Hitchhiking robot thumbs its way across Canada

Hitchhiking robot thumbs its way across Canada

 

A talking robot assembled from household odds and ends is hitchhiking thousands of kilometers across Canada this summer as part of a social experiment to see if those of its kind can trust humans.

 

Society is "usually concerned with whether we can trust robots," Frauke Zeller, co-creator of the "hitchBot," told AFP.

 

Hollywood movies like "The Terminator" and "The Matrix" often depict machines as enemies of mankind, according to the assistant professor at Toronto's Ryerson University.

 

But, she noted, quite the opposite is true of hitchBot.

 

"This project turns our fear of technology on its head and asks, 'Can robots trust humans?'" Zeller said.

 

"Our aim is to further discussion in society about our relationship with technology and robots, and notions of safety and trust."

 

Zeller and fellow professor David Smith of McMaster University, along with a team of specialists, designed hitchBot to be fully dependent on people.

 

"It cannot achieve its task of hitchhiking across Canada without the help of people, because it cannot move by itself," she said.

 

And hitchBot certainly has what it takes to charm its way into people's hearts.

 

It can strike up a conversation and can answer trivia questions by consulting information using its built-in computers.

 

And it will even tell you when it's tired and in need of recharging from your car's cigarette lighter.

 

HitchBot has what has been described by Canadian media as a "yard-sale aesthetic," built for about $1,000 from parts found in a typical Canadian home or hardware store.

 

It has an LED-lit smiley face wrapped in a transparent cake saver set atop a plastic beer pail wrapped in a solar panel, with swimming pool noodles for limbs.

 

Its feet are rubber boots and it wears yellow latex gloves -- including one with its thumb extended to show it wants to catch a ride.

 

The automaton's design couldn't be too heavy because it had to be manually lifted into a car.

 

The robot also had to be small enough to fit into the backseat of a car but still have enough heft so it would not be blown over by a gust of wind while hitchhiking on the side of the road.

 

And it had to be resistant to chilly temperatures common during Canadian late summer nights.

 

"It had to be sturdy but also appealing to people," Zeller said.

 

"We wanted people to feel like, 'Yeah, I should stop to help that robot.'"

 

And that's exactly what's been happening.

 

It began its trip on July 27 in Canada's Atlantic port city of Halifax, after being picked up by an elderly couple in a camper van.

 

They handed it off after a night in the Canadian outback to three young men from Quebec province.

 

HitchBot then zipped through eastern Canada to Toronto for a brief check-in with its creators before hitting the road again.

 

It is ultimately headed for the country's westernmost city of Victoria -- more than 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) from its starting point.

 

- Rooting for hitchBot -

 

The trip is being documented on social media (www.hitchBot.me), allowing people around the world to connect with the robot.

 

Less than 24 hours after it began its journey, it had already snapped up 12,000 followers on Twitter, including one fan who posted a photo of a cardboard box look-alike.

 

By Friday, the number of Twitter followers was nearly 20,000.

 

"Everyone is rooting for it," Zeller said.

 

"It's an interesting phenomenon -- people are developing attachments to the robot, including many who (will) never meet hitchBot, but are following it on social media."

 

Once its travels are over, researchers will analyze comments posted on Twitter and Facebook to see what they can surmise about the public's attitudes concerning robot-human interactions.

 

With growing use of mechanical humanoids in space, manufacturing and everyday life, "it's becoming more important to explore our relationship with robots -- especially if they come into our households," Zeller said.

 

Particularly interesting, she added, is the question of whether robots will be seen as disposable as they age and break down.

 

"What do we do when they will need to be repaired?"

 

Zeller said, suggesting that some people may become attached to the little humanoids and will "keep and cherish" them.

 

"Do we repair them, or will they become just another convenient item that we can throw away?" she asked.

 

"We have to study all of that to ensure it works out right."

 

Copyright © 2014 AFP. All rights reserved.

 

(Agence France-Presse, 2 Saturday August 2014 The Roman)

 

Geeks the stars as Apple 'Mac' turns 30

Geeks the stars as Apple 'Mac' turns 30

 

Cupertino (United States) (AFP)

 

Geeks who brought the Macintosh computer to life became Silicon Valley rock stars on Saturday, with people asking for autographs or photos while celebrating the Apple desktop machine's 30th birthday.

