Our ears work by converting the vibrations of the eardrum into electrochemical signals that can be interpreted by the brain. The current forthose signals is supplied by an ion-filled chamber deep within the inner ear – it’s essentially a natural battery. Scientists are now looking at using that battery to power devices that could be implanted in the ear, without affecting the recipient’s hearing.

The & … Read More → "Ear-powered medical devices in development"

During Tuesday’s presidential election, one geek distinctly came to the forefront because he used “big data” to correctly predict all 50 states. His name is Nate Silver, and he’s so good with numbers he might be a witch.

Silver, formerly a successful baseball statistician, had his first big political win in 2008, with his blog FiveThirtyEight correctly predicting a landslide victory for President Obama, with a prediction of 349 electoral votes for Obama compared to his actual haul of 365. In 2008, Silver also predicted the popular vote … Read More → "How data-cruncher Nate Silver correctly called all 50 states"

New York Times best-selling author Tim Ferriss (The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Workweek) has recently authored The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life, an educational book “takes you from Manhattan to Okinawa, from Silicon Valley to Calcutta, unearthing the secrets of the world& … Read More → "The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life"

Tour operator Aqua Expeditions is an adventure travel company that offers guests the chance to cruise the Amazon River in Peru, while staying on board a 147-foot-long (45-meter) floating hotel. Designed by Peruvian architect Jordi Puig, the M/V Aria is an intimate cruise ship that can accommodate a maximum of 32 passengers, plus crew. The unique accommodation offers a rare chance to observe the wonders of the Amazon region from an unobstructed vantage point – be it … Read More → "Sail the mighty Amazon River onboard a 147-foot-long floating hotel"

One of the reasons the Kindle’s e-ink display is more enjoyable to read with is because it’s not constantly refreshing. You might not be able to discern it, but the high-speed flicker of your LCD can lead to eye strain and headaches. So a research lab in Japan has developed a display that can refresh as slowly as once every five seconds.
via Gizmodo

Continue reading</ … Read More → "Incredibly slow refresh rates make this LCD easy on the eyes"

Barack Obama’s victory last night has far-reaching fiscal, social, and military implications, all of which are familiar to anyone who kept at least one eye open during any of this year’s debates. But what do four more years mean for tech? Turns out, a lot.

While Obama hasn’t indicated that he’ll dramatically change course on any of his technological policies and initiatives, it’s useful to look a little closer at the ones he’s got. Here’s what we can expect.< … Read More → "What Obama’s victory means for tech"

Donald Pettit is, as well as being a NASA astronaut, an exceptionally keen photographer—which is why he has over 10 top-of-line DSLR cameras littering the International Space Station. In this video, he talks about the complexities, and joys, of photography in space.
via Gizmodo

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… Read More → "The complexities of photography in apace"

ASETNIOP is a modification of the QWERTY typing system. It relies on chords — using multiple fingers at once — to get the complete alphabet, rather than having a separate key for each letter. The chorded method does away with the traditional style and essentially turns the entire touchscreen into an invisible keyboard.

This seems like it would take a bit of coordination, but ASETNIOP claims to be user friendly. There … Read More → "New typing system offers an alternative to QWERTY"

The creator of the popular web comic xkcd muses about the merits of pen and paper versus computer coding, tic-tac-toe, and where he sits on the scale of intellectual purity.

“… coding is writing programs, and computer science is the study of computers only in the sense that astronomy is the study of telescopes.”
via Mathematical Association of America

For the last dozen years, humanity has had a continual presence in space. During that time, the International Space Station has grown considerably, to the point where it’s now the third-brightest object in the sky, meaning that you don’t have to have any sort of equipment to view it—you simply have to know when to look up.

Now, NASA is making knowing when to look up a bit easier. … Read More → "NASA will text you whenever the International Space Station passes overhead"