Whoa. TechCrunch reports that Google has invested between $100 and $200 million in Zynga, the social gaming behemoth behind Farmville, Mafia Wars, and others, in preparation for the launch of Google Games later this year. More »
Google - Zynga - Searching - Search Engines - Mafia Wars
This is an up close picture of Lutetia, an asteroid that hangs out somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. It's the largest asteroid ever visited by a satellite. More »
Rosetta - European Space Agency - Solar System - Asteroid - Lutetia
If you were impressed by the DIY Battlefield Pinhole Camera, designer Steve Monteau is back with another DIY camera—La Guillotine Camera. It captures sequential snapshots on 120mm film for old-school action captures. More »
Photography - Arts - Pinhole - Camera - Techniques and Styles
Considering how thrilled I was just to find this story, I can only imagine the delirious, all-consuming excitement felt by Dave Crisp, a British hospital chef, when his metal detector uncovered this pot of 52,000 Roman coins. More »
Roman currency - Coins - Shopping - Antiques and Collectibles - Recreation
Stanford University's new Engineering Library is scheduled to open this August, and when it does it will have 85% less books than the one it's replacing. It's a big step toward what the school's librarians envision as a bookless future. More »
Stanford University - United States - Libraries - California - Education
Last summer, a Boston University graduate student was ordered to pay $670,000 in damages for illegally downloading 30 songs. Yesterday, US District Court Judge Nancy Gertner said that was ludicrous and reduced it to $67,000. Thank God. More »
Filesharing - Copyright - Boston University - United States - Intellectual Property
Renshui has designed a futuristic faucet that uses an integrated chipset to control water temperature and a touch-based interface to control water flow. As cool as that tech sounds, I'm not sure it's any better than the classic two-knob setup. More »
Business - Water - Energy - Construction and Maintenance - Materials and Supplies
With so many awesome Android phones available, why would you buy a crappy one? That's the question the Verizon Motorola WX445 faces—Engadget's source describes it as a "cheaper looking" Palm Pre that's just "not a very impressive phone." More »
Motorola - Android - Handhelds - Smartphone - T-Mobile
Today is inventor extraordinaire Nikola Tesla's 154th birthday. To celebrate, someone made this gushing video overview of Tesla's life, including a lengthy digression on how Thomas Edison was a "jerk." Is this, I wonder, our very first Tesla fanboy? [Reddit] More »
Nikola Tesla - Thomas Edison - Tesla Motors - Technology - Physics
For a relatively low number of American dollars, you can own your own Atari TT 030 computer, used by testers to work on the Jaguar title Aliens vs. Predator and—according to the weird file show here—shenanigans. [eBay] More »
Atari - Video game - Game - Console Platforms - VCS Family
In an interview with CNN, Martin Cooper, the man who invented the cell phone for Motorola in 1973, says he knew one day the devices would be ubiquitous. But today's smartphones are more complicated than he ever imagined possible. More »
Motorola - Science and Technology - Cell Phones - Cell Phones and Driving - Communications
When it comes to bulletproof material, I think of strong, dense objects like concrete and really thick glass. I've never thought of liquids. But British scientists have, and they say liquid armor is better than ordinary Kevlar. More »
bulletproof - Business - Kevlar - BaeSystems - Dilatant
This is a map of The University of Warwick's 700 acre campus. If some of the lines are a little bit squiggly, that's because all 238 miles of them were walked on foot, traced by a GPS satellite. More »
Global Positioning System - Geomatics - Earth Sciences - University of Warwick - GPS
The World Cup has inspired Americans everywhere, heck, I was even thinking about joining a soccer club. But I'm lazy and probably never will, so I'll just stick to juggling a virtual soccer ball on my iPhone. Augmented reality is awesome. More »
World Cup - Sport - Soccer - Competitions - United States
Traditionally, only the mammoth Hollywood studios could afford to work with 3D—it's too expensive to build the necessary, air-conditioned 24 hours a day, server farms. The company behind Despicable Me decided to try something new, and cut the AC. More »
3-D film - Energy - Technology - Film - Business
Life-threatening infectious diseases caused by antibiotic-resistant pathogens have been of great concern in both community and hospital settings. This increasing emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogens has necessitated the development of new antimicrobial surfaces and coatings. As antimicrobial surfaces have become popular in such areas as consumer products, public spaces such as schools and offices, and public transportation, the market for these coatings has quickly grown into a market worth hundreds of million of dollars. New work, by a team from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has now combined the antimicrobial property of a cell lytic enzyme (lysostaphin) and the excellent properties of carbon nanotubes as an immobilization support in preparing nanocomposite paints that are highly effective against antibiotic-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus - methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Medieval Multitasking: Did We Ever Focus? Religion Dispatches It seems kind of like a spiritual practice. A little prayer. It's very sweet. So, I just kind of like to check that I'm good with Hans at some point in the ... |
The Singularity Summit is going to happen in about a month in San Francisco (August 14th-15th). Registration here. Yes, Ray Kurzweil will be there, but also Irene Pepperberg, James Randi and John Tooby. If you want to meet the ladies, probably not your scene (perhaps more accurately the lady, or two). But if you want to high five Robin Hanson at an after hours meet-up, get ready to party!
Here are my reflections from last year.
Talk on freedom, ahimsa perk up Nithyananda devotees Daily News & Analysis Nithyananda joked that when in prison enlightenment was not a luxury, but a necessity. The truth which saw him through the whole experience was the truth of ... Nityananda delivers first talk since controversyTimes of India |
