Project Loon balloons float in the stratosphere, twice as high as airplanes and the weather. They are carried around the Earth by winds and they can be steered by rising or descending to an altitude with winds moving in the desired direction. People connect to the balloon network using a special Internet antenna attached to their building. The signal bounces from balloon to balloon, then to the global Internet back on Earth.

Project Loon balloons travel around 20 km above the Earth’s surface in the stratosphere. Winds in the stratosphere are generally steady and slow-moving at between 5 and 20 mph, and each layer of wind varies in direction and magnitude. Project Loon uses software algorithms to determine where its balloons need to go, then moves each one into a layer of wind blowing in the right direction. By moving with the wind, the balloons can be arranged to form one large communications network.  Read more : Google Loon

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BioDigital Human 2.0: Explore the Human Body in 3D! A better way to understand health and the human body. The BioDigital Human PlatformTM is a virtual 3D body that brings to life thousands of medically accurate anatomy objects and health conditions in an interactive Web-based platform. The human body revealed, all in interactive 3D.  Explore anatomy and disease, create and share custom views, and learn about your health.

FOR EDUCATION

The BioDigital Human PlatformTM gives students and professionals powerful tools for learning anatomy, conditions, and treatments. Rich, interactive and social tools built on the virtual body platform make learning fun and simple.

FOR BUSINESS

Visualize the value of your products within the human body. The BioDigital Human PlatformTM provides a cost-effective, cutting-edge way for pharma and medical device sales teams, marketers, and providers to connect with each other and engage with your products. 

Source : Bio Digital Human

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It’s your turn to change the world. Google is looking for extraordinary ideas, and we’re eager to see what your child comes up with. This is a great opportunity for teenagers to explore ideas they’re passionate about, learn about science, and maybe produce a world-changing idea.  Read more: Google Science Fair

For the past two years, thousands of students from more than 90 countries worldwide have submitted research projects that address some of the most challenging projects we face today. This being the largest online science fair in the world, prizes are pretty big themselves. The grand prize includes a National Geographic Expedition to the Galápagos Islands. National Geographic Explorers T.H. Culhane and Enric Sala are among the renowned panel of scientists that will serve as Science Fair judges.   Google Science Fair 2013 – OFFICIAL RULES

The Get Inspired section includes info about previous winners’ projects and profiles of famous scientists who created world-changing innovations at very young ages. You’ll find lots of great resources from Science Buddies, too.

Each year, Google is transformed into a mini “Palais de Decouvertes”, an “Innoventions Pavilion” where the most extraordinary discoveries are revealed to the world, from simple water purification and hydroponics systems that anybody can build, re-designs for toilets and new ways to monitor air pollution on land and biodiversity in water, to high tech solar trackers, rotational 3D imaging devices, ways of sensing music through touch and neural networks to detect breast cancer, to name just a few from last year.  Read more…

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Most 12-year-olds love playing videogames — Thomas Suarez taught himself how to create them. After developing iPhone apps like “Bustin Jeiber,” a whack-a-mole game, he is now using his skills to help other kids become developers. (Filmed at TEDxManhattanBeach.)

Thomas Suarez’s interest in technology and programming led him to learn Python, Java, and C “just to get the basics down.” He built an app and then coaxed his parents into paying the $99 fee to get his app, “Earth Fortune,” in the app store. Thomas also started an app club at school to help other kids build and share their creations, and is now starting his own company, CarrotCorp.

Thomas Suarez, a 12 year old, taught himself to build iphone apps. Full bio »  

Other Speakers @  TED – Ideas Worth Spreading

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Seven Strategies for Highly Effective New Year’s Resolutions

Change is difficult, yet as hard as it is, everyone has the ability to make and keep meaningful changes in their life, regardless of their age, or how well worn their habitual ways of engaging in the world. Whether you like to make them or not, research has found that people who make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.

