Archive for April, 2009
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Glacier Computer, a leading designer, developer and supplier of rugged industrial computers announced their new Ridgeline W200 wrist-mounted computer.
The W200 is made of a reinforced magnesium and weighs in at only 10.2 ounces. It has a 3.5” color display with touch screen, backlit keyboard and a hot swappable battery pack. Wireless functions of the W200 ensure continuous connectivity regardless of the user’s location with plug and play Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS modules. Using the Windows CE or Linux operating systems, the unit can be quickly configured to access any remote host system through integrated wired or wireless interfaces.
GM and Segway announced that they are working together to develop a two-wheeled, two-seat electric vehicle designed to be a fast, safe, inexpensive and clean alternative to traditional cars and trucks for cities across the world.
The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or PUMA, project also would involve a vast communications network that would allow vehicles to interact with each other, regulate the flow of traffic and prevent crashes from happening. PUMA’s max speed is 35 mph and it can go 35 miles on a full charge.
Stop, You’re Killing Me! is a resource for lovers of mystery, crime, thriller, spy, and suspense novels. It lists over 2,700 authors, with chronological lists of their books (over 31,000 titles), both series (3,100+) and non-series. You can search by author or by fictional character.
Originally posted on Euphoria Magazine.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,I ran across these tweaks on Dagorret that show how to tweak Firefox and double your browser speed. I’ve not validated the claims but after employing all but those listed as optional, I can definately see a difference.
By tweaking the way Firefox handles some caching functions, you can dramatically improve page load speed and even prevent Firefox from hogging your system resources while minimized. If you don’t currently have any experience playing with your configuration file, don’t be scared. Just follow the simple instructions, take your time and if you want a security blanket to squeeze, jot down each setting before you change it so you can always restore the default configuration if need be.
Reduce the amount of RAM Firefox uses for its cache feature
1. Type “about:config” (no quotes) in the adress bar in the browser.
2. Find “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewer”
3. Set it’s value to “0“;(Zero)
Increase the Speed at Which Firefox loads pages
1. Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit Enter.
(Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.)
2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 10.
This means it will make 10 requests at once.
3. Lastly, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0“;.(Zero)
This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages faster now.
Optionally (for even faster web browsing) here are some more options for your about:config (you might have to create some of these entries by Right Click –> New– > Interger or String
network.dns.disableIPv6: set “false”
“content.notify.backoffcount”: set “5“; (Five)
“plugin.expose_full_path”: set “true”.
“ui.submenuDelay”: set “0; (zero)
Reduce RAM usage to 10MB when Firefox is minimized:
This little hack will drop Firefox’s RAM usage down to 10 Mb when minimized:
1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter “config.trim_on_minimize”. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.
Today seems to be the Day of Robots; here’s another article about the use of robots in war.
In this powerful talk at a TED conference, P.W. Singer shows how the widespread use of robots in war is changing the realities of combat. He shows us scenarios straight out of science fiction — that now may not be so fictitious.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,Despite becoming increasingly lifelike in appearance, robots still have terrible body language.
But Bilge Mutlu and colleague’s team at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, is changing that with robots that “leak” non-verbal information through eye movements when interacting with humans. The eyes of a robot may not provide a window into its soul, but they can help humans guess the machine’s intentions.
Humans constantly give off non-verbal cues and interpret the signals of others – but without realising it at a conscious level, says Mutlu. The trembling hands of a public speaker betray their nerves even before a word is uttered, while poker players leak subtle signs such as eye flickers or twitches that can be used to spot bluffers.
But when faced with a robot all our interpretive skills are irrelevant. Robots leak no information, so it is virtually impossible to read their intentions, which makes them hard to get along with.
Mutlu’s team tested strategies to improve robot body language using a guessing game played by a human and a humanoid robot. The robot is programmed to choose one object from around a dozen resting on a table, without making a move to actually pick it up.
Original article on NewScientist.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,A robot scientist that can generate its own hypotheses and run experiments to test them has made its first real scientific discoveries.
Dubbed Adam, the robot is the handiwork of researchers at Aberystwyth University and the University of Cambridge in the UK. All by itself it discovered new functions for a number of genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, aka brewer’s yeast.
Adam, which actually consists of a small roomful of lab equipment, has four personal computers that act as a brain, and possesses robot arms, cameras, liquid handlers, incubators and other equipment. The team gave the robot a freezer containing a library of thousands of mutant strains of yeast with individual genes deleted. It was also equipped with a database containing information about yeast genes, enzymes, and metabolism, and a supply of hundreds of metabolites.
To discover which genes coded for which enzymes, Adam cultured a mutant yeast with a certain gene knocked out, and monitored how well the mutant grew without a particular metabolite. If the strain grew poorly without the metabolite, Adam learned something about the function of the knocked out gene. The robot could carry out more than 1000 of these experiments a day.
In all, Adam formulated and tested 20 hypotheses about genes coding for 13 enzymes. Twelve hypotheses were confirmed. For instance, Adam correctly hypothesised that three genes it identified encode an enzyme important in producing the amino acid lysine. The researchers confirmed Adam’s work with their own experiments.
The team is now working on a new robot, called Eve, which will search for new drugs.
Read the entire article on NewScientist.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,