Now, A mobile phone that can smell

LEUVEN(BELGIUM): Ever looked at a mobile phone as a sensory object? The question might surprise you but for researchers at Belgium based IMEC ( Interuniversity Microelectronics Center) your hand-held communications device is a handy sensory object. A mobile phone enables you to hear, works by touch, responds to motion (like, when playing games) and has a camera for vision. Now, the IMEC researchers are working overtime to help the handheld smell as well. Ability to smell is the only sense missing in mobile phones and by around 2015 an embedded `electronic nose' will take care of that too.
Says Luc Van Den Hove, CEO, IMEC, "you can use it to check out freshness of food, test air quality or measure alcohol level in your body after a party." A pretty handy tool and another reason why a mobile is your best friend.

IMEC, says Hove is a global organisation that, "works towards finding solutions to key challenges the world is facing—whether it's solutions for your busy lifestyle or for the ageing population."
IMEC, partly government funded outfit has 2,000 people — 1,300 IMEC's full staff and another 600 comprise visiting researchers. IMEC employees are drawn from among 71 nationalaties, with Indians forming the fourth largest group with 62 people.
Industry can collaborate with IMEC for specific research initiatives in areas like electronics, nanotechnology, healthcare and energy. IMEC's ongoing projects include 3D gesture recognition that can be used to improve experience in gaming, web TV and in cameras. In the area of healthcare IMEC is developing technologies that will help in remote monitoring of patients.
Says Roger De Keersmaecker, senior VP, strategic relations, IMEC, "we are moving towards a human Body Area Network (BAN) type of systems. By 2014 more than 400 million wearable wireless sensors will be in use for things like monitoring heart rate or blood glucose levels. The data will be wirelessly transmitted to hospitals helping doctors react to emergencies quickly or advice patients on better lifestyles."
Early in May this year IMEC entered into a R&D partnership with Wipro Technologies. IMEC and Wipro have created an initiative to co-innovate and build next generation intelligent systems, called Applied Research in Intelligent Systems Engineering or ARISE.
Arise Labs, in Bangalore, is working on developing low cost devices based on nano-electro-mechanical systems technology, or NEMS. Such devices will find applications in remote healthcare, security systems and retail. Among the products it is planning to launch is a 'health necklace', The necklace is a body monitor, which when worn will continuously transmit data to any connected system, like a smart phone or a hospital monitor. Such a product is aimed at remote health monitoring for rural areas.

New Phone That Makes Coffee!

Looks like the smartphone revolution is here! Just awhile back Japanese scientists launched an LCD screen that let’s you smell what’s on the screen. And now, giving them tough competition here’s another team of scientists who claim to have developed a new phone that can make coffee!

Now imagine your smart-phone doing that!

Yes, you read that right. A team of scientists has come together and created a technology that if true, will be a boon for most of us around. The smartphone that can apparently make you your perfect brew has been funnily enough named ‘Sample’. Ask the team why sample and the scientists clarify. “The smartphone revolution has just kicked off and is yet in its nascent stages. whatever you say, the technologies being developed out there in the market tell you the phone space is far from being saturated. Infact, the innovations have only about just started. This phone is a tiny ‘sample’ of the things yet to arrive in the market.”

So far, the scientists have just developed the technology to fit the interiors of a phone with something similar to the coffee machines in your office. Considering it’s a phone, the device and the capacity will definitely be much smaller and thinner.

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“Considering the love phone-makers have for making their phones sleeker and slimier, the real challenge we faced was incorporating the mechanism into a phone and still maintain its slimness,” says the lead scientist whose brainchild was this complete project.

Though the mechanism is ready on paper and perfect in theory, there is one major element missing. The team has to yet develop a phone to incorporate the technology into. While they are still working on a prototype, tests have already been conducted on Apple and Samsung devices to check the compatibility with other models. “We are not ruling out tie-ups in the future. And experimenting with their phones also gives us a chance to understand the product better”, the scientists say.

