TrackerNews: For the Files

1) Glass Works: How Corning Created the Ultrathin, Ultrastrong Material of the Future: How a "botched experiment" in 1952 and a series of failed business plans, plus a litlte Steve Jobs kismet, led to Gorilla glass. (via Wired) 

2) Why Curved Glass Will Change Gadget Design Forever: "...The production technique behind 3-D shaped Gorilla Glass allows for glass that can bend as much as 75 to 80 degrees without breaking, as well as be molded into dramatic new shapes. And that's a big deal, because it heralds the end of the age of the rectangle..."

3) Corning Museum of Glass: Yes. Go. An amazing resource to learn about the history, technology and art of glass. For those not in Corning, NY, there are online demos and a really tasty e-gift shop. (website) 

4) Museo del Vetro: Currently under renovation until the middle of 2014, the Glass Museum on the Venetian island of Murano is still very much worth a visit.. Art, craft and  technological brilliance will inspire. (website)

5) History of Glass: From arrowheads to Mesopotamia to the Chrystal Palace, glass has been a defining material of civilization. (via Wikipedia) 

6) Bullseye Glass Company: A Portland-based manufacturer of art glass for glass art founded 30 years ago by "three hippie glassblowers." They specialize in glass that can fused in a kiln. (website) 

7) Bullseye Kiln-glass Education Online Trailer: Click through to the Bullseye YouTube channel for dozens of how-to videos. 

8) You can now 3D print in glass with Shapeways: The process has several steps, including a session in a kiln, but shapes previously difficult to imagine in glass are now possible. (via Shapeways blog / video) 

9) Glass Art Society: International organization "to promote the appreciation and development of the glass arts. 2014 Conference in Chicago. (website) 

10) Glass Beach, Fort Bragg, California:  Bottles tossed into a now-closed garbage dump and tumbled by oceans waves create a glittery beach. (Wikipedia) 

11) From Trash to Treasure - Sea Glass in Fort Bragg, California (video)

12) Stained Glass That Doubles As A Solar Power Source: "Lux Gloria," an installation in a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan church by artist Sarah Hall, generates 2,500 kw hours of power per year and is tied into the grid. (via PopSci)

13) Onyx Building Integrated Photovoltaics: Spanish company (with an office in NY) specializes in working with architects to creates photovoltaic arrays that become a part of structure rather than an add-on. Arrays available with both clear and colored glass (website). Also, check out the blog. 

14) Onyx Solar Corporate Video (English): "...Isn't it extraordinary that an installation just 10 meters square can over the course of a single year generate enough electricity to power an electric car for more than 10,000 kilometers" Well, yes, it is... (stay with it for the solar array inspired by Piet Mondrian's mosaic paintings about 2/3s of the way through)

15) ArchiExpo: Thermal insulation glass: Browse away. Glass that's just glass  just isn't enough any more...  (via ArchiExpo e-magazine) 

16) Peek-A-Boo, We See You! Top Crystal-Clear Glass Buildings: An eye-candy round-up of glass buildings and homes (via Architizer) 

17) Amazing Glass: 15 Creative Uses of Glass in Architecture: More glass architecture (via The Coolist) 

18) What is Scientific Glassblowing? "...For centuries the knowledge and art of scientific glassblowers have been integral to the development of chemical, pharmaceutical, electronic and physics research. Some notable examples include Galileo’s thermometer, Edison’s light bulb, and the vacuum tubes of early radio, TV and computers." (via The American Scientific Glassblowers Society) 

19) The invention of spectacles: Count on the Brits for an exhaustive article on the origin of eyeglasses. But, of course it took Ben Franklin's Yankeen ingenuity to come up with bifocals... (via Royal College of Optometrists website)

20) Specs appeal: German physics teacher brings affordable glasses to Rwanda. Brilliant. A machine that can produce thousands of pairs of eyeglasses at a cost of less than a dollar per.  Also, Siemens-Stiftung site entry. 

