Ben's Leads

Compare and contrast-

In 1946 televisions were small, bulky, boxes owned by only .5% of United States families. Today, however, the majority Americans own over two televisions and they have gotten as big as 100 inches.

Startling Statement-

Most Americans consider television to be a good thing, but some experts say it is taking over our lives.

Descriptive-

I walked into Jim Girardeau’s office, carefully stepping over parts of computer chips and foam packing peanuts that littered the ground. He was bent over a small chip with a soldering gun, meticulously burning on parts of the delicate piece of technology. Hesitant to interrupt, I waited until he was done and then asked the first question.

Eddie Plaut- Three Leads

Descriptive: At Scott, Douglas and McConnico, each lawyer’s office is a testament to the growing hulk of information in the law field.  Walls are lined with numbered binders, papers are piled on floors and on desks.  There is hardly enough room to work in some cramped areas.  This growing problem of too much information is fixed by basic programs used to organize cases, cutting down on great stacks in a room, and creating organized “dockets” on a computer.  Anybody can edit these dockets if it is shared with them, making big cases a breeze.  This “computerization” of documents has led to, as many lawyers say, a destruction of the paper medium.

Narrative: Gail Schilly works in her office, sifting through binder after binder to find the right information to mention in an upcoming hearing.  Her office is overflowing with paper; some in stacks on her desk, others more organized on shelves.  These documents contain information about case rulings, testimonies and other law related topics.  This is not different to other offices here at Scott, Douglas and McConnico, a testament to the growing hulk of information in law offices.

Compare and contrast:  Most classic law practices are horribly tedious, requiring hours of handwritten papers that can easily become disorganized.  Many veterans of the trade still go through these painstaking, scrupulous processes.  However, nowadays, the different workers in law offices all around the nation have grown accustomed to different computer programs, that help ease their enormous loads of work.  

Three Leads - Evan Tey

Twist:
     The tune of "Ode to Joy," the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, has been ingrained into my memory over the years. As if a pianist played the piece on the back of my head and created an inextinguishable melody in the resonance chamber of my skull, the ringtone of my phone came to life and filled the room.
     Realizing that I had been staring aimlessly at the ringing telephone, I pick up the outdated home phone from its base and hold it to my ear.
     "Hello! Good morning!"
     I hear the heavily-accented male voice explode from the speaker's end of the phone.
     On the other end of the line is my Malay-speaking cousin from Kuala Lumpur, who knows no English.
Descriptive:
     Formality. Tension. Like a ticking time bomb, all the leaders of the world sit inside a sealed building. The doors locked tight. Not a single soul exists inside the confines of the solid walls besides the most powerful people in the world. Unlike other monumental summits, translators aren't needed. No, President Obama hasn't learned a couple the hundred languages for all the people in the world, but in every prominent figures' ear is an earphone with a tiny chip that translates the spoken languages into each individual's language of preference.
Narrative:
     In the year of 2004, Stephen Theby faced a marketing problem. He had to distribute a product into 26 different languages around the world as soon as possible for the maximum marketing profit. Under normal circumstances, this job would take up to a year, and consumer waiting for a separate version of the product would always be a year behind, but Steve Theby had an idea that may change the course of world-wide lifestyles in addition to marketing advancements.

As of now, I'm going with my second lead. From peer feedback, people liked it the best. I will go back later, because I think there are words and descriptions that I can fix which would strengthen the mood of the lead. I also want to fix the first lead, because feedback proved that it confused readers and I think that it has the strongest content. (ode to joy is the ringtone of my phone, but I didn't want to start with the typical onomatopoeia! The phone rang.)

Weston Hill's Feature Story Leads

Startling statement:  Garbage is usually treated as a burden and a nuisance. But this new technology promises to make it a commodity.

Descriptive:  The United States is drowning in garbage. Large metropolitan areas such as New York City dump tons of trash into the ocean, creating large dead zones. In the Virgin Islands, landfills on the beach leach toxic chemicals into the water. If trash is burned, it releases toxic fumes and results in toxic ash. Getting rid of waste is a difficult problem and there seems to be no easy solutions. However, there is a new technology that could get rid of all of these problems and provide energy at the same time.

Contrast and Compare:  Currently garbage is put in a landfill or dumped in the ocean.  But a new technology could get rid of waste and produce energy at the same time.

