Monthly Archive for December, 2005

Motion Mountain: a free physics textbook

A great resource for classroom teaching and lifelong learning: a freely downloadable physics textbook that spans over the fundamentals of the field with an eye on the recent research:

The project aims to produce a simple, vivid and up-to-date introduction to modern physics, with emphasis on the fundamental ideas of motion. ‘Simple’ means that concepts are stressed more than formalism; ‘vivid’ means that the reader is continuously challenged; ‘up-to-date’ means that modern research and ideas about unification are included.

The project takes the search for a precise description of motion as a guiding principle for an exploration of modern physics. This leads to an approach which is somewhat different from the standard one. Nature’s limits to speed, entropy, force, action and charge are central to the presentation.

Other physics textbooks online:

The high-quality electrodynamics text by Bo Thidé, Electromagnetic Field Theory, can be found at http://www.plasma.uu.se/CED/Book, together with its collection of exercises.

There are also the excellent introductory physics texts by Benjamin Crowell, Simple Nature and Light and Matter, which can be downloaded at http://www.lightandmatter.com.

The interesting Biophysics Educational Resources, edited by Victor Bloomfield, can be found at http://www.biophysics.org/education/resources.htm.

The text Classical and Quantum Chaos, edited by Predrag Cvitanovic, Roberto Artuso, Per Dahlqvist, Ronnie Mainieri, Gregor Tanner, Gábor Vattay, Niall Whelan and Andreas Wirzba can be found at http://chaosbook.org.

Tags: , , , ,

Adaptive and Context-Aware Services

Some recent comments on my blog captured my attention on this interesting (and refreshing, to speak as Nicolas) project on LBSs. From the web site description I inferred that the team involved is interested more on the development of the infrastructure that specific services.

The research in this area is based on a scenario where consumers are offered services in a transparent fashion as they move between environments with heterogeneous communication infrastructures. The goal is to provide the users with ubiquitous access to an open and expanding set of affordable services. In this research project, we will focus on professional collaborative work environments as well as high quality audio/visual entertainment applications. This involves the utilization of IT artifacts (devices, terminals) that dissolve into small components that increasingly melt into the background and into the fabric of everyday things, “smart dust” being an extreme case. Ad-hoc functionality on all systems levels implies dynamic and automatic configuration of public and private artifacts and services. Both the technical solutions as well as possible business models are of importance.

Tags: ,

MOGA: Location Aware Mobile Game

The MOGA-game has been developed as a part of the Rotuaari research project in the University of Oulu. MOGA’s goal is to test how WiFi positioning works inside campus buildings and are end users willing to move from place to place during actual game play.

MOGA’s idea is an old one: capture the flag. The game is played in teams. The idea is to capture and defend virtual flag zones. Game is played with a mobile handheld device, in which player’s position and the flag zones are shown on the screen. Cooperation within a team is emphasized: players are forced to play as a team. Capturing flags is much faster, when it’s done as a team, but also flags situated nearby have effects. Players must also pay attention to the flags positions in their strategy and their affect to the game itself.

MOGA has been implemented but testing is still in progress. MOGA is a part of Heikki Tolonen’s Masters’ Thesis that concentrates in heuristic evaluation of location-aware mobile games (Heikki contact’s: heikki.tolonen (at) @ee.oulu.fi).

Moga

Tags: , , ,

Electro Kinetic Road Ramp

Hughes Research has developed this interesting idea: a ramp for cars that converts some of the car movement energy in electrical energy. Basically when a car pass over the ramp, the ramp get pressed, activating an alternator that charge an accumulator.

I don’t think is a revolutionary concept, as no new energy is produced, but in essence can be a powerful way to tax the car drivers of some energetical value.

Este 18155210 52 Big

Tags: , , ,

Visualizing Blog Conversation

Anjo Anjewierden has worked on this idea of visualising the dialogical communication that happens sometimes in blogs trackbacks, comments and pinging. I found it extremely interesting even if in my practice is not so evident how this would add an extra value (I usually get few comments and turn conversation is very rare).

However, besides my personal skepticisms, Anjo tried to log a couple of conversation and to visualise them using the following schema:

Left to right is time (the data was 2004 posts of KM bloggers). Top to bottom is chronological order of a blogger entering the conversation. Colours are: blue (both links to and is linked from other posts in the conversation), red (is linked from in the conversation), green (links to the conversation). Note that posts by the same blogger on (nearly) the same day overlap each other (one pixel is one day).

For the example above, it is easy to see the “conversation” continues for a while (first post is Feb. 26, 2004 and last is Dec. 31, 2004).

Conv1732

(via)

Tags: , ,

TagSuggest: an auto-completion for tag inputing

TagSuggest is a prototype interface widget to enhance the input of tags. Its goals is to be highly-flexible, compact and keyboard-driven by merging AutoComplete functionality (like that found in Goggle Suggest and deskto application) with the unique attributes of tags — large quantities of single words.

