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Submission + - Google Project Ara Design To Employ Electro-Permanant Magnets To Lock In Modules (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Google's Project Ara, an effort to develop a modular smartphone platform, sounded at first as much like vaporware as anything but Google is actually making it happen. In a whimsical upbeat video, Dave Hakkens (the guy who created the Phonebloks design that appears to be the conceptual basis for Project Ara) visited the Google campus to see what progress is being made on the project. The teams working on Project Ara have figured out a key solution to one of the first problems they encountered, which was how to keep all the modules stuck together. They decided to use electro-permanent magnets. In terms of design, they've decided not to cover up the modules, instead making their very modularity part of the aesthetic appeal. 3D Systems is involved on campus, as they're delivering the 3D printing technology to make covers for the modules.

Submission + - Fukushima photo essay: A drone's eye view (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Stunning photos and incredible interactive aerial maps of the devastation, cleanup and reconstruction effort in the region around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. By Adam Klaptocz of Drone Adventures in collaboration with Taichi Furuhashi, researcher at the Center for Spatial Information Science at the University of Tokyo.

Submission + - Google launches $2 billion Shanzhai Makerspace project

Submitted by gintec
gintec writes: Still going to Shenzhen, China to manufacture your intelligent hardware? Google Shanzhai Makerspace (GSM) project is making Shenzhen possible in Califonia, with a crazy investment of $2 billion.

  “Google have reconstructed the industrial swarm ecosystem famous for rapid innovation in Shenzhen, China”, said Larry Page, The CEO of Google. This big data analysis includes key manufacturing and distribution resources on electronics, mechanics, optics, material science, even chemistry.

Product types distribution of 375,284 Shenzhen enterprises are analyzed as a scale-free network. Central nodes include components distribution (blue), mold injection (orange), prototyping (cyan), OEM & ODM (green), and design house (yellow). Finally, cost of rebuilding the Shenzhen industry ecosystem is estimated as $1819 million. 28 central distributors and factories average value $32 million. 342 long tailed innovative works average value $ 2.7 million.

Google invested $ 2 billion to build the analysis result of Shenzhen into the Google Shanzhai Makerspace in Mountain view, California. Five Walmart sized manufacturing and shopping centers, as well as one public zone building are included. The name is in remember of Shanzhai, the famous underground mobile phone industry swarm ecosystem in Shenzhen.

Beta test of Shanzhai is opening on 2014.10.1.

Submission + - Subversion project migrates to Git (apache.org)

Submitted by gitficionado
gitficionado writes: The Apache Subversion project has begun migrating its source code from the ASF Subversion repo to git. Last week, the Subversion PMC (project management committee) voted to to migrate, and the migration has already begun.

Although there was strong opposition to the move from the older and more conservative SVN devs, and reportedly a lot of grumbling and ranting when the vote was tallied, a member of the PMC (who asked to remain anonymous) told the author that "this [migration] will finally let us get rid of the current broken design to a decentralized source control model [and we'll get] merge and rename done right after all this time."

Submission + - End To The Traditional Tech Analysis Model? (forbes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After departures of Gartner analyst to work at cloud & virtualization companies (Chris Wolf — VMware, Chris Gaun — Apprenda, Alessandro Perilli — Red Hat, Aneel Lakhani — CloudPhysics...), Ben Kepes notes:

"As the pace of change in the (tech) industry increases, traditional analyst models (deep research, long-form reports, delayed reaction and hyper-expensive subscription models) seem destined to fail – to be replaced by something more akin to the nimble services"

Submission + - It's Time to Build a Real Jurassic Park (theweek.com)

Submitted by jonyen
jonyen writes: Scientists now say they've got enough blood and bone to bring an Ice Age icon kicking and stomping into the modern age. All thanks to a remarkably well-preserved mammoth found in Siberia last summer. "The data we are about to receive will give us a high chance to clone the mammoth," Radik Khayrullin, of the Russian Association of Medical Anthropologists, told The Siberian Times. ...

But even where the necessary genetic material is available, there are still technical issues. Cloning a mammoth would be a more complex procedure than cloning Dolly the sheep. Scientists still need to fully map the genome of the woolly mammoth, a process that is currently around 70 percent complete, before they can determine whether de-extinction is feasible. The chances are good, however, as the revival of the once extinct gastric-brooding frog demonstrates.

But even if it's feasible to bring back extinct species like the mammoth — or even dinosaurs — in the future, would it be a good idea?

Submission + - Ethereum - a distributed platform born from cryptocurrencies.

Submitted by lindseyp
lindseyp writes: Ethereum is a platform and a programming language that makes it possible for any developer to build and publish next-generation distributed applications.

