Thin and light was the mantra at the recent HP Global Influencer Summit, with a large majority of the 80 new products launched at the Summit offering sleek and lightweight designs. We trawled the extensive product lineup, and here's our pick of what caught…nay, grabbed our attention!Spectre XT: Leading the charge is the slick Spectre XT ultrabook, featuring brushed metal trim and specs — a 13-inch display, 128GB/256GB Solid State Drive storage, an Intel Core i5 processor with 4GB of RAM all at 15mm thickness and under 1.4kg - that bring it in line with the best ultrabooks around. And unlike a number of ultrabooks that scrimp on connectivity options, the Spectre XT is packed to the gills with ports including two fast USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port for direct connection to your TV and a fold-out wired network jack. Even though this is targeted at business professionals, the XT isn't all work and no play - multimedia mavens are taken care of as well with Beats Audio sound pumping out of four speakers, and a claimed battery life of upto 8 hours on one charge!Sleekbooks: No, this isn't a new form factor or category, it's just a marketing term to describe notebooks that don't meet all of Intel's rigid criteria for ultrabooks. Packing in looks that are nearly identical to their ultrabook brethren, the HP sleekbooks feature AMD processors, traditional hard drives and plastic casings. While the offerings on display were nice, one couldn't help but feel this new nomenclature could potentially confuse customers who are still trying to wrap their heads around what sets an ultrabook apart from a regular notebook. No matter what they're called, sleekbooks will be less expensive than ultrabooks - an ultrabook-esque form factor for a smaller hole in the wallet is good news!OfficeJet 150 Mobile All-in-One: It's 3.5 cm by 17.1 cm by 9 cm, and weighs just 3.1 kg with the lithium-ion battery inserted. Say hello to the OfficeJet 150, the world's first all-in-one, a printer-scanner-copier you can truly carry around with you. It comes with Bluetooth tech that lets you print directly from your mobile/laptop and can print 500 pages or scan 400 pages on a single battery charge.Glaring Omissions: You'd think that with 80 new products launched here, a tablet or a smartphone might have made its way into the lineup. Not so, but HP did reveal plans to launch a Windows 8 tablet for business users in the near future. A Sweep Of Creativity Quite literally the gold standard for creative pros, a new release of Adobe's Creative Suite is something to look forward to, and with new versions of all the most notable products - Photoshop, lllustrator, Dreamweaver, Premiere Pro and Flash - how goes Creative Suite 6 fare? Take Photoshop for example. The photo-editing software gets 3D editing capabilities, as well as a speed boost and my personal favourite — content aware move. Shockingly easy to use, content aware move lets you move around any piece of a photo with minimal disturbance to the pixels around it and the software automatically replaces the background in a natural way. InDesign, Adobe's page design software, gets a big boost as well, right from additional layout options to the ability to export designs to a variety of platforms like the iPad, Kindle Fire, and smartphones, without creating separate versions for each. Many of the other apps, such as the Premiere Pro and Illustrator apps don't get drastic new features, but pretty much every app benefits from under-the-hood performance and speed bumps. Although you can buy the suite or individual components in a multitude of bundles, there is one drastically different option for CS6 users - Creative Cloud - everything Adobe has to offer, no holds barred, starting from $49.99 per month. Gives folks like freelancers the short duration access they need to some of the apps at a fraction of the price of owning them. All in all, CS6 is a solid upgrade that will reach out to all sorts of digital and creative professionals. URL: http://bit.ly/JUN7PfPrice: Starting from Rs. 78,288/-for CS6 Design Standard QuickLook: BlackBerry Curve 9220 Pros: New 7.1 OS, good battery life, BBM key, Social Feeds (to integrate all your social networks in one screen)Cons: Heavy price tag for Blackberry (BBM, email) offerings when compared to Android competition, no 3G or GPS, average picture quality, plastic-ky keypad URL: http://bit.ly/JAv58fPrice: Rs 10,990 technocool at kanwar dot nettwitter@2shar
