E-Cigarettes May Match The Patch In Helping Smokers Quit

E-Cigarettes May Match The Patch In Helping Smokers Quit

Electronic cigarettes are sparking lots of skepticism from public health types worried they may be a gateway to regular smoking.

But the cigarettes, which use water vapor to deliver nicotine into the lungs, may be as good as the patch when it comes to stop-smoking aids, a study finds.Nicotine means an alkaloid poison that occurs in tobacco.It is used as a medicine and as an insecticide.

After six months, 7.3 percent of e-smokers had dropped cigarettes, compared to 5.8 percent of people wearing the patch.The number of people who quit was low overall — just 38 of the 584 smokers given the e-cigarettes or the patch.

CHRISTOPHER BULLEN, an associate professor at the University of Auckland who led the research. He and his colleagues figured that the e-cigarettes would be much more successful, based on consumer surveys showing that people were less than pleased with the patch.

All that said, some e-cigarette users were able to reduce the number of cigarettes they smoked, even if they didn't quit.

                                                    Thanks for viewing!!!

 

EE doubles 4G speeds this week and offers UK's first shared data plans.

EE, currently the UK's only 4G mobile network, has announced that it will be doubling the speed of its 4G from 4 July. EE claims its 4G network will theoretically be able to reach top speeds of 150Mbps, although in reality average speeds are more likely to hover between 24-30 Mbps.

That's still an impressive effort however, putting the UK on a par with likes of the US, Japan and South Korea in terms of mobile network speeds. 

"Their new double speed 4G technology means that we have the biggest, fastest and best network in the UK, and now the equal fastest in the world," says EE CEO Olaf Swantee.

  Twelve cities -- Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield -- will benefit initially from the double-speed 4G.

EE will also be the first network to offer shared data plans in the UK, something that's been available on most US networks for a while now.   

Shared plans allows an individual to split data usage over several devices -- up to five altogether -- negating the need for separate contracts for a phone and a tablet.

Shared 4G plans will available from 17 July, along with the UK's first pay as you go 4G mobile broadband plans, which will allow customers access to super-speedy data without becoming tied into pricey monthly contracts.

Thanks for viewing!!!

Google reportedly working on videogame console.

Google is working on a videogame console based on its Android operating system.

Sources close to the (unconfirmed) project say that the console is at least partially being built as a reaction to expectations that Apple will announce a foray into gaming in the not-too-distant future.

The idea of Google investigating an own-brand console is also likely given the development of several gaming platforms being developed by third parties using the Android OS. Certainly, it would make business sense to release a product before the marketplace gets saturated.

Ouya is probably the most well known, given its high-profile Kickstarter campaign, but there are alternatives like Gamestick which is set to launch later in 2013. 

Both consoles plug in to the HDMI port of a television and use wireless controllers to allow users to play original and ported games.

 It was a Gamestick  which is set to launch later in 2013.

Thanks for viewing!!!

Facebook to develop official app for Windows 8.

 

                Software giant Microsoft has reportedly confirmed that social media website Facebook will develop its official application for its latest version of OS Windows 8.

               

               Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made the announcement at the company’s annual developers conference in San Francisco but did not provide any specific release date, CBS News reports.

 

                According to the report, a Facebook spokesperson said that the company will design the official app initially for the Windows 8 tablets likely with a fall release date.

                Ballmer said that Windows 8 will hit more than 100,000 apps within this month which will include Fipboard, and NFL Fantasy Football, the report added. 

               Lets wait and watch the apps as early as possible.

Thanks for viewing!!!

Microsoft develops 3D touch screen.

                   Software giant Microsoft has reportedly developed a 3D touch screen that shows images which can be felt and manipulated.

                   It includes an LCD flat panel screen with force sensors and a robotic arm that moves it back and forwards and by controlling how much resistance there is to a user's fingertip the device can simulate the shape and weight of objects shown on screen. Microsoft said that the device can have both medical and gaming uses.

                   Senior researcher Michael Pahud said that when the finger pushes on the touch screen and the senses merge with stereo vision, if convergence is done correctly and visuals are updated constantly so that they correspond to the finger's depth perception, it will be enough for the brain to accept the virtual world as real.

                   The report said that the company has created a demonstration using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of a brain to show how a medic could navigate through the different slices by pushing their finger against the display allowing them to draw notes and leave a ‘haptic detent’, or force-feedback marker - at certain layers to make it easier to find them again later on.

                   The ‘haptic detent’ can be extended to flag up potential problems is encountering an anomaly like a tumour, because one can change the response based on what they touch.

Thanks for Viewing!!!

 

Douglas Engelbart, father of the mouse, dies at 88

He was 88. Engelbart had suffered from poor health and died peacefully in his sleep, his daughter, Christina, told friends in an email. Engelbart arrived at his crowning moment relatively early in his career, on a winter afternoon in 1968, when he delivered an hour-long presentation containing so many far-reaching ideas.

Engelbart, a computer scientist at the Stanford Research Institute, showed off a cubic device with two rolling discs called an "X-Y position indicator for a display system."

He never received any royalties for the mouse, for instance, which SRI patented and later licensed to Apple Computer. He was intensely driven instead by a belief that computers could be used to augment human intellect.  SRI would later license the technology for $40,000 to Apple, which released the first commercial mouse with its Lisa computer in 1983.

By 2000, Engelbart had won prestigious accolades including the National Medal of Technology and the Turing Award. At the same time, he wrestled with his fade into obscurity even as technology entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates built fortunes off of the personal computer and became celebrity billionaires by realizing some of his early ideas.

In 2005, he told Tom Foremski, a technology journalist, that he felt the last two decades of his life had been a "failure" because he could not receive funding for his research or "engage anybody in a dialogue."

Respect the great scientist!!!

Thanks for viewing!!!

To Install Chrome Extensions in Opera and Vice Versa

How to Install Chrome Extensions in Opera and Opera Extensions in Chrome.

The latest versions of Chrome and Opera have a lot in common. It's now really easy to install Chrome extensions on Opera, and Opera extensions in Chrome. Here's how to do it.

STEPS:

1.Installing Chrome extensions in Opera 15 is easy: Just go to the Chrome Web Store and install whatever you want. 

2. The Web Store won't complain that you need a supported browser or anything-it'll just work.

    The extension you want will download and install, and it'll work normally.

3.To install Opera Next extensions in Chrome, you'll need to download the Opera extension file, rename it, and install it in Chrome:

• First, make sure Opera Next is installed.
• Then, go to the new opera add-ons page. You have to visit this specific page in Opera Next-this    is important because the page auto-detects which version you're using, and will only show you compatible extensions for that version of Opera. To get the extensions that'll also work in Chrome, you have to use Opera 15 to browse the store.
• When you find one, instead of clicking ""Add to Opera,"" right-click the button and select ""Save Linked Content As..."" and save the .nex extension file somewhere you can get to it.
• Grab the .nex file and rename it to end in .crx.
• Open Chrome, and drag and drop the .crx file onto Chrome. You'll be prompted to review the permissions before installing it, but that should be all.

That's all.....there is to do it.

Thanks for viewing!!!