21) History of the Microscope: Several decades after Dutch spectacle-makers experimented with combining lenses in a tube in the 1590s, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a draper by profession,started grinding his own lenses and seriously exploring the world the small. (via History to the Microscope website)

22) Who Invented the Telescope? Technically, it was a Dutchman who filed the first patent, but Galileo—who built his own—was the first to focus on the stars. (via Space.com) 

1) Drones Overhead: Protecting the Rain Forest from Above: Bird's eye view can reveal illegal logging, locate orangutan nests and provide conservationists with all kinds of data quickly and cheaply (via National Geographic)

2) ConservationDrones: Started by an ecologist and primate biologist  in 2011. Developed a drone cheap enough to use in the field (conservation budget are always anorexic…). How to seminars and documentation (website)

3) Technology for Nature:  Collaborative partnership between the Zoological Society of London, University College London, and Microsoft Research to develop technology for conservsation work. (website) 

4) Cooperative Automonous Observing Systems collaborative at MIT: Focuses on "technology for  dynamic data and model driven observing systems in environmental and atmospheric applications using cooperating autonmous aircraft."

5) Agriculture, the New Game of Drones: Behold the new farmworker: seeds, weeds, sprays, surveys and scares birds, too (via The Futurist) 

6) Colorado judge rules in favor of holding drone-hunting vote after legal fight Well, the headline says it all. The very real vote will take place on April Fool's Day, 2014 (via Fox News) 

7) UC Davis investigates using helicopter drones for crop dusting: A staple of Japanese agriculture—perfect for "built-up areas, rugged terrain, or mixed-use regions." Testing motorcycle-sized helicopter on grape vines (via Gizmag) 

8) High-Flying Harvests: Surveying a vineyard pinpoints which grapes are ripening faster. "Twenty years from now we probably won't be even taking about it because it's going to be a product like a tractor or any other piece of equipment on a farm."  (via 3DRobotics)

9) How drones are transforming agriculture: Flying over British farms, micro-managing fields and ponderfing pesky privacy issue (via BBC) 

10) Sea Drones Venture Into Uncharted Waters: Sailing into waters for science, commerce, defense and the record books (via BusinessWeek)

11) Small Drone Crashes Into New York City Sidewalk: Hobbyist flies a drone for a 3 minute joyride over rush hour Manhattan (via ABC7 NY - video)

1) IBM researchers discover how to treat drug-resistant fungal infections with recycled plastic: Kismet discovery of "ninja polymers" with huge medical implications (via Gigaom).

2) Geraldine Hamilton: Body parts on a chip: An alternative to in vitro and animal testing for biomedical research. Potential for breakthrough in personalized medicine (via TED / TEDxBoston)

3) Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University: Working as an alliance among Harvard's Schools of Medicine, Engineering, and Arts & Sciences, and in partnership with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Tufts University, and Boston University, the Institute crosses disciplinary and institutional barriers to engage in high-risk research that leads to transformative technological breakthroughs (website)

4) Ultra-thin 'electronic skin' provides diagnosis and therapy: Itty bitty stick-on "array features a combination of miniature power coils, transistors, sensors and heating elements." You are Borg...just kidding...sort of (via Biology & Medicine blog)

5) Center for Molecular Design and Biomimicry, Arizona State University:  Looking to nature's building blocks for inspiration, "re-imagining the “design rules” found in nature... addressing an expansive array of global challenges by creating “bio-inspired” solutions, including: new vaccine discovery and delivery; early detection and treatment of cancer and infectious diseases; techniques for detecting and removing contaminants from air and water; and the application of nanotechnology for biomedicine and electronics. (website)

6) 3-D printed implants may soon fix complex injuries Takes just hours from CT scan or MRI to first printed iteration. Can combine different materials in printing. Better mimics real bone. (via R&D)

1) What is the Internet of Things? Overview video explains how a world "blanketed in billion of sensors" will "alter reality as we know it." (via FW: Forward / Toyota).

