Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014 ORLANDO, Fla., October 8, 2013 View All Press Releases Analysts Examine Top Industry Trends at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2013 October 6-10 in Orlando Gartner, Inc. today highlighted the top ten technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2014. Analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, being held here through October 10. Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. “We have identified the top 10 technologies that companies should factor into their strategic planning processes,” said David Cearley. Mr. The top ten strategic technology trends for 2014 include: Mobile Device Diversity and Management Mobile Apps and Applications The Internet of Everything Hybrid Cloud and IT as Service Broker Cloud/Client Architecture The Era of Personal Cloud
According To A Nasa Funded Study, We're Pretty Much Screwed Our industrial civilization faces the same threats of collapse that earlier versions such as the Mayans experienced, a study to be published in Ecological Economics has warned. The idea is far from new, but the authors have put new rigor to the study of how so many previous societies collapsed, and why ours could follow. Lead author Mr Safa Motesharrei is no wild-eyed conspiracy theorist. Motesharrei is a graduate student in mathematics at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, a National Science Foundation-supported institution, and the research was done with funding from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent," the forthcoming paper states
Researchers May Have Created A H1N1 Flu Strain Capable Of Evading The Immune System Back in June, we heard of a controversial study conducted by a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers that generated an influenza virus with similar characteristics to the infamous 1918 pandemic flu virus. The research was criticized by many and branded as crazy, foolish and dangerous by experts. Now, according to The Independent, lead researcher Yoshihoro Kawaoka has gone one step further by manipulating the 2009 H1N1 flu strain so that it can evade the immune system. The 2009 influenza A H1N1, or swine flu, pandemic is estimated to have resulted in between 151,700 and 575,400 deaths within the first year that the virus circulated. While that may pale in comparison to the 1918 pandemic “Spanish” flu virus that killed an estimated 50 million people, given the number of people exposed to the 2009 virus it is likely that a large number of individuals worldwide are now immune to this particular strain. We are sure many of you are yelling “Why?!”
The Amazon River Flows Backwards, And Now Scientists Have Figured Out Why The Amazon once flowed in the opposite direction, from east to west. Reversing the direction of the Earth's largest river is no trivial thing, and geologists have pondered the cause for some time. In Earth and Planetary Science Letters The University of Sao Paulo's Dr Victor Sacek has demonstrated that nothing more than erosion is needed to explain this enormous shift. With the mighty Andes at the western end of the continent it seems logical that South America's rivers flow east. However, until 10 million years ago, most of what is now the Amazon basin was drained by a river that flowed west into a giant lake that lay at the feet of the northern Andes. To tilt an entire continent seems such a vast endeavor that geologists had speculated changes in convection within the Earth's mantle, perhaps resulting from the break-up of Africa and South America, must have driven this. H/T Science
Reactionless motor: Needs more evidence. Photo by Paramount Pictures The ‘Net has been buzzing about a paper published by a team of engineers at NASA claiming that they have built a device that creates thrust without propellant. There have been lots of articles written about it, it’s spawned a zillion tweets, and I’m getting plenty of email asking me about it. Here’s the thing: I'm not convinced. I could write a lot about this, but instead I’ll point you to two people who already have written excellent discussions on what’s going on here: John Baez on Google Plus (you should read both his first article and his second one) as well as my old friend Steve Novella. The bottom line here is what the team is proposing violates a very basic law of physics; all the forces inside the device appear to be balanced, yet a thrust is still generated. I’ll be clear: Of course science has overturned earlier notions of how the Universe works. Photo by Brady et al., from the paper This device doesn’t have that yet.
New Study Suggests The World Is On The Brink Of The Next Great Extinction Just as we all die, all species eventually go extinct. However, the rate of extinction varies dramatically, and a new estimate suggests we are currently running at 1000 times the normal rate. This rate of extinction is only seen in the fossil record after incredibly dramatic and unusual occurrences, such as huge asteroid strikes or supervolcano eruptions. In order to calculate the effect humans are having we need to know two things – how many species are disappearing each year, and how many vanish as part of the normal background. Estimating the number of current extinctions is hard enough, since some species disappear without us ever knowing they were there in the first place. Professor Stuart Pimm of Duke University has published a paper in Science in which he and his coauthors, “Document what we know, how it likely differs from what we do not, and how these differences affect biodiversity statistics.” “We start by asking how many species are known and how many remain undescribed.
Following the Money: Who’s in Control? Human beings are beginning to question the environment around them more so than ever before. Our capability to step outside of the box and observe events taking place on planet Earth from a neutral standpoint continues to increase at an exponential rate. Observing the entire Earth experience from an open mind has cleared the way for a change in perception, which has the potential to change our planet and the way we operate on it forever. We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented – The Truman Show
Time-Lapse Footage of a Supercell Thunderstorm A group of stormchasers captured some beautiful and terrifying footage of a supercell thunderstorm developing over Wyoming this weekend. As far as thunderstorms go, supercells are the least common, but they're responsible for most of the violent tornadoes in the U.S. In addition to extreme winds, they also dump torrential rain and hailstones that are bigger than golf balls -- causing flash floods and a whole lot of damage. Their rising, spinning vortices of air -- rotating updrafts called mesocyclones -- can reach speeds of over 100 miles an hour (about 160 km/h) and sometimes last hours. The Basehunters out of Norman, Oklahoma, created this epic time-lapse video from Wright to Newcastle in the northwestern part of Wyoming on Sunday. Some degree of buoyancy is required, although the most critical ingredients for a supercell are moderate to strong wind speed and directional shear between the surface and about 20,000 feet (or 6 km). Image: Colt Forney/Basehunters Video: Basehunters
Hologram Projectors For Your Smartphone Could Be Close | IFLScience Just in time for the new Star Wars film, it seems the technology from the originals is starting to come true. First it was lightsabers, then prosthetic arms like Luke Skywalker's, and now we're being promised hologram projectors like R2D2 - although maybe not as cute. At the moment if you want to project three dimensional holograms into space you need to use mirrors or multiple sources placed around where the hologram is formed, so that light can interact from different directions. Ostendo Technologies, a California start-up are dreaming much smaller. They have already demonstrated a prototype chip less than a centimeter long and a lens that fits on the palm of your hand. This tiny apparatus can, they say, control the color and brightness of enough LED beams to light up a million pixels on a screen with a 1.2m diagonal. What Ostendo are not revealing is how they manage to project these images onto the air from a single direction.
Top 10 Reasons We Should NOT Fear The Singularity Some people fear flying. Others fear sky diving. Others still loathe crowded spaces or elevators. Some can even give you 10 reasons to fear the singularity. Whatever the case may be, the feeling of fear is both healthy and normal, though it may or may not be always justified. If you ask me, fearing something often means that you should do it. Take flying for example. So what makes the difference? Well, dumb luck surely can. In the long run, however, it is not luck that is the decisive factor – it is things like knowledge, skills and preparation. So, what better way to get motivated in creating the best possible future than to list the 10 most inspiring and allegedly impossible reasons we should not fear but embrace the singularity: 1. The search for immortality is as old as humanity. At any rate, eccentric or visionary researchers such as Aubrey de Grey have made it their life’s goal that we are either going to live forever, or die trying. 2. 3. 4. If anything it’s pretty obvious Robert J.
These 29 Clever Drawings Will Make You Question Everything Wrong With The World Polish artist Pawel Kuczynski has worked in satirical illustration since 2004, specializing in thought-provoking images that make his audience question their everyday lives. His subjects deal with everything from social media to politics to poverty, and all have a very distinct message if you look closely enough… Even if you don’t agree with the messages behind some of these illustrations, it’s impossible not to appreciate the creativity involved in them. Maybe we really do need to start paying more attention to the things we accept as part of our daily reality. Like this article? Then join the Conversation with many others in EWAO ! Check out Pawel’s website here! H/T: imgur.com Source:
The dead trees and fallen leaves near Chernobyl aren’t decaying It’s been nearly 30 years since the catastrophe at Chernobyl, and as the cleanup grinds on, the far-reaching effects continue to be documented. Birds with smaller brains, increasing spiders, decreasing butterflies, all these and more have been reported from the areas surrounding Chernobyl. One group you don’t hear very much about are the decomposers -- those bugs, microbes, fungi, and slime molds who nourish themselves by consuming the remains of dead organisms. Without these recyclers, carbon, nitrogen, and other elements essential to life would be locked in plant corpses. The effects of radioactive contamination on the decay of plant material remains unknown… until now. Scientists examining the forests around Chernobyl have found that radioactive contamination has reduced the rate of litter mass loss. To test this, the team filled 572 small mesh bags with dry leaves from four species of trees -- oak, maple, birch, pine -- collected from uncontaminated sites.