More High Speed Trains in China

September 15, 2009

Sure, the United States's federal government has set aside $8 billion to jump-start high-speed rail project around the country. A few projects are sputtering forward with feasibility studies and some are even underway with relatively short runs between major cities. But China is putting us to shame. The Chinese government recently announced plans to invest $1 trillion dollars to build 42 new high-speed train lines and expand its rail system to more than 68,000 miles by 2020.
There's an excellent map of China's proposed rail system on the Transport Politic web site. 

Everything You Need to Know About Mass Transit

September 11, 2009

I came upon a great Web site yesterday that deals entirely with mass transit. It's the Transport Politic and it's run by Yonah Freemark. Freemark does research on comparative urban development and writes about transportation and land use issues for The Infrastructurist.

There are couple of places on the blog curious about mass transit (high-speed rail, light rail, express bus lines, etc) in the United States and Canada. In particular, the page that lists all mass transits projects seriously being considered, and better yet, those that are under construction. Not surprisingly, the wish list is longer than the reality list.

I Talk to My GPS Device, Even Though it Doesn’t Talk Back

August 21, 2009

His name is Tim. He has a British accent. And unlike many men I have known in my life, he knows where he’s going. Unfortunately, he’s not a person. He’s the voice of a GPS device.

“Aftah two hundred yahds, turn roight,” Tim says.
“What would I do without you, Tim?” I ask.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t, like the guy in this commercial, have a crush on a GPS device.

But I do interact with it. I talk to it. Ask it questions. And make general commentaries, even though the machine cannot understand me or talk back.

Have I lost it?

When Will My Bus Come In?

August 19, 2009

Recently, I was a spectator, not a runner, of a marathon. And I realized that marathon runners have something that most buses in the United States lack: a way to convey location and expected time of arrival. You see, runners in most marathons these days wear a computer sensor in their shoe that communicates start and finish times as well as other milestones, such as the 5-mile, 10-mile or half-way point. What's more, friends and family members can sign up to receive email and text message notifications of where their loved ones are on the course.

If a system exists to keep track of and communicate the location of tens of thousands of runners, how come there is no system sending real-time information to my cell phone or email about when my bus is going to arrive?

Take the Poll

March 24, 2009

Smart-Braking Car Saves Fuel. Drivers willing to turn braking and acceleration over to a computer could save nearly 25 percent on their annual gas bills, say the British developers of an advanced new cruise control system. Read the news story and then vote.

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Wide Angle: Smart Highways

March 23, 2009

Intelligent highways equipped with wireless technology, fiber optics, sensors, cameras, GPS, electronic signs and robotic car have the potential to decrease traffic congestion, increase highway safety and reduce the environmental impact caused by traffic jams. We take a wide angle view on what those future roads may look like, here on Earth and even in the skies.

• Video: Down Future Roads, Everyone's Talking
  Traffic expert Rick Dye weighs in on the future of driving, where cars talk to other cars, your GPS lets you know there's an accident ahead and movies are beamed to your dashboard.

• Video: Is It Future Yet? Robot Cars
  Why drive when robots can do it for you? Researchers at Virginia Tech take Jorge Ribas on a ride into the future of your commute.

• Top 10: Parts of a Smart Highway
  Intelligent highways equipped with wireless technology, fiber optics, sensors, cameras, GPS, electronic signs and robotic car have the potential to decrease traffic congestion, increase highway safety and reduce the environmental impact caused by traffic jams.

• Puzzle: Highways to the Future
  Even without advanced technology and robotic cars, modern-day highways are impressive networks. We feature a few here in puzzles you can solve.

• Video: Flying Car Takes Off
  A new flying car has made its first successful trip down the runway.

• Blog: Transition from Street to Sky
  Terrafugia CEO Carl Dietrich explains how his fuel-efficient, street legal plane, "Transition," could reduce aviation emissions, take advantage of under-utilized public airports and fill awkward transportation gaps.

• Slideshow: Preparing for Flight
  Terrafugia's Transition is part car, part airplane. Here the pilot prepares for the vehicle's first flight. The two-seater airplane is designed to travel both in the air and on the road. See the slide show.

• News: Smart-Braking Car Saves Gas
  Drivers willing to turn braking and acceleration over to a computer could save nearly 25 percent on their annual gas bills, say the British developers of an advanced new cruise control system.

