It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a semiconductor sequencer. It took nearly 13 years to sequence the first human genome and it cost nearly $3 billion, but today, thanks to Life Technologies and RKS, the Ion Proton™ Sequencer can deliver an entire human genome sequence in a single day for $1000.

The implications of the affordability and speed of this type of technology are manifold but Life Technologies anticipates the applications to be far-reaching: “As DNA sequencing deciphers human, animal, and plant genomes, [the Ion Proton™ Sequencer] promises to deliver personalized medical diagnoses, improved agricultural crop yields and new sources of energy.” Moreover, RKS’ work on the design and delivery of the system created a simple and compact form that houses complex technologies without compromising ease of use.

In addition to delivering a world-class aesthetic and user experience, the Ion Proton™ Sequencer is a scalable, simple and fast scientific instrument. The compact housing of the instrument provides optimal ventilation. Sequencing reagents are easily accessed through doors, and the process is initiated and monitored through a touch screen interface. LED indicators provide at-a-glance confirmation of operational status, and instruments can be rack-mounted, both increasing efficiency and maximizing use of space. The front panel is highly chemical and scratch resistant, and body textures and finishes were selected to utilize materials that are expected to become recyclable.

Outshining the media accolades garnered when the Ion Proton™ Sequencer debuted at this year’s CES, “The Coolest Thing I Saw at CES 2012,” from PCMag and a “landmark development from the Financial Times, it was recently announced that the Ion Proton™ Sequencer received a red dot award for product design (life science category). Congratulations to RKS and Life Technologies and we look forward to seeing what innovations might develop from this technology.

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Ion Proton Sequencer Delivers an Entire Human Genome in 24 Hours

Microsoft has released two new desktop virtualization betas. The App-V application virtualization and streaming system is getting bumped to version 5.0, and the company has added a new product, User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) to its desktop virtualization range.

UE-V is designed for organizations that use multiple machines and environments. It synchronizes settings and preferences across desktops, whether those desktops are running on bare metal or hosted VDI desktops, and regardless of whether the applications are directly installed or virtualized and streamed.

This is superficially similar to the roaming profiles first introduced in Windows NT 4, but with two important differences. Roaming profiles are loaded once at log-on, and saved back at log-off. UE-V, however, is live: open an application on one machine, change its settings, and then close it. Switch to a second machine and start the same application, and it will pick up the modified settings immediately.

The second major difference is that where roaming profiles copy almost everything, both files and settings, UE-V only replicates settings, and not all of them: the virtualized settings must match a template. There are pre-supplied templates for Office 2010, Internet Explorer, the built-in Windows applications, and basic system preferences like wallpapers and color schemes. UE-V includes a tool to generate new templates that monitors applications to see which files and registry locations they depend on.

App-V 5.0 has an improved Web-based management console, support for Windows 7 and Windows 8 features including the new “Windows To Go“, and a new facility for linking virtualized applications.

This is useful for applications such as Outlook 2010 and Lync. Outlook can show presence information from Lync—each user in Outlook gets an colored indicator to say if they’re offline, busy, or available, depending on their Lync status—but to do this, Outlook needs to be able to communicate with Lync. With prior versions of App-V, each application would be streamed to the user in its own virtual machine, precluding this kind of communication. With App-V 5.0, the related applications can be linked together and published together, enabling their interoperability.

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Microsoft updates desktop virtualization line-up with App-V 5, User Experience Virtualization

Variations of the Flashback trojan have reportedly infected more than half a million Macs around the globe, according to Russian antivirus company Dr. Web. The company made an announcement on Wednesday—first in Russian and later in English—about the growing Mac botnet, first claiming 550,000 infected Macs. Later in the day, however, Dr. Web malware analyst Sorokin Ivan posted to Twitter that the count had gone up to 600,000, with 274 bots even checking in from Cupertino, CA, where Apple’s headquarters are located.

We have been covering the Mac Flashback trojan since 2011, but the most recent variant from earlier this week targeted an unpatched Java vulnerability within Mac OS X. That is, it was unpatched (at the time) by Apple—Oracle had released a fix for the vulnerability in February of this year, but Apple didn’t send out a fix until earlier this week, after news began to spread about the latest Flashback variant.

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Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

Adventure Game Studio, with more than a decade of development behind it, is among the most successful game creation apps of all time. Countless excellent adventures emerge from its development community, but where to start? Lewis Denby picks the very best for your delectation. Pictured above is a Concurrence, an Another World-inspired platformer that shows the system’s good for more than point-and-click. [Rock Paper Shotgun]

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Adventure Game Studio’s greatest hits

A new algorithm developed by the Distributed Robotics Laboratory at MIT’s Computer Science could lead to an exciting fast prototyping tool, being dubbed “smart sand.” Immerse an object in the sand, tiny cubes that send simple proximity messages to each other, which relay through the swarm and determine which blocks are adjacent to the object to be modeled, and those that aren’t. Using this data, it’s possible to create a map of the subject to be replicated. Initial tests were performed using 2D models, but has also been shown to work reliably with 3D shapes also. While true smart sand would need “grains” much smaller than currently possible, it’s said that this isn’t an “insurmountable obstacle.” The paper will be presented at the IEEE conference in May, or keep going past the break for the explanatory video.

