How to Get Movies, Music, and More From Your Mobile Device to Your TV

There's not much your phone or tablet can't do these days, beyond maybe displaying their troves of mobile content on a screen larger than 10 inches. But that's what televisions are for. And, with one of these five methods, you'll be able to seamlessly throw music and movies from your little screen to your big screen.

AirPlay

For iOS users, AirPlay is the way to go. This proprietary firmware suite created by Apple allows users to to wirelessly stream audio, video, and image data from their device (for the purpose of this article, assume we're talking about phones, tablets, phablets, laptops, and anything else not tethered to the wall with a power cord) to the television using your home Wi-Fi network.
Originally dubbed AirTunes back in 2004 when it only streamed audio among Apple-built devices, the protocol has since evolved to support visual data (videos) as well as display mirroring capabilities (what shows up on your device shows up on the TV in real time), and has been licensed to a large number of third-party manufacturers like Bose, Bowers & Wilkins, Philips, and Pioneer so that their gadgets can receive AirPlay signals.
See, there are two types of Airplay devices: Senders, basically any iOS 4.2-plus device running iTunes (and Mountain Lion or later for display mirroring), which transmit the content, and Receivers, any AirPlay-enabled device that actually plays the transmitted signal—be it an AirPort Express, Apple TV, or any of the third-party devices mentioned earlier. The sending unit can also be used to remotely control the playback but requires you to boot up the separate Remote app.
Connecting your iOS device to your Apple TV is relatively simple:

• Connect both to your home network
• Double tap the home key to pull up Recently Used Apps
• Double swipe, left to right, to pull up the AirPlay menu and select the proper receiving device (say, your Apple TV)
• Press play

Check out Apple's AirPlay support page for complete details on which generation of devices are required for the system's various playback schemes.
The bottom line: It's an ideal solution if you've got an iOS-centric ecosystem, but it's not compatible with any other platform, and not compatible with all apps even within iOS (you need a third-party application like Airfoil to get Spotify from your desktop to your AirPlay device, for instance).

Chromecast

For folks that don't use iOS or don't own an Apple TV, Google's brand new Chromecast system is a solid option. This platform-agnostic dongle connects to your TV through an HDMI plug, and pulls down whatever you're watching on your device from the cloud, playing it on your TV. You can also mirror what's in your Chrome browser directly.
It's similarish to how AirPlay works, but likely relies on the Miracast standard rather than a proprietary code stack. It also doesn't require a separate remote app as you control the playback using whatever streaming service is delivering the content. Like AirPlay, Chromecast supports up to 1080p streaming video.
To use the Chromecast:

• Plug it into an HDMI port, plug the power cable either into a spare USB port on your TV (if it has one) or otherwise into a power outlet using the included adapter.
• Download the Chromecast app (iOS, Android, and Windows 8), and follow the onscreen instructions.
• The dongle will automatically detect your home network, all you have to do is input your network key and confirm that the two devices are tethered.
• Open up the streaming app you want to watch—Google Video, YouTube, and Netflix are available at the moment. Pandora's coming soon, or you can play content from within your Chrome browser.
• Load the video or track you want and tap the onscreen Chromecast icon. A dialog box will pop up and ask which TV you want it sent to.

To use this device, you'll need a mobile running Android 2.3-plus, iOS 6-plus, Windows 7 or 8, Mac OS 10.7-plus, or Chrome OS.
Chromecast currently is burdened with a relatively limited feature set, and requires a hearty Wi-Fi network to be effective. Those concerns are more than balanced out by the extremely reasonable $35 price.

DLNA

DLNA is a broad standard for sharing media over a network. Unlike Chromecast and AirPlay which only do A/V feeds, DLNA can push audio, visual, and data around easily using a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection. So not only can you push pictures and music from your phone to your TV or stereo, you can also send a file from your laptop to your home's network printer without plugging in.
This system is built on the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) architecture. UPnP determines what kind of device it is—either a server, where the media is coming from; renderer, where the media is displayed; or controller, which dictates playback—and DLNA specifies the file types and playback options that those devices can utilize.
To work, the DLNA system needs two components: a server and a client. The client can be any DLNA enabled device. There are over 18,000 such DLNA-certified gadgets on the market today—everything from stereos, Blu-ray players and TVs like LG's flagship 8600 series to refrigerators and digital picture frames. DLNA servers, on the other hand, are slightly less ubiquitous. Windows 7 devices running Media Player 11, for example, can natively act as a DLNA server. Apple products, however, lack all DLNA capabilities on account of the company's AirPlay system, which does largely the same thing but locks customers into the Apple ecosystem.

MHL

Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) is what AirPlay and Chromecast would be without the wireless connectivity. This standard pushes AV data from a mobile device to an HDTV or audio receiver using a physical cable—typically with microSD to HDMI connectors. Like its wireless brethren, MHL supports up to 1080p video as well as eight-channel (7.1 surround) audio.
There are a number of MHL-enabled devices—AV receivers, TVs, component players, and whathaveyou—on the market. The Roku Streaming stick is a popular MHL device. And for legacy products that don't support MHL, you can also use an MHL-HDMI adapter. Unlike the Chromecast, which needs a separate USB connection to draw power, devices using MHL are powered from the TV through the one cord. What's more, the MHL standard allows users to control the attached device using the TV's existing remote

Miracast

Miracast is a relatively new player to the media sharing game. It was developed in 2010 as an open source, wireless screencast standard alternative to AirPlay created by the Wi-Fi Alliance. The Galaxy SIII and LG Optimus G are two examples of the many Miracast devices on the market.
Being P2P, Miracast doesn't necessarily require a central router or access point in order to work. Instead, it can use a Wi-Fi Direct connection (itself the product of an earlier attempt by Wi-Fi Alliance member Intel at screen sharing called Wi-Di, or Wireless Display) to create an ad hoc network similar to what Bluetooth does. As we've explained before, Miracast is "effectively a wireless HDMI cable, copying everything from one screen to another using the H.264 codec and its own digital rights management(DRM) layer emulating the HDMI system."
Miracast allows users to mirror up to 1080p video and 6-channel (5.1 surround) audio between any two devices, regardless of brand, no wires required. Both devices do have to be Miracast certified, however, but just as with DLNA, there are adapters available for legacy gadgets.
Since Apple already has AirPlay, Miracast is found primarily on Android platforms 4.0-plus and is expected to be a native ability of both Windows 8.1 and Blackberry 10.2 when they drop later this year.

Engineers launched Syncom satellite and a revolution in 1963

LOS ANGELES — In the fall of 1957, the Soviet Union's newly launched Sputnik satellite would regularly streak across the Los Angeles sky, a bright dot in the black night.
All it could do was broadcast beeps back to Earth, but the technical achievement by the communists had stunned America. Perhaps nobody was more taken aback than a group of engineers and scientists at the defense electronics laboratories of Hughes Aircraft in Culver City, Calif.
They would trudge up a fire escape to the roof and watch the satellite with a mix of astonishment, excitement, envy and fear. Among them was Harold Rosen, a young doctorate engineer from Caltech, who while he watched Sputnik was hatching an audacious plan to eclipse the Russians.
What he imagined by 1959 was a revolution in communications: an extremely lightweight, solar-powered telephone switching station in orbit 22,000 miles above Earth. In those days, an international telephone connection required making a reservation because the existing system — copper cables and radio signals — carried few calls. Many countries could not be called at all. A satellite could change all of that.
Rosen recruited two other engineers, Thomas Hudspeth and Don Williams, and began designing the electronics and the propulsion and power system needed for a communications satellite. Not only was the task technically tough, but they also were fighting many of the nation's top experts who did not believe their idea would work. Even their bosses — at a company founded by the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes — were not sure their project was worth a modest investment.
"I considered it me against the world," Rosen said about the initial lack of government and industry support.
Inside their labs on Centinela Avenue, the men pushed the technology ahead at blinding speed and found key allies in government who were willing to bet on a trio of unknown engineers.
On July 26, 1963 — exactly 50 years ago — they launched a 78-pound satellite called Syncom that could receive signals from Earth and then transmit them back around the globe.
Of all the technological breakthroughs made in Los Angeles during the Cold War — the laser, the first supersonic jet fighter, the Apollo moon ship, stealth aircraft, the space shuttle, the intercontinental ballistic missile system and much else — the creation of a communications satellite has had the largest and most enduring cultural, social and economic impact.
The little Syncom has morphed into communications satellites the size of school buses, weighing more than 13,000 pounds, operating with solar wings the length of a basketball court and running electronics with more power than a typical house wired to the electrical grid.
Electronic credit card authorizations, international television signals, email and social media — all the things that define our modern connected culture — were not even imagined by the public in the 1950s and would not exist today in many areas of the world without communications satellites.
About 500 such satellites are orbiting Earth, allowing cruise ships to communicate with ports, music to be beamed down to radios and television shows to arrive in living rooms, all because of a technology nearly as unknown by the public as Rosen himself.

