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Big Data + Smart Thermostats Shaves Peak Load
A smart thermostat driven by cloud data analytics from startup EcoFactor will shave peak demand and improve efficiency year round.A deal between startup EcoFactor and a Nevada utility shows the potential of coupling data analytics with smart thermostats to make the grid more efficient and reliable.
One Simple Trick Could Disable a City’s 4G Phone Network
High-speed LTE networks could be felled by a $650 piece of gear, says a new study.High-speed wireless data networks are vulnerable to a simple jamming technique that could block service across much of a city, according to research findings provided to a federal agency last week.
China’s Innovation Success Depends on Political Changes
If China’s new leadership wants an innovation-based economy, it will have to begin to make the changes needed for robust science and technology development.Since 1978, the Chinese economy has seen phenomenal growth. While that’s not in dispute, the reason why China has managed to grow so fast and whether it can maintain that growth is far less clear. The consensus view among China scholars is...
Xerox Designs System to Reduce Busywork for Nurses
The system automatically pulls up patient files and lets nurses use mobile devices to document work.Nurses spend lots of time doing what seems like busywork—logging into computers, pulling up patient files, entering details of what they did, and coordinating their duties with others. Researchers at Xerox are developing what they call the Digital Nurse Assistant to automate and simplify some of...
The U.S. Government's Growing Appetite for Google Users' Data
Government and law enforcement demands that Google share user data are growing 25 percent every six monthsU.S. government and law enforcement agencies are increasingly asking Google to hand over data on its customers to help with investigations.
Nokia Unveils a Map Service that Lives in the Cloud
With a new mapping service, called Here, Nokia hopes to get smartphone users hooked on its mapping technology.Nokia introduced a new cloud-optimized version of its mapping technology on Tuesday. The company hopes the Web service and associated apps, rebranded as Here, will be a hit across different devices and software platforms—including on the iPhone and Android...
TUESDAY 13. NOVEMBER 2012
IT Roadmap Builder: A Smarter Way to Make IT Investments
It’s planning season again, and by this time of year, most organizations have taken at least a first pass at their 2013 budgets. For the average IT organization, the outlook is decidedly bleaker than it was in 2012. CEB’s 2013 IT benchmarking survey shows budgets increasing 1.8% on average, about one-half of this year’s...
More Empathy for Windows Users
Windows 8 launches to mixed reviews and the guy who oversaw it steps down.Now that Steven Sinofsky, the leader of Microsoft's Windows division, is stepping down, how will the development of the operating system change at this crucial time for the company and its role in the marketplace? Microsoft investors seem to have been spooked by the implications. But this piece from AllThingsD points out...
Whither the Graphing Calculator?
Can the TI-84 stand up in the era of iOS and Android?With the rapid rise and ubiquity of handheld computing devices, I sometimes have to remind myself that I’ve always had handheld computing devices of one sort or another, for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of a handheld Nintendo game called Mario’s Cement Factory, released the year of my birth. Growing up, I used...
Five Things the Petraeus Affair Teaches Us About Online Surveillance
The FBI methods used to reveal the CIA director's affair are relevant to all Web usersWhen the FBI started investigating harassing emails sent to a resident of Tampa Bay that organized parties for a local Air Force base, it soon became a much broader investigation that led to the uncovering of an affair between CIA director David Petraeus and his biographer Paula Broadwell. Now reports of how the...
IEA Says U.S. Oil Production Will Exceed Saudi Arabia's
An International Energy Agency report says shale gas and oil technology is changing the energy map.Technology for extracting previously inaccessible oil and gas resources in the United States, along with increases in biofuels production and improved vehicle efficiency, could lead to a situation where the United States produces as much energy as it uses by 2035, according to the recently released...
Why Microsoft May Be Making a Smartphone for China
Even if it alienates existing hardware partners, the Chinese market is too big, and fast-growing, to ignore.The latest reports from Asia have resurrected a popular rumor: that Microsoft is planning to launch its own Windows Phone smart phone and initially sell it in China, where smart-phone use is exploding. However, with a delicate ecosystem of hardware partners to balance, and huge competition...
