Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff works dot com where
Speaker 1: smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain and welcome to this
Speaker 1: week's Friday news roundup. One thing that has gotten a
Speaker 1: lot of buzz this week is something called Color. Yes, Color,
Speaker 1: How in the world did they get color dot com
Speaker 1: for their domain? You ask? They spent three dollars for it.
Speaker 1: Colors goal seems to be and this is open to interpretation,
Speaker 1: to make intercommunication between people even more immediate than, for example,
Speaker 1: Twitter makes it. To understand this, think about how the
Speaker 1: time to publication has been reduced over the years. With books,
Speaker 1: an author would write for a year or two and
Speaker 1: then publish the book. With magazines, it might take a
Speaker 1: week for an author to write an article. With newspapers,
Speaker 1: the creation time for an article falls to about a
Speaker 1: day or two. With a blog, it might take an
Speaker 1: hour or two per post. With Twitter, it takes just
Speaker 1: a minute or two per post. And now with color
Speaker 1: it is actually immediate. The instant you take a photo
Speaker 1: with your smartphone, the photo goes up to the cloud,
Speaker 1: tagged with your I D, your location, the date and time,
Speaker 1: and so on. Anyone else in the general vicinity gets
Speaker 1: a stream of all the photos being taken near by,
Speaker 1: and they get that stream instantly. There's no thinking involved.
Speaker 1: You simply snap a photo and it immediately goes live
Speaker 1: to everyone. It doesn't get any more immediate than that.
Speaker 1: Speaking of immediate, this company apparently sprang up and secured
Speaker 1: forty one million dollars in venture funding from two of
Speaker 1: the most prestigious venture capital firms in the business in
Speaker 1: about half a year. As with Twitter, some will wonder
Speaker 1: what the point is. Who's going to sit and look
Speaker 1: at streams of bad photo graphs. But knowledgeable people believe
Speaker 1: this is the next big thing, given all the buzz
Speaker 1: that it's been generating. We'll see if it works a
Speaker 1: year from now. If you google Interesting Reading number seven thirteen,
Speaker 1: you can get the details on color. Also in Interesting
Speaker 1: Reading seven thirteen, there are two articles from the World
Speaker 1: of Physics. In one, best selling author and scientist Brian
Speaker 1: Green talks about multiverses. A multiverse is the idea that
Speaker 1: there are bigger places outside of our universe. That how
Speaker 1: is multiple universes. The reasons scientists talk about the multiverse
Speaker 1: is that there are mathematical patterns suggesting that the multiverse
Speaker 1: might actually exist. The amazing thing is that the Large
Speaker 1: Hadron Collider may provide a platform to test the mathematics
Speaker 1: and therefore the multiverse theory. It's also possible to look
Speaker 1: for energy leaving our universe in lhc illisions, meaning that
Speaker 1: it might be going into other universes. It's a very
Speaker 1: interesting article, especially since it's written in English rather than
Speaker 1: physics speak. The other article is about a twelve year
Speaker 1: old prodigy who's already in college in Indiana and he
Speaker 1: believes that the Big Bang theory is wrong. He bases
Speaker 1: this belief on the number of heavier elements like heavier
Speaker 1: than hydrogen, found in today's universe and the amount of
Speaker 1: time available to manufacture them in the cores of stars
Speaker 1: under the current theory of where these elements come from.
Speaker 1: Both of these articles can be found by googling Interesting
Speaker 1: Reading number seven thirteen. Interesting Reading number seven twelve opens
Speaker 1: with a very interesting concept. The desert nation of Qatar
Speaker 1: is hosting the World Cup soccer games in a decade,
Speaker 1: so they will be needing to construct nine new air
Speaker 1: conditioned stadiums because temperatures and guitar get quite hot in
Speaker 1: the summer. One proposed solution is a very bizarre flying machine,
Speaker 1: essentially a large roof that hovers over the stadium, powered
Speaker 1: by solar cells down washed from the propellers. Keeping the
Speaker 1: roof aloft would provide a cooling effect in this approach.
