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Arquivo para November, 2014

Projects that can help the planet

14 Nov

EarthInsightMany new technologies are helping conservationists to better analyze the data they collect to improve the ways they protect the wildlife and natural habitats, retaining not only animals, but also the whole ecosystem present.

The TechRepublic article points to several ongoing projects, such as the program that uses the HP Vertica analytics platform to analyze millions of photos and estimate as a kind of animal is occupying a given area and thus to protect them, using the program Insight Earth.

Another example is that IBM is working to integrate the PAM, a cloud-based application developed by The Nature Conservancy, which enables land managers to monitor and meet environmental goals, a platform called Conservation.io.

The Nature Conservacy can also use data from various crowdsourcing bird watchers who use eBird, satellite images and data to create diamonds BirdReturn, which allows to observe and assist in the control birds nest sites, food and bath during their migration.

 

Other projects are cited:  Bumble Bee Watch is one crowdsourced, other crowdsourcing using  Intel card is Galileo board, and many others.

 

Probe lands on Comet

12 Nov

aRosettaAsked 10 years ago to enter the solar system in orbit, the probe Rosetta has released the module called Philae, which successfully landed on the comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where it will be in the coming months sending data on the celestial body, announced yesterday the European Space Agency (ESA).
The agency has its headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, announced yesterday the 16h02 (9:02 a.m. EST, Brazil): “We’re in the comet” which caused great excitement in the control center.
The fact is unprecedented in human history, and comets can bring data on the origin of solar systems, about the origin of the universe and even about the origin of life.
After analyzing the telemetry (data travels through the solar system and take almost 30 minutes to reach the earth), it was noticed that the harpoons that hold the probe in the comet did not fire at first, and this attachment can detach the probe before to perform all the desired measures and tests, but maybe the problem is reversed.
Comets travel at very high speeds in the solar system, the P / indicates a comet is periodic with orbital period shorter than 200 years, which makes the calculations a little simpler for landing, but even so it’s like a fly lands on a cannon ball.

 

Most beautiful libraries in the world

12 Nov

BibJoaninaThe Joanina Library of Portugal is a library of the eighteenth century, built in memory of D. João V (1707-1750), father of D. João VI would emigrate to Brazil, it is situated in the Palace of the Schools of the University of Coimbra, in the courtyard the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra.
Was himself John V who sponsored its construction, and whose portrait by Domenico Duprà (1725), dominates the central space of the Library.
The library contains many books of the fifteenth century when the press began producing the first printed books, but in fact only began receiving the first books after 1750, and today its collections is about 55 thousand books.
A curious fact is that as the University of Coimbra had autonomy (ie not so new) since 1541 had legal autonomy, and thus the University has Judge, Prison Guard and that was not previously in the Library.
It was only in 1773 that the building was transferred to the Baroque Library who recovered and incorporated the remains of what was the former royal palace and prison in documenting the unique medieval chain that still exists in Portugal.

 

Library Champion program in United Kingdom

11 Nov

KingsCollegeThat’s how it is titled the Library of King’s College London, which brings many services beyond traditional cataloging, it supports several electronic journals and databases, and all media services social networking, twitter , facebook, youtube, etc.
The reason why the Library of King’s College is receiving the title of Champion Library is launching this November with a voluntary service that started this week.
The premise of this program is a volunteer champion the development of library collections, spending a small portion of the budget for the purchase of library materials, are capable of meeting collections and then discuss with their peers to bring unpublished collections for the library.
This budget is separate from the budget of the faculty and academic departments hoping not use the normal methods of purchase orders, but this initiative that the interaction strength of the faculty a conversation about the current scientific literature.
The program called “Library Champion” should also provide feedback to peers, what services are currently provided, and suggestions for future new services and resources in the library, based on the production of the faculty.

 

Smart-cities no just technologies

10 Nov

GlasgowPropósitosThe answer is of course not, according to the website of BBC News, the question is not easy to answer, but finding intelligent form of relieving congestion and pollution, using sensors and data, means a way to push smart cities (smart cities) and also make the greenest cities with more parts, and bike-sharing measures are intelligent.
There are already several smart cities around the world, as the cities of Songdo in South Korea, which have high technology across their infrastructure and green city Masdar in the United Arab Emirates, but there are other creative solutions.
You can also find slums as Stellenbosch, Cape Town, where the houses are powered by solar panels and this is replaced by cellular refills as award for energy savings.
The Inglatera awarded the city of Glasgow with 24 million pounds, for being chosen as the city most applicable technologies for smart cities in the UK, which hosts the Commonwealth Games, but it also has its social problems, for example, lower life expectancy in the UK.
The city however is applying part of the earned money to solve the problem life expectancy, using data from the big date, she wants to solve the problem which is known also with the name of Glasgow City, that within seven kilometers of the city the expectation reduces life of 28 years, which is dramatic.

But the city has solved the problem of energy efficiency in urban areas, and people spend a smaller amount of household income on fuel, provides a privileged urban routing for public transportation in areas that were underserved.

