ContentCurators

climateadaptation: poptech: If you are wandering around...

Sat, 11 May 2013 16:08:36 -0400

poptech:

If you are wandering around Greenland’s ice sheet and you run into this crazy thing, it is NASA’s GROVER (~~government acronym for something~~ Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research). It is solar powered and it crawls around Greenland on its own and uses ground-penetrating radar to look at ice. And it’s cool.

NASA robot explores ice in Greenland. Video. Will explore for months at a time via remote. Possibly prototype to explore other planets.

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens

Fri, 10 May 2013 02:11:47 -0400

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens:

How exactly does the technology we use to read change the way we read? How reading on screens differs from reading on paper is relevant not just to the youngest among us, but to just about everyone who reads—to anyone who routinely switches between working long hours in front of a computer at the office and leisurely reading paper magazines and books at home; to people who have embraced e-readers for their convenience and portability, but admit that for some reason they still prefer reading on paper; and to those who have already vowed to forgo tree pulp entirely. As digital texts and technologies become more prevalent, we gain new and more mobile ways of reading—but are we still reading as attentively and thoroughly? How do our brains respond differently to onscreen text than to words on paper? Should we be worried about dividing our attention between pixels and ink or is the validity of such concerns paper-thin?

infoneer-pulse: BBC News - Lack of sleep blights pupils’...

Fri, 10 May 2013 02:11:10 -0400

infoneer-pulse:

BBC News - Lack of sleep blights pupils’ education

Sleep deprivation is a significant hidden factor in lowering the achievement of school pupils, according to researchers carrying out international education tests.

It is a particular problem in more affluent countries, with sleep experts linking it to the use of mobile phones and computers in bedrooms late at night.

Sleep deprivation is such a serious disruption that lessons have to be pitched at a lower level to accommodate sleep-starved learners, the study found.

» via BBC

Txchnologist: Terahertz Scanner Lets Smartphones See Through Objects

Fri, 10 May 2013 02:10:02 -0400

Txchnologist: Terahertz Scanner Lets Smartphones See Through Objects:

txchnologist:

by Inside Science TV

UT Dallas electrical engineers have designed an imaging chip that could let mobile phones peer through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other objects.

Researchers led by Kenneth O, director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence and an electrical engineering…

galenking: A Stop-Motion History of Typography. Brilliant.

Sun, 05 May 2013 17:04:45 -0400

galenking:

A Stop-Motion History of Typography.

Brilliant.

futuretechreport: Wearable Tech: Head & Shoulders, Knees...

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:57:04 -0400

futuretechreport:

Wearable Tech: Head & Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Think Wearable Tech is just about Pebble and Google Glass? This infographic by footwear retailer Brantano, breaks down this technology by body part to give you the real lay of the land.

Awesome to see InteraXon’s Muse on the list as well as the Apple Smart Shoe.

Source: http://mashable.com/2013/05/04/wearable-tech-fashion/

smarterplanet: IBM Solar Collector Harnesses the Power of 2,000...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 03:37:05 -0400

smarterplanet:

IBM Solar Collector Harnesses the Power of 2,000 Suns | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

A team of IBM researchers is working on a solar concentrating dish that will be able to collect 80% of incoming sunlight and convert it to useful energy. The High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal system will be able to concentrate the power of 2,000 suns while delivering fresh water and cool air wherever it is built. As an added bonus, IBM states that the system would be just one third the cost third of current comparable technologies.

Based on information by Greenpeace International and the European Electricity Association, IBM claims that it would require only two percent of the Sahara’s total area to supply the world’s energy needs. The HCPVT system is designed around a huge parabolic dish covered in mirror facets. The dish is supported and controlled by a tracking system that moves along with the sun. Sun rays reflect off of the mirror into receivers containing triple junction photovoltaic chips, each able to convert 200-250 watts over eight hours. Combined hundred of the chips provide 25 kilowatts of electricity.

The entire dish is cooled with liquids that are 10 times more effective than passive air methods, keeping the HCPVT safe to operate at a concentration of 2,000 times on average, and up to 5,000 times the power of the sun. The direct cooling technique is inspired by the branched blood supply system of the human body and has already been used to cool high performance computers like the Aquasar. The system will also be able to create fresh water by passing 90 degree Celsius liquid through a distillation system that vaporizes and desalinates up to 40 liters each day while still generating electricity. It will also be able to amazingly offer air conditioning by a thermal drive absorption chiller that converts heat through silica gel.

Replacing expensive steel and glass with concrete and pressurized foils, the HCPVT is less costly than many other similar installations. Its high tech coolers and molds can be manufactured in Switzerland, and construction provided by individual companies on-site. Through their design, IBM believes they can maintain a cost of less than 10cents per kilowatt hour.

"The respondents were most likely to take online courses on topics they felt more comfortable..."

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 03:34:17 -0400

“The respondents were most likely to take online courses on topics they felt more comfortable “teaching themselves.” When a student considered a subject area “difficult”—many cited mathematics and science courses as examples—they were more likely to want a traditional brick-and-mortar setting because, the report says, “they needed the immediate question-and-answer context of a face-to-face course.””

- Students Avoid ‘Difficult’ Online Courses, Study Finds - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education (via infoneer-pulse)

gjmueller: The 4 Stages of Integrating Technology in Learning

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 03:23:57 -0400

gjmueller:

The 4 Stages of Integrating Technology in Learning

futurescope: 3D printed synthetic tissue folds itself into...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 04:05:45 -0400

futurescope:

3D printed synthetic tissue folds itself into shapes

From David Pescovitz on BoingBoing:

University of Oxford chemists custom-built a 3D printer that fabricates “synthetic tissue,” or rather structures with tissue-like functions. Eventually, the technology could be used to crank out replacement tissue that could replace damaged human tissue or be used in new drug delivery systems. The material consist of a network of water droplets encapsulated in lipids, or fat molecules.

