Where Are Small, Cheap Micro-Controllers Taking Us?
The computer I started programming in 1970 was an 8K Datapoint 2200. It wasn’t literally the first computer I programmed (that was an HP 2000 series), but it was the first one I had total…
Engineering
Butterfly Wing Like Thermosensors Detect Explosives
IndustryTap reported recently on “New Sensors Help Detect, Flush Out Criminals” in which sewers in major cities around the world are being fitted with chemical networks to detect dangerous chemicals that are a signature of…
Gold Nanotubes Can Image and Destroy Cancer Cells Without Any Side Effects
A team of Scientists from the University of Leeds have discovered that gold nanotubes have the ability to fight cancer through high-resolution imaging. The tubes can also act as the agents for destroying cancer cells…
Forget Dogs… The Marines Are Testing GuardBot, a Robot Guard Ball!
The Marine Corps is experimenting with a robot guard ball called GuardBot, essentially a big tire body with a dome on each side of its spherical core. GuardBot is being tested for its viability as…
Legacy Migration – Detecting Outdated Practices
Users and project managers usually instruct a team migrating an old software product to ‘keep the functionality as close to the original as possible’. The implication of this is ‘translate line by line’. As pointed…
This Redundant Fishing Trawler is Now a Wave Power Plant
All ships are built to withstand stormy seas but eventually end up in a junkyard. But a redundant fishing trawler has been given a fresh lease on life in Norway where it is being used…
AT&T Launching ‘GigaPower’ in Kansas City to Compete With Google Fiber
AT&T has announced it will launch its own super-fast Internet service, “GigaPower”, in Kansas City to rival Google’s Fiber program. Google Fiber once promised internet speeds 75-100X faster than cable or DSL, but only time will…
Exponential Growth & Disruptive Change
Business people like to think in terms of exponential increase; 3% growth per year, for example, represents a doubling in 24 years. Using Piketty’s example regarding wealth concentration, 5% per year doubles one’s asset values…
Cost Is the Critical Factor in Addressing Climate Issues
The instant I had internet access in the 1990s I started researching the state of renewable energy and CO2 sequestration. There were two thrusts to all this – first was ‘what is possible?’, the second…
New Contact Lenses Are Miniature Telescopes For Your Eyes… Control Zoom With Winks!
New contact lenses, funded by DARPA and developed by researchers at Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) are essentially miniature telescopes for your eyes. The contact itself is a scleral lens, meaning it is…
