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O máximo em tecnologia, creio eu, pode ser encontrada na NASA. Mas eles parecem não se importar muito com edição de fotografias, notadamente em fotos de foguetes e módulos espaciais, naquelas salas imensas e imaculadamente limpas. Na postagem anterior à esta salvei uma foto do Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS), creio que na etapa final de preparação para o lançamento. Mas vendo a foto não editada, com uma distorção de lente bem acentuada, resolvi dar uma arrumada na imagem com meu velho e bom GIMP 2.6. 
Aqui embaixo a mesma imagem corrigida ao máximo, incluindo ajustes no brilho e contraste. O foguete “engordou” um bocado, mas pelo menos ficou mais verticalizado. O pessoal de branco também ficou mais na vertical. Contudo, palmas para a NASA.
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domingo, 22 de fevereiro de 2015
Dando uma “mãozinha” para a NASA…
Magnetospheric Multiscale Observatories Processed for Launch
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NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) observatories are processed for launch in a clean room at the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Florida. MMS is an unprecedented NASA mission to study the mystery of how magnetic fields around Earth connect and disconnect, explosively releasing energy via a process known as magnetic reconnection. MMS consists of four identical spacecraft that work together to provide the first three-dimensional view of this fundamental process, which occurs throughout the universe. The mission observes reconnection directly in Earth's protective magnetic space environment, the magnetosphere. By studying reconnection in this local, natural laboratory, MMS helps us understand reconnection elsewhere as well, such as in the atmosphere of the sun and other stars, in the vicinity of black holes and neutron stars, and at the boundary between our solar system's heliosphere and interstellar space. MMS is a NASA mission led by the Goddard Space Flight Center. The instrument payload science team consists of researchers from a number of institutions and is led by the Southwest Research Institute. Launch of the four identical observatories aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is managed by Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Services Program. Liftoff is currently targeted for 10:44 p.m. EDT on March 12. Image Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky |
Clef wants to change the way we log into websites
| Clef uses an animation instead of an unlock code It's had a good run, but the password's time is up. Remembering a unique unlock code for dozens of websites and apps is no longer very practical or very safe, and many different companies are exploring what comes next. One of those companies is Clef, which has developed a two-step verification system that uses an animated wave on your phone to confirm your identity. Two-step verification, now available on accounts with Google, Apple, Microsoft, Dropbox and many others, adds an additional security measure on top of a password. But existing methods typically rely on numerical codes and can be time-consuming to configure, which is why Clef thinks its new, streamlined approach has the edge. The technology is currently powering more than 40,000 sites and the company says it's now targeting larger organizations after securing US$1.6 million in investment funding. Clef apps are available for Android and iOS From the user end, you simply wave your phone at the screen and you're in (though a PIN or Touch ID confirmation is required initially). It can work over Wi-Fi or cell networks (handy when one is available but not the other) and as a fallback it's possible to scan the phone screen using a laptop camera. There are no codes to remember and there's nothing to type in: The unique wave generated by your phone confirms that you are who you say you are. "No weak passwords, frustrating tokens, or clunky dongles," promise the founders of Clef, which is based in Oakland, California. There's also the option to securely log out of your accounts with a single tap on your smartphone, should you spot any suspicious activity or suspect that someone else has been able to log into a site or app as you. Clef is far from the only company looking to revolutionize the login process. In recent months and years we've seen a wearable that uses your heartbeat as a password, an iris-scanning gadget to log you in securely and various alternatives to the mobile phone PIN.
