30 November 2014
15 November 2014
What Gives Gold that Mellow Glow?
With an atomic number of 79, gold is in the last row of theperiodic table containing stable elements, and only four stable elements (mercury, thallium, lead, and bismuth) have greater atomic number. With 79 protons in its nucleus, the electrons of the gold atom are subjected to an intense electrostatic attraction. Using the naïve Bohr “solar system” model of the atom for the moment, electrons in the 1s orbital, closest to the nucleus, would have to orbit with a velocity v of 1.6×108metres per second to have sufficient kinetic energy to avoid “falling into” the nucleus. This is more than half the speed of light: c≈3×108 m/s
13 November 2014
12 November 2014
10 November 2014
Elon Musk’s Next Mission: Internet Satellites
Elon Musk’s Next Mission: Internet Satellites
The billionaire founder and CEO of Tesla Motors is setting his sites higher. He plans to launch a fleet of satellites to provide Internet service to millions who are now unserved.
09 November 2014
07 November 2014
▶ How iOS 8 and Yosemite got me to stop jailbreaking my iPhone | Macworld
Great article on the improvements in iOS that make jail-breaking iPhones a nearly obsolete practice.
06 November 2014
27 October 2014
25 October 2014
web: Future of Text 2014
22 October 2014
07 October 2014
Viewing Guide: Watch Blood Moon During Total Lunar Eclipse on Wednesday
When Will the Eclipse Happen?
The eclipse begins with the partial phase, when the moon enters Earth's dark shadow (also called the umbra shadow). That begins at 2:15 a.m. PDT (5:15 a.m. EDT). Then the umbral shadow will spread across the moon's disk, moving from left to right.
At 3:25 a.m. PDT (6:25 a.m. EDT) totality begins, when the moon is fully engulfed in the umbral shadow and turns a shade of orange red. The deepest or midpoint of the eclipse will be at 3:55 a.m. PDT, and totality continues until 4:24 a.m. PDT. The last phase of the partial eclipse ends at 5:34 a.m. PDT.
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26 September 2014
Top 10 surprising TextEdit for Mac tips - Features - Macworld UK
Here is an excerpt. (I tried this and it WORKS!)
------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
View word and character count in TextEdit
One missing feature most requested by TextEdit users is word count. Adding it to TextEdit is extremely easy via a little AppleScript.
Open the AppleScript Editor program, which you’ll find in in the Applications list of Finder. When it starts click the New Document button, then paste in to the main editing area what you see below:
tell application "TextEdit"
set wc to count words of document 1
set cc to count characters of document 1
if wc is equal to 1 then
set txt to " word and "
else
set txt to " words and "
end if
if cc is equal to 1 then
set txtc to " character."
else
set txtc to " characters."
end if
set result to (wc as string) & txt & (cc as string) & txtc
display dialog result with title "Word and character count" buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"
end tell
On the toolbar click the Compile button, then click File > Save. When the Save As dialog box appears, type Shift+Cmd+G and in the new dialog box, type~/Library/Scripts.
Type Word Count into the Save As name field, and click the Save button.
Switch back to the AppleScript Editor window, and tap Cmd+, (comma) to open its preferences dialog box. Click the General tab and put a tick alongside Show Script Menu in Menu Bar.
Close AppleScript Editor. From now on, whenever you want to perform a word/character count within TextEdit, click the small script icon at the top right of the screen near the Wi-Fi icon and select the Word Count option.
20 September 2014
Audio Quality Or Lack Thereof
Has anyone else noticed the horrible, abysmal, really awful audio quality for the the audio feature that's been added to Messages in iOS 8?
Apple's new iOS 8
iOS logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I've got an iPhone 5s with 32GB...
02 September 2014
GoogleX takes to the skies with secret drone project
Check out this article from USA TODAY:
GoogleX takes to the skies with secret drone project
GoogleX takes to the skies with secret drone project
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- NASA developing automatic traffic management system for drones
23 August 2014
Google Guava
Java programmers, new and old, take note: Google, et al, have simplified life for Java programmers:
To summarize, don't reinvent the wheel. If you need to do something that seems like it should be reasonably common, there may already be a class in the libraries that does what you want. If there is, use it; if you don't know, check. Generally speaking, library code is likely to be better than code that you'd write yourself and is likely to improve over time. This is no reflection on your abilities as a programmer. Economies of scale dictate that library code receives far more attention than most developers could afford to devote to the same functionality.
We'd also like to mention that:
- Guava has been battle-tested in production at Google.
- Guava has staggering numbers of unit tests: as of July 2012, the guava-tests package includes over 286,000 individual test cases. Most of these are automatically generated, not written by hand, but Guava's test coverage is extremely thorough, especially forcom.google.common.collect.
