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Sunday, 11 August 2013
Samsung's curved OLED TV drops price by a third, LG brings cheaper 4K TVs
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Element14 unveils Raspberry Pi Projects hub and 8GB Model B bundle
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Llega el pico de las Perseidas de 2013
Una perseida madrgugadora vía @Starfest2013
En agosto acuden a su cita anual las Perseidas , también conocidas como las lágrimas de San Lorenzo, la lluvia de meteoros que produce más estrellas fugaces de todas las que se pueden ver a lo largo del año.
Tienen su origen en el cometa Swift-Tuttle, que es uno de los que tienen un núcleo más grande, algo a lo que Bill Cooke, de un grupo de la NASA que investiga los meteoros, atribuye el hecho de que genere tantos meteoros, según se puede leer en Las bolas de fuego Perseidas.
En 2013 el pico de actividad, con tasas horarias cenitales que podrían rondar los 100 meteoros en las zonas más oscuras, se produce entre las 13 horas UTC del 12 de agosto, con un segundo pico a las 2 UTC del 13 de agosto.
Si estas en España, por ejemplo, ese segundo pico coincide además con un momento en el que la Luna está por debajo del horizonte, con lo que no interferirá en la observación.
Perseo, que es la constelación que da nombre a esta lluvia de estrellas, ya que es la parte del cielo de la que parecen venir, está hacia el noreste, aunque si no sabes localizarlo tampoco pasa nada, pues en realidad una lluvia de estrellas se puede ver mirando a cualquier parte del cielo.
Claro que si quieres dar con él te puedes llevar Sky Safari u otra aplicación similar en el móvil para que te ayude.
Si quieres probar a fotografiarlas, necesitarás un trípode, un gran angular, un disparador remoto, y paciencia.
Coloca la cámara en el trípode orientada hacia el noroeste y apuntando hacia arriba en un ángulo de 45 grados; procura que ninguna fuente de luz intensa quede en su campo de visión ni cerca de este.
Comienza a tomar fotos de exposición larga; si la exposición es de unos 30 segundos o más las estrellas comenzarán a dejar trazos, así que puedes optar por este tipo de fotos, en las que los meteoritos dejarán un trazo claramente distinguible la de los de las demás, o bien por ir tomando fotos sucesivas de menos de 30 segundos y esperar pillar algún meteoro en una de ellas.
Recuerda, de todos modos, que en el caso de que esté nublado o sea de día en el lugar del mundo en el que vives en el momento de los picos de actividad las Perseidas estas se pueden ver días antes y días después de ese momento.
Recuerda también, como siempre, abrigarte, que por la noche refresca, y a lo mejor llevarte alguna bebida caliente.
Si buscas un poco, además, seguro que encuentras alguna actividad organizada de observación cerca de tu zona, lo que puede ser de ayuda si es tu primera vez a la caza de meteoros, y lo que lo hace también más divertido.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/llega-el-pico-de-las-perseidas-de-2013.html
Harry Houdini, Lock Picking, And Entrepreneurship
Editor’s Note: Semil Shah is a contributor to TechCrunch. You can follow him on Twitter at @semil .
It’s summer here in Silicon Valley, and for my column this month, I’ll try to finally polish and publish some of the old posts that have been collecting dust in my “drafts” folder. Usually, I try to make the column timely, but not this time. Almost two years ago now, my wife and I visited a museum in San Francisco to an exhibit called “Art of Magic,” honoring Harry Houdini. I dragged my wife to the museum to see this because I had been watching “Pawn Stars” (favorite show!) on the History Channel and was obsessed with the show. In one episode, a customer came in with original handcuffs and a straightjacket used by Houdini. The show’s characters all marveled at the legend of Houdini, the nostalgia, the myths. While all this information is available on Wikipedia, the art exhibit highlighted an interesting them: Houdini’s masterful command of new mediums and platforms to manipulate and leverage his audience’s deepest hopes and fears.
Reflecting on that experience, and as it’s the annual time for Defcon, where the art of lock-picking is a time-honored tradition, I wanted to cast Houdini in a different light and showcase how some of his techniques could, in fact, be leveraged by modern-day entrepreneurs. It may be a stretch, but please bear with me.
