New smartphone case may reduce cancer risk

A new smartphone case, which has been made of the same material as a NASA spacecraft, claims to reduce antenna radiation and cancer risks. Although it's still unclear as to exactly how bad the problem of cellphone radiation is, the WHO has already reclassified it as "potentially carcinogenic for humans." The problem Pong claims to be resolving is that mobile devices emit microwave energy, and the majority of it is absorbed by the heads and bodies of phone users while making calls. The Pong case, which is available for a range of different smartphones, claims to redirect radiation away from the user and reduce exposure by up to 95 percent. According to Pong's Chief Technology Officer, Ryan McCaughey, their invention doesn't make mere empty promises to ward off those deadly radiations, and the case has been rigorously tested to check its effectiveness "The scale we base our research is the industry standard of SAR, or specific absorption rate. All cell phones are measured to this standard, and what we do is compare the effect of a cellphone on SAR with and without the Pong case," the Herald Sun quoted McCaughey as saying. "Our lab tests, including independent lab tests, which we feel are a very important validation, show that we reduce SAR by up to 95 percent below current safety limits. But even McCaughey admitted that the case isn't a complete solution, because not enough known is yet known about how safe even small levels of radiation are. "There's so far no known safe limit. We can't say that someone using the Pong is going to be completely safe from radiation, but we're of the feeling that less exposure to radiation is better, and that's what Pong is providing," he added.

Heineken wins bid for Tiger beer in $4.5bn deal

Dutch brewing company Heineken International has agreed to buy Singapore-based Fraser and Neave's controlling stake in the maker of Tiger beer in a deal worth 5.6 billion Singapore dollars (4.5 billion US Dollars). Heineken had raised its bid from 50 to 53 Singapore dollars per share. According to the BBC, Fraser and Neave confirmed it had accepted an improved offer from Heineken for its 40 percent stake in Asia Pacific Investment Pte Ltd (APIPL). APIPL is a joint venture between Heineken and Fraser and Neave, which operates Asia Pacific Breweries (APB). "Our Asian headquarters will continue to be based in Singapore, and we remain 100% committed to the growth and success of APB and the Tiger brand," Heineken's Chief Executive, Jean-Francois van Boxmeer, said in a statement. According to the report, if approved, the deal would give Heineken an 81.6 percent stake in APB triggering an automatic takeover offer for the outstanding shares in the company, which would cost a further 2.5 billion Singapore dollars. As part of the deal, Fraser and Neave has promised not to 'solicit, engage in discussions or accept any alternative offer or proposal for its interests in APB', the report added.

Enjoy 3D movies without glasses

You can now enjoy 3D movies on TV without those vexing 3D glasses, thanks to a new technology being developed in Germany. The 3D movies currently available on Blu-ray are based on two different perspectives: two images, one for each eye. However, autostereoscopic displays need five to 10 views of the same scene (depending on the type). In the future, the number will probably be even more. This is because these displays have to present a 3D image in such a manner that it can be seen from different angles -- indeed, there is more than one place to sit on a sofa, and you should be able to get the same three dimensional impressions from any position. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications at Heinrich-Hertz Institute (HHI) in Berlin have developed a technology that converts a Blu-ray's existing 3D content in a manner that enables them to be shown on autostereoscopic displays. "We take the existing two images and generate a depth map... a map that assigns a specific distance from the camera to each object," says Christian Riechert, research fellow at HHI. Previous systems were only capable of generating such depth maps at a dramatically slower pace; sometimes they even required manual adaptation. Real-time conversion, by contrast, is like simultaneous interpretation: The viewer inserts a 3D Blu-ray disc, gets comfortable in front of the TV screen and enjoys the movie - without the glasses. Researchers have already finished the software that converts these data. In the next step, the scientists, working in collaboration with industry partners, intend to port it onto a hardware product so that it can be integrated into TV. Nevertheless, it will still take at least another calendar year before the technology hits store shelves. Researchers will unveil this technology in Berlin at this year's IFA trade show from Aug 31 to Sep 5.

Bee Gees Robin Gibb ignored fatal cancer tumours to go on world tour

Robin Gibb ignored doctors' advice and his wife's pleas to have scans that could have detected his fatal tumours before they developed - so he could go on a world tour. The Bee Gees singer died in May, aged 62, after a long battle with colon and liver cancer. His heartbroken widow, Dwina Gibb, 59, has told how he initially refused to have the cancerous cells properly checked. The cancer was spotted after the star had an operation to remove an intestinal blockage in October 2010. But Mrs Gibb told the Daily Mail's Weekend magazine that she and son Robin John, 29, were unable to stop Mr Gibb continuing with his musical commitments. "He didn't want to stop and I said, "Please just have the scan." Despite all his wonderful ways, Robin could be very stubborn and he never liked bad news - he just didn't want to know," she told the publication. "He went to do a show in New Zealand as they'd just experienced an earthquake. "Maybe it was very important for him to do that show, but it was still important for him to have his scans," he added. Mr Gibb toured for more than two weeks during November 2010 and his wife said the cancer had developed to a secondary stage - when the tumour starts to spread to nearby blood vessels - by the time he had a check-up.

Smartphone that feels your strain

WHAT really winds you up every day? Traffic on your commute? A frustrating boss? Or maybe something more subtle that you can't quite put your finger on... Your smartphone may soon be able to tell you where you encounter the most stress, thanks to the development of software that can recognise stress from the patterns in your voice. Called StressSense, the system is first trained to recognise someone's unstressed voice. To do so, the person must relax and read a 3-minute passage from a book, say, into their phone. StressSense then compares this recording to its preprogrammed knowledge of the physiological changes that stress induces, such as a faster speaking rate and a clipped frequency spectrum, and logs any instances of stress it detects. "Our stress model also adapts to different background noise environments," says Hong Lu of Intel in Santa Clara, California, who developed the system. In tests that included putting volunteers through mock job interviews, Lu's team found their prototype's stress-recognition accuracy is 81 per cent indoors and 76 per cent outdoors, where sound quality isn't as good. The team plan to make the system a plug-in to an Android app called BeWell, which uses a phone's accelerometers and GPS sensors to record people's activity and sleep levels. People will be able to set StressSense to either listen to their voice throughout the day, or to only activate when they are having a phone conversation. Lu says he hopes the software will boost awareness of everyday stressful events and help us cope. He will present StressSense at the Ubicomp conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, next month.

Bob Marley wanted more Black American fans

Bob Marley's son Ziggy has revealed that the reggae legend wanted his music to be reached out to more Black American fans. Even though Marley was influenced by American rhythm and blues artists, his own music was slow to catch on with African-Americans during his lifetime. A scene from the new documentary, 'Marley,' shows an all-white crowd gathered to watch Marley perform in the US in the late 1970s. "He had issue with it, because he wanted African-Americans to hear his message," ABC News quoted Ziggy as telling 'Nightline.' Marley's children, band mates, widow and ex-girlfriends help tell his story in the mammoth documentary covering the legendary artist's humble beginnings in Jamaica and rise to become reggae's first and biggest international superstar. "He covers such a wide spectrum of people now, and it keeps growing," Ziggy said. "He has a message for everybody. He has a message for the fighters. He has a message for the peace guys." Ziggy and other members of the Marley family were in Los Angeles on August 7, where they celebrated the city's inaugural "Bob Marley Day" and the online and DVD release of 'Marley.

Now carry your living room TV wherever you go

Nothing can be as frustrating as when you have to leave a TV show or perhaps a live soccer match midway because of an emergency. But it will no longer happen as you can now 'pull' the programme on your TV screen onto your tablet and continue watching it seamlessly, thanks to a new system. Named the "Social Cloud TV", this system will also allow you to watch the same TV show or movie together with your family and friends, no matter which part of the world they are in. In addition you'll be able to discuss the show, whether you are on your personal tablet or smart phone, through a channel of your choice, be it video chat, voice or text. Currently patent pending, this human-computer interaction technology enables the same show on the TV or computer to be brought to mobile devices seamlessly and migrated across multiple screens (e.g., TV, laptop, smartphone and tablet) without a hitch. "You could watch a video with your class mates on the computer, and just before you leave school, 'pull' the show into your tablet and continue watching on the go," said Assistant Professor Wen Yonggang from the School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU who invented the system. "Upon reaching home, you could just turn on your television and 'throw' the video back to the TV, and continue watching the programme there," he sated. This innovative technology has already attracted the attention of both local and international telecommunication giants who have expressed interest in integrating it into their existing cable networks as a market differentiator for cable television and mobile networks. Wen has described his invention as the next frontier of television experience as you can now "bring the social experience of watching television in your living room wherever you go". The social TV software will also allow users to share their own content, online videos and TV programmes with others easily over social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay 'them' 2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down. 3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.' 4. Enjoy the simple things. 5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. 6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive. 7. Surround yourself with what you love , whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge. 8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help. 9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is. 10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity. AND ALWAYS REMEMBER : Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. Worry about nothing, pray about everything!!!