Quantum CAD - Electronic and PCB Design Blog

Apple outships Nokia which slips onto loss – no surprise there?

Nokias loss is estimated at £368m due to Symbian based phones falling 20% y-o-y to 88.5m. All this after new CEO Stephen Elops has said that Nokia are moving to Microsoft.

These would have been worse if not for the royalty payments. Without these royalty payment Q3, Nokia forecasts a break even quarter.  

 But where is Apple in all this? Apple sold 20m smart phones in Q2, where as Nokias overall handset ASP was £62m and smart phone ASP was £142m.

 Maybe Nokia need to change? Is the new CEO making a difference? Comment with your opinions, we love to hear from you!

Cars that talk?

Scienceists from the university of bolgona in italy have developed software that lets care 'communitcate' with one another on the road. Tests suggest it could reduce motorway pile ups by 40%.

I hope they do actually go through with this. The amount of pile up accidents ahs increased dramtically over the year due the more people driving and citys increasing in population. Professor Marco Roccetti told BBC News that the study could have a major impact on society.

Why not, if this software prevents pile ups we're all for it! 

Robots that help around the house?

They’re saying that in the future we will have robots cleaning our homes and basically doing all the boring house jobs we hate so we’ll actually have to come home from work and just relax, or at least that’s what films portray are future will become. Recently though progress is actually being made.

Recently in RoboCup2011 some of this progress was made. RoboCup @Home has robots from all around the world again each other to see which one can do the best job at obeying or serving their human masters.

Dr Xiaoping Chen from Wright Eagle robot project says ‘We do not think of a robot as a tool but we think of them as a friend.’ Hang on, didn’t they just say they want to see if they can obey their human masters. I don’t recall making my friend do all my laundry, do you?

Some of the robot makers decided to give the robot a human face it would encourage interaction by giving their creators a human face. Isn’t this all a bit odd? Imagine walking down stairs at 2am to get a drink turning the light on a there’s a robot in the corner staring at you? Leave us a comment with your opinion, we love hearing your views.

The Musical Football

It’s true what they say the best things in life are simple, and what could be simpler than music and football. Then one day a music enthusiast called Adam Place from Bristol University decided to combine the two.

Then the AlphaSphere was born. A football that plays music.

Also it turns out that the AlphaSphere is as simple to use as music and football are to play. To play the AlphaSphere al you have to do is push down on one of its 48 panels to create music and the harder you push the panel the faster the beat becomes. Also with the AlphaSphere you can programme with a chord with added harmonics coming in when you press the pad harder.

So there you have it the perfect gadget for the football fan.