1 Bit = Binary Digit.
8 Bits = 1 Byte.
1024 Bytes = 1 Kilobyte.
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Sep 20, 2015
The entire internet is stored and delivered using 540 billion trillion electrons.
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: internet
Which all together weigh around 50 grams. Or about the weight of one strawberry.
Image created by the amazing Dorota Pankowska (Dori the Giant) as part of a poster series for VSAUCE.
Sep 20, 2015
The Cubli: A Cube that can Jump up, Balance, and ‘Walk’
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: futurism
Sep 20, 2015
There is a class of animals that never grow old
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: life extension
We’re born, we grow, we age, and then we die. Well, maybe not all of us, according to a new study on the animals amongst us who, while they continue to grow older, don’t deteriorate with age.
A new study out of Nature takes a comparative look at the life cycles of 46 different species (us included) and finds that not all species live by this pattern of decline that we do. In fact some, the hermit crab, for instance, seem to have turned the whole process upside down. Virginia Hughes at National Geographic explains:
Sep 20, 2015
Scientists invent the perfect coffee mug
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: innovation
Scientists love coffee. More than anyone else, by some surveys. So in a way, it makes perfect sense that they would be responsible for what could be the greatest coffee-related invention since coffee-alcohol: a mug that keeps coffee hot – but not too hot – for hours on end. Here are the fifteen professions that drink the most coffee. Guess who’s number one. Here are the fifteen professions that drink the most coffee. Guess who’s number one. Here are the fifteen professions that drink the mo In 2011, Dunkin’ Donuts teamed up with CareerBuilder to shed some light on U.S. coffee…
Sep 20, 2015
Why we really should ban autonomous weapons: a response
Posted by Alexandros El in categories: ethics, robotics/AI
We welcome Sam Wallace’s contribution to the discussion on a proposed ban on offensive autonomous weapons. This is a complex issue and there are interesting arguments on both sides that need to be weighed up carefully.
His article, written as a response to an open letter signed by over 2500 AI and robotics researchers, begins with the claim that such a ban is as “unrealistic as the broad relinquishment of nuclear weapons would have been at the height of the cold war.”
This argument misses the mark. First, the letter proposes not unilateral relinquishment but an arms control treaty. Second, nuclear weapons were successfully curtailed by a series of arms-control treaties during the cold war, without which we might not have been here to have this conversation.
Sep 20, 2015
3D Microchip Allows Information to Travel in Three Dimensions
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: computing
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have created a new type of microchip that allows information to move in three dimensions, left to right, back to front and up and down.
Scientists from the University of Cambridge have created, for the first time, a new type of microchip which allows information to travel in three dimensions. Currently, microchips can only pass digital information in a very limited way – from either left to right or front to back. The research was published today, 31 January, in Nature.
Dr Reinoud Lavrijsen, an author on the paper from the University of Cambridge, said: “Today’s chips are like bungalows – everything happens on the same floor. We’ve created the stairways allowing information to pass between floors.”
Sep 20, 2015
Solar panels as inexpensive as paint?
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: engineering, materials, solar power, sustainability
Fortunately, that is changing because researchers such as Qiaoqiang Gan, University at Buffalo assistant professor of electrical engineering, are helping develop a new generation of photovoltaic cells that produce more power and cost less to manufacture than what’s available today.
One of the more promising efforts, which Gan is working on, involves the use of plasmonic-enhanced organic photovoltaic materials. These devices don’t match traditional solar cells in terms of energy production but they are less expensive and — because they are made (or processed) in liquid form — can be applied to a greater variety of surfaces.
Gan detailed the progress of plasmonic-enhanced organic photovoltaic materials in the May 7 edition of the journal Advanced Materials. Co-authors include Filbert J. Bartoli, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Lehigh University, and Zakya Kafafi of the National Science Foundation.
