Grand Challenges for Engineering 

With input from people around the world -- much of it on this website -- an international group of leading technological thinkers were asked to identify the Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st ... Century. Now their conclusions are revealed on this website. Watch the video (6:27) From urban centers to remote corners of Earth, the depths of the oceans to space, humanity has always sought to transcend barriers, overcome challenges, and create opportunities that improve life in our part of the universe. In the last century alone, many great engineering achievements became so commonplace that we now take them mostly for granted. Technology allows an abundant supply of food and safe drinking water for much of the world. We rely on electricity for many of our daily activities. We can travel the globe with relative ease, and bring goods and services wherever they are needed. Growing computer and communications technologies are opening up vast stores of knowledge and entertainment. As rem   [More...] [Less...]

Nanotechnology Now - Press Release: "The Future of Nanomaterials" 

Abstract: Trend four: Top 12 Areas for Innovation through 2025 The Future of Nanomaterials Washington, DC | Posted on December 29th, 2007 The DC-based research and consulting firm Social Technologies recently ... released a series of 12 briefs that shed light on the top areas for technology innovation through 2025. The brief on "nanomaterials," by futurist Peter von Stackelberg, is the fourth trend in the series. "In the next 10 to 20 years, we'll see major breakthroughs in nanomaterials and related processes used to produce many of our consumer and industrial products," von Stackelberg forecasts. Here's why. Technology overview Small is the key word that describes the world of nanotechnology. The concept centers on miniaturization, and involves the creation of particles, fibers, films, coatings, and other materials that are significantly smaller than the typical bacterium between one and 100 nanometers in size. Because these particles are so tiny, nano-objects can access previously impene   [More...] [Less...]

Tap Into Collective Wisdom, Make Money by Predicting Future Events - Predictify 

Some early adopters of Twitter have migrated to FriendFeed due to Twitter's outages. However, as of May 2008, Compete counts only 304,574 monthly U.S. visitors for FriendFeed versus 1.725 million for Twitter. ... How many monthly U.S. visitors will FriendFeed have for July 2008 according to Compete? One of Facebook's goals is to support the native languages of their users, and it has been translated into over 20 languages so far. This week Facebook opened up 55 new languages for translation by the community via their translations application. How many languages will Facebook have launched by the end of 2008? Reports are swirling that Google's mobile operating system, Android, is facing further delays and that the platform won't be ready until Q4 2008 at the earliest. However, Google claims that they remain on schedule to deliver the first Android-based handset in the second half of 2008. When will Android first launch on a mobile device? RockYou is the second-most popular creator of applic   [More...] [Less...]

Net Gains or Net Losses? Think tank raps ‘net neutrality’ [pdf]

Scientists ponder next 50 years of space exploration - ZDNet 

Tags: Stefanie Olsen , Aerospace , Universe , , Scientist , Frontier , Computer , Productivity PASADENA, Calif.--In the next 50 years of space exploration, scientists are hopeful that we will find other ... life in the universe. Weeks away from the 50th anniversary of space flight, a group of aerospace engineers, space entrepreneurs and astronauts met here Thursday at the California Institute of Technology to reflect on the past and discuss the coming 50 years of space exploration. The two-day conference, called 50 Years in Space, is marked by the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, astronaut and former U.S. senator, called that event an "intellectual earthquake" for science and the first trigger of interest in space. To be sure, the United States formed NASA in November of the following year; and in 1961, President John F. Kennedy promised that Americans would land on the moon by the end of the decade. On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed the firs   [More...] [Less...]

A future for mainframes in SOA 

While it is far too early to get an answer it is now possible to ask, as a serious rather than trivial question, whether there is scope to see new sales of zSeries mainframes grow into the SOA and web ... services-based market sectors as a result of new developments in integration tools, such as the recent appearance of DataDirect Technologies' major upgrade of its Shadow integration platform, for the traditionally back-office machines. Will it be enough to prove to be a positive lever on green field zSeries sales? It might still be a brave person who answered ‘yes’ right now, the opportunity now exists where the mainframe can start to play a full part in a web-services/SOA environment, running applications that can proactively participate in that environment rather than just be a passive contributor to it. While it may not be natural to think of a mainframe as a core system in such an environment, Version 7 of Shadow does offer the potential to move IBM's zSeries systems well beyond the t   [More...] [Less...]

CNET News.com 

Tim Berners-Lee, considered to be the father of the Web, speaks with scientists and Silicon Valley executives at HP Labs in Palo Alto, Calif., about where he sees the Internet going in the next five years.

[Abstract] A Review of the Future for Wind and Tidal Power Generation in the UK 

A Review of the Future for Wind and Tidal Power Generation in the UK I.F. Bitterlin (UK) Keywords Wind Power, Tidal Power, Renewable, Intermittence, Integration, Hydrogen Economy Abstract Even against ... todays historically low energy prices the technical & commercial viability of both wind and tidal power is established. As reserves of (low extraction cost) fossil fuels dwindle in the future and costs rise the economic viability of all renewable sources will increase. The paper provides an overview of the resource capacity of renewable wind and tidal power generation in the UK, comparing it to the demand and considering the problem of integration. The options for matching the intermittence of these power sources using energy storage are considered, including using the energy to power the hydrogen economy. Important Links: DOI: From Proceeding Go Back   [More...] [Less...]