Science

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Model of Corporate Networks Could Improve Stability

Because they are so complex, servers at corporate data centers are often stuck running obsolete software on inefficient networks. A new computer model from researchers at MIT could enable IT managers to better monitor their information infrastructure.

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Corporate servers often consist of scores of processors and connections.

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NASA Readies New Type of Earth-Observing Satellite for Launch

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NPP inside a clean room at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

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Traffic Model Uses Human Reason to Understand Crashes

Researchers in Israel have created a traffic-modeling tool that predicts how drivers and pedestrians will react to surrounding events. The simulator could enable city planners and engineers to design safer roads and fix regulation problems.

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SAFEPED could help researchers identify causes of fatal accidents and prevent future crashes before they occur.

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Software as Service: The Next Generation - part 2

Fearing Loss of Control

FEARING LOSS OF CONTROL

One of the challenges many companies considering SaaS face is a loss of control. Jeff Muscarella, executive vice president with spend-management consultancy NPI Financial, says this manifests itself initially during contract talks. The way to avoid being disappointed, he says, is to be very specific about your company’s needs.

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Software as Service: The Next Generation - part 1

When it comes to making the move to SaaS, the question for most organizations isn’t so much “if,” as it is “when”—and “to what extent.”

Sometime last year, it became clear that ClearChoice had a problem. The company’s chain of dental-implant centers was at 29 and counting, testing the elasticity of its disparate IT systems. Each location had its own database fed by site-specific instances of applications—most notably Great Plains ERP software—making it difficult to get any visibility into whether the company was operating at peak efficiency.

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When Scientists Fail, It's Time To Call In The Gamers

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Proteins are incredibly complex, yet tiny — so tiny that conventional imaging techniques often can't capture them.

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Flying Telescope Makes An Out-Of-This-World Find

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The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, known as SOFIA, is a modified Boeing 747 airplane that houses a NASA telescope.

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iPhone Microscope Diagnoses Disease

Researchers recently demonstrated how easy it could be to remotely diagnose disease anywhere in the world by merely snapping a close-up lens onto your iPhone and photographing a sample of blood.

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Pollen (left) and plant stems (middle, right) are shown from an expensive microscope (top) and with an inexpensive add-on lens for an iPhone (bottom).

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Autism Traits Prove Valuable for Software Testing

Smarter software-debugging services are being performed by savants where the intense focus and superlative technical abilities of high-functioning autism shine.

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Oran Weitzberg has a form of high-functioning autism, called Asperger's syndrome, which enables him to happily spend long hours performing software debugging tasks that are stultifying for ordinary programmers.

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Providing Reliable Wireless Communications for First Responders

If you’re in charge of a first-responder operation such as fire, police or utility emergency repair, the last thing you want to deal with is unreliable wireless communications. A young company named Utility Associates has an innovative wireless communication system that provides reliable WiFi connectivity to all approved mobile devices utilized in emergency, utilities and first-responder situations.

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The Rocket mobile communications appliance.