Yet as you know, it’s not so easy to keep your resolve as life returns to normal and your old habits of mind and action start testing your resolve and pulling you away from the new ones you resolved to create. 7 Strategies for Highly Effective New Year Resolutions:

1. Know Your Why
2. Be Specific
3. Don’t Just Think It, Ink it!
4. Design Your Environment
5. Narrow Your Efforts
6. Focus On The Process
7. Forgive Your Failures

Read more ……

A New Year’s resolution is a commitment that a person makes to one or more personal goals, projects, or the reforming of a habit. A key element to a New Year’s resolution that sets it apart from other resolutions is that it is made in anticipation of the New Year and new beginnings. People committing themselves to a New Year’s resolution generally plan to do so for the whole following year. This lifestyle change is generally interpreted as advantageous.

Popular goals

Some examples include resolutions to donate to the poor more often, to become more assertive, or to become more environmentally responsible.

Popular goals include resolutions to:

• Improve well-being: lose weight, exercise more, eat better, drink less alcohol, quit smoking, stop biting nails
• Improve finances: get out of debt, save money
• Improve career: get a better job
• Improve education: improve grades, get a better education, learn something new (such as a foreign language or music), study often
• Improve self: become more organized, reduce stress, be less grumpy, manage time, be more independent, perhaps watch less television, play fewer sitting-down video games
• Take a trip
• Volunteer to help others, practice life skills, use civic virtue, give to charity
• Get along better with people
• Making new friends
• Spend More Time with Family & Friends
• Fit in Fitness
• Tame the Bulge
• Quit Smoking
• Enjoy Life More
• Quit Drinking
• Learn Something New
• Help Others
• Get Organized

The nature of New Year’s resolutions has changed during the last decades, with many resolutions being more superficial and appearance-oriented than in previous times. At the end of the 19th century, a typical teenage girl’s New Year’s resolution was focused on good works: she resolved to become less self-centered, more helpful, a more diligent worker, and to improve her internal character. Body image, health, diet, and desired possessions were rarely mentioned. At the end of the 20th century, the typical teenage girl’s resolution is focused on good looks: she wants to improve her body, hairstyle, makeup, and clothing.

New Year’s Eve has always been a time for looking back to the past, and more importantly, forward to the coming year. It’s a time to reflect on the changes we want (or need) to make and resolve to follow through on those changes.  Read more ……

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Power Outage

A power outage (also power cut, blackout, or power failure) is a short- or long-term loss of the electric power to an area.

There are many causes of power failures in an electricity network. Examples of these causes include faults at power stations, damage to electric transmission lines, substations or other parts of the distribution system, a short circuit, or the overloading of electricity mains.

Power failures are particularly critical at sites where the environment and public safety are at risk. Institutions such as hospitals, sewage treatment plants, mines, and the like will usually have backup power sources such as standby generators, which will automatically start up when electrical power is lost. Other critical systems, such as telecommunications, are also required to have emergency power. Telephone exchange rooms usually have arrays of lead-acid batteries for backup and also a socket for connecting a generator during extended periods of outage. Source: Wikipedia

There are two ways of looking at the question, “What would happen if there was no electricity”.

First….

What if electricity didn’t exist?

• Well, the universe literally would not exist as we know it, because electricity is streams of electrons, and without electrons, compounds (and thus most matter) wouldn’t exist.

• If electricity (electromagnetism) did not exist the universe would not exist, since EM forces are an integral component of the (commonly accepted) standard model.

Second…

What if humans didn’t know how to use electricity?