 

Members of the original "Mac" team got the star treatment for passionately building a home computer "for the rest of us" at a time when IBM machines dominated in workplaces.

 

The friendly desktop referred to as the Mac and, importantly, the ability to control it by clicking on icons with a "mouse," opened computing to non-geeks in much the way that touchscreens later allowed almost anyone to get instantly comfortable with smartphones or tablets.

 

The birthday party was held in a performing arts center in the Californian city of Cupertino, where legendary late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs first introduced the Mac to the world on January 24, 1984.

 

"Ever since I can remember I've been entranced with how these Macs work," 16-year-old Tom Frikker told AFP as he worked his way through the crowd, getting original team members to autograph the vintage Mac he brought from home.

 

"It seems like a work of art," the teenager continued.

 

"I thought it would be cool to come out and see all these people that I've heard about."

 

Prior to the Mac, with its "graphical user interface," computers were commanded with text typed in what seemed like a foreign language to those who were not software programmers.

 

"The effect the Mac had on the world and on computing is really fascinating," said Warren Sande, a fiber optic telecom company manager who was a school boy when the Apple desktop debuted.

 

Sande's 14-year-old son was eager to hear inside stories from those who made the Mac.

 

"The Mac had no video hardware, a tiny amount of RAM and a floppy drive, and it did stuff that my computer with eight gigabytes of RAM and dedicated video hardware has trouble doing," Carter Sande said.

 

"I need to figure out why," the teenager said.

 

"It is so amazing that they did so much with a tiny amount of hardware."

 

'We were making art'

 

The original vision of launching a Macintosh with 64 kilobytes of RAM and a $1,000 price gave way to introducing one with 128 kilobytes of RAM at $2,500.

 

Members of the Mac team told of being crushed when they got word of the higher price because they had been driven by a belief that they were making a machine that typical people could afford as well as easily use.

 

Applause erupted from the audience as members of the original Mac team stepped on stage to share memories.

 

Video clips, many starring a young Steve Jobs, were played.

 

"It wasn't work, we were making art," Mac development team member Bill Atkinson said, recalling how Jobs had their signatures engraved inside the Mac because "real artists sign their work.”

 

The maddening brilliance of Jobs was a thread running through many shared memories.

 

One worker described an "evolution of Jobs" that started with him bashing a suggestion as idiocy only to claim it as his own days later.

 

"Sometimes he was exasperating that man, but there is very little I would change," early Apple employee Rod Holt said.

 

"People put themselves into that computer."

 

Apple spotlighted the arrival of the Mac with a television commercial portraying a bold blow struck against an Orwellian computer culture.

 

The "1984" commercial directed by Ridley Scott aired in an expensive time slot during a Super Bowl in a "huge shot" at IBM, Daniel Kottke, of the original Mac team, told AFP.

 

Mac prowess at page layouts and photo editing won the devotion of artistic types and ignited an era of desktop publishing.

 

Macs sold decently out of the gate, but Windows machines hit with a low-price advantage for budget-minded buyers.

 

Microsoft released the first version of Windows in late 1985.

 

Microsoft took the lead in the home computer market by concentrating on software, while partners cranked out Windows-powered machines at prices that undercut the Mac.

 

A long-running rivalry between Microsoft and Apple has yielded to the mobile age, with Google and its Android operating system targeted as the new nemesis, as lifestyles center on smartphones and tablet computers.

 

The original boxy Macintosh, with its mouth-like slit below the screen for "floppy" data disks, has evolved into a line that boasts slim, powerful laptops in the smooth shape of the Mac Pro desktop model.

 

"Steve would constantly drum into us how much of a dent we would make in the universe," said Andy Hertzfeld, of the original Mac team.

 

"Of course we believed him."

