Not too long ago, the only it seemed that the touch screen technology could only be found in styus-driven PDAs and tablet PCs. At one point, they were too expensive still and thus too costly too actually replace the functions of the keyboard and the mouse. But the latter mass demand for touchscreen technology called for using the interface in more than the PDAs and tablet PCs. But touchscreen technologies are not really the same for all type of devices. Here are a few insiders regarding touchscreen tech.

Touchscreen types. The simplest touchscreen tech is the resistive screen, a two layered electrically conducive material separated by a transparent insulators often observed as dots when a person presses the screen. It’s durable and works best for outdoors and industrial environments. However, it may not exactly be suitable for touch-based devices like tablet PCs because they only let 75% of the light from the screen.

Capacitive screens on the other hand work using glass that’s horizontally and vertically coated electrodes. This makes the screens more sensitive, thus there would be no need to physically push down screen to make it work. It lets through over 90% of the screen’s light.

Surface acoustic wave )SAW) touchscreens use ultrasonic transducers that send waves though the surface of a glass screen. Once the screen is touched, the touch interrupts the waves and they are converted into coordinates for software use. This type works with ATMS.

Another touchscreen types surrounds the screen with infrared LEDs, each having photodetectors installed grid-like across the screen’s area. Touching the screen actually breaks the infrared beam. This works optically through interfering with a light beam.

The multi-touch technology. The four mentioned touchscreen tech types are traditional and the touchscreen tech considered to be most wanted when it comes to devices involve more than the four types. This is the multi-touch technology, the one that is responsible for Apple’s success with its iPhone devices. Multi-touch technology allows sensors to detect several finger presses at one time. The alternative name for multi-touch is ‘mutual capacitance’. In a mutual capacitance screen, a small capacitor is found at every row and column intersection. iPhone 4 for instance having a 960×640 screen has 614,400 capacitors.Each capacitor is run by a voltage that changes at a finger’s touch. This interruption is usually fed back to the software as an X-Y coordinate pair.

A Look at the Inner World of Touchscreen Technologies is a post from: Tech Pinger

Launching Google+ may have disputed the rumors that google is looking into buying Twitter, but that does not mean that such is actually the end of these possibilities.

For one, although Google had attracted more than25 million users in August, Twitter still has more, with a record of 300 million in May. Reason two pertains to relevance.

The social web is slowly turned into a site for product recommendations and others. This is because using the usual search engines just sometimes proves to be inefficient when trying to look for such information.

Google+ had made real-time search results for this case but Twitter being a social web modelled after such advertising scenario still takes the lead in the game.

Two questions however arise from this event. First, would this benefit Twitter? Well the action can cut costs and Twitterr will surely benefit from Google’s infrastructure.

The $8 billion to $10 billion price Google may offer, would make Twitter’s bank balance robust. Integrations of Google’s services like Google Talk and Gmail will make Twitter more useful and more popular as well.

But any deal may be scrutinized by anti-trust regulators and the rivals will probably react if Google will actually attempt to get into social search too, as it is already king of the web search.

Second, what can Goolgle really possibly do to Twitter? It might ruin Twitter as it is difficult to integrate the constructs of two entirely different companies.

If the integration goes bad, it may harm the successful real-time chat service that made Twitter a favourite among social search users.

Other than Google, are there any potential Twitter buyer just incase Twitter decided to sell? Well yes, but the potential buyers already have access to Twitter.

Microsoft for example has just renewed its Twitter search deal for Bing, while Apple has extensive Twitter integration in iOS 5.

Amazon too already uses the service for its Kindle users’ book ratings while and eBay isn’t as keen on buying another communications firm after letting go of Skype.

Given such scenario, and the price tag of $10 million, the best that Google can actually do is either bring back the real-time search feature I had that included Twitter’s “firehose” of content or just buy access to the social web instead of reaching for Twitter ownership.

Some Reasons that Google May Just Want to Look into Buying Twitter is a post from: Tech Pinger

Celebs Threatened By Hackers:

The Halo of hackers threatened to poke celebrities’ phones and e-mail accounts as promise in the video. Stated hacks of actresses are Scarlet Johannson and Mila Kunis which were posted on the web.

