Windows Phone 7

It took Microsoft a long time, but it’s finally here - Windows Phone 7 (now sans the ‘Series’). It’s the software giant’s spiritual successor to Windows Mobile, its answer to iOS and Android, and Redmond’s chance to once again vie for a piece of the smartphone market.

We’ve been following Windows Phone 7 closely since its inception, fleshing out at MIX 10, and carry through to its official debut earlier this month. Now it’s finally time to really see what Windows Phone 7 has in store, and what Microsoft’s vision for the future of handheld computing really looks like. The competition is fierce and getting fiercer, and Microsoft already had one false start with its ill-fated KIN series of devices. We’ve been playing with three Windows Phone 7 devices - the HTC Surround, Samsung Focus, and LG Quantum 7, and thus far WP7 looks like it’s headed for success.

Sources : Anandtech

Touchable Holograms

We're another step closer to Star Trek's Holodeck. Sky net find out that A research team from Tokyo University are developing a system that promises "touchable" 3D interfaces that adds "a sensation of touch to holograms". The system detects the orientation and placement of the user's hands, and uses ultrasonic wave generators to simulate pressure on the skin.The project has used off-the-shelf the components like Nintendo's Wiimote, and has already made an appearance at the last SIGGRAPH, an annual computer graphics conference. Sky net think It only works with simple objects, with software affecting the behavior of these virtual items as they "touch" or "hit" the user.

That's still a long way from Star Trek's holodeck, a science-fiction dream where actual physical surfaces are simulated through matter manipulation to come into contact with the operator. Sky net think , Yet the research team isn't aiming for a complete environmental simulation. "In hospitals, there can be contamination between people due to objects that are touched communally. But if you [use] a virtual switch, then you no longer have to worry about touch contamination."

Clearly, Sky net hope The Tokyo University team see the system as an improvement over current touch-screens. They also support dynamic interfaces, but for a more realistic-feeling end-product.

sources : Tom Hardware
photo : Tom Hardware

Intel's 50Gbps Silicon Photonics Link: The Future of Interfaces

On Tuesday, sky net, heard that Intel demonstrated the world’s first practical data connection using silicon photonics - a 50 gigabit per second optical data connection built around an electrically pumped hybrid silicon laser. Sky net think they achieved the 50 gigabit/s data rate by multiplexing 4 12.5 gigabit/s wavelengths into one fiber - wavelength division multiplexing. Intel dubbed its demo the “50G Silicon Photonics Link.” iber optic data transmission isn’t anything new - it’s the core of what makes the internet as we know it today possible. What makes Intel’s demonstration unique is that they’ve fabricated the laser primarily out of a low-cost, mass-produceable, highly understood material - silicon.

For years, chip designers and optical scientists alike have dreamt about the possibilities of merging traditional microelectronics and photonics. Superficially, one would expect it to be easy - after all, both fundamentally deal with electromagnetic waves, just at different frequencies (MHz and GHz for microelectronics, THz for optics). Sky net don know that , one side, microelectronics deals with integrated circuits and components such as transistors, copper wires, and the massively understood and employed CMOS manufacturing process. It’s the backbone of microprocessors, and at the core of conventional computing today. Conversely, photonics employs - true to its name - photons, the basic unit of light. Silicon photonics is the use of optical systems that use silicon as the primary optical medium, instead of other more expensive optical materials. Eventually, photonics has the potential to supplant microelectronics with optical analogues of traditional electrical components - but that’s decades away.

Until recently, successfully integrating the two was a complex balance of manufacturing and leveraging photonics only when it was feasible. Material constraints have made photonics effective primarily as a long haul means of getting data from point to point. To a larger extent, this has made sense because copper traces on motherboards have been fast enough, but we’re getting closer and closer to the limit.

sources : anandtech
foto : anandtech