Archive for June 2017

http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/chip-hall-of-fame The stories of the greatest and most influential microchips in history—and the people who built them. →

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/the-internet-is-actually-controlled-by-14-people-who-hold-7-secret-keys/ This sounds like something out of a Dan Brown book, but it isn’t: The whole internet is controlled by seven actual, physical keys. ICANN maps the numbers (easier for computers to use) with words (easier for humans to use). If someone were to gain control of ICANN’s database, that person would control the internet.  The physical →

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/ai-trying-to-design-inspirational-posters-goes-horribly-and-hilariously-wrong/ Now, a new AI has appeared on the wilderness of the Web, and it goes by the name InspiroBot. As you might expect, it designs “Inspirational Posters” for you →

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/06/the-un-has-ranked-nations-for-innovation-how-does-yours-do?utm_content=buffer6b5de&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer Emerging markets are climbing up the ranks of the world’s most innovative nations, an annual U.N. survey showed on Thursday, although wealthy Western countries led by Switzerland still dominate the top spots. Finland is number 8 in this list. →

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4376482/Apple-iPhone-goes-on-sale–June-29–2007?utm_content=buffer9cd6a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer Ten years ago Apple iPhone went on sale in the United States. This disruptive device has been one of the electronics industry’s most successful lines to date. A new version of the iPhone has been released every year since the original. →

http://www.instructables.com/id/Fidget-Spinning-Robot/ Everyone know what is a fidget spinner.  You can make a robot that will spin it for me. You can ask why? Because I can. →

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/our-obsession-with-smartphones-reduces-our-brain-power-says-study/ The brain has a finite pool of attention resources – the “limited-capacity” cognitive resources. It seems that lots of smartphone use diminishes a person’s working memory capacity and “fluid intelligence” – the ability to solve novel problems independent of already stored information, which is called “crystallized intelligence”. →

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/benchtalk/4458549/Happy-150th-Canada–The-Technologies?utm_content=bufferf5ea8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=buffer Here’s a short list of technologies, not all electronic, that hail from the Great White North. Look also at some of Canada’s more famous engineers.  →

http://www.iflscience.com/space/worlds-brightest-laser-is-literally-changing-how-we-see-things/ This is interesting news: Researchers have used the brightest light source in the world and it’s changing the way we see things. “When we have this unimaginably bright light, it turns out that the scattering – this fundamental thing that makes everything visible – fundamentally changes in nature,” senior author Donald Umstadter, the Leland →

http://makezine.com/2017/06/27/state-boards-platforms-products-purposes-current-crop-microcontrollers-vies-attention/ Over the last few years, we’ve seen a huge growth in the number and variety of both microcontroller boards and single-board computers.  The modern era, defined by microcontrollers becoming conveniently packaged on boards, began with the Arduino. The “classic” Arduino layout, including the irritating, irregular offset between pins 7 and 8, has become a standard. Similarly, →