science

Bill Nye Says Nay To Anti-Evolution

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The following article comes from The National Center for Science Education. In it Bill Nye, The Science Guy, has a few words to say about Creationism, here it is … Prompted by Michael B. Berkman and Eric Plutzer’s recent column in Science deploring “a pervasive reluctance of teachers to forthrightly explain evolutionary biology,” Popular Mechanics … Read more

The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information

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A study appearing Feb. 10 in Science Express calculates the world’s total technological capacity to store, communicate and compute information, part of a Special Online Collection: Dealing with Data. The study by the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism estimates that in 2007, humankind was able to store 2.9 × 1020 optimally compressed bytes, communicate … Read more

Meta-knowledge and the Internet

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We all know what “Knowledge” is, but to ensure we are on the same page, it is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as

(i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject;

(ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information; or

(iii) be absolutely certain or sure about something.

Of course, we can also sum it all up using Plato’s formulation of knowledge as “justified true belief.” So what is “Meta-Knowledge”? Well, think of it as knowledge about knowledge. To clarify, let me run an example by you, Mr Smith lives at No1 High Street – thats ‘data’. I can also step up a level and define the attributes of that data, as Name and Address – thats called “meta-data”, or to put it more simply, its data that describes the data. So Meta-Knowledge is simply knowledge that is knowledge about knowledge.

So why am I babbling on about all this? Well, because the University of Chicago has issued a press-release on the topic that starts out like this …

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Thomas Edison … did not invent the light bulb.

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As I clicked into Google today, I could not fail to notice that they are celebrating Thomas Edison’s 164th Birthday. You can see the image here, its chock full of many things that he invented such as the light bulb and other devices.

So I followed some links and did a bit of reading, and as a result made a rather surprising discovery – Edison did not invent the light bulb – well perhaps you knew, and I’m the only one. After being surprised like this, I did a quick straw poll asking “Who invented the light bulk?”. The answer from all was, “Edison”.

Now what really surprised me is that while he did not invent it,  he claimed that he did, but if it was not him, then who?. It was apparently a chap called Joseph Swan.

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e-devices coming in the next 20 years

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The just-released February issue of the Journal of the Society for Information Display contains the first-ever critical review of current and future prospects for electronic paper functions – in other words reviewing and critiquing the technologies that will bring us devices like

  • full-color, high-speed, low-power e-readers;
  • iPads that can be viewed in bright sunlight, or
  • e-readers and iPads so flexible that they can be rolled up and put in a pocket.

The University of Cincinnati’s Jason Heikenfeld, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and an internationally recognized researcher in the field of electrofluidics, is the lead author on the paper titled “A Critical Review of the Present and Future Prospects for Electronic Paper.” Others contributing to the article are industry researcher Paul Drzaic of Drzaic Consulting Services; research scientist Jong-Souk (John) Yeo of Hewlett-Packard’s Imaging and Printing Group; and research scientist Tim Koch, who currently manages Hewlett-Packard’s effort to develop flexible electronics.

The full paper is available at the journal’s site.

This Year

  • Color e-readers will be out in the consumer market by mid year in 2011. However, cautions Heikenfeld, the color will be muted as compared to what consumers are accustomed to, say, on an iPad. Researchers will continue to work toward next-generation (brighter) color in e-Readers as well as high-speed functionality that will eventually allow for point-and-click web browsing and video on devices like the Kindle.

Already in use but expansive adoption and breakthoughs imminent:

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The Internet Just Ran Out of Numbers

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The MIT “Technology Review” has an interesting article all about IPv4 finally running out of numbers, and what to expect next now that this has happened. here are some highlights from it …

Every available Internet protocol address has now been spoken for—which could mean huge trouble down the line.
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The problem is that the current system for IP addresses, IPv4, uses numeric addresses that are 32 bits long—giving a total of just over four billion potential numbers, which must have seemed like a lot when IPv4 was introduced in 1981. But there are now seven billion people on Earth, and more and more of them—and their devices—are going online all the time. Fortunately, engineers realized the limitations of IPv4 a long time ago and lined up a successor, called IPv6, in 1998.
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For ISPs, it’s a straightforward business dilemma: the two addressing schemes are not directly compatible, which means it would take a significant investment to let IPv4 users connect to IPv6 services. And having relied on the same system for as long as 30 years, they may not feel the need to change.

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