According to the team, so far the experiments have been successful and they are very close to developing a prototype for the coffee-phone. Meanwhile patents have been filed and the team is hoping for a positive response.

It all does sound very good, but how does it actually work? There are two tubes running between the length of the phone which will carry the coffee powder and water. There is no provision for milk yet and the team is contemplating adding a third tube without compromising the phone’s thinness. The phone will come with two slots on top for filling the coffee-power or water. We guess the opening will be something like your 3.5mm headphone jack. The company also plans to provide a small funnel to ease filling of the tubes. The tube of coffee can hold approximately one table-spoon of the powder.

Coffee Anyone?

The water inside will be heated using power from the battery. It sounds deceptively simple, we do have our doubts. Does this mean the phone will be a water-proof phone with each interior part coated with a water-resistive film? For the phone will not just be carrying a considerable amount of water but piping hot water at that. Also, how will the internal temperature of the phone be maintained? And what if the pipes burst?

The questions sure seem worrying and while there are no answers, we can do little but wait. After all, if your phone is giving you espressos on the go, you better not complain, eh?

Apart from the main feature, there are other features to the phone also. What are those features? And will the phone run on Android? Or will it be a Windows 8 device? Check out the next page to know more about the detailed features of the phone…

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New app that can hack your smartphone camera and spy on you

LONDON: US military experts have demonstrated a new smartphone app that can turn your mobile's camera into a spying tool for cyber criminals, secretly beaming images of your house, chequebook and other private information back to them.
The software can even build up a 3D model of your house, from which the hackers can inspect your rooms, potentially gleaning information about valuables in your home, calendar entries as well as spying on you.

The app 'PlaiceRaider' was created by US military experts at Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, to show how cybercriminals could operate in the future, the Daily Mail reported.
The creators even demonstrated how they could read the numbers of a cheque book when they tested the Android software on 20 volunteers.
As long as the app could be installed on the users phone, it can instantly begin beaming back images from the phone when it senses the right conditions, and software on the other end can then re-construct maps of the visited room.
The team gave their infected phone to 20 individuals, who did not know about the malicious app, and asked them to continue operating in their normal office environment.
The team said they could glean vital information from all 20 users, and that the 3D reconstruction made it much easier to steal information than by just using the images alone.
Researcher Robert Templeman said their app can run in the background of any smartphone using the Android 2.3 operating system.
Through completely opportunistic use of the phone's camera and other sensors, PlaceRaider constructs rich, three dimensional models of indoor environments.
"Remote burglars can thus "download" the physical space, study the environment carefully, and steal virtual objects from the environment (such as financial documents, information on computer monitors, and personally identifiable information)," researchers said.
PlaiceRaider will silently take photographs, recording the time, location and orientation due to the sensors within most modern smartphones.
It will then delete any blurred or dark shots, before sending the rest back to a central server, which can reconstruct the user's room, based on information such as phone orientation.
Then the hacker can explore the user's property at will - for instance, scanning the room for calendars, private details on computer screens, and cheque-books or card details.
"We implemented on Android for practical reasons, but we expect such malware to generalise to other platforms such as iOS and Windows Phone," Templeman said.

New App Lets Guys Rate Their Hookups

Talking about your recent hookup with your close friends is one thing, but putting all of his info—and the details about your bedroom romp—online? That's tacky.

Well, apparently some computer science majors at the University of Michigan don't understand that: They created The Playbook, an app that asks you to "share your romantic encounters with your closest friends."

Yes, seriously.

The app apparently allows you to rate your conquests with commentary...so your virtual friends can virtually high-five you for having sex.

Honestly, the guys behind the app sound pretty clueless about women—and to why something like this is so offensive in the first place.

We're not just picking on the guys, either: Lulu, an app that encourages college girls to rate and comment on guys these see around campus, is guilty of the same thing.

We're not saying you can't dish on the dirty details of your last hookup with friends. But, let's just keep it offline.

