Go Go Gadget High Voltage Robot!
Fiddling with high-voltage power lines is certainly a dangerous job, especially for humans. With that in mind, a Tokyo-based company, HiBot, is working with western Japan’s Kansai Electric Power Co. to test a new robot next year that can inspect several power cables at once, and we’re fairly sure that no humans will be hurt in the process. We’re fairly sure that these robots don’t have any fear of heights either.
Continue reading… “High Voltage Line Robot”
The next time you are reading a book, or even as you read this article, consider the words that you are seeing. How do you recognize these words? Substantial research has shown that while reading, we recognize words by their letters and not by the general shape of the word. However, it was largely unknown how we differentiate one letter from another.
Continue reading… “How We Identify Letters”
Famous works of abstract art achieve popularity by using shapes that resonate with the neural mechanisms in the brain linked to visual information, a psychologist at the University of Liverpool has discovered.
Continue reading… “Key To Abstract Art Is The Evolution Of Our Visual System”
When the Pew Research Center tested the public’s political knowledge earlier this year, the best-informed news audiences crossed the ideological spectrum. Nearly half of regular readers of The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper’s Magazine (48%) answered three political knowledge questions correctly. Regular listeners of NPR (44% three correct), and regular viewers of Hardball (43%) and Hannity & Colmes (42%) also fared well compared with other news audiences.
Continue reading… “Pew Research: News Media Crosses Political Lines”
For an impatient geek there is nothing…NOTHING more annoying than standing behind someone in a grocery store that has the audacity to write a check in the 21st century. That is why I head for the self-checkout lines.
Continue reading… “Do You Prefer Self-Checkout Lines?”
The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not. The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.
Continue reading… “Existing Power Grid Limits Potential for Renewable Energy”
SNL Kagan expects that telecommunications carriers’ market share of fixed residential telephone service to decline, mostly due to IP voice services from cable operators.
In the past two years, the telcos’ share has dwindled from 90% to 74% of total connections. Over the next five years, that share will fall another 23%.
Continue reading… “Residential Phone Lines Dwindling”