North Korea Launches the Achim Tablet

North Korea is not too far behind its southern brother in its technological ideals. Although most might imagine the North Korean people listening to wooden radios, the new popular gadget is the Achim tablet.

Sure, North Korea doesn’t have Samsung or LG, but they now have Achim.

This is reportedly a 7” tablet running a weird Linux distribution.

The weird part is the fact that the operating system, although based on Linux open technology, is a Korean distribution with a closed source.

The name of the operating system is Red Star and the new device is apparently targeting school children, but it has already gained popularity among students that are probably tired of their wooden radio.

Via: North Korea Launches the Achim Tablet

Time-Lapse Videos of the Changing Planet Available in Google Earth

Working together with experts at the US Geological Survey (USGS), software experts at Google created a new tool for observing the changing Earth, which enables users to view time-lapse videos of how certain areas of the world evolve over the years.

The online tool contains more than 13 years’ worth of satellite data, primarily compiled by the Landsat satellites the USGS operates. These spacecraft are uniquely qualified to survey aspects such as deforestation, urban sprawl, land use, agricultural and crop patterns, and so on.

Within the Google Earth Engine, experts included the capability to create time-lapse video clips of how an area selected by the user has evolved over the last 40 years (since the first Landsat was launched).

The creation of such advanced land survey tools was made possible by the fact that the Landsat constellation has been monitoring the Earth continuously for more than four decades, Our Amazing Planet reports.

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Bumping Your Head Promotes Brain Aging

Scientists at the University of Michigan (U-M), in the United States, have discovered that suffering from head trauma, bumps or concussions can boost the natural aging process of the human brain.

In a series of new experiments, the team determined that those who hit their heads were most likely to display more broken signaling pathways in the brain than peers who had never suffered head injuries or concussions.

Neural pathways break down naturally as the brain ages, but the process can apparently be promoted by impacts affecting the head. The team that has made the discovery is based at the School of Kinesiology and the U-M Health System.

An interesting aspect of the work is that it was conducted on college students. This means that the damaging effects of head injuries take effect in young adults as well. Usually, scientists think that seniors are the most likely to feel the full force of such traumas, since they are particularly vulnerable.

Students with a history of concussions exhibited changes in their balance and gait, as well as in the electrical activity patterns of their brain. Researchers found that attention and impulse control were also adversely affected.

The investigation was led by the Director of the Neurotrauma Research Laboratory, Steven Broglio, who is also a U-M assistant professor of kinesiology. In some cases, he explains, the adverse effects were present in the brain up to six years after the original injury occurred.

“The last thing we want is for people to panic. Just because you've had a concussion does not mean your brain will age more quickly or you'll get Alzheimer's. We are only proposing how being hit in the head may lead to these other conditions, but we don't know how it all goes together just yet,” he adds.

Details of the research effort appear in a paper entitled “Cognitive decline and aging: The role of concussive and subconcussive impacts,” which is published in the July issue of the scientific journal Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews.

Neuroscientists know that, while bumps and concussions may promote neural aging, exercising your brain through mathematics, speaking foreign languages and other similar tasks can confer a protective effect against such degeneration.

At this point, the U-M team believes that the effects of concussions and head injuries are cumulative. This means that a single blow to the head is unlikely to trigger dementia in a patient once they reach seniority. However, 40 hits to the head probably will.

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Tom Hardy Agrees to Fight David Haye for Charity

Tom Hardy's popularity may be soaring just now with mainstream audiences because of his role as Bane in Chris Nolan's “The Dark Knight Rises,” but he already has an impressive track record of brilliant roles and physical transformations – something that boxing champion David Haye is well aware of.

Just the other day, Haye launched a challenge to Hardy to step up in the ring with him.

He didn't mean it as an insult in any way, The Sun is quick to clarify, but rather as praise for how incredibly bulked up he got for the role of Bane.

“Me and Tom Hardy, that would be a good fight for sure. He has got in fantastic shape – he looks like an absolute tank. He can be my next opponent,” Haye said.

Whether he was joking or not, Hardy would actually be up for the challenge, he says for the same media outlet, even if he knows from now that there's absolutely no way he could walk out of the ring as a winner.

However, proving that his heart is as big as his frame in his most recent film, his only condition for the match is that all proceeds from it be donated to charity.

As if his loyal fansbase needed another reason to love him even more.

“Hardy v Hayemaker? No problem. Let me take my make-up off first. I’ll fight him as soon as I get back from the Congo with my mates if he wants. I’ve never fought a professional heavyweight, it’ll be an experience,” Hardy says for The Sun.

