February 2012
293 posts
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Thermal Storage Gets More Solar on the Grid →
(Abengoa is erecting more than 3,200 mirrored parabolic troughs at its Solana plant near Gila Bend, Ariz. When at full operation, the CSP plant will serve more than 70,000 homes. Credit: Dennis Schroeder)
Peak demand for electricity in the United States typically hits between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., which doesn’t quite line up with the sun’s schedule. It’s fortunate that the sun is...
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MIT Researchers Able to Control Properties of... →
Researchers at MIT have developeda method by which they can control the growth process of nanowiresand thereby control the composition, structure, and even their resulting properties.
The MIT research team, led by Silvija Gradečak, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, followed the usual method of growing nanoparticles by using “seed” particles (metal nanoparticles), but in...
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Telefonica small-cell 4G could provide 100Mbps LTE →
At MWC, Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica will be deploying its first public test of an LTE network that it says can provide download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 40 to 60Mbps. Based on Alcatel-Lucent’s LightRadio cells — one version of which is pictured above — the network is supposed to not only improve speed and capacity, but also be cheaper to deploy than ordinary...
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Nanoscale Lasers Come In Out of the Cold →
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, reported in the journal Nature earlier this month that they have invented a new kind ofnanometer-size laser that requires much less power to generate a coherent beam than previous designs. This type of laser could finally make it practical to use light instead of electricity to send terabits of data between different parts of a computer...
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Schneier: government, big data pose bigger 'Net... →
As Bruce Schneier spent the past decade watching the growing rash of phishers, malware attacks, and identity theft, a new Internet threat has emerged that poses even greater risks, the security expert said.
Unlike the security risks posed by criminals, the threat from government regulation and data hoarders such as Apple and Google are more insidious because they threaten to alter the fabric of...
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Google as hardware company: Phones, tablets … and... →
We’ve known for a while that Google would be getting into the device business through its acquisition of Motorola Mobility. However, two items this week make it seem that the search giant’s ambitions in the hardware market go beyond what we’ve previously known, in potentially significant ways.
Overnight came the news that Google may be contemplating its own 7-inch Android tablet, to compete...
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The 5-Year Pipeline →
Early in 2007 (exactly 5 years ago), I wrote a paper that described all of the components of a fully integrated online learning system. Many pieces of the original architecture I predicted have already begun to take shape. Here is a quick assessment of the pieces that are still missing.
Rapid Courseware-Builder – Several sites are developing courseware builders, yet to date there is nothing...
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GOOGLE STREET VIEW GOES UNDER THE SEA →
Now that it’s conquered all seven continents, mapped the Amazon, some rivers in the United States, caves, the ruins of Pompeii and captured snapshots of naked women, Google Street View’s next expedition will turn its lens on the mysteries of the deep when it goes under the sea.
n a joint venture between Google, the University of Queensland and multinational insurance firm sponsor,...
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Network operators get serious about Wi-Fi →
The world’s cellular industry is coming to Barcelona Spain next week for Mobile World Congress. But one of the key topics will be an entirely different radio technology: Wi-Fi.
At MWC, you’ll be see a massive change in the industry’s thinking about this unlicensed radio standard, now a standard part of smartphones, tablets, gaming devices, and even cameras. Faced with soaring...
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Chemotherapy For The Planet: Geoengineering As A... →
Mount Pinatubo is a volcano in the Philippines that erupted in 1991, spreading 10 million tons of sulfur into the atmosphere. The impact on the local environment was horrific. But scientists later noticed that the acrid cloud deflected 2% of normal sunlight, and reduced worldwide temperatures by 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit). The thinking behind the “Pinatubo Option”...
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One Way Google Might Crash Cable's Party →
While it doesn’t take much for Google to make headlines, this week’s news that it filed applications to operate a video service in Kansas City was much more than your average “Hey look what Google did” story. From the release of Google TVto its recent YouTube redesign to the way it’s been courting professional talent for its YouTube channels, Google has been steadily...
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Facebook's Top Cop: Joe Sullivan →
If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world and Joe Sullivan would be head of Homeland Security.
His actual title is chief security officer. The “terrorists” he’s up against include the “Koobface gang,” a quintet of Russians who unleashed a worm that turned Facebookers’ computers into enslaved bots; the spammers who flooded the site with violent and pornographic...
