Future Technologies

Google may have found one more clever way to squeeze juicy data out of its users: Get them to catalog their possessions online. There are some potential advantages to the user, of course, including having a nice tidy inventory for insurance purposes and setting up sharing and bartering opportunities with friends. Those probably pale in comparison to the advantages for Google and its advertisers, however. Google is internally testing a new service, Google Mine, that will be integrated with Google+, according to the Google Operating System unofficial blog. It will let users list their belongings, post photos to a Mine album, and share and track their belongings with friends. Think of it as Craigslist on steroids with a homey touch. "It'll be like an eBay for sharing," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the  Enderle Group , "but the groups are pretty tight -- and only people you'll want to know what you have will know it." Google Mine will b...

STORY HIGHLIGHTS Phone is water- and dust-resistant Active has most but not all Galaxy S4 features Device failed a swimming pool test NEW YORK — Samsung has already made a splash with its feature-rich smartphone the Galaxy S4. Now it is hoping to generate enthusiasm for a Galaxy S4 variant that can survive one, in most circumstances. The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active has arrived just in time for summer. Samsung is marketing the phone as the perfect handset for the beach, pool or to go camping. Unlike your standard Galaxy S4, the Active version is certified to be water-resistant and dust-resistant. While it is not billed as a ruggedized phone per se, it does have a protective scratch-resistant 5-inch Gorilla Glass display, though that's not uncommon these days. Suffice to say, this isn't one of those homely phones with lots of visible extra padding. In my tests over a few days, the phone withstood whatever wet obstacles I threw at it — dunking it in a bowl of water...

Back in early 2012, before the world had heard of Google Glass, the tech world was ablaze with  rumours  that the search giant was beavering away on augmented reality goggles. As the days went by, it was clear that not only was this true, but that Google's dream of wearable technology was far, far closer to release than anyone would have guessed. Roll forward just over a year and the  first versions are in the hands of developers  who went into a  lottery to fork out $1,500  for their own pair of spectacles. TechRadar has had time with the  Google Glass Explorer so you can find plenty more information right there. But what exactly is Google Glass? Why is it attracting all this attention and what are the implications - both good and bad - of having a Google-eye view of the world? What is Google Glass? Google Glass is an attempt to free data from desktop computers and portable devices like phones and tablets, and place it ...

    'SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information. We've evolved over millions of years to sense the world around us. When we encounter something, someone or some place, we use our five natural senses to perceive information about it; that information helps us make decisions and chose the right actions to take. But arguably the most useful information that can help us make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with our five senses, namely the data, information and knowledge that mankind has accumulated about everything and which is increasingly all available online. Although the miniaturization of computing devices allows us to carry computers in our pockets, keeping us continually connected to the digital world, there is no link between our digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. In...

Question: I have an Android phone and an iPad. How do I get the pictures I take on the phone to show up on the tablet? STORY HIGHLIGHTS Google+ Android app, iPad app can save backups of photos Google also applies 'auto enhance' to uploaded photos Delete three of every five photos you take to save storage space Answer: Assuming you'd rather not transfer the photos through whatever computer you might sync both devices with (and why would you, considering the hassle involved and  the need to add extra software to sync photos with Android ), you should go with  Google+ . Install that social network's  Android app  on the phone and put its  iOS release  on the iPad, and its automatic online backup should ensure that every photo you take from the phone will show up in the G+ app on the tablet moments later. That doesn't mean everybody else on G+ can see your shots — this automatic backup is done in private, leaving it to you to decide later...

BEIJING –   China has built the world's fastest computer for a second time, beating the U.S.'s Titan machine. The semiannual TOP500 official listing of the world's fastest supercomputers says the Tianhe-2 developed by the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha city in central China is capable of sustained computing of 33.86 petaflops per second . That's the equivalent of 33,860 trillion calculations per second . The list was released Monday. The Tianhe-2, which means Milky Way-2, knocks the US Department of Energy’s Titan machine off the No. 1 spot. It achieved 17.59 petaflops per second. It's the second time China has been named as having built the world's fastest supercomputer. In 2010, predecessor Tianhe-1A gained that honor. Supercomputers are used for complex work such as modeling weather systems, simulating nuclear explosions and designing jetliners.

For Take a Tour:  Scroll Mouse on Below 3D image, you can even navigate camera by click and dragging right or left: It's a guided tour -- from about 150 million miles away. A stunning panoramic image from the Curiosity rover offers an incredibly detailed look at the dusty, lonely landscape of the red planet. And thanks to NASA's computer science geniuses, you can take a guided tour of the rocky landscape from your couch.  Here's how to get the most of it.  First click in the Photosynth player and drag the image left or right for a 360-degree look at your desolate surroundings (remember to keep your eyes open for  the Martian rat ). Then click the double rectangle in the bottom center of the image to take the panoramic image full-screen for the full mind-blowing experience. Now click the links at the right side of the screen for some highlights of the spots Curiosity has already investigated, as well as the sites yet ...

The Start Screen may be soon accessible over the Internet Microsoft is reportedly working on a new project called Mohoro that would basically allow users to access a Windows installation over the Internet, without the need to deploy the operating system on a local system. Mary Jo Foley of  ZDNet  writes that Mohoro would be a desktop virtualization service based on Windows Azure that would basically represent Microsoft’s first major step towards a subscription service for the Windows platform. The pay-per-use system would be specifically aimed at companies looking to access their own clients or applications stored in the cloud, while also being capable of setting up restrictions and limitations for their employees. The desktop as a service Windows might be released in 2014, even though there’s no official word on it.  The company has already purchased Mohoro.com and Mohoro.net domains, so it’s most likely working on this new project as we speak. souce: http:...