February 2007 – TheOS.IN

Oscars 2007 and Al Gore sense of humor video

First, if you don’t know who Al Gore is, here’s quick information from Wikipedia:

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, teacher, businessman, and environmentalist who was the 45th Vice President of the United States in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001. He also starred in the Academy Award-winning documentary, by director Davis Guggenheim, An Inconvenient Truth.

Now that you know who is Al Gore. Yâ€™day night I saw Oscar 2007. During program DiCaprio and Al Gore came on stage. They announced that this was the first environment friendly Oscar 2007 program. There was small sense of humor (just in case if you missed the tv program). Below is the video from Google Video service (you may have to visit site to see the video due to JS and flash integration):

Map of the brain (new edition)

Time magazine has published a new map of the brain. As 21st century science and technology open the brain to us as never before, accepted truths are becoming less true.

Trying to map the brain has always been cartography for fools. Most of the other parts of the body reveal their workings with little more than a glance. The heart is self-evidently a pump; the lungs are clearly bellows. But the brain, which does more than any organ, reveals least of all.

The 3-lb. lump of wrinkled tissue–with no moving parts, no joints or valves–not only serves as the motherboard for all the body’s other systems but also is the seat of your mind, your thoughts, your sense that you exist at all. You have a liver; you have your limbs. You are your brain.

The New Map Of The Brain

Meetings make us dumber, says new study

Usually two or more people come together for the purpose of discussing a topic. It is important method used by us for communication, marketing and much more.

The research appears in this month’s issue of the Journal of Consumer Research which suggest that – Brainstorming sessions backfire when group thinking clouds decisions.

People have a harder time coming up with alternative solutions to a problem when they are part of a group, new research suggests.

Scientists exposed study participants to one brand of soft drink then asked them to think of alternative brands. Alone, they came up with significantly more products than when they were grouped with two others.

Understanding Windows Vista Kernel

Mark Russinovich, Technical Fellow at Microsoft in the Platform and Services Division has published a three part series article called – Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 1, 2 ,and 3 (yet to publish)

First part covers:
The areas of processes and threads, and in I/O. Future installments will cover memory management, startup and shutdown, reliability and recovery, and security.

From the second part:
Every release of Windows improves scalability and performance, and Windows Vista is no different. The Windows Vista Memory Manager includes numerous enhancements, like more extensive use of lock-free synchronization techniques, finer-grained locking, tighter data-structure packing, larger paging I/Os, support for modern GPU memory architectures, and more efficient use of the hardware Translation Lookaside Buffer. Plus, Windows Vista memory management now offers dynamic address space allocation for the requirements of different workloads.

Four performance-enhancing features that use new technologies make their operating system debut on Windows Vista: SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, ReadyBoot, and ReadyDrive. I’ll discuss them in detail later in this article.

Part I : Inside the Windows Vista Kernel
Part II : Inside the Windows Vista Kernel

Chimpanzee making their own weapons to hunt for food

According to wikipedia, Chimpanzee, often shortened to chimp, is the common name for the two extant species in the genus Pan. The better known chimpanzee is Pan troglodytes, the Common Chimpanzee, living primarily in West, and Central Africa. Its cousin, the Bonobo or “Pygmy Chimpanzee” as it is known archaically, Pan paniscus, is found in the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congo River forms the boundary between the two species.

According to this news story for first time, chimps seen making weapons for hunting apart from humans.

It is the first time that an animal other than a human has been directly observed in crafting a weapon for the purpose of hunting or killing.

So basically history is repeating itself. We did some things millions of years ago.

For First Time, Chimps Seen Making Weapons for Hunting

Google gmail (Google apps) available commercially offers 10GB Gmail account

Google is offering commercial version of popular services such as gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Docs & Spreadsheets, Page Creator and Start Page for $50 / user account / year.

So whether you’re a small business or a Fortune 500 company, Google can power up your organization with the right services and support, for the right price.

With paid service you get 10GB email account and other features.

Google also provides the 99.9% uptime guarantee for gmail using Google Apps Premier Edition, as described in their Terms of Service.

You can try Google Apps Premier Edition for free through April 30th, 2007.

=> Found via official Google blog Google Apps grows up

Top 5 Viruses in Hollywood Movie

David Pean has published a list of 5 top viruses in movie history:

If you didn’t know what a computer virus was, I hope you didn’t base your knowledge on Hollywood. There’s a lot more to it than simply typing “Upload Virus” into your fake Operating System. However, the fate of several Hollywood movies have been decided by a virus one way or another. Check out the list below and tell us what you think.

# 5 The Matrix

# 4 Office Space

# 3.Hackers

# 2.The Net

# 1.Independence Day

Installing and using Java on Windows Vista

Java on Vista: Yes, it Works :)

This blog post from Chet Haase describes in detail what has been done to make the Java platform run well on Vista.

From the post:
Nope. The rumor is not true; we actually work great on Vista. (The rumor about Larry, on the other hand…). In fact, we have been tuned into this release and making Java work on it since it was named after a breed of cattle. Between regular calls with Microsoft, interaction with their engineers when problems or questions arose, and regular testing and engineering during Vista’s development, we have been building a rock-solid release of Java for Vista.

So how did this bizarre rumor originate? Well, older versions of Java do have problems on Vista, and that’s what the original report was about; someone tried running some older version of Java on Vista and noted some problems. But that’s like saying that your favorite XBox game, Bloody Mess X, doesn’t work on XBox360. Of course it doesn’t; the original game was written for a completely different system. Why should you expect it to work out of the [x]box on this new platform? Presumably, given the popularity of Bloody Mess X, the developers are working on a port of the game to the new console (“Even more blood!”), so you will still be able to run your favorite game on this new system.

HydraCoach – Intelligent Water Bottle

This is smart Water Bottle – it will tell you if you drank enough water or not :)

All you have to do is punch your weight, duration and intensity of exercise, the temperature, and altitude into the HydraCoach Intelligent Water Bottle’s hydration calculator, and it will calculate rest of the details.

From the product page:
The HydraCoach is the worlds first Interactive Water Bottle. It calculates your personal hydration needs, tracks your real-time fluid consumption, paces you throughout the day and motivates you to achieve and maintain optimal hydration. Our Doctors, Nutritionists and Fitness Trainers all recommend that we drink more water yet there has never been a device to help individuals adhere to the expert’s recommendations. The HydraCoach is the only product of its kind and a breakthrough in personal hydration monitoring.

Features

Calculates Your Personal Hydration Needs
Tracks Your Fluid Consumption Throughout The Day
Paces You to Ensure Hydration Goals Are Met
Motivates You to Stay Properly Hydrated

=> See product price and availability information at official site (found via bookofjoe)