Ron Gutman: The hidden power of smiling

Ron Gutman reviews a raft of studies about smiling, and reveals some surprising results. Did you know your smile can be a predictor of how long you'll live -- and that a simple smile has a measurable effect on your overall well-being? Prepare to flex a few facial muscles as you learn more about this evolutionarily contagious behavior.

Silk, the ancient material of the future: Fiorenzo Omenetto

Fiorenzo Omenetto shares 20+ astonishing new uses for silk, one of nature’s most elegant materials — in transmitting light, improving sustainability, adding strength and making medical leaps and bounds. On stage, he shows a few intriguing items made of the versatile stuff.

Google's Johnny Chung Lee: Innovation on the Edge

Innovation on the Edge: How Hackers Turned a Videogame Controller into a Breakthrough Device

Guy Kawasaki: Enchantment Marketing

Marketing these days is strategic and holistic and involves a whole lot of genuine social media engagement. Renowned venture capitalist Kawasaki is famous for helping to create Apple product evangelism and for his legendary marketing methods. He explains how to develop the highest level of relations with customers, employees and colleagues by affecting their hearts, minds and actions.

Peter Beinart in Conversation with Paul Krugman

Professor and journalist Peter Beinart talks with Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist and a Nobel Laureate in Economics. They discuss the state of US and world economies, US employment, the rise of China, trade and immigration, and more.

Matt Ridley: Deep Optimism

Via trade and other cultural activities, "ideas have sex," and that drives human history in the direction of inconstant but accumulative improvement over time. The criers of havoc keep being proved wrong. A fundamental optimism about human affairs is deeply rational and can be reliably conjured with.

Trained at Oxford as a zoologist and an editor at The Economist for eight years, Matt Ridley's newest book is The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. His earlier works include Francis Crick; Nature via Nurture; Genome; and The Origins of Virtue.

Intel unveils 3-D transistor breakthrough

Windows for Devices reports: "Intel had been expected to use its May 4 press conference to promote its progress in making computer chips smaller (and, hence, cheaper and more economical on power). Most of the company's offerings still have circuitry that's 45 nanometers apart, but 32nm devices are also in production, and 22nm and 14nm versions have been promised for next year.

Indeed, the chip giant did talk up its 2012 'Ivy Bridge' Core processors (see later in this story), already known to be using a 22nm process. But it also pulled a rabbit out of a hat in the form of its new 3-D 'Tri-Gate' technology, billed as 'a significant breakthrough in the evolution of the transistor.'" (full article)



Excerpt from video: "Intel announces a major technical breakthrough and historic innovation in microprocessors: the world's first 3-D transistors, called Tri-Gate, in a production technology. The transition to 3-D Tri-Gate transistors sustains the pace of technology advancement, fueling Moore's Law for years to come.

An unprecedented combination of performance improvement and power reduction to enable new innovations across a range of future 22nm-based devices from the smallest handhelds to powerful cloud-based servers.

Intel demonstrates a 22nm microprocessor -- codenamed "Ivy Bridge" -- that will be the first high-volume chip to use 3-D Tri-Gate transistors."

Jane McGonigal: How Games Can Make a Better World

Can problems like poverty and climate change by fixed through games? Visionary game designer Jane McGonigal thinks it can. With more than 174 million gamers in the United States, McGonigal explores how we can save the world through the power of gaming. McGonigal is helping pioneer the fasting-growing genre of games that turns gameplay to achieve socially positive outcomes.

Chris Anderson - PopTech

What happens when material things become free? Long Tail author and Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson examines new models of wealth distribution and claims we’re moving from economies of scarcity to an age of abundance.

Donald Ingber: Serendipitous science

Donald Ingber explains how taking an undergraduate sculpture course while learning how to culture cells led to an unexpected breakthrough in understanding cellular construction. He believes an open mind for serendipity correlates to innovations in a diverse range of fields — from the “lung-on-a-chip” to “DNA origami.”

For more information, check out the following web site.

Angela Belcher: Using nature to grow batteries

Inspired by an abalone shell, Angela Belcher programs viruses to make elegant nanoscale structures that humans can use. Selecting for high-performing genes through directed evolution, she's produced viruses that can construct powerful new batteries, clean hydrogen fuels and record-breaking solar cells. At TEDxCaltech, she shows us how it's done.

MIT's artificial leaf is ten times more efficient than the real thing

Wired UK reports: "Speaking at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in California, MIT professor Daniel Nocera claims to have created an artificial leaf, made from stable and inexpensive materials, which mimics nature's photosynthesis process.

The device is an advanced solar cell, no bigger than a typical playing card, which is left floating in a pool of water. Then, much like a natural leaf, it uses sunlight to split the water into its two core components, oxygen and hydrogen, which are stored in a fuel cell to be used when producing electricity."

