Technology

Unless you’ve been on Mars since the release of the iPhone 4, you surely know that they’ve had problems with the phone’s signal. The difficulty has been blamed on user error (“Dude, you’re holding it wrong!”), the AT&T network, a software error (they claimed that the signal was lost because it was actually weaker than what they were displaying in the first place), and the antenna design, but it’s clear that the first three are smoke screens. Apple plans to have a press event this morning to work the Steve Jobs magic spin on it, a move that’s sure to induce euphoria in the believers.…

Watch out, Jayson Blair - there's a new sheriff in town, and it's going to cross-reference your work to make sure you haven't plagiarized your material. Plagiarism, using others' work but putting it forth as your own, has been a problem since folks started putting pen to paper (or chisel to stone). Even stalwart heroes like Helen Keller and Martin Luther King, Jr. have been accused of the big P. But pretend you're an editor at a scientific journal - how are you supposed to know, without spending a lot of time, if the submitted article you're reviewing has taken chunks from an article…

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project and the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University, the Internet will do more social good than harm over the next decade. In fact, 85% of the 895 Internet experts and users polled agreed that, "In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage, and other relationships, I see that the Internet has mostly been a positive force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future." Ok, I can buy that. I am a bit suspicious of the sample -…

By optimizing magnets, hybrid and electric cars can be made economically competitive, according to a research project currently underway at St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences in Austria.   Their project is seeking to find the ideal composition and structure of high-performance permanent magnets intended for use in cars, a move which can help conserve raw materials and they say the ideal designs can be identified quickly and without major expense, thanks to numerical simulation methods. Hybrid and electric cars need high-performance permanent magnets for best performance but the…

Here’s another cute gadget, shown to us in the NY Times Gadgetwise blog: Size AA rechargeable batteries with built-in USB plugs, so you can plug the batteries directly into your computer to charge them. And here they are on Amazon. They’re very cute. Only, they have several problems, some of which are pointed out in the user reviews on Amazon: The USB plugs are on the flimsy side. Amazon users say they break easily. They’re bulky and awkward as USB devices, and you’ll often not be able to fit two of them into two adjacent USB sockets. Because the plug takes up some of the bulk of the…

Biotechnology in the last decade has been continually driven forward by the relentless economical desires of the ever-growing biopharmaceutical industry, creating innovative technologies that have gradually taken root in our society and have transformed our daily lives. These include transgenic rodents used in laboratories worldwide to understand diseases at a molecular level, as well as genetically modified foods that are found today in our salads. While biotechnology has the power to change our society, the renowned Dr. David Suzuki, broadcaster and professor emeritus at the University of…

Here’s an amusing little device that Eric Taub writes about in the New York Times: All of this is why a new product from Zomm may wind up hitting a nerve. A small electronic disc that fits on a key ring, the product, also called the Zomm, connects to a phone via Bluetooth. Separate the two devices by more than 30 feet, and the Zomm first vibrates, then flashes and then screams. Mr Taub notes that one disadvantage of the device is that there’s no way to alter the 30-foot distance before the alarm goes off; depending on where you are, 30 feet could be too far. Indeed, it could be... but there’…

Despite some of the more outrageous claims to the contrary, SecondLife, while an abstract 3-D world, is not actually a teaching platform.   It had its moment and devolved rather quickly into another marketing tool for companies but conceptually it provides a good foundation for one. To become one, a tool muct include things a training program with a sequence of activities for students to acquire knowledge as well as a methodology to evaluate previously defined learning results.  The advantages of using this type of application for potentially teaching  have now been…

I introduce the term "topological identity of computer programs" and show it in relation to halting problem and similar problems - what we need to detect in code to suspect it? I think that considering topological identicalness, we have one more way to get rid of halting problem - which, basically, boils down to the fact that if a program actually does not do something, we can not say that it has a potential to do that. Anyway, topological identity model would give us a way to say so - program might have a potential, which does not happen, but is measurable in very formal mathematical way. If…

Remote access ... for lab equipment?     Labshare Australia wants to create a shared network of remote laboratories.  Yep, with costs going up - and science and hospitals are two of very few industries where competition drives costs up, because if Lab X has a new machine, Lab Y may need one to be competitive - while there is current laboratory utilization at less than 10% (they say - things are quiet in Australia?), a group of technology initiatives have joined together to lower some maintenance costs while improving access among students and researchers in labs that have…