Category: Cool

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From Engadget: Comcast’s Internet Essentials program expanding as digital literacy project soars

Well, at least Comcast is doing one thing right!
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If everyone needs the internet, then poor kids need it more — since so much learning material is dependent on technology. Comcast teamed up with the FCC to produce Internet Essentials: a $10 a month broadband plan and $150 computers to get the nation’s poorest families online. Six months later, the program’s been a colossal success, leading to the company adding some sweeteners: eligibility is being relaxed to include any family who qualifies for discounted lunches (swelling the catchment group by a further 300,000). It’s also doubling the speed of the available connection: 3 Mbps down and 768 Kbps up and is allowing community groups to bulk-buy packages to directly supply the most impecunious households. It’s also pairing up with the “connect to compete” initiative to reduce computer costs, enrich digital literacy materials and connect those outside of Comcast’s core service areas. You can head on down to our source link to read the extended report and see how families are benefiting from a little corporate good deed.

 

from Engadget

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From Technology Review RSS Feeds: The Secret Of Ant Transportation Networks

Just how ants create the highly efficient network of trails around their nests has never been fully understood. Now researchers think they’ve cracked it

Among the most impressive transportation networks on the planet are the complex trails that ants create around their nests. These networks arise through the ants’ exploration of their environment and end up channelling the distribution of food for the colony and the daily movements hundreds of thousands of individuals.



from Technology Review RSS Feeds

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From Technology Review RSS Feeds: Shrunken Servers Aim for a Greener Internet

Intel teams up with a startup to create a server twice as efficient as those that power websites and apps today.

As the cloud becomes more pervasive—driving everything from social networking to mobile apps—the computers that power it must guzzle more and more energy. Today, startup company SeaMicro, chip maker Intel, and electronics giant Samsung unveiled a new computer design that could make the data centers that power cloud services dramatically more efficient.




from Technology Review RSS Feeds

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From The UberReview: Homing Bullets Are a Scary Idea

Whoa!! That is just pure craziness!!! o.O
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Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have successfully created a self-guided bullet prototype that is able to home in on a laser-designated target from more than a mile away.

The laser-guided bullet looks more like a small missile or dart than a conventional bullet. Regular bullets are held on course by their spin. The laser-guided bullet uses fins instead, so it doesn’t spin, it flies and its trajectory can be altered via the fins mid-flight.

The magic happens on board the bullet itself. An optical sensor collects information and relays it to an 8-bit central processing unit, which controls the electromagnetic actuators that adjust the fins. According to researchers Red Jones and Brian Kast, the tiny size of the bullet actually makes this feat relatively easy to perform (the bullet is more easily controllable than a cruise missile).

As far as precision goes, there is no comparison. Over a range of half-a-mile, a conventional bullet might be off target by as much as 10 yards. The laser-guided bullet will spread by as much as eight inches.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[PhysOrg via Geekosystem]

from The UberReview

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From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Video: SpaceX Test-Fires Its New Super-Powerful Capsule Engines

SuperDraco’s Could One Day Allow Propulsive Landings on Other Planets SpaceX

SpaceX’s dream of fielding a spacelaunch system that is completely reusable is inching forward with the successful test-firing of its new SuperDraco engine. The powerful new SuperDraco will be installed in the side walls of the next-gen Dragon spacecraft and provide up to 120,000 pounds of axial thrust, enabling not only on orbit maneuvering, but emergency escape from the rocket tower should something go awry during launch.

The Draco engines currently used on the Dragon spacecraft allow the robotic resupply capsule to maneuver on orbit and orient itself during reentry, but SpaceX has bigger plans for a system that will one day be able to return all elements–including rocket stages–to Earth intact for reuse in later missions. That’s a tall order and a long way off. But the SuperDraco is a step in that direction.

More powerful than the Draco, the eight SuperDracos that will reside in the side walls of the Dragon can essentially propel the Dragon capsule on their own, making it possible for astronauts on board to abort at any time during a launch and separate from the rocket–that is, the controlled explosion–hurling them skyward. That’s a huge advantage over previous launch abort systems, which could only be triggered successfully during the first few minutes of a launch.

They can also be restarted multiple times and can be used repeatedly, meaning they wouldn’t have to be completely re-serviced each time a capsule went into space. During the recent tests at SpaceX’s Rocket Development Facility in Texas, the SuperDraco underwent full thrust firings, full duration firings, and a series of deep throttling demos, passing each test, we’re told, with flying colors. We’re still a ways away from that space capsule that can navigate itself back to the launchpad under its own propulsive force but as the video below shows, we’re getting there.

[SpaceX]

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now

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From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Amazonian Rainforest Fungus Eats Polyurethane, Potentially Solving a Big Landfill Problem

Plastic Bags in Landfill Samuel Mann via Flickr

To the multitude of arguments for protecting rainforest biodiversity, here’s a new addition: An Amazonian fungus could eat our most durable landfill waste. A group of students from Yale found the fungus during an expedition to Ecuador and learned it breaks down polyurethane.

This plastic is one of those modern chemical compounds found in so many products, it’s pointless to count – from Spandex to garden hoses, for a start – and it is prized for both its flexibility and rigidity. The problem is that like many other polymers, it does not break down readily. This means it persists in landfills, as Fast Company points out. It burns pretty well, but that releases carbon monoxide and other gases into the atmosphere, so it’s a nonstarter in most situations. Something that can degrade it naturally would be a better solution.

The fungus called Pestalotiopsis microspora can subsist on a diet of polyurethane alone, and do so in an anaerobic environment, according to the researchers who found it. The Yale team isolated the enzyme that enables this fungus to do its work and noted it could be used for bioremediation.

It’s odd to think of a microorganism eating up a durable synthetic material, but this would not be a first, by a long shot; bacteria and fungi can break down lots of things. A bacterial species called Halomonas titanicae is eating the RMS Titanic, for instance. We just need to know where to find these hungry species – and the rainforest is a good place to look.

[Fast Company[

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now