Google has updated and re-released open-source software for cleaning, analyzing and transforming data sets, now called Google Refine. The software, originally called Freebase Gridworks, came with Metaweb, a company Google purchased in July. Google Refine is a collection of tools that could come in handy when wrangling useful information from a data set, particularly ones [...]
Archive for the ‘General Tech’ Category
Why HP’s Slate isn’t anything like the iPad
HP released its Slate 500 tablet this week. Immediately, everyone started comparing it with Apple’s iPad. But the two devices have nothing significant in common. They are in entirely different device categories and can even be thought of as opposites. Some of my fellow journalists, industry watchers, Wall Street types and others seem to have [...]
Telstra unveils machine to machine portal
It’s not just humans who use Telstra’s Next G mobile network to place calls and share data. Increasingly, inanimate objects — cars, vending machines and even digital photo frames are doing the same. And Telstra hopes they will do it even more. The company has launched a new control centre allowing customers to more easily [...]
6 useful Wi-Fi tools for Windows
We live in a mobile world; if you have a laptop (and who doesn’t?), that means constantly connecting to the Internet via Wi-Fi. You most likely use Wi-Fi not just when you’re on the road at cafés, airports or hotels, but to connect to your home network too. You might even connect to a wireless [...]
Supercomputing: There’s an App for That
What if you could perform supercomputing calculations in real-time, on your smartphone, in any location? Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), collaborating with staff at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), have created an application that does just that. The team performed a series of expensive high-fidelity simulations on the Ranger supercomputer to [...]
P vs. NP for Dummies
A reader named Darren commented on my last post: I have this feeling that this whole P and NP thing is not only a profound problem that needs solving, but something that can be infinitely curious to try and wrap your mind around… Thing is- there’s a whole world of great minded, genius hackers out [...]
Inside Facebook’s Open Source Infrastructure
Facebook connects its 500 million users using an array of open source software to enable social networking as well as data intelligence. Facebook’s open source Web serving infrastructure has a lot more than just the traditional LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) stack behind it. During a keynote session at the OSCON open source conference, David Recordon, the senior [...]
Common Programmer Health Problems
I’m currently working on the last few lessons in Learn Python The Hard Way and I want to include a lesson on general health problems programmers run into during their careers. I find many programmers seem to ignore their body’s physical state when they’re coding, most likely due to the intense concentration required. I’m hoping [...]
Extreme DIY: Building a homemade nuclear reactor in NYC
Mark Suppes is part of a growing community of amateur “fusioneers” Many might be alarmed to learn of a homemade nuclear reactor being built next door. But what if this form of extreme DIY could help solve the world’s energy crisis? By day, Mark Suppes is a web developer for fashion giant Gucci. By night, [...]
New surveillance camera system provides text feed
Scientists at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) have developed a prototype surveillance camera and computer system to analyze the camera images and deliver a text feed describing what the camera is seeing. The new system aims to make searching vast amounts of video much more efficient. // var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client [...]