Author: Terren

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WiFi Galaxy Tab running on an older CPU than its 3G siblings?

WiFi-Only Galaxy Tab
If you bought a WiFi-only Galaxy Tab, you probably assumed you were getting the same seven-inch slate that others have been enjoying since November, just without a 3G radio and burdensome two-year contract. Turns out it’s worth poring over those specifications on the rear of the packaging. We’ve yet to get a confirmation from Samsung, but it appears the company swapped out its Hummingbird processor for an older “1GHz Cortex A8” chip with a slower GPU. The Galaxy Tab carriers have been hawking packs a PowerVR SGX 540, but some folks over at the XDA Developers forums have discovered that its WiFi-only sibling is rolling with the previous-gen SGX530. The specs on the Samsung site also lists Bluetooth 2.1 instead of 3.0 — yet another significant downgrade. We guess the company had to make some trade offs to hit that $350 price point, but we don’t have to like it.

WiFi Galaxy Tab running on an older CPU than its 3G siblings? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Carrypad  |  sourceSamsung, XDA Developers  | Email this | Comments

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Controversial Ideas: Does Semen Act As an Antidepressant to the Recipient?

The saga of “Semengate”

Back in 2002, psychologists at the State University of New York at Albany published a study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior looking at the potential role of semen in alleviating depression in women. The researchers presented evidence supporting an earlier hypothesis that the hormones in semen have a mood-boosting effect on women. For any woman who has had sex — and enjoyed it — this may not come as a huge surprise.

Cut to this past February. Lazar Greenfield, the incoming president of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), wrote a short Valentine’s Day-themed editorial about mating in Surgery News. In it, he discussed the sex lives of fruit flies, rotifers and humans. He cited the SUNY Albany study before concluding: “So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates.” That gift, of course, being semen.

Greenfield’s editorial sparked a controversy among ACS members, many of whom felt it was blatantly sexist. In response to the flap, Greenfield — a highly respected retired professor at the University of Michigan with a reputation for supporting women in surgery — apologized and stepped down from his post as editor of Surgery News; two weeks ago, as the controversy continued, he also resigned from his position at the College. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press Greenfield said, “The editorial was a review of what I thought was some fascinating new findings related to semen, and the way in which nature is trying to promote a stronger bond between men and women.”

Setting aside the unfortunate politics of this story, I decided to look into the science behind “Semengate” for my first Sex Files column. Could the stuff in semen actually be nature’s own antidepressant?

In the 2002 study, 293 college women filled out questionnaires about their sexual histories and took the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), a widely used measure of depression symptoms. Women who always had unprotected sex had significantly lower levels of depression symptoms than those who usually or always used condoms, as well as those who abstained from sex. There was no significant difference in depression between condom users and abstainers, indicating that the physical act of sex itself wasn’t the mood-boosting factor.

Late last week I asked Gordon Gallup, Jr., an evolutionary psychologist at SUNY Albany and lead author of the study, about the results. “Seminal plasma evolved to control and manipulate the female reproductive system so as to work toward the best interests of the donor — the male,” Gallup explains. “If you begin to think about semen in those terms, then the fact that semen might have antidepressant properties becomes a lot more interesting in that it may promote bonding between the female and her sexual partner.” Such bonding, Gallup says, could increase the male’s chances of developing a long-term reproductive relationship with a female that would work to his reproductive advantage.

Semen is a complex mixture of different compounds, and sperm actually only makes up a small amount of it. When you remove the sperm, what’s left is seminal plasma, a fluid that contains an array of ingredients, some of which can pass through the vagina and be detected in the bloodstream after sex. Three compounds of interest in seminal plasma are estrogen, prostaglandins and oxytocin. Estrogen and prostaglandins have been linked to lower levels of depression, while oxytocin (which women release during birth, breastfeeding and orgasm) promotes social bonding. These and other compounds in semen could function to keep women coming back for more. “I think there’s reason to believe based on some of the evidence we’ve collected that females that are in committed relationships that are having unprotected sex may use sex in part to self-medicate,” Gallup says. “It’s discovered after the fact that being inseminated has effects on mood, and they use sex to modulate their mood.”