2) Samsung Tips $100 Million IoT Strategy Former director of Apple's Siri efforts, takes on Internet of Things with SAMI (Samsung Architecture for Multimodal Interactions). Great. Scolded by a bot for sneaking an extra cookie… (via eetimes.com)

3) Podcast: the Internet of Things should work like the Internet— A chat about the future of UI/UX design with Alasdair Allan, Josh Marinacci and Tony Santos. Entertainingly brilliant conversation covers connectivity standards, consumer-facing design and the challenge of balancing convenience, options and personal choice. "All your devices are going to rat you out, right?…" (via OSCON / O'Reilly) 

4) Q & A: Alasdair Allan: Behind the scenes at an O'Reilly Strata conference wired with a mesh network of 500 sensor "motes." "...The sensors you carry with you may well generate more data every second, both for you and about you, than previous generations did about themselves during the course of their entire lives. We will be surrounded by a cloud of data; our movements monitored and our environments measured, and adjusted to our preferences, without need for direct intervention." (via Wired and Cisco's Connective Hub)

5) Behind the 'Internet of Things' Is Android—and It's Everywhere From NASA's "nanosats"—itty bitty satellites—to phone app and infotainment systems for cars, Google's open source Android platform has become a developer favorite. "... Android has conquered the device market from the bottom up." (via Bloomberg BusinessWeek)   

6) Here's Why 'The Internet Of Things' Will Be Huge, And Drive Tremendous Value For People And Businesses  Market report summary  on smart grids, smart transportation, smart advertising, smart waste removal, etc. (via Business Insider) 

7) Smart nappy uses QR codes to detect urinary infections Techie parents see data goldmine in daughter's diaper, but experts think too much data will drive parents and doctors nuts. (via BBC)

8) Internet of Things—Architecture A European-led effort to develop design standards for IoT. Think Lego. "…Using an experimental paradigm, IoT-A will combine top-down reasoning about architectural principles and design guidelines with simulation and prototyping to explore the technical consequences of architectural design choices." (website) 

9) The Internet of Things Architecture, IoT-A video Background on the challenge of building an intelligent network of disparate data streams. 

10) The Simplest “Internet Of Things” Product Yet The Spotter, a collaboration between GE and Quirky, is a one-stop-shop configurable sensor that connects to almost anything, sending reports via phone app on temperature, humidity, light, sound, and motion. Hours of fun. (via Fast Company)

11) SkyCall Project  From MIT's Senseable City Lab come a project that marries the IoT to a UAV. Imagine Siri in a smart drone. (website) 

1) Why Is There So Little Innovation in Water Infrastructure? With nearly a quarter million water main breaks annually, US water infrastructure gets "D." Urgent need to overcome hurdles both bureacratic and financial. Includes link to new Stanford University study. (via Atlantic Cities)  

2) Flood passes safely through Albuquerque reach of the Rio Grande Impact of historic storm system that devastated Colorado mitigated. "... (T)he peak seems to have dissipated on its way to Albuquerque as water flowed out of the river into lowlands and side channels that have been built in recent years to provide habitat for the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow and other plants and animals..." Win, win. (via Albuquerque Journal)

3) A design student returned to his native Mexico City after college in the United States to help the megalopolis overcome its water crisis. One of MIT's "35 Under 35" innovation sparklers, Enrique Lomnitz, has reinvented the cistern, creating an inexpensive way to harvest rain water, relieving some of the pressure on the city's fast-depleting aquifer. 

4) Huge aquifer that runs through 8 states quickly being tapped out At current rates, the Ogalla Aquifer, which is used to irrigate vast swaths of farmland, will be nearly 70% depleted in 50 years. Although the science is far from exact, the trend is undeniable. (via NBC News, LiveScience)

1) Floods Put Pipelines at Risk Riverbeds scoured by floods can expose gas and oil pipelines. Also, when water is held back in reservoirs during drought, sediment can't fill in the gaps. Current guidelines leaves oversight to pipeline operators, not government. (via Wall Street Journal)

2) Colorado flooding: Evacuations, broken oil pipeline in Weld County Epic floods and cascading disasters. (via Denver Post) 

3) Colorado floods break pipeline and engulf gas wells Tens of thousands of oil and gas wells in affected area; advent of fracking adds new level or complexity and risk. (via Climate Connections)

4) Colorado and industry working to assess damage in flooded oil fields  Whoops! "Thousands of wells and operating sites have been affected...'The scale is unprecedented'..." (via Denver Post)

5) List of pipeline accidents in the United States Collection of articles covering incidents from 1900 onward. (via Wikipedia) 

6) Colorado Residents Urged To Buy Flood Insurance 2002 press release from FEMA, warning Coloradans of flood risk exacerbated by wildfires. 

