"An eagerly-awaited submarine cable linking West Africa to Europe has gone live, paving the way for cheaper and more reliable internet access in one of the world's fastest-growing telecoms markets, its operators said on Friday.
"The 7,000 km (4,350 mile) fibre optic Main One Cable runs from Portugal to Nigeria and Ghana, and also branches out to Morocco, the Canary Islands, Senegal and Ivory Coast.
"The Main One Cable Company says it delivers more than ten times the broadband capacity of the South Atlantic Terminal (SAT-3), Nigeria's sole existing undersea cable, and 20 times the entire satellite capacity of sub-Saharan Africa...."
The company setting up the cable says that Main One's cable will affect Nigeria's education, health, and entertainment industries. And help create jobs across Africa. They could be right.
I rather hope they are: Nigeria's one of Africa's up-and-coming countries, with resources and people to manage them. These days, it takes a good communications network to run a business - which the new cable should help to create.
Isn't the Lemming Apathetic?
The Lemming's written about that before. I'm "apathetic" only in the sense that I don't care - intensely, irrationally - about the 'proper' things.
My interest in Nigeria and other places around the world is partly self-centered. I live on the same planet, and what happens anywhere tends to affect people everywhere - however indirectly.
"Even for the Pentagon's science-fiction division, it seemed like a stretch. But in 2007, Darpa really did launch an effort to build programmable matter that could reconfigure itself on command. Then, two years later, Harvard and MIT researchers really did make progress building “self-folding origami” that just might be able to twist themselves into different shapes. Yesterday, Darpa-backed electrical engineers at the two schools released the stunning results: a shape-shifting sheet of rigid tiles and elastomer joints that can fold itself into a little plane or a boat on demand...."
video, 0:57
There's another copy video on YouTube: the same thing, except it loads faster:
"...A programmable sheet self-folds into a boat- and into a plane-shape Credit: Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and MIT/CSAIL."
That little sheet of motorized triangles may not look very practical: unless you have a need for tiny boats and airplanes. The Lemming is impressed that DARPA and all have made a sheet of material that folds into different shapes - on its own.
It's one thing to have a cool idea for some new technology.
Making a working prototype: that's another step. And, sometimes, a big one.
Another Approach to Programmable Matter: Claytronics
This YouTube video gives a pretty good look at what we'll probably be seeing in - five years? a decade? Depends on how difficult it is to make the technology user-friendly, and what sort of market there is for it: mostly the latter, I suspect.
" 'Claytronics' is an emerging field of engineering concerning reconfigurable nanoscale robots ('claytronic atoms', or catoms) designed to form much larger scale machines or mechanisms. Also known as 'programmable matter', the catoms will be sub-millimeter computers that will eventually have the ability to move around, communicate with other computers, change color, and electrostatically connect to other catoms to form different shapes. The forms made up of catoms could morph into nearly any object, even replicas of human beings for virtual meetings.
The "Claytronics" video emphasizes the technology's potential for communications. Maybe this time, the predictions will be right. I remember the videophone of the sixties, and predictions that we'd all be talking to each other on the things by now.
Well, some of us are: via the Internet and webcams. But the videophone/picture phone never really took off, apart from a little videoconferencing now and then.
I think that's partly because a whole lot of people don't want to be seen when they pick up the phone. Here's what I look like - and I had time to get ready for the photo:
Think about it: would you like to get a call while you were cleaning out the grease trap, or waking up - and have someone see you, as-is?
I could be wrong, of course.
Where I think Claytronics has real possibilities is shown in that video, too: cellphones that become laptops - or anything else with a manual user interface; furniture that morphs to fit what you want at that moment; pictures on the wall that change - use your imagination! Forget 2D pictures.
Think about a sculpture that's what you want it to be - with (how many?) variations. My guess is that if the manufacturer is smart, they'll do what some ballpoint pen companies have done - sell the basic unit at a loss, and make their profit by selling/renting/leasing virtual modules with new and different art.
Then there's what can be done to streamline research and development of complex machines like automobiles and industrial robots.
The 21st century is starting to look like, well, the 21st century.
