Author: kenmay

Online Skim Reading Is Taking Over the Human Brain

Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes “Michael S. Rosenwald reports in the Washington Post that, according to cognitive neuroscientists, humans seem to be developing digital brains with new circuits for skimming through the torrent of information online at the expense of traditional deep reading circuitry… Maryanne Wolf, one of the world’s foremost experts on the study of reading, was startled last year to discover her brain was apparently adapting, too. After a day of scrolling through the Web and hundreds of e-mails, she sat down one evening to read Hermann Hesse’s challenging novel The Glass Bead Game. ‘I’m not kidding: I couldn’t do it, ‘ says Wolf. ‘It was torture getting through the first page. I couldn’t force myself to slow down so that I wasn’t skimming, picking out key words, organizing my eye movements to generate the most information at the highest speed. I was so disgusted with myself.’ The brain was not designed for reading and there are no genes for reading like there are for language or vision. … Before the Internet, the brain read mostly in linear ways — one page led to the next page, and so on. The Internet is different. With so much information, hyperlinked text, videos alongside words and interactivity everywhere, our brains form shortcuts to deal with it all — scanning, searching for key words, scrolling up and down quickly. This is nonlinear reading, and it has been documented in academic studies. … Some researchers believe that for many people, this style of reading is beginning to invade our ability to deal with other mediums. ‘We’re spending so much time touching, pushing, linking, scrolling and jumping through text that when we sit down with a novel, your daily habits of jumping, clicking, linking is just ingrained in you, ‘ says Andrew Dillon.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Online Skim Reading Is Taking Over the Human Brain

First Ever Lab-Grown Muscle That Can Heal Itself in Living Creatures

Anyone who’s ever torn a muscle will be grateful for that fact that the fibers can repair themselves. But now, researchers have developed lab-grown muscle that can achieve the exact same thing . Read more…

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First Ever Lab-Grown Muscle That Can Heal Itself in Living Creatures

Intel expands 10Gbps “Thunderbolt Ethernet” capability to Windows

Thunderbolt 2 is picking up another feature. Chris Foresman If standard gigabit Ethernet isn’t cutting it for you, Intel will soon give you another option: this week at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in Las Vegas, the company announced a new feature called ” Thunderbolt Networking ” that will soon be available to all PCs with Thunderbolt 2 controllers. The feature, which will be enabled by an upcoming Windows driver update, will “emulat[e] an Ethernet connection environment” and provide a 10Gbps two-way link between two computers connected with a Thunderbolt cable. Since you’ll need to connect the two computers directly to each other, this solution obviously won’t scale as well as real 10Gbps networking equipment. But for now, that hardware remains relatively uncommon and expensive—well outside the price range of individuals and smaller businesses. Thunderbolt Networking is apparently not being enabled for older computers with first-generation Thunderbolt controllers. While the feature will be new to the Windows operating system, the ability to network two Thunderbolt Macs together was introduced back in Mavericks. It doesn’t appear to require Thunderbolt 2 on that platform, though as we experienced , configuring a Thunderbolt Bridge can make for fast but occasionally choppy transfer speeds. That test connected one Thunderbolt 2 Mac to an older model with a first-generation Thunderbolt controller, though—it’s possible that connecting Thunderbolt 2 Macs to each other results in a more stable connection however. This new Windows driver update will enable any two Thunderbolt 2 PCs and Macs to be connected, though to date the Windows laptops, workstations, and motherboards with integrated Thunderbolt 2 controllers have been few and far between. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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Intel expands 10Gbps “Thunderbolt Ethernet” capability to Windows

Seagate Releases 6TB Hard Drive Sans Helium

Lucas123 (935744) writes “Seagate has released what it said is the industry’s fastest hard drive with up to a 6TB capacity, matching one released by WD last year. WD’s 6TB Ultrastar He6 was hermetically sealed with helium inside, something the company said was critical to reducing friction for additional platters, while also increasing power savings and reliability. Seagate, however, said it doesn’t yet need to rely on Helium to achieve the 50% increase in capacity over it’s last 4TB drive. The company used the same perpendicular magnetic recording technology that it has on previous models, but it was able to increase areal density from 831 bits per square inch to 1, 000. The new drive also comes in 2TB, 4TB and 5TB capacities and with either 12Gbps SAS or 6Gbps SATA connectivity. The six-platter, enterprise-class drive is rated to sustain about 550TB of writes per year — 10X that of a typical desk top drive.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Seagate Releases 6TB Hard Drive Sans Helium

