Five in Five: Most Expected Innovations

IBM has released the annual list of ‘Five in Five’ where the most expected innovations of the nearest future are presented.
The first forecast is connected with ‘green’ energy: according to the IBM specialists, in the nearest 5 years the energy for our gadgets, houses and towns will be produced from man’s vital processes.  As a result, for example, man’s movements, the water used in the house and other renewable sources can play the role of an energy source.

The next innovation deals with cyber security – IBM claims that by the year 2016 mankind will be able to do without passwords for getting an access to various resources. Passwords will be replaced by multi- factor biometrics. For example, voice scanning will replace a passport while a fingerprint will replace a password to e-mail. According to professional software developers, unique biological data scanning will assist in solving the problem of data stealing.

‘Mind reading’ or the connection between a computer or a smartphone and a person’s mind can be another expected innovation. Just imagine, you only have to think about a call to a friend and this call will be realized.

One more innovation, according to IBM, is the reduction of digital gap using mobile devices. Mobile solutions will provide an access to information and services of online commerce, e-government, and medical care for the residents the Third World countries and distant regions.

And finally, the fifth innovation is connected with the optimization of analytical technologies, which will allow a person to get only relevant and interesting information. It will increase the range of IT development services offered by software development companies.

Facebook Offers New Tool for Mobile Application Development

The social network Facebook has worked out the internal tool for HTML 5 mobile application development. The new development should considerably simplify the realization of mobile Facebook functions on various portable platforms. Now the above mentioned software, known as Faceweb, is available for the Facebook employees only.

Erik Tseng, Head of Facebook mobile products, says the official debut of the new tool for mobile developers will take place at the next conference Mobilize. “The reason for our promoting Faceweb is in the fact that mobile apps development here is based only on the HTML 5 programming language and IT development companies don’t have to write native apps under each individual platform”, says Erik Tseng. “At the same time the opportunities of HTML 5 allow realizing many traditional options for low level applications”.

The analytics say that the social network Facebook is positioning itself not only as a social network but also as the platform for interacting many users and many technical devices. For example, many smartphone manufacturers already use the API-function of Facebook for integrating social network functions directly into their own apps or the operating system.

PittPatt: Face Recognition System

Google has acquired a small company from Pittsburg, called PittPatt, which is developing the software for recognizing people’s faces. The PittPatt technologies are able not only to recognize faces in the frame but also define them in real time while taking photos or videos. According to software developers, their innovations will be used for the simplest tasks (image processing and sorting) as well as in the complicated applications on video-display processing. They will also be used in the cutting edge Android mobile applications.

It is expected that in the next Android version (Ice Cream Sandwich) the face recognition system will allow applications which use video recording to focus automatically on a person who is talking at the moment. These possibilities were supposed to be used for searching in Google Goggles but later this innovation was rejected due to some privacy problems aroused.

The PittPatt developments are most likely to be used in the new social network Google+, but in this case the user himself will be able to adjust and choose the privacy level– either automatically or only for the photos and videos added by the selected users.
Let’s wait and see what will happen after the implementation of this technology. Maybe it will lead to numerous lawsuits and claims? Or the range of software development services will be expanded on another service?

Modern mobile devices

In the XXI century it’s impossible to imagine a person without a mobile phone. We have become accustomed to these devices so much that sometimes we feel awkward if left the phone at home. A mobile device is not simply a plastic case with buttons which can make calls, send SMS, take pictures, reproduce video and audio and work as a calculator. Modern mobile devices have all possible functions which we couldn’t even imagine before.

The technical development of mobile devices has led to the improved video chips, developing mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile), new updated mobile applications and so on. With the development of mobile technologies more and more software development companies are trying to develop modern, useful applications for mobile devices.

There are many different applications for entertainment, learning, or just for using in life. Before when mobile phones were not able to use and reproduce advanced graphics, applications were not very accurate. Now, users of mobile devices became more selective in this way because modern technologies let mobile app developers create applications at any taste.

Computer programs that can count your hair

In the previous post we briefly reviewed the simplest software applications that help people to solve the problem of hair loss. This software will be effective when alopecia was caused by nutrition, invalid food, stresses and other subjective factors. So facing with hair loss people can act under the direction of these programs: change their eating behavior, take care of hair and skin, get rid of stress and add some more relaxing factors in their life. For example, freeware Hair Loss 1.0 for Windows gives fast and easy access to the information hair loss products (special shampoos and conditioners). The application based e-commerce platform and works only with the Internet connection.

But as regards the objective factors of alopecia here is the other situation. Such software won’t work. Medical intervention is necessary. But software can control the results of medical treatment.

Programmers from CSIRO have developed impressive technology that can show how well hair loss treatment methods are working. New software can measure hair on different parts of the (also it can be used to assess the results of depilation).

“Our software uses images captured by a small flatbed scanner pressed onto the skin. It the numbers to analyse the image of skin and hairs…Then, almost instantly, it reports information about the length and number of hairs in the picture…”, explain Leader of Biotech Imaging at CSIRO, Dr Pascal Valloton.

Software for hair loss treatment: high-tech way to save beauty and dignity

Nowadays software development companies offer us PC applications for all cases: tax calculation, make up and food selection and, of course, healthcare. And among the most unusual programs for health recovering stands software for hair loss treatment.
According to statistics about 30% of people suffer from hair loss (alopecia) by age 30 years, and about 50% – by age 50 years. This problem became so common that most of us consider it as a normal variation, but not a disease. But healthcare professionals and programmers are trying to make us change our mind.
The most popular (and the most simple software products) focused on hair loss treatment are eBooks for Windows and MacOS. They have small differences from usual books. For example, developers of the first version of Natural Hair Loss Treatment published in their software generally known causes of hair loss (alopecia): malnutrition or wrong nourishment; life under stress; different diseases and general problems with health; insufficient hair care and other factors. The central idea of the software is herbal hair loss treatment. The same approach was popularized in the other freeware program Natural Hair Loss Tips v1.0. It is possible that, such applications for hair loss treatment can help to take the disease under control or even solve the problem, making a complete recovery from alopecia.
But what if people have a strain of alopecia (hair loss) in the family? Inheritance and hormones are much more serious problems; they require quite different approaches and more advanced software, that will be reviewed in the next post.