The Four-eyed Journal » Technology

Infographic: Where are the world’s nuclear weapons?

jhay — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:32:41 +0000

We’re all too familiar with how powerful nuclear weapons are and how an all-out nuclear war could wipe out the human race with just a few clicks of a button once the command has been given by the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations.

This doomsday scenario was best depicted by the movie The Sum of All Fears which starred Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck about how terrorists tricked the United States and Russia into thinking that the former was attacked by the other using a nuclear bomb which almost started World War III.

The movie featured secret locations and bunkers where the missiles carrying nuclear warheads were located but most of us don’t really know where those sites are actually located.

Don’t worry anymore, the team from Mozy has put together a cool infographic giving a quick summary of how many nuclear weapons are active and where they are in the world:

Via: Mozy

Cool yet it has chilling effect doesn’t it? Despite losing its status as a world military superpower, Russia is still a force to reckon with as it remains to be the country with the most number of nuclear weapons – 13000 which is way more than what the United States has which is 9400.

Even though nuclear weapons are banned in the Philippines, it could be a little consolation knowing that nuclear missiles can be launched from thousands of miles away and still hit their intended targets with great accuracy. Let’s just hope that the day will never come when nuclear weapons would not need to be used.

My favorite/top tech brands

jhay — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 11:32:06 +0000

There’s an on-going poll over at Yugatech.com asking for which brands are the faves of us consumers.

Over the years of craving and owning gadgets and using services, here’s a short list of the brands I consider my preferred, not actually favorites though, choice.

Cellphones: Sony Ericsson and LG

Personal Computing: Intel, NVidia, HP/Compaq

Telecoms: Globe (both mobile and landline)

Companies & Websites: Google & Amazon

Most frequently used but in no particular order: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Automattic (WordPress), Tumblr and Springpadit

What’s your preferred/trusted/favorite brands? Blog/Tweet/Comment about them below or at Yugatech

Biological Lasers – first step towards Cyclops?

jhay — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 02:02:06 +0000

It’s not science-fiction anymore, it’s a fact. Scientists have found a way to make lasers out of living cells. Kidney cells, of all candidates, have been utilized to prove that a biological laser is feasible.

Two physicists Malte Gather and Seok Hyun Yun were behind this project, they explained that:

Almost any organism, from bacteria to higher mammalians, can be programmed to synthesize such luminescent proteins, so we wondered if GFP could be used to amplify light and build biological lasers.

And that’s exactly what they did. They took human embryonic kidney cells and reprogrammed them with an enhanced version of the GFP gene. The cells where then sandwiched between highly reflective mirrors and a blue light were pulsed through the chamber.

The cells absorbed and re-emitted a green light enough to be used as a laser by amplifying it with mirrors. Unlike regular lasers that wear out with use, the new biological laser is able to “self-heal” and go on.

One of the practical uses this new technology offers is its potential to help reveal biological processes within the cell as the light emitted contained information about the insides of the cell as Gather told MSNBC.

The biological laser could also lead to new treatment for cancer patients, using light to activate drugs that attack cancer cells. Don’t you just love science? So this means that a human eye capable of projecting a laser blast can now be engineered and implanted on a human? (ehem X-Men!)

Read more about this new biological laser through the paper published online by Nature.

US Navy fries boat with Laser Cannon

jhay — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:18:40 +0000

First it was a working prototype of a rail gun, now the the US Navy has just successfully tested a laser weapon mounted on a warship and with it, they managed to fry a smaller boat’s engine.

The laser weapon was on the USS Paul Foster, produced a 15-kilowatt pulse from a solid-state high-energy laser (HEL) and despite the challenging conditions in the Pacific ocean, they crippled the target boat by setting its engine on fire. Check out the video below:

It may looked like the engine caught fire from some internal damage but it was really caused by a laser pulse, invisible to the human eye, fired from the USS Paul Foster. Which is even scarier as if you happen to be on the target vessel, you wouldn’t know you were being fired upon until your engine blows up or you yourself are suddenly fried.

Tomahawk cruise missiles and other smart bombs are cool, but lasers capable of melting your face off or blowing a hole through your ship, that’s just awesome! And the US Navy wouldn’t stop there, they are currently working on more powerful laser weapons in the megawatt range.

Gunpowder is medieval, lasers weapons and rail guns are just a few decades away. And I’m pretty sure force fields would be next.

Via PCMag.com

US Navy rail gun jet launcher (0)

Windows 8: Ribbon UI to replace menu and tool bars

jhay — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 02:43:52 +0000

Do you like the Ribbon UI that was first introduced in Microsoft Office 2007? Well at the moment it seems that you’ll be seeing more of it in the upcoming Windows 8, the successor to Windows 7.

The early builds of Microsoft Windows 8 have been leaked and the tech community has already started to reveal some of its features. Most notable is the implementation of the Ribbon UI or toolbars in tabs in almost all the programs that ship with the OS like Windows Explorer.

Check out the screen shots below:

With the new Ribbon UI replacing the menu and toolbar, comes the so-called dynamic ribbons that changes depending on the type of file being viewed like Library Tools, Picture Tools, Disk Tools, etc.

Tech pundits are cautioning that this may not be what the final build of Windows 8 would look like but it does provide great insight into how the new OS from Microsoft will turn out to be.

Just like when it first appeared in MS Office 2007, Windows users are torn between loving or hating the Ribbon UI and now that it’s most likely to be seen everywhere inside WIndows 8, the divide and debate would just widen and escalate.

Frankly, I myself am torn between loving the Ribbon UI or not. There are times that I love the way it speeds up the work flow but there are also times that it does the opposite, as when trying to figure out how to do something in Word that I could have easily done with the old menu and toolbar UI.

Either way, it seems that Microsoft seems to be stepping up to Ubuntu’s switch to the new Unity UI with Ubuntu 11.04 which despite the controversy, is intended to work on touch devices as well. And this is where the Ribbon UI comes in more handy, on touch screens of smart phones and tablet devices.

And now on to yo, how do you find the Ribbon UI replacing the menu and toolbars in Windows 8?

Via Within Windows