Gwinnett County public school leaders, who opened the doors for a new school year Monday, are increasingly turning to technology to improve classroom performance.

Georgias largest school district is one of a handful nationwide using predictive analytics to determine where its 180,000 students need the most help. Gwinnetts partner in this effort is IBM, which joined forces with the district several years ago.

The data was initially used to spot things such as whether a student is excessively absent. Now, they want the data to help them do more to assist in finding classroom techniques to help students struggling academically and help those doing well to excel.

We still need to try to get the predictive analytics working at that level, Gwinnett Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks said in an interview.

Some parents and observers, though, are worried about what kind of data schools are keeping about children as well as some learning exercises using IBM-related technology.

A corporate, data-collecting platform that exposes very young children to the harm of increased screen time and to fairly blatant marketing, and that encourages problematic behaviors, should not be imposed unless parents are given complete information about the program and allowed to remove their children from participating, said Jane Robbins, an attorney and a senior fellow with the American Principles Project, a conservative-leaning organization, whosbeen critical of some of Gwinnetts practices.

Wilbanks said Gwinnett has tried to be careful collecting data, adding the school district has been working on efforts to make its passwords more secure.

We only need to be collecting the data we need to collect, he said.

Because of its size and finances, Gwinnett is known to be eager to try new technology or ideas in the classroom. Gwinnetts$2 billion budget is twice as large asCobbs, Georgias second-largest public school district.

In 2013, Gwinnett and IBM announced their data partnership as part of the school districts eClass initiative to use technology to improve classroom performance. Teachers and principals use data from student assessments, frequently comparing the results to other Gwinnett schools, to determine what teaching techniques can be used to improve student performance. Gwinnett officials believe its helping, in some cases with the help of characters like Elmo.

A few months ago, IBM and the Sesame Network announced they had created the industrysfirst vocabulary learning app for kindergarten students. The app featured Sesame Street characters alongside IBMs Watson artificial intelligence learning technology, educational videos and word games.

The pilot focused on words most kindergarten students, or adults, dont use, such as arachnid. Some teachers noticed students during recess referring to spiders on the playground as arachnids and noting the camouflage, another word taught to the students, on bugs bodies.

At Coleman Middle, Georgias only state-certified school for science, technology, engineering, the arts and math, teachers and students were already preparing Monday to work on their first large-scale projects of the year using different forms of technology. Some students, for example, will collect county restaurant food-inspection data to look for trends in bacteria or diseases. Other students will use 3D printers or computers in the music lab for various projects.

Principal J.W. Mozley said he finds students are not bashful about using some gadgets in the school. The key, he said, is to keep them trying different forms of technology.

We feel very strongly that students should be producers of the technology, not just consumers, Mozley said.

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Gwinnett schools turn to data for better student performance - MyAJC

A view of the clean room at Clyde Space's Glasgow facility. Credit: Clyde Space

LOGAN, Utah Scotlands Clyde Space Ltd. is joining forces with industrial conglomerate Teledyne e2v to develop a free-flying nanosatellite to demonstrate the unique quantum properties of cold atoms.

The Cold Atom Space Payload mission will create a new wave of space applications, Craig Clark, Clyde Space chief executive, said in a statement.

Laboratory experiments on the ground have shown that atoms cooled to a temperature of 0 degrees Kelvin, or -273.15 Celsius, can act as extremely sensitive sensors capable of mapping minuscule changes in the strength of Earths gravity. As a result, instruments using the cold atoms could help researchers monitor polar ice mass, ocean currents, sea levels and underground water resources in addition to identifying new underground deposits of natural resources. The technology also has applications for deep space navigation and precision timing.

Clyde Space and Teledyne e2v plan to develop the Cold Atom Space Payload mission over the next 18 months and launch it by the end of the decade. Partners for the project, which is funded by Innovate UK, an economic development agency, include Gooch & Housego PLC, XCAM Ltd., Covesion Ltd. and the University of Southampton.

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Clyde Space joins Teledyne e2v to explore quantum technology in space - SpaceNews

The NAND landscape. Apple (AAPL) has constantly been suing Samsung (OTC:SSNLF), the largest producer of NAND memory in the world. And Apple also is a customer of Samsung for NAND. Apple has also been a customer of Toshiba (OTCPK:TOSBF), which can't accomplish its spin off of its memory unit and is in full on litigation with its joint venture partner Western Digital (WDC). The future of Toshiba's Fab 6 which would make the next generation of memory is entirely unclear. And then there is SKHynix (OTC:HXSCF) which is only now ramping to a 48 layer 3DNAND while its competitors are all in full production with 64 layer product.

And finally there is Micron Technology (MU) trading at a paltry 5x forward, and 12x trailing, PE. Micron has the most dense 3D memory chip available which gives it a cost advantage and should give customers concerned about critical real estate, like the inside of a smartphone, a space advantage.

So what is Apple to do? Right now things in the Micron part of the memory market should look invitingly calm if you are a massive consumer like Apple. They have no IP lawsuits with you. They aren't in litigation with a JV partner. And they are a leader, at present, in terms of technology.

Apple should consider:

Tim and Donald discussing tax on repatriation of foreign cash?

Why should Apple bother? Many of us learned about Micron from articles here by the great Russ Fischer. Russ wrote in 2013 that Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) should acquire Micron. I wrote a rejoinder in November 2013 that perhaps Apple should acquire Micron. So far we are both wrong. (Be charitable. Call one of us early.) After making many millions of dollars for faithful Seeking Alpha readers, Russ suffered a major stroke. He is recovering and I hope I don't set him back to say that I still think Apple is the more logical buyer. Who knows? Maybe one day one of us could be correct.

Russ was great at boiling complicated stuff down so us mere mortals could understand it. Let me try to channel my muse here.

First, pretend you are buying an iPhone. Go to the Apple store and see that an upgrade from 128GB of NAND on an iPhone 7 is priced at $100. Next, wander over to inSpectrum to see what Apple might be paying to fulfill your upgrade. Scroll on down to the 128Gb chips and multiply by 8 to get 128GB for your upgrade. On August 6 as I was writing this, the spot price for the 128Gb TLC chip was $4.70. And so 8 of these would cost $37.60. Of course Apple doesn't pay spot and presumably they get a pretty sweet contract price. They also are presumably still buying whole wafers and are sawing them down, testing them, and packaging themselves achieving an even better cost. But let's just call it a $62 margin on your $100 upgrade to keep the math simpler. This is way down from a 92% margin Apple was getting on a 16GB upgrade when I wrote my November 2013 article. Maybe IDTT (It's Different This Time)?

Now humor Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein who has just written that he thinks Apple will sell 251,069,000 iPhones in 2018. Gee, lets assume that there is a memory shortage and Apple is only able to get enough memory for a base model phone (128GB in the case of the iPhone 7 on the Apple store site linked above). OK maybe they scrounge up enough NAND for a few upgrades but 100 million upgrades are foregone since Apple's Tim Cook (Apple CEO and supply chain czar) is margin sensitive. Hmmm, 100 million phones that don't generate a $62 margin on this memory upgrade. Why that would be $6.2 billion in foregone gross profit! And if you rattle down through Toni's model, this might mean a decrease in Apple's earnings per share of around 50 cents. And then multiplying by a 17.79x PE according to Google finance, etc. etc.

Conclusions: There are lots of other reasons, besides the iPhone memory upgrade example, for Apple to cozy up to Micron. Toni Sacconaghi also thinks Apple will sell 39.6 million iPads, 19 million MACs, and 14.4 million watches in 2018. All of these consume NAND. They also consume Micron's primary product line of DRAM.

