Dual Monitor Tools - Home page Current Issue | The Arlington Institute New research suggests that it may be possible to change the amount of information the brain can store. Researchers have discovered that a virus native to algae can make mammals (including humans) its home. The “internet of things” comes to police departments with “smart” police guns – and potentially meaningful benefits to both police officers and the public. PUNCTUATIONSby John L. Transition Talks Video I received quite a few emails (more than I could respond to), asking if we were going to tape my talk on Saturday on the emerging new world. Larry Dossey in December New York Times best-selling author Dr. He’ll talk to us about ONE MIND: How Our Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters. Dr. I promise you that you will find his presentation extraordinarily provocative. Plan to be with us Saturday, December 6th at 2PM at the Cacapon State Park lodge to hear Dr. Click here for complete information on when and where. Help Us Keep FUTUREdition Coming So, help us if you can.
Learnable Programming Here's a trick question: How do we get people to understand programming? Khan Academy recently launched an online environment for learning to program. It offers a set of tutorials based on the JavaScript and Processing languages, and features a "live coding" environment, where the program's output updates as the programmer types. Because my work was cited as an inspiration for the Khan system, I felt I should respond with two thoughts about learning: Programming is a way of thinking, not a rote skill. Learning about "for" loops is not learning to program, any more than learning about pencils is learning to draw.People understand what they can see. Thus, the goals of a programming system should be: to support and encourage powerful ways of thinkingto enable programmers to see and understand the execution of their programs A live-coding Processing environment addresses neither of these goals. Alan Perlis wrote, "To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program."
Coolproducts, energy efficiency, Ecodesign Directive, Energy Labelling Directive, European Union, EU, energy security, environmental, campaign, ngo, bills, savings, household appliances, vacuum cleaners, fridges, boilers, lightbulbs, computers Built Works Registry (BWR) | Global IDs for architecture and the built environment Brussels targets super-sized TVs in drive for energy efficiency | Environment The amount of energy that big screen TVs can use will be capped under an EU energy efficiency drive which the European commission expects will cut consumers’ energy bills by around €8bn a year. After similar energy-saving rules for vacuum cleaners provoked a storm of criticism from UK newspapers last autumn, the planned TV rules may be a test case for new ‘ecodesign’ formulas for kettles, toasters and hairdryers, due to be announced next year. The new TV standards, which could come into effect as early as June 2016, would set more challenging energy use requirements for larger TV screens, which currently benefit from a ranking methodology that only measures internal components for energy efficiency. The regulation would also affect computer monitors for the first time, increasingly used for watching television programmes, and be accompanied by a tightening of energy labels. TV manufacturers’ associations said that they were still consulting their members before commenting.
Gigabit WiFi hubs to replace New York pay phones Very few New Yorkers (other than the occasional superhero) use pay phone booths anymore due to the ubiquity of the personal cellphone. As a result, the city of New York has been left with many thousands of largely obsolete phones and phone booths along its streets. In an effort to find a use for this aging infrastructure, the city has re-imagined them as a new type of asset that will provide free 24-hour a day gigabit Wi-Fi, free phone calls to anywhere in the United States, touch-screen monitors that access city services and maps, along with a handy charging port for your cellphone. View all Dubbed the LinkNYC network, and aimed to cover all five boroughs of the city, the project is a collaboration between the New York City Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation, the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, and CityBridge. Source: LinkNYC Share
Glasgow scientists create chemical evolution The University of Glasgow team have developed a chemical version of evolution (Image: Shutterstock) Scientists haven't created life in the laboratory yet, but when they do, they'll be off and running. Case in point is a University of Glasgow team led by Professor Lee Cronin, the Regius Chair of Chemistry, which has developed the world's first chemical system capable of evolving as part of a project that aims at creating synthetic "life" without DNA. Building on Cronin's previous work on creating a synthetic basis for life that isn't based on carbon, the chemical evolution uses an open-source robotic "aid," which is derived from a cheap 3D printer. The evolution bit comes in as the robot deposits the droplets in groups called "populations." "This is the first time that an evolvable chemical system has existed outside of biology," says Cronin. The teams results were published in Nature Communications. Source: University of Glasgow Share About the Author Post a CommentRelated Articles
Hong Kong protests bring crisis of confidence for traditional media | World news Every time Alice Lau visits Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests, she wears two photo ID badges, slung around her neck in a clear plastic sheath. The first badge identifies her as a full-time employee of a pro-government newspaper. Every day, her employer condemns the unprecedented protests, now in their second month, for wreaking havoc on the city’s transportation networks and economic vitality. The second card identifies her as a volunteer reporter for an outspoken Facebook-based news outlet with more than 100,000 subscribers. One badge always obscures the other. By day, she displays the first. Alice Lau is a pseudonym. Hong Kong’s traditional media is suffering a crisis of confidence. “Press freedom in Hong Kong is not in a good state – it’s not an authoritarian regime yet, but the pressure is on,” said Mark Simon, a senior executive at Next Media, the city’s only openly pro-democratic media conglomerate. The protests’ intensely public nature has fostered a heightened sense of caution.
Inspiring new design freedoms in additive manufacturing / 3d printing All projects in this competition must be focused on a significant innovative step in at least one of the following six topic areas: Design freedoms Additive manufacturing releases designers from many of the traditional manufacturing constraints; we want to see bold innovation projects exploring and implementing these new freedoms. We are also looking to inspire new ways to capture design in order to drive additive manufacturing processes - or the reverse - where the process capability drives design. Application development and demonstrators Whatever the application - from aerospace to jewellery - we are seeking to help companies make the step from today's ‘prototyping' mindset to a ‘series production' capability. We will also support the development of standards as part of the innovation activity where a strong case is made that UK companies can influence and benefit from the standards. Pre- and post-processing End-to-end system integration Supply & distribution chains