Residents were asked to rate their states among factors such as economy, education, and things to do. In total, 293 people responded with an average of 5 per state…
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Haitz’s Law: Moore’s Law for LED lightbulbs
Haitz Law in action over the past decades.
Just like Moore’s Law has been predicting improvements in the semiconductors used to make computer processors for decades, Haitz’s Law (see above) predicts an exponential improvement in the semiconductors used in LED technology. The beauty is that we’re almost there – see my LED reviews – so for LEDs to overtake other lighting technologies and become the dominant way we produce light, Haitz’s Law only has to hold for a little while longer, not decades…
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The fragmented mobile information race
Who is on top in the mobile information world right now?
Mobile devices are shifting many individual computing behaviors, perhaps none more significant than how we search for and receive information. Right now, it’s moving at warp speed. In between the time I finish this draft and its posted, it’s entirely possible another company or service launches in this space. Every time we “swipe open” our mobile devices, we seek out dopamine hits from receiving new emails, texts, notifications, or other bits of digital media. A good chunk of this current mobile activity revolves around the personalized search and Q&A space, which leverages these behavior in new ways.
By now, on traditional computers, we know how to find the information we seek, whether via sites like Google, Wikipedia, or through social networks. On mobile, however, our information needs and habits shift. On the go, we typically want smaller bits of information quicker, usually calibrated to our location. We are less likely to engage in longer discussion, and more likely to add questions in the hopes that machines, crowds, or some combination can produce relevant information. This shift has opened the floodgates of activity in the personalized search and Q&A space, with an impressive number of new applications vying for user attention in a crowded marketplace…
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Amazon staves off the tax man for another year
Safe for another year or so.
One of the cornerstones of Amazon’s business has been avoiding sales taxes; because their transactions are online, you don’t have to pay Uncle Sam with every purchase. And now, thanks to some maneuvering around a proposed California law, you’ll remain off the hook for another year…
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Google now lets you export Google Voice data
Google Takeout, the recently launched “data liberation” service that lets you export files, photos and data from Google services like Picasa and Buzz, now includes support for Google Voice.
With the update, users of Google’s Internet-telephony service Google Voice are able to export call history, voicemail messages, greetings, call recordings, phone numbers and text messages…
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Cyborg Beetles powered by a wing and a piezoelectric prayer
Remember this day, friends. Remember when the cyborg beetles early first took flight in our labs and flew right into their world domination destiny. Look! Even now one of the brood is stealing a quarter, no doubt for financing purposes.
But total world domination won’t happen just yet. First, their human scientist handlers must perfect the way that the tiny piezolectric generators implanted on their backs create energy using nothing but the insect’s own wing flaps.
How’s it going so far? Pretty good for the beetles, reports Discover…
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Woolly Rhino fossil discovery in Tibet provides important clues to evolution of Ice Age Giants
A New Wooly Rhino Discovery.
A new paper published in the journal Science reveals the discovery of a primitive woolly rhino fossil in the Himalayas, which suggests some giant mammals first evolved in present-day Tibet before the beginning of the Ice Age. The extinction of Ice Age giants such as woolly mammoths and rhinos, giant sloths, and saber-tooth cats has been widely studied, but much less is known about where these giants came from, and how they acquired their adaptations for living in a cold environment…
Opera TV Store brings HTML5-powered web apps, browsing to TVs and set top boxes
Opera TV Store offers a new option in the market.
Opera continues to show why it’s the little browser company that could, unveiling an HTML5 platform for bringing web browsing and apps to televisions and set top boxes at IFA 2011.
Though it’s not the household name Firefox and Google Chrome are when it comes to desktop browsers, Opera has a long history of big-time integration deals. It’s the only web browser for the Nintendo Wii and DS, and it was picked by Ford for in-dash browsing back in 2009.
With the Opera TV Store, the company is offering television and set-top box manufacturers an easy-to-integrate solution for delivering web apps and standards-compliant browsing to their customers. The system’s dashboard and speed dial pages are built using standard web code and displayed using the Opera browser engine…
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‘Gene Overdose’ causes extreme thinness
Scientists have identified a reason why some are underweight.
Scientists have discovered a genetic cause of extreme thinness for the first time, in a study published August 30 in the journal Nature. The research shows that people with extra copies of certain genes are much more likely to be very skinny. In one in 2000 people, part of chromosome 16 is duplicated, making men 23 times and women five times more likely to be underweight…
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Noise pollution causing songbirds to cheat on each other
Confusion arises in the city for songbirds.
Noise pollution from humans is guilty of many things — causing whales to lose their way, killing giant squid, leading baby fish away from good habitat, and generally stressing out animals. But while we know noise pollution in the oceans is causing whales to yell their songs, scientists have only just discovered that it is also causing birds to change their tune — and it seems to lead to a problem with fidelity and mate selection.
Researchers have discovered that noise from roads and highways has caused some birds, including the Great Tit to change their songs to a higher pitch so that they can be heard over the din. However, the change makes them less attractive to mates…
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Fascinating first-ever images of an electron in orbit
The first image of an electron’s path.
It was only two years ago that IBM showed us an image of a complete molecule, atomic bonds and all, but today’s news does that one infinitesimally-sized breakthrough better. Ladies and gents, behold the first image of an electron’s path.
Utterly amazing stuff! The IBM breakthrough was amazing enough, but now we have images of the electron’s orbital path around a nucleus! This is good, good news, because until now physicists only had models and hypotheses to work with…
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China’s PC market surpasses US for the first time
One of the many growing demands in China.
For the first time ever, China has just become the biggest consumer of PCs, surpassing the United States who has dropped to second. According to new market research by IDC, computer makers shipped about 18.5 million PCs in China in the second quarter with the US receiving 17.7 million. China shipped 22 percent of the PCs sold worldwide, which shows a staggering 14 percent quarter on quarter growth…
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