Smartphones

13 apps that can make you smarter

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Despite the constant hand-wringing that smartphones will lead to the downfall of society, there’s mounting evidence that your phone habit may not be so bad after all.

woman on smartphone texting

In fact, there are ways your phone might actually be good for you.

We’ve compiled a list of apps to boost your brainpower, hone your memory, and even improve your emotional intelligence.

The science of how exactly our brains work – and how much we can train them – is constantly evolving, but one thing’s for sure: there’s no better way to get smarter while waiting in line at the grocery store.

Whether you use an iPhone or an Android phone, there’s something here for you..

Watch the slideshow. URL:http://www.businessinsider.in/13-apps-that-can-make-you-smarter/Duolingo/slideshow/51984311.cms

If you keep your smartphones in your trousers or bras, this is what can happen to you!

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The cellphone addiction is very common in the present generation. The smartphones have not just replaced the ways in which people get entertained; they have also replaced many other routine habits of the common people. Today, a smartphone actually defines the lifestyle of a person. A person uses the phone to make calls, listen to music, do research and even to read. In short, it has become an indispensable part of the life of people today. That is the reason why many of us tend to keep the cellphone in our bras, shirt pockets or trousers while travelling or sleeping. The risks of this habit are not known to the common people and that is why they carelessly store the cellphone in such places. There are many risks in storing the cellphone in such places. Here we have listed out a few of the major risks that you need to take into account.

Cell phone radiations may cause depression!

A recent study has revealed that there is a direct connection between sleep disturbances, depression and the increased use of mobile phones. The study was conducted to find out the impact of mobile phones on young adults. Youngsters who fall in the age group of 20 to 24 years were considered for this study. Study was conducted based on many variables that included the frequency of use of mobile phones.A one year followup revealed that high use of mobile phones revealed sleep disturbances as well as signs of depression in men. In women, it just revealed early signs of depression.

Cell phone radiations may cause depression!

Why is Mobile Phone Radiation Linked with Depression?

A recent study conducted by the British Newspaper ‘The Independent’ on 35 Men and 35 Women has revealed that the use of mobile phone just before sleeping reduces the deep sleep stage and also causes confusion, insomnia and sleep related health problems. It is already known to us that sleep greatly defines the mental health of a person and many of the mental health problems are associated with improper sleeping habits. This new revelation shows that excessive use of mobile phone can greatly hamper the mental health of an individual.

Why is Mobile Phone Radiation Linked with Depression?

Cellphone in Trouser Pockets May hamper the reproductive health of Men!

Men need to be extremely careful because their cellphones or smartphones addiction may have serious implications on their health and personal life. There have been studies that reveal that the mobile phone radiation can have an adverse effect on the health of the reproductive organs even when you are not actually making a call. It is also revealed that carrying your smartphone in your trouser pocket may even result in a lowered sperm count.

Cellphone in Trouser Pockets May hamper the reproductive health of Men!

Greater Chances of Breast Cancer Among Women Who Keep Their Smartphones in Their Bras

In a recent study, a woman who had no other signs or chances of developing breast cancer had approached the doctor and found that she had breast cancer. The only possibility was surely the link of smartphone radiations and breast cancer. It is true that the radiations that come from mobile phones are used by doctors to carryout various complicated surgical procedures but that is because these radiations can breakthrough the protective covering of major organs like the brain. That itself is a warning sign that shows us that we should maintain a safe distance from these dangerous radiations.

Greater Chances of Breast Cancer Among Women Who Keep Their Smartphones in Their Bras

Effect of Cellphone Radiations On Unborn Foetus

There are many risks of mobile phone radiations and only few of these have been mentioned here. The worst of all is the fact that these radiations are even known to harm unborn foetuses. This means that if a mother excessively uses smartphone or mobile phone, the unborn child will also have to pay for it.

The countless negative effects of mobile phones and smartphones shows that we need to maintain a safe distance from these devices if we wish to stay healthy and happy. This could be a word of caution for the newer generation who are born with mobile phones in their hands.