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Steve Kordek, a Pinball Innovator, Dies at 100 →
Steve Kordek, who revolutionized the game of pinball in the 1940s by designing what became the standard two-flipper machine found in bars and penny arcades around the world, died on Sunday at a hospice in Park Ridge, Ill. He was 100.
Mr. Kordek actually revised a revision of what until the 1930s had been called the pin game. In that version a player would pull a plunger to release the ball, then...
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Metatronic chip replaces electricity with light,... →
Optical engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have created the first computer circuit where logic is performed with light instead of electricity. Dubbed “metatronics,” this light-based logic could enable smaller, faster, and more energy efficient computer chips.
The team, led by Nader Engheta, demonstrated that it’s possible to make resistors, inductors, and capacitors that act on light....
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LG reportedly building first Boot2Gecko phone as... →
Mozilla’s Web-centric Boot2Gecko (B2G) mobile platform is maturing at a rapid pace. As we reported earlier this month, the operating system has already attracted hardware partners and will be demoed at the upcoming Mobile World Congress event. Mozilla is also planning to unveil its new application storefront, called the Mozilla Marketplace, which will allow third-party developers to sell...
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Infoporn: Realtime roadmap →
This is Tel Aviv during rush hour, recorded by social-satnav app Waze. Drivers with the app running on their smartphones are tracked by GPS (routes are shown in green) and their journeys automatically reported to a central database. If the drivers get stuck in a traffic jam, the system alerts other users.
Shown here is a snapshot of Waze activity taken at 3am on May 24, 2011, lifted from...
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Dexterous robots toil at the bottom of the sea to... →
Today, 95 percent of international communications traffic flows through submarine cables laid on the ocean floor. Yet many people still think the internet is beamed around the world by satellites. A submarine cable may not be much to look at, but flashing through the eight fibre-optic lines bundled together inside its narrow confines, each just the width of a single human hair, is enough...
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Facebook Shakes Hardware World With Own Storage... →
Facebook already built its own data center and its own servers. And now the social-networking giant is building its own storage hardware — hardware for housing all the digital stuff uploaded by its more than 845 million users.
“We store a few photos here and there,” says Frank Frankovsky, the ex-Dell man who oversees hardware design at Facebook. That would be an understatement. According to...
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BitTorrent for Live Video →
For the first time ever, this year’s Super Bowl was streamed live online, to the initial delight, and then disappointment, of fans, who experienced poor image quality and delays of several minutes.
The man behind the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, Bram Cohen, is developing software that could fix such problems. This protocol facilitates the distribution of large files by having users...
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Alta Devices: Finding a Solar Solution →
(Flexible power: Alta’s solar cells can be made into bendable sheets. In this sample, a series of solar cells are encapsulated in a roofing material. Credit: Gabriela Hasbun)
Alta Devices is a small but well-funded startup located in the same nondescript Silicon Valley office building that once served as the headquarters for Solyndra, the infamous solar company that went bankrupt last year...
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Metaphorical search engine finds creative new... →
TYPING “love” into Google, I find the Wikipedia entry, a “relationship calculator” and Lovefilm, a DVD rental service. Doing the same inYossarianLives, a new search engine due to launch this year, I might receive quite different results: “river”, “sleep” and “prison”. Its creators claim YossarianLives is a metaphorical search engine,...
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WatchMayor Ed Lee Talks New Gov Tech Projects In San Francisco
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Livestrong Sporting Park Creates Games Within The... →
Just a few years ago, Asim Pasha was a top executive at a medical technology firm. Today, his office is a skybox. As the chief information officer for Sporting Kansas City, he sits amid a cluster of computer terminals watching the action unfold in Livestrong Sporting Park. But he’s not looking at the field. To help fans connect in real time, Pasha has created games within the game: a...
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'Unmanned' presents a nuanced, psychological... →
When most video games deal with war, they typically turn you into a killing machine. The most important decision you have to make in many military first-person shooters is whether to first shoot the snipergiving cover fire from a nest above, or the guy with a rocket launcher threatening to blow through your cover. Even strategy games that zoom back from the action usually reduce your goals to an...
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Mozilla: Welcome Google and Obama, We Invented ‘Do... →
Mozilla took a moment this morning to remind everyone that it invented Do Not Track in February 2011, was the first to implement it with Firefox, and that 18 percent of mobile and 7 percent of desktop Firefox users currently have it activated. Now the President and competitor Google Chrome are joining the bandwagon, but Firefox offered Do Not Track since before it was cool.