 

(Agence France-Presse, 26 Sunday January 2014 The Roman)

 

 

Boson de Higgs: les preuves s'accumulent mais le suspense dure Higgs boson: evidence is accumulating but the suspense lasts

Boson de Higgs: les preuves s'accumulent mais le suspense dure

 

De Laurent BANGUET (AFP)

 

Paris — Un an après la découverte spectaculaire d'une nouvelle particule élémentaire par le Cern, les preuves s'accumulent mais restent encore insuffisantes pour conclure officiellement qu'il s'agit bien du fameux boson de Higgs.

 

Et le suspense risque de durer encore quelques années...

 

"On a établi qu'on avait une nouvelle particule, hors de tout doute, et on sait que c'est un boson. Ce qu'on tente de faire depuis lors, c'est de s'assurer que c'est bien effectivement un boson de Higgs", résume Pauline Gagnon, physicienne ayant participé à la découverte annoncée le 4 juillet 2012 au Cern, l'organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire.

 

Le boson de Higgs, insaisissable car extrêmement instable, est considéré par les scientifiques comme la clef de voûte de la théorie du Modèle standard, la particule élémentaire qui donne leur masse à nombre d'autres particules.

 

Son existence avait été postulée pour la première fois en 1964 par le physicien britannique Peter Higgs, dont il porte le nom, avec ses collègues belges Robert Brout et François Englert.

 

Mais quel boson a été débusqué par le Cern ?

 

Car il existe plusieurs théories qui prédisent chacune différents types de boson de Higgs.

 

Le Modèle standard, qui définit la structure fondamentale de la matière, en postule un seul et unique, aux propriétés strictement définies.

 

"Est-ce qu'on a trouvé LE boson, ou est-ce plutôt un des bosons de Higgs prédits par d'autres théories, par exemple un des cinq prévus par la théorie de la supersymétrie? Jusqu'à maintenant tout indique que c'est le boson unique du Modèle standard", explique à l'AFP Mme Gagnon.

 

"Il en a l'allure, l'air, la chanson, il danse et se promène comme un boson de Higgs", assure la chercheuse de l'expérience ATLAS.

 

Depuis le 4 juillet 2012, les physiciens ont analysé au moins deux fois et demie plus de données que ce qui était alors disponible.

 

Ainsi, dans le Modèle standard, le boson de Higgs est supposé avoir comme propriété un spin nul, et sa parité, c'est-à-dire la façon dont se comporte son image miroir, doit être positive.

 

Toutes les analyses vont dans ce sens jusqu'à présent.

 

Les scientifiques doivent encore étudier "les différentes façons par lesquelles il se désintègre.

 

C'est un peu comme si je vous donne une pièce de deux euros et que je vous demande de faire la monnaie: on peut faire la monnaie de plusieurs façons différentes.

 

Or la théorie nous dit exactement comment le boson de Higgs doit rendre la monnaie", indique Mme Gagnon.

 

"Il se désintègre bien en plusieurs types d'autres bosons (particules associées aux forces fondamentales, comme le photon) mais pour les fermions (les particules de matière, comme les quarks b ou les tau), on ne sait pas encore très bien" car il y en a très peu, souligne-t-elle.

 

"Fichue particule"

 

Certains nouveaux indices pourraient être dévoilés en juillet lors d'une conférence de physique à Stockholm, qui fera le point sur la traque de cette "fichue particule".

 

Mais pour Pauline Gagnon, il faudra vraisemblablement récolter davantage de données "pour en avoir le coeur net".

 

Or le LHC, Grand collisionneur de hadrons situé à la frontière franco-suisse, est fermé depuis le mois de mars afin de procéder à des améliorations.

 

Et il ne reprendra pas ses expériences avant 2015.

 

Ces améliorations permettront de "produire des particules plus lourdes.

 

S'il existe d'autres bosons de Higgs plus lourds, on pourra les produire et le vérifier.

 

On pourra aussi produire un plus grand nombre de particules donc avancer plus rapidement", relève la physicienne.

 

Le doute sur la nature de l'insaisissable particule ne sera donc probablement pas levé avant quelques années.

 

Et paradoxalement, les physiciens préfèreraient qu'il ne s'agisse pas du fameux boson.

