Category: Culture

Culture Education

How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses

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As reported on Wired. BY JOSHUA DAVIS These students in Matamoros, Mexico, didn’t have reliable Internet access, steady electricity, or much hope—until a radical new teaching method unlocked their potential.  Peter Yang José Urbina López Primary School sits next to a dump just across the US border in Mexico. The school serves residents of Matamoros, a dusty, sunbaked city of 489,000 that is a flash point in the war on drugs. There are regular shoot-outs, and it’s not…

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Automotive Culture Environmental

Two-way street: electric cars of the future could give power back to the grid

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As reported on The Verge. By Sean Hollister The batteries inside EVs might pay dividends On September 23rd, the city of Palo Alto, California decided to embrace the electric car. Inspired by one resident who fought to install a public charging station, the city councilvoted to mandate that every new single-family home be wired to support EV chargers. That might be good news for Palo Alto’s wealthy, environmentally conscious populace — not to mention Tesla Motors,…

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Business Cloud Culture

The Cloud Washers Will Lose

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Alex William There are two camps in the cloud world. There are the cloud washers, which are the ones who put a cloud sticker on everything. They say, “Oh, yes, it’s a private cloud for big data.” Then they throw in a few dozen other buzz words for the new look on their legacy technology. The other camp, the cloud services providers, enable customers to innovate in less time than it…

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Art Culture

New Yorkers miss chance to own an original Banksy for just $60

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As reported on The Verge. By Aaron Souppouris The latest part of Banksy’s multi-day New York City art show saw the street artist covertly put his art on sale at just $60 a piece. Although it’s difficult to put a value on the stenciled works, collectors’ appetite for original Banksy art is generally insatiable, and even the safest estimate would be tens of thousands of dollars per piece. There were dozens of stencils on sale at…

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Business Culture Hardware Dev

OmniVision template could lead to more Glass-like wearable displays

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As reported on Engadget. By Jon Fingas Not every tech company can afford to build a head-mounted display from scratch; thanks to OmniVision’s new OmniGlass reference design, they won’t have to. The template combines a 0.26-inch, 720p liquid crystal on silicon display with a 4-megapixel camera and an imaging chip, giving firms most of what they’d need to craft a Google Glass-like wearable computer beyond the computer itself. Don’t anticipate a flood of me-too products just yet, though. OmniGlass developer kits…

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Business Culture Tablet

The CEOs Are Wrong: Smart Machines Will Replace Millions Of Jobs

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As reported on TechCrunch. by ALEX WILLIAMS Smart machines are coming to the business world, but don’t tell that to the CEOs. Sixty-percent of CEOs surveyed by Gartner Research say the emergence of smart machines capable of absorbing millions of middle-class jobs within 15 years is a “futurist fantasy.” The survey results reflect the anxiety about automation of the work world and the advent of smart machines that Gartner says will have a widespread and deep business impact by…

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Business Culture Microsoft

HP Admits What We Already Knew: Microsoft Is At War With Its OEM Partners

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As reported on TechCrunch. by ALEX WILHELM HP stated the obvious today, clearing the air a bit in the world of personal computing, not to mention other areas of the technology industry. Microsoft, it said, is now a competitor to its business. Of course, we knew this. HP sells software, services, and devices. So does Microsoft. Here’s the key quote from HP CEO Meg Whitman: “Current [HP] partners like Intel and Microsoft are turning from partners to outright…

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Business Culture Design Hardware Dev

HoneyBee3D printing store opens in Oakland with rapid prototyping service

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As reported on Engadget. By Timothy J. Seppala We’re still a ways off from having a 3D print shop on every corner, but one Oakland neighborhood is getting a taste of that future. The city’s Montclair district got a little craftier this weekend when HoneyBee3D opened its doors to offer rapid prototyping, printer tools and Type A Machines 3D printers for sale. Given how costly the tech can be, this is a boon for folks who’d love to dip into…

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Culture Environmental

A CITY IN FLAMES: INSIDE DETROIT’S WAR ON ARSON

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As reported on The Verge. By Jesse Hicks Understaffed and with few resources, Detroit-area firefighters battle a plague of abandoned, burning buildings For eight long years, the firefighters of Highland Park, Michigan, worked out of a warehouse. There was no red-bricked facade, no lanky Dalmatian. No freshly washed engines gleaming in the sun. No second-floor fire pole to descend in the dead of night to wailing sirens. Whatever idealized vision you have of firefighting, Highland Park…

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Application Culture Imagery

Excel’s Power Maps take bar graphs to some new and mildly interesting places

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As reported on Engadget. By Mariella Moon There are only so many ways one can juice up boring Excel data, but Microsoft’s new Power Map Preview for Office 365 looks like it’s up to the challenge. The 3D map visualizer has just graduated from “project” status with a handful of features sure to please number crunchers and map lovers alike. Power Map can automatically recognize geographical data in your spreadsheets — from latitude and longitude coordinates to city or country…

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