Wikipedia Adds Video Support Today - HTML5

As of today, Wikipedia is open to HTML5 video uploads.
The video project is a collaboration with video start-up Kaltura and Google, and it’s actually been in the works since 2008, but was delayed by infrastructure upgrades, personnel changes and other problems over the past four years.
“Wikipedia has more than half a billion unique monthly visitors, so any new feature that is deployed needs to be really sustainable and fool-proof,” said Kaltura president Michal Tsur.
Today, there are only about 15,000 videos on Wikipedia, a mishmash of beta testing and uploads in an older and more limited format called Ogg Theora. You can see an example of a Kaltura video on the page about polar bears.

But don’t expect to see videos on every Wikipedia page anytime soon. For one thing, sharing videos with the new Kaltura player won’t be as simple as embedding a YouTube video on a relevant page; users will have to upload content directly to Wikimedia Commons. And there aren’t the same sort of reserves of accessible video content as there are for photos, though there is freely licensed content on YouTube in the now-compatible WebM format, as well as on the Internet Archive.
Once videos are uploaded, people will be able to add captions, translations, and more. But some planned features, like mobile format support and full video editing, aren’t available yet.

Via allthingsd.com

New Sony mid-range C3602 model spotted in benchmark

A new mid-range Sony handset for 2013 has just been outed by NenaMark2. The Sony C360X (C3602) is listed confirming a S4 Snapdragon chipset (MSM8260A or MSM8960) with 1.5GHz dual-core processor and Adreno 225 graphics. The listing also confirms a 720 x 1280 display with virtual buttons. The handset tested was running Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich and scored 60.1 FPS in NenaMark2.

Via xperiablog.net

Intel launches 8-core Itanium 9500

Intel's Itanium processor launches are few and far between given that only so many need its specialized grunt, but that just makes any refresh so much larger -- and its new Itanium 9500 certainly exemplifies that kind of jump. The chip centers around much more up-to-date, 32-nanometer Poulson architecture that doubles the cores to eight, hikes the interconnect speeds and supports as much as 2TB of RAM for very (very, very) large tasks. With the help of an error-resistant buffer, Intel sees the 9500 being as much as 2.4 times faster as the Tukwila-era design it's replacing. The new Itanium also ramps the clock speeds to a relatively brisk 1.73GHz to 2.53GHz, although there will be definite costs for server builders wanting to move up: the shipping roster starts at $1,350 per chip in bulk and climbs to an eye-watering $4,650 for the fastest example.
Anyone worried that Poulson might be the end of the road for Intel's EPIC-based platform will also be glad to get a brief reminder that Itanium will soldier on. The next iteration, nicknamed Kittson, will be framed around a modular design that shares traces of silicon and the processor socket with the more familiar Xeon E7. Intel casts it as a pragmatic step that narrows its server-oriented processors down to a common motherboard and should be cheaper to make. It's likely that we'll have to be very patient for more details on Kittson knowing the long intervals between Itanium revamps, but fence-sitting IT pros may just be glad that they won't have to consider jumping ship for awhile yet.

Via engadget.com

NVIDIA's revenue raises to $1.20 billion in Q3 thanks to Tegra 3 tablets and Kepler GPUs

Just as it predicted, NVIDIA's earnings show revenue rose again in Q3, to a new record high of $1.20 billion, 15.3 percent higher than in Q2 up 12.9 percent from the same period last year. Its profits also grew accordingly, to $209.1 million, which should be no surprise thanks to its Tegra 3 chip's place at the heart of tablets including Google's Nexus 7 and Microsoft's Surface for Windows RT, with more arriving daily. The Consumer Products division that includes the Tegra family and other hardware had a 27.6 percent rise in revenue for the quarter. Despite predictions of a slumping PC market, its consumer GPU unit had revenue up 10 percent from last quarter as Kepler based products reached into lower price points and notebook revenue rose. Riding high, the company has decided to issue dividends to shareholders as well as extend its current stock repurchasing program. Hit the source links for the full breakdown, but so far NVIDIA's bets on the future of its chips in PCs and post-PC devices seem to be paying off.

