VALUABILITY

Everything in this world has it's value........

but the thing is we don't recognize it, and make it valueless

Adobe launches Stock Photo service, brings Android apps

So why did Adobe buy photo library solution provider Fotolia for reported $800 million earlier this year? We didn't have answers back then but now we can officially say Adobe Stock was the reason behind the buyout and the service makes Adobe Creative Suite, the one-stop shop for all your multimedia needs.

If you have been using image banks like Shutterstock, Getty images, then Adobe Stock is making its way to ease your image requirements with its library of over 40 million images, as per the company.

Launched in over 35 countries, including India, earlier today, Adobe Stock comes with added bonus of seamless integration with Adobe's existing products part of Creative Suite cloud edition. But you'll have to wait for the said features in India, as Adobe promises Stock-CS functioning in the coming months for users in the country and the pricing plans for different image packs for India will be announced to users soon.

The images catalogues available right now is unified but in the near future, expect to see stock videos and even local content for specific markets, as highlighted by Umang Bedi, managing director at Adobe South Asia without giving an exact date for the same.

Interestingly, the announcement also included the addition of Android mobile apps to Adobe's portfolio. This is the first time when the company has decided to offer products besides the ones that have been available to iOS users till now.

With the growing need for digitization becoming apparent, Adobe has also enhanced its existing solutions with features that fall in line with requirements from designers these days. 

Nearly eight-in-ten Russians own a computer

 Due to the rise of smartphones, many people in emerging and developing nations access the internet from a device other than a personal computer. But about eight-in-ten Americans (80%) and Russians (78%) have a working computer in their household. In contrast, only 3% in Uganda say they have a computer in their home.

Tokyo falls out of top 10 most expensive cities

After holding the dubious title of the world’s most expensive city for expats for much of the past two decades, Tokyo no longer even makes the top 10.

At least those are the findings of the annual cost of living survey by consultants Mercer. The reason behind its demise — Japan’s biggest metropolis slid from seventh to 11th spot after occupying third spot in 2013 rankings — was the weakness of the yen against the US dollar over the past year.

Indeed, exchange rate fluctuations have played havoc with the 2015 rankings, which are now in their 21st year.

“Currency movements will always play a really big part in the rankings but the impact this year has been particularly acute,” said Kate Fitzpatrick, a consultant at Mercer.

Both the yen and the euro have weakened markedly against the US dollar and Chinese renminbi, while the Swiss franc has also strengthened after the surprise lifting of its currency cap at the start of the year.

As a result, Zurich and Geneva have both moved up one place to occupy two of the five top spots in the rankings. Bern slid one place to ninth but only because of a strong showing from Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul.

The survey compares a basket of over 200 goods and services, from imported food staples and the cost of hamburger to the price of a cinema ticket, and combines it with the cost of renting international standard accommodation.

Stephen Hawking Wants to Trademark His Name

Stephen Hawking, the British physicist famous for his groundbreaking research in the face of pronounced physical disability, has applied to trademark his name.

Like author J.K. Rowling, soccer star David Beckham and fellow physicist Brian Cox, hawking filed for the trademark in order to prevent people from using his name inappropriately in products,Techie News reported.

The trademark would also allow Hawking to set up a charitable foundation, possibly to support research in physics or motor neuron disease.

With CEO shakeup, Twitter under pressure to please advertisers

 Twitter Inc's next chief executive officer faces a crucial challenge as the company seeks to appease Wall Street after this week's management shakeup - helping disaffected advertisers connect with users.

And many advertisers, analysts and investors say Twitter already has the right person for the job: not interim CEO Jack Dorsey but Adam Bain, the company's president and head of revenue, who has emerged as an early favourite.

CEO Jack Dorsey

Twitter's outgoing chief executive, Dick Costolo, resigned abruptly Thursday amid pressure from investors to increase the user base and improve what's known as direct response advertising, the most lucrative type on the microblogging site.

Those ads prompt users to take an action, such as signing up for a website or buying a product. Improving them is central to Twitter's ability to make more money.

For now, advertisers hope the management change will "light a fire" under Twitter, said Adam Epstein, chief executive of adMarketplace, which works with search advertisers. Even though they have discussed ways to improve advertising with Twitter executives, the company has been slow to change.

"When you talk to Twitter, you can throw some great ideas on a whiteboard, but there seems to be a lack of urgency," Epstein said.

They also hope Twitter makes the site easier to use so that more people become regular users and click on ads. Advertisers also want Twitter to provide data that allows them to gather more information on consumers.