India, China and Germany are moving faster than US: Obama

Washington: US President Barack Obama has stressed on the need for economic reforms in US saying that not doing so would mean waving the white flag to the rest of the world especially to countries like India, Germany and China.
“If we don’t make these investments and these reforms, then we might be waving the white flag to the rest of the world, because they’re moving forward. They’re not slowing down,” Obama said yesterday. He added that countries like China, Germany and India are going forward and US can’t just sit by. Doing nothing doesn’t help the middle class.
Offering a framework to help break through some of the political logjam in Washington and try to get Congress to move on some of the proven ideas, Obama said the country needs to focus on creating good jobs, with good wages, in durable industries and areas that will fuel the future growth.
“For the first time since the 1990s, number of manufacturing jobs in America hasn’t gone down, it’s actually gone up. I want new tax credits so communities hit hardest by plant closures can attract new investment,” he said.
Obama urged the Congress to create 45 manufacturing innovation institutes that connect businesses, universities and federal agencies to help communities left behind by global competition to become centres of high-tech jobs.
“I want it to made here in the United States of America. “I don’t want that happening overseas,” he added. Noting that there is about $2 trillion of deferred maintenance in the country, Obama said, “Congress should pass what I’ve called my “Fix-It-First” plan to put people to work immediately on our most urgent repairs, like the 100,000 bridges that are old enough to qualify for Medicare.”
Obama also called for creating jobs in energy – in wind, solar and natural gas. “Those new energy sources are reducing energy costs and dangerous carbon pollution along with our dependence on foreign oil. So now is the time to double down on renewable energy, bio fuels and electric vehicles, and to put money into the research that will shift our cars and trucks off oil for good,” he said.
Emphasising for more exports Obama said, “We’ve got to export more. We want to send American goods all around the world. A year ago, I signed a new trade agreement with Korea, because they were selling a lot of Hyundais here, but we weren’t selling a lot of GM cars over there.
Since we signed that deal, our big three automakers are selling 18 per cent more cars in Korea than earlier.”

Andhra Pradesh – end of an era

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh, in the shape it existed for nearly 57 years, will now be cast into history with the centre Tuesday deciding to carve out Telangana state.
The state came into being on Nov 1, 1956, with the merger of Hyderabad State, as Telangana was then known, with Andhra State, which was the first Indian state to be formed on linguistic basis.
Telangana, a part of erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad, is inhabited by Telugu-speaking people.
Andhra State with Kurnool as the capital was earlier carved out from then Madras State in 1953. This followed the sacrifice of Potti Sriramulu, who died in 1952 after 56-day hunger strike in Madras demanding a separate state for Telugu people.
Hyderabad was selected as the capital of the united state of Telugu-speaking people. Despite having a common language, Andhra and Telangana have vast cultural and socio-economic differences.
Within Andhra state, the coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions have cultural dissimilarities.
With its arid land and disadvantages in irrigation, Telangana remained backward. The drought-prone Rayalaseema region, notorious for the killings among factions for several decades, is also backward.
The coastal Andhra, with its fertile land and abundant water resources, is prosperous of all three regions. The industrialization in Visakhapatnam and surrounding areas, development of several ports and the gas reserves in Krishna-Godavari basin in recent years have all made the region economically more developed.
All the three regions were part of unified kingdom under Qutub Shahi rulers during 16th and 17th centuries. The Nizams, the rulers of Hyderabad State, ceded Rayalaseema and Circar districts (as the coastal Andhra was then known) to the British. They became part of Madras Presidency during British rule and Madras State after India’s Independence.
Spread over 275,000 square km, the present Andhra Pradesh ranks fourth among Indian states in terms of geographical area. It is the fifth most populous state with a population of 84.6 million as per 2011 Census data.
The population of Telangana, comprising 10 districts, is 35.28 million. It includes seven million population of Hyderabad, which emerged as a major IT hub during the past two decades. The region has geographical area of 1.14 lakh sq km.
Andhra, which has nearly 1,000 km long coastline, comprises nine districts and has 34.19 million population. Rayalaseema, which comprises four districts bordering Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has a population of 15.13 million.
A new chapter will open in the history of Andhra Pradesh with Andhra and Rayalaseema retaining the name.
With some organizations demanding separate statehood to Rayalaseema and threatening to launch a movement, political observers say Andhra Pradesh may witness another period of violence and bloodbath.

World energy use to jump 56 percent by 2040, study says

LOS ANGELES — Global energy consumption is expected to rise 56 percent by 2040 with a changing composition of energy sources, with China and India driving the rate increase far more than the rest of the world.
According to a new report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, fossil fuels are expected to keep making up much of the energy supply, with petroleum and other liquid fuels remaining the largest source worldwide. Their share of that growing energy consumption is expected to shrink somewhat in coming decades, though, from 34 percent across all fuel sources in 2010 to 28 percent in 2040, researchers said.
Liquid fuel consumption is expected to more than double in China and India over the course of the 30 years. "Rising prosperity in China and India is a major factor in the outlook for global energy demand," said Adam Sieminski of the Energy Information Administration. "These two countries combined account for half the world's total increase in energy use through 2040."
In China, liquid fuel consumption is expected to rise from 9 million barrels a day to 20 million, and in India, it is to ramp up from 3 million barrels a day to 8 million. Together, they'll surpass consumption in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Chile combined. Analysts project that daily production of liquid fuels will rise by 28.3 million barrels from 2010 to 2040 to accommodate that demand.
Coal is expected to hold its status as the world's second-largest energy source. In 2010, China consumed 47 percent of total world levels, the U.S. 14 percent and India 9 percent. The share of those three nations combined will increase 5 percentage points to 75 percent by 2040, according to the study. Total world coal consumption is expected to rise from 147.4 quadrillion Btu in 2010 to 219.5 quadrillion Btu in 2040 — about 27 percent of the projected total energy consumption. (One Btu, or British thermal unit, is the amount of energy needed to heat 1 pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit.)
J.R. DeShazo, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the report's numbers were inflated. "This projected growth and continued reliance on coal is probably an overestimate," he said. With environmental pollution already a top concern particularly in China's and India's urban centers, DeShazo said he suspected these countries would develop self-correcting mechanisms based on feedback from citizens.
"I think you're going to see air quality become a bigger priority," he said. "Consumption is still going to grow, but in terms of composition, there's going to be an even greater push for cleaner resources."
The Energy Information Administration's study also projects renewables and nuclear power will be the two fastest-growing energy sources. Renewables' share of total worldwide energy use is expected to rise from 11 percent in 2010 to 15 percent in 2040, while nuclear will rise 2 percentage points to reach 7 percent in 2040. DeShazo said that trend, however small the percentages in the larger fuel portfolio, was unsurprising because of policy priorities.
"Historically, coal has been both the cheapest and the dirtiest fuel," DeShazo said. "That's expected to continue to be true over the next 20 to 30 years. . . . We recognize that, and in place are a set of policies to incentivize cleaner fuel development. That's why they're the fastest — they're the cleanest."

Insight: The poison pill in India's search for cheap food

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI — Nearly a decade ago, the Indian government ruled out a ban on the production and use of monocrotophos, the highly toxic pesticide that killed 23 children this month in a village school providing free lunches under a government-sponsored program.
Despite being labeled highly hazardous by the World Health Organization (WHO), a panel of government experts was persuaded by manufacturers that monocrotophos was cheaper than alternatives and more effective in controlling pests that decimate crop output.
India, which has more hungry mouths to feed than any other country in the world, continues to use monocrotophos and other highly toxic pesticides that rich and poor nations alike, including China, are banning on health grounds.
Although the government argues the benefits of strong pesticides outweigh the hazards if properly managed, the school food poisoning tragedy underlined criticism such controls are virtually ignored on the ground.
According to the minutes, the 2004 meeting conducted by the Central Insecticides Board and Registration Committee, the Indian government body that regulates pesticide use, concluded that: "The data submitted by the industry satisfies the concerns raised...Therefore, there is no need to recommend the ban of this product."
The minutes of the meeting can be read here: http://cibrc.nic.in/248rc.doc
Government scientists continue to defend the pesticide, and insist the decision to not ban it remains good.
Just weeks before the school tragedy in Bihar state, the Indian government advised farmers via text message to use monocrotophos to kill borer pests in mandarin fruits and rice, records on the agricultural meteorology division's web site show.
"It is cost effective and it is known for its efficacy ... some even call it a benevolent pesticide," said T. P. Rajendran, assistant director general for plant protection at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
"I can say that pesticides currently permitted in the country are safe provided they are used as per specifications and guidelines. We have exhaustive and detailed guidelines. They need to be followed."
A senior official directly involved in the decision-making on pesticide use said: "You have got to understand that all pesticides are toxic but they are essential for maintaining or increasing agricultural production.
"Can we afford to lose 15-25 percent of output? One cannot afford to lose such a large percentage of agricultural produce. The answer lies in judicious use."
The official declined to be identified.
The WHO has cited a 2007 study that about 76,000 people die each year in India from pesticide poisoning. Many of the deaths are suicides made easy by the wide availability of toxic pesticides.

