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As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather - NASA Science

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-...

June 4, 2010: Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.

Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, explains what it's all about:

Nasa warns solar flares from 'huge space storm' will cause devastation - Telegraph

National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.

Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Mike Musgrove - A hotbed of techie agents of government transparency - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...

Monitoring your elected officials and keeping track of your government's spending? There's an app for that, as it turns out. Or such was the theme of the second annual TransparencyCamp, held at George Washington University last weekend, an event aimed at bringing programmers and activists together to mingle and talk shop about how to mine government data in clever ways.

The Technium: Twitter Predicts the Future

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2010/0...

The chatter in Twitter can accurately predict the box-office revenues of upcoming movies weeks before they are released. In fact, Tweets can predict the performance of films better than market-based predictions, such as Hollywood Stock Exchange, which have been the best predictors to date.

James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/29...
[Note] An excellent video interview that should not be missed at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2009/...

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.

Virtual Economies Booming

Second Life’s economy grows 65% to $567M
http://www.dintz.com/second-life’s-economy-grows-65-to-567m/

Virtual worlds no longer shine as they once did, but Linden Lab, the owner of the Second Life 3-D online virtual world, says that its virtual economy has never been bigger.

The company said today that the total size of the Second Life economy grew 65 percent in 2009 to $567 million. By the company’s own estimate, that amounts to about 25 percent of the entire U.S. virtual goods market.

‘Avatar’ coming to life at Keesler - Local - SunHerald.com

BILOXI — The new blockbuster movie “Avatar” seems total fantasy, yet Keesler Air Force Base already is using avatar technology in a pilot cyberspace program.

Simply defined, an avatar is “you in cyberspace.” In the movie, a handicapped former Marine temporarily occupies another body, which is in cyberspace. It’s full immersion, like an out-of-body experience.

“You actually are that avatar in that environment. You’re inside that body,” said Lt. Col. Scott Solomon, commander of the 333rd Training Squadron at Keesler.

10 Gorgeous Social Media Infographics | Penn Olson

http://www.penn-olson.com/2010/01/13/10-gorge...

Infographics make information easy to consume.

Mundane Charts vs Info graphics: Although they are essentially driven by the same set of information, our eyes are more attached to the ones that give aesthetic pleasure.

Follow the link above to see all the graphics.

Augmented Reality - What We're In For With AR | Search Journal

http://search.sys-con.com/node/1249920

Augmented reality is a “disruptive technology.” As a result industries and businesses must prepare to adapt to AR quickly, before those who have assimilated this technology use it to take market share. To learn what augmented reality is you can watch an example here or read about it here.

The Challenges of AR

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