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Posts tagged usa
The politically correct option
Sep 30th
If you’ve ever underestimated the power of technology and the way it affects our lives, cloud computing could not be a better example. For those who’ve been tracking the outsourcing space, or even following our political poster boy – Obama, you’ll know all the hoopla that has been created around his policy regarding outsourcing. And the recent Ohio state policy against outsourcing just made all this drama even more exciting. In the wake of all this, comes along Cloud computing like little red riding hood and begins influencing political policy.
Read on after the break.
OLPC Wants To Collaborate With India On The $35 Tablet
Aug 4th
Well well, One Laptop Per Child Corp does not look at India’s $35 tablet as a competitor. Rather, OLPC wants to collaborate with India on the project. OLPC chief Nicholas Negroponte invited officials from the Indian Ministry Or Human Resource Development to visit MIT and see how the OLPC project has come along. The move seems to be a diplomatic one since the Indian tablet does not use Intel’s processors or chip set. Intel is one of the main sponsors and suppliers for the OLPC project. On a global scale that means a huge loss for Intel if the $35 tablet becomes successful.
Since there has been debate on India’s capability to deliver the product as promised, the OLPC invitation must provide the Indian project some amount of credibility. Looking at India’s track record of siding with the US in terms of technology (remember the $10 laptop drama where India ended up buying 250,000 pieces of OLPC laptops?) the $35 price tag might wither away to something on the lines of the how much an OLPC laptop costs.
Negroponte went on to advice the Indian government to use the $35 tablet to uplift primary school students rather than restricting the device to university students. He said
1. Focus on children 6 to 12 years old. They are your nation’s most precious natural resource. For primary school children, the tablet is not about computing or school, it is about hope. It makes passion the primary tool for learning.
2. Your tablet should be the death of rote learning, not the tool of it. A creative society is built not on memorizing facts, but by learning learning itself. Drill and practice is a mechanism of the industrial age, when repetition and uniformity were systemic. The digital age is one of personalization, collaboration and appropriation. OLPC’s approach to learning is called constructionism. We hope you adopt it too.
We too hope that this works out without sacrificing the Indian version of the device.
MIT Students Develop A Low-Cost Portable Ventilator
Jul 20th
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A team of students from MIT has devised a new low-cost ventilator to keep patients breathing in places that lack standard mechanical ventilators, or during times of emergency such as pandemics or natural disasters, when normal hospital resources may be overextended. They have designed a system that uses the same widely available
Sustainability: Algae Based Jet Fuel For The US Navy!
Jul 19th
Oh well, another feather in US Navy’s cap this one is. Continuing with its tradition of incubating and promoting high end sustainable technologies, the US Navy has just been supplied with 1500 gallons of jet fuel derived from Algae. The company that manufactured this fuel – Solazyme, has many other algal-based fuels to its credit,
Video: Malaria In California
Jul 13th
This happened on April 11th 2010, in California, USA. Now the developed world might look at the global problem.
Infographic: Walking Or Biking To Work Costs You Tax Money
Jun 27th
So you thought walking or biking to work cost you nothing? Consider this – an annual budget of $1.2 Billion just to make sure that your walking or biking is facilitated. Don’t understand? In plain terms, the Dept. of transportation spends about $1.2 bil to build infrastructure to make sure you can walk and bike safely to and from work. That’s, uh tax money. No, don’t get back into your car yet. Infographic after the break.
DIY Nuclear Fusion Reactor. Believe.
Jun 26th
New York is notorious for nuclear projects, first the Manhattan project that produced the world’s first nuclear weapon, now the so called “Brooklyn project” is out to create the world’s first home made nuclear fusion reactor. While we have always thought of nuclear fusion technology to be THE solution to the world’s energy problems, it’s been an entity chased by multinational science teams. But, one Mr. Suppes of “Prometheus Fusion Labs” has built a nuclear fusion reactor in his garage. Yes, you heard it right, in his garage. It doesn’t power his home yet but sure fuses up atoms – the first step to nuclear fusion energy. Don’t believe me? Watch the video.
Inspiration: Fixing Education In America
Jun 25th
America has fallen behind in education, so much so that it stands last in the list of 20 developed nations in percentage of students graduating out of high school. The problem is so big that every 26 seconds a child drops out of school in the US. Indian and Chinese children are outperforming everyone. SO, how do we fix it? There is no single answer but once you fix education, other problems like unemployment and crime will be solved automatically. Oscar winning film maker David Guggenheim of “An Inconvenient Truth” fame has now made a film about the US education system called “Waiting for Superman”. Watch it this fall, you might see the answers staring at you. Trailer after the break.
4Food Tries To “DeJunk” NYC’s Food
Jun 25th
NYC is seeing a lot of startup action and food is a hot sector. 4Food is another NYC startup trying to do some good to mankind, especially the obese kind in NYC. 4Food is a “socially networked” fast food joint with a menu that is “considerably healthy” compared to the competition (read McDonald’s, Burger King, Wend..).
Video: Wireless Parking
Jun 24th
How often have you gotten out of the comfort of your high rise home at 6 in the morning JUST to feed the parking meter? Trust me, I have, several times. Big cities means big problems parking your car and then keeping the cops from giving you a parking ticket. In comes wireless parking. How about finding a parking spot with that smartphone you have? How about controlling the parking meter with your smartphone? Interesting? Watch.