15 PAGES OF REGULATIONS

In the school tragedy, police suspect the children's lunch was cooked in oil that was stored in a used container of monocrotophos.
The Indian government has issued 15 pages of regulations that need to be followed when handling pesticides - including wearing protective clothing and using a respirator when spraying. Pesticide containers should be broken when empty and not left outside in order to prevent them being re-used.
But in a nation where a quarter of the 1.2 billion population is illiterate and vast numbers live in far-flung rural districts, implementation is almost impossible. For instance, monocrotophos is banned for use on vegetable crops, but there is no way to ensure the rule is followed.
According to the WHO, swallowing 1,200 milligrams - less than a teaspoon - of monocrotophos can be fatal to humans. In 2009, it called for India to ban the product because of its extreme toxicity.
"It is imperative to consider banning the use of monocrotophos," it said in a 60-page report. "The perception that monocrotophos is cheap and necessary, have prevented the product from being taken off the market" in India.
WHO officials say the school tragedy reinforces the dangers of the pesticide.
"We would advocate that countries restrict, ban, or phase out...those chemicals for which they can't ensure that all aspects of use are safe," said Lesley Onyon, WHO's South-East Asia regional adviser for chemical safety. "If they can't ensure safety, it's our policy to say that these chemical or pesticides shouldn't be used."
Indian government officials refuse to address the WHO's findings directly.
"We have to take decisions depending on our need, our priorities, and our requirements. No one knows these things better than us," said the government source.

NATIONAL PRIORITY

For India, providing more food to its people is a national priority. According to the World Bank, nearly 400 million people in the country live on less than $1.25 per day.
Nearly half its children under five are malnourished.
The Bihar school where the children died was participating in the government's midday meal program, aimed at giving 120 million school pupils a free lunch - both providing nutrition and encouraging education. India is also close to implementing an ambitious plan to provide cheap food to 800 million people.
Central to these efforts will be higher crop yields and managing costs.
According to government officials and manufacturers, monocrotophos is cheap and is also a broad spectrum pesticide that can only be replaced by four or five crop- or pest-specific pesticides. Even similar pesticides are much more expensive.
A 500 ml monocrotophos bottle sold by Godrej Agrovet, a subsidiary of Godrej Industries, is priced at 225 rupees ($3.75), while an alternative, Imidacloprid, in a bottle of 500 ml produced by Bayer, costs 1,271 rupees.
Monocrotophos is banned by many countries, including the United States, the European Union nations, China, and, among India's neighbors, Pakistan. Sri Lanka only allows monocrotophos use for coconut cultivation.
One of the two companies that argued against the ban on monocrotophos in 2004 halted production five years later under pressure from the public in its home country, Denmark.
Cheminova, a unit of Auriga Industries, said it stopped producing monocrotophos in India in 2009 and converted its plant to produce a low-toxic fungicide.
"We decided to phase out monocrotophos because with many alternative products, we could not see any reason to have such a toxic product in a country like India," Lars-Erik Pedersen, vice-president of Auriga Industries, told Reuters in Copenhagen.
"It was a big decision because it is one of the best-selling products in India," he added.
The other manufacturer that made a presentation at the 2004 meeting was United Phosphorus, currently the biggest producer of the pesticide in the country.
Managing Director Rajju D. Shroff told Reuters that monocrotophos was "very harmless," and hinted calls for a ban were aimed at helping multinationals sell more costly alternatives.
"Companies want to sell new pesticides. If they have monocrotophos, farmers will not change to new, expensive ones," said Shroff, who attended the meeting as the head of the Crop Care Federation of India, a position he still holds.

NOT MOST TOXIC

Historically, India appears reluctant to ban pesticides. Monocrotophos isn't the most toxic pesticide used in the country, according to the WHO's classifications. Phorate, methyl parathion, bromadiolone and phosphamidon, all classified as extremely hazardous, are likewise registered for use.
And endosulfan - a substance so nasty the United Nations wants it eliminated worldwide - was banned only by a Supreme Court order in 2011. The decision came a few months after the chief minister of the southern state of Kerala, the top elected official, went on a day-long hunger fast to demand the ban.
According to media reports, over 1,000 people were killed and hundreds born deformed because of indiscriminate aerial spraying of endosulfan in Kasargod, a Kerala district.
Both production of monocrotophos and demand in India was higher in 2009/10 than in 2005/06, according to latest available government data. It accounted for about 4 percent of total pesticide use in 2009/10 and 7 percent of production.
Its share in total sales is about 2-3 percent now, according to the Pesticides Manufacturers & Formulators Association, which says it represents the industry on a national basis with over 250 members.
The Centre for Science and Environment, a leading environmental NGO in India, says the state of pesticide control in the country is deplorable and companies have great influence.
"The story on the ground is abysmal, it's very disappointing," said Amit Khurana, program manager in the CSE's food safety and toxins unit.
"People still do not know how much of pesticide is to be used, which pesticide is to be used for which crop. The biggest influence for a farmer is the sales representative of the company ... so there's this sense of gross mismanagement at that level."
The government has tried to introduce legislation for "more effective regulation of import, manufacture, export, sale, transport, distribution and use of pesticides" but the bill has languished in parliament since 2008.
India is no stranger to the dangers of pesticides. Besides the thousands killed each year, the country suffered the world's worst industrial disaster when lethal methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant in the city of Bhopal in 1984, killing nearly 4,500 people.
But in the fields of rural India, pesticides like monocrotophos continue to be widely used.
"I have been using it for the last 10 years, I have a very good experience," said Gaiyabhu Patil, a 56-year-old farmer who has just finished spraying monocrotophos on his 15-acre cotton crop in the western state of Maharashtra. "It is cheap and effective."
Anil Dhole, a pesticide vendor in Koregaon, a district town southeast of Mumbai at the center of a sugarcane and cotton growing region, said few of his customers took health warnings seriously.
"Many farmers don't take the necessary precautions while applying the pesticide. We do inform them about its toxic nature, but they take it casually," he said "Farmers don't even bother to cover their noses."
($1 = 59.5650 Indian rupees)

Spain train driver to be questioned

Francisco Jose Garzon Amo suffered a head injury in the crash

The driver of a train that crashed near the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela on Wednesday killing 78 people is due to appear before a judge.
Francisco Jose Garzon Amo has been detained on suspicion of reckless homicide and the judge will decide whether to press formal charges.
Mr Garzon is suspected of driving too fast on a bend.
Reports say the train was travelling at more than double the speed limit at the time of the crash.
Mr Garzon, 52, was pictured being escorted away from the wreckage by police, blood pouring from a head injury. He left hospital on Saturday and was immediately taken to the central police station in Santiago.
He has so far refused to make a statement or answer questions.
Sunday's court hearing will be closed but the judge will decide whether to remand the driver as an official suspect, release him on bail, or free him without charge.
If the judge finds enough evidence for a criminal trial, Mr Garzon will be charged and a date set.
At least 130 people were taken to hospital after the accident and 30 remained in a critical condition on Saturday.
All eight carriages of the train - packed with more than 200 passengers - careered off the tracks into a concrete wall as they sped around the curve on the express route between Madrid and the port city of Ferrol on the Galician coast.
Leaking diesel burst into flames in some of the carriages.
The train's data recording "black box" is with the judge in charge of the investigation. Officials have so far not said how fast the train was going when it derailed.
Gonzalo Ferre, president of Spanish rail network administrator Adif, said the driver should have started slowing the train 4km (2.5 miles) before the spot where the accident happened.
The president of Spanish train operator Renfe, Julio Gomez Pomar, has said that the train had no technical problems.
He said the driver had 30 years' experience with the company and had been operating trains on the line for more than a year.
People from several nationalities were among the injured, including five US citizens and one Briton. One American was among the dead.
Some victims have had to be identified using DNA matches due to the extent of their injuries.
PM Mariano Rajoy, who hails from the city of the crash, declared three days of official mourning on Thursday.
The crash was one of the worst rail disasters in Spanish history.