Beyond NAND and DRAM Micron could help Apple's ambitions with new memory types and artificial intelligence. The Micron/Intel jointly developed 3DXpoint memory comes to mind with regard to new memory. I would steer readers to Stephen Breezy's wonderful first article on SA "The iPhone 5 Technology Rabbit Hole." He was writing about phase change memory and the days of run time life it could give an iPhone. Of course it didn't happen in the iPhone 5 and hasn't appeared in subsequent models. But PCM is at the heart of 3DXpoint. A Micron controlled, or buddied up to, by Apple might yet see such an implementation.

On the AI side, one needs look no further than Micron's supply of advanced DRAM to Nvidia (NVDA) for its GPU's.

Naysayers will point out that Apple hasn't bought anything larger than its Beats headphone company. They should. Naysayers will suggest that it wouldn't work for Apple to sell memory that it doesn't need to competitors. Nonsense! This is what Samsung does every day of the week, including to a competitor named Apple.

Russ Fischer is doing a little better. He isn't hunched over a computer reading Seeking Alpha or comments to articles but we make sure he hears those of interest. When I last spoke with him, he was scheming about buying a Ford truck, racing watercraft with his son again, and journeying to Seattle. I can't wait to see him turn his nurses into millionaires with some of his trading ideas. Nice to see that a fellow going through what he is, and what he has gone through, is still developing a bucket list.

Disclosure: I am/we are long MU, INTC.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Editor's Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.

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Apple Needs Micron Technology - Seeking Alpha

Designers should rethink the high-tech look of gadgets according to Nendo founder Oki Sato, who has also called most of today's smart devices "useless".

The prolific Japanese-Canadian designer said that contemporary gadgets were designed to "look like technology", when they should instead blend in with home interiors or the environment they belong in.

He said that as well as being less distracting on the eye, this approach would help to reach potential consumers who are currently alienated by technology.

"I think the technology shouldn't look like technology; it should look like something in your grandmother's room, and it should blend into everyday life," Sato told Dezeen. "It shouldn't distract you, and it should be linked with your feelings and your emotions."

"It's important that it doesn't look high-tech that scares people sometimes," he continued. "When I design things that use technology, I try to think if my grandmother can use it. I think it's very important that she doesn't get scared."

Sato is known for working on roughly 400 projects at a time; however, he has so far resisted designing gadgets or incorporating internet-of-things (IoT) technology into his products.

He said he was sceptical about such smart devices, because in the absence of electricity or Wi-Fi, they could be rendered useless.

"I feel that more than 99 per cent of these things are useless in a way," said Sato. "You have these super-high-tech toilets, for instance, which warm your butt, which flush, which create music, which do everything for you, but then you notice that all these Japanese guys come to America or Europe where the toilets do nothing for you and they get afraid of it."

"It's kind of strange isn't it? You lose your smartphone and you can't even wash your butt anymore!"

The rise of the IoT, which sees ordinary household objects turned into networked devices that speak to each other via the internet, has already spawned connected kettles, smart doorbells and a toothbrush that tracks your oral hygiene habits.

Established industrial designers have turned their attention to networked technology in recent years, including Philippe Starck, who created voice-controlled smart radiator valves for Netatmo, and Barber and Osgerby, who produced the Beeline connected bike compass through their creative consultancy MAP, while San Francisco-based Yves Behar has made such devices his specialty.

Diverse brands are also dabbling with the IoT from IKEA with its Tradfri smart lighting to Herman Miller with its Live OS office furniture.

However, Sato has stayed mostly analogue in his output, and also said he is wary about how much technology is used in the design process.

"Technology is good, of course, but it's kind of dangerous in a way," Sato said. "At the moment we have eight 3D printers in our studio working 24 hours a day, and if we lose electricity we can't design things any more. In the end the sketchbook works the best."

"I think we really need to find a balance between technology and things that do not use any electricity or have anything to do with the internet."

Sato spoke to Dezeen at the opening of Nendo's Invisible Outlines exhibition, which provided a calming white sanctuary for the harried visitors of Milan design week earlier this year.

He founded Nendo 15 years ago after graduating from Japan's Waseda University with a masters in architecture. The studio is best known for its furniture and product design, which has ranged from tangled tables for Cappellini to a construction-inspired rocking horse for Kartell.

Sato joins Rem Koolhaas in expressing concern about the trend towards ubiquitous networked devices. Koolhaas criticised the lack of privacy protection, while British motoring group The AA have picked up on the devices' potential vulnerability to hackers.

Sato was placed first in the list of designers in the inaugural Dezeen Hot List, our guide to the most newsworthy forces in global design.

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"Technology should look like something in your grandmother's room" says Oki Sato - Dezeen

Noah Pransky, WTSP 9:07 PM. EDT August 06, 2017

Passenger jet airliner plane arriving or departing Tampa International Airport in Florida. (Photo: mokee81, Thinkstock)

TAMPA, Florida Its 2017. Tampa International Airport continues to set new passenger records and move forward with its multibillion-dollar expansion project. But for as proactive as the airport authority has been on constructing its future, it appears to be taking a slow and reactive approach toward a technology rapidly changing its business model: ridesharing.

Uber and Lyft have dramatically altered how passengers get to and from the airport, causing significant drops in airport revenues from parking and rental cars the two traditional ground transportation options the airport has bet its future on and planned Phase 1 of its expansion around.

Weve made this huge bet on rental cars that I dont know if its going to pay off, said State Sen. Jeff Brandes (R, St. Petersburg), who helped initiate an audit of the airports multi-phase construction project last legislative session. I would love to see them move faster (on emerging technology).

After 10Investigates July report on how the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority will initiate new fees on Uber, Lyft, and taxicab fares from the airport, the investigative team dug into the airports budget and found the fees come after the agency missed several projections on parking and rental car revenues.

The airport also hadnt adjusted its master plan to accommodate the disruption caused by new technology until this summer, when it added new curbsides at each terminal and scaled back Phase 2 of its expansion, even though Uber was first introduced to the Tampa market five years ago at the Republican National Convention and started impacting airport revenues at least two years ago.

According to business management firm Certify, ridesharing now accounts for 63 percent of U.S. business travelers ground transportation expenses, eclipsing rental cars (29%) and taxicabs (8%) combined.

The largest portion of the airports construction project adds people movers that will connect travelers with a new, centralized rental car facility. The facility has been heralded by Tampa International Airport (TIA) CEO Joe Lopano as one that will "give our guests access to twice as many rental car choices" andremove 8,000 cars per day from airport roads.

But the 8,000 cars reflect short trips taken on the airports main roads and back roads not the terminal curbsides, where there is often the most congestion, especially as ridesharing grows. And those estimates were based on a 2011 study, taken during peak season, and prior to the beginning of ridesharing in Tampa.

The airport hasnt yet addressed the increased congestion from Uber and Lyft vehicles picking passengers up at the curbsides.

Planned fee schedule

Were we too late? Maybe, Lopano said, responding to a question about the speed of which the airport has responded to new technology. But I think we have the right solution.

SLOW TO PIVOT ON RIDESHARING

As recently as April 2017, one airport executive downplayed the impact of ridesharing when asked by board members, suggesting the airport has merely pulled the numbers down a little bit on its future revenue projections.

But despite record growth in passengers expected to cross 10,000,000 enplanements for the first time this year rental car transactions at Tampa International stopped growing after 2015, while annual revenues have dropped by $4 million since then.

And the airport will miss its parking revenue estimate by more than $3 million in 2017 despite more travelers heading to the airport.

Some supporters of ridesharing say adjustments for the changing transportation model are coming too late, while some in the taxi and limousine industry say the new fees on rideshare pickups are also long overdue. But none seem happy the airport wants to charge $5 per pickup to make up for lost rental car and parking revenues.

Thats a huge increase to our passengers, said Tom Halsnick, owner of Black Pearl Limousine. Three dollars should be the maximum for the fee (the airport) can charge.

