HP acquires Palm

HP has completed the Palm acquisition. with this acquisition may be this HP is looking to utilise the technology of Palm with the netbooks, smartphones or more than that. Basically Palm release WebOS in 2009 which is an mobile os which runs on Linux kernal.

But here the interesting part of this acquisition is

Palm will be responsible for webOS software development and webOS based hardware products, from a robust smartphone roadmap to future slate PCs and netbooks. “With HP’s full backing and global strengths, I’m confident that webOS will be able to reach its full potential,” said [Jon] Rubinstein [Former CEO of Palm]"

webOS's graphical user interface is designed for use on devices with touchscreens. It includes a suite of applications for personal information management and makes use of a number of web technologies such as HTML 5, JavaScript, and CSS

webOS includes a feature called Synergy that integrates information from many sources. webOS allows a user to sign in to accounts on Gmail, Yahoo!, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Microsoft Outlook (via Exchange ActiveSync). Contacts from all sources are then integrated into a single list. Calendars from multiple sources can be viewed together or one at a time. For messaging, Synergy combines all conversations with each contact into a single chat-style window.

WebOS is much more pretty than Andriod as per some sources and Well we need to wait n watch for the updates from the market with the new technology choosen by HP.

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Robots controlled by human brain cells

Robotics is one area of technology where there is lot of RnD is being done. Now british scienticts are on track to develop a new robot which they say that it will be controlled by a blob of human brain cells. Sounds like a sci-fi movie but this is true.

This experiment is being leaded by a team at Reading university which has already used Rat brain cell to steer a simple-wheeled robot. Now they are going a step ahead of using human brain cells.

In fact, for the robot with rat brain cells, 300,000 rodent neurons grown in a nutrient broth and producing spikes of electrical activity were connected to output of the robot's distance sensors. The neurons proved capable of steering the robot around a small enclosure.

According to the scientists, observing how the neuron culture responds to stimulation can improve the understanding of neurological conditions such as epilepsy.

To make the system a better model of human disease, a culture of human neurons will be connected to the robot once the current work with rat cells is completed. This will be the first instance of human cells being used to control a robot.

Their one of the aim is to find the difference between the robots controlled by Human cells and Rat cells. success of this may lead to next level of Robotical engineering this is far away from Artificial intelligence. Lets wait and watch for the future.

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