Google turns on the World’s 1st Modular Smartphone

Project Ara Spiral 1 prototype, front

At I/O 2014, Google has publicly turned on its modular Project Ara smartphone for the first time. Considering Project Ara nothing more than some pretty concept art back in October 2013, it’s impressive how quickly Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group has produced a working prototype. If all goes to plan, Google hopes to sell the modular Ara smartphone in 2015, starting at $50 for a bare-bones endoskeleton that you plug other modules into. During the ATAP tech session at I/O 2014, Ara chief Paul Eremenko also gave us lots of technical details about how to actually build a modular phone — no mean feat, as you can probably imagine.

The Project Ara prototype, called Spiral 1, was given its first public outing at Google I/O yesterday. As you can see in the photos throughout this story, Spiral 1 actually looks surprisingly like a finished device — except, of course, for the fact that the power switch is a jumper that needs to be physically shorted. If you want to see the device being powered on, skip through to around the 26:10 mark in the video below. The manual jumper method is shown at around the 27:40 point. Sadly, the device actually crashes and fails to reach the Android desktop — but hey, it is just a prototype.

Eremenko also gave us lots of juicy technical details about Ara. The current prototype uses FPGAs to implement the industry standard UniPro MIPI packet-switched network protocol to provide an interconnect between the modules. The antenna modules use the metal endoskeleton (phone chassis) to boost reception.
Android, which will power the Ara smartphone, will eventually be updated to support hotplugging of third-party modules — and later, Eremenko expounded on that theme with this interesting tidbit: “Think of [Ara] as an analog of the Android app ecosystem, but in hardware.” To kickstart development of these third-party modules, Google also announced a competition to design and implement a novel module, with the winner walking away with a grand prize of $100,000.

Project Ara Spiral 1 prototype, side

A lot of time was spent discussing Project Ara’s most significant barrier: Overhead. “The principle challenge to modularity is overhead,” Eremenko said. “What we found was that Moore’s law, the miniaturization of electromechanical components, and a modern data protocol, could get the modularity penalty at a system level down to around 25% across the board; PCB area, device weight, and overall power consumption.” Eremenko specifically discussed the electropermanent magnets that will keep the modules in place, and the socket connectors (they have to be small and thin, but still effective at carrying different signal frequencies).
Interestingly, Eremenko also discussed battery technology. He noted that there are now battery chemistries with three times the energy density of standard lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), but with much reduced cycle life (i.e. they don’t last for 300+ recharges). To get around the power consumption overhead of a modular phone, you could use these high-energy batteries and switch them out more often. These batteries could also be smaller than current LIBs, giving you more space for other modules.

Project Ara, modular smartphone concept art

Back in August last year, I wrote about my vision of a utopian future where smartphones are upgradeable like a PC — and, while there’s clearly some way to go, I’m glad to see that Google has now proven that modular smartphones are technically possible. Maybe a commercial release date of 2015 is actually feasible.

It’s well worth watching the entire Project Ara Google I/O presentation (embedded above); it’s only around 20 minutes long, and afterwards you’ll be filled with that special breed of warm fuzzies that only bleeding-edge tech can provide.

Dota 2 prize fund now over $10 million: Not bad for a free-to-play PC-only game

Early this morning, the prize fund for the upcoming Dota 2 International esports tournament crossed the $10 million mark. Remarkably, just $1.6 million of the prize fund was provided by Valve; the rest was contributed by members of the Dota 2 community who were eager to get their hands on some in-game items, and to support their favorite teams and the nascent esport as a whole. With a prize fund of over $10 million (and still another three weeks to accrue an even larger pot!), The International 4 is now larger than The Masters golf tournament. Viva la esports!

ET Deals: Core i3 laptop $350, Venue 11 Pro 64GB for $492 and more

We’ve hunted down some great deals for you this week, including the lowest price we’ve seen on a Dell Inspiron 15 laptop packing a Core i3 — you can pick one up today for just $350. We’ve also spotted a nice 31% savings on a Nikon D5200 DSLR with 18-55mm VR Lens. If you’d prefer a camcorder, we have a sweet deal on a Samsung F90 HD for $180 bundled with a $125 eGift card, effectively reducing your net cost to a mere $55.