Ive always had some concerns about how the rental car numbers would play out, Brandes said. I want to look at their numbers and say, how is rideshare disrupting the rental car business? How many people arent parking long-term now because its cheaper simply to take an Uber or Lyft to the airport?

10Investigates first questioned Lopano about the risk the airport was undertaking with the rental car facility back in 2015.

The airport authoritys 2018 budget, presented to the board on Thursday, finally acknowledged that competition from ride-sharing is impacting parking revenues.

And rental car taxes, which are the main source of funding for the airports multi-billion-dollar construction, will only pull in $43 million in 2017; thats more than $2 million below projections and more than $1.5 million below 2016 numbers, despite surging passenger growth. Profit-sharing from TIA rental car companies is also down millions in the last two years.

But Lopano says the few million dollars lost in ground transportation has been made up in better-than-expected cargo and concessions revenues, and the airports overall revenues are proof things are going well. Although the overall figures missed several earlier estimates and goals, the $216 million in 2017 revenue will be the airports highest ever. Expenses are below revenues and the airport's reserves have grown.

We are good stewards of this asset, Lopano said. Its one of the best assets in our region (and) were continuing to grow...Air service continues to go up; our international service has doubled...so the local people can rest assured that the airport is going to be in good shape.

Lopano also points to another big-picture benefit of creating the rental car facility: freeing up space in the airports garage and main terminal for future expansion.

Thats the importance of this (project is) to allow growth in this building without having to go to a new one, Lopano said of the nearly 50-year-old airport facility.

RIDESHARE, LIMO, TAXI FEES

Lopano says adding pickup fees for Uber, Lyft, taxis, limos, and shuttles is simply shifting some of the airports expenses to the companies that profit there, just as it does with rental car companies, airlines, and other concessionaires.

TIA CEO Joe Lopano

Each time a Lyft or Uber vehicle picks up passengers at the airport, the companies will use their respective apps GPS to impose a $3 fee. The companies will then self-report the numbers and remit payments to TIA. Taxicabs, shuttles, and courtesy vehicles will start paying similar fees in the spring when the airport installs AVI technology, similar to SunPass readers. All prices will then climb by $1 in October 2018, and by another $1 in October 2019.

Its appropriate for us to recover our costs, Lopano said, referring to the airports cost to maintain its roads, lots, and other transportation-related expenses. Everyone who uses the airport to make money should pay their fair share airport.

Airport executives repeatedly said the amount of the pickup fees higher than most other airports in Florida was determined by its annual ground transportation expenses, divided by the number of expected commercial pickups.

Consulting firmLeighFisher estimated TIA's annual ground transportation expenses to be $5.4 million per year: $500,000 of which was direct ground transportation expenses; $3.8 million due to indirect expenses like airport administration and roads; and $1.1 million to depreciation on resources like parking lots and the airports main parkway. It also includes a $160,000 annual bill to maintain theAVIsystem plus a depreciation schedule on the system of $188,000 annually.

I question that figure, Halsnick said of the airports ground transportation costs. A (planned fee of $5 per pickup) is a huge difference (to customers)...sometimes a deal-breaker.

CHEERLEADER-IN-CHIEF

Lopano is a tireless advocate for the airport, consistently rated by passengers as one of the three-best in the nation. And he says the best is yet to come when construction is done.

Its going to be pretty awesome, Lopano said. We broke a record for passengers; we broke a record for revenues; so I think the performance (to-date) speaks for itself.

Lopano received a job performance rating of 4.96 out of 5.00 from board members last week, and is due to receive a $60,000 raise next April, taking his salary to $452,898.

He is popular among business leaders and his board. But for as easily as Lopano and his administration have provided good news to the airports board members, the flow of news about possible challenges has been considerably slower.

During an April 2017 budget workshop, aviation authority board member and county commissioner, Victor Crist, asked about financial challenges the airport was facing from Uber and Lyft.

The airports executive vice president of finance and IT, Damian Brooke, responded, when you look at our transactions for the rental cars right now, the transactions are actually holding firm.

Brooke did not disclose that the rate of passengers who rent cars at TIA was dropping or that those who rented cars were spending considerably less on rental cars.

He continued to tell the board, what we have done in these projections is weve taken a very conservative approach in the parking ground transportation side because as we look forward, you know, with the growth of (ridesharing) so and so forth, weve pulled the numbers down a little bit, again just to be conservative.

But four months ago when the comments were made, the airport and many other airports around the country already had significant evidence ridesharing was hurting revenues and disrupting business models.

That business model will again be under the microscope on Wednesday, whenLopano and his staff meet with the companies that rate the airports billion-plus dollars in bonds. Two years ago, Lopano boasted to 10Investigates about the airports plan and rental car numbers, the guys on Wall St. liked it.

If the agencies still like the plan, it could help the airport lower future interest rates. If the bond rating agencies are concerned about any red flags, it could cost the airport millions.

CHANGES UNDERWAY & TIAs FUTURE

Tampa International Airport is in the process of revamping its restaurants, shops, and concourses. Its expansion/modernization project will also open up more space and consumer options in the main terminal as well as operational improvements behind-the-scenes.

Phase 1 of the project, which includes the rental car center and people mover system, is expected to finish in early 2018.

Phase 2 funding was just approved by the airport board and will bring among other things additional curbsides at each terminal to alleviate congestion from rideshare pickups and drop-offs. But Phase 2 has been scaled down; now less complex and less costly than originally proposed.

Future construction (Phase 3) could add a new D airside terminal to accommodate a need for new gates, but Lopano says TIAs gates are actually underutilized right now since airlines are running bigger planes and selling a higher percentage of their seats.

Brandes says he would like to see the airport move faster on new technology, but there is still time to have discussions about a future with electric and autonomous vehicles. He even suggested the rental car facility could be a future hub of the regions autonomous vehicle fleet if the shared economy replaces individually-owned vehicles.

Lopano responded to Brandes' vision by saying the airport is keeping its options open and is in a good position to pivot toward new technology when the time comes.

Find 10Investigates' Noah Pransky on Facebookor follow his updates on Twitter. Send your story tips confidentially to npransky@wtsp.com.

2017 WTSP-TV

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Did Tampa's Airport bet its future on a technology of the past? - WTSP 10 News

In less than a month school will be back in session and the school districts 1:1 M-Powered Learning Initiative will be underway. During the 2017-18 school year, each student in grades 6-12 will be issued an individual district-owned Chromebook to be used at school and home for educational purposes. Previously, the school district offered students computing devices at a ratio of approximately one device for every 1.5 students, but the shared devices were only accessible at limited times during the school day.

While there will likely be some concerns and difficulties that the school district will need to work through with this initiative, it is anticipated that the value and potential benefits of providing all students with a device is well worth any problems that will be encountered.

According to an overview prepared by the school districts technology department, it is expected that this initiative will provide the access needed to reliably integrate technology tools for facilitating quality learning experiences, while helping to engage students in critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

An introductory video and a wealth of other information about the 1:1 initiative is available on the school district website (www.tinyurl.com/sdmampower), but a few of the basic questions and answers for the program include:

Should school families or community stakeholders have any questions about the 1:1 technology initiative in the School District of the Menomonie Area , I invite you to visit me at the Administrative Service Center on Pine Avenue, or contact me at 715-232-1642. More information about our schools can be found on the school district website (www.sdmaonline.com), and I regularly post school-related information on Twitter (www.twitter.com/sdmaonline) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/menomonie.schools)

Thank you to SDMA Technology Team and Director of Technology Services Katie Krueger for contributing to this article.

Joe Zydowsky, Ph.D. is the district administrator for the School District of the Menomonie Area.

