Web pioneers win inaugural $1.5M engineering prize

SOURCE: http://technology.inquirer.net/23959/web-pioneers-win-inaugural-1-5m-engineering-prize

Lord Browne, left, chair of QEPrize Foundation, announces the winners of the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, French Software Engineer Louis Pouzin, right, and US Internet Pioneer Robert Kahn, center, at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London on Monday, March 18, 2013. Five pioneering engineers, US Robert Kahn, US Vinton Cerf, French Louis Pouzin, British Tim Berners-Lee and US Marc Andreessen, share this first prize. SANG TAN/AP IMAGES FOR QEPRIZE)

LONDON—Five engineers who helped create the Internet were on Monday awarded a $1.5 million prize which British organizers hope will come to be seen as equivalent to a Nobel prize for engineering.

Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf and Marc Andreessen of the United States will share the first ever £1 million (1.2 million euro) Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering with Louis Pouzin of France and Tim Berners-Lee of Britain.

“The emergence of the Internet and the web involved many teams of people all over the world,” said Alec Broers, chair of the judging panel.

“However, these five visionary engineers, never before honored together as a group, led the key developments that shaped the Internet and web as a coherent system and brought them into public use.”

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, who gives her name to the prize, will present the award to the winners in a formal ceremony in London in June.

Organizers said Kahn, Cerf and Pouzin had made “seminal” contributions to the design and protocols that make up the fundamental architecture of the Internet.

Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, the information-sharing system built on top of the Internet which allows us to use it in the way we do today.

BlackBerry boss has swipe at Apple as Z10 hits stores

SOURCE: http://technology.inquirer.net/23971/blackberry-boss-has-swipe-at-apple-as-z10-hits-stores

The BlackBerry Z10 smartphone is displayed, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013 in New York. BlackBerry is promising a speedy browser, a superb typing experience and the ability to keep work and personal identities separate on the same phone, the fruit of a crucial, long-overdue makeover for the Canadian company. AP FLE PHOTO

SYDNEY – The head of BlackBerry has taken a swipe at Apple, saying in an interview the iPhone’s operating system was outdated, while promising thousands of new apps as it prepares to launch its new Z10 handset.

Thorsten Heins said there were signs users were switching to the Canada-based firm, which rebranded itself on launching its BlackBerry 10 platform this year, as it works to win back those who had shifted to the iPhone or Android devices.

He told the Australian Financial Review that big name apps such as Instagram and Netflix were being attracted by the reaction to its new BB10 operating system.

“Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market… They did a fantastic job with the user interface, they are a design icon,” he said.

“The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about, is now five years old.”

While BlackBerry helped create a culture of mobile users who were glued to the company’s smartphones, many of those customers have since moved to Apple or other smartphone makers such as Samsung.

Apple’s iPhone remains hugely popular but its iOS system is almost unchanged since 2007 and the firm’s CEO Tim Cook last week sought to allay fears over what some suggest is a lack of innovation, saying it still has the ability to “create magic”.

Regular breakfast makes for smarter kids

SOURCE: http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/95149/regular-breakfast-makes-for-smarter-kids

Studies show that children who eat breakfast regularly have an intellectual and verbal advantage over those who do not, according to Adi Timbol, public relations and communications manager of McDonald’s Philippines, which gave away thousands of free McMuffins on Monday, March 18, 2013, in celebration of National Breakfast Day. PHOTO FROM MCDONALDS.COM.PH

MANILA, Philippines—You’ve heard nutritional experts say breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Fact or fiction?

Either way, studies show that children who eat breakfast regularly have an intellectual and verbal advantage over those who do not, while adults who don’t skip the first meal of the day are less likely to develop diabetes.

Adi Timbol, public relations and communications manager of McDonald’s Philippines, quoted these findings from a study released by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in February, noting that children who eat breakfast regularly get higher scores in intelligence quotient tests.

“Eating breakfast is really important,” Timbol told the Inquirer shortly after the close of the fast-food chain’s celebration of National Breakfast Day on Monday.

The study, whose lead author Dr. Jianghong Liu is an associate professor at the university, found that children who skipped breakfast frequently got IQ scores 4.6 points lower on the average than those who did not skip breakfast.

It also found that those who skipped the meal fared “significantly lower” on verbal performance.

The study employed 1,269 6-year-olds from China, where breakfast is given importance.

Timbol also quoted a study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health published last year, which found that adults are less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes if they eat breakfast regularly.

The study, conducted by Andrew Odegaard, found that among 5,000 men and women respondents followed by researchers over an average period of 18 years, those who ate breakfast daily were “34 percent less likely to develop” the disease than those who ate breakfast only three or fewer times a week.