The iPhone app that lets you see your friends naked

People need many things right now, but surely nothing more than the ability to spontaneously see through the clothing of another.
You know this is true. So do the other-oriented folks at Presselite. For they want you to share their pride in an application creation called Nude It, which was approved by the Apple store Komsomol Tuesday.
Antoine Morcos, co-founder of Presselite, admitted in a press release that the creators' inspiration in the development of this astounding technology came from the WhoIsTheBaldGuyBlog. I have embedded a YouTube video in order to give you some relief from feeling that you inhabit a strange planet called Nexus One.
In essence, the pleasure you will get from Nude It may well rival what you felt when you were 7 and took a gullible elementary school pupil into the restroom, placed their head in the toilet bowl, and asked them if they've ever seen the blue goldfish.
I can sense your cheeks twitching with anticipation as to how one might use the Nude It app. Well, the instructions tell me that you point your iPhone at a friend, or someone who is about to be a former friend, from a distance of less than 6.5 feet.
The scanning technology will then reveal to you every last mole on your victim's ribcage, as well as every last goose bump of their excitement.

This is what they call nude? Sigh.

(Credit: Presselite)

The makers do warn that you should clearly see your subject's face on the screen before you activate their embarrassment.
I am concerned, though, by the images that Presselite has included as an example. You see, they show that Nude It merely reveals people in their underpants. The general method males use for this purpose is to find a lady friend with whom they can wander into any of the increasingly liberal changing rooms of our major retail stores.
Still, I know many of you will be rushing to experience this new tool and that several of you will soon have pressing appointments with your Human Resources department.

Charge Your Phone With Your Voice

Peter Ferenczi in Innovations & Inventions

New technology could use speech to charge your phone, highlighting the potential for scavenged energy to extend mobile device battery life.
South Korean researchers, using nanoscale zinc-oxide strands sandwiched between electrodes, are turning the vibrations of speech into electricity. The technology has a ways to go before providing any kind of useful charge to a phone — it generated a measly 50 millivolts from speech in tests — but it could eventually form part of a constellation of technologies that scavenge energy from the environment to keep batteries topped up.
“Sound power can be used for various novel applications including cellular phones that can be charged during conversations and sound-insulating walls near highways that generate electricity from the sound of passing vehicles,” said Dr. Sang-Woo Kim, who developed the technology.
Quieter options are also in the works.
Scientists recently demonstrated a transparent screen coating that can captures solar energy to trickle-charge a smartphone, which could be commercialized within a year. Apple has filed patents for a solar-powered smartphone charging system as well.
Meanwhile, Nokia patented a mechanism to harvest kinetic energy, such as the bouncing of a phone in a pocket when someone is walking, for charging batteries.
While those inventions seem promising, advances in chip making and display technologies — one of the biggest power hogs in a smartphone — will probably do more to extend battery life for mobile devices in the short term. But tapping into free environmental energy has a promising future. ♦

Meet the artificial intelligence robot that can do EVERYTHING

Mako is installed with voice recognition and can navigate through almost any computer program and across the internet, it is claimed

 
This is the new artificial intelligence robot that claims to "do everything" on your computer without you lifting a finger.
Mako, created by Michael Ghandour, has voice recognition and responds to even the slightest command with amazing speed.
From creating powerpoint presentations from scratch, to searching anything on Google and bringing up the local weather, it appears to have no boundaries.
When Mr Ghandour says thank you after it finds flight times for him, the robotic voice responds: "You're welcome, Sir."
And if you struggle reading long passages on a screen, the robot can do all that for you too.
When Mr Ghandour highlights a line of text, Mako reads it out word perfectly.
And, in what is apparently a first, it can be used on both Macs and PCs.
Mr Ghandour spent seven years working on artificial intelligence programs like this, and said: "Mako will revolutionise how we interact with the technological world."

Hacking Facebook Account with just a text message

Can you ever imagine that a single text message is enough to hack any Facebook account without user interaction or without using any other malicious stuff like Trojans, phishing, keylogger etc. ?

