Human vs Robot

Talk about super humans and super robots. Hollywood is good at these topics, always wetting our appetite with imaginary robots and super human movies. Most of those movies showing stuff like super robots kicking humans ass and ripping their limbs off.

The big question is, are robots really stronger than humans? read on.


As it stands now, robots have a very distinct way of moving (think of the robot dance). Humans move in with a smooth fluid motion. The reason humans can maintain such control over our movements comes down to our muscles which produce force and motion. The longer a muscle stretches, the more weight it can support and the more control of movement it allows.

Artificial muscles have been developed, used and studied for many years now. The relationship between artificial muscles and prosthetic limbs is forever marching forward. However, scientists have only ever been able to develop an artificial muscle that stretches up to three times its original length. This poses serious problems when it comes to strength and control. The average robot can only lift objects half of its weight.

Another win for humans is our ability to react within a fraction of a second. Robots often take longer to react and then have to wait for a mechanism to kick in before they move. All in all, humans wouldn’t have anything to worry about in a hand to robot hand combat situation.

Next Generation Robots

Dr. Koh and his team at NUS have developed an artificial muscle that not only has several attributes that are closer to the human muscle than any other artificial substitute from the past:
Pliable – The polymer used as the muscle, which is based on a rubber material, is workable and moves very much like a human muscle.
Reaction – Electrical pulses cause the muscle to move, just as electrical pulses sent to our brains tell us to move our muscles. This means that the reaction time for the artificial muscle is nearly the same as a humans.
Energy – The team found that the polymer produces energy as a bi-product. It’s thought that this could mean the production of essentially environmentally friendly robots that can power themselves after a small amount of charging.

Superhuman Strength

So far, the team at NUS have developed a muscle that can stretch to 5 times its original length and is able to carry a weight up to 80 times heavier than itself. Although Koh is understandably proud of his team for their achievement, they estimated that the polymer actually has the potential to stretch up to 10 times its original length. This would enable it to lift loads up to 500 times its own weight.

The future robots that use this form of artificial muscle will be more human like than any of the transformer style robots we’ve seen in the past. And they will undoubtedly win any arm wrestling match on Earth. Credits~Tech Beat

Akwa Ibom At 26

As Akwa Ibom State clocks 26 years tomorrow, the state government, and all Government parastatals today converge to the prestigious Ibom hall for an interdenominational thanksgiving service.
The service had in attendance, Akwa Ibom State's digital governor, his excellency chief Dr Godswill Obot Akpabio ( CON ) and his dear wife, the deputy governor, Her excellency Noble Lady Valerie Ebe, the secretary to the state government Mr Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, ex-deputy governor, Chief Chris Ekpenyong all commissioners, Local Government chairmen, NULGEA, Paramount rulers and traditional rulers, civil servants, past and present government officials, Christian Association of Nigeria ( CAN ), Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, and all Akwa Ibom State citizen. The event also had Akwa Ibom citizens in the diaspora in attendance.

The event was very colourful, as choristers from various churches denominations graced the occasion with inspiring singspirations.
Some of the big names in Akwa Ibom music industry where there.
One of the most touching part of the occasion was when his governor Akpabio knelt down to pray for Akwa Ibom. Akpabio said "Lets thank God for 26 years of statehood" The Governor prayed that God should choose a credible person to succeed him.
Governor Akpabio further asked God to scatter every enemies of Akwa Ibom. And the people all responded with a thunderous Amen! The event ended on a joyful note.

Tomorrow will be another great day for Akwa Ibomites at the Uyo township stadium, as the all the good people of Akwa Ibom State roll out drums to mark her 26th years of statehood.

Youtube Offline Video Viewing For Mobile

YouTube on Wednessday announced that smartphone and tablet owners will soon be able to cache YouTube videos on their device for offline viewing.

YouTube said that videos can only be stored for "a short time," though it didn't provide more details. By default, all videos will permit offline caching. Content owners who want to prevent their videos from being downloaded, even temporarily, will be able to disable the feature on a video-by-video basis. The feature is expected to arrive in November

The new Blackberry Z30

BlackBerry on Wednessday announced the Z30, a new smartphone running BlackBerry OS 10.2 that has a 5.0-inch Super AMOLED 720p HD display and a dual-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor with quad-core Adreno graphics.

