BBC News – South Pacific Sandy Island ‘proven not to exist’

A South Pacific island, shown on marine charts and world maps as well as on Google Earth and Google Maps, does not exist, Australian scientists say.

The supposedly sizeable strip of land, named Sandy Island on Google maps, was positioned midway between Australia and French-governed New Caledonia.

But when scientists from the University of Sydney went to the area, they found only the blue ocean of the Coral Sea.

The phantom island has featured in publications for at least a decade.

Scientist Maria Seton, who was on the ship, said that the team was expecting land, not 1,400m (4,620ft) of deep ocean.

“We wanted to check it out because the navigation charts on board the ship showed a water depth of 1,400m in that area – very deep,” Dr Seton, from the University of Sydney, told the AFP news agency after the 25-day voyage.

“It’s on Google Earth and other maps so we went to check and there was no island. We’re really puzzled. It’s quite bizarre.

via BBC News – South Pacific Sandy Island ‘proven not to exist’.

Related articles

• South Pacific island does not exist
• South Pacific Sandy Island ‘proven not to exist’
• Australian scientists un-discover Pacific island
• Scientists ‘undiscover’ Pacific island
• How Did This Tiny South Pacific Island Disappear? (Hint: It Never Really Existed)
• Scientists say South Pacific island doesn’t exist

AOL unveils Alto, an email service that syncs 5 accounts – Oct. 18, 2012

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — AOL, struggling to shed its outdated image, is reimagining one of the most visibly aging parts of its platform: Its email service.

Alto is a new web-based email service that syncs up to five email accounts through a highly visual system — and you don’t even need an AOL address to use it. It’s designed to minimize “inbox fatigue”: those seemingly endless email threads, daily deal notifications and newsletter subscriptions most of us have strewn across multiple accounts.

Alto streamlines all of your inboxes into one and sorts messages into a more visual format. Right now, the service can sync as many as five email accounts: Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) Gmail, Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) Mail, AOL Mail, and Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) @mac.com and @me.com. AOL executives say they’ll add more platforms eventually.

Users simply log in to Alto with their username and password for one of those supported accounts, and then add as many as they’d like — no AOL (AOL) address is necessary. New users can sign up for an invitation at altomail.com.

“People need a new email address like they need a hole in the head,” David Temkin, AOL’s senior vice president of mail and mobile, told CNNMoney in an interview. “What they need is an email service that addresses the way we use email today.”

To AOL’s product team, that meant focusing on two key points: quick organization, and a stylish, ad-free design that Temkin said was “created with the iPad in mind.”

via AOL unveils Alto, an email service that syncs 5 accounts – Oct. 18, 2012.

Related articles

• AOL, YouTube in Content Deal
• AOL Stock Rallies as Armstrong Plots Portal Comeback – Bloomberg
• The Person Running AOL Every Day Is Not Who You Think It Is (AOL)
• [How-To] Add AOL’s ‘You’ve Got Mail’ Announcement to Gmail
• AOL to recruit 35 new software engineers for its European development engine in Dublin
• Why I See at Least 50% Upside in AOL

Google tablet set to limbo in at low $199 entry point | Business Tech – CNET News

Google will launch a $199 tablet this week at its developers conference co-branded with Asus, Bloomberg is reporting.

This follows a series of reports that have been trickling out for months about a 7-inch Nexus tablet being developed with Asus. The tablet is slated to debut at the Google I/O conference that starts Wednesday.

The one feature garnering the most attention is price. At $199, the Google tablet is $200 less than Apple’s $399 iPad 2.

Previous reports have claimed the Nexus device will sport the Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean” operating system, a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, 1GB of memory, and IPS in-plane-switching screen — which boasts wide viewing angles.

The $399 iPad 2, by comparison, comes with a dual-core A5 and 512MB of RAM.

The Google tablet is expected, however, to have a 7-inch screen, considerably smaller than the iPad’s 9.7-incher which is also IPS, by the way.

Of course, apps are what matter to many, if not most, people. Though Google claims hundreds of thousands of apps, the iPad has more apps overall and more apps designed specifically for the tablet format, as reviewers are wont to point out.

Other expected Google tablet features include NFC (near field communication), Google Wallet, and Android Beam.

An 8GB model will cost $199, while the 16GB version will still be pretty cheap at $249, according to Gizmodo Australia.

It’s worth noting this isn’t the first highly anticipated $199 Android tablet. The $199 Amazon Kindle Fire was announced last year to great fanfare and a new Kindle Fire could arrive as early as July.

via Google tablet set to limbo in at low $199 entry point | Business Tech – CNET News.