Today we are going to explain you that how a UK based Security Researcher, "fin1te" is able to hack any Facebook account within a minute by doing one SMS.

Because 90% of us are Facebook user too, so we know that there is an option of linking your mobile number with your account, which allows you to receive Facebook account updates via SMS directly to your mobile and also you can login into your account using that linked number rather than your email address or username.

According to hacker, the loophole was in phone number linking process, or in technical terms, at file /ajax/settings/mobile/confirm_phone.php

This particular webpage works in background when user submit his phone number and verification code, sent by Facebook to mobile. That submission form having two main parameters, one for verification code, and second is profile_id, which is the account to link the number to.

As attacker, follow these steps to execute hack: 

1. Change value of profile_id to the Victim's profile_id value by tampering the parameters.
2. Send the letter F to 32665, which is Facebook’s SMS shortcode in the UK. You will receive an 8 character verification code back.
   
3. Enter that code in the box or as confirmation_code parameter value and Submit the form.

Facebook will accept that confirmation code and attacker's mobile number will be linked to victim's Facebook profile.

In next step hacker just need to go to Forgot password option and initiate the password reset request against of victim's account.

Your Next Car Might Be Powered By Hydrogen, Or The Sun

LAS VEGAS (AP) — While autonomous driving is a major theme at the International CES gadget show, cars that use futuristic sources of energy are potentially much closer on the horizon.
Ford Motor Co. showed off a prototype solar hybrid car called the C-MAX Solar Energi, which has a gas engine along with rooftop solar panels that also power the engine. The car is designed to park under a 15-foot-tall carport made of a thin magnifying glass called a Fresnel lens that concentrates the sun’s rays onto the panel to efficiently generate electricity. The carport isn’t portable. So the car has to stop and recharge.
Seven hours of sunlight gives a full charge — the average amount of light in a typical American city, according to Michael Tinskey, Ford’s associate director of vehicle electrification and infrastructure.
The vehicle must park facing east-west and inch forward to make the most of the sun’s rays as it passes overhead. With the movement, it’ll get a full charge, enough to run 21 miles on electricity only. Without the movement, it’ll get only 3 miles of juice on a seven-hour charge, before the gas engine needs to kick in.
While the car is being tested on streets now, engineers have more to figure out. For example, the carport is set up to be flat, making it vulnerable to weather.
"We’ve got to figure out snow, we’ve got to figure out rain," Tinskey said. "We know we’ve got more work to do."
Also on display is Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, called FCV for now. It will go on sale next year in the U.S. With a battery that uses hydrogen stored in a 5-kilogram (11-pound) tank and oxygen that rushes in through the front grill, the electric engine vehicle can get 300 miles while only emitting water and water vapor.
The main issue for eco-friendly owners will be finding enough hydrogen refueling stations to drive a decent range. California has approved $200 million in funding to build 20 fueling stations by 2015 and 100 by 2024. Toyota says as little as 68 stations will support 10,000 vehicles in the state.
The car’s hydrogen power source is harvested in a chemical process involving natural gas. It is already being used in industrial processes like oil refining, and there are pipelines zig-zagging beneath major cities like Los Angeles, said Jared Farnsworth, senior engineer of powertrain system control for Toyota in North America.
With hydrogen prices expected to be about $6 to $10 per kilogram — equivalent to $30 to $50 to fill Toyota’s FCV — there won’t be much savings for owners used to getting hybrid vehicle mileage, especially because the car is expected to be priced from $50,000 to $100,000 when it goes on sale next year. But the Earth might thank them later.

Top 5 phones to look forward to in 2014

We look at the handsets set to make waves over the next 12 months.

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2013 might have offered fingerprint scanners, gesture tech and ever-better screens. But 2014 promises to bring even more to the party.
Every major player has got something to prove in the next 12 months, whether it’s Apple with a newly designed iPhone, Samsung with a heftier flagship Galaxy or HTC with another device that simply must save it from extinction.
Here’s our pick of the five devices you need to look out for.

