The Hottest Games Of 2011

HEXUS.gaming – Feature :: The Hottest Games Of 2011 – Videogame Top Picks For The Coming Year : Page – 1/21

If you thought 2010 was a great year for videogames, then you’re in for a real treat in 2011. At this time of year, we usually choose approximately 20 games that we think are worth keeping an eye out for in the upcoming year, but in 2011 we’re really spoilt for choice with over 40 titles making the cut; and that’s just the ones that have been announced.

Many of the games haven’t yet received release dates, so we present them to you in no particular order. The release dates that we have published may also be subject to change. Without further ado, check out some of the hottest games due out in 2011.

Top 10 PC Games of 2010

Top 10 PC Games of 2010

The Brainy Learning Algorithms of Numenta

The Brainy Learning Algorithms of Numenta – Technology Review

The system’s ability to make predictions about unfolding events is rooted in its unique capacity for processing temporal, or time-dependent, data. Conventional learning software cannot do that, because it can’t handle input consisting of many variables that change over time. Instead, engineers generally have to extract the handful of variables they think are useful and feed them into the algorithms.

That “pre-processing” isn’t necessary in models inspired by studies of biological brains, Arel says. Instead, the learning system can decide for itself what is important and what isn’t. This is an emerging field dubbed deep machine learning. “Most academic efforts are focused on processing images, though,” he says. “What’s unique about Numenta is that it’s able to handle temporal data, which opens up different kinds of applications.” Among the examples Hawkins envisions: businesses could better analyze human speech or patterns of electricity use in buildings.

But while this approach raises the prospect of systems that can learn about any kind of data rather than being specialized to just one task, Numenta still has to prove that its technology is widely applicable and cost-effective. It’s also unclear how the company will bring the technology to market, but it will probably be in the form of development tools rather than off-the-shelf products. “Now that the technology is really working,” Hawkins says, “next year will see us switch into product-development mode.”

Japan nano-tech team creates palladium-like alloy

Japan nano-tech team creates palladium-like alloy: report

Japanese researchers have created an alloy with properties similar to palladium, a precious metal used in many high-tech goods, a news report said Thursday, dubbing the breakthrough “present-day alchemy”

New dyes improve solar technologies for generating clean electricity and hydrogen fuel

New dyes improve solar technologies for generating clean electricity and hydrogen fuel

In laboratory tests, scientists at UB and the University of Rochester have shown that these chalcogenorhodamine systems produce hydrogen at unprecedented rates, in part because the dyes absorb light more intensely and transfer their electrons more efficiently than conventional dyes.

Sat-nav that’s ‘emotionally sensitive’: Cambridge scientist develops device that reacts to driver’s moods

Sat-nav that’s ‘emotionally sensitive’: Cambridge scientist develops device that reacts to driver’s moods | Mail Online

His device uses sensors to detect facial expressions, such as frowns, and voice recognition software to pick up rising irritation in the tone of a driver’s voice.

The prototype feeds this information into software attached to a robotic human head that sits alongside the driver.

When it detects a driver’s anger, it responds with sympathetic expressions. Researchers say the system could be further developed to avoid overloading a confused driver with information, for example by turning the volume down on the car radio or avoiding repeating instructions.

Professor Robinson said: ‘I love gadgets like GPS satellite navigation systems but I hate the fact they are so difficult to use, I think they were designed by sadists.

Want to stave off ailments of old age? Then try thinking young

Want to stave off ailments of old age? Then try thinking young | Mail Online

Those who think and dress in a youthful way are healthier than those who act their age, according to research.

Mind over matter, it seems, can improve everything from blood pressure to arthritis and eyesight.

Even the development of heart disease and cancer may, at least to a degree, be staved off by refusing to grow old gracefully.

The intriguing claims come from researchers at Harvard University, who reviewed a series of studies into how the mind influences the body.

