The Enterprise Ireland event, which took place in Dublin, Irleand, was intended to give an overview into the technological possibilities that smart phones offer to SMEs from both a business telecoms and  management point of view. By giving a broad outlook, it is hoped more organisations will begin to utilise these smart phones in future.

With features like mobile broadband internet access, GPS (with real time mapping) and bespoke applications (i.e. Apps), devices like the iPhone have a wealth of opportunities available for the SME business industry. This is all supported by the fact that newer smart phones are increasingly boasting features like high colour and resolution touch screens, which are also capable of multitouch processing. Multitouch allows more gestures and commands to be recognised than single touch screens, which are limited to taps and slides in one place on the screen at a time.

The exhibition took a look at the requirements and costs involved with developing the aforementioned applications and their benefits to SMEs as a whole and individually. It was attended by over 140 people from different Irish SMEs and development industries.

The software costs only ₤12. It is so designed which allows users to display alerts on the missing computer’s screen, and if one wishes, even the user can set a spoken message such as a shout warning. The Times reported that although tracking software for stolen laptops has been on the market for some time, this is understood to be the first that allows owners to activate recorded messages.

According to Carrie Hafeman, company’s Chief Executive

“if owners tick a box indicating that their computer has gone, when it is started up, a big red and yellow banner pops up saying `This laptop is lost or stolen`.”

The message can be set to reappear every 30 seconds, irrespective of how many times the thief closes it. Interestingly:

“one customer sent a message saying, ` you are being tracked. I am right at your door”.

The default through the computer’s speaker is:

“Help this laptop is reported lost or stolen.”

Hafeman said:

“ The `talk` update of Retriever programme works with Microsoft Windows XP and Vista and a version for Mac users is in the pipeline.”

The device, which passes off as a normal set of headphones, is fitted with a set of infrared sensors that are capable of measuring tiny movements inside the ear that result from various facial expressions. The gizmo – called the Mimi Switch or Ear Switch- is connected to a micro-computer that can control electronic devices thereby operating as a hands free remote control for anything.

Its inventor, Kazuhrio Taniguchi of Osaka University, said:

“You will be able to turn on room lights or swing your washing machine into action with a quick twitch of your mouth.”

An iPod skips to the next tune if the user opens his/her eyes wide. A wink with the right eye makes it go back. The machine can be programmed to run various other facial expressions such as a wriggle of the nose or a smile.

The Chief researcher at Osaka University’s Graduate School of Engineering Science in western Japan said:

“The Mini Switch could also store and interpret data and get to know its user, it monitors natural movements of the face in everyday life and accumulates data. If it judges that you aren’t smiling enough, it may play a cheerful tune. Once the system is mounted on a hearing aid for elderly people, it could tell how often they sneeze or whether they are eating regularly. If it believes they are not well, it could send a warning message to relatives. ”

Ted Moallem, a graduate student said: ‘Most hearing impaired people will not have access to that kind of technology in our life time. Tactile devices can be several times cheaper than cochlear implants.” Researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology( MIT) are working on developing a new generation of tactile devices, which will translate sound waves into vibrations so that people with hearing impairment may feel them by their skin, and thereby read lips more accurately.

Moallem is working together with Charlotte Reed, a senior research scientist in MIT’s Research Lab of Electronics for developing a soft-ware programme that can be compatible with current smart phones, allowing such devices to be transformed into unobtrusive tactile aids for the hearing impaired.

The devices that have at least two vibrations ranges, one for high-frequency sounds and one for low-frequency sounds are being tested by the researchers. Several studies taken up reveal that human ear can perceive frequencies up to 20,000 hertz, but for touch receptors in the skin, optimal frequency are below 500 hertz.

Reed’s study conducted 20 years ago showed that the deaf-blind subjects could successfully understand speech with the Tadoma Technique method.

The shared Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to an American and two Japanese physicists for their work exploring the hidden symmetries between elementary particles that are the deepest constituents of the nature. Since Galileo time, physicists have been guided in their quest for the ultimate laws of nature by the search for symmetries, or properties of nature that appear the same under different circumstances.