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School Crossings: 1:1 technology explained - Chippewa Herald

When you think of Siemens, you might think of everything from generators to LED screens to one of the big-name sponsors behind PBS programmingbut start thinking in terms of Martian habitats.

Joining the race to Mars right behind Tesla and SpaceX mogul Elon Musk is the industrial manufacturing monolith, whose experience in generating energy could possibly power a human colony on a planet that would otherwise be perilous to our survival. Sunlight that filters through the reddish dust in what could pass for an atmosphere can be harnessed by solar panels. The same wind that obliterated most of its atmosphere can be the force behind sustaining human life. Mars may be devoid of water and oxygen, but it has no shortage of potential energy.

"Mars will be the ultimate microgrid," claims the companys website. "With no centralized power sources, communities will one day rely on decentralized energy systems."

Siemens future Martian technology was inspired by something much closer to Earth. When the people of the Aboriginal Wiyot reservation north of San Francisco recently experienced glitches in power due to interferences from the Pacific Gas & Electric power grid, Siemens joined forces with them to devise a method to fuel the reservation that would be both reliable and environmentally conscious. The microgrid that was the brainchild of this thinking runs on a 500-kilowatt array of REC Solar solar panels and a Tesla battery storage system, among other instruments. Maintenance is overseen through a computerized management system that determines where power resources are best used.

The best part? Power from the grid can be replaced even when its down.

This is the same type of technology Siemens hopes to someday use to keep a Martian colony flourishing, though requirements are bound to change on an alien planet lacking an atmosphere. Siemens Energy Management director of microgrid and renewable integration Clark Wiedetz is unsure of the variables that will make sense for Mars, but at least the microgrid is not dependent on cloud computing, which would be impossible to access 33.9 million miles from Earth. Maintenance in the Wiyot reservation is mostly overseen by the residents with some remote assistance, which is the same expected of astronauts journeying into deep space.

Tesla and SolarCity also recently installed a microgrid run by batteries and solar panels that power an entire island for three days, even with overcast skies. Considering all that dust obscuring the view on Mars, this could be one more small step toward mankind going Martian.

(via Seeker)

Link:

This insanely advanced technology could power a future colony on Mars. - SYFY WIRE (blog)

EJ Dionne Jr.: How technology is making us strangers to each other Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Mr. Dunkelman, a fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute, is no Luddite when it comes to technology. But the author of the 2014 book The Vanishing Neighbor has a healthy obsession with how people connect with each other (or fail to), and his ... and more »

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EJ Dionne Jr.: How technology is making us strangers to each other - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The new operation, which is expected to create 25-30 jobs, garnered a $150,000 grant from the Michigan Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development in July, as one of the first incentives in a pilot incentive program launched by the state agriculture department.

"There's literally hundreds of thousands of dollars a month leaving Michigan, going somewhere else," Aronson said. "Now we can bring this all in-state."

He owns 90 percent of Great Lakes; a silent partner owns the rest.

A 30,000-square-foot building on Trolley Industrial Drive near I-94 will house the HPP line. It was formerly a distribution site for Garden Fresh products, and Campbell Soup continued to operate from there for a time after it bought Garden Fresh.

Campbell vacated the building recently after constructing a new warehouse in Ferndale, leaving two "football-field-sized" walk-in coolers that are perfect for storing food going through the HPP process, Aronson said, and four loading docks.

The site has space for four HPP lines, but initial plans call for installation of a single line that would have capacity to process 45 million pounds of food per year.

When complete, the HPP line will be able to take small runs as well as large runs, given that it uses only cold water to process foods and won't need to go through costly cleanings in between product runs, Aronson said.

The process does change some some attributes of the food, he said. "What we noticed is it makes jalapenos hotter, so I had to put less in (salsa.) And it made garlic weaker. I had to put more garlic in."

The process can't be used for products in glass and doesn't work well for breads and breakfast sandwiches, Aronson said. Dips work great, but after they go through HPP, they may leach a little liquid around the edges.

"That's what I'll help them with. I'll tell them here's the food starch you want to use because it's all natural, and it's really attractive on your label. ... You don't want to add something with five ingredients. We can help them that way without having to experiment at home for a month or five months."

The process has helped Drought expand its distribution throughout the Midwest over the past eight months, said Jessie James, chief business development officer of Drought and one of the four sisters who founded the company six years ago.

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Bringing Garden Fresh technology to others - Crain's Detroit Business

Imagine having your phone warn you if youre driving too fast or if youre approaching a red light.

For Bryan Mulligan, it doesnt take much imagination. His Suwanee-based company, Applied Information, is developing a smartphone app called TravelSafely that will do those things and more for drivers in areas where the local government has set up the technology to interact with the app.

Weve got all of this stuff bundled together, and thats where we came up with the idea of TravelSafely as a comunity, Mulligan said. Its friends keeping friends safe using the connectivity of their cell phones with each other and with the infrastructure.

U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall got a firsthand look at the technology behind the app which wont be released to the public until next year this past week when he toured Applied Informations office. He also got to see the test version of the system in action when Mulligan took him for a demonstration drive in the Suwanee area.

The TravelSafely app is in the testing phase with Applied Informations employees using technology it has installed for local governments to see how it works. In Marietta, smart city technology has been installed, allowing fire trucks, for exmaple, to get to incidents sooner.

In Gwinnett, the test app uses information from 270 school beacons installed for the county last year to see how the technology works in school zones.

We have a world-class expert within 50 miles of our district office and the best thing we can do is take advantage of that intellect, he said. I can go through the halls of Congress and theres going to be 250-300 other members who dont have access to a company like this, who dont have access to innovators like this.

To have folks willing to share their expertise with us means were going to get better policy at the end of the day.

At its core, TravelSafely is a system that relies on the internet being the place where different pieces of technology talk to each other through the programs system. That could include anything from cellphones that have the app communicating with each other, or beacons on public safety vehicles communicating with the phones that are in the near vicinity.

A beacon on a fire truck, for example, will send a signal about its location to the TravelSafely system, which will then send an alert to a driver who has the app on their phone to let them know the fire truck is approaching. The fire truck could even send a signal to traffic lights that its approaching to have it open a path for the truck so it can get to the scene of a fire sooner.

Similarly, the system can be set up so that it knows when a driver is traveling faster than the posted speed limit, when they are in a school zone, when they are approaching a red light among other things or even when a red light is about to turn green.

At one point during a demonstration drive with the Daily Post, an alarm suddenly came blaring from Mulligans phone as he approached a sign warning him to slow down. A Siri-like voice then came from his phone, offering him an additional warning.

Speeding in low speed zone, the phone said, prompting Mulligan to slow down.

Thats the app working, he said. It knew I was in an area of danger. I was going too fast, and so it will alert me and tell me Im going too fast. Over here, its telling me the status of the traffic light ahead.

Since the app is in the testing phase, engineers back at Applied Informations office decided to throw up a red light warning as the car Mulligan was driving approached the intersection of Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and Eva Kennedy Road even though the light was really green.

It was just a test to see what the app would do if someone drove through the intersection despite the warnings.

Red light alarm, the apps voice said as the car entered the intersection.

This is the layer of safety that can help save some of these 40,000 lives that are lost each year, Mulligan said. We lose 40,000 people on the roads each year (because of accidents).

Mulligan, who has worked in the transportation business for about 20 years, decided last year that although he had been talking about doing the TravelSafely technology for a while, he wanted to go ahead and do it.

It was time to see if we could do something as a private sector to save some of these 40,000 lives we lose each year, and I just decided to do it, he said.

Residents will have to wait a while before they can find TravelSafely in their app stores, though. Mulligan said the app wont be able to the public until sometime in January at the earliest. It will be free, with Applied Information making money for it by selling communities the equipment to be a part of the system so drivers can use it in those areas.

