Technology

Ceramics Tell the Story of an Ancient Southwest Migration

Another look at a nearly 80-year-old pottery collection at the Arizona State Museum is yielding new information about migrants who abandoned the Four Corners region.

Approximately eight centuries ago, people living along the Colorado Plateau in what is now the Four Corners area faced a crisis. Environmental changes that devastated their agricultural practices and likely aggravated social unrest forced significant numbers of these people to move away. (more…)

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Microsoft Marks E3 with “Halo 4,” New Entertainment Experiences

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced a robust lineup of new Xbox 360 games, including a new installment of the blockbuster Halo franchise. The company also unveiled new content and entertainment experiences for Xbox LIVE and smart devices.

LOS ANGELES – The Xbox 360 console charged into its seventh Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) today buoyed by a bundle of blockbuster game releases led by Halo 4 and a set of new entertainment experiences that will push Xbox farther into the living room, and onto PCs, tablets and phones.

Microsoft also revealed a set of new Xbox content, partners and apps – including bringing Internet Explorer to the console for the first time. The company also introduced a new music service and Xbox SmartGlass, a new app that brings an immersive entertainment experience to all devices. (more…)

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IBM Boosts Smarter Computing Initiative to Help Customers Tackle Big Data

• New IBM Smarter Storage approach provides for greater performance, efficiencies
• Real-time Compression, LTFS management, and Tivoli upgrades lift storage systems
• IBM makes technical computing more accessible to enterprise customers; IBM Platform Computing software enables technical computing systems to deliver faster results

Armonk, N.Y. – 04 Jun 2012: IBM today accelerated its Smarter Computing initiative by announcing a broad array of performance and efficiency enhancements to its storage and technical computing systems – the engines of Big Data. (more…)

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Berkeley Lab Study Assesses Residential Cooking Exhaust Hoods’ Ability to Vent Pollutants

Cooking exhaust hoods designed for home kitchens vary widely in their ability to capture and vent away the air pollutants generated by the gas burners on cook stoves, according to a study by two Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists. Of seven representative devices they tested, the capture efficiency varied from less than 15 percent to more than 98 percent.

The study, by Woody Delp and Brett Singer of Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division, measured their pollutant capture efficiency, sound level generated by their fans, and airflow. Cooking exhaust hoods vent such pollutants as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde, and fine particulates such as soot generated during cooking. (more…)

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