PolyThinkers Pad

One of the great things about being at Poly is having easy access to all that New York City has to offer. There’s definitely no shortage of fun possibilities in the big apple, but are you aware of all the ways you can engage your brain and have a good time? There’s a wide range of public groups in NYC that meet on a regular basis to discuss and share ideas on science, engineering and technology. Check out the events listed below and meet new people with common interests.

Dorkbot Their tag line says it all: “people doing strange things with electricity.” First Wednesday of every month.

Nerd Nite NYC An informal gathering at which nerds get together for two 20-30 minute lectures on scientific or cultural topics.

Next NY Tech Events This calendar lists professional and social events for the internet and new media industries in New York City.

NY Tech Meetup On the first Tuesday each month at 7 pm, six people get five minutes each to demo something cool to New York’s tech community.

Science & the City Multiple events covering a wide range of interests compiled by the New York Academy of Sciences.

Secret Science Club A science lecture series that takes place on the first Wednesday of each month at Union Hall restaurant and bar in Park Slope.

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.

As the new year starts, take a moment to look back at what made 2007 memorable. On Dibner Library’s best of 2007 del.icio.us links, you’ll find a compilation of end-of-the-year lists including everything from the most innovative products of the year to YouTube’s top 10 videos. The links cover news, science, technology, entertainment, books, and more.

Some highlights include:

• 10 Craziest Ways to Hack the Earth
• The Year in Pictures
• 100 Notable Books of the Year
• Top 10 Technology Videos
• Top 10 New Organisms

Can’t get enough of year-end lists? Here’s 50 more: Time Magazine’s 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007.

If you have a best of 2007 list you’d like to add to the collection, please share it with us in the comments.

A Robot driving competition, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was won by a team from Carnegie Mellon. The race highlighted the great advances in robotic technology, featuring such maneuvers as making a left turn in the face of incoming traffic, and even cheating a little to get out of tricky situations.

The prize was given to the vehicle that could maneuver a 60 mile course in under six hours in a simulated city. The vehicles were unmanned, and once started, should not require any human instructions before the race was completed. Many variables, including how well the vehicles adhered to California driving regulations were factored into the judgment, and it was always understood that the winning vehicle was not necessarily the one with the fastest time. (A robot designed by Stanford actually crossed the finish line first). [Read more →]

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.

The Library of Congress announced a plan to digitize some of the world’s rare cultural artifacts. They are also proceeding in Cooperation with Unesco on the World Digital Library text digitization project that is modeled on the existing American Memory project. The World Digital Library project was launched two years ago with a grant from google and technical assistance from Apple. The project’s organizer’s are currently discussing aliances with Nokia and Vodafone.

Another article limns a less chummy picture of libraries and the major search portals. The New York Times writes that “Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases.” They are put off by the restrictions imposed by these companies, instead choosing to work with the Open Content Alliance, which is the brainchild of Brewster Kahle, who is also the founder and director of possibly the best site on the Internet, the well known Internet Archive.

Open Access publishing continues to rise at an astronomical rate as researchers hope to maximize their impact by providing free access to their scholarly articles online. But all this newly available material does little good if you don’t know where to find it. Fortunately the good folks at Lund University in Sweden have created the Directory of Open Access Journals.

The Directory of Open Access Journals is a carefully vetted list of fully open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journals covering all subjects and languages. It currently lists a total of 2,870 journals, with a net growth rate of 1.2 titles per calendar day over the past year. The directory aims to be a “one stop shop for users to Open Access Journals.”

Subjects covered in the Directory include: [Read more →]

It’s not always convenient to lug your laptop around, that’s what makes flash drives so great. They are relatively cheap, hold tons of data, and come in a variety of designs (care for a shrimp drive?). They’re even more useful when you have some applications on them so you don’t have to rely on what’s available on some other computer.

PortableFreeware has a list of thousands of free applications complete with summaries, system requirements and more.

Source:
Find Freeware Apps for Your Flash Drive from ResearchBuzz

If you aren’t using RSS to get the latest updates from your favorite websites and blogs, it’s time to start! Instead of visiting numerous different websites hunting for new information, RSS (Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) brings new content directly to you, allowing you to stay up to date without wasting time.

The first thing you need to do to take advantage of RSS is to set up a RSS reader (also called an aggregator) . Some popular web-based readers include Google Reader Bloglines, My Yahoo!, and NewsGator. When visiting a website you want to keep current with, look for the RSS or XML icons . By clicking the icon you can subscribe to the RSS feed with your reader.

For a quick overview on how to use RSS, watch RSS in Plain English by commoncraft:

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