There’s also evidence, he says, that women may actually go through semen withdrawal. In an unpublished study he conducted a few years ago, women in committed relationships who were having unprotected sex and were exposed to semen were “far more devastated and adversely affected [after a breakup] than those that were using condoms.” He also found a risk of a rebound effect, where women who were not using condoms had sex with a new partner after a breakup within a couple of weeks versus several months for those who had used condoms. “I don’t think the evidence is conclusive, but it’s certainly very suggestive that it’s a response, in effect, to semen withdrawal,” Gallup says.

But couldn’t there just be fundamental differences between women who have unprotected sex and women who use condoms? That’s the question most often posed by skeptics of Gallup’s work, he says. “What we’ve discovered is that if you look at depression scores on the Beck Depression Inventory as a function of the amount of time that has elapsed since the respondents’ last sexual encounter, it turns out that those that are using condoms show no effect of time since sex. Their depression scores are independent of whether they’ve had sex recently or not. For those that are being exposed to semen, BDI scores increase as the time since sexual encounter increases. This implies that the difference between those that are using condoms and those that are not is not an enduring fundamental trait difference. Rather, it’s a state difference that’s induced by semen.”

Next up, Gallup would like to study how a man’s mental state affects his semen. Researchers studying artificial insemination have found that the makeup of seminal fluid changes depending on what the donor was doing when he provided the sample. “If they’re using their imagination to achieve the necessary sexual arousal to ejaculate, Gallup says, “the sample is not nearly as potent than if they’re watching explicit video pornography.” (Cue the tapes!)

For what it’s worth, I asked Gallup what he thought about Semengate. “I think it’s a tragic overreaction,” he says. “The point at which we begin to let a political agenda dictate what science is all about is the point when science ceases to be a viable enterprise.” Considering how fascinating this research is — and whether or not it offends our sensibilities — I have to agree.

Jennifer Abbasi is a science and health writer and editor living in Brooklyn. She has seen every episode of The X-Files. Have a question about the science of sex? Email Jen at popsci.thesexfiles@gmail.com.

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10 Things to Do with Mac ‘n’ Cheese Before You Die

Is mac ‘n’ cheese the new bacon? Everyone’s favorite comfort food has suddenly gotten a lot more versatile, showing up in everything from burgers to desserts. Here are ten insanely creative ways you should try mac ‘n’ cheese at least once (and probably only once).

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10 Things to Do with Mac ‘n’ Cheese Before You Die

Is mac ‘n’ cheese the new bacon? Everyone’s favorite comfort food has suddenly gotten a lot more versatile, showing up in everything from burgers to desserts. Here are ten insanely creative ways you should try mac ‘n’ cheese at least once (and probably only once).

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NVIDIA losing ground to AMD and Intel in GPU market share

NVIDIA may be kicking all kinds of tail on the mobile front with its ubiquitous Tegra 2 chipset, but back on its home turf of laptop and desktop graphics, things aren’t looking so hot. The latest figures from Jon Peddie Research show that the GPU giant has lost 2.5 percentage points of its market share and now accounts for exactly a fifth of graphics chips sold on x86 devices. That’s a hefty drop from last year’s 28.4 percent slice, and looks to have been driven primarily by sales of cheaper integrated GPUs, such as those found inside Intel’s Clarkdale, Arrandale, and most recently, Sandy Bridge processors. AMD’s introduction of Fusion APUs that combine general and graphics processing into one has also boosted its fortunes, resulting in 13.3 percent growth in sales relative to the previous quarter and a 15.4 percent increase year-on-year. Of course, the real profits are to be made in the discrete graphics card market, where NVIDIA remains highly competitive, but looking at figures like these shows quite clearly why NVIDIA is working on an ARM CPU for the desktop — its long-term survival depends on it.

NVIDIA losing ground to AMD and Intel in GPU market share originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 08:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SemiAccurate  |  sourceJon Peddie Research  | Email this | Comments

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ASUS planning quad-core Tegra 3 tablet, yet another Intel slate

The Eee Pad Transformer may be wowing tablet lovers with its unbeatable price-to-features ratio today, but ASUS looks to have its sights set on even mightier devices for the future. DigTimes reports that the Taiwanese company is hard at work on a Tegra 3 tablet — built around the spectacular Kal-El quad-core SOC that we saw demonstrated at MWC 2011 — as well as another one running an Intel CPU. As far as the Intel slate is concerned, we’re probably looking at the tablet-centric 1.5GHz Atom Z670, which promises 1080p playback and great battery life. You’ll forgive us if we reserve our excitement for the Tegra 3-powered tablet, however, which should be able to churn through quite a few more pixels than regular old 1080p. There’s no indication on when ASUS intends to deliver it, but NVIDIA’s roadmap for devices with the quad-core chip expects to start appearing in August. Video of that awe-inspiring MWC demo follows after the break.