• We didn’t know how to use it for most of our history, so I imagine we’d revert to a mid-1800′s society, where machines were steam powered and we had to read for personal entertainment.
• We wouldn’t be able to watch TV, go on the computer, talk on the phone.
• We’d have to play games outside, and use our imaginations more, like they did in historical times.
• Parents wouldn’t be able to punish by taking away computers or cell phones because neither would run anyway.
• Imagine cold showers or baths; no microwave; no cold drinks in summer; even worse no air conditioning and no cars (Cars need electricity to run the fuel ignition system.)
• One could heat water on the stove (probably a wood stove, hot, sweaty, and smokey, why many old kitchens were walled off from the rest of the house). But, you didn’t prohibit using Natural Gas for Hot water, or for the stove. One can even run an absorption refrigerator on Natural Gas or Propane, or anything that would run a compressor could run a freon based refrigerator. With a little imagination one could use a solar hot water heater too.
• Transport would be steam-driven, animal-driven or human-powered. You’d have a bicycle, a horse-drawn carriage or you’d just walk everywhere you went, and you’d go long distances by train. By now someone would have invented the horseless carriage, which would run on either a small boiler or maybe a diesel engine–diesels don’t need electricity to run, and you can rope-start them if you have to.
• Remember the old cars had cranks out front. You’d get outside rain or shine and pull on the crank and hope it started… and pull again. Presumably this would also work with Diesel engines without any electricity, but the increased compression would make them a pain to crank to start. Glow plugs, of course, wouldn’t work so you’d have to compensate with higher compression. I believe some Diesel engines use pneumatic starters, or perhaps you could use a pony-engine setup like the old caterpillars.
• Also, no radio in the car. No electric fans. Probably we would still be using carbide lights on the fenders.
• Everyone dreams about riding horses, right? That would likely be a big part of life
• Lighting would be by flames–candles or lanterns.
• You’d communicate via the mails, or you’d go visiting. Visiting was a very popular form of entertainment in the 1800s, and there were many social protocols–you dressed formally to do it, you made an appointment to visit, you left calling cards in a basket at the front door, and you had a special sitting room that was only used for visiting.
• You’d entertain yourself by playing games, but you’d play with other people. You’d also go to dances, you’d go to church (people weren’t really any more religious then than they are now, but everyone went to church because in a lot of places church was the main form of entertainment).
• Food was generally fresh, or canned, and locally-grown. Meats were almost always smoked. Did you ever read in old Christmas stories about how the children got an orange for a gift? Oranges were special because they were hard to transport, so you might see one a year.
• If you wanted to see a play, you went to a theater. If you wanted to hear music, you went to a concert on the town square, or you had someone in the family who could play, or you knew how to play yourself. A lot of people had pianos or harpsichords, and for the non-rich there were guitars, banjos, fiddles, harmonicas and mandolins.
• Work was all manual. You made things, or you wrote on ledger paper.
• There wouldn’t be any more thirty-second conversations. Women didn’t just run over to a neighbor’s house for a little while–if you wanted to do that, you’d talk to your neighbor across the hedgerow at the edge of your property. If you spent a couple of hours dressing, styling your hair and applying makeup, you’d spend half the night in conversation. And you’d LIKE it! You also wouldn’t be there by yourself–usually people would gather in groups in parlors (living rooms), and discuss all sorts of things.
• No escalators, no elevators, and a lot more would be done by hand. There probably would be a lot less incidence of obesity, and less incidence of adult onset type 2 diabetes.
• Medicine, of course, would be simpler with no MRIs, PET Scans, CAT scans, Maybe simple X-Rays but, no Ultra Sounds. No knowing the sex of your child before it is born.
• No hand held calculators. There were mechanical calculators available, for quite some time, but they were overly large.
• Lastly, you wouldn’t have a computer to be reading this. It would either be typed with a manual typewriter (ker-thunk), handwritten by candle-light or transcribed by monks in some monastery.
• There actually were some early mechanical computing devices… but for a mechanical computer device capable of doing what a modern laptop computer can do, think of something the size of New York City, and still no video screen to look at.
• People would go to bed to sleep at dark (about 8pm) because there isn’t much to do after dark, by candlelight, in shadows. There’d be no outside lights so outdoor activities would be difficult or dangerous.

Source: Answers.com

The ELPIIC 2012 (5th in this series) will be held over 2 day conference, shall be the forum for enhancing strategies, goals and the right culture towards realizing the evaluation of learning as a workable formula for the organizations’ overall performance and productivity improvement. While the 3rd day will be concurrence session with a workshop on the Return on Investment (ROI) Methodology Process Model, and paper presentations by the academia.