“The droplets… form pathways through the network that mimic nerves and are able to transmit electrical signals from one side of a network to the other,” says Oxford University chemistry professor Hagan Bayley.

Amazingly, the material can be chemically “programmed” to fold into various shapes as water is transferred around in the network.

[via boingboing] [paper] [University of Oxford]

"You could truly leave work. Work was work, and life was life."

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 02:02:35 -0400

“You could truly leave work. Work was work, and life was life.”

- What Were Offices Like Before Computers And The Internet? | Popular Science (via infoneer-pulse)

skillshare: Our CEO and Co-founder, Mike spoke to Economist...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 02:01:00 -0400

skillshare:

Our CEO and Co-founder, Mike spoke to Economist Events recently about new ways of learning and the future of education. Check it out!

world-shaker: 7 Good Virtual Tours for Students So many great...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 01:58:44 -0400

world-shaker:

7 Good Virtual Tours for Students

So many great resources in here. This is one I’m toying around with now:

The Google Art Project uses Street View technology to take you inside dozens of famous museums. An extension of this is Hangout Quest on Google+. Hangout Quest is a game that allows you to go on a virtual scavenger hunt inside the Palace of Versailles. The object of the scavenger hunt is to find artwork and other objects in the palace. If you invite others to your Hangout you can compete against them in a race to find the objects first. Hangout Quest uses the Street View imagery of Google Maps to bring you inside the Palace of Versailles. Another cool piece of technology added to Hangout Quest is facial tracking. The facial tracking technology allows you to move around in the Palace of Versailles by just moving your head instead of clicking around with your mouse.

The 25 Greatest Quotes About Writing

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 01:52:09 -0400

The 25 Greatest Quotes About Writing:

nevver:

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” — Mark Twain

“I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort.” — Clarice Lispector

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” — Virginia Woolf

“I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.” — James Joyce

“The first draft of anything is shit.” — Ernest Hemingway

“Always be a poet, even in prose.” — Charles Baudelaire

“Literature — creative literature — unconcerned with sex, is inconceivable.” — Gertrude Stein

“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.” — Anaïs Nin

“One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.” — Henry Miller

“Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The true writer has nothing to say. What counts is the way he says it.” — Alain Robbe-Grillet

“James Joyce was a synthesizer, trying to bring in as much as he could. I am an analyzer, trying to leave out as much as I can.” — Samuel Beckett

“Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and don’t care to know any more.” — Michel Houellebecq

“Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn’t it such a relief to have somebody say that?” — Kurt Vonnegut

“Skill alone cannot teach or produce a great short story, which condenses the obsession of the creature; it is a hallucinatory presence manifest from the first sentence to fascinate the reader, to make him lose contact with the dull reality that surrounds him, submerging him in another that is more intense and compelling.” — Julio Cortázar

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” — Franz Kafka

“Reading is more important than writing.” — Roberto Bolaño

“The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.” — Ezra Pound

“The next real literary “rebels” in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe that’s why they’ll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows.” — David Foster Wallace

“The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.” — Vladimir Nabokov

“…Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty – describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. — And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

“The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.” — Walt Whitman

“All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.” — Samuel Beckett

“Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It’s never been anything but your religion. Never. I’m a little overexcited now. Since it is your religion, do you know what you will be asked when you die? But let me tell you first what you won’t be asked. You won’t be asked if you were working on a wonderful, moving piece of writing when you died. You won’t be asked if it was long or short, sad or funny, published or unpublished. You won’t be asked if you were in good or bad form while you were working on it. You won’t even be asked if it was the one piece of writing you would have been working on if you had known your time would be up when it was finished—I think only poor Soren K. will get asked that. I’m so sure you’ll only get asked two questions. Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out? If only you knew how easy it would be for you to say yes to both questions. ” — J.D. Salinger

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futurescope: The Alternative Limb Project Sophie de Oliveira...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:18:10 -0400

futurescope:

The Alternative Limb Project

Sophie de Oliveira Barata designs ultrarealistic prosthesis and prosthetic devices with extra features like the Stereo Leg. You can see more of her work on her website. For example: removable muscles, a snake arm or a crytallized leg. According to Marco, she is working at the moment on a Swiss-Army-Knife-Arm, a leg with an iPod docking station and a pinball arm.

The Alternative Limb Project offers a personal and friendly bespoke service, which provides unique prosthetics to blend in with the body or stand out as a unique piece of art, reflecting the wearer’s imagination, personality and interests.

We will involve the wearer in all stages of the process from conception of ideas to the final work.

An alternative-style limb can help to break down social barriers, delight the eye and provide an unusual talking point.

[via nerdcore] [Sophie de Oliveira Barata] [picture by Rosemary Williams]

world-shaker: All Adobe Updates (via xkcd)

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:16:11 -0400

world-shaker:

All Adobe Updates

(via xkcd)

world-shaker: I feel so old.

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:09:00 -0400

world-shaker:

I feel so old.

Support girls in technology

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 03:21:20 -0400

Support girls in technology

zefrank: What’s On Your Happy List?

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 03:19:32 -0400

zefrank:

What’s On Your Happy List?

world-shaker: ucresearch: Watch the full video: Blossoming...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 03:16:36 -0400

world-shaker:

ucresearch:

Watch the full video: Blossoming into Science with actress Mayim Bialik

A fantastic video for girls interested in STEM (4:14 runtime)