Daimler’s been conducting field tests for the C2X system since at least 2006, but they’re about ot embark in the largest ever field trial in the Rhine-Main region of Germany. They’re outfitting at least 120 network-linked vehicles with the technology. With this system, the cars (and thus the drivers) can be alerted of upcoming traffic hazards way ahead of time, allowing them to divert their routes accordingly. Similarly, the system can find the best route to your destination based on real-time traffic data, as well as find the parking lot that appears to have the most available spots.

The communication works in the other direction too. With enough of these cars on the road, the traffic lights can adjust their patterns to improve overall traffic flow. If you have more cars heading in one direction than the other, perhaps they should get more green lights and for longer durations. Of course, it wouldn’t be fair for these specific 120 cars to control traffic patterns, but it does show what could happen if something like this becomes a standard feature.

In fact, the C2X trial is part of the larger Safe Intelligent Mobility – Test Field Germany (simTD) research project. Daimler is a part of it, along with other German automakers, automotive suppliers, communication firms, research institutions and public sector. This most recent trial puts C2X into the real world and out of the safe confines of a closed course. If all goes well, we may soon have more and more cars as part of this automotive “social network.” Of course, we’ll all have to get over our Big Brother concerns first.

[Source]

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The Samsung and Apple continue to fight a constant global legal war against one another, with every little legal battle pushing the scale in on direction or the other, but largely seeming to go nowhere. Recently Samsung’s big victory in the UK was the requirement by Apple to put up advertising that stated the Galaxy didn’t necessarily copy or infringe rights with it’s Galaxy tablets. Samsung might have won that battle, but in Germany and much of the EU (except maybe the UK) things continue to go in Apple’s favor, mostly. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7′s German ban is now extending its way into the entire EU it seems. This means that no matter where you go in the EU, you won’t be able to find a Tab 7.7, though you can bet that Samsung will continue to do whatever it can to stop this ruling and keep the 7.7 on the market.

So was this a total victory for Apple? Not completely, as the Galaxy Tab 10.1N has continued to stay around in the EU without opposition. Originally sought an injunction on the 10.1N for the same reasons that it holds against the 7.7 and the early Galaxy Tab 10.1, but the Dusseldorf Regional Court continues to maintain that the new design changes in the 10.1N are enough to ensure them that it isn’t infringing on Apple’s intellectual property or design rights. Apple is almost completely out of appeal options to keep the 10.1N off the market, but at least they can rest assured they won a victory with the extension of the 7.7 ban- for now. This war continues to push in Apple’s favor and then back into Samsung’s favor, and clearly seems to have no real victor or end in sight.

[ source ]

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In the hospital setting, medical professionals use something called “therapeutic hypothermia” with such patients, working to reduce their body temperature with chilled water blankets or cold drip catheters. Outside the hospital, though, what can you do to keep the patient as cool as possible in the instance of a cardiac arrest?

Developed by Hohenstein Institute in Germany, the prototype has water-filled cooling pads. These pads are then connected by a hose to a vacuum-pressurized metal container with zeolites, special silicate minerals that can rapidly extract heat from water. When activated, the water circulates through the zeolite chamber and gets to a near-freezing temperature very quickly. The vest is put on the patient and, hopefully, you’re able to get the core temperature down to 32-34C (89.3-93.2F).

The research team sees these vests being deployed in public buildings where anyone can access them in the case of an emergency. They’re currently looking for an industrial partner to further develop and hopefully launch the product.

[Source]

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People in Europe have been waiting for a while to enjoy the glorious speeds of 4G LTE. Although some countries in the continent will still have to wait a bit more for the launch of the network, Germany can celebrate since they will be getting the HTC Velocity, the first 4G LTE Android-powered smartphone in Europe.

Vodafone’s German arm will launch the device “sometime soon.” The Velocity is a variant of the HTC Vivid LTE handset that was released in the US on AT&T’s network in the previous year.

Similar to the Vivid, the Velocity comes equipped with a 4.5 inch qHD display with a resolution of 540 x 960 and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. Although the screen is not as big as the one on the Galaxy Note, it’s more than enough for the first 4G LTE phone to arrive.

The handset features two cameras: an 8 megapixel rear facing camera with 1080p video capture and a front-facing 1.3 megapixel shooter to satisfy all your video chatting needs. The phone will run Android 2.3 Gingerbread and you can expect an update to ICS to arrive in the coming months. Other features include 1GB of RAM and 16GB of on-board memory.  The device will arrive in Germany first and we expect it to make its way to other parts of Europe later this year. But for everyone in the UK, you will all have to wait until the 4G auctions are completed.

[ source ]

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Want to get a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 in Germany? Good luck, as Samsung’s most recent attempts to overturn the ruling that banned the 10.1 have failed. So why did Germany ban the 10.1 in the first place?

The design was deemed too similar to Apple’s unit. Despite Samsung’s best attempts to change the courts mind, the ruling will stick.

The good news is that Samsung fans can still get the 10.1 in its redesigned form, the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, specifically made for the German market to get around the ban. Even with the redesign, Apple attempted to shut Samsung done, but luckily last month the courts upheld Samsung’s rights to sell the 10.1N in a preliminary judgment. A final ruling in that case is expected on February 9^th.

