Tag Archives: Technology

Fiber to the Home

A very simple overview of fiber to the home.

Droid Incredible

The Droid Incredible really is a great gadget. I am too cheap to get it but if I were to use a cell phone much I think this is the one I would get. I personally prefer more open software like Android (which the Droid Incredible uses) to Apple (though Apple’s user experience is great, I admit).

The Droid Incredible by HTC features a body design that measures 4.63 x 2.3 x 0.47 inches (HxWxD), making it easy to slip into your pocket. A large, 3.7-inch HD screen with 480×800 resolution graces the front of the device. The responsive OLED touch screen features rich colors and is easy to use.

With a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 8 GB of internal flash memory, the Droid Incredible delivers incredible performance, letting you run multiple applications. It includes an 8-megapixel camera with auto focus and 2x power LED flash, and also Google Maps Navigation, which provides GPS-based turn-by-turn voice guidance to get you where you need to go.

New Server Uses 75% Less Power and Space

SeaMicro drops an atom bomb on the server industry

[SeaMicro] has created a server with 512 Intel Atom chips that gets supercomputer performance but uses 75 percent less power and space than current servers.
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Today’s servers are so inefficient when it comes to being properly utilized,” Feldman said. “This misalignment between the server and the work load is the root of the power consumption problem.”

So SeaMicro guessed that servers could benefit instead by using lots of smaller processors, and it got lucky when Intel started promoting its low-power, low-cost Atom chip for netbooks. That lowered power consumption, since Atom processors deliver three times the performance per watt versus Intel’s server chips.
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But SeaMicro also attacked the power consumption in the rest of the system, which accounts for about two thirds of the power consumed by a server.
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it applied the concept of virtualization to the inside of a server. Feldman designed custom chips that could take the tasks that were handled by everything beyond the Intel microprocessor and its chip set. The custom chips virtualize all of those other components so that it finds the resource when it’s needed. It essentially tricks the microprocessor into thinking that the rest of the system is there when it needs it.

SeaMicro virtualized a lot of functions that took up a lot of space inside each server in a rack. It also did the same with functions such as storage, networking, server management and load balancing. Full told, SeaMicro eliminates 90 percent of the components from a system board. SeaMicro calls this CPU/IO virtualization. With it, SeaMicro shrinks the size of the system board from a pizza box to the size of a credit card.
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This advance is coming just in time. Google said recently that if current power trends continue, the cost of energy consumed by a server during its three-year life span could surpass the initial purchase cost for the hardware. The Environmental Protection Agency reports that volume servers consume more than 1 percent of the total electricity in the US—representing billions of dollars in wasted operating expense each year.

Sub $100 Tablet in 2011

I must admit I am skeptical. If it happens this looks very cool.

One Laptop Per Child Revamps Tablet Plans

On Thursday the foundation announced a partnership with chip maker Marvell to collaborate on a sleek and cheap touch-screen tablet for developing-world school children, a device it now plans to launch at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2011 for less than $100. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) says that’s close to two years ahead of its scheduled release for the so-called XO-3, the long-awaited upgrade to the non-profit’s XO, the so-called “hundred-dollar laptop” launched in 2007.
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The first XO, for instance, never reached its price target of $100; it now sells for $172. About 2 million of the devices have been sold–a significant achievement for a small nonprofit, but far less than its initial projections. And a flashy double touch-screen model known as the XO-2 was quietly scrapped last year when OLPC decided it couldn’t be made cheaply enough.
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As for Marvell, the partnership with OLPC could lend more credibility to its Moby tablet, which is designed for educational uses like electronic textbooks. OLPC is also building Marvell’s chips into an upgraded form of its XO, known as the XO 1.75, later this year. “When we first met Nicholas, we were very moved by his leadership,” says Dai Weili, Marvell’s chief operating office. “We’ve got the cost structure, feature capability and scalability to support his vision for many years to come.”

Iron Man 2 Via 3-D Printing

Ever since I first heard of 3-D printing I have though it was very cool. Well first I thought it was science fiction, not real, but a cool idea. Then when I found out it was real I thought it was very cool. Not only is it cool, it is practical. Iron Man 2’s Secret Sauce: 3-D Printing

Maybe the most cutting-edge facet of Iron Man 2’s production was the real-life fabrication of the suits. Using 3-D printers, the film’s production company, Legacy Effects, was able to have artists draw an art concept–and then physically make that concept in just four hours.
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In addition to speed, the benefit is that you can print out costumes custom fitted to the actors, down to the millimeter. And with custom-fitted suits, Robert Downey, Jr. and Mickey Rourke can put a lot more action into their fight scenes, without the wonky effect of layering on too much CGI. (Downey complained that the original Iron Man suits, which were made more traditionally, were too clunky to act in, and extremely uncomfortable.)

Ironmaking at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm

Joakim Storck discusses pre–industrial Swedish and Japanese techniques for iron and sword making from a museum demonstration at Tekniska museet. Ironmaking at the National museum of science and technology, Stockholm 2005

Bricklaying is a messy story. The mortar consists of clay, sand and horse manure (if available), mixed with water to a fairly loose batter. The best finish is obtained if you work with your hands as the mortar is placed on, and smears with water so that the surface becomes smooth and fine. When then furnace is ready, it is dried through slow heating by wood without blasting, until the moist has been driven out of the mud. At this stage, heating should be quite cautious in order to avoid cracking.