Strange Random Technology Quote:

“Technology has the shelf life of a banana.” – Scott McNealy

Related articles

• Bloomberg confirms Google announcing $199 Nexus-branded Asus tablet at I/O (theverge.com)
• Google takes on iPad with new £150 tablet (thesun.co.uk)
• Google said to unveil tablet this week, taking aim at Apple’s iPad (macdailynews.com)
• LEAK: This Is Google’s Tablet (GOOG, AMZN, AAPL) (businessinsider.com)
• Details Leak Out on $199 Google Tablet (newser.com)
• Nexus 7: This Is Google’s New Nexus Tablet – Gizmodo Australia (gizmodo.com.au)
• Kindle Fire 2 coming in July, new report says (androidauthority.com)
• Why Google’s New Tablet Could Be The iPad’s First Real Competition (robhof.com)

Alan Turing Google Doodle (and how to solve it)

Google is celebrating Alan Turing’s 100th birthday. Alan Mathison Turing is his full name and he was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist.

Understand the working principle before using this doodle: http://www.cryptlife.com/internet/google/how-to-use-alan-turing-google-doodle

Google has praised him by integrating a logo in its homepage. This sounds good. This video will show you the answers for making the whole Google logo to be colored. by solving the Doodle. The Doodle has around 12 levels where, when you complete answering 6 answers, and when you refresh the homepage, you’ll get the next level to be solved.

This video is contains the answer for the first level.

Strange Random Cryptography Quote:

“Cryptography is like literacy in the Dark Ages. Infinitely potent, for good and ill… yet basically an intellectual construct, an idea, which by its nature will resist efforts to restrict it to bureaucrats and others who deem only themselves worthy of such Privilege.” Vin McLellan, “A Thinking Man’s Creed for Crypto”

Related articles

• VIDEO: What do we owe Alan Turing? (bbc.co.uk)
• Letter: Alan Turing revisited (guardian.co.uk)
• In Honor of Alan Turing: a LEGO Turing Machine (adafruit.com)
• Crack the Alan Turing cipher (wired.co.uk)
• Quiz Of The Week: Take Our Turing Test (techweekeurope.co.uk)
• Alan Turing’s Cryptographic Legacy (oup.com)
• The highly productive habits of Alan Turing (arstechnica.com)
• Alan Turing: why the tech world’s hero should be a household name (adafruit.com)
• Alan Turing at the Science Museum (guardian.co.uk)
• Britain still owes Alan Turing a debt – Telegraph (exitlanguages.wordpress.com)

Apple on route to challenge Google with map app – Business News – Business – The Independent

Apple is plotting to dump Google as the default maps application on its wildly popular iPhones and iPads with the launch of its own maps service.

The plan could be put into action before the end of this year, according to Silicon Valley rumours, and attendees at Apple’s annual developer conference next week are hoping that they will get a sneak peak at the new map app. Replacing Google Maps as the default, preloaded app wouldn’t stop users from downloading and using it on Apple devices, but it could dramatically cut the number of people using Google to look up addresses, search for restaurants and bars or get directions for car journeys.

That could have financial consequences for Google, which sells adverts based on what it knows about user behaviour. It could also shift the balance of power between Google and Apple, which were once close partners but are now engaged in battles across the technological landscape. Google makes phones under the Motorola brand and runs the most popular mobile operating system, Android; Apple has an advertising network serving little ads in the apps on its mobile devices.

To the winner of the maps battle could go the spoils of local advertising and marketing to potential consumers on the go.

via Apple on route to challenge Google with map app – Business News – Business – The Independent.

Strange Random Map Quote:

“It seemed that the printers of the African maps had a slightly malicious habit of including, in large letters, the names of towns, junctions, and villages which, while most of them did exist in fact, as a group of thatched huts may exist or a water hole, they were usually so inconsequential as completely to escape discovery from the cockpit.” ― Beryl Markham, West with the Night

Related articles

• Apple and Google set to battle over mobile mapping (slashgear.com)
• WSJ: Apple’s ouster of Google Maps from iOS is coming (tuaw.com)
• Apple to dump Google Maps off iPhone and iPad (macdailynews.com)
• Apple Replacing Google Maps On iOS With Its Own Solution Later This Year (macrumors.com)
• WSJ: Apple to abandon Google Maps on iOS later this year (techie-buzz.com)
• Google Maps to enter ‘next dimension’ at June 6 event (electronista.com)
• Apple Is Going Full Throttle To kill Google Maps : Leaks Screenshot For Apple Maps [Photo] (thetechnologycafe.com)
• Google to hold Google Maps event this coming June 6 (ubergizmo.com)
• Google Hypes ‘Next Dimension’ of Maps Ahead of Apple Event (pcworld.com)