46817083
submission
kgeiger writes:
The next billion customers gotta come from somewhere. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) today reports that Google will fund, deploy, and manage wireless networks in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. From TFA:The Silicon Valley company is deep in the throes of a multipronged effort to fund, build and help run wireless networks in emerging markets such as sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, said people familiar with the strategy. The wireless networks would be available to dwellers outside of major cities where wired Internet connections aren't available and could be used to improve Internet speeds in urban centers, these people said.
39499023
submission
kgeiger writes:
Voting machine designs and data formats are a free-for-all. The result is poor validation and hence opportunity for fraud. From TFA:
IEEE Standards Project 1622 is working on electronic data interchange for voting systems. The plan is to create a common format, based on the Election Markup Language (EML) already recommended for use in Europe. This is a subset of the popular XML (eXtensible Markup Language) that specifies particular fields and data structures for use in voting.
36624587
submission
kgeiger writes:
Intellectual Ventures has spun out Kymeta to develop and mass-produce their mTenna product line. mTennas are based on metamaterials like the invisibility cloaks discussed on Slashdot and elsewhere. Metamaterials enable beam-steering that ensures an mTenna remains in contact with satellites even during motion. Kymeta will use 'established lithographic techniques' to make them.
IMHO, these antennas may be as big a leap for mobile computing and remote communications as the invention of fractal antennas was for mobile phones.
35495407
submission
kgeiger writes:
The FCC is changing the call termination tariffs that subsidized rural wireline service and coincidentally free conference calls. Free conference call services had located their dial-in centers in rural areas to scoop up FCC tariffs from its Universal Service Fund. USF monies will go to broadband deployment instead. Be prepared to put more nickels in the box.
29399267
submission
kgeiger writes:
Feeling blue? DARPA is funding a program to investigate the feasibility of battlefield cyborg-surrogates:
"In its 2012 budget, DARPA has decided to pour US $7 million into the 'Avatar Project' whose goal is the following: 'develop interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bi-pedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier’s surrogate.'"
Power and bandwidth constraints aside, what could go wrong? Chinese hackers swooping in and commandeering one's army? Gives new meaning to the question "Where's Waldo?"
22714004
submission
kgeiger writes:
The Sprite project is testing the feasibility of chip-sized spacecraft. The project's goal is to deploy true "smart dust" comprising 5 to 50 mg, single-sensor spacecraft capable of forming deep-space sensor arrays.
21966060
submission
kgeiger writes:
John J. Chapman, a physicist and electronics engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center, envisions a laser-pumped fusion drive. Chapman estimates the drive can produce thrust 40 times more efficiently than existing ion engines such as those on the Dawn mission now exploring the asteroid belt.
19163502
submission
kgeiger writes:
The Japanese birth dearth may be crashing their population and rendering kids a rarity, but never fear! Robotics researchers at Osaka University are building robot babies to learn how people are supposed to interact with young children. For anyone who has raised real kids, cyberkiddies would seem a cheat unless they come with "why? Why? WHY?" and "No!" infinite loops and no OFF switch.
18868890
submission
kgeiger writes:
In the Feb. 2011 of _IEEE Spectrum_ online, Peter Kogge, an IEEE Fellow, is a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame, outlines why we won't see exaflops computers soon. To start with, burning 67 MW is gonna make a lot of heat. He concludes 'So don't expect to see a supercomputer capable of a quintillion operations per second appear anytime soon. But don't give up hope, either. [...] As long as the problem at hand can be split up into separate parts that can be solved independently, a colossal amount of computing power could be assembled "similar to how cloud computing works now. Such a strategy could allow a virtual exaflops supercomputer to emerge. It wouldn't be what DARPA asked for in 2007, but for some tasks, it could serve just fine.'
