The National Academy of Sciences has issued a report advising the presidential candidates on how to deal with science-related issues. According to Ars Technica, the NAS says that most major issues for government, including climate, healthcare, and intelligence gathering, have some science and technology components. The group is calling for the next president to appoint a personal science advisor in his early days in office.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
A group of MBA students has developed a Broadband Quality Score for 42 countries and found that the only country with enough bandwidth capacity to meet its needs in the next three to five years is Japan. Ars Technica reports that the score includes upload and download speeds and other measures. The United States, the study found, has slightly more capacity than it needs right now, but not enough to handle future demands, which will include visual networking, high-density streaming, consumer telepresence, and large file sharing.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
Voice communications don't work for deaf people, and the quality of video carried by American cellular networks is generally too low to carry images of people signing. Now researchers at the University of Washington have overcome this problem by coming up with video-encoding algorithms that enhances only the important parts of a video feed, Ars Technica reports. Since speakers of American Sign Language rely mostly on hand gestures and facial expressions, the algorithm raises the image quality of hands and faces and lowers it in the rest of the video so the video doesn't overrun the cellular network's bandwidth limitations.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
Kathi Payne and Kari Verjil, elections officials for
San Bernardino County, California pose with mothballed touch-screen voting machines on Tuesday. Disenchanted officials saw elections delayed by
vanishing votes and breakdowns. There was evidence that the
ATM-like devices were vulnerable to hackers. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
Break out the butterfly ballots. After a number of states spent $2 billion to replace old-fashioned voting systems with touchscreens, several of those states are reversing course and getting rid of the electronic voting machines ahead of the November presidential election. Ars Technica reports that states including Alaska, California, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Tennessee, and New Mexico will get rid of their voting machines in favor of old-fashioned paper ballots.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
Two-way video conferencing between medical specialists and patients can lead to better outcomes than simply consulting over the telephone, according to a study in Lancet Neurology. Ars Technica says the study found that stroke victims in rural or remote areas were correctly diagnosed more often through telemedicine than by phone, 98 percent versus 82 percent.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
Some Internet service providers are worried that the growing demand for large files, such as videos, is going to produce more data traffic than the Internet can handle. But one Internet expert says traffic growth rates are actually falling. Ars Technica reports that Andrew Odlyzko of the University of Minnesota's Internet Traffic Studies project says "there is not a single sign of an unmanageable flood of traffic."
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
US Department of Health and Human Services head Michael Leavitt spoke at a panel in Washington DC about being the first cabinet secretary to have his own blog. He says he finds it a useful way to communicate about policy without the formality of a press conference, where reporters choose the topic. Ars Technica says a follow-up panel discussed blogging, and agreed that a lack of editors can cause some bloggers to "go off half-cocked." (Not a problem here---Ed.)
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
Nanotechnology is a bit of a catch-all phrase for the study of materials that can be manufactured in bulk on the extremely tiny nanometer scale. The field as such didn't exist until recent years, when the technology for creating materials at this fine scale became more widespread.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
Web Picks posted by Neil Savage in partnership with xconomy.com.
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