Japan tops world broadband study – Only Japan has the broadband quality to cope with next-generation internet applications, a new study has revealed.
Only Japan has the broadband quality to cope with next-generation internet applications such as video on demand, as well as peer-to-peer file sharing. Most ISPs have used flat rate pricing model. Overselling bandwidth is regular practice. Some ISPs estimate that about 5% of users consume about 50% of the total bandwidth. Top quality broadband nations:
Japan
Sweden
Netherlands
Latvia
Korea
Switzerland
Lithuania
Denmark
Germany
Slovenia
According to study:
Japan’s early commitment to investing in broadband made it the only country prepared to deliver the necessary quality for next-generation web applications over the next three to five years.
Without high-quality broadband, we will not be able to take full advantage of the next wave of productivity, collaboration and entertainment that can be gained from the web.
The standard broadband technologies in most areas are DSL and cable modems. However, use of newer technologies such as VDSL, optical fiber connections may make transmission more cost effective in a long run than copper wire technology.
Black hole pictures – about a theoretical region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even electromagnetic radiation.
A black hole is created when a giant star is died and it creates a region in space with extremely high gravitational field. The gravitational field so strong that nothing can escape from it. There are many popular myths concerning black holes, many of them perpetuated by Television and Hollywood movies. I strongly suggest you read this Nasa page which explains “Black Holes.”
Black holes
Schwarzschild black holes
M87 active galactic nucleus
Black hole in front of the Milky Way
Simulation of Gravitational lensing by a black hole (animation)
Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Clou
Many of my friends are not aware of the Big Bang and CERN experiment which may find answers to some of the biggest questions about our world and universe.
Many of my friends are not aware of the Big Bang and CERN experiment which may find answers to some of the biggest questions about our world and universe.
What is the big bang model?
According to the Big Bang model, the universe expanded from an extremely dense and hot state and continues to expand today. A common and useful analogy explains that space itself is expanding, carrying galaxies with it, like raisins in a rising loaf of bread. General relativistic cosmologies, however, do not actually ascribe any ‘physicality’ to space.
More about CERN and LHC
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco-Swiss border.
The essential idea is that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past and continues to expand to this day. The CERN is trying to create the big bang in a lab using LHC.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator complex, intended to collide opposing beams of protons charged with approximately 7 TeV of energy. Its main purpose is to explore the validity and limitations of the Standard Model, the current theoretical picture for particle physics. It is theorized that the collider will produce the Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and missing links in the Standard Model, and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass.
The LHC has been in construction for some 13 years. According to BBC:
Scientists have hailed a successful switch-on for an enormous experiment which will recreate the conditions a few moments after the Big Bang.
They have now fired two beams of particles called protons around the 27km-long tunnel which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The first beams were circulated through the collider on 10 September 2008, and the first high-energy collisions are planned to take place after the LHC is officially unveiled on 21 October 2008.
Understanding Birth of Our Solar System
Click on play button to view history of our solar system:
In mathematics (and physics) a sequence of n numbers can be understood as a location in an n-dimensional space. When n=4, the set of all such locations is called the fourth dimension. Now, Mathematicians create videos that help in visualizing four-dimensional objects.
In mathematics (and physics) a sequence of n numbers can be understood as a location in an n-dimensional space. When n=4, the set of all such locations is called the fourth dimension. Now, Mathematicians create videos that help in visualizing four-dimensional objects.
The 4th dimension may be interpreted either as time, or as a literal fourth dimension of space, a fourth spatial dimension. Rotating shadow of a tesseract rotating on a single axis and a single plane is fine example of 4th dimension.
Mathematicians, freed in their imaginations from physical constraints, can conjure up descriptions of objects in many more dimensions than that. Points in a plane can be described with pairs of numbers, and points in space can be described with triples. Why not quadruples, or quintuples, or more?
Windows XP still outselling Windows Vista. Most Business PC user are still overwhelmingly opting for XP, computer giant HP has revealed.
MS-Windows Vista was Released on November 8, 2006 (RTM version) but Windows XP still outselling Windows Vista. Most Business PC user are still overwhelmingly opting for XP, computer giant HP has revealed. From the article:
“From the 30th of June, we have no longer been able to ship a PC with a XP licence,” said Jane Bradburn, Market Development Manager, Commercial Notebooks for HP Australia.
“However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs with a Vista Business licence but with XP pre-loaded. That is still the majority of business computers we are selling today.”
So, in other words, Microsoft counts a sale for Vista, even though the computer manufacturer has really sold XP.
Does this even matter? I don’t think so, as Microsoft still gets share, no matter what OS sells more.
Scientists have discovered a virus that can infect another virus i.e. viruses can catch colds, says study that redefines life itself.
(Rotavirus particle, source – wikipedia)
A virus is a microorganism. A virus is a small particle that can infect living organisms. Viruses do not belong to any of the six kingdoms. They are generally seen as being between living organisms and inanimate nature, rather than alive, since they do not show all characteristics of living organisms.
Virus is biological agent which can cause common diseases such as common cold, influenza, chickenpox, diarrhea and cold sores. Serious diseases such as Ebola, AIDS, avian influenza etc. Now, scientists have discovered a virus that can infect another virus i.e. viruses can catch colds, says study that redefines life itself.
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
North Pole defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth’s axis of rotation meets the Earth’s surface. The north pole is often credited as having snow. But polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change – no more ice at north pole.
The North Pole ice is melting at the highest rate and as a result, there will be no ice. In other words, the pole may be completely ice-free at the surface and composed of nothing but open water by September.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.
Big companies with valuable brands fear they will have to spend time and money buying up every possible domain name
ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. From the BBC article:
A complete overhaul of the way in which people navigate the internet has been given the go-ahead in Paris.
The net’s regulator, Icann, voted unanimously to relax the strict rules on so-called “top-level” domain names, such as .com or .uk.
The decision means that companies could turn brands into web addresses, while individuals could use their names.
Big companies with valuable brands fear they will have to spend time and money buying up every possible domain name – while reaping little gain from the liberalisation of this market.
Ice found on mars. Phoenix now seems to have confirmed that similar features on Mars are caused by the same processes as those on this planet.
Scientists say they found evidence of ice on Mars. Nasa’s Phoenix spacecraft discovered evidence of ice in the soil around its landing site on Mars. Following images were acquired by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s Surface Stereo Imager on the 21st and 25th days of the mission, or Sols 20 and 24 (June 15 and 19, 2008). These images show sublimation of ice in the trench informally called “Dodo-Goldilocks” over the course of four days. In the lower left corner, lumps disappear, similar to the process of evaporation. [Fig.01: Tiny clumps of material in the bottom left of the trench on 15 June (left) are gone by 19 June (right)]
[Fig.02: Ice on mars, click to enlarge image]
According to Dr Peter Smith, Phoenix’s principal investigator:
These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it’s ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt, but salt can’t do that.