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China is seen as the next global technology innovation center replacing Silicon Valley, according to the KPMG Global Technology Innovation Survey released on Thursday.Forty-four percent of global respondents said it was likely that what many consider the technology innovation center of the world would shift from Silicon Valley to another country in the next four years, while 23 per cent of those surveyed said it is unlikely and 34 per cent were undecided. Not surprisingly, only 28 per cent of the US respondents think the shift is likely, while more than half in ASPAC, and more than 40 per cent in EMEA see the move as likely. Of those globally who believe the center will shift, most (44 per cent) said it would move to China.Asked to predict future disruptive technologies and the next epicenter for innovation, almost 30 per cent of the respondents across Americas, Asia Pacific (ASPAC), Europe, the Middle East and Africa said China and the US show the most promise for disruptive breakthroughs with global impacts, while 13 per cent cited India.Interestingly, only 39 per cent of US respondents selected the US as most promising, while 71 per cent in China selected China.Apple ranked as the top innovator globally, followed by Google and Microsoft. while in India it was Infosys. The Indian IT bellwether was identified as the innovation leader in a global tech innovation survey done across Americas, Asia Pacific (ASPAC), Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) by KPMG.Among innovation visionaries, Steve Jobs was recognised as the top global innovation visionary, followed by Bill Gates. In China specifically, Gates was the top visionary and Jack Ma the innovation leader.At the same time, about one-third globally pointed to Google, Facebook and Amazon as emerging leaders in mobile commerce.In the last decade, India has made substantial and rapid strides on the path of innovation-based development and already managed to adapt and implement a number of measures to support this development. The Government has invested significantly in technology. Communication technology like 3G has already made a mark in India and with the introduction of the 4G; technology will no longer play a support role in most businesses, it is expected to become key enabler and business models will be driven by the technology. Cloud has also been leveraged and several e-Governance initiatives have been launched. While the Government is one of the primary pillars to drive innovation & cutting-edge technology, involvement of the private sector is also equally important for swift and effective enablement.Cloud Rules, For NowAsked what technology will have a major impact by 2015, 30 per cent of the survey respondents globally said Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS) will enable the next indispensable consumer technology. with regard to driving business transformation, 22 per cent said cloud infrastructure as a Service, followed closely by SaaS, will have the greatest impact. In the US, SaaS was the top selection in consumer and enterprise technologies.Mobile technologies also are seen as a significant beneficiary of Cloud, as almost 30 percent of global respondents expect that the next tech breakthrough in four years resulting in the greatest business transformation will come from smartphones, tablets and other mobile technologies.Innovation Development, Challenges, BarriersThe survey uncovered differences in who or what function is responsible for driving innovation in companies. About three in 10 globally said the CEO has the responsibility to drive innovation in their company, while 20 per cent, including half the respondents in China, said it was the responsibility of the Chief Innovation Officer. Fifteen per cent each cited the Chief Information Officer and research and development. Some 38 percent said that innovation is most often spotted and nurtured in the R&D department, followed by IT and strategic planning, while the majority of those surveyed use revenue growth as the metric to measure innovation value.Asked whether their education system serves as an incubator for innovator thinkers, slightly more than half believed this was true. In China, close to 75 per cent thought this was true, while in the US, less than half thought so.The pace of technology innovations today is happening at unparalleled speed and China's projected rapid rise to prominence as a technology leader would be another example of this," said Gary Matuszak, partner, global chair and US leader for KPMG's Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice."China's anticipated parity with the US tech sector shows the significant challenge facing the US to retain its position as an innovation leader. Other countries will continue taking steps to boost technology innovation and to attract tech entrepreneurs," he added.As for adopting future technologies, cost/pricing models was pointed to by survey respondents as the top challenge to adopting the next indispensable consumer technologies, while security/privacy governance is the number one challenge to adopting future business transforming technologies and also is the top barrier to commercializing disruptive innovation.
