Saturday, March 28th, 2009
by TalkToMeGuy
Louis CK on Conan O’Brien. Louis speaks of how our generation has been spoiled by technology.
from our friends at NBC !
runtime about 5 minute
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
by TalkToMeGuy
Brain Connections – Emotions – Amino Acids (Neuropeptides) – The Cell – Addiction
from our friends at What The Bleep
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
by TalkToMeGuy
[wpvideo zMQtUssW]
This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some.
Pattie Maes was the key architect behind what was once called “collaborative filtering” and has become a key to Web 2.0: the immense engine of recommendations — or “things like this” — fueled by other users. In the 1990s, Maes’ Software Agents program at MIT created Firefly, a technology (and then a startup) that let users choose songs they liked, and find similar songs they’d never heard of, by taking cues from others with similar taste. This brought a sea change in the way we interact with software, with culture and with one another.
Now Maes is working on a similarly boundary-breaking initiative. Her newly founded Fluid Interfaces Group, also part of the MIT Media Lab, aims to rethink the ways in which humans and computers interact, partially by redefining both human and computer. In Maes’ world (and really, in all of ours), the computer is no longer a distinct object, but a source of intelligence that’s embedded in our environment. By outfitting ourselves with digital accessories, we can continually learn from (and teach) our surroundings. The uses of this tech — from healthcare to home furnishings, warfare to supermarkets — are powerful and increasingly real.
from our friends at TED
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
by TalkToMeGuy
LOS ANGELES — The 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI was named Green Car of the Year Thursday, the first time a diesel has won the award presented each year at the L.A. Auto Show.
The 41-mpg TDI beat out a pair of hybrids, a sporty clean-diesel sedan, and the trendy little Smart ForTwo, to take top honors because, the judges said, it “epitomizes what the Green Car of the Year is all about.”
“It raises the bar significantly in environmental performance,” said Ron Cogan, editor of Green Car Journal and GreenCar.com, which has presented the award at the L.A. Auto Show since 2005. “This is all the more impressive when you consider the Jetta TDI is a clean diesel, achieving the kind of fuel efficiency offered by gasoline-electric hybrids but in a more affordable way.”
The award is significant because the award is presented here at the L.A. Auto Show only to those cars you can actually walk into a showroom and buy. And although the judges include greenies like Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, to give the award environmental cred, it also includes certified gearheads Jay Leno and Carroll Shelby to ensure the award goes to a car you’d actually want to own.
The Jetta got the nod over the Ford Fusion hybrid, the Saturn Vue Two-Mode Hybrid, the BMW 335d diesel and the ForTwo. (More on the nominees here.) The Jetta took top honors, Cogan said, because its 2.0-liter turbodiesel represents the state of the art in clean diesel injection and emissions technology, so the car is clean enough even for California — no mean feat. It’s also a comfortable five-passenger sedan with a list price of $21,990.
VW unveiled the Jetta TDI here in L.A. last year. Stefan Jacoby, president and CEO of VW North America, said the company sold 8,000 of them since it went on sale in August. “This award is a real honor,” he said in accepting the award one day after VW unveiled the new Touareg V6 TDI. “We are confident the popularity of clean diesels will continue to grow.”
UPDATE, 10 P.M. – To answer some questions from the commenters: the Jetta TDI is a 50-state car. Yes, that includes California. Fuel economy figure provided by Green Car Journal, and your mileage may vary. EPA’s fuel efficiency website has not yet listed 2010 models.
from our friends at wired.com
