Foxes' Burns to return to Australia

Leicestershire's overseas player Joe Burns will return to Australia for treatment on a hip injury.

The 23-year-old batsman, who has scored 214 County Championship runs in five matches, averaging 30.57, is hoping for a return to Grace Road in the future.

"I'd love to do it all again," the Australian told BBC Radio Leicester.

"I have had a problem for the last few weeks. It's fair enough for my home team of Queensland to recall me to rest before the Champions League."

Australia A international Burns, who was signed to replace captain Ramnaresh Sarwan, added: "It's disappointing but that's cricket I suppose.

"It has been something I have managed for a long time. It's been very frustrating because I have not been able to play at 100% in most games. I have had to cut quite a bit of training out to make sure I can play.

"It's been a great experience and a great club to be a part of. The most disappointing thing is not finishing off the season."

Leicestershire chief executive Mike Siddall told the club website:  "I'd like to thank Joe for his contribution to the team and wish him well in his career in Australia."

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Psychology Of Cricket - Self-Confidence

Thursday 25 July 2013  by Dr Jamie Barker and Dr Martin Turner Psychology Of Cricket - Self-ConfidenceKevin Pietersen - a confident cricketer

"When you have it (confidence) you feel like you’re never going to lose it, when you haven’t got it, you feel like you’re never going to get it." Matthew Hayden

"When confidence is undermined, a player’s whole game can be shot to pieces." Graham Gooch

Self-Confidence in Cricket : Three Tips

If confidence could be packed into a pill it would be the most widely prescribed psychological pill on the market. Typically, confident cricketers are in complete control of their skills, things happen as they expect, they approach situations as a challenge, and performance standards are high.

The form of Australian captain Michael Clarke over the last 12 months or so is an illustration of someone with a high level of belief and how such beliefs can manifest into high levels of performance. When confidence is low - things are a struggle, skills don’t work, performance is poor, they start to question their abilities, and avoid situations where they are put under pressure.

Consider here the form of Ian Bell prior to the recent New Zealand winter series or the form or Mitchell Johnson during the 2009 Ashes. Both players appeared to struggle with their games and became tentative in their decisions and skill execution.

Research in sport psychology clearly and consistently demonstrates self- and team confidence to be one of the most important psychological factors for successful sport performance. High levels of confidence encourages cricketers and teams to enjoy playing under pressure, and gives them the freedom to express their abilities and talents, resulting in increased performance.

Interestingly, increased confidence sees individuals and teams work harder (increased effort), and prove more persistent in executing skills and tasks. England’s last day performance in the final test of the New Zealand series is an illustration of how teams with high confidence expend high levels of effort and persistence.

Team confidence results in an ability to keep going when winning seems impossible - working hard when in difficult situations. In contrast teams lacking confidence typically reduce physical and mental effort, and give in easily. A lack of team confidence can also lead to choking under pressure.

So, what are three of the big areas a player should look to target?

1. Control the Controllables

One reason why individuals and teams often lose confidence is that they become anxious and distracted by factors that they cannot directly control or influence.

This includes the weather, pitch conditions, or umpiring decisions (to some extent!). Psychologists generally suggest that you should focus on those things that you can control when competing such as levels of effort and concentration.

There is nothing to be gained from worrying about things you can’t influence such as an opponent’s preparation, quality/difficulty of the pitch, or the weather conditions. Essentially, elite players are good at focusing on the right cues - consider Jonathan Trott and his infamous routine - going through the same process for each delivery to allow him to focus on the right thoughts and hence block out irrelevant and distracting thoughts.

In addition, Ricky Ponting can often be seen saying to himself ‘watch the ball’ as the bowler is coming into bowl - allowing himself to focus accordingly.

2. ‘Be a good coach to yourself’

Often, cricket players (and coaches) have a tendency to speak to themselves in a manner which is unhelpful and very different to how they would talk to colleagues in similar situations. Following an unsuccessful performance some players will berate or beat themselves up, consistently reminding themselves of their failings and what a poor player they are.

What players really need to do is be good coaches to themselves. They should talk to themselves in the same way they would communicate to a fellow player and provide encouragement, reassurance and look to build confidence. Positive self-talk is key here.

One thing we encourage the players we work with to do is reflect on the good aspects of their performance after each session or innings. For example, a player may indicate that they remained calm, and focussed but could improve their decision making when running between the wickets.

3. Body Language

During a cricket game, players and spectators alike will judge how confident a player is on the basis of their body language… how does the batsman walk out to bat? How does he deal with a mistake, and cope with pressure?

We have all seen how a player who walks slowly out to bat with their head held low, and tension across their brow immediately gives information to their opponents - this player is anxious and uncomfortable. In comparison, a player who jogs out from the pavilion shadowing shots, with head held high, and chest pushed out displays confidence and control.

One key skill is for players to act confidently even if inside they may not feel it. This will influence the perception opponents have about them and hopefully offer a slight advantage. The really interesting thing is that, over time, by acting as a confident performer - a player actually starts to think like a confident player.

Good body language does not just relate to how one approaches the wicket. Good players deal with mistakes by not replaying failure in their body language. For example, a batsman who plays and misses will not replay the poor shot when shadowing the shot - they will rehearse what they should have done - building self-confidence and exuding confidence and control to their opponents.

Ian Bell is someone who in my opinion does this very well. To illustrate, whatever the outcome he can often be seen either rehearsing or reinforcing a particular shot. Kevin Pieterson can often be seen pulling away or raising his hand to indicate to the bowler he is not ready - here he simply maintaining control and indicating to his opponents that he is control of his thoughts and game - that is if he does not feel ready he is not going to be rushed into doing something he does not want to do.

Confident players display good body language when under pressure. It might be a wry smile or a cheeky wink. Good advice to any player entering a pressure situation is to smile. No one ever expects people to smile under pressure, yet alone look like they are actually enjoying it.

Second, smiling releases feel good hormones into our blood stream making us feel calm and upbeat. And that’s a good place to be!

By Dr Jamie Barker and Dr Martin Turner, Sport Psychologists specialising in cricket and contributors to The Psychology of Cricket: Developing Mental Toughness by Dr. Stewart Cotterill and Dr. Jamie Barker. 

http://bennionkearny.com/Cricket

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County Cricket Round-Up - 25th July 2013

Durham and Surrey enhanced their Friends Life t20 quarter-final hopes by beating Leicestershire and Middlesex respectively in tonight’s matches.

Durham put an end to Leicestershire’s hopes of progressing in this year’s Friends Life t20, dispatching them by five wickets at Chester-le-Street. Gareth Breese and Ben Stokes played the key hand with an unbroken sixth-wicket partnership of 64 in 34 balls. The pair came together with the score on 56 for five in the 13th over following a spell of four for 11 from Rob Taylor. Stokes ended not out on 41 off 26 balls, with Breese on 24 off 15 as they eased home with two overs to spare.

Leicestershire had earlier struggled after being asked to bat on a slightly slow pitch. They slipped to 17 for three as Chris Rushworth bowled a superb opening spell and it was only thanks to Shiv Thakor that they were able to reach 119 for seven. Thakor hit 42 off 38 balls and shared useful stands with much of the lower middle-order.

A sparkling innings of 54 off just 24 balls from new Surrey signing Kevin O’Brien helped his side beat Middlesex in the London Derby at Lord’s. Following an early double-strike from Gareth Berg (3-37), Vikram Solanki (37 off 27 balls) and O’Brien pummelled the Panthers bowlers during a third-wicket stand of 90 in 45 balls. Azhar Mahmood (35 off 20) and Zafar Ansari (23 not out off 22) then added some late impetus as Surrey ended on 178 for seven. Ravi Patel was again impressive for the home side with his left-arm spin, taking three for 28 from his four overs.

Middlesex then imploded with the bat and were all out for just 92. Only Paul Stirling (19 off 14) and Gareth Berg (33 off 19) reached double figures as Chris Tremlett, Azhar Mahmood, Gareth Batty and Zafar Ansari each chipped in with a brace of wickets.

Tomorrow’s Fixtures: (start times in brackets, BST)
North Group, FLt20, Derbyshire v Leicestershire at Derby (1900)
The Falcons kept their quarter-finals hopes alive by beating Nottinghamshire in a nine-over game on Tuesday night. They hope to welcome back Shivnarine Chanderpaul from injury, but are without Albie Morkel, who has departed for the Caribbean Premier League.

Derbyshire squad: Chesney Hughes, Wes Durston, Wayne Madsen (captain), Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Dan Redfern, Alex Hughes, Richard Johnson, Tom Poynton, Peter Burgoyne, Tim Groenewald, Mark Turner, Mark Footitt, Billy Godleman, David Wainwright, Tom Knight.

