A gentleman in Salt Lake City, Utah has been disconnected from his Comcast broadband service for using too much of his unlimited bandwidth. He’s documenting everything on his “blog”:http://comcastissue.blogspot.com/ and you know what, he’s got a point. If corporations don‚Äôt actually define the terms of their service, it’s very hard to make an educated decision about what companies to patronize. (via “The Inquirer”:http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37565)
Tag Archives: technology
Teraflop isn't just a funny word, it's the future
In addition to being fun to say, a teraflop means calculating one trillion floating point operations per second. That’s what Intel’s new chip code-named ‘The Teraflops Research Chip’ can do, and it promises to revolutionize the way computing, software, everything is done. I don’t actually understand any of the numbers involved, but this is really exciting.
“Intel”s official release”:http://www.intel.com/research/platform/terascale/teraflops.htm?iid=homepage+80core
Military tech goes domestic
Night-vision, laser-guided bombs and wrinkle-free cloth. In case you don”t spend much time hanging around Army bases, the Army has new duds. These uniforms are not only better for camouflage (they use a muted and pixelated pattern that is far harder to pick out in any situation) but they”re also wrinkle and stain-free. I remember watching an episode of "Mail Call" with R. Lee Ermey about the new uniforms a few years ago and I have to say, it is a lot harder to spot people in these. For the individual soldier there is an added blessing to making it harder to shoot him or her, they also can”t be pressed and the Timberland-style suede boots can”t be polished. This new Army, they don”t have to polish boots and Haliburton peels their potatoes. Next thing you know Blackwater will be doing their fighting. If you want to know more about the new uniforms, peruse this New York Times article. rnrnFor a fancy diagram of the uniform changes, look here.
Origami, it's not just for silly napkins anymore
UC San Diego engineers have developed a high-resolution optical lens that borrows its structure from the ancient Japanese art of paper folding. Using diamond machining tools on calcium fluoride disks to save on bulk, this lens can gain a field of depth that was only previously possible for a glass lens seven times as thick. Comparing its size to a “lens cap,” this fully functional camera could revolutionize the business of cell phone cameras and finally settle the debate as to whether you really need a separate camera at all.
Check out the UCSD article on this new technology here.
Signs of hope in the transportation sector
I’ve recently stumbled across two innovations in the transportation sector that made me smile and think, if only for a moment, that we may not go extinct in the next hundred years. The first was this hydrogen fuel cell motorcycle, dubbed the ENV, from hydrogen fuel cell company Intelligent Energy
The second sign of hope was this collaborative project from Lotus and ZAP, the ZAP-X. This electric crossover will apparently sport a 350 mile range, a top-speed of 155 mph and 644 bhp. More than that, unlike most electric car concepts it looks like this one may actually go into production.
Surfing goes nuclear
Heather Bourbeau from Wired Magazine Online has just written a short article about the adaptation of super-tough and ultra-light foam used in nuclear warheads to the science of surfboards. Apparently the material, TufFoam, is better for the environment, lighter, and of course tougher (or is it tuffer?) and will go into surf board production next year. No word on whether snowboard companies have bit onto the new technology yet.
Interview with Takashi Matsumoto
Check out this awesome interview with Takashi Matsumoto from We Make Money Not Art (WMMNA). Takashi is one of those incredible people who see all the wonderful application of technology in society and actually has the knowledge and skills to make it real. WMMNA is one of the better blogs I read on a daily basis and I highly recommend adding it to your daily digest. ‘, ‘
Check out this awesome interview with Takashi Matsumoto from We Make Money Not Art (WMMNA). Takashi is one of those incredible people who see all the wonderful application of technology in society and actually has the knowledge and skills to make it real. WMMNA is one of the better blogs I read on a daily basis and I highly recommend adding it to your daily digest.