Effect of Cellphone Radiations On Unborn Foetus

Nanowalls for smartphones

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Nanowalls for smartphones
With a special mode of electrohydrodynamic ink-jet printing scientists can create a grid of ultra fine gold walls. Credit: Ben Newton / Digit Works

Researchers at ETH Zurich have manufactured transparent electrodes for use in touchscreens using a novel nanoprinting process. The new electrodes are some of the most transparent and conductive that have ever been developed.

From smartphones to the operating interfaces of ticket machines and cash dispensers, every touchscreen we use requires : The devices’ glass surface is coated with a barely visible pattern made of conductive material. It is because of this that the devices recognise whether and where exactly a finger is touching the surface.

Researchers under the direction of Dimos Poulikakos, Professor of Thermodynamics, have now used 3D print technology to create a new type of transparent electrode, which takes the form of a grid made of gold or silver “nanowalls” on a . The walls are so thin that they can hardly be seen with the naked eye. It is the first time that scientists have created nanowalls like these using 3D printing. The new electrodes have a higher conductivity and are more transparent than those made of , the standard material used in smartphones and tablets today. This is a clear advantage: The more transparent the electrodes, the better the screen quality. And the more conductive they are, the more quickly and precisely the touchscreen will work.

Nanowalls for smartphones
This grid printed in gold has walls only 300 nanometres thick. 

Third dimension

“Indium tin oxide is used because the material has a relatively high degree of transparency and the production of thin layers has been well researched, but it is only moderately conductive,” says Patrik Rohner, a PhD student in Poulikakos’ team. In order to produce more conductive electrodes, the ETH researchers opted for gold and silver, which conduct electricity much better. But because these metals are not transparent, the scientists had to make use of the third dimension. ETH professor Poulikakos explains: “If you want to achieve both high conductivity and transparency in wires made from these metals, you have a conflict of objectives. As the cross-sectional area of gold and silver wires grows, the conductivity increases, but the grid’s transparency decreases.”

The solution was to use metal walls only 80 to 500 nanometres thick, which are almost invisible when viewed from above. Because they are two to four times taller than they are wide, the cross-sectional area, and thus the conductivity, is sufficiently high.

Ink-jet printer with tiny print head

The researchers produced these tiny metal walls using a printing process known as Nanodrip, which Poulikakos and his colleagues developed three years ago. Its basic principle is a process called electrohydrodynamic ink-jet printing. In this process scientists use inks made from metal nanoparticles in a solvent; an electrical field draws ultra-small droplets of the metallic ink out of a glass capillary. The solvent evaporates quickly, allowing a three-dimensional structure to be built up drop by drop.

What is special about the Nanodrip process is that the droplets that come out of the glass capillary are about ten times smaller than the aperture itself. This allows for much smaller structures to be printed. “Imagine a water drop hanging from a tap that is turned off. And now imagine that another tiny droplet is hanging from this drop – we are only printing the tiny droplet,” Poulikakos explains. The researchers managed to create this special form of droplet by perfectly balancing the composition of metallic ink and the electromagnetic field used.

Cost-efficient production

The next big challenge will now be to upscale the method and develop the print process further so that it can be implemented on an industrial scale. To achieve this, the scientists are working with colleagues from ETH spin-off company Scrona.

They have no doubt that once it is upscaled, the technology will bring a host of advantages compared with existing methods. In particular, it will likely be more cost-efficient, as Nanodrip printing, unlike the production of indium electrodes, does not require a cleanroom environment. The new electrodes should also be more suitable for large touchscreens due to their higher conductivity. And finally the process is also the first to allow you to vary the height of the nanowalls directly while printing, says ETH PhD student Rohner.

Another possible future application could be in solar cells, where transparent electrodes are also required. The more transparent and conductive they are, the more electricity that can be harnessed. And lastly, the electrodes could also play a role in the further development of curved display using OLED technology.

