The robots do not resemble their insect counterparts; they are tiny cubes equipped with two watch motors to power the wheels that enable them to move. But their collective behaviour is remarkably ant-like. By being programmed simply to move forward toward a target and avoid obstacles, the robot colony finds the fastest way through a network or maze. The secret, the researchers report in the open access journal Plos Computational Biology, is in their ability to take cues from one another – just like an insect swarm.

“Each individual robot is pretty dumb,” said Simon Garnier from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, lead researcher on the study. “They have very limited memory and limited processing power.” “By themselves, each robot would just move around randomly and get lost… but [they] are able to work together and communicate.”

This is because, like ants, the robots leave a trail that the others follow; while ants leave a trail of chemicals – or pheromones – that their nest mates are able to sniff out, the robots leave a trail of light. Continue reading the main story You don’t need something as complex as choice to get some of the behavior you see in ants”

Dr Paul Graham University of Sussex See the ants of the world in 3D To achieve this, the researchers set up a camera to track the path of each robot. A projector connected to the camera then produced a spot of light at regular intervals along their route, leaving a “breadcrumb trail” of light that got brighter every time another robot tracked over the same path.

Dr Garnier explained: “[The robots each] have two antennae on top, which are light sensors. If more light falls on their left sensor they turn left, and if more light falls on the right sensor, they turn right.” “It’s exactly the same mechanism as ants.” The researcher explained how both the robots and ants worked together, describing their navigation skills as a “positive feedback loop”.

Having already stolen the consumer crown from Apple’s iPhone, Samsung is looking to supplant BlackBerry in the business world. To get corporate IT departments — BlackBerry’s (BBRY) last remaining stronghold — to consider opening their gates to other mobile devices, Samsung will be padlocking its up coming Galaxy S4 smart-phone with a security solution appropriately dubbed “Knox” (like the famous fort with all the gold). Galaxy S4 users will be able to maintain separate identities for work and play. Samsung says Knox places users’ personal and work applications into separate and isolated containers, preventing malware from infiltrating the corporate network. The Galaxy S4 will be released Thursday. Though a mix of hardware and software tricks developed by the U.S. National Security Agency, Samsung claims Knox prevents important data from getting into the wrong hands. That’s a very BlackBerry esque promise and a first for Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android operating system. There are many software-based add-on security solutions for Android, but Samsung is the first to bake them right into the phone’s hardware. Samsung claims the Knox solution “addresses all major security gaps in Android.” And some experts are giving Knox an early thumbs up. “This is going to set the bar for Android devices, said Jeff Bardin, chief intelligence officer for consultancy Treadstone 71.

Samsung’s next Galaxy Smartphone might be controlled by nothing more than the user’s eyes, according to a new report in advance of its March 14 unveiling. “Eye scrolling” will do things like scroll down a page of text when the user’s eyes have reached the bottom of the screen, according to a New York Times report. Quoting an unnamed Samsung employee who has used the phone, the Times said the Samsung Galaxy S IV, the next generation in its popular Galaxy S line, will be more heavily geared toward new software than a physical reboot of the Android-based device.

With its latest version of Maemo 5 software, Nokia N900 can offer customers to utilize dozen of applications that most of them are the same of that on desktop applications. In addition, it will satisfied users through their full cellular features, touch screen and the QWERTY keyboard. It will run in Linux software and users can browse through the Mozilla technology. Nokia N900 has 32GB storage memory which is expandable to 48GB using microSD card. It has this technology for camera — 5MP camera and Carl Zeiss optics. It features high-resolution WVGA touch screen and fast internet connectivity with 10/2 HSPA and WLAN. If you are a fan of youtube and any other flash driven websites and video watching, using the Mozilla browser with Adobe Flash™ 9.4 support, you can feel what it feels when you are doing it in a desktop computer. Nokia N900 will soon be available this coming October with an estimated retail proce of 500 (Euro).

Toronto: Canada’s tech giant Research In Motion Ltd, now renamed just BlackBerry, has launched the much delayed BlackBerry 10 with a slew of new features and innovations.

It’s been more than a year since the launch was supposed to happen, but BlackBerry took the stage in Toronto, London, Dubai, Paris, Johannesburg and New York to showcase what they’ve been laboring over during this period of hibernation, reported Xinhua Thursday.