North, FLt20, Nottinghamshire v Yorkshire at Trent Bridge (1800)
The Outlaws need to start winning after some poor recent performances. Riki Wessels should return from injury to replace James Taylor, who is playing for Sussex.

Nottinghamshire squad: Alex Hales, Michael Lumb, Riki Wessels, Samit Patel, David Hussey (captain), Steven Mullaney, Chris Read, Graeme White, Ian Butler, Jake Ball, Harry Gurney, Ajmal Shahzad, Sam Wood.

Mid/Wales/West, FLt20, Glamorgan v Northamptonshire at Cardiff (1830)
The top two sides in the Midlands/Wales/West Group do battle, with a win for either side almost guaranteeing them a place in the last eight. Northamptonshire are unchanged, with Ben Duckett and Rob Keogh hoping to break into the starting eleven on this occasion.

Northamptonshire squad: Richard Levi, Kyle Coetzer, Cameron White, Alex Wakely (captain), Steven Crook, David Willey, Matthew Spriegel, James Middlebrook, David Murphy, Lee Daggett, Mohammad Azharullah, Ben Duckett, Rob Keogh.

Mid/Wales/West, FLt20, Gloucestershire v Somerset at Bristol (1730)
The sell-out South-West Derby is a game that Somerset will want to win, with their hosts already out of the reckoning for a quarter-final spot.

Mid/Wales/West, FLt20, Warwickshire v Worcestershire at Edgbaston (1910)
The Bears have named a 12-man squad for their virtual must-win game against Midlands rivals Worcestershire, who also have to win to keep their slim hopes of progression alive.

Warwickshire squad: Varun Chopra (captain), William Porterfield, Laurie Evans, Darren Maddy, Rikki Clarke, Chris Woakes, Ateeq Javid, Steffan Piolet, Jeetan Patel, Pete McKay, Boyd Rankin, Freddie Coleman.

South, FLt20, Hampshire v Essex at Southampton (1900)
Defending champions Hampshire could confirm their place in the knock-out stages with a win. They are without overseas player Sohail Tanvir for this match - the left-armer named in Pakistan’s T20I squad for this weekend’s matches in the West Indies. Adam Wheater replaces him in the 12-man squad.

Hampshire squad: Michael Carberry, James Vince, Jimmy Adams, Neil McKenzie, Liam Dawson, Sean Ervine, Michael Bates, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Chris Wood, Danny Briggs, David Griffiths, Adam Wheater.

South, FLt20, Surrey v Kent at The Oval (1830)
Kenta are all but out of the competition, while a win for Surrey would see them move up to third in the South Group. The match is a sell-out.

day one, Tour Match, Sussex v Australians at Hove (1100)
Sussex have named an almost full-strength side, with only Ed Joyce and Steve Magoffin rested from the Championship regulars. They do, however, have plenty of injury problems. James Anyon and Lewis Hatchett will both have to undergo a late fitness test, while Luke Wright (knee), Ben Brown (finger), Amjad Khan (wrist) and Matthew Hobden (shin) are all out. They are, of course, bolstered by the availability of Nottinghamshire batsman James Taylor on a one-match loan deal at the behest of the ECB.

Sussex squad: Chris Nash (captain), Luke Wells, Michael Yardy, James Taylor, Matt Machan, Rory Hamilton-Brown, Callum Jackson, Chris Jordan, Lewis Hatchett, James Anyon, Monty Panesar, Andy Miller, Chris Liddle.

The tourists have rested much of their first choice eleven, with batsman Travis Head and off-spinner Ashton Turner called up to supplement the main squad. The pair were playing club cricket in the south of England as part of a deal between Cricket Australia and Hampshire CCC. Michael Clarke is rested alongside Brad Haddin, Shane Watson, Chris Rogers, Peter Siddle and Ryan Harris, while Ashton Agar will play despite having a slight hip injury.

Australians squad: Ed Cowan (captain), Phil Hughes, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith, Matthew Wade, James Faulkner, Ashton Agar, Ashton Turner, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Jackson Bird, Travis Head.

Weather Forecast: It will be another sunny day tomorrow with only patchy cloud and the outside chance of catching a shower. Temperatures will peak at between 23 and 25 degrees Celsius.

County Cricket News In Brief:
Worcestershire have signed Derbyshire all-rounder Ross Whiteley until the end of 2016. The 24 year-old will be available for the Pears immediately after falling out of favour at Derby after a poor start to the season. He is also understood to have angered the Derbyshire management with his insistence on playing grade cricket in Australia in the winter.

Glamorgan chief executive Alan Hamer has said that it is “vital” that Jim Allenby and Murray Goodwin are retained beyond the end of the season. Both players have hinted that they have received tentative offers from other clubs about a move away from Cardiff for the 2014 season.

Vernon Philander has told Kent Online that he hopes to return to the club as their overseas player for part of next season. He also revealed that he plans to spend the first two months of next season playing county cricket in England even if Kent do not want his services.

© Cricket World 2013

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Match Officials For T20 Series Named

Match Officials For T20 Series NamedDavid Boon (left) will be the match referee for both matches in Saint Vincent

The match officials for the two Twenty20 Internationals between West Indies and Pakistan this weekend have been confirmed.

Barbadian Gregory Brathwaite will umpire for the first time in the series, joining Joel Wilson and Peter Nero, who both hail from Trinidad & Tobago.

Former Saint Vincent & the Grenadines and Windward Islands left-arm fast bowler Deighton Butler will be the reserve umpire for the matches on 27th and 28th July.

Australian David Boon will be the match referee for both matches at Arnos Vale.

© Cricket World 2013

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Reece Young Announces Retirement

Reece Young Announces RetirementReece Young (left) appeals during one of his five Tests for New Zealand

Former New Zealand international wicket-keeper Reece Young has announced his retirement from first-class cricket.

Young made his debut for the Black Caps in the first Test against Pakistan in 2011 and played the last of five Tests later that year in December when New Zealand beat Australia by 11 runs in Hobart.

Although he only managed five Test appearances, he played domestic cricket for 14 seasons, representing Auckland for all but two seasons of his his career. He moved to Canterbury where he played in the 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons - and gaining national recognition while doing so.

He made his debut in the 1998-99 season and retires as the most-capped Auckland cricketer (97 first-class appearances) and most successful behind the stumps (258 dismissals).

He hit eight first-class centuries and in addition to 126 first-class appearances, played 84 one-day games and 45 Twenty20 Internationals.

"I am pleased to announce my retirement from First Class cricke," Young said. "I am proud of what I have achieved and will take away many great memories.

"However, I feel the time is right to move onto new challenges and prioritise my family and a post-cricket career. It's been a privilege to have made a career in cricket for so long.

"I have been fortunate enough to represent my country and play in winning Test sides, win domestic titles with Auckland and Canterbury and have a lot of fun along the way.

"I'd like to thank my wife and family for all their support over the past 14 years playing professional cricket. At times it hasn't been easy so thank you for sticking by me.

"I would also like to thank everyone who has supported me throughout my career, starting when I first made age group teams for Auckland.

"The decision to finish my cricket career has come from a desire to focus on my family and career opportunities outside of cricket. I have been fortunate to gain some experience in recent months with Triumph & Disaster, a fast-growing company I’m excited to be involved with.

"I have also been fortunate to work over the past four to five years with the Players Association’s careers programme, building my experiences outside of cricket and learning business skills.

"This has helped me gain skills and experience and given me confidence to move away from cricket and into a post-cricket career."

© Cricket World 2013

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Breaking Bad Comic

AMC's "Breaking Bad" television show about chemistry-teacher-turned-drug-lord Walter White returns for its final season on August 11, 2013. I've been re-watching the series, but if you want a quick recap, check out the All Things Bad comic. It's a clever, quick synopsis of the story. I can't wait to see where it goes!if(zs>0){if(zSbL250)gEI("spacer").style.height=Math.floor(e[0].height/12)+17.5+'em';else{var zIClns=[];function walkup(e){if(e.className!='entry'){if(e.nodeName=='A'||e.style.styleFloat=='right'||e.style.cssFloat=='right'||e.align=='right'||e.align=='left'||e.className=='alignright'||e.className=='alignleft')zIClns.push(e);walkup(e.parentNode)}}walkup(e[0]);if(zIClns.length){node=zIClns[zIClns.length-1];var clone=node.cloneNode(true);node.parentNode.removeChild(node);getElementsByClassName("entry",gEI("articlebody"))[0].insertBefore(clone,gEI("spacer"))}}}};zSB(2);zSbL=0

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Why a Dry Ice Bomb Is Dangerous

I've got lots of dry ice projects for you to try, but one conspicuous omission is the dry ice bomb, even though it's legal to make a dry ice bomb in many places. The recipe isn't exactly rocket science. A dry ice bomb simply consists of dry ice that is sealed in a rigid container. The dry ice sublimates to form carbon dioxide, which exerts pressure on the wall of the container until... BOOM! A dry ice bomb causes an explosion with the following undesirable effects: Extremely loud report. You can permanently damage your hearing. This is the reason dry ice bombs are illegal in Tennessee, for example. The explosion throws pieces of the container which act as shrapnel. It also throws pieces of dry ice, which could get embedded in your skin, producing frostbite and extreme tissue damage as the carbon dioxide freezes tissue and sublimates to form gas bubbles. You can't gauge how pressurized the container is so you can't "defuse" the bomb. If you have a dry ice bomb that doesn't go off, it's still dangerous. You can't approach it to try to release the pressure, since this would put you at risk. The only good way to eliminate the hazard is to rupture the container from a distance. This often involves having a law enforcement officer shoot the container, which is a situation to avoid. While you may not set out to make a dry ice bomb, if you're working with dry ice you need to avoid making one unintentionally. Don't seal dry ice in a latching cooler. Don't close it up in a sealed fridge or freezer. Don't close it in a plastic bottle. ... Don't seal dry ice in anything!I'm often asked why I don't discuss dry ice bombs. The reason is simple: it's a risky project. However, it's important to know why it's risky and how to avoid endangering yourself working with this useful and interesting material.

