Nice interview with a professor from HSG about history and current status of innovation. Sorry, in German.

Doesn't really sound sexy, but this is of utmost importance for next generation grids for renewable energy.

For those who still believe in Apple (or perhaps rather for those who don't?) :-)

An autonomous helicopter developed by ETH.

The end is near...

Not really new, as it seems...

Highlights of the year 2009 and 2010 of "Classical and Quantum Gravity". There's an ACT paper among them!

Forget about cube-sats, this is the low cost version of your personal spying device...

Not exactly new, but apparently never appeared on Diigo. I'm very sceptical about the topic (of course!), but interesting thoughts anyway.

The best paper on transformation optics written ever :-)

Thanks for your commendation. Of course, the problem with nonlinear transformation optics is the same as with linear: it's very easy to come up with theoretical descriptions of devices that have the most absurd properties, but it will be extremely hard to fabricate them. But if you have any good suggestion, please shoot! About the laser beam: Pekka made the simulations, since I am not a "Comsolist", but still I think the numbers are correct. You are right that we should not call this a laser beam. Our problem was the following: we need to have a very simple model that can be simulated exactly (full Maxwell equations) but naturally exhibits self focusing. The Gaussian beam was the simplest solution. Since our model is purely classical and moreover we do not take into account diffraction effects, the parameter "l" is of minor importance. Taking "l" much larger gives almost the same picture but requires much more computer power to simulate. I guess that's why Pekka chose an unnaturally small number.

Another futuristic view on flying by Airbus. To make it more sexy it also includes some biomimetics...

FuturICT, another of these nonsense-flagships. Marek: after having read about this, I understand that BlueBrain is not the only flagship proposal that sucks. Long live the dream of cybernetics, or, apparently people never learn anything...

A critical view on Prof. Markram's Blue Brain project (in German).

Yes, I know; I still don't know how to deal with this f.... Diigo Toolbar! Shame on me!!!

It's not just "Let's construct an enormous dynamical system and see what happens", it's worse! Also the simulation of the cosmological evolution is/was a little bit of this type, still the results are very interesting and useful. Why? Neither the whole cosmos nor the human brain at the level of single neurons can be modelled on a computer, that would last aeons on a "yet-to-be-invented-extra-super-computer". Thus one has to make assumptions and simplifications. In cosmology we have working theories of gravitation, thermodynamics, electrodynamics etc. at hand; starting from these theories we can make reasonable assumptions and (more or less) justified simplifications. The result is valuable since it provides insight into a complex system under given, explicit and understood assumptions. Nothing similar seems to exist in neuroscience. There is no theory of the human brain and apparently nobody has the slightest idea which simplifications can be made without harm. Of course, Mr. Markram remains completely unaffected of ''details'' like this. Finally, Marek, money is not wasted, we ''build networks of excellence'' and ''select the brightest of the brightest'' to make them study and work at our ''elite institutions'' :-). I lively remember the stage of one of these "bestofthebest" from Ivy League at the ACT...

Demo of a Linux Desktop controlled by a PS3 move controller.

:D

Title sounds like created by the "Advanced Concepts Generator".

A computer technician from Nairobi builds his own aircraft from scratch, using information on aerospace engineering available on internet... Idea for African spachteln programs??

Pretty close to what we suggested for "system of systems." Was an excellent exercise in bullshitting, but of course ESA is not innovative enough. Now it's too late, Daimler did it...

There is no "space" yet, at least I didn't find any. But that's because they didn't consider specific hardware, but normal mobile phones. The step to include "space" is obvious, though, and I'm sure they thought about this as well...

This years winners of the fields medal. Some about mathematical physics but NOT string theory. Hey, I didn't even know that this still exists... :-)