The Z30 features stereo speakers and BlackBerry Natural Sound, which the company says improves the quality of BBM Voice and BBM Video chats. BlackBerry is using what it calls the BlackBerry Paratek Antenna, a new antenna design that improves voice and data performance in low-coverage areas.

The Z30 also boasts 25 hours of active use thanks to the large, 2,880mAh battery. Other hardware features include an 8-megapixel main camera and 2-megapixel user-facing camera; LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, dual-band Wi-Fi, and GPS; and 16GB of on-board storage with support for microSD cards up to 64GB.

The BlackBerry 10.2 operating system makes some changes to BlackBerry Hub, which now learns which conversations and social media messages are most important to the owner and prioritizes them. BlackBerry Messenger now provides previews of incoming messages as they arrive, even when using other apps. The previews can be dismissed or opened.

The BlackBerry Z30 will first go on sale in the U.K. and Middle East later this month. It is expected to reach other regions before the holidays. BlackBerry said that BlackBerry OS 10.2 will be made available to the Z10, Q10, and Q5 smartphones in October.

I remembered I wrote a piece about blackberry needing to reinvent itself or face a demise. Is this the reinventing, can  this compete with other smart phones. Or is blackberry just hanging on wating for that final encore.  Only time will tell.

champions league day 2

Yesterday we saw some exciting games of football in the champions league. All the top teams won exception of Juventus and today football fans will not be expecting anything less.

Today all eyes will be focused on the group of death as they tackle each other. The teams in this group are in-case  you are just coming from space Napoli, Dortmund, Arsenal and Marseilles.

The big match today is Napoli vs Dortmund. Dortmund as last year finalist will want to prove to bookmakers that they are the teams to beat. They will come with intention and hunger, if their form in their domestic league is anything to go by, they are in top gear. They are top of their league winning all their games so far this season. Napoli on the other hand has got a manager who is so accustomed to winning in Europe and they've recruited well in the summer. They like Dortmund are also top of their league and have maintained a 100% start to their season. This is a clash between two top teams and football lovers got something to be excited for.

The other game in this group between Marseilles and Arsenal is going to be another cracker. Each team will want to end the night with a win to place it in a better position to face the other two teams. I'm going to be keeping my eyes on this one too especially to see what Wenger got up his sleeves. A loss today will spell doom for gunners especially as bookmakers have predicted them not to survive this group. Marseilles on the other hand will want to prove bookmakers wrong that they are not the whipping team of the group and will come out blazing on all sides. Arsenal are in for a very tough game and I hope Ozil is fully fit for this encounter because aside all the hype of last weekend, he was sluggish to me and the reason was that he was not feeling too well. He needs  to be on top form to carry this Arsenal team on his shoulder.

Another match I'll  look  forward to is Chelsea vs Basel not because it will be a tough game but because of Mourinho. We all want to see him take charge of his first European game in this his second spell. Also we want to see the intricacies of his selection especially as he admitted yesterday that he has young and beautiful eggs in his squad. He claimed four players under the age of 22 will feature in the game tomorrow. Apart from Oscar who he said will be starting, I want to see who the other players will be, Lampard is also guaranteed a start

Barcelona will want to get  their campaign to a flyer as they match out at home against Ajax. The question that will be playing on people's mind is how Messi will respond to Ronaldo's ha trick of yesterday, expects Messi to let his game do the talking.

Below are the games for today. Enjoy another night of European football.

Napoli vs Dortmund
Marseilles vs Arsenal
Chelsea vs Basel
Schalke vs Steaua Bucuresti
AC Milan vs Celtic
Barcelona vs Ajax
Atletico Madrid vs Zenit St Petersburg
Austria Wein vs Fc Porto

Uefa ChamPIons League Day 1

Moyes got his manutd european journey to a winning start. The way he set up the team showed boldness unlike what we used to see him do at everton during their stints in europe. There was fludity in the way the team played. The players especially Rooney who scored his 200h goal were exceptional.