The FBI investigates the suspected hack linking Johannson and Kunis, including the private invasion into phone and social media’s accounts of some 50 celebrities, counting Vanessa Hudgens and Jessica Alba.

Hollywood Leaks the self-recognized Hackers boasted in YouTube targeting celebrities and Jew-controlled media over next weeks.

These are the statements in the video as stated by the self-proclaimed hackers:
“Attention Hollywood. We are Anonymous. We have been watching you. We have been listening to you. You have been allowed to run free too long.

The time of Jew-controlled media is over. We are taking back the media with your faggot vampires and Scientology pastors. We are here for the people.

We are here for the Lulz. We are here to stay. We have your lives. We have your blood, sweat and tears. Over the next couple of weeks, everyone will have them. We will rock you for ages. Consider this our acceptance speech for the Video Music Awards.”

Hollywood Leaks declared the liability for leaking the images of rapper Kreayshawn the most recent.

It is still under investigation about the leaks of information from Johannson in her seductive images and Kunis in her intimate settings with Justin Timberlake.

The leak is still under investigation. FBI are looking possibilities on how the infringes happened. It could be poor passwords, passwords entered in an unencrypted format and etc.

Celebrity Hacking started in 2003 when Nicolas Jacobsen breached the account of Paris Hilton. And last 2008, Josh Holly hacked the Gmail account of former Disney star Miley Cyrus.

As Josh were posting a series of offensive photos of Cyrus online that she had allegedly taken of herself and sent to singer Nick Jonas at some stage as she dated him.

The descriptions showed a 15-year-old Cyrus in a wet T-shirt in the shower, baring her midriff while kissing at the mirror, and posturing seductively in her underwear and bathing suit

Celebs Threatened By Hackers is a post from: Tech Pinger

Not all people like extreme sports, but some even just can’t get enough with the usual intensity that most extreme sports offer.

These people seem to want more than the adventure that extreme sports like hang gliding and kayaking can give. So what do they do? They try to challenge death through doing extremely dangerous stuffs.

For these people, safety is definitely out of the picture:

If you’re one of these people, you will love Valparaiso Cerro Abajo Urban Mountain Biking Race , the only downhill bike race that threads on definitely dangerous grounds.

Every year, extreme bikers go to Chile to participate in this insane event. However, it does not get much press coverage because only a few eventually enter the race.

Why? there are a number of reasons why other bikers avoid the Valparaiso downhill race.

For one, the set up is in the streets of Valparaiso, Chile, those that are definitely not conducive to normal biking, with their open man holes and canals, and loose packs of ground soil in corners.

Two, the bikers are also made to bike through sidewalks and levelled sidewalk stairs right in front of some Chilean residences.

And as if that’s not enough, animals like dogs are allowed to roam the areas, thus if you’re the one biking though, you may really have to watch out for them if you don’t want tumbling over them.

Three, the route is made more treacherous by narrowing the course to areas where the bikers would need to go over wooden tramps that have been poorly built. How poor is poorly built?

Some are just thinner than the usual 2 by 2 inches thick planks, and they are simply built manually using nails and hammers.

No precautions for thicker wooden ramp foundations are done.

What more, they are positioned in places where the bikers would to take off from streets with higher altitudes and land on narrow corners of the streets with lower altitudes than the take off points. This is of course tricky as the route becomes very tricky and unpredictable.

And as if people couldn’t care less about your safety when you bike through them, they happily wave their hands in front of your face as you fly by, obscuring your view of the route.

Technically there are two words that can sum this downhill bike race – and these are — insanely loose.

Love Intense Biking Experience? Try Valparaiso Cerro Abajo Downhill Bike Race is a post from: Tech Pinger

It is easy to actually pull off optic illusions through the use of software like Photoshop, whereas it was difficult before through the use of ink and manual prints. One simply has to have an understanding about optic illusions and its elements.

First, what is an optic illusion?

An optic illusion, otherwise known as a visual illusion, is an image that sometimes misleads and deceives an individual. The deception played is done through the colors, brightness, size, position, tilt and movement used.

The technical explanation for the visual illusions is that the brain automatically makes inferences from the things it sees.

The automatic inferences are based on old interpretations of events before, and the brain merely likens the present misleading stimuli to the previous one.

