A team of astronomers have discovered a new category of black hole. Named as HLX-1, this new black hole is neither massive nor compact and lightweight. So, it is a medium-sized or intermediate black hole. Before it’s discovery, there was no solid evidence about the existence of intermediate mass black holes
Astronomers, led by astrophysicists at the Centre dEtude Spatiale des Rayonnements in France, made the finding in a distant galaxy approximately 290 million light years from Earth. Using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray space telescope, the astronomers found that this new black hole is more than 500 times the mass of the Sun.
Until now, identified black holes have been either super-massive in the center of galaxies, or about the size of a typical star (between three and 20 Solar masses). But, it had been long believed by astrophysicists that there might be a third, intermediate class of black holes, with masses between a hundred and several hundred thousand times that of the Sun. So, it is the first solid evidence of a new class of medium-sized black holes.
A black hole is a remnant of a collapsed star with such a powerful gravitational field that it absorbs all the light that passes near it and reflects nothing. HLX-1 (Hyper-Luminous X-ray source 1), lies towards the edge of the galaxy ESO 243-49. It is ultra-luminous in X-rays, with a maximum X-ray brightness of approximately 260 million times that of the Sun. The identification of HLX-1 is considered as an important step towards a better understanding of the formation of the super-massive black holes that exist at the center of the Milky Way and other galaxies.
Firefox 3.5 is finally here! Firefox 3.5 is the best performing browser Mozilla has ever released and delivers radically improved JavaScript performance, a new Private Browsing mode, native support for open video and audio, and Location Aware Browsing. If you are a fan of Firefox, you must download it today!
This new version of Firefox browser is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which has been under development for the past year. Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use. Some of the notable features are:
- Available in more than 70 languages. (Get your local version!)
- Support for the HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements including native support for Ogg Theora encoded video and Vorbis encoded audio. (Try it here!)
- Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
- Better web application performance using the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
- The ability to share your location with web sites using Location Aware Browsing. (Try it here!)
- Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
- Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
- Support for new web technologies such as: downloadable fonts, CSS media queries, new transformations and properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 local storage and offline application storage, <canvas> text, ICC profiles, and SVG transforms.
Want to explore the new features of Firefox? Download Firefox 3.5 today. Mozilla Firefox 3.5 is available now for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X operating systems as a free download from http://www.getfirefox.com. It is also available in more than 70 languages at: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html.
Google on Monday unveiled a new service called Google SMS, which is designed to provide information via SMS text message to mobile phone users in Africa. In Africa, mobile phone penetration is six times more than Internet penetration. So, with the help of this SMS suit, Google wants to help people in Africa by enabling them to access various information using their mobile phones.
The Google SMS suit include three important products - Google SMS Tips, Google SMS Search and Google Trader. Google SMS Tips is an SMS-based query-and-answer service that enables a mobile user to have a online search-like experience. How it works? An user enter a free form text query, and Google’s algorithms restructure the query to identify keywords, search a database to identify relevant answers, and return the most relevant answer. It will allow people to access information on a diverse number of topics including health and agriculture tips, news, local weather, sports, and more.
On the other hand, Google SMS Search returns search results on news, sports scores, stock quotes, horoscope, glossary, currency converter, religious texts, translation, flights, Q&A, calculator, and local time. Google Trader is a SMS-based “marketplace” application that helps buyers and sellers find each other. People can find, “sell” or “buy” any type of product or service, from used cars and mobile phones to crops, livestock and jobs.
More Info: http://www.google.co.ug/sms
European Space Agency (ESA) will build its third deep space ground station in Argentina. Last week, ESA informed the Argentinean authorities about their plans to build a new 35-meter antenna in an area 30 km south of the town of Malargüe in Mendoza province, about 1000 km west of Buenos Aires. Once completed, this antenna will provide 360-degree deep space coverage.
The decision, which is subject to successful completion of negotiations, is the result of several months of evaluation among 35 sites in both Chile and Argentina to establish ESA’s third deep space ground station as part of the ESA Tracking (ESTRACK) network.
But, why that site only? The Malargüe site is situated in a desert area, free from radio interference and with frequency usage guaranteed in the longer term by Argentina’s National Communications Commission.
ESA’s deep space network currently has two 35-meter tracking stations, one in Cebreros, Spain, and the other in New Norcia, Australia. The third station in Argentina will join these and the seven other 15m stations forming the core ESTRACK network.
The 600-tonne dish will complete the 360-degree deep space coverage needed to ensure full telecommunications during mission-critical events and enhance the return of scientific data. It is expected that the antenna will become operational from mid-2012.
Image: Deep Space Ground Station in Cebreros, Spain
Researchers in Japan have successfully developed a brain machine interface (BMI) application that facilitates real-time control of wheelchairs with brain waves. This technology processes commands for smooth left and right turns and forward motion of the wheelchair every 125 milliseconds by analyzing brain waves using signal processing technology. This technology is expected to be useful in the field of rehabilitation, and for physical and psychological support of wheelchair drivers.
Recently technological developments in the area of brain machine interface (BMI) have received much attention. Such systems allow elderly or handicapped people to interact with the world through signals from their brains, without having to give voice commands.
The BSI-TOYOTA Collaboration Center (BTCC), has succeeded in developing a system which utilizes one of the fastest technologies in the world, controlling a wheelchair using brain waves in as little as 125 milliseconds (one millisecond, or ms, is equal to 1/1000 seconds).
BTCC’s new system fuses RIKEN’s blind signal separation (BSS) and space-time-frequency filtering technology to allow brain-wave analysis in as little as 125 ms, as compared to several seconds required by conventional methods. Brain-wave analysis results are displayed on a panel so quickly that drivers do not sense any delay. The system has the capacity to adjust itself to the characteristics of each individual driver, and thereby is able to improve the efficiency with which it senses the driver’s commands. Thus the driver is able to get the system to learn his/her commands (forward/right/left) quickly and efficiently. The new system has succeeded in having drivers correctly give commands to their wheelchairs. An accuracy rate of 95% was achieved, one of the highest in the world.
Plans are underway to utilize this technology in a wide range of applications centered on medicine and nursing care management. R&D under consideration includes increasing the number of commands given and developing more efficient dry electrodes. So far the research has centered on brain waves related to imaginary hand and foot control. However, through further measurement and analysis it is anticipated that this system may be applied to other types of brain waves generated by various mental states and emotions.
via: RIKEN