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    It's Christmastime for Apple fanboys

    Which iPhone will it be? Watch an exclusive live blog of the Apple iPhone announcement

    Fayza A. Elmostehi
    Fayza A. Elmostehi
    Oct 4, 2011 | 12:02 pm
    Will the next iPhone be more or less like the iPhone 4 it succeeds?

    1:42 p.m. And that's all, folks! They're filing out. Thanks for joining me for the very first Apple Cook-tease — errr, I mean, Tim Cook's first product launch event. Keep it real, kids.

    1:40 p.m. The iPhone 4 will be available in black and white for just $99. The iPhone 4S in black and white, too — 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399. You read that right. 64GB. In an iPhone. I DIE.

    1:38 p.m. Pre-orders on Oct. 7, official launch on Oct. 14. Fastest. Rollout. EVAR.

    1:37 p.m. Yes, Sprint, you're finally getting the iPhone. Not you, though, T-Mobile. Sucks to be you.

    1:35 p.m. THE IPHONE 3GS 8GB IS FREE. Wait a second. That was how many iterations ago? Scratch that. I got excited when I saw "free."

    1:31 p.m. Natural language, conversational, contextual, personal. Yes, but does Siri feel real?

    1:29 p.m. Scott Forstall asked, "Who are you?" Siri replied, "I am a humble personal assistant." UNTIL SHE AND HER MINIONS TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

    1:28 p.m. Poor Suri Cruise. She'll forever think she was named after a bossy iPhone feature.

    1:25 p.m. Now they're just bragging. We get it. NOTHING CAN STOP SIRI.

    1:23 p.m. OK, dudes, you've got to see this for yourself. You can reply to messages, set up appointments, all via speaking, and Siri does it for you. It's fascinating, not to mention a bit terrifying. "Define mitosis." "Remind me to call my wife after work." Siri knows your wife's name is Molly already. Robots replacing humans. iPhones will rule the world.

    1:21 p.m. Ask Siri about the weather — she has the answer. Ask Siri how to get to your favorite restaurant — she will take you. Ask Siri who you'll marry — she probably knows that, too. Ask Siri when you'll die — well, you see where this is going.

    1:19 p.m. The iPhone is turning into the Magic 8-Ball.

    1:18 p.m. Joel Luks says, "The second I start talking to my iPhone, kill me."

    1:17 p.m. Are you serious? Ask your phone anything, and Siri knows the answer? THIS IS AMAZING. I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!

    1:16 p.m. I want a device to really understand me, too.

    1:15 p.m. "Your intelligent assistant to get things done just by asking." OMG, we're getting robots?

    1:15 p.m. WHO IS SIRI?

    1:14 p.m. I had to pee. I just had to.

    1:10 p.m. Oh, video, video, video. You're making me drool. Upping the resolution, real-time video image stabilization, real-time temporal noise reduction. I don't know about you, but I love the video camera on the iPhone 4. Help me pick my jaw up off the floor over this iPhone 4S!

    1:08 p.m. Improved shot-to-shot time, auto white balance correction, and guess what? You're getting a point-and-shoot, folks. Say goodbye to that pocket camera of yours. It sounds like you won't need it now.

    1:05 p.m. The iPhone 4S's camera will feature an eight megapixel sensor starting at f2.4. For you non-photography junkies, that means better photos in lower light. It also means my iPhone 4 hates your iPhone 4S.

    1:04 p.m. Data downloads two times faster. What happened to that seven times faster thing I heard a few minutes ago?

    1:03 p.m. The new iPhone will intelligently switch between antennas for making and receiving calls, stepping up the phone's call quality game. As opposed to the iPhone 4's antenna that you could squash just by holding the phone?

    1:02 p.m. Eight hours of talk time? You bastards!

    12:57 p.m. This means the iPhone 5 — har har, just seeing if you're paying attention; I mean the iPhone 4S — is going to be a gaming machine. Angry Birds on crack. What about Twitter on crack? Mail on crack? Facebook on crack? I need answers.