On Deck for the Week of Nov. 24

November 24, 2008

Monday, Nov. 24: Podcast from Clark Boyd. Among lots of things, he'll be talking about how experts are trying to reduce internet scams.

Tuesday, Nov. 25: It's Thanksgiving week and everyone is getting on the road. And you know that means traffic accidents and traffic jams. Jorge Ribas has a video for us about "roads of the future" where cars talk to each other, to the roadside and even to other people's mobile phones—all to make driving safer and smoother.

Wednesday, Nov. 26: Our weekly podcast from Gene Charleton. Venice is sinking. Or rather, the sea around it is rising. The Italian government is spending $4 billion on an engineering project to save it. Listen to what it's all about.

Thursday, Nov. 27: We need to dramatically reduce CO2 in the atmosphere. So, how? For starters, we can stop pumping it into the air. But Kurt Zenz House and Julie Shoemaker of Harvard University think we should be burying it in the ground. They give us their take.

Friday, Nov. 28: Guest blog from David Alexander Ellis. Does Social Stimuli Expand Time? Recently graduated PhD student, David Ellis, tells us about his area of study and what it's like to be starting down the path of research. Read his guest blog.

I Called It! The Winner of the American Solar Challenge

July 31, 2008

So I was sitting minding my own business, typing emails and what not, when I saw Jeff Ferman's Gchat icon pop up as green, meaning he was online. If you remember, I did an IM interview with Jeff back in mid-July to talk about how his solar car team from the University of Michigan was gearing up for another win in the American Solar Challenge. (I also ran a slide show of all of the 15 solar car teams.) So I ping him via Gchat. Here's how it went:

4:30 PM me: did you guys win?

4:31 PM Jeff: yup we did

4:32 PM me: that's awesome. congrats! Is there news of it anywhere? I didn't see anything

 Jeff: there should be some - i have seen quite a bit

4:33 PM me: probably just wasn't looking in the right places

 Jeff: ah ya, there was a bit less than I would have thought

 we started to link to it from our blog on a thread from a media post

4:34 PM me: What was your time?

 Jeff: 51:41:53

 about 10 hrs ahead of second place

4:36 PM me: wowsers. congrats again!

4:38 PM Jeff: thank you very much

So there you have it. Turns out I interviewed the winner all along. Go figure!

The Week (According to Me)

July 13, 2008

Bionic humans, crowdsourcing the flu vaccine, lemony socks and solar concentrators. These are the coolest tech related stories I read this past week.

July 4 / Guardian
2b or Not 2b
Language is like life. It evolves. Get over it and stop fretting so darn much over whether text messaging will destroy linguistics. In fact, according to professor David Crystal, it improves children's writing and spelling.

July 4 / New Scientist
Do We Have the Technology to Build a Bionic Human?
Scientist can engineer organs, bones, retinas and much, much more. (Yet they still haven't found a way to prevent baldness. Huh.)

July 4 / Guardian
It's the Screens, Not the Internet, That are Making Us Stupid
We may be reading less, but we're staring at computer screens way more. It's enough to give you a stupid headache.

July 7 / Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends
Lemon-Filled Odorless Socks
What's better: socks that smell like citrus? Or those that smell like cheese? You make the call.

July 7 / Wired
Researchers Track Disease With Google News, Google.org Money
What year is it now? 2008. Right. To World Health Organization: Welcome to the age of the Interwebosphere. Finally, you've put together a website that can be used to track new disease outbreaks.

July 9 / Webmonkey
Yahoo’s New ‘Build Your Own’ Search Engine Nips at Google’s Lead
Yikes. Yahoo has a new open source initiative that could allow outside web developers to hack into the company's search engine code to produce customized results and mashups. Yahoo is doing it to compete with search engine giant, Google. Will David defeat Goliath? Duh, duh, duh, duh (dramatic music). Stay tuned.

July 9 / Wired
Nanotubes Hold Promise for Next-Generation Computing
It's carbon nanotube this and carbon nanotube that. Blah, blah, blah. It's all lab talk. Show me the money, man.

July 9 / New York Times
Designing Cars for Low-Carbon Chic
Lighter and sleeker automatically improve gas mileage without even tinkering with the engine. Not only that, but these kinds of cars will just look cool.

July 10 / Discovery News
Implant Designed to Shrink Waistline
Wouldn't an implant for the waistline, by definition, make the midsection bigger? Au, contraire, Monfraire. This one quells hunger pangs and the desire to feed one's pie hole.