Robots: The Future of Warfare?

Last Fall during the U.S. Army’s Robotics Rodeo two small Piper Cub flew over a village and within minutes spotted their target, a tarp staked to the ground, and, being unable to navigate the streets, radioed for help. Soon afterwards a blue Porsche Cayenne, operated without any humans at the controls, drove down the streets, seeking out the sent GPS coordinates. The planes continued to circle overhead, gathering more information about the targets and its surrounding. In less than half of an hour the SUV had zeroed in on its quarry. This is one example of the usefulness of robots and what they bring to warfare. These fully autonomous robots could help keep soldiers out of harm’s way through things like searching out hidden explosives. However, there are some downfalls that make relying entirely on these autonomous robots impossible. They are often put in situations that are not designed in their programming and their responses cannot be accurately predicted. Some of the most advanced robots carry dozens of sensors, including high-resolution night-vision cameras, 3-D imagers, and acoustic arrays, yet cannot even differentiate a bush from a dog. Humans are still needed to interpret data and coordinate tasks among multiple systems, and in the near future this is how it is likely to remain. Some argue that robots should never be able to act and make decisions completely on their own.

For more information, visit this IEEE Spectrum article.

Picture found here.

Snail Power

One of the many problems that has delayed progress in the biotech world is the lack of energy needed to power artificial body parts. Over the past few months researchers have been testing a method that has the ability to harvest energy from the electrons inside of organisms, specifically, snails. By placing an electrode, coated with enzymes, inside of snails, researchers were able to harvest electrons from glucose and put them into oxygen molecules, creating a steady current of energy. Although materials are still being chosen to maximize the electrode's harvesting ability, the future for this technology looks bright. Besides the obvious application in biotechnology to source for bionics, spectators believe that the implications of this technology may have many more uses than we can see. With the ability to power any miniature devices, scientists have begun to develop camera and other sensing technology for the purpose of using animals to spy and receive information from places we may not be able to reach. In addition to this, the discovery of self generated energy in general leads to the opportunity for more and more biotechnological inventions. But there are several problems that must be addressed before people make a jump on this creation. First and foremost, technology is the inherent opposite to nature and no one in has been able to create a biological entity that exists coincident with technological parts.

For more information, visit the Wired article.
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Printing a Robot

If you wanted to build your own robot, you would have to design it, order components, modify or build your own components, build your robot, and then figure out that it doesn't work and have to start over.  However, a group at MIT is redesigning the robot creation process.  Their aim is to create the ability for robots to be designed on a computer and them fabricated on a special printer.  This would allow for an average person to create and program a robot in a matter of hours.  Just as a compiler is used for creating a program, the team seeks to make a “compiler for building physical machines.”  Such a system would take a simple set of specifications and makes a robot with simple materials.  A few robots have already been created, such as a six-legged insect, a robot arm, and a fish.  The material that the robots are made of is a material called PEEK, or polyether ether ketone, which is sturdy and can easily be machined.  The bodies of the robots are made of this material and the circuit boards are made using a standard fabrication process.  This method could be the future of robot design and drastically reduce the amount of time that it takes to build a robot.

Read more at Wired.
Picture from MakerBot

Yahoo Doesn't Care What Websites You Go To.

After searching for something on Google, do you ever get an ad that strangely appeals to you?  Ever wonder why the Internet knows you so well? It’s probably because the scheming, evil-geniuses at Google have begun to track your websites.  This is done by cookies; not a home-baked piece of goodness, but a way to store browser information about each Internet user.  It can track what you click on, what sites you visit and other information you don’t want anyone knowing. However, it isn’t the end of the world as you know it.  Yahoo (yes, that old search engine nobody uses anymore) has begun to support the “Do Not Track” privacy header.  This means you can tell Yahoo to stay out of your business, and just do its job.  A possible attempt to win back long lost users? Maybe.  No matter what the reason, web browsing citizens support this privacy, working on all web browsers except Google Chrome.  Many advertisers say they will respect the banner, not tracking users who activate it.  However there are others who will not respect it.  This means that no matter what you do on the Internet, someone will watch you do it.  In the future, more and more functions may appear to protect your surfing.  No matter what developments come to fruition, you might want to be careful what websites you visit.    

For more information, visit Wired.

Picture found here.

