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.
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