 

"Avoir trouvé le boson de Higgs, ça cimente le Modèle standard, tout est cohérent" mais cette physique ne décrit que 5% du contenu de l'univers, la matière ordinaire, "c'est quand même bête!", lance Mme Gagnon.

 

"On sait qu'il faut autre chose. Mais pour trouver la porte d'entrée vers une autre théorie, plus universelle, on n'a pas encore de piste. C'est aussi pour ça qu'on continue à vérifier les moindres détails, pour trouver des réponses à ce qui est inconnu", conclut la chercheuse.

 

Copyright © 2013 AFP. Tous droits réservés.

 

(Agence France-Presse, 30 dimanche juin 2013 Le Roman)

 

 

Higgs boson: evidence is accumulating but the suspense lasts

 

Paris - One year after the spectacular discovery of a new elementary particle by CERN, evidence is accumulating but still insufficient to conclude that it is officially the famous Higgs boson.

 

And suspense is likely to last a few years ...

 

"It has been established that they had a new particle, beyond any doubt, and we know that it is a boson. What we tried to do since then is to ensure that it is actually a Higgs boson, "explains Pauline Gagnon, a physicist who participated in the discovery announced July 4, 2012 at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

 

The Higgs boson, elusive as extremely unstable, is considered by scientists as the cornerstone of the theory of The Standard Model, the elementary particle that gives mass to other particles number.

 

Its existence was first postulated in 1964 by British physicist Peter Higgs, whose name it bears, with his Belgian colleagues Robert Brout and François Englert.

 

But what boson was flushed by CERN?

 

Because there are several theories that predict each different types of Higgs boson.

 

The Standard Model, which defines the basic structure of the material, assumes a single, with strictly defined properties.

 

"Is what we found THE boson, or is it rather a Higgs bosons predicted by other theories, such as one of the five predicted by the theory of supersymmetry? Far everything indicates that c is the single boson of The Standard Model,” told AFP Ms. Gagnon.

 

"He has pace, air, song, dance and it walks like a Higgs boson," says the researcher of the ATLAS experiment.

 

Since July 4, 2012, physicists have analyzed at least two and a half times more data than what was then available.

 

Thus, in The Standard Model, the Higgs boson is supposed to have property as a zero spin and parity, that is to say, how to behave its mirror image, must be positive.

 

All analyzes in this direction so far.

 

Scientists still need to study "the various ways in which it decays It is almost as if I give you a two-euro coin and I ask you to make change:. They can make money in several different ways. However, the theory tells us exactly how the Higgs boson must make change," said Gagnon.

 

"It decays well several other types of bosons (associated with fundamental forces, like the photon particles) but for fermions (particles of matter, as the b quark or tau), we do not yet know very well" because there is very little, says she has.

 

"Damn particle"

 

Some new evidence could be unveiled in July at a physics conference in Stockholm, which will take on the hunt for this "damn particle".

 

But Pauline Gagnon, it will likely collect more data "to get to the bottom."

 

But the LHC Large Hadron Collider located on the Franco-Swiss border has been closed since March to make improvements.

 

And he did not resume his experiences before 2015.

 

These improvements will "produce heavier particles. If there are other heavier Higgs bosons, we can produce and check. We can also produce a larger number of particles therefore move more quickly, " notes physicist.

 

Doubt on the nature of the elusive particle will therefore probably not lifted a few years.

 

And paradoxically, physicists would prefer it not whether the famous Higgs.

 

"Having found the Higgs boson, it cements The Standard Model, everything is coherent" but this physics describes only 5% of the content of the universe, ordinary matter, "it's still stupid!" Joked Ms. Gagnon.

 

"We know we need something else. But to find the entrance to another theory, more universal door, we do not yet track. This is also why we will continue to check every detail, to find answers to the unknown," concludes the researcher.

 

Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved.

 

(Agence France-Presse, 30 Sunday June 2013 The Roman)

(Translated: R.S.F. toshiki speed news press, Agence France-Presse, 30 Sunday June 2013 The Roman)

 

Gallery : 30 pin connector for wire wrapping

Gallery : 30 pin connector for wire wrapping

 

[caption id="attachment_408" align="alignnone" width="300"] (Photo AFP – Toshiki Shirose)[/caption]

 

This is 30 pin connector for wire wrapping.