It's All the Sun's Fault

Yes, it's 2012. No, December 21st hasn't quite come yet. But we may not have to wait to view a possible foreshadowing of what may come this December. Last Sunday night (March 4), the sun erupted with a level 2-3 solar flare headed toward the earth. Solar flares are short outbursts of energy that result from inconsistent magnetic properties of the molecules that are associated in nuclear fusion of the sun. They release large amounts of energy and many highly accelerated particles, that can pose a problem to systems if the energy bursts reach the earths atmosphere. For example, if your GPS wasn't working this past Sunday, you now know who to blame. The intensity of the Sunday storm was the highest recorded solar flare (on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the most intense) since 2005. However, four days later, Thursday morning, a solar flare will glance of the side of the earth with an intensity level of a 5. This solar flare may disrupt GPS systems, our power grids, radio communications, and any satellites near its path. Though this solar flare will not hit the earth directly, there is a possibility that in the future, a solar flare will be released that will have a serious impact on our survival.

For more information, visit the solar flare Wikipedia page.

Picture found  here.

Cheating On Tests- The Pentagon Does it Too

The F-35 Joint-Strike Fighter is supposed to become the next step in American stealth fighters with the current military budget listing the retiring of more than 100 existing Air Force while leaving intact plans to produce almost 2,500 F-35s. This would be almost doubling the amount of F-35s in service despite a recent listing 13 serious design flaws in the F-35. Recently the F-35 passed a key Pentagon test of its combat capability, but it may not have been quite as successful as the military would like us to believe. The review council, which includes the vice chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, eased the regulations for the standard flying profile of the F-35, allowing it an additional 50 feet on the required takeoff. While Stephen O'Bryan a former vice president of Lockheed Martin (the company producing the F-35) insists the F-35 is meeting or exceeding every single one of the Key Performance Parameters that the services have mandated," I won't be convinced of the plane's effectiveness until it passes a test that isn't rigged (of which it has yet to do), regardless of how many members of the company that produce it tell me otherwise.

For more information, visit Wired.
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Cities of the Future

In Rio de Janeiro IBM has set up a central data center to monitor everything from weather to traffic patterns in a program called Smarter Cities.  This allows for precision control of things like traffic light timing and the power grid, making cities more efficient.  As the population of the world increases, it will become more and more important to make cities as energy efficient as possible.  It is a very difficult job to manage the infrastructure of a large city.  Many cities have go infrastructure control in individual departments, but no city has the same level of integration as in Rio de Janeiro.  This system brings the data streams of 30 different agencies together in one location, allowing more informed decisions to be made about the city.  For example, if the traffic is especially bad in rush hour, the city may want to increase the traffic flow through an area.  This integration will allow cities to be more efficient and easier to manage.  Providing this level of integration is expected to be a large source of revenue for IBM in the future.  If the experiment in Rio de Janeiro works out, IBM to do the same in other cities.  By 2050 75% of the population of the world is expected to be living in cities.  Such megacities will need good infrastructure and integration between departments to run the city intelligently.  If IBM can make Rio de Jeneiro into a “smart city,” they will have a large demand from other cities for similar service.  However, in Rio de Janeiro, challenges remain.  The city consists of sprawling growth that was often poorly planned.  Many of the people live in crime-ridden slums, called favelas.  The crumbling infrastructure is a challenge for IBM.  If the company can create a “smart city” out of Rio de Jeneiro, it can do the same anywhere.

Read more at the New York Times website.
Picture from here.

The iPhone: It'll send you to jail!

The iPhone's potential is somewhat immeasurable; it can fix a presentation on the way to work, help your kid shut up and go to sleep by playing "SpongeBob", and much more.  Now in West Virginia, it can be used to report suspicious activity to the local Homeland Security Office.  Whether it’s the new, possibly KGB agent secretary, or just your annoying neighbor, the picture you took with your iPhone will give the West Virginia “Fusion Center” information on local residents.  This report doesn’t even have to be as a result of a crime or even suspected crime, just any suspicious activity making you nervous.  The procedures are slightly hazy; it’s not clear how long information on citizens can be kept and filed, or if it’s even used.  This can possibly quell the “trigger happy” concerned citizen, wanting to report every neighbor for mowing their lawn or getting the mail.  Kentucky has a similar system in place, using basically the same concept.  Is the era of the local vigilante throwing terrorists in the slammer upon us?  I don’t think so, especially because there was no terrorism in either state in 2011.  All this means is that next time, you probably shouldn’t let your “buddy” snap your picture with his iPhone, so that he can use “Fat Booth.”   

