February 20, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
In response to a recent article, explaining that record snowfall in certain places does not equate to a proof that global warming is not happening, but rather, that global warming is an apt explanation for why the record snowfalls would occur there, a number of climate skeptics chose to attack certain points in the piece, using what they take to be established science. In some cases, the evidence cited was simply misrepresented or misinterpreted, according to the wishes of the skeptics themselves.
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January 27, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Apple’s new tablet computer has finally been unveiled, after years of speculation. The iPad will function as a genuine cross-over between the realm of the iPhone and the laptop computer, in a format smaller than a laptop screen, similar to a netbook, and designed to optimize the experience of reading online or working with files and e-publications. It will be able to run over 140,000 of the apps already made for iPhone and iPod Touch, with a whole new class of iPad-optimized apps to come. Perhaps most important of all, it will retail for a starting price of only $499.
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January 26, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The Apple tablet should be an intensely user-friendly device that achieves a paradigm shift in the way we deal with information. That sounds big, but Apple is well-equipped to do this, even by just making a few key upgrades to what it has already made possible with its laptops and touch-sensitive handhelds.
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January 9, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
It is a serious question whether distance learning holds virtues that are ignored due to a prejudice that holds that physical presence of the instructor is necessary for learning. Clearly, in some cases, this is entirely untrue, and there may be an over-emphasis in some circles on the idea of physical presence as the metaphysical prerequisite to consider that learning is occurring. However, it is not clear that physical presence and phonocentrism —emphasis on the spoken word as the more effective mode of instruction— amount to the same “fixation”, when it comes to the question of how best to communicate knowledge.
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January 3, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Continuing our series on the evolutions that can be expected over the coming decade, we look at new directions in particle physics, media technologies that are enabling not only greater freedom, but a new communicative paradigm which will, in part, help steer us to the great discoveries of this moment in history, and a vital new understanding of global economic patterns, which will revolutionize the way governments around the world plan for domestic spending and trade policy.
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December 28, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Sandia National Laboratories have achieved a landmark breakthrough in solar-voltaic power-generation technology. The snowflake-like “solar glitter” uses 100 times less material to produce the same amount of electricity as today’s standard 6-inch square solar cells. This achievement of ultra-miniaturization now has the potential to move solar-voltaic power generation to the forefront of the clean energy revolution, and help speed the transition away from carbon-based combustible fuels.
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December 27, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Apple is reportedly poised to introduce a brand-new device that has the potential to revolutionize not only mobile computing and communication, but also design, workflow and publishing. We’ve written before about the prospective Apple tablet and its capabilities, but as rumor and reporting converge to give us a better picture, we can be a little more certain of the landmark moment in the evolution of computing and communications the device will achieve.
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December 16, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The above image, captured by and transmitted from the Hubble Space Telescope, in orbit around the Earth, shows the largest star-forming region in the vicinity of our Milky Way galaxy. According to NASA: “The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. There is no known star-forming region in our galaxy as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus.”
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December 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Intellectual property laws designed to help protect the ability of researchers to retain compensation for major innovations have led to a uniquely problematic “innovation” in the laws themselves, where specific genes, or the informational access to them, are patented, barring individuals or their physicians from dealing directly with those genes except through the for-profit patent-holders.
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December 10, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The deepest image ever taken of the universe, using the ultra-powerful Hubble Space Telescope, known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, shows there to be 100 billion galaxies in the universe, some projecting light from a distance of 47 billion light years. A study of the Doppler redshift of galaxies speeding away from the Hubble’s vantage point has allowed astronomers to create a 3-dimensional projection of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, the deepest photograph ever taken of the observable universe.
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December 3, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The date was 3 December 1984. The people of Bhopal, India, were the victims of a chemical spill of unprecedented proportions. 40 tons of toxic gas spilled into the city, killing tens of thousands of people. Methyl isocyanate, the substance that caused the mass death, prevents oxygen from entering the blood when inhaled. In just one night, thousands were killed, literally drowning in their own bodily fluids. At least 15,000 more people were killed over the next several weeks, and many believe the total number of those killed from exposure to methyl isocyanate is well above 30,000.
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November 28, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Scientists have discovered evidence that human hearing is in part dependent on tactile cues that come not from audible sounds, but from pressure fluctuations and air-particle displacement against skin around the ear.