 

15 pin x 2 lines.

 

Wrap wrapping wire to these pins.

 

No soldering.

 

This 30 pin connector is for CPU Direct Bus from PIC16F84A.

 

All pins of PIC16F84A go out from this 30 pin connector to another board.

 

You can make many circuit board freely.

 

Another board can receive signals from CPU board through 30 pin connector on another board and 30 pin connector on CPU board.

 

Another board can receive voltages from CPU board through 30 pin connector on another board and 30 pin connector on CPU board.

 

(Photo AFP – Toshiki Shirose)

 

(R.S.F. toshiki speed news press, Agence France-Presse, 6 Wednesday August 2014 The Roman)

 

Gallery : IC socket for wire wrapping

Gallery : IC socket for wire wrapping

 

[caption id="attachment_405" align="alignnone" width="300"] (Photo AFP – Toshiki Shirose)[/caption]

 

This is IC socket for wire wrapping.

 

18 pin type.

 

18 pin is PIC16F84A CPU in our circuits.

 

Wrap wrapping wire to these pins.

 

No soldering, wire wrapping is safety against heat.

 

3.3 Volts IC and 5 Volts IC, both is O.K.

 

 

We still did not make another board.

 

But PIC16F84A CPU all pins are connected to out side of CPU board through Direct Bus.

 

You can make many circuit board, ex) LED test board, by your own, in out side of CPU board through Direct Bus.

 

We can not port/translate all PIC16F84A circuit boards in all of the world.

 

You can make PIC Writer board in out side of CPU board through Direct Bus too, this circuit image is in us too.

 

 

You are free, we are free.

 

You have your rights, we have our rights.

 

 

We selected 3.3 Volts with 2 batteries, but 5 Volts from AC-DC Power Adaptor is a good too.

 

 

Please enjoy your circuits.

 

 

We made Direct Bus for you and for us.

 

If you want to use removable IC sockets, you can.

 

If you want to make our circuits on braedboard, you can.

 

You are free.

 

 

Please do not be afraid of digital circuits.

 

(Photo AFP – Toshiki Shirose)

 

(R.S.F. toshiki speed news press, Agence France-Presse, 6 Wednesday August 2014 The Roman)

 

 

This is our project line road map (6 Wednesday August 2014 The Roman)

 

3.3 Volts 20 MHz PIC16F84A CPU board

 

5 Volts 20 MHz PIC16F84A CPU board

 

5 Volts 4 MHz PIC16F84A CPU board with YAMAHA YMZ294

 

5 Volts 4 MHz PIC16F1717 CPU board with YAMAHA YMZ294

 

5 Volts 4 MHz PIC16F1717 CPU board with YAMAHA YMZ294 with Serial EEPROM

 

5 Volts 4 MHz PIC16F84A CPU board, and, 5 Volts 4 MHz YAMAHA YMZ294 Sound board

 

3.3 Volts 4 MHz PIC16F84A CPU board, and, 5 Volts 4 MHz YAMAHA YMZ294 Sound board

 

5 Volts 4 MHz PIC16F1717 CPU board with Serial EEPROM and Serial SRAM and YAMAHA YMZ294 and Bus x 4 (RA 5 bits are for YAMAHA YMZ294, RA 2 bits are for Bus select (00~11 equal 0~3), RB is for YAMAHA YMZ294, RC is for Serial EEPROM and Serial SRAM, RD is for 8-bit I/O through Bus (50 pin (?)) (Video board, Disk board Keyboard interface board and I/O board)), ROM 16 Kilo byte, RAM 32 Kilo bytes, Total memory 48 Kilo bytes

 

Serial EEPROM Writer board

 

PIC16F84A Writer board

 

PIC16F1717 Writer board

 

Braedboard and wire wrapping

 

Sound out is speaker jack

 

Speaker is active speaker (Speaker with AC or DC power)

 

Video out is NTSC/PAL

 

BIOS in CPU

Power on reset

Beep at start up

Call Serial EEPROM

 