They unveiled the first two phones in the series, a sleek Z10 touchscreen phone, and a Q10 that carries the iconic QWERTY keyboard loyalists love.

Remarketing the products with a new, unified brand name, the company’s CEO Thorsten Heins said at the New York launch that they’re hoping to start afresh and rebuild their brand with this launch.

“BlackBerry has changed, we have re-designed the BlackBerry experience, we have re-engineered our products, we have re-invented this company and we want to reflect this in our brand,” he said.

“We are now more than ever a company that is united in our vision for mobile computing, and it all starts today,” Heins said.

Some of the new features include a speedy predictive keyboard, a hub for social media addicts to unite all their different accounts and information, BlackBerry Balance which allows users to separate work from play on a secure system, an impressive time shift camera that allows you to choose the best photos by capturing moments before and after you snap the photo.

Known as the smartphone pioneers that launched the very first smartphone back in 1999, BlackBerry has descended from the top of the game to just a phone of the past.

Apple Inc’s iPhones and devices powered by Google’s Android have captured the market over the last few years, leaving Blackberry makers in constant efforts to keep up.

Nokia on Friday released a 3D printing kit that will allow users to create their own custom cases for the Lumia 820. The handset, which was unveiled last September, features a removable shell case that lets users change the color of their phone or even enable options such as wireless charging. Now Nokia has taken things a step farther. It is allowing users to customize their phone via a special 3D printing kit. The 3DK is the first such accessory from a major handset manufacturer. Although the market penetration for 3D printers is still in its infancy, this is a way for Nokia, a once-dominant player in the handset arena, to regain the spotlight for doing something different. “This is very much a marketing initiative,” said Ian Fogg, senior principal analyst and head of the HIS mobile sector at IHS iSuppli. This is about getting column inches and getting Nokia talked about in the media.” Nokia did not respond to our request for further details. Cutting-Edge Props Even prior to the widespread adoption of mobile smartphones, the handset has been very much a way of showing off some individuality. Primarily this has been through the production of cases, which has grown from a cottage industry to a major market. Is Nokia killing the cash cow by allowing users to create cases with a printer? “The reason this is very much a marketing initiative is that Nokia knows accessories have good margins,” Fogg told TechNewsWorld. “Nokia doesn’t want to sacrifice that market, and they know 3D printing is a niche market,” he explained. “Few people own 3D printers at home, so it won’t cannibalize the accessories businesses at all.” It could also help reaffirm that Nokia is still very much on the cutting edge – even beating Apple with something that could have users thinking and reacting differently.

“Nokia wants and needs to reposition themselves as tech leaders, and this appeals to thought leaders and first adopters,” said Glen Hiemstra of Futurist.com. “It will create buzz in the maker community.”

Toronto – For many businesses, switching to mobile is a puzzle. While users are taking control in their hands, literally, they are deciding who they do business with. Researchers say there are now more than 1 billion smartphone users on the planet, which means 1 in 7 people uses some kind of smartphone. To help businesses transition & launch their own mobile application, there is a new technology company in Toronto named – TheAppLabb. TheAppLabb is bringing a unique philosophy and perspective to the mobile & web industry. TheAppLabb is opening its doors today to provide web & mobile app services to businesses and organizations. TheAppLabb is focused on helping businesses find solutions that use the latest technology, to add value to the user experience and to the business.

“We are at the cross-section of technology innovation, human experience and business value,” says Kundan.

Founded by Kundan Joshi and Surbhi Guleria, TheAppLabb came into being to mark their technology niche and to help businesses go mobile. “We are creating amazing apps for our clients every day, through flawless engineering coupled with our ability to create rich user experiences. We look forward to working with enterprising businesses to create amazing app” they say. With their existing white label products, such as TheEventsApp, TheRetailApp, TheLearningApp, TheContestApp and TheUniversityApp, they are able to offer solutions for real problems – locally and globally.

After a combined 20 years in the industry, the dynamic team at TheAppLabb were inspired to establish a new market niche. Core services offered by TheAppLabb include Strategy, Design & Development of Mobile & Web Apps. What sets TheAppLabb apart is that they are experts in Mobile and will educate clients on leading Mobile practices that they can integrate into their projects, and help with growth & sales.