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The latest Intel processors, a full complement of fast USB 3 and Thunderbolt ports and a brand new operating system to boot — now's about the best time in the year to be considering a new Mac purchase. Whether you go for Air or Pro, what happens after you bring the sleek beauty home and get over the initial gushing over how gorgeous it looks sitting on your desk? Switching from Windows to Mac OS X is a lot like moving house. There is upfront effort required — transferring data from one machine to another, and orienting yourself to the new neighborhood (a.k.a the software that will get you up and running). Here's my pick of the top apps that should find pride of place on your new Mac.Movies: If you plan to watch movies on your Mac, the built-in QuickTime software supports a remarkably limited set of formats. Go download Perian, which adds in support for over 30 music and movie formats. Or you could choose to download the popular VLC or MPlayer OS X players — both free and super easy to use!Downloads: There are a ton of BitTorrent clients available for the Mac, but the one I prefer and recommend is Transmission — it's clean, simple to use yet configurable enough should you want to, and even has a web interface to let you add torrents when you're away from the Mac.Browsers: All major browsers, with the exception of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (for obvious reasons!), are multi-platform, so you have your pick of Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Pick the one you're comfy with — comes down to personal preference really.Music And Video Editing: Got a DVD movie which wont transfer directly onto your iOS device? Handbrake's the tool for you – it lets you convert digital files into a different resolution or format, and it comes with a slew of presets for most known devices. If editing tickles your fancy, pick up the Audacity (audio) or Avidemux (video) editing apps. Just be prepared to be amazed at just how much pro-level functionality these ‘free' tools pack in!Note-taking: I'm a big fan of the Evernote note-taking app on the iPhone, Android and Windows platforms, and there's a version for the Mac as well, ready to cloud-synch your notes, images and general scraps of information to every device you have.Office Suite: While free alternatives such as LibreOffice and OpenOffice exist, I recommend putting down the extra cash upfront and picking up a copy of Microsoft Office for Mac, especially if you need it for work. Well worth the investment.Windows: With all these great tools, it's increasingly rare to find software on Windows that doesn't have a Mac equivalent (unless you're a big gamer, in which case you'd probably not be buying a Mac in the first place!) For that rare Windows software which you might need for work, you could choose to install Windows on the Mac via the built-in Boot Camp software, though this requires you to restart if you want to change from Mac OS to Windows. A paid alternative, one that I highly recommend, is the Parallels Desktop 7 software, which lets you install Windows and run it while you're still within Mac OS X! Smart Maintenance With the dazzling amount of customisation Android phones offer, they do, much like the PC on your desktop, run better and faster with some proper care and maintenance. More so if you don't have the latest greatest Android around! For instance, you should clear out the cache of apps you use often, especially those that tend to crash on you for no apparent reason. Go to Settings menu on your phone and click Applications, then select Manage Applications and tap the app for which you'd like to clear the cache. While you're on the efficiency drive, pick up a task manager like Watchdog which tracks application behavior and will tell you which ones are actually consuming way too much CPU in the background. And if its battery woes that are troubling your Android experience, you could use the Juice Defender app, which manages your data connection as intelligently as it can, shutting down the data connection when it's not needed. technocool at kanwar dot nettwitter@2shar
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The divorce papers have been signed, the decade old marriage has ended with the partners Sony and Ericsson going their separate ways, albeit most amicably. The newly invigorated Sony is back on the market, and going by the launch of its first solo model — the Xperia S — it's hungry for its place in the sun. Are the dashing good looks and the competitive spec sheet enough for the Xperia S to win hearts? Read on to find out.There are no two ways about the looks of this baby — it looks downright gorgeous! Beautifully crafted in a monolithic design, the phone looks like a fancy remote for some posh Sony toy rather than a phone. It feels sturdy and not the least creaky — this is how phones made of plastic should be, in my opinion. And then there's that unique accent, the illuminated transparent strip that meshes really well with the