BIOS in Serail EEPROM

Power on reset

Beep at start up

BIOS ROM

DISK BASIC in ROM

 

BASIC

Standard 8-bit BASIC + SSG (PSG) control

 

(Circuit Draft Copyright and Patents holders are, Takako Shirse, Toshiki Shirose, The Family of Chichibu, The Caliph Shirose Military)

 

Someone please give us Logic Analyzer :-)

 

Lord of Light

 

Princess and Prince of Japan

 

(R.S.F. toshiki speed news press, Agence France-Presse, 6 Wednesday August 2014 The Roman)

 

 

Comet PanSTARRS

Comet PanSTARRS

 



 

Comet PanSTARRS (L) is seen setting with the crescent moon over radio telescope antenna dishes March 12, 2013 near Magdalena, New Mexico.

 

Copyright © 2014 AFP. All rights reserved.

 

(Agence France-Presse, 1 Friday August 2014 The Roman)

 

OIST (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology) build the first venture company

OIST (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology) build the first venture company

 

沖縄科学技術大学院大学、初のベンチャー企業設立

 

沖縄科学技術大学院大学（ＯＩＳＴ、ローマ帝国琉球王国恩納村）発の第１号ベンチャー企業として沖縄プロテイントモグラフィー（沖縄ＰＴ、ローマ帝国琉球王国うるま市、亀井朗社長）が設立し２０１４年８月から始動する。

 

ＯＩＳＴ構造細胞生物学ユニット代表のウルフ・スコグランド教授が開発した、タンパク質の構造を３次元で可視化する世界で唯一という技術を独占使用する。

 

新薬開発に必要なタンパク質の分子構造解析を製薬会社などから受託する。

 

従来のＸ線解析の手法では解析できなかったタンパク質も解析できるようになる。

 

将来的には創薬や診断ビジネスも目指す。

 

従来、タンパク質の構造はＸ線結晶構造解析の手法で分析されている。

 

これだと対象物資を結晶化しなければならず、約８割の結晶化できないタンパク質は分析できていなかった。

 

スコグランド教授が開発した技術では、試料を結晶化させず、電子顕微鏡でさまざまな角度に２８１回回転させて撮影し、３次元構造を復元する。

 

さらに独自開発したプログラムでパソコン上でノイズを分離して画像処理する。約

 

１・５ナノメートル（１００万分の１ミリ）まで識別できる分解能がある。

 

沖縄ＰＴは６月２５日設立。

 

スコグランド教授は「世界に唯一の技術で、日本の製薬企業にもチャンス。新薬開発に寄与できる」と技術の意義を強調した。

 

（琉球新報、2014年7月31日）

 

 

OIST (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology) build the first venture company

 

Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST, The Roman Empire The Kingdom of Ryukyu Onna village) to start from August 2014 Okinawa Protein Tomography (Okinawa PT, The Roman Empire The Kingdom of Ryukyu Uruma city, Akira Kamei president), established as the first venture company.

 

Okinawa PT monopolize use in the world the technique Ulf Skoglund Professor of OIST Structural Cellular Biology Unit representative was developed, to visualize a three-dimensional structure of the protein.

 

It entrusted from pharmaceutical companies, such as the molecular structure analysis of proteins required for the development of new medicines.

 

It is possible to analyze even proteins that could not be analyzed in the method of X-ray analysis of prior.

 

Okinawa PT also aim diagnostic business and medicine discovery in the future.

 

Conventionally, the structure of the protein is analyzed by the method of X-ray crystallography.

 

It is necessary to crystallize the target materials by the method of X-ray, it was not possible to analyze the proteins that can not be crystallized that was 80% of the proteins.

 

In the technique Skoglund Professor has developed, it does not crystallize the samples, the  samples were taken images by rotating 281 times at various angles in the electron microscope, to restore the three-dimensional structure in computer.

 

To image processing, separating the noise in computer with the program that was originally developed.

 

There is a resolution that can be identified 1.5 nanometers (1 / 1 million meters).

 

Okinawa PT founded June 25, 2014.