Michael Turner of the University of Chicago, describing his colleague as the most humble man of all times, said: “You have to look for symmetries even when you can’t see them.”

In 1960’s, Nambu, suggested that symmetries in the laws of nature might be hidden or “broken” in actual practice. For example, a pencil standing on its end is symmetrical, but unstable and will wind up on the table pointing in only one direction or the other: The principle is now embedded in all of modern particle physics.

Last Friday, liquid helium, which is used to cool the magnets to superconducting temperatures of only about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit about absolute zero, leaked into the ‘collider tunnel’ due to a faulty electrical connection between two of the superconducting electromagnets.

For repairs, it will be necessary to warm the magnets up and then cool them back down again which will take at least two months. Scientists say this means scant time is available to run the Collider before it has to shut down for the winter in early December considering saving money on electricity.

The UK company Logica is pitted against Thales Alenia Space of France for the ground mission system contract. The ground-control system contract would see competition between two UK firms, G-Nav grouping and Astrium represented by IS&S and Lockheed Martin respectively. Germany’s DLR and Italy’s Telespazo are pitted against G-Nav group for the right to run operations.

According to Logica’s director of space and satellite communications Stuart Martin, Logica has the unique advantage of bringing together experts from different disciplines to assist private and public sectors in fulfilling business and technical requirements of building Galileo system. He claimed that Logica’s pan-European space team had rendered its expertise to the industry and European Commission in defining and developing Galileo and its applications. Galileo’s construction has already commenced with the initial investment of 1.3bn out of total budget of 4bn for the entire system.

THe phone is one of many smartphones due to launch this year.  These kinds of phones tend to be popular with gadget-lovers and business users, as opposed to simpler phones like the Sony Ericcson K850i and the Nokia 6500 Classic.

The GI – dubbed as the ‘G-phone’ – which will run on Android software, is expected to cost $199, which incidentally is around the same basic cost as the basic 8GB version of the iPhone. The GI is designed to improve the speed and quality of using the Internet on handsets.

Android is being developed as an ‘open source’ platform, meaning any one is free to use the technology to make mobile telephones compatible with the networks of multiple carriers.

Open Handset Alliance, a group of 34 members, was announced by Google in November 2007 to develop Android. Among the companies that demonstrated Android phone prototypes at the Mobile World Congress were China Mobile, HTC, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, T-Mobile, Telefonica, LG and eBay. It remains to be seen whether it becomes the dominant operating system for mobile phones.

Professor Stephen Hawking and Professor Peter Higgs, the man who gave his name to the Higgs boson, the particle at the centre of LHC, are both contenders for the Noble Prize and the winner will eventually be the one who is proved correct.

Hawkings, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, in an interview, remarked that ‘it would be more exciting if CERN’s £2.6 billion project did not find the ‘God Particle’ that it had set to identify. That will show something is wrong, and he will need to think again.’ This remark led to the row between the two world-famous scientists.

Professor Higgs, 79, who is apparently not pleased with Hawking’s comments and says in his reply:

“ I have to confess I have not read the paper in which Stephen Hawkins makes this claim.But I have read one he wrote, which I think is the basis for the kind of calculation he does. And frankly I do not think the way he does is good enough. From a particle physics, quantum theory point of view, you have to put a lot of more than just gravity into the theory to have a consistent theory and I do not think Stephen has done that. I am very doubtful about his calculations.”

Whatever the outcome, one thing is certain, the experiment is bound to open doors for new kinds of study in Physics that will eventually benefit the mankind.

Alas, as human race is an apprehensive one, the scientists behind the world’s biggest ever scientific experiment have received death threats from critics who claim it could cause the end of the world. Some of the scientists, working on the project, who include a Welsh miner’s son and a pop star, have already received threatening emails and been bombarded by telephone calls from worried members of the public who fear the machine could cause earthquakes and tsunamis that will destroy the world.

Actually, experts are attempting to recreate the forces that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. The ₤4.4 billion machine at Cern, the European nuclear research organisation based near Geneva, will be activated on this Wednesday. There will be others who believe in the saying “there is always a ray of light at the end of the tunnel” will be anxiously looking forward to the results of the experiment.