Hackers Target Mobile Devices

Baseline.com reports: "Attacks targeting mobile devices are on the rise, and the overall threat environment grew yet more hostile in 2010, says Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report, Volume 16. “Cell phones are coming into your work environment, and the user may own them, but they’re going to wind up with work data on them,” says Kevin Haley, director at Symantec Security Response. “Businesses really need to think about that because not only will these phone be lost, not only will these folks that work for you leave and go to other companies… the bad guys are going to be attacking these phones and trying to steal from them as well.” What steps can businesses take to mitigate these risks?"

SPARSH - Touch to Copy, Touch to Paste

SPARSH lets you conceptually transfer media from one digital device to your body and pass it to the other digital device by simple touch gestures.

Our digital world -- laptop, TV, smart phone, e-book reader and all are now relying upon the cloud, the cloud of information. SPARSH explores a novel interaction method to seamlessly transfer something between these devices in a real fun way using the underlying cloud. Here it goes. Touch whatever you want to copy. Now it is saved conceptually in you. Next, touch the device you want to paste/pass the saved content.

Reverse Engineered Alien Technology?

Normally I would never post a video like this, but I like it because it challenges you think about the subject and technology.



About the video: "Reverse Engineer an Alien Spacecraft discovering the amazing science behind Invisibility (Metamaterials), Anti-Gravity (Torsion Field Physics), Nano-photo-optical quantum computers(Quasicrystals), and more."

Railgun Update from General Atomics

Don't be a Billy (Funny Security Awareness Video)

Deb Roy: The birth of a word

About the video: MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.

Harvey Fineberg: Are we ready for neo-evolution?

Medical ethicist Harvey Fineberg shows us three paths forward for the ever-evolving human species: to stop evolving completely, to evolve naturally -- or to control the next steps of human evolution, using genetic modification, to make ourselves smarter, faster, better. Neo-evolution is within our grasp. What will we do with it?

The Mountain

Excerpt from the video description: "The goal was to capture the beautiful Milky Way galaxy along with one of the most amazing mountains I know El Teide. I have to say this was one of the most exhausting trips I have done. There was a lot of hiking at high altitudes and probably less than 10 hours of sleep in total for the whole week. Having been here 10-11 times before I had a long list of must-see locations I wanted to capture for this movie, but I am still not 100% used to carrying around so much gear required for time-lapse movies."

Dunbar's Number

Molly explains why you won't ever have more than 150 friends. Leave us a comment below telling us how you decide to cut your friends down.

David Christian: Big history

Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is "Big History": an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline.

Open-sourcing the blueprints of civilization: Marcin Jakubowski

Using wikis and digital fabrication tools, TED Fellow Marcin Jakubowski is open-sourcing the blueprints for 50 farm machines, allowing anyone to build their own tractor or harvester from scratch. And that’s only the first step in a project to write an instruction set for an entire self-sustaining village (starting cost: $10,000).

Susan Lim: Transplant cells, not organs

Pioneering surgeon Susan Lim performed the first liver transplant in Asia. But a moral concern with transplants (where do donor livers come from ...) led her to look further, and to ask: Could we be transplanting cells, not whole organs? At the INK Conference, she talks through her new research, discovering healing cells in some surprising places.

L2 Innovation Workshop: Generating a Disruptive Idea

Summary
The rate of change and innovation in digital is staggering. Brands that take an iterative approach to innovation are quickly falling behind and risk destroying significant shareholder value. Exemplar brands are building systems, processes, and cultures that support experimentation and innovation in digital as part of the way in which they conduct business.

Chores Get Gamified: Players Compete to Clean the Toilet

Game designer and author Jane McGonigal recounts how the computer game Chore Wars pitted her and her husband against one another to see who could perform more household chores. "We wound up doing some funny things, like hiding the toilet brush so the other person couldn't do it," she says.

Star Trek's Biggest Fan? Nichelle Nichols Remembers MLK, Jr.

Actress Nichelle Nichols, who played the role of Lieutenant Uhura in the original Star Trek series, recalls a surprise visit from her biggest fan: Martin Luther King, Jr. Nichols describes how Dr. King approached her as she was considering leaving the show and convinced her to change her mind.

Chinese Magical Hard-Drive

Jitbit reports about a Chinese magical hard-drive, here is an excerpt from the article: "He works at a hard-drive repair center in a Russian town right next to the Chinese border. A couple of days ago a customer has brought a broken 500Gb USB-drive that he had bought in a Chinese store across the river, for an insanely low price. But the drive was not working: if you, say, save a movie onto the drive, playing the saved movie back resulted in replaying just the last 5 minutes of the film."

(read the rest of the story and see picture here)

Facebook Open Compute Project Offers Keys to Prineville Data Center Kingdom

eWeek.com reports: "Facebook's Prineville, Ore., data center is almost finished, and to celebrate the ambitious project the social network decided to do something special April 7. As part of the Open Compute Project, Facebook is publishing specs and mechanical designs used to construct the motherboards, power supply, server chassis, and server and battery cabinets for its data center. That's unprecedented enough for a company of Facebook's growing scale, but the social network is also open sourcing specs for its data center's electrical and mechanical construction."

