Despite the recent explosion of web based cartography tools, making effective maps for data visualization remains a challenge. While tools like Google Maps are great for helping navigate the world they are often poorly suited for thematic mapping, as many features like roads and cities only get in the way of telling compelling stories with data. In fact, even the distance between places can be a distraction – who cares how far away Alaska is when the goal is to make a simple comparison between US states? To help overcome some of the limitations with existing mapping tools Sunlight Lab is releasing ClearMaps, an ActionScript framework for interactive cartographic visualization. In addition to giving designers and developers more control over presentation the project aims to address some of the common technical challenges faced when building interactive, data driven maps for the web. ClearMaps is designed as a lightweight, flexible set of tools for building complex data visualizations. It is a framework not a plug-and-play component (though it could be a starting point for those wishing to make reusable tools).

Despite the recent explosion of web based cartography tools, making effective maps for data visualization remains a challenge. While tools like Google Maps are great for helping navigate the world they are often poorly suited for thematic mapping, as many features like roads and cities only get in the way of telling compelling stories with data. In fact, even the distance between places can be a distraction – who cares how far away Alaska is when the goal is to make a simple comparison between US states? To help overcome some of the limitations with existing mapping tools Sunlight Lab is releasing ClearMaps, an ActionScript framework for interactive cartographic visualization. In addition to giving designers and developers more control over presentation the project aims to address some of the common technical challenges faced when building interactive, data driven maps for the web. ClearMaps is designed as a lightweight, flexible set of tools for building complex data visualizations. It is a framework not a plug-and-play component (though it could be a starting point for those wishing to make reusable tools).

Despite the recent explosion of web based cartography tools, making effective maps for data visualization remains a challenge. While tools like Google Maps are great for helping navigate the world they are often poorly suited for thematic mapping, as many features like roads and cities only get in the way of telling compelling stories with data. In fact, even the distance between places can be a distraction – who cares how far away Alaska is when the goal is to make a simple comparison between US states? To help overcome some of the limitations with existing mapping tools Sunlight Lab is releasing ClearMaps, an ActionScript framework for interactive cartographic visualization. In addition to giving designers and developers more control over presentation the project aims to address some of the common technical challenges faced when building interactive, data driven maps for the web. ClearMaps is designed as a lightweight, flexible set of tools for building complex data visualizations. It is a framework not a plug-and-play component (though it could be a starting point for those wishing to make reusable tools).

Flare is an ActionScript library for creating visualizations that run in the Adobe Flash Player. From basic charts and graphs to complex interactive graphics, the toolkit supports data management, visual encoding, animation, and interaction techniques. Even better, flare features a modular design that lets developers create customized visualization techniques without having to reinvent the wheel. View the demos and sample applications to see a few of the visualizations that flare makes it easy to build. To begin making your own visualizations, download flare and work through the tutorial. You should also get familiar with the API documentation. Need more help? Visit the help forum (you'll need a SourceForge login to post). Flare is open-source software released under a BSD license, meaning it can be freely deployed and modified (and even sold for $$). Flare's design was adapted from its predecessor prefuse, a visualization toolkit for Java

Brjann Brekkan, PM for the Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution and related products, describes the capabilities and business drivers behind the solution. Beginning at [6:08], he gives us a screencast demo of parts of the solution. The demo includes automated AD group management and access through Forefront Identity Manager (FIM), FIM password reset, and managing group membership via Outlook. Learn more about the IAM solution

Piotr Zalewa has created a really great playground, jsFiddle, for testing sample code and playing with the Web. With an area for the holy trinity of the Web (HTML, CSS, JS) and an output region, you can get right to hacking. It goes beyond this though. You can also add resources, an Ajax echo backend, and auto load from a slew of JavaScript frameworks. You can also check out the examples and see great stuff such as Processing in action. And the finishing touch, share and embed. Piotr wrote all of this using CodeMirror and MooTools. Nice! Having worked on Bespin, and developed a playground like this (looking forward to show a new mobile one soon!) I appreciate the work!

You may think that all of those crazy robot competitions that we like to cover are just fun and games, but there’s a serious side. Really, there is. For reals. Mindful of this, ROBO-ONE held the second annual Humanoid Helper Project last weekend, where teleoperated human-sized robots completed (or attempted to complete) three seemingly simple tasks, including pouring liquid from a plastic bottle into a cup, carrying ping-pong balls on a tray, and a 30 minute endurance race. I don’t know about you, but the last two would be a bit of a challenge for me, and they certainly were for the robots:

The ARM Cortex™-M4 processor is the latest embedded processor by ARM specifically developed to address digital signal control markets that demand an efficient, easy-to-use blend of control and signal processing capabilities. The combination of high-efficiency signal processing functionality with the low-power, low cost and ease-of-use benefits of the Cortex-M family of processors is designed to satisfy the emerging category of flexible solutions specifically targeting the motor control, automotive, power management, embedded audio and industrial automation markets. The Cortex-M4 processor features extended single-cycle multiply-accumulate (MAC) instructions, optimized SIMD arithmetic, saturating arithmetic instructions and an optional single precision Floating Point Unit (FPU). These features build upon the innovative technology that characterizes the ARM Cortex-M series processors…

It’s hard enough to set up a reliable wireless network at home on Earth, let alone space. I harbor a personal grudge against my two-foot-thick 19th century brick/plaster wifi-killing walls and don’t get me started with my router or my ISP. So how does NASA connect with the ISS 300 to 400 kilometers above the Earth travelling at nearly 28000 km/h? In this case, engineers took advantage of the station’s existing communication link, which relies on the Ku radio band. The Ku band is the most common portion of the frequency spectrum used for satellite communication and is not reserved for restricted use. Among the companies that use the Ku band for commercial purposes are satellite internet providers and news networks broadcasting on satellite from remote locations.

