A Smarter Planet

May

20

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It may seem strange that a site bringing together strangers from points around the globe can create a space for interactions that feel more real than those with people at school and at home, but that’s how it actually is.

Tumblr is so much more than a website at this point. It has grown into such a huge community, one that could be easily destroyed by the sort of reckless marketing that Yahoo must be about to unleash.

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14-year-old Leah Goodman in “My Fear That Tumblr As We Know It Is Ending” on HuffPost Tech (via huffposttech)

May

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May

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The endless aisle. The outdoor gear and apparel retailer Moosejaw Mountaineer has 11 retail stores in the U.S., with 80% of sales (70% of in-store) coming from online and mobile commerce . Store associates use iPod touch and mini-iPads to check competitive prices and extend a price match. If a store does not carry what a shopper is looking for, store associates order the item online if it is in the warehouse and ship it to the customer for free.

(via Mobile Commerce Daily - Payments)

(via ibmsocialbiz)

Human Clone Embryonic Stem Cell Lines - Business Insider

Researchers announced Wednesday, May 15, in the journal Cell that they’ve been able to make stable colonies of embryonic stem cells by injecting the DNA from ‘adult’ human cells into a human egg cell emptied out of its genetic material.

“Our finding offers new ways of generating stem cells for patients with dysfunctional or damaged tissues and organs,” study researcher Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health & Science University, said in a press release. “Such stem cells can regenerate and replace those damaged cells and tissues and alleviate diseases that affect millions of people.”

This technique they used to make these stem cells is called somatic cell nuclear transfer, and is the same technique used to clone animals, like Dolly the sheep.

To put it in very simplified terms: the researchers first harvest a human egg from a woman’s ovaries and completely remove her genetic material from the egg. Then, they take a human skin cell and insert it into the egg using an inactivated virus which fuses the two cells. The embryo that grows from this would be a genetic copy of the person that donated the cell.

The Art of Data Visualization | Off Book | PBS

Humans have a powerful capacity to process visual information, skills that date far back in our evolutionary lineage. And since the advent of science, we have employed intricate visual strategies to communicate data, often utilizing design principles that draw on these basic cognitive skills. In a modern world where we have far more data than we can process, the practice of data visualization has gained even more importance. From scientific visualization to pop infographics, designers are increasingly tasked with incorporating data into the media experience. Data has emerged as such a critical part of modern life that it has entered into the realm of art, where data-driven visual experiences challenge viewers to find personal meaning from a sea of information, a task that is increasingly present in every aspect of our information-infused lives.

Google and NASA Launch Quantum Computing AI Lab

Quantum computing took a giant leap forward on the world stage today as NASA and Google, in partnership with a consortium of universities, launched an initiative to investigate how the technology might lead to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.

The new Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab will employ what may be the most advanced commercially available quantum computer, the D-Wave Two, which a recent study confirmed was much faster than conventional machines at defeating specific problems. The machine will be installed at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility at the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley and is expected to be available for government, industrial, and university research later this year.

Google believes quantum computing might help it improve its web search and speech recognition technology. University researchers might use it to devise better models of disease and climate, among many other possibilities. As for NASA, “computers play a much bigger role within NASA missions than most people realize,” says quantum computing expert Colin Williams, director of business development and strategic partnerships at D-Wave.

May

15

See how data from sensors can revamp a city’s sewer system

May

14

Former Googler, Apple Engineer Tackle Educational Robots | AllThingsD

There are apps that teach kids the basics of programming.

And then there are robots that get the job done.

That’s the vision of a group of four tech entrepreneurs who late last year formed a company with the purpose of creating educational robots for kids.

The Bay Area-based company, called Play-i, is still in the early stages of building out its bots and determining their form and functionality.

Vikas Gupta, Play-i’s founder and CEO, says the robots will be targeted at children aged 5 to 8, and will most likely work in conjunction with tablets. Using a tablet or other mobile device running compatible software, the child will be able to program his or her robot to perform certain actions.

A revolutionary new traffic system without traffic lights

Dialing for Data: How Big Data is Transforming Telecom

Robert Fox, Global Telecom, Media and Entertainment Industry Leader IBM Global Business Services

Robert Fox, Global Telecom, Media and Entertainment Industry Leader
IBM Global Business Services

By Robert Fox

Cut throat competitiveness has been with the telecom industry since its inception nearly 140 years ago when Alexander Graham Bell beat Elisha Gray in a race to the U.S. Patent Office to lay claim to inventing the telephone.

