Document shows specs of Google tablet?
SAN FRANCISCO, June 25 (UPI) -- A 7-inch tablet by Google will run Android 4.1, cost $199 or $249 depending on the model, and go on sale in July, an Australian tech Web site is reporting.
Gizmodo Australia said it obtained an alleged training document that reveals key details about the device including specifications and intended pricing.
Reportedly to be manufactured by Asus in Taiwan, the tablet will be powered by a 1.3Ghz quad-core Tegra 3 processor with 1 gigabyte of RAM and a display with a resolution of 1280x800 pixels, CNET.com reported Monday.
The WiFi equipped tablets should run for 9 hours on a single battery charge, it said.
An 8GB model will cost $199, directly targeting Amazon's Kindle Fire, while the 16GB version will come in at $249, Gizmodo Australia said.
The tablet is expected to go on sale in July in Australia with an international launch to follow soon after, CNET.com said.
Russia confirms creation of 117th element
MOSCOW, June 25 (UPI) -- Russian scientists say they've successfully repeated their synthesis of the 117th chemical element, paving the way for formal addition to the periodic table.
The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna outside Moscow first synthesized the 117th element in 2010, but the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry requires such experiments to be reproduced before registering a new element.
The researchers have already filed an application to register the new element, Andrei Popeko, an official at the Dubna institute, told RIA Novosti Monday.
However, obtaining a proper name and formally adding it to the periodic table could take up to a year, Popeko said.
Elements beyond uranium, No. 92 in the periodic table, do not occur in nature and have to be artificially created in reactors or laboratories.
The Dubna Institute said it has already synthesized element 118, while a German research center is working to synthesize elements 119 and 120, RIA Novosti reported.
Researchers say napping can help learning
EVANSTON, Ill., June 25 (UPI) -- A musical tune someone has been practicing can become better fixed in their memory if it is played to them while they sleep, U.S. researchers say.
The study builds on existing evidence suggesting memories can be reactivated during sleep and storage of them can be strengthened in the process, Northwestern University reported Sunday.
In the study, research learned how to play two artificially generated musical tunes requiring well-timed key presses. Then while the participants took a 90-minute nap, the researchers played one of the tunes that had been practiced, but not the other.
Afterward, participants made fewer errors when pressing the keys to produce the melody that had been presented while they slept, compared with the melody not presented, researchers said.
"Our results extend prior research by showing that external stimulation during sleep can influence a complex skill," Northwestern psychology Professor Ken A. Paller said.
That doesn't mean you can learn something like a foreign language while you sleep, researchers cautioned.
"The critical difference is that our research shows that memory is strengthened for something you've already learned," study co-author Paul J. Reber said. "Rather than learning something new in your sleep, we're talking about enhancing an existing memory by re-activating information recently acquired."
However, Reber said, "If you were learning how to speak in a foreign language during the day, for example, and then tried to reactivate those memories during sleep, perhaps you might enhance your learning."
Wikipedia founder slams extradition case
LONDON, June 25 (UPI) -- Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has slammed a U.S. attempt to extradite a British student whose Web link-site operates similarly to Google.
The U.S. Department of Justice has asked for the extradition of 23-year-old Richard O'Dwyer to face trial for alleged copyright offenses.
O'Dwyer created TV-Shack, a site that provided links to television and film content elsewhere on the Web but stored no copyright material of any sort onsite.
Two years ago in a similar case, a British court ruled such link-sites are not illegal, ZDNet.com reported Monday.
Wales, describing O'Dwyer as a "clean-cut, geeky kid," said he considers the case against him "thin" and said it was "an outrage that he is being extradited to the United States to face felony charges for something that he is not being prosecuted for here."
Writing in The Guardian, Wales argued O'Dwyer's site was "no different [than] Google" or any other search engine in how it operated.
O'Dwyer even took down links from his site when notified, complying with the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown system, ZDNet.com reported.
British Home Secretary Theresa May has given the go-ahead for O'Dwyer to be extradited, but he remains at home pending an appeal to the High Court in London.