Photo: High speed photograph of dry ice bomb exploding.

Touching Dry Ice | Dry Ice Facts

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Names of 10 Acids

The beginning of the school year means an increase in the number of requests for homework help. Many of the homework questions become worked example problems. Other times, people want a simple list of things like elements, compounds or reactions.

One recent request was a list of ten acids. Here is a list of ten common acids with their chemical formulas, chemical structures and alternate names.

Names of 10 Acids

Feel free to comment below for other "List of Ten" lists you would like to see.

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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Being a Chemist

... ok maybe not everything, but I'm working on it! Here's a chemist job profile for you that explains what a chemist is, what one does, how you get to be a chemist in the first place, what kind of money you can make, etc. If there is additional information you would like to have about chemists, please post a reply to this post. In addition, if you are a chemist, you are invited to share your experiences so people interested in the career can hear firsthand what to expect.if(zs>0){if(zSbL250)gEI("spacer").style.height=Math.floor(e[0].height/12)+17.5+'em';else{var zIClns=[];function walkup(e){if(e.className!='entry'){if(e.nodeName=='A'||e.style.styleFloat=='right'||e.style.cssFloat=='right'||e.align=='right'||e.align=='left'||e.className=='alignright'||e.className=='alignleft')zIClns.push(e);walkup(e.parentNode)}}walkup(e[0]);if(zIClns.length){node=zIClns[zIClns.length-1];var clone=node.cloneNode(true);node.parentNode.removeChild(node);getElementsByClassName("entry",gEI("articlebody"))[0].insertBefore(clone,gEI("spacer"))}}}};zSB(2);zSbL=0

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Properties of Ionic and Covalent Compounds

If you know the chemical formula of a compound, you can predict whether it contains ionic bonds, covalent bonds of a mixture of bond types. Nonmetals bond to each other via covalent bonds while oppositely charged ions, such as metals and nonmetals, form ionic bonds. Compounds which contain polyatomic ions may have both ionic and covalent bonds.

But, how do you know if a compound is ionic or covalent just by looking at a sample? This is where the properties of ionic and covalent compounds can be useful. Because there are exceptions, you need to look at several properties to determine whether a sample is ionic or covalent, but here are some characteristics to consider: Most crystals are ionic compounds. This is because the ions in these compounds tend to stack into crystal lattices to balance between the attractive forces between opposite ions and the repulsive forces between like ions. Covalent or molecular compounds can exist as crystals, though. Examples include sugar crystals and diamond. Ionic compounds tend to have higher melting and boiling points than covalent compounds. Ionic compounds tend to be hard and brittle while covalent compounds tend to be softer and more flexible. Ionic compounds conduct electricity when dissolved in water while covalent compounds typically don't. This is because covalent compounds dissolve into molecules while ionic compounds dissolve into ions, which can conduct charge. These links offer more properties, examples and exceptions. Also, feel free to post additional information that you think might be helpful to others.

Properties of Covalent Compounds | Properties of Ionic Compounds

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Breaking Bad Comic

AMC's "Breaking Bad" television show about chemistry-teacher-turned-drug-lord Walter White returns for its final season on August 11, 2013. I've been re-watching the series, but if you want a quick recap, check out the All Things Bad comic. It's a clever, quick synopsis of the story. I can't wait to see where it goes!if(zs>0){if(zSbL250)gEI("spacer").style.height=Math.floor(e[0].height/12)+17.5+'em';else{var zIClns=[];function walkup(e){if(e.className!='entry'){if(e.nodeName=='A'||e.style.styleFloat=='right'||e.style.cssFloat=='right'||e.align=='right'||e.align=='left'||e.className=='alignright'||e.className=='alignleft')zIClns.push(e);walkup(e.parentNode)}}walkup(e[0]);if(zIClns.length){node=zIClns[zIClns.length-1];var clone=node.cloneNode(true);node.parentNode.removeChild(node);getElementsByClassName("entry",gEI("articlebody"))[0].insertBefore(clone,gEI("spacer"))}}}};zSB(2);zSbL=0

View the original article here

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Being a Chemist

... ok maybe not everything, but I'm working on it! Here's a chemist job profile for you that explains what a chemist is, what one does, how you get to be a chemist in the first place, what kind of money you can make, etc. If there is additional information you would like to have about chemists, please post a reply to this post. In addition, if you are a chemist, you are invited to share your experiences so people interested in the career can hear firsthand what to expect.if(zs>0){if(zSbL250)gEI("spacer").style.height=Math.floor(e[0].height/12)+17.5+'em';else{var zIClns=[];function walkup(e){if(e.className!='entry'){if(e.nodeName=='A'||e.style.styleFloat=='right'||e.style.cssFloat=='right'||e.align=='right'||e.align=='left'||e.className=='alignright'||e.className=='alignleft')zIClns.push(e);walkup(e.parentNode)}}walkup(e[0]);if(zIClns.length){node=zIClns[zIClns.length-1];var clone=node.cloneNode(true);node.parentNode.removeChild(node);getElementsByClassName("entry",gEI("articlebody"))[0].insertBefore(clone,gEI("spacer"))}}}};zSB(2);zSbL=0

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How to Make Nitrous Oxide or Laughing Gas

You can make nitrous oxide or laughing gas quite easily in the lab or at home. However, there are reasons why you might want to forego the preparation unless you have chem lab experience. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is also known as laughing gas. It is a colorless sweet-smelling and sweet-tasting gas that is used in dentistry and surgery because inhaling the gas produces analgesic and anesthetic effects. The gas is also used to produce the engine output of automotive vehicles and as an oxidizer in rocketry. Nitrous oxide gets the name "laughing gas" because inhaling it produces euphoria. Joseph Priestley first synthesized nitrous oxide in 1772 by collecting the gas produced from sprinkling nitric acid over iron filings, however, nitrous oxide usually is produced using Humphry Davy's method of gently heating ammonium nitrate to decompose it into nitrous oxide and water vapor:

NH4NO3 (s) ? 2 H2O (g) + N2O (g)

The key here is gently heating the ammonium nitrate to between 170°C and 240°C, because higher temperatures may cause the ammonium nitrate to detonate. People have been doing this without incident for over 150 years, so they key is to be careful. Next, the hot gases are cooled to condense the water. The best way to do this is using a pneumatic trough, which involves a tube leading from the ammonium nitrate container that bubbles the gases up through water into a collection jar. This removes the water from the reaction as well as smoke from impurities in the ammonium nitrate. The gas in the collection jar is your nitrous oxide or laughing gas, plus lesser amounts of other nitrogen oxides, including nitric oxide or nitrogen monoxide. Nitric oxide is oxidized to nitrous oxide upon exposure to oxygen, although acid and base treatments are used to remove impurities for commercial-scale production of nitrous oxide.

More Details on Nitrous Oxide Preparation

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Properties of Ionic and Covalent Compounds

If you know the chemical formula of a compound, you can predict whether it contains ionic bonds, covalent bonds of a mixture of bond types. Nonmetals bond to each other via covalent bonds while oppositely charged ions, such as metals and nonmetals, form ionic bonds. Compounds which contain polyatomic ions may have both ionic and covalent bonds.

But, how do you know if a compound is ionic or covalent just by looking at a sample? This is where the properties of ionic and covalent compounds can be useful. Because there are exceptions, you need to look at several properties to determine whether a sample is ionic or covalent, but here are some characteristics to consider: Most crystals are ionic compounds. This is because the ions in these compounds tend to stack into crystal lattices to balance between the attractive forces between opposite ions and the repulsive forces between like ions. Covalent or molecular compounds can exist as crystals, though. Examples include sugar crystals and diamond. Ionic compounds tend to have higher melting and boiling points than covalent compounds. Ionic compounds tend to be hard and brittle while covalent compounds tend to be softer and more flexible. Ionic compounds conduct electricity when dissolved in water while covalent compounds typically don't. This is because covalent compounds dissolve into molecules while ionic compounds dissolve into ions, which can conduct charge. These links offer more properties, examples and exceptions. Also, feel free to post additional information that you think might be helpful to others.

Properties of Covalent Compounds | Properties of Ionic Compounds

View the original article here

This Day in Science History - July 25 - Louise Brown

July 25th is Louise Brown's birthday. Brown was the first successful "test-tube" baby to be born. She was born as a result of research done by Dr. Patrick Steptoe and Dr. Robert Edwards. They were searching for a solution to enable infertile couples to become parents. They removed an egg cell and fertilized it in the laboratory. The next step was the difficult part... the egg had to be implanted into the mother. Most of these pregnancies only lasted a few weeks. Louise Brown was the first to make it past this hurdle.

This research has helped many people who could not become parents before to have their own children. Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

Follow About.com Chemistry on Facebook or Twitter.

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Why a Dry Ice Bomb Is Dangerous

I've got lots of dry ice projects for you to try, but one conspicuous omission is the dry ice bomb, even though it's legal to make a dry ice bomb in many places. The recipe isn't exactly rocket science. A dry ice bomb simply consists of dry ice that is sealed in a rigid container. The dry ice sublimates to form carbon dioxide, which exerts pressure on the wall of the container until... BOOM! A dry ice bomb causes an explosion with the following undesirable effects: Extremely loud report. You can permanently damage your hearing. This is the reason dry ice bombs are illegal in Tennessee, for example. The explosion throws pieces of the container which act as shrapnel. It also throws pieces of dry ice, which could get embedded in your skin, producing frostbite and extreme tissue damage as the carbon dioxide freezes tissue and sublimates to form gas bubbles. You can't gauge how pressurized the container is so you can't "defuse" the bomb. If you have a dry ice bomb that doesn't go off, it's still dangerous. You can't approach it to try to release the pressure, since this would put you at risk. The only good way to eliminate the hazard is to rupture the container from a distance. This often involves having a law enforcement officer shoot the container, which is a situation to avoid. While you may not set out to make a dry ice bomb, if you're working with dry ice you need to avoid making one unintentionally. Don't seal dry ice in a latching cooler. Don't close it up in a sealed fridge or freezer. Don't close it in a plastic bottle. ... Don't seal dry ice in anything!I'm often asked why I don't discuss dry ice bombs. The reason is simple: it's a risky project. However, it's important to know why it's risky and how to avoid endangering yourself working with this useful and interesting material.

Photo: High speed photograph of dry ice bomb exploding.

Touching Dry Ice | Dry Ice Facts

View the original article here

This Day in Science History - July 26 - William Mitchell

July 26th marks the passing of William A. Mitchell. Mitchell was a food chemist for the General Foods Corporation and the inventor of products like Pop Rocks and the orange drink Tang.

Pop Rocks were the center of an urban legend in which Mikey from the Life cereal commercials died when he ate the candy and washed it down with a cola, making his stomach explode. General Foods countered the claims with an ad campaign in 45 major publications and 50,000 letters to school principals. Mitchell toured the country to show people that Pop Rocks weren't dangerous.

Tang was originally sold as a powdered breakfast drink in 1959, but nobody really drank it. It wasn't until 1965 when NASA needed something to hide the "nasty" taste of the water produced by the life support systems during the Gemini missions. They turned to Tang as the solution. General Foods started marketing Tang as the drink the astronauts use in space and sales took off. The difference in sales led most people to believe Tang was developed for the space program.

Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

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Names of 10 Acids

The beginning of the school year means an increase in the number of requests for homework help. Many of the homework questions become worked example problems. Other times, people want a simple list of things like elements, compounds or reactions.

One recent request was a list of ten acids. Here is a list of ten common acids with their chemical formulas, chemical structures and alternate names.

Names of 10 Acids

Feel free to comment below for other "List of Ten" lists you would like to see.

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This Day in Science History - July 27 - John Dalton

On July 27, 1844 John Dalton died. Dalton was an English chemist and physicist who proposed what has become known as Dalton's atomic theory. This theory puts forth the idea that elements are made up of very small units, or atoms. These atoms are the smallest unit of mass that cannot be destroyed by chemical means. All atoms of a particular element are identical to each other. Dalton's theory also says chemical compounds are formed by combining two or more different kinds of atoms and that a chemical reaction is just the rearrangement of atoms.

This theory explained many unknown chemical phenomenon of the time and was quickly adopted by chemists. Today, we see flaws with the overall theory. Dalton had no idea of the existence of parts of atoms and the existence of isotopes. He also didn't know that atoms could be created or destroyed through nuclear processes. In spite of this, his basic theory lives on in modern chemistry.

Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

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Do Dandelions Burn in Colors?

Have you seen the photo of a dandelion that appears to be burning in different colors? If you look online, you'll find the original photo, taken by Gregory Gomer, which shows a dandelion burning in usual fire colors. So, the viral image appears to have been Photoshopped or otherwise enhanced. It's still a great excuse for a fire experiment!

For the past few weeks, I've burned every 'wish dandelion' or dandelion seed head that I could find in South Carolina, Texas, and Nebraska. I've burned dandelions from ditches, dandelions from fields, dandelions treated with chemicals, and dandelions spritzed with flame colorants. A couple of my results are shown above. While you can get a dandelion to burn in multiple colors, the colors seem restricted to shades of orange, yellow and red. My next test is to burn a whole bouquet of dandelions, just in case I haven't been using a large enough sample size.

Have you burned dandelions trying to get the color effect? Have you seen anything unusual?

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This Day in Science History - July 25 - Louise Brown

July 25th is Louise Brown's birthday. Brown was the first successful "test-tube" baby to be born. She was born as a result of research done by Dr. Patrick Steptoe and Dr. Robert Edwards. They were searching for a solution to enable infertile couples to become parents. They removed an egg cell and fertilized it in the laboratory. The next step was the difficult part... the egg had to be implanted into the mother. Most of these pregnancies only lasted a few weeks. Louise Brown was the first to make it past this hurdle.

This research has helped many people who could not become parents before to have their own children. Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

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This Day in Science History - July 26 - William Mitchell

July 26th marks the passing of William A. Mitchell. Mitchell was a food chemist for the General Foods Corporation and the inventor of products like Pop Rocks and the orange drink Tang.

Pop Rocks were the center of an urban legend in which Mikey from the Life cereal commercials died when he ate the candy and washed it down with a cola, making his stomach explode. General Foods countered the claims with an ad campaign in 45 major publications and 50,000 letters to school principals. Mitchell toured the country to show people that Pop Rocks weren't dangerous.

Tang was originally sold as a powdered breakfast drink in 1959, but nobody really drank it. It wasn't until 1965 when NASA needed something to hide the "nasty" taste of the water produced by the life support systems during the Gemini missions. They turned to Tang as the solution. General Foods started marketing Tang as the drink the astronauts use in space and sales took off. The difference in sales led most people to believe Tang was developed for the space program.

Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

Follow About.com Chemistry on Facebook or Twitter.

View the original article here

This Day in Science History - July 27 - John Dalton

On July 27, 1844 John Dalton died. Dalton was an English chemist and physicist who proposed what has become known as Dalton's atomic theory. This theory puts forth the idea that elements are made up of very small units, or atoms. These atoms are the smallest unit of mass that cannot be destroyed by chemical means. All atoms of a particular element are identical to each other. Dalton's theory also says chemical compounds are formed by combining two or more different kinds of atoms and that a chemical reaction is just the rearrangement of atoms.

This theory explained many unknown chemical phenomenon of the time and was quickly adopted by chemists. Today, we see flaws with the overall theory. Dalton had no idea of the existence of parts of atoms and the existence of isotopes. He also didn't know that atoms could be created or destroyed through nuclear processes. In spite of this, his basic theory lives on in modern chemistry.

Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

Follow About.com Chemistry on Facebook or Twitter.