...
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Next-gen WiFi hotspots to feature no-password... →
Testing has begun on a new class of WiFi hotspots that will log mobile users in automatically with their SIM cards, potentially alleviating cellular network congestion and helping users stay within the limits of their data plans.
The Wireless Broadband Alliance announced today that it has completed trials with a long list network operators, mobile device makers, and network equipment...
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Iran's "Second Internet" Rivals Censorship Of... →
Iran’s long-awaited “Halal Internet”—a nationwide intranet that will be heavily monitored and cut off from the rest of the world—finally has a launch date. According to Iranian Telecommunications Minister Reza Taghipour Anvari, Iran’s new Internet will be launched in late May or early June. The project is the most ambitious effort yet by any government to censor the...
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A Visit to the Only American Mine for Rare Earth... →
Molycorp is the only US company that produces the rare earth metals used in devices ranging from wind turbines and electric vehicles to missile-guidance systems and compact fluorescent lightbulbs. There are seventeen rare earth elements, including praseodymium (used to makephotographic filters), neodymium (used to make permanent magnets in hard drives and other electronics), and europium (used...
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Computer modeling: brain in a box →
Henry Markram’s controversial proposal for the Human Brain Project (HBP) — an effort to build a supercomputer simulation that integrates everything known about the human brain, from the structures of ion channels in neural cell membranes up to mechanisms behind conscious decision-making — may soon fulfill his ambition.
The project is one of six finalists vying to win €1 billion (US$1.3 billion)...
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Qualcomm Atheros announces 1.3Gbps 802.11ac Wi-Fi... →
Qualcomm Atheros is releasing a family of new chips for 802.11ac — an emerging, faster wireless standard set to overtake 802.11n. If you’re a manufacturer ogling Qualcomm’sSnapdragon 4, the single-stream WCN3680 with 802.11ac and integrated Bluetooth and FM complements the Snapdragon’s impressive benchmark scores and built-in 802.11b/g/n connectivity. On the other hand, if...
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BongoHive maps tech incubators in Africa →
Zambian tech hub BongoHive has created a user-generated online map of the tech business incubation hubs across Africa.
The map, entitled Hubs in Africa, uses online mapping platformUshahidi to build up a picture of the technology and entrepreneurship clusters emerging across the continent. There are already 16 tech hubs plotted on the map from 13 different countries, including a Cairo...
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Recognising Turing's influence on neuroscience →
Alan Turing needs to be recognised not only in terms of computing but for the influence that his approach to cryptanalysis has had in neuroscience, argues Ray Dolan, the director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging and one of the top five most-cited neuroscientists in the world.
Speaking at the Turing Lecture at the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Dolan argued that just as...
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In Back Alleys and Basements, Video Arcades... →
(Southtown Arcade is tucked into a tiny corner by the entrance to San Francisco’s Stockton Tunnel. Photo: Brian L. Frank/Wired.com)
SAN FRANCISCO — The Stockton Tunnel, excavated in 1914, lets San Francisco drivers get between downtown and Fisherman’s Wharf without having to ascend the scarily steep grades of Nob Hill. The tunnel is bordered on the west side by the famous cable cars and...
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Wireless Spectrum Deal Could Unleash Super Wi-Fi →
Imagine Wi-Fi that spans two kilometers; or a car safety system that beams news of an accident, vehicle to vehicle, from far ahead on a lightly traveled road; or a mobile phone whose calls almost never drop.
These and other new communications technologies could be helped along by a deal announced in Washington last week that permits the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to sell off...
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Playing The News: To Push Social Gaming Forward,... →
When most people think of social gaming, they likely think of Zynga and its flagship titles, like FarmVille and CityVille — or even Words With Friends. Yet, as Facebook social gaming matures (right along with mobile technology and platforms), we are starting to see studios begin to push the boundaries more, looking for new ways to engage and educate gamers, maybe even reinventing the wheel while...
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Palaeontologists to create 3D-printed robotic... →
Palaeontologists and engineers at Drexel University have teamed up to scan fossilised dinosaur bones, 3D-print scaled-down replicas and then use them to build perfectly-proportioned robotic dinosaur skeletons.
