A chinese man built his own mechanical hands by himself. And he's not an engineer. It's not just a shape of a hand but a hand with design and mechanics which he developed himself. His self-made mechanical hands' fingers could even automatically open up to grasp things such as holding a cup. It's a remarkable feat that he could create the hand on his own.
Bionic vs Mechanics
I have a bit of debate here. The YouTube video mentioned "bionic" hands. What's the definition of bionic?
Merriam Webster's Definition:
Definition of BIONIC
1
: of or relating to bionics
2
a: having normal biological capability or performance enhanced by or as if by electronic or electromechanical devicesb: comprising or made up of artificial body parts that enhance or substitute for a natural biological capability<a bionic heart>
Well... It doesn't help right? So which is the key word? in 2a, it seems to be normal biological capability/performance plus electronic/electromechanical. So without both, a creation is not considered "bionic".
But looking at 2, the key words seem to be "artificial body parts", "enhance", "substitute" and "natural biological capability". So an artificial body part is bionic need not be electronic/electromechanical in nature, as long as it can enhance or substitute the natural biological capability?
But what constitutes enhance/substitute "natural biological capability" is debatable... Does anyone has a clear definition of the term?
"What happens in an Internet minute? Today, the number of networked devices is equal to the global population. By 2015, the number of networked devices will be twice the global population." - Intel
IDC released its quarterly smartphone OS report for 2Q2012 yesterday. Not surprisingly, Android and iOS accounted for 85% of all smartphones shipped in the second quarter of 2012
(2Q12).
Chart: Worldwide Smartphone OS Market Share, 2Q 2012Description: Tags: Author: IDCcharts powered by iCharts
It is not surprising to find that Android has a market share of 68.1% of new smartphones shipped during Q2 of 2012, given that Android has many mobile partners loading the OS. Just to name a few- Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola and Sony Ericsson are all global smartphone makers.
Not surprising. But why? 1.) Variety of Choices
These companies have already launched many flagship smartphones such as Samsung S2, Samsung Galaxy Note, various versions of HTC One, LG Optimus 3D etc. Compared to Apple, there are many models with enhanced technical capabilities at once for consumers to choose. Not forgetting that this also means a wide range of prices for consumers to choose from. The manufacturers are also creating lower end smartphones to increase their market share. This inevitably helped Android to surge in market share. 2.) The Hardware War between Phone Manufacturers
These manufacturers are pushing the technical specifications with each flagship phone launched. For example, LG was the first company to launched a dual core smartphone with LG Optimus 2X, then launched a Optimus 3D with 3D image capabilities. Dell launched a 5" Dell Streak. Samsung uses the AMOLED and Super AMOLED screen. Samsung also launched a 5.3" Galaxy Note with S Pen (stylus) function. HTC partnered Beats Audio to boast a phone with good audio quality. Not forgetting that these manufacturers are also pushing the pixel intensity of the screens and the energy efficiency of the hardware (battery remains an importrant issue for smartphone users especially with data usage). This competition pushes each of these companies to keep on improving the hardware capabilities so as to garner more market share. Invariably, this helps improve the market share of Android.
Having said this, hardwares of each phone models are increasingly similar. 3.) Interface
Android allows the manufacturers to tweak the user interface. This is something good for the manufacturers. A company could provide a hardware that might not be available by another company, thereby giving it an advantage. However, unless the customer is a tech geek, these things are hidden and not easily understandable to most consumers. Now, the interface makes a difference in creating "impression" on the customers as this is what they see when they first on the phone. How nice is the interface? How user friendly is it?
But a word of caution- not all interfaces are a good selling point. Some interfaces have been known to draw irks from users. I won't name the interfaces here, just google and you shall find them.
What's next?
Look out for Windows Mobile! Windows has a strong corporate base. This link could be a point for which Windows could regain its foothold in the smartphone market.
Environmental Impacts?
I'm having a bit of dilemma here. It's good that phone manufacturers are pushing the energy efficiency of their phones, this means more usage time for less energy. However, the speed with which the new models of phones get released worries me. This, to a certain extent, will entice consumers to replace their phones more frequently- meaning more phones are changed before their "life expectancy" is up. Although the used phones are usually sold as pre-owned phones, it might to a certain extent create unwanted waste. Imagine an increase of pre-owned phones in the market. What will happen next? Most probably this would mean that the price of pre-owned phones will drop, which means people are more likely to buy a new "pre-owned" phone and perhaps discard their current phones. This would mean wastage.
I have
received comments about my blog post on @[4:0] = Mark Zuck. Sorry folks, I have
not posted replies or explained about that.
Well. I
managed to find out the reason, information and the history for it. :)
Why?
1.) Each of
our FB account is tagged to a number. That’s the profile number. Note that not
too long ago, FB allowed users to change their profile page (the page where
visitors first view your information) to a ‘vanity’ name. That is- a customized
name. For example, www.facebook.com/Zuck.
2.) With
this changes, it does not mean that your profile number goes away. It is still
there.
3.) So when
we type @[4:0], we get Mark Zuckerberg. Why is that so? This is because Mark’s FB
profile ID is 4.
Now you
must be wondering why did the FB creator chose 4 instead of 1? Haha. This is
because he used numbers 1-3 initially to test FB; and the profiles no longer
existed.
Now we come to the question- can we type @[our profile
number:0] to get our names? Yes, you can. But this begets the question- you
have changed your profile page to a vanity name, how do you get the profile number?
Finding your FB profile number
There are 2 ways:
1.) https://graph.facebook.com/ method.
Go to https://graph.facebook.com/(type your FB vanity name in
the “username” here, without the brackets). For example, https://graph.facebook.com/zuck is
where “zuck” is the profile name for Mark Zuckerberg’s profile page http://www.facebook.com/zuck.
You should see something similar to the following:
{
"id":
"4",
"name":
"Mark Zuckerberg",
"first_name":
"Mark",
"last_name":
"Zuckerberg",
"link":
"http://www.facebook.com/zuck",
"username":
"zuck",
"gender":
"male",
"locale":
"en_US"
}
The"id":
"4"- 4 is the ID number .
2.) FB
Profile Method
Go to your
profile page and move your mouse over your profile image. You should see a link
url that comes out at the status bar of your browser.
For example: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.11111111111.11111.123456&type=1
The number
behind the third dot is your profile ID. In this case, “123456” is the profile
ID.
The @[your profile number: 0] “formula”
So if you
type @[profile number: 0], you will get the person’s name. J
