Category: Historical Perspectives

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Uranium Could Be The Future of Hard Drives

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The trick is to keep the uranium cold.

If you’d been putting your money on a bet that SSDs will edge out traditional hard drive technology entirely, you might want to rethink your gamble. Traditional high-capacity moving hard drives will be around for a long time, most likely, and researchers at Nottingham University think they have a way to make them even denser: use depleted Uranium.

Depleted uranium, the same material that the military uses for tank shells and gun turret rounds, may one day be used for super-high density storage in hard drives. The trick is to keep the uranium cold…

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Analysis, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior, Internet, Latest News

Google Named Most Reputable Company in U.S.

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Google has topped a list of the most reputable companies in the U.S., according to a Harris Interactive poll. Harris Interactive asked more than 30,000 respondents to identify the 60 most visible companies in the U.S. and rate them based on 20 different attributes, including financial performance, emotional appearance, social responsibility and leadership…

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Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Entertainment, Historical Perspectives

The Amazing Origin of Silly Putty

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The ever versatile Silly Putty.

Silly Putty was invented by accident when GE engineer James Wright was working to develop new types of rubber for the US military during World War II.

Wright spent over a year experimenting with different combinations of chemical compounds, hoping to produce a synthetic, “hard rubber” silicone that could withstand the high heat of jet engines or the freezing cold of nights on Navy ships…

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Analysis, Current Events, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior, Internet, Latest News

Federal Judge Affirms Open WiFi Doesn’t Make you Liable for Your Neighbors’ Misdeeds

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Although unwise an open WiFi does not legally allow guilt by mere association.

A Federal judge in Illinois has once again rebuffed a copyright troll’s request for easy court orders to allow him to connect IP addresses with people. The judge said that open wireless networks and other factors make the connection between IP addresses and defendants difficult, and that making it easy to connect people and IPs would invite extortionate legal claims…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Discoveries, Science & Technology News

World Record: 109 Terabits Per Second Over Single Optical Fibre

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BLAZING speed over one optical fibre.

Imagine being able to download three-months-worth of HD video in one second. If it sounds implausible, it’s not. Two different research groups have been working on a way to speed up fiber optic technology to record-setting broadband speeds.

When the first commercial fiber-optic communications system was developed in 1975, it operated at a bit rate of 45 Mbps. Today, we have speeds of 109Tb per second which is drastically improved. New Scientist said that the route between New York and Washington D.C., which is one of the highest trafficked routes in the world, outputs “a few terabits per second.” So, relatively speaking, having a way to deliver 100 terabits per second is quite desirable for the future of data communications…

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Analysis, Business, Current Events, Entertainment, Historical Perspectives, Music, People Making a Difference

Pandora Is Now 10 Billion Thumbs Strong

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Thumbs are important to Pandora’s listeners.

Personalized radio service Pandora has reached a major milestone: last week it recorded its 10 billionth thumb (and it was a thumbs up).

Avid fans of the popular service already know what that means — for the rest of you, Pandora lets users mark the song that’s currently playing with a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down. The effect is pretty straightforward: hit a thumbs up and Pandora will try to play more music that sounds like the song you’re listening to, thumbs down and Pandora will immediately jump to the next song and send a minor electric shock to CTO Tom Conrad…

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Crazy Stuff, Culture, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, Twitter

Bin Laden Announcement Has Highest Sustained Tweet Rate Ever, At 3440 Tweets Per Second

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Twitter has just revised its preliminary measurements of 4,000 tweets per second from last night’s announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death, tweeting out the new measurements below. At the event’s peak (11pm EST) there were 5,106 TPS, beating out Super Bowl 2011 (with 4,064 TPS) but not NYE 2010 (with 6,939 TPS).

The event had the highest sustained rate of tweets ever according to Twitter, reaching 3,000 tweets per second between 10:45 and 2:20am, raking in 38,7 million tweets in 3 hours and 35 minutes. At its peak it averaged 3440 TPS from 10:45pm to 12:30pm EST, at an average of 12,4 million tweets an hour. For comparison, this year’s Super Bowl had sustained 20 minutes at 3,000 TPS.

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Breakthrough Thinking, Current Events, Entertainment, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Human Behavior, Internet, Latest News

Finally, You Can Kiss People Over the Internet

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Tactile communications: it may not sound too exciting, but it’s precisely the field of research that produced a device which lets users “transmit the feeling of a kiss” long-distance.

The Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications has created a device which consists of a hardware receptacle which is placed into the mouth, and software that remembers the movements of your tongue and sends them to the other connected device, which moves accordingly.

Of course, there’s more to a kiss than just the movement of the tongue, and the folks from Kajimoto plan to recreate them all…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Corporate Manipulation, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Human Behavior, New Discoveries

Factory Workers Forced to Pledge Not to Commit Suicide

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No suicide allowed!

Factories making Apple iPhones and iPads forced staff to sign pledges not to commit suicide before they were taken on. At least 14 workers at Apple’s Chinese supplier Foxconn have killed themselves in 16 months.

And more have either survived suicide bids or were stopped from trying at plants in Chengdu and Shenzhen.

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Analysis, Big Problems, Breakthrough Thinking, Culture, Education, Entertainment, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Human Behavior, Internet

4 Lessons for Parents in a Constantly Connected World

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Parenting has changed a lot in a short period of time.

Parenting in the age of social media is no easy endeavor.

On the one hand, the web has allowed thousands of parents greater flexibility, either by working in traditional jobs from their home or starting and promoting their own businesses with the help of Facebook and Twitter. No longer needing to “go to work,” parents can be at home and conduct business in their free time, while still being available to their kids.

On the other hand, living “constantly connected” as many of us do can result in less quality time with one’s kids. While parents may physically be in a room, often their attention is elsewhere. In one tragic case, a 13-month old boy died in the bathtub while his mom was distracted playing games on Facebook. While this an extreme case, more parents are continuously pulled away by their ringing phone or the latest posts on Facebook or Twitter, resulting in less attention to their kids.

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Art, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives

Death of Cursive Handwriting: Will It Make Historical Documents Indecipherable?

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Cursive Handwriting from 1608 is very different from that of today.

The drumbeat of lamentation of how cursive handwriting is dying continues (It seems like every year we have a poston the death knell of cursive, so why should 2011 be any different?)
Young people rarely use cursive anymore, and that may be fine for their daily communication needs, but consider this report by Katie Zezima for The New York Times: the death of cursive also means that a growing number of historical documents will become indecipherable to them…

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