Palaeontologist Kenneth Lacovara has teamed up with mechanical engineer James Tangorra have joined forces to use rapid prototyping principles to advance the study of dinosaur movement and...
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Meet the tree that's a work of art, a garden and... →
This “Supertree” is the latest attraction at Singapore’s Marina South Gardens, the country’s largest garden project to date.
Designed by British architects Grant Associates, a bunch of these botanical beauties stand at up to 50 metres tall and contain between nine and 16 levels. Each supports a diversity of tropical ferns and flowering creepers and is equipped with...
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WatchMichael Pawlyn: Using nature’s genius in architecture
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Hubble telescope reveals exoplanet made of water →
GJ 1214b, a planet some 40 light-years from Earth, is a water world. It’s almost entirely made of liquid, has an estimated temperature of 230C and is enshrouded by a steamy atmosphere.
“The high temperatures and high pressures would form exotic materials like hot ice or superfluid water: substances that are completely alien to our everyday experience,” explains Zachory Berta...
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Apache Web Server Gets First Facelift in 6 Years →
The world’s most popular web server just got a facelift.
On Tuesday, for the first time in over six years, the Apache Software Foundation unveiled a new version of its eponymous web server, which runs an estimated 398 million sites across the net.
“This release delivers a host of evolutionary enhancements throughout the server that our users, administrators, and developers will welcome”, read a...
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Real Fish Welcome Robotic Overlord Into Their... →
A robotic fish has sailed across an aquatic uncanny valley by tricking real fish into following it upstream.
The feat could lead to better understanding of fish behavior and perhaps some means to divert them from environmental disaster scenes.
“Although some previous works have successfully investigated the interactions between live animals and robots or animal-like replicas, none of these...
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A 'Transparency Grenade' for Would-Be Bradley... →
The notion is that you might be a civil servant outraged at what your department or agency is keeping hidden from the world. You storm into a meeting, pull the pin, and boom! It’s a data leak detonation.
If this sounds impractical, you should know that the Transparency Grenade is part of an art exhibition in Berlin, the Studio Weise 7 exhibition. It’s a one-off piece, made of a translucent...
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'Fountain of youth' enzyme lengthens mouse life →
FINALLY, a contender for the elusive fountain of youth: an enzyme found in humans appears to lengthen the life of mice.
Researchers hoping to slow the march of age were dealt a blow in 2010, when signs that an enzyme called sirtuin 2 extended the life of worms were shown to be false due to flawed experimental design.
Mammals have seven types of sirtuin, so Haim Cohen and Yariv Kanfi at Bar-Ilan...
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Do You Like Money? If So, Solar Panels May Be For... →
Solar panels might be the power source of the future, but they seem quite daunting. The idea of getting something large installed on your roof sounds both time consuming and expensive. And, indeed, solar installations aren’t cheap, but they’re probably much less expensive than you thought. They’re about as expensive as a new car (depending on what state you live in).
But unlike a car, which...
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EU will refer ACTA to highest European court →
The European Union says it will refer the controversial ACTA anti-piracy trade agreement to the institution’s highest court, the European Court of Justice, to check whether it complies with the EU’s fundamental rights.
EU trade chief Karel De Gucht is leading the process. He said: “We are planning to ask Europe’s highest court to assess ACTA’s compatibility with the EU’s fundamental rights and...
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Construction firm aims at space elevator in 2050 →
It may be possible to travel to space in an elevator as early as 2050, a major construction company has announced.
Obayashi Corp., headquartered in Tokyo, on Monday unveiled a project to build a gigantic elevator that would transport passengers to a station 36,000 kilometers above the Earth.
For the envisaged project, the company would utilize carbon nanotubes, which are 20 times stronger than...
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Traffic intersections of the future will control... →
Intersections of the future won’t need stop lights or stop signs. They’ll look like a somewhat chaotic flow of driverless, autonomous cars slipping past one another as they are managed by a virtual traffic controller, says computer scientist Peter Stone, a professor of computer science at The University of Texas at Austin.
“A future where sitting in the backseat of the car reading our newspaper...
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Gigantic solar array and fuel cell installation to... →
When you have the kind of cash reserves Apple does, you can afford to spend a little to make sure your buildings are energy efficient, but the company’s new data center in Maiden, North Carolina is on another level entirely. Apple claims the center is the first of its size to get a LEED Platinum certification — a measure of the building design’s environmental performance, and the...
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