Sony onthult opvolger PSP

Sony brengt een nieuwe draagbare spelcomputer op de markt. Daarmee wil het Japanse concern niet alleen de strijd aangaan met de DS van concurrent Nintendo, maar zich ook verweren tegen de toenemende concurrentie van smartphones en tabletcomputers.

Sony onthult opvolger PSP

Fotoserie

Het is de bedoeling dat de nieuwe NGP (Next Generation Portable) eind van het jaar in de winkels ligt, zo maakte Sony donderdag bekend.

Nintendo komt volgende maand met de 3DS, de driedimensionale opvolger van de DS. In Nederland is die vanaf 25 maart te koop.

De draagbare spelcomputer is de opvolger van de PlayStation Portable (PSP). Het apparaat is volgens Sony even krachtig als de PlayStation 3 van het bedrijf.

 

Specificaties

De prijs is vooralsnog niet bekendgemaakt, wel is duidelijk dat de NGP uitgerust wordt met een 5-inch OLED-aanraakscherm met een resolutie van 960x544. Het huidige PSP-scherm is 4.3-inch.

Daarnaast beschikt het apparaat over zowel wifi als 3G en twee camera’s. Sony maakte meteen bekend dat onder meer LittleBigPlanet, Killzone, Uncharted, Hot Shots Golf Next, Gravity Daze en Reality Fighters beschikbaar zullen zijn voor het nieuwe apparaat dat door velen al de PSP2 genoemd wordt.

 

Android

Misschien nog wel interessanter was de lancering van het nieuwe platform PlayStation Suite dat naast op de spelcomputers van Sony ook beschikbaar is op Androidtoestellen. Dat betekent dat Androidtelefoons en –tablets een enorme bibliotheek aan spellen tot hun beschikking krijgen.

© NU.nl/ANP

AII invites Indonesian proposals for project funding

The Australia-Indonesia Institute (AII) is inviting applicants from Indonesia and Australia to submit project proposals on promoting greater mutual understanding, contact and exchange between the people of Indonesia and Australia.


According to a media release from the Australian Embassy in its official website in Jakarta on Wednesday, the institute supports programs to enhance relations between the two countries in the areas of arts, education and Australian Studies, youth, civil society, inter-faith, media and sports.


Prospective applicants should note that the annual level of grant funding in the various areas will vary, depending on the priorities of the Institute and the quality of applications.


Project funding is very competitive and normally limited to a maximum of AUD20, 000 per applicant.


"Over the past two decades, the Institute has fulfilled a unique and vital role in fostering friendship and understanding between our two nations," Australian Ambassador to Indonesia Greg Moriarty said.


"In this era of Australia-Indonesia relations, with deeper and broader engagement in many sectors, the work of the Institute is more relevant and important than ever," Moriarty said.


The next Board Meeting of the Institute will be held on February 25, 2011 in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, to consider applications for grant funding.


Applications to be considered for this meeting must be received by close of business on Thursday, January 27, 2011. Late applications will not be accepted.


Please note that the Board will not consider funding projects that commence prior to April 4, 2011.

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House commission supports PLTN Plan

Commission VII of the House of Representatives supported the plan to build a nuclear power plant (PLTN) and hoped the government would soon set the scale of the project and increase familiarization of the public of the project including its importance to the welfare of the nation.

Nuclear Reactor

This is the conclusion of a working meeting between Commission VII and Research and Technology Minister Suharna Surapranata here Monday led by the commission`s chairman Teuku Riefki Harsa.

It has been revealed at the meeting that the building of a PLTN in Indonesia which had been planned since the past few years had not been realized as yet, while Malaysia had been much more consistent with its plan to build a nuclear reactor which it already started on January 11, 2011.

"In the meantime, support from the House has never been doubted," he said.

Besides the building of a PLTN, the working meeting also learned that Commission VII of the House has asked the Research Minister to increase coordination and synchronization with the government institutions of ministerial level and and non-governmental institutions at other ministries to reach the 2011 target.

The House commission also asked government institutions of ministerial level to increase their performance in the interest of the people, the nation and industries. 

On success in research, the Research Minister said that one of them was the cooperation of the Research and Technology Ministry, Eijkman Institute, and the Police in building the DNA forensic technique, which is already applied by Eijkman and the Police in solving complicated cases in less than two week without foreign help, namely identification of the suicide bomber at Ritz Carlton Hotel.

