Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Is your future in IT a job in the boonies?
Is your future in IT a job in the boonies?
"Struggling to find a job in IT in and around your home city or suburb? Consider a move to Jonesboro, Ark., Sebeka, Minn., or Macon, Mo. These locales might not jump out as being hotbeds of technology development or home to a large number of businesses or government agencies. But they are places where a growing number of technology workers are settling in order to find jobs in their field.
The source of these jobs is rural outsourcing companies, 'onshore' IT service providers that market their offerings to clients as an alternative to offshoring or keeping IT functions in-house. Because some or all of their facilities are located in lower-cost areas in the United States, these companies can keep fees relatively low for their clients."
The source of these jobs is rural outsourcing companies, 'onshore' IT service providers that market their offerings to clients as an alternative to offshoring or keeping IT functions in-house. Because some or all of their facilities are located in lower-cost areas in the United States, these companies can keep fees relatively low for their clients."
It’s Official: More Private Sector Jobs Created In 2010 Than During Entire Bush Years | NEWS JUNKIE POST
It’s Official: More Private Sector Jobs Created In 2010 Than During Entire Bush Years
The September jobs report was just released and demonstrates that America is on a far slower path to recovery than anyone originally predicted. Despite this, the shedding of government jobs cloaks a glimmer of hope: more private sector jobs have been created this year than during the entire Bush administration. Read that again: 2010 has had more private job creation than during the entire 8 year tenure of George W. Bush.
More from NEWS JUNKIE POST
Baby Born From Embryo Frozen For 20 Years
Baby Born From Embryo Frozen For 20 Years
NewsCore - A healthy baby boy was born from an embryo frozen for almost 20 years in what was hailed Sunday as scientific breakthrough that could allow women to start families much later in life.
The infant's mother, who is 42, underwent infertility treatment for 10 years before she was given the embryo last year. She gave birth to a baby boy in May this year.
News of the birth, reported in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility, comes as British lawmakers extend the period that embryos can be stored for up to 55 years.
The baby boy was born from a batch of five embryos frozen in 1990 in the U.S. by a couple who no longer needed them after they conceived their own child through IVF treatment.
That means the two children are siblings although born 20 years apart.
More @ MyFoxNY
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Google: our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles
Official Google Blog: What we’re driving at
Larry and Sergey founded Google because they wanted to help solve really big problems using technology. And one of the big problems we’re working on today is car safety and efficiency. Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use.
So we have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think this is a first in robotics research.
Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which we collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain.
To develop this technology, we gathered some of the very best engineers from the DARPA Challenges, a series of autonomous vehicle races organized by the U.S. Government. Chris Urmson was the technical team leader of the CMU team that won the 2007 Urban Challenge. Mike Montemerlo was the software lead for the Stanford team that won the 2005 Grand Challenge. Also on the team is Anthony Levandowski, who built the world’s first autonomous motorcycle that participated in a DARPA Grand Challenge, and who also built a modified Prius that delivered pizza without a person inside. The work of these and other engineers on the team is on display in the National Museum of American History.
So we have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think this is a first in robotics research.
Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which we collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain.
To develop this technology, we gathered some of the very best engineers from the DARPA Challenges, a series of autonomous vehicle races organized by the U.S. Government. Chris Urmson was the technical team leader of the CMU team that won the 2007 Urban Challenge. Mike Montemerlo was the software lead for the Stanford team that won the 2005 Grand Challenge. Also on the team is Anthony Levandowski, who built the world’s first autonomous motorcycle that participated in a DARPA Grand Challenge, and who also built a modified Prius that delivered pizza without a person inside. The work of these and other engineers on the team is on display in the National Museum of American History.
More @ Official Google Blog
Friday, October 08, 2010
Exoskeleton helps the paralysed walk again
Exoskeleton helps the paralysed walk again
Boxtel is wearing a new exoskeleton called eLEGS, which could soon help people with spinal injuries to walk with a natural gait. "Walking with eLEGs took some rewiring and relearning," says Boxtel, "but my body has the muscle memory. And I learned to walk really fast."
eLEGS is being readied for clinical trials by Berkeley Bionics, based in Berkeley, California. Unlike other exoskeletons, such as Raytheon's XOS-2, and Berkeley Bionics's HULC, eLEGS is not intended to augment soldierswith super-human strength, but is specifically designed as a rehabilitation device to help restore walking function to people with spinal cord injuries, as well as improving blood circulation and digestion.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Graphene Will Change the Way We Live
Graphene Will Change the Way We Live
The theory behind the substance graphene was first explored by theoretical physicist Philip Wallace in 1947 as kind of a starting point when he was doing research trying to understand the electronic properties of more complex, 3D graphite. although the name graphene wasn't actually coined until 40 years later, where it was used to describe single sheets of graphite. In other words, it's the name given to a flat monolayer of carbon atoms that are tightly packed into a 2D honeycomb lattice; like a molecular chicken-wire that is one atom thick. It's essentially the basic building block for graphitic materials of all other dimensionalities; it's a stepping stone to building bigger things. Graphene in itself however wasn't discovered until 2004 in its full observable and testable form.
Since then, in the past 6 years, scientists have discovered that the substance retains some amazing properties. Some say that it will be heralded as one of the materials that will literally change our lives in the 21st century. Not only is graphene the thinnest possible material that is feasible, but it's also about 200 times stronger than steel and conducts electricity better than any material known to man—at room temperature. Researchers at Columbia University's Fu Foundation School of Engineering who proved that graphene is the strongest material ever measured said that "It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran Wrap."
Potential applications for the material include the replacing of carbon fibers in composite materials to eventually aid in the production of lighter aircraft and satellites; replacing silicon in transistors; embedding the material in plastics to enable them to conduct electricity; graphene-based sensors could sniff out dangerous molecules; increasing the efficiency of electric batteries by use of graphene powder; optoelectronics; stiffer-stronger-lighter plastics; leak-tight, plastic containers that keep food fresh for weeks; transparent conductive coatings for solar cells and displays; stronger wind turbines; stronger medical implants; better sports equipment; supercapacitors; improved conductivity of materials; high-power high frequency electronic devices; artificial membranes for separating two liquid reservoirs; advancements in touchscreens; LCD's; OLED's; graphene nanoribbons could be a way to construct ballistic transistors; and nanogaps in graphene sheets may potentially provide a new technique for rapid DNA sequencing.
More @ Big Think
Johnny Depp's surprise visit to London primary school as Captain Jack Sparrow
Johnny Depp's surprise visit to London primary school as Captain Jack Sparrow | Mail Online
It's not every day a Hollywood heart-throb pitches up in your classroom.
But these Greenwich schoolgoers left the rest of Britain's children - if not parents - green with envy when they had a surprise visit from Johnny Depp yesterday.
The star is currently in south-east London filming the fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean movie On Stranger Tides and arrived at the Meridian Primary School dressed in full character as Captain Jack Sparrow.
He made the one-off trip after nine-year-old pupil Beatrice Delap wrote to the star asking for help staging a 'mutiny' against the teachers, as he was filming at the nearby 18th century Old Naval College.
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