OS X Mavericks and iCloud

Apple has recently released its new desktop software called OS X Mavericks. This upgrade on Mountain Lion presents several new features that make it yet better, although these new features do not really differ greatly from Mountain Lion.

First of all upgrading to this new software is free. This is something new in the California company since previous actualizations cost me. For example, the upgrade to Mountain Lion cost its users 20$. This new feature is pretty important since it will increase competence with Microsoft, who charges for software upgrades. We want every Mac user to experience the latest features, the most advanced technologies, and the strongest security,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice-president of Software Engineering in a statement. “We believe the best way to do this is to begin a new era of personal computing software where OS upgrades are free.”

Other features that make one's computer perform more efficiently include that is makes your battery last longer as well as it liberates memory, around 5 gb most people are commenting.

As for other features that are completely new, this new software includes iBooks in your computer. This means that the popular application that before could only be used in iPhones, iPads or iPods is finally available for your computer. As well, other new software includes a new mapping tool and a password manager called iCloud keychain.

Lastly, software used in mobile devices has now reached the computer. For example, the introduction of Pop-ip notifications, which lets users respond to or delete messages or answer Facetime calls without leaving the app they are using. In addition, new organizational tools have been added. In this category the biggest of all these tolls can be considered the new feature called Finder Tabs, which is used to combine multiple windows into a single window with multiple tabs. Users can also "tag" files with keywords to make it quicker and easier to search for them later.

These are the most important features among the 200 new features that Apple claim Mavericks to have.

As well, Apple has released new software in terms of iCloud. There is a new website, called icloud.com that makes it possible for users to use apps such as Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Notifications or other in the computer, thus making the experience of iCloud even better. This is very useful because in this website one can also share these documents with other people, making the sharing process even faster via de Internet. 

I hope this post has been helpful!

Can Google Solve Death?

Recently, the Times Magazine has published an article titled "Can Google solve death?" The theme of the article basically talks about the new company that Google is going to create, called Calico (California Life Company), and which is going to try to investigate if death is something not inevitable.

From what commentators say, this new company is going to have a different focus than other life-extension research companies; it is going to try to combat death by focusing on aging itself, rather than focusing on finding cures for single diseases, such a cancer, alzheimer, or others. This is the key, as many biologists single out.

As a new company, and without any further information about how it is going to work, many different reporters have discussed on which technologies and therapies Calico is going to focus on order to solve this question that has pursued humans since the very start. Some of these methods include the following: cryonics, cryotherapy, self-healing worms and telomeres, cloning and body part replacement and nanotechnology.

Cryonics

This technique is based on freezing your body, sometimes only ones head, in order to have your body preserved after death. This method is somewhat similar to what the famous Walt Disney did. The hope of this technique is that the body will be preserved until a future in which nanotechnology and further developments will be able to revive the patient by changing organs and tissues.


Cryotherapy


The use of cryotherapy is very typical in athletics, and many sports are starting to use this technique. It consists in submitting ones body to freezing cold temperatures for a short period of time, which makes the body recover quicker.


Self-healing worms and telomeres

A group of scientists at Nottingham University discovered a species of flatworm, the Planarian worm that can divide potentially forever, and this has caused that this may be a key to alleviate aging in human cells. Human cells undergo aging when stem cells divide to heal wounds, during reproduction
or for growth. The key to stop this aging process may lie in the telomeres, the ends of a chromosome that protect cells against degradation; if scientists can find a way to preserve telomeres, then this can be a huge step towards defeating aging.


Cloning and body part replacement 

This area of investigation has to do with the organ creation and replacement. A replacement of lab-grown kidneys has already been done to rats, and if this can be replicated for humans, it could mean a significant way of fighting age.


Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is what many consider to be the science of the future. One example of how this could fight against aging is by deploying tiny robots (nanorobots) in the body which would help overcome problems of incorrect DNA replication, which is one of the central causes of aging.







In my opinion, although this is something that we would all apparently like, there are many motives to which I personally doubt this can either be impossible in the next 50 years, or that it would be detrimental for human society as we know it. I believe that by solving the problem of death, somewhat life would lose the exhilarating moments and all those moments one those in order to enjoy life to its optimum point. If one knows that he/she can life forever, then there is no meaning in trying to walk through life doing the things you enjoy or even living life to its fullest, since you are going to live forever. As well, how would this affect society, and not only that, the Earth. Considering that this would increase dramatically the Earth's population because nobody is dying while people are always being born, then sooner that we would think the Earth would reach its famous biological limit. The consequences on society can be so great that it would be too long to write now, but the structure of society and how we know humankind would change completely. People would be reckless all the time, for example. Therefore, although this science might be thought as a good idea, I would doubt whether it is a good or bad idea due to all of the consequences it can have.



Source for writing this article:

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/03/tech/innovation/google-calico-aging-death/

Tips to for a short movie

How to make a good short video: university of santa fe 

1. Do not cramp too many ideas
2. A twist at the end 
3. Ideas come from everyday life 
4. Convert idea into something we want to say
5. Ideas can come from drawings you randomly do
6. Crowdfunding = raise awareness on the web kickstarter.com and indiegogo.com ; 

For the short movie itself:

• Create a treatment (outline)
• Create a screenplay (script) - can use celtex
• Storyboard (where things go on the screen) by drawing with the different angles and where everything goes on the screen - medium shots, wide scenes, close shots
• Pre-production = look places to see where to film, location of where all scenes take place
• Production = filming of the film, having a schedule and stick to it, filming outside has too many variables, therefore filming inside in a studio is much easier; make sure you have enough shots, have as many as you can 
• Post-production = need to be organized, categorized, named, sound separate and then synchronizing the sound, and then editing (this usually takes pretty long) and use programs such as iMovie or Movie Maker / garbage in and garbage out, meaning that if you filmed something that you think is not good quality then you can not include it in the post production
• Getting the film seen = upload to youtube or in film festivals 

More Tips: not afraid of someone else’s idea, be open

• -Go with your instinct, don’t be close
• -Collaborate with others

Good examples of famous short movie films:

For the birds

One man's band

Geri's game