The common thread weaved through most of Houdini’s famous tricks seemed rooted in the juxtaposition of his audience’s fear of death versus their hope for liberation. The part of Houdini’s history that impresses me most is how and why some of his tricks became iconic signature moves. For instance, he rose to fame as the “Handcuff King,” setting up elaborate schemes to unchain himself from all sorts of iron shackles, but he didn’t just adopt handcuffs as some ruse — it turns out that, as a young boy growing up poor, he took a job as an apprentice with a local locksmith to earn extra money for his struggling family.
Houdini also became famous by taking himself handcuffed and dipping into water, invoking a fear of drowning — he had studied old waterboarding-like contraptions used to torture people in the middle ages, and new the audience would be captivated by the sight. Or, randomly, Houdini visited a psych ward early in his career and happened to see a few patients violently trying to free themselves from their straightjackets, and after practicing escaping from a similar jacket for nearly a decade, he finally unveiled his new trick, usually in public squares, hanging upside down, his head dangling above the crowds, freeing himself and stretching out his hands in victory.
I am still processing why Houdini is so fascinating to me. Pictures like these, where a crowd fixates on him with their undivided attention, are truly incredible. I think Houdini interests me because, as a performer, he captivated his audience and was so precise with his choreography, enabling him to tap into very deep parts of the human psyche with a scalpel’s precision. In a way, this is what the great entrepreneurs do. They are deeply motivated and practice for years. They are in tune with their customers hopes and fears. And, there’s a bit of magic in all of the myths they create. It’s why pictures of a young Steve Jobs sitting on a wood floor with one light stand and some books still continue to fly around the web and evoke both nostalgia and disbelief.
The reason I originally drafted this post is because, almost two years ago, after visiting this exhibit, I was hanging out with an investor and former founder/operator in the Valley who used to go to Defcon as a teenager and pick locks all the time. I told him about Houdini, and he shared stories about how lock-picking was one of the first types of hacks he did as he began to fiddle with computers over two decades ago. We traded a few emails that week and, in one exchange, he asked me what entrepreneurs and investors could learn about Houdini’s background, his rise, his creativity, and his stage presence. Because, in a way, to the crowd, great entrepreneurship looks like magic, a mix of light-bending and mirror tricks that together form a new reality. In this way, magic and making are more alike than they are different.
Here was my email response to the question:
The Power of Cumulative Effects: Houdini’s lock-picking as a boy, his experience in the psych ward and seeing the straightjackets, and his research around the magic and fear of drowning all led him to craft a product (his “act”) that combined all three to prey upon primal fears and hypnotize his audience. In retrospect, Houdini’s signature acts now seem obvious, but one has to wonder if he could have brought all the elements together without having those strong experiences earlier in his life.
Developing Expertise Through Focus: Houdini was a student of magic, amassing over 4,000 books on the subject, the largest ever collection of that genre in the world. It reminds me of when DJ Shadow was becoming famous, how he would scoop up and buy vinyl record collections and build a stockpile years ahead of his competition.
Idle Hands Are The Devil’s Play Things: Even as a child, Houdini could’ve futzed around, but given his family’s financial troubles, he remained active and enterprising, eventually landing an apprenticeship in a profession (locksmithing) that would lay the foundation for his signature moves. He kept moving, kept occupied, and kept in motion.
“Win The Crowd” – Houdini’s genius was in combining all the elements, physical and psychological, to put his audience into a trance, to fixate all of their attention on him. That is what the greats do, their work draws in all of our attention, and we stand in awe watching instead of doing. It is what separates the few greats from everyone else. Houdini was a master at winning the crowd over. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from a movie. In Gladiator, Proximus says to Maximus, “I was not the best because I killed quickly. I was the best because the crowd loved me. Win the crowd, and you will win your freedom.”
Photo Credit: tmolini / Creative Commons Flickr
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iDoorCam shows you who's at your door, helps you hide from unwanted visitors
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Habitaciones vistas desde abajo
Este artículo se publicó originalmente en Trend It Up, un blog de Sony Mobile donde colaboramos con anotaciones sobre el mundo de las tendencias combinadas de la tecnología, el diseño y las artes.
La verdad es que desorienta un poco, pero este trabajo de Michael H. Rohde titulado From Below («Desde abajo») resulta la mar de curioso. Se trata de fotografías tomadas desde una perspectiva inusual por no decir casi imposible: desde debajo del suelo.
