He would have been 99 today.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Friday, February 05, 2010
ZAGGsparq
I recently read a few reviews of the ZAGGsparq USB battery and must say I am impressed! It holds enough power to recharge your iPhone at least four times. (ZAGG advertises it’s holds 6000 mAh which actually should recharge your iPhone five times.) ZAGGsparq has two USB ports, meaning it can recharge two USB devices simultaneously. It also has fold-down prongs (like an Apple power adapter), meaning there is no additional cables to carry, and you can simultaneously recharge the battery and two USB devices as once.
Here is a video showing how it works:
The ZAGGsparq is 3.5x3.5x1” and weighs about 8 ounces. It sells for $99 on the company’s website but is currently out of stock at ZAGGS website. If I still traveled as much as I used to (20-30 flights per year), I’d buy one of these in a heartbeat. This would also be a great companion to the iPhone for day or weekend hikes. As a man’s recent experience in Haiti shows, sometimes an iPhone can even save a life. (Had he had a ZAGGsparq in his camera bag, he would not have had to worry about about his power running out while he was trapped.)
If you like the idea of additional battery for your USB devices, but are looking for a cheaper price/smaller size, consider the Duracell Instant Power Charger ($20) which could recharge an iPhone once or the Satechi iCell ($60) which could recharge it 3-4 times.
See detailed reviews of the ZAGGsparq here and here.
(HT Lifehacker)
How Oil-Filled Lenses are Bringing Sight to Those in Need
I've been fascinated by the "Adspecs" since I first heard of them a few years ago. The glasses have oil-filled lenses which, when adjusted with the attached syringes, allow anyone to dial in their own prescription just by looking at a chart…
For the last few weeks, I've been speaking to the Centre for Vision in the Developing World's Owen Reading about where the project is going… He explained why the Adspecs are such a good solution for developing economies.
"They require very little training to dispense, can be dispensed by an organisation's volunteers in the field, they only need to be delivered once and can make a difference for years afterwards, and are inherently safer (and less valuable on the black market) than items such as prescription medications."
It's the sort of mixture of charity and innovation that makes my heart leap, an opportunity to use the mass production and design capabilities of the developed world to provide a life-changing solution to those who need it—without making those who receive aid dependent on someone else for continued support…
Among all the widgets-of-the-day, the tablets and phones and mail-order furniture, it's easy to forget how technology can make such a profound difference in people's lives. So let's not forget.
Indeed, let’s not. Read the whole thing.
As Joel mentions, these are glasses are still undergoing iterative improvements and need quality enhancements to ensure ruggedness. Maybe there’s a way to build hollow frames which store the oil rather than storing it in syringes? I wonder how easy these things are to clean?
Here’s a video explaining more of how they work and what they do:
This is a brilliantly simple idea that has the potential to impact the lives of millions in the developing world.
Microsoft’s Creative Destruction
AS they marvel at Apple’s new iPad tablet computer, the technorati seem to be focusing on where this leaves Amazon’s popular e-book business. But the much more important question is why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it’s tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon’s Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter…
What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers….
It’s not an accident that almost all the executives in charge of Microsoft’s music, e-books, phone, online, search and tablet efforts over the past decade have left.
As a result, while the company has had a truly amazing past and an enviably prosperous present, unless it regains its creative spark, it’s an open question whether it has much of a future.
ReaNextd the whole thing.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Are Transportation Planners Smarter Than Slime Mold?
Fascinating!A team of researchers led by Atsushi Tero simulated how Tokyo’s rail system would have developed if slime mold was calling the shots. See the original paper if you have a subscription to Science (warning: lots of advanced math) or this helpful summary by MSNBC, which brought the story to my attention.
To make a long story short, slime mold is a unicellular organism resembling a fungus. As it grows, it oozes outward seeking out food sources, then it connects these by forming narrow veins that look suspiciously like transportation links. For economy’s sake, the mold forms the most lean and efficient network possible while maximizing its access to nutrients.
The scientists placed food deposits (oat flakes) in a pattern that mimicked the distribution of population in the greater Tokyo area. They also discouraged mold growth in areas corresponding to obstacles like ocean and mountains by placing light sources (mold’s sworn enemy) in these spots. The researchers then introduced a single deposit of the mold on their mock central Tokyo and let the slime do its thing.
The result? The mold formed a network that closely mimicked the actual Tokyo railway map. In terms of efficiency and fault tolerance, the mold performed about the same as the real Tokyo system, and it did so at a slightly lower cost. All of this was done without any guiding overall intelligence, but through a decentralized method in the mold that continually adapted to reinforce links that performed well, while eliminating those did not.
More after the link.
Of course, they probably could have gotten similar results with a lot less work using agent-based models.
Textbook Publishers Prepare Content For iPad & e-Ink Readers
Major textbook publishers, including McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Kaplan, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K-12, have completed a deal with software company ScrollMotion Inc. to prepare their textbook offerings for digital outlets like the iPad. Textbook publishers, having seen the impact of technology and the internet on the newspaper industry, are desperately trying to stay ahead of the technology curve and viable well into the 21st century. Rik Kranenburg, group president of higher eduction at McGraw-Hill had this to say: “Nobody knows what device will take off, or which ‘killer app’ will drive student adaptations. Today they aren’t reading e-textbooks on their laptops. But ahead we see all kinds of new instruction materials.” The Wall Street Journal, citing a report by research firm Compass Intelligence, predicts technology spending among educational institutions will increase $14.3 billion over a five year period (tracked from 2008 to 2013); a figure publishing companies clearly are not going to ignore.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
The Pygmy Shrinks?
The U.S. government borrows money easily because we’re the tallest pygmy. But if we keep spending money like a drunken sailor, we will get shorter and more responsible nations will soon tower over us. We are playing with fire.
Then Arnold Kling corrects him:
We are not the tallest pygmy. According to this story, our government's credit standing is already below that of Canada, Germany, France, New Zealand, and Switzerland.
To put these comments in perspective, here is a nonpartisan budget deficit projection by the Congressional Budget Office from earlier last year:
Elinor Ostrom Visits GMU
A video of the Elinor Ostrom event I attended last night.
(HT Pete Boettke)Anti-Vaccine Scientist Acted “Dishonestly and Irresponsibly”
And with what social cost?Claims that childhood MMR vaccines cause autism are unfounded and irresponsible. As Ron Bailey notes, “study after study has debunked” the claim that MMR vaccines are linked to autism, and there are credible allegations that the study that prompted the initial scare was faked. As the BBC reports, British medical authorities have also concluded that the primary researcher promoting such claims, Andrew Wakefield, acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in conducting and promoting his research. More here from Discover’s Bad Astronomy blog.
Despite the broad medical consensus on the importance of vaccination for many diseases, some prominent public figures, such as Oprah Winfrey and John McCain, continue to embrace or encourage the unfounded, unscientific charge that vaccinations cause autism. This could have very serious consequences as the rate of vaccination gradually declines. Childhood vaccinations are extremely important for public health. If vaccination rates drop below a certain point, herd immunity can be compromised, leading to widespread outbreaks of disease. Perhaps the latest report on Wakefield’s research will lead some to reconsider.
UPDATE: More from Orac at Respectful Insolence.
Be careful when listening to someone giving you too much health advice based on “research.” Following it may end up doing you and your loved ones more harm than good. Just like financial advice I often hear, the people who seem to know the least often convince themselves and others they know the most.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
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