We know it’s out there. It makes up a sizable chunk of the universe. We see evidence of it in stellar objects through modern scientific tests. And yet we can’t find it anywhere.
Quentin Dupieux’s cult hit Rubber had the good manners to open with a direct pronouncement of its philosophy: “No reason,” Stephen Spinella’s layers-deep meta impresario (Officer Chad) repeated again and again.
German teacher and YouTuber Sillysparrowness had a simple goal — to build a transportable TARDIS for daily usage. She succeeded in building a full-scale police box that can be assembled in under 10 minutes.
Robert Hooke discovered the cell, established experimentation as crucial to scientific research, and did pioneering work in optics, gravitation, paleontology, architecture, and more.
cwnl:
As dailymail puts it: Now THAT’S a tablet computer: Samsung unveils £7,500 40-inch Full HD touchscreen table that can ‘feel’ 50 touches at once
The multi-touch technology that Apple pioneered with its iPhone is now everywhere in the modern world - but Microsoft is about to pump up the technology to a new level.
The next generation of its ‘Surface’ table is a 40-inch touchscreen that can feel 50 ‘touches’ at once - and can also ‘feel’ pens, pointers or anything else placed on the table. Screens on gizmos such as iPhone can only feel fingers.
The Full HD screen has a high-powered Windows PC built in - and is just four inches thick. The screen works by shining light upwards through the screen, which bounces back to a layer of sensors behind the screen.
It can detect not only fingers but objects on the table - whereas other touchscreen technologies are limited in what they can detect. For instance, touching an iPhone screen with a pen will have no effect.
18 November 2011
Linda P.B. Katehi,
I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently…
Mimicking the brain, in silicon (via MIT News)
New computer chip models how neurons communicate with each other at synapses:
For decades, scientists have dreamed of building computer systems that could replicate the human brain’s talent for learning new tasks.
MIT researchers have now taken a major step toward that goal by designing a computer chip that mimics how the brain’s neurons adapt in response to new information. This phenomenon, known as plasticity, is believed to underlie many brain functions, including learning and memory.
With about 400 transistors, the silicon chip can simulate the activity of a single brain synapse — a connection between two neurons that allows information to flow from one to the other. The researchers anticipate this chip will help neuroscientists learn much more about how the brain works, and could also be used in neural prosthetic devices such as artificial retinas, says Chi-Sang Poon, a principal research scientist in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.
