Cognitive Labs

Google is going to strive to bring the cost of solar power down to a level where it competes with coal. This is not that easy since solar is two Std. dev.'s away from coal's position in terms of absolute cost and making up the differential will require radical new thinking. There is a high altitude wind turbine proposal from this co. which is interesting. As one rises in the atmosphere, the sustained wind levels increase. Efforts to create windfarms on the surface have been so-so: the Altamont Pass (in the SF Bay Area) and a similar forest of wind harvesters on the Eastern side of the San Bernardino mountains frequently sit idle.

Here are some other ideas in my brain:

(1)The doldrums. All sailors know this term-which refers to those areas just north and south of the equator and the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn when the wind stops and the Sun beats down. Sailors stuck in the doldrums would get both sunburns and scurvy until Captain Cook forced everyone to eat lemons and float lemons in the casks of rum. Here you have ample solar energy and also plentiful water - in effect a migrating desert on the ocean. In fact, it was in these kind of high energy situations that blue-green algae flourished, may have organized itself into vast mats and then mutated into a host of derivative organisms. Speaking of photosynthesis...

Imagine a floating platform, anchored to the seafloor but motile, equipped with large mirrors which reflect sunlight onto an infinite series of tubules through which passes seawater. The steam drives massive turbines which generate hydroelectric power, sent via cable to the mainland. The water is continuously replenished via large waterwheels which dip into the ocean and then release the water in an elevated perimeter holding moat which uses gravity to distribute the water into the tubules.
Steam drives the waterwheel along with kinetic energy once it is in motion. No external power source is needed and energy and potential energy existing in nature are seamlessly and efficiently converted into clean power. Solar cells can also be utilized in these regions. Computational power can be run on-site, with close access to cooling water.



(2)Power ring....borrowing from Larry Niven's Ringworld or its inspiration the Dyson sphere.

Labels: algae, doldrums, dysonsphere, Google, rec, waterwheel

Whomever can design a robotic probe capable of reaching the lunar surface, trekking some 1,400 feet and sending back photos and video by 2010 - will win up to $30 million dollars from Google in the next iteration of the X prize.

The caveat is obtaining lift, attaining escape velocity, and then utilizing the appropriate telemetry to successfully land the object - possibly a bouncing ball lander would be appropriate, as the moon has no atmosphere, however, gravity is 1/6th what it is on the earth. Some of those old Commodore 64 programs that re-created the Apollo telemetry might come in handy.

Labels: $30million, apollo, Google, lander, telemetry, xprize

Scientists exploring the asteroid belt with instrumentation have found an asteroid that contains the igneous (volcanic)rock basalt. Basalt forms from magma that is subject to tidal flows of gravity in a large body or radioactive decay. The analysis suggests that either a new class of asteroid has been found or that perhaps, remains of a planet have been found.


m51 the Whirpool Galaxy

In other news, Google launched Google Sky, organizing and making the heavens accessible like Asimov's Encyclopedia Galactica. However, this digital universe exists entirely within the bounds of clustered server farms. Given additional computational power, telescopic reach, and granularity - maybe there will be no need to travel to the stars - when it can be accomplished digitally, and the 'hyperspace' algorithm reduces the conceptual distance like a needle through folded fabric. Traveling faster than light then, is really the wrong question to ask in discovering the solution.

Labels: asteroid, basalt, Google, googlesky, hyperspace algorithm, sky

Congratulations to Stumbleupon for getting picked up by Ebay for 40M or so (rumored)

This is a service that got kickstarted vis-a-vis the Firefox extension. It allows users to "stumble" by hitting a button and randomly (but according to your pre-selected topical interest points) to get redirected to a site of interest, e.g. those interested in Medieval coins will see sites clustered around a similar theme.

Stumbleupon is a shot in the arm for niche-oriented websites. Guess Why.

Analogs: ipod Shuffle, also the concept is similar to 'traffic rotators' used by operators of the "bad neighborhoods" on the web in Google parlance, except the rotation is caused by random human "stumbles" and therefore nifty.

We're experimenting with a shuffle feature, but I can't tell you what it's for. Stumbleupon had around 1,400,000 users last summer (so did we) last time I checked they had 2,185,000 registered users whereas we have something like 2,029,000 of which half a million are pretty old, the rest are new. Tell more friends to join up right here where actually more than 50% of you do register and did so yesterday, which is pretty darn swell by any standard.

