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Mapping Noise Pollution with Cell Phones
Cell phones usually contribute to urban noise pollution. But the folks at Paris’s Sony Computer Science Laboratory have created an app that lets any GPS-enabled phone help us understand the problem. Behold NoiseTube: Serenity now! … -
What Happens When Your Volt Runs Out of Juice?
Apparently very little. A Times reporter took one out for a test drive past its 40 mile battery range. What happens is that the gas-powered generator kicks in—silently—giving more battery power to the car. Its not as if you suddenly switch to a gas-powered engine; you’re still using electric power, just not stored electric power. Indeed, even while the generator is on, accelerating is silent, as you’re just putting more battery power into the engine, not… -
The Changing Music Business: The Chart
We’ve all heard that the music business is changing, and here, from The Times Online, is a chart to prove it. The red line at the top is the revenue from sales of recorded music. The light green line below that is the revenue from live music. The dark green line below that, “PRS revenue,” is the revenue from royalties. Basically there’s more and more money being spent on live shows and, consequently, more money going… -
Power Your Music Player With Your Pants
Designed by Inesa Malafej and Arunas Sukarevicius from Lithuania, the Dancepants converts kinetic energy from running or dancing into electricity for your MP3 player. More info here. -
So What’s the World’s Fastest Supercomputer Up To?
It’s solving the world’s most important problems, of course. The Jaguar XT5, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, has a speed of 1.759 petaflops. Researchers have already booked time with the machine for 2010. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will use the Jaguar to make super specific predictions about climate change, and the University of Tennessee will use it to figure out how to make better ethanol from plant cells. Good news. … -
Leap-frogging to Sustainability
Why the shrinking cost of solar power may be enough to change our planet’s outlook—especially if it’s introduced first in the developing world. “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do, doesn’t mean it’s useless.” —Thomas Edison In this second piece on identifying those green technologies that will make our civilization more sustainable, and separating them from those that won’t, the focus is on electric power generation, and the importance not only of reducing the… -
Samasource: Internet Jobs for the Marginalized
Leila Chirayath Janah, a friend of GOOD, recently launched a nonprofit venture called Samasource. Samasource aims to connect educated workers in disadvantaged communities in India and Africa with Silicon Valley companies that need people to do small, web-based tasks like data entry. Think of it as Kiva for work. One of her first tests of this concept was in a refugee camp in Kenya. Boing Boing reports: Shortly after launching Samasource, [Leila] read an Oxfam report that… -
Singularity 101: What Is the Singularity?
Superhuman intelligence and the technological singularity. Part one in a GOOD miniseries on the singularity by Michael Anissimov and Roko Mijic. New posts every Monday from November 16 to January 23. Living to 1,000? Superhuman robots? Matrix-style virtual reality? These staples of science-fiction may become a reality when (or, perhaps, if) the “singularity” happens. The phrase “technological singularity” was coined by the mathematician and science fiction author Vernor Vinge in 1982. He proposed that the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence would… -
What Words Reveal
A new tool for computer language analysis can evaluate your mind based on your Tweets (and might help psychologists, too) Unless you’ve been living under a rock or among the molemen, you’ve probably enjoyed the humor of @s–tmydadsays, the popular Twitter account of Justin, who describes himself like so: “I’m 29. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down s–t that he says.” That s–t consists of cranky honesty like “I… -
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EyeWriter: Paralyzed Artist Draws with His Eyes
The true beauty of scientific and technological advancements are most evident when they reveal our humanity. Take Tony Quan, also known as street artist Tempt One. Quan is paralyzed, yet with the assistance of the EyeWriter, a custom eye-tracking software, he is still able to continue painting, simply by moving his eyes. http://www.vimeo.com/6376466 Video by Evan Roth. Via Swiss Miss (via Amrit).
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