Ambient Forecasting Umbrella !

Will it rain ? ask the umbrella ! this high tech umbrella will connect to AccuWeather and let you know if it is going to rain. Details is on the link below

http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=35309150

USPS News: Philatelic Releases

I like that....
The U.S. Postal Service is expanding its Holiday Celebrations Series with a new stamp highlighting the Muslim holiday of Eid. The 34-cent Eid stamp will be issued on Sept. 1 at the annual Islamic Society of North America's convention. For details from the source, please click here
http://www.usps.com/news/2001/philatelic/sr01_054.htm

Tech Tech Tech . . .

Tech Trick, this time from India
An Indian chess player has been banned for 10 years for cheating after he was caught using his mobile phone's wireless device to win games. Umakant Sharma, was finally caught at a recent tournament when officials discovered that he had stitched a Bluetooth device in a cloth cap which he always pulled over his ears. He communicated to his accomplices outside the hall, who then used a computer to relay moves to him, Indian chess federation secretary D.V. Sundar said on Wednesday. Full Story is here
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/12/27/chess.cheater.reut/index.html

Security Flaw in MS Vista

So, MS is still MS, Surely, the 50 MLOC Vista is impossible to be error-free. Well, this just gives me another reason to wait on the Leopard (of course the first is the interface and ease of use)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Windows Vista, the new computer operating system that Microsoft Corp. is touting as its most secure ever, contains a programming flaw that might let hackers gain full control of vulnerable computers.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/12/26/microsoft.security.ap/index.html

Steve Jobs . . .

"Our friends up North spend over $5 billion a year on R&D, and yet these days all they seem to do is try and copy Google and Apple. I guess that's a good example of how money isn't everything".

"We don't want our friends to start their photocopiers any sooner than they have to".

An Optical Breakthrough

My dream at UAH in 1991 is now a fact; an optical breakthrough poised to change the world of mobile entertainment. Lumus will be demonstrating the new video glasses at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this January.

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles%5El1497&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Technology&

David Progue

Microsoft's Vista is not stolen from Apple's OS. See this video, it might change your mind
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=d14603c1e23e6ce37920a8134a2e27b1405a4991&rf=bm

Digital Life: Picture Frames

An LCD, a battery and a small logic with a media card interface makes a digital picture frame, see one from philips

http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/catalog/product.jsp?language=en&country=US&catalogType=CONSUMER&productId=9FF2M4_37_US_CONSUMER

Patented Gadjet Jacket

This attractive jacket hides a network of compartments, designed to hold an MP3 player, cell phone, PDA, keys, water bottles and more. The patented routing system easily wire your headset through the hidden channels, so you can listen to your MP3 player without dangling wires. Priced at 140 USD

http://www.brookstone.com/store/product.asp?pid=541730&wid=2&cid=67&sid=193&search_type=subcategory&prodtemp=t2

A new cell phone

What else you need your phone to do? run Linux? Motorola A1200 does that. Full specs is here
Motorola link
http://sg.motorola.com/motoming/index.asp
CNet link
http://reviews.cnet.com/Motorola_A1200_Unlocked_black/4507-6452_7-31864387.html?tag=sub

Languages

This is to test the Arabic Language Support of this blog service
ما من شك أن التعبير باللغة الأم أبلغ، ولكن من سيقرأ لك ساعتئذ !؟
And, will have a bit of change on the style, this time brownish

JUST President's meeting

December 11th, 2006 held a frineldy meeting with the Dr. Wajeeh Owais, the president of JUST

• I would like to express my deep respct to the way the president raised the issues that concerned us all, and the way he handled the different views. After all, he is truly an extreme listener.
• I have no doubt that he meant what he said regarding the points; hopes and fears, expressed by the faculty members.
• I was thrilled by his courage in talking about closing and opening departments to meet the markets (both the national and regional level), his vision to the future, his way of telling us how to educate before we teach, and .....
• I was so happy that he convyed his guests opinion that they liked our graduates although we always (as a way to improve) try to present ourselves as being less than what we hope for.
• I also found we have much in common; especially when he said I used to go to my lectures with love and eagerness, when he spoke bad of the professors who still use the old yellowish books and notes in the classrooms .
• I hope all the future meetings will be just as good if not better.

