If you've ever scoffed at Flickr, felt that photo sharing and storage websites hold your photos hostage, associated photos on the Web with platform lock-in, then you've already started to get a sense of why Jaisen Mathai left Yahoo last year to build OpenPhoto. Appalled by having to watch Yahoo let an awesome startup/service like Flickr go to seed, ("I was extremely frustrated by the lack of product vision," Mathai said at the time), he took to Kickstarter and raised the $25K he needed to get it off the ground. The OpenPhoto project has gained the attention of ex-Yahoo and Apple engineers, current Twilio and Mozilla engineers, and more, who are all donating their time to help get Mathai's open source photo hosting and sharing platform off the ground. Today, Mathai is officially unveiling the new OpenPhoto iPhone app, a new website, and sharing more about a project that I'm fully convinced will eventually replace all of your other photo sharing and storage tools. Plenty for geeks to get excited about, and plenty for the non-geeky as well.
At the center of the revamped Google TV experience that rolled out last fall is its TV & Movies app, which is a blended guide of content currently airing live on TV and available for streaming from the popular internet services (Netflix, Amazon, HBO Go). As Product Manager Rishi Chandra mentioned when we caught up with him at CES, personalization is something Google will be focusing on going forward and that's shown in the updated app being pushed out today. When it's first opened, users will login and be asked to rate a few movies and shows so it can get a sense of their tastes to know what to present, Netflix-style. There's more information displayed up front too, with expanded descriptions, and details below each show so viewers can find out about the episode that's on more easily. For a few more details on what's new and refreshed, check after the break.
Nokia's released the bundle of spreadsheets that comprise its 2012 Q1 financials, just a week after it acknowledged that it would make a loss, despite bullish sales of the new Lumia 900. The numbers reveal that the company had net sales of €7.4 billion ($9.7 billion), down from €10.4 billion ($13.6 billion) at the start of last year. Net sales are down 30 percent year-on-year, which means the company's posting a loss of €1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) for the first three months of 2012. That loss is broken down as €772 million to restructure Nokia Siemens Networks, €101 million to restructure the Devices & Services and Location & Commerce departments, principally in shedding employees and relocating its factories to Asia. It had forecasted an operating margin of three percent below "break even," and says it's likely to remain that way well into the second quarter.
Stephen Elop pointed out that much of the loss is due to both increased competition and the costs of restructuring, but also seemed to tacitly confirm rumors we'd heard that UK carriers have been resistant to Nokia's new direction, saying that establishing momentum in the country has been "challenging." However, it's still promising to arrest the slump and in a statement to Moody's on Monday, the company pledged that it was prioritizing "cash conservation" exercises, although its liquid cash reserves have fallen 24% in a year, meaning that the company's only got €4.8 billion ($6.3 billion) put aside for a rainy day.
'Diesel Reloaded:' A vehicle for rethinking mobility rolls into Hannover MessePublic release date: 17-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Patrick Regan regan@zv.tum.de 49-892-891-0515 Technische Universitaet Muenchen
'Innotruck' demonstrates radical, holistic approach to electromobility
The public and press can see the latest progress in a unique, ongoing electromobility research project during the international trade fair MobiliTec, which takes place April 23-27 at the Hannover Messe. Embodied in a sleek, Colani-designed tractor-trailer that looks more like a spaceship than a truck, the project "Diesel Reloaded" aims to demonstrate how paradigm shifts in automotive, energy, and information technologies can help to address major societal trends and needs. The research group, based at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen, is led by Prof. Dr. Gernot Spiegelberg, who has responsibility for electromobility initiatives at Siemens Corporate Technology and is a Rudolf Diesel Industry Fellow of the TUM Institute for Advanced Study.
What the Diesel Reloaded researchers envision goes far beyond a shift from fossil fuel-burning vehicles to electric alternatives. With regard to energy, they see the vehicle both as a small-scale "smart grid" that can be optimized for cost reduction and as a vital element in stabilizing regional-scale energy networks that will rely increasingly on fluctuating input from renewable sources. Rethinking the human-machine interface, the researchers see a path toward making the vehicle a "mobility partner," with displays and controls that adapt not only to the driver's individual capabilities and typical behavior, but also to changing conditions such as traffic and the driver's alertness. These transformations in energy management and the human-machine interface are supported by a further paradigm shift: redefining a vehicle as an integrated information and communication system with a modular, scalable architecture. With centralized computing and plug-and-play applications, the vehicle's system architecture allows for straightforward integration of new capabilities such as car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure communications to help optimize traffic flow and safety.