Also identification of rapists and serial killers in Bali, kidnappers and illegal trade of young children in Palembang and Riau as well as identification of protected animals (Sumatran tiger) in Riau.

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RIM to follow regulations in Indonesia: minister

Information and Communications (Kominfo) Minister Tiffatul Sembiring said smart phone Research in Motion (RIM) had promised to follow regulations in Indonesia.

"Before we have a working meeting with the House of Representatives (DPR), the leaders of RIM met us in the Kominfo office and promised they will follow the regulations in force in Indonesia," the minister said during a working meeting with the DPR here on Monday.

Tiffatul said that in the meeting with the RIM leaders, they agreed to meet the Indonesian regulations and to close their porn contents in Indonesia.

The Indonesian government gave them five days until January 21, 2011. 

He said that in the meeting RIM also agreed to meet the requirements set by the government that they should establish a server and after sales services in Indonesia.

"RIM agreed to build an aggregate network for the Asian region in Indonesia. This will have impact on the lowering of their rates in Indonesia because RIM is aware of the fact that its customers in Indonesia are the biggest ones in Asia," the minister said.

He said that during the meeting the RIM leaders informed they had opened 40 counters in Indonesia to meet the need for after sales services.

"This is their claim and we still need to check it in the field," Tiffatul said.

On the occasion, the minister said that so far RIM had not yet paid taxes for its operations in Indonesia.

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Researchers aim to resurrect Mammoth in five years

Japanese researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years time, a report said.

The researchers will try to revive the species by obtaining tissue this summer from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian research laboratory, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.

"Preparations to realise this goal have been made," Akira Iritani, leader of the team and a professor emeritus of Kyoto University, told the mass-circulation daily.

Under the plan, the nuclei of mammoth cells will be inserted into an elephant`s egg cells from which the nuclei have been removed to create an embryo containing mammoth genes, it said.

The embryo will then be inserted into an elephant`s womb in the hope that the animal will eventually give birth to a baby mammoth. Researches hope to achieve their aim within five to six years, the Yomiuri said.

The team, which has invited a Russian mammoth researcher and two US elephant experts into the project, has already established a technique to extract DNA from frozen cells.

The researchers had once given up similar plans after nuclei in the cells of mammoth skin and muscle tissue were damaged by ice crystals and proved unusable.

However, another Japanese researcher, Teruhiko Wakayama of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, succeeded in cloning a mouse from the cells of another that had been kept in deep-freeze for 16 years.

Based on Wakayama`s techniques, Iritani`s team devised a method to extract the nuclei of mammoth eggs without damaging them.

"If a cloned embryo can be created, we need to discuss, before transplanting it into the womb, how to breed (the mammoth) and whether to display it to the public," Iritani said.

"After the mammoth is born, we will examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors."

More than 80 percent of all mammoth finds have been dug up in the permafrost of the vast Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia. The most perfectly preserved remains of the Ice Age mammals still have hair and internal organs.

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Air bags, poor economy save road lives - U.S. study

Air bags and the economic recession have contributed to the biggest drop in road deaths in the United States since World War II, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday (4/1).

Changes in driving patterns and safety features both contributed to a 22 percent decline in road deaths between 2005 and 2009, Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the University of Michigan said in a report that studied federal data looking
for the causes associated with fatal crashes.

"From 2005 to 2009, U.S. road fatalities dropped by 22 percent (from 43,510 to 33,963). A reduction of such magnitude over such a short time has not occurred since road safety statistics were first kept (starting in 1913), except for the reductions during World War II," they wrote in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention.

"We were amazed by the magnitude of this," Sivak said in a telephone interview.
Separately, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 85 percent of American drivers say they use seat belts all the time, while 1 in 7 do not.
Traffic deaths in 2009 were the lowest since 1954, the U.S. Department of Transportation said in March.

"The two general factors that we are putting our money on are technological advances, primarily air bags, and the economic downturn," Sivak said.

He and Schoettle analyzed traffic patterns and found, for instance, an overall 4 percent drop in traffic, with notable decreases during rush hour and less traffic on high-speed
interstate highways. They also found fewer crashes involving trucks, along with data that less freight is being shipped.