Millions of phones 'at risk of hack'

A flaw with mobile phones' Sim card technology is putting millions of people at risk of being spied on and robbed, according to a leading security expert.
Karsten Nohl has said he has found a way to discover some Sims' digital keys by sending them a special text message.
He warned criminals could potentially use the technique to listen in on calls or steal cash.
Industry organisation - the GSMA - said it was looking into the findings.
"Karsten's early disclosure to the GSMA has given us an opportunity for preliminary analysis," said a spokeswoman for the association, which represents global network operators.
"We have been able to consider the implications and provide guidance to those network operators and Sim vendors that may be impacted.
"It would appear that a minority of Sims produced against older standards could be vulnerable."
Mr Nohl has posted preliminary details of the vulnerability on the website of his company, Berlin-based Security Research Labs.

Intercepted calls

Sim (subscriber identity module) cards effectively act as a security token, authenticating a user's identity with their network operator.
They also store a limited amount of data such as text messages, contacts' telephone numbers and details used for some applications - including a number of payment and banking services.
Mr Nohl said he had found a way to discover the authentication code by sending a device a text message masquerading as a communication from the user's mobile operator.
The message contained a bogus digital signature for the network.
He said most phones cut contact after recognising the signature as being a fake - but in about a quarter of cases, the handsets sent back an error message including an encrypted version of the Sim's authentication code.
The encryption is supposed to prevent the authentication code being discovered, but Mr Nohl said that in about half of these cases it was based on a 1970s coding system called Digital Encryption Standard (DES), which was once thought secure but could now be cracked "within two minutes on a standard computer".
Once the attacker had this information, Mr Nohl said, they could download malware to the Sim written in the Java programming language.
He said these could be used by the hacker to send texts from the device to premium rate numbers they had set up, to discover and listen in to the target's voicemail messages and to track their location.
In addition, he warned that combined with other techniques, it could act as a surveillance tool.
"Sim cards generate all the keys you use to encrypt your calls, your SMS and your internet traffic," Mr Nohl told the BBC.
"If someone can capture the encrypted data plus have access to your Sim card, they can decrypt it.
"Operators often argue that it's not possible to listen in on 3G or 4G calls - now with access to the Sim card, it very much is."
Mr Nohl said that his research suggested about an eighth of all Sim cards were vulnerable to the hack attack - representing between 500 million to 750 million devices.
Although Mr Nohl would not reveal at this time in which countries DES encryption remained most common, he did say that Africa-based users had particular cause for concern.
"Here in Europe we use a Sim card to make phone calls and texts, but many people in Africa also use them for mobile banking," he said.
"Someone can steal their entire bank account by copying their Sim card.
"That adds a certain urgency because you imagine fraudsters would be most interested in breaking into their Sim cards - especially when it can be done remotely."

Black Hat

Mr Nohl said he expected network operators would not take long to act on his study, and should be able to provide an over-the-air download to protect subscribers against the vulnerability.
The GSMA said that it had not yet seen the full details of his research, but planned to study it to pinpoint any issues that could be fixed.
It added that "there is no evidence to suggest that today's more secure Sims, which are used to support a range of advanced services, will be affected".
The UN's telecoms agency - the International Telecommunications Union - said that it would now contact regulators and other government agencies worldwide to ensure they were aware of the threat.
Mr Nohl said he planned
to reveal more information about the vulnerability at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas later this month.
However, he said he would not publish a survey showing which phone owners were most at risk until December to give operators an opportunity to address the problem.

Watch this for Google Glass insights!!!!

Amazing video,OK Google, accepted, U r awesome!!!!

Superman is coming back — this time with Batman

SAN DIEGO — Superman is coming back, and he'll have a caped co-star.
"Man of Steel" director Zack Snyder made a surprise appearance at Comic-Con on Saturday to announce he is making another Superman film and it will include Batman — the first time the two superheroes will be united on the big screen.
He declined to reveal many details, saying the script is just being written. He then invited an actor onstage to read a passage to hint at the story line.
"I am the man who beat you," read Harry Lennox, before an image of the Superman logo, backed by the Batman symbol, flashed on the screen.
Warner Bros. confirmed the first-ever pairing in a statement.
Snyder reimagined Superman in his June blockbuster "Man of Steel," starring Henry Cavill and Amy Adams. The film has grossed more than $630 million worldwide.
Cavill and Adams will appear in the sequel, Warner Bros. said.
Reaction to the news stunned Twitter and left fans at Comic-Con giddy.
"Personally, I love him," said Claudia Gomez, who was wearing a Batman T-shirt while her niece, Ana, wore a Superman shirt.
Gomez, who traveled to Comic-Con from Mexico City, said the pairing of both heroes left her optimistic about a new Superman film.
Benjamin Ha, who dressed as Superman to his wife's Wonder Woman, said bringing the two superheroes together will yield fireworks.
"They're both alpha males," he said.
Saturday's announcement about the film follows DC Entertainment's debut last month of the Greg Pak-written Batman/Superman comic, an ongoing monthly series illustrated by Jae Lee that was the top-selling title among comic books in June.
The book pairs the two characters together a time in their lives when they're both young and still adapting to being superheroes.
Superman and Batman have also been at odds in comic books, too. In Frank Miller's dark telling of The Dark Knight Returns, a four-issue mini-series from the 1980s, Batman came out of retirement while Superman became a tool of the federal government.
Production on the Superman sequel is set to begin next year. The film is expected to be released in the summer of 2015.

Ambassador ranked the world's best taxi

It may have lost out to the more modern competitors from Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Toyota and Honda but the good old Ambassador car, which once ruled the roost in India, has just been voted as the world's best taxi by global automotive programme Top Gear.

In a show, which is being aired on the BBC, Top Gear's executive director Richard Hammond organised a world taxi shootout in which Ambassador emerged a winner, beating competitors from all over the globe.

"The winner was India's virtually indestructible Hindustan Ambassador," UK-based motor museum Beaulieu, where the 'World of Top Gear' featuring vehicles from some of the most ambitious challenges are also showcased, said in a statement.

This particular example proved just how enduring the Ambassador really is when it saw off rivals from Britain, America, Germany, South Africa, Mexico and Russia to be named the world's best taxi, it added.

The Hindustan Ambassador started life in Britain as the Morris Oxford but, with a quick name change, it went on to become one of India's most enduring vehicles.

"It's (Ambassador) so tough that, although it now lives in World of Top Gear, with a quick wash and brush up, it could be back in service tomorrow - probably," the statement said.

In 1948, CK Birla Group firm Hindustan Motors Ltd began the production of the Ambassador at Uttarpara in Hooghly district, West Bengal.

Till the arrival of the Maruti in the early 80s, the Ambassador was the status symbol in India. Gradually it lost out to various global competitors when it came to personal usage but continued to be the favourite vehicle for government officials and also in the taxi segment.

In the recent past, its sales in both the segments have shown a decline and in 2012-13, the Ambassador sold a total of just 3,390 units. This fiscal, it has sold only 709 units in the April-June period.

Woahh!!! Street performers in Spain

 Woah!!!

The Eiffel tower illuminated during the Bastille Day fireworks display in Paris

Motorola’s Not-So-Secret Secret Smartphone

Motorola Mobility’s efforts to keep secret the details of its first flagship smartphone since the company was bought by Google have run up against reality.
Rumors about Motorola’s smartphone, usually called Moto X, have leaked all over the Web, from small tech blogs to mainstream news outlets. And Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google, has even been out in public using what appeared to be the new device.
Motorola won’t confirm details about the new device. But all the early exposure, some of it the company’s own doing, makes it seem like this pseudo-secrecy could just be a way to prime the hype pump.
Last month, Motorola’s chief executive, Dennis Woodside, made it known during an onstage interview that Moto X devices would be made in the United States. He coyly admitted that the phone was in his pocket, but shook his head when asked to show it off.
No matter: Mr. Schmidt apparently took care of the visual while at a business conference packed with reporters, holding a new Motorola phone to his ear. “I’m not allowed to comment on the nature of this phone,” Mr. Schmidt said, according to Rachel C. Abrams of Variety.
Mr. Schmidt didn’t need to say much. A day before Independence Day, Motorola advertised the phone in newspapers. The ad hinted that the device would be customizable — “The first smartphone that you can design yourself.” Joanna Stern of ABCNews was quick to clarify that customers would be able to choose the colors of the phone case and add an engraving.
But what can the phone do exactly? Google executives have offered some clues that future Motorola phones would include artificial intelligence and sensors that recognize people’s voices in a room. Spoiling the surprise, the tech blog Ausdroid spotted a video on the Web from Rogers Wireless, a Canadian carrier, showing the Moto X.
The video, which Rogers asked Ausdroid to take down because of copyright infringement, suggested several details, like that the phone constantly listens for a user’s commands and reacts to them. The initiating command is “O.K., Google Now,” similar to the “O.K., Glass” command to control Google Glass. The video also said that the phone would be released in August.
On Friday afternoon, Motorola sent invitations to the press for an event to be held Aug. 1 in New York, where Moto X will most likely get its official introduction.

