture body was AT&T’s idea. This would further add creditability to Chen’s iPhone claims.

Black Hole Mystery Solved




Black holes are an object of research and mystery for the whole scientific community from decades. Many researchers are working day and night to explore the mysteries of black holes. In this series, a recent invention by Yale University Astrophysicist revels the fact that, There is a upper limit of the mass of any black hole. This research has been also published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

WHAT ARE BLACK HOLES?

As most of you are aware BLACK HOLE is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even electromagnetic radiation can escape from it. Dur to this black holes can not be seen (as they absorbs light radiations) but can only be experienced by their ultra strong gravitational pull. That's why they are named as BLACK HOLE.. They continue to grow in size by absorbing any matter that comes in range of their gravitational field.

HOW MUCH THEY CAN GROW?



Till now it was not sure that what can be maximum size of a black hole. These black holes are now known to exist throughout the Universe and the largest and most massive are at the centers of the largest galaxies. These "ultra-massive" black holes have reported to have mass about One Billion Times that of our own Sun.


Black Hole

CONCEPT OF UPPER MASS LIMIT

According to the new research by Priyamvada Natarajan, an Associate Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Yale University and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, it has been proved, that even the biggest of these Black Holes can't keep growing forever. Instead, they appear to curb their own growth - once they accumulate about 10 billion times the mass of the Sun.


Black Hole

THEORY BEHIND THIS RESEARCH

Normally Black Holes continue to accumulate mass by absorbing matter from neighboring gas, dust and stars. But according to new research by Priyamvada Natarajan, that it is possible only to a certain limit, irrespective of the position of black hole. The reason behind this is that, "Eventually these Black Holes reach the point when they radiate so much energy as they consume their surroundings that they end up interfering with the very gas supply that feeds them, which may interrupt nearby star formation."

EXPERIMENT BY PRIYAMVADA NATARAJAN

Natarajan used existing Optical and X-ray Data of these Ultra-Massive Black Holes to show that, in order for those various observations to be consistent, the black holes must essentially stop at some point in their evolution. This helped her to prove this fact that these black holes can not grow indefinitely in mass and there is some upper mass limit of black holes.

Forget Windows: Midori is coming

MIDORI is an offshoot of Microsoft Research's Singularity operating system. In this the tools and libraries are completely managed code. MIDORI is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), will be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.

MIDORI can be also seen as MICROSOFT'S answer those competitors who are applying "Virtualization" as a mean to solving issues within contemporary computing.

The main idea behind MIDORI is to develop a lightweight portable OS which can be mated easily to lots of various applications.

IMPORTANCE OF MIDORI

For knowing the importance of MIDORI you have to think about, how an operating system is loaded on a computer. Actually operating system is loaded onto a hard disk physically located on that machine. In this way, the operating system is tied very tightly to that hardware. As Windows is dependent on hardware, it might face opposition from contemporary ways of working because people are extremely mobile in using different devices in order get diverse information.

Due to this trend installing different applications on a single computer may led to different compatibility issues whenever the machine require updating. The newoperating system will solve these problems by the concept of Virtualizing. This will solve problems such as widespread security vulnerabilities, unexpected interactions among different applications, failures caused by errant extensions, plug-ins, and drivers and many more.

ERIC RUDDER, Senior Vice President, Technical Strategy

The importance of this project for MICROSOFT can be understood by the fact that company choose Eric Rudder , former head of Microsoft's server and tools business and a key member of Chairman Bill Gates' faction of the company, to handle it.

WHEN WILL IT BE LAUNCHED

Just Wait and See. Microsoft has not declared any such date about launching of MIDORI, but there are rumors that this project is in incubation phase.

4G Technology

Fourth Generation (4G) mobiles

4G also called as Fourth-Generation Communications System, is a term used to describe the next step in wireless communications. A 4G system can provide a comprehensive IP solution where voice, data and streamed multimedia can be provided to users on an "Anytime, Anywhere" basis. The data transfer rates are also much higher than previous generations.

The main objectives of 4G are:

1)4G will be a fully IP-based integrated system.

2)This will be capable of providing 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s speeds both indoors and outdoors.

3)It can provide premium quality and high security.

4)4G offer all types of services at an affordable cost.

4G is developed to provide high quality of service (QoS) and rate requirements set by forthcoming applications such as wireless broadband access, Multimedia Messaging, Video Chat, Mobile TV, High definition TV content, DVB, minimal service like voice and data, and other streaming services.

4G technology allow high-quality smooth video transmission. It will enable fast downloading of full-length songs or music pieces in real time.

The business and popularity of 4Gmobiles is predicted to be very vast. On an average, by 2009, this 4Gmobile market will be over $400B and it will dominate the wireless communications, and its converged system will replace most conventional wireless infrastructure.

Data Rates For 4G:

The downloading speed for mobile Internet connections is from 9.6 kbit/s for 2G cellular at present. However, in actual use the data rates are usually slower, especially in crowded areas, or when there is congestion in network.

4G mobile data transmission rates are planned to be up to 20 megabits per second which means that it will be about 10-20 times faster than standard ASDL services.

In terms of connection seeds, 4G will be about 200 times faster than present 2G mobile data rates, and about 10 times faster than 3G broadband mobile. 3G data rates are currently 2Mbit/sec, which is very fast compared to 2G's 9.6Kbit/sec.

Your Next Cellphone May Include a 14.6MP Sensor and Records 1080p Video

OmniVision has prepared a fresh 14.6MB photo sensor only for cellphones which will grant them the power to record 1080p video at a 60 frames-per-second. Considering that we're discussing about cellphones here, that's rather a fine upgrade.

The OV14825 photo sensor is created to go simple on energy consumption and shall hopefully enter mass presentation in the second quarter of this year. There's no word on when we'll start seeing it in cellphones, but I'm wishing it's before I purchase my next one, even if it's unsure if telephones striking the market in the near future shall be able to process all that information from the sensor

Traumas the ioSafe Solo can survive: Building disintegrate, 1550-degree flame, 30-foot submersion within saline water, and a 5,000-pound "crush force." So you might declare it's durable.

It's pretty much the majority disaster-proof external drive I've ever seen. It also has eSATA in attachment to USB and a "no questions asked" policy with respects towards data recovery (which is good—what manner of horrors are you subjecting this thing towards whether you need data recovery?). It'll be accessible in February in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities