New Florence. New Renaissance.

Oracle OpenWorld Keynote Live Feed

Oracle has kindly allowed this blog to run a live feed of the keynotes from Oracle OpenWorld. I plan to run Larry Ellison's keynote on Sunday at 5 pm pacific and Mark Hurd's on Monday at 8 am pacific. Enjoy.

 

Smart Headlights

The headlight is actually an array of bulbs. The system uses a digital camera to track the motion of individual raindrops or snowflakes and then applies a computer algorithm to predict where each bit of precipitation will be a few milliseconds later. It deactivates bulbs that would otherwise illuminate the drops or flakes in their predicted positions.

“We have introduced a headlight system that can see through rain” and other precipitation, says Srinivasa Narasimhan, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.

Scientific American 

saw it courtesy of Frank Scavo

Raising the Bar

Alcohol-infused whipped cream is among the more vile recent booze inventions, but that hasn’t stopped hard partiers from hitting the can, and it's just one example of how alcohol marketers continue to reinvent their elixirs in new formats and flavors.

Cassandra Daily lists Innovations in alcohol including Beer Concentrate (including Pat’s from Alaska) , Vapor Cocktails and Flavorless spirits.

Spotted by my nephew Nitesh Mirchandani, who travels even more (and therefore gets to see more concoctions) than I did at his age.

Viber: the mobile Skype?

"Skype was designed as a desktop program, and it’s never fully made itself smartphone-friendly. To be available for a call on Skype, you must sign into the program and keep it running. If you are signed off from Skype, no one can reach you.

Viber is constructed with the smartphone in mind. When you make a Viber call, your request is routed to a central Viber server. The server checks to see if the recipient of the call currently has Viber running in the background on his phone. If so, the phone starts ringing; if not, the recipient’s phone receives a push notification that essentially turns Viber on automatically, causing the phone to ring. Once your friend answers the call, audio is routed to the closest Viber server, ensuring the connection. Viber then attempts to create a direct Internet connection between you and your friend’s phone, rather than using the local Viber server. If you initiate the call through a Wi-Fi network and then move beyond the range of this network—say, walking from your office to your car—Viber will shift your call onto your mobile 3G network. All of this happens without the user noticing it. Viber says it uses high-definition audio, just like MP3, providing better audio quality than is available through GSM or a land line."

Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Third Angle Orthographic Projection of iPhone 5

Enjoy the precision and the minute tolerances if you are into design aesthetics or want to create accessories for the new device. BTW – not too late to create new ones. I was in an Apple store today and most accessories were for 4 or earlier.

Credit Apple for PDF with several other angles

Too young to drive – but not to invent

Every year thousands of high school students take part in national and regional science fairs. Popular Sciencescours those events to find 10 students with truly world-changing ideas backed by functioning prototypes.

The gallery including Josh Wolf’s algae extraction process in photo below

“Up to 60 percent of an algae’s cell mass comes from lipid oil, which scientists isolate for use as a biofuel. Unlike most extraction methods, Josh Wolf’s technique—in which he delivers an electric shock that opens the vesicles that hold the oil—keeps the algae alive, so he can draw oil from them repeatedly. After shocking, he skims the tank that holds the organisms to collect the oil and adds methanol and lye to create biodiesel.”

Cool Robots

PopSci gallery from last month’s Unmanned Systems Show including QinetiQ North America's Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS) in photo below.

Half and half

In a humorous moment during this week’s TUCON, Tibco CEO Vivek Ranadive asked Citi CEO Vikram Pandit how he balances bitterly competitive customers

Vivek: Coke and Pepsi?

Vikram: I drink half and half

to laughter from the audience

Vivek: Google and Apple?

Vikram did not have as humorous a response.

Next time he should flash a photo of my Android with the new iPhone5 EarPods. Best of both worlds. I have been able to get on 4G for a while and can continue with Google Maps, while enjoying my iTunes on the Amazon cloud with superb new acoustics.

The EarPods continue the masterful industrial design tradition of Jonathan Ive. Says iLounge

“Unlike any of Apple’s In-Ear Headphones, EarPods are not designed to seal your ear canals, and don’t include silicone rubber tips. Instead, they use a distinctive hard plastic molding to achieve most of the same functionality: the little speaker in each earbud is covered by a plastic waveguide that channels sound directly into your ears, using three slit-shaped ports at their outer tops and bottoms to let the speakers breathe. Apple says that the shape came from measuring the geometry of hundreds of ears, finding a happy medium that will be comfortable, stable, and sonically impressive across more users. It also allows you, for better or worse, to hear more ambient sound around you while listening to audio or making phone calls.”

Talking of design, the Apple store where I bought them has become even more minimalist. No POS terminals, the receipt printers are hidden below the tables, and the associates are flashing EasyPay tags encouraging you to mobile pay and make the stores even more minimalist with fewer associates.

BTW, I want to see how Vikram’s Union Square branch evolves. I wrote about it in my chapter on Design Elegance in my recent book.

Google Street View goes under water

Google Maps visitors can now virtually "walk" along certain reefs through Street View using the same interface for city streets and neighborhoods above sea level. Users can move to different areas of the reef and pan around or zoom in on each one in 360 degrees to spot sea turtles, manta rays, living coral, and even some accompanying divers and snorkelers. The effect is like retracing a scuba dive that has been frozen in time.

To capture these stunning panoramic views, Google partnered with the Catlin Seaview Survey, a project devoted to documenting the ocean reefs using the latest technology. Armed with an SVII camera attached to an undersea vehicle, the team was able to record continuous 360-degree images while drifting through the water. The process results in 50,000 images per area, which link together to form a full panoramic view that can be explored in Google Maps. The SVII is also the world's first underwater, tablet-operated camera, which allows the scientists gathering the images to access various data they've already collected while in the middle of a dive.

Gizmag

 

Food Waste – a Green opportunity

The two biggest challenges to composting programs remain limited infrastructure and cultural habits. Apparently, people still resist scraping and dumping food into separate bins. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, less than 3 percent of food was recovered or recycled in 2010.

That hasn't stopped companies like Whole Foods Markets, MGM Resort International and Bank of America from trying.

Their main motivation is financial: By cutting back on food waste, companies can reduce waste hauling costs for waste sent to landfill.

GreenBiz