New Florence. New Renaissance.

Fighting fire with…ping pong

TV coverage of the massive Yosemite Rim fire typically shows the Hercules planes and helicopters which are dropping retardants on the flames. Less is talked about how controlled fires are started to burn brush to divert the direction of the big flames.

This site explains

“One form of aerial ignition uses a plastic sphere dispenser (PSD) machine, commonly called the ‘Ping-Pong Ball System.’ The PSD, generally mounted in a helicopter, feeds Ping Pong-like balls through a chute leading out of the helicopter. The balls, which contain a chemical oxidizing agent, are injected with a water-glycol solution (antifreeze) as they are shot out of the PSD. The chemicals react thermally and ignite in 25-30 seconds out of the chute as they fall to the ground.”

Photo Credit

Google Beach

Matthews and his trekking partner, Chris Officer, are contracted through Visit Florida, the state's tourism agency, to gather images for Google Maps. All told, they have already walked more than 200 miles of Florida beachfront, each logging up to 7.5 miles a day with the camera orb. Each camera on the orb takes a shot every 2.5 seconds as they walk.

Their quest: to create panoramic views to place online of every Florida beach — similar to the internet giant's Street View — which has taken photos of everything from ordinary homes and businesses to world-famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State building.

Visit Florida has partnered with Google in the effort to map all 825 miles of Florida's beaches.

Yahoo News

Meals for Mars

Airline food is not much to write home about, so think about what astronauts have to endure. Well the HI-SEAS program is tackling that challenge. Its mission is

"to boldly study food preparation strategies for long-term space exploration.

Below the jump, see some of the dishes—and their recipes—selected as the tastiest by the HI-SEAS crew, which intrepid Mars colonizers might be munching on one day.

Each of these meals was submitted by outside contributors. The dishes were made of stabilized, non-perishable ingredients during the HI-SEAS mission by the crew, who then voted on their favorites. The following three are just a sampling, though. For more, go to the recipe contest page, which also lists runners-up."

The video below describes one of the meals

 

The Smarter Home

By proving that something as mundane as a thermostat doesn't have to be mundane, Nest helped inspire a generation of home-automation products that are now arriving in force. Other distinguished alumni of the consumer-electronics business are joining the fray, including industrial-design guru Yves Béhar, known for fashionable gizmos like the Jawbone headset. He's one of the minds behind August, a front-door lock that lets you use your phone as a key without so much as bothering to remove it from your pocket.

Time (sub required) with graphic below of 1) Canary, a security system 2) Smartthings, with lost key finder and other apps 3) August described above and 4) Phillips Hue, a smart LED bulb

Can gyms be "Blockbustered?"

"Anytime lacks some of the traditional trappings of a gym, but it does have plenty of classes. Walk in, and you will find a kiosk holding more than 100 different video classes that are accessible at all times. Want muscle conditioning? Got it. Want to take a turbo kicking class? They have that too. You pick your class, head into a multi-purpose room, and you're off and running. If the classes don't intrigue you, Anytime Fitness has cardio equipment like treadmills and ellipticals along with resistance workout equipment and free weights."

Yahoo News about the fast growing gym chain

Photo Credit of some of the apps members have access to

The Bashful Galahad

Charles F. Bolden Jr., the current NASA administrator, said, “As long as there are history books, Neil Armstrong will be included in them, remembered for taking humankind’s first small step on a world beyond our own.”

Mr. Bolden also noted that in the years after the moonwalk, Mr. Armstrong “carried himself with a grace and humility that was an example to us all.” The historian Douglas Brinkley, who interviewed Mr. Armstrong for a NASA oral history, described him as “our nation’s most bashful Galahad.” His family called him “a reluctant hero who always believed he was just doing his job.”

New York Times

Below - NASA tribute

 

A MOOC Degree

The plan is for Georgia Tech to provide the content and professors and to get 60 percent of the revenue, and for Udacity to offer the computer platform, provide course assistants and receive the other 40 percent. The projected budget for the test run starting in January is $3.1 million — including $2 million donated by AT&T, which will use the program to train employees and find potential hires — with $240,000 in profits. By the third year, the projection is for $14.3 million in costs and $4.7 million in profits.

The courses will be online and free for those not seeking a degree; those in the degree program will take proctored exams and have access to tutoring, online office hours and other support services. Students who cannot meet the program’s stringent admission standards may be admitted provisionally and allowed to transfer in if they do well in their first two courses. And students who complete only a few courses would get a certificate.

New York Times

Invisible Design

Red or blue? Steel or spruce? Python or Ruby? These are all design questions, choices that determine how people experience the things we make. And it’s not only aesthetics. Many of these decisions are coded into the way our products operate. Design doesn’t just make things beautiful, it makes them work.

This is not news to designers. In the early 1980s, Dieter Rams laid out his now canonical 10 Principles of Good Design. Rams taught us that great design is as little design as possible. It doesn’t draw attention to itself; it merely allows users to accomplish their tasks with the maximal amount of efficiency and pleasure. At its best, it is invisible.

Rams was talking about designing things you can see and feel. But we’re entering a new era, one in which designers create experiences centering not on physical objects but on the fabric of digital information that surrounds us. That’s the next great challenge for design: weaving the threads of technology, information, and access seamlessly and elegantly into our everyday lives. When a social network automatically checks us into a location, or cashiers can suggest new products based on our purchase history, or our connected TV calls up our favorite shows when we walk into the living room (all things that are either happening now or coming soon), it may seem like magic. But these are carefully designed experiences. They just follow Rams’ dictum—they appear invisible.

Wired

Reinventing airline Business Class

Six feet six inches long and almost two feet wide, the V concept is the German carrier’s latest weapon in the fierce competition among global airlines. It is designed to withstand shocks 16 times the force of gravity and comes with a cozy padded footrest. It is a new business-class seat, and if you are traveling round trip from Frankfurt to New York, it can be yours for about $5,000.

“Business class is where competition really is serious,” says Björn Bosler, the airline’s manager for passenger experience design, business and premium, who led Lufthansa’s team of dozens of seat designers and engineers. Bob Lange, senior vice president, head of market and product strategy at Airbus, the European plane maker, agrees: “There’s an arms race going on among carriers.”

New York Times

Changing Business class cabin configurations - click to enlarge graphic

Disney Animated App

Created for the iPad.

"Dozens of top animators, artists, technicians, and designers contributed to making Disney Animated an unprecedented hands-on experience. Disney Animated gives you access to an astonishing amount of material from all eras of Walt Disney Animation Studios, beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and continuing through an exclusive first look at concept art, animation tests, and visual effects from the upcoming film Frozen."