David Lidsky's Blog, page 4576
July 9, 2010
Infographic: Spain Will Win the World Cup, Science Says
Pop Sci has pointed us to a fascinating chart by two math professors at the University of London, which purports to show who will win the World Cup on Sunday. The short answer: Spain, because they pass 40% more than The Netherlands, and as a result are a better "network" for exploiting their opponent's weaknesses.
The professors simply graphed all of the passes made by each team during the World Cup. (This sort of network study is usually called graph theory, and helps in planning internet...
Wanted: The Lo-Fi Camera That Snaps 360-Degree Panoramas
For the amateur photographer, snapping a decent 360-degree panorama is practically impossible. You're trying to stand nice and still while you rotate around yourself, pivoting at precise increments so your images don't overlap, and then, just when you're about done -- just when you've about got your epic pano of the French Alps -- some idiot tourist knocks into you and ruins the whole thing. It's only later that you realize your finger was in all the shots, any way.

Enter the Lomography...
Food for Thought: Rethinking Our Nutritional Facts
A Soccer Field That Also Produces Clean Drinking Water
With the world riveted on South Africa and soccer for a few more days, there's no better time to reveal a new concept that uses a stadium to bring safe water to the region's residents. South Africa will be home to the first PITCH:AFRICA, a structure that serves as a soccer field and community center, as well as a giant water catchment system that filters and stores potable water. The prototype structure was unveiled yesterday at the Port of Los Angeles.
[twistage ccca8c1a96175:]
The...
U.K. Scientists Demo Bullet-Proof Liquid Armor
Liquid, bullet-stopping body armor. Read that again: Liquid, bullet-stopping body armor. It's not sci-fi, it's real, and a team of U.K. scientists have proven it has a future in protecting soldiers from incoming rounds or shrapnel.
Liquid armor isn't a new idea, oddly enough: As well as being a sci-fi staple (Neal Stephenson's "sintered armor gel" from Snow Crash is a classic example) it's been researched for decades, mainly due to the benefits that a lightweight, flexible but super-strong...
Alstom Makes Play to Capture Brazilian Wind Power Market With 90 MW Wind Farm
Alstom made it onto our list of 2010's Most Innovative Companies for its work in the transportation sector, but the company is also making strides in the renewable energy industry. Take the French company's $126 million contract this week to build a massive 90 MW wind farm complex in Brazil, for example.
As part of a deal with Brazilian renewable energy company Desenvix, Alstom will pony up 57 turbines (1.67 MW each) for three wind farms. The turbine parts will be manufactured in both Spain...
Google Restarts Street View Info-Grab, Without Illegal Wi-Fi Snooping
Google announced a restart of Street View data capture operations, but in the wake of the fiasco about illegal wireless network snooping, there's no Wi-Fi kit aboard Google's cars. That fiasco is rolling on independently, however.
Google's made its announcement on its GooglePolicyEurope blog, rather fittingly since it's in Europe that Google's wireless network snooping rankled authorities. The post starts, promisingly, with an apology: "In May we announced that we had mistakenly included...
Porn Banned From Government Computers, But at What Price?
The House of Representatives approved a bill last week to snuff out access to porn on government owned PCs. "Fair enough!" the more puritanical among you may think. But the bill's halo effect could be financially tricky.
The anti-porn ruling came as a 111-page amendment from Democrat David Obey. The amendment is a direct response to recent headlines revealing that government employees --including, as CNET
notes, people who were supposed to be inspecting Gulf oil platforms--had been using...
Facebook's Zuckerberg, in T-Shirt, Webchats with British Prime Minister
The U.S. government may be footling with fantasmagorical Web 2.0 toys for citizen-empowerment, but over in the U.K., ladies and jellyspoons, the new Prime Minister has his finger on the pulse. He's been webchatting with Mr. Facebook.
The Prime Minister David Cameron, looking spiffy and smart (with a slightly badly-knotted tie, to show he dresses in the morning like the rest of us) recently conducted a videochat with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the benefits of Web 2.0 social network...
Google's Schmidt Sees Good Future in China, But Is This Just "Spin"? [Update: Maybe not]
Google's CEO Eric Schmidt thinks that soon his company will resolve its differences with the Chinese government over their ongoing operations in the censor-happy nation. Is he right? Or merely hopelessly optimistic?
Schmidt was questioned during an informal briefing at a conference yesterday, joined during the interview by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Because the spat with China has been long-running and vicious in some cases, and recently came to a head when the Chinese...
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