Klout – using data to determine your influence and then give you free stuff

I love this story of Klout founder Joe Fernandez: With his jaw still clamped shut, recovering in his Lower East Side apartment, Fernandez opened an Excel file and began to enter data on everyone he was connected to on Facebook and Twitter: how many followers they had, how often they posted, how often others responded …

Semi-definitive history of ‘online’ Pulitzer Prize winners

Steve Myers, of Poynter, researched these winners for his piece on Why it matters who won the first ‘online’ Pulitzer? Interesting how he breaks down the nature of the work. – Did it appear first in print or online? – Was it created for the web or for print? – How do print and web …

Personal photos of the Space Shuttle Discovery arriving in Washington D.C.

Last week, a friend of mine, Kirby Plessas, witnessed the arrival of Space Shuttle Discovery into Washington D.C. Here are some of the photos she took, see the full set on Flickr.    

Renewable energy production variability by hour of day, and by season (graph)

– …illustrate the variability of wind and solar generation relative to the comparatively smooth output from other generation sources – Power produced by geothermal, biomass, biogas, and small hydro generators can be easily dispatched, meaning it can be either increased, decreased, or controlled to remain fairly constant. – Wind resources are often more available at …

Amazon releases a Kindle competitor to Instapaper, Pocket

There is a booming market for apps that allow you to read while offline. The two most popular of these apps, Instapaper and Pocket, let you save an article for later like on an airplane or in your underground nuclear bunker. Now, Amazon is entering the game by offering the same service for the Kindle. …

Infographic – 20 reasons to switch to Google+

Click for the full infographic.   Ok, this is a pure advertisement for Google+, but I do love the social network. Partially because competition is always good (Facebook needs a kick in the teeth sometimes) and because I’ve never like the blue boxes of Facebook. The design and flow of Google+ works better for me…it feels …

Cadillac releases sophisticated array of semi-autonomous sensors for self-driving cars

Google isn’t the only company working on a self-driving car. Cadillac today announced that it is actively road testing a semi-autonomous system called Super Cruise that can control a vehicle’s steering, braking and lane-centering capabilities. Super Cruise, according to Cadillac, is designed to help make freeway driving easier on the driver when either stuck in …