IT Retrospectives

Microsoft's Desktop Graphing Calculator now Free

Microsoft has started giving away their desktop graphing calculator for free. You can download it from the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9caca722-5235-401c-8d3f-9e242b794c3a

 

NASA Finds New Life Form | Wired Science | Wired.com

Not sure how much press this will receive but this is an incredible discovery. No, it's not life on another planet, but it's pretty "alien" in terms of what we consider normal biology for an organisims on Earth.

- Mark

 

"Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn’t share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything... 

By Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo

via www.wired.com

 

 

Amplifying Collaboration with Guerilla Facilitation

Sometimes, an ineffective meeting can be more damaging than no meeting at all. But, if you're not the person in charge of facilitating the meeting, how can you help keep the group and the meeting in line? In this article, Ellen Gottesdiener offers some suggestions for both facilitators and non-facilitators that may help ease some of your meeting frustrations.

Read the full article by Ellen Gottesdiener here: Amplifying Collaboration with Guerilla Facilitation.

Making computer memory work like the human brain - CNN.com

(CNN) -- How do computers remember things?

It's something most of us never think about. But you may start to take notice if HP Labs is successful in commercializing a new version of computer memory, which would make our electronics dramatically faster and more energy efficient.

The technology is called memristor, and it is designed to work more like our brains and less like the electronic on and off switches that run computer memory now.

Rackspace Open Sources Cloud Platform; Announces Plans to Collaborate with NASA and Other Industry Leaders on OpenStack Project

OpenStack Open Source Cloud Computing Software

San Antonio, TX - July 19, 2010 - Rackspace® Hosting (NYSE:RAX) today announced the launch of OpenStack™, an open-source cloud platform designed to foster the emergence of technology standards and cloud interoperability. Rackspace, the leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, is donating the code that powers its Cloud Files and Cloud Servers public-cloud offerings to the OpenStack project. The project will also incorporate technology that powers the NASA Nebula Cloud Platform. Rackspace and NASA plan to actively collaborate on joint technology development and leverage the efforts of open-source software developers worldwide.

SPACE.com -- Strange Discovery on Titan Leads to Speculation of Alien Life

via www.space.com

Google's Android takes No 2 spot from iPhone | Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc displaced iPhone maker Apple Inc to become the second most popular provider of smartphone software in the

Image via CrunchBase

United States during the first quarter, the latest sign of the increasing competition in the fast-growing mobile market.

via www.reuters.com

Startup ALGO claims trading software nears speed of light | Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - New software by startup company ALGO Technologies offers to cut trade execution time to levels close to the speed of light, giving exchange clients an edge in the high-frequency trading arms race.

via www.reuters.com

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• Technology Review on High-Frequency Trading (datacenterknowledge.com)

The Data Deluge

The Data Deluge | VizWorld.com

"Everywhere you look, the quantity of information in the world is soaring. According to one estimate, mankind created 150 exabytes (billion gigabytes) of data in 2005. This year, it will create 1,200 exabytes. Merely keeping up with this flood, and storing the bits that might be useful, is difficult enough. Analysing it, to spot patterns and extract useful information, is harder still."

Fossilized Bacteria May Point to Life on Mars - FOXNews.com

It showed that microscopic worm-like structures found in a Martian meteorite that hit the Earth 13,000 year

Image via Wikipedia

s ago are almost certainly fossilized bacteria. The so-called bio-morphs are embedded beneath the surface layers of the rock, suggesting that they were already present when the meteorite arrived, rather than being the result of subsequent contamination by Earthly bacteria.

via www.foxnews.com

Ok, I know this isn't IT related but still pretty cool so I thought it worth posting.  Personally, I believe the evidence is starting to really pile up in favor of life on Mars at some point in the distant past. Is there life on Mars today? On on the fence when it comes to that question.  The current environment on Mars is pretty inhospitable.