Last year, scientists such as Physics professor Gaurav Khanna of UMass Dartmouth and Frank Mueller, a computer science professor at NC State, made news in tech and scientific circles by creating supercomputing clusters from Sony Playstation 3s. Their clusters have the same computing power as a small supercomputer, but the cost is only around $5000,
Broadband Data Collection Bill Passed
Ars Technica is reporting that Congress has finally passed the broadband data collection bill. As any good geographer will tell you, normally the first step in figuring out where you want to go is knowing where you’re at. That’s more or less the spirit of this bill. The fact of the matter is that we
Spidey-tracer legal?
A while back we talked about how the LAPD was working on an attachable GPS unit for tracking suspects. CNN has a story on the use of GPS for tracking suspects using GPS in a real world situation, but with a twist (and a video). The report wonders whether the use of trackers without a
Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day!
Anyone who’s worked in GIS with more than two people can tell you that one person is critical to keeping all this stuff working…. the system administrator. Today happens to be the 9th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day! The sys admin is normally the person you call when things go all kablewie, so you’re normally
A New GPS System…. On the Moon?
Engadget is reporting an interesting new system that’s being created. Researchers over at Ohio State University (a hop, skip, and 4 hour drive from here) are attempting to make a GPS like system for navigation on the moon. The system is supposed to be ready by 2020, and the linked article from Engadget’s site says
More location iStuff
So Sue has the iPhone 3G and I was FINALLY able to upgrade the iPod Touch to the 2.0 firmware. I am quite happy with the number of times that the devices have asked to use the location settings. The camera and maps are the two Apple apps that use the location info and I
Largest Self-Portrait in the World!
Created with DHL shipping company and the help of GPS! It spans nearly every continent and shows a pretty elaborate path. While this might seem flippant, I think it shows an important intersection of technology and art. Anyone familiar with ancient maps can see the obvious art there, but I can’t say I’ve ever thought
iPod Touch as a gateway device
I have had my iPod Touch since, what, October or so? Since then I have used as it came out of the box, paid to have the 1.3 w/software firmware update and I already plan to give Apple the cash the day that I can get the 2.0 firmware so that I can install all
Sensisphere – curved touch surface
Two University of Augsberg students, Benjamin Mayer and Martin Spengler, have developed a hemispherical touch display surface they call Sensisphere. Think Microsoft Surface, TouchTable, and other gesture-based displays, only curved. As the guys from Gizmodo point out, it really looks great when used for digital globe applications like Google Earth. Check out the video below:
We Got Too Much Stuff!
The IDC has just released a report (PDF) that says the amount of digital data we’ve collected exceeds the amount of space we have to hold it all. Right now, we collect nearly 45GB per person. That’s an amazing amount of data. The expectation is that by 2011, we’ll only be able to store half
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