Communications

Five hundred years ago there was no telephone. No telegraph, for that matter. There was only a postal system that took weeks to deliver a letter. Communication was only possible in any fluent manner between people living in the same neighborhood. And neighborhoods were smaller, too. There were no cars allowing us to travel great distances in the blink of an eye. So the world was a bunch of disjointed groups of individuals who evolved pretty much oblivious to what happened around them.

I have written several articles on network communications on this blog site as well as on other sites, describing its e

Welcome to 2013 and our first headlines posting of the year. This week's stories include:

• Mars Rover Approaches Ninth Anniversary on the Planet and is Still Ticking
• Study Correlates Climate Change with Increased Episodes of Volcanism

Here we are in the last week of 2012 with another 88 years before we see the end of the current century and I am one of those who is hopeful that we have the tools to make the world by then a much better place for all of humanity and the biodiversity that surrounds us.

This week's five stories look at:

• New 3D Display Represents Advance in Augmented Reality;
• More Evidence that Fracking Causes Earthquakes;
• Seeding the Ocean to Sequester Carbon a Non-Starter;
• New Microscale Actuator Provides Engine for Micro Robots;

This infographic, provided by Cisco, shows just how quickly the Internet of things has grown since 1988, when Xerox PARC chief technologist Marc D. Weiser first conceived of ubiquitous computing. Weiser saw a future populated by smart objects, a web of sensors on everyday items better connecting us to our environment and our environment to the Internet. Today, Cisco says that more than 13 billion devices are net-connected and there will be 50 billion by 2020.

This is what the Internet of Things looks like today.

Hold a mobile phone and you hold a piece of the biggest technological and learning platform in history—and incidentally, it’s a platform that’s revolutionizing life in general around the world.