Dealing with creationism — Crooked Timber
There’s much anger circulating around the blogosphere about the comments of Michael Reiss, Director of Education at the Royal Society about how to deal with creationism and ID in school science classes. In fact, the whole thing could stand as an example of how on some issues (of which this is one) people only want to hear an unequivocal assertion of a party line and get unreasonably annoyed (and purport not to understand what they understand perfectly well) when someone says something nuanced or pragmatic.
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Apple product upgrades loom - Business - Macworld UK
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster thinks Apple will introduce new iPods and new model laptop at a special event in September.
It's not entirely speculation - the analyst observes Apple to have held such an event for the last three years. And while the analyst doesn't expect an iPhone nano or MacBook touch to appear at the show, he does anticipate some major revisions of Apple laptops.
Munster predicts redesigned MacBooks at lower prices, along with a redesigned MacBook Pro.
"We note that the MacBook has had the same design since its launch over two years ago, and the MacBook Pro has had essentially the same design since its launch over 2.5 years ago, which was very similar in design to the PowerBook G4 released over 5.5 years ago," he told clients.
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Design Notebook - Philippe Starck Turns His Attention to Ecology (NYTimes)
The first of his so-called Democratic Ecology products, a line he is developing in collaboration with Pramac, an Italian industrial group, is to be introduced in Europe this fall, and in the United States early next year. It is a miniature rooftop wind turbine, priced between $780 and $1,250, which Mr. Starck said can produce up to 80 percent of a home’s energy.
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10 Green Concept Cars That Are Waaaaay Out There
Practicality is the last thing anyone considers when designing concept cars. A car made of glass? Windows like gun slits? An automakers' lawyers would kill those ideas faster than General Motors is killing Hummer.
But practicality isn't the point. Concept cars are flights of fantasy carrying auto design into the future. Since our future will be a place where a gallon of gas costs more than a gallon of Scotch, the students at Royal College of Art designed their cars that run on things like electricity and algal fuel.
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Team WhiteBoarding with Twiddla - Painless Team Collaboration for the Web
Mark up websites, graphics, and photos, or start brainstorming on a blank canvas. Browse the web with your friends or make that conference call more productive than ever. No plug-ins, downloads, or firewall voodoo - it's all here, ready to go when you are. Browser-agnostic, user-friendly.
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Presentation Zen
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String Ppin Toy - zefrank.com
Create 3D images with a single line
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Scratch
Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.
Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.
Scratch is available free of charge.
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Segway CTO Leaves for Apple as Product Design VP - O'Reilly Radar
Phil Torrone noticed today on the Segway Chat forums that "Doug Field, the chief technology officer at Segway who heads their entire engineering team (and has since Day 1), is leaving Segway to become a VP of product design at Apple." The announcement continues: Doug has been the driving force in making the Segway what it is today and will...
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TED: Ideas worth spreading
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.
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