Fast forward to today and we see a highly complex, competitive telecom environment where voice services have taken a back seat to a growing range of data-intensive services such as streaming music, radio and video, high definition video, online gaming and social media.

Transporting all of this data through their networks is resulting in shrinking margins and network congestion for the carriers. But don’t hang up on them yet! Mindful of protecting customers’ privacy and preserving their trust, many of the carriers are annonymizing their data, or offering opt-in programs, as they start to embrace and leverage advanced analytics for competitive advantage.

A new IBM study on how telcos are using Big Data highlights this trend: 85 percent of the respondents indicate that the use of information and analytics is creating a competitive advantage for them – a 124 percent increase in the last two years.

And what types of data? That is changing too.

According to the study more than half of the telecom respondents reported using internal data as the primary source of big data within their organizations. Traditionally this has meant data extracted from phone calls, transactions, call center interactions and call detail records, like who made the call, who received it and duration of the call. But the proliferation of smartphones opens up a whole new category of transaction records, called XDRs which capture other transactions such as the purchase and download of a song or a video clip, a recharge on a prepaid account, or a mobile payment. Carriers are already using this type of information to improve customer experience, align solutions to customers’ needs and help predict the potential for up-selling or cross selling products and services.

Read more on The Smarter Planet blog

Xively Actually Connects Things In The Internet Of Things – ReadWrite

The Internet of Things isn’t really an Internet of anything, at least not yet. Sure, devices are connected to the Internet, but they don’t communicate with other devices — just with their own home servers. But that may be about to change.

A new common cloud platform dubbed Xively Cloud Services aims to provide a common ground through which any device connected to the Internet could actually communicate with any other device. Xively is an old fixture within the Internet of Things ecosystem, as it’s actually a new commercial version of the older non-commercial Cosm platform, which in turn used to be known as Pachube until Xively’s current owner LogMeIn purchased Pachube in 2011.

Like Cosm before it, Xively will offer a way for disparate devices to connect with each other, though now with commercial terms of service for commercial users and freely available services for projects in development. Whatever you call it, the availability of a platform like Xively is a key component in building a true Internet of Things instead of what we actually have now.

May

10

How Will Adding Intelligence to Everyday Things Change Your World? Big Think

On a global level, we are adding connected intelligence to both machines and objects using chips, micro sensors, and both wired and wireless networks to create a rapidly growing “Internet of things” sharing real-time data, performing diagnostics, and even making remote repairs. Many jobs will be created as we add intelligent connected sensors to bridges, roads, buildings, homes, and much more. By 2020, there will be well over a billion machines talking to each other and performing tasks without human intervention.

Think of it this way: from phones to cars to bridges, embedded technologies are increasingly making the things we use smarter every day. For example, some of the newest cars use cameras mounted in the rear to see if something is in the way when you are backing up. If there is something in the way, the car will apply the brake even if you don’t or you are slow to react. Likewise, the concrete in new bridges has embedded chips that can let engineers know when the concrete is cracking, stressed, and in need of repair before the bridge collapses. In addition, sensors on the surface of the road going over the bridge will detect ice and wirelessly communicate the information to your car. If you don’t slow down, the car will slow down to a safe speed for you.

saveplanetearth:

400 PPM: Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere Reaches Prehistoric Levels @ Scientific American via tcktcktck

Memoto Is a Life-Logging Camera That Snaps a Five-Megapixel Picture Every 30 Seconds | MIT Technology Review

A startup believes people will want a photographic record of their lives, taken at 30-second intervals.

Memoto lapel camera

Remember that?: Memoto’s clip-on camera has 8 GB of memory.

“We want to provide people with a perfect photographic memory,” says Martin Källström, CEO of Memoto. His startup is creating a tiny clip-on camera that takes a picture every 30 seconds, capturing whatever you are looking at, and then applies algorithms to the resulting mountain of images to find the most interesting ones.

Just 36 by 36 by 9 millimeters, the inconspicuous plastic camera has a lot crammed inside. The most important component is a five-megapixel image sensor originally designed for mobile phones. An ARM 9 processor running Linux powers a program that wakes the device twice a minute; takes a picture and a reading from the GPS sensor, accelerometer, and magnetometer; and promptly puts the device back to sleep.

cities

Santander: Test bed for smart cities and open data policies | SmartPlanet

To support SmartSantander ambitions, the city is deploying more than 10,000 sensors to monitor everything from garbage collection to crime to air quality. Libelium, a Spanish startup, has contributed around 1,000 sensor nodes, which monitor available street parking (see sensor embedded in street, in image above), collect air quality data and manage street lighting for better energy efficiency.

(via smartercities)