Tech Brief
Today on Tech Brief: A new breed of nanotechnologist, back to school for the Kindle and a jigsaw-solving computer programme.
• Nanotechnology is a burgeoning industry but with only about 20,000 trained nanotechnologists in the world a recruitment drive is on.
It has led firms to offer a nanotech curriculum in some unexpected places, including the slums of Bogota in Colombia.
In an interview with the general manager of Nanolnk described how it was changing lives.
"The setting is that these children come down from these virtual slums behind the school, they go through these programs, and emerge out of the front of the building into society with an education that is not even available at some of the best private schools in Bogota."
• E-books are exciting plenty of interest at the moment but one of its key audiences appears to have rejected them, at least as study aids. US students who were asked to give feedback on Amazon's Kindle said they preferred the look and feel of real text books.
"You don't read textbooks in the same linear way as a novel. You have to flip back and forth between pages, and the Kindle is too slow for that. Also, the bookmarking function is buggy."
• Jigsaws have traditionally been time-wasters, something to while away a rainy Sunday afternoon when there is nothing good on telly so news that a computer can solve a 400-piece puzzle in only three minutes could take some of the fun out of it.
A team of scientists at MIT and Tel Aviv University chopped a 5-megabyte picture into 400 squares and fed the date into their computer software, which it interpreted to reform the photo.
Lead scientist that he hoped the software could be used to solve other problems.
"Such as DNA modelling or reassembling fragments of documents or archaeological relics, all of which can be modelled as jigsaw puzzles"
• Tony Blair was not renowned as a techie when he was prime minister but it seems he has finally seen the light. Tech Brief is not sure whether being offered the post of senior adviser to a green technology venture capital firm Khosla Ventures in any way influenced his change of heart but welcomes him heartily to the fold.
Talking to thesaid:
"The more I studied the whole climate change issue and linking it with energy security and development issues, I became absolutely convinced that the answer is in the technology"
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