View the original article here

How to Make Nitrous Oxide or Laughing Gas

You can make nitrous oxide or laughing gas quite easily in the lab or at home. However, there are reasons why you might want to forego the preparation unless you have chem lab experience. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is also known as laughing gas. It is a colorless sweet-smelling and sweet-tasting gas that is used in dentistry and surgery because inhaling the gas produces analgesic and anesthetic effects. The gas is also used to produce the engine output of automotive vehicles and as an oxidizer in rocketry. Nitrous oxide gets the name "laughing gas" because inhaling it produces euphoria. Joseph Priestley first synthesized nitrous oxide in 1772 by collecting the gas produced from sprinkling nitric acid over iron filings, however, nitrous oxide usually is produced using Humphry Davy's method of gently heating ammonium nitrate to decompose it into nitrous oxide and water vapor:

NH4NO3 (s) ? 2 H2O (g) + N2O (g)

The key here is gently heating the ammonium nitrate to between 170°C and 240°C, because higher temperatures may cause the ammonium nitrate to detonate. People have been doing this without incident for over 150 years, so they key is to be careful. Next, the hot gases are cooled to condense the water. The best way to do this is using a pneumatic trough, which involves a tube leading from the ammonium nitrate container that bubbles the gases up through water into a collection jar. This removes the water from the reaction as well as smoke from impurities in the ammonium nitrate. The gas in the collection jar is your nitrous oxide or laughing gas, plus lesser amounts of other nitrogen oxides, including nitric oxide or nitrogen monoxide. Nitric oxide is oxidized to nitrous oxide upon exposure to oxygen, although acid and base treatments are used to remove impurities for commercial-scale production of nitrous oxide.

More Details on Nitrous Oxide Preparation

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Do Dandelions Burn in Colors?

Have you seen the photo of a dandelion that appears to be burning in different colors? If you look online, you'll find the original photo, taken by Gregory Gomer, which shows a dandelion burning in usual fire colors. So, the viral image appears to have been Photoshopped or otherwise enhanced. It's still a great excuse for a fire experiment!

For the past few weeks, I've burned every 'wish dandelion' or dandelion seed head that I could find in South Carolina, Texas, and Nebraska. I've burned dandelions from ditches, dandelions from fields, dandelions treated with chemicals, and dandelions spritzed with flame colorants. A couple of my results are shown above. While you can get a dandelion to burn in multiple colors, the colors seem restricted to shades of orange, yellow and red. My next test is to burn a whole bouquet of dandelions, just in case I haven't been using a large enough sample size.

Have you burned dandelions trying to get the color effect? Have you seen anything unusual?

View the original article here

Top hacker dies days before scheduled Black Hat talk

Computerworld - Noted hacker Barnaby Jack, known for exposing vulnerabilities in ATM machines and medical devices, died in San Francisco Thursday, just days before he was scheduled to speak on deadly security shortcomings in medical implants at next week's Black Hat security conference.

The San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office confirmed Jack's death to Reuters, but wouldn't disclose the cause.

At the time of his death, 35-year-old Jack was director of embedded device security at IOActive, a security firm that specializes in industrial, supply chain, and medical device security.

IOActive had no immediate comment on Jack's death. In a statement issued Friday morning, Black Hat organizers expressed regret at Jack's sudden passing.

"Everyone would agree that the life and work of Barnaby Jack are legendary and irreplaceable," show organizers said. "Barnaby had the ability to take complex technology and intricate research and make it tangible and accessible for everyone to learn and grow from."

The statement went on to add that Black Hat will leave the time slot for Jack's speech vacant to commemorate his life and work. "Barnaby Jack meant so much to so many people, and we hope this forum will offer an opportunity for us all to recognize the legacy that he leaves behind," the statement noted.

Jack, a former security researcher at McAfee and Juniper, was perhaps best known for a demonstration at Black Hat three years ago on how exploiting security flaws made ATM machines from Triton and Tranax dispense money on demand.

The talk, titled "Jackpotting Automated Teller Machines," had been postponed from an earlier Black Hat conference to give the ATM vendors time to fix the flaws.

At a security conference in Melbourne last October, Jack demonstrated how wireless protocols used in modern pacemakers and other implantable devices, could be made exploited to deliver lethal shocks to users of the devices. In a video demonstration, Jack showed how an attacker, from 50 feet away, could use a laptop computer to get a pacemaker to deliver a lethal 830-volt shock.

As a researcher at McAfee, Jack showed how insulin pumps from medical device vendor Medtronic could be exploited wirelessly and made to deliver fatal doses of insulin to someone wearing the device.

Jack was scheduled to speak on "Implantable Medical Devices: Hacking Humans" at next week's conference in las Vegas. The talk was expected to highlight how, common bedside transmitters could be used to search for, interrogate and exploit individual medical implants from up to 300 feet away.

Numerous security researchers and hackers today took toTwitter to express their feelings at Jack's passing.

Dave Marcus, chief architect of advanced research and threat intelligence called Jack "one HELLUVA hacker" in a tweet, while Jay Radcliff, a security researcher who has also done considerable work on medical devices added that "While we didn't see eye to eye on several things, I am sad to hear the news that @barnaby_jack has passed away."

"Lost but never forgotten our beloved pirate, Barnaby Jack has passed," IOActive said in a tweet. "He was a master hacker and dear friend. Here's to you Barnes!"

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan, or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed . His email address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.

Read more about Cybercrime and Hacking in Computerworld's Cybercrime and Hacking Topic Center.

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Facebook invents a PHP virtual machine

IDG News Service - Social networking giant Facebook has taken another step at making the PHP Web programming language run more quickly. The company has developed a PHP Virtual Machine that it says can execute the language as much as nine times as quickly as running PHP natively on large systems.

"Our goal is to make PHP run really, really quickly," said Joel Pobar, a Facebook engineering manager. Facebook has been using the virtual machine, called the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM), across all of its servers since earlier this year.

Pobar discussed the virtual machine at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON) being held this week in Portland, Oregon.

HHVM is not Facebook's first foray into customizing PHP for faster use. PHP is an interpreted language, meaning that the source code is executed by the processor directly. Generally speaking, programs written in interpreted languages such as PHP tend not to run as quickly as languages, such as C or C++, that have been compiled beforehand into machine language byte code. Facebook has remained loyal to PHP because it is widely understood by many of the Web programmers who work for the company.

To keep up with the insatiable user demand, however, Facebook originally devised a compiler, called HipHop, that would translate PHP code into C++, so it then it could be compiled ahead of time for faster performance.

While Facebook enjoyed considerable performance gains of this first version of HipHop for several years, it sought other ways to speed the delivery of the dynamically created Web pages to its billion or so users. "Our performance strategy for that was going to tap out," Pobar admitted.

HHVM is the next step for Facebook. Under development for about three years, HHVM actually works on the same principle as the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). HHVM has a just-in-time (JIT) compiler that converts the human readable source code into machine-readable byte code when it is needed. (The previous HipHop, renamed HPHPc, has now been retired within Facebook.)

This JIT approach allows the virtual machine to "make smarter decisions at runtime," Pobar said. For instance, if a call is made to the MySQL database to read a row of data, the HHVM can, on the fly, figure out what type of data it is, such as an integer or a string. It then can generate or call code on the fly that would be best suited for handling this particular type of data.

With the old HipHop, "the best it can do is analyze the entire Facebook codebase, reason about it and then specialize code based on its reasoning. But it can't get all of the reasoning right. There are parts of the code base that you can not simply infer about or reason about," Pobar said.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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US will not seek death penalty for Edward Snowden

IDG News Service - The U.S. will not seek the death penalty for Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor responsible for leaking documents revealing classified government surveillance programs, according to a recent letter from attorney general Eric Holder.

The charges Snowden faces in the U.S. do not carry the death penalty, and the U.S. will not seek the death penalty even if Snowden were charged with additional death penalty-eligible crimes, Holder said in the letter, which was sent to Russian minister of justice Vladimirovich Konovalov.

The letter was dated July 23, and was first reported Friday by CBS News. The letter was subsequently sent to the IDG News Service by the U.S. attorney general's office, which declined to comment further.

Snowden is currently thought to be residing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Last week he requested temporary asylum in Russia in an effort to avoid prosecution by the U.S. government, which has indicted Snowden on charges related to the leaks.

Should he return to the U.S., Snowden will not be tortured either, Holder said. He would be promptly brought before a civilian court convened under Article III of the U.S. Constitution and supervised by a U.S. district judge, according to the letter.

"Mr. Snowden would receive all the protections that U.S. law provides to persons charge with federal criminal offenses in Article III courts," Holder said.

Snowden would be appointed counsel and would have the right to a public jury trial, according to the letter, and he would have the right to testify if he wished to do so.

"We believe that these assurances eliminate these asserted grounds for Mr. Snowden's claim that he should be treated as a refugee or granted asylum, temporary or otherwise," Holder said.Snowden has expressed an interest in relocating to Latin America, where Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have offered him safe harbor, but those efforts are complicated because the U.S. revoked Snowden's passport.

But Snowden is eligible for a limited validity passport for direct return to the U.S., Holder said, adding that the U.S. is willing to immediately issue such a passport.

Earlier this week Snowden was granted a document allowing him to leave the Moscow airport.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Google is shutting down Google+ Local for iOS

IDG News Service - Google is shutting down the Google+ Local places and discovery app for iOS devices and will be transitioning its features over to its Maps app, the company said Friday.

