One of our missions is to help to educate the world about technology and science falls into the category as something that we want the world to know. It’s not our core but it’s a part of what drives that core. The video below is relatively old but utterly amazing in the way it simplifies local space. Worthy of a 10-minute watch. …
Modifying board games has been a “thing” for a couple of decades now but in the last couple of years it has become somewhat of an internet sensation when people change board games to match various internet properties. It’s a fun distraction and relatively common, but this one stood out as exceptionally creative. The folks over at uFunk put it together. You can download a full-size version here. In the meantime, check out this “Social Media Monopoly” if Risk isn’t your game. …
It doesn’t take a political pundit to know that the Solyndra scandal has hurt the energy industry’s credibility. Investors are wary, but the same may not be true for direct consumers. One Block of the Grid compiled data from 45,000 solar estimates and put together a visualization that depicts from state to state how much it costs to “go solar” for homeowners. The interest is likely spurred by increased utility prices more than just a desire to be eco-friendly; do-it-yourself energy at the home tends to pay for itself in less than 2 decades. In Louisiana, for example, the cost after state, regional,…
When Rovio CMO Peter Vester appeared at a ball last December, his wife, Teija Vesterbacka, came in a dress that awkwardly “paid homage” to their top-selling game, Angry Birds. This wasn’t just any ball in any venue; it was the highly-exclusive annual Presidential Independence Day reception at the Finnish Presidential Palace. Whether it was her idea or his is unclear, but the “stunning” gown was designed to make an impression. What that impression was, we have no idea….
Some day in the (very) near future, we may no longer need a traditional backpack at school. Rather than carrying around a laptop and textbooks, we will be consolidating the various components of school gear down to a single device that fits nicely within our hands: an iPad. Many schools are already considering adopting a tablet-based educational style that focuses on electronic devices rather than paper and pen. It’s the way that the world is quickly starting to work; why not prepare our children today to face the world of tomorrow? This infographic breaks down the coming paper vs tablet war by…
It may not be the first time Microsoft has tried to use humor and aggressive attacks to go after Google, but this time it hits a little closer to home than they’ve done in the past. In attacking Google Apps as a work productivity tool, Microsoft invokes Wave, Gears, and Buzz as examples of how Google has completely abandoned projects in the recent past. This time, they’re going to try to help this particular Google product out the door before it can be successfully integrated into business. Playing on the word, “moonlighting”, this video tries to point out that Google Apps aren’t ready for the business…
As terms of classification of humans goes, hipsters and geeks have been battling for the title of the “coolest of the uncool.” For hipsters, the phrase “before it was cool” has become synonymous with their lifestyle and music sense. What’s the difference between the two (if any) and who really is so uncool that they’re uber-cool? That’s the question that this infographic attempts to answer. Click to enlarge. (H/T: Fairfax Acura) …
Optical illusions are often fanciful diversions that keep us keen to the fact that our own minds can not only be tricked, but often tricks itself. Some illusions are so mind-blowing that we try with all of our mental capacities to see reality, but we struggle to convince our minds that what we’re seeing isn’t actually what it appears to be. One of our favorites is the shaded shield illusion. Thanks to a phenomenon known as brightness constancy, we look at the shield above and assume that the area being pointed to by the green arrow is a lighter shade of grey than the area being pointed to by the blue arrow….
When we first covered Ericsson’s Networked Society Project, we called it beautiful and terrifying. Their latest video shows that beauty can prevail when technology inserts itself into our lives with positive motives in mind. The concept centers around Information and Communication Technology (ICT). As cities continue to grow at a rate of 200,000 new people born into or moving to an urban area every day, ITC integration is essential. Thankfully, the technology is growing just as quickly, if not faster. It isn’t just about people having access to information. It’s about the city itself having…
For nearly a decade, the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition has put the sharpest minds in high school and undergraduate institutions around the world into competitive and creative mode to find the next great mad scientist genius inventor. Students work during the summer in their own schools or (gulp) labs using biological parts to build systems that can operate on living cells. Starting with 5 teams in 2004 and expanding to 160 team with over 2000 participants in 30 countries in 2011, the competition has yielded inventions that have included an arsenic biodetector,…
When Facebook started rolling out their plan to put online stores on their platform in November, 2010, many believed that “F-Commerce” was the next big thing. It was heralded as a competitor for Amazon, a socialized shopping experience that allowed consumers to go to Facebook to find all of their favorite brands and buy products directly from the social network. The concept was flawed from the start and the cracks are starting to show as Gamestop joins a growing list of retailers who tried F-Commerce, only to abort quickly. Their Facebook store lasted 6 months, longer than many others like Gap,…
It has been just over 4 months since Steve Jobs died. Since then, Apple continues to head in the right direction financially and has seen very little in the way of slowing down its development of products. Tim Cook, the CEO, has not had many public appearances since then and the ones he has had have been short, but that changed yesterday during an engagement at a Goldman Sachs conference. Cook, who has been handling investor-relations for a long time due to Steve Jobs’ desire to not engage with (or talk to, or be associated with, or be in the same room with) the people with money who relied on Apple to make…