    12:56 p.m. Dual, dual, dual. Dual core CPU, dual core graphics. Seven times faster than the previous iPhone. Excuse me while I comfort my iPhone 4 and kiss away its inferiority complex.

    12:55 p.m. "It starts with the retina display, but inside, it's all new." Here's where I get jealous.

    12:55 p.m. CONFIRMED: iPhone 4S. Yes, that's all, folks. No iPhone 5 for you.

    12:54 p.m. OMG NEW IPHONE TIME. Yes, I can hold my pee.

    12:52 p.m. The iPod Touch is about to take on the gaming world. Kiss it goodbye, Game Boy. Are Game Boys still around? I liked mine when I was eight.

    12:50 p.m. The multi-touch display on the iPod nano is improving, and you won't need any sensors or other doohickeys (yes, I just said that) to track your fitness progress. And they've added a clock, so you can wear it as a watch. Oh dear. It's available today.

    12:49 p.m. Phil Schiller's up, talkin' iPods, wearing an even brighter blue than the Apple announcement handbook probably permits.

    12:47 p.m. iTunes Match scans your libraries and you can play music on devices where your music doesn't exist. You'll need to subscribe. It's not available yet. You probably already knew that if you pay attention to, um, anything Apple does at all. How long does this recap last?

    12:45 p.m. All this talk about the launch of the iCloud. For months. Launch it, dammit. I'm ready already.

    12:44 p.m. Family & Friends is an interesting new feature. And by "interesting," I mean, "Neato! How stalker-friendly!"

    12:42 p.m. Wait. You're telling me that iCloud is a backup? For your data? Across every device? OMG I KNEW THAT ALREADY.

    12:40 p.m. I honestly thought this was an iPhone event. Silly me. On to the iCloud, which they've covered in conferences before. Sigh.

    12:39 p.m. Is Eddy Cue actually wearing blue at an Apple announcement? Oh, the sacrilege!

    12:36 p.m. iOS 5 on Oct. 12, too? Happy birthday to me, dude.

    12:35 p.m. Built-in photo editing. Now that's nice. It won't stop me from using Instagram, though.

    12:34 p.m. Reading List syncs between devices, and the iPad is getting fully tabbed browsing. You're losing me, Apple. A nap is sounding better than this.

    12:31 p.m. iMessage, iReminder, Newsstand, Twitter integration, better camera control. This is all old news. I'm falling asleep, Forstall. Is Steve Jobs in the audience? Hey, is that glitter over there?

    12:29 p.m. Notifications will now be located in a central place. Likey. But not news.

    12:28 p.m. Ooh, Cards launches on my birthday. Try it out by sending me one. It's only $2.99. Consider me an investment.

    12:26 p.m. New app called "Cards." Make your own greeting cards. Um. Back to paper we go?

    12:25 p.m. iOS is better than Android. Next.

    12:24 p.m. Hello, Scott Forstall. Time to talk iOS.

    12:23 p.m. 250 million cajillion bazillion iPads, iPhones, iPods, iNeedIts sold. Ever.

    12:21 p.m. iPads in schools! iPads for pilots! iPads in hospitals! The iPad is SO USEFUL, in case you didn't know.

    12:20 p.m. But he's only teasing us. No new iPhone talk yet. On to the iPad.

    12:19 p.m. The iPhone is the No. 1 smartphone in the world. Who's surprised? Do I need to pull out the exclamation points?

    12:18 p.m. iTunes is the best music player in the world. That's not a direct quote, but it might as well be.

    12:16 p.m. iTunes is up to 20 million songs, and the iPhone 4 makes up over half the iPhone market. I'll bet that means over half the iPhone market is ready to upgrade. My iPhone 4 is the glitchiest thing in gadget history.

    12:14 p.m. Time to pat themselves on the back for the iPod now. Market share for the iPod is 78 percent. Over 300 million iPods sold. It took Sony 30 years to sell 220,000 Walkman cassette players. I can't even make fun of that.

