Science & Technology Today

Not too long ago, it was on the list of must-have gadgets of most tech enthusiasts. But Cisco has announced last week that it is shutting down production of the Flip Camcorder, a company that it acquired as recently as March 2009. The camcorder continues to be quite popular in the U.S. and in the few other markets that it has been present, its USP is its ease of use and “file transfer”. The third generation Flip camcorders that hit the stores last year were capable of shooting videos in HD, image stabilisation, and the advanced models even had options to plug in external microphones. Sadly the growth of Flip coincided with the growth and the growth of smart phones. With the camera functions of smart phones improving vastly, Cisco just did not see reason in continuing with a stand-alone camcorder.

Our universe is full of massive empty spaces and if all emptiness in the universe were to be removed, the universe may become as big as our fist. This is a fascinating excursion. You could say that an atom is more empty than the solar system. The universe is quite empty. The interstellar space contains only about one atom hydrogen per cubic centimeter. In the intergalactic space, this is one hundred thousand times smaller. Yet, it is enough to ensure that the universe is relatively stable and relatively flat. Even our hydrogen atom is quite empty. The size of an atom is small but the size of the nucleus inside is a hundred thousand times smaller. A peculiar happening, but this is the only way it works. The reason is that the so-called empty space is nothing; it carries the influence of every thing around. Also, whatever is not present physically has a potential existence that can transition to reality of the kind we can touch and feel through a quantum fluctuation.