W00T! BarCamp Karlsruhe Debut auf G+. Ich bin natürlich dabei am 14-15 Juli!

Kennt jemand eigentlich ein Maker-Geek in der Region oder ähnliches? Dass wäre was spannendes…

BarCamp Karlsruhe

Wo Netzkultur lebt.

Yale researchers have now identified the chemical compound that lets mushrooms degrade plastic. It appears, too, that this type of natural fauna was discovered in 1884 in a species of Argentinian ivy [1], but only now do we know what nature's secret is to breaking down plastics.

The next obvious step is finding a way to mass-produce this enzyme – for example, by bioengineering and seeding those 'magic mushrooms' – in order to help clean up our landfills. Definitely a good step forward!

Now for the disgusting part: this strain of plastic-eating mushroom has already been patentented two years ago [2]. Anyone else think we should ban patents on naturally occurring lifeforms?

Further information:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pestalotiopsis_microspora
[2] http://www.surechem.org/index.php?Action=document&docId=3598085&db=USPTO

/via +Carmelyne Thompson 

Recently-Discovered ‘Magic Mushrooms’ Can Eat Plastic – DesignTAXI.com

Recently-Discovered ‘Magic Mushrooms’ Can Eat Plastic – DesignTAXI.com

Partly due to the economic climate, bringing a company onto the stock market – in paeticularly a web tech company – is going to be greeted by skepticism. I'd argue that if there is one exception, MongoDB would be it. The reason is simple: it is nearly unrivaled in its niche, and that niche is growing rapidly with customers willing to pay.

MongoDB is a NoSQL database – rather than focus on defining objects like typical databases do, it focuses on defining relationships. A graph instead of a heierarchy. And that makes a big difference, because it means that the database can scale – from a tiny application with 10 users and not much data to a monster application like facebook with millions of users and much more data.

Given how fast 'going viral' can be a game-changer for the pile of web startups, and essential for any successful web service, you really can't afford to use any other kind of database. That's what MongoDB has, in the meantime, become a specialist in. Just as red hat quickly became the standard for enterprise scale open source operating systems, mongoDB is the emerging standard for open source enterprise scale web databases. Given the direction we are headed as a technically integrated society, that is a good and stable position to be in.

/via +Jack Stanley to

Psst…Here's A Technical Skill That's A Slam Dunk To Get You A Job

The next big thing in cloud software has arrived.

What exactly does an ISO 27001 certification for google apps mean? In my opinion, not enough.

Cloud computing is an area in which you have to trust the cloud platform, infrastructure host, and app developer. So the certification means that the platform is probably okay, but that doesn't make apps based on it any less susceptible to attacks. You're still left to the uncertified whim of the app developers, and whatever they do with the data once it leaves the app engine from the other end. In other words, you can't say anything conclusive about the security of anything based on google apps as a result.

Further, a ISO certification is a purely technical certification. Cloud security has as much to do with policy as it does with technicalities. ISO won't protect you from government, or judicial, inquiries.

That makes for a rather useless certification, don't you say?

/via +Jon Mallin

Google Apps receives ISO 27001 certification

In the early days of the cloud, security concerns were often at the top of business minds as they considered moving to Google Apps. More recently, though, security has become a major reason businesses…

What is the purpose of education? One theory is that it is there to help people get jobs. Another is that it is there to help people become more enlightened beings. Today's education system fails both of those goals, but it looks like that could be changing.

This article highlights Coursera and MITx which both could end up offering quality education, grades, and everything online for free – with a potential revenue being in helping headhunters pick out top candidates. That would be a big improvement and a big win for all parties involved over the current system, and would do what a vocational institution should be doing.

What then remains is the question of what a quality system to make people more enlightened should be – the enlightenment philosophical goal. That shouldn't vanish just because it isn't useful to capitalist commerce – philosophers still could do some good, amid their pie-in-the-sky ideas. After all, that's how democracy was born. But what form does that take in our digital revolution? Is it something like TED? Buddhism-like courses branded under a non-religious label? Or something yet to emerge?

/via +Jack Stanley

Talk about irony – Iran and the USA actually working together on nuclear technology! They appear rot b looking at aneutreonic fission (i.e. not relying on neutrons kicking of chain reactions, the way ITER operates). While still skeptical that there won't be any suspicious deaths involved in this collaboration, I am interested in seeing if the fusion efficiency barrier can be cracked anytime soon.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/25/iranian-team-collaborate-us-nuclear?cat=environment&type=article

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Find out more here · theguardian. 25.05.12. Updated 22.43. Sections; Favourites · Search · World · UK ·…

Excellent post from +Mike Elgan rebuffing several key myths about social media. I would add two additional myths that annoy me considerably in how companies tend to treat social networks:

1. Social media ROI is quantifiable.
Metrics makers claim that everything can be converted into a good, reliable set of metrics that can in turn be converted into expected increase in revenues. Yet I'm not convinced that there is a good metric for social media engagement yet. What would you measure? You could create a Klout-like 'engagement' metric, perhaps based on number of reactions and how long comments are, as well as influence of commenter… Or perhaps even the number of 'positive' words used in the comments… but that still is very difficult to translate into a revenue number. Or does someone have a good metric that i'm just not aware of?

2. Social networks are a great dissemination channel.
Yes, to some extent social networks is used for broadcasting information. But that alone as the purpose of using it is like using a blog to post short twitter-style updates on whether it is sunny or rainy: it misses the effectiveness of the platform. Social networks are a gossip hole – it is where communities of people discuss various things together. Engagement means discussion, not 'liking' – just as town gossippers trade gossip, not just lurk and nod in agreement. So networks are primarily an engagement tool, not a broadcast tool, and needs to be treated as such.

You would have thought that the top copyright owner for takedown requests is the entertainment industry, based on all the media attention they get. Want to guess again?

Google just added a new transparency report on copyright-allegation takedown requests. Top copyright owner for takedown requests sent to Google is Microsoft – with about 25 times more cases than the RIAA, who comes in fourth. Think about that for a moment. What could Microsoft have that is so valuable? Now think about all the patent wars, business models, and so on. There's the hard truth: software protection is a much bigger industry than the entertainment industry. And both of them have sharp-eyed hawks out to attack easy targets for infringement, and both industries are notorious for annoying legal battles that signify a broken system that badly needs to catch up with the times more than anything else.

/via +Bill Slawski

Maybe we are living in the matrix after all… Researchers have figured out how to turn DNA into a sort of flash memory. While you won't be seeing a USB plug into living organisms anytime soon, this type of data storage could be critical in programming small organisms, or even cells, to do what we want them to do – for example, recognizing and attacking cancer.

At the same time, I wonder if current research is underusing the power DNA-based computing organisms have to unleash. We can do more than merely compute data with them; 'flash memory' in DNA could also be used to create proteins in case of 'memory hijacking' by 'saving' a start-code in the middle of one of those memory registers. Or you could make additional registers via in-vitro DNA splicing, and completely ruin someone else's program…

Bioengineers Make DNA Into a Living Flash Drive – IEEE Spectrum

Cellular memory system could bring better control to biotechnology

Pancreatic cancer can now be detected with 90 percent accuracy by dipping an indicator stick in urine. Compared with inaccurate and expensive body scans, this is very sweet. I wonder: can something similar be done for other types of cancer too?

/via +Wayne Radinsky

A Cheap, Accurate Cancer Sensor, Created By A 15-Year-Old

Every year, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair wows us with the ingenuity of high school students. This year’s first place winner is particularly impressive. Jack Andraka, a 15-year-…