Bright LED Bulbs Arrive At Last
Osram Sylvania LED bulb shows that lighting manufacturers can finally match other technologies on brightness.Osram Sylvania this week is shipping an LED light bulb that gives off as much light as a 100-watt incandescent, a sign that lighting manufacturers have successfully tackled the technical challenge of making bright LED bulbs.
Europe Proposes Cheap Quantum Optics Link to the Space Station
The ability to send entangled photons to the ISS would be a stepping stone to a global quantum internet and could test the link between quantum mechanics and relativity
A New Chip to Bring 3-D Gesture Control to Smart Phones
A large semiconductor manufacturer uses electrical fields to sense hand movements.The clickwheel of the first iPod worked by measuring electric field disturbances in one dimension. The first iPhone touch screen functioned similarly, but in two dimensions.
A New Chip to Bring 3-D Gesture Control to Smartphones
A large semiconductor manufacturer uses electrical fields to sense hand movements.The clickwheel of the first iPod worked by measuring electric field disturbances in one dimension. The first iPhone touch screen functioned similarly, but in two dimensions.
Cellular Data Network for Inanimate Objects Goes Live in France
A startup hopes to connect millions of low-power sensors worldwide to the Internet, making everything—from power grids to home appliances—smarter.All of the apps, movies, and games consumed on tablets and phones are only available because cellular networks deployed wireless technology to connect people to the Internet wherever they are. French startup SigFox thinks it can help usher in a...
A Tiny Base Station Makes Dumb Phones Smarter
Bringing smartphone-like services to the humble feature phone.Paul Marks of New Scientist has an interesting report on what may be the world’s smallest cell phone base station. Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, the UK firm that developed the basestation says that “it’s an entire GSM network running on one circuit...
MONDAY 12. NOVEMBER 2012
Wi-Fi-Controlled Smart Windows Auto-Tint
Startup View, formerly called Soladigm, introduces a dynamic glass window that tints based on building light and temperature.A Silicon Valley startup unveiled a smart window product that gives building designers a promising new tool and improves building efficiency.
Groupon, Daily Deals and the Complex Question of Business Failure
An econometrics study of failures among businesses that have offered daily deals hints at a bewildering complexity behind this kind of marketing
ABB Advance Makes Renewable-Energy Supergrids Practical
A high-power circuit breaker makes it possible to create highly efficient DC power grids.ABB, the large power and automation company, has developed technology that could provide an efficient way to transmit power from widely distributed solar panels, wind turbines, and other sources of renewable energy. The new technology is a fast and efficient circuit breaker for high-voltage direct-current (DC)...
Online Courses Put Pressure on Third-World Universities
How a teacher in El Salvador became an advocate of massive open online courses, and why hardly anyone listens to him yet.When prominent U.S. universities began offering free college classes over the Web this year, more than half of the students who signed up were from outside the United States. Consider the story of one of them: Carlos Martinez, a professor of electrical engineering at the...
Online Courses Put Pressure on Universities in Poorer Nations
How a teacher in El Salvador became an advocate of massive open online courses, and why hardly anyone listens to him yet.When prominent U.S. universities began offering free college classes over the Web this year, more than half of the students who signed up were from outside the United States. Consider the story of one of them: Carlos Martinez, a professor of electrical engineering at the...
SUNDAY 11. NOVEMBER 2012
A Carbon Microthread That Makes Contact with the Mind
An ultrathin electrode spun from a single carbon fiber can record neurons in living animals.Connecting a human brain to a computer is as much a materials science problem as a biology one. What kind of interface is delicate enough not to damage nerve tissue, but resilient enough to last decades?
SATURDAY 10. NOVEMBER 2012
Other Interesting arXiv Papers This Week
The best of the rest from the Physics arXivUS Presidential Election 2012 Prediction using Census Corrected Twitter Model