Three international renowned speakers, Dr Jack J. Philips, who is the President of International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) USA and the Chairman of ROI Institute, Inc, the mahaguru on accountability, measurement and evaluation, recipient of several awards for his books and works among others ROI; Prof. Ingrid J. Guerra Lopez, of Wayne State University, Detroit, USA; and Bob Morton, Chairman of Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) UK will addressing in Conference. Leading local corporate leaders will also share their experiences in “Transforming Organizations through Integrating the Best Models of Evaluation of Learning with Performance Management”.

Participants in the ROI workshop, will have a first hand discussion with Dr Jack J. Philips, on his ROI Methodology as a critical tool in measuring and evaluating programs in 20 different applications in more then 52 countries. Concurrently more then 100 papers are expected to be presented by the academia.

BENEFITS OF ATTENDING

This Conference is specially designed and participants will gain the following:

• Meet and pose questions to experts on the best approaches of evaluation of learning
• Discover the practicality of implementing Evaluation of Learning for organization improvement from speakers of leading organizations
• Discover how to be innovative in strategizing effective methods of Evaluation of Learning and its linkages with performance management system in your organization
• Create or enhance the culture of continuous measurement through the various Levels of Evaluation and ROI for the development of human capital in your organization
• Be updated on the current trends and future trends of the various methods for Evaluation of Learning.
• Build valuable and permanent network / affiliation with other delegates for future benefits of sharing common knowledge on the best practices of evaluation of learning.

At the end of this Conference / Workshop a focus ROI Network would be launched that later leads to the establishment of the Malaysian ROI Institute with strong collaboration with the ROI Institute of USA under the tutelage of Dr Jack J. Philips.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND 

CEOs, Managing Directors, General Managers, Corporate Planning Managers, Business Managers,Human Resource Manager, HRD / Training Managers, Performance Improvement Managers, Management Consultants, HRM / HRD Executives, Academicians, Students and any individual interested in the field of Human Capital Management and Development.

Diwali (also spelled Devali in certain regions) or Deepavali, popularly known as the “festival of lights,” is a five day festival which starts on Dhanteras, celebrated on thirteenth lunar day of Krishna paksha (dark fortnight) of the Hindu calendar month Ashwin and ends on Bhaubeej, celebrated on second lunar day of Shukla paksha (bright fortnight) of the Hindu calendar month Kartik. In the Gregorian calendar, Diwali falls between mid-October and mid-November.

Diwali is an official holiday in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Malaysia, Singapore and Fiji.

For Hindus, Diwali is one of the most important festivals of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes. For Jains, Diwali marks the attainment of moksha or nirvana by Mahavira in 527 BCE.

The name “Diwali” or “Divali” is a contraction of “Deepavali” (Sanskrit: दीपावली Dīpāvalī), which translates into “row of lamps”. Diwali involves the lighting of small clay lamps (dīpa in Sanskrit: दीप) filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil. These lamps are kept on during the night and one’s house is cleaned, both done in order to make the goddess Lakshmi feel welcome. Firecrackers are burst in order to drive away evil spirits. During Diwali, all the celebrants wear new clothes and share sweets and snacks with family members and friends.

Diwali commemorates the return of Lord Rama, along with Sita and Lakshmana, from his 14-year-long exile and vanquishing the demon-king Ravana. In joyous celebration of the return of their king, the people of Ayodhya, the Capital of Rama, illuminated the kingdom with earthen diyas and by bursting firecrackers.

The festival starts with Dhanteras on which most Indian business communities begin their financial year. The second day of the festival, Naraka Chaturdasi, marks the vanquishing of the demon Naraka by Lord Krishna and his wife Satyabhama. Amavasya, the third day of Diwali, marks the worship of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth in her most benevolent mood, fulfilling the wishes of her devotees. Amavasya also tells the story of Lord Vishnu, who in his dwarf incarnation vanquished the Bali, and banished him to Patala. It is on the fourth day of Diwali, Kartika Shudda Padyami, that Bali went to patala and took the reins of his new kingdom in there. The fifth day is referred to as Yama Dvitiya (also called Bhai Dooj), and on this day sisters invite their brothers to their homes. Read more ……

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• Thursday 18th July – Saturday 20th July 2013
• Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

Call for Presentations:

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference project seeks to investigate and explore all aspects of childhood. The period of life prior to adulthood is one of dramatic change and development of physical, intellectual, psychological, and many other types of characteristics. The nature of childhood and its significance as a separate phase of life, however, is viewed quite differently in different cultures and in different historical eras. This conference will look at all aspects of the experience of childhood as well as the social and cultural perceptions of children and childhood. We encourage submissions on any theme to do with the nature of childhood, including, but not limited to the ones listed below.