Google+ Local was an iOS-based app that offered several discovery services such as place recommendations based on the user's friends and location, and also Zagat summaries and business reviews. As of Aug. 7, it will close as a stand-alone product, although its features will be incorporated into Google's Maps app for iOS, a spokeswoman said.

The app already appears to have been pulled from Apple's App Store -- searching for it returns a message saying it is currently not available in the U.S. store.

Google+ Local joins a range of other products and services recently closed by Google. The company officially announced Friday that it was also pulling the plug on its Shopper app for Android- and iOS-based devices, effective August 30, in an effort to focus instead on its search service and Google Shopping site. Shopper was an app that let people find information on products by scanning them or through voice and text search.

The company's longstanding Google Reader service for RSS feeds met its demise earlier this month.

Google did not provide additional information about why Google+ Local was killed off. But it is clear that in recent months the company has focused on enhancing both its Maps product and Google+ social network, while at the same time streamlining other services through product closures.

On Android and iOS, Maps received a range of new features earlier this month including improved search, navigation and interface design. The company concurrently announced that Google Latitude and check-ins would be killed off as part of the update and incorporated over to the Google+ social network.

Even bigger changes to Maps were unveiled at the company's I/O developers conference in May. Those enhancements included the ability for users to add personalized landmarks as long as they are logged into the service.

Meanwhile, Google faces mounting pressure to demonstrate value to users with its Google+ social network as it competes against Facebook and Twitter. A range of features for that product were also rolled out in May, such as a redesigned social stream, automatic hashtagging and photo-sharing enhancements.

Google+ Local launched in 2011. There was an Android version too, but it linked only to the old version of Google's Maps app. When Maps for Android was updated earlier this month, Google+ Local's functionality was integrated into that product.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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iPhone share slump spurs calls for low-price model

Computerworld - Analysts argued today over the significance of Apple's falling market share, reflecting the uncertainties the Cupertino, Calif. company faces in a transition to lower profits.

"The current iPhone portfolio is under-performing and Apple is at risk of being trapped in a pincer movement between rival 3-in. Android models at the low-end and 5-in. Android models at the high-end," contended Neil Mawston, executive director at U.K.-based research firm Strategy Analytics, in an email.

Mawston pointed to a drop in Apple's share of the global smartphone market for the second quarter; Strategy Analytics estimated it fell from 16.6% in the second quarter of 2012 to 13.6% this year, the lowest in three years.

Samsung, meanwhile, boosted its share from 31.1% to 33.1% in the last 12 months, while other smartphone OEMs, including LG, ZTE and Huawei, also gained share, according to Strategy Analytics' data.

Yesterday, U.S. researcher IDC plotted a similar decline in Apple's smartphone share, from 16.6% a year ago to 13.1% in the second quarter of 2013.

But Ramon Llamas of IDC didn't agree with Mawston that the share slump forecast Apple's doom. "The sky is not falling," said Llamas in an interview Friday. "We expected this [because] this is the usual seasonality you see in iPhone sales. There was going to be a dip in market share."

Llamas referred to the typical decline in iPhone sales as the newest model ages and a replacement approaches.

Apple's share will bounce back in the fourth quarter, Llamas maintained, assuming Apple reprises last year's timetable and launches a new iPhone in late September.

Even so, the declining market share numbers are important. If market share impacts Apple's iOS ecosystem, as the analysts maintained, then Apple must react to keep what it has or have a shot at growing its share in the battle against Android.

"Market share isn't everything," said Kevin Restivo, also of IDC, and like Llamas part of the team there that tracks smartphone shipments. "The number one goal of any publicly-owned company is to generate profit. That said, for the long term, market share does matter. It's a question of reach. The more people who have iPhones, the greater Apple's ability to sell software, unique online services and other incremental offerings."

While that revenue may have been incidental in the past, it's becoming more important as the smartphone industry steps away from the initial "land grab" of users and -- as saturation approaches in developed markets like the U.S. and Western Europe -- shifts to a software and services model, said Restivo.

Apple has hinted at the transition to software and services in its earnings statements this year, breaking out those revenues for the first time. In the second quarter, for example, the category Apple labels as "iTunes/Software/Services" booked $4 billion in revenue, 11% of the company's total and 25% more than the same period the year before. No other reporting segment came close to that year-over-year gain.

But market share is linked to more than software and service revenues.

The iPhone has been successful, most agree, because of the "virtuous cycle" of sales that lead to developers committing to the platform that leads to more apps that leads to more iPhone sales. A shrinking market share means an end to that cycle, or at the least, a departure of developers.

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Leap Motion Controller review: A touchscreen interface without the touching

Computerworld - Anyone who's ever stood in front of a Kinect-equipped Xbox knows the fun of virtual control, of using your hands to manipulate what you see on the screen without touching anything but air.

The Leap Motion Controller endows your PC with that same air-powered interactivity, allowing you to bypass mouse and keyboard in favor of hand-waving control of apps, games and even various PC operations.

It's a cool concept, and Leap Motion pulls off the execution reasonably well -- for the surprisingly low price of $80. But it definitely raises a few questions, starting with: What would you actually use this thing for? And does it have any practical business value?

Not much larger than an average flash drive, the Leap Motion Controller has a glossy black top with a silver band wrapped around the sides. It's attractive and surprisingly compact, which is good considering it's designed to sit below your monitor (or, if you're using a laptop, in front of the keyboard). A USB 2.0 cable provides both power and connectivity. Leap Motion supplies both short (two feet) and long (five feet) cables to accommodate various computing configurations.

I tested the Leap Motion Controller with a Lenovo IdeaPad U310 Touch laptop and Samsung Series 9 ultrabook. Although the controller itself didn't get in the way, I disliked the look of the USB cable snaking around the side. This thing really begs for a rechargeable battery and wireless connection, which would emulate the somewhat disingenuous promo video where you see only the sensor, not the cable.

But installation couldn't have been much simpler. After loading the Windows client (it's also available for OS X) and plugging in the controller, I raised my hands and instantly saw their movement reflected in the introductory visualizer app. As a regular Kinect user, however, for me the effect was less "Wow!" and more, "Okay, it works."

Even so, when I tried the calibration process, during which you point the top of the controller at a reflective surface (a glossy screen is recommended) and move it around, I found it nearly impossible to achieve the required "pass" score of 80. Eventually I managed it with the IdeaPad, which has a glossy display, but I never hit 80 on the matte-finished display of the Series 9. The sensor still worked as expected, but I couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't operating optimally.

The controller generates a kind of virtual-space bubble in front of your PC, one large enough to accommodate your two hands (though many apps require only one). Imagine a 10-point multitouch interface, like you'd find on a touchscreen, but in three-dimensional space. The sensors track not only the positions of your hands and fingers, but also their movements. Thus you're able to "interact" with onscreen objects without actually touching anything.

Let me just pause right here to note that any business user hoping for a Leap Motion-powered productivity edge will be disappointed. You cannot design industrial components a la Tony Stark in Iron Man, nor can you sift through virtual files like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. We are a long, long way from that.

The Leap Motion Controller runs on apps, and there's already a decent collection of them in the Airspace Store -- about 75 as of this writing. These run the gamut from games to drawing tools to music makers, with a smattering of productivity apps for good measure. Some are free, while others cost a couple of bucks. A few will seem familiar to anyone with a tablet or smartphone, including Cut the Rope and Google Earth.

I started with Cyber Science - Motion, which displays a photorealistic model of a human skull and lets you rotate it, zoom in and out and remove individual pieces -- all through a combination of hand and finger motions. It's really cool, and one could see where a student -- one studying anatomy, anyway -- might find this a helpful educational tool.

Google Earth, on the other hand, proved an exercise in frustration. Unless you maneuver your hand with slow, exacting precision, the globe spins hopelessly out of control. That's because it responds to every single hand movement: toward the screen, away from the screen, up, down, tilted left, tilted right and so on. Without considerable practice, it's impossible to get where you want to go -- or even just take a simple flight across the mountains.

Then there's Touchless, which effectively turns your hand into a mouse. You can click, drag, zoom, scroll and more, all via a couple of fingers mirroring what you'd do on a touchpad or touchscreen. It works, though air taps and drags can be difficult to pull off, and the lack of any tactical feedback makes for agonizingly slow navigation.

A just-announced app, DexType, will create a virtual keyboard for two-fingered air typing. It's a neat concept, and potentially a boon for someone who's physically impaired (although I expect it will be slow compared with a traditional keyboard).

And that's really the key issue here: In what ways is the Leap Motion Controller better than a mouse or touchscreen or keyboard? For the moment, it's not. It's more toy than tool, more science fiction than practical addition.

