Category: Analysis

Impact Lab > Analysis
Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Photos, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints

Google Earth reveals strange Nazca-Like ruins in Saudi Arabia

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An amazing new find.

Chalk another one up for Google Earth seeing everything we can’t. Australian armchair archaeologist David Kennedy simply fired up the app and managed to rediscover the ancient ruins of structures that rival the Nazca lines in southern Peru.

The lines were originally discovered by British RAF pilot Percy Maitland in 1927, but this is the first time they’ve ever been seen in all their glory. Kennedy used Maitland’s photos with Google Earth to pinpoint their locations. And Google offers really the only high resolution glimpse at them that can be seen by the ordinary viewer…

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Culture, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints

US download speeds ranked at just 26th in the world

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If you live in the US and think the internet speeds are as fast, you may be surprised to find out that the country is actually ranked 26th in a list of average global download speeds. In the eye-catching infographic below the US (outside of Google’s offices that is) looking like a digital laggard, but who could be sitting pretty at the top?

Digital download delivery company Pando surveyed about 35 petabytes (a petabyte is 1000 terabytes) of data from 27 million downloads from 20 million computers in 224 countries, and found that South Korea has the world’s fastest internet service, in terms of download speed. The country averaged download speeds of 17.62 Mbps. Compared to the download speeds in the US, 4.93 Mbps, South Korea is lightning fast…

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Analysis, Big Problems, Business, Corporate Manipulation, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Current Events, Education, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Latest News

Patent Trolls costing an astronomical $500 Billion

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Another reason the patent system is so difficult.

Last month, Google stepped up to defend Android coders against notorious patent troll Lodsys. Apple fought the company a few months earlier on behalf of iOS developers. Patent reform is a hot topic right now, especially after President Obama just signed legislation that means the U.S. is shifting to a “first to file” (over “first to invent”) system. This won’t help much with the patent troll situation, which Boston University researchers James Bessen and Mike Meurer say have cost publicly-traded defendants $500 billion since 1990…

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Analysis, Brain, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

Yawning cools your brain: study

yawning

People yawned almost twice as much in winter, when their body temperature was higher than the air around them.

The brain is like a computer and works best when it is cool, but putting too great a strain on it can lead to overheating which reduces its ability to process information. Yawning is not just a sign of tiredness or boredom – it is the body’s method of keeping our brain cool, scientists have found.

Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, New Viewpoints

Is printing a gun the same as buying a gun?

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A gun is a gun is it not?

There’s an interesting back-and-forth going on at Thingiverse, a site founded by Makerbot to share 3D projects. Two designers have made two parts for the AR-15 rifle platform. The first part is a standard rifle magazine complete with spring but the second part is AR-15 lower receiver.

Why are these parts important? Well, the magazine is just on the edge of Thinigverse’s implied (but not concrete) “no weapons” philosophy but the lower receiver is something else entirely. It is the only part of the AR-15 that you need a license to buy. Here’s what the creator, KingLudd, has to say about it…

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Analysis, Animals, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Medical Breakthrough, New Discoveries

Shark steroids can prevent human viruses

Dogfish-Shark kkkk

A Dogfish Shark.

The steroid squalamine, found in dogfish sharks, has been found to fight viruses that are difficult or impossible to treat once transmitted to humans. Squalamine is a potential cure-all remedy than may even have the potential to cure cancers and protozoan infections. Discover summarizes the find as such..

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Analysis, facebook, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

More than a third of all digital photos taken in a year are on Facebook

facebook photos

The volume of photos on Facebook are 10,000 times larger than the Library of Congress.

One picture may be worth a thousand words, but Facebook photos could be worth 140 quadrillion words, which is equal to 140 billion photos — more than a third of all digital photos taken in one year.

 

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Analysis, Big Problems, Latest Trend

Beware red light camera scam steals your identity

red light camera

This new scam will have you seeing red.

Some people may manage to escape the fines from traffic light cameras but most of us simply pay up without thinking about it or questioning whether the charge is valid.  Tricky scammers are taking advantage of that lazy human tendency, making a handful of money and stealing identities in the process.

 

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Analysis, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

One third of Americans prefer texting to talking on the phone

texting

73% of cellphone owners text.

Eighty-three percent of American adults own cell phones and 73% send and receive text messages. The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project asked those texters in a survey how they prefer to be contacted on their cell phone and 31% said they preferred texts to talking on the phone, while 53% said they preferred a voice call to a text message. Another 14% said the contact method they prefer depends on the situation.

 

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Analysis, Business, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Viewpoints

U.S. Solar Industry now employs 100,000 people, grew 6.8% since August 2010

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That’s a net gain 6,700 jobs in one year!

Don’t let the Solyndra talk fool you: The clean energy sector is still booming. And even booming industries — maybe especially booming industries — see a fair share of once-promising companies go belly up. It’s unfortunate that the Obama administration once touted Solyndra as an example of the fast-growing renewable power sector, but its bankruptcy is a poor reflection of the industry’s health as a whole. In fact, renewable energy remains one of the few sectors to see consistent growth over the last couple years.

A new report highlights that health, revealing that the solar industry employs over 100,000 people, and added over 6,700 jobs in the last 12 months alone…

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Analysis, Historical Perspectives, Money Talk, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News

Google Wallet: Is this the future of money?

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Go Go Google Wallet!

“Whoa, how did you do that?” I didn’t say anything when the clerk at Duane Reade—or was it Walgreen’s?—asked me how to pay. I just smashed my phone into the PayPass terminal. Money poured out of my Nexus S, and into somebody’s corporate coffers. Magic!

But then I still had to tell the dumb credit console whether I was paying debit or credit. And then I had to wait for my receipt to print out, all ten miles of it. Which made my attempt at being a mysterious stranger with mysterious magical technology quickly disappearing into the night fail miserably since it would’ve been mad awkward to stare directly into each other’s eyes for 45 seconds without saying a word.

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