1 HTC One Two

We already know the name of HTC’s next top-end device thanks to a UK judge. He revealed the moniker after a testy court case, which saw Nokia win a ban on HTC’s One Mini.
The Taiwanese company will be hoping this new device doesn’t suffer the same fate, because it really does sound great.
We’re looking at the same metal chassis as the HTC One, but with an amped up 5-inch screen on top.
Other specs are about as scarce as Lord Lucan, but we do know it’ll be out in February (hat tip to the same Lord Justice who told the world the phone’s name).
That means it’ll most likely make an appearance at Mobile World Congress.

2 Samsung Galaxy S5

Gossiped about for months, Samsung’s new device is perhaps the most hyped phone out there right now. Word on the web is that Sammy is finally going to give its top-end phone a proper metal chassis, putting it in the same league as Apple and HTC.
Specs-wise, the phone is believed to have a 16 megapixel camera round the back and a 2K screen, which should make watching movies truly stunning.
February or March have been pegged as release dates, with Samsung said to be desperate to keep up the pressure on Cupertino.

3 Nokia Normandy

One device rumour that has really got us salivating is Nokia’s much-vaunted Android phone.
Sources have claimed it’ll be aimed at emerging markets, using a forked version of Google’s OS (much like Amazon’s Kindle Fire does) to serve up proper smartphone apps.
Chances are it won’t land in the UK. And it may not even see the light of day if it’s not finished before Microsoft completes its takeover of Nokia’s devices and services business aryl next year. We’re hopeful that we’ll at least get a glimpse of what a Nokia/Google mashup looks like.

4 Apple iPhone 6

The iPhone 6 is sufficiently far away from launch that gossip about its specs and design are still somewhat loopy.
There’s talk of a curved display, a 5-inch phablet frame and much-improved camera skills.
What we do know is that next year represents another chance for a redesign of the device, with the 5S only being a step-change (Touch ID aside) and the 5C offering a cheap(ish) alternative.
That means Jony Ive could go nuts and unveil a phone that matches up to his bonkers reimagining of iOS which caused such a stir earlier this year.

5 Sony Xperia Z2

We love Sony’s Xperia Z1. But the Z2 promises to be even better.
There’s said to be a 5.2-inch display, with more than 500 pixels per inch. And that’s before we’ve got to the camera, which is believed to be even better than the amazing 20 megapixel effort which currently resides on Sony’s flagship.
While the sensor will remain the same size, word is a Xenon flash will give it an edge on competitors.
All of which makes this one to get truly excited about.

Switch On This Dial And Music Will Play Throughout Your House

Jan 8, 2014

Also See:

best of ces

What if playing music when you get home was as automatic as flipping on a light switch or turning on the heat?
Bang & Olufsen’s latest gizmo, the BeoSound Essence, is made just for that.
This thermostat-like knob is meant to be mounted on your wall in an easily accessible area of your house, and works with Bang & Olufsen’s wireless speakers. Whenever you want to listen to your jamz, you can press the top circle button on the knob’s front plate. The Essence’s Bluetooth signal—powered by a discreet white box you can hide behind your couch—will automatically pick up the music you had playing from any of your Bluetooth-capable gadgets and play them from your speakers.
You can change the volume with a quick turn of the knob, and skip forward and back by pushing the arrows on the left and right — sort of like the old iPod’s famous click wheel. The Essence also comes with its own music app supported on both iOS and Android and is compatible with AirPlay, DLNA, Spotify and most internet radio stations.
If you’d prefer to carry that little knob with you to your couch or your bed, it also comes mounted on a fancy little aluminum plate (which, will debut in gray, but has the potential to come in a whole line of Denmark-approved colors, as seen below).