This Might Work: Locket Wants to Pay You to Watch Advertising

NEW YORK - Nobody really likes to see advertising on their smartphones. It's an annoyance we try to ignore. An annoyance we're forced to endure.
But, what if someone offers to pay you to consider looking at smartphone ads, what then? That's what the new Locket mobile advertising app is all about.
Locket is an application made for smartphones running on Google's Android operating system. It promises to pay you a penny for each time you look at your phone's lock screen You don't actually have to look at, read or watch the ad if you don't want to. You get paid for being offered the chance to be enticed.
The app's developers explain the idea in simple terms: "Swipe In! Cash Out!" You turn on your phone and see a full-screen ads on your lock screen If you swipe left you'll see more of the advertisement. If you swipe right you'll be taken directly to your phone's home screen as you normally would. Either way you get paid.
There are limits though. Locket will pay you up to three pennies per hour to use the software. It comes out to a maximum of 72 cents per day (if you stay awake to use your phone 24 hours per day) for possible maximum of $262.80 per year. For just for clearing your start screen. You can ask for your payout in cash, a gift card or direct the funds to be used as a charitable donation.
Company CEO and co-founder Yunha Kim explains "We glance at our phones, on average, 150 times per day which is why we believe the smartphone lock screen is the most valuable unused real estate in advertising."
Locket was founded back in March and has received $500,000 in funding by Green Oaks VC (only three days after the idea was pitched) and a small number of individuals termed "rock stars" who reportedly come from the entertainment and marketing backgrounds.
At this point Locket's employees work out of the same midtown Manhattan apartment where the founding members live. The scene has been described as looking somewhat like what was immortalized in the film "The Social Network" but without Hollywood-imagined perks.
In the official press release, the company says it has already partnered with a number of Fortune 500 companies to advertise on the beta Locket platform. Currently, a handful of undisclosed advertisers have signed on for early trials. More are expected within a month.
But the company isn't desperate. It has rejected potential ads from a number of unnamed companies. Especially those provided by some online advertising networks. Locket co-founder Christopher Crawford told me early software testers didn't like receiving full-screen ads promoting certain dating or "win-a-tablet" Websites.
The Locket app is currently available for downloading in the Google Play store. Next up will be a version for Apple iOS devices. Crawford added the company's goal is to "hit all smartphones", including Microsoft Windows phones, as quickly as possible.

Five Free Online Tools to Learn Another Language

Rosetta Stone costs $500? Thank you, no. There are too many free language-learning resources on the Internet to warrant that sort of expense. Here are just a few that will cost you nothing but time and effort.

LiveMocha

Languages: 37 - Arabic to Urdu
With millions of users in 190 countries, LiveMocha is one of the larger free language learning resources on the Internet. This site follows a free-to-play model wherein you can either pay for LiveMocha's site currency ("coins") with real money or you can earn them by reviewing the practice work of other users who are learning your native language. It's like a linguistic swap meet.
The basic (read: free) lesson plan is structured around the Whole-Part-Whole learning model. The student first watches a demonstration of the language and grammar of the lesson in a conversation between native speakers. Instructors then break down that conversation into its constituent grammatical parts, and explain how it's put together, before having the students practice what they've learned via a series of interactive activities. [LiveMocha]

FSI Language Courses

Languages: 45
The Foreign Service Institute is the branch of the State Department in charge of training would-be diplomats and foreign service officers in more than 70 languages. 45 of them are available completely free from the public domain and the non-profit fsi-language-courses.org. The site offers a wide choice of languages, from the standard French, German, Italian to more localized tongues such as Bulgarian, Romanian, and Moré. Most of its language courses include both the audio portions and the student guide texts, though a few will only contain one or the other. [Foreign Service Office]

Duolingo

Languages: Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian
Taking a semester of foreign language at the local community college may seem a good idea, until you have to go through the matriculation process and all the hoops that entails. You've got to pay for the class, commute to the college, get to your classroom, and then spend 60 minutes a day, three days a week in trying to force your eyes to stay open. For many of us, once through the college experience was plenty, thank you.
Duolingo, on the other hand, confers many of the same benefits of a college-level language course without all the associated hassles. It uses a crowdsourced approach to teaching, as the intro video above explains, to both help you learn a new language and universally translate the Internet. Essentially, you translate various online texts—the sentence difficulty dependent on your ability level—and the system provides feedback and instruction on words you had difficulty with. And since you're providing translation services in the process, the entire learning experience is free. Duolingo is available on the web, as well as iOS and Android platforms. [Duolingo]

Internet Polyglot

Languages: 17 - Amharic to Ukrainian
While they won't teach you proper grammar and syntax, flashcards are a potent tool in memorizing vocabulary. But rather than break out the note cards and pens, head over to Internet Polyglot instead. This website features digital flashcards for more than a dozen languages in a gamified system designed to make rote memorization more enjoyable. You can also create and share custom lessons based on native and studied languages, and subject matter. IP isn't an inclusive language program as the others are but is a valuable component with which to augment them. [Internet Polyglot]

Lang-8

Languages: 91
Speaking a language is all well and good but if you want to really master it—especially non-romantic languages like Korean or Japanese—you'll need to learn how to read and write the language as well. The Lang-8 system does just that. You keep a running journal in the language you're learning—the service is available in 90-plus languages including numerous smaller dialects like Khmer, Breton, and Afrikaans. which is periodically reviewed and corrected by a native speaker. In order to keep the service free, you also act as editor for someone learning your native language. Everybody works, everybody learns, everybody wins.
And if none of the sites above strike your fancy or don't offer the language that you're looking for, don't worry. The Internet is chock full of language learning resources—Open Culture's language page, for example. With just a bit of time, effort, and dedication on your part, you'll be an omniglot in no time. [Lang-8]

Newly hatched eggs start interacting :))

Will Apple, Google or Microsoft make one OS to rule them all?

With Microsoft Corp.'s reorganization last week, a curious thing has now happened at the three companies that are the biggest players in the world of operating systems.
In the last year, Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft have all moved to put one person in charge of both their mobile and desktop operating systems.
Coincidence? Perhaps. But Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners, who mentioned the trend in a recent conversation, says the shift seems to be pointing each company toward convergence some time, even if that point remains far down the road.
"Do these companies want both of those operating systems?" Gillis said. "Probably not."
Over time, Gillis said, as mobile hardware becomes more robust, these companies can build more features into their mobile OS. At the same time, users of desktops and laptops are growing to expect some of the mobile features on those platforms.
"In the first round of phones, you need a lighter operating system," Gillis said. "But now, we want convergence."
Apple took the first step in this reorg trend late last year when it appointed Craig Federighi to be senior vice president of software engineering. That put him in charge of iOS and Mac OS.
Although still separate, the two OS platforms have been inching toward each other over time. Apple, for instance, created an App Store of the Mac OS. And more recently, with the coming debut of iOS 7, desktop users will be able to use features such as the iBookstore that were previously available only on the iPhone and iPad.
Google took the next step in this direction in March, when it named Sundar Pichai, who had been in charge of the Chrome OS, to be senior vice president of Android, Chrome & Apps. The immediate reaction from the blogosphere was that this was a clear signal that Android and Chrome would be merged. TechCrunch wrote that it "signals the clear unification of Android, Chrome & Apps."
But Pichai later said that Chrome and Android would remain separate.
"I don't think my views have changed much. Android and Chrome are both large, open platforms, growing very fast," Pichai told Wired Magazine in May. "I think that they will play a strong role, not merely exist. I see this as part of friendly innovation and choice for both users and developers."
Microsoft completed the trifecta this month with its big reorganization, which made Terry Myerson executive vice president of the Operating Systems group.
Although Microsoft was the last of the three to make this move, it had been the most aggressive in terms of talking about creating one OS for all platforms.
Windows 8 was supposed to be the beginning of that merging of desktop and mobile. And indeed, the launch of Windows 8 has pushed a number of partners to move toward introducing laptops and desktops with touch screens this year.
But longtime users seem to have said it's too far, too fast.
And so Microsoft is backing down a bit, promising that Windows 8.1 will enable users to boot directly to the traditional desktop. The company hopes that will allow customers to gradually evolve toward the mobile, touch-screen world.
That, in fact, seems to be the pace Google, Apple and Microsoft are taking toward merging their desktop and mobile OS experiences. It will be evolution, not revolution.
That said, the companies have all made clear statements that they want folks in their respective OS groups to be working much more closely together. And in a rare bit of agreement, all three companies have basically come to the same conclusion at about the same time.