Smartphones ‘are going to die out within five years’ Ericsson report predicts.

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Smartphones ‘are going to die out within five years’, report predicts
Smartphones ‘will die out within five years’

Most of us spend every waking hour stapled to our smartphones – but that could be about to change.

A report by Swedish telecoms experts Ericsson suggests smartphones could be about to die out – in the next five years.

The report, which quizzed 100,000 people in Sweden and 39 other countries, found that many people believe smartphones are ‘over’.

Instead, we’ll speak to ‘artificially intelligent’ helpers without needing a screen, according to the people polled by the telecoms giant.

Many tech gurus predict that wearable gadgets such as Apple Watch will slowly start to replace smartphones – although few experts would expect the change to be THIS rapid.

A smartphone in the hand, it’s really not that practical,’ said Rebecka Cedering Ångström from Ericsson ConsumerLab.

‘For example, not when one is driving a car or cooking. And there are many situations where display screens are not so good. Therefore, one in two think that smartphones will belong to the past within five years,”

‘Things just go so fast now from the idea to the mass market. We have not studied the technology, this is just what consumers think.’

Children under ten ‘should not own smartphones’

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Survey finds that majority of parents believe that young children should not own smartphones

Cyberbullying spreads through digital means such as text messages and social networking sites (picture posed by model)

Cyberbullying spreads through digital means such as text messages and social networking sites Children under the age of ten should not be allowed to own a smartphone, a majority of parents believe, according to a new survey

Internet Matters, a non-for-profit organisation working to keep the internet safe, found that 85 per cent of parents of primary school children want an age requirement enforced.

Currently, as many as 65 per cent of children aged between eight and 11 years old own a smartphone.

Newcastle has been nicknamed the “smartphone capital of Britain” – more than 90 per cent of eight to 11 year olds own a device.

Second is Nottingham at 90 per cent. London sees fewer young children owning smartphones at just 55 per cent. In Brighton just four out of ten children in that age bracket own such a device.

“With such a huge amount of young people owning smartphones and the acceptable age of doing so being 10, parents need to be more aware than ever of what their children are doing online,” Carolyn Bunting, General Manager at Internet Matters, told the Mirror.

Children are increasingly falling foul of aggressive marketing tactics that encourage them to buy added extrasSome experts have suggested apps should come with health warnings

“That’s why we have launched our brand new online safety guide, so that parents remember these safety precautions in their back to school shopping list for their children.

“We would urge parents to ensure they have the conversation with their children about how to be responsible on their phones and ensure that the safety settings are in place across all their devices and search engines.”

The survey was produced by Internet Matters as part of its Back to School e-safety advertising campaign, that includes a new online safety guide which helps parents keep their children safe online.

Smartphones Pose Slight Risk to Heart Devices

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Current safety recommendations for pacemakers, ICDs should still be followed

Patients with pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) should keep their smartphones away from their hearts to avoid electromagnetic interference, according to a German study.

However, the risk for interference was small, occurring in one of 308 patients (0.3%) tested, reported Carsten Lennerz, MD, of the German Heart Care Center in Munich, and colleagues at the EHRA EUROPACE-CARDIOSTIM conference in Milan.

Lennerz and colleagues wanted to determine if current safety recommendations from the FDA and other regulatory organizations, based primarily on 10-year-old research, were still relevant to today’s smart phones and mobile networks.

“Interference between smartphones and cardiac devices is uncommon but can occur, so the current recommendations on keeping a safe distance should be upheld,” Lennerz said in an accompanying press release.

“Pacemakers can mistakenly detect electromagnetic interference from smartphones as a cardiac signal, causing them to briefly stop working. This leads to a pause in the cardiac rhythm of the pacing-dependent patient and may result in syncope. For implantable cardioverter defibrillators, the external signal mimics a life threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmia, leading the ICD to deliver a painful shock,” Lennerz explained.