- Guava is under active development and has a strong, vocal, and involved user base.
- The best libraries seem obvious in retrospect, but achieving this state is notoriously challenging.
Is the Mobile App Market Saturated?
15 August 2014
Siri’s Inventors Are Building a Radical New AI That Does Anything You Ask | Enterprise | WIRED
Excerpt:
Viv is an open system that will let innumerable businesses and applications become part of its boundless brain. The technical barriers are minimal, requiring brief “training” (in some cases, minutes) for Viv to understand the jargon of the specific topic. As Viv’s knowledge grows, so will its understanding; its creators have designed it based on three principles they call its “pillars”: It will be taught by the world, it will know more than it is taught, and it will learn something every day. As with other AI products, that teaching involves using sophisticated algorithms to interpret the language and behavior of people using the system—the more people use it, the smarter it gets. By knowing who its users are and which services they interact with, Viv can sift through that vast trove of data and find new ways to connect and manipulate the information.
Kittlaus says the end result will be a digital assistant who knows what you want before you ask for it. He envisions someone unsteadily holding a phone to his mouth outside a dive bar at 2 am and saying, “I’m drunk.” Without any elaboration, Viv would contact the user’s preferred car service, dispatch it to the address where he’s half passed out, and direct the driver to take him home. No further consciousness required.
Related articles
- Move Over Siri: Make Way for Viv
- Are We About to Get Real AI?
- Siri's Inventors Are Building a Radical New AI That Does Anything You Ask
- The creators of Siri are working on a revolutionary new virtual assistant
- Siri Co-Founders Building Viv, a Next-Generation Flexible Virtual Assistant
- Siri Creators Have a Much Smarter Bun in the Oven
15 July 2014
Solar Probe Plus
The Solar Probe Plus spacecraft will plunge directly into the sun's atmosphere (Photo credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video) |
http://solarprobe.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Related articles
03 July 2014
01 July 2014
Google Buys Songza, a Playlist App for Any Occasion - NYTimes.com
Google Buys Songza, a Playlist App for Any Occasion - NYTimes.com: "Google Buys Songza, a Playlist App for Any Occasion
By BEN SISARIO
JULY 1, 2014
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In a sign of growing consolidation in the digital music business, Google announced on Tuesday that it had bought Songza, a three-year-old app that competes with Pandora and others in making customized playlists of recommended songs."
'via Blog this'
By BEN SISARIO
JULY 1, 2014
Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyShare This Page
SAVE
MORE
Continue reading the main story
In a sign of growing consolidation in the digital music business, Google announced on Tuesday that it had bought Songza, a three-year-old app that competes with Pandora and others in making customized playlists of recommended songs."
'via Blog this'
28 June 2014
Tile
The next time you lose your keys, don't say I didn't tell you about this baby: an etile that you can strap or stick on stuff to keep track of it. Not to put on your cheating boy/girl/friend. Just for stuff. Kids maybe.
20 June 2014
Virgin Atlantic to implement Google Glass strategy
Well if this isn't the most unexpected, and to me weird, implementation of this technology!
Most of the passengers thought that it was "cool," after the nice people at VA explained that it was not an invasion of their privacy. LOL, there are cameras everywhere at Heathrow.
Most of the passengers thought that it was "cool," after the nice people at VA explained that it was not an invasion of their privacy. LOL, there are cameras everywhere at Heathrow.
03 June 2014
The Next Big Thing...
The Next Big Thing You Missed: One Day, You’ll Google the Physical World With a Scanner Like This
Thanks to the smartphone camera industry, a tremendous amount of time and money had already been devoted to miniaturizing optics technology. Sharon and Goldring figured they could apply those great technological strides to making a miniature spectrometer, no different from the technology being used in scientific labs around the world. “We both jumped out of nice jobs. We had kids that were several months old, and we said this is what we’re going to do and got started,” Sharon remembers.
The two founders gathered a team of physicists, engineers, data scientists, food technologists, optical design specialists, and others. They took a lean startup approach to prototyping, rapidly shipping new prototypes and killing off old features. The final product, which will begin shipping to Kickstarter backers later this year, works by shining a light on an object at a very specific wavelength. That causes the molecules to vibrate, and the light that’s reflected carries that object’s molecular signature. The Scio app then uses an algorithm to compare that signature to its entire database and provide the end user with the object’s molecular breakdown.
The first Kickstarter backers will be able to analyze plants, foods, and medication using the Scio app, but Sharon is hoping that’s just the beginning. The company has created its own Application Development Kit, and Sharon is looking forward to seeing what comes out of it. He also says that in the not too distant future, people who want access to this type of technology may not even need to own a Scio. “I’m absolutely positive something like this will be built into smartphones, wearables, and internet connected devices,” he says.