For more information, visit Wired.
Picture found here.

Spy Glasses: No Longer Just For Spies

Ever seen a spy movie where the spy has goggles with an interface that pops up and scans the crowd or has built-in GPS showing him the way to his destination? By the end of this year Google will release glasses that seem to come right out of a nerd's fantasy. These glasses will look something like Oakley Thumps and cost somewhere between $250 and $600. These glasses will be Android based and have a unique navigation system consisting of head tilting to scroll and click. According to designers, these actions become almost instinctive through practice and almost unnoticeable to observers. The glasses will allow you to access GPS as well as having a low resolution camera that allows use of Google Goggles, which searches the web for what you're looking at and tells you what it is. They will also be connected to other Google features. Walking down the street you might look at the house to your right and the glasses could tell you one of your friends on Google Plus lives there. However, some privacy issues come along with these cool glasses. The Google team is making an effort so people know when the camera is being used on the glasses. I know that this will be one cool gadget that is definitely worth checking out when released later this year.

For more information, visit this New York Times article.
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Buckminsterfullerene

Buckminsterfullerene, in the common world, is known as the buckyball. Buckminsterfullerene is a spherical shaped hollow molecule, resembling a soccer ball, made of 60 carbon atoms, arranged to form 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons. Regarded by some as the third natural form of carbon(in addition to graphite and diamond), buckyballs are believed to have played a major role in the beginning of life on earth. The unique structure of buckyballs has constantly been utilized in the engineering world and is currently being used in superconductors, medicines, and water purification systems. Two years ago, NASA astronomers theorized that buckyballs may exist abundantly throughout the confines of space. Therefore the chances for other carbon-based lifeforms on other planets would be greatly increased. Using the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, a high powered infrared telescope, NASA astronomers followed up their hypothesis and found solid forms of buckyballs in space around 11:30 a.m. on 2/22/2012. This discovery has great implications in the worlds of science and technology. As we begin to learn more about buckyballs and their structures, we will be able to use them with greater frequency in molecular engineering. In addition, this solid form of the buckyball gives scientists a better idea of how we may have originated.

For more information, visit the NASA website.
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Mobile OS: The Final Frontier

Yesterday Canonical, the company who distributes the Ubuntu operating system, announced that it would make a version of its operating system that would allow an Android phone to function as a desktop when plugged into a special dock that hooks it up into a monitor, keyboard, and a mouse.  This has big implications for the personal computing industry because companies have long sought to merge the mobile and PC markets.  For example, in September Microsoft will release its Windows 8 operating system which aims to make an operating system that again bridges the mobile and PC divide.  It is clear that this is the new frontier of computing, and that the first company to take advantage of this revolution will be able to grab a large amount to the PC industry.  Ubuntu seems to be perfectly poised to dominate the market in the future.  It first debuted its mobile operating system interface in its release in April of 2011.  Because Ubuntu has been able to test and debug this interface, as well as the fact that Ubuntu is an open source operating system, makes it a serious contender for Microsoft to deal with.  It will be seen with the release of Windows 8 whether Microsoft, a late comer in this race, can keep up.

For more information, visit Wired.
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Twitter: It's faster than you are.

We all know how ridiculous (or as the kids say "ridonkulous") twitter can be.  The moment your kid kicks his first soccer goal and started crying (I believe you "hash tagged" it #Socute), the entire world knows, and is left wondering why you didn’t try and help your hurt child. I only recently got a twitter to see what people were posting about me (seriously, check out #eddietracker), and I already can see that some people love to post. This was ever more prevalent when during the annual Archipelago Journalism Conference, several journalists caught a basic stomach flu and puked their guts out. As expected, the moment they began to toss their cookies, they tweeted about it. Using the hash-tag #NASH74, conference officials tweeted helpful information to aid sick participants and to post funny throw up jokes. This is not the first time twitter has been used during emergencies. During the shootings at Virginia Tech in December, the school newspaper used their feed to inform students on police activity in the area. After these instances, I’m sure we can expect more people to use Twitter as an “information hotline” of sorts. Either that or to post pictures of Mr. Biggums, your cat.

For more information, visit Wired.
Picture found here.