When you work with servers all day, you tend to geek out on this stuff... ;-)

Absolutely the Best Top Gear Episodes

Space Shuttle car
The folks at Top Gear have completely outdone themselves, building their own Space Shuttle out of a Reliant Robin, roughly the British equivalent of a Pinto or a Gremlin (minus a wheel).


Polar Special
Can you travel to the North Pole in a car, or actually a Toyota Hilux pickup truck?

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Peel P50
There are a lot of great Top Gear episodes, but this is definitely one of the better of them. Jeremy Clarkson drives Peel P50 literally in and around the BBC Television Center.


Runner up:
Supercar Fuel Challenge
Top Gears Jeremy Clarkson tests out 5 modern Supercars to see how far they well go on a gallon of fuel.

Gmail Motion Turned into Reality (using Kinect)

Google's April fool's gag "Gmail Motion", is turned into reality using a Microsoft Kinect and some special software. Watch the video above to see the technology in action. If you want to know more about the Gmail Motion gag watch the video below.

This project uses OpenNI coupled with FAAST and was made by Evan Suma and the folks at Mark Bolas' MxR Lab at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies.

Download FAAST for free and try it at http://projects.ict.usc.edu/mxr/faast/
Learn more about USC ICT at http://ict.usc.edu

GEICO's Rental Car Quiz -

You're probably wondering why I would post a link to GEICO's Rental Car Quiz. Personally I thought this had a lot of good information about renting cars. I know most of this stuff, but I have to admit I did learn a few interesting facts from this quiz.

Top Gear: BBC: Atom (the full clip in high quality!) - Top Gear

Jeremy Clarkson challenges the Atom to prove more fun than a motorbike - with astounding and face melting results!

Quote of the Day...

Any sufficiently advances bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses. - Unknown

Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak: The Food of the Future

Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak present "Organically Grown and Genetically Engineered: The Food of the Future" as part of The Long Now Foundation's Seminars About Long-term Thinking. They explore how genetic engineering can work with organic growing practices to produce food in a more sustainable way than either of them could alone.

Janine Benyus - Biomimicry

Champion of the Earth honoree and biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus has transformed the way we think about innovation and design. Benyus challenges us to study nature’s best ideas, then imitate its designs and processes to solve some of our greatest human challenges.

IfItWereMyHome.com

IfItWereMyHome.com: "IfItWereMyHome.com is your gateway to understanding life outside your home. Use our country comparison tool to compare living conditions in your own country to those of another. Start by selecting a region to compare on the map to the right, and begin your exploration."

Eythor Bender demos human exoskeletons

Eythor Bender of Berkeley Bionics brings onstage two amazing exoskeletons, HULC and eLEGS -- robotic add-ons that could one day allow a human to carry 200 pounds without tiring, or allow a wheelchair user to stand and walk. It's a powerful onstage demo, with implications for human potential of all kinds.

Frankengenentics or Science Future?

Paul Root Wolpe: It's time to question bio-engineering



At TEDxPeachtree, bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe describes an astonishing series of recent bio-engineering experiments, from hybrid pets to mice that grow human ears. He asks: isn't it time to set some ground rules?

These advances are both amazing and can be ethically questionable depending on your perspectives and beliefs. We have been manipulating genetics of plants and animals for thousands of years (through selective breeding), the only difference is now we have much greater control.

TEDTalks : Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles" - Eli Pariser (2011)

As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.

Joel Salatin: War Stories from the Local Food Front

Summary
American farmer Joel Salatin, the star of the documentary Food Inc, has become a "pin up boy" for the growing food "re-localization" movement. On a recent visit to Canberra, he gives his take on food politics after a lifetime of experience in natural and profitable farming.

Salatin came to prominence with his ideas about creating abundance on a family farm. His methods include learning how to mimic nature and arrange the facets of farm life so they don't operate as independent operations, but rather a system of "intertwined cycles."

Disregarding conventional wisdom, the Salatins planted trees, built huge compost piles, dug ponds, moved cows daily with portable electric fencing, and utilized portable sheltering systems to produce all their animals on perennial prairie polycultures.

Salatin believes we’re now living through an age of a "food inquisition", not unlike the religious inquisition of 500 years ago, where the powers behind industrialized agriculture and food production are putting heretical farmers like him "on the rack."

In this talk, organized by Milkwood Permaculture in association with Slow Food Canberra, Salatin lays out twelve false assumptions peddled by the "inquisitors," which sustainable farming methods counter.