Then, on Friday September 9, we went again with a fully loaded trailer from Dalarna in the direction of Stockholm. More than a few people were probably turning their heads when we passed, because the trailer was dominated by a large bellow — our newly built two chamber bellow with an estimated bladder capacity of up to 800 litres per minute. In addition, we brought fire wood, iron rods, pliers, some stumps and other stuff needed for the furnace operation.
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We made one run each on Saturday and Sunday. Each time we charged a total of about 10kg ore added in amounts of about 1kg every 20 minute. For each charge, we added about twice the amount of charcoal. Discharging of the loupe was scheduled for two o’clock, and by that time a fairly large crowd had gathered to see the show. This time we managed to get the loupe out of the furnace without too much trouble. Worse was that the process took longer than expected, but the crowd seemed to be patient and people stayed around until the end.

Google Social Circle Results

I haven’t paid much attention to this before: Google showing results based on your social network. In genera,l I think Google is doing great stuff. Their approach to profiles, buzz, search wiki, and social stuff in general however, I find poor (extremely poorly when I see how well they do so much else). They are too borg-like in their insistence you do things exactly as proscribed by them. They opt you in far to often, in the way they want – completely and with few, if any, options. They don’t provide good tools to let you manage your profile and connections. The Google profile itself is extremely lame.

It is very silly that they don’t let you create personas you want to use and let you use them as you want. They force you to use the Google account you are logged in as to access Google services as the profile used in Google searches. I don’t want or need the 2 tied together. And I would much prefer a way to switch between my personas by search (or buzz [though I dropped it because it was so inflexible] or whatever). I know which persona I want for a specific search. This seems like a very obvious thing lots of people would want to do. Google’s whole monolithic, one-very-rigid-size-fits-all social solutions don’t allow this. It is a fundamental flaw. Without fixing the flexibility of social services from Google I see them having trouble succeeding in that area. On the other hand much else of what they do is fantastic.

The way their search wiki stuff works is very similar: inflexible. They seem focused on do it how we want which is not, I think, the way most people want. Their social solutions are very all or nothing. They want people to behave how Google wants. For that reason after short attempts to try Google’s social efforts I give up. I keep hoping they will become more flexible and user friendly but keep being disappointed.

This is the network of connections Google uses to identify relevant social search results. It is based on a combination of the following:

Direct connections from your Google chat buddies and contacts (5)
Direct connections from links listed on your Google profile (0) such as Twitter and FriendFeed
Secondary connections (252) that are publicly associated with your direct connections
In addition to web pages from your social circle, posts from your Google Reader subscriptions may also appear in your social search results.

Google Social Search is a feature designed to help you discover relevant publicly-accessible content from your social circle, a set of online friends and contacts. The idea is that content from your friends and social contacts is often more relevant to you than content from strangers. For example, a movie review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from your best friend can be even better.

See video on Google social search:
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Next steps for Google’s Experimental Fiber Network

Think big with a gig: Google’s experimental fiber

Universal, ultra high-speed Internet access will make all this and more possible. We’ve urged the FCC to look at new and creative ways to get there in its National Broadband Plan – and today we’re announcing an experiment of our own.
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We’re planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

Next steps for our experimental fiber network

So what’s next? Over the coming months, we’ll be reviewing the responses to determine where to build. As we narrow down our choices, we’ll be conducting site visits, meeting with local officials and consulting with third-party organizations. Based on a rigorous review of the data, we will announce our target community or communities by the end of the year.

Of course, we’re not going to be able to build in every interested community — our plan is to reach a total of at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people with this experiment. Wherever we decide to build, we hope to learn lessons that will help improve Internet access everywhere.

This is another great idea from Google. Not only to push forward the much poorer internet connectivity those in the USA have than other countries but it will hopefully lead to some real engineering breakthroughs. And it is a smart move to increase Google’s potential income – a better internet experience (for users) will likely help Google quite a bit.

IBM Fellow Grady Booch on the Value of Engineering?

In this webcast IBM Fellow Grady Booch discusses the critical role engineering plays in moving society forward. And he explores the history of science and engineering. This interesting webcast would be a good video to show children, or anyone, to bring out the desire to study engineering and encourage them to study so they can join the many engineers shaping our world and our future.

Robot Playing Table Tennis

This video shows the robot has a ways to go to become a decent ping pong opponent. But progress is being made. How soon before I can have fun competing with some robot basketball players?

TOPIO can play table tennis with human beings. It has a head, two hands and six legs. It can hit the ball, calculate scores and express feelings upon losing or winning a game. Four high-speed cameras help TOPIO identify the trajectory of the ball and accurately return shots. TOPIO knows how to hit an incoming ping pong ball when it has traveled only 20 cm from the opponents paddle.

The made-in-Vietnam robot TOPIO captured special attention at the International Robot Exhibition (IREX) held in Tokyo in late 2007.