Related articles
02 June 2014
GOOGLE and LUXOTTICA announce strategic partnership for Glass
Technology Is Not Technology (Photo credit: lgb06) |
“We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Google, and are proud to be once again setting the pace in the eyewear industry, as we have been, with more than 50 years of excellence.” Said Andrea Guerra, Chief Executive Officer of Luxottica Group.
“We live in a world where technological innovation has dramatically changed the way in which we communicate and interact in everything that we do. More importantly, we have come to a point where we now have both a technology push and a consumer pull for wearable technology products and applications. Seeing such a future, over the last years, Luxottica invested heavily in building-out our technology platforms and digital solutions to combine with our products excellence. We believe that a strategic partnership with a leading player like Google is the ideal platform for developing a new way forward in our industry and answering the evolving needs of consumers on a global scale. We believe it is high time to combine the unique expertise, deep knowledge and quality of our Group with the cutting edge technology expertise of Google and give birth to a new generation of revolutionary devices.”
"Luxottica has built an impressive history over the last 50 years designing, manufacturing and distributing some of the most successful and well-known brands in eyewear today." Said Google Vice President and head of Google X Astro Teller. "We are thrilled to be partnering with them as we look to push Glass and the broader industry forward into the emerging smart eyewear market.”
The first collection generated by this partnership will combine high-end technology with avant-garde design offering the best in style, quality and performance. These forward-thinking devices will be the result of a new and unique strategic approach reflecting attention to detail, uncompromising quality and technology nurtured in the global market. The sophistication and elegance of this new generation of products will be a dramatic step forward in an evolving category and elevate the consumer experience in this area.
Related articles
23 April 2014
Google's Purchase of Titan Drones
How a whirlwind 6-week courtship led to Google's purchase of Titan drones
Dan Mayfield
Albuquerque Business First
The UpTake: Vern Raburn says it took an intense six weeks to sell his company, Titan Aerospace, to Google. The solar-powered drone maker may seem like an odd purchase for the search and advertising giant. But its technology could be key for Google to get the Internet to remote corners of the globe.
Last Monday morning at 1 a.m., Vern Raburn finally got the last call and signed the last document that made it official.
After six weeks of intense due diligence work with Google, the Titan Aerospace CEO was finally signing the papers to sell the startup to Internet powerhouse Google.
“This has been done in record time. This is the quickest merger I’ve ever been a part of,” Raburn told Albuquerque Business First. “I had no sleep from Thursday to Sunday.”
Raburn can’t disclose the details of the merger in any way, he said. Nor can he confirm that Facebook was also interested in buying Titan.
“I’m not Titan anymore. I’m Google,” he said.
Raburn has been the CEO of Titan since last fall, but he doesn’t have a Google title yet.
Titan, or Google, is developing a solar-powered drone that Raburn calls an “atmostat,” or atmospheric satellite. The idea is to bring the functionality of a satellite, such as mapping, GPS or even communications, to the high atmosphere at a fraction of the cost of launching a space-bound satellite.
Today, though, Titan’s hangar at the Moriarty Airport couldn’t look any less Google. It looks homebuilt, and Raburn agrees.
Dan Mayfield
Albuquerque Business First
The UpTake: Vern Raburn says it took an intense six weeks to sell his company, Titan Aerospace, to Google. The solar-powered drone maker may seem like an odd purchase for the search and advertising giant. But its technology could be key for Google to get the Internet to remote corners of the globe.
Last Monday morning at 1 a.m., Vern Raburn finally got the last call and signed the last document that made it official.
After six weeks of intense due diligence work with Google, the Titan Aerospace CEO was finally signing the papers to sell the startup to Internet powerhouse Google.
“This has been done in record time. This is the quickest merger I’ve ever been a part of,” Raburn told Albuquerque Business First. “I had no sleep from Thursday to Sunday.”
Raburn can’t disclose the details of the merger in any way, he said. Nor can he confirm that Facebook was also interested in buying Titan.
“I’m not Titan anymore. I’m Google,” he said.
Raburn has been the CEO of Titan since last fall, but he doesn’t have a Google title yet.
Titan, or Google, is developing a solar-powered drone that Raburn calls an “atmostat,” or atmospheric satellite. The idea is to bring the functionality of a satellite, such as mapping, GPS or even communications, to the high atmosphere at a fraction of the cost of launching a space-bound satellite.
Today, though, Titan’s hangar at the Moriarty Airport couldn’t look any less Google. It looks homebuilt, and Raburn agrees.
Related articles
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