Via engadget.com

"Magic number" for space pioneers calculated

The "magic number" of people needed to create a viable population for multi-generational space travel has been calculated by researchers. It is about the size of a small village - 160. But with some social engineering it might even be possible to halve this to 80.

Anthropologist John Moore from University of Florida tackled the problem as part of a combined effort with space scientists to determine how in future humans might successfully undertake century-long journeys out into space.

In the past, attention has been focused on cryogenics, sperm banks and military-style modes of operation, says Moore, but "the 'right stuff' for a journey into space is the family - a million-year-old institution designed to assist reproduction."

Moore has previously studied small migrating populations of early humans and has developed simulation software - called Ethnopop - for analysing the viability of small groups.

Marriage partners

For a space trip of 200 years, perhaps eight to 10 generations, his calculations suggest a minimum number of 160 people are needed to maintain a stable population.

This would produce around 10 potential marriage partners per person, he says, and if this seems a small number, "think about how many people you dated before you got married".

Room would be at a premium on any spacecraft and reducing the number of people initially required might be desirable. Moore suggests two strategies. The first is to begin with young childless couples, echoing the practice of Polynesian seafaring colonists.

The second is to ask the space crew to postpone reproduction to later in woman's fertile period, perhaps age 35 to 40, creating longer time gaps between the generations. This measure results in a stable population of just 80 but the consequences of the increased medical risks of late childbirth have not yet been considered.

A potential concern is that small populations can suffer a damaging reduction in genetic diversity due to inbreeding, says Dennis O'Rourke from the University of Utah. He considered the same 10-generation, 200-year journey as Moore and looked at both genetic drift and inbreeding.

"The decrease in genetic variation is actually quite small and less than found in some successful small populations on Earth," he says. "It would not be a significant factor as long as the space travellers come home or interact with other humans at the end of the 200 year period."

Gene screening

O'Rourke believes that a more serious concern would be the presence of potentially damaging genotypes in the initial space pioneers. Genetic screening might well be needed, he says: "Any harmful recessive characteristics might lead to increased healthcare loads which would deplete scarce resources."

A final concern raised at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Boston was the possibility of infighting. Small communities isolated for long periods at research stations in Antarctic and even families travelling on long car journeys, provide examples of how small conflicts can quickly escalate.

But Moore points out: "Some small island communities on Earth have lived in peace and harmony for thousands of years because they have developed ways of solving conflicts. These are not taken to Antarctica."

Via  newscientist.com

Batteries not required, just plug into ear cells

For the first time, an electrical device has been powered by the ear alone.

The team behind the technology used a natural electrochemical gradient in cells within the inner ear of a guinea pig to power a wireless transmitter for up to five hours.

The technique could one day provide an autonomous power source for brain and cochlear implants, says Tina Stankovic, an auditory neuroscientist at Harvard University Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Nerve cells use the movement of positively charged sodium ions and negatively charged potassium ions across a membrane to create an electrochemical gradient that drives neural signals. Some cells in the cochlear have the same kind of gradient, which is used to convert the mechanical force of the vibrating eardrum into electrical signals that the brain can understand.

Tiny voltage

A major challenge in tapping such electrical potential is that the voltage created is tiny – a fraction of that generated by a standard AA battery.

"We have known about DC potential in the human ear for 60 years but no one has attempted to harness it," Stankovic says.

Now, Stankovic and her colleagues have developed an electronic chip containing several tiny, low resistance electrodes that can harness a small amount of this electrical activity without damaging hearing.

The implant was inserted into a guinea pig's inner ear and the electrodes attached to both sides of cochlear cell membranes. Attached to the chip was a low power radio transmitter.

Guinea pig

The device needed kick-starting with a short burst of radio waves, but was then able to use the electrical gradient running across the membrane to sustain the transmitter for up to five hours. Tests showed that the guinea pig's hearing was not affected.