Continue reading ASUS planning quad-core Tegra 3 tablet, yet another Intel slate

ASUS planning quad-core Tegra 3 tablet, yet another Intel slate originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 04:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boeing’s Phantom Ray soars like a terrifying, unmanned eagle

Boeing’s new Phantom Ray aircraft made a covert first flight last week, taking to the skies above California’s Edwards Air Force Base. The unmanned airborne system (UAS) reached 7,500 feet, hitting a maximum speed of 178 knots and flying for a total of 17 minutes — sure, it won’t outlast the Phantom Eye anytime soon, but hey, we’ve all gotta start somewhere. What the 36-foot long vehicle lacks in relative endurance, it makes up stealth, designed to be undetectable on radar, and thanks to a deeply embedded engine, giving off a minimal amount of heat. Boeing will be running additional tests on the autonomous vehicle in the coming weeks, in attempt to prep it for possible future surveillance and attack missions. No word on when this might actually be hitting an airspace near you, but in the meantime, it’s probably best to refrain from ticking off any deep pocketed governments.

Continue reading Boeing’s Phantom Ray soars like a terrifying, unmanned eagle

Boeing’s Phantom Ray soars like a terrifying, unmanned eagle originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 May 2011 21:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Defense Tech  |  sourceBoeing  | Email this | Comments

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Rogue antivirus software targets Mac users

Before anyone is alarmed by the headline and the screenshot shown below – don’t panic! While it appears to be yet another new case in the uncharted waters of malware existing on Mac OS X, it is easily avoided by well-educated users.

This new rogue antivirus, named MAC Defender, is now…

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For the First Time in 20 Years, There Are Fewer Homes with TVs Than the Year Before [Factoid]

Nielsen says that TV ownership in homes has dropped for the first time in 20 years. This year, 96.7 percent of American households have a television set versus 98.9 percent last year. Two possible reasons (and both very believable!): one is that low-income homes may have struggled with the switch to digital sets and the other is that kids who grew up with computers are getting their TV from the Internet as opposed to buying a TV when they move out. [NY Times] More »







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Google Products You Probably Don’t Know

Google search engine is one of the best product by Google, but there are many other innovative products as well that Google is developing them in  their so-called Google Labs. Many of these products are still in beta stage, but are really useful. Today I’m going to share some of the lesser known products from Google, which can help you. Some of them may even surprise you as you might not even heard about them and yet they’re so useful.

1. Related Links

In WordPress you have used various plugins to show related pages to your post, Related Links from Google does the same thing it generate the list of related pages to the current page & display it to the user. Related Links works using Google search, it uses keyword for your title to search your site for related content & display them on your website. Currently this product is in limited to invited users only & you can ask for invitation by sending mail to relatedlinks@google.com

2. Follow Finder

There are many to tools to find followers on Twitter, but very few tools to find users with similar interest. Follow Finder helps you to find users on Twitter, based on similar interest, mutual followers, users with similar followers & users following similar list to help you identify potential Twitter followers you should follow.

3. Browser Size

Browser Size is a really useful tool for web designer & developer, as it helps them to visualize what part of their websites it getting maximum attention from users. You just need to enter your URL & your website will be segmented using a semi-transparent color layer describing users attention to different segment of your website.

4. Page Speed

As website loading time becomes one of the factors in ranking your websites in Google search engine, you need to know how fast your websites loads. There are many tools for doing that but you surely want to consider what Google thinks. Page Speed is such tool recently made available online by Google where you can check the loading time for your website.

5. Aardvark

Last year Google acquired Aardvark, It’s not just question-answer site for professional, but anyone get help here, the best thing about Aardvark is you get answers to most of the questions in few minutes, I have tried it my self & was surprised to see how fast was my questions got answered. Another great feature about Aardvark is it will deliver you answer to your mail or GTalk.

