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Top 10 Best Tech from 2013

I know that there are a lot of articles out there and I wanted to capture what I felt the top 10 tech items for 2013 were. In no particular order…

Samsung Galaxy Note 3

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Ridicule gargantuan tablets all you want. The Galaxy Note 3 may sport a gigantic 5.7-inch screen, but all that screen real estate is awesomely useful, the smartphone offers great battery life, and the included S-Pen stylus is incredibly useful if you like taking longhand notes.

A 2.3GHz processor and 3GB of RAM help power this massive device, and what you end up with is a smartphone that practically eliminates the need for a 7-inch tablet.

Massive smartphones aren’t going away—and the more we use them, the more we like them. And the Note 3 is pretty much the best “tablet phone” around.

 

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GEEK / Science

Dermal Regenerator

Dermal_regenerator The Cellular Regenerator or Dermal Regenerator is a device on Star Trek capable of speeding up the healing process of living tissue by using light. A lot of the technology we now take for granted was actually inspired by Star Trek. And when i first saw the dermal regenerator on Star Trek i thought that this doesn’t seem too far fetched. Turns out I was quite right. Fittingly It’s a technology developed by NASA that is now being adapted to do just that.  Now it might only be a matter of time before every hospital has one, heck maybe even every household.

The need to care for a population with chronic wounds is a growing challenge that requires innovative approaches. Two approaches that specifically address the identified pathophysiological processes involved in wound healing are hyperbaric oxygen therapy and light therapy.

Light Emitting Diodes (LED-technology), originally developed for NASA plant growth experiments in space, show promise for delivering light deep into tissues of the body to promote wound healing and human tissue growth. In this paper we review and present our new data of LED treatment on cells grown in culture, on ischemic and diabetic wounds in rat models, and on acute and chronic wounds in humans. Results include: in vitro increases of cell growth of 140-200% in mouse derived fibroblasts, rat derived osteoblasts, and rat derived skeletal muscle. Increases in growth of 155% -171% of normal human epithelial cells in vitro. Wound size decreases of up to 36% in conjunction with HBO in ischemic rat models. Improvement of greater than 40% in musculoskeletal training injuries in Navy SEAL team members. Decreased wound healing time by 50% of crew members aboard a U.S. Naval submarine. And finally, up to a 47% reduction in pain of children suffering from oral mucositis. We believe that the use of NASA Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) for light therapy will greatly enhance the natural wound healing process. This work is supported and managed through the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center – SBIR Program.

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Games / GEEK

SteamOS! Valve’s free Linux-based operating system.

Source: PCGamer.com

The SteamOS beta has released to the public alongside the initiation of its beta program, which will put 300 prototype Steam Machines into the wild. For the estimated 7,129,999,700 of us not selected for that program, a living room machine running the new, free, Linux-based OS is still doable, though installing it may require some tinkering—Valve suggests you wait until 2014 unless you’re an “intrepid Linux hacker.” Challenge accepted.

At the time of writing, Valve has not officially announced that SteamOS 1.0 “Alchemist” is available for download. We expect a page to go live at store.steampowered.com/steamos/beta/ later today. [Update: it’s live.] Steam Universe group officer Jvert (presumably Valve engineer John Vert), however, has confirmed that the correct download link is at repo.steampowered.com/download/.

Unfortunately, that download will most likely fail right now. To help spread the data, Steamdb has created an unofficial torrent, but use caution when downloading from any unofficial source. [Update: Valve has provided MD5 and SHA512 checksums to verify that your download is genuine.] You can find system requirements and installation instructions in the official FAQ—note that AMD graphics cards are not currently supported.

SteamOS is meant to free Steam’s game library from the desktop, extending Valve’s domain to the living room with a superior couch-based PC experience and some of the features that have become standard on consoles, such as media streaming services. For Valve, it’s also about declaring freedom from Microsoft—SteamOS will only run games with Linux support (of which we expect to see many more in the coming year). That bold statement is tempered by the ability to stream games from a Windows PC to SteamOS over a local area network, though how much it’s tempered will depend on how well streaming works.

We’ll be playing with SteamOS this weekend, and plan to have impressions and installation tips for you as soon as possible. If you’re the patient type, Valve’s Steam Controller and third-party Steam Machines will be available until next year, no “Linux hacking” required, presumably.

GEEK / TV & Movies

Computer Hacking Rules (as learned from the movies)

Source: io9

1. One of the hackers must take over every channel on TV and deliver a speech that’s like a bad ripoff of a Max Headroom routine. They should scoff at the government, and use the word “sheeple.” Either that, or the hacker should have an underground viral video show that involves crazy stunts and hip hop music.

2. At some point Keanu Reeves must show up. Hopefully with a ton of data implanted in his head and a cyber-dolphin.

3. Every aspect of the plot will be better if you just append the words “virtual” or “cyber” to them. There will be “virtual terrorism” and “cyber war”. References to “e-bombs” a plus. Can you use a firewall to block the virtual terror downloads? Yes!

4. Hacking scenes will involve psychedelic user interfaces that look like something out of an early 1990s music video. Remember, hackers never use command lines. That is boring. Also, something should be controlled by a laser. Every form of physical security will have colorful, 3D interfaces too. There will be touch screens covered in sparkly numbers, retina scans, facial recognition, or holograms.

The Eleven Elite Rules of Movies About Computer Hacking

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News

How NASA might build its very first warp drive

Source: io9

This is an older story but I had to share this!!

A few months ago, physicist Harold White stunned the aeronautics world when he announced that he and his team at NASA had begun work on the development of a faster-than-light warp drive. His proposed design, an ingenious re-imagining of an Alcubierre Drive, may eventually result in an engine that can transport a spacecraft to the nearest star in a matter of weeks — and all without violating Einstein’s law of relativity. We contacted White at NASA and asked him to explain how this real life warp drive could actually work.

The above image of a Vulcan command ship features a warp engine similar to an Alcubierre Drive. Image courtesy CBS.

The Alcubierre Drive

The idea came to White while he was considering a rather remarkable equation formulated by physicist Miguel Alcubierre. In his 1994 paper titled, “The Warp Drive: Hyper-Fast Travel Within General Relativity,” Alcubierre suggested a mechanism by which space-time could be “warped” both in front of and behind a spacecraft.

How NASA might build its very first warp driveExpand

Michio Kaku dubbed Alcubierre’s notion a “passport to the universe.” It takes advantage of a quirk in the cosmological code that allows for the expansion and contraction of space-time, and could allow for hyper-fast travel between interstellar destinations. Essentially, the empty space behind a starship would be made to expand rapidly, pushing the craft in a forward direction — passengers would perceive it as movement despite the complete lack of acceleration.

White speculates that such a drive could result in “speeds” that could take a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in a mere two weeks — even though the system is 4.3 light-years away.

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Games / GEEK

10 Most Influential Video Games From the ’90s

Source: Arcadesushi

When you think of the ’90s, you can’t think of it without these 10 Most Influential Video Games. They have created a lot of inspiration and ideas for the games we play today. Ranging from their unique story lines, strategic abilities, and replay value, these titles deserve credit where credit is due. Without wasting any more time, let’s take a look at the 10 Most Influential Video Games From the ’90s.

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