"This supports the notion that people are cutting down on travel and staying closer to home. Traffic on local streets has increased," Sivak said.

Distracted driving

Federal statistics include a code for factors involved in fatal crashes and they point to a big increase in inattentive driving.

"U.S. data combine talking, eating and using cell phones in the same group. We have seen an increase of 42 percent in fatal crashes in which the coder labeled inattention as a factor," Sivak said.

In October researchers at the University of North Texas Health Science Center calculated that drivers using cell phones killed 16,000 people from 2001 to 2007. In 2009 the U.S. government blamed distracted driving for 16 percent of road
deaths, or 5,800 deaths.

Sivak said it was difficult to say how much any one factor contributed to overall deaths, but there are clues pointing to the decline in fatalities.

"We have found there has been an increase in the deployment of air bags during crashes, especially side air bags," he said.

"We have been driving less and we are driving differently."

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Canadian girl youngest ever to spot Supernova

A 10-year-old Canadian girl has become the youngest person ever to discover a supernova, or exploding star, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

Eagle-eyed Kathryn Aurora Gray, from Fredericton in the eastern province of New Brunswick, made the rare find on Sunday as she combed dozens of telescopic images of star fields in far-away galaxies.

"The RASC is pleased to announce the discovery of a supernova by a 10-year-old amateur astronomer -- the youngest person ever to have made such a discovery," the society said in a statement.

On spotting Supernova 2010lt in the constellation of Camelopardalis in a galaxy 240 light-years from Earth, Gray immediately told her delighted amateur astronomer father Paul.

The find was then verified by two US-based amateur astronomers before being reported to the International Astronomical Union`s Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams.
Supernovae are massive stars that run out of fuel, collapse under the weight of their own gravity and become an ultra-dense object known as a neutron star.

They then send out a shockwave that rips the star apart and leaves a sizzling cauldron of radiation.

These colossal events are among the most thrilling phenomena for astronomers and are detected when the high-energy explosion creates a dramatic flare that eventually fades.

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China shuts over 60.000 porn websites this year

China shut down more than 60,000 pornographic websites this year, netting almost 5,000 suspects in the process, a government spokesman said on Thursday, vowing no let-up in its campaign against material deemed obscene.

Beijing has run a highly publicised drive against what officials said was smutty and lewd content overwhelming the country`s Internet and cell phones, threatening the emotional health of children.

Critics accuse the Chinese government of deepening the crackdown, launched last December, and tightening overall censorship, and say that the push has netted many sites with politically sensitive or even simply user-generated content.

But Wang Chen, head of the State Council Information Office, or cabinet spokesman`s office, said the offensive was vital.

"Our campaign has been a great success and this has not been achieved easily," he told a news conference. "We have made the Internet environment much cleaner than before as there was a lot of pornography available.

"We have changed this situation and this has been well received by many sectors across society," Wang said. "But our campaign has not come to a stop. This will be a long battle."

"As long as there are people with bad motives who want to spread violent or pornographic information, we will have to continue our campaign to resolutely crack down on the spread of such information."

Of the 4,965 suspects, 1,332 people received "criminal punishment" with 58 jailed for five years or more, Wang said.

The government checked the content of 1.79 million websites and deleted 350 million pornographic and lewd articles, pictures and pieces of video footage, he said.

With an estimated 450 million Internet users as of the end of November, China has a bigger online population than any other country. Yet the government worries the Internet could become a dangerous conduit for threatening images and ideas.

China has blocked a number of popular websites and Internet services, including Google`s YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and Facebook, as well as Chinese content sharing sites.

The government accused them of carrying content harmful to China`s security and in breach of Chinese laws, including images of protests in sensitive regions such as Tibet.

Wang said he had seen media reports that Facebook`s chief Mark Zuckerberg had visited China recently, but said Zuckerberg had not met his department, which oversees the Internet in China.

"We saw reports that he met with some well-known figures in China`s Internet industry. We are also still trying to learn more about his visit to China," he added.

Google Inc , the world`s top Internet search engine, closed its China-based search service in March, two months after it said it would stop censoring search results in response to what it said was a sophisticated cyber attack that it traced to China and increasing limits on freedom of expression.

The dispute was resolved in July after Google changed the way it directs users to an unfiltered search engine. The case prompted a diplomatic row between China and the United States over web freedom.