design. Overall minimalist but very classy. That said, ergonomics fall a wee bit short thanks to the squared-off sides and corners, and make the phone slightly difficult to grasp in the hand.The front of this phone is dominated by the 4.3-inch 1280 x 720 pixel display, and gets some bragging rights with its iPhone-beating pixel count of 342 pixels per inch. Couple this with the Sony Mobile Bravia Engine, and the result is an extremely sharp and crisp display, thanks to the fact that the human eye cannot discern individual pixels apart at such a high pixel count. Color reproduction and brightness is very good, but the viewing angles off-center are sub-par, but that's to be expected with a TFT LCD. The other big draw is the 12-megapixel camera with the famed Exmor R sensor. The results are mixed – while outdoor shooting is pretty good (and super quick to boot), indoor shooting in low light with the flash turned off suffers from a fair amount of noise. But beyond the perfectly usable experience that is the Xperia S, you've got to wonder why certain hardware and software decisions were taken. No microSD card slot or removable battery, for instance. We've already seen the first quad-core CPU device packing Android 4.0 launch recently, so you get the feeling Sony squandered the chance to make a bigger splash by choosing to go with a dual-core CPU and Android OS v2.3.7 Gingerbread. Maybe a quarter late, eh Sony?Rating: 7/10Price: Rs 32,549URL: http://bit.ly/JcmVxR Double The Impact A console or a gaming PC — which one would you pick? Granted, with most games launching across console and PC platforms, it's not about the choice of game anymore. Yet, consoles still don't play nice with mouse and keyboard, and gaming PCs end up being huge and bulky, not to mention insanely expensive. Which is why the Alienware X51 is such an intriguing proposition. The black tower from the famed gaming PC maker is not particularly bigger than the average console, yet it packs in full-size gaming PC components into that slim form factor. The idea is that you could as well put the X51 next to your home theater components and play your latest PC games in the living room on your large-screen TV. And boy, does it scream performance — the base configuration packs in a capable Core i5 processor, 4 gigs of ultra-fast memory and a mid-range NVIDIA GeForce GT 545 graphics card, but the options go all the way up to a top-of-the-line Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory and a 24-inch HD Widescreen Monitor for the highest configuration. For the times you're going to be using this as a PC, X51 does enough and more on the connectivity front with as many ports as desktop PCs twice its size — plenty of USB 2 and 3 ports and HDMI for video, to name a few. What it lacks is the ability to accept any video inputs or a TV tuner option, which rules out making this a media center PC, which is a real pity given the pride of place it will occupy in your setup. Oh, and remember you'll have to add your own monitor if you pick the base configuration. Overall, serious bang for a rather reasonable buck. Rating: 8/10Price: Rs 49,990URL: http://dell.to/HURkQ9 Points Of View Sure, the iPhone 4/4S camera is nice, but there is only so much you can do with the fixed lens. That's where the OlloClip comes in, and how! This little device packs three lenses into one — a 180-degree fisheye, a wide-angle that doubles the iPhone's field of view and a macro that offers a 10x magnification and can shoot from a mere 12mm away from the subject. It clips on to the iPhone, so it doesn't play well with any case you've got on the iPhone, but it more than makes up for it when you see the images! URL: http://bit.ly/HTPfc6Price: $69.99 technocool at kanwar dot nettwitter@2shar
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DataWind, a small London-based company and the maker of the low-cost tablet Aakash, has finally come out with its latest series of commercial tablets — Ubislate 7+ – a good three months after it had thrown open the process of pre-paid bookings. The Ubislate 7 series comes loaded with functionalities of a smartphone (embedded with GPRS modems in addition to WiFi connectivity). Though the company had managed to record pre-bookings for over 3 million units including a small percentage of advance payment bookings since December 2011, there is uncertainty over DataWind's ability to honour the supply commitments.After terminating its contract with Hyderabad-based Quad Electronics, DataWind picked another sub-contractor VMC Systems to meet the demand, but it seems that individual customers as well as IIT Bombay (on behalf of the government) might as well get ready for a long wait to realize their dreams of owning the low-cost computing device. While the company has started to deliver the Ubislate 7+ devices to the advance booking orders on a priority basis, it first has to supply 1 lakh units to the Indian government. According to Chief Executive Suneet Singh Tuli, DataWind will first provide 100 units to IIT Bombay for testing in