Alex, the African Grey Parrot, was likely one of the most demonstrably intelligent non-human animals in the world when he died prematurely in September of 2007. A final paper on his mathematical prowess has just been published, showing that the bird was likely capable adding sets of numbers in his feathery little head.

Alex came to the University of Arizona from a pet store in 1977 as part of an experiment in language comprehension. At … Read More → "Alex’s last experiment proves parrots smarter than your kids"

it depend on the tech content (the link isn’t working); it seems to me that it take in consideration only touch “orientation” based on shape/pressure compared to the corresponding colored markers on the border…not much “secure” 😉

yeah its a good revolution in touchscreen regarding SECURITY.

According to astronomer Zachory Berta, “GJ1214b is like no planet we know of.” That’s because it’s almost entirely made up of water — a concept that’s hard to drink in when one considers the fact that GJ1214b is a scant 1.3 million miles from its native star and boils at 450 ° Fahrenheit. It’s unlike any other planet Hubble has spied to date.

We’ve known about … Read More → "Super-hot ‘waterworld’ is an entirely new class of planet"

Touchscreens can’t differentiate between you, your friend or your cat. Truth is, they’re actually amazingly simple pieces of technology without much in the way of brains. A new type of display shown off at the International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference in Tokyo last week does imbue the panels with at least enough smarts to tell people apart. 
via Engadget</ … Read More → "Gunze’s new touchscreen tech knows who’s touching it"

One of Martin Gardner’s collections of his Mathematical Games columns from Scientific American is titled Fractal Music, Hypercards and More… The title article “White, Brown, and Fractal Music” is all about how the pitch structure of different types of music can be easily distinguished by the human ear. We know what white noise is: It& … Read More → "Fractal musical rhythms"

Andrew Cooper put together this video of the two Keck telescopes in action on top of Mauna Kea in Hawai’i. There are some beautiful time-lapse shots like in the pic above, but the reason to watch this video is for all the behind-the-scenes footage showing what telescopes like this have going on behind the mirror.

The whole video is worth watching just for the artistry of it (and the music), but there … Read More → "The guts of giant telescopes whir to life in this mesmerizing video"

It may be difficult to imagine a world where human beings are even more connected than we are now. Yet the reality is that when it comes to connectivity, we’re barely scratching the surface in terms of where we’ll be in the future.

Many anticipate that this growth will be largely driven by mobile-connected devices like smart phones and tablets. To understand the scope of where we are heading with mobile computing, consider this data from a recent Cisco report.
via Read More → "The connected human: how the world is about to get even smaller"

Unless you live in a fantastic and coordinated city like Portland, Oregon, you’re likely familiar with the phenomenon of idiotic traffic lights that conspire to turn red just as you approach to make way for zero cars coming the other way. It’s not just annoying, it’s also bad for the ol’ environment, and intelligent traffic lights could make a big difference.

Peter Stone, an associate … Read More → "Smarter traffic lights will turn green just for you"

Just got an update from Joe Paradiso on his homebuilt mammoth analog modular synthesizer. He’s installed it in the MIT Museum and has completed a fairly epic patch which you can listen to (24 hours a day!)
via Make Magazine

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