Labels: ebay, Google, stumbleupon

What's America's most popular radio show?

Our Google Maps post is linked up at "news" section on the site of North America's most popular radio show - Coast to Coast AM, which has something like 40,000,000 nightly listeners in the U.S. and Canada.The show's guests think big, typically people such as cosmologist (not cosmetologist) Michio Kaku, SETI's Seth Shostak, hotel-in-space billionaire Robert Bigelow (fascinating) and blockbuster author/screenwriter/creative talent Whitley Strieber. If it was on in the 19th century, they would have had Theodore Judah, the individual who dreamed up the Transcontinental Railroad - on as a guest. Today, it's a flying car (not George Lucas). Thanks for sharing the love, guys. Good Karma.

Labels: bigelow, coasttocoast, Google, googlemaps, michiokaku, shostak, strieber, transcontinental

There were two major stories in technology over the weekend, for those interested in this topic. The first is Google's acquisition of DoubleClick on Friday, and the second, Microsoft's announcement of Silverlight, a vector authoring tool designed to compete with Adobe. Since Flash is installed on up to 99% of the total available market (TAM) for browsers, it will be interesting to see what their strategy is.

Labels: adobe, doubleclick, Flash, Google, microsoft, silverlight

Roughly 1,000 people per day are signing up on brain.com - now a cognitivelabs.com property - and this is giving a shot in the arm to our registration efforts - now closing in on the 2 million mark - (just under 100,000 away)

This is basically people just going to the site and registering...it is now ranked 4th on yahoo and 5th on google when you enter the word "brain". You can help us reach #1 by placing those quality, organic links.

brain.com is a little easier to remember than cognitivelabs.com, though the latter has built a quality brand in its own right.

Labels: alzheimers, brain, brain.com, cognitivelabs.com, Google, yahoo

Imagine a "light bucket" window on the universe, a big-aperture, low F-ratio reflector - now insert Google into the mix.

Orion Nebula
see the trapezium...
http://eyepieces.com
ads by Google

Whether or not there is an effort to monetize, they are in a position to create virtual maps and windows into the sky...particularly by getting involved in a public digital mapping of the heavens project.


Google has already planted its flag on Earth, the Moon and Mars. The universe could be next. The Internet search company has struck a partnership with scientists building a huge sky-scanning telescope, with hopes of helping the public access digital footage of asteroids, supernovas and distant galaxies.

"Frankly, I could see the day when they would be our sort of window to the general public," said Donald Sweeney, manager of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, or LSST, on Friday.

Officials also say Google's technical expertise and vast data processing capacity will be an invaluable help, even for a project that has access to some of the country's leading research institutions.

The 8.4-meter LSST is expected to begin surveying the sky in 2013, from a mountaintop in Chile. Its goal is to continuously scan space, taking a series of 15-second exposures that allow it to cover the sky every three nights.

Officials say the telescope will open "a movie-like window" on nearby asteroids and far-off exploding stars, and help explore the mysterious "dark energy" believed to fuel the universe's expansion.

Google's stature should also bring the project more attention, which could be crucial as the $350 million telescope competes for public and private money.

In that respect, LSST officials may have learned a lesson from projects that have captured broader public imagination, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, said W. Henry Lambright, professor of public administration at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.

"If they want to finance this thing and keep it going and maintained, they've got to make this not just the astronomers' telescope, but the people's telescope," he said.

The project has attracted at least $25 million in private donations and a four-year, $12 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Some of the 20 project partners also have supplied money, including about $1 million each from a half-dozen universities, Sweeney said.

Google's involvement hasn't been completely defined yet, Sweeney said. But the company that already offers detailed online maps of the Earth, the Moon and Mars could help analyze massive amounts of data — up to 30 terabytes a night — generated by the telescope.

But Google's involvement raises questions about whether it sees the resulting space images as a cash cow, said Stephen Maran, spokesman for the American Astronomical Society. He said, "Maybe they'll be selling ads next to the Orion Nebula or something."

Officials said there is no clear revenue stream for Google in the project, and said the company also isn't putting up money to help build the telescope itself.

"There is no licensing, there is no quid pro quo here," Sweeney said. "There's no financial incentive to them or to us."

Labels: Google, LSST, telescope