Discovery Landing Ends Storied Chapter in NASA History

eWeek.com reports: "NASA moved one step closer to the end of an illustrious era of spaceflight when space shuttle Discovery touched down for the last time at Kennedy Space Center on March 9. Discovery and its six-member crew delivered the Permanent Multipurpose Module, packed with supplies and critical spare parts, as well as Robonaut 2, the dexterous humanoid astronaut helper, to the International Space Station. STS-133 was Discovery's 39th and final mission."

I wonder if this is truly an end of era of the American space program. If so this is very sad.

Awesome Milk Trick!.

The World Is Obsessed With Facebook

The Strange Powers of the Placebo Effect

New bank Trojan employs fresh tricks to steal account data

Computerworld reports: "Unlike other conventional hacking tools, OddJob does not require fraudsters to log into a user's online bank account to steal from it. Instead, the malware is designed to hijack a user's online banking session in real-time by stealing session ID tokens."

This is a very scary piece of malware. I am pretty sure that we will soon see a lot of other types of malware copycat the technique.

Amazon launches Prime Instant Video, unlimited streaming for Prime subscribers

Engadget reports: "We heard it was coming and now here it is. Amazon has flipped the switch on its 'free' video streaming for Prime members, the service we've been hearing about for the past month or so. If you've already been taking advantage of subscription-based two-day shipping so that your impulse buys get to your door a little quicker you can now enjoy streaming of 5,000 pieces of 'prime eligible' content, including some recent movies and a lot of TV shows, much of which will look awfully familiar if you're also a Netflix subscriber. However, on some foreign films (like The Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest above) you have the choice of subtitles or dubbed, and much of this content is still available to 'rent' or 'buy' if you want to be able to download it to a mobile device. We're just checking out the service now and will be back with some impressions a little later."

Its looks like Amazon is trying to give Netflix a run for its money.

NOVA scienceNOW: Where Did We Come From? | Cosmic Perspective

Watson Jeopardy! computer: Ken Jennings describes what it's like to play against a machine. - By Ken Jennings - Slate Magazine

Slate reports: "When I was selected as one of the two human players to be pitted against IBM's 'Watson' supercomputer in a special man-vs.-machine Jeopardy! exhibition match, I felt honored, even heroic. I envisioned myself as the Great Carbon-Based Hope against a new generation of thinking machines—which, if Hollywood is to be believed, will inevitably run amok, build unstoppable robot shells, and destroy us all. But at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Lab, an Eero Saarinen-designed fortress in the snowy wilds of New York's Westchester County, where the shows taped last month, I wasn't the hero at all. I was the villain."

Locked in a Vegas Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex

Tom Guilmette: "I was working a gig in Vegas with a brand new Phantom Flex high speed digital cinema camera. I had to try it out. In fact, I never did go to bed that night. I opened up a wormhole shooting at 2,564 frames per second."

Firefox's Problem with Windows

USB Dead Drops (Cool Idea)

Excerpt from the site: "‘Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessible to anybody in public space. Everyone is invited to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop is installed empty except a readme.txt file explaining the project. ‘Dead Drops’ is open to participation. If you want to install a dead drop in your city/neighborhood follow the ‘how to’ instructions and submit the location and pictures."

Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture

How can architects build a new world of sustainable beauty? By learning from nature. At TEDSalon in London, Michael Pawlyn describes three habits of nature that could transform architecture and society: radical resource efficiency, closed loops, and drawing energy from the sun.

Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China

Speaking at a TED Salon in London, economist Martin Jacques asks: How do we in the West make sense of China and its phenomenal rise? The author of "When China Rules the World," he examines why the West often puzzles over the growing power of the Chinese economy, and offers three building blocks for understanding what China is and will become.

Watson's Jeopardy Showdown: Man Vs. Machine

CIO Insight reports: "An epic showdown of man vs. machine kicks off Feb. 14, 2011. That's when “Watson ,” a computing system from IBM, will face off against 'Jeopardy!' superstars Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Can an artificial intelligence-driven machine overcome championship-level human minds? With Watson, the key challenge isn’t a command of statistics and factoids. It’s a matter of programming a computing system that can pick up the subtle nuances of the game show. This requires understanding of language, including the puns and irony that provide the subtle clues hidden in the often-clever wording of the Jeopardy! answer-and-question trivia format."

IPv4 Address Depletion Adds Momentum to IPv6 Transition

eWeek reports: "The official distribution took place in a ceremony Feb. 3 in Miami to mark the occasion. AfriNIC, the RIR (regional Internet registry) that oversees IP-address allocation in Africa, received the first of the remaining IPv4 blocks, followed by the APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Center), ARIN (American Registry of Internet Numbers), and (LACNIC) Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry. The RIR for Europe and Middle East, RIPE NCC, received the final block, 185/8, marking the end of available addresses under the current IPv4 system."

Internet almost out of space with allocation of last addresses

The Guardian reports: "The internet is full. Or, to be more precise, it has run out of new internet addresses – having used up almost 4 billion since being set up 40-odd years ago.