July 10 / Super Duper Sustainable Tech
Solar-Powered Home, No Panels Needed
Special dyes designed to capture specific spectrums of sunlight could turn regular old windows into  solar-harnessing power panels. That's genius-level thinking, guys.

July 10 / Wired
Crowdsourcing the Flu Vaccine
More words about how the internet (via data sharing and networking) could help health workers develop a better flu vaccine.

July 10 / IEEE Spectrum
Our First Electric Cars May Be Trucks
Personally, I'd like an electric scooter, but more fuel-efficient trucks could sure help bring those food prices down. 

Steel-melting solar mirror, eco-friendly fireworks, freeing oneself from email's grip and more!

July 04, 2008

June 27 / The New York Times
Data Centers Explore Novel Ways to Cut Energy Use
Data centers make the Web possible. Make my job possible. But electricity consumed by microprocessors in those data center is rising by 16 percent per year. That kind of voracious appetite for energy is expensive and not very green. But people at the recent Data Center Energy Summit are brainstorming solutions to curb the beast's energy appetite, including reusing hot water from cooling systems to filling a town's swimming pool.

June 28 / The New York Times
I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip
Gasp! This guy stopped using email. On purpose. His server didn't even go down or anything!

June 29 / Guardian
Calls for ID Card to Replace Passwords
Passwords be damned! Finally, an industry group known as the Information Card Foundation is advocating that we replace our passwords with an electronic ID card. Advantages: security and signing in just once.

June 30 / Guardian
Welcome to the Particle Menagerie
Up, down, top, bottom, charm, strange, axions, sleptons and quarks. How do physicists dream up such whimsical names for the fundamental particles they discover? Simon Singh explains

June 30 /  Guardian
The Brains Behind the Operation
Cern scientists have invented a new way to network computers, and it could be the next leap forward in computing.

June 30 / Discovery News
Meet the Steel-Melting Solar Mirror
Enterprising kids know you can melt crayons by focusing light on them with a magnifying glass. MIT students are now vaporizing wood, and can theoretically melt steel, by focusing sunlight with mirrors.

July 1 / Popular Science
Powering Cars With Toxic Waste
Scientists invent a uranium-eating molecule that could help turn nuclear junk into fuel.

July 1 / Technology Trends
Toward Eco-Friendly Fireworks
Researchers are developing new pyrotechnic formulas that burn cleaner and produce less smoke.

July 1 / Scientific American
Farming Solar Energy in Space
Japanese scientists are working on the hardware needed to realize orbital generators as a form of clean, renewable energy, with plans to complete a prototype in about 20 years.

July 1 / The New York Times
Google’s Ethos, Applied to Dining
Crowdsourcing sommeliers and open source recipes. Let's eat.

July 1 / Guardian
Hybrid Embryos: U.K. Team Plans Stem Cell First
British scientists got the okay from their gov to create the world's first human stem cells from embryos that are part human and part animal.

July 2 / Nature
How to Weave an Invisible Rug
You've heard of an invisibility cloak. Researchers calculate that a carpet, not a cloak, would be the most realistic kind of cloaking device. It would produce a controlled mirage.

July 2 / The New York Times
Obama Voters Protest His Switch on Telecom Immunity
Senator Barack Obama’s Web site has netted him lots-o cash. Now it's netted him lots-o backlash. When followers heard he supported legislation granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants, they protested electronically.

July 3 / Wired
Laugh at High Gas Prices With a 282-MPG VW
Fuel efficiency seems like oxymoron. But now Volkswagen is upping the ante with a new bullet-shaped car that gets triple-digit mpg. Muh-ha-ha-ha-ha.

July 3 / Scientific American
Who Will Die?: Computer Predicts Which Death Row Inmates Will Be It
Sounds like a gruesome game that no one would want to play. But the predictions could actually lead to a fairer appeals process.

July 3 / The New York Times
See Spot Run. Now Find Out Where He Went.
Track everyone, everything with GPS, for under $130.

July 3 / Guardian
Environment: Climate Risk From Flat-Screen TV
The rising demand for flat-screen televisions could have a greater impact on global warming than the world's largest coal-fired power stations, a leading environmental scientist warned yesterday.

July 3 / IEEE Spectrum Online
Crimeware Pays
Adware, phishing, and spam are a strange -- and big -- business.

July 3 / IEEE Spectrum Online
Iraq Electricity, By the Numbers
The scorching truth about electricity use and need in Iraq.