The device works well for short durations but long-term use of the electrodes risks damaging the sensitive tissue inside the ear. The next step will be to make the electrodes even smaller, reducing their invasiveness.

Stankovic says that this is proof of concept that biological sources of energy exist that have not yet been fully considered. "A very futuristic view is that maybe we will be able to extract energy from individual cells using similar designs," she says.

Microsoft to retire Messenger, begins migration to Skype

After working diligently to bridge the gap between Messenger and its VoIP purchase, its aging IM platform will indeed be retired and users migrated to the more video-focused property. Redmond hopes to complete the move during the first quarter of 2013, after which Messenger will be retired everywhere except in mainland China. Users of both services will be able to merge their accounts and combine their contacts, while those with only a Microsoft account will have to transition to a Skype one. Though, rest assured, your Messenger buddy list will automatically be transferred. With the imminent death of this MSN descendant, it's clear that Microsoft is positioning Skype not just as a VoIP client, but as an all-in-one messaging solution meant to take on the likes of Google Talk, with its Voice and Hangouts features.


Via engadget.com

A Super-Earth in the Habitable Zone of a Six-Planet System

A new super-Earth planet that may have an Earth-like climate and be just right to support life has been discovered around a nearby star by an international team of astronomers, led by Mikko Tuomi, University of Hertfordshire, and Guillem Anglada-Escude, University of Goettingen.

The new super-Earth planet exists in the habitable zone of a nearby star and is part of a six-planet system. The system was previously thought to contain three planets in orbits too close to the star to support liquid water. By avoiding fake signals caused by stellar activity, the researchers have identified three new super-Earth planet candidates also in orbit.

Mikko Tuomi said: “We pioneered new data analysis techniques including the use of the wavelength as a filter to reduce the influence of activity on the signal from this star. This significantly increased our sensitivity and enabled us to reveal three new super-Earth planets around the star known as HD 40307, making it into a six-planet system.”


Of the new planets, the one of greatest interest is the one with the outermost orbit from the star -– with a mass at least seven times of the Earth. Its orbit around the host star is at a similar distance to Earth’s orbit around our Sun, so it receives a similar amount of energy from the star as the Earth receives from the Sun - increasing the probability of it being habitable. This is where the presence of liquid water and stable atmospheres to support life is possible and, more importantly, the planet is likely to be rotating on its own axis as it orbits around the star creating a daytime and night-time effect on the planet which would be better at creating an Earth-like environment.

Guillem Angla-Escude said: “The star HD 40307, is a perfectly quiet old dwarf star, so there is no reason why such a planet could not sustain an Earth-like climate.”

Hugh Jones, University of Hertfordshire, added: “The longer orbit of the new planet means that its climate and atmosphere may be just right to support life. Just as Goldilocks liked her porridge to be neither too hot nor too cold but just right, this planet or indeed any moons that is has lie in an orbit comparable to Earth, increasing the probability of it being habitable.”

Earlier this year, the Kepler spacecraft found a planet with a similar orbit. However, Kepler 22d is located 600 light years from Earth, whereas this new super-Earth planet known as HD 40307g is much closer being located at forty-four light years from Earth.

Mikko Tuomi carried out this work as a member of the European science network RoPACS (Rocky Planets Around Cool Stars) - an initiative with a research focus on the search for planets around cool stars. RoPACS has pan-European membership and is led from the University of Hertfordshire by David Pinfield, who commented: "Discoveries like this are really exciting, and such systems will be natural targets for the next generation of large telescopes, both on the ground and in space."

Via astrobio.net

Cray unleashes 100 petaflop XC30 supercomputer with up to a million Intel Xeon cores

Cray has just fired a nuclear salvo in the supercomputer wars with the launch of its XC30, a 100 petaflop-capable brute that can scale up to one million cores. Developed in conjunction with DARPA, the Cascade-codenamed system uses a new type of architecture called Aries interconnect and Intel Xeon E5-2600 processors to easily leapfrog its recent Titan sibling, the previous speed champ.
That puts Cray well ahead of rivals like China's Tianhe-2, and the company will aim to keep that edge by supercharging future versions with Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors and NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. High-end research centers have placed $100 million worth of orders so far (though oddly, DARPA isn't one of them yet), and units are already shipping in limited numbers -- likely by the eighteen-wheeler-full, from the looks of it.

