Robotic Hand with sixth sense

Researchers at Intel have developed a robotic hand, well claw, that can sense the general shape of objects before they grasp it.

Basically the principle it works on is simple if not the technology itself. The tips of the fingers send out weak electrical impulses that when interfered by objects give the finger the location of the object. Something like electrical sonar. The Intel researchers are presently calling it Pre-Touch. Wired.com has nicknamed it "Sixth-sense" which does have a catchier tune to it.

College Admissions Go Online in Mumbai

Students seeking admission in first year junior college (and their parents) can breathe a sigh of relief. Now they will not have to go about visiting every college to get the admission forms, at least in Maharashtra.

The state government of Maharashtra has a launched a new website 'www.mumbaiapplication.com' that will offer online admission form submission facility for first year junior college across over 500 colleges that are affiliated to the University of Mumbai, reports IANS.

Students will have to create an account to get started with filling the admission applications online. The registration will include the personal details that are usually asked by the college, which will save the hassle of typing the details every time while filling the form. The system will auto-complete information in the application as you type.

In addition, if the student has passed SSC from Maharashtra Board this year, they will only need to submit their seat number of the SSC exam, after which their name, caste, and marks will be automatically picked up from the SSC results. For other boards, students will have to enter the data manually, as well as also upload scanned images of their marklists and school leaving certificates.

After registration, students can select the colleges of their choice and pay the application fees online itself. A online receipt of the payment made will be sent through email as well as on the mobile phone mentioned in the registration form.

However, those who still want to follow the traditional process can go ahead and follow the manual process of scurrying from one college to another followed by standing in queues for submission of their application forms.

Spice S-525 Launched in India

The Spice Mobile phone company has a launched a new low-priced music phone, the S-525. The handset comes with an FM recording feature that allows users to record their favorite songs at the click of a button, while listening to them on the radio station.

The mobile phone weighs 77g and measures 103.1 x 43.4 x 17.8mm. It sports a 65-K colour TFT screen and has several features such as scheduled on/off, sing-tones, 500 phone-book contacts, speaker phones, among others.

The phone also comes with the "mobile tracker" feature which is useful in case this phone gets stolen. It sends an SMS containing the thief's mobile phone number on another mobile number pre-defined by the owner. In addition, the mobile phone allows users to blacklist certain numbers to stop receiving calls from them.

The S-525 claims to offer up to 4 hours of talk time and up to 200 hours of standby time. Spice S-525 is available for a price of Rs. 2, 099 with a 1-year warranty, with conditions applied.

Rediff's New Toolbar for Firefox 3

Rediff.com has introduced a toolbar for Firefox 3. The new toolbar allows users to search the Web and access popular vertical searches for fares, jobs, products, images, videos, ringtones, and languages.

The new Rediff toolbar also allows users to use the search bar as an address bar, where the toolbar intelligently identifies the 'url' keywords and directs the user to the website instead of displaying search results.

Another feature of the toolbar, available on Firefox as well as Internet Explorer, is quick access to all the updated news on business, sports, movies and cricket; this is available on the toolbar itself as snapshot view without having to actually visit any news site.

The toolbar works around the POP UP blocker feature inside the Firefox browser environment, allowing users to conveniently use the blocker feature from the toolbar itself, instead of getting into the settings, says Rediff.

In addition, the toolbar offers access to all regular Rediff services like Rediffmail and Rediff Bol, the Instant Messenger. Though it's designed to compliment Firefox 3, the toolbar provides consumer friendly applications for all versions of both browsers, the Internet Explorer and Firefox.

22 Best Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials

Typography means a lot in any medium kind of presentation. Whether it’s a logo, banner or just a title; being able to inject creativity into it not only help in delivering the message across, it also leaves solid impression on the viewer. Good typography design is not easy, or should I say getting the type match and speaks for the product is often a very challenging job.

Here are some of the best Photoshop text effects tutorials on the web, and as usual it’s the creativity that counts. Full content after jump.

1. ‘Bee Movie’ Text Effect

   

2. Metal Text Effect

   Really metallic chrome effect.
   

