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Story Archives of 'technology'
The Truly Smart City
By Laura Sheeter on Monday, November 2, 2009.
For urban dwellers, the question of how well you know your city is quickly being replaced with the question of how well does your city know you? Transportation systems can track your comings and goings, utility companies know your usage patterns and banks know what you spend and when. Does that make for a city of dreams, or a nightmare?
May The Hologram Be With You
By Virginia Prescott on Monday, November 2, 2009.Think back to that iconic Star Wars scene when R2D2 beams in a hologram of Princess Leia to deliver an urgent message to Obi-Wan Kenobi. A tiny image of Princess Leia flickers before Obi Wan’s eyes, a technological marvel when the film came out in 1977. Audiences were equally entranced when a hologram of Yoda was transported through space and time to a Jedi Council Meeting.
Now researchers are taking a cue from star wars and developing 3D technology that can beam anyone – Jedi or mere mortal – to a meeting far, far away. If a 3D image isn’t tactile enough, maybe an animatronics robot would do the trick. These life-like avatars move their mouths and eyes, mirroring a person’s expression in real time.
Universities are now considering these avatars and holograms as high-tech updates to old school speaker phone and video conference technologies.
We’ve beamed in Jeffrey Young, so to speak, to tell us more. He’s senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education and writes for their College 2.0 blog.
The Chrinicle of Higher Education: Beam Me to the Faculty Senate
(Photo by Chris Hildreth for The Chronicle of Higher Education)
What's New and Quirky
By Deb Baker on Sunday, September 13, 2009.At 22, Ben Kaufman has already created and sold a company and started two more. In high school, he launched mophie, which developed iPod accessories. At MacWorld 2007, mophie experimented with real time group decision making by inviting people to collaborate on product development and marketing.
Explaining RSS To Your Mom
By Deb Baker on Sunday, June 21, 2009.
Not long ago, I was trying to explain RSS feeds to my mother. She’s quite tech savvy for someone who grew up in the pre-Internet age, but my explanation wasn’t very clear, because like most people, I don’t really know how some of the technologies I rely on actually work. Luckily, Newsweek pointed me to a great resource, Common Craft.
Do You Pray Digitally?
By Avishay Artsy on Wednesday, June 17, 2009.
Thursday on Word of Mouth, religion goes digital. You can now listen to the Bible or Qur’an on your iPod, get text messages from the pope, and visit the Wailing Wall or a Buddhist monastery in Second Life. There's a Facebook-like site for Catholic youth, a clickable prayer wheel you can put on your computer desktop, and even video games like Waco Resurrection and Noah's Ark.
