Friday, December 7, 2012

SwiftKey reveals 'Flow Through Space'

Friday, November 30, 2012

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Touch

Touch by Jason A. Samfield
Touch, a photo by Jason A. Samfield on Flickr.

A human touch upon emotive technology.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Ron Finley: Food Forest

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Europe and its nightlights, seen from the ISS

Via Flickr:
Europe at night, captured by ESA astronaut André Kuipers onboard the ISS. In shot is the Soyuz TMA-03M module that carried André to the ISS in December 2011, and a Russian Progress freighter.

André is onboard the ISS as part of ESA's long duration mission, PromISSe. For further information on the mission, please visit: www.esa.int/SPECIALS/PromISSe/index.html

Credits: ESA/NASA

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Ghost in the Machine


Everyone freaks out that Facebook or Google or whoever knows too much about them through their liking, posting, sharing, commenting, updating, viewing, et cetera, but I beg to differ.


The intent, the reasons, the reasoning, the intensity and caliber, and the type of relationship that the user perceives via the Like or +1 or favoriting features is not ascertained by the company.


Facebook doesn't know why I like something or how much I like it or whether I just want to follow it versus actual enthusiasm about said product, service, or entity.


Yes, a vast majority of actionable knowledge can be gleaned from the interlaced information that I provide, but it is not complete, nor 100% accurate nor even potentially true.


So, go ahead Facebook, Google, and others, try and prove to me that you know me or understand why I pressed those virtual buttons of yours.  For all they know, it could have been a complete accident.  I might not even be a real person!  They might be tracking the infamous ghost in the machine.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Cornell's Robotic Arm Picks Up Anything, Lacks Fingers

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Piracy


Instead of just hating on SOPA and PIPA, can the tech community have a meeting of the minds and make valiant attempts at innovating a way to reduce piracy in a "free Internet" in the same vein that the legislators are attempting to do so with these bills?

It seems to me that everyone just dislikes the bill without really considering any other option. I heard vague statements from Wikipedia's founder on television and other vague disdain for the bill without stating exactly what is so bad about the bill other than it will bring down the free Internet or change it permanently. Censorship among other topics were the biggest concern with all of the black-out protests, but what will be censored. I don't really see how any speech will be censored. I only saw illegal content on the chopping block which seems reasonable, if you are one to adhere to the law. The only thing that I found particularly damning was the action against a company without due process and such. So, with that said, if certain parts were removed and or changed, would the tech industry support it? Is there any amount of legislation or more specifically stronger legislation that the industry would support?

Piracy is already against the law, so why is there seemingly a demand for a stronger law? Has the tech community really done enough to stave off piracy? Or has it essentially turned a blind eye to it so to speak and thusly deserved the SOPA bill fight on capitol hill because of its lackadaisical stances? I guess I feel that this bill wouldn't be on capitol hill if the tech industry had done its part to reduce piracy in coordination with the content creators who are drumming the support for stronger laws.