As a member of the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Woodall has some use for that expertise in addressing traffic issues. He said the issue facing the committee is figuring out how to address these issues, and whether that involves using traditional means or going in a new direction.

How are we going to make roads safer, he said. We can build more lanes of interstate in order to keep congestion down or we can deploy technology to keep congestion down. What youre going to find when folks are bringing their own solutions is that were going to get to make those choices. Are we going to go 20th Century or are we going to go 21st Century?

Free and reasonable people can agree to disagree, but were going to have a chance on the committee to give people a bigger bang for their taxpayer dollar if we can replicate what Gwinnett County has done in terms of its school zones, or what Marietta has done in terms of its emergency vehicles.

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Suwanee app maker demonstrtes traffic alert technology to Rep. Rob Woodall - Gwinnettdailypost.com

CHICAGO (Reuters) - In a control room at a police headquarters on Chicago's South Side, officers scan digital maps on big screens to see where a computer algorithm predicts crime will happen next.

Thrust into a national debate over violent crime and the use of force by officers, police in the third-largest U.S. city are using technology to try to rein in a surging murder rate.

And while commanders recognize the new tools can only ever be part of the solution, the number of shootings in the 7th District from January through July fell 39 percent compared with the same period last year. The number of murders dropped by 33 percent to 34. Citywide, the number of murders is up 3 percent at 402.

Three other districts where the technology is fully operational have also seen between 15 percent and 29 percent fewer shootings, and 9 percent to 18 percent fewer homicides, according to the department's data.

The community is starting to see real change in regards to violence, said Kenneth Johnson, the 7th District commander.

Cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Denver, Tacoma, Washington, and Lincoln, Nebraska have tested the same or similar technologies.

The techniques being used in Chicago's 7th District's control room, one of six such centers opened since January as part of a roughly $6 million experiment, are aimed at complimenting traditional police work and are part of a broader effort to overhaul the force of some 12,500 officers."We are not saying we can predict where the next shooting is going to occur," said Jonathan Lewin, chief of the Chicago Police Department's Bureau of Technical Services. "These are just tools. They are not going to replace (officers)."

The department's efforts come after a Justice Department investigation published in January found officers engaged in racial discrimination and routinely violated residents' civil rights.

That probe followed street protests triggered by the late 2015 release of a video showing a white police officer fatally shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald a year earlier.

Some critics of the department fear the technology could prove a distraction from confronting what they say are the underlying issues driving violence in the city of 2.7 million.

"Real answers are hard," said Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia who has written a book on police technology. "They involve better education, better economic opportunity, dealing with poverty and mental illness."

Chicago's recent rash of shootings - 101 people were shot over the Independence Day weekend alone - prompted President Donald Trump to bemoan the response of city leaders to the bloodshed, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to describe some of its areas as "killing fields."

One of the technologies being used in the 7th District is HunchLab, a predictive policing program made by Philadelphia-based company Azavea. It combines crime data with factors including the location of local businesses, the weather and socioeconomic information to forecast where crime might occur. The results help officers decide how to deploy resources.

Another is the Strategic Subject's List, a database of individuals likely to be involved in shootings that was developed by the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Police are tight-lipped about how it is compiled, saying only that the algorithm looks at eight factors including gang affiliation and prior drug arrests to assign people a number between 0 and 500. A higher number reflects higher risk.

They are also using the gunfire detection system made by ShotSpotter Inc (SSTI.O), which uses sensors to locate the source of gunshots. Police officials declined, however, to say how many such devices were installed in the 7th District.

"We can't give away the kitchen sink and tell them all of our secrets," district commander Johnson said.

Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin; Editing by Ben Klayman and Lisa Shumaker

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As shootings soar, Chicago police use technology to predict crime - Reuters

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Google Is Developing Technology for Snapchat-Like Media Content Wall Street Journal (subscription) Google is developing technology to let publishers create visual-oriented media content along the lines of Snapchat's Discover, according to people familiar with the situation, upping the ante in a race among tech giants to dominate news dissemination ... Google tests publishing tech similar to Snapchat: sourceReuters Insiders say Google was interested in buying Snap for at least $30 billion last yearBusiness Insider all 86 news articles »

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Google Is Developing Technology for Snapchat-Like Media Content - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Facebook has announced that it has shut down an artificial intelligence experiment after the AI forms involved began speaking in their own language. This comes not long after Elon Musk, founder and CEO of aerospace company SpaceX, drew criticism for cautions against AI in a speech to American governors July 15. Musk has maintained the position that AI is civilizations greatest risk, and that laws must be put into place to regulate it. He has been criticized for his approach by many, but Musks concerns should be welcomed amid a seemingly unquestioning, relentlessly popular push to advance technology and shatter boundaries. In light of this progress, humanity and human rights must be fundamentally significant.

That Musk should appeal to American governors is no surprise. Musk, a South African by birth, has described himself as nauseatingly pro-American and has displayed tremendous love and respect for the United States. Musk knows it is a place of opportunity and possibility especially for technology.

History bears this out. Elbert Smith, in his book The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore, touches upon the historic centrality of technological advancement to the American makeup as the country began to function in earnest: In the development of new technology the brash young nation was unsurpassed. Between 1840 and 1850, budding American inventors applied for 13,297 patents and received 6,033.

These innovations included new ways of cultivating and harvesting grain; steel plows designed to cut through prairie earth; newer and faster trains with greater carrying capacity both for passengers and goods; and Yankee clippers, designed for trade by water. Today as then, men like Elon Musk, American by birth or by immigration, manifest the future.

Musk also knows many Americans carefully consider these innovations. We know innovation can come at a price. New devices, systems, machines, software and other creations can be used for harm as well as for good; and can bear negative consequences as well as positive outcomes. Americans are by no means Luddites seeking to tear up train tracks, but Americans are careful in their approach to particular forms of new technology. We rightfully worry about those who would sooner pay attention to their smartphones than the human being sitting across the restaurant table, to cite one common example.

When the focus is on the machine and not the man, we know there is cause for concern. Interactivity with the machine instead of interaction with our fellow human beings creates a kind of selfish isolation: We are dulled to human connection, and distanced from love of the other. A machine, for the moment, is subject to our control; and a human being other than ourselves is a free agent who cannot be controlled in the same fashion. And so we turn away from the other to ourselves.

In so doing, we lose the respect of recognition of the other, and the other becomes unimportant. We lose what philosopher Roger Scruton refers to as the you-I relationship. Philosopher Gilbert Ryles contention that there is no ghost in the machine (read: human body) that there is no mind or soul that exists within the human body that distinguishes it is artificially upheld by our own choosing of technology. That ghost our God-breathed souls is rendered irrelevant. The human becomes merely a body, or a machine. Our humanity is therefore lost, and those whom we disagree with and cannot control become second to technology. Machines can therein become a means to control those whom with which we disagree, by indoctrination, systematic enforcement or violence. And in the case of Facebooks AI, the machines can take on a life of their own.

Musks precautions have been criticized by many as being grounded more in science fiction films than in reality but it is clear Musks concerns have merit. Typically, we consider movies like those of the Terminator series against a backdrop of dystopian novels and films to attempt to gain a broader understanding of the limits of our progress, and the ramifications of unchecked innovation. History and current events tell us the same. They tell us that free societies and totalitarian regimes tend toward different ends, will use the technology available to them, and will set out to innovate from the present. (Consider the level of technologically-based censorship of information in North Korea.) We know that a free society can descend into tyranny, even predicated on good intentions. Fiction often reflects reality, and fiction can explore the theoretical. Combined, these things prove to be an omen.