The main lines of research are being pursued by doctoral candidates Claudia Buitkamp (drive train and energy optimization), Ljubo Mercep (human-machine interface), and Hauke Sthle (system architecture). These lines meet and intertwine in the so-called Innotruck, which serves as both a research testbed and a demonstration vehicle. Over time, more and more of the team's ideas are being tested and implemented in the Innotruck; it is on its way to having a permit for drive-by-wire operation on public roads.
As members of TUM's International Graduate School of Science and Engineering, the doctoral candidates receive additional scientific support from Computer Science Prof. Alois Knoll and Mechanical Engineering Prof. Markus Lienkamp. "Traditional education tends to prepare engineers for the engineering of the past," project leader Spiegelberg says. "This approach prepares them for the future. There is a cycle of knowledge generation, transfer, and application at work here," he adds, represented by TUM (science), Siemens (translational research), and application-oriented partner companies such as BeBa Energie, an engineering firm that specializes in renewable energy systems.
According to Spiegelberg, their research anticipates and addresses "the megatrends of environmental care, urbanization, and demographics." Caring for the environment has inherent value but also implies major economic costs, he explains. Yet environmentally friendly changes in infrastructure, products, and services can pay for themselves if they also, for example, provide new options that enable members of an aging population to remain independent and mobile despite changes in their physical and cognitive abilities.
###
This research is supported, through TUM-IAS and IGSSE, by the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. Doctoral candidates are supported by Siemens.
Contact:
Prof. Gernot Spiegelberg
TUM Institute for Advanced Study
Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Lichtenbergstrasse 2a, 85748 Garching, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)89 289 10575
E-Mail: gernot.spiegelberg@siemens.com
Web: http://www.tum-ias.de
Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) is one of Europe's leading universities. It has roughly 460 professors, 9000 academic and non-academic staff, and 31,000 students. It focuses on the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences, medicine, and economic sciences. After winning numerous awards, it was selected as an "Elite University" in 2006 by the Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat) and the German Research Foundation (DFG). The university's global network includes an outpost with a research campus in Singapore. TUM is dedicated to the ideal of a top-level research-based entrepreneurial university. http://www.tum.de
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
'Diesel Reloaded:' A vehicle for rethinking mobility rolls into Hannover MessePublic release date: 17-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Patrick Regan regan@zv.tum.de 49-892-891-0515 Technische Universitaet Muenchen
'Innotruck' demonstrates radical, holistic approach to electromobility
The public and press can see the latest progress in a unique, ongoing electromobility research project during the international trade fair MobiliTec, which takes place April 23-27 at the Hannover Messe. Embodied in a sleek, Colani-designed tractor-trailer that looks more like a spaceship than a truck, the project "Diesel Reloaded" aims to demonstrate how paradigm shifts in automotive, energy, and information technologies can help to address major societal trends and needs. The research group, based at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen, is led by Prof. Dr. Gernot Spiegelberg, who has responsibility for electromobility initiatives at Siemens Corporate Technology and is a Rudolf Diesel Industry Fellow of the TUM Institute for Advanced Study.
What the Diesel Reloaded researchers envision goes far beyond a shift from fossil fuel-burning vehicles to electric alternatives. With regard to energy, they see the vehicle both as a small-scale "smart grid" that can be optimized for cost reduction and as a vital element in stabilizing regional-scale energy networks that will rely increasingly on fluctuating input from renewable sources. Rethinking the human-machine interface, the researchers see a path toward making the vehicle a "mobility partner," with displays and controls that adapt not only to the driver's individual capabilities and typical behavior, but also to changing conditions such as traffic and the driver's alertness. These transformations in energy management and the human-machine interface are supported by a further paradigm shift: redefining a vehicle as an integrated information and communication system with a modular, scalable architecture. With centralized computing and plug-and-play applications, the vehicle's system architecture allows for straightforward integration of new capabilities such as car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure communications to help optimize traffic flow and safety.