7) Link between beetle kill and forest fires draws closer look Pine beetles have destroyed millions of acres of Coloardo's forests, which, along with heat and drought, can lead to a perform storm for fire. (via Boulder Daily Camera) 

8) Drone Offers Unique View of Colorado Floods NBC News report from the middle of the disaster, September 14, 2013 (video preceded by short ad) 

9) Aerial View of 15-County Devastation: NBC News report from September 16, 2013. (video preceded by short ad) 

1) Florida is Running Out of Sand Oh the trials of a beach tourist economy when sea levels rise! Dredged out, sand either has to be shipped in from the Bahamas or created from recycled glass. (via NBC News / video)

2) Broward may line beaches with recycled glass Desperate times call for desperate measures. Scrounging up $1.5 million for testing. (via Sun Sentinel)

3) How It's Made: Glass Bottles Melt sand, ash and a dash of limestone and shape in a series of molds. Amazing. The vessel is easily as interesting as its contents...(via How It's Made / video)

5) Florida Keys Prepare For Sea Level Rise Sea level has already risen 9 inches over the last hundred years. Only debate is how fast additional rise will be. Porous limestone bedrock means sea walls won't work. (via Huffington Post / video)

6) Glass Beach (Fort Bragg, California) Overview of garbage dumps off the California coast became a treasure trove of candy-colored sea glass. Now part of MacKerricher State Park (via Wikipedia)

7)) From Trash to Treasure - Sea Glass in Fort Bragg, California Segment includes interview with Captain Cass Forrington, who knows everything there is to know about Glass Beach. Fascinating. (via Visit Fort Bragg)

1) India's rice revolution  Small plot farmers are getting record yields without herbicides for GM seeds. A fluke or hope for the future? (via the Guardian)

2) Genetically Modified Crops Pass Benefits to Weeds "A genetic-modification technique used widely to make crops herbicide resistant has been shown to confer advantages on a weedy form of rice, even in the absence of the herbicide..." Uh oh... (via Scientific American)

3) Promoting Brown Rice to Fight Diabetes in Cambodia White rice has become equated with prosperity. It's also sweeter, faster-cooking and, ironically, cheaper. But brown rice is healthier. (via PRI's The World / audio / slide show)

4) The History of Rice - Food, Diet and Nutrition (via History Channel / video)

1) Norman Foster rebuilds Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion car Conceived as an "omni-medium" transport, the prototypes focused on ground transport. Still ahead of its time. (via Gizmag)

2) Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Car Documentary clip shows the Dymaxion in action. Three-wheeled design allowed incredibly tight turning radius. (via Masterworks / video)

 3) Why Everybody Loves Tesla Not only is Elon Musk's electric car on a roll with first adopters and investors, it has a "frunk," too... (via Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

4) Tesla Model S - Battery Swap It takes about a minute and a half to change a Tesla battery and about four minutes to gas up a car. (via Tesla / video)

 5) European Electric Micro Car Can Drive On Solar Alone  Prototype with a range of 12.4 miles. Can also be plugged in for charging. (via Earth Techling)\\

6) South Korea's wireless electric roads The prototype tests buried cables using magnetic resonance to charge moving buses. (via Truthloader / video)

1) German Fossil-Fuel Utilities Push Back Against Renewable Energy Initiatives  Germany's "energiewende" (shift to renewables) is so successful, one power company is threatening to move to Turkey, while another is shutting unprofitable plants. (via Inhabitat)

2) Separating Fact from Fiction In Accounts of Germany’s Renewables Revolution  Amory Lovins debunks pernicious special interests-driven disinformation campaign (via Rocky Mountain Institute)

 3) A Rare Glimpse Inside a Magnificent, Abandoned Shrine to Electricity Fabulous photographic tour of the "ethereal and electrifyingly beautiful" Kelenföld Power Plant in Budapest, Hungary. Now shut down, it was a  state of the art Bauhaus beauty when it opened in 1914. (via Gizmodo)

