Technology

Smart Houses And Contextual Patterns

A few years ago, I was spending a good bit of my time on context-based services. User context — also called “presence” — is information, which changes over time, about the current state of a user or other thing (it could be a car, say, or a sensor, or a c ...

Article - Barry Leiba - Sep 24 2009 - 3:24pm

Unlocking Oxygen Trapped Inside Luna's Soil

The moon has no has no atmosphere like Earth's but oxygen which can be used for people, growing food, creating water and even burning rocket fuel is trapped in its soil. ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 24 2009 - 12:50pm

How Would Darwin Use E-mail? In A Circadian Cycle, It Seems

You may feel like you're not in the same league as Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin (note: statistically, you are not)  but you probably share one thing if you are reading this article; patterns of correspondence. A new Northwestern University study ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 25 2009 - 5:11pm

The Sum Of All Knowledge? Yep, And Open Access Too

You can think of it as the United Nations of knowledge- except no dictators wearing pistols are allowed to get up and spout nonsense.  Or you could think of it as the Wikipedia of knowledge, without letting marketing people and activists control what gets ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 26 2009 - 11:44am

You like Skype; I like Skype; everybody likes Skype!

When I worked for IBM, I didn’t use Skype. As with many large companies, they don’t allow the use of software on company computers unless the lawyers have approved the terms and conditions — the end-user license agreement, EULA — and the company lawyers d ...

Blog Post - Barry Leiba - Oct 5 2009 - 6:21am

Want to prevent neighbors from stealing your wi-fi? Redecorate.

Most people have at one time or another hitched their internet connection on to someone else's wi-fi signal, or have had others use theirs. Annoying? Yes. But it could also get you in trouble if the snooper is engaged in illegal activity, says The Wor ...

Blog Post - Becky Jungbauer - Oct 5 2009 - 10:39am

Asking too many questions

Suppose that when you started your car today, it displayed a question on the dashboard: “Should I advance the timing by 4 degrees?” The car wouldn’t go until you responded. What would you think? What if you were having a house built, and the builder sent ...

Blog Post - Barry Leiba - Oct 8 2009 - 6:00am

Love Star Wars + have access to filming device = chance of a lifetime!

In the parlance of those younger tech addicts of the acronym persuasion- OMG. Times a million. You can be in Star Wars. "Whaaaaaaaat?!?", you exclaim while knocking the X-Wing model on your desk over in your haste to push your glasses back up you ...

Blog Post - Becky Jungbauer - Oct 6 2009 - 3:57pm

Not Just Organs- Pacemaker Donations Save Lives Too, Says Study

Everyone knows about being an organ donor- you may even have a little sticker saying it's okay for doctors to remove parts from you in order to save someone else.   Pacemaker donations from funeral homes are less well known but patients who received r ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 9 2009 - 12:12pm

The Speed Of Computing

A recent LiveScience article ' Computers Faster Only for 75 More Years ' has indicated that new research conducted by two physicists have placed a speed limit on what's attainable regardless of the size of the components.   Moore's Law ...

Article - Gerhard Adam - Oct 10 2009 - 9:24pm