1. Definitions of Childhood

• How has the concept of childhood developed over time?
• How is childhood viewed differently across different cultures and eras? Is childhood socially constructed?
• What are the boundaries of childhood? (Are children made to grow up too fast? Are mature people infantilized by definitions of the boundaries of childhood?)
• Is ‘childhood’ a singular category or is it composed of quite distinct multiple categories? How does defining childhood also define adulthood and vice versa?

2. Childhood and Development

• What are the important aspects of physical, psychological, emotional, intellectual, moral, social, etc. development in childhood?
• How do institutions (like schools, medical centres, and even legal systems) effectively nurture the unique developmental needs of children?
• How has our understanding of childhood as a period of development changed over time? Are there ways we are still getting it significantly wrong?

3. Children and Relationships

• What are the dynamics of children’s relationships with their family, peers, and their community?
• How are children’s social relationships either experienced positively or negatively?
• What are the dynamics of children’s relationships with social institutions (like schools and religious organizations)?
• What is the nature of children’s relationships with animals and nature?

4. Perceptions and Depictions of Childhood

• How do adults perceive children and childhood?
• How do they perceive the capabilities, responsibilities, and privileges of childhood?
• How do they perceive their own experiences of childhood? (With nostalgia? embarrassment? amusement?)
• How do children perceive themselves?
• How are children and childhood depicted in academia and in the media such as art, literature, film, television, advertising, etc.?
• Children and literature: what are the characteristics of literature that is “for children?” How did “children’s literature” develop? What role does it play in children’s lives?

5. Children and Society: The Larger World

• Children and education: What issues are the concerning how children are educated?
• Children and leisure: How is involvement in recreational activities (including sports) either beneficial or harmful to children?
• Children and the law: Does the criminal justice system effectively deal with children both as victims of crime and as perpetrators of crime?
• Children and rights: What rights do children have in virtue of being children? To what extent must the choices of children be respected?
• Children and gender: How are children socialized into gender-specific roles? What are the issues and concerns connected to how children form gender and sexual identities?
• What is the nature of children’s relationship to the world of work?
• Children and technology: how does the constantly evolving landscape of technology impact the lives and experiences of children?
• Childhood in transition: how does adolescence bridge the child/adult world and to what extent are adolescents caught in a double-bind of being children and being adults?

The Steering Group welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 11th May 2012.

300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words

E-mails should be entitled: CHILD3 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs:

• Wendy Turgeon: turgeon@optonline.net
• Rob Fisher: child3@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/childhood/call-for-papers/

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Source: Inter-Disciplinary.Net

That’s why Kaspersky Lab experts have come up with ‘hybrid’ protection that combines traditional anti-malware tools with cloud technologies. These cloud protection technologies are based on data gathered within the framework of the Kaspersky Security Network.

Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) brings together millions of users worldwide to detect new threats quickly and determine the reputation of programs and websites. With your consent, information about attempts to infect your computer and suspicious program activity is sent to Kaspersky Lab. This information is immediately processed by the automated expert system and in just 40 seconds data on newly emerging threats and their sources become available to all users of Kaspersky Lab products. A detailed description of the technology involved can be found at: www.securelist.com.

Cloud technologies (KSN) can:

• Provide protection against the very latest threats
• Free up space on the hard disk, as cloud databases are not stored on your computer
• Reduce traffic when updating antivirus databases
• Improve computer performance: cloud-based information means there is no need to analyze all application activity

Source: Kaspersky Security Network (KSN)