We come away from this with a simple philosophical precept that has existed for thousands of years: Just because it can be done, does not mean it should be done. Before we commit to any course, we have to ask fundamental questions regarding our humanity, our culture and our laws. For example, do we allow private ownership of AI forms that have the ability to wield or act as weapons? Do we limit or regulate the kinds of activities and functions these AI forms can engage in, such as work, parenting, sex and inventing their own languages? Do we limit the level and range of intelligence and adaptability an AI form may possess? Do we consider the AI form to have any rights, or a different kind of rights and would this affect our own human rights and humanity as whole? What do we do when a company fails to self-regulate, and a situation like Facebooks is not succinctly concluded? Do we have a right to do anything at all?

This is not alarmism, but proactivism. We must be optimistic, but cautious; and we must be hopeful yet realistic. Technological innovation and progress are beautiful things but these things can also impose dangers. That two of Facebooks AI forms could begin communicating in a language known only to them is immensely disturbing, and removes a barrier between science fiction and reality. Before we act, we have to have answers to fundamental questions else, innovation will be our undoing.

Joe Vigliotti is a writer and a Taneytown city councilman. He can be reached through his website at http://www.jvigliotti.com.

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Vigliotti: Human Rights and Technology - Carroll County Times

The decision of a company to offer its employs the option to hack their bodies to function better in the workplace has raised eyebrows and, no doubt, generated publicity.

But it also gives us a chance to turn a light on hidden attitudes about the nature of the self.

Imagine that you could pay for your morning coffee with the swipe of your hand, or that you didn't need to have a key on your person to start up your car. Pretty convenient, huh?

And not really that futuristic at all. In principle, you could wear a chip-enabled ring or bracelet that would let you seamlessly navigate the walls and marketplaces of the electronic world.

Well, if that would work, then why not enjoy the extra added convenience of having the chip inserted into your body the way we put finder chips into dogs and cats?

A company in Wisconsin made news last week by offering its employees the option of getting a chip surgically implanted so that they would be able to navigate electronic pathways at the company's headquarters more easily. The company's move has gotten tons of attention (including here and here at NPR).

Many concerns have been raised. Health is a big one: Do we know the long-term effects of having something inside of you emit a signal to an external receiver? And then there's privacy: Assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, how do you know a device like this won't be used to track you? It says on my Social Security card that it isn't meant to be a means of identification. But that's exactly how it is used in our daily life.

And then there are concerns about whether an employee is free to say "no" to a company initiative of this sort.

If we put all that aside, though, I find myself wondering: What's the big deal? Does it make a difference, beyond shear convenience, that the transmitter is in your hand (like a splinter, say) rather than on your hand, like a ring?

If you think it does, this may be because you take for granted that to put something in you is to bring about a more basic alteration in who or what you are.

But is that really true? Just because something is inside you, that doesn't make it a part of you. My dental work isn't part of me, is it? The fact that it is cemented in place and, so, that it is difficult to remove doesn't make it me. Ditto, I would say, for the grain-of-rice-sized-chip-in-the-hand. It might as well be the stud of an earring as something inserted beneath the skin for all that it forces us to rethink our natural limits.

In fact, it is easier, I think, to find conditions on the outside that more truly get under our skin and change what we are. A blind person and her cane, or even the guitarist and her instrument, these seem to be examples where the true boundaries of a person defined not by the limits of the skin, but by the limits of what a person can do are altered. Consider the way learning a new language, or the way learning to read, can alter a person by, in effect, altering their reality.

The body and the person are different things. Just because something is in me doesn't mean, really, that it is in me; and just because something is outside me, doesn't mean that it isn't, really, part of what I am.

There may be interesting borderline cases. Drugs (e.g. medicines) are technologies that we consume to alter ourselves. This may be why we feel that athletes who use drugs as part of their training are only partially responsible for what they accomplish. What they have done, we some how feel, wasn't really done by them. We don't, in the same way, begrudge an athlete the benefits of good coaching, healthy diet, the best equipment and sports science. But is this rational?

Plastic surgery is another borderline case. Although some celebrities have proudly declared that they have had plastic surgery, there remains a lingering idea, I think, that surgically enhanced good looks is somehow inauthentic. Curiously, surgically enhanced achievements in sports is almost normal and is not associated with the stigmas of performance enhancing drugs.

Body hacking is "cool" these days. Despite the widespread practice of piercing and tattooing, the willingness to mark-up and alter one's body still somehow carries the air of individual freedom and daring. I suspect that one reason the Wisconsin story gets so much airplay is that it is tied to this kind of buzz.

But it is harder by far, and maybe more transformative, to build shared structures tools, technologies, ideas, memes on which we can rely, and thanks to which we can do new things and reach new heights.

Alva No is a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley, where he writes and teaches about perception, consciousness and art. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015). You can keep up with more of what Alva is thinking on Facebook and on Twitter: @alvanoe

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Technology Gets Under The Skin - NPR

Black Bess; or The Knight of the Road, aromanticized tale of Dick Turpin.

Edward Viles, Wikipedia.

In the history of information technologies, Gutenberg and his printing press are (understandably) treated with the kind of reverence even the most celebrated of modern tech tycoons could only imagine. So perhaps it will come as a surprise that Europes literacy rates remained fairly stagnant for centuries after printing presses, originally invented in about 1440, started popping up in major cities across the continent. Progress was inconsistent and unreliable, with literacy rates booming through the 16th century and then stagnating, even declining, across most of Western Europe. Great Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy all produced more printed books per capita in 16511700 than in 17011750.

Then came the early 19th century, which saw enormous changes in the manufacture of paper and improvements on the printing press. These changes both contributed to and resulted from major societal changes, such as the worldwide growth increase in formal education. There were more books than ever and more people who could read them. For some, this looked less like progress and more like a dangerous and destabilizing trend that could threaten not just literature, but the solvency of civilization itself.

The real price of books plummeted by more than 60 percent between 1460 and 1500: A book composed of 500 folio pages could sell for as much as 30 florins in 1422 in Austriaa huge amount of money at the timebut by the 1470s, a 500-folio book would fetch something in the neighborhood of 10 florins. There were even books on the market that sold for as little as 2 or 3 florins. In 1498, a Bible composed of over 2,000 folio pages sold for 6 florins. Costs continued to decline, albeit at a much slower rate, over the next three centuries. As a result, books were no longer reserved only for the clergy or for kings: Owning a printed Bible or book of hours became a coveted status symbol for the emerging class of moderately wealthy merchants and magnates.

Books remained, however, far outside the range of the common man or woman, until the price plummeted once again in the 19th century. No longer was literacy necessarily a signifier of wealth, class, and status. This abrupt change created a moral panic as members of the traditional reading classes argued over who had the right to informationand what kind of information ought to be available at all.

The shift happened thanks to major developments in both printing and paper technology. The printing press had not changed much between 1455, when Gutenberg printed his famous Bible, and 1800: The letters had to be hand-placed in a matrix, coated with a special ink that transferred more cleanly from tile to pageanother of Gutenbergs inventionsand pressed one-by-one onto the pages. The first major change to this tried-and-tested design came with Friedrich Koenigs mechanized press in 1812, which could make 400 impressions per hour, compared to the 200 impressions per hour allegedly accomplished by printers in Frankfurt, Germany, in the second half of the 16th century. In 1844, American inventor Richard March Hoe first deployed his rotary press, which could print 8,000 pages in a single hour.

Naturally, faster prints drove up demand for paper, and soon traditional methods of paper production couldnt keep up. The paper machine, invented in France in 1799 at the Didot familys paper mill, could make 40 times as much paper per day as the traditional method, which involved pounding rags into pulp by hand using a mortar and pestle. By 1825, 50 percent of Englands paper supply was produced by machines. As the stock of rags for papermaking grew smaller and smaller, papermakers began experimenting with other materials such as grass, silk, asparagus, manure, stone, and even hornets nests. In 1800, the Marquess of Salisbury gifted to King George III a book printed on the first useful Paper manufactured solely from Straw to demonstrate the viability of the material as an alternative for rags, which were already in extraordinary scarcity in Europe. In 1831, a member of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India tried to convince the East India Company that Nepalese ash-based paper ought to be generally substituted for the flimsy friable English paper to which we commit all our records.