We’re also fans of the Venue 11 Pro 64GB, decked out with a folio case and stylus, on sale at just under $350 below the regular price. If you prefer a touchscreen attached to your laptop, take a look at the Toshiba Satellite E55Dt touch laptop on sale for only $550 right now, a new price low. For those in the market for a mid-sized HDTV, check out the high quality 120Hz LG 42-incher we’ve found for just $389 too.

Will 60fps YouTube Videos Force Game Developers to Prioritize Frame Rate?

This week, Google announced that 48fps and 60fps video playback will be available on YouTube sometime in the next few months. Most video is still shot at 24 or 30 frames per second, but there is a growing demand for high frame rate videos — specifically for video game footage. The transition to higher frame rates has been painfully slow across the board, but this move from the YouTube team could force game devs and Hollywood to focus on pumping out more frames per second. Once you’ve experienced silky-smooth 60fps video, it’s hard to go back to the blurry mess found at lower frame rates. On its Creators Blog, Google unveiled a number of upcoming improvements for YouTube. Features like fan funding and crowdsourced subtitles are headed to the world’s most popular video distribution service, but the announcement of 48fps and 60fps video blows everything else out of the water. Users are still months away from being able to take advantage of higher frame rates for their own videos, but we did get a sneak preview of three HFR videos: a three minute clip of 60fps Titanfall gameplay, a 48fps trailer for season two of Video Game High School, and the 60fps Battlefield Hardline trailer embedded below (60fps playback is only available at 720p and 1080p).

OAU Student Leaders Accuse Management of High-Handed Tactics

Student leaders at the Obafemi Awolowo University have accused the institution's management of being ‘high-handed’ in the manner with which it increased their tuition by over 350%.

The students faulted the hike, during their press conference in Lagos on Sunday, with proof that the management lacked the ground for the decision. They also dismissed as total falsehood, claims by the University management that the students acted violently in their recent demonstrations.

Anchored by their President, Comrade Ibikunle Isaac, the union leaders said they have now fled their campus to hang about, due to threats of deadly attack on them by cult members suspected to be sponsored by the University management.

They also condemned the threats as management's resorted tactic, which they said has become its forte in silencing outspoken student leaders against oppressive policies. Buttressing this, a former leader of the Students' Union of OAU, Ola-Diamond, who was also present at the conference, cited one instance where union members were ‘attacked’ on account of the management's order during the reign of the former Vice Chancellor, Prof. Wale Omole.

TECHNOLOGY: Creativity Open For Photographers As Adobe Unveils Photoshop 2014

Adobe is continuing its full-court press to convince photographers to move to its Creative Cloud subscription-based licensing model. Today’s announcement of Creative Cloud 2014 marks its biggest effort yet. New features in Photoshop, lots of new mobile goodies, and a permanent discounted subscription for photographers were highlighted by Adobe as it rolled out its newly branded 2014 edition of its Creative Suite for the Cloud.

Photoshop 2014: Path-based blurs and focus-based selection are headline

WORLDWIDE: What is 802.11ax WiFi, And Do You really need a 10Gbps connection to your laptop?

If you thought that your new 802.11ac router’s max speed of 1,300Mbps was pretty crazy, think again: With 802.11ac fully certified and out the door, the Wi-Fi Alliance has started looking at its successor, 802.11ax — and boy do the early draft specs and transfer speeds look good. While you will probably be hard pushed to get more than 400Mbps to your smartphone via 802.11ac, 802.11ax should be into the 2Gbps+ range. In a lab-based trial of technology similar to 802.11ax, Huawei recently hit a max speed of 10.53Gbps, or around 1.4 gigabytes of data transfer per second. 802.11ax is going to be fast. But what is it exactly?

What is 802.11ax WiFi?

The easiest way to think of 802.11ax is to start with 802.11ac — which allows for up to four different spatial streams (MIMO) — and then to massively increase the spectral efficiency (and thus max throughput) of each stream. Like its predecessor, 802.11ax operates in the 5GHz band, where there’s a lot more space for wide (80MHz and 160MHz) channels.