I do find it impressive that Leap Motion managed to pack so much functionality into such a compact package, especially given the unit's impulse-buy price. But unless you're an app developer, physically challenged computer user or gadget lover, this is one Leap not worth taking -- at least, not quite yet.

Company video demonstrating the Leap Motion Controller.

This article, Leap Motion Controller review: A touchscreen interface without the touching, was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Rick Broida has written about technology for nearly 25 years. He pens the popular Cheapskate blog and writes for Computerworld, PC World, Popular Science and Wired.

Read more about Computer Peripherals in Computerworld's Computer Peripherals Topic Center.

Small and midsize businesses are moving to the cloud to host their communications capabilities. Learn how enterprise-quality phone benefits, online management, conferencing, auto attendant, and ease of use are built into a system that is half the cost of a PBX.

Read now.

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Google is shutting down Google+ Local for iOS

IDG News Service - Google is shutting down the Google+ Local places and discovery app for iOS devices and will be transitioning its features over to its Maps app, the company said Friday.

Google+ Local was an iOS-based app that offered several discovery services such as place recommendations based on the user's friends and location, and also Zagat summaries and business reviews. As of Aug. 7, it will close as a stand-alone product, although its features will be incorporated into Google's Maps app for iOS, a spokeswoman said.

The app already appears to have been pulled from Apple's App Store -- searching for it returns a message saying it is currently not available in the U.S. store.

Google+ Local joins a range of other products and services recently closed by Google. The company officially announced Friday that it was also pulling the plug on its Shopper app for Android- and iOS-based devices, effective August 30, in an effort to focus instead on its search service and Google Shopping site. Shopper was an app that let people find information on products by scanning them or through voice and text search.

The company's longstanding Google Reader service for RSS feeds met its demise earlier this month.

Google did not provide additional information about why Google+ Local was killed off. But it is clear that in recent months the company has focused on enhancing both its Maps product and Google+ social network, while at the same time streamlining other services through product closures.

On Android and iOS, Maps received a range of new features earlier this month including improved search, navigation and interface design. The company concurrently announced that Google Latitude and check-ins would be killed off as part of the update and incorporated over to the Google+ social network.

Even bigger changes to Maps were unveiled at the company's I/O developers conference in May. Those enhancements included the ability for users to add personalized landmarks as long as they are logged into the service.

Meanwhile, Google faces mounting pressure to demonstrate value to users with its Google+ social network as it competes against Facebook and Twitter. A range of features for that product were also rolled out in May, such as a redesigned social stream, automatic hashtagging and photo-sharing enhancements.

Google+ Local launched in 2011. There was an Android version too, but it linked only to the old version of Google's Maps app. When Maps for Android was updated earlier this month, Google+ Local's functionality was integrated into that product.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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The joy of glogging

Computerworld - Google's experimental Google Glass headset enhances your experience of living by putting photography, apps and the Internet "right there."

But as a writer recently Glassified, I've discovered that it also lets you share your experiences with the world by making blogging, photo blogging and vlogging (video blogging) more intimate, immediate and available.

It's a whole new medium that takes blogging to the next level.

Google Glass is worn like a pair of glasses. A clever prism mirror bounces light from a tiny screen into your right eye while still allowing that eye to see through. It looks like picture-in-picture TV, but for real life.

A camera faces forward and pictures and video can be shot with a button or voice command. You say: "OK, Glass: Take a picture" or "record a video."

Glogging posts are published on Google+ by default. You can also install apps for glogging on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Path.

Glass pictures and videos automatically show up privately in your Google+ photo section. By simply "Sharing" them, they're published. You can add words, links and other content if you like.

You can also post instantly directly from Glass. While viewing a photo or video in glass, tapping brings up a "Share" option. Another tap shows you the addressing of who to share with, defaulting to your most recently shared contact. These can be people, or Google+ circles, or "Public." Choosing that last option makes it a blog post.

It takes less than five seconds to take a photo and share it publicly on my Google+ stream.

If you want to write something, you can combine Glass with a phone, tablet or laptop to quickly write a post to accompany your photography.

I've discovered that glogging is not only a new medium in its own right, but an incredibly compelling way to communicate. Here's why.

Each evolving transition, from clay tablets, scrolls, letters, telegraph, telephone, mobile phone, email, blogging, photo blogging and vlogging moves away from stiff, formulaic formality and toward more intimate, personal communication with others.

Glogging takes the historic increase of intimacy one step further.

Before Google Glass, the most intimate mainstream form of communication was vlogging, or video blogging. Vlogging creates the feeling that the viewer is hanging out with the vlogger, conversing with him and being part of his life. (If you haven't seen a good vlog, check out this recent episode from LockerGnome CEO Chris Pirillo's vlog.)

With vlogging, the camera puts the viewer into the room, seeing the vlogger "over there." Glogging enables the viewer to share the perspective of the vlogger. When you watch my video glog, you don't see me. You see what I see and hear what I hear. Vlogger Joe Miragliotta recently used Google Glass to vlog his experience of Disneyland -- roller coasters and all.

The shift from blogging to glogging is comparable to the change from old-school video games to first-person shooters, which is now the most popular kind of console video game. With first-person shooters, you don't see your own character on screen, you see what that character sees. Your character's hands, for example, are visible at the bottom of the screen holding weapons and other objects and moving, say, when the character is running. When other game characters make eye contact with your character, they make eye contact with you as the player.

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Oracle OpenWorld: What to expect

IDG News Service - This year's Oracle OpenWorld conference is still a couple of months away, but the vendor has already provided an ample sneak peek into what's in store for attendees of the show.

The OpenWorld 2013 content catalog recently went live, and while Oracle is keeping a lid on specific news announcements slated for OpenWorld, a careful combing-through of the show's hundreds of planned sessions can produce some good guesses about what will be on offer. Here's a look.

Database details: Oracle made a big splash midyear with the release of version 12c of its flagship database. The release's most-hyped feature is multitenancy, which allows many "pluggable" databases to reside inside a single host database, providing simplified management and upkeep.

Database 12c will be featured in a number of OpenWorld sessions aimed at developers and administrators, but the most significant database news may come from the keynote stage. On a recent earnings call, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison spilled the beans on an upcoming version of the database that incorporates in-memory computing. Further details have been scarce and indications are that Ellison's announcement took people inside Oracle itself by surprise.

Based on Ellison's description, the upcoming database release appears to be the most direct response yet to the likes of SAP's HANA in-memory database, as well as in-memory offerings in the works from Microsoft and IBM.

Oracle already has an in-memory cache called TimesTen; it's not clear whether the release Ellison mentioned will somehow incorporate it, or is something altogether new.

Overall, it wouldn't be surprising if at OpenWorld Ellison and other executives gave a fuller picture of Oracle's in-memory database plans.

Engineered systemsupdate: For the past several years, Oracle has typically introduced a new or updated member of its "engineered appliance" family, which began with the Exadata database machine. The systems combine Sun hardware with Oracle software in packages the company says are optimized for maximum efficiency and performance.

Other product line members include the Exalogic and Exalytics appliances, which handle application server and analytics workloads, respectively.

At last year's OpenWorld, Oracle introduced Exadata version X-3, which it termed an "in-memory machine" for its use of Flash memory and RAM to store data.

But Ellison also said during the recent earnings call that the upcoming in-memory database is designed to work "exceedingly well" with Oracle's M-Series servers, which can hold up to 32TB of RAM. It wouldn't be much of a leap to conclude that at OpenWorld, Ellison will announce a new engineered system that combines the two products.

Fusion Applications, made easier: As usual, the number of sessions planned for Oracle's more mature applications product lines, such as E-Business Suite, Siebel and JD Edwards, will likely outnumber those for its next-generation Fusion Applications, which went into general availability in 2011.

Oracle has taken a soft-shoe approach to pushing Fusion Applications, urging customers to consider incremental deployments while maintaining their existing landscapes.

Most initial Fusion Applications customers have gone with the SaaS (software as a service) deployment option, rather than install applications on-premises, most likely due to the complexity involved with the latter.

However, Oracle has apparently responded to those concerns. Working with customers, Oracle Consulting "has streamlined the process for on-premises installations of Oracle Fusion Applications," according to one OpenWorld session's description. The session will discuss "lessons learned" and other tips that will help customers who prefer behind-the-firewall implementations get the job done more easily.

Pass the PaaS: Expect a ton of emphasis from Oracle on its bevy of cloud offerings, particularly for PaaS (platform as a service). Sessions are scheduled on a range of related matters, such as Oracle's Java and database cloud services; how to build a PaaS inside a private data center with Oracle's tools; and how to tailor Oracle Fusion Applications delivered from the cloud.

It's often said that a vibrant development community is key to a software vendor's continued growth. While Oracle has plenty of developers using its Java programming language and tools, convincing them to use the newer cloud-delivered products for their projects remains a work in progress, one the company will look to advance at OpenWorld.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Apple restores key parts of dev site after attack

Computerworld - Apple on Friday restored key sections of its developer website, including the download center, more than a week after it took the portal offline.

