Technology

Water management has always been a big thing in China. This morning I read about the South-North Water Project, in which China is starting to divert huge quantities of water from the sub-tropically wet south-west of the country, moving it to the arid nor ...

Blog Post - Robert H Olley - Dec 26 2009 - 9:45am

Cockroach Serves As Blueprint For Running Robot

Engineers from Oregon State University are attempting to develop a robot capable of running effortlessly over rough terrain and they're doing it with assistance from the unlikeliest of creatures--cockroaches. While they maybe unsightly, the insects ar ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 28 2009 - 7:44pm

16-bit Blues

How often have you taken a picture with a digital camera, only for it to come out looking like this? The sky’s too bright, the shaded parts are too dark, and however much one juggles with it with software, it won’t come out right. The eye managed to adap ...

Article - Robert H Olley - Jan 27 2010 - 6:27am

Why we have patents

On my regular blog, I recently commented about a specific patent that I don’t think should have been issued, and I referred to a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited patent protection for “ordinary innovation[s]” that “yield predictable results”. ...

Blog Post - Barry Leiba - Jan 4 2010 - 11:17am

Building a better drain trap

I’ve been critical of patents that seem to have been issued for ideas that don’t represent much innovation (most recently, this one, and see more discussion here), extending existing “prior art” only a little, or not at all. Many patents, particularly for ...

Blog Post - Barry Leiba - Jan 7 2010 - 7:04am

The Internet in 1945

Vannevar Bush, the first U.S. presidential science advisor who played a leading role initiating the Manhattan Project, was one of the great 20th century visionaries of technology- a futurist, as he might call himself today. ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Jan 4 2010 - 11:55pm

Ten years after, in home computing

To start off 2010, we're invited to join a new “Hot Topics” feature, which will periodically focus the bloggers on a particular topic. The first Hot Topic is this: The Upcoming Decade in Science What will the new decade bring in the world of science? ...

Blog Post - Barry Leiba - Jan 14 2010 - 7:03am

Practical Invisibility- An Earthquake Cloak

'Invisibility' has long been a staple of science fiction. The ability to go unseen has benefits, mostly involving mischief, but there are some ways where being invisible need not involve the optical realm- it could involve the physical. In a p ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Mar 24 2011 - 3:26pm

'Hydra' Middleware Makes Saving Energy Easier

New technology developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Sankt Augustin, Germany may soon help consumers save energy by allowing them to track which devices in their homes are using the most energy. The basis for the technology is the "H ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 15 2010 - 12:47pm

Newsday.com: Paywall Ain't Working

Newsday.com: Paywall Ain't Working The internet is a very powerful tool for education and for research. At a click of a mouse button I can escape my parochial world-view and embark on a fascinating journey of discovery that knows no boundaries. Exc ...

Blog Post - Patrick Lockerby - Jan 26 2010 - 11:27pm