WORLDWIDE: Hacker hijacks Thousands of Synology Storage Devices, forces them to mine 500 million Dogecoins

If you have a device that connects to the internet on a regular basis, patch it. That’s the big-picture takeaway from today’s news of a hacker who convinced Synology DiskStations (a type of network-attached storage device) to mine more than 500 million Dogecoins for him — and made out with an estimated $620,000 in cash in the process. Much of the focus has been on the size of his haul, which may represent the largest sum of cash ever mined by unwitting dupes, but Synology got in touch with us to point out that hey — they actually patched the hole used by the hacker quite some time ago.

Synology was warned that this particular flaw existed on DiskStation Manager (DSM) 4.2 and 4.3 boxes and patched it on September 23. It sent out an update informing users of the need to update their hardware. In February, they released a patch to fix the same bug in the beta version of the DSM 5.0 OS. Since

WORLDWIDE: ET deals: HP Envy 27 LED-backlit IPS LCD monitor for $350

As larger and higher resolution displays become more common, manufacturers are relying on other differentiators to make their product stand out. HP’s Envy 27 is one such different monitor, packed with Beats Audio and a sleek design, and on sale right now for just $350, a tidy $100 off the regular price.

The HP Envy 27 sports a large 27-inch 1920×1080 widescreen display. It utilizes an IPS panel, delivering 178-degree viewing angles, so it’ll be easy to share your media viewing with anyone and avoid distortion for those on the edges. With Beats Audio integrated, this monitor will also deliver one of the better audio experiences in its class, making it great for watching movies or TV. The built-in speakers are angled upward, output 6W per channel, and are capable of pumping out high frequencies as well as rich bass. There’s also an easily accessible headphone jack on the right side of the display if you’d rather use your own cans.

WORLDWIDE: How to Bring back the Start Menu and Button to Windows 8

You’ve just installed Windows 8.1 for the first time, or perhaps bought your first Windows 8 PC. After poking around for a bit you’ve finally found your way to the Desktop. What’s that in the bottom left corner? It sure looks like the Start button… but click it, and you’ll be rewarded with a hideous new Start screen, not the Start menu that you know and love from Windows 7 and Vista. For some reason, despite a series of updates over the last two years that are meant to make Windows 8 more user friendly for mouse-and-keyboard users, Microsoft is still forcing us to use the Metro interface instead of a real Start menu.

The good news is, despite Microsoft’s best efforts to ensure that the Start button and menu remain banished from its new OS, there are a bunch of third-party Windows 8 Start menu replacement apps that you can download today. Really, it just goes to show how devoted the Desktop Windows userbase is: Microsoft completely stripped out the underlying Start menu code to quash potential Luddite revolutionaries, and yet months after the release of Windows 8 there were dozens of Start menu and Start button replacements — some of which are far superior to Microsoft’s own Windows 7 Start menu.

WORLDWIDE: Sony Pushes 4K TV at the World Cup, Even though there’s nothing to watch – And no Blu-rays, cables, or Bandwidth for 4K

At the 2014 World Cup, the weirdest thing isn’t that USA is doing better than England, but that 4K TV is being pushed surprisingly hard. As I watched USA versus Portugal last night, one of the main ads around the edge of the pitch was a hoarding for Sony 4K. This surprised me, because I know there’s virtually zero 4K content actually available. Like a good little potential purchaser I wandered along to the Sony website to see what the deal was, and sure enough it’s selling some 4K TVs priced anywhere from $3,000 to $30,000. Yes, for a sizable chunk of your annual income, you can buy a TV that’s capable of watching Breaking Bad and House of Cards in 4K… and… that’s it.

It is either an amazing marketing move, or diabolical. It’s almost as if Sony is telling you to future-proof yourself by living in the future… on your own… with no one else to experience the future with. I understand that someone has to be the first penguin for 4K — the first one to dive in and be eaten by a killer whale — and I don’t think anyone would call me a Luddite, but still I am surprised to see Sony pushing its massively expensive 4K TVs when there’s almost no reason to buy one.