Mancity showed that their european nytmares might be over. Their win today is a step in that direction, although in the first half, it looked like mancity were not cut out for europe but they came firing in the second half. Although this was an easy game everybody expected them to win yet the win might just be the win they needed to boost their confidence.

Real Madrid have started this campaign with hunger demolishing Galatasaray 6 : 1. A hatrick from Ronaldo was the highlights of an impressive performance by the team. Although Gala will only have themselves to blame for not taking their chances earlier on in the game. I saw glimpses of the young lad Bruma and know why chelsea wanted him, the lad is going to be one of the next big thing in the game.

Bayern Munich got their title defence to a win. Can they be the team to successfully defend this trophy in modern football? We will know that by May.

This was a brilliant game of european football with lot of goals, I hope day 2 will be as exciting as day 1

Facebook Testing Auto Video Playback in Mobile Feed

Facebook recently announced that it will soon begin playing videos embedded in users' newsfeed automatically. To start, only videos shared by individuals or bands will be played. Facebook will not be showing video ads.

 All videos will be played in silent mode, with the sound off, until users press the video. The sound will then come on and it will expand to full-screen viewing. Users who don't wish to watch the videos in their newsfeed can simply scroll past them.

The feature is rolling out to mobile phones over the course of the next few weeks. Facebook said the feature is being tested in a limited fashion and will become more widely available over time.

This is another step for Facebook to boost its status as competition in the social media heats up.

The Demise of Blackberry

According to report, private investors are eyeing BlackBerry and its assets, but not the entire company. Several equity firms have signed non-disclosure agreements with BlackBerry in recent weeks to explore acquisition possibilities, though sources say it is likely the company will be broken up and sold in pieces.

Private equity firms are looking at BlackBerry's operating system and the patents surrounding its keyboards, in particular. One of BlackBerry's largest investors, Fairfax Financial Holdings, has met with other financial firms in hopes of finding a way to take the entire company private, but it holds only about 10% of the firm. Reports says the sales process is expected to begin within a few weeks.

BlackBerry announced last month its intent to "explore strategic options" after its BlackBerry 10 operating system and handset failed to generate interest among consumers. Consumers prefer andriod base devices or the iphone to blackberry.

The reason for this is not unconected to the fact that blackberry os is dull and freezes constantly, its app world is poor as compared to its competitors and its hardware is not stylish.

I remember back in 2008 when blackberry was at its peak, it was the king of smart phone, every top guy owned one. And if you wanted to belong, you had to own a blackberry so as to share you pin to any interested parties. Then it was worth more than $18 bn, today, its worth is a little more than $5 bn. Today blackberry cannot hold down the third spot in the smartphone world, its iphone, andriod base phones and windows phone.

With bbm set to be just another instant messenger that phones running andriod version 4.0 and above and iphone can access, blackberry might have seen its good times. Whether blackberry can reinvent itself only time will tell but until then fans of the smartphone can jolly in the fact that blackberry was once a king

World Cup Play Offs For Africa

On Saturday, I was discussing with a friend of mine on his preferred opponent for the play off against Nigeria. just to update you, the team we were supposed to face were; Cameroon, Egypt, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. my friend opted for either of Burkina Faso or Ethiopia.

From the draw which was held today, Monday 16th Sept saw Nigeria to face Ethiopia. I bet my friend and optimistic Nigerians are rejoicing over the draw. His belief is that Ethiopia is no match for Nigeria but we all know that football is no mathematics. Games like this are always full of surprises, any mistake can prove fatal. Stephen Keshi should be happy that we are handed an easy draw but he should start now to plan his tactics and also drum it into his boys that this is no mean draw, that they should give their all. Anything short of victory will be a disaster and 150 millions Nigerians and more will not forgive him nor his team. As always Nigerians will pray and cheer for the team. Brazil is the destination and we cant avoid to stop half way

The other draws are: Cameroon vs Tunisia, Ghana vs Egypt, Algeria vs Burkina Faso and Cote d' Ivoire vs Senegal.

From the draw, the toughest of the clash is Cote d' Ivoire vs Senegal, what a cracker that will be and I cant wait for that clash.

The first leg of the matches will take place between October 11 and 15 while the returning games will be between November 15 and 19.
Like a friend of mine said sometime ago, may the best team qualify from Africa.