Via engadget.com

Apple drops out of Top 5 in China, Galaxy S III tops iPhone 4S in Q3

The iPhone is the most common smartphone almost everywhere in the world... almost. According to analysts at Canalys, in the third quarter this year Apple dropped out of the Top 5 smartphone makers in the Chinese market.
And it's an important market - according to Canalys again, China became a bigger market than the US earlier this year.
Samsung maintains a tentative lead in China holding 14% of the market, with local maker Lenovo breathing down its neck with 13%.
To rub salt in the wound, Samsung's Galaxy S III took the title of "World's best-selling smartphone in Q3 2012," according to Strategy Analytics. There were 18 million Galaxy S III units sold and "only" 16.2 million iPhone 4S phones. Of course, iPhone 4S sales were down in Q3 because everyone was waiting for the iPhone 5 to launch.
Anyway, back to China. The third place there is surprising - it's held by Yulong, who are not known outside of China, but managed to score partnerships with the country's to major carriers - China Telecom and China Mobile.

Two better known brands round up the Top 5 - ZTE and Huawei. The last three companies have around 10% market share each. Apple is currently sixth with 8% (it had 9% in Q2).
In Q3 this year, there were around 50 million smartphones shipped in China, which is over a third of all smartphones shipped in the whole world for the three month period.
The growth in China comes primarily from cheap models ($70-$120) and the iPhone 4S can't compete with its price of $713 (the iPhone 5 is yet to launch in China, probably in December).

Via gsmarena.com

HTC unveils October revenues, Q4 not starting off well

HTC's performance in this year's third quarter was underwhelming and the final quarter for the year isn't starting off great either. The company announced its revenues for the month of October - $588 million, which is down from the $1,508 million it made in October last year.
That's 61% down year-on-year, while last year's results were up 36% compared to October 2010. This is the biggest year-on-year slide that the company has reported this year.




In its Q3 press release, HTC forecasts $2 billion in revenues for the fourth quarter of this year, though it remains to be seen if it will actually hit that mark or if it'll continue the slide down.
HTC does have the holiday shopping season to look forward to and (Microsoft is hoping for this too) Windows Phone 8 might pick up faster than its predecessor.

Via gsmarena.com

Smartphone and tablet sales to top 1.2 billion devices in 2013

Gartner, a leading IT research and advisory company, has compiled estimates on the growth of smart devices and the effect they will have on the consumer electronics market. According to the report some 70 percent of total devices sold this year were either tablets or smartphones.






Android is expected to continue to dominate the mobile market even in the business sector, with 56% of devices expected to run on Google's OS by 2016 (up from 34 percent this year).

Tablets are expected to achieve a three-fold growth for business within the next four years, with 53 million units predicted to be sold in 2016.
Finally, Gartner predicts that Windows 8 tablets and smartphones will move to third place behind Apple and Android by 2016, with many businesses choosing smart devices rather than upgrading Windows on desktop PCs like in the past.

Via gsmarena.com

Sony to outsource up to 40% of phone manufacturing

Sony is looking to ship more phones in 2013, according to DigiTimes, going from a projected 35 million to 50 million. To get the job done, the company plans to outsource some of the manufacturing to big ODMs.


Foxconn has been manufacturing low-end Sony phones since Q3 of this year. According to sources, Sony will add Arima and Compal to the list of makers early next year. Together, the three companies are expected to get orders for around 30-40% of the Xperia phones to be made in 2013.

As for what those ODMs might be making next year - the low-end Sony Xperia E and E Duos leaked recently. There's also the Xperia Odin and Xperia Yuga to look forward to, but it's unclear if Sony will outsource the manufacturing of its high-end models as well.

Via gsmarena.com