One newspaper was so unsatisfied with the quality of its straw paper that it apologized to readers.

By the 1860s, there was a decent alternative: wood-pulp paper. Today, wood-pulp paper accounts for 37 percent of all paper produced in the world (with an additional 55 percent from recycled wood pulp), but when it was introduced, the prospect of a respectable publication using wood-pulp paper was practically unthinkablehence pulp fiction, the early 19th-century literary snobs preferred way to insult a work as simultaneously nondescript and sensational.

The problem with wood-pulp paper was its acidity and short cellulose chains, which made it liable to slow dissolution over decades. It couldnt be used for a fine-looking book that could be passed through a family as an heirloom: It neither looked the part, nor could it survive the generations.

Traditional rag paper, on the other hand, was smooth, easy to write on, foldable, and could be preserved for centuries. Paper made from nontraditional materials, especially wood pulp, was acidic and rough. (Paper from straw, which enjoyed brief popularity in 1829 thanks to the chance invention of a Pennsylvania farmer, is durable, but brittle and yellowed. One newspaper was so unsatisfied with the quality of its straw paper that it apologized to readers.)

Wood pulp or straw, the cheap paper used in mass-market books sold at extremely low prices. There were a few different kinds of these books, all with descriptive (and usually pejorative) names: the penny dreadfuls (gothic-inspired tales sold for a penny each), pulp magazines (named after the wood-pulp paper of which they were composed), yellowbacks (cheap books bound using yellow strawboard, which is then covered with a paper slip in yellow glaze), and others. The cheapness that had made them so unsuitable for fine books and government records made them excellent fodder for experimental, unusual, and controversial literary developments.

Detractors delighted in linking the volatile matter of wood-pulp paper with the volatile minds of pulp readers. Londoner W. Coldwell wrote a three-part diatribe, On Reading, lamenting that the noble art of printing should be pressed into this ignoble service. Samuel Taylor Coleridge mourned how books, once revered as religious oracles degaded into culprits as they became more widely available.

By the end of the century there was growing concernespecially among middle class parentsthat these cheap, plentiful books were seducing children into a life of crime and violence. The books were even blamed for a handful of murders and suicides committed by young boys. Perpetrators of crimes whose misdoings were linked to their fondness for penny dreadfuls were often referred to in the newspapers as victims of the books. In the United States, dime novels (which usually cost a nickel) were given the same treatment. Newspapers reported that Jesse Pomeroy, a teenage serial killer who targeted other children, was a close reader of dime novels and yellow covered literature [yellowbacks], until, as was argued in his trial, his brain was turned, and his highest ambition was to emulate the violent dime novel character Texas Jack. Moralizers painted the books as no better than printed poison, with headlines warning readers that Pomeroys brutality was what came of reading dime novels. Others hoped that by providing alternativespenny delightfuls or penny popularsthey could curb the demand for the sensational literature. A letter to the editor to the Worcester Talisman from the late 1820s tells young people to stop reading novels and read books of substance: [F]ar better were it for a person to confine himself to the plain sober facts recorded in history and the lives of eminent individuals, than to wander through the flowery pages of fiction.

These books represent the beginnings of modern mass media. At the confluence of increasing literacy rates and ever-growing urban populations looking for recreation, cheap imprints flourished. But it wasnt just social change driving the book boom: It was technological change as well. In 1884, Simon Newton Dexter North, who would later become superintendent of the Census Bureau, wrote in his intensive study of the 10th census that the chief cause for the reduction in the price of paper is the successful useof wood pulp.

For a material meant to be transient, wood-pulp paper has left its mark and the world. Forests have shrunk while literacy rates have soared, and today the hunt is on for wood pulps replacement. We are living in the ironic epilogue to a triumph of a hard-won Victorian-era innovation. Wood pulp paper took on a life of its own as soon as it hit the presses, and it demonstrates to a modern audience the crucial lesson that the impact of a technology goes beyond what it does: what it is made of, who uses it, who doesnt use it, and what it represents to the people who buy it.

This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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The 19th Century Moral Panic Over Paper Technology - Slate Magazine

August 4, 2017 SFU Mechatronics Systems Engineering graduate student Oldooz Poyanfar and her bee monitoring system PRO. Credit: Simon Fraser University

Biologists are working to better understand Colony Collapse Disorder given the value of honey bees to the economy and the environment. Monitoring bee activity and improving monitoring systems may help to address the issue.

Simon Fraser University graduate student Oldooz Pooyanfar is monitoring what more than 20,000 honeybees housed in hives in a Cloverdale field are "saying" to each otherlooking for clues about their health.

Pooyanfar's technology is gleaning communication details from sound within the hives with her beehive monitoring systemtechnology she developed at SFU. She says improving knowledge about honey bee activity is critical, given a 30 per cent decline in the honeybee population over the past decade in North America. Research into the causes of what is referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder continues. The presence of fewer bees affects both crop pollination and the environment.

Pooyanfar's monitoring platform is placed along the wall of the hive and fitted with tiny sensors containing microphones (and eventually, accelometers) that monitor sound and vibration. Temperature and humidity are also recorded. Her system enables data collection on sound within the hives and also tracks any abnormalities to which beekeepers can immediately respond.

The high-tech smart system is being used to gather data over the summer.

Pooyanfar, who has been working with Chilliwack-based Worker Bee Honey Company, believes that better understanding the daily patterns and conditions, using an artificial neural network in the hive, will help to improve bee colony management. Current methods of monitoring provide less detailed information and can disrupt bee activity for up to 24 hours every time the hive is opened.

"To learn about what bees are communicating, we can either look at pheromonesthe chemical they produceor sound," says Pooyanfar, who initially received funding through the MITACS Accelerate program. The City of Surrey is providing the field space for her research.

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"With this monitoring system, we are collecting data in real time on what the bees are 'saying' about foraging, or if they're swarming, or if the queen bee is present right now we are collecting as much data as possible that will pinpoint what they are actually doing."

Pooyanfar, a graduate student in SFU's School of Mechatronics Systems Engineering, plans to eventually manufacture a sensor package for this application to help lower the costs of monitoring and allow more beekeepers to monitor their hives in real-time. Her initial-stage research was featured at the Greater Vancouver Clean Technology Expo last fall.

Explore further: Vibrating bees tell the state of the hive

Before eating your next meal, pause for a moment to thank the humble honeybee. Farmers of almonds, broccoli, cantaloupe and many other nuts, vegetables and fruits rely heavily on managed honeybees to pollinate their crops ...

It was a sticky situation.

Honey bees are responsible for pollinating crops worth more than US$19 billion and for producing about US$385 million in honey a year in the United States. In Australia, honey bee production is a A$92-million industry.

Thousands of honey bees in Australia are being fitted with tiny sensors as part of a world-first research program to monitor the insects and their environment using a technique known as 'swarm sensing'.

Molly Keck, a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service entomologist and integrated pest management specialist in Bexar County, has been receiving a number of phone calls from area residents bewildered by recent bee activity.

Despite having few taste genes, honey bees are fine-tuned to know what minerals the colony may lack and proactively seek out nutrients in conjunction with the season when their floral diet varies.

(Phys.org)An international team of researchers has found evidence showing that maize evolved to survive in the U.S. southwest highlands thousands of years ago. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group ...

A chance discovery has opened up a new method of finding unknown viruses.

When trouble looms, the fish-scale geckos of Madagascar resort to what might seem like an extreme form of self-defensetearing out of their own skin.