Ever since graphene was first produced in a lab at the University of Manchester in 2004, researchers around the world have been fascinated with its potential in electronics applications. Graphene possessed all the benefits of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), namely its charged-carrier mobility, but it didn’t have any of the down sides, such as CNTs’ need for different processing techniques than silicon and the intrinsic difficulty of creating interconnects for CNTs. But all was not easy for applying graphene to electronics applications. One of the fundamental problems for graphene was its lack of a band gap, which left it with a very low on-off ratio measured at about 10 as compared to in the 100s for silicon. Now this fundamental hurdle has been overcome. Based on research led by Phaedon Avouris at IBM’s IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, IBM is reporting that they have created a significant band gap in graphene.

Robots have revolutionized the factory. What about the field? Over the past century, agriculture has seen an explosion in productivity, thanks to things like mechanization, synthetic fertilizers, selective breeding, and, of course, pesticides -- lots of it. But it remains to be seen what role robots will play in working the fields. Automation was possible in factories because tasks were repetitive and the environment well-defined. A robot arm welding a car chassis does the exact same job over and over. When it comes to crops, though, everything changes: the environment is unstructured and tasks -- like picking a fruit -- have to be constantly readjusted.

A class of molecules whose size, structure and chemical composition have been optimized for photonic use could provide the demanding combination of properties needed to serve as the foundation for low-power, high-speed all-optical signal processing.

For the price of a sports car, you can have a pint of your blood drawn and a month later receive your entire genome—all 6 billion base pairs—encoded in a 1.5-gigabyte data file. That means the price has dropped to 1/50 000 of what it was less than a decade ago (the first genome, after all, cost US $3 billion). Yet the price is expected to fall to 1/1000 of the current price in the next four years. The cultural ramifications of a $100 genome—which is where we’re headed, whether it takes 4 years or 10—are as wide and deep as those of any other recent innovation, including search engines and cellphones.

Not so long ago, artists routinely made their own paints using all sorts of odd ingredients: clay, linseed oil, ground-up insects—whatever worked. It was a crude and rather ad hoc process, but the results were used to create some of the greatest paintings in the world. Today I and other scientists are developing our own special paints. We’re not trying to compete with Vermeer or Gauguin, though. We hope to create masterpieces of a more technical nature: optoelectronic components that will make for better photovoltaic cells, imaging sensors, and optical communications equipment. And we’re not mixing and matching ingredients quite so haphazardly. Instead, we’re using our blossoming understanding of the world of nanomaterials to design the constituents of our paints at the molecular level.

Scientists have great expectations that nanotechnologies will bring them closer to the goal of creating computer systems that can simulate and emulate the brain's abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction and cognition while rivaling its low power consumption and compact size. DARPA for instance, the U.S. military's research outfit known for projects that are pushing the envelope on what is technologically possible, has a program called SyNAPSE that is trying to develop electronic neuromorphic machine technology that scales to biological levels. Started in late 2008 and funded with $4.9 million, the goal of the initial phase of the SyNAPSE project is to "develop nanometer scale electronic synaptic components capable of adapting the connection strength between two neurons in a manner analogous to that seen in biological systems, as well as, simulate the utility of these synaptic components in core microcircuits that support the overall system architecture."

The potential for the QTC material to transition from an insulator to a conductor (i.e. change its electrical property) is influenced by how much deformation the material is experiencing as a result of the applied mechanical pressure. QTC can be used to produce low profile, low cost, pressure activated switches or sensors that display variable resistance with applied force and return to a quiescent state when the force is removed. The difference between a QTC switch and a QTC sensor is arguably only the speed and amount of physical input required to achieve the required switching point or resistance range.

RoweBots Research, Inc., a supplier of tiny embedded POSIX RTOS products, today announced the launch and release of UnisonTM Version 5 and the open-source version of Unison Version 4. These two ultra-tiny embedded-Linux and POSIX compatible RTOSs open Renesas Technology Corp.’s SH-2A Microcontroller (MCU) family to Linux and POSIX compatible development for the first time.

A deluge of high-energy physics data is headed toward servers in Geneva, Switzerland, later this month. That's because the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) now says it plans to restart its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) soon for a run that could last as long as two years at a collision energy of seven TeV (tera–electron volts, 3.5 TeV per beam). As CERN ramps up the world's most powerful particle accelerator to operate well beyond its previous best performance, the lab's computer systems must likewise be tuned so they can properly capture and analyze all of this new output.

The Fringe Original Soundtrack is coming to a universe near you on March 23rd, 2010. Amazon currently have it listed (aff link) for $17.98. Continue past the break for the product details. Details are sketchy -- there’s no news on which tracks will feature or how many, but here’s what Amazon currently have on the product: Audio CD (March 23, 2010) Composed by: Michael Giacchino, Chris Tilton, Chad Seiter Number of Discs: 1 Format: Soundtrack Label: Varese Sarabande ASIN: B0038EG2AW

For a company whose unofficial slogan is "Don't Be Evil," Google has been ignoring its so-called core value with alarming frequency as of late. And because of that, I decided to delete my Gmail account, along with all other Google services that I am able to do without. I have also deleted as much personal information as possible from my Google profile.

NI LabVIEW Robotics is a software package that provides a complete suite of tools to help you rapidly design sophisticated robotics systems for medical, agricultural, automotive, research, and military applications. The LabVIEW Robotics Software Bundle includes all of the functionality you need, from multicore real-time and FPGA design capabilities to vision, motion, control design, and simulation. Watch an introduction and demonstration of LabVIEW Robotics.