4) Big-Box Retailers Turn To Solar, How Can Electric Utilities Adapt? Apparently, not so well, with some seeking to limit net metering programs in a bid to hang onto revenues. Vast roof-top acreage on big box and grocery stores in the US.  (via Environmental Defense Fund)

5) Live Better: Solar Panels  Wal-Mart has 200 solar installations, with plans for another 800 by 2020, and a goal of eventually going 100% renewable. (Wal-Mart / video)

1) Microsoft's 'touch screen' for any surface goes on sale Working with Ubi, a small startup, Microsoft launches Kinect-enabled software to turn any surface into a touchscreen. Packages range from $149 to $1,499 plus the $250 Kinect (via CNET)

2) These Two Twenty-Somethings Want To Make The Computer Mouse Obsolete With money raised from a Kickstarter campaign, a former Intel engineer and a Thiel Fellow have teamed up to create a plug'n'play device to turn any surface into a touch surface. Early supporters can get a $5 discount off the $70 retail price. Compatible with Windows and Ubuntu, with Android and OSX to come. (via Business Insider)

3) Haptix: Multitouch Reinvented (Kickstarter page)

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4) 4 Reasons why touch-enabled PCs are a failure Touch rocks on a tablet or smartphone. But on a PC, the touchpad and the mouse still rule. Beware "Gorilla Arm"... (via Tech 2)

1) How to make big things out of small pieces Need to 3D print something really, really big like an airplane? Then think small and modular. Composite parts snap together, offering superior strength and lightweighting. (via MIT News)

2) Card-cloning crooks use 3D printers to make ever-better skimmers Clever crooks in Australia are using CAD and 3D printing to retrofit ATMs to steal account info. (via The Register / video)

3) MakerBot’s new 3D scanner will run you $1,500 and ship in October Here comes the desktop Digitizer, which will be able to "capture details as small as 0.5 mm and surface depth as shallow as 0.5 mm." Let's make copies of everything... (via Ars Technica)

4) Introducing the Matterform 3D Scanner. Just $599. From a Canadian company that raised nearly 6x its $81K Indiegogo goal, the scanner starts shipping in September. (via Materform website / Idiegogo video)

5) This Is What It Looks Like When 3-D Printers Go Rogue  Whoops! (via Fast Company / slideshow)

6) The Art of Glitch | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios  Glitch art celebrates the beauty of errors electronica and all those arty little ghosts in the machine. (via PBS Off Book / video)

1) "We can Now Listen to Black Holes Forming Throughout the Universe" Scientists have developed a quantum measurement tool capable of detecting the gravitational waves Einstein predicted. “...It will allow us to listen to the big bang and to black holes forming throughout the universe. These are detectors that can allow humanity to explore the beginning of time and the end of time...” So there. (via The Daily Galaxy)

2) Now we know why butterflies evolved to have ears Many bugs have ears, but why bugs that don't make noise have ears has been question. It turns out that being able to hear a hungry bird's flapping wings is definite evolutionary plus. (via IO9)

3) Blue and beaked whales affected by simulated navy sonar Imagine taking a deep dive for a 500,000 calorie krill snack only to be interrupted mid-feed by a loud sonar blast. Not good... (via BBC / video)

4) Lethal Sounds: The use of military sonar poses a deadly threat to whales and other marine mammals From airguns used in oil exploration, to subs and ship sonar, humans are making a racket in the oceans. Some sounds are several thousand times louder than what marine mammals are wired to hear. (via NRDC website)

5) How Old Are Your Ears? Find Out With This Hearing Test Oh dear. This will make you think twice the next time you jam earbuds into your ears... (via Slate)

6) Living, 3D-printed cyborg ear: Promising, but eww Scientists, using a thingiverse pattern, print an ear seeded with living cartilage cells and embed some electronics. Like a superhero, the ear can hear beyond human range, including microwaves. But there is still a long way to go before the cyborg ear is ready for humans. (via Ars Technica)