Twitter would not make an executive available to comment on Friday.

In April, Costolo said Twitter was forced to cut rates for direct response ads after they failed to deliver as promised. That led the company to cut its revenue forecast for the year as it anticipated making $4 million to $5 million less each quarter.

Half a dozen ad executives interviewed by Reuters said they spend more money on rival platforms, such as Facebook and Google, because they have more users, better capture attention and provide more data on how advertisers can target consumers.

Dorsey, who served as CEO from 2007 to 2008 before management ousted him, said the CEO search has not yet begun but has not ruled out his interest in the job permanently. He said he would not change the company's strategy. 

BY ALBERT EINSTEIN

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; 

and I'm not sure about the universe.”

BY OSCAR WILDE

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” 

Renewable energy from evaporating water

Article in the words of researchers

An immensely powerful yet invisible force pulls water from the earth to the top of the tallest redwood and delivers snow to the tops of the Himalayas. Yet despite the power of evaporating water, its potential to propel self-sufficient devices or produce electricity has remained largely untapped—until now.

In the June 16 online issue of Nature Communications, Columbia University scientists report the development of two novel devices that derive power directly from evaporation - a floating, piston-driven engine that generates electricity causing a light to flash, and a rotary engine that drives a miniature car.

When evaporation energy is scaled up, the researchers predict, it could one day produce electricity from giant floating power generators that sit on bays or reservoirs, or from huge rotating machines akin to wind turbines that sit above water, said Ozgur Sahin, Ph.D., an associate professor of biological sciences and physics at Columbia University and the paper's lead author.

"Evaporation is a fundamental force of nature," Sahin said. "It's everywhere, and it's more powerful than other forces like wind and waves."

Last year, Sahin found that when bacterial spores shrink and swell with changing humidity, they can push and pull other objects forcefully. They pack more energy, pound for pound, than other materials used in engineering for moving objects, he reported in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, which was based on work Sahin had started as a Scholar in Residence at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

Building on last year's findings, Sahin and his Columbia colleagues sought to build actual devices that could be powered by such energy.

To build a floating, piston-driven engine, the researchers first glued spores to both sides of a thin, double-sided plastic tape akin to that in cassette tapes, creating a dashed line of spores. They did the same on the opposite side of the tape, but offset the line so dashes on one side overlapped with gaps on the other.

When dry air shrinks the spores, the spore-covered dashes curve. This transforms the tape from straight to wavy, shortening the tape. If one or both ends of the tape are anchored, the tape tugs on whatever it's attached to. Conversely, when the air is moist, the tape extends, releasing the force. The result is a new type of artificial muscle that is controlled by changing humidity.

Sahin and Xi Chen, a postdoctoral fellow in his lab, then placed dozens of these tapes side by side, creating a stronger artificial muscle that they then placed inside a floating plastic case topped with shutters. Inside the case, evaporating water made the air humid. The humidity caused the muscle to elongate, opening the shutters and allowing the air to dry out. When the humidity escaped, the spores shrunk and the tapes contracted, pulling the shutters closed and allowing humidity to build again. A self-sustaining cycle of motion was born.

"When we placed water beneath the device, it suddenly came to life, moving on its own," Chen said.

The spore-covered artificial muscles function as an evaporation-driven piston. Coupling that piston to a generator produced enough electricity to cause a small light to flash.

"We turned evaporation from a pool of water into light," Sahin said.

With its current power output, the floating evaporation engine could supply small floating lights or sensors at the ocean floor that monitor the environment, Chen said, speculating that an improved version with stickier plastic tape and more spores could potentially generate even more power per unit area than a wind farm.

The Columbia team's other new evaporation-driven engine - the Moisture Mill - contains a plastic wheel with protruding tabs of tape covered on one side with spores. Half of the wheel sits in dry air, causing the tabs to curve, and the other half sits in humid environment, where the tabs straighten. As a result, the wheel rotates continuously, effectively acting as a rotary engine.

The researchers next built a small toy car, powering it with the Moisture Mill and were successful in getting the car to roll on its own, powered only by evaporation. In the future, Sahin said, it may be possible to design engines that use the mechanical energy stored in spores to propel a full-sized vehicle. Such an engine, if achieved, would require neither fuel to burn nor an electrical battery.

A larger version of the Moisture Mill could also produce electricity, Sahin said, suggesting a wheel that sits above a large body of water and evaporates saltwater, causing the wheel to rotate and generate electricity. This development would steadily produce as much electricity as a wind turbine, Sahin said.