The patients in the study included 147 with pacemakers and 161 with ICDs. These patients were exposed to the electromagnetic fields of three common smartphones: the Samsung Galaxy 3, Nokia Lumia, and HTC One XL.

The phones were placed on the patients’ skin, directly above their cardiac device, and connected to a radio communication tester, which works like a mobile network station. The investigators then put the phones through a standardized protocol that included connecting, ringing, talking, and disconnecting.

“From earlier studies, we know that the most vulnerable phases of a call are ringing and connecting to the network, not talking, so it was important to analyze these separately,” Lennerz said.

The phones were operated on standard mode and at 50 Hz. The tests were repeated using multiple current mobile phone standards, which include GMS, UMTS, and LTE.

During all tests, a 6-lead electrocardiogram was continuously recorded and monitored for abnormalities.

One patient’s ICD detected and misinterpreted electromagnetic waves from the Nokia and HTC smartphones as intracardiac signals, resulting in ventricular and atrial oversensing. The interference occurred when the smartphones were operated at GSM and UMTS, but not LTE.

“Interestingly, the device influenced by electromagnetic interference in our study was MRI compatible which shows that these devices are also susceptible,” Lennerz said.

 “Nearly everyone uses smartphones and there is the possibility of interference with a cardiac device if you come too close. Patients with a cardiac device can use a smartphone but they should not place it directly over the cardiac device,” said lead author Christopf Kolb, MD, also of the German Heart Center, in a press release.

The FDA declined to comment on the study results, but an FDA spokesperson provided the following statement which includes their current safety recommendations:

“FDA continues to monitor the use of cell phones for possible interactions with other medical devices. Should harmful interference be found to occur, FDA will conduct testing to assess the interference and work to resolve the problem. Based on current research, cell phones would not seem to pose a significant health problem for the vast majority of pacemaker wearers. Still, people with pacemakers may want to take some simple precautions to be sure that their cell phones don’t cause a problem.”

The FDA recommendations state that the phone should be held to the ear opposite the side of the body where the pacemaker is implanted to add some extra distance between the pacemaker and the phone. Also, the user should avoid placing a turned-on phone next to the pacemaker implant (“e.g., don’t carry the phone in a shirt or jacket pocket directly over the pacemaker”).

‘No tissue charring’: New Russian laser could revolutionize medicine, smartphones

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Scientists at a Russian university have developed a unique metal-vapor laser, which can cut through bones, tissue or glass without burning or damaging them. They say the technology could be used in a wide range of fields – from medicine to smartphones.

Researchers at Tomsk State University are excited by the new laser because it is multi-functional and has the potential to be used in a number of different spheres. For example the ability to cut bone and tissue with no side effects could prove revolutionary for the medical industry.

The new device developed by the scientists is a strontium vapor laser and has the ability to operate at 10 to 12 different wavelengths, which researchers say is “exceptional” for vapor lasers, as it gives them so much versatility.

“There is no such laser anywhere else in the world, and there is a lot of interest in it,” said 73-year-old Professor Anatoly Soldatov, who is dean of the Innovative Technology Department, told the Siberian Times. He added that its optimum wavelength was 6.45 microns.

Technology giant Samsung has already shown interest in the revolutionary lasers. The company’s electronics’ department had sent the scientists some glass samples to test with the strontium vapor laser and the results proved to be an eye-opener.

Photo courtesy / Tomsk State University press service

Industrial devices normally used to cut glass for smartphones and tablets normally use carbon dioxide lasers at a wavelength of 10.6 microns. This laser does not actually cut through the glass, rather it heats it up. However, this process means that between 20 percent and 30 percent of the glass cut has to be thrown away because of defects such as chipping.

“We have a multi-wave system that combines both surface and in-depth thermal detachment which results into a perfect surface. A study with an electronic microscope showed that the number of imperfections [when cutting glass with a strontium laser] is one-hundredth the size compared to cutting with carbon dioxide laser,” Soldatov told the newspaper.