These are the top 5 reasons why TheAppLabb has a competitive edge:

 EXPERIENCE – We’ve developed and successfully delivered 100s of successful mobile and web projects since 2007.

 INNOVATION – We help you stay ahead of the curve with the latest innovations in mobile and web.

 CREATIVITY – We deliver brilliant user experiences that are intuitive, effective and memorable.

 CLIENT SUCCESS – We are passionate to ensure our clients’ success in leveraging technology solutions.

 COST – We are capable of providing cost-effective yet powerful business solutions.

Let’s backtrack a bit. Windows Phone 7 was good. It was fast, smooth and efficient. And it managed to deliver adequately with only a few limitations; there were multi-tasking constraints, a limited app library and it had support for single-core processors only. While other smartphones had a lot of power, screen space and app libraries, they don’t seem to have used it as well as Windows Phone 7 did. Fast forward to Windows Phone 8, now supporting dual-core processing and much higher resolutions, all while maintaining efficiency. Some call it “a step back” because other devices in this price bracket are quad core. Personally, I believe that the number of cores has very little effect on actual performance. Please note that in this article I am not going to review the Windows Phone 8 OS, and therefore will not be addressing any platform-specific issues in these devices. This is a head-to-head comparison of two Windows Phone 8 devices released in November 2012, the HTC Windows Phone 8X and the Nokia Lumia 920. Both are pretty evenly matched. HTC’s device is pegged as the best Windows Phone in the market; whereas the Nokia Lumia 920 has been designed to be the best smartphone in the market. So how do these devices fare? Let’s have a look.

Apple’s iPad has suffered a year-on-year worldwide market share decline during the third quarter despite volume growth, as competitors Samsung and Asus surged in market share. New figures from IDC reveal that third quarter tablet sales grew by 49.5% year-on-year, from 18.6 mil- lion in 2011 to 27.8 million in 2012. While Apple recorded a 26.1% year-on-year growth in iPad shipments, from 11.1 million units to 14 million units in 2012, its share of the market slumped from 59.7% to 50.4%. The biggest beneficiary of Apple’s market share slump was Samsung, which witnessed 325% year-on-year growth in its third quarter unit shipments, from 1.2 million units in 2011 to 5.1 million units in 2012. Kindle Fire-maker Amazon claimed third spot with 2.5 million units and 9% market share. Because IDC does not appear to count eBook readers as tablet devices, unlike other tablet market share surveys, IDC classes Amazon as a new entrant into the market. The other strong performer in terms of market share growth was Asus, a remarkable growth in shipment volumes of 242.9%, from just 700,000 units and 3.8% in the third quarter of 2011 to 2.4 million units and 8.6% market share in 2012. Note that Asus’ figure includes shipments of the Google Nexus 7 as well as its own PadFone and Transformer hybrid tablet devices. Lenovo rounded out the top five manufacturers with 400,000 units and 1.4% market share, predominantly based on shipments of low-cost de-vices within China.

Apple has been busy at work with their iOS 5 which powers the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. iOS 5 has been updated with some fantastic new features as well as gotten a clean over of some of the old features.

Stay connected with friends and family near and far with a new feature called iMessenger which will be coming to iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. It’s a feature similar to the Blackberry Messenger. It enables apple users to communicate with each other, send pictures and get “message delivered” and “message read” updates.

Receiving notifications has been made easier with a new drop down feature, the same style used in Android phones.

Safari has been updated with a new tab system and better twitter integration as well as a reader function. So you can now use the similar computer type tab system on your iPod, iPhone & iPad to show your parents you’re doing homework when they suspiciously check to see if you’re doing your homework or not but can easily switch back to whatever side tracking it is you were doing before they got there.

And for the shutter bugs out there who love using the camera feature on their Apple device, there is now going to be a quick and easy way to access the camera and take pictures on your Apple device. Picture taking made easy so you can capture all those sweet reunion moments, birthday parties, weddings and all the other perfect Kodak moments.

Syncing will no longer require a connection to the computer. You will be able to sync your iPod, iPhone or iPad via the iTunes store on your device itself. This has been made possible with smaller operating system updates called delta-updates.