May 2008 Archive of engeniusBLOG

My December 2007 Editorial praising the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program (see Negroponte’s Miss is a Hit)  raised some very important questions from readers about whether pushing computers and Wi-Fi networks on people who don’t even have enough to eat at home was the most appropriate use of scarce aid funds. Given the hard facts that 1.2 billion of our fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth live on $1 a day or less, and 800 million people are going hungry, what level of priority should we place on getting these folks access to computers, the Internet, and the services that they deliver? I don’t have any definite answers to offer, but a talk I attended this week may provide a few of the pieces to this complex puzzle.

Dr. Marc Fiuczynski, a computer s...  -- Click Here to Read More >>

Texting has taken a long time to become fashionable in North America. (Do fashionable and long time create an oxymoron?) It has to be eight years since I saw my nephews and nieces texting in the UK, furiously clicking away at a much lower cost than using voice circuits. When their phones did run out of coverage time, they would have to run down to the corner shop to buy a time-refreshed card.

Whether the “language” of texting originated across the Atlantic – and I presume it did – it has caused considerable apprehension to the teachers of English. As long as five years ago a Scottish newspaper reported concerns by teachers about essays being submitted by pupils in the only written language that some of them understood: texting. Other teachers were just happy to get assignm...  -- Click Here to Read More >>

When it comes to motor sports, contemporary kids think of NASCAR and Dale Earnhardt, but I come from a generation where Formula One open-wheel racing was king, and Jim Clark and Tazio Nuvolari were racing icons. Ah, those were the days. Gasoline at 18 cents a gallon fueled our dreams.

I digress. Though I haven't followed F1 racing since my youthful treks to Watkins Glen every autumn for the genre's US venue, I am aware that technology's impact on racing cars today is every bit as pervasive as its effect on consumer electronics, medical electronics, or just about anything that packs an embedded controller these days.

Mechanical Engineering

Forward-looking F1 car designers are summoning revolutionary changes, but not all innovation relies heavily on electronics. Significant is the development of an energy recove...  -- Click Here to Read More >>