6. Experimental Search

Google Experimental Search have offers three services +1 Button, Keyboard Shortcut & Accessible view. The only problem with all this features is you can’t use them all at once, that is you use this feature one at time.

+1 Button


+1 Button is a kind of recommending Google search results to your friends, so when anyone in your friend searches Google, your recommendation will appear in search results.

Keyboard Shortcuts


This is really useful feature, I think Google should implement it to the normal search results, as it helps users to navigate between searches using keyboard shortcuts.

Accessible View

Accessible view adds to more feature to Keyboard Shortcuts it does everything the Keyboard Shortcuts does in addition to that it help you to navigate from one page to other using keyboard & magnifies the search results as you browse through them.

7. Google SketchUp

Google SketchUp is 3D modelling software which helps you to create 3D models easily or you can just download available 3D models from Google 3D warehouse & start editing them

8. Image Swirl

Most of you have used Google Image to find some quality images, but when it come to searching similar images using a standard keyword it get difficult. Image Swirl uses your generic query & group down images related to those queries into different search results, as for example if you are searching for “Design” it will groups images in website design, logo design & graphic design, hence making simpler for user to search for related images with a single query.

9. Art Project


This tool is helpful for artist around the world, as it let them explore museums from around the world & view hundred of art work from the comfort of their home. You can view various paintings in detail & explore various museums.

10. Google Scholar

Want to do some good research? Then forget conventional Google search and use Google Scholar, as it will search for scholarly literature from various sources like

academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories & more so you get more prevalent results & find really things that are really useful.

11.Google In Quotes

Google In Quotes uses Google News to find quotes of political figures. You can search for different keywords & see what have been quoted about it by different political figures.

12. YouTube 3D Video Converter

Create your own 3D videos using YouTube 3D Video converter, its easy & simple you just need to two camera to capture the video & upload them it’s that easy. You can also find the detail guide on here

13. Transit

Using Google Transit you can find about various public transit available in your area, with information about schedules, timing to reach the destination & route the transit systems takes.

14. Google APIs

Want to know about various APIs Google offers, here the periodic table of different APIs offered by Google.

15. Google Apps

Work Smarter with Google Apps as it offers easy communication & sharing data. I have been using Google Apps for more than 2 years now & it has been hassle free operation. The free package is boon to small businesses as it offers 50 free custom emails setup, but after 10 May it’s going to change to 10 users only.

If you have been using any of the above listed products, then do share your experiences on working with them in the comment section.

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Android apps on PlayBook eyes-on (video)

We knew it was coming, but today at BlackBerry World 2011 we were treated to a demo of Android apps running natively on the PlayBook. The end result isn’t too far removed from what we saw with Myriad’s Alien Dalvik at Mobile World Congress. Android’s menu and home buttons are emulated using the standard PlayBook gestures, and the back button is replaced with an on-screen softkey. Of course, you’ll have to visit App World to download Android apps for the PlayBook when the Android Player (as it’s called) finally becomes available. And speaking of Android apps, the wildly popular Angry Birds is coming to the PlayBook as a native game – no cross-platform trickery required.

Android apps on PlayBook eyes-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 May 2011 12:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New Generation of Airships Designed for Cheaper, Cleaner Air Transport

A handful of aeronautics companies are developing a new generation of blimp-like hybrid airships that they hope will provide an air cargo alternative to fuel-guzzling aircraft and revive an industry undermined by the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. Utilizing advancements

Millennium Airship

Millennium Airship
A modern airship

in structural design, materials, and engine technology, developers say the new, more durable airships will be able to carry large loads of freight at a fraction of the cost of conventional aircraft — and require significantly less fuel. Initially, the industry will target markets where highways and airports don’t exist — including remote parts of northern Canada and China’s western frontier — before attempting to penetrate more saturated freight markets. Within two years, U.S.-based Lockheed Martin aims to introduce for commercial use its prototype SkyTug, an airship with a 20-ton payload and a range of 1,000 nautical miles, according to a report in The Daily Climate. Unlike the ill-fated Hindenburg, which carried flammable hydrogen, modern airships carry helium. “And if all the engines quit, it won’t come down like an aluminum tube,” said Gil Costin, CEO of Millennium Airship, Inc., a Washington-based firm that aims to launch a fleet of airships by 2020.