March 11, 2013 • 3:25 pm 0
The NPR show Morning Edition did a short clip about the Leap Motion Controller last week. The Leap Motion Controller allows you to control your desktop computer or lap top with finger and hand gestures.
This looks pretty cool. I might even buy one later this year after I get a chance to look at the apps that support the hardware.
The Sunburned Surveyor
Filed under: Computer Hardware, Motion Control, Technology, All Things Considered, Leap Motion Controller, Motion Control
February 10, 2013 • 9:05 pm 0
Java Magazine recently published an article that describes the arrival of Java on the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is “a tiny but powerful computer priced at US $25″. According to the article, 1 million units of the Raspberry Pi have already been sold.
The company that makes the Raspberry Pi is working with Oracle to bundle Java on the tiny computing platform. This will allow students and other inventors to write programs for the Raspberry Pi that run in the popular Java programming language.
Very cool.
The Sunburned Surveyor
Filed under: Business, Computer Hardware, Crowd Sourcing, Java, Linux, Open Source, Programming, Technology, java, Linux, Oracle, Raspberry Pi
December 21, 2012 • 6:11 am 0
The November 17th Issue of the Economist Magazine has an article entitled “Deeper Thought” that describes the worlds top super computer, Titan, and how it runs on GPUs in addition to traditional CPUs. This makes the super computer very fast, and energy efficient.
There are challenges to building a super computer in this way, including the challenge of breaking problems up into chunks that are suitable for processing by suite of GPUs.
The Sunburned Surveyor
Filed under: Computer Hardware, Parallel Programming, Technology
December 21, 2012 • 5:44 am 0
In an article entitled “War of the Virtual Wallets“, the November 17th Issue of the Economist Magazine describes the fight over the future of how we pay for goods and services: digital wallets and mobile phone payment systems.
The article describes the efforts of big credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard to compete with companies like Google and Paypal. There is a lot of money at stake. The article says 15 trillion dollars were funneled through credit, debit, and prepaid cards last year.
At the end of the day, it should be a lot easier to pay for stuff as a consumer. The competition is good for the big credit card companies. As the article says when it quotes Jack Dorsey: “…This will force the card networks to up their game.”
The Sunburned Surveyor
Filed under: Internet, Mobile Devices, Technology
August 25, 2012 • 6:49 pm 0
Are you lost inside the shopping mall? Just flash the correct signal to the ceiling with your arms and hands, and it will display a map for you.
This is the premise behind Armura, a technology that builds on the motion detection capabilities of Microsoft Kinect. The March 3rd, 2011 Issue of the Economist Magazine has an article about Armura entitled “Meaningful Gestures”.
The Sunburned Surveyor
Filed under: Computer Hardware, Technology, Armura, Microsoft Kinect, Motion Detection, User Interfaces
August 25, 2012 • 6:22 pm 0
Robotic surgery today is currently dominated by the da Vinci Surgical System, which is powered by proprietary software. That days of that dominance might be numbered. The March 3rd Issue of the Economist Magazine has an article entitled “An Open-Source Robo-Surgeon” that reports that Blake Hannaford and his partners at the University of Washington have created surgery robots called Ravens that run on Linux and other open source software.
Why is this important?
Ravens are way cheaper than the proprietary medical robots. They also (more importantly) allow anyone to modify and improve the original software code, creating a way for researchers to experiment and collaborate on robotic surgery methods.
The article states, that although individual labs will retain the rights to their own robotic surgery innovations, the results of their research will be published online and will be available to everyone.
The only problem to realizing the full benefits of the open source robotic surgeon? Patents.
The company that makes the da Vinci Surgical System holds several patents related to robotic surgery that could be used to stifle commercial competition from the Ravens. (The company profile claims over 870 US patents are held, with another 990 patents that are pending.)
