World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale

Life beyond our universe

This is the kind of thing that we just can't understand. The scope of our own universe is beyond what is imaginable. I think the extent to which we can know and study the existence of multiple universes is knowing that we can't know. In an article posted on Physorg, some MIT physicists explore the aforementioned possibility.

If you're brave enough, catch the article here.

The food we eat and why it's killing us

Check this out. TED prize winner Jamie Oliver educates the world on our most devastating oversight; dietary health.

Things are speeding up, budgets are getting cut, and the food we're eating is considerably worse, and more over-processed than it was just a couple of decades ago. Why are vending machines filled with garbage? Why does it cost so much to eat well. How many college students cook meals vs. grab taco bell for dinner?

"If I came here with a cure for AIDS or cancer you'd all be fighting and scrambling [to see it]. [Obesity] is preventable. We've got a problem here, and we need to reboot."

Jaimie really hits the nail on the head with this talk. Check out his website here.

Let the smashing begin: LHC back up and running

(PhysOrg.com) -- For the Christmas holiday, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was shut down for a break and for a little technical tinkering. But next week, the hope is that the LHC will start up again around the 25 of February.

Read the news here.

Mosquito Lasers

If played in real time, these pests would be getting gunned down in less than a tenth of a second. Just like most anything, though, its much cooler in slow motion. For anyone squeamish about smacking a pest on their arm when its biting you, you might want to skip to the next post. The device has been developed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help fight malaria. As PhysOrg notes,

"The new version could cost as little as $50 to manufacture, depending on volume. During his demonstration, Myhrvold released hundreds of mosquitoes into a glass tank. A laser tracked their movements and shot them down one by one, leaving their carcasses on the bottom of the tank. Myhrvold said that the lasers could shoot between 50 and 100 mosquitoes per second."

My Dad is going to want one of these for the ditch in front of our house in VA.

Windows Mobile is not dead

Following iPhone OS (Apple), WebOS (Palm), and Android (Google), Microsoft has finally modernized its mobile platform (Windows Mobile). Windows Mobile is a new stripped and completely reworked mobile OS, taking some cue's from the wonderful Zune HD interface, but also adding many new features. The new UI (user interface) completely removes the classic (and sadly boring) windows feel, and replaces it with a streamlined, ultra useable, no gloss/shadow, simple recipe of shear usability. I love where this is going. What do you think?

Grab the preview here (engadget).

Goodbye power cord; You will not be missed.

A group of researchers at MIT have made yet another breakthrough in wireless power. By imbedding a large copper coil in a wall or ceiling and using electromagnetic resonance to transfer power between multiple devices, physicists André Kurs, Robert Moffatt, and Marin Soljačić have managed to generate fairly high efficiency by strategically coupling multiple devices as opposed to a single device. When the devices resonate at the same frequency, power is transferred with little interference by other objects resonating out of that frequency. Efficiency decreases with distance, but the system works from more than 2 meters away.

Click the read link for the goodies.

Fall Into a Black Hole at the Speed of Light (Simulation)

"Not too many of us have actually seen a black hole, but Thomas Müller, physics student, and Daniel Weiskopf, computer science professor, at the University of Stuttgart, have programmed a vision for us. With their simulation of a black hole in space, you can really imagine what it would be like to be in the pull of one." (PhysOrg)

Read the full article and catch the videos here.

Video: Massive Attack "Splitting the Atom"

New video from Massive Attack. Cool shooting and a cool song.

Massive Attack-Splitting the Atom-directed by Edouard Salier from edouard salier on Vimeo.

Shoot 1080p For Less than $1000

As Moore's Law suggests, the power of a technology and its cost to produce that same power are exponentially related. Every 18 months to 2 years, a technology will be half as expensive to produce the same capabilities. Canon's new Rebel T2i is no different.

One can now, for the relatively modest price of $800, shoot 30 frame per second- 1080p movies from a digital SLR. On top of that, the camera takes beautiful resolution images at 18 megapixels, ISO between 100 and 6400, and a continuous shooting function that takes 3.7 pictures per second. The camera will be released in March.

