Windows 10 going to add Ubuntu’s bash and Linux command line was one of the big reveals at Microsoft’s recent Build conference. Since then, there’s been a lot of speculation about what Microsoft did to make this possible. The whole idea of running Ubuntu Bash shell on Windows is to allow developers to run Linux tools natively on Windows.
Recently Microsoft reveled what they are planning and how bash on Windows 10 will work via the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), through a new Channel 9 video.
Bash On Windows 10 Works Via Windows Subsystem For Linux
In the video, team member Deepu Thomas explains how bash on Windows 10 will work. Actually there’s no secret Linux kernel hidden in Windows 10, instead, it’s the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) that was developed by the Windows Kernel team is what provides the foundation that enabled the Linux binaries to run on Windows.
So what is Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
WSL is a collection of components that enables native Linux ELF64 binaries to run on Windows. It contains both user mode and kernel mode components. It is primarily comprised of:
User mode sessionmanager service that handles the Linux instance life cycle
Pico provider drivers (lxss.sys, lxcore.sys) that emulate a Linux kernel by translating Linux syscalls
Pico processes that host the unmodified user mode Linux (e.g. /bin/bash)
According to Microsoft blog post – “It is the space between the user mode Linux binaries and the Windows kernel components where the magic happens. By placing unmodified Linux binaries in Pico processeswe enable Linux system calls to be directed into the Windows kernel. The lxss.sys and lxcore.sys drivers translate the Linux system calls into NT APIs and emulate the Linux kernel.”
The pico process components may ring a bell with folks who’ve followed along with Microsoft Research’s Project Drawbridge work.
The Channel 9 architectural overview video and the related blog post both note that the Windows kernel does include the Drawbridge pico process/pico driver concepts. And it’s these pico processes and drivers that “provide the foundation for the Windows Subsystem for Linux.”
The video is worth checking out for those whose hearts beat just a little quicker when they see an OS architectural diagram.
Its common after a number of recharges, batteries of our devices will gradually degrade overtime and battery replacement becomes the only option to solve the problem. But now researchers found a new technology to solve this problem. Yes, now no more battery replacement, you can recharge batteries hundreds of thousands of times.
Recharge Batteries Hundreds Of Thousands Of Times With No Degradation
University of California, Irvine researchers have invented nanowire-based battery material that can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times. The breakthrough work could lead to commercial batteries with greatly lengthened lifespans for computers, smartphones, appliances, cars and spacecraft.
Batteries degrade over time, and the older they get, the less of a charge they can hold, requiring more frequent recharging. But scientists devised a way to protect nanowires in batteries from degradation. They did it by coating a gold nanowire in a manganese dioxide shell, and then encasing the entire assembly in an electrolyte that’s made of Plexiglass-like gel, according to Phys.org.
While a typical battery may see the cracking appear after 5,000 – 7,000 recharges, but the study leader, UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai, cycled the testing electrode up to 200,000 times over three months without detecting any loss of capacity or power and without fracturing any nanowires.
“The coated electrode holds its shape much better, making it a more reliable option,” UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai said. “This research proves that a nanowire-based battery electrode can have a long lifetime and that we can make these kinds of batteries a reality.”
Popular multiplayer game have a lot of fans around the world, but the interestingly now you can play Counter-Strike 1.6 on your Android smartphone. Of course, playing Counter-Strike on an Android device can be quite challenging, especially with the absence of a mouse and keyboard. But you can try it out!
Play Counter-Strike 1.6 On Android
A developer named Alibek Omarev has found a way to play Counter-Strike 1.6 on an Android tablet. By a Reddit post in /r/Android, he detailed how to play Counter-Strike on Android, which involves moving files over from an existing Steam installation, and installing the Xash3D apk.
As expected, the game doesn’t run as fast on a mobile device. The screen is cluttered with touchscreen controls, but at least they’re fully customizable, according to Omarev on Reddit post.
To be clear, Omarev is referring to the full game installed and running on the device and not simply being streamed or mirrored from a PC.
Gamers who are looking forward to trying this out should also expect some lag and slowdowns especially when playing online. Users will also be able to play online using the Counter-Strike 1.6 servers.
How To Install Counter-Strike 1.6 On Android
Install the APK. Install APK with omp postfix if you have multi-core device and noomp if you have single-core device or have problems with omp version.
We have seen many robots, some of them are too frightening ones but recently researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China revealed a realistic robot which is capable of human-like facial expressions, along with talking and interacting with people nearby. Moreover it looks beautiful, actually we can say its the “robot goddess”.
The new interactive realistic robot, named Jia Jia, was unveiled Friday by the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province.
The creators describe it as looking similar to a “real woman”, and also Jia Jia can talk and interact with real humans, as well as make some facial expressions.
And also it can recognize when someone is taking a picture and make appropriate comments, “Don’t come too close to me when you are taking a picture. It will make my face look fat,” she told someone trying to capture her photo during the presscon.
The team spent three years designing her, making sure her mouth moves when she speaks and that her eyes glance around the room naturally.