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November 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Malaria is one of the 21st century’s great plagues. It is responsible for anywhere from 1 to 3 million deaths per year, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Efforts to eradicate the disease are mounting: in the year 2000, just 3% of children under 5, in sub-Saharan Africa, slept with mosquito nets; by 2008, that figure had risen to 56%. Aid groups now project that aggressive preventive measures can protect 100% of the population by the end of 2010 and reduce the number of deaths to near zero by 2015.
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October 16, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The Amazon Kindle 2 is ideally sized for one-handed reading. In this category, it beats the traditional book, because it’s single pane is more ergonomic for the purpose of reading with one hand and seeing the text clearly at a consistent angle, than struggling to balance a side-bound traditional book.
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October 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Google Voice, an ingenious use of web-based voice communications service, allows users to combine a range of phone numbers under one standard, permanent Google phone number. Any linked phone number can be removed or replaced, and the service is free. All domestic calls inside the US are free, and sms is free. The service even converts voicemail to readable transcripts in an online inbox.
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October 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
An attractive woman, 34-ish, drives a compact station-wagon, late model, over a still-cobblestone side street in the center of Madrid. She advances slowly, toward a red light, and talks on her cell phone. She seems equally concentrated on both activities. Driving an automobile is a potentially dangerous activity, in which one’s own life or the lives of others may be at risk, while a casual conversation is not so much that. Yet she seemed to give equal weight, her body, her manner, seemed to give equal weight to both activities.
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October 7, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
One in 91 American children is now reported to be afflicted with autism spectrum disorder. A number of potential culprits has been suggested over the years, as autism figures have steadily risen, including vaccines, antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, coal waste and radiation.
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October 2, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Clean, safe drinking water is scarce for over 3 billion people across the world. At least 1 billion literally never have access to clean, safe drinking water, putting them at constant risk of severe thirst-related ill health effects, infectious diseases or toxic contamination. Over 100 countries face either sporadic or chronic crisis-level problems related to clean water scarcity.
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October 2, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The phenomenon of “re-tweeting”, reposting and linking back to items already posted on the real-time updated short-message feed site Twitter, has allowed for the emergence of what sometimes turns into a global roundtable discussion, made up of short, sometimes superfluous, sometimes provocative ideas, and in many cases links to surprising but potentially effective online sources that spread a message or expand and deepen awareness of an issue.
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September 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Apple’s long-awaited tablet computer, likely to run a version of Mac OS X and to merge the touchscreen stylings of the iPhone and iPod Touch with the full functionality of the MacBook line, is expected to be aimed at revolutionizing the way print media deliver text to readers. If true, the device would again put Apple at the cutting edge of a field where Amazon, Microsoft, Sony and others, are trying to set the standards for e-book distribution and licensing.
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September 25, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
DVR is an increasingly popular consumer-oriented technology which simultaneously liberates viewers from strict TV viewing schedules and also imposes new constraints on recording freedoms (including sharing). DVR is a concession by content providers, advertisers and infrastructure (connectivity) providers, to the advantages of digital technology, and to the common individual demand for more freedom to control when information (content) is accessed. And the technology is framing a new logistics of consumer access and corporate control.
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September 11, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Apple’s product-announcement conference on Wednesday had long fueled speculation they would be announcing a new 10-inch touchscreen tablet computer and possibly announcing a deal to bring the Beatles catalog to iTunes. Neither of those two big splashes happened, but they did announce new iPods with photo and video camera functions.
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September 8, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Is the very thing we demand of our computers the thing that will make them intolerant of our humanity, if and when they awaken to an artificial intelligence? One of the fundamental problems in achieving a state of computational agility and independence that would allow us to say a synthetic entity has acquired ‘artificial intelligence’ is the problem of autonomy. If we give real autonomy to artificially intelligent machines, can we trust them to cooperate with us, in the ways we, as human beings prefer?
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September 7, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Light and dark, however we perceive them, are not necessarily opposites, but rather more like degrees of radiant energy intensity, along a spectrum of detectability. If we think only in terms of the capacity of human vision to capture light energy, we see evidence of presence and absence, but wave energy in one form or another might be more ubiquitous than we can believe.
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September 6, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Amazon’s Kindle family of e-book readers has changed the game on e-books and e-book distribution, by making an intuitive, easy to use e-paper reader into a mass-market publishing platform. Books are now sold on many websites as “Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle”, referencing the format of the book’s publication in varying editions. Now, a hacker has put a variation of Linux on a Kindle 2, raising the question as to what Amazon might do to enhance the device’s range of operative capabilities.