Tagsuggest

Tags: ,

GeoConcept: a Location Based Annotation tool for professional technicians

GeoConcept is a software developed at the Service Industrial Genevoise that allows the technician working ‘on the field’ to share notes on the maps of the city. The software, of course, is also specifically tailored to the needs of the SIG, which is to identify specific points on the ground (i.e., pipes, taps, electric apparatus, etc.). The program works on Windows PocketPC.

The geographical information systems of SIG answers perfectly to the desire of quality and performance permanent research for a public utility company close to their 250 000 customers. With the contribution of mobile technologies, we are able to propose data-processing tools even more effective for the operators and the managers of our 7 700 km of water, gas, electricity, heat and optical fibre supply networks. Indeed, 60 % of the 1 500 collaborators of SIG ensure a proximity service directly on the ground. Bring the geographical information, used in more than 73 % of the activities, within reach makes it possible for each one to adapt its business and to practice it in all independence, with simple resources, without constraint of place or schedule.

Geoconcept

[more here]

Tags: , , , , ,

Point and Speak Phrasebook: Japan

Amazing! Today Nicolas showed me this nice book that he brought with him while visiting Japan. It is a collection of small pictures divided in categories that can be used to communicate about simple facts and needs. The user just have to point on the picture which presents also a footnote in both english and japanese.

Pointjp

Tags: , ,

Chocolate bars with gold pieces inside

This is a crazy swiss idea: putting gold pieces in chocolate. I saw already gold in liquors or used to improve the appearance of particular dishes, but this is too much … Funny though

Goldchocolatecloseupsmall-3

.

Teoma: another clustering search engine

Teoma is another great example of clustering search engine. They developed a different marker for establishing the rank of a page. Instead of the PageRank developed by Brin and Page, they are using a Subject Specific Popularity:

Instead of ranking results based upon the sites with the most links leading to them, Teoma analyzes the Web as it is organically organized-in naturally-occurring communities that are about or related to the same subject-to determine which sites are most relevant. Teoma is the only search technology that can locate communities on the Web within their specific subject areas, as they actually exist. And this allows us to finely tune our search process, providing more precise results.

Teoma

Tags: , ,

Three Part of Speech Taggers

  1. LS-POS, from the university of Edinburgh [UK], GNU License, English language. [pdf]
  2. TreeTagger, from the university of Stuttgart [DE], for English, German, Italian, Spanish, French and old French, implemented in C, Windows interface available, Python wrapper. [pdf]
  3. Log-linear Tagger, from the university of Stanford [US], GNU License, Java API, English language.

Tags: , , ,

Yahoo mindset

Mindset is another example of clustering search engine. It allows you to sort search results for your query into commercial or non-commercial (informational) results, based on whether you’re shopping or seeking information.

What do they mean by commercial and non-commercial (informational)?

Commercial implies that the primary purpose of a given page is to sell you something. Informational implies that the primary purpose of the page is to provide information related to your search.

Yahoo Mindset

Tags: , ,

Using Nokia Flier for Mobile Learning

During our meeting in Oulu, Jari Laru presented his work on Mobile Learning Scaffolding:

Scaffolding collaborative inquiry learning in nature context. First phase of that design experiment was conducted in late autumn 2004 in Pudasjärvi National Park, Finland. In first phase of that design experiment group of school children [n=22] participated in study where they used tailored software in autumn 2004. This tool enabled students create, receive and modify flyers with their mobile phones in inquiry-based learning project. (Laru, Stegmann, Järvelä, 2005; Laru, Järvelä, Clariana, 2005a, Laru, Järvelä, Clariana 2005b)

In the trial they used the Nokia Flier application, described below and freely downloadable from this url:

The Nokia Flier application allows you to create and locally distribute short messages containing text and a picture. When you have created your own flier you can publish it to other Nokia Flier users, who are close by (about 10 m) and have activated Nokia Flier application on the phone. Nokia Flier uses Bluetooth wireless technology for communicating with other phones. For power saving reasons, Nokia Flier will be automatically turned off after 12 hours of use.

Tags: , , ,

Grookker clustering search engine

Grokker is a clustering search engine with a powerful visual output. Grokker adds value to Yahoo searches by providing topically organized results that give you the freedom to explore the web the way you want. Grokker is ideal when you’re searching Yahoo! across a broad field of inquiry.

The engine is hooked on three other search engines: Yahoo, ACM digital library and Amazon.

Grook Picture1

Tags: , ,

The address book desk: an example of interactive furniture

Timo Arnall had a great idea: using post its on a desk and a mobile phone to trigger specific events and actions. The idea behind the address book desk is very simple: to each Post-It on the table top, correspond a rfid tag that can be programmed with a specific trigger. Now the mobile comes to play, because when close to the tag, with a specific reader can match the will of the user to activate the specific trigger indicated on the Post-It. Very simple, yet very powerful.

[full story]

Rfid Address Book Desk06-1  Rfid Address Book Desk02

Rfid Address Book Desk01  Rfid Address Book Desk12

Copyright notice: the present content was taken from the following URL, the copyrights are reserved by the respective author/s.

Tags: , , , , , ,