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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rob S. who wrote (31988)	11/7/2009 2:00:44 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Rob S., that was a lot to wrap one's brain around. Lots to chew on there. Thanks. Allow me to first respond from a stream of consciousness, then maybe later more deliberately, after I've allowed it all to settle in. re: "What works against rational choices is ignorance and arrogance... therefore, a snowballs chance in hell!" I think many already in some ways hold this snowball while straddling a line between Heaven and Hell. Taken to extremes your fictitious society would be populated by brains without bodies, never having to eat or poop in the First World. The mind travels with aplomb to wherever logical functions warrant, while the body parks itself somewhere, presumably at home, where it remains cozy and green. So as not to appear too extreme, one backs off to only a 70% ideal world and introduces the need for physical travel and all of its travails. This still assumes that a fair amount of the dirty work of any sustainable economy will be done somewhere else. All the trappings of cap & trade. More after I put a few weekend chores behind me. FAC ------

To: Rob S. who wrote (31988)	11/8/2009 1:46:11 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	1 Recommendation Respond to of 46821

Far From a Lab? Turn a Cellphone Into a Microscope By Anne Eisenberg \| NY Times \| Nov 8, 2009 MICROSCOPES are invaluable tools to identify blood and other cells when screening for diseases like anemia, tuberculosis and malaria. But they are also bulky and expensive. Now an engineer, using software that he developed and about $10 worth of off-the-shelf hardware, has adapted cellphones to substitute for microscopes. “We convert cellphones into devices that diagnose diseases,” said Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and member of the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, who created the devices. He has formed a company, Microskia, to commercialize the technology. The adapted phones may be used for screening in places far from hospitals, technicians or diagnostic laboratories, Dr. Ozcan said. In one prototype, a slide holding a finger prick of blood can be inserted over the phone’s camera sensor. The sensor detects the slide’s contents and sends the information wirelessly to a hospital or regional health center. For instance, the phones can detect the asymmetric shape of diseased blood cells or other abnormal cells, or note an increase of white blood cells, a sign of infection, he said. Continued (incl. photos): nytimes.com ------

To: Rob S. who wrote (31988)	11/8/2009 11:33:01 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Hi Rob S. Allow me to put some closure on my earlier stated commitment to return to your post #msg-26077959, still largely based on my original stream of consciousness (as I recall it now), but a bit more nuanced for venue and presentation. First let me say that I found your post an enjoyable and sometimes provocative read from a number of different vantage points. In one part of your post you painted a fascinating and somewhat inspiring picture of daily life, which I might add could also be interpreted by some measures as fanciful, as well, depending on one's occupation, geography and other personal preferences and attributes. For those who fit the mold, however, the merits behind doing everything in cyberspace are more clear. However, several times while reading through your message, especially the second time around, I found myself musing about the effectiveness of advocacy and proselytizing about e-ridesharing, for example, versus the natural, evolutionary means that have, since the beginning of time, caused population centers to evolve and grow along rivers and other formations in nature, and in more modern times along railroad rights of way and established vehicular highways. And yes, one could now also argue that such migrations can also be influenced by the presence of abundant bandwidth (fiber routes) and cheap energy. Countervailing the latter, however, we find advocates who say that one could live just about anywhere and reap the benefits of cheap energy if they follow the sun and follow the wind via high-speed Internet connectivity. Still, proximity to bandwidth, even in that last instance, is imperative. If I appear to be wavering here, you're right. I am. But not out of uncertainty, alone, but rather due to the multi-variables at play that are sometimes only temporal in nature, hence combine and interact rather ephemerally with each other in ways that are serendipitously-combinatorial, as opposed to "by design" or conspiratorial. At other points throughout the read I mused about Internet-addiction and the growing scourge that is individual isolation, which afflicts a growing number of mouse-clicking citizens today. Hence, my somewhat admittedly-glib observations concerning heaven and hell and brains without bodies. I was reminded of a recent article I posted on this subject, Does Technology Reduce Social Isolation?, here: #msg-26076275, which article itself caused me to muse further about the manner in which many of my social-net friends who have never spent so much time in the sky traveling trans-continentally and inter-nationally as they do today, simply because, instead of teleconferencing, they are fulfilling their "real social needs" to "get out there" and be among other socialnetters at confabs, unconferences and seminars that focus on the subject. Other than those forays I just alluded to, however, many netizens with a socialnet bent (sometimes myself included, I'm afraid, and I dare say others here, as well) remain shuttered indoors for hours and days on end, even on the most beautiful of days -- until, of course, the need for the next fix of reality becomes so overbearing that they've no choice but to get out and go to another conference. Apologies if I appear to have veered from your thesis in some parts of this message, but I think the observations and issues I have raised are also germane to the topic at hand, and they need to be discussed as well. Thoughts? FAC ------

To: Rob S. who wrote (31988)	11/10/2009 1:15:54 AM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

That's a nice idea [ride sharing] but it's perpetuating the old ways of doing things. The problem is not the size of roads it's the intelligence [lack of it] of the drivers who apparently have trouble talking on a mobile phone and driving while ogling girls walking down the street. There is also a taxation problem. Not to mention a pricing problem. And a vehicle design problem. Those things combined have led to the vast waste in traffic. Throw in stupid traffic engineering and life in traffic is bleak unless the driver is paid by government departments to sit around in comfy cars listening to the radio. Here are the answers. Put navigation systems in vehicles. GPS, transponders, proximity detectors, gpsOne, etc so the position, speed and direction of a vehicle and its intended trajectory over its journey are known. Introduce congestion charging for roads. Remove all the traffic lights. Automate vehicle operations - meaning untouched by human hands. Make taxis tax-free. Monitor the position of the vehicle and give it a quote for the intended journey before the journey starts. If the passenger doesn't think the price is cheap enough, they can make other arrangements such as traveling in another mode or deferring their journey. The price quoted is a function of the demand at the time for that journey, meaning if it's going to be busy, the price will be high to encourage fewer people to travel then. The passenger presses "accept". Money is debited from their prepay account and off they go. The vehicle drives itself and heads into the traffic flow, traveling on motorways at 150 kph half a metre behind the vehicle in front. On suburban streets, speeds would be lower but could still be pretty quick. Intersections wouldn't require collecting big numbers of vehicles to release in a green wave. Each vehicle would be moved according to space available. There wouldn't be a confused person blocking dozens or hundreds of other vehicles with every phase of traffic lights. If taxis were tax free, the incentive to own and operate and find parking for one's own vehicle would dramatically reduce. That would introduce great efficiency. Fares would be a function of demand - at peak times on rainy days, prices would be higher. Cyberphones would provide a communications method to get the right taxi at the right price at the right time. If Greenies are really into cutting CO2 per lifestyle, they'd jump at the idea of tax-free taxis and some cyber-engineering. Many of the necessary technologies are well into design phases and implementation in many vehicles is already commercial. Mqurice