James Kim, the gadget fan is gone

I liked James, the cnet senior editor; after 11 days of search, JAMES announced dead now, read about this on the cnet site or click the link below
http://news.com.com/2009-12-6141617.html?tag=cnetfd.ld1

Blurb for the Geek

Levi's to offer jeans made for the iPod, which is going to be housed in a special pocket that includes a docking cradle built into the jeans. The jeans also include a retractable headphone unit. My word on this: "Odd but Good", Check out here
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2006Jan/bma20060111034183.htm

Ottimo, a TV/PC combo

Quataris, a Hong Kong-based systems integrator, has introduced Ottimo – a Linux-based TV/PC combo. Ottimo has an innovative mechanical design that supports processors up to 2.8GHz, Pentium 4 processor, 256MB of RAM (upgradeable to 2GB), an 80GB hard drive, Intel GMA950 integrated graphics, and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive; comes with 15-, 17-, or 19-inch screens.
The new Ottimo features an interesting design with a combined kickstand and carrying handle. A large button on the front panel switches the device from TV to computer.
Quataris shipped a similar design in April 2006, the QuaNext PC. That device featured a more traditional LCD TV form factor.
According to Quataris, the Ottimo can be “customized on order”.
The Quataris Ottimo design appears to be ready to manufacture, with prices starting at 1,000 Euros.

U3 Technology . . . welcome

U3 technology gives you the ability to carry your files AND your software on a secure USB drive. You can have your wallpaper, preferences, favorites, profiles, and more - everything you need for a familiar computing experience on any PC, wherever you go.

http://syndicate.tentoe.com/SanDisk/11826/2273-0OW5UX-36-player-T1_MP/MPPlayer/__MPPlayer.html?r=1165419189437

CHIPS, now designed by powerful supecomputers

Supercomputers can do many things; nuclear simulation, weather forecast and other things. But they can now design potato chips.

I am not kidding; Pringles potato chips are designed using [supercomputing] capabilities, to assess their aerodynamic features so that on the manufacturing line they don't go flying off the line," said Dave Turek, vice president of deep computing at IBM. Check the news at CNN below

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/12/05/supercomputers/index.html

Aha, that's the phone we're looking for

Are you ready to pay that much for the phone that has a motor to assist you in opening it? why not pay more for one that would possibly talk on your behalf? come on ! what are we going to do then if we have all this do-it-all technology! I am a fan of technology, but I hate this. Check the phone specs here
http://reviews.cnet.com/Bang_Olufsen_Serene/4505-6454_7-32161243.html?tag=cnetfd.ld3

You could be tracked through your gadget

Some researchers say that your iPod could double as a tracking device. Affiliate KING reports (December 1). Watch it here
http://edition.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/tech/2006/12/01/wilkinson.ipod.privacy.king&wm=10

GPS in cell phones too

Pretty expected, the cell phone is always with you, and it is the best place to home a GPS, next step is surely to get the maps inside and probably a way for the security people to pinpoint wanted people whereever they are through a small program running on phone and sending location info. LG 8600 Pone has the GPS built-in and others will follow. Link to this is here
http://reviews.cnet.com/LG_VX8600/4505-6454_7-32154930.html

GPS and Cameras

A simpel idea with great excitement . . .

If you have a digital camera and a GPS receiver, you can link date and time of the photos with the latitude and longitude recording of the GPS by a software that will direct Google Earth to take you to the place the pictures were taken, and of course impress yourself and others. Check out Sony's ....

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=GPSCS1

At last, the solid state huge storage is in

In the 1994, I scratched a design of a slate computer (was in the united states at that time) that was A4 size and with no mechanical parts whatsoever (hard disk in particular). My professor at that time claimed that I was out of my mind because no could believe at that time the the EEPROM will turn into a huge fast storage that would compete with the hard disk. I was hoping that reference CDs like the Encarta would be burned on a credit card sized media.

Now, Samsung's notebooks with solid state drive is in (June 2006 in Korea). NAND-based Q30-SSD price is 3,700 US dollars, but that 32 GB of NAND reads 300% and writes 150% fatser than a normal hard drive(this means 53 MB/s and 28 MB/s respectively) while offering better protection against shock, 25-50% faster boots and sleep recovery times, longer battery life and reduced weight all in a completely silent, fanless package. This means an even smaller and thinner computers that one can hardly attached a keyboard to.

Wait only few years to see this 32 GB quadruple and the speed double

More on memory from Samsung, click http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/Memory/index.htm

Nanowire Computing Made Practical

Researchers have made efficient nanowire logic circuits that could be mass produced, slashing the size of transistors. Full story is below
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17534&ch=nanotech

4 MBit MRAM chips

Magnetic RAM has been talked about for years and is now a fact, data retention of 10 years minimum, unlimited write times, and quite fast 35 nsec access time, it is like a fast hard disk with random access method, check the link
http://www.electronicproducts.com/ShowPage.asp?FileName=fa-freescale.nov2006.html

Brain Chip

The brain chip (neurochip) is almost around the corner, its now in monkey's heads, for more infoe please clck the link
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20061025/sc_space/brainchipaltersthemind

EID Mubarak

EID Mubarak to all the Muslims around the world, may Allah grant you all the wishes

Smallest Hard Drive

New form Toshiba, 0.85-inch disk with 4 GB, but will sure get bigger soon, check the link below for details

http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Path=810000000007000000010000659800000001/810000000B00000000010000659C000026AE