Physicists unveil results helping explain universe

GENEVA — Two scientific teams have for the first time precisely recorded an extremely rare event in physics that adds certainty to how we think the universe began, leaders at the world's top particle physics lab said Friday.
Two of the teams at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, say they measured a particle called "Bs" decaying into a pair of muons, a fundamental particle.
Pierluigi Campana, who leads one of the two teams involved in the research, called the results an important development that helps confirm the so-called standard model of particle physics.
Campana said the standard model is "coming through with flying colors," though it describes only 5 percent of the universe.
The results are being formally unveiled at a major physics conference in Stockholm later Friday.
Only a few Bs particles per billion decay into pairs of muons, the new research shows, and the experimental results are in line with what was predicted under the standard model.
Researchers have been looking for this particular rare decay for long time. It was observed as part of the reams of data coming from CERN's $10 billion Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest atom smasher, on the Swiss-French border near Geneva.
"This is a process that particle physicists have been trying to find for 25 years," said Joe Incandela, leader of the second team involved in the research.
He called it a "rare process involving a particle with a mass that is roughly 1,000 times smaller than the masses of the heaviest particles we are searching for now."

How Much Could Google Glass Change the Way People Consume Content?

Ever since he was a kid, Henry-Alex Rubin has been waiting for Google Glass. Not so much Google's new camera-embedded eyeglasses that everyone's talking about, but the fulfillment of a dream the filmmaker, who was nominated for an Oscar for "Murderball," has long harbored: a camera you can turn on at will, that records the world as you see it from your own eyes.
Next year, when Google begins selling Glass to the masses, that dream becomes a reality for anyone who can afford the device. When Glass debuts, the way we tell stories and watch others tell them may start to change in significant ways. And not just for the people who upload their life moments onto YouTube: Feature films, documentaries, television programming, videogames -- many areas could be disrupted, if not by Glass right away, then over time by the technologies that power it.
Rubin -- whose latest film, "Disconnect," about the Internet and the ways people abuse it, came out this summer -- is an early champion of Glass as a tool for creating film and video.
"This is the most exciting idea in filmmaking since the invention of video," he says. "It may even be more radical than the videocamera."
Of course, not everyone is so excited. For every discussion that revolves around the potential for Glass to change the way video entertainment is filmed, distributed and watched, there is a counter-conversation that takes on a more concerned tone of voice. There are considerable fears circulating from social media to newspaper op-eds about seeing personal privacy violated, and people filmed whether or not they like it (or know it). Myriad movie houses, bars and hospitals have already publicly declared themselves ready to ban Glass. Some states are considering forbidding the device from cars. Google even barred it from its shareholder meeting in June.
The insult that describes someone who abuses the device in an intrusive manner has quickly become a part of the Silicon Valley lexicon: "Glasshole."
This dichotomy of promise and peril is being keenly acknowledged in the entertainment industry. Even as executives and filmmakers talk about the impact it could have on the craft itself, they dread how simple and surreptitious it could make movie piracy.
"The film business is right to be excited about Google Glass on the one hand and concerned on the other," says Steven Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net, an online-video platform startup. "You can't separate the two. It will open us up to a lot of new (opportunities), but it could also open up a lot of problems."
See Change
Even if history consigns Glass to the pile of intriguing fads that never catch on -- that is, even if it's disdained as ungainly or is washed away by a privacy backlash -- the idea of wearable computers will be with us for good.
Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and others are working on their own accessorizable processors. Some of them may be worn as a wristwatch, or embedded in clothing. In time, according to a report by Forrester Research, they could appear inside a contact lens or worn as a tattoo.
In the case of Glass, there are two wearable computers: One is a tiny and barely perceptible camera worn at the level of sight, switched on and off at will, and offering intuitive control of the shot without constraining body movement. The second is a technology just as potentially disruptive: augmented reality. The Glass eyepiece contains a screen that can display photos, videos, maps, emails, social media feeds and a wide array of other second-screen content. It's a screen that never needs to be fished out of a pocket or purse, and is navigated by voice or a touch of the device.
But wearable computers and augmented reality are technologies that have been discussed and developed for decades. What's new about Glass is that it's the first device to combine the two in a consumer-friendly way.
They make for a more intimate, immediate and accessible version of the interface we have on our smartphones. And they appear to be on the verge of becoming as mainstream and ubiquitous as those phones.
"People record things you wouldn't typically see in films," says Drew Baumann, a software developer who is creating apps for Glass and who is head of technology for Fullscreen, a startup that helps YouTube creators make money from their videos. "It's really a convenience thing. You've never been able to use video at such a personal level before. Recording what you see is just a voice command or a click away."
Baumann, who has been sporting Glass for at least eight hours a day, noted that wearable cameras may not change existing forms of movies and television as much as they will allow for new formats. One example is something that might be a cross between a celebrity Twitter feed and a reality TV show -- with popular entertainers uploading clips that give glimpses into their lives, a scenario that weirdly resembles the fictional portal in "Being John Malkovich."
"Everyone wants to know what celebrities are doing," said Baumann. "Glass makes it so easy for that to be shared."
Of course, Glass also makes it easier to capture video of people without them knowing they're being watched. And it can be combined with other technologies like cloud storage and so-called "big data" (the burgeoning market of extracting meaning from the ocean of data on the Internet) to infringe on personal privacy in new, disconcerting ways.
These concerns carry well beyond the tech industry. Congress, noting Google's privacy lapses in the past, sent the company a letter asking it for information on how it would handle such issues, as well as the potential for misuse of technologies like facial recognition. Canada, Australia and fi ve other countries have made similar requests. The National Assn. of Theater Owners is mulling policies that may require Glass to be checked at the door of movie theaters to protect against the rampant piracy it could produce.
Preaching Privacy
Google, for its part, has said user privacy is a top priority, and that it won't allow face-recognition capabilities in the device. CEO Larry Page said at a June shareholder meeting that he believes privacy concerns will fade in time. That sentiment prevails among those who have used Glass.
The display inside Glass is invisible to those standing directly in front of someone using it to capture video.
"A lot of concern is coming from people who haven't used the device or (have) never seen it used," said Thad Starner, technical lead and manager at Glass. "Our privacy policy is literally written on your face."
Among the consumers willing to pony up $1,500 a pop for Glass while the product is still in beta mode -- Google calls them "Explorers" -- are select individuals the company is leaning on to help it figure out all sorts of interesting applications. One such Explorer, Georgia Tech U. professor Irfan Essa has been advising Google on the many ways the technology can be utilized in a film production environment, including allowing a director to frame a scene by glimpsing video of sightlines from Glass-donning actors during rehearsal.
Google will further explore experimental filmmaking via a recently announced partnership to equip film schools that will put Glass in the hands of students looking to innovate.
Throughout the history of film, cameras have grown smaller, more portable, cheaper and more ubiquitous. Along the way, they opened up new possibilities for creators. As 16mm handheld cameras became commonplace, independent filmmakers experimented with new, often unconventional fi lming techniques and ways of telling stories that in time became industry norms.
The arrival of videocameras unleashed a wave of new documentarians. More recently, digital videocameras like the Flip, and later the smartphone camera, spawned a legion of novices to create not only avant-garde films, but also YouTube channels, sometimes attracting millions of regular subscribers.
The Glass camera has a resolution of 720p, a fuzzier image than the 1080p of the iPhone 5 camera. In time, the Glass lens will become advanced enough to film in higher resolution without becoming bulkier.
But until then, the device is more likely to appeal to amateur documentary filmmakers like those who contributed video to the 2011 docu "Life in a Day," which drew on thousands of vids submitted from all over the world, and videographers shooting footage at events like mass protests or natural disasters.
The Eyes Have It
A key aspect of Glass for professional filmmakers is that the camera sits about an inch to the side of the eyeball, simulating eye contact in a way most video cameras can't.
"From the beginning of my career, I've always been obsessed with eye contact," said Oscar-winning director Errol Morris, who invented the Interrotron, a camera that's part teleprompter, part two-way mirror, to introduce a deeper intimacy into interviewing. "Even with Skype, you're not looking into the eyes of the person you're talking with. The Interrotron is a way of addressing that problem."
Morris said he hasn't used Glass, but he sees the value of a camera worn on the head. "If you have an opportunity to put the camera right in front of the eyes, you could have your cake and eat it, too."
The camera is only one of the innovations of Glass. The head-mounted display, a transparent screen positioned in front of the eye, can show information, real-time translation and images taken from other cameras. For filmmakers, that screen can simplify the director's task by showing battery levels, light meters, audio waveforms and different camera feeds.
"In a situation where I need to pay attention to multiple cameras at the same time, it could be enormously helpful," Rubin said.
For the audience, Glass has the potential to be yet another screen for the distribution of content, but for now, only the kind that can be delivered in small bursts. There are a handful of deals with content companies, from CNN to Hearst titles like Vogue to provide simple content apps -- dubbed "Glassware" in Googlespeak -- that deliver news headlines or can breeze through photos.
"Glass is not designed to watch a movie; there are other things for that," said Starner. "But Glass is designed for updates and quick snippets. It's a new way of thinking about distribution."
Glass could also bring changes in consuming entertainment by adding a layer of information to a viewing experience or by making it more interactive.
In the same way people have come to use a tablet or smartphone as a second screen to find player statistics at baseball games or to monitor Tweets during awards ceremonies, they can use the Glass display at live events, during TV shows and while watching movies.
William Uricchio, an MIT professor who heads the school's Comparative Media Studies department, says wearable screens like the one in Glass could eventually introduce multiple narratives, and allow the viewer to easily choose among them while watching images on a larger screen.
"Most of us grew up with the Aristotelean idea that a story is a single narrative," Uricchio says. "Videogames started to change that by encouraging people to choose or construct their narratives."
Having an intuitive interface directly in front of the eye -- one that's always connected to the Web -- could one day change things even more. "The cinemagoing experience will stay with us," says Uricchio. "On the other hand, we are starting to have the ability to tell stories in different ways. If you want, you can have a richer and deeper engagement."
Fragmenting Audience
Films and television programs are also going to have to compete harder for their audiences' attention with user-generated video. The vast majority of video uploaded to YouTube is hardly worth watching, but the tiny fraction that is has already taken up a substantial portion of many people's daily video consumption.
If Glass catches on, and if its wearable camera makes taking videos even more ubiquitous than it is with smartphones, then the more compelling moments it captures could turn YouTube into even more of a video powerhouse than it's become in the past few years.
That doesn't mean people will lose interest in old-fashioned filmmaking. It means there will be more forms of video entertainment.
"Culture is layered," Morris says. "A lot of the past will still be with us, along with the new. People will still go to theaters and watch movies on projectors."
In fact, whatever changes Glass ends up bringing to the way we make and watch video, what's not original is that much of that change will stem from a trend that has been happening for decades: cameras getting smaller and more ubiquitous.
"Movies (and TV) from the beginning have always depended on technology," Morris says. "Technology has changed everything over the years. How could it not be otherwise?"