“I would obviously prefer my first professional fight to be against someone in my weight category but hey-ho. Let’s have it. We all know how this is going to end don’t we... not good for Tommy,” the actor adds with what the tab describes as a “cheeky grin.”

“I’ll have Clay O’Shea as trainer and Joe Calzaghe on cuts in my corner. This is sort of like Mickey Rourke. But Mickey’s a better actor and boxer than me. How about singing lessons instead?” Hardy goes on to say.

Currently, Hardy is in Congo on charity work. He also tells The Sun that, if the boxing match finally goes through, he wants the money to go to Prince's Trust, Help for Heroes, Bowel Cancer Research, Breakthrough Breast Cancer and FLACK.

Via: Tom Hardy Agrees to Fight David Haye for Charity

Introducing Outlook.com, the Metro-Style Hotmail

While preparing for the upcoming availability of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, Microsoft has made changes to yet another product to bring it in line with the Metro interface on these platforms, namely Hotmail.

Today, Microsoft’s online service can be upgraded to Outlook.com with a single click, providing users with a brand new interface, as well as with a nice range of features meant to offer a better experience with their emails.

Hotmail has been around for the past 16 years, with various upgrades and improvements being added over time, but with only few fundamental changes.

The preview version of Outlook.com, however, changes all that, marking a break from the past and bringing to the web the popular desktop application in the form of a personal email service.

Outlook is already the most popular application for reading emails, with features that enable users to also manage their calendars and connect to people.

It is also available as a Web application connected to Exchange Server, making it easier for business employees to access their work email while on the go.

With Outlook.com, however, Microsoft seems determined to provide all people with a free, modern email service.

Some of the main features the preview version of Outlook.com comes with include:

- Modern experience for modern browsers and devices: A fresh, clean user interface that’s intuitive, works across your devices with Exchange ActiveSync and gets the clutter out of your way with 60 percent fewer pixels in the header and 30 percent more messages visible in your inbox. Plus, no display ads or large search boxes that take up extra space.



- Connected to friends and co-workers, wherever they are: Outlook.com preview is connected to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and soon, Skype. You can view pictures of your friends, messages, status updates, chats and calls – all powered by an always up-to-date contact list that is similarly connected to those networks.

- Smart and powerful: Outlook.com automatically sorts your messages from contacts, newsletters, shipping updates and social updates, and with Sweep, you can move or delete them in a few clicks. Plus, the service includes free Office Web Apps – Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, as well as SkyDrive.

- Puts you in control: Has great tools for power users and keeps your personal mail personal (no ads in person-to-person emails and no scanning your personal mail to serve ads)



Hotmail / Live users who would like to try out Outlook.com can simply upgrade to it through hitting the settings button on their landing page and selecting to upgrade.

All those who will take the new service for a spin are encouraged to provide feedback on their experience, so that additional enhancements are delivered before the final product is made official.



Via: Introducing Outlook.com, the Metro-Style Hotmail

MATE 1.4 Desktop Environment Released

The development team behind the MATE desktop environment proudly announced that the stable 1.4 version of the popular project is now available for download and upgrade.

MATE 1.4 is a fork of GNOME 2, providing a traditional desktop environment for Linux operating systems and low-end machines.

Highlights of MATE 1.4:

· mate-keyring and libmatekeyring backends have been updated and now integrated properly;
· caja-dropbox package is now available;
· New themes have been added to the mate-notification-daemon;
· indicator-applet-session has been removed;
· File sharing ca now be accessed via bluetooth;
· mate-icon-theme-faenza has been added;
· nyancat has been removed from the mate-desktop about dialog;
· mate-screensaver now supports GDM user switching;
· Numerous bug fixes.

A complete list of changes and update can be found in the official announcement.

Download MATE 1.4 right now from Softpedia.

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SOCOM Franchise Isnt Dead, Sony Says

Sony has confirmed that it hasn’t killed off the SOCOM franchise even after the closure of its developer, Zipper Interactive, saying that a popular series like this shooter one is never dead.

Sony made a surprise announcement earlier this year when it confirmed that its internal Zipper Interactive studio was shutting down, after producing quite a few big shooters like MAG on the PS3, Unit 13 on the PS Vita, or the long-running SOCOM franchise.

These properties won’t be lost along with the closure, however, as Sony’s Worldwide Studios boss, Shuhei Yoshida, told OPM US, via CVG, that a successful franchise will never be killed by the company.

"IS SOCOM done? It's not done,” he said. “We never definitely retire any franchise. It's sometimes great to have a fresh look at the classics that we have. I feel sorry for people who are longtime SOCOM fans, and there are many people who still play SOCOM 1 and SOCOM 2 especially; those seem to be there favorites."

Expect to hear more about the fate of the SOCOM franchise in the future.

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