Scientists Create Cloak of Partial Invisibility

A microwave cloaking device created using artificial materials, called "metamaterials," that manipulate light in bizarre and startling ways. The cloak is made of copper rings and wires patterned onto sheets of fiberglass composite. Credit: D.R. Smith, D. Schurig, Duke University

Read detail at the Yahoo below
http://news.yahoo.com:80/s/space/20061019/sc_space/scientistscreatecloakofpartialinvisibility

AutoPark Feature

Modern cars have AutoPark mode, see this movie clip
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/73123/auto_parking/

TTL Data Sheets are here

Full specs of TTL logic devices used in the microprocessor systems lab is here (PDF download is also available)

http://focus.ti.com/logic/docs/logicportal.tsp?templateId=5985&DCMP=TIHomeTracking&HQS=Other+OT+home_p_logic

ASIMO running

If you dont have time to read about ASIMO, here is where you can see him running making a human being totally asonished
http://world.honda.com/run/splash2/index.html

AISMO website is here

ASIMO seems to be the most advanced robot on earth, it can step out of the car, walk on his own, climb stairs and greet people when necessary !!!. For more information about ASIMO, check the link below
http://asimo.honda.com/index.asp?bhcp=1

Japan's Coolest Technology

At an annual trade show in Japan this week there are robots that ride bicycles, penguin-bots, handheld spoken-word language translators and all sorts of odd and inscrutable gizmoids that may not survive the fickle Japanese market long enough to make it to the States

Humanoids:

Toyota's playing trumpet



Honda's ASIMO walking

Robots could sense shapes with whiskers

Seals track prey with them, rats sense nearby objects with them and robots could soon be using whiskers in a similar way to see in the dark and avoid obstacles, researchers said on Wednesday.
They developed an array of robotic whiskers that move in any pattern over an object just as they do on living creatures.

Full story is here
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/10/05/robot.whiskers.reut/index.html

Robot Stuff Links . . .

Reference Model Architecture, suitable for many software-intensive, real-time control problem domains. RCS is open and scalable.
http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/projects/rcs/overview.html

A personal exploration rover is here
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~personalrover/PER/

NASA Robot web links are here
http://prime.jsc.nasa.gov/ROV/nlinks.html

JAMECO is a place where you get hardware for your project
http://www.robotstore.com/

Multi-Exploration document (IEEE)
http://www.eldos.net/multi-exploration.pdf

Graduation Project: Makeing a Robot

Amani AbuQdais, Haneen AlDeek, Lillian Abudalo and Ahmed Alhussein of JUST are in phase I of making a robot that will be used for exploration and some other functions. A link to Amani's blog is here
http://nippon86.blogspot.com

CpE591: Projet I

Under no circumstances any student will be enrolled with me in this course if he does not have approval by Thursday Oct. 5th, 2006

Welcome

I would like to welcome the stdents who attended today's lecture, and urge everyone to avoid missing Wenesday's lecture at the same time. The plan is to have a lng one to substitute for the lecture we missed last Monday

Fast & Shallow

To get an diea about a computing term or how a device works, you can consult one of the following sites

www.foldoc.org

www.wikipedia.com

www.howstuffworks.com/

VLSI Microprocessors

VLSI Microprocessors: A Guide to High-Performance MicroprocessorResources
http://www.microprocessor.sscc.ru/#Digital-21264

Intel Mueum

Intel Meseum, or Hall of Fame, list the processors of the 70's, 80's and 90's with specs and quick references
http://www.intel.com/museum/online/hist_micro/hof/tspecs.htm

Make a ROBOT

http://mindstorms.lego.com/

Example: A small MC68008 system

Here is an example of the single board computer you are going to build in the lab using Motorola MC68008 processor
http://wandel.ca/homepage/mc68008/index.html

Future Computers

In few years, you will possibly be carrying a device as small as a pen (maybe many of them actually), and yet perform compute-intensive taks, and with the ease of big screen and big keyboard computers, thanks to the light beams that emulate a keyboard on your desk and show data on walls
http://www.eldos.net/newtechnology.pdf

TOP 500 Computers

A list of the TOP 500 computers (or should I say supercomuters) is here and updated quite often
http://www.top500.org

Great Processors

Great processors from the past and the present, a brief description of processors from different manufacturers
http://www.unixhub.com/docs/misc/cpu.html

CPU Worlds

Information on modern microprocessors from pinout to architecture
http://www.cpu-world.com/

Cyber Technology Trends

Computer and technology trends through the rise of key technologies
http://www.duke.edu/~mccann/q-tech.htm#microprocessors

Intel Architectures

Recent history of Intel architecture, a brief description of the modern architectures
http://www3.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/44015.htm?page=4

microPC

world's smallest computer is Sony's microPC, a new form factor that runs windows XP and has full desktop functioality
Sony's microPC

First One

This is a blog test drive . . .