'Intelligent' surgical knife can sniff out cancer tissue

LONDON - Scientists have created an "intelligent" surgical knife that can detect in seconds whether tissue being cut is cancerous, promising more effective and accurate surgery in future.
The device, built by researchers at London's Imperial College, could allow doctors to cut back on additional operations to remove further pieces of cancerous tumors.
The technology, effectively merging an electrosurgical knife that cuts through tissue using heat with a mass spectrometer for chemical analysis, has also been shown to be able to distinguish beef from horsemeat.
Surgeons often find it impossible to tell by sight where tumors end and healthy tissue begins, so some cancer cells are often left behind. A fifth of breast cancer patients who have lumpectomy surgery need a second operation.
The new "iKnife" is designed to get round the problem by instantly sampling the smoke given off as tissue is cut through using an electric current to see if it is cancerous.
In the first study to test the device in patients, the iKnife diagnosed tissue samples from 91 patients with 100 percent accuracy, researchers at Imperial College London reported in Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday.

Currently, removed tissue can be sent for laboratory analysis while the patient remains under general anesthetic - but each test takes around half an hour, while the iKnife provides feedback in less than three seconds.
It does this by analyzing biological information given off from burning tissue and comparing the findings to a database of biological fingerprints from tumors and healthy tissue.
"It's a really exciting innovation and a very promising technique for all types of surgery," said Emma King, a head and neck surgeon at Southampton Hospital, England, who was not involved in the research.
Still, she now wants to see how the iKnife performs in a randomized clinical trial.

CLINICAL TRIAL

Zoltan Takats of Imperial College, who invented the device, said he aimed to test it in such a study, involving between 1,000 and 1,500 patients with various types of cancers.
That trial process is likely to take two or three years and only then will the iKnife be submitted for regulatory approval, paving the way for its commercialization.
Takats has founded a Budapest-based company called MediMass to develop the product and he expects to strike a partnership deal with a major medical technology company to bring it to market in North America and Europe.
Hi-tech surgical equipment is being used increasingly in modern hospitals to help surgeons do a better job, most notably with the da Vinci surgical robot from Intuitive Surgical.
The current experimental version of the iKnife cost Takats and colleagues at Imperial around 200,000 pounds ($300,000) to build. Takats said the price would come down once it entered commercial production.
The research was welcomed by health minister Lord Howe, who said it could benefit both patients and the health service by reducing the number of people needing secondary operations for cancer.
The iKnife may also have a place beyond cancer, according to Takats, since it can identify tissue with an inadequate blood supply, as well as types of bacteria present in tissue. ($1 = 0.6613 British pounds)

Finding Just the Right Word in Two Tongues

I’ve learned two foreign languages so far, and it’s been satisfying and useful. But there was one unexpected difficulty: the dictionaries. A good bilingual dictionary can be expensive, and too big and heavy to carry around. And riffling through a dictionary takes too much time when you’re midconversation.
Today the problems of bulk and page-riffling have largely been solved by bilingual smartphone dictionaries. They’re easy to use and searchable, and they weigh nothing.
Dictionary apps from ULTRALINGUA have been my favorite for a while because of their no-fuss design. They’re $20 iOS apps, and I’ve used the English-Portuguese and English-French versions. There are other languages available, including Spanish and Mandarin.
Each app’s main page is dominated by a list of words in English or the other language. At the top is a search box and control bar that lets you toggle between French-to-English format and English-to-French, for example. Menu buttons at the bottom let you scan through words you’ve recently looked up, see your search history and view a list of words you’ve marked as favorites.
Searching for a word in English to find its foreign equivalent is fast and easy. The results are displayed on-screen with their foreign translation displayed in a smaller font underneath. Tapping on a result expands the view to show you a pronunciation guide. If you press and hold an entry, a pop-up menu will let you look it up in the dictionary; copy it, perhaps for use in an e-mail; or take you to verb tables.
The verb tables couldn’t be easier to use: Select the right tense from a menu and pick the right conjugation for the subject “I” through “he, she, it.” It’s much easier than using a paper book.
The Ultralingua apps have rarely let me down, but I do have two quibbles. The navigation from word to word inside the app is clumsy; I’d prefer to tap a word as if it were a hyperlink on a Web page instead of holding it down and clicking “look up” from the menu. And I wish there were an audio pronunciation guide.
The bilingual dictionaries from Paragon Software are a good alternative to Ultralingua, and they’re available on iOS and Android in a range of versions (from compact to full) for $12 to about $28. Their design is similar to Ultralingua’s, but navigation is simpler, requiring fewer taps on the screen. Some versions have recordings of words being spoken aloud; this is definitely a boon.
LAROUSSE, $5 on iOS and $6 on Android, is a good English-to-French dictionary, and is also available in a few other languages. It is similar in design to the others but the multiple colors on-screen give it a slightly garish look. Some extras set it apart, including example sentences using foreign words, which help you learn how to use the words properly. And you can hear almost all of those example sentences spoken aloud.
Other bilingual dictionary apps could take some design cues from Larousse’s, but that’s not to say the Larousse apps are perfect. Some haven’t been updated in a while; the English-German iOS edition has been unchanged since March 2011. They don’t play particularly nicely with the display on newer iPhones.
Bilingual dictionary apps from ASCENDO are hugely popular, like the Spanish-English app on Android and iOS. Their popularity may stem from the fact that they’re free and they work offline so you don’t need a data connection — handy when you’re actually abroad. They are fairly comprehensive and offer tens of thousands of translated words, some with example uses. These aren’t the smartest of dictionary apps, however, and finding your way through the pages can be tiresome.
Surprisingly, given how useful a bilingual dictionary can be to language learners, there aren’t many truly great apps in this category. Many have free or “lite” editions, however, so you can try out several to see which suits you. Look for apps that include audio pronunciation guides and those that work when you have no data connection.
Boa sorte!
Quick Call
IFTTT, or “If This Then That,” is a free iOS app that can link online services so they’re activated by actions on your phone. For example, you can set the app to e-mail you when you add a new contact to the phone book, or automatically add Instagram pictures to DropBox. ... SPOTIFY has upgraded its Windows Phone 8 app to match its app for other smartphones. It has improved playback and searching powers and should run faster and more smoothly than before. If you’ve not tried Spotify, now is a good time; it offers a free 48-hour trial.

Wikipedia 'edit wars' revealed

Articles about ex-US President George W Bush and anarchism are the most hotly contested on Wikipedia's English-language edition, research suggests.