 

Cyber-Earth: citizenship for nature

07 Nov

Cyber-Earth is a term used in the CCC blog (Comunity Computing Consortium) in a post Sheckar Shashi, a georeferencedHUBzero representation based on the planet Web intended to serve as a communication tool for citizens, politicians and researchers, particularly on the nature, designed to preview the future of the planet and its sustainability.

Joint work with tools and Cyber-Earth expects to envision the future of the planet, enabling the discovery of spatio-temporal patterns, on which to make inferences based on meaningful standards, showing future threats to society and analyze the options and consequences worldwide .
Cyber-Earth could help citizens and policy-making mechanisms capable of making scientific predictions in the areas of climate and demographics, along with its effects on environments such aspects as: food, water and energy.

Building the next generation of Cyber-Land offers several important challenges such as the development of building blocks and software methodologies to compare alternative scientific models amid a large variety of physical sciences, social sciences, and information sciences.

The organization won a grant of $ 4.5 million in funding in the area called Geospatial Building Blocks (Gabbs) with two environments, the system called HUBzero, a platform for open source and GEOSHARE project that creates a tool for modeling the effect of climate change on historical and future crop yields.

 

Pre-sales of Apple in Brazil

06 Nov

AppleCraschThe country has always stood for then, when the launches of new models of Apple iPhones now 6 Plus models will be launched in the pre-sales also in the country, on Friday (7), previous versions were marketed only by the telecom operators.
The novelty is intended to facilitate the acquisition and avoid the traditional queues releases, and buyers will seek the appliances a week after the launch, ie 14 November, US prices however will not be the same here because of taxes, in there prices posting for two-year contracts are: iPhone 6 is $ 199 (model with 16 GB of storage), $ 299 (64GB) and $ 399 (128 GB, while iPhone 6 Plus salt for U$ 299 (16 GB), $ 399 (64GB) and $ 499 (128GB).
Little news (keeps the 8 Megapixel camera, for example), however, and the biggest problem for users, which is breaking the front windows or have splintered, common rear happened, will continue, as only certain models of Android phones is that has a durable glass Gorilla glass, Apple remains fragile, and the repair is expensive.
Official prices for Brazil were not disclosed by the company

 

Android code 5 is released

05 Nov

LollipopIn practice this means that not only manufacturers but also developers can download the system image and follow the instructions on the link to install the version that is being called Lollipop, and this version is already announced for the Nexus 4, 5, 6 (versions by 2012) and 7 (version 2013) for Edition Google Play devices.
These versions will be available in the coming weeks, for now is only available l version 9 for the Nexus tablet, released this week in the US.
And other Motorola, Asus, HTC, Sony and OnePlus, manufacturers also update for these devices are available at this link.
CyanogenMod much as had warned should now have begun since the Lollipop had said that once the source code of the current version was released this update would begin.
It is possible that Android 5.0 will soon land in the most varied devices already in the memories ROMs (previously recorded on the hardware itself).

 

A library without books

04 Nov

The inaugural class of 550 students with scholarships offered to attend a newly accredited public university, was BibliotecaVirtualannounced a fully digital library with 135 000 e-books available to be read on e-reader, tablet or laptop.

Completely libraries without books is still a rarity in US colleges, but the University of Lakeland, Florida, recently built a dreary stretch of road between Tampa and Orlando, made ​​at the Polytechnic University of Florida, is a bold building, with architecture made by architect Spaniard Santiago Calatrava.

The director of the university librarie´s Kathyrin Miller said: “It’s an important decision to boldly go forward without books,” sempilhas to organize books, library staff beyond the main service which is the reference should guide students in reursos mentoring and training them for the management of digital materials.

While the paperless library is not fully available, students will be discouraged from using other printers, Miller said, and he will continue buying traditional textbooks or digital texts when available.
Requesting books the old fashioned way can be made in one of 11 public universities exist in Florida, from the system that is integrated between these libraries.

The books of the Florida Polytechnic are budgeted at $ 60,000 for the purchase of securities by means of software that will allow students a free browsing with one or two clicks, and the book will be passed on to the student by digital means.

 

To save water: iWater

03 Nov

iWaterAn application to help save water was built by a student of only 16 years, Victor Capilé, 16, developed the iWater, and explained that the application beyond counting water withdrawal also brings information and curiosities about water resources in the world promoting greater awareness of the water.
He told the story of a portal: “I believe that the lack of water can also trigger wars unless we do something. So we decided to take the project forward, because people need to have that awareness, “according to the Earth.
Free Standing and application was created for a school science fair Garriga de Menezes last year and is available online in iwater.capile.net address.
The student involved colleagues from school, and now the students are working to improve the app and started a fundraiser to provide a version for smartphones on websites of various lines of handsets.
There are other applications, the Basic Sanitation Company of the State of São Paulo created a Water Our application, developed by Akatu and the Brazilian Federation of Banks, to conscious of water consumption, it also allows the estimation and design the discount that can get in the water bill.
The UN predicts that the population of the planet will need something around 40% more water by 2030 and that the inappropriate and excessive consumption may produce a generalized crisis that awareness exists only in time of crisis and the Brazilians still are far from ecological and climatic problems