The Internet Address and Naming Agency (IANA), which doles out blocks of new internet addresses (consisting of machine-addressable numbers rather like a phone book), said on Tuesday morning that it will allocate the last seven remaining blocks of addresses this month, including three to the overall internet registrar for Asia and the Pacific."

For the last few years, lots of IT Pros have been perdiciting that we will run out of IPv4 addresses. What I think is going to happen now that it is more official, is that IP addresses will become a commodity, and a bidding war might start for IPv4 address block, until IPv6 is fully implemented.

I guess its now time to get serious about really learning IPv6.

Counterfeit Car Maker Cranks Out Porsches and Fauxraris | Magazine

Wired reports: "You can buy cut-rate bootlegs of Mad Men and Chanel handbags all over the world. But if you want a fake Ferrari, you need to go to a garage on the outskirts of Bangkok. That’s where Chris Pongpitaya and his 10-man crew use scavenged and scratch-built parts to piece together ersatz Porsches, Maseratis, and other dream machines for enthusiasts whose budgets are too small to match their egos. “When you look at the car, there’s nothing different,” Pongpitaya says. “But when you test-drive it, you may notice.”"

Google - Art Project

Take a tour of museums from around the world with the Google Art Project. Explore, discover and view hundreds of masterpieces at incredible zoom levels. You can also create and share your own collection of artworks.

Cool Google Calculator Tricks

Learn some cool Google calculator tricks, click on the links it will take you to the search results.

For example: What is the answer to life the universe and everything?

Sartre Vehicle Platooning

First demonstration of SARTRE vehicle platooning. 
Platooning may be the new way of travelling on motorways in as little as ten years time -- and the EU-financed SARTRE project has carried out the first successful demonstration of its technology at the Volvo Proving Ground close to Gothenburg, Sweden.

From Wikipedia: "Platoons decrease the distances between cars using electronic, and possibly mechanical, coupling. This capability would allow many cars to accelerate or brake simultaneously. Instead of waiting after a traffic light changes to green for drivers ahead to react, a synchronized platoon would move as one, allowing up to a fivefold increase in traffic throughput if spacing is diminished that much. This system also allows for a closer headway between vehicles by eliminating reacting distance needed for human reaction."

HD Twilight Landing At LAX (Cockpit View)

A 30 minute approach compressed into three minutes. The whole video was shot with a Canon S95.

3 Reasons Flexible Electronics Enable Smarter Displays

SmarterTechnology reports: "Nevertheless, the technologies that caused all the speculation about flexible electronics are already revolutionizing the multi-billion-dollar display industry. Theoretically, flexible displays could be rolled up like a blueprint or pulled down like a window blind. The reality, however, is that flexible, printable, organic electronics are finding their best uses in cost-reducing three aspects of the manufacturing of electronic displays (albeit without making the entire display flexible)."

Could-have-been love story

The evolution of hard drives

InfoWorld reports: "The history of the hard drive, from monsters that required teams of technicians to operate to coin-sized flash drives"

IBM`s Watson Supercomputer to Take on Humans in $1M Jeopardy Tournament

eWeek reports: "IBM researchers have been working for four years on its DeepQA supercomputer, which it showed off at a media event Jan. 13, just before it was scheduled to take on two former Jeopardy champions in a two-day $1 million tournament for the long-running TV game show. Dubbed Watson, after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson Sr., the supercomputer can understand natural human language–complete with puns, plays on words, and slang–and answer the complex questions that are typical in the Jeopardy trivia game. Watson analyzes “real language,” or spoken language, instead of just looking for keywords like a search engine. It understands context and correlates the question with the millions of pieces of information it has stored to find a specific answer, said David Ferrucci, the principal investigator on the Watson project. “The hard part for Watson is finding and justifying the correct answer, computing confidence that it’s right and doing it fast enough,” said Ferrucci. Researchers trained Watson with 200 million pages of text, or about 1 million books, ranging from sources like encyclopedias, movie scripts, newspapers and even children’s book abstracts. “Watson is not just storing all that information,” it is also correlating all of it to make sense out of it, according to Bernie Spang, director of strategy for the software group at IBM Research said."

NASA - The Frontier Is Everywhere

7 Billion People, by 2011

The worldwide population expected to exceed seven billion in 2011. Lets hear it for procreation (do I need to say more?).

Acer Iconia a Windows 7 Dual-Touch Screen Laptop

At CES 2011 Acer introduced the Iconia a Windows 7 dual-touch screen laptop, and it was also nominated as the winner of the Last Gadget Standing. One of the radical features of the laptop is that replaces the physical keyboard with a touch screen.

The Besler Steam Plane

A Travel Air 2000 biplane made the world's first piloted flight under steam power over Oakland, California, on 12 April 1933. The strangest feature of the flight was its relative silence; spectators on the ground could hear the pilot when he called to them from mid-air.