Scientists analysed page edits in 10 editions to find topics fought over by contributors to the open encyclopaedia.
While some topics were locally controversial, many religious subjects, such as Jesus and God, were universally debated, they found.
Further research is planned to log how controversial topics change over time.
Researchers from the University of Oxford and three other institutions analysed logs of the changes made to Wikipedia pages to identify those in the throes of an "edit war". Such a conflict involves editors of pages making changes that are almost instantly undone by another editor.
Finding the pages over which editors scrap about such changes was a better guide to controversial subjects than simply picking out those that changed a lot, wrote the researchers in a paper describing their work.
Pages that get updated a lot might just be about a rapidly changing field or topic, they said. By contrast, a topic page in which words and phrases are constantly removed and reinstated gave an insight into the depth of feeling it evoked among contributors.
Millions of articles from 10 separate language editions of Wikipedia were subjected to analysis to find the topics over which editors scrapped most fiercely. English, Spanish, Persian, Arabic and Czech editions were among those analysed. Data was taken from editions of Wikipedia published on the web in 2010.
The most controversial topics across all the 10 editions analysed were:

• Israel
• Adolf Hitler
• The Holocaust
• God

In addition other religious subjects, such as Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad and Christianity were regularly fought over by editors.
The analysis also revealed many local controversies.
Among French editors, the page about French politician Segolene Royal was the one contributors fought over the most.
By contrast, in Romania information about the Universit­atea Craiova football team proved most controversial.

U.S. Seen Losing to China as World Leader

SHANGHAI—People in the U.S. and China view each other with increasing suspicion, and many others around the world see the U.S. losing its place to China as the leading economic and political power, a new public opinion poll shows.
According to a survey of around 38,000 people in 39 countries released on Thursday by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, majorities or pluralities in 23 of the nations surveyed said China either has replaced or eventually will oust the U.S. as the world's top superpower. The Chinese don't question their nation's eventual dominance, but Americans are split on the question, the poll found.
The Pew survey is the latest indication that the global impact of China's economic expansion over the past three decades and the 2008 U.S. economic stumble are reordering perceptions about China—the world's most populous nation—and the U.S.—its biggest economy.
"China's economic power is on the rise, and many think it will eventually supplant the United States as the world's dominant superpower," the report concludes.
The new data show a shrinking number of Americans, 47%, believing the U.S. will continue to hold its lead over China, compared with 54% in 2008. By contrast, about two-thirds of Chinese say their country has overtaken the U.S., or eventually will, and 56% say China deserves more respect, Pew found.
The data also suggest deepening mutual suspicion. Only 37% of people in the U.S. view China favorably, similar to the 40% of Chinese who hold a positive view of the U.S. For both countries, the percentages for favorable views have declined since Pew asked the questions in 2008.
Less than a third of the Chinese surveyed described their nation's relationship with the U.S. as cooperative, down sharply from 68%, figures that hew closely to plummeting opinions in China about U.S. President Barack Obama.
Some 23% of Chinese describe the U.S. relationship as hostile. Pew said China is the only non-Islamic country where more than half the people, 54%, hold an unfavorable opinion of Americans.
Still, China has work to do on its own reputation, the survey found. The U.S. commands a 63% favorable rating around the world, and the survey found it is far more often considered by other nations as a partner compared with China, which gets a favorable rating from only half those surveyed elsewhere.
Where China holds positive images is in areas such as science and technology. Such so-called "soft power" influences on others are a particularly strong aspect of the generally positive international image the U.S. holds. "Science and technology are China's most popular soft power," Pew concludes. It found the biggest positive impact across Africa and Latin America. About 59% of Africans appreciate China's business methods, Pew said.
Achievements don't necessarily make China popular. Pew detected widespread distaste for China's military and human rights policies and little interest in its cultural exports.
Still, outright anti-Chinese sentiment is limited around the world, according to Pew. The country is least popular among Japanese, 5% of whom hold a favorable view, with most doubting China will emerge the dominant superpower. While Japanese sentiment follows tension with China over territorial issues, Germans too have grown less positive about China, despite strong exports to the country.
Beijing's strongest supporters include Malaysia, Pakistan, Kenya, Senegal and Nigeria, along with Venezuela, Brazil and Chile. In pockets of Asia, Africa and South America, China is considered a partner, though to most countries China is neither a partner nor an enemy.
In more and more areas, China generates similar sentiment as the U.S. Neither gets good marks for considering how their policy affects citizens elsewhere, for example.
Younger and better-educated people tend to be more positive about both nations. "China's greatest global asset in the future may be its appeal among young adults around the world," Pew found.
China is already the world's leading economic power, say many citizens of nations the U.S. considers its closest allies, including both the U.K. and Germany. People living closer to China, including Japan and South Korea, say the U.S. is at the top; those nations report growing suspicion about China's military ambition. "One of the major challenges for China's global image is that few," only 11 countries surveyed, "believe the Chinese government respects the personal freedoms of its people," the survey found.

Children face uncertain future in flood-hit Uttarakhand

Dehradun: A two-and-a-half-year-old toddler from Uttarakhand who became the centre of national attention as she was lodged in a Doon hospital with broken limbs may have been identified, but her future remains uncertain as she has no family left for support.
Jyoti, the toddler who came to be known as Pari (fairy) to the doctors, nurses and social workers around her, has lost her family. While her mother had "disappeared" a year ago, her father and grandmother who were taking care of her died in the floods. No one from her village has claimed her so far, and the adoption route is difficult with its lengthy legal hassles.
The brunt of the calamity has affected thousands of children in the mountain state in many ways. While those left orphaned are looking to the government for support, those who have families are no better off as the adults have lost the means to support the children.
Take the case of Anjali, nearly nine years old, who is at present in the Unkhimath area of Uttarakhand. The girl had lost her parents some time back and was living with her uncle, who did odd jobs near the Kedarnath temple to support his family.
On the unfortunate day, Anjali and her uncle were saved from the floods but her uncle could not survive. According to social worker Usha Negi, whose NGO is now taking care of the girl, she spent the whole night holding her uncle's lifeless body, crying, unable to understand why he was not responding. She was brought to one of the relief camps by some unknown people. The traumatised girl is not talking to anyone.
Negi, whose NGO Akhila Bhartiya Mahila Panchayat has been taking care of many such children, said the calamity has put a question mark on the fate of hundreds of children.
"There are at least 60 children our NGO is in touch with, their age ranging from one year to 12-13 years. These children have lost their families," said Negi.
"But this is not even the tip of the iceberg; there can be many more who are left orphaned, while thousands face uncertainty about their future with lack of basic things like education and nutrition," she said.
Negi lamented the uncertainty over the fate of the orphaned children as the legal procedures for adoption are complicated.
"There were people willing to adopt Pari (Jyoti), but initially we were not sure if she had a family. And now that we know they are dead, the legal procedure for adoption is cumbersome. How long can she stay in the hospital, or like many other children, in the local anganwadi? These children need a family," Negi pointed out.
"Children are worst sufferers of such calamities," said Devendra Tak, who works with NGO Save The Children.
The NGO estimates, based on official figures, that 1,227 children are missing.
"This is just an official estimate, the real number can be more," said Tak.
"Schools have been destroyed, the buildings left are being used as relief camps or distribution centres. There are several other school buildings which have become dangerous and need serious assessment," he said.
According the the NGO's estimates, 250,000 children in Uttarakhand are now out of school and 180 schools need repairs or rebuilding.
"In some areas like Tiwara and Vijaynagar, schools have been completely washed away. There is the Takshila High School that was flooded and - because the river level has risen almost 20 metres due to the silt - is now in permanent danger of being flooded whenever there is heavy rain," said Tak.
"The scene is such that there are villages that have no children. The families have sent them to relatives in other areas as nothing is left," he said, adding: "Imagine their trauma."
Tak added that the threat of trafficking and exploitation has increased and the NGO is keeping an eye on the situation to prevent this.
He, however, complained that the government's rehabilitation efforts are totally ignoring the children.
"They must come up with a policy for rehabilitation of these children. There is a serious threat to their growth as healthy human beings," Tak said.
"Children have special needs, and they are easily forgotten," he added.
Negi agreed, saying the children need psycho-social support.
"Many of them are too young to understand what happened. Many of them are not even talking. Pari (Jyoti) had just started returning to normal, but she is very young and she will not remember the trauma. For children like Anjali the images (of the floods) keep coming back, causing serious psychological damage," she said.
Negi also expressed fears that if action is not taken in time, many of the affected children may get misled."We are a frontier state. If the needs of children and youth are not addressed, I am afraid they might divert towards extremist factions like the Naxals (Maoists)," she added