Discussion: It was recently announced that the new iPhone 4S would not have NFC (near field communication) technology integrated into it, which was disappointing to many. The NFC chip, which is a form of radio frequency identification (RFID), is used to enable the mobile wallet. One concern of NFC is that the chip remains programmable,… Read more »
Monthly Archives: October 2011
India’s internet surfing and shopping boom
Discussion: India could become one of the world’s top ten hubs for e-commerce by 2015. There are 65 million people that log in to the web in India, and these people have a growing interest in consumerism–which products they can get for the cheapest price. By selling their goods online, businesses can avoid some costs… Read more »
One cool table setting
Link: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/18/hologram-table-zebra-imaging/
How Obama’s data-crunching prowess may get him re-elected
Discussion: Currently, Obama is the only Presidential candidate that is harnessing the power of big data, and this fact may help him to be re-elected in 2012. By analyzing and studying mass amounts of data, Obama and his campaign are identifying voters and finding out which issues are most important to them. By addressing these issues, and voters… Read more »
Green sidewalk makes electricity — one footstep at a time
Discussion: Recently, engineers have designed a paving slab that converts absorbed kinetic energy into electricity. The kinetic energy is captured when people step on the stones– it is a real-world “crowdsourcing” application. Besides being a common-sense source of sustainable energy (walking is something people do anyway) the slab also brings the issue of sustainability to the… Read more »
Business analytics: how to make sense of big data
Discussion: Three questions are posed to Keith Collins, CTO of SAS Institutes, in this interview. He highlights that the most pressing question on the mind of many businesses is how to harness and make sense of the massive amounts of data that is now available on the internet. Collins also notes that business analyses and high… Read more »
Video game to help train war reporters for combat zones
Discussion: Recently, a video game where the main charachter is armed with a video camera instead of a gun, has been used to help train in-the-field reporters. The object of the video game, Warco, is to avoid shooters and combat while still creating news broadcasts. The game aims to put the user in situations that… Read more »
Unravelling the tale behind the Apple logo
Link: http://articles.cnn.com/2011-10-06/opinion/opinion_apple-logo_1_apple-logo-apple-employee-alan-turing?_s=PM:OPINION
Internet of things: Should you worry if your jeans go smart?
Discussion: There are many physical objects, or “things”, that are now on the internet with the help of RFID tags (referred to as the “Internet of Things”). Jeans, or another object that has an RFID tag, could potentially track a person’s every movement and broadcast its location 24 hours a day. Is this invasion of… Read more »
Amazon unveils $199 Kindle Fire tablet and $79 e-ink Kindle
Discussion: Amazon recently released its version of a tablet, which costs about half of what iPads are currently selling for. Amazon is aiming to undercut the price of Apple’s iPad in hopes of gaining some of their market share. Amazon’s tablet does not have all of the functions that most tablets come with (like a… Read more »
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