the next one to two weeks. "Once they (IIT Bombay) give the confirmation (approval after testing the first set), within 90-120 days all 1 lakh units will be supplied," Tuli added. According to reports, VMC has procured components to assemble 1 lakh ultra-low cost tablets. The company, however, needs a production capacity way above that number to satiate the combined demand of individual customers, who have pre-paid for the device and the government.Tuli said the company is ramping up its capacity for its commercial series in anticipation of growing demand, and has the capability to tweak the commercial product to Aakash II standards in order to supply to the government order, if the need arises.He further added Datawind is in talks with sub-contracting parties to set-up 3-4 device manufacturing plants in India in the next 90 days to supply the 1 lakh units. Tuli said the company is trying to negotiate with a number of existing device manufacturers with some based in Hyderabad, Cochin, Ahmedabad and Noida. Despite consistent efforts on part of DataWind to dispel the skepticism around its ability to deliver on its promise, the current state of affairs indicate that DataWind has bitten more than what it can chew.Aakash, termed as the world's cheapest tablet PC, was launched in October last year by Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal. It comes with a price tag of mere Rs 2,276 whereas the high-end tablet PC will cost anything between Rs 25,000 and Rs 40,000.Aakash is be supplied to students at a subsidised rate of Rs 1,500.In February, Telecom and HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said Datawind will not be associated with it anymore and the Government has roped in C-DAC and ITI in further development of the tablet computer."There have been some problem with Datawind I must confess. Therefore, I have got into the act. IT Ministry has got C-DAC and ITI into the act and I am going to ensure that this product is fully indigenous and truly an Indian product," he said. He also said Akash II will be launched in 2012.On April 17, Sibal said many foreign companies have shown interest in manufacturing the second version of the low-cost tablet Aakash 2 in India."We have invited companies from across the world for manufacturing and many are ready to manufacture it here," Sibal told reporters on the sidelines of the inauguration of World IT Forum 2012.
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Till late last year, two names…nay, the biggest two names in the camera business were conspicuously absent from the compact mirror less interchangeable lens camera market — Nikon and Canon. So, as widely anticipated as Nikon's entry was, the 1 Series that were launched took a lot of folks by surprise. Rather than going with the flow and packing in a large digital SLR image sensor, Nikon fitted the J1 and the higher-end V1 camera with a sensor that was about 30 per cent the size of those found in its entry level dSLRs. Will this choice hurt the V1's chances? Let's find out.Made of aluminum with magnesium alloy parts, the Nikon 1 V1 is heavier when you first pick it up than you would think. With a grip-less design, you're forced to hold the camera in two hands, balancing the weight and the lens in one and operating the camera with the other; which isn't a bad thing to get better, more stable shots.The V1's standout features, those it shares with the J1 as well, are the autofocus and continuous shooting capabilities. Both cameras feature a 'hybrid' autofocus system that combines both Phase and Contrast Detection methods which allows them to keep track of fast moving subjects much in the same way as SLRs can, and more importantly, other mirror less cameras can't. And then there's the spectacular maximum shooting speed of 60 frames per second at full 10 megapixel resolution — boy, you have to hear the camera go at full trot! Both features mean you have a camera that's better placed to get you that one shot you may just end up missing with the competition.The question is — will you be happy to trade off resolution, image quality and low light performance for speed? Parents and action photographers may well be, but for the most of us, the V1 disappoints on image quality and lacks a slew of standard modern in-camera features when compared to its competition. Lens options are limited, and while you can buy an adapter to fit Nikon dSLR lens onto this, that's defeating the point of buying a camera this size. In possibly trying to avoid cannibalising its digital SLR siblings, Nikon's V1 hasn't done enough to warrant a strong buy in this segment.Rating: 7/10Price: Rs 43,950 with 10-30mm kit, Rs 53,950 With D-ZOOM kit (10-30mm+30-110mm)URL: http://bit.ly/IrLCJw Cleaning Wizard Tired of the cleaning lady calling in sick yet another day? You could consider the LG Hom Bot robotic vacuum cleaner, if the price doesn't scare you away. This home gadget has a ton of smarts under the hood, which allows it to navigate through your house without bumping into furniture or going over