Cuando nuestro cerebro ya ha conseguido identificar el lugar que representa la imagen, llegan las preguntas: ¿Cómo se hizo la foto? ¿Es el suelo de cristal? ¿Qué tipo de truco ha utilizado el artista? Desde luego debe haber todo un gran trabajo de preparación tras cada una de las tomas, pues difícilmente podría construir una habitación con suelo transparente: más probablemente se trata de tomas realizadas desde abajo con algún tipo de óptica especial a las que se han añadido digitalmente la parte inferior de algunos de los objetos que se ven. Pero en su web el mago no desvela su técnica.
Lo que queda claro es que para nuestros ojos las imágenes encierran una combinación de fascinación y confusión, probablemente debido al hecho de que nunca experimentamos una visión parecida en la vida real. Como decía uno de los expertos que reseñó su obra,
Las imágenes proporcionan un punto de fuga muy claro como parte de la perspectiva. Pero en vez de contener objetos dispuestos de una forma razonable solo consiguen desestabilizarnos: la visión utópica de los espacios interiores que propone Rohde es todo un reto para nuestra percepción.
Para quienes gusten de estos juegos de perspectivas, el mismo autor tiene otra colección anterior, titulada In Top View que es justamente lo contrario: tomas en picado desde lo alto de las estancias de la casa. Escenas más razonables aunque también enigmáticas a veces.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/fotografia/habitaciones-vistas-desde-abajo.html
Next iPhone to Be Unveiled Sept. 10, Report Says
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Inhabitat's Week in Green: lab-grown meat, eSpyder airplane and terabytes of RAM
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E-Cig Companies Will Never Promise To Help You Quit Smoking
Two or three years ago, e-cigarattes were exotic. These strange sticks, their ends LED-lit and their owners expelling odorless smoke – “It’s vapor!” – would look as futuristic as a Replicant’s food injector. They gave the smoker nebulous powers, namely the ability to smoke on a plane, and they were expensive and hard to find.
Now, they’re everywhere. Even Leonardo DiCaprio was caught sucking on one on set. But are they safe? And what will they really do for the hard-core smoker?
Today the e-cigarette industry is worth around $3 billion globally, outpacing the entire stop-smoking industry including patches, gum, and other addiction killers.
Yet unlike smoking cessation products, which are sold over the counter in pharmacies, e-cigarette companies will never, ever make a claim that e-cigs will treat smoking addiction. In fact, these companies claim the opposite in their marketing materials, citing that they are not intended “to treat, prevent or cure any disease or condition.” This is the same language that appears on other dubious health concoctions
Even though it seems obvious that e-cigarettes are meant to help people tame their addiction to analog cigarettes — and there is even anecdotal evidence suggesting they are more effective than smoking cessation therapies — the claims made by these companies will partially determine the fate of the entire industry.
But before we get into the regulation of tomorrow, let’s look at the history of the tobacco industry.
A Brief History
In 1906, the Food and Drug Administration was created under President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1938, the FDA passed the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, giving the federal government jurisdiction over products like foods, medicines, and other substances that could harm the public health.
For years, that didn’t include tobacco products. It was only in 2009, under President Barack Obama, that the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA) was put into place, giving the FDA the power to regulate the Tobacco Industry.
Before this, big tobacco was allowed to experiment with new products and market their wares however they pleased, with regulation coming from state governments. In the 1950s, the realities of smoking were just beginning to show their ugly head. We began to realize there was a clear connection between smoking cigarettes and developing cancer and other fatal illnesses.
So what did the industry do? They created something called “harm reduction products”, which were meant to be “safer” than your usual cigarette. In the beginning, this simply meant adding a filter. By the 80′s, companies were taking it a step further.
RJ Reynolds introduced a type of smokeless cigarette called Premier, which seemed to disgust everyone and eventually went off the market, only to resurface itself as the Eclipse. The American Cancer Society claimed that the Eclipse line, which went on sale in 2000, was not as safe as the marketing campaign suggested, as it still delivered carcinogens and other harmful substances.
In other words, harm reduction has long been a strategy for Big Tobacco to keep sales up in the face of… well, cancer. Keeping that in mind, it’s not too much of a surprise that harm reduction products have never really taken off. Until now.
