Two Cool Technologies

I came across these two new technologies from Microsoft and Google today.

Microsoft Surface - It's a 30-inch tabletop display that allows several people to work simultaneously using just their hands without a mouse or keyboard. You can grab data with your hands and move information around between objects using gestures and touch. I've seen various versions of this in development. The new iPhone has some of these features as well where you can modify photos using touch. Apparently this is going to reach the market in Winter 2007. Pretty cool.
Google Street View Maps - Google added an additional feature to their maps application where you can get a "street view" of a location that you've mapped. It's essentially a 360 degree view from street level that you can rotate and walk along. I think Microsoft Live Maps had something like this where you could virtually drive around a city, but this is much cleaner, much faster, and far better executed than Microsoft. Very cool.

Comments

gnp said…

Regarding Microsoft Surface, check out this presentation from the TED conference ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwGAKUForhM. Very cool stuff.

June 1, 2007 at 9:40 PM

Biofuels May Hinder Anitglobal-Warming Efforts

Read an interesting article a couple weeks back in the WSJ on how biofuels may actually increase carbon emissions in the medium to long-term. Apprently the shifts in land-use necessary to support the production of bio-materials like soybeans, corn, or palm could in fact release more carbon emissions. The time it takes to get carbon-neutral on some of these projects is pretty crazy - 319 years for soybean biodiesel from Brazil (assuming you're clearing rainforest), 93 years for corn ethanol from the U.S. (assuming you're clearing grasslands), 86 years for palm biodiesel from Indonesia (assuming you're clearing rainforest). I suppose biofuels really aren't meant to reduce carbon emissions, but just crazy that they potentially exacerbate the problem so much.

Nine Prescriptions for Building the Duke Entrepreneurial Community

I think Duke can have one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in the world. Are we there yet? Well, not yet. But there's a tremendous amount of momentum that I saw build in just the past two years while I was getting my MBA at Duke. While leading Duke's 10th annual business plan competition, the Duke Start-Up Challenge (DSC) , last year, I witnessed a near doubling of participation on campus in just a single year. The interest on the ground was clearly there and building rapidly. But now that I'm an alum, I'm looking back and wondering ... how do we rev-up the Duke entrepreneurial community even more? I read a great article by Daniel Isenberg, a professor of management at Babson, called " How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution " in the June edition of the Harvard Business Review. Isenberg outlines nine prescriptions for governments that want to create entrepreneurship ecosystems in their countries. Although he was focused on governments an...

Wi-Fi for the Third World

Read an article in Forbes about a venture called WiLDNet that is providing low-cost, long-distance wireless internet access to the Third World. The initiative is being run by the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions ( TIER ) group at UC Berkeley headed by Eric Brewer (founder of Inktomi). It can transmit up to 60 miles using just 8 watts of electricity (a solar panel can run it) at cable modem speeds and costs only $400. One hospital is using it to deliver telemedicine in India. Very cool use of technology.

Power Pal

Search This Blog