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thinkahol *

Stingy aliens may call us on cheap rates only - space - 21 July 2010 - New Scientist - 0 views

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    A new study suggests that cost-effective galactic radio transmissions would be at higher frequencies than SETI projects traditionally monitor, and ET's attempts to make contact would be only few and far between. "If ET was building cost-effective beacons, would our searches have detected them? The answer turns out to be no," says James Benford, president of the company Microwave Sciences in Lafayette, California.
Erin Fitzpatrick

Johnny Chung Lee - Projects - Wii - 0 views

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    Low-Cost Multi-point Interactive Whiteboards Using the Wiimote Since the Wiimote can track sources of infrared (IR) light, you can track pens that have an IR led in the tip. By pointing a wiimote at a projection screen or LCD display, you can create very low-cost interactive whiteboards or tablet displays. Since the Wiimote can track upto 4 points, up to 4 pens can be used. It also works great with rear-projected displays.
thinkahol *

Low-cost robotic gripper replaces human hand and fingers | KurzweilAI - 0 views

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    The human hand is an amazing machine that can pick up, move and place objects easily, but for a robot, this "gripping" mechanism is a vexing challenge. Opting for simple elegance, researchers from Cornell University, University of Chicago, and iRobot have bypassed traditional designs based around the human hand and fingers, and created a versatile gripper using everyday ground coffee and a latex party balloon.
thinkahol *

The highest-resolution immersive visualization facility ever built | KurzweilAI - 1 views

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    in response to comments the Editor comments: "Good points. Main benefit is a highly interactive shared exploration/discussion/planning space (and PR value), but that same functionality, including the 1.5 Gpix display (an interactive version), could be achieved in theory with an enhanced* Oculus RIFT (http://www.kurzweilai.net/why-immersive-virtual-reality-is-the-next-generation-of-gaming-part-2 and http://www.oculusvr.com/ ) with an MMORPG architecture and Kinect/Leap control in an Oblong-type shared environment (http://www.kurzweilai.net/minority-report-arrives-with-oblong-part-ii-mind-blowing-ui) at lower cost and not restricted to one room - in fact, feasible globally via machine translation (http://www.kurzweilai.net/speech-recognition-breakthrough-for-the-spoken-translated-word) and local clones of the imagery and darknet shared DB (access to Internet2 via 100 Gbps lines would also be nice). Extra points for automated POV display based on head, eye, hand, and body-motion tracking and automated EEG-based control and double points for automated mind reading (http://www.kurzweilai.net/neuroscience-the-mind-reader) tied to an NLP/semantic web DB. * "Imagine an HMD with a massive field of view and more pixels than 1080p per eye, wireless PC link, built-in absolute head and hand/weapon/wand positioning, and native integration with some (if not all) of the major game engines, all for less than $1,000 USD," Palmer says. "That can happen in 2013!" (http://www.kurzweilai.net/why-immersive-virtual-reality-is-the-next-generation-of-gaming-part-2)"
Infogreen Global

Low cost alternative for generating hydrogen gas from water - 1 views

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    A technique for creating a new molecule that structurally and chemically replicates the active part of the widely used industrial catalyst molybdenite has been developed by researchers with the U.S.
thinkahol *

New solar energy conversion process could double solar efficiency of solar cells - 0 views

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    A new process that simultaneously combines the light and heat of solar radiation to generate electricity could offer more than double the efficiency of existing solar cell technology, say the engineers who discovered it and proved that it works. The process, called 'photon enhanced thermionic emission," or PETE, could reduce the costs of solar energy production enough for it to compete with oil as an energy source.
thinkahol *

US approves world's biggest solar energy project in California | KurzweilAI - 0 views

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    The U.S. Department of Interior approved on Monday a permit for Solar Millennium, LLC to build the largest solar energy project in the world - four  plants at the cost of one billion dollars each - in southern California. The project is expected to generate up to 1,000 Megawatts of energy, enough electricity to annually power more than 300,000 single-family homes, more than doubling the solar electricity production capacity of the U.S. Once constructed, the Blythe facility will reduce CO2 emissions by nearly one million short tons per year, or the equivalent of removing more than 145,000 cars from the road. Additionally, because the facility is "dry-cooled," it will use 90 percent less water than a traditional "wet-cooled" solar facility of this size. The Blythe facility will also help California take a major step toward achieving its goal of having one third of the state's power come from renewable sources by the year 2020. The entire Blythe Solar Power Project will generate a total of more than 7,500 jobs, including 1,000 direct jobs during the construction period, and thousands of additional indirect jobs in the community and throughout the supply chain. When the 1,000 MW facility is fully operational it will create more than 220 permanent jobs. Adapted from materials provided by Solar Millennium, LLC.
Todd Suomela

