G Plus Volume 1 Issue 45

Cigarette butts to power gadgets
A
group of scientists from South
Korea have converted usedcigarette
butts into a highperforming
material that could be
integrated into computers, handheld
devices, electrical vehicles and wind
turbines to store energy. The researchers
have demonstrated the material’s
superior performance compared to
commercially available carbon, graphene
and carbon nanotubes.
It is hoped the material can be
used to coat the electrodes of super
capacitors — electrochemical components
that can store extremely large
amounts of electrical energy — whilst
also offering a solution to the growing
environmental problem caused by
used-cigarette filters.
It is estimated that as many as
5.6 trillion used-cigarettes or 766,571
metric tonnes are deposited into the
environment worldwide every year.
In their study , the researchers
demonstrated that the cellulose acetate
fibres that cigarette filters are
mostly composed of could be transformed
into a carbon-based material
using a simple, one-step burning technique
called pyrolysis.
As a result of this burning process,
the resulting carbon-based material
contained a number of tiny pores,
increasing its performance as a super
capacitive material. “A high-performing
super capacitor material should
ASUS launches Chromebox in India, a
mini-desktop PC that runs Chrome OS
In a bid to attract consumers who
are looking for space-saving desktop
solutions, ASUS launched its
own iteration of the Google Chromebox
– a compact home or office
computer that runs on Chrome OS.
On the hardware front ASUS has
gone with Intel’s Haswell processors
on all three variants, starting from
the Celeron 2955U SKU priced at
`21,000 right upto the Core i7-4600U
priced at an eyebrow-raising `58,000.
Of the three SKUs the base model
does not support 4K but the other
two do.
To get an idea of how small the
have a large surface area, which can
be achieved by incorporating a large
number of small pores into the material,”
said Professor Jongheop Yi from
Seoul National University .
“Our study has shown that usedcigarette
filters can be transformed
into a high-performing carbon-based
material using a simple one-step process,
which simultaneously offers a
green solution to meeting the energy
demands of society. Numerous countries
are developing strict regulations
to avoid the trillions of toxic and nonbiodegradable
used-cigarette filters
that are disposed of into the environment
each year — our method is just
one way of achieving this,” he added.
Google Maps
now lets you
explore Moon
and
Mars
Google has added 3D, explorable
versions of Mars and
the Moon right into Maps.
Google added the heavenly bodies
to commemorate the Curiosity
rover’s second year cruising the
Martian surface.
To view Mars and the Moon on
the maps, users have to go into the
‘Earth’ view and keep zooming out
till you see a little blue dot framed
by stars, tap on the ‘Explore’ button
will show images of moon and Mars.
You can click and drag both
Mars and the Moon and rotate
them. To explore users can zoom
in and out, similar to how it works
with Google Earth. Google has
crediting NASA, USGS, JAXA and
SELENE for moon’s imagery and
for Mars, Google has given credit to
NASA and USGS on the list. To see
the new additions on Google Maps
users have to download the latest
version unveiled earlier this year.
Microsoft Xbox One to be sold exclusively
on Amazon in India
Microsoft has announced the
entire range of its Interactive
Entertainment Business
(IEB) portfolio, including Xbox
One gaming console, would be available
in India exclusively on Amazon.
in beginning September 1.
The range also includes Xbox
360, Kinect, Xbox Live, Xbox Accessories
and all Microsoft-published
Xbox game titles. Amazon.in also
announced exclusive pre-orders for
Xbox One beginning August 6.
Chakrapani Gollapali, country
general manager, consumer channels
group, Microsoft India, said, “We believe
this collaboration with Amazon
gives us the platform to build scale at
an unprecedented level for the gaming
and entertainment category in
India.”
device is consider its dimensions –
12 cm x 12 cm. This makes it small
enough to be tucked away effortlessly
behind any VESA-mountable monitor
or HDTV. With an HDMI and
DisplayPort thrown in, the ASUS
Chromebook allows users to connect
to multiple displays at once.
Gmail now recognises
email ids with non Latin
characters
Google has now announced
that Gmail now recognizes
email addresses with non-
Latin and accented characters. This
new feature is already available for
Gmail, and Google says it will coming
for Calendar in the near future.
Google is adopting an email
standard introduced by Internet
Engineering Task Force in 2012 and
says this will encourage broad adoption
of the new standard across other
email providers in the future. Gmail
users will now be able to send and
receive emails from others with
email addresses containing non-
Latin characters, though they wont
be able to create emails using those
characters yet. Google plans to roll
out the support for account creation
in accented characters soon.
He said this was the first time
that they would be focusing on retailing
their products through an
online-only channel.
Earlier the company had said
that it is bringing the gaming console
to India at a price of `39,990 without
Kinect and `45,990 with the Kinect
sensor.
Xbox One bundles will include
the Xbox One console — which features
a 500GB hard drive, Blu-ray
player and built-in Wi-Fi, one Xbox
One Wireless Controller and a free
14-day trial of Xbox Live Gold for
new members.
With the Kinect sensor, the console
offers features like gesture controls,
biometric sign-in, controller
paring, Skype video calls, personalization,
instant scanning of QR codes,
and enhanced features available with
games such as ‘Kinect Sports Rivals,’
‘Dead Rising 3,’ and ‘Project Spark.’
G PLUS AUG 09 - AUG 15, 2014 17
Web Watch
Download Torrent
Files Directly To
Your DropBox
Account
Torrent is the popular way
of downloading stuffs
from the Internet. We all
use some torrent client and then
start downloading files from
Internet. There are some web
based clients are also available
that allow us download torrent
files. But in schools, colleges
and office, torrents clients are
blocked but those places have
high speed Internet. If torrent
clients are blocked then we can
not use that high speed Internet
to download our favorite files
from the web.
For this kind of
situation,there is a nice web
based torrent client called BoxoPus.
BoxoPus works in different
way. It downloads file from
torrent and then upload it directly
to your Dropbox account.
It does not have any limit and
offers unlimited traffic.
Boxopus is very simple and
work fast. Just visit Boxopus and
register for a new account. You
can use your Facebook, Twitter
or Dropbox account to login on
Boxopus.
Then you well see a big text
box with browser button. Now
pick a torrent file from your
system and click on “Put IN My
DropBox” button.
Then it will show you the
detail of the torrent with a “Start
Download” Button. Click on the
button to start download.
You also need to authorize
the app to access your dropbox
account to put the file in it. After
that it will start downloading
the file and it will directly saved
in the DropBox account inside
a folder Boxopus.This app is really
helpful for those who want
to download movies from the
high speed Internet in office or
schools.
Indrajeet Bhuyan is
a 16 year old tech
blogger and security
researcher. He
is passionate about
computers and believes
in sharing
knowledge and information . He
uses his spare time helping people
and companies secure themselves.
fb.me/indrajeet.bhuyan