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Iphone and Ipad users sue Apple over privacy issues

A group of iPhone and iPad users have sued Apple Inc alleging that certain applications (apps) were passing personal user information to third-party advertisers without consent, a court filing showed.

In the lawsuit seeking class action, filed in a federal court in California, the complainants sought a ban on passing of user information without consent and monetary compensation, according to the case document posted on scribd.com.

Along with Apple, maker of popular apps such as Textplus4, Paper Toss, Weather Channel, Dictionary.com, Talking Tom Cat and Pumpkin Maker were also named co-defendants in the lawsuit.

"None of the defendants adequately informed plaintiffs of their practices, and none of the defendants obtained plaintiffs` consent to do so," the suit filed on December 23 said.

The Unique Device ID that Apple assigns to its devices has become an attractive feature for third-party advertisers looking for a means of reliably tracking mobile device users` online activities, the lawsuit said.

In April, Apple amended its developer agreement to ban apps from sending data to third parties except for information directly necessary for the functionality of the apps.

However, the lawsuit alleged that Apple has taken no steps to actually implement its changed developer agreement or enforce it in any meaningful way due to criticism from advertising networks.

Last month, Facebook said some of its applications violated the social networking company`s policies against sharing user information and had promised to fix the problem.

On December 16, the U.S. Commerce Department`s Internet Policy Task Force said in a report that the department should have its own privacy office and develop voluntary, enforceable codes of conduct for data companies and advertisers that track people on the Internet.

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Ads for Russian brides on Swedish FM`s hacked blog

Ads for Russian brides and motivational speakers that temporarily appeared on Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt`s blog could have been the work of hackers, he said Tuesday.

"There is apparently some hacking going on," Bildt told news agency TT when asked if he had started selling ad space on the popular blog, on which he comments on foreign affairs and other current events.

TT reported that an ad for a website of "beautiful Russians looking for love and marriage" first appeared on Bildt`s blog after he entered a post on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)`s summit in Kazakhstan in early December.

An ad for motivational speakers appeared a few weeks later, followed by one offering "professional financial advice from local experts around the world," TT said.
None of the ads were still visible Tuesday.

Bildt`s spokeswoman Anna Charlotta Johansson told AFP that the blog did not normally allow ad space, and that the suspect ads have since disappeared.

She said she had never seen the ads herself, but had been provided with a screen shot showing "an ad for arrangement of Russian brides" on Bildt`s blog.

Bildt is very active on both his blog and Twitter account, to which links are posted on the Swedish foreign ministry`s official website.

He was criticised for describing the blasts that rocked central Stockholm on December 11 as a "terrorist attack" on Twitter before Swedish police or the prime minister had spoken on the matter.

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Assange memoir to give full details of WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange`s new memoir will give a full account of his life and the secretive group that has leaked large amounts of documents, U.S. publisher Alfred A. Knopf said on Monday.

Knopf spokesman Paul Bogaards said Assange and the publishing house reached a deal for his autobiography "just before the holiday" and that a manuscript was expected to be delivered in 2011.

Assange told The Sunday Times newspaper in Britain that he agreed to book deals due to financial pressures from legal issues.

The deals would bring in $800,000 from Knopf and another 325,000 pounds ($500,000) from British publisher Canongate, both part of the Random House stable owned by Bertelsmann AG.

"I don`t want to write this book, but I have to," Assange told the Times, citing a growing legal bill that has reached more than 200,000 pounds ($308,000). "I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat.

Bogaards said the book is still untitled.

"In terms of the subject matter, it will be a complete account of his life through the present including the founding of WikiLeaks and the work he has done there," said Bogaards. "We do not have a timetable for publishing the memoir as yet."

Assange, 39, is an Australian computer expert who has angered the United States by releasing secret diplomatic cables on his website and teaming up with newspapers around the globe to amplify the impact of the disclosures.

He is now on bail and living in the English countryside under house arrest as he prepares to fight extradition to Sweden, where authorities want to question him over alleged sexual offenses.

Assange`s memoir would come hard on the heels of a volume from his former second-in-command Daniel Domscheit-Berg, whose "Inside WikiLeaks: My Time at the World`s Most Dangerous Website" is set to tell the story of the site. The book is due out from German publisher Econ Verlag in January.

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