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| Current Topic: Technology |
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Creating a Disaster Resilient America: Grand Challenges in Science and Technology |
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| Topic: Technology |
3:22 am EDT, Jun 5, 2005 |
The 12th Disasters Roundtable workshop, held earlier this year, focused on grand challenges in science and technology related to society s vulnerability to disaster. Agencies and stakeholders from the disaster research and policy community gathered to discuss research and program priorities for the future. They identified problems in science and technology that might be resolved by coordinated and sustained investments in research, education, communication, and the application of knowledge and technology. Attendees talked about how such investments might help produce significant reductions in the loss of life and property from natural, technological and human-induced disasters.
Creating a Disaster Resilient America: Grand Challenges in Science and Technology |
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| Topic: Technology |
10:10 pm EDT, Jun 4, 2005 |
The microchip that runs Apple's popular music player is made in India, Taiwan, China and Silicon Valley. Is this an example of how globalization works to everyone's benefit -- or a sign that the world economy is about to roll over America? The iPod is a striking Apple success story, but the first thing worth noting is that Apple doesn't "make" it. Steve Jobs and Co. led the overall design, but the pieces get put together in China by a pair of Taiwanese firms. Making a buck in high-tech has never been harder and competition will only get more intense.
The world in the iPod |
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Omigosh, U R So Slo | Business Week |
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| Topic: Technology |
10:02 am EDT, Jun 3, 2005 |
Text messaging may be the latest in written communication. But it's not the fastest. A 93-year-old telegraph operator recently whipped a teenaged texter in a speed contest at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum. Gordon Hill took 90 seconds to dot-dot-dash the line: "Hey, girlfriend, you can text all your best pals to tell them where you are going and what you are wearing." Brittany Devlin, 13, was 28 seconds behind with her cell phone, despite using slang like "u" and "wot." Telegraphy might be the next big thing -- if only it could send smiley faces. Omigosh, U R So Slo | Business Week |
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The Technium, by Kevin Kelly |
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| Topic: Technology |
7:36 pm EDT, Jun 2, 2005 |
For most of my life I owned very little. Until I was 30 I was a vagabond. I wandered remote parts of Asia in cheap sneakers and worn jeans. The cities I knew best brimmed in medieval richness; the lands were green in agricultural outlook. When I reached for something in those days it was almost surely made of wood, fiber or stone. I ate with my hands, trekked on foot through mountain valleys, and slept wherever. I carried very little money and even less stuff. My personal possessions totaled up to a sleeping bag and some cameras. I fully embrace the transforming power of technology. Yet our family of five still doesn't have TV. I don't have a pager, or PDA, or cam-phone. I find a spiritual strength in keeping technology at arm's length. At the same time I run a daily website called Cool Tools where I review a broad range of highly selected consumer technology. These obvious contradictions have prompted me to investigate my own paradoxical relationship with technology. How should I think about new technology when it comes along? It's a question at the heart of many other questions that baffle us these days. I am not the only one perplexed about the true nature of the increasing presence of technology in our culture. The best way I know to think about things is to write about them, and so in order to force me to go beyond the obvious I am writing a book about what technology means. The Technium, by Kevin Kelly |
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The Dynamo and the Computer |
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| Topic: Technology |
1:53 am EDT, Jun 2, 2005 |
Tom Friedman mentioned this essay in his recent talk at MIT. I have long been familiar with the classic work of Thomas Hughes in this area, but I hadn't read Paul David's short essay on the subject, which serves nicely as a concise summary. Many observers of recent trends in the industrialized economies of the West have been perplexed by the conjecture of rapid technological innovation with disappointingly slow gains in measured productivity. Our cultural inheritance assigns high value to (previously scarce) information, predisposing us to try screening whatever becomes available. Yet, screening is costly; while it can contribute to a risk-averse information recipients personal welfare, the growing duplicative allocation of human resources to coping with information overload may displace activities producing commodities. There is likely to be a strong inertial component in the evolution of information-intensive production organizations. There are special difficulties in the commercialization of novel (information) technologies that need to be overcome before the mass of information-users can benefit in their roles as producers.
Are popular memes a waste of our human resources? Aren't we better off to divide and conquer? The Dynamo and the Computer |
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Information Comes With A Brand |
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| Topic: Technology |
7:00 pm EDT, Jun 1, 2005 |
Do not try and spin the story. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth. What truth? There is no spin. There is no spin? Then you'll see that it is not the story that spins, it is only yourself. Fundamentalism -- the idea that information is a fundamental particle and makes up knowledge, which in turn makes up wisdom -- is problematic. "Information is something we create, not something we find as substance in the world." "Information comes with a brand." Prof. Tarleton Gillespie, communication, called Duguid's use of the word "brand" within the context of information "a bold move, a deliberately bold move." Duguid is taking the idea of brands from the commercial arena and putting it in a space where people don't like to think about it, Gillespie said.
Information Comes With A Brand |
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A Continuous Computing Manifesto |
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| Topic: Technology |
8:22 am EDT, May 29, 2005 |
A new crop of computing tools is beginning to change the way we think, learn, and interact with the physical world and with other people. This change is accelerating, and it will spread through our culture so fast -- and upset traditional notions of communication so radically -- that even the last half-century of rapid technological progress has not prepared us for it. These new tools are both digital, rooted in the world of electrons and bits, and social, meaning they enable new kinds of interactions between people. Almost below our mental radar, they have ushered us into a world of what I am calling continuous computing. A Continuous Computing Manifesto |
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Das Keyboard - UberGeeks Only |
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| Topic: Technology |
9:16 am EDT, May 26, 2005 |
If you are an elite programmer who can write sophisticated code under tight deadlines, someone who makes impossible projects possible; or a Silver Web Surfer your colleagues turn to when they need IT advice: this keyboard is for you. Das Keyboard - UberGeeks Only |
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Arial, Mon Amour, and Other Font Passions |
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| Topic: Technology |
9:41 am EDT, May 16, 2005 |
The Internet is a nice place for font wonks to hang out. They can laugh at other people's typographic blunders, swap alphabets, snipe at famous designers and ban fonts they hate. Why should you care? Because everything you read, every sign, book and logo, is in a font. Fonts are like the air: you don't notice them when they are fine, only when they are mucked up or obscure. When it comes to font rants, though, nothing is quite as bizarre as the Ban Comic Sans movement. Arial, Mon Amour, and Other Font Passions |
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Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope |
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| Topic: Technology |
3:07 pm EDT, Apr 9, 2005 |
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has operated continuously since 1990. During that time, four space shuttle-based service missions were launched, three of which added major observational capabilities. A fifth SM-4 was intended to replace key telescope systems and install two new instruments. The loss of the space shuttle Columbia, however, resulted in a decision by NASA not to pursue the SM-4 mission leading to a likely end of Hubble s useful life in 2007-2008. This situation resulted in an unprecedented outcry from scientists and the public. As a result, NASA began to explore and develop a robotic servicing mission; and Congress directed NASA to request a study from the National Research Council (NRC) of the robotic and shuttle servicing options for extending the life of Hubble. This report presents an assessment of those two options. It provides an examination of the contributions made by Hubble and those likely as the result of a servicing mission, and a comparative analysis of the potential risk of the two options for servicing Hubble. The study concludes that the Shuttle option would be the most effective one for prolonging Hubble s productive life. This book is available for free download in PDF. Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope |
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