The battle between Samsung and Apple will likely wage on for quite a while, both in Germany and elsewhere. Who will be the winner in the end? It’s hard to call, though Samsung has had some strong recent victories like with its Samsung Series 9 ultrabook success.

[ source ]

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The project is called the Hackerspace Global Grid and the goal is to launch an independent satellite into space. This is meant to “support unrestricted channels on the Internet” and will provide a connection to a series of independent ground stations. The net result is a “network of nodes completely independent from the Internet itself.” No censorship. No rules. No restrictions.

Naturally, the group is going to face more than its fair share of challenges. It has to build the infrastructure of terrestrial nodes, design and build the satellite itself, and then hitch a ride on someone else’s rocket so that they can get the pirate satellite into low-Earth orbit. That’s expensive and complicated, but once achieved, the possibilities are endless.  Think, unrestricted satellite telephones, VoIP and even cellular communications.

The project was pitched at the Chaos Communications Congress in Berlin, a hacker conference hosted by the German Chaos Computer Club. Keep up with their progress on the official HGG wiki.

The post Hackers To Build Pirate Internet With Pirate Satellites appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Basically Motorola would have to put up a €100 million bond for the injunction to take effect… and if the ruling is later overturned on appeal, Motorola could lose that money. According to Thompson Reuters, the current front lines and dispositions of legal warriors on that bloody battlefield look like this:

The blue and red strike lines above depict here huge money streams. Sure, the direction of arrows on these can be reverted any minute, and the only undisputed winners are patent law courts and lawyers. Customers, on average, are on a losing side as Apple plans to go after basically any non-Apple tablet for supposed infringements.

However, there are some local successes at some fronts, like Australia where after a long and grueling battle in which Apple attempted to ban the Samsung Galaxy 10.1, Samsung is winning for now. The High Court of Australia has ruled that Apple’s case lacks merit, meaning Samsung is now in the clear to sell the tablet as it sees fit.

Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will go on sale in time for the holidays in Australia now that things have been straightened out legally. That is definitely not to say that Apple has unconditionally surrendered and capitulated out there, it’s just a reversal of this decision may cost way too much.

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German courts have ruled in Apple’s favour in the California company’s latest lawsuit against Samsung. The ruling states that no Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets will be sold in the European Union (Netherlands excluded) due to alleged infringement of both patents and style. Any store who infringes on the ban and continues to sell the device will face either $350,000 fines or imprisonment of management.

Apple is presumably content with the win.

“It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging,” said Apple after the ruling. “This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

The ruling is a preliminary injunction, and Samsung says they’ll be working hard to appeal and reverse the continent-wide ban on their newest tablet.

“Samsung is disappointed with the court’s decision and we intend to act immediately to defend our intellectual property rights through the ongoing legal proceedings in Germany and will continue to actively defend these rights throughout the world,” Samsung said. “We will take all necessary measures to ensure Samsung’s innovative mobile communications devices are available to customers in Europe and around the world.”

The win comes on the heels of Apple’s other patent-suit win against HTC, and may set a rough precedent for other manufacturers looking to release 10” glass and metal tablets in the near future.

The post Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned from the EU appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Researchers in Germany have found that the brain discards information one bit per active neuron per second. It looks like the old adage “in one ear and out the other” has some solid science behind it.

The brain codes information in the form of electrical pulses, or spikes. Each one of the brain’s 100 billion neurons act as receivers and transmitters. When a spike enters a neuron, an electrical discharge, or action potential, forms on the neuron’s cell membrane. The neuron will give an electrical input to its neighbour only if the potential exceeds a certain value. Therefore, an activity pattern is quickly lost or “forgotten” through tiny changes. This means the signal transmission in the brain is extremely chaotic, as much depends on the performance on individual neurons.

The findings indicate that the brain’s main switching centre, the cerebral cortex, is specifically tailored to process brief snapshots of the outside world. Whether those brief snapshots get retained is a completely different story altogether… what were we talking about again?

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Having a big touchscreen really isn’t cutting the mustard anymore and that’s why you’re starting to see more of a push toward pico projectors. As adoption increases, so will innovation and that’s what we’re seeing today with a new “hot embossing technique” devised by the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology in Germany.

First, a bit of a primer on digital pico projectors. They say that there are two primary paths you can take. Traditional lenses use multiple glass magnifiers, resulting in a long and bulky contraption. The much more compact option is to create microlens arrays, but only plastic versions have been made so far. The bulbs in the projectors are capable of melting those plastic arrays.

The new hot embossing techique, however, is able to produce glass microlens arrays. These “high-refraction” arrays are said to be suitable for mass production and could bring the price of projection lenses to a tenth of their current cost. This could really help with the increase in adoption, encouraging more manufacturers to consider including pico projectors in their cameras, smartphones, and what-have-you.

Yes, the lens is only a small fraction of the overall cost and most pico projectors aren’t exactly the most suitable in anything more than a dimly-lit room, but this new technique represents a fairly sizable “baby step” toward more of these kinds of devices. Maybe the Seabird isn’t that far away after all.

[GizMag via Fraunhofer]

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