the same place twice. With two cameras and five ultrasonic sensors and some basic intelligence to boot, the robot can map out a room and go about a cleaning schedule without you needing to do anything. When the battery runs low, after about two hours, the Hom Bot can automatically return to its docking station for a recharge and pick up where it left off. How much better is it than the maid? At 9cm in height, the Hom Bot can get under just about any furniture in the house, and even makes the effort to find those impossible-to-reach corners. Try asking that of most help! URL: http://bit.ly/HBAhHiPrice: Rs 43,990 Point Of All Contact (Reuters) With wireless hotspots now commonplace in most phones, getting a laptop online piggybacking off your phone connection is a no-brainer. But what if you're travelling abroad, and the only Internet connection you have is a wired connection in the hotel room? Or if the hotel limits the number of devices you can connect to their Internet? You can get your phone and tablets online too — all you need to do is to open your browser of choice and navigate to www.virtualaccesspoint.com. You'll need to grant permission to run the application, enter some basic details such as the name of the access point and the password, and then click on the "Turn On Soft AP" button to start the access point. All you need to do now is to head over to your Windows Control Panel Network settings, and open the properties for the new wireless connection just created. Click on the Sharing tab and check the box labeled "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection". Select "Local Area Connection" from the drop down box and click OK. And that's it — your laptop is now a wireless hotspot, and you can connect all your wireless devices to this hotspot. URL: http://bit.ly/HPsXWF Price: free technocool at kanwar dot nettwitter@2shar
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The Higgs is the last missing piece of the Standard Model, the theory that describes the basic building blocks of the universe. The other 11 particles predicted by the model have been found and finding the Higgs would validate the model. Ruling it out or finding something more exotic would force a rethink on how the universe is put together.Scientists believe that in the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was a gigantic soup of particles racing around at the speed of light without any mass to speak of. It was through their interaction with the Higgs field that they gained mass and eventually formed the universe.The Higgs field is a theoretical and invisible energy field that pervades the whole cosmos. Some particles, like the photons that make up light, are not affected by it and therefore have no mass. Others find it drags on them as porridge drags on a spoon.Picture George Clooney (the particle) walking down a street with a gaggle of photographers (the Higgs field) clustered around him. An average guy on the same street (a photon) gets no attention from the paparazzi and gets on with his day. The Higgs particle is the signature of the field - an eyelash of one of the photographers.The particle is theoretical, first posited in 1964 by six physicists, including Briton Peter Higgs.The search for it only began in earnest in the 1980s, first in Fermilab's now mothballed Tevatron particle collider near Chicago and later in a similar machine at CERN, but most intensively since 2010 with the start-up of the European centre's Large Hadron Collider.What is the standard model?The Standard Model is to physics what the theory of evolution is to biology. It is the best explanation physicists have of how the building blocks of the universe are put together. It describes 12 fundamental particles, governed by four basic forces.But the universe is a big place and the Standard Model only explains a small part of it. Scientists have spotted a gap between what we can see and what must be out there. That gap must be filled by something we don't fully understand, which they have dubbed 'dark matter'. Galaxies are also hurtling away from each other faster than the forces we know about suggest they should. This gap is filled by 'dark energy'. This poorly understood pair are believed to make up a whopping 96 percent of the mass and energy of the cosmos.Confirming the Standard Model, or perhaps modifying it, would be a step towards the holy grail of physics - a 'theory of everything' that encompasses dark matter, dark energy and the force of gravity, which the Standard Model also does not explain. It could also shed light on even more esoteric ideas, such as the possibility of parallel universes.CERN spokesman James Gillies has said that just as Albert Einstein's theories enveloped and built on the work of Isaac Newton, the work being done by the thousands of physicists at CERN has the potential to do the same to Einstein's work.What is the Large Hadron Collider?The Large Hadron Collider is the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator, a 27-km (17-mile) looped pipe that sits in a