The main lines of research are being pursued by doctoral candidates Claudia Buitkamp (drive train and energy optimization), Ljubo Mercep (human-machine interface), and Hauke Sthle (system architecture). These lines meet and intertwine in the so-called Innotruck, which serves as both a research testbed and a demonstration vehicle. Over time, more and more of the team's ideas are being tested and implemented in the Innotruck; it is on its way to having a permit for drive-by-wire operation on public roads.
As members of TUM's International Graduate School of Science and Engineering, the doctoral candidates receive additional scientific support from Computer Science Prof. Alois Knoll and Mechanical Engineering Prof. Markus Lienkamp. "Traditional education tends to prepare engineers for the engineering of the past," project leader Spiegelberg says. "This approach prepares them for the future. There is a cycle of knowledge generation, transfer, and application at work here," he adds, represented by TUM (science), Siemens (translational research), and application-oriented partner companies such as BeBa Energie, an engineering firm that specializes in renewable energy systems.
According to Spiegelberg, their research anticipates and addresses "the megatrends of environmental care, urbanization, and demographics." Caring for the environment has inherent value but also implies major economic costs, he explains. Yet environmentally friendly changes in infrastructure, products, and services can pay for themselves if they also, for example, provide new options that enable members of an aging population to remain independent and mobile despite changes in their physical and cognitive abilities.
###
This research is supported, through TUM-IAS and IGSSE, by the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. Doctoral candidates are supported by Siemens.
Contact:
Prof. Gernot Spiegelberg
TUM Institute for Advanced Study
Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Lichtenbergstrasse 2a, 85748 Garching, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)89 289 10575
E-Mail: gernot.spiegelberg@siemens.com
Web: http://www.tum-ias.de
Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) is one of Europe's leading universities. It has roughly 460 professors, 9000 academic and non-academic staff, and 31,000 students. It focuses on the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences, medicine, and economic sciences. After winning numerous awards, it was selected as an "Elite University" in 2006 by the Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat) and the German Research Foundation (DFG). The university's global network includes an outpost with a research campus in Singapore. TUM is dedicated to the ideal of a top-level research-based entrepreneurial university. http://www.tum.de
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
ScienceDaily (Apr. 16, 2012) ? What should be a fairy-tale day -- a woman's wedding -- could turn into a nightmare for a bride-to-be who goes on a new feeding-tube diet to lose 20 pounds fast, says a Baylor University professor and a former chair of a public policy committee for the American Dietetic Association.
The diet of about 800 calories a day for 10 days has a potential to be even more harmful and less long-lasting than the so-called liquid "starvation diets," of fewer than 1,000 calories a day -- far below standard recommended weight-loss diets, said Suzy Weems, Ph.D., chair of Baylor University's family and consumer sciences and a consulting dietitian who has worked for hospitals and extended-care facilities. Most recommended diets call for a combination of exercise and eating that create a 500-calorie deficit from normal needs.
Some doctors -- over the vigorous protests of others -- have promoted the diet as a quick, hunger-free way to shed pounds by delivering protein, fat and water through a nasal feeding tube.
"It seems very extreme because of its potential for infections and irritation," Weems said. "It seems to be illogical to do this for one fairy-tale day when most brides have plenty of time before their weddings to lose weight in a healthy way. The long-term solution to maintain a good weight is eat right and exercise."
What's more, healthier diets provide "more energy for intimacy," she said.
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If you've ever scoffed at Flickr, felt that photo sharing and storage websites hold your photos hostage, associated photos on the Web with platform lock-in, then you've already started to get a sense of why Jaisen Mathai left Yahoo last year to build OpenPhoto. Appalled by having to watch Yahoo let an awesome startup/service like Flickr go to seed, ("I was extremely frustrated by the lack of product vision," Mathai said at the time), he took to Kickstarter and raised the $25K he needed to get it off the ground. The OpenPhoto project has gained the attention of ex-Yahoo and Apple engineers, current Twilio and Mozilla engineers, and more, who are all donating their time to help get Mathai's open source photo hosting and sharing platform off the ground. Today, Mathai is officially unveiling the new OpenPhoto iPhone app, a new website, and sharing more about a project that I'm fully convinced will eventually replace all of your other photo sharing and storage tools. Plenty for geeks to get excited about, and plenty for the non-geeky as well.
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Public release date: 17-Apr-2012
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