Photo courtesy / Tomsk State University press service

The scientists are now looking to perfect their technology in order to cut live tissue. They are also working to shorten the pulse duration to just a few nanoseconds, which will increase the energy density and thus its power.

The development of lasers in Tomsk dates back over half a century, with the first one launched in 1963. Over the last few decades the university has produced a number of different lasers, including helium-neon, argon, carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

Soldatov added that after the millennium, Vanderbilt University in the US became interested in researching a free-electron laser. They were trying to find a perfect wavelength for drilling through bone and the cutting soft tissues, due to its potential importance for research into transplants.

“The first thing they determined was the best wavelength is 6.45 microns. At this wavelength it was possible to make good incisions and you can choose the mode in which the tissue charring practically does not occur,” he said. However, they were still looking for the best laser to carry out this task.

They eventually got in contact with Tomsk State after coming across an old publication from 1983. Following some more tests, Soldatov realized that the strontium vapor laser was the most suitable, due to its ability not to induce any burning or damage while operational.

New Solar Technology Transforms Smartphones and Windows into Eco-Friendly Energy Sources .

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With all the hazardous health and environmental aspects of our current energy sources — likenuclear, coal, petroleum and natural gas — innovative and nontoxic alternatives are in high demand. Regrettably, even “green technology” has serious drawbacks, where windmills and solar farms decimate bird life, while dams for hydroelectricity disrupt waterway ecosystems. In an attempt to find a better solution, we’re often faced with significant (and destructive) consequences. And yet, a glimmer of hope is on the horizon with a state-of-the-art material developed at Michigan State University (MSU).

Luminescent solar concentrators are nothing new in the realm of solar energy. Focusing the sun’s rays onto a compact area, the effect is similar to using a magnifying glass for generating heat and fire. The technology doesn’t come without problems, however. Solar concentrators tend to be unattractive monstrosities that pose a threat to local bird wildlife. Efforts have been made to merge the concentrators with standard windows, but the end result compromised the transparency and color of the glass. In response, the quest for a completely clear material began.

transparent solar 300x199 New Solar Technology Transforms Smartphones and Windows into Eco Friendly Energy Sources

Affordable and non-intrusive

According to Richard Lunt of MSU’s College of Engineering, his team has developed a truly transparent luminescent solar concentrator that “can be used on buildings, cell phones and any other device that has a clear surface.” The key word here is transparent.

In the past, solar cells placed around luminescent plastic-like materials yielded products that were inefficient and highly colored. As Lunt pointed out in a recent press release, “No one wants to sit behind colored glass. It makes for a very colorfulenvironment, like working in a disco. We take an approach where we actually make the luminescent active layer itself transparent.”

The solar harvesting system uses specialized organic molecules that absorb invisible wavelengths of sunlight. Once these molecules pick up ultraviolet and near-infrared light, they “glow” at an infrared wavelength. This “glowing” light is guided to the border of the material where it’s converted into power by slender rows of photovoltaic solar cells.

“Because the materials do not absorb or emit light in the visible spectrum, they look exceptionally transparent to the human eye,” Lunt said.

Even though development is still in its early stages, the potential to scale production for commercial applications with an affordable price point looks promising. Lunt also notes that the material needs more work on its energy-producing capacity. Currently, the solar conversion efficiency is close to 1 percent, but the team aims to reach beyond 5 percent when fully optimized.

Despite the hurdles that need to be overcome, Lunt believes that the material “opens a lot of area to deploy solar energy in a non-intrusive way. It can be used on tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader. Ultimately we want to make solar harvesting surfaces that you do not even know are there.”

Article Sources:

http://themindunleashed.org

http://msutoday.msu.edu

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com

THAT SMARTPHONE IS GIVING YOUR THUMBS SUPERPOWERS

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When people spend time interacting with their smartphones via touchscreen, it actually changes the way their thumbs and brains work together, according to a report in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on December 23. More touchscreen use in the recent past translates directly into greater brain activity when the thumbs and other fingertips are touched, the study shows.

