Que Legal! Dropbox is now in Brazilian Portuguese

Que Legal! Dropbox is now in Brazilian Portuguese


Querido Brasil,

The last few days in Sao Paulo have been lovely. But to be clear, we’re not here just to sip on caipirinhas or get drenched in your literal Aguas de Março…it’s because we’ve got something to share: today we’re launching Dropbox in Brazilian Portuguese!

But you already know us — millions of Brazilians use Dropbox for work and play every day. The way we see it, launching in Portuguese gives us a chance to get to know you better.

Fragments of ancient continent buried under Indian Ocean

By Rebecca Morelle

Science reporter, BBC World Service

Land on Earth was once gathered together in a supercontinent known as Rodinia, shown here as it was during its break-up 750 million years ago. Now scientists believe they have found a fragment of it buried under the Indian Ocean.
Fragments of an ancient continent are buried beneath the floor of the Indian Ocean, a study suggests.
Researchers have found evidence for a landmass that would have existed between 2,000 and 85 million years ago.The strip of land, which scientists have called Mauritia, eventually fragmented and vanished beneath the waves as the modern world started to take shape.The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Supercontinent
Until about 750 million years ago, the Earth's landmass was gathered into a vast single continent called Rodinia.And although they are now separated by thousands of kilometres of ocean, India was once located next to Madagascar.
Now researchers believe they have found evidence of a sliver of continent - known as a microcontinent - that was once tucked between the two.
The team came to this conclusion after studying grains of sand from the beaches of Mauritius.While the grains dated back to a volcanic eruption that happened about nine million years ago, they contained minerals that were much older.
Professor Trond Torsvik, from the University of Oslo, Norway, said: "We found zircons that we extracted from the beach sands, and these are something you typically find in a continental crust. They are very old in age."The zircon dated to between 1,970 and 600 million years ago, and the team concluded that they were remnants of ancient land that had been dragged up to the surface of the island during a volcanic eruption.
Prof Torsvik said that he believed pieces of Mauritia could be found about 10km down beneath Mauritius and under a swathe of the Indian Ocean.
It would have spanned millions years of history, from the Precambrian Era when land was barren and devoid of life to the age when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
But about 85m years ago, as India started to drift away from Madagascar towards its current location, the microcontinent would have broken up, eventually disappearing beneath the waves.
However, a small part could have survived.
"At the moment the Seychelles is a piece of granite, or continental crust, which is sitting practically in the middle of the Indian Ocean," explained Prof Torsvik.
"But once upon a time, it was sitting north of Madagascar. And what we are saying is that maybe this was much bigger, and there are many of these continental fragments that are spread around in the ocean."Further research is needed to fully investigate what remains of this lost region.
Prof Torsvik explained: "We need seismic data which can image the structure... this would be the ultimate proof. Or you can drill deep, but that would cost a lot of money."

Oscars Awards 2013

85th Academy Awards

Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles

Producer Grant Heslov and producer George Clooney accept the Best Picture award for “Argo” along with members of the cast and crew

Singer Adele Adkins accepts the Best Original Song award for Skyfall from "Skyfall"

 

Actress Jennifer Lawrence accepts the Best Actress award for "Silver Linings Playbook" from presenter actor Jean Dujardin

Actress Jennifer Lawrence (C), mother Karen Lawrence and actor Bradley Cooper (R) celebrate after Lawrence wins the Best Actress award for "Silver Linings Playbook"

Director Ang Lee reacts after winning the Oscar for best director for "Life of Pi"

For all detailed Photos of award winners of Oscar 2013, Click Here

Castle House - Dublin, Ireland

 
You've probably seen this picture lately of 'Castle House'  Of course it's blarney all right. 

This is actually a picture of James Bond Island in Thailand with a picture of Lichtenstein Castle in Honau, Germany Photoshopped on top of it.  A great work of image manipulation that catches a lot of people by surprise.  Particularly impressive is the boat with the ladder.  That's a nice touch.

Nasa's Curiosity rover successfully lands on Mars

The US space agency has just landed a huge new robot rover on Mars.

The one-tonne vehicle, known as Curiosity, was reported to have landed in a deep crater near the planet's equator at 06:32 BST (05:32 GMT).

It will now embark on a mission of at least two years to look for evidence that Mars may once have supported life.

A signal confirming the rover was on the ground safely was relayed to Earth via Nasa's Odyssey satellite, which is in orbit around the Red Planet.

 Congrats to all the members to make this happen.

Dazzling opening ceremony launches 30th Olympic 2012

London presented a vibrant picture of Great Britain's rich heritage and culture as a colourful opening ceremony marked the inauguration of the 30th Olympic Games at the spunky Olympic stadium on Friday night.

Queen Elizabeth II declared the Games open amidst thunderous cheers from the capacity crowd of 80,000 signalling the launch of the biggest sporting spectacle which returned to Britain after a gap of 64 years, giving the country the distinction of holding the mega event for an unprecedented third time.

The night sky lit up with dazzling fireworks as the Queen declared the Games open to herald London's moment of glory in the presence of as many as 100 heads of state and a host of other dignitaries who have descended on this historic city to witness the extravaganza, watched by an estimated one billion global audience.

The 27 million pound three-and-a-half-hour long opening ceremony, which magically transformed the stadium into a rural British idyll, complete with cows, horses, sheep and dogs and synthetic clouds to provide traditional British rain, was designed to give Britons a "picture of ourselves as a nation".

More than 10,000 performers took part in the opening extravaganza which vividly brought about the country-side scenes -- a cricket pitch, traditional country side cottages, mining wheel and people dressed in the Victorian era.

Actor Daniel Craig, who has played the fictional spy 007 James Bond in films, was shown in a video accompanying the Queen from Buckingham Palace into a waiting helicopter and then taking her to the Stadium.

There was also a touch of British humour in the form of Rowan Atkinson who regaled the audience with his famous "Mr Bean" comic act.

The Ceremony's artistic director Danny Boyle, whose film "Slumdog Millionaire" won eight Oscars, had kept most elements of his show a secret.

Former England football captain David Beckham brought the Olympic flame on a speedboat on the Thames river before handing it over to five-time Olympic gold medallist rower Sir Steve Redgrave.

A group of seven athletes nominated by British Olympic champions then took the flame from Redgrave and ran around the stadium before lighting the Games' Couldron made up of 204 copper petals carried in by teams from across the world.

The competitive action will unfold tomorrow as around 10,500 athletes from 204 countries affiliated to the International Olympic Committee will battle for glory and honour in the next 17 days with powerhouses USA and China expected to retain their supremacy.

The 17-day sporting spectacle will see competitions in 39 disciplines with the new addition of women's boxing this time around.

The 204 participating teams walked into the stadium amidst loud cheers from the spectators many of whom had thronged the stadium well ahead of the scheduled start.

Google launches scientific calculator

Next time, you need to do a quick calculation, you can head to Google. The search giant has added a scientific calculator to its varied array of features.

The company's new 34-button calculator appears the moment you type in the word "calculator" or a mathematical expression say "4x5" into the search box.

The calculator gives users ability to do everything from arithmetic to trigonometric calculations. The calculator has functions for calculating sines, cosines, square roots and tangents as well as also dedicated buttons for Pi and Euler's number.

Not just this, Users can also use Google's voice search feature -- found in mobile version and in Chrome browser -- to do calculations without actually touching keyboard.

The search giant has also announced its Panda algorithm update (version 3.9) via its official Twitter account.

Launched in February 2011, Panda is aimed to lower the ranks of low-quality websites and list high-quality sites close to the top of the search results.