Category: Science & Technology News

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Analysis, Business, Entertainment, Internet, Latest Trend, New Inventions, Science & Technology News

Is Kickstarter a crowdfunding platform or just another form of entertainment?

crowdfunding

The fact that OUYA raised so much money so fast speaks more to our fantasies than the market reality.

OUYA is the latest Kickstarter darling. It is “a new kind of video game console” that connects to your HDTV like an XBox but allows anyone to publish games like the Android Marketplace. The company behind the device raised their $1 million target in eight hours, and have reached $5 million with more than three weeks left in their campaign. Proponents of Kickstarter’s populist commercialism see OUYA as an unmitigated success.

Continue reading… “Is Kickstarter a crowdfunding platform or just another form of entertainment?”

Education, Internet, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

A dozen big-name universities join Coursera to offer free online classes

MOOCS

In the last week, more universities signed on with Coursera.

Free online courses from prestigious universities were a rarity a few months ago. Now, they are the cause for announcements every few weeks, as a field suddenly studded with big-name colleges and competing software platforms evolves with astonishing speed.

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Breakthrough Thinking, Health & Fitness, Medical Breakthrough, New Discoveries, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

Oxygen injections could save lives when when patients can’t breathe

Oxygen

Oxygenating blood with microparticles.

Patients who can’t breathe need oxygen quickly to avoid cardiac arrest and brain injury is a big problem. Unfortunately, attempts in the early 1900s to intravenously supply this essential gas failed to oxygenate the blood and often caused dangerous air bubbles. Current treatments, such as blood substitutes, breathing masks, and tubes, aren’t always effective as well since they still rely on the lungs to function or require time to properly administer.

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Analysis, Architecture, Robots, Science & Technology News

Swarms of robots could bring buildings to life

robot swarm

The more of these robots we have in our homes, the more intelligent they could be.

What does it take for a building to be considered smart? Add some lights that turn themselves off when nobody is around or install an “intelligent” air conditioning system to regulate the ambient temperature and you’re well on your way. But compared to the living buildings proposed by Akira Mita, today’s smart buildings are the architectural equivalent of single-celled organisms.

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Analysis, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

The obstacles faced by transformative technologies in medicine

littlemicrosocpe

A smart-phone add-on enables at-home diagnosis of ear infections.

There is a post on The Health Care Blog written by Eric Topol where he looks to a future enabled by emerging technology: “Just as the little mobile wireless devices radically transformed our day-to-day lives, so will such devices have a seismic impact on the future of health care. It’s already taking off at a pace that parallels the explosion of another unanticipated digital force — social networks.

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Analysis, Education, Internet, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

More colleges taking online education to a new level

Coursera

Coursera will offer 100 or more free massive open online courses.

There is a shift in online learning that is reshaping higher education.  Coursera, a year-old company founded by two Stanford University computer scientists, will announce  that a dozen major research universities are joining the venture. In the fall, Coursera will offer 100 or more free massive open online courses, or MOOCs, that are expected to draw millions of students and adult learners globally.

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Big Problems, Historical Perspectives, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News, Weather

2012 drought reaches proportions not seen since the ‘Dust Bowl’ era

dust-bowl-farmer

Over 50% of the U.S. is under drought conditions.

More than half of the United States is under drought conditions right now, putting 2012 in the same category with some of the worst droughts in the nation’s history. This makes 2012 the sixth worst drought on record with a 54.6 percent figure (not counting Alaska and Hawaii) in terms of area covered, behind only the brutal droughts of the mid-1950s and the “Dust Bowl” era of the 1930s. Other more recent droughts — such as 2000, 2002, and 1998 — saw a greater percentage of the country suffering from the “severe” or “extreme” drought categories. However, even by that standard, June 2012 still ranks among the top 10 worst droughts of all-time.

Continue reading… “2012 drought reaches proportions not seen since the ‘Dust Bowl’ era”

Analysis, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

What is the future of communication?

future-of-communication-2

Experts talk about the future of communication.

Communication plays a role in all information exchanged among living species. Even plants and fungi communicate with each other.

But what sets us humans apart from other living species?  It is the speed at which our means of communication develops and innovates. Technology has been helping us to communicate easier, faster and more often. We’re now at a point where we’re “always on” and panic sets in when we temporarily lose the ability to communicate – for example when we lose the data connection our mobile phone.

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Analysis, Business, Science & Technology News

Will Amazon’s push for same-day delivery destroy local retail?

amazon

Amazon logistics center.

Amazon has had an unbeatable price advantage over its physical rivals.  When you buy anything from your local retailer the company is required to collect local sales tax at the checkout. In most states, Amazon is exempt from that rule. According to a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, only firms with a physical presence in a state are required to collect taxes from residents. For example, if you live in California and buy a product on Amazon you are supposed to  pay a $100 “use tax” when you file your annual return in that state. But nobody does that. For most people, then, most items at Amazon are significantly cheaper than the same, identically priced items at other stores.

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