In the following Sick Optic Illusion for instance, the colors blue and green are technically the same color, this is green in reality but because of the other mixed colors in the swirl, the blue comes off as blue.

To see if this is true, you can always pull this into Photoshop and take out the other colors. This is sort of trippy but you might just want to try this. The result will be this one.

If you want to make your own optic illusions, you can also use the same Photoshop software. You can use a jpeg picture and open it using Photoshop.

Be sure that the picture has several colors, remember that you need such colors to create an illusion. Next you simply have to select Duplicate Layer and Desaturate the bottom layer.

Afterwards, pick a 50% gray color from the palette and use this to fill the top layer. Select Luminosity for mode and Opacity 100%, then adjust and invert.

You can try making other changes too like in the brightness and sharpening. Save both layers in JPEG formats and open them in Flash for animation.

You will have an image that create visual illusions.

Of course, this may not exactly be similar to the optic illusion shown above as the one above plays on the RGB format and the surrounding colors but this can be a good start for making your own optic illusions.

Cool Optical Illusions Through RGB Formats is a post from: Tech Pinger

So how heavy do you think should an average, healthy built person weigh?

If you go to the gym, or even just exercise right, you will probably be about 72 to 86 kgs, way heavier than the 60 pounds Batman LEGO bricks built by young 13 year old boy Evan Bacon.

The LEGO fanatic boy has been making 3D LEGO models for five years already. He is a LEGO Beta Tester and has worked at a very young age with the LEGO Master Builder at Austin, Texas.

Currently, the boy runs his own company called Bacon Bricks, where he sells his own creations or customized designs.

The same Batman LEGO replica, is sold in the company for about $7, 500 dollars. Wow, talk about a lot of money for a piece.

The Batman replica, stands around 6 feet tall, and seems to overwhelm its observer.

Although it’s tall and overbearing, the superhero model weighs less than 4 kilograms because its insides are all hollow.

About 15,000 to 20,000 LEGO bricks have been used for the model. Considering the number of bricks used to make the replica, you can just imagine the patience and time spent by Evan on this creation.

Furthermore, this accomplishment is no easy feat. It takes more than creativity to make something like this.

It requires the creator to have logic, spatial intelligence and excellent perceptual acuity to see symmetries when forming the LEGO bricks into something. Evan has given words that it took him around three months to create the model.

The replica has been entered into the Brick Fiesta – an Austin LEGO weekend convention.

However, not only was it just entered into the convention, and not only did it awe the crowd, but it garnered three outstanding awards too – People’s Choice, Youth Creation and Best Artistic Creation.

This certainly can give anyone real pride in his works. Imagine the ego integrative feeling it has brought Evan Bacon. Nothing perhaps can beat that awesomeness.

Evan’s work did not only impress those who were at the Austin LEGO Convention. It also impressed the first real Batman character Adam West!

Even The Voice’s Nakia stopped by and had his picture taken together with Batman. So how cool can LEGO bricks making get? VERY COOL.

{Source: yfrog }

Batman weighs only 60 pounds? Unlikely! But not with LEGO bricks however is a post from: Tech Pinger

In the previous years, the IT profession is tagged to be the job of the future.

Many of us have thought that as technology is being integrated into the big business industries and to almost every institution, those IT professionals are going to have the greater edge than any other profession.

However, as the years have past, we have come to realize that there is a problem in this presumption.

We have seen the fading of this hope at the start of the millennium crisis or the Y2K down to the recession until today.

This is due to the overinvestment of big businessmen to the expensive IT projects that unexpectedly have crashed down. This had cost the huge loss in the economy and until now we are still hit hard by the consequences.

Now that we are in the year 2011, we can note that most of the IT departments have reduced into the number of tech support and outsourcing professionals.

In other words, the presumed job of the future seems to be fading as wider opportunities are beginning to narrow. While we can’t conclude that opportunities for IT professionals are totally gone, still we are thinking where will the future of IT jobs be?

For that reason, we have trimmed down the possible jobs for IT professionals into three.

These are as follows:

1. Consultants.

Most of the big companies are likely to hire third party consultants as the chance to hire IT professionals as staff are no longer the trend. This is because our generation today is becoming proficient in using technology that they only need a little assistance in manipulating them.