Red’s 6K-capable Scarlet Dragon camera goes on sale for a mere $14,500

Don’t despair that you’ll have to buy both Red’s Scarlet camera and its Dragon upgrade just to get 6K video capture at a semi-reasonable price. The company has announced that the ready-made Scarlet Dragon body will go on sale tomorrow for a relatively affordable $14, 500. It should ship once Red catches up on Dragon upgrade orders , or around June. You may not be recording many projects at full resolution, however. Red did squeeze in 6K (after concerns that it wouldn’t make the cut), but you’ll only get it at 12FPS when shooting full frame — you’ll have to drop to ‘just’ 5K to get speed worthy of movies and TV. Company chief Jarred Land hints that the Scarlet Dragon should be faster in widescreen mode, though, so you might not have to shell out for the higher-end Epic Dragon to produce a sharp-looking masterpiece. Filed under: Cameras Comments Source: Red

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Red’s 6K-capable Scarlet Dragon camera goes on sale for a mere $14,500

The ridiculed Comic Sans typeface gets its dignity back with Comic Neue

Craig Rozynski is an Australian designer who took upon himself to dignify the most ridiculed and beleaguered typeface in the world: Comic Sans. He turned the horrible typeface into an actually attractive typeface: Comic Neue. It’s a miracle. Read more…

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The ridiculed Comic Sans typeface gets its dignity back with Comic Neue

Raspberry Pi’s computer now fits in the space of a tiny memory stick

Didn’t think that Raspberry Pi’s namesake computer could get any more miniscule? Think again. The organization has unveiled the Compute Module , a board that stuffs the Pi’s processor and 4GB of storage into the space of a stick of DDR2 laptop memory; you’re looking at the tiny new device on the left. This isn’t meant to show off Raspberry Pi’s miniaturization skills, though. Fitting the system into a small standard connector lets circuit board builders attach whatever interfaces they like, rather than make do with the built-in ports on a conventional Pi design. You’ll have to buy the Compute Module alongside a starter IO Board when the hardware launches this June, but it will eventually be possible to get the modules by themselves. Individual pricing isn’t available just yet. However, Raspberry Pi says that large-scale buyers (think educators and entrepreneurs) can buy batches of 100 at about $30 per piece. Filed under: Misc Comments Source: Adafruit , Raspberry Pi

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Raspberry Pi’s computer now fits in the space of a tiny memory stick

Microsoft looking into Xbox 360 emulation through Xbox One

Mark Derricutt When the Xbox One was announced last year, many Xbox 360 owners were upset that the system wouldn’t be backward compatible with 360 games . Now, there’s some indication that Microsoft is looking to remedy this situation through emulation, though the specific timing or form that the emulation will take is still unclear. Microsoft’s still-nebulous plans for Xbox 360 emulation via the Xbox One come from a Q&A session at last week’s Build developers conference , as reported by Kotaku AU . When an audience member asked if there were “plans for an Xbox 360 emulator on Xbox One,” Microsoft Partner Development Lead Frank Savage responded: There are, but we’re not done thinking them through yet, unfortunately. It turns out to be hard to emulate the PowerPC stuff on the X86 stuff. So there’s nothing to announce, but I would love to see it myself. The change in architecture between the Xbox 360’s PowerPC processor and Xbox One’s x86 chip has  long been  suspected as the main reason that the newer system can’t natively play games from its predecessor. The PS4 saw a similar architecture change from the PS3 and also lacks native backward compatibility. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Microsoft looking into Xbox 360 emulation through Xbox One

AT&T is currently experiencing a nationwide blackout in U-verse service.

AT&T is currently experiencing a nationwide blackout in U-verse service. The company says the outage is “due to a power-related issue triggered by a third-party at our video hub.” [ Mashable ] Read more…

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AT&T is currently experiencing a nationwide blackout in U-verse service.