1) Feds running out of wildfire money Political tinder in the form of budget cuts and the sequestration favors fires. As the blazes become more intense and difficult the fight, staffs are cut, equipment ages and money is diverted from other critical willderness programs. (via politico)

2) Wildfires may have bigger role in global warming, study says Wildfires spew itty bitty tarballs, soot particles and other aerosols that can become embedded in clouds, affecting both brightness and evaporation. "...Research in the last decade has increasingly suggested that black carbon may be the second strongest contributor to atmospheric warming, behind carbon dioxide..." (via Los Angeles Times)

3) Infographic: Western Wildfires and Climate Change Since 1980, the average annual number of wildfires over 1,000 acres has risen from ~140 to ~250. That's just one disturbing stat... (via Union of Concerned Scientists)

4) Wildfire World  The "go to" website resource; publishes "The Journal of  Wildland Fire" and "Wildfire" magazine.  (via International Association of Wildland Fire)

5) Idaho Wildfires Continue to Burn, Reaching Level 5  Fifty fires in 10 states...not good, not good... (via ABC News / video)

6) Wildfires rage in southern Europe Portugal and Spain battling flames. (via EuroNews / video)

7) Global Tour of Fires Shows World Fire Trends  A brief continent by continent overview (via The Mars Underground / video)

1) The interspecies Internet? An idea in progress... If dolphin researcher Diana Reiss, musician Peter Gabriel, MIT's Neil "Fab Lab" Gershenfeld, and internet pioneer Vint Cerf think it's high time we started talking to the animals—and the animals started talking to each other via the internet—who are we to argue? All bets off, though, if the piggies discover Angry Birds... (via TED / video)

2) Peter Gabriel’s ‘Interspecies Internet’ NPR "Here and Now" interview with Peter Gabriel and Neil Gershenfeld on the Interspecies Internet. The idea was sparked by a jam session with bonobo. (transcript / audio / videos)

3) Dr Dolittle / 1967 Film Soundtrack / "Talk To The Animals"

4)  Studies showing the intelligence of farm animals fuel new campaign of reform and awareness  It turns out Charlotte was right: Some Pig!  Pigs are smart, as our other farm animal species. "The Someone Project" campaign designed to encourage support for humane treatment and promote vegan alternative. (Wisconsin Gazette) 

5) Fungus network 'plays role in plant communication' Those clever micorrhizae! Aphid attack triggers fungal filaments living on plant roots to provide  early warning to neighboring plants. (via BBC)

6) These Bacteria Are Wired to Hunt Like a Tiny Wolf Pack Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory use 3-D microscopy to identify a new mechanism for bacterial networking. The soil bacterium, Myxococcus xanthus, use a shared membrane structure to communicate. (via Wired)

(a day late due to a glitch on tumblr, which apparently, in honor of the blue moon, went lunatic last night...)

1)  Blue Moon from dusk until dawn night of August 20, 2013 Not just any old blue moon, but a seasonal rarity. "There are 235 full moons in 19 calendar years, but only 228 calendar months." You do the math. And be sure to howl! (via EarthSky)

2) The Incredibly Violent History of Earth's Moon It may look all calm and silvery, but every one of those pockmarks was earned. (via iO9)

3) Apollo 11, 1969 (via NASA / video clips)

4)  Van Morrison, Dr John, Santana, Etta James & Tom Scott peform "Moon Dance" circa 1977 (video)

• Alfredo Moser: Bottle light inventor proud to be poor Take one plastic bottle, fill with water and a couple of teaspoons of bleach, install in tin roof and voila, let there be light! An truly brilliant solution by a poor Brazilian inventor has gone global. (via BBC / video embedded in article)

• Seattle City Light to start installing LED streetlights on arterials, too What's not to love? "...they last three times as long, use less electricity, waste less light on non-targeted areas (which means less “light pollution”), have a better “depth of field” so that more objects are illuminated, and show colors more truly..." (via West Seattle blog)

• How LEDs Have Transformed the City Skyline The "LED-ification" the world's cities is well underway. Beyond cutting energy billsand durability, LED systems are easy to control via computers and full of splashy colorful potential. (via Atlantic Cities)