E-Cigarettes and Harm Reduction
In public perception, smoking cessation products are the good guys. These are the products like Nicoderm CQ and Nicorette that are sold by pharmacies only, used for a temporary period, and regulated as treatment and/or therapy. I quit smoking for a while with the help of the patch, and got more congratulations during that period then I did graduating from NYU, winning State Championships in volleyball, or landing a job at TechCrunch.
Harm reduction products, on the other hand, seem like ploys. Many people hear “safer” and “cigarette” in the same sentence and assume it’s yet another trick to increase sales.
But e-cigarettes are different. The movement wasn’t led by Big Tobacco. The e-cigarette industry began to boom in 2007 led by hundreds of smaller companies. Eventually, Big Tobacco took notice. Unlike the patch, or the gums, e-cigarettes actually made a dent (a small, but noticeable one) in cigarette sales.
Rather than fight it, major tobacco companies are now investing in e-cigarette offerings. Lorillard, the maker of Newport, Maverick and Old Gold cigarettes acquired Blu eCigs for $135 million in April 2012. Reynolds American, which makes Camel, Pall Mall, Kool and others, is now selling its own Vuse e-cigarettes in select cities as a trial run. And Altria (formerly Phillip Morris), seller of Marlboros, now sells an e-cigarette line named MarkTen.
This has pushed distribution of e-cigarettes far beyond what small, independent companies could ever manage.
However, Big Tobacco’s involvement is a double-edged sword. While distribution is greatly increased, pushing these devices into the far reaches of the country, big tobacco also gives off the perception that these devices, like the products they’ve sold for centuries, will probably kill you.
“What are these products?” asks Dr. Michael Siegel, Professor at Boston University’s Public School of Health and supporter of e-cigs. “Are they harm reduction or are they smoking cessation? It’s a tough situation because, on the one hand, you have what it does and on the other you have the claims are that are allowable under the law. It’s a strange situation where they are being regulated as tobacco products. But they are not tobacco products. There’s no tobacco in them.”
Safety
To be clear, any product that delivers nicotine into the human body is automatically considered “unsafe.” That’s the nature of nicotine itself. It’s not meant to be in our bodies.
That said, smoking cessation products like Nicoderm and Nicorette are automatically forgiven. Their purpose is to wean you off the nicotine addiction, and then be discarded. No one quits smoking and says, I’m going to use the patch for the rest of my life. That’s not how it works. In fact, doctors who prescribe smoking cessation therapies have strict limits on how long they can continue to provide the patch, gums, etc.
E-cigarettes are different. These companies don’t want you to quit smoking entirely; they simply want you to switch from smoking to vaping. In fact, the business model is built around your return. The idea is that you pay a larger sum up-front, for the device and a first set of cartridges, making an investment in it, and then return to buy refills.
In this way, e-cigarettes are simply a cigarette alternative, and not a therapy to help you quit.
But even though e-cigarettes deliver nicotine into the body, and for an extended period of time, many experts agree that they are much, much safer than combusting cigarettes.
Right now, however, clear cut information on their safety is limited. To start, there have been no finished clinical trials to measure the difference, and holding a clinical trial that is effective becomes difficult knowing that subjects would be exposed to a known carcinogen.
Moreover, the lack of regulation here allows e-cigarette companies to be lazy or negligent. The nicotine dosage may vary from one product to the next, or perhaps they’re using something other than propylene glycol (the standard liquid found in e-cigarettes). They might even have a shoddy battery or wiring that exhausts burning plastic along with the nicotine.
Many e-cigarettes are manufactured in Asia, sold at gas stations, and the consumer is none the wiser that these products haven’t been checked out by any governing body. In short, there is no oversight.
Thankfully, according to Dr. Siegel, e-cigarettes are “orders of magnitude safer” than combusting cigarettes.
“Even if e-cigarettes only cause a five to ten percent reduction in cigarette consumption, you have to understand that from a public health perspective, that is an enormously positive impact,” said Dr. Siegel.
On the other hand, it’s the lack of regulation that makes e-cigarettes potentially dangerous. So what can be done?
Regulation
This is where things get tricky.
The FDA is set to regulate the e-cigarette industry over the next year, at the latest. How they will regulate them is anyone’s guess.
