Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany haven’t hit 100Tbps yet, but they were able push 26Tbps using just one, lonely laser. The new single-laser fiber-optic speed record was set using a technique called fast Fourier transform that pulses light at an incredibly high rate with data encoded in 325 distinct colors across the spectrum. Can the age of the terabyter be far off?
A government’s advertisement billboard in support of baby girls in Morena, India.
The practice of aborting female fetuses if they don’t yet have a male child is becoming more common and widespread among couples in India, according to a new study.
Continue reading… “Sex-Selective Abortion Becoming More Common and Widespread in India”
People in their 20’s have 50 times more friends on Facebook than people over 50 years old.
The ‘Facebook generation gap’ has been highlighted in a new piece of research which shows that the average 22 year-old claims to have 1,000 or more friends on sites like Facebook compared to those in their fifties who have fewer than 20.
IBM overtakes Microsoft
IBM overtakes Microsoft to become the second most valuable technology company in the U.S., ending a 15-year reign for the software giant.
Continue reading… “IBM Now Worth a $1 Billion More Than Microsoft”
Twitter has become an important forum for teachers.
Teachers are bringing the real-time communication power of Twitter into the classroom to help students learn. It’s great for helping teachers learn as well. Twitter has simply become one of the best places for teachers to collaborate, share solutions to common classroom problems, and discuss education policy. In fact, it might just be the best forum teachers have ever had.
Continue reading… “Teachers Are Helping Students Learn with the Help of Twitter”
Samsung’s new phone is the first to use Barclaycard and Orange’s ‘Quick Tap’ payment technology.
Orange and Samsung have teamed-up with Barclaycard to provide mobile phone payments with the new “Quick Tap” payment technology.
Libraries in the future will come in many different forms
NOTE: The following is a reprint of an interview that recently appeared in American Libraries Magazine
Without consulting a crystal ball, Thomas Frey, executive director and senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute, writes and speaks about a promising future for those libraries strongly connected to their communities and quickly adaptable to the changing world around them. Tom Sloan, executive director of the DuPage Library System in Geneva, Illinois, asked Frey to discuss the future of libraries.
Continue reading… “The Future of Libraries: Interview with Thomas Frey”
Futurist Thomas Frey: In March of 2007 I posted my original paper on the Future of Education where I talked about a system based on an iTunes-like approach where experts around the world could use a “rapid courseware-builder” to produce bite-sized courses, send them to a global distribution center, and students from around world could plug-in and learn whatever class matched their interests.
As people live longer, some aspects of life are beginning to slow down
Futurist Thomas Frey: Tick, tick, tick. For virtually all working people, there is a clock ticking in the background. Tick, tick, tick.
Much like the rhythm of a beating heart, the sound of time creates a rhythm for our lives, a world unfolding in iambic pentameter, pulsing to the tempo of life.
First things first. Before we can have flying cars,
we will need to go through the era of flying delivery drones
Futurist Thomas Frey: Imagine yourself in 2030, 20 years in the future, sitting in your living room watching your favorite show on a 3D holographic display, and you witness a product placement scene where someone is eating one of the best pizzas you’ve ever seen. The depiction is so lifelike and intense that you instantly start craving pizza, and simply utter the word “yes.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaJs-SbCQ1c&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Short video clip about the opportunities associated
with creating an alternative transportation district.
Recorded at the Plan Fort Collins event on March 3, 2010
Futurist Thomas Frey: Over the past few years I have been carefully watching what has turned into an explosion of alternative transportation vehicles being developed all over the world. These vehicles include everything from electric and fuel cell scooters, to hybrid motorcycles, to electric skateboards, to turbo-wheelchairs, to dog-powered bikes, to Segways and Segway knockoffs.
Markus Hatzenbichler and Klaus Stadlmann with their micro-printer.
A group of engineers at the Vienna Institute of Technology, claims they’ve created not only the world’s smallest 3-D printer, but also one that’s so light and inexpensive that it could conceivably pave the way for truly domestic 3-D printing. Lost an earring or a cuff-link? Print one out. That’s the future, and it might not be far off at all.