2. Project Managers.

Project managers are also plausible jobs for IT professionals in the future as they are going to be future business analysts in the traditional companies that will ask help from them in making technology decisions.

3. Developers.

This is the area where most of our IT professionals will have an increase of jobs as we are in the decade of web-based applications and development.

Top 3 Major Jobs For IT Professionals In The Future is a post from: Tech Pinger

Arturo Castro, a Spanish Computer Engineering graduate and a current artist in the video entitled “Faces” has pioneered the application of face cloning in real-time.

Apparently, he utilizes the Kyle McDonald’s ofxFacetracker and Jason Saragih’s facetracker library in creating the real-time face substitution footage.

These are C/C + + API for real-time generic non-rigid face alignment and tracking. He also used the image clone code created by Kevin Atkinson in attempting to also clone the cartoon faces, but the attempt didn’t work so well.

That’s why he is saying that for now his project is concentrated on cloning real people’s faces.

In the video, we can see the faces of other people being projected to his face that resulted to look like he is wearing a mask of many faces. Popular celebrities like Michael Jackson, Brad Pitt, Paris Hilton, Marilyn Monroe and even the President Barak Obama can be projected right into his face.

This made me freak, yet at the same time admired his ingenuity in realizing this idea.

According to Castro, he was inspired from the idea of taking someone else face from one camera and take another’s face in real-time.

This made some critiques say that this thing might create a new perception of stealing others identity. And if I may add to that, identity theft can then be done in ‘real-time’.

Basically, I don’t really get the good point of Castro’s idea in his project. If this is purely for fun, then surely it’s entertaining.

But we can’t deny the fact that projecting yourself from other people’s face is a crime of pretension and a disease called low self-esteem.

Face Cloning in Realtime: New Idea In Stealing Others Identity is a post from: Tech Pinger

If you are happy getting along with your friends listening to a bunch of your favorite music, then I think this latest radio service integration may be a great advantage for you.

The Myxer Social Radio an internet radio service app created by an online media catalog for mobile devices was unveiled.

Apparently, this radio service will have its integration with the most popular social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter.

According to the site MyxerSocialRadio.com this radio service is totally refreshing and amazing build of group listening experience.

Aside from the fact that its 100% free streaming radio service, it offers both group and personalized listening rooms supported by the Social Boost technology and a real-time mobile chat.

In other words this radio service integration will allow the users to enjoy music streaming with their Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

This service will be available also to iTunes App Store, Android Market and to Myxer Social Radio website. This will also be released for iOS, Android and desktop web users.

There are no clear dates as to when they will be officially launching the service, but they are assuring the users that they will be notified via email.

So, if this sounds intriguing or better yet interesting to you, then you can freely subscribe at their site.

My impression tells me that these people are professional and dedicated to their clear intentions. Therefore, I hope for their success in this endeavor.

Myxer Social Radio: Internet Radio Service App in Facebook and Twitter is a post from: Tech Pinger

Google TV.

The search giant is indeed thriving to get success in their latest endeavor, the Google TV. For sometime the Google TV has already been enjoyed by the Americans but it seems like the market is not as enthusiastic as was expected before its release.

There can be various reasons for this US market response. One of these is having a wide array of cable companies that perhaps wouldn’t want their business to be injured with the seamless switching of TV and internet that was offered by Google TV.

For that reason, Google is moving to offer their deal in the UK market. According to Telegraph.co.uk, for the coming six months, Google TV will be available in UK.

Apparently, they can access Google TV by having a set-top box that enables them to search channels, videos and web using your television.

Also, an exciting feature is that you can even use your device as remote control with voice recognition. Moreover, the user will be allowed to access the BBC iPlayer, ITV Player and more.

Google TV aims to change every user’s experience in watching and using the internet. I’m sure Google TV fans in UK are really excited with this. An introductory video are provided below for you to see the overview of how Google TV works.

In view of this, Google is expecting much in UK because of the region’s availability of free-to-air service unlike in the US. But we can’t say anything more as of yet until we see some good results.

So, we’ll wait for more updates of Google TV in UK within the next six months.

Google TV in UK: Coming Soon With High Market Expectation is a post from: Tech Pinger