Scientists have developed a computational method to detect chemical changes in DNA that highlight cell diversity and may lead to a better understanding of cancer.

A new study led by the Australian National University (ANU) has found that plants are able to forget stressful weather events to rapidly recover.

In the last 20 years, the field of animal coloration research has experienced explosive growth thanks to numerous technological advances, and it now stands on the threshold of a new era.

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Technology tracks 'bee talk' to help improve honey bee health - Phys.Org

President Donald Trump announced new efforts Thursday to use technology to improve veterans' health care, saying the programs will greatly expand access, especially for mental health care and suicide prevention. Veterans living in rural areas will also benefit, he said.

Initiatives include using video technology and diagnostic tools to conduct medical exams. Veterans also will be able to use mobile devices to make and manage appointments with Veterans Administration doctors.

"We call it 'anywhere to anywhere' VA health care," VA Secretary David Shulkin said. Shulkin said the goal is better health care for veterans wherever they are. He said existing "telehealth" programs provided care to more than 700,000 veterans last year.

A medical doctor, Shulkin wore his white coat to the White House announcement, during which he demonstrated the technologies for Trump.

Trump said, "This will significantly expand access to care for our veterans, especially for those who need help in the area of mental health, which is a bigger and bigger request, and also in suicide prevention. It will make a tremendous difference for the veterans in rural locations in particular."

A regulation will need to be issued for these services to be provided anywhere in the country.

Shulkin was the VA's undersecretary for health in the final years of the Obama administration.

Associated Press writer Ken Thomas contributed to this report.

Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

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Trump promotes technology to improve veterans' health care - ABC News

After lagging behind other courts for years, the Supreme Court is finally catching up on a key technological feature that will be a boon to researchers, lawyers and analysts of all kinds. It's moving to adopt electronic filing.

The change will allow the public to access legal filings for all future cases free of charge. Beginning Nov. 13, the court will require parties who are represented by counsel to upload digital copies of their paper submissions. Parties representing themselves will have their filings uploaded by thecourt's staff.

All those submissions will then be entered into an online docket for each case, and they will be accessible from the court's homepage.

The move brings the Supreme Court fully into the Internet age, and it fulfills a promise outlined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in 2014.

While courts routinely consider evidence and issue decisions concerning the latest technological advances, they have proceededcautiously when it comes to adopting new technologies in certain aspects of their own operations, he said at the time.

By as soon as 2016, Roberts said, the court would offer an online system that can handle all types of filings, including petitions, motions and briefs.

Roberts's timing, it turns out, was not far off.

Virtually all federal courts are already on board with electronic submissions. As early as 2001, some federal court documents were available over the Internet through a system known as PACER, or the Public Access to Court Electronic Records. Even before the Internet, the public could get to filings electronically by using special terminals at libraries and other institutions.

PACER has its shortcomings. It charges users a fee of $0.10 per page, which can add up if you're going through hundreds or thousands of documents. Because federal court recordsare considered public domain, those charges can also be a waste of money for researchers unaware that documents for a case have already been downloaded by somebody else and made available for sharing. To circumvent this problem, independent researchers have built their own tool, RECAP, to save people money.

But the Supreme Court tool goes further, making all its filings free. For some, that's not just a step forward it's a leapfrog ahead.

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The Supreme Court is about to become more transparent, thanks to technology - Washington Post

Teri Takai, former CIO for the U.S. Department of Defense and two of the nations largest states, will lead the Center for Digital Government (CDG)*, e.Republics national research and advisory institute on IT policy and best practices for state and local governments.

Takai brings unique skills and experience to her new role as CDGs executive director. As the first female CIO for the DoD, she spearheaded efforts to consolidate technology infrastructure and create a cybersecurity workforce strategy at the federal governments largest agency. Prior to her federal service, Takai led state government technology offices in California and Michigan.

Teris deep experience will be a huge asset to the Center for Digital Government, says Cathilea Robinett, president of e.Republic*. Her insight into technology and government is unparalleled. Theres no one better qualified to help state and local governments as they continue to deploy digital services to serve the public.

CDG is best known for its Digital States Survey, which has graded state governments on their use of technology to increase efficiency and improve services since 1998. CDG also conducts annual Digital Cities and Digital Counties surveys which benchmark technological progress in local government and advises governments and private companies on effective use of technology in the public sector.

Takai says the new role gives her a chance to help state, city and county IT leaders succeed in a time of extraordinary change and opportunity. Cloud-based technology platforms and applications give IT leaders unprecedented flexibility, she says, but they also trigger new demands.

Were rapidly leaving the world where CIOs owned their technology and could only transform at the rate they could change their physical environment, she said. Now there are so many innovative options that support rapid technology evolution. But doing this right requires effective leadership, relationships and change management.

Over her career, Takai built a reputation as one of government ITs premier change agents.

She was an early proponent of merging multiple data centers and reducing the amount of redundant technology equipment typically operated by large government organizations. Serving as CIO of Michigan from 2003 to 2007, Takai reduced the number of state data centers from 38 to three and created a centralized IT department changes that saved the state millions of dollars. In California, Takai launched a massive reorganization and consolidation of the states IT organization an effort that included reforming procurement, governance and strategy.

In addition to her government service, Takai was CIO of Meridian Health Plan, a Detroit-based health insurer, and spent 30 years at Ford Motor Company in strategic planning and global application development. She will continue to serve on the board of FirstNet, the national public safety broadband effort, in addition to her new role with CDG.

Takai succeeds longtime CDG Executive Director Todd Sander, who left in July to become CIO of the Lower Colorado River Authority in Texas.

I intend to continue the great work that the Center did under Todd, says Takai, a former Governing* Public Official of the Year and Government Technology Top 25 Doer, Dreamer and Driver. Im really looking forward to working with city, county and state colleagues, as well as our industry partners during this exciting time of digital transformation.

*The Center for Digital Government is part of e.Republic, which also is the parent company of Government Technology and Governing magazines.

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Former DoD CIO Teri Takai to Lead Center for Digital Government - Government Technology

By some measures, investors are more crowded into technology stocks than ever before.

Information technology is the best-performing sector this year. Shares of Apple just surged on its earnings Tuesday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to new heights. And according to a new Bank of America Merrill Lynch report, mutual funds' exposure to technology reached a record "overweight" position last month.

One technical analyst says this might not be a good thing.

In fact, Rich Ross of Evercore ISI said in a recent interview that he has been recommending to clients in the last month to position themselves as underweight in technology stocks, and said a chart of one of the most popular technology exchange-traded funds, the XLK, is flashing a "very troubling sign."

Ross said he has recommended this underweight position in technology as the S&P 500 enters its worst two months of the year (August and September) with "stocks at record highs, volatility at record lows, and more importantly" what he sees as a "tactical sell signal" in a chart of the XLK.

The fund has risen nearly 19 percent this year.

"We see a false breakout to an all-time high and clear signs of exhaustion, a bearish reversal here. And once again you're looking at a potential double top at the high end of that trading range; we could just as easily go to the low end of that range where we were just a month ago. So, once again, we are poised here on the back of that resistance for weakness in technology more broadly," Ross, head of technical analysis, said Tuesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."

"And, if we look at a subsector, let's look at the hottest subsector of technology the semiconductors," he said, referring to the SMH, a popular exchange-traded fund that tracks semiconductor stocks.

In some ways, Ross said the group is almost a bit worse off than technology. In the SMH, he sees a similar "exhaustive" reversal that he has observed recently in the XLK. Specifically, the fund failed to reach a "higher high," and as a whole the setup appears weak heading into August and September.

These signs of exhaustion in the technology space give Ross pause about the space as a whole. The XLK was trading slightly higher on Wednesday.

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As Apple surges to all-time high, analyst sees a 'very troubling sign' for technology stocks - CNBC