Christina Aguilera performing “Bound to You” from “Burlesque”

YouTube – Christina Aguilera performing “Bound to You” from “Burlesque”

Vanotek – Red Square

YouTube – Vanotek – Red Square

2011 preview: Enter the robot self – tech

2011 preview: Enter the robot self – tech – 29 December 2010 – New Scientist

This could be the year when we quit dragging ourselves to work and send remote-controlled robot avatars instead

Why drag yourself to work through rush-hour traffic when you can stay at home and send a remote-controlled robot instead?

Firms in the US and Japan are already selling robot avatars that allow office workers to be in two places at once. So 2011 could be the year when many of us find ourselves sitting across the desk from an electronic colleague.

An Immune Aid for Aging

An Immune Aid for Aging – Technology Review

For many, flu season is simply a nuisance. But for the elderly, it can be like navigating a minefield. With just one exposure, the virus can break through an aging immune system and make the person very sick for a long time. Now researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, have found a drug that may boost immune systems in the elderly, bringing them back to “youthful levels.”

The drug, lenalidomide, is a cousin of thalidomide, the notorious sedative that was found to cause birth defects in the 1950s. Both drugs have been used recently to treat multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells in bone marrow. At much lower doses, scientists recently discovered, lenalidomide can stimulate immune responses in the elderly. The results of their study will be published in the January issue of Clinical Immunology.

“We’re looking at increasing health span versus lifespan,” says Edward Goetzl, director of allergy and immunology research at UCSF. “People have found that somewhere in their fifties, things start trickling down, and we want to keep them up.”

New Zealand releases UFO files

New Zealand releases UFO files | TG Daily

They include a well-known sighting from 1978 in which a cargo plane said it was being followed by strange lights – and was backed up by radar images from air traffic controllers. However, an Air Force report at the time explained it away as lights from Japanese squid boats reflecting off clouds.

“I hope the files will validate the reality of the sightings, and vindicate key witnesses who observed them, and faced ‘trial by media,” said one of the observers, former chief air traffic controller of Wellington International Airport, John Cordy.

Other reports in the 2,00-odd pages in the Unidentified Aerial Sightings (UAS) files include sketches and descriptions of spaceships ranging from silver disks to white cylinders and orange spheres. Aliens themselves have apparently been spotted wearing ‘pharaoh masks’, and there are even examples of ‘alien writing’.

UFO sightings seem to be on the rise in New Zealand, with more than 150 reports this year compared with 65 in 2009 and only 30 in 2008. The New Zealand Defence Force says it hasn’t got the time to investigate them.

Sea urchins show how to make self-sharpening tools

Sea urchins show how to make self-sharpening tools | TG Daily

“The organic layers are the weak links in the chain,” says professor of physics Pupa Gilbert. “There are breaking points at predetermined locations built into the teeth. It is a concept similar to perforated paper in the sense that the material breaks at these predetermined weak spots.”

The discovery, says Gilbert, could have important practical applications for human toolmakers.

“Now that we know how it works, the knowledge could be used to develop methods to fabricate tools that could actually sharpen themselves with use,” she says.

“The mechanism used by the urchin is the key. By shaping the object appropriately and using the same strategy the urchin employs, a tool with a self-sharpening edge could, in theory, be created.”

Scientists unveil ’1,000-core’ computer chip which would make desktop machines 20 times faster

Scientists unveil ’1,000-core’ computer chip which would make desktop machines 20 times faster | Mail Online

Scientists have created an ultra-fast computer chip which is 20 times faster than current desktop computers.

Modern PCs have a processor with two, four or sometimes 16 cores to carry out tasks.

But the central processing unit (CPU) developed by the researchers effectively had 1,000 cores on a single chip.

The developments could usher in a new age of high-speed computing in the next few years for home users frustrated with slow-running systems.

Edward Maya feat. Vika Jigulina – Desert Rain ( Official Video )

YouTube – Edward Maya feat. Vika Jigulina – Desert Rain ( Official Video )

The Year’s Best Tech Products

The Year’s Best Tech Products – Technology Review

A roundup of the most significant technologies to come to market in 2010.