There are three possible scenarios:
The first is that e-cigarettes will be regulated just like traditional cigarettes, with rules on how they can be marketed. This would still allow for distribution, letting e-cigs be sold anywhere traditional cigarettes are sold, but it would limit these companies’ ability to market themselves as a cigarette alternative, or at all.
The second option is that these products will be regulated in the same way as smoking cessation therapies. They would be sold only in pharmacies, over the counter. This would limit visibility and distribution enormously.
The third option is that the FDA will create brand new regulation for e-cigarettes, which would covers things like dosage, materials used, quality control testing, etc. but would still allow for broad distribution and marketing.
There is a raging debate right now over these options, or more pointedly, the time it will take to get to these options. Those that are pro-e-cigs want to ensure that the regulation is fair, and are willing to wait as long as they’re waiting for something close to option three.
Others believe that the e-cigarette companies are purposefully stalling, asking the FDA to wait for more hard evidence on the effects of e-cigarettes (especially compared to traditional cigarettes) in order to grow marketshare in an unregulated field. They see this as a huge risk considering that the e-cig industry is growing rapidly, and these unregulated products are in the hands of more and more unknowing consumers every day.
Bloomberg is even working to essentially ban e-cigarettes in New York.
Big Tobacco’s involvement in the matter only muddles things further. The industry doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to reducing public harm (or even admitting their products cause it in the first place), so in a way, Big Tobacco’s investment in the industry almost discredits e-cigarettes as just another marketing ploy.
On the other hand, Big Tobacco has the brawn to lobby the FDA in a way that these small manufacturers wouldn’t be able to do. Thanks to Big Tobacco, e-cigarette companies now have a voice in the pending regulation of their products.
The future of the industry is surely in question, but one thing is quite certain: this isn’t the last you’ll hear about e-cigarettes and the debate is heating (not burning) up.
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Defense Mobile to offer Sprint-based cellular service to soldiers and veterans
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El monstruoso número de Graham
El otro día alguien preguntó en Twitter por el número más grande que jamás haya existido, y además de mencionar algunos de los más famosos yo recomendé el número de Graham , una poderosa bestia matemática donde las haya.
Ahora @Minid nos envió este vídeo de Day[9] (Sean Plott) donde explica de forma bastante amena y entretenida cómo se construye este número.
El vídeo son 17 minutos pero para los ansiosos (y a los que no aprecien las introducciones estilo El club de la comedia) lo he marcado para arrancar en lo interesante. Si el inglés no es lo tuyo hay unos subtítulos automáticos de calidad regulera en el icono de la barra inferior.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/numero-de-graham.html
Meta.01 SpaceGlasses, otras gafas de realidad aumentada
Las SpaceGlasses de Meta parece que tiran más para el campo de la realidad aumentada que las Glass de Google. Entre las aplicaciones que pueden verse este vídeo en modo pajote mental hay videojuegos, construcción de modelos y reconocimiento infalible de caras. Nada espectacular excepto el careto de los actores, que habrán tenido que grabar en un croma poniendo sonrisa Profidén. Si tan solo el 50 por ciento de lo que enseñan llegara a ser real no estaría mal.
Su aspecto es más tosco, basto y de «juguete» que el de las estilosas Glass, y su precio no le va a la zaga: unos 670 dólares (unos 500 euros). Para colmo resulta un poco engañoso que en todas partes digan «¡ya se pueden comprar!» cuando lo máximo que se puede hacer es un preorder como un piano: no se entregarán hasta noviembre de 2013 si la cosa va bien.
En cualquier caso un chisme simpático que habrá que ver qué tal se completa y cómo llega hasta el gran público.
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Tango introduces Road Riot: its first original in-app game
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Twitch update for iOS more than triples live channels, revamps chat
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TiVo Mini DVR extenders suddenly add Netflix streaming, Amazon coming soon?
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The Pirate Bay Celebrates Its 10th Birthday With New Web Browser
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Ask Engadget: what's the lightest laptop with discrete graphics?
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Mobile Miscellany: week of August 5th, 2013
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Implantable Device Manipulates and Records Brain Activity
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ATD: Apple's next iPhone event slated for September 10th
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Engadget Podcast 355 - 08.10.13
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