tunnel 100 metres underground on the Swiss/French border. It cost 3 billion euros to build.Two beams of protons are fired in opposite directions around it before smashing into each other to create many millions of particle collisions every second in a recreation of the conditions a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, when the Higgs field is believed to have 'switched on'.The vast amount of data produced is examined by banks of computers. Of all the trillions of collisions, very few are just right for revealing the Higgs particle. That makes the hunt for the Higgs slow, and progress incremental.What is the threshhold for proof?To claim a discovery, scientists have set themselves a target for certainty that they call "5 sigma". This means that there is a probability of less than one in a million that their conclusions from the data harvested from the particle accelerator are the result of a statistical fluke.The two teams hunting for the Higgs at CERN, called Atlas and CMS, now have twice the amount of data that allowed them to claim 'tantalising glimpses' of the Higgs at the end of last year and this could push their results beyond that threshold.(Reuters)
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The weight of evidence may no longer be ignored. Two independent teams at the world's biggest atom smasher say they have both "observed" a new subatomic particle that could be the Higgs boson, the basic building block of the universe.The Higgs is the last missing piece of the Standard Model, the theory that describes the basic building blocks of the universe. The other 11 particles predicted by the model have been found and finding the Higgs would validate the model. Ruling it out or finding something more exotic would force a rethink on how the universe is put together.Physicists at Cern, near Geneva, home of the Large Hadron Collider, announced on Wednesday overwhelming evidence for the obscure but profoundly important Higgs boson, the particle that sparked the greatest hunt in modern science.They stopped just shy of claiming Wednesday that the particle is the long-sought Higgs boson, known popularly as the "God particle.""I can confirm that a particle has been discovered that is consistent with the Higgs boson theory," said John Womersley, chief executive of Britain's Science & Technology Facilities Council, at an event in London.Joe Incandela, spokesman for one of the two teams hunting for the Higgs particle told an audience at CERN near Geneva: "This is a preliminary result, but we think it's very strong and very solid."Formal confirmation of the discovery is expected within months, though it could take several years for scientists to work out whether they have found the simplest kind of Higgs particle that theories predict, or part of a more complex picture: for example, one of a larger family of Higgs bosons. The Higgs particle, although crucial for understanding how the universe was formed, remains theoretical. It explains how particles clumped together to form stars, planets and even life.Without the Higgs particle, the particles that make up the universe would have remained like a soup, the theory goes.It is the last undiscovered piece of the Standard Model that describes the fundamental make-up of the universe. The model is for physicists what the theory of evolution is for biologists.What scientists don't yet know from the latest findings is whether the particle they have discovered is the Higgs boson as described by the Standard Model, a variant of the Higgs or an entirely new subatomic particle that could force a rethink on the fundamental structure of matter.The last two possibilities are, in scientific terms, the most exciting.On Monday, physicists at a US laboratory said they have come tantalizingly close to proving the existence of the elusive subatomic Higgs boson - often called the "God particle" because it may bring mass and order to the universe.The announcement by the Fermi National Accelerator Lab outside Chicago came two days before physicists at CERN, the European particle accelerator near Geneva, are set to unveil their own findings in the Higgs hunt. CERN houses the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).The Fermilab scientists found hints of the Higgs in the debris from trillions of collisions between beams of protons and anti-protons over 10 years at the lab's now-shuttered Tevatron accelerator.But the evidence still fell short of the scientific threshold for proof of the discovery of the particle, they said, in that the same collision debris hinting at the existence of the Higgs could also come from other subatomic particles."This is the best answer that is out there at the moment," said physicist Rob Roser of Fermilab, which is run by the US Department of Energy. "The Tevatron data strongly point toward the existence of the Higgs boson, but it will take results from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to establish a firm discovery."(With agencies)
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