By late Friday, the iOS, Mac and Safari Dev Centers were again operational, as were areas dedicated to software downloads, digital certificates and Apple's bug-reporting system.

About half the site remained offline, however, including the developer-to-developer discussion forums.

The restoration of the iOS, Mac and Safari Dev Centers, along with Software Downloads, gave developers access to programming tools and the pre-release builds of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, the mobile and desktop operating systems Apple will upgrade this fall.

Apple took the developer website down on July 18, but did not reveal the cause until Sunday, July 22, when it confirmed "an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers from our developer website."

The company said that "sensitive personal information" had been encrypted, and was not at risk, but it would not rule out that some developers' names, email addresses and mailing addresses had been stolen. Apple has not identified the attacker or attackers, or how they gained access to the site.

A self-described consultant named Ibrahim Balic claimed responsibility, but asserted he had been researching vulnerabilities in Apple's online services when he uncovered a bug and reported it to the company. According to Balic's timeline, Apple shuttered the site shortly after he reported the vulnerability. By his own admission, Balic had continued to collect developers' personal information even after he flagged the flaw.

Some have questioned Balic's confession, pointing out that none of the email addresses he supposedly swept from Apple's site can be linked to actual accounts, implying that Balic mis-represented his exploit.

On Wednesday, Apple emailed all its developers, telling them that it planned to restore the website in stages, and that it had created a new status page showing the operational standing of the domain's services.

At the time, Apple also pledged to overhaul the developer portal to harden the website against future attacks.

This article, Apple restores key parts of dev site after attack, was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at  @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His email address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.

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Wall Street Beat: Mobile is key to tech earnings

IDG News Service - Tech earnings this week highlighted the importance of mobile communications to IT, as companies including Apple, Samsung, Facebook, AT&T and Texas Instruments reported mixed results for the quarter ending in June.

Apple and Samsung earnings underscored competition in the mobile market. Reporting Tuesday, Apple said revenue was up 1 percent year over year to US$35.3 billion, while profit declined 22 percent to $6.9 billion.

The lack of a new hit product, competition from Android-based devices and sagging sales overseas, particularly in China, hampered earnings for the quarter. Apple sales in China declined 4 percent year over year. The overseas results indicated a problem other IT companies face.

"The continued recession in Europe and slowing growth in China will offset improvements in the US, Japan, and some emerging markets," according to Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels, in a recent forecast for IT sales this year.

While Apple had a soft quarter, however, a refresh of its mobile product lines should bolster growth, analysts said. "We maintain our belief that Apple has a strong product pipeline, including a refreshed iPhone 5S, mid-tier iPhone, and iPad lineup that should result in solid earnings growth," wrote Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley in a research note. The launch of a lower-cost iPhone should also help Apple in emerging markets, Walkley noted.

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics, reporting Friday, said that even though revenue and net earnings rose significantly year over year, tough competition in the mobile phone market and the need to boost marketing costs cut into results.

The company generated a profit of 7.77 trillion won (US$6.89 billion), up a whopping 50 percent year over year, as sales rose 21 percent to 57.5 trillion won. However, marketing costs associated with, among other things, launching its Galaxy S4 during the quarter brought operating profit down for the mobile unit by 3 percent even though sales increased.

Samsung has been edging out Apple in the hard-fought mobile phone market. A report from Strategy Analytics on Friday said that Apple's share of the smartphone market declined in the second quarter to its lowest level in three years, slipping to 13.6 percent in the quarter from 16.6 percent year over year. During the same period Samsung's market share rose to 33 percent from 31 percent.

However, Apple and Samsung face a similar problem: Their success in high-end smartphones means that mature markets are saturated. They face the tough task of getting users in developed markets to upgrade while coming up with devices tailored to emerging markets, some of which face slowing growth over the next few quarters.

The shift to mobile computing has implications for a wide variety of IT and Internet companies. Facebook on Wednesday said mobile ad sales helped fuel revenue, which skyrocketed 53 percent year over year to $1.81 billion, while profit totaled $333 million compared to a net loss of $157 million.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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US will not seek death penalty for Edward Snowden

IDG News Service - The U.S. will not seek the death penalty for Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor responsible for leaking documents revealing classified government surveillance programs, according to a recent letter from attorney general Eric Holder.

The charges Snowden faces in the U.S. do not carry the death penalty, and the U.S. will not seek the death penalty even if Snowden were charged with additional death penalty-eligible crimes, Holder said in the letter, which was sent to Russian minister of justice Vladimirovich Konovalov.

The letter was dated July 23, and was first reported Friday by CBS News. The letter was subsequently sent to the IDG News Service by the U.S. attorney general's office, which declined to comment further.

Snowden is currently thought to be residing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Last week he requested temporary asylum in Russia in an effort to avoid prosecution by the U.S. government, which has indicted Snowden on charges related to the leaks.

Should he return to the U.S., Snowden will not be tortured either, Holder said. He would be promptly brought before a civilian court convened under Article III of the U.S. Constitution and supervised by a U.S. district judge, according to the letter.

"Mr. Snowden would receive all the protections that U.S. law provides to persons charge with federal criminal offenses in Article III courts," Holder said.

Snowden would be appointed counsel and would have the right to a public jury trial, according to the letter, and he would have the right to testify if he wished to do so.

"We believe that these assurances eliminate these asserted grounds for Mr. Snowden's claim that he should be treated as a refugee or granted asylum, temporary or otherwise," Holder said.Snowden has expressed an interest in relocating to Latin America, where Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have offered him safe harbor, but those efforts are complicated because the U.S. revoked Snowden's passport.

But Snowden is eligible for a limited validity passport for direct return to the U.S., Holder said, adding that the U.S. is willing to immediately issue such a passport.

Earlier this week Snowden was granted a document allowing him to leave the Moscow airport.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Top hacker dies days before scheduled Black Hat talk

Computerworld - Noted hacker Barnaby Jack, known for exposing vulnerabilities in ATM machines and medical devices, died in San Francisco Thursday, just days before he was scheduled to speak on deadly security shortcomings in medical implants at next week's Black Hat security conference.

The San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office confirmed Jack's death to Reuters, but wouldn't disclose the cause.

At the time of his death, 35-year-old Jack was director of embedded device security at IOActive, a security firm that specializes in industrial, supply chain, and medical device security.

IOActive had no immediate comment on Jack's death. In a statement issued Friday morning, Black Hat organizers expressed regret at Jack's sudden passing.

"Everyone would agree that the life and work of Barnaby Jack are legendary and irreplaceable," show organizers said. "Barnaby had the ability to take complex technology and intricate research and make it tangible and accessible for everyone to learn and grow from."

The statement went on to add that Black Hat will leave the time slot for Jack's speech vacant to commemorate his life and work. "Barnaby Jack meant so much to so many people, and we hope this forum will offer an opportunity for us all to recognize the legacy that he leaves behind," the statement noted.

Jack, a former security researcher at McAfee and Juniper, was perhaps best known for a demonstration at Black Hat three years ago on how exploiting security flaws made ATM machines from Triton and Tranax dispense money on demand.

The talk, titled "Jackpotting Automated Teller Machines," had been postponed from an earlier Black Hat conference to give the ATM vendors time to fix the flaws.

At a security conference in Melbourne last October, Jack demonstrated how wireless protocols used in modern pacemakers and other implantable devices, could be made exploited to deliver lethal shocks to users of the devices. In a video demonstration, Jack showed how an attacker, from 50 feet away, could use a laptop computer to get a pacemaker to deliver a lethal 830-volt shock.

As a researcher at McAfee, Jack showed how insulin pumps from medical device vendor Medtronic could be exploited wirelessly and made to deliver fatal doses of insulin to someone wearing the device.

Jack was scheduled to speak on "Implantable Medical Devices: Hacking Humans" at next week's conference in las Vegas. The talk was expected to highlight how, common bedside transmitters could be used to search for, interrogate and exploit individual medical implants from up to 300 feet away.

Numerous security researchers and hackers today took toTwitter to express their feelings at Jack's passing.

Dave Marcus, chief architect of advanced research and threat intelligence called Jack "one HELLUVA hacker" in a tweet, while Jay Radcliff, a security researcher who has also done considerable work on medical devices added that "While we didn't see eye to eye on several things, I am sad to hear the news that @barnaby_jack has passed away."

"Lost but never forgotten our beloved pirate, Barnaby Jack has passed," IOActive said in a tweet. "He was a master hacker and dear friend. Here's to you Barnes!"

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan, or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed . His email address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.

Read more about Cybercrime and Hacking in Computerworld's Cybercrime and Hacking Topic Center.

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