“I was really surprised by the scale of the changes introduced by the use of smartphones,” says Arko Ghosh of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich in Switzerland. “I was also struck by how much of the inter-individual variations in the fingertip-associated brain signals could be simply explained by evaluating the smartphone logs.”

It all started when Ghosh and his colleagues realized that our newfound obsession with smartphones could be a grand opportunity to explore the everyday plasticity of the human brain. Not only are people suddenly using their fingertips, and especially their thumbs, in a new way, but many of us are also doing it an awful lot, day after day. Not only that, but our phones are also keeping track of our digital histories to provide a readymade source of data on those behaviors.

Ghosh explains it this way: “I think first we must appreciate how common personal digital devices are and how densely people use them. What this means for us neuroscientists is that the digital history we carry in our pockets has an enormous amount of information on how we use our fingertips (and more).”

While neuroscientists have long studied brain plasticity in expert groups–musicians or video gamers, for instance–smartphones present an opportunity to understand how regular life shapes the brains of regular people.

To link digital footprints to brain activity in the new study, Ghosh and his team used electroencephalography (EEG) to record the brain response to mechanical touch on the thumb, index, and middle fingertips of touchscreen phone users in comparison to people who still haven’t given up their old-school mobile phones.

The researchers found that the electrical activity in the brains of smartphone users was enhanced when all three fingertips were touched. In fact, the amount of activity in the cortex of the brain associated with the thumb and index fingertips was directly proportional to the intensity of phone use, as quantified by built-in battery logs. The thumb tip was even sensitive to day-to-day fluctuations: the shorter the time elapsed from an episode of intense phone use, the researchers report, the larger was the cortical potential associated with it.

The results suggest to the researchers that repetitive movements over the smooth touchscreen surface reshape sensory processing from the hand, with daily updates in the brain’s representation of the fingertips. And that leads to a pretty remarkable idea: “We propose that cortical sensory processing in the contemporary brain is continuously shaped by personal digital technology,” Ghosh and his colleagues write.

What exactly this influence of digital technology means for us in other areas of our lives is a question for another day. The news might not be so good, Ghosh and colleagues say, noting evidence linking excessive phone use with motor dysfunctions and pain.

Smartphones ‘changing our brains’

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smartphone

Our brains are adapting to touchscreen smartphone technology say researchers who have carried out a study on human volunteers.

The scientists used something called electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain activity.

They found distinct differences between smartphone users and people who used ‘conventional’ cellphones.

Smartphone users had more attuned fingers and thumbs, based on their EEG readings.

Of the 37 volunteers, 26 were touchscreen smartphone users while 11 used ‘old-fashioned’ mobile phones.

EEG

EEG
EEG measures and records the electrical activity of the brain

The EEG readings looked at the electrical messages sent back and forth between the brain and the hands via nerves.

Multiple electrodes placed on the volunteer’s scalp recorded these exchanges about sensation.

From this, the researchers were able to build up a picture or map of how much brain tissue is devoted to a given body region.

The results revealed discernable differences between touchscreen smartphone users and people with conventional cellphones.

Smartphone users had bigger EEG brain activity measurements in response to mechanical touch on the thumb, index and middle fingers.

And this appeared to be linked to how often they used their touchscreens – the more frequent, the greater the EEG response.

The researchers say their findings, published in the journal Current Biology, make sense given that the brain is malleable and can be moulded by experience.

For example, in violinists, the brain area representing the fingers that play the instrument is larger than in non-musicians.

The researchers suspect the same is true with smartphones – repeated use sculpts the brain.

Study author Arko Ghosh, from the Institute of Neuroinformatics of the University of Zurich, said: “I was really surprised by the scale of the changes introduced by the use of smartphones.”

He said the discovery underlines how commonplace smartphones have become in our daily lives.