But they’ve yet to figure out how she can laugh or cry… and how to make her hands look less like a department store mannequin’s. Those might come with version 2.
Team leader Chen Xiaoping said they hope to give her deep learning and facial recognition capabilities in the future. At this point Jia Jia is just a robotics research project, as there’s no plans for mass production.
Is she nice? China’s first interactive robot can respond to human orders, make micro facial expressions and do morehttps://t.co/MLs5TS5Jj7
Dead OS walking, yes! surprisingly Microsoft Windows XP still powers an estimated 181 million PCs around the world, even after Microsoft end its support two years ago, according to data from a web metrics vendor.
Microsoft ended their support of Windows XP back on April 8, 2014. So consumers were completely cut off from patches, with no alternatives other than to switch to a newer operating system or continue running an insecure machine.
But report after two years shows that nearly 11% of all personal computers continue to run the OS, data for March from U.S.-based analytics vendor Net Applications showed. Meanwhile, Windows XP accounted for about 12% of all Windows-powered PCs.
The 12% represented approximately 181 million PCs when compared against the 1.5 billion Windows personal computers worldwide, a number that Microsoft has regularly cited.
That number put XP as No. 4 among Microsoft’s editions, behind Windows 7, which powered an estimated 861 million systems, Windows 10 (235 million), and Windows 8/8.1 (199 million).
And the interesting fact is Windows XP users share also exceeds all versions of Apple’s OS X by 40%.
At XP’s current 12-month rate (image above) of decline as tracked by Net Applications, the operating system will drop into the single digits in May, but will remain above 5% until March 2017, nearly three years after its expiration.
Part of the difficulty in leaving XP is that there is no direct migration between it and Windows 10, Microsoft’s latest edition. Instead, users must first upgrade to Windows 7, then next to 10. Or more likely, dump the system and purchase a new PC with Windows 10 pre-installed.
Solar cell has changed the way many people bring energy into their homes and rain is normally a solar energy cell’s worst nightmare. But now a group of scientists developed a new solar cell prototype that will generate power from raindrops.
Scientists from the Ocean University of China (Qingdao) and Yunnan Normal University (Kunming, China) have created an all-weather solar cell that works both in the sun and in the rain.
The technology takes advantage of graphene they use to coat their solar cells during testing. Graphene is known for its conductivity, among many other benefits. All it takes is a mere one-atom thick graphene layer for an excessive amount of electrons to move as they wish across the surface. Water actually sticks to the graphene, creating a sort of natural capacitor — the sharp difference in energy between the graphene’s electrons and the water’s ions produces electricity.
Like most solar panels, the new solar cell can generate energy from sunlight on sunny days using existing technology. When the clouds roll in and raindrops start to fall, the solar cell then can switch to its graphene-based energy collection system.
Researchers hope to move their research beyond a proof of concept stage and begin to develop the technology into a viable method for generating electricity. These all-weather cells would provide a boost to solar cell technology which currently only works when there is ample sunlight. In climates or seasons that are dominated by clouds and rain, an all-weather solar panel could provide a clean form of energy that is not possible with existing technology.
WhatsApp last night turned on the encryption within the app. That has created a lot of buzz. But why and how exactly it affects WhatsApp users? Well, sit tight and let us explain it all to you :
Starting Tuesday night, all WhatsApp communication is encrypted. This means, now when you chat with your friends, cyber criminals or even government sleuths will not be able to capture the data and read your chats, even if they are stealing all your Wi-Fi traffic. Although, they can still steal, confiscate or snatch your phone and read all your chats.
The WhatsApp encryption is end-to-end. This means the keys to encrypt the chats will be stored only with users. Even WhatsApp won’t have any key, so the government can’t demand such keys from the company that runs the chat app.
Here is how WhatsApp co-founders explained it: “The idea is simple: when you send a message, the only person who can read it is the person or group chat that you send that message to. No one can see inside that message. Not cybercriminals. Not hackers. Not oppressive regimes. Not even us. End-to-end encryption helps make communication via WhatsApp private – sort of like a face-to-face conversation.”
For added security, you can even authenticate chats on WhatsApp. This, according to WhatsApp, will be done between users through a QR Code or a 60-digit number.
The WhatsApp encryption is 256-bit strong. Theoretically, it is impossible to crack it by brute force method. Although, there could be implementation loopholes that government agencies like the NSA in the US can exploit.
If you want to use WhatsApp encryption, all you need to do is download the latest version of the app. It is enabled by default.
Now everything is encrypted on WhatsApp. Text, your selfies, the funny videos, even the PJs in school group are encrypted. Isn’t it wonderful? Cyber criminals won’t even be able to sniff out all the “photoshopped” forwards that you receive in your WhatsApp group.
The encryption is not expected to have any significant effect on the user experience. The service will, possibly, continue to be fast and free.
The big deal about the WhatsApp encryption is that suddenly over a billion people on earth have access to incredibly secure and private communication. This is unprecedented and makes WhatsApp move wonderful and scary at the same time.