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September 5, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
On Wednesday, 9 September, Apple will be hosting an iTunes-centered event, to announce new features, including possibly upgraded or more dynamic iPod models. Rumors that the event could also include the much-anticipated Apple tablet computer may be premature. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the tablet may be more likely to debut at the beginning of 2010.
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September 4, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: No Comment Yet
The Mercedes B-class F-cell will be out in 2010 in the US and Europe, with an initial limited production fleet of 200 vehicles. The vehicles will be lease-only, as Mercedes works to perfect the technologies and market strategies it needs to bring the car to mass market.
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August 31, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Apple’s iPhone App Store is reported to be bringing in $200 million per month, roughly $2.4 billion per year. Such soaring earnings reflect that high value users place on the App Store system and its ability to deliver targeted-use software “widgets” that do one thing well. But doing just one thing is far from the goal of the App Store.
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August 31, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
A new innovation developed by scientists in Israel may be able to detect traces of lung cancer in human breath, by identifying molecules linked to the condition. The device would be hand-held and easy to use, and could potentially be available at any family doctor or general practitioner’s office, in the future.
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August 30, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Like the Amazon Kindle family of e-readers, the Sony Reader Touch Edition uses an e-Ink e-paper display. But it’s interface works like a touchscreen. The advance is a major improvement for the standards of design in e-paper e-book readers. The touchscreen standard may be the most significant challenge Sony has put forth for the Amazon Kindle readers, none of which uses a touchscreen interface.
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August 23, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Life expectancy in the United States is 78.11 years, 50th in the world, behind the Wallis and Futuna Islands and just ahead of Guadeloupe. Canada is 8th, at 81.23 years; France is 9th, at 80.98; Sweden is 10th, at 80.86. Despite Canada’s “socialized” healthcare system, the average Canadian can expect to live more than three years longer than the average American.
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August 21, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
The Internet Archive is joining with major internet-related firms, such as Yahoo and Amazon, to fight Google’s settlement with the Authors’ Guild, allowing Google Books to publish copyright-protected materials online, if they are out of print, and to compensate authors according to the sales generated by the display of the copyrighted text (possibly 70% going to publishers or copyright holders, including a cut of ad revenues). The Coalition plans to fight the legal settlement on anti-trust grounds.
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August 16, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Software giant Microsoft has been ordered to stop selling one of its flagship computer programs, Microsoft Word, in the US, within 60 days, after a federal judge found that a component within the application violates an XML patent held by another firm. The software engineering firm i4i, based in Toronto and boasting only 30 employees, secured a patent for a kind of customized XML in 1998, which it alleges Microsoft has included in Word since 2003, in violation of its patent protection.
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August 15, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Jude Ndambuki is a native Kenyan chemistry teacher in New York, who has been collecting, refurbishing and shipping used, discarded and donated computers, to Kenyan schools in order to help protect the environment, reduce the chemical contamination of landfill sites and spur technological educational resource availability for young Kenyans. He is celebrated by CNN as one of its do-gooder “heroes”, an example of someone helping to improve the lot of others.
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August 15, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The quest for the most fuel-efficient vehicles has entered a new phase, with major government private-sector investment in research and development for industrial-scale commercial production of a new class of gas-electric hybrid vehicles and EVs (all-electric cars). Swiss-based Solar Impulse is building the world’s first 100% solar-powered airplane, an achievement that will revolutionize the travel, industrial production, transport and fuel sectors.
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August 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
One of the great complaints heard from groups opposing comprehensive health insurance reform, especially from quarters where the chief concern is to prevent a drop in private profit related to healthcare services, is that reform will strip away incentives to devote funding to medical research, in pathologies, treatments and technology. This is a point of philosophical dispute, but to make sure we enact reforms that will not curb research incentives, we should institute a new medical research tax credit.
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August 13, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Pres. Barack Obama yesterday hosted 16 new Medal of Freedom recipients at the White House, honoring their lifelong contributions to the expansion of human understanding and the promotion of individual liberty and human dignity. Among the recipients were scientists and activists, soldiers and political leaders, preachers and athletes, native Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans, Africans and Asians. The 16 laureates exemplify not only rare talent and indomitable spirit, but also a devotion to human dignity and understanding.