WORLDWIDE: Chuck Hull - The Father of 3D Printing who Shaped Technology

Chulk Hull knew his invention would take up to 30 years to find its way into people's homes. Today the possibilities appear endless. Chuck Hull found retirement was not for him so he returned to 3D Systems and is now vice-president and chief technology officer. 

Although measured and deliberate in his responses, there is one moment when the softly spoken Chuck Hull – known as the father of 3D printing – tells of his surprise about what exactly his creation was capable of achieving.

In 1996, surgeons at the Wilford Hall medical centre in Texas working to separate a pair of conjoined twins thought that only one would be able to walk after the operation. After a model of the girls' bone structure was generated using 3D printing, however, they found a shared upper leg bone to be bigger than expected and split it successfully, resulting in both twins being able to walk.

Hull said: "This is extremely difficult for surgeons, to figure out how they are going to separate the two twins so that you will have two separately living people. When some of those surgeries were first done using the help of our technology, it was really touching for me."

Amazing Google Facts And Figures

Google.com Domain registered on September 15,1997.

Google Began as a probe projection in 1996.

Google Founded On September 4,1998.

CEO Of Google Is Larry Page.

Founders Of Google Are Larry Page And Sergey Brin.

The Primary funding of $100,000 for Google was provided by Andy Bechtolsheim co-founder of Sun Microsystems.

Google AdWords Launched On October 23,2000.

Thirty Millions pages indexed in 1998.

One billion Pages Indexed in 2000.

Google AdSense Launched in June 18,2003.

Google Purchase Youtube On Nov. 13,2006 For $1.65 Billion.

Google Purchase Doubleclick on April 2007.

Google Purchase Admob on May 2010.

NIGERIA: President Jonathan Appoints Wife Of Former Convict, Bode George, To Head NDLEA

President Goodluck Jonathan today appointed Mrs. Roli Bode-George, the spouse of Peoples Democratic Party chieftain and ex-convict Bode George, into the sensitive job of Director-General of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

Mr. Bode George, a former governor of Ondo State and also former chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), is famous remembered for serving a two-year jail term on corruption-related charges. 

His problems with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission began when it was headed by its pioneer chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, but it was in August 2008, under his successor, Farida Waziri, that he was arrested in Lagos. 

Along with some other figures, Mr. George faced 163 charges that included conspiracy, abuse of office and illegal award of about N84 billion in contracts during his chairmanship of the NPA.  In October 2009, he was found guilty and sentenced to 30 months in jail.

Tragedy And Protests In Abuja As Demolition Bulldozer Crushes Child, Followed By Death Of Mother

Protests broke out today along Kubwa Express Road in Galadima, a section of Abuja, after a bulldozer being used by a demolition squad of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) killed a child. The bulldozer was being used to demolish illegal structures built on a parcel of land that a source belongs to an unnamed “influential person.” The child’s mother then died shortly after by stabbing herself, the two tragedies triggering protests by squatters and onlookers in the area.

A source at the location told SaharaReporters that the “influential individual” who owns the land had connived with officials of the Federal Capital Territory by pretending that he was building an estate on the land.

Trouble started when the demolition team arrived in the village with a retinue of armed men from the Army, Navy, Air Force, mobile police and Civil Defense Corps. An eyewitness said that the demolition squad began demolishing structures without allowing the occupants to take anything from their houses. “They did not allow anybody to salvage their property before they began to pull down all the houses. What led to the riot was the killing of a small girl who was left in the house while her mother went to buy something from the market. Before she came back from the market, the bulldozer had already crushed her child with the house,”

UKRAINE: EU Deal to be Signed on 27 June 2014

he new president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, has said he will sign a controversial association agreement with the EU on 27 June.

His elected pro-Russian predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in February after refusing to sign the deal at the last moment.

Heavy fighting has erupted between troops and pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk region despite talk of a truce.

Meanwhile, Nato says Russia has moved troops back to the Ukrainian border.

In another development, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has announced it has re-established contact with two teams of its observers who were abducted in eastern Ukraine last month, and says all of them are well.

"We cannot comment about the identity of those detaining them, nor statements made by any groups or individuals that are reported by media," OSCE spokeswoman Natacha Rajakovic said in Vienna.