The Technium: The Unabomber Was Right - 0 views

  • Besides lacking a desirable alternative, the final problem with destroying civilization as we know it is that the alternative, such as it has been imagined by the self-described “haters of civilization”, would not support but a fraction of the people alive today. In other words, the collapse of civilization would kill billions. Ironically the poorest rural inhabitants would fare the best, as they could retreat to hunting gathering with the least hurdle, but billions of urbanites would die once food ran out and disease took over. The anarcho-primitives are rather sanguine about this catastrophe, arguing that accelerating the collapse early might save lives in total.
  • The ultimate problem is that the paradise the Kaczynski is offering, the solution to civilization so to speak, is the tiny, smoky, dingy, smelly wooden prison cell that absolutely nobody else wants to dwell in. It is a paradise billions are fleeing from. Civilization has its problems but in almost every way it is better than the Unabomber’s shack. The Unabomber is right that technology is a holistic, self-perpetuating machine. He is wrong to bomb it for many reasons, not the least is that the machine of civilization offers us more actual freedoms than the alternative. There is a cost to run this machine, a cost we are only beginning to reckon with, but so far the gains from this ever enlarging technium outweigh the alternative of no machine at all.
thinkahol *

Equal Earth - Natural Habitat Destruction - 0 views

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    Habitat destruction costing the earth $250 billion a year
Todd Suomela

What Happens If Science Becomes a Low-Yield Activity? « The Scholarly Kitchen - 1 views

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    "And what if science becomes - or has become - lower-yield? Is that a reason to reconsider funding policies? Rationally, looking at the cost-benefit may already have effects on resource and funding allocations. Is it unreasonable to assume that science will continue to produce large, demonstrable advances and insights of the size and importance of the major breakthroughs?"
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    I think the comments under the linked article sufficiently refute it.
thinkahol *

25% of US car accidents due to using gadgets | KurzweilAI - 0 views

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    Driving distractions such as cell phones and other electronic devices cause as much as 25% of all U.S. car accidents, researchers at the Governors Highway Safety Association have found, WinBETA notes. A major finding was that being distracted was the cause of 15 to 25% of all accidents, ranging from minor property damage to death. Their findings suggest that distracted driving accidents be reported in accident reports to assist in evaluating distracted driving laws and programs. They propose creating low-cost roadway measures that alert motorists when they are drifting out of their driving lane. They also propose that all cell phones be banned on the road, even hands-free versions. In another report by The New York Times, police in Syracuse and Hartford have handed out nearly 20,000 tickets for illegal use of a phone while driving - either for texting or use of a handheld phone. According to the federal government, these efforts have had the desired effect: distracted driving has fallen sharply. Their research shows that drivers talking on a phone are four times as likely to get into a crash as those not on a phone, and that the risks for motorists who text are at least twice as high. In Syracuse, handheld cellphone use and texting have each fallen by one-third. In Hartford, handheld cellphone use by drivers fell 57 percent while texting fell by 75 percent, the Times reports. Ref.: Vicki Harper. et al., Distracted Driving: What Research Shows and What States Can Do, GHSA, 2011
thinkahol *

Inkjet printing could change the face of solar energy industry - 0 views

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    ScienceDaily (June 28, 2011) - Inkjet printers, a low-cost technology that in recent decades has revolutionized home and small office printing, may soon offer similar benefits for the future of solar energy.
Todd Suomela

Amateur Science and the Rise of Big Science | Citizen Scientists League - 0 views

  • Several trends came together to increase the professional nature of scientific work. First was the increasing cost of scientific work and its complexity. Scientific equipment became more precise and expensive. Telescopes, like those by Herschel, became bigger and bigger. Also, the amount of knowledge one needed to gain to contribute became increasingly daunting.
  • Second, the universities changed. Pioneered by the German states, which at the beginning of the 19th century was dismissed as a scientific backwater, universities began offering focused majors which trained students in a specific discipline rather than classical education as a whole. This was pioneered by Wilhelm von Humboldt, brother of the famous scientist Alexander von Humboldt, who was the Prussian Minister of Education.
  • Germany, once united, also provided impetus to two other trends that accelerated their dominance of science and the decline of amateurs. First, was the beginning of large-scale state sponsorship of science through grants which were first facilitated through the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (now the Max Planck Institute). This eventually supplanted prizes as the dominant large-scale source of scientific funding. Countries like France that relied on prizes began to fall behind. Second, was the intimate cooperation between industrial firms like BASF and universities.
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  • he final nail in the coffin was undoubtedly the Second World War. The massive mobilization of scientific resources needed to win and the discovery of war-winning inventions such as the atomic bomb and self-correcting bomb sight (with help from Norbert Wiener of MIT) convinced the nations of the world that the future was in large-scale funding and support of science as a continuous effort. Vannevar Bush, former president of MIT, and others pioneered the National Science Foundation and the military also invested heavily in its own research centers. Industrial labs such as those from Bell Labs, GE, Kodak, and others began dominating research as well. Interestingly, the first military investment in semiconductors coupled with research from Bell Labs led to what is now known as Silicon Valley.
Philip Solars