Ray Kurzweil: Building bridges to immortality

Ray Kurzweil: Building bridges to immortality – opinion – 27 December 2010 – New Scientist

The challenge became even more personal when Kurzweil developed type 2 diabetes at just 35. At first he accepted treatment with insulin, but reading the literature convinced him that the underlying problem was insulin resistance, which the treatment made worse. “You’re bludgeoning your blood sugar levels down. It’s a bad strategy.”

Instead, he came up with an alternative: “reprogramming” his biochemistry through nutrition, exercise and aggressive supplementation. Kurzweil claims that the data he provided to New Scientist (see diagram) shows that this regime has erased the biochemical signs of diabetes, for example, driving his fasting glucose level from 185 milligrams per decilitre in 1985 (well into the diabetic range) down to a healthy 95 today. “I’ve had no indication of diabetes for over 20 years now,” he says, “although if I stopped my programme, my genetic predisposition to insulin resistance would return.” He’s since done the same for his cardiovascular risk factors, he says.

Gravity Emerges from Quantum Information, Say Physicists

Gravity Emerges from Quantum Information, Say Physicists  – Technology Review

At the heart of their idea is the tricky question of what happens to information when it enters a black hole. Physicists have puzzled over this for decades with little consensus. But one thing they agree on is Landauer’s principle: that erasing a bit of quantum information always increases the entropy of the Universe by a certain small amount and requires a specific amount of energy.

Jae-Weon and co assume that this erasure process must occur at the black hole horizon. And if so, spacetime must organise itself in a way that maximises entropy at these horizons. In other words, it generates a gravity-like force.

That’s intriguing for several reasons. First, Jae-Weon and co assume the existence of spacetime and its geometry and simply ask what form it must take if information is being erased at horizons in this way.

It also relates gravity to quantum information for the first time. Over recent years many results in quantum mechanics have pointed to the increasingly important role that information appears to play in the Universe.

Some physicists are convinced that the properties of information do not come from the behaviour of information carriers such as photons and electrons but the other way round. They think that information itself is the ghostly bedrock on which our universe is built.

Gravity has always been a fly in this ointment. But the growing realisation that information plays a fundamental role here too, could open the way to the kind of unification between the quantum mechanics and relativity that physicists have dreamed of.

Bila alba pt. Boc – România stă mai bine decât Ungaria

România stă mai bine decât Ungaria – Criza > Capital.ro

De luni bune, CDS-ul României este mult mai mic, ceea ce înseamnă că riscul pentru România este perceput ca fiind mai redus decât cel pentru Ungaria, a declarat Mihai Tănăsescu, reprezentantul României la FMI.

“Nici nu mai e nevoie sa mă refer la ţări cu probleme din zona euro, cum ar fi Spania, Irlanda, Grecia, ale căror CDS-uri sunt mai mari decât cel al României. Toate acestea arată o continuă îmbunătăţire în 2010 a percepţiei investitorilor faţă de România, faţă de reformele care au început să fie făcute şi care au început să îşi arate roadele”, a precizat fostul ministru de finanţe.

Researchers develop reactor to make fuel from sunlight

Researchers develop reactor to make fuel from sunlight | Environment | The Guardian

The device, reported in the journal Science, uses a standard parabolic mirror to focus the sun’s rays into a reaction chamber where the cerium oxide catalyst breaks down water and carbon dioxide. It does this because heating cerium oxide drives oxygen atoms out of its crystal lattice. When cooled the lattice strips oxygen from surrounding chemicals, including water and CO2 in the reactor. That produces hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be converted to a liquid fuel.

In the experiments the reactor cycled up to 1,600C then down to 800C over 500 times, without damaging the catalyst. “The trick here is the cerium oxide – it’s very refractory, it’s a rock,” said Haile. “But it still has this incredible ability to release oxygen. It can lose one in eight of its oxygen molecules.” Caltech has filed patents on this use of cerium oxide.