MEXICO: Marine's Mother Hires "Rock Star" Mexican Defense Attorney Over Her Jailed Son.

The mother of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi,jailed in Mexico since March 31, has hired a “rock star” defense attorney for her son – his third lawyer in as many weeks.

 Jill Tahmooressi, said Wednesday that following the advice of California defense attorney Phil Dunn, she has hired Mexican attorney Fernando Benitez Alvarez del Castillo.

"I'm comfortable that I now have a competent attorney to represent Andrew," Tahmooressi told Foxnews.com.

Dunn has assumed the role of consigliere for Tahmooressi after two previous failed attempts at lawyers. The first one, Alejandro Osuna, was fired the night before the Marine’s first court appearance May 28 for allegedly instructing him to tell the judge he had never been to Mexico before, which was not true.

The second attorney, Lamberto Esquer, hired shortly afterwards, never even got out of the gate before Tahmooressi said she lost confidence in him.

"I obviously don't know how to pick Mexican attorneys, and that's why I'm grateful to now have Phil Dunn's help," Tahmooressi said.

FernandoBenitez has a 17-year proven defense track record with some high-profile cases, including

IRAQ: Senators blast Obama Foreign Policy asPpolitical War Over Iraq heats up

The political war over the Obama administration's response to the growing Iraq crisis heated up on Thursday, as Republican lawmakers took to the Senate floor to blast President Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East and urge a new approach. 

Meanwhile, the president was meeting with his national security team and planned to make a statement at the White House at 12:30 p.m. ET. 

"These recent events ... are not intelligence failures. They are policy and leadership failures," Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said on the floor, claiming the president's Middle East policy has "totally unraveled." 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., blamed the decision to withdraw entirely from Iraq for the current quagmire. 

"You've seen a collapse of the Iraqi Army that I think could have been prevented," Graham said. 

The back-to-back string of speeches on the floor were the latest show of pressure from congressional lawmakers aimed at getting the administration, broadly, to reconsider its foreign policies and, specifically, to get more involved in protecting the Baghdad government from Sunni Muslim militants sweeping across the country's north.  

ALBANIA: Albania Cracks Down on Marijuana Production in key Southern Village

The smoke from burning marijuana plants billowed from a dozen houses on Day Five of Albania's most serious move yet against a southern village, armed to the teeth, that has churned out weed on an industrial scale for more than 15 years.

Lazarat has long blighted Albania’s efforts to shed the image of a Balkan badlands since it threw off communism in 1991.

With the fruits of its labor turning up in Italy, Greece and, last year, Germany, Albania has come under increasing pressure from the European Union to crack down on drug producers long considered untouchable, out of reach of the law thanks to a web of corrupt connections to the police and politicians.

Albania hopes to get approval later this month from each of the EU’s 28 member states to become an official candidate for inclusion in the group. Crime and corruption are sure to be top of the list of issues that must be resolved before it can join.

Under the command of a new government sworn in September, police moved into Lazarat on Sunday after coming under fire while spying on the crops planted all along the hillsides the day before. They approached from the south side of the sprawling community, drawing fire from heavy machinegun rounds and anti-tank grenades.

The village of some 5,000 people lives off the proceeds from the marijuana business. Aerial pictures suggest some 60 hectares were cultivated in Lazarat last November with 300,000 plants capable of yielding 500

NIGERIA: Life Can Be Beautiful Even With Sickle Cell Anaemia By Chidi Ikeakor

Growing up I felt special, because that was how my parents treated me; it wasn’t preferential treatment per se because they treated us all equally, I wasn’t exempted from any house work except the very strenuous ones. As early as primary school I knew I had sickle cell anemia but that was all there was to it. I grew up a normal kid who had special needs, because that was how my family saw me. It continued this way until secondary school, that was when the feeling of something might be wrong with me started coming to me; schoolmates will tease, at times it was the attitude of some teachers. Then there where those who felt I would die anytime soon and thus treated me like I was a piece of china- breakable. People’s attitude got to me more than the condition itself; I didn’t know how to deal with it but the genetic counselors we worked with came to my rescue. It was sometime in senior secondary that I started dealing with the issue of having sickle cell anemia. Attending the club meetings that we had back then helped because it was an opportunity of meeting people with the same challenge as me and learning how they are dealing with it; there was this comfort that came from the knowledge that I was not alone.