    12:13 p.m. The gist? Apple is kicking the crap out of the PC industry. I don't think anyone's surprised.

    12:11 p.m. Six million copies of OSX Lion have been downloaded so far. Hooray.

    12:08 p.m. Tim Cook says he could watch that video 100 more times. I hope he does that on his own time. 357 total stores in 11 countries. Yeah, that's kind of a big deal.

    12:07 p.m. Apple video time! Shanghai is very! Excited! To have! Such! A! Pretty! Apple! Store!

    12:05 p.m. Tim — can I call him Timmy? — is waxing nostalgic about Apple's latest retail stores in China. That's nice. Let's get to the products already.

    12:03 p.m. Apple's new CEO Tim Cook takes the stage for his first product launch. I miss the black turtleneck.

    11:56 a.m. What's up, Apple fanboys? Fayza here. Are you just as anxious about the announcement of the new iPhone? I'm already hearing rumors that it's a 4S. Does that matter to you? I guess we'll find out.

    unspecified
    news/innovation

    brain scientists at work

    Rice University scientists invent new algorithm to fight Alzheimer's

    Jef Rouner
    Oct 24, 2025 | 3:00 pm
    Vicky Yao and Qiliang Lai of Rice University work on a laptop.
    Photo courtesy of Rice University
    Vicky Yao, an assistant professor of computer science and member of the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice University, and Qiliang Lai, a Rice postdoctoral researcher

    A new breakthrough from researchers at Rice University could unlock the genetic components that determine several human diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

    Alzheimer's disease affected 57 million people worldwide in 2021, and cases in the United States are expected to double in the next couple of decades. Despite its prevalence and widespread attention of the condition, the full mechanisms are still poorly understood. One hurdle has been identifying which brain cells are linked to the disease.

    For years, it was thought that the cells most linked with Alzheimer's pathology via DNA evidence were microglia, infection-fighting cells in the brain. However, this did not match with actual studies of Alzheimer's patients' brains. It's the memory-making cells in the human brain that are implicated in the pathology.

    To prove this link, researchers at Rice alongside Boston University developed a computational algorithm called “Single-cell Expression Integration System for Mapping genetically implicated Cell types," or SEISMIC. It allows researchers to zero in on specific neurons linked to Alzheimer's, the first of its kind. Qiliang Lai, a Rice doctoral student and the lead author of a paper on the discovery published in Nature Communications, believes that this is an important step in the fight against Alzheimer's.

    “As we age, some brain cells naturally slow down, but in dementia ⎯ a memory-loss disease ⎯ specific brain cells actually die and can’t be replaced,” said Lai. “The fact that it is memory-making brain cells dying and not infection-fighting brain cells raises this confusing puzzle where DNA evidence and brain evidence don’t match up.”

    Studying Alzheimer's has been hampered by the limitations of computational analysis. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) map small differences in the DNA of Alzheimer's patients. The genetic signal in these studies would often over-emphasize the presence of infection fighting cells, essentially making the activity of those cells too "loud" statistically to identify other factors. Combined with greater specificity in brain regional activity, SEISMIC reduces the data chatter to grant a clearer picture of the genetic component of Alzheimer's.

    “We built our seismic algorithm to analyze genetic information and match it precisely to specific types of brain cells,” Lai said. “This enables us to create a more detailed picture of which cell types are affected by which genetic programs.”

    Though the algorithm is not in and of itself likely to lead to a cure or treatment for Alzheimer's any time soon, the researchers say that SEISMIC is already performing significantly better than existing tools at identifying important disease-relevant cellular signals more clearly.

    “We think this work could help reconcile some contradicting patterns in the data pertaining to Alzheimer’s research,” said Vicky Yao, assistant professor of computer science and a member of the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice. “Beyond that, the method will likely be broadly valuable to help us better understand which cell types are relevant in different complex diseases.”

    rice universityscienceresearch
    news/innovation
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