The aircraft, piloted by William Besler, had been fitted with a two-cylinder, 150 hp reciprocating engine. An important contribution to its design was made by Nathan C. Price, a former Doble Steam Motors engineer. Price was working on high pressure compact engines for rail and road transport; the purpose of the flight was to obtain publicity for this work.

Following its unexpectedly favourable reception Price went to Boeing and worked on various aviation projects, but Boeing dropped the idea of a steam aeroengine in 1936. Price later worked for Lockheed where his experience with developing compact burners for steam boilers helped to design Lockheed's first jet engine.

The advantages of the "Besler System" that were claimed at the time included the elimination of audible noise and destructive vibration; greater efficiency at low engine speeds and also at high altitudes where lower air temperatures assisted condensation; reduced likelihood of engine failure; reduced maintenance costs; reduced fuel costs, since fuel oil was used in place of petrol; reduced fire hazard since the fuel was less volatile and operating temperatures were lower; and a lack of need for radio shielding. For capacities in excess of 1000 horse power a turbine captures the energy released by the expansion of steam more efficiently than a piston. Thus, the steam reciprocating engine turned out to be unsuitable for scaling up to the needs of large aircraft.

2010's Most Dangerous List

Trend Micro Malware Blog reports: "OS: The riskiest OS used was Apple’s Mac OS X. In November, Apple sent users a massive maintenance release that weighed in at at least 644.48MB. The weighty upgrade included fixes for multiple security vulnerabilities since the previous update released in mid-June. Apple’s penchant for secrecy and longer patch cycles also increased the risk for users."

For the past several months, I have been been reading and hearing more and more about security problems in Apple’s Mac OS X. Although, the Windows platform still has more viruses written for it.

Hanna Rosin: New data on the rise of women

Hanna Rosin reviews startling new data that shows women actually surpassing men in several important measures, such as college graduation rates. Do these trends, both US-centric and global, signal the "end of men"? Probably not -- but they point toward an important societal shift worth deep discussion.

Rachel Botsman: The case for collaborative consumption

At TEDxSydney, Rachel Botsman says we're "wired to share" -- and shows how websites like Zipcar and Swaptree are changing the rules of human behavior.

Lego Antikythera Mechanism

The Antikythera Mechanism: is the oldest known scientific computer, built in Greece at around 100 BCE. Lost for 2000 years, it was recovered from a shipwreck in 1901. But not until a century later was its purpose understood: an astronomical clock that determines the positions of celestial bodies with extraordinary precision. 

In 2010, we built a fully-functional replica out of Lego.

The Geek's Guide to Last-Minute Holiday Gift Giving in 2010

eWeek.com reports: "As the holiday season draws closer, there's always a scramble to get that perfect last-minute gift for the special nerd on your list. With an ever-growing mountain of electronics and portable devices such as Apple's iPad and other tablets crowding the marketplace, it can be difficult to find something unique that is also affordable. Thankfully, the explosion of geeky gifts at a reasonable price offers consumers an alternative to pricey PCs and still-nascent big ticket items such as 3D televisions. This list includes a wide variety of gifts, ranging from the more expensive and cutting-edge options to clever plug-and-play baubles for home and office fun. Who says a USB device has to look like a boring black brick, or a wall clock can't require some mathematical equations on the part of the recipient? If your geeks are anything like the nerds we know, a little braininess goes a long way in producing the perfect holiday present. Whether you're swinging for the fences with a brand new MacBook Air (be on the lookout, Mom!) or are simply looking for a snazzy stocking-stuffer, our geek's guide should give you a hand in making that perfect purchase."

Google Chrome OS Cr-48 Barebones Netbook to Test Market

eWeek reports: "Google Dec. 8 began rolling out the Cr-48, an unbranded notebook equipped with its Chrome Operating System, the Web operating system that enables Web applications run on Google's Chrome Web browser. The Cr-48 lies at the heart of the Chrome OS Pilot Program, Google's effort to seed the market with the notebooks, get feedback and polish the product prior to launch on branded machines from Acer and Samsung in mid-2011. Google is issuing the gadgets—which run on WiFi networks and also sport 3G radios with 100MB a month of data free for two years—to partner companies, friends, some lucky consumers and the media. In December, eWEEK got its hands on one of these plain, black no-frills notebooks. It sports a 12.1-inch screen, delivers 8 hours of use time and allows no internal data storage. The notebook is a true cloud machine, which has its limits. There is as yet no capability to port photos from cameras and smartphones to the Chrome OS netbook. But this is compensated by a raft of possibilities. For example, Google has created its Google Cloud Print solution to give the Cr-48 access to Web-based printing. Take a look at this run-through, and see a review here."

Star Size Comparison

Manslator: Female Language Lranslator (Humor)

Windows 7: USB Installation (Video)

This video walks you through the process of installing Windows 7 from a USB flash drive.