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August 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
The Chevrolet Volt will get 230 miles per gallon in city driving. The Volt is a plug-in hybrid not yet on the market, which will mark a technological breakthrough if it achieves the projected fuel efficiency, “changing the game” as some observers see it on automotive transport and fuel usage. If realized, the 230 mpg standard will shatter the existing paradigm for automotive fuel efficiency.
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August 11, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Hours before sunrise, a crowd numbering in the hundreds had already begun gathering outside the Inglewood Forum, in hopes of being able to take advantage of a free health check-up offered by the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps (RAM). RAM will be hosting the free health clinic from 5:30 am to 6 pm over 8 days, in hopes of bringing much needed routine medical care to the urban uninsured excluded from the healthcare system due to cost.
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August 7, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The great Coral Triangle, a region of coral-dense seas demarcated by Malaysia, Indonesia, Timor L’Este, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Philippines, is said to be 10 times as biodiverse as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. 76% of all known species of coral are found in the Coral Triangle, and warming ocean temperatures are causing advanced coral bleaching and endangering the entire regional ecosystem.
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August 5, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Now, we face unprecedented challenges to the right of people everywhere to access information intended for public consumption. Repressive governments are building state-of-the-art censorship , tracking and filtering mechanisms (the ‘Great Firewall of China’, for example), and internet service providers (ISP) are seeking to establish profit-dr… that limit users’ access to certain websites or content-producers.
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July 28, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Amazon Kindle DX is a beautiful device. Its design is user-friendly, intuitive and cohesive. It is clean-edged, minimal and thinner than many major magazines. Its format size is comfortable and makes tactile sense; it feels like something you hold in order to read, giving it a useful aesthetic kinship to books or magazines, a vast improvement on smaller e-reading devices. It is, in point of fact, far more comfortable than planting yourself in front of a computer monitor to read large amounts of text.
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July 28, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
DNA is an amazingly efficient memory bank for the design and scheduling of biological development. Cell DNA have their own replication systems, but human scientists who want to interfere with the content of the genome have been working to find ways to achieve artificial replication and synthesis of disparate properties, and now they may have achieved a landmark breakthrough.
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July 28, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Researchers have stumbled upon a surprise possible treatment for swelling of nerves in the spinal cord. It turns out that FD&C blue dye No. 1 bears certain key similarities to a compound used to treat nerve inflammation. Since there is no active immediate treatment for spinal cord injuries, and secondary inflammation often leads to long-term damage, this treatment holds great promise. The one side-effect observed: the rats’ skin turned blue.
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July 27, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The Financial Times is the latest publication to weigh in on mounting expectations that Apple will release a touchscreen tablet computer this fall. There are rumors the computer maker is hoping to counter the rise of cheap netbooks with something lower-cost than their standard Macs and with a larger screen based on the model of the iPod Touch and the iPhone. The news could mean a breakthrough in personal computing standards and even portability of the workplace.
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July 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Access to the internet must be a basic human right, across the globe, for a number of reasons. First of all, legitimate, transparent democratic processes of government require in today’s world that information flow freely and that citizens be empowered to share information and to find information, according to their choices and their needs.
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July 22, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Preventive use of antibiotics has one salient effect: it speeds the evolution of targeted bacteria, allowing them to develop pervasive resistance to known treatments. In short, preventive administration of antibiotics makes diseases far more dangerous. The US government is now seeking to end the practice of administering antibiotics to livestock, which health officials believe is putting human health at risk.
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July 21, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Pres. Barack Obama has proposed a national high-speed rail program that would develop eight to ten regions for high-speed rail (currently, only the so-called northeast corridor, running from Washington, DC, to Boston, through Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, has a regular high-speed service), as part of a phased-in long-term economic recovery plan. The rail project comes into play also as part of Obama’s plans for a comprehensive energy-sector overhaul, aimed at reducing carbon emissions.
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July 20, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The US space agency NASA’s Apollo 11 mission was the first to land a human being on the surface of the Moon, on 20 July 1969. The lunar module, known as Eagle, landed astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon. They spent one day there, and both stepped outside the lander to explore the otherworldly environment.
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July 20, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
This is what the debate in Congress is all about: Whether we’ll keep talking and tinkering and letting this problem fester as more families and businesses go under, and more Americans lose their coverage. Or whether we’ll seize this opportunity – one we might not have again for generations – and finally pass health insurance reform this year, in 2009.
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