I was able to come to terms with my situation when I understood that God loves and accepts just as I am, I didn’t have to change or become healthier for him to love me. On my own I couldn’t have dealt with the condition, I still lack words to describe the pains, the depression that sets in during and after crisis; the urge to give up living at times in the midst of the pains; the guilt of  falling ill one time too many but a combination of some factors has helped me thus far and will keep me in years to come; most importantly the God factor, the family factor and the friendship factor, all these combined with the services of the medical personnel have been my mainstay.

I will like to say here that the staff of hematology department University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) are among some of the finest members of the medical community, from the doctors to the least person in the department. Nothing compares to having a doctor who understands or even feels your pain, at

NIGERIA: Federal Government Preventing Us From Entering Ekiti To Show Solidarity To Governor Fayemi- APC

Bizarre reports reaching us from Akure and Ekiti indicate that the Goodluck Jonathan-led federal government have authorized a policy of denying leaders and governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the right to land their planes in Akure or travel into Ekiti State.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in its desperation to win the Ekiti governorship, seems to have abandoned all pretenses to democracy, using every tool against the APC as Saturday’s gubernatorial contest in Ekiti heats up.

Today, while Asiwaju Tinubu managed to land his plane in Akure Airport, Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of

NIGERIA: Ekiti Governorship Election: Soldiers Bar Governors Amaechi, Oshiomhole and Kwankwaso From Entering Ado-Ekiti

Nigerian soldiers stationed between Akure, the capital of Ondo State, and Ado-Ekiti, the capital of Ekiti State, today prevented Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State from reaching a political rally for Governor Kayode Fayemi, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in next Saturday’s governorship election in Ekiti State. 

In a related development, other soldiers also prevented a chopper that was scheduled to take Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State from taking off from the airport in Benin City, the capital of Edo State. Mr. Oshiomhole was also scheduled to attend the rally for Mr. Fayemi. Also another aircraft bring Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso from Kano was denied landing rights at the Akure airport.

The soldiers reportedly told both governors that they have no clearance to attend the series of rallies for Mr. Fayemi.

Two aides of Governor Amaechi told SaharaReporters that a group of soldiers stopped their convoy at Ikerre-Ekiti and told the governor that President Goodluck Jonathan needed to approve his trip to Ekiti. According to both sources, Mr. Amaechi argued with the soldiers, insisting that, like every Nigerian, he should be free to move freely within his country, but the soldiers cordoned off the road and made the governor wait for more than 30 minutes while others were given free passage. In the end, Mr. Amaechi turned back, but noticed that the soldiers followed his convoy in a bus and Hilux pickup van. When he got to

SUDAN: UN, IOC Sign MoU to assist Sudanese Athletes

The United Nations and the International Olympic Committee have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to assist Sudanese athletes in participating at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

According to a statement on Thursday on the website of the International Sports Press Association, leaders of both organisations met at the IOC Headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland on Wednesday.

It said the IOC President, Thomas Bach, and the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, reviewed areas of collaboration between both organisations.

The statement added that both bodies planned to assist Sudanese sports to come to the fore.

“The situation in Sudan, where war has forced millions of people from their homes and pushed them to the brink of famine, necessitated the rehabilitation programme through sports.

“IOC has started to work with the National Olympic Committee of Sudan, and the International Federations in the region.

“The aim is to identify and assist athletes with the potential of qualifying for the Rio Games,” it quoted the

NIGERIA: FG Withdraw From N446.3 Billion Charges Against Abacha’s Son

The Federal Government has withdrawn the corruption charges filed against Mr Mohammed Abacha, son of former military Head of State, General Sani Abacha.

The government announced its decision to withdraw the charge during proceedings before Justice Mamman Kolo of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Wuse Zone 2, Abuja.

The Federal Government had through a private lawyer, Daniel Enwelum, filed the charge of nine counts