According to WhatsApp, its latest feature is built using “the Signal Protocol, designed by Open Whisper Systems.” The company says that this protocol is specifically developed to keep third-parties like cyber criminals and government officials away from private communications.
At a time when the concept of privacy is almost gone, WhatsApp encryption changes the rule of the game. It will probably force other technology companies to offer encryption by default. As WhatsApp co-founders said, “we expect that (WhatsApp-like encryption) will ultimately represent the future of personal communication”.
Forty years ago Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak met in a garage to build a computer that would change modern computing as we know it. Jobs and Wozniak would go on to become celebrities of Silicon Valley; and their company would become one of the most recognized and successful brands in the world.
On Friday April 1 2016, Apple is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Over the years Apple has become one of the world’s most valuable company’s – currently worth an estimated US$584 billion – and introduced revolutionary products to the tech marketplace, like from the iMac to iPod to the iPhone.
In 1976, the first Apple Computer, also known as the Apple I unveiled. It was designed and built by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Wozniak’s friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer and the Apple I was born. The vintage computers are now worth about $200,000.
1977
Mark 2 of Apple’s computer – the Apple II – was a much more commercial product and came with its own case. It had a MOS Technology processor running at just 1MHz with 4KB of RAM. Today’s iPhones have processors running at 1,800 times the clock speed with 500,000 times more RAM.
1983
The Apple Lisa computer was groundbreaking, with an integrated screen, user interface and Apple’s first mouse. But at $10,000 (almost $20,000 in today’s money), the Lisa was never going to fly off the shelves.
1984
The company launched ‘portable’ computer. The Apple IIc could be carried about, but had no battery, which meant a power socket needed to be close by.
Portable Apple computers weren’t the only thing new in 1984, the first Macintosh computer was also released as the first ‘affordable’ computer with a graphical user interface selling for $2,495 at the time. The Mac was born.
And also Apple launches its now iconic commercial for the Macintosh Computer.
Apple’s first true laptop as we know them today, the PowerBook 100 (right), was designed and manufactured by Sony for Apple. It cost $2,500 at the time. For size comparison, the machine on the left is a 2012 13in retina MacBook Pro.
1993
Before the iPhone was a twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye, the Newton Message pad was Apple’s first attempt at a pocket computer. It took 6.5 years to develop, had the first real handwriting recognition and coined the term ‘personal digital assistant’ or PDA. It only lasted for five years but the team that developed the software for it eventually went on to develop the first iPod operating system.
1994
The first of Apple’s short-lived digital cameras before the release of the iPhone all by crushed point-and-shoot cameras, the QuickTake 100 had 1MB of storage and was built by Kodak. It was followed by the QuickTake 150, which could connect to Windows and the QuickTake 200, built by Fujifilm.
In 1994, the first PowerPC Apple computer, this one with a 66MHz processor, the Power Macintosh 6100 paved the way for a whole series of PowerPC Apple computers that were only replaced with the switch to Intel chips in mid-2000s.
1998
The company launches the first “all-in-one” iMac computer – you know, the ones with the colourful plastic backing.
1999
Following the iMac the iBook was the next step for Apple aimed at the mass market.
2001
The product that would completely change the face of Apple, from a computer company into a devices company, the iPod was born in 2001. It had 5GB of space, a small LCD screen and wasn’t revolutionary, but was smaller than most and was marketed well, eventually dominating the market. The first iPod was Mac-only and had a physical wheel that moved to scroll.
And also in 2001, Apple dumped its legacy operating system wholesale and switched to a new incompatible version with the launch of OS X 10.0 Cheetah, which went on to form the basis of not only the current version of OS X 1o.11 El Capitan, but iOS, which runs the iPhone and iPad.
2007
Following the success of the iPod, the iPhone launched Apple into a new age. It turned the company into a powerhouse, shipping with 4GB of storage, a 3.5in capacitive multi-touch screen and 620MHz Samsung processor. The iPhone took 2.5 years to develop and was arguably the start of the internet-connected, portable computing age we live in now, even if it have rivals that did things first and didn’t even support native apps for a year.
The MacBook Air was the biggest change in Apple’s laptop line for years, and invented a whole new category of computers called ‘ultrabooks’ by Intel. The first MacBook Air had a slow, tiny hard drive, slow processor and relatively poor battery life but it heralded a new era of thin and light laptops.
2010
Apple introduces its first tablet with the iPad. The iPad’s origins hark back to the 1993 Newton when a prototype tablet was made but never released and was conceived in its current form before the iPhone but delayed until after the release of Apple’s smartphone.
2011
Siri, Apple’s snarky voice assistant, stole the show when Apple released the iPhone 4S in 2011. That was the same year the company launched cloud computing with iCloud, an online storage system.
This was the same year Steve Jobs resigned as CEO due to illness. He died of cancer in October 2011.
2014
Apple buys Beats,which made headphones and ran a music service, for US$3 billion. The headphones continue to be sold, but Beats Music morphed into the Apple Music subscription service, with radio station Beats One the lasting remnants of the brand.
2015
After years of rumours, Apple finally unveils its first wearable device – the Apple Watch.