"YOLO COUNTY, Calif. -- A big explosion, in the name of science, scared a lot of people in a small town.
"Mythbusters went to Yolo County and ended up with a bigger bang than expected.
" 'It was a boom that was just -- I had never heard anything like that before, it was really weird,' said Sherril Stephens.
"The explosion was so big it shook the town of Esparto, knocking Stephens off her couch and breaking her front window.
" 'Course all the neighbors ran out into the street. We didn't know what was going on," said Paul Williams, who heard the explosion...."
Kudos to KCRA, for telling more of what happened:
"Williams said the school and others in town should have been notified the blast was going to happen.
"Chief Barry Burns, of Esparto Fire Department, had several firefighters on hand for the explosion. He said he made the decision not to notify anyone in town for safety sake.
" 'Mythbusters is supposed to be a really popular show. Everybody would have been out there. We would have had to cancel it because it would have been too dangerous,' Burns said...."
Sherril's window? Mythbusters replaced it.
I think the fire chief was right: it's better to let a few people fuss, afterward, than to bollix up a project by 'transparency' above and beyond the call of reason.
"(CNN) -- Paul Harvey, the legendary radio host whose career sharing 'the rest of the story' with listeners spanned more than 70 years, has died, according to ABC Radio Networks.
"He was 90.
"Harvey died at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, where he kept a winter home, said Louis Adams, a spokesman for the networks. He was surrounded by family members when he died, Adams said.
"Known for his deliberate delivery and pregnant pauses, Harvey's broadcasts were heard on more than 1,200 radio stations and 400 Armed Forces networks and his commentaries appeared in 300 newspapers, according to his Web site...."
My children don't remember his broadcasts, but I do. He had a distinctive style, generally upbeat attitude, and a sign-off line that I remember well:
" In the past few years, people seem to have forgone the conventional phone conversation in favor of punching in short text messages on tiny keypads, all while mobile phone carriers have cashed in lucratively. Text Messages at 20 Cents a Pop: Prodigious Profit "In 2008, 2.5 trillion messages were sent from cell phones worldwide, up 32 percent from the year before, according to...."
The price of each text message has gone up, too, from 10 to 20 cents per message.
Considering that the text messages are tiny files that can - and do - travel in control channels, or in space reserved for operation of a wireless network.
The channel takes up space, whether there's a text message in it or not.
Not all carriers charge that much: and one of the ones that does is "eager to clear up any misunderstanding." That, I believe.
"The A-Team Intro with Lord-of the Rings characters"
I'm an "A-Team" fan, and read Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy long before the movies started coming. Sometimes I don't appreciate these comic take-offs, but this one is, IMHO, funny.
"Through a Glass is a prototype for a series of images I am planning to make over the coming year. They will illustrate an interactive story I am writing. Move your mouse over the glass view to change the time from night to dawn to day. There are also 3 set of nature songs to go with the times of day, night sounds, dawn chorus and a lazy summer day."
Nice bit of online software. Simple / elegant display.
Shows what you can do with HTML, javascript, and talent.
There's an information technology angle to this story, too.
Lil'Bit was born under a computer table, and, more to the point, the story of this Arizona cat and his owner is in a British paper, the Daily Mail. I'm old enough to remember Telstar, and when the wirephoto was about as good as it got for transmitting photos.
We've come a long way, for a British paper to be carrying a story about a cat born in "Arizona, USA" - with color photos.
The author, Chris Rowan, points out that in the sixties New Zealand was on the other side of the world, as far as people back in England were concerned. Well, they still are, actually: the point is that communication was effectively limited to mail, and that could take weeks to months.
I remember Sputnik, and lived through the explosion of information technology: If you did, to, this post is a good review.
If you didn't, you really ought to read it: and learn how much a few few tin cans being launched into space changed the world.
Whether you call it trafficking in persons, human trafficking, or slavery, buying and selling people isn't nice. And, in quite a few cou...
Today's News! Some of it, anyway
Actually, some of yesterday's news may be here. Or maybe last week's. The software and science stuff might still be interesting, though. Or not. The Lemming thinks it's interesting: Your experience may vary.
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