CubeBrowser is a six-sided digital, display cube that connects to online databases like Flickr.com. You’re able to move through thousands of image-sets by turning and shaking the small cube in space. The pictures are grouped by tags. Horizontal turns change images, while vertical turns change to other tag sets. CubeBrowser unfolds an awe-inspiring trip through the hidden realms of online databases and provides a unique way of navigating by tag associations.
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2010.08.17 11:30:44 AM
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Re: Google綠能投資 首購風力發電廠
Next-Gen Battery Tech Could Help Power Plants Go With the Flow
24M, a recent spinoff of A123, has set to work on new energy storage technologies, backed by funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, DARPA and venture capital teams. Though 24M hasn't provided a detailed view of the technology it intends to create, its work seems to be related to research on flow batteries, which pump liquid electrolyte from tanks through a cell to produce power.
Today's computer chips spend a lot of time on probability-based calculations, from your Amazon recommendations to determining fraudulent credit card purchases. By using probability instead of 1's and 0's, those statistical calculations can be done more simply, efficiently, and faster.
Lyric Semiconductor has rewritten microchip functionality from scratch. Instead of building a chip using digital logic NAND gates, their chip will use probabilities as inputs to a Bayesian NAND gate. The output of a Bayesian NAND gate represents the chance that the two input signals match.
So what does that mean? Fewer gates needed, fewer computations needed... A smaller chip would do the same job of today's chips at a faster rate.
For flash memory (found in portable gadgets like smart phones and tablets), error checking chips are one of the biggest bottlenecks for performance and capacity. Lyric's chip would take up a 30th of the space and use a 12th of the energy of a typical error correction chip today.
A general purpose prototype, the GP5, is planning on being released within the next 3 years, and Lyric hopes to see their error correction chip built into everyday devices within the next two. DARPA is interested in using this technology to work with information that isn't clear cut—distorted radio signals and other "James Bond type" applications. For the rest of us, we may get to see the benefits of their inclusion in future generations of smartphones.
Of course, there will be some bugs and hiccups as engineers learn to code for and quality test these new chips. And a whole slew of new courses university students get to look forward to once this type of chip starts picking up speed. [Technology Review]
IKEA might be known for soulless furniture basics, but in the year 2040 they're planning on selling mood-adjusting kitchenware, and fridges that project celebrity chefs' cooking tutorials. In short, it doesn't sound all that far-fetched.
The "SKARP" concept as it's been dubbed, was designed after close to 2,000 people were surveyed on what they expect kitchens to look like in 2040. I'm not so sure about their idea that this kitchen will have sixth-generation iPads in every cabinet door, but the 3D food printing is certainly something we know is on its way.
These numbers correlate to the objects in the picture above—
1.) Food is grown on this shelf without soil.
2.) 3D food printer
3.) Fridge, with an interactive 3D screen.
4.) Multi-touch tap.
5.) Self-cleaning surfaces.
6.) This tool displays nutritional info of ingredients
7.) Remote-controlled cooker
8.) Retractable shelves
9.) Height-adjustable cabinets
10.) Energy monitor
11.) Genetically-engineered food.
12.) Roll-out chopping boards and draws.
Really, 2040? Most of this technology is already available, or at the very least, entirely possible. Nonetheless, I'd give up eating cheese for a kitchen that tidy and organized.
The core advantage of quantum computing — the ability to compute for many possible outcomes at the same time and therefore crunch data much more quickly than classical computers — also creates a problem for data security.
Once the first high-powered quantum computers are functioning, they'll be able to quickly saw through many of our most common data encryption algorithms. But as it turns out, an obscure encryption code created in 1978 is resistant to all known methods of quantum attack.
Hang Dinh at the University of Connecticut and a few colleagues figured out that CalTech mathematician Robert McEliece's code is structured in such a way that a quantum computer couldn't just pull it apart, at least not by any known process. Rooted in a mathematical puzzle called the hidden subgroup problem, standard quantum fourier analysis simply can't crack the code.
What does all that mean? For a more extensive mathematical explanation, click through to Tech Review's more thorough and astute review of quantum encryption. But in summary, encryption is often conducted using asymmetric codes, meaning there's a public key that anyone can use to encrypt data and a private key for decrypting it. The basis of these encryption schemes is math that flows easily in one direction but not so easily in the other.
Such asymmetric code can be tricky for a classical computer to figure out but quantum computers are well suited to such work. To take a simple example, say a message was encrypted using basic multiplication — one number is multiplied by a number to get a third number. It's not so easy to look at the third number and quickly determine the two numbers that spawned it.
In math, the process of doing this is called factorizing, and mathematicians factorize through a quality called periodicity — the idea that a mathematical entity with the right periodicity will divide an object correctly while others will not. In 1994, a mathematician created an algorithm that does this very well, and that shortcut to finding periodicity has a quantum analogue known as quantum fourier sampling. Using fourier sampling, quantum computers can quickly factorise codes, rendering most of our most common encryption schemes useless.
But McEliece's little-used code doesn't rely on factorization, meaning quantum fourier analysis can't break it down. That means it's essentially impervious to all known forms of quantum attack. That's not to say that new modes of quantum hacking won't be developed to decrypt McEliece's system, but it's interesting that while standing at the threshold of a new era of computing power researchers are finding solutions that can keep our data safe more than three decades in the past. [Technology Review]
Imagine a public eye scanner that can identify 50 people per minute, in motion. Now imagine that the government install these scanner systems all across an entire city. Or don't imagine it, because it's already happening, right now.
The City of Leon, Mexico, is doing exactly that, installing real time iris scanners from biometrics R&D firm Global Rainmakers Inc. These scanners don't require people to stop and put their eyes in front of a camera. They work in real time, as people walk, like this:
Which is very similar to this once-science-fiction scene:
There are different kinds of machines being installed across Leon, from large scanners—capable of identifying 50 people per minute in motion— to smaller ones—like the EyeSwipe in the video above—that range from 15 to 30 people per minute. These devices are being installed in public places, like train and bus stations, and connected to a database that will track people across the city.
City officials and proponents of the system are hoping that public retinal scans will stop crime and fraud. According to Jeff Carter, CDO of Global Rainmakers:
If you've been convicted of a crime, in essence, this will act as a digital scarlet letter. If you're a known shoplifter, for example, you won't be able to go into a store without being flagged. Certainly for others, boarding a plane will be impossible.
The retinal scanning of Leon's one million population has started already with its convicted criminals. Citizens with no criminal records have been offered the opportunity to "voluntarily" scan their eyes. This, however, is just the beginning. According to Carter, everyone in the planet should be connected to the iris tracking system in 10 years:
In the future, whether it's entering your home, opening your car, entering your workspace, getting a pharmacy prescription refilled, or having your medical records pulled up, everything will come off that unique key that is your iris. Every person, place, and thing on this planet will be connected within the next 10 years.
Of course, that would be good for Carter's business. For the best of the rest of us, I hope this never happens. [Global Rainmakers via Fast Company]
