Tuesday, February 13, 2007

I.B.M. Reports a Speed Record for a Type of Computer Memory. The announcement sets up a potential confrontation between I.B.M. and Intel over the design of new, faster microprocessors. By JOHN MARKOFF. [NYT > Technology] 10:12:31 PM      Google It!.

The State of Video Connections. mikemuch writes "Joel Durham provides a nice rundown on what's happening in video interfaces as we leave VGA behind and move through the DVI flavors, visit HDMI along the way, and look forward to UDI and DisplayPort."[Slashdot] 8:37:47 PM      Google It!.

Social Networking Sites Opening Their APIs. prostoalex writes "Business Week magazine is looking at social networking sites opening their APIs to third-party developers to enable social applications not supported by the network itself. Facebook is setting an example by releasing their API from beta into 1.0, and many others are expected to follow the suit. Quoting from the article: 'Since Facebook, a network of 17 million college students, started a pilot program last summer, third-party developers have created some 100 new applications. Now a Facebook user name and password can be used to log in to content-sharing and chat site Mosoto, and to automatically import Facebook friends into Mosoto's buddy list for chat. Facebook itself does not offer a chat function.'"[Slashdot] 3:47:33 PM      Google It!.

Open ID ... how, when and why?. Just wondering if anyone has thoughts on the role of Open ID in campus systems. If Open ID gains traction among faculty, staff and students, might there be growing expectation for use in select campus systems? How would that work, why would might you consider it and what systems would be appropriate? I haven't thought deeply about it but it definitely intrigues me.   On a side note, the OSS Watch team blog has an interesting entry from last week about a potential collaboration between Microsoft and the Open ID standard. [EDUCAUSE CONNECT blogs] 3:45:38 PM      Google It!.

Biology Goes Open Source. Some of the world's biggest drug companies are finding that their genetic research is worth more to them if they give it away.  Novartis has helped uncover which of the 20,000 genes identified by the Human Genome Project are likely to be associated... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 3:34:09 PM      Google It!.

Sign Language Via Cell Phone. QuatumCrypto writes "A project is underway at the University of Washington to enable real-time sign language communication via cell phone. Because of the low-bandwidth wireless cell phone network, a new compression scheme is necessary to capture only the bare essential components of signing to minimize data transfer. Although text messaging is a viable alternative for everyone, signing [~] like speech [~] is a much faster and more convenient form of communication."[Slashdot] 3:33:15 PM      Google It!.

Scientists Clone Mice From Hair Follicle Stem Cell. Researchers have cloned mice using stem cells from the rodents' hair follicle region.  The skin stem cells come from adult mice, are relatively easy to obtain and inject, and may represent a good future source of stem cells for animal cloning. ... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 10:03:00 AM      Google It!.

Afternoon naps may boost heart health. A study of nearly 24,000 people found that those who regularly took midday naps were nearly 40 percent less likely to die from heart disease than non-nappers.  Researchers suggest that siestas might protect the heart by lowering levels of stress ho... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 9:59:26 AM      Google It!.