Source: Clef via TechCrunch
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SkyProwler combines a quadcopter and a fixed-wing airplane in one device
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CorPower system gives wave power the gears
| CorPower Ocean's wave power-harnessing buoys utilize a geared drivetrain instead of hydraulics (Image: CorPower Ocean) Harnessing wave power can be a tricky business. It's one thing to build a device that simply moves up and down with the waves, but another to build one that's efficient enough to be cost-effective. Swedish company CorPower Ocean claims to have done just that, however. Its wave energy converter buoys reportedly generate five times more energy per ton of device, at a third the cost of other wave power systems. The CorPower setup is what's known as a point absorber system. Here's how it works ... A buoy floats on the surface of the ocean, moving up and down with the waves. That buoy is moored to the sea floor, although sitting on the line part way between the buoy and its anchor is the actual wave energy converter mechanism. In some other point absorber systems, this consists of a hydraulic pump that generates electricity as it's pulled up and released by the buoy. In the CorPower system, however, there's a geared drivetrain, developed at Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology. That drivetrain uses multiple small pinion wheels to convert linear motion into rotation, spinning up a flywheel. Additionally, the drivetrain is said to enhance the buoy's movements, allowing it to rise and fall more while staying in sync with the rhythm of the waves. According to CorPower CEO Patrik Möller, this means that the system harnesses wave motion "all the way between the wave crest and wave trough and back in an optimal way, no matter how long or high the waves are." Energy is temporarily stored onboard, before being output at a smooth and consistent rate via electrical cables running to the shore. According to KTH, the buoys/converters are lightweight, compact, and relatively inexpensive to manufacture. One 8-meter (26-ft)-diameter buoy should be able to produce 250-300 kilowatts in a "typical Atlantic environment." The technology was recently awarded €100,000 at MIT's Building Global Innovators Demo Day. A pilot project using the buoys is planned for this November. Sources: KTH, CorPower Ocean
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Deflation can be a good thing. But today’s version is pernicious
Feb 21st 2015 | From the print edition
FALLING prices sound like something to cheer. In 1950 talk was not cheap. It cost $3.70 to place a five-minute call between New York and San Francisco—or $36.35 in today’s money. Now that same call costs you nothing. The emergence of the sharing economy is driving down the price of a taxi ride and a bed for the night. More recently tumbling prices for natural resources, especially oil, have boosted the spending power of consumers from Detroit to Delhi. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, reckons that falling energy prices are “unambiguously good” for the British economy. Mr Carney is not wrong. Nonetheless, the world is grievously underestimating the danger of deflation. The problem is that aggregate prices are dipping in so many places at once. Deflationary pressures are visible far beyond food and energy, and in countries that cannot claim to be leading the charge towards the new economy. In the euro zone, where deflation grips tightest, consumer prices fell by 0.6% in the year to January; Germany, Italy and Spain all saw falls. Prices in Greece have been declining for 23 months. Ultra-low inflation is also widespread. America, Britain and China each have inflation rates of less than 1%. This looks less like a welcome jolt to prices than a sign of entrenched weak demand. Deflation poses several risks, some well-understood, one not (see article). One familiar danger is that consumers will put off spending in the expectation that things will get even cheaper, further muting demand. Likewise, if prices fall across an economy but wages do not, then firms’ margins will be squeezed and employment will stagnate or decline. (Neither of these dangers is yet visible; indeed, America and Britain are seeing strong employment growth.) A third, well-known risk is debt deflation: debts become more onerous because the amount that is owed does not fall, even as earnings do. This is a big worry in the euro zone, where many banks are already stuffed with dud loans. The least-understood danger is also the most serious, because it is already here. Deflation makes it harder to loosen monetary policy. When inflation is at 4%, the central bank can take real (ie, inflation-adjusted) rates well below zero, to -4%, by keeping headline rates at zero. But as inflation falls and turns negative, low real rates get harder and harder to achieve—just when you need them most. Most rich-world central banks have already cut their main policy rates near to zero in order to pep up demand. A growing number of European economies are using negative interest rates to encourage spending, although charging people to put money in the bank will eventually prompt them to use the mattress instead (see article). All of which means that policymakers risk having precious little room for manoeuvre when the next recession hits. And sooner or later it will—because of a sharp slowdown in China, say, or the effect of a rising greenback on dollar-denominated corporate debt, or from some shock that comes out of the blue. The Federal Reserve has cut its policy rate by an average of 3.9 percentage points in the six recessions since 1971. That would not be possible today. The break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option of depreciating the currency massively against a fast-growing trading partner is of limited use when so few big economies are growing rapidly and prices are falling, or close to it, in so many places. Change the target Policymakers should be more worried than they appear to be, and their actions to avert deflation should be bolder. Governments need to boost demand by spending more on infrastructure; central banks should err on the side of looseness. (Next month the ECB will start quantitative easing—and about time too.) Now is also the moment to consider revising the monetary rule book—in particular, to switch the central bankers’ target from the inflation rate that most now favour to a goal for the level of nominal GDP, the total value of spending in an economy before adjusting for inflation. With such a target there is no need to distinguish between good and bad price shocks. And the change in rules would itself send a signal that policymakers are serious about banishing the threat of deflation. Central bankers change course slowly, and their allegiance to inflation targets runs deep. Conservatism often serves them well. But in this case it could cost the world economy dearly. From the print edition: Leaders source – www.economist.com |