Speaker 1: When you look at it, you immediately start wondering about
Speaker 1: the safety of this whole idea. Nonetheless, it is interesting
Speaker 1: to think about it, and it would be the world's
Speaker 1: largest hoverboard. If you google Interesting Reading seven twelve, you
Speaker 1: can get its details. It's hard to believe, but it's
Speaker 1: been two weeks since Japan's giant earthquake tsunami nuclear disaster
Speaker 1: hit the island nation. Many of the nation's roads and
Speaker 1: systems are coming back online now. Early estimates for repairing
Speaker 1: and replacing all the damage are hovering around two fifty
Speaker 1: billion dollars, and it's been discovered that about twenty seven
Speaker 1: thousand people have died in this catastrophe. The nuclear meltdown
Speaker 1: scenario also seems to be under control. There's an article
Speaker 1: in Nature magazine this week that describes some of the
Speaker 1: unbelievable steps taken inside the plant that prevented it from
Speaker 1: being an even bigger disaster. It really is amazing some
Speaker 1: of the things that these people thought of and did
Speaker 1: in order to keep these reactors cooled down. If you
Speaker 1: go to Interesting Reading number seven twelve, you can get details.
Speaker 1: The Apple iPad also went on sale the same day
Speaker 1: that Japan's earthquake hit. Now manufacturers are showing new tablets
Speaker 1: that hope to compete with Apple's flagship machine. The Galaxy
Speaker 1: Tab from Samsung has been updated and comes in two sizes.
Speaker 1: These tablets seem to beat the iPad two in every
Speaker 1: spec category. They're thinner and lighter, they have better displays,
Speaker 1: they have better cameras, they allow you to plug in
Speaker 1: st memory cards, and they run Android Honeycomb. The pricing
Speaker 1: is identical to the iPad too, and then there's Rims
Speaker 1: new playbook tablet with similar respects and similar pricing. It
Speaker 1: looks like the Apple iPad two could have some major
Speaker 1: competition this summer. If you google Interesting Reading seven twelve
Speaker 1: you can get details. There's been a lot of talk
Speaker 1: this week about cell phones turning into wallets. This movement
Speaker 1: has been underway for some time in Japan and some
Speaker 1: other countries, but it's easy to imagine it happening in
Speaker 1: the US as well. Your phone would have a near
Speaker 1: field communication chip and there are rumors that the iPhone
Speaker 1: five may contain this chip. You hold your phone near
Speaker 1: a payment terminal and the transaction happens automatically between the
Speaker 1: phone and the terminal. Given that the technology is already
Speaker 1: deployed in other countries, you might wonder what's holding it
Speaker 1: up in the United States. If you guessed money and
Speaker 1: arguments over money amongst the entrenched corporate players, you are correct.
Speaker 1: Existing credit card companies and banks which handle all credit
Speaker 1: at card transactions now want their money, and the smartphone
Speaker 1: carriers now on a piece of the action as well,
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. You've heard of this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff before. Ignoring this clash of the titans, the technology
Speaker 1: is really interesting, and you can google interesting reading seven
Speaker 1: twelve to learn more. Which type of energy causes the
Speaker 1: most deaths? After the disaster in Japan this past couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, nuclear isn't looking so good at the moment,
Speaker 1: but nuclear just does not cause very many deaths in
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of things. In fact, from a death standpoint,
Speaker 1: nuclear is the safest energy source available, even after counting
Speaker 1: the nine thousand deaths attributed to Chernobyl. Natural gas is
Speaker 1: second hydro, and here Hydro is weighed down by a
Speaker 1: huge damn collapse that happened in China and killed over
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand people several decades ago. Is third, if
Speaker 1: you ignore that big tragic event, hydro is pretty safe.
Speaker 1: And then there's coal, which is by far the most
Speaker 1: dangerous because of all its emissions. If you see interesting
Speaker 1: Reading seven twelve, you can learn more about these different
Speaker 1: energy options and the number of deaths they cause. Speaking
Speaker 1: of deaths, who is the worst enemy of birds? Is
Speaker 1: it windmills whose giant blades knocked birds out of the sky. No?
Speaker 1: Is it big living room windows and sliding glass doors,
Speaker 1: which birds seem to run into with surprising frequency. No
Speaker 1: Is it cars which run into birds at sixty miles No, No,
Speaker 1: it is house cats. Now you might wonder how scientists
Speaker 1: figured this out. They did it by attaching tiny radio
Speaker 1: transmitters to birds and then waiting for the birds to die.
Speaker 1: Some estimates put the total bird kill due to cats.
Speaker 1: We might call this a catastrophe at half a billion
Speaker 1: birds per year. Now, when you consider that there's only
Speaker 1: three million people in the United States, we're talking about
Speaker 1: almost twice as many birds dying every year just due
Speaker 1: to cats. Wind turbans kill one one thousand that number.
Speaker 1: But think about the giant uproar that occurs when windmills
Speaker 1: kill anything. Probably a lot of the people who cause
Speaker 1: those uproars are cat owners. Anyways, see interesting reading seven
Speaker 1: eleven for details. Think about all the spam you get,
Speaker 1: where does it come from? One source is bot nets.
Speaker 1: People let their machines get infected with viruses or trojans,
Speaker 1: and then their machines start sending spam. Millions of machines
Speaker 1: have been infected in this way, and that's why there's
Speaker 1: so much spam that's being produced. One of the biggest
Speaker 1: spam producers is known as rust Stock, producing more than
Speaker 1: half of the world's spam, and it got decapitated this week.
Speaker 1: Microsoft was a big player in the decapitation of rusts Stock,
Speaker 1: and so was Fiser. You know all that viagrasas spam
Speaker 1: you get, Yeah, Well, Fiser, the maker of VIAGRAA, isn't
Speaker 1: so keen on that. So the decapitation was an important
Speaker 1: milestone event for lots of different people. Decapitation means that
Speaker 1: a handful of computers that controlled the botan net needed
Speaker 1: to be disconnected from the infected machines, and this was
Speaker 1: done by eliminating domains and blocking certain IP addresses. It's
Speaker 1: actually a really fascinating world involving a lot of illicit money.
Speaker 1: If you go to Interesting Reading number seven eleven you
Speaker 1: can get the details on this. There was a new
Speaker 1: bicycle created this week that is unique for at least
Speaker 1: two reasons. First, it's made completely out of plastic nylon
Speaker 1: to be exact, and second, almost the entire thing was
Speaker 1: printed on a three D printer. Also fascinating is the
Speaker 1: fact that everything except the chain and the tires and
Speaker 1: everything here means axles, ball bearings, pedals, seats, handlebars, and
Speaker 1: so on, we're all printed as a single object. The
Speaker 1: process is called additive layer manufact lecturing. The best part
Speaker 1: is that the bike is about a third lighter than
Speaker 1: metal bikes. It means that manufacturing has the potential to
Speaker 1: get quite a bit simpler, especially on low run parts
Speaker 1: and assemblies. If you see Interesting Reading number seven eleven,
Speaker 1: you can find photos in a description of the process.
Speaker 1: Firefox four came out this week. There are about ten
Speaker 1: million people per day downloading the new version of this
Speaker 1: browser right now if you haven't seen it yet. There
Speaker 1: are two features called Panorama and sink that are especially interesting.
Speaker 1: Panorama lets you organize open web pages into groups so
Speaker 1: that's easy to retrieve them. Sink lets you put everything
Speaker 1: about your copy of Firefox up in the cloud, all
Speaker 1: your open pages, your favorites, your passwords, everything and access
Speaker 1: at all from any machine. These two things together make
Speaker 1: for a great browser experience. If you google brain stuff
Speaker 1: Firefox four, you can get details and see how many
Speaker 1: copies are being downloaded every minute. Interesting reading Number seven
Speaker 1: ten has a lot of cool stuff in it, but
Speaker 1: two things deserve special recognition. The first is a camera
Speaker 1: so tiny that it should be able to go inside
Speaker 1: your body. Imagine a cube measuring one millimeter on each side.
