Welcome to The Leonardo Blog. Check back often for news and updates about Utah's newest museum!
EVE returns
Monday, December 27, 2010
Blog entry by Danielle Follett Chard, The Leonardo's intern.Kick off the new year the right way with three days of celebration in downtown Salt Lake City. EVE, Salt Lake's New Year Bash, is just around the corner on Dec. 29-31. The Downtown Alliance says that tens of thousands of party-goers will attend EVE for the "snow on the ground, fire in the sky, music in the air and party in the streets!"
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| EVE 2010 images via EVESLC photo gallery. |
EVE will help you ring in the new year on a high note with events for everyone. On Dec. 30 local bands impersonating KISS, Poison, Ozzy Osbourne, and other iconic bands will compete in the Battle of the Tribute Bands. BounceTown, a huge town of floor-to-ceiling inflatable playgrounds at the Salt Palace, will be open all three days. EVE Air is three days of top skiers and snowboarders showing off their best tricks on a 3-story 50-ton snow mountain over the city streets.
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Image via About Salt Lake City Holiday Events. |
And for those looking to give back this holiday season, eBay It Forward will be returning. Donated items will be auctioned on eBay Jan. 3 and proceeds will benefit the Huntsman Cancer Foundation, Best Friends Animal Society, and Volunteers of America Utah Homeless Youth Resource Center.
Other events include Charlie Chaplin movie screenings, concerts, parties, Laughing Stock Comedy Improv shows, and a massive firework show to start the new year with a bang.
EVE passes are available for purchase and will get you into all three days of events. And if you buy it in advance, you can ride TRAX home for free after the event. (Awesome! No searching for a parking spot. Don't mind if I do...) The pass also acts as a bounceback ticket for restaurants downtown -- bring it with you during the first two weeks of January 2011 for special deals.
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Labels: art, culture, events, locals
E Ink in e-readers
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Blog post by Danielle Follett Chard, The Leonardo's intern.
These days the most impressive libraries aren't found in ivy-covered universities -- a single e-reader can carry thousands of books and weigh a little more than five ounces. Not only do these readers save space in your carry-on, but they are using E Ink, a really fantastic display system that mimics the look of real paper. |
| Amazon's Kindle DX. Image via Amazon.com. |
The e-readers that use E Ink are filled with millions of microcapsules, or tiny positively or negatively charged black and white particles. These particles, which are about the same width as a human hair, are suspended in a clear fluid. When a electric field is applied, the particles move and become visible as black or white areas on the screen. E Ink recently developed color electronic ink that will add life to images and will work even faster than grayscale versions.
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| Diagram of how E Ink works. Image via Organic User Interfaces. |
E Ink displays aren't backlit, which causes less eyestrain and increases battery life. When wireless and 3G is not activated, Amazon says the Kindle can last a full month between charges -- Wired says that's long enough for a space shuttle mission. Do you think the astronauts will be bringing one of these e-books aboard?
E Ink is looking to replicate the look of paper, but researchers at the University of Cincinnati have made a breakthrough in creating e-readers on actual paper through electrowetting. Electrowetting uses an electric field to control colored droplets in order to form text and images. Professor Andrew Steckl and doctoral student Duk Young Kim discovered that paper can serve as a host material for electrowetting devices, which could develop into a more natural and easily disposable paper e-reader. According to Engadget this reader would be fast enough for video but cheap to produce -- about the same price as a magazine.
Labels: science, technology
Upcycled holiday gifts
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Blog entry by Danielle Chard, The Leonardo's intern.
I love seeing new products that rely on old and forgotten materials, a process called upcycling. It seems like there have been quite a few lately, so I pulled them together in a holiday gift guide for you (and here's hoping that once The Leo opens we'll offer similar pieces in our retail shop!). They're all amazing pieces of art (one is even a DIY project), and any of them would make a great gift this holiday season.
The Koostic is a no-electricity-required wooden speaker system that uses the same principles as acoustic guitars. (Subtle noises are amplified when placed over hollow bodies.) The Koostic picks up sound from an iPhone's internal speaker and amplifies it; see it in action in this video.
We're going absolutely gaga over these retro wooden radios. The Magno Radios are hand-crafted in an Indonesian farming village from unfinished, sustainably harvested wood. Not only do they play basic AM/FM stations, but they're MP3 compatible as well. How's that for mixing old-world charm and new-world tech? What's more, a tree is planted for every one used in production.
This bench is created by Deckstool, a company that creates furniture out of broken skateboards. The company was created by Jason Podlaski after his brother challenged him to find a cool way to recycle busted boards. The company makes benches and stools from salvaged decks, but customers can provide their own to add a personal touch.
Which upcycled product would you like to see under your tree?
Labels: culture, round up, sustainability
Leonardo After Hours wrap up
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Blog entry by Danielle Chard, The Leonardo's intern.After Tuesday's Leonardo After Hours on cyber crime, we're hunkering down, feverishly changing our passwords, and casting suspicious glances at everyone. Okay...maybe that's just me. But thanks to the event, we're armed with more information on how to protect ourselves from high-tech crime. The event was filled with details on how criminals are using the latest technology to steal out biggest secrets -- and what we can do to stop them.
The night kicked off with FBI Special Agent Karl Schmae giving us the scoop on secret-stealing around the globe. The information targeted ranges from international espionage (the Russians stole our space shuttle design!) to corporate thievery (everyone really does want KFC's secret recipe.) And although it sounds like a spy movie plot, if you bring your laptop with you while visiting a foreign country, chances are that foreign government will scan and copy your files if you get online at any point.
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| FBI Special Agