Exoplanet Mesh: Scratching The Surface August 10, 2009
Posted by Laurence in Science, Sensors, Space.add a comment
Launched just this past March, the Kepler Telescope is already producing useful results:
NASA scientists who put the telescope through a 10-day test after its March 6 launch said this week that Kepler is working well. Its ability to detect minute changes in light has enabled scientists to determine that a planet orbiting a distant star has an atmosphere, shows only one side to its sun and is so hot it glows.
Kepler’s ability to take measurements that precise at such a great distance “proves we can find Earth-size planets,” William Borucki, Kepler’s principal science investigator told reporters at a recent briefing.
The powerful scope is looking at thousands of stars in its vision field in the Milky Way on a 3½-year mission to find planets the size of Earth and to determine how common these planets are.
For folks interested the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, Kepler helps put some things into context – mainly that we’re just scratching the surface since the Kepler Mission is only looking at a 100,000 stars. Click the image below to see just how small a slice of the Milky Way(let alone the universe) this is)
Must See! 60 Minutes On Man-Machine Meshing August 9, 2009
Posted by Laurence in Augmented Reality, Medicine, People, Science.add a comment
Tonite’s 60 Minutes has a segement called BrainPower which provides stunning examples of brain interfaces peopler are using today which enable them to control computers with thoughts. A preview video is available now – I suspect the entire segment will be there tomorrow. UPDATE: it’s here. The segment mentions something called BrainGate which the FDA has recently approved for clinical trials. Like iLimb that was noted here previously, this is yet another step in the process of people being able to mesh more deeply with machines. There are profound considerations involved in the choice to not be strictly biological – considerations which are close at hand, not in the far distant future.
Twittering Things July 26, 2009
Posted by Laurence in Augmented Reality, People, Things.add a comment
The augmented reality category here exists because meshverse is about the convergence of people, places, things and events. I’ve been talking about the what IBM calls the Internet of Things from the beginning of this blog but I’ve also emphasized the importance of keeping people in the loop so the notion of having things communicating using the people oriented Twitter struck a resonant chord with me. ReadWriteWeb’s story on The Tweeting House is a real eye-opener. Twitter may play an important role in helping people to stay in the driver’s seat. Some related posts here on the MJ:
Manufacturing Mesh July 26, 2009
Posted by Laurence in 3D Printing, Augmented Reality, TVIR.add a comment
John Robb’s recent post on local manufacturing and the comments it has spawned provide some good insights into the current state of the market for what I’ve called Manufacturing 3.0. See also here on the MJ:
Changevine July 22, 2009
Posted by Laurence in General, Politics.add a comment
Changevine is a companion to the MJ that will reference posts here like Moon Mesh.
Moon Mesh July 19, 2009
Posted by Laurence in Augmented Reality, Second Life, Space, TVIR, iPhone.add a comment
This past Thursday, July 16th was the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11 which journeyed to the moon enabling humans to set foot there for the first time. Although few people get to go, many benefit from the spinoffs. Regardless of one’s philosophic or political perspective, landing on the moon was quite a unique accomplishment in human history - only 12 people have ever walked on the moon. This is a very tiny fraction of a tenth of 1 percent of the people living today and an imperceptible slice of the 10’s of billions of humans who have ever lived on Earth.
Many people have already seen the commercials with excerpts from the “We choose to go to the moon” speech by President Kennedy (video here) or news accounts. If you haven’t done so already, you may enjoy an interesting cybertrip over to We Choose The Moon(best seen over a really high speed connection) where there’s a real-time simulation of the Apollo 11 mission. At the We Choose The Moon site you can follow precisely the activities of the Apollo 11 mission. When you go there you will see a continuously updated map of the flight path and a 3-D simulation of the actual spacecraft. At the same time you will hear the actual conversation between the astronauts and mission control. When I first looked, the mission was half-way through Stage 6 – nearly 115,000 miles from Earth and I could hear Buzz Aldrin singing and talking to folks from mission control. Today as I write, Apollo 11 is approaching Stage 7, over 200,000 miles away and there’s only static in the background although a transcript of conversation shows that the flight crew just went to sleep.
Although I’m talking about the Apollo 11 being in orbit today that’s obviously not true - we know where Apollo 11 is. The command module is at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. – not 200,000 miles from Earth. And we know the crew is not on board. The rest of Apollo 11 has just recently been photographed on the moon. Still, people all over the world are experiencing Apollo 11 all over again – as though they’ve travelled back in time. Or perhaps as though folks from 1969 had travelled forward in time. Now it’s just a simulation but previously discussed here on the MJ, detailed simulations can be very persuasive – even to the point of becoming indistinguishable from reality. If that seems a bit far-fetched consider how much detail will be captured for the next moon landing a decade from now. Quite a bit of data, audio and video will be streamed live over the interplanetary internet just recently deployed on the International Space Station. What isn’t streamed live will be digitized and accessible for future browsing and use. By 2050, people observing a 40-year anniversary will likely have radically advanced, bionic interfaces which allow for compelling ways to relive the experience. That’s a very long way from the simple “lunar lander” simulations we ran on calculators when I was an engineering student or even the more sophisticated orbital lander programs we ran when I was an engineer at Hughes Space and Communications. However, with Second Life and an HP41-C X running on my iPhone, it’s not quite as far from where we are today 