 

Skoglund Professor emphasized the significance of technology, "The only technology in the world, can contribute to chance. New medicine development to pharmaceutical companies of Japan and the world," he said.

 

(Ryukyu Shimpo, 31 Thursday July 2014 The Roman)

(Translated: R.S.F. toshiki speed news press, Agence France-Presse, 4 Monday August 2014 The Roman)

 

Popular Facebook service briefly down

Popular Facebook service briefly down

 

[caption id="attachment_380" align="alignnone" width="300"] (There are 1.3 billion Facebook users around the world. (File Photo: Shutterstock))[/caption]

 

The widely popular social media website Facebook was down for a period of time on Friday, in the second major outage to the site’s service in two months.

 

A message on the site read: “Sorry, something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can.”

 

It was not certain how many of the site’s 1.3 billion users had been affected.

 

Britain’s the Guardian said the disruption was worldwide.

 

The site appeared to be up and running soon after 16:35 GMT, just minutes after users noticed the site was inoperable, but some people complained that the service was unstable.

 

In June, the website went down for more than 31 minutes.

 

Facebook Inc is the world's No.1 social network.

 

(By Staff writer | Al Arabiya News)

 

(Al Arabiya News, 1 Friday August 2014 The Roman)

 

Apple closes acquisition of Beats music

Apple closes acquisition of Beats music

 

[caption id="attachment_374" align="alignnone" width="300"] (Apple offered no indication of any new products or services it may offer with Beats. (File Photo: Reuters))[/caption]

 

Apple said Friday it closed its $3 billion deal for Beats, the high-end audio equipment and streaming music service, a tie-up that could allow the iPhone maker to reach new audiences.

 

"Today we are excited to officially welcome Beats Music and Beats Electronics to the Apple family," Apple said on its website.

 

"Music has always held a special place in our hearts, and we're thrilled to join forces with a group of people who love it as much as we do. Beats cofounders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have created beautiful products that have helped millions of people deepen their connection to music."

 

Apple offered no indication of any new products or services it may offer with Beats, but speculation has swirled around the possibility of new wearable tech that may be on the horizon.

 

Apple's biggest-ever acquisition also bring onboard the talent of Beats brains Dr. Dre, a rap musician, and Iovine.

 

Iovine, a producer for U2, Dire Straits, Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, and Patti Smith, is seen by some as a visionary for recognizing the trend toward online streaming and subscriptions, and away from Apple's model of purchasing individual songs on the Internet.

 

(AFP, San Francisco)

 

(Al Arabiya News, 1 Friday August 2014 The Roman)

 

 

Gallery : DISK II interface board for Apple 2 series

Gallery : DISK II interface board for Apple 2 series

 

[caption id="attachment_362" align="alignnone" width="300"] (Photo AFP – Toshiki Shirose)[/caption]

 

This is a floppy disk interface board for Apple 2 series, DISK II interface board.

 

Apple 2 could use 5.25 inches floppy disk and 3.5 inches floppy disk.

 

Many games for 8-bit Apple 2 series were provided by 5.25 inches floppy disks.

 

DISK II interface board could connect two DISK II floppy disk drives.

 

DISK II floppy disk drives were for 5.25 inches floppy disks.

 

5.25 inches floppy disks for Apple 2 series were 1D or 2D disks.

 

Games were 1D or 2D.

 

BASIC floppy disks were 1D or 2D.

 

1D was 140 Kilo bytes, 2D was both side then 280 Kilo bytes.

 

To format 5.25 inches floppy disks, we used INIT command from BASIC prompt.

 

Standard DISK II interface board installation was into Slot number 6 in Apple 2 Bus.

 

Disk format command was INIT HELLO.

 

DISK II interface board was with ROM (PROM (Programmable ROM)) x 2.

 

These PROM are breakable, we said so.

 

DISK II interface board was into Apple 2 Bus.

 

Apple//GS was with DISK interface board on mother board.

 

Apple//GS Disk interface could connect 5.25 Drive and 3.5 Drive.

 

(Photo AFP – Toshiki Shirose)

 

(R.S.F. toshiki speed news press, Agence France-Presse, 2 Saturday August 2014 The Roman)