Google Smartphones To Translate Live

Franz Och, head of Google's Translation Services and Chair of the Hilarious Names Committee, said recently that Google is working on improving speech recognition software so that live translation can occur language to language. Imagine calling a friend who only speaks Swedish and being able to communicate with them as if they were speaking to you in perfect English. Important to note, as PhysOrg says, "Google's system would analyze speech in the same way as a human interpreter, listening to a package of speech to gather the full meaning before it attempts to translate. It will improve in accuracy the more it is used." Google expects to release this function after a few more years of research.

The implications of this are huge. Economic dominance has forced certain languages to become more prevalent on a global scale. This type of technology would preserve languages as they are, allowing families and regions to have their own dialects and colloquialisms. For right now, I think, as posted below, it is direly important that Americans join the bi- and trilingual groups that are populating the world, and learn a few languages.

East Meets West: Will Americans Learn Chinese?

Yesterday, the New York Times tackled the aforementioned question in their Room For Debate blog. Essentially, the shrinking (or flatening) of the world is bringing the Far East closer and closer to the West. If you name one company that does all of its manufacturing in the United States, I'll name 5 that do all of their manufacturing abroad. Communication is increasing exponentially as an effect of symbiotic relationships between global companies in both the East and West. Many fear without the ability to communicate globally in a number of languages they will be left in the dust.

Check out the expert opinions after the break.

How It's Made: Google Nexus One

Alright Google, you got me. I love this kind of thing.

Google has been putting together a series of short films collectively called Nexus One: The Story. Now in case you missed it, the Nexus One is the Google phone. Yeah, there are a lot of Android phones (DROID, G1, etc.), but the Nexus One is the first phone that Google has directly collaborated on the actual hardware and design. The company manufacturing the device, HTC, worked closely with Google to fabricate the perfect Android phone in Google's image.

Check out all of the videos after the break.

The Future of Personal Computing: Closing the gap between smartphones and laptops

Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm the NPD Group gives an interesting view of the past several years of personal computing in his article Switched On column on engadget.

Laptops are getting smaller, faster, and cheaper while phones are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Much of the smartphone's usability lends itself to rather new technologies such as multi-touch, which weren't around just a few years ago. I'm counting the days until a keyboard and mouse are completely optional accessories.

Read the article here.

Facebook turns Six

This is one of those times where the young are made to feel old. As a junior in high school (early 2006), I initially started using 'thefacebook.com' to keep in touch with some of the friends I had made in an exchange trip to Norway. Founded February 4th, 2004, FB now has 350 million users worldwide, headquarters in Palo Alto, Seoul, and Dublin, and is available in 71 different laguages (including Pirate and upside down English, in some places). As a businessman, I am sure Mark Zuckerberg never knew that the social connector he meant for just his Harvard classmates has turned into the world's way of keeping in touch (and his way of making $2 billion by the age of 25). Congrats to Facebook, and let this early success hopefully inspire any young entrepreneurs.

Fascinating Improvements in TIssue Reconstruction

Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine shows the work of "seven hundred researchers over a period of twenty years," and where that has gotten the institute and the state of tissue regeneration. This video is incredible. My favorite part:

"(As you watch an inkjet printer shoot back and forth) This is actually one of our strategies. We use a printer. And instead of using ink -- you just saw an inkjet cartridge --we just use cells. This is actually your typical desktop printer... it's actually printing a two chamber heart one layer at a time."

Real Time Webcams Enrich Google Earth

I almost cannot remember a time when I couldn't go to my computer and get turn my turn directions to anywhere I wanted to go, down to the feet on the block. Google Earth and Google Maps have changed the way humans use both navigational systems and maps themselves. Below, PhD candidate Austin Abrams has developed a system that utilizes live webcam feeds to inform the facades of buildings in Google Earth. The system is connected to nearly 1000 webcams, some of which need to be calibrated by locals (if you get a few minutes, public help is requested). The NewScientist article quotes Georgia Tech researcher Kiwhan Kim as saying he is impressed with the new technology, but sees that full real-time Google Earth is still years away.

A quick video after the jump.

MPD Magicians

Oldie but goodie. I wanted to make sure everyone knows that the masters of production are still alive and kicking, even if they aren't getting the recognition they deserve on the radio. Here's a now aging video of DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, and Numark doing some nice MPD work.

Make sure you watch until 4:00.