The company’s C.E.O., Tue Mantoni, made a good point during one of his private CES presentations: “When people take out their phones to put on a song, they don’t turn on the music. They read 10 emails before they turn on the music.” But, as is the norm with B&O products, there’s one incredibly preventative factor in their goal to make electronics more accessible: price. The BeoSound Essence (which, by the way, sounds like a line of Snooki’s perfumes) will go for an obscene $995 this spring. And adding that extra slab of aluminum will set you back $200 more.
Here’s to hoping we see some cheaper copycats of this very cool idea in the near future. 

Solar-Powered Cars: How Do They Work?

A solar vehicle is primarily powered by direct solar energy. Photovoltaic cells (PVC) are installed on the car to collect and convert solar energy into electric energy. Made of silicon and alloys of indium, gallium and nitrogen, the semiconductors absorb light and then release it, creating a flow of electrons that generate electricity.
The first solar car was introduced in 1955 at a Chicago auto show. It was 15 inches long, featured 12 PVC cells and was called the Sunmobile. Its solar-power-operated, 1.5-volt motor turned the driveshaft and transferred the energy to propel the wheels.
Seven years later, the first full-size solar-powered car, a 50-year-old Baker, was unveiled as a concept car. But it was never mass-produced. Numerous other solar-powered cars, some with odd names like Bluebird and Quiet Achiever, had their moments of fame in auto shows and competitions.
In more recent years, several Japanese and American carmakers have also introduced solar-powered hybrid cars. The concept-only vehicles have ranged from using solar power to run accessories to cells installed inside headlights. In the mid-1980s, Mazda’s solar offering was the Senku, while Ford unveiled the Reflex and Cadillac had the Provoq.
None of the manufacturers’ solar-powered cars made it to the public. And likewise, the ambitious French-made Venturi Electric, which combined a solar-, wind- and battery-powered engine, didn’t make it. The Venturi held only three passengers and had a maximum speed of 30 mph.
Transforming concept solar cars into publicly available solar cars poses a few questions. How does the car travel at night? Is the solar car only feasible in states where the sun shines a majority of the time? Ford aims to solve these issues with the introduction this week of the C-MAX Solar Energi Concept car.

Soon, You Might Unlock Your Hotel Room With Your Smartphone

As anyone who’s spent the night outside their own home in the past two decades can tell you, hotels have been moving away from the whole lock-and-key system, widely adopting keycards as an industry standard.
Now, Starwood, a hotel and resort chain operating more than 1,000 properties worldwide, has been experimenting with some alternative approaches, including a system in which you can open your hotel door with your smartphone.
Here’s the history: Back in 2010, Starwood began experimenting with a Netflix-like approach to check-ins, mailing preferred guests keycards that would be activated when their room was ready for check-in upon their arrival.
Fast-forward a few years, and the chain is now skipping the post office, experimenting with phone-based check-ins at Aloft Hotel locations in Harlem and Cupertino. Rather than getting a physical keycard in the mail, a guest receives a virtual one pushed to her Starwood app, letting her forgo the front desk and use the phone as the room key, connecting to the lock via a Bluetooth connection.
The app works on the iPhone 4s and newer and Android handsets running 4.3 or later; Starwood is quick to emphasize, however, that the front desk isn’t going anywhere, for flip-phone holdouts and Windows Phone owners.
As for the locks themselves, they’re battery-powered. The upside is that they’ll continue to operate should the hotel’s system go down. The downside is that once the battery dies, they’re pretty much useless — thankfully, however, the front desk will get a notification when their juice is running low.
The past year or so has seen a major land rush to produce a so-called “smartlock,” or a lock that connects to your smartphone and can be opened via an app. Within the past few years, products like Goji, August and Okidokeys (listen, we didn’t name ’em) have battled to replace traditional front door keys with smartphones.
It’s an appealing (if potentially risky) proposition for anyone who’s ever fished around for a set of keys on a sub-zero day. And let’s face it: These days you’re a lot more likely to leave behind your keychain (or your hotel keycard) than your smartphone.

