links for 2008-12-02
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'The winning technologies will either make your work easier (and cheaper) or push you into new frontiers, letting you visualize and capture molecular processes that were heretofore invisible. Some are totally novel, while others improve on existing technology, an indication that the field is still growing and developing. '
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'Entire industries and research fields are devoted to ensuring that, every year, computers continue getting faster. But this trend could begin to slow down as the components used in electronic circuits are shrunk to the size of just a few atoms. Researchers at HP Labs in Palo Alto, CA, are betting that a new fundamental electronic component--the memristor--will keep computer power increasing at this rate for years to come. '
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Bloggers can now add text-to-speech capabilities to their site with new tools such as Odiogo, allowing readers to actually listen to blog posts on the website, and even on iTunes (as well as iPods and iPhones) as a podcast. While this is a cool feature for readers, it could be a very valuable tool for the visually impaired. These tools also provide benefits to readers with learning disabilities like Dyslexia.
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'The MAGNET Beyond project developed a breakthrough platform to cope with a world where every individual owns up to a thousand personal devices. But what will such a world look like?'
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From the ACM TechNews commentary on the news release: 'Hinton says the exponential growth of the Internet is not sustainable. The results of the study show that, even with more efficient electronics, the power consumption of the Internet will increase from 0.5 percent of today's electricity consumption in Australia to 1 percent by 2020. The growing use of VOD, Web-based real-time gaming, social networking, peer-to-peer networking, and other advanced Web applications will drive the increase in power consumption. "To support these new high-bandwidth services, the capacity of the Internet will need to be significantly increased," Hinton says. "If Internet capacity is increased, the energy consumption, and consequently the carbon footprint of the Internet, will also increase." He notes that some major ICT and Internet-based companies are already experiencing difficulties due to the size and power requirements of servers, routers, and data centers.'
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