Category: Science & Technology News

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Analysis, Business, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Are new technologies making jobs obsolete?

post office

Post office is the latest casualty of digital technology.

Digital technology is slowly but steadily replacing working humans.  And the latest casualty of digital technology is the U.S. Postal Service.  The post office is going to have to drastically scale back its operations or shut down altogether if they don’t find an external source of funding. 600,000 people will be out of work and another 480,000 pensioners facing an adjustment in terms.

 

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Analysis, Big Problems, Breakthrough Thinking, Historical Perspectives, Internet, Science & Technology News

Scrub Your PC clean: remove Malware in four easy steps

malware eeeeeeee

YIKES!

Malware sucks. In the best-case scenario, it craps up your system with unwanted files and occasionally makes itself known in the form of a persistent pop-up window or annoying browser-based toolbar. In the worst-case scenario, malware completely takes over your desktop or laptop and ruins your life.

Your system slows it to a crawl. You can’t even boot into Windows in the time it takes you to walk to the kitchen and back. Your data gets sent off to a faraway Internet land or, worse, your actual keystrokes are recorded for some unsavory individual to see. Malware locks down you browser, making you unable to actually do any browsing without being carted off to some bogus domain. You can barely run a program in Windows without getting bombarded by fake advertisements, programs, and dancing people on your desktop.

We can’t make this stuff up…

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Ecological Products, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

Ammonia could be the answer to emissions-free fuel for cars at just 75 cents a gallon

 filling up car

John Fleming and Tim Maxwell claim they can make ammonia for 75 cents a gallon.

John Fleming of SilverEagles Energy and Tim Maxwell from Texas Tech University, say they have developed a way to make ammonia that is cheap enough so that it could be used as fuel for cars. If their claims turn out to be true, many consumers might consider switching over because ammonia, when burned in an engine, emits nothing but nitrogen and water vapor out the tailpipe. And if that’s not enough incentive, they claim they can make the ammonia for just 20 cents a liter (approximately 75 cents a gallon).

 

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Architecture, Great New Product, Science & Technology News

‘Sensing skin’ for concrete would detect tiny cracks

sensingskin

MIT researchers tested the ‘sensing skin’ by attaching it to the underside of a concrete beam, then applying enough force to cause tiny cracks to form in the beam under one patch of the skin.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), in 2009,  assigned a grade of “D” to the overall quality of infrastructure in the United States, saying that ongoing evaluation and maintenance of structures was necessary to improve that grade. Since then, federal stimulus funds have made it possible for communities to repair some infrastructure, but high-tech, affordable methods for continual monitoring remain in their infancy. Instead, most evaluation of bridges, dams, schools and other structures is still done by visual inspection, which is slow, expensive, cumbersome and in some cases, dangerous.

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Analysis, Business, Science & Technology News

@Walmart Labs – Wal-Mart’s effort to become undisputed leader of social commerce

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDYpF7V0Xe8&hd=1[/youtube]

Wal-Mart is starting to turn heads in the tech world — and that may have important implications for the way we think about the future of the shopping experience. Once known for a soul-less retail store experience and a hyper-efficient supply chain that delivered “everyday low prices,” Wal-Mart has been fusing together innovations from the mobile and social networking worlds to create the foundation for a radically new type of hyper-personalized shopping experience.

 

 

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Great New Product, Green Friendly, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News, Solar Power

Solar Bottle Bulb – a cheap and sustainable way to light homes

solar bottle bulb

Illac Diaz, of non-profit My Shelter Foundation, brought the simple, cheap and innovative technology to the Philippines.

The slums in Manila are being transformed by a new twist on recycling.  Plastic bottles are now being viewed as a cheap and sustainable way to light homes instead of trash. 

 

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