The Must Have Solar Equipment - 0 views

started by Philip Solars on 28 Sep 12 no follow-up yet
thinkahol *

High-speed filter uses electrified nanostructures to purify water at low cost - 0 views

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    Researchers have developed a water-purifying filter that makes the process more than 80,000 times faster than existing filters. The key is coating the filter fabric -- ordinary cotton -- with nanotubes and silver nanowires, then electrifying it. The filter uses very little power, has no moving parts and could be used throughout the developing world.
Todd Suomela

The Technium: The World Without Technology - 0 views

  • Although strictly speaking simple tools are a type of technology made by one person, we tend to think of technology as something much more complicated. But in fact technology is anything designed by a mind. Technology includes not only nuclear reactors and genetically modified crops, but also bows and arrows, hide tanning techniques, fire starters, and domesticated crops. Technology also includes intangible inventions such as calendars, mathematics, software, law, and writing, as these too derive from our heads. But technology also must include birds' nests and beaver dams since these too are the work of brains. All technology, both the chimp's termite fishing spear and the human's fishing spear, the beaver's dam and the human's dam, the warbler's hanging basket and the human's hanging basket, the leafcutter ant's garden and the human's garden, are all fundamentally natural. We tend to isolate human-made technology from nature, even to the point of thinking of it as anti-nature, only because it has grown to rival the impact and power of its home. But in its origins and fundamentals a tool is as natural as our life.
  • The gravity of technology holds us where we are. We accept our attachment. But to really appreciate the effects of technology – both its virtues and costs -- we need to examine the world of humans before technology. What were our lives like without inventions? For that we need to peek back into the Paleolithic era when technology was scarce and humans lived primarily surrounded by things they did not make. We can also examine the remaining contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes still living close to nature to measure what, if anything, they gain from the small amount of technology they use.
  • Then about 50,000 years ago something amazing happened. While the bodies of early humans in Africa remained unchanged, their genes and minds shifted noticeably. For the first time hominins were full of ideas and innovation. These newly vitalized modern humans, which we now call Sapiens, charged into new regions beyond their ancestral homes in eastern Africa. They fanned out from the grasslands and in a relatively brief burst exploded from a few tens of thousands in Africa to an estimated 8 million worldwide just before the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago.
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  • It should have been clear to Neanderthal, as it is now clear to us in the 21st century, that something new and big had appeared -- a new biological and geological force. A number of scientists (Richard Klein, Ian Tattersall, William Calvin, among many others) think that the "something" that happened 50,000 years ago was the invention of language. Up until this point, humanoids were smart. They could make crude tools in a hit or miss way and handle fire – perhaps like an exceedingly smart chimp. The African hominin's growing brain size and physical stature had leveled off its increase, but evolution continued inside the brain.  "What happened 50,000 years ago," says Klein, "was a change in the operating system of humans. Perhaps a point mutation effected the way the brain is wired that allowed languages, as we understand language today: rapidly produced, articulate speech."  Instead of acquiring a larger brain, as the Neanderthal and Erectus did, Sapien gained a rewired brain.  Language altered the Neanderthal-type mind, and allowed Sapien minds for the first time to invent with purpose and deliberation. Philosopher Daniel Dennet crows in elegant language: "There is no step more uplifting, more momentous in the history of mind design, than the invention of language. When Homo sapiens became the beneficiary of this invention, the species stepped into a slingshot that has launched it far beyond all other earthly species." The creation of language was the first singularity for humans. It changed everything. Life after language was unimaginable to those on the far side before it.
primusit

primus lt - 1 views

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    Primus IT specializes in the development and manufacture 100 bases to 400G optical transceivers ( GBIC / SFP / SFP+/ SFP28 / QSFP+ / QSFP28 / XFP / XENPAK / X2 / CFP / CFP2 / AOC / DAC etc.) and provides cost-effective transceivers solutions for customers worldwide in data communications, long-distance transmission, wireless networking and more.
primusit

ftth manufacturers - 1 views

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    The notable technical feature of FTTH in china is that it not only provides greater bandwidth, but also enhances the transparency of the network to data formats, rates, wavelengths, and protocols, relaxes the requirements for environmental conditions and power supply, and simplifies maintenance and installation.
buycashapp31

Buy Verified CashApp Accounts - Canada - 0 views

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    If you're looking for a way to send and receive money, you may be considering the Cash App. The CashApp is a mobile payment service that allows users to transfer money to one another. You can also use the Cash App to pay for goods and services at certain businesses. And, if you have a Cash Card, you can use it like a debit card, too. If you're thinking about signing up for the CashApp, you may be wondering how much it costs. Well, the good news is that the Cash App is free to download and use.
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