Microsoft sets launch date for its new operating system

Microsoft has announced the final date for the release of its long-awaited and next-generation Windows 8 operating system, which is the company’s most significant software upgrade in a decade.

According to Steven Sinofsky, the head of Microsoft's Windows team, the new operating system will be available on October 26, 2012.

Sinofsky made the announcement on Wednesday at Microsoft’s annual sales meeting, known as the Microsoft Global Exchange (MGX).

The officials at Microsoft say that the Windows 8 comes in 109 languages and will be available in 231 markets across the world.

“Windows 8 has the flexibility you need -- whether you’re on an x86/64 or a WOA [Windows on ARM] PC,” Microsoft communications manager Brandon LeBlanc said in a post on Windows Team Blog.

“You can use a touch screen or a keyboard and mouse - and switch anytime. It’s beautiful, fast, and fluid design is perfect for a wide range of hardware.”

The company has also announced that those who choose to buy selected versions of Windows 7 by the end of January 2013 are allowed to upgrade to a version of Windows 8 Pro at a discount, an attempt to preserve sales of Windows 7 operating system.

This is while the software giant added that it is also set to launch its own tablet computers called the Surface this year.

MR/GHN 

Source: PRESSTV.IR

1,001 people set mattress domino record in China

Picture from Guinness World Record

 It's been toppled again! A new world record was set at the weekend in China for the largest human mattress dominoes after 1,001 volunteers crashed comfily to the ground.

The attempt which was organised by mattress firm Bellarest International, took place in an empty section of a shopping mall in China's financial hub of Shanghai.

The rally, which beat the former record of 850 set in February this year in New Orleans, USA, took 11 minutes and 11 seconds to complete.

Guinness World Records adjudicator Dong Cheng was on hand to witness the event and award the team with a certificate confirming their record breaking status following the successful attempt.

"For an event like this involving 1,000 people to succeed first time is not just about luck. All other conditions must be correct. First of all, all the participants must fully understand the rules," he said.

"Second, the volunteers were all very brave. No one dodged when the two-meter-high mattress fell onto them," he added.

Source: Guinness World Record

World's 'Lightest Material' Has Been Created

The material is produced in specialised laboratory conditions

Newly developed aerographite is 99.9% air and conducts electricity, and researchers hope it can be used to produce tiny batteries.

Researchers in Germany have created the world's lightest material, with hopes it could revolutionise battery technology.

Aerographite is a matrix of hollow carbon tubes, and each cubic centimetre of the complex lattice weighs just 0.2 milligrams.
While it is 99.99% air, it conducts electricity, meaning it could eventually be used to create a super-lightweight battery.
The record-breaking material was created by a team of researchers at the Technical University of Hamburg and the University of Kiel.
"We were looking for three-dimensionally cross-linked carbon structures, and we discovered this material," explained team member Karl Schulte.

Last month researchers in Texas unveiled technology for a spray-on battery

The sponge-like material can be compressed to a thousandth of its size and then spring back to its original shape. It can also support more than 40,000 times its own weight.

Aerographite is produced in specialised laboratory conditions using a process called chemical vapour deposition.
In 2002 a substance called aerogel was named as the world's lightest solid with a density of one milligram per cubic centimetre. It was used by Nasa to collect dust from comets.
That was overtaken last year by metallic microlattice which weighed-in at 0.9 milligrams per cubic centimetre.
That metallic substance is so lightweight that a block of the material could sit on a dandelion head without squashing it.
Details of the development of aerographite were announced in an academic paper that was published in the journal Advanced Materials.

Microsoft Office 15: Only for Windows 8, Windows 7 and iPad?

Microsoft is expected to unveil Office 15 (perhaps for Windows 8, Windows 7 and Apple iPad) as soon as Monday, July 16. The software company hopes Office 15 and peer product launches like Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 will lift sales, profits and partner wins to new heights. But can Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) balance traditional PC software with mobile and cloud services opportunities?
Office 15, coming one week after Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2012 (WPC12), surfaces at a critical time for the software company and the PC industry.

• PC sales were flat in Q2 2012, according to Gartner. Some buyers are shifting budget to Apple iPad but others might be waiting for Windows 8 on Ultrabooks.
• Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps are locked in a cloud applications battle. Office 15 could help to keep partners and customers loyal to Microsoft’s on-premises software while proving hooks into Microsoft’s cloud services.