Continue reading Self-sculpting ‘smart sand’ can assume any shape, create instant prototypes (video)

Self-sculpting ‘smart sand’ can assume any shape, create instant prototypes (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Self-sculpting ‘smart sand’ can assume any shape, create instant prototypes (video)

Images courtesy of IDEO.org. The landing page for the HCD Connect website.

Can social media drive social change? Today, IDEO.org launched HCD Connect, an online community for organizations and individuals, “who are taking a human-centered approach to poverty-related challenges around the world.” The site encourages users who want to leverage the ideas and strategies introduced in the Human Centered Design Toolkit to share stories and resources while learning more about the process.

The Methods page provides a place to learn more about the individual human-centered design methods contained inside the HCD Toolkit.

Designed by IDEO.org with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the site offers useful tips for those interested in employing the HCD Toolkit while connecting users to one another. On the site’s landing page, the first thing new users are encouraged to do is to connect with others by location and/or focus areas. Each user can then, in turn, setup a story page so they can share their own work and projects. User story pages include an overview of the project, the location and focus area of the social work (health, gender equity, education etc.) and what methods were employed to support the work. In this way, users can seek out like-minded projects and share resources across borders, “so they can build on each other’s ideas and tap into the power of the community.” In a few months, community members will be able to apply for microgrants to initiate or implement project solutions.

HCD Connect was created as a result of the enthusiasm IDEO and the foundation saw around the HCD Toolkit. IDEO designed the toolkit for organizations and individuals who want to use design methodology to innovate and solve problems in the social sector. The toolkit outlines the step-by-step process IDEO has used over the years. It has been downloaded more than 74,000 times.

IDEO.org is hoping HCD Connect will grow into a vibrant community that supports newcomers to the design process, connects experienced practitioners, and provides support for everyone working to implement HCD methods into their work on social sector challenges.

Watch the beautiful video of how human-centered design has made a difference for Proximity, an aid organization based in Myanmar.

The Stories page is a place for HCD Connect users to post their own stories about how they’ve used the HCD Toolkit or learn about other human-centered design projects.
An individual story detail page where an HCD Connect community member has told a story about using the methods and approaches in the HCD Toolkit.

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IDEO.org Launches HCD Connect, an Online Community for People Who Want to Change the World

The Bad Astronomer writes “Astronomers have used two big telescopes to create an infrared survey of the Milky Way that is the largest of its kind: the resulting image has an incredible 150,000 megapixels containing over a billion stars. Something that large is difficult to use, so they also made a pan-and-zoom version online which should keep you occupied for quite some time. These data will be used to better understand star formation in our Milky Way, and how far more distant galaxies and quasars behave.”

The interactive image is powered by IIPImage which happens to be Free Software and is cool in its own right (right click the image to get help — it has a full set of keybindings for navigation).

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150 Gigapixel Sky Image Contains 1 Billion Stars

OCZ Vertex 4 SSD released, wins calm praise on the review circuit originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OCZ Vertex 4 SSD released, wins calm praise on the review circuit

New submitter CAPSLOCK2000 writes “The Dutch Pirateparty has refused an order from BREIN to take down a proxy to The Pirate Bay. Last month BREIN (the distribution-industries paralegal outfit) forced a number of ISPs to block The Pirate Bay; the first site ever blocked in the Netherlands. Immediately people started using proxies at other ISPs to get to TPB. BREIN then threatened a number of those proxies with legal action. As most of these are run by hobbyists without legal or financial means there was little resistance. Now the Dutch Pirateparty has decided to stand up to the intimidation and refuses to take down its proxy. Today they sent there response in style: by uploading it to The Pirate Bay In translation: ‘The Pirateparty disputes your claim and will not comply with your request.'”

Via Torrentfreak, Pirate Party chairman Dirk Poot: “There are a plethora of proxy sites on the internet. On almost any them TPB can by reached, even with a single URL. That’s not even mentioning the ways you can get to TPB if you’re willing to put in more effort than saving a single URL. If this keeps going there will be no Internet left by the time BREIN has achieved its goal of making TPB inaccessible. … In their self-righteous zealousness they have brought substantial damage to the free and open Internet.”

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Dutch Pirateparty Refuses Order To Take Down Proxy

You already know that your phone is spying on you, but we’re not all that concerned with what our phones are doing. We’re concerned about who’s looking at that private information. According to the New York Times, the police are tracking phones routinely. More »

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Police Routinely Track Phones Without Warrants [Privacy]