   

3. Grass Text Effect

   Cool looking grass-text effect using a photo of grass, the pen tool and a bit of patience.
   

   

4. Leopard ‘X’ Effect

   

5. Exploding Text Effect

   9 Steps in creating an exploding text.
   

   

6. Reflective Liquid Effect

   Realistic text made from water drops.
   

   

7. Slow Shutter Text Effect

   Learn how to create this stunning slow shutter text effect using just Photoshop.
   

   

8. Flaming Meteor Text Effect

   Take typography one step further by having text falling from the sky in a burning inferno.
   

   

9. Smooth Glass Effect

   Nice looking translucent glass type that’ll work great on any background, made completely with layer styles.
   

   

10. Soft Stylized 3D Type

    Basics of creating polished 3D type using Illustrator and Photoshop.
    

    

11. Fire Burning Text Effect

    How to use a photograph of fire to set text to the match.
    

    

12. Text Graffiti

    

13. Bling Text Effect

    How to make a realistic bling bling gold and diamond text.
    

    

14. Supernatural Text Effect

    Creating a smoky night effect on text to give it an eerie supernatural sort of feel.
    

    

15. 3D Typographic Effects

    How to add the wow factor to 3D text using Photoshop’s art tools.
    

    

16. Chain Text

    

17. Smooth Chrome Text

    

18. Starcraft Text

    How to create a nice StarCraft style wallpaper.
    

    

19. Advance Glow Effect

    

20. Old School Type

    

21. Grunge Rubber Stamp

    Simple method to create grunge brushes, and to detail how these brushes can be used to reproduce realism in our rubber-stamped logos.

    

22. Swirl Text

    Useful for creating a unique logo for your website.

    

Israeli co invents see through device

Military and rescue operations around the globe will now get a tad easier with the invention of a radar that can see through walls. An Israeli firm, Camero, has developed this technology and already sold it to several army and police forces. The company feels that the device can be beneficial for special unit soldiers or for human operations like locating people trapped in burning buildings, the daily Haaretz reported.

"The idea of seeing through walls has been around since the 1960s, but modern technology is now ripe enough to enable it to happen," Camero's technology director Amir Beeri said. "When we established the company in 2004, we intended to develop sufficiently high vision resolution to allow an untrained user to see through a wall," Beeri said.

Camero's unique radar utilises Ultra Wide Band (UWB), a technology that has come of age recently and with the use of special algorithms can process data picked up by the detector to give a reasonable image of anything behind the wall.

The system made by its competitor, Time Domain, lacks imaging algorithms and is able to reveal only whether there is someone on the other side of the wall, the report said.

The firm's earlier version of the system weighed about 10 kgs and was too clumsy for use, but the new system is smaller, light in weight and meant for use as a quick-to-use tactical tool. The system is capable of penetrating various types of walls, but not solid metal ones like the walls of shipping containers.

The firm's CEO, Aharon Aharon, is optimistic about the future of the technology and says, "Like the Israeli army's night vision system, which was once an expensive product and eventually came into broad, general use, we hope that our radar too will become standard issue for all military units."

Opera 9.5 RC 1 Now Download-able

Internet browsers trying to play catch-up again! Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner has released Opera 9.5 release candidate 1 (RC 1) for desktops five days after Mozilla released Firefox 3 RC 2. Opera 9.5 RC 1 is now available for download from the Opera Web site.

Opera 9.5 RC 1 attempts to bolster security with anti-phishing and anti-malware technology. For instance, Opera users will now get warning messages upon visiting hacked Web sites carrying Trojans and malicious code as part of the 'Fraud Protection' feature that draws on the likes of Haute Secure, Netcraft, PhishTank, and Google. Meanwhile, Firefox 3 RC 2 downloads an updated blacklist of malicious Web sites provided by Stopbadware.org, a group co-founded by Google.

Apart from enhanced security, Opera 9.5 RC 1 includes a new skin for Windows and Mac platforms along with a fix for all POP accounts to download email messages. There's also a new 'Opera Link' feature in RC 1 that enables easy synchronization of bookmarks between different devices running different versions of Opera.