Archive for the 'Research' Category

Study of Public and Academic Library Blogs

April 11, 2008

Walt Crawford has analyzed hundreds of public and academic library blogs. He then provides metrics in two separate reports based on the active blogs he’s found. Both reports are quite interesting. See where you fit in!
Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples — $20 for download; $29.50 for paperback
Academic Library Blogs: 231 Examples — [...]

Gaming May Not Release Violent Emotions

April 11, 2008

An interesting study published in the journal Emotion goes against most research dealing with gaming.  According to this paper, if you kill your opponents in a game, you are likely to feel badly — not exultant.  If you are killed yourself, you are likely to feel a sense of pleasure.
The scientist has a couple of [...]

Help with Newly Found Documents on Kennedy Assassination

April 11, 2008

The Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watson found some previously unknown documents related to the Kennedy assassination in his office.  They were originally compiled by Henry Wade, the district attorney at the time of the assassination, but were not made public.
Watson has scanned these documents and the Dallas Morning News has made them public.  In [...]

Morph

April 5, 2008

A partnership between Nokia and the Cambridge Nanoscience Center has created the Morph. The Morph is one example of a cell phone that is transparent and can be molded into anything you’d like — even a bracelet.
These devices use nanotechnology, flexible materials, transparent electronics, and self-cleaning surfaces. Check out the video (46mb) to [...]

Clothes That Read Your Vital Signs

March 27, 2008

Smartex is currently marketing the result of one of their research projects. “Wealthy” (wearable health care system):

. . . is a wearable fully integrated system, able to acquire, simultaneously and in a natural environment, a set of physiological parameters like electrocardiogram, respiration, posture, temperature, movement index.
It’s a wearable unitard that has electrodes and [...]

Benefits of Free Internet Access

March 25, 2008

The University of Washington Information School and the IMLS will study the social, economic, personal, and professional benefits of free Internet access at public libraries.  Other partners include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Urban Institute.
The grant should end in May of 2009.
[from Library Journal]

LC Pilot Project with Flickr

March 7, 2008

In January, the Library of Congress uploaded 3,000 photos to the photo-sharing service Flickr.  Ultimately, they would like to provide access to their 14,000,000 photographs.  This pilot project starts with photos from 2 collections:  the George Grantham Bain Collection and the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information photos.  They have been posted in an area [...]

Converting Light to Sound

January 7, 2008

Researchers at Duke University are trying to speed up data transmission within fiber optic cables, which can now move at about 10gb/s. In addition to the speed, when electricity is converted to light, heat is generated and that has to be dealt with by using something like a cooling fan. When they convert [...]

Shoogle

January 6, 2008

Want to know how many messages are waiting for you on your cell phone?  How much battery life you have left?  Watch for Shoogle:
Shoogle is a novel, intuitive interface for sensing data within a mobile device, such as presence and properties of text messages or remaining resources. It is based around active exploration: devices are [...]

Barcodes That Talk

January 6, 2008

Scan a barcode and hear a message you’ve recorded.  Right now, the start-up company Labels That Talk encodes each barcode with about 8kb or auditory information, enough for a 10-second message.
Ideas for this service include enhancing photo albums with audio messages about each image and using it on labels for medication.  What would happen if [...]