Ethereum can be used to codify, decentralize, secure and trade just about anything: voting, domain names, financial exchanges, crowdfunding, company governance, contracts and agreements of most kind, intellectual property, and even smart property thanks to hardware integration.

Ethereum borrows the concept of decentralized consensus that makes bitcoin so resilient, yet makes it trivial to build on its foundation. To find out more about how Ethereum works, consult the whitepaper.

Submission + - West Nile virus may have met its match: tobacco (theverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Some people think of tobacco as a drug, whereas others think of it as a therapy — or both. But for the most part, it's hard to find people who think of the tobacco plant in terms of its medical applications. Qiang Chen, an infectious disease researcher at Arizona State University, is one such person. His team of scientists conducted an experiment, published today in PLOS ONE, that demonstrates how a drug produced in tobacco plants can be used to prevent death in mice infected with a lethal dose of West Nile virus. The study represents an important first step in the development of a treatment for the mosquito-borne disease that has killed 400 people in the US within the last two years."

Submission + - Can anyone design a job application platform that doesn't suck?

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Why does it take a half hour and triplicate-input-redundancy to apply for a job online? Why can’t these online application platforms just pull in LinkedIn data and be done with it? Isn’t it easier for these job application systems to just read our resumes and cover letters? Lisa Vaas has techie and business answers to these questions, hypotheses, and more.

...But half an hour later, I’m still fiddling with the thing, tweaking and correcting improperly filled-in fields as my life slowly drains away. I’m not even given a chance to see how the ATS translated my resume to populate its fields. Vaya con dios and fare thee well, job application.

Just from a user experience viewpoint, it’s irritating. . . .Why can’t these online application platforms pull in LinkedIn data and be done with it? Is all this really necessary to apply for a job? Or is it a Darwinian endurance test to winnow out the impatient and those lacking the ability to put up with horrific user interfaces?

A few questions come to mind: Why can’t somebody just create an ATS that doesn’t suck? Also, Wouldn’t it be easier for them to just read my cover letter and resume?

Submission + - The Highest-Flying Wind Turbine (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: In far-flung rural Alaska, where electricity can cost as much as $1 per kilowatt hour—more than 10 times the national average, according to the New York Times —a wind turbine encased in a giant helium balloon is about to break a world record. The Bouyant Air Turbine (BAT) is about to be floated 1,000 feet into the air in the name of cleaner, cheaper, and mobile energy. That single airborne grouper—it's sort of a hybrid of a blimp, a kite, and a turbine—will power over a dozen homes.

The BAT is the brainchild of Altaeros, a company founded by MIT alumni, and, if everything goes according to plan, it's going to be the highest-flying power generator in history. Floating turbines higher up in the air, where wind speeds are greater isn't a new concept.

Submission + - Petition to have the FCC take control of the network from Verizon and AT&T (moveon.org)

Submitted by c008644
c008644 writes: There is apetition over at moveon.org demanding that the FCC take control of the backbone of the internet from the ISPs. The petition states that the internet in today’s day and age is more of a utility as people use it in their daily lives, yet with companies like AT&T and Verizon fighting to maintain status quo instead of improving their networks, America has fallen in terms of network speed and risen in prices. (Paraphrased)

This appears to have been just submitted as it does not have any signatures yet, but it is an interesting read.

Submission + - Peter Molyneux: Working for Microsoft Is Like Taking Antidepressants

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes: Peter Molyneux is one of the most famous personalities in the history of gaming, especially recognized for having created God games Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Black & White but also the Fable series. After creating the Fable series, Molyneux announced in March 2012 that he will be leaving Lionhead and Microsoft to start another company – 22Cans. During a recent interview, the former Microsoft employee has shared some interesting details regarding the time when he was working over at Redmond. He says Microsoft is a “big supertanker of safety” and that working there is “like taking antidepressants“. Here’s the excerpt from his interview:

I left Microsoft because I think when you have the ability to be a creative person, you have to take that seriously, and you have to push yourself. And pushing yourself is a lot easier to do if you’re in a life raft that has a big hole in the side, and that’s what I think indie development is. You’re paddling desperately to get where you want to go to, but you’re also bailing out. Whereas if you’re in a big supertanker of safety, which Microsoft was, then that safety is like an anesthetic. It’s like taking antidepressants. The world just feels too comfortable.

Submission + - Brainswarming: because brainstorming sucks (hbr.org)

Submitted by JimmyQS
JimmyQS writes: The Harvard Business Review has an article/animation about a replacement to the outdated method of brainstorming: Brainswarming. Modeled after swarm intelligence, Brainswarming has people silently place ideas on problem solving graphs tailored to different types of problems. The result is many more ideas than brainstorming, brainwriting, or concept mapping. The process works because it mutes extroverts who usually dominate the conversation, while allowing for multiple simultaneous interactions and viewpoints.

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