research

Yahoo's new social job network: Kickstart

Yahoo is looking to change the game with their new social job network, Kickstart. They are currently conducting research surveys among college students to find out what they think of this new service. Yahoo asks this question to the participants, "Wish you had an 'in' to find the job of your dreams?" Kickstart is all about finding that "in."

Yahoo Kickstart connects college students with alumni at the companies that they are interested in. As you can see in the screenshot above, this student's "in" at Nike is an alumni named Dave Bottoms. … Read more

Adobe hires a passel of brainiacs

Adobe Systems has hired Shai Avidan, co-developer of a technology to dynamically resize photos in a way that preserves the more important areas of the image, and a couple of other researchers as well.

Avidan's presentation this month at the Siggraph computer graphics show and the accompanying video has ignited a frenzy of chatter from Slashdot, TechCrunch and elsewhere. I first heard about it last week from the blog of Adobe Photoshop Senior Product Manager John Nack, who also brought word of the new hire Wednesday.

Avidan began work at Adobe Monday. Another new hire is Wojciech Matusik, who'… Read more

MIT software measures clutter

Web design purists who favor simplistic pages like Google.com can take heart. A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed software that can measure the clutter of a page or map, and potentially point designers in a direction that's less eye-crossing.

Ruth Rosenholtz, principal research scientist in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS), and her colleagues developed a mathematical model of what makes an object harder or easier to see in visual display. That model incorporates measures of an object's color, contrast and position on the page. The team then used it … Read more

Neuroscience for kids, on the Web

When I was a high school student, I hated writing term papers. I thought the whole enterprise of collecting information was tedious and boring. I remember visiting the local college library to look for information for a term paper I was writing about Eleanor of Aquitaine. It was a struggle to find the five required references. I remember looking up books in the card catalog, then hunting them down on the shelves, and scouring each one for relevant information that I wrote down on index cards. Some books were missing, some were out of place. It took hours to gather enough information to begin even writing a paper.

Then there was the task of transforming these pieces of information into a coherent narrative, typed on an electric typewriter.

Boy do I feel old. But more to the point, it's ironic that I became a writer in the long run. It turns out that I love to do research, but only when I can get to the information I need as quickly as possible.… Read more

Bush signs off on billions for science, tech

President Bush on Thursday signed into law the America Competes Act, which authorizes $33.6 billion from federal coffers for government-sponsored research, education and teacher-training programs in the science and tech arena over the next few years.

The move promptly drew an avalanche of accolades from high-tech companies, who cheered the action as a way of helping the United States stay competitive in science, technology and engineering. But it may not be time to pop the corks yet.

After all, it's still up to the respective congressional appropriations committees to go through the formal process of doling out funding, … Read more

Paul Barton, the soft-spoken speaker designer from the Great White North

Paul Barton, founder and chief designer of PSB Speakers loves his job. He'd have to--over the last the last three decades he's probably logged more hours at the Canadian National Research Council's facilities in Ottawa, Ontario than any other speaker designer. There he dotes on his prototype designs in the acoustically neutral environment of an anechoic chamber, measuring and evaluating every aspect of their performance. Barton typically spends two to three years designing a new line of speakers.

I met with him in NYC a few weeks ago to check out his latest, Synchrony. After discussing the technical highlights of his new babies he handed me a Synchrony One B ($1,999/pair) bookshelf speaker to look over. PSB speakers have always sounded great, but they weren't the most gorgeous looking things. The new ones are altogether sleeker, slimmed down, and really pretty in an understated sort of way. Their heavyweight extruded aluminum front and rear baffles; and curved, seven-layer composite wood side panels display a new, more sophisticated level of fit and finish. The speakers are available in snazzy real cherry wood or black ash veneers.

The sound, especially the top of the line Synchrony One tower speaker ($4,499/pair) was spectacularly vivid. Bass was not only subwoofer deep, it was also taut, so it rendered pitches of bass with rare precision. Listen to Paul McCartney's bass on the Beatles' Sgt Pepper CD and you'll know what I'm talking about. Rock drummers came off particularly well; the sense of hearing sticks beating skins was remarkably clear and clean. Barton's new tweeter was equally astonishing when reproducing the cymbals' brassy shimmer. Livingston Taylor's folk vocals from his Ink CD had just the right combination of body and soul. That's exactly what separates "good enough" mainstream speakers from high-end models; the best ones make you feel like you're in the presence of live musicians. Ah yes, that's the point after all.… Read more

Science, tech funding boosts also get Senate nod

A congressional proposal to throw some $33 billion behind new federal research, education and teacher training programs over the next two years is now headed to the president's desk.

The U.S. Senate on Thursday night approved by voice vote an agreement with the House of Representatives on the so-called America Competes Act (short for the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act), which the tech industry has hailed as critical to creating the next generation of U.S. innovators. The vote hadn't originally been expected until at least Friday.

Earlier on … Read more

Navy seeks 'kamikaze' robot to clear mines

Today, sussing out bombs on land and from the air is a routine chore for robots in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the U.S. Navy wants a smart class of robo-fish to do the same in some of the world's most dangerous waterways.

One contender for that task is the Transphibian, a 3-foot-long autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) created by Durham, N.C.-based Nekton Research. The Transphibian is designed to identify mines and map the seabed by swimming and crawling through places where troops or ships are likely to follow. Soon, the company hopes to field a type of &… Read more

Nvidia gaining ground on Intel, AMD in graphics

Nvidia painted a pretty picture in the graphics market during the second quarter.

The company's market share soared by 81 percent compared with a year ago, as it overtook AMD's ATI division and erased some of Intel's lead in the market for PC graphics, according to new data from Jon Peddie Research. Intel held 37.6 percent of the market in the second quarter, while Nvidia garnered 32.6 percent and AMD had 19.5 percent.

Intel holds the lead in graphics by virtue of its integrated graphics chipsets, which ship with low-end desktops and lots of … Read more