In this video, you'll learn how to :

• Set boot priorities in the BIOS
• Configure USB hard-drive emulation
• Troubleshoot possible issues and implement solutions for images > 2GB
• Perform the installation

Requires:

• Windows 7 Installation DVD (with Product Key)
• 4GB USB flash drive

Google Chrome OS for Netbooks: 15 Essential Features - Cloud Computing

eWeek reports: "Google Dec. 7 didn't shock anyone with the announcement that Chrome Operating System netbooks wouldn't arrive until 2011. But that doesn't mean that the Chrome OS update event in San Francisco didn't come with some surprises. There was the unveiling of Crankshaft, a new compilation infrastructure for V8, the Chrome JavaScript engine responsible for making the browser so speedy. There was the formal launch of the Chrome Webstore, which has more than 500 Web applications, including two programs from Amazon and one each from The New York Times and Sports Illustrated. Think of the Chrome Web Store as Apple's App Store, but for Chrome OS netbooks (and, eventually, Chrome OS tablets) instead of iPhones and iPads. Finally, in the biggest surprise of all, Google launched a pilot program using black, unbranded Chrome OS netbooks. Google is passing out thousands of these machines to media, friends of Google and business partners, including the U.S. Department of Defense and American Airlines. Here is a run-through of the news using slides from Google's Dec. 7 demonstration."

10 Glaring Flaws of the Latest Tablet PCs

eWeek reports: "When it comes time to evaluate the important computer product news of 2010, the vast majority of annual roundups will point to tablets as some of the hottest products of the year. After all, when Apple released its iPad earlier this year, the tablet craze officially began. And an increasing number of computer makers decided that the time was ripe to expand their own product lines with new tablet designs. That's precisely why, as of this writing, Apple is joined by Samsung, Dell and several others in the tablet space, all vying to grab a hefty share of this rapidly growing market. But due to the sheer number of tablets that are both available and on the way, it's much easier now for consumers and enterprise customers to see what's missing in that space. As popular as tablets are and as successful as Apple's iPad might be, the devices still fall short in some important ways. The manufacturers must consider fixing those problems in 2011. Not only will it make customers happier, but it will also improve those companies' chances of selling more products."

Race Is On to 'Fingerprint' Phones, PCs

WSJ.com reports: "Advertisers no longer want to just buy ads. They want to buy access to specific people. So, Mr. Norris is building a "credit bureau for devices" in which every computer or cellphone will have a "reputation" based on its user's online behavior, shopping habits and demographics. He plans to sell this information to advertisers willing to pay top dollar for granular data about people's interests and activities."

Dan Nocera: Personalized Energy

MIT Professor Dan Nocera believes he can solve the worlds energy problems with an Olympic-sized pool of water. Nocera and his research team have identified a simple technique for powering the Earth inexpensively by using the sun to split water and store energy - making the large-scale deployment of personalized solar energy possible.

Willie Smits: Saving Rainforests

Biologist Willie Smits has spent the last thirty years searching for ways to restore fragile ecosystems. From his home in Indonesia a leading producer of greenhouse gases Smits has discovered a method of sustainable energy production: using the forest to generate biofuels with a carbon-positive impact.

A skyscraper like no other: Taiwan to build 390-meter tower with floating observatory blimps

gizmag reports: "It might look like something out of Isaac Asimov's imagination, it might look like it could never stand up, but this bizarre concept building is about to go into construction. 'Floating Observatories' is Stefan Dorin's winning entry in the recent Taiwan Tower Conceptual International Competition – and in return for his US$130,000 first prize, now he has to actually build the thing. The new tower, standing more than 300 meters tall with its helium-filled observatory 'leaves', will be the crown jewel of Taechung, the third largest city in Taiwan."

Wiley Vs. Rhodes

A live action short film with a real life Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.

Mystery Surrounds Cyber Missile That Crippled Iran's Nuclear Weapons Ambitions

Fox News reports: "The mission: Infiltrate the highly advanced, securely guarded enemy headquarters where scientists in the clutches of an evil master are secretly building a weapon that can destroy the world. Then render that weapon harmless and escape undetected.

But in the 21st century, Bond doesn't get the call. Instead, the job is handled by a suave and very sophisticated secret computer worm, a jumble of code called Stuxnet, which in the last year has not only crippled Iran's nuclear program but has caused a major rethinking of computer security around the globe."

Very detailed article on the Stuxnet worm. This worm is really a game changer as the article states. It was highly targeted, and very sophisticated.

