Sensor gloves detect obstacles for firefighters in smoky rooms
University of Minnesota researchers have taken a step toward providing first responders with a new means of finding their way through dark or smoky buildings.
Lucy Dunne, an assistant professor in the College of Design’s Department of Design, Housing & Apparel, and graduate student Tony Carton, working with funding from the U’s Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station to augment the sensory awareness of first responders like firefighters, designed gloves that use ultrasonic sensors to detect walls and other objects.(more…)
Editors at Microsoft News Center recently spoke with Ron Van Zanten, vice president of Data Quality at Great Western Bank, to learn more about how big data solutions from Microsoft help his institution more easily attract and retain customers.
REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 14, 2013 —Remember 2008? It was the year the Great Recession descended, bringing the global economy to a near-standstill. The financial meltdown on Wall Street flowed through main streets around the globe, destroying many community banks in its path. In fact, according to the IMF, through 2010 the recession had already drained a whopping $3.4 trillion from financial institutions around the world.
Which makes Great Western Bank’s story truly amazing. As some institutions shuttered and shrank, Great Western reinvested – in its people, customers and in how it uses technology to make its business better. (more…)
Want to stop cyberbullying on Facebook? Try using … Facebook.
A recently published study by a team of Michigan State University researchers found that one effective way of fighting cyberbullying is by using the medium where it tends to flourish. The key, said the researchers: Make your anti-cyberbullying messages positive in nature. (more…)
As big data access shifts to the masses, The Weather Company and other top global companies are showing the world how it’s done.
REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 12, 2012 —Big data is changing the way organizations do business, make discoveries, and interact with each other. In fact, pundits are predicting that 2013 will be the year organizations across a range of industries begin implementing big data strategies, or face obsolescence. As David Selinger wrote in a recent article on Forbes online: “If executives don’t find a way to trap, tame, and train their data monsters, they’ll be extinct in two years—fossils who’ve missed the new world order.”
Microsoft believes that big data has the power to drive practical and theoretical insights that have eluded people to date. In the past, high costs and technology limitations have constrained access to data storage infrastructure and the tools needed to manage and analyze large quantities of data. This is finally starting to change. (more…)
The stark contrast between America’s “me-first” culture and the “collective-good” mentality in China is reflected in the two countries’ use of social networking sites, according to a new study led by a Michigan State University scholar.
U.S. citizens spend more time on the networking sites, consider them to be more important and have more “friends” on the sites, the research found. The most popular social networking site in the United States is Facebook; in China, two of the most popular sites are RenRen and Qzone. (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A new form of clean coal technology reached an important milestone recently, with the successful operation of a research-scale combustion system at Ohio State University. The technology is now ready for testing at a larger scale.
For 203 continuous hours, the Ohio State combustion unit produced heat from coal while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction. (more…)
UD-developed solar reactor can produce solar hydrogen, but how much?
Last spring University of Delaware doctoral candidate Erik Koepf and research associate Michael Giuliano spent two months in Switzerland testing a novel solar reactor Koepf developed to produce hydrogen from sunlight.
Eight weeks of sophisticated testing at temperatures up to 1,200 degrees Celsius revealed that the reactor’s mechanical, electrical and thermal systems worked just as Koepf had predicted. (more…)
New Report “Digital Wallet Road Map 2013” Offers Data, Insights and Strategies for Overcoming Barriers on Awareness, Understanding of Benefits, Availability and Security Concerns
RESTON, VA, February 4, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the Digital Wallet Road Map 2013, a study which measures consumer awareness, perceptions and intent to use current digital wallet offerings. The study found that digital wallets, which store a virtual copy of the contents of a consumer’s physical wallet to facilitate online or offline retail transactions, only had awareness among 51 percent of U.S. consumers for wallets other than PayPal.
“Digital wallets represent an innovative technology that has not yet reached critical mass among consumers due to a variety of factors, including low awareness and a muddied understanding of their benefits,” said Andrea Jacobs, comScore Payments Practice Leader. “This study delves deeply into the mindset of consumers with respect to their potential use of digital wallets, in addition to helping size the market opportunity. The study also provides guidance on how digital wallet providers, marketers, developers and retailers can contribute to growing adoption of this technology.” (more…)
