Tag: technology

"I always feel like somebody’s watching me…"

A Cambridge University security researcher has demonstrated the ability to read text and capture images from flat-screen displays…through as many as three intervening walls. Well, that’s unnerving.

Furryvision!

Phillips says it can build a video display that would consist of a piece of fabric covered with fur: Here’s how it works: imagine the fabric is red and the hair is blue. With the hairs lying flat obscuring the fabric beneath, the pixel looks blue. But applying an electrostatic charge causes the hairs to …

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The medieval help desk

Yes, I know, thousands of people have already linked to this video of a patient medieval tech support worker guiding a monk in the usage of the very latest information storage technology…but I haven’t! Well, until now, that is.

A different kind of airship…

…but still an airship (I guess): the M.A.R.S. Floating Wind Generator (which, despite its name, does not generate wind, but rather electricity. Go figure.)

Bigelow continues to plan big things

Robert Bigelow continues to have, er, “Big” plans for “low” earth orbit: The Bigelow Aerospace commercial inflatable manned space module venture intends to have three large multi-module outposts in Earth orbit by 2015 to serve different user communities.CEO Robert T. Bigelow says his engineers predict 800 paying crewmembers could fly to Bigelow outposts over the …

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Made-to-order DNA…

…is about to get a lot easier to create: Installing one of those prefab, snap-together wood-flooring kits is a lot easier than shaping and sanding rough planks. Adapting a similar construction strategy, a biotech startup called Codon Devices, based in Cambridge, MA, aims to streamline genetic engineering. It makes made-to-order DNA strands, freeing scientists from …

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Plugging computer memory into the brain

Researchers have created computer chips that can talk to the brain, chips which could revolutionize the way we think about thinking, and how we treat various neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s: “It’s the type of science that can change the world,” says Richard H. Granger, Jr., a professor of brain sciences who leads the Neukom Institute …

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Universal blood

Blood is always in demand, and not just by vampires. Blood transfusions mean the difference between life and death when people suffer traumatic injuries, or undergo major surgery. But there’s always been a problem with transfusions: people don’t all have the same blood type, and giving someone the wrong blood type is worse than giving …

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The civilized way to fly

I love airships, and I’m not alone. Award-winning children’s author Kenneth Oppel, for example, obviously loves them: his recent novels Airborn and Skybreaker are set in an alternate world where airships, not airplanes, rule the skies. Canadian science fiction writer Karl Schroeder must love them, too: his novels Sun of Suns and Queen of Candesce, …

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The blimp that swims like a fish

I’ve previously mentioned my enchantment with blimps, zeppelins, and other lighter-than-air airships. Now here’s a really cool one: a concept for a blimp that swims through the air like a fish, using artificial muscles.

Launching live theatre into the 22nd century

We’ve become accustomed to seeing real and virtual actors (or at least extras) blended with real and virtual sets in the movies. Now it’s being done live on stage: Using new techniques that merge the Internet 2 with traditional stage theatre, the University of Central Florida, Bradley University in Illinois and the University of Waterloo …

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There’s a storm a-comin’…

…from the sun. The next Solar Maximum is expected to be a doozy, the biggest since we entered a fully electronic age and ringed our world with satellites. It will be… interesting…to see what effect it has on modern technology.

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