Sunday 20 December 2009

35 best innovators of 2009

After mentioning best innovators of 2008 and 2007, it's the turn of best innovators of 2009.

Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review have honored the young innovators whose inventions and research we find most exciting; today that collection is the TR35, a list of technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35. Their work--spanning medicine, computing, communications, electronics, nanotechnology, and more--is changing our world.

Theese are the winners of 2009

2009 Innovator of the Year: Kevin Fu
2009 Humanitarian of the Year: José Gómez-Márquez

Andrea Armani (31 - University of Southern California)
Sensitive optical sensors detect single molecules

Michael Backes (31 - Saarland University)
Proving that Internet security protocols can really be trusted

Jeffrey Bigham (28 - University of Rochester)
Free service to help blind people navigate the Web

James Carey (32 - SiOnyx)
Using “black silicon” to build inexpensive, super-sensitive light detectors

Jorge Conde (32 - Knome)
Offering consumers whole-genome sequencing--and software to interpret it

Ranjan Dash (32 - Y-Carbon)
Nanoporous carbon could help power hybrid cars

Adam Dunkels (31 - Swedish Institute of Computer Science)
Minimal wireless-networking protocols allow almost any device to communicate over the Internet

Nathan Eagle (32 - Santa Fe Institute)
Mining mobile-phone data for the public good

Cody Friesen (31 - Fluidic Energy)
Making cheaper, higher-energy batteries to store renewable energy

Kevin Fu (33 - University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
Defeating would-be hackers of radio frequency chips in objects from credit cards to pacemakers

José Gómez-Márquez
(32 - Innovations in International Health, MIT)
Practical medical devices for use in poor countries

Jeffrey Heer (30 - Stanford University)
Easy-to-use tools allow people to present data in creative and interesting ways

Andrew Houck (30 - Princeton University)
Preserving information for practical quantum computing

Kurt Zenz House (31 - C12 Energy)
Capturing carbon dioxide through cement production

Shahram Izadi (33 - Microsoft Research U.K.)
An intuitive 3-D interface helps people manage layers of data

Ali Javey (29 - University of California, Berkeley)
“Painting” nanowires into electronic circuits

Michelle Khine (32 - University of California, Irvine)
A children’s toy inspires a cheap, easy production method for high-tech diagnostic chips

Anat Levin (31 - Weizmann Institute of Science)
New cameras and algorithms capture the potential of digital images

Erez Lieberman-Aiden (29 - Harvard University/MIT)
Quantitative tools offer new insights into evolution

Andrew Lynn (32 - Ortho­mimetics)
Repairing joints by stimulating regrowth in bone and cartilage

Ellis Meng (34 - University of Southern California)
Micropumps deliver drugs that prevent blindness

Pranav Mistry (28 - MIT)
A simple, wearable device enhances the real world with digital information

Aydogan Ozcan (30 - UCLA)
Inexpensive chips and sophisticated software could make microscope lenses obsolete

Shwetak Patel (27 - University of Washington)
Simple sensors to detect residents’ activities

Andrew Perlman (34 - GreatPoint Energy)
Slashing carbon emissions by converting coal into natural gas

Ashoke Ravi (32 - Intel)
Using software to send diverse radio signals

Vera Sazonova (30 - Nat’l Research Council Canada)
World’s smallest resonator could lead to tiny mechanical devices

Elena Shevchenko (32 - Argonne National Laboratory)
Assembling nanocrystals to create made-to-order materials

Vik Singh (24 - Yahoo)
Opening up search secrets to spur innovation

Dawn Song (34 - University of California, Berkeley)
Defeating malware through automated software analysis

Jaime Teevan (32 - Microsoft Research)
Using personal information to improve search results

C. Shad Thaxton (33 - Northwestern University)
Nanoparticles could treat cardiovascular disease by mimicking “good cholesterol”

Andrea Thomaz (33 - Georgia Institute of Technology)
Robots that learn new skills the way people do

Adrien Treuille (30 - Carnegie Mellon University)
Complex physics simulations that can run on everyday PCs

Cyrus Wadia (34 - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Identifying materials that could be unexpectedly useful in solar cells

Thursday 10 December 2009

Dark future for Telecom Italia (at least in Italy)

number (in millions) of fixed-line network connections in Italy 1997-2008 and isdn only

number of fixed-line network connections (including ISDN) in Italy of Telecom Italia, from 25.698 millions of 1997, the peak in 2001 (27.353 millions) and down to 20.031 millions (2008). On March 2010 they will release the report for 2009 but on 30th june 2009 the number was 19.170 millions. I may predict a number of 18.6 for 31st december 2009. The rise of 1997-2001 is because of big success of ISDN; in 2006 they stopped giving numbers about ISDN but the peak was on 2003 (6.027 millions).
Today a consumer customer has to pay a monthly fee of 16.08 Euro (vat included) to Telecom Italia; 192.96 Euro for one year

Thursday 3 December 2009

Zeitgest of the year 2009

After Google Zeitgeist of 2007, and 2008 it's time to write about the Zeitgeist of they year 2009.

Zeitgeist is a german word and it could be translated as "spirit of the age" or "spirit of the times", it is best known in relation to Hegel's view of philosophy of history.

"Except where noted, all of these search terms are most popular for 2009—ranked in order of the queries with the largest volume of searches this year. In some cases, we list the "fastest rising" queries, which means we found the most popular searches conducted in 2009 and then ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2008. Conversely, "fastest falling" queries were very popular in 2008 but flattened in popularity in 2009."

Fastest Rising (Global)

  1. michael jackson
  2. facebook
  3. tuenti
  4. twitter
  5. sanalika
  6. new moon
  7. lady gaga
  8. windows 7
  9. dantri.com.vn
  10. torpedo gratis
1 New moon should be the sequel to 2008's Twilight
2 dantri.com.vn is a vietnamese newspaper
3 torpedo gratis is a portuguese language site where you can send free sms

For first time, we have the top 10 fastest falling

Fastest Falling (Global)

  1. beijing 2008
  2. euro 2008
  3. heath ledger
  4. barack obama
  5. amy winehouse
  6. kraloyun
  7. dailymotion
  8. bebo
  9. wii
  10. emule
Somebody in Techcrunch Europe asks "Why does Turkish startup Sanalika feature on Google Zeitgest 2009?" and explains us:

Sanalika is a virtual world where you can play multiplayer games and join realtime events. It was launched on November 2008 and has already reached over 3 million users.

But how did Sanalika make Google’s Zeitgeist 2009?

Sanalika isn’t yet available in english so that isn’t the reason why it’s become a popular search term. Instead, it’s the way Google is used within the Turkish online community.

Most Turkish Internet users search for the domain or keyword of a website on Google then click on the first search result to go to the actual site. So, when a web service has millions of users it’s inevitably searched for on Google over a million times a day.

Techcrunch writes:
Google Publishes Zeitgeist 2009 – Michael Jackson Crowned King Again
 
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