- Abu Dhabi Plugs in Giant Concentrating Solar Plant
Abu Dhabi diversifies its energy with $600 million solar project.
The oil-rich sheikhdom of Abu Dhabi plugged in what it says is the large concentrating solar power plant in the world, a sign that Middle Eastern countries are serious about developing their solar resources.
- Social Networks Reveal Structure (And Weaknesses) of Businesses
Computer scientists have recreated the international and organisational structure of large corporations using publicly available data on social networks
- An Unlikely Plan to Revive the Passenger Pigeon
Advances in genetic engineering have some biologists convinced they’ll re-create extinct species.
Passenger pigeons once darkened the skies over the eastern United States. Huge flocks would roost on chestnut trees, their weight snapping off branches. By 1914, though, humans had hunted the bird to extinction.
- A Near-Whole Brain Activity Map in Fish
Neuron-level whole-brain activity maps could one day help explain brain function and disfunction.
Image: Neurons glow red as they fire in this whole zebrafish larva brain. Credit: Misha Ahrens and Philipp Keller
- The Religion of Innovation
Enough with innovation for innovation’s sake.
BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins took a shot at Apple today, speaking to a reporter for The Australian Financial Review. While couching his statement in respectful terms–“Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market”–Heins nonetheless suggested that Apple was lagging behind. “The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old,” he told the Review. Meanwhile, a series of analysts have suggested that Apple is taking too long to release its hardware updates. Charles Golvin of Forrester said that Apple’s current rate of releases is “not an adequate cadence for Apple to remain at the forefront of smartphone innovation today.”
- How Smart Watches and Phablets Fulfill a 20-Year-Old Prophecy about Ubiquitous Computing
Mark Weiser, who coined the term “ubiquitous computing,” foresaw current device trends decades ago.
“Tabs, pads, and boards.” The phrase may sound like a piece of techno-buzzy cud coughed up at a TEDx or SXSW talk, but it’s actually a precise description of current hardware trends made 22 years ago by a chief scientist at Xerox PARC. That scientist, the late Mark Weiser, was talking about his then-new concept of “ubiquitous computing”: the idea that cheap connectivity and networked devices would liberate “computing” from mainframes and desktop boxes and integrate it into people’s everyday lives. But how? What would that actually look like? Weiser sketched out three basic tiers of ubiquitous computing devices based on interactive display technology: tabs (small, wearable); pads (handheld, mobile); boards (large, fixed).
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