WPC 2012 Set the Stage

More than 16,000 people attended WPC12, suggesting that Microsoft still has a massive channel partner base of resellers, VARs and distributors. Throughout the event, CEO Steve Ballmer, COO Kevin Turner and Channel Chief Jon Roskill predicted that major product upgrades and cloud services enhancements would lift Microsoft and its partners against Apple, Google, IBM, Oracle and VMware.
Where does Office 15 fit in? With expected support for Windows 8 and Windows 7, it’s clear Microsoft wants customers and partners to shift away from Windows XP and Windows Vista. Office 15 will support the Metro user interface and touch screen capabilities. And watch for Office 15 capabilities on Apple iPad, Microsoft Surface tablets (Windows RT and Windows 8) plus Windows Phone 8, of course.
The VAR Guy doesn’t have a firm feel for a ship date or pricing. But it sounds like partners and customers can expect a beta now and perhaps Office 15 shipments in time for the Windows 8 launch in October, plus Office 15 for iPad and Surface tablets in November. Those are just educated guesses, by the way.

Source: http://www.thevarguy.com

Iranian photo selected as NASA’s July picture of the day

‘Teimareh Petroglyphs and Star Trails’ by Babak Amin-Tafreshi

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has selects a picture by Iranian photographer Babak Amin-Tafreshi as one of its July pictures of the day.

The star trail photograph which was selected as the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day for July 12, 2012, shows ancient petroglyphs of Iran’s Teimareh Valley located in the country’s Zagros Mountains.

Engraved in rocks, the petroglyphs are abundant in the valley and depict hunters and animals as etched by prehistoric artists about 6,000 years ago.

In the night sky above are star trails etched by the rotation of planet Earth during the long composite exposure made with a modern digital camera.

Born in 1978, Babak Amin-Tafreshi is an amateur astronomer, photographer, and science journalist.

He is the creator and director of The World at Night (TWAN), an international program in which photographers from around the world capture images of night skies as seen above notable landmarks of the planet.

Amin-Tafreshi is also a member of the board of advisors of Astronomers without Borders who won the Lennart Nilsson Award for the best scientific photography.

The center of the star trail arcs in Amin-Tafreshi’s photo shows the North Celestial Pole (NCP), the extension of Earth's axis into space.

Polaris, the North Star, leaves the bright, short, stubby trail closest to the NCP, but when the petroglyphs were carved, Polaris would have made a long arc through the night.

Since the Earth's rotation axis processes like a wobbling top, 6,000 years ago the NCP was near the border of the constellations Draco and Ursa Major, some 30 degrees from its current location in Earth's sky.

The NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is originated, written, coordinated, and edited since 1995 by professional astronomers Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell.

The APOD archive contains the largest collection of annotated astronomical images online.

TE/TE

Hubble discovers new moon circling Pluto

The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a new moon circling Pluto, which can help shed light on how the dwarf planet’s system formed and evolved.

P5 is the Pluto’s fifth satellite which was detected in nine sets of images taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 during June and July 2012.

The moon is estimated to have an irregular shape and be between 10km and 25km across.

Seen as a speck of light in Hubble images, the moon is believed to be the result of a collision between Pluto and another large icy object billions of years ago.

"The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls," said leader of the team Mark Showalter of the Seti Institute in Mountain View, US.

Pluto's largest moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978.

The other three moons, spotted by Hubble in 2006 and 2011, were named Nix, Hydra and P4.

Pluto was discovered by the American Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. It was originally classified as the ninth planet in the Solar System, but was recategorized as a dwarf planet and plutoid due to the discovery that it is only one of several large bodies within the Kuiper belt.

The NASA spacecraft, New Horizons, is currently en route to Pluto to take detailed images of the planet’s system.

TE/TE

Source: PressTv.Ir

Pakistani Engineer Develops Water-Run Rocket Missile

A Pakistani mechanical engineer and a school science teacher has developed a rocket missile, with initial capability of flying up to 320 feet high, which uses water as its fuel.

“I had to cut water bottle and to install air compressor to develop this missile,” says Muhammad Faisal, a teacher in Government Model School, Karachi, the economic hub of the country.

Using back pressure technique to launch, the missile could easily be used for training purposes in Pakistan Army, he viewed while talking with Daily Nai Baat.

“By adding Uranium material in the rocket to get air pressure, it could also be used to hit a target.”

Faisal is a gold medalist of a training course of mechanical engineering of Pakistan Air Force’s Engineering Corps.

A frenzy of inventions, Faisal looks determined to work for his country by adding his engineering and scientific inventions.(Via TNT)

Source: PakSoldiers.com