The Sunburned Surveyor
Filed under: Computer Hardware, Patents, Technology, Economist, Health Care, Linux, Open Source, Surgery
August 25, 2012 • 4:26 pm 0
It might be…and not necessarily in a good way:
The Sunburned Surveyor
Filed under: Computer Hardware, Mobile Devices, Technology
August 25, 2012 • 4:22 pm 0
Graphene is a form of carbon that is produced in sheets a single atom thick.Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010 for their discovery of the material. An article entitled “Graphene Shows its Colors” in the May 12th Issue of the Economist Magazine talked about the possible applications of Graphene as an ultra-sensitive low cost photo-detector. A photo-detector is used to convert light into electricity. They enable computer’s to “see” light. Graphene, when coated with drops of lead sulphide, is able to detect different wavelengths of light.
The Economist has another article that talks about the application of using graphene to produce sturdy ceramics.
Nokia is one company working to make commercial applications of Graphene.
The Sunburned Surveyor
Filed under: Business, Computer Hardware, Technology, Economist, Graphene, Nokia
July 18, 2012 • 4:17 am 0
Today’s Tech Report from Marketplace indicates that Microsoft is getting Microsoft Office products like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel ready for mobile devices, like the new Surface Tablet.
The piece indicates how this tweaking of office may lead to more revenue for the company, but migrating users to a software subscription model. Under this model, instead of paying once for a software license that sits on your desktop, you would regularly pay to access Microsoft Office software on all sorts of devices, including your desktop computer, tablet, and phone. (This sounds a lot like Google Drive.)
I wonder how the folks at LibreOffice/OpenOffice might be preparing for the adoption of mobile devices?
This sounds like it will lead to more money for Microsoft Office, which is already way overpriced. Will users demand more when they move to a subscription?
Let’s hope so.
The Sunburned Surveyor
P.S. – Here is a related piece from Marketplace on the new version of Microsoft Office.
Filed under: Business, Mobile Devices, Google Drive, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Surface, Mobile Devices
February 28, 2012 • 5:01 am 0
Two recent magazine articles chronicle efforts to improve Wi-Fi for users. This is part of a trend to increase the amount of data we can send between all our computing devices.
The first article entitled “Stronger Signals” is in the March 2012 issue of Popular Science Magazine. It discussed a new standard by the Wi-FiAlliance that will allow cell-phones to automatically log into WiFi hot spots on their cell phones. This is important, because most Wi-Fi hot spots offer a connection that is 15 times as fast as the latest 4G networks from the cell phone companies. (As someone who often browses the net on their cell phone, I can personally testify to the difference in speed. Don’t even try to download large files on a cell phone connection.) If this new standard finds widespread acceptance, users cell phones will be able to ho-scotch between wireless networks in urban areas and connect to them automatically. Way cool. Some users may even subscribe to services from companies like Boingo, mentioned in the article, which serves users over400,000 hotspots in locations like malls and restaurants.
The article also discusses the recent decision of the FCC to allow Wi-Fi to broadcast in a different band of the radio wave spectrum. In the new band, dubbed Super Wi-Fi, the longer wavelengths will result in Wi-Fi spots with a range four (4) times as big as traditional Wi-Fi. (Apparently the Wi-Fi marketing folks aren’t thrilled with the name choice of Super Wi-Fi by the FCC.)
The second article is in the January 28, 2012 issue of the Economist Magazine. The science and technology section has an article entitled “Tripping the Light Fantastic” that describes technology that uses flickering lights to power an optical version of Wi-Fi that doesn’t use radio waves. This is good news in areas with crowded radio spectrum. Several companies have formed a new Li-Fi Consortium around the concept of optical Wi-Fi.
The article in the Economist explains how LED lights can be modified to serve as a Li-Fi router. How fast will this optical Wi-Fi be? The Li-Fi Consortium thinks it could acheive speeds of 10 gigabytes per second. That is fast enough to download a high-def video in 30 seconds.
See you later 4G. Wi-Fi here I come.
The Sunburned Surveyor
Filed under: Business, Computer Hardware, Technology, 4G, Networking, Super Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi
