News
The new ways of winning elections
Written by Olivier Adam on Thursday, 26 March 2009 02:40
One subject has been very popular concerning the last American presidential elections, and it's related to the very high use of social networks and online advertising used by some of the candidates. Obama's presence on the web was probably the most noticeable, with active "profiles" on 16 different social networks. An extensive study has been done and it shows that this strong online presence helped Obama garner extra voters through awareness but as well as peer pressure (seeing your friends voting for Obama will encourage you to do the same).
Should you fly or drive today?
Written by Olivier Adam on Tuesday, 24 March 2009 08:10
Why not do both. A company in Massachusetts developed a flying car with retractable wings (hence the "car" title) so it can use standard roads without any problems. Once you're ready to fly, just bring down the wings, and you're ready to fly! The interesting thing will be to see how legislation is going to deal with this new type of transport, which we are bound to see more and more of in the future.
Rejuvinating trading cards
Written by Olivier Adam on Sunday, 22 March 2009 03:42
A recent article in the New York Times discuss how Disney (now the proud owner of Topps, major player in the baseball trading card business) is planning on revitalizing this dying industry. The current market is a fifth of what it used to be at its peak and Disney hopes that by using technology, it can re-invigorate this industry with added interest from the fans. How is it planning on doing so? By using a special code, very similar to a bar code, that once shown on a web cam, adds on top of the card a 3D image of the player on the screen. The user can then turn the card around to see it under different angles and can select which move he wants the player to be doing. Our feeling? This will be a short lived idea and will boost sales only temporarily as after seeing it a few times, casual users will loose interest while the more hardcode users will not care for this feature.
Barcode keeps on going
Written by Olivier Adam on Sunday, 22 March 2009 03:19
An articles in the IndiaTimes mentions scientists from Edith Cowan University that are working on a new generation of bar codes. This new generation of bar codes, based on the quite popular "2D bar code" commonly in use in Japan for example, would contain extra information and could transmit ringtones, images and even programs directly to the cellphone once read. This will require though more precise camera phones, but the manufacturers are already ahead of us with most mobile phones being shipped with 3.2MP or more and extra features like flash, image stabilizer, etc.
Robot teacher
Written by Olivier Adam on Saturday, 14 March 2009 16:49
An interesting article talks about the development of robot teachers in Japan. Japan's population is aging rapidly and instead of relying on immigration to fill up the vacant jobs like most western countries, they aim at using robots wherever they can. The robot that was created at the University of Tokyo is named Sara and can take student's presence and show emotions in reaction to student's behavior.
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