Botnet Boon: How Scammers Cash In

eWeek reports: "There are several well-known botnets, including Kneber, Rustock and Koobface, pushing out spam and malware each day, clogging up inboxes and compromising Websites. For cyber-criminals, botnets are just business tools that help them make money. Malware is a lucrative business, as Melih Abdulhayoglu, founder and CEO of Comodo, likes to point out—the money is no longer only in drugs, but in creating malware, and the goal is to spread it as far and fast as possible to catch unsuspecting victims. According to Symantec Hosted Services, a botnet's rental fees can range from $9 an hour to more than $65 an hour. How do the criminals renting the botnets to spread their malware make their money? Here is a rundown of some of the more common botnet-based attacks, as described by Martin Lee from Symantec Hosted Services. Just remember: The scammers don't need everyone to fall for their attacks. Considering the hundreds of thousands of messages pushed by the botnet, if even 1 percent falls for the scam, they've made back the cost of renting out the zombies and gotten a tidy little profit as well."

Marcel Dicke: Why not eat insects?

Marcel Dicke makes an appetizing case for adding insects to everyone's diet. His message to squeamish chefs and foodies: delicacies like locusts and caterpillars compete with meat in flavor, nutrition and eco-friendliness.

Bart Weetjens: How I taught rats to sniff out land mines

Bart Weetjens talks about his extraordinary project: training rats to sniff out land mines. He shows clips of his "hero rats" in action, and previews his work's next phase: teaching them to turn up tuberculosis in the lab.

The 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy for 2010-11

Biofuels Digest reports: "In Florida, renewable fuels and chemicals developer Amyris took the #1 spot in the 2010-11 “50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy” rankings, published today in Biofuels Digest, the online daily bioenergy news service."

If you're into Bioenergy here are some companies to watch.

Weaving a Dangerous Web

Channel Insider reports: "Another year passes and even more security issues crop up on the Web. In an unsurprising report from Websense Security Labs recently, it seems that the number of malicious websites has multiplied more than two-fold from 2009 and data stealing attacks on the Web are on the rise as well. The most significant findings? The fact that many of the Web's 'nice neighborhoods' are going rogue as well. Many seemingly legitimate sites are hosting malicious content due to undetected attacks that plant malware to infect unsuspecting visitors. “What should organizations be most afraid of?' Patrik Runald, Websense security researcher, said in a statement. 'You no longer have to go to dark corners of the Internet to find bad stuff.”"

Scary stuff...

Dan Phillips: Creative houses from reclaimed stuff

In this funny and insightful talk from TEDxHouston, builder Dan Phillips tours us through a dozen homes he's built in Texas using recycled and reclaimed materials in wildly creative ways. Brilliant, low-tech design details will refresh your own creative drive.

Luis von Ahn Harnesses Brainpower

Computer scientist Luis von Ahns programs harness the human brainpower to solve complex problems. von Ahn invented ReCaptcha, a program that uses squiggly characters that humans easily decipher but blocks spambots and helps digitize millions of old texts. The CMU professor also makes games that use human knowledge to improve computers. Find them at gwap.com.

Nick Bilton: Smart Content

Nick Bilton, Lead Technology Reporter for The New York Times Bits blog, says that digital media has resulted in a "new form of storytelling." Bilton, who is also a designer and user interface specialist, is co-founder of NYC Resistor, a hacker collective in Brooklyn, and is currently writing a book called, I Live in the Future: & Heres How It Works.

H. Sebastian Seung: Connectomics

Computational neuroscientist H. Sebastian Seung conducts pioneering research on the wiring of the brain, and what it reveals about genetics, personality, and memory. Seung suggests that complex maps of neural connective structures, or connectomes, will reveal that our experiences literally shape our brains.

Jay Rogers: Open Source Your Car

Jay Rogers is revolutionizing the automobile industry. The former U.S. Marine and co-founder of Local Motors has created the world's first crowdsourced car. Rogers believes that making car production local - and personal - holds the key to fostering a sustainable car culture that also tackles our dependence on oil.

Web Site: InnoCentive

As web sites go, I really like this idea. InnoCentive works on a Crowd-sourcing concept. Companies are looking for solutions to tough problems and are offering great cash prizes for a solution, and people with great ideas can make some pretty good money.



Dwayne Spradlin, CEO of InnoCentive, discusses the power of crowdsourcing innovation at the BRITE '10 conference. He shows how InnoCentive's global network of independent experts has solved critical innovation challenges for organizations like SAP and SunNight solar.

Dean Ornish: Healthy Connections

For more than thirty years, Dr. Dean Ornish has demonstrated the power of a healthy lifestyle as the best kind of preventive care. These choices, Ornish reveals, can "turn on disease-preventing genes and turn off genes that promote illness. Dr. Ornish has published a number of best-selling books on the subject; the most recent is The Spectrum.

Reihan Salam: New Conservatism

Reihan Salam, a fellow at the New America Foundation, writes on politics, culture, and technology. At PopTech 2009, Salam argues that America has been growing steadily more diverse, and divided by massive inequalities, a trend that will lead the country down a path of increasing social conservatism. Salam is also co-author of Grand New Party: How Conservatives Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.