Speaker 1: That's about the size of this camera. It's also so
Speaker 1: inexpensive that it's disposable. The article contains this quote. If
Speaker 1: you think about very very small cameras, you will find
Speaker 1: dozens of applications end quote. For example, you can stick
Speaker 1: this camera into almost any human orifice. You can look
Speaker 1: at all kinds of tight places in cars. You can
Speaker 1: poke it into nooks and crannies of a house by
Speaker 1: drilling very small holes. You can use it to monitor
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff that really would have been hard
Speaker 1: to monitor previously, either because of the size or the
Speaker 1: cost of the camera. The other article is about a new,
Speaker 1: very inexpensive way to make quite led. These l eds
Speaker 1: can be made using normal silicon wafers rather than any
Speaker 1: kind of exotic process, meaning the price can drop by
Speaker 1: more than a half. If they can scale this technology up,
Speaker 1: it could mean cheap LED light bulbs could arrive a
Speaker 1: lot quicker than expected. Google Interesting reading seven ten for details.
Speaker 1: So to wrap up this week, I'm gonna end with
Speaker 1: Rebecca Black because I wrote an article about her this
Speaker 1: week that's gotten a lot of traffic. The article is
Speaker 1: answering this question, how did Rebecca Black make her music
Speaker 1: video and how much money has that video generated. This
Speaker 1: question came up because I have a preteen daughter and
Speaker 1: she wanted to know if she could make a video
Speaker 1: like this. A little research reveals that Rebecca's mother paid
Speaker 1: about two thousand dollars to a place called Arc Music
Speaker 1: Factory to produce that video, in much the same way
Speaker 1: you might pay a hundred dollars to glamour Shots to
Speaker 1: have a fashion model photo shoot experience. If you mute
Speaker 1: the sound on Rebecca Black's video and just watch the
Speaker 1: video itself, you can see that this is an extremely
Speaker 1: credible video, with over a hundred shots and over a
Speaker 1: dozen locations, all cut together very professionally. Rebecca also looks
Speaker 1: very professional and almost all of the shots, and many
Speaker 1: of these shots have other actors moving and or interacting
Speaker 1: with her. In other words, they didn't just do this
Speaker 1: in an hour. They had to do repeated shots and
Speaker 1: a lot of work to make this thing happen. Off
Speaker 1: of this video, they've made tens of thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: off the ads on the YouTube side, and then by
Speaker 1: selling it on iTunes, they've made something approaching two million
Speaker 1: dollars more from the iTunes royalties. The whole thing is amazing,
Speaker 1: and it points to two things. First, the amount of
Speaker 1: money that can be made by a video that goes viral,
Speaker 1: and the ability to take a viral video like this
Speaker 1: one and make money off of it in several different
Speaker 1: kind of synchronized ways. It also says that within the
Speaker 1: next couple of months we should see a huge number
Speaker 1: of companies producing these little videos popping up at all
Speaker 1: kinds of places in the same way that glamour shots
Speaker 1: spread all across the country. Once people realized how much
Speaker 1: they enjoyed this whole fashion model photo shoot experience. Every
Speaker 1: teenager theoretically will be begging for one of these little
Speaker 1: music videos. If you google brain Stuff Rebecca Black, you
Speaker 1: can learn more about this whole process. So that's it
Speaker 1: for this week. Have a great weekend, and if you
Speaker 1: want to look up any of this stuff, you can
Speaker 1: google interesting reading numbers seven seven, seven hundred twelve or
Speaker 1: seven hundred thirteen. Thanks for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does that house stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: And don't forget to check out the brain stuff blog
Speaker 1: on the house stuff works dot com home page. You
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Speaker 1: it today on iTunes.