PolyThinkers Pad

If you’re in need of a study break, play around in Phun - a 2D physics sandbox. A Swedish computer science student developed Phun for his Masters thesis. The program (which is free to download) lets you flex your creativity and build fantastic contraptions, all while obeying the laws of physics.

Ever thought of your out dated computer as a work of art? Perhaps you’ll change your perspective after seeing Mark Richard’s remarkable photographs of old school computers.

Richard’s book, Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers, reveals modern technology’s evolution by combining computer history with a series of striking photographs of the world’s most renowned computer collection, the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.

Pictured above is Apple 1, a far cry from MacBook Air, it’s the first computer built by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs back in 1976.

The National Academies Press released a new book available to read for free online, “Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace.” From the Executive Summary:

Given the growing importance of cyberspace to nearly all aspects of national life, a secure cyberspace is vitally important to the nation, but cyberspace is far from secure today. The United States faces real risks that adversaries will exploit vulnerabilities in the nation’s critical information systems, thereby causing considerable suffering and damage.

Authors: Seymour E. Goodman and Herbert S. Lin, Editors, Committee on Improving Cybersecurity Research in the United States, National Research Council

You may have imagined tabletops and bathroom mirrors as computer input devices; computers controlled by voice; common computing tasks handled by distant servers instead of individual computers (cloud computing). But if you have, did you think that widespread availability of these technologies was just around the corner and in fact they are being actively worked on by engineers at Microsoft? Read about these and other advances that Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates believes represent the (very) near future of computing in CNET News.com.

To read more about cloud computing and its current applications, see this article in the Christian Science Monitor.

UC Berkeley has begun posting entire course lectures on YouTube this month, including a lecture on search-engine technology given in 2005 by Google cofounder Sergey Brin.

The lecture, Search Engines: Technology, Society, and Business, is approximately 40 minutes long and covers topics such as search and privacy, search ranking, internationalization, anti-spam efforts, local search, peer-to-peer search, and search of blogs and online communities.

Check out youtube.com/ucberkeley for more videos on topics including chemistry, physics, biology and more.

TechXtra is a free service which can help you find articles, books, the best websites, the latest industry news, job announcements, technical reports, technical data, full text eprints, the latest research, thesis & dissertations, teaching and learning resources and more, in engineering, mathematics and computing.

From the website:

TechXtra searches parts of the Web that Google doesn’t, and TechXtra helps you find subject-based information, which Google doesn’t do very well. Many of the things you’ll find through TechXtra come from the ‘Hidden Web’, and are not indexed by Google.

An important note: Search Dibner’s subscription databases first since we may have paid access to some of the resources you will find on TechXtra. Also remember that if they are not free and we don’t have a subscription, you may always make a request using our online document delivery form.

TechXtra is now available in the list of Research Tools in the blog’s right sidebar. Give Google a rest and check out the other great tools listed there when you want to conduct a more focused search.

Valuable scientific and technical information is scattered all over the internet in various formats such as technical reports, conference publications or pre-prints. The E-print Network: Research Communications for Scientists and Engineers makes it easier to track down the information you’re looking for.

E-prints are scholarly and professional works electronically produced and shared by researchers with the intent of communicating research findings to colleagues. The U.S. Department of Energy established the E-print Network to provide easier access to widely dispersed data using a Deep Web search capability allowing you to search full text of thousands of e-prints. Disciplines covered include physics, chemistry, biology and life sciences, materials science, nuclear sciences and engineering, energy research, computer and information technologies, and others.

The E-print Alerts feature is a service that will automatically notify you when new eprint information is available in your specific areas of interest.

With the rise of Open Access and advances in cyberinfrastructure, scholarly communication is in the midst of upheaval. What will this mean for the academic world, the research community, and the advancement of science overall? These are some of the questions addressed by that the latest issue of CTWatch Quarterly: “The Coming Revolution in Scholarly Communications & Cyberinfratructure”

CTWatch Quarterly is an online journal that focuses on cyberinfrastructure related research critical to collaboration and information dissemination within the science community. Past issues are available online in the Issues Archive.