Princeton study suggested Facebook could lose 80% of its users by 2017

The ivy-leafed campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Facebook pokes fun at Princeton University over controversial social media study
• Princeton study suggested Facebook could lose 80% of its users by 2017
• Facebook: Research shows Princeton will run out of students by 2021
• Observer: "You come at the king of social media, you best not miss"

(CNN) -- It's an Internet feud between polar opposites: East Coast vs. West Coast, old school vs. new media, Ivy League gravitas vs. Silicon Valley geekery.

In one corner is Princeton University. In the other, Facebook.

At stake is the credibility of Princeton's research and -- gasp! -- the future viability of Mark Zuckerberg's network. Or, at least, the hearts and minds of the thousands of observers taking sides on social media.

It all started last week when a group of Princeton researchers published a paper that suggested Facebook could lose a whopping 80% of its users by 2017. They based their projection on epidemiological models, typically used to chart the spread of disease, using the demise of Myspace as a case study.

Data "suggests that Facebook has already reached the peak of its popularity and has entered a decline phase," the researchers wrote in the paper, which has not been peer-reviewed.

Recent research has suggested, and Facebook has admitted, that younger users are abandoning Facebook for other social platforms. Even so, many observers were skeptical of Princeton's methodology.

"It's an old journalistic trick: Just add the words 'research' or 'study' to a sensational claim for instant credibility," wrote Slate's Will Oremus, who criticized news outlets for reporting uncritically on the paper. "Best of all, you're absolved of any responsibility for verifying its truth, since everyone knows journalists aren't qualified to dispute scientific findings."

On Thursday, Facebook fired back. But instead of a canned statement or a point-by-point renunciation of the researchers' methods, they took a more playful tack.

"Using the same robust methodology featured in the paper, we attempted to find out more about this 'Princeton University' -- and you won't believe what we found!" Facebook data scientist Mike Develin wrote in a blog post on his page.

An examination of Facebook and Google patterns spells bad news ahead for the university, Develin said, tongue firmly planted in a sarcastic cheek.

"This trend suggests that Princeton will have only half its current enrollment by 2018, and by 2021 it will have no students at all, agreeing with the previous graph of scholarly scholarliness. Based on our robust scientific analysis, future generations will only be able to imagine this now-rubble institution that once walked this earth," he added.

"Although this research has not yet been peer-reviewed, every Like for this post counts as a peer review. Start reviewing!"

By Friday afternoon his post had attracted more than 8,100 likes and comments such as "well played!"

"You come at the king of social media, you best not miss," wrote Chris Taylor on Mashable. CNET called it "the comeback of all comebacks."

The smackdown also spilled over to Twitter, where the Huffington Post called it a "nerd brawl" and most observers gave credit to Facebook for having a sense of humor.

A Princeton University spokesman did not immediately respond Friday to CNN's request for comment.

In reality, neither institution is in danger of wasting away any time soon. Princeton received 24,498 applicants for its current freshman class and accepted only 7.4% of them, ensuring its status as one of the nation's elite universities. And as of September 2013 Facebook had 1.2 billion monthly active users.

Pope Francis: The Internet Is a ‘Gift from God’

AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino
Sure, much of the World Wide Web can resemble the bottom rungs of Dante’s “Inferno” from time to time. But Pope Francis has given it his holy seal of approval, calling the Internet “a gift from God” in a Vatican-released statement on Thursday.
Why so bullish on the very thing that brought us the LOLcat? The Internet presents a platform for communication, Pope Francis wrote, letting people of different faiths and backgrounds interact. The pope is using the message to promote open conversation about things like faith, adding that “engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions, but the pretense that they alone are valid and absolute.”

Archbishop Claudio Mario Celli was quick to do a bit of containment in a statement issued to The Associated Press, insisting that the pope’s words are meant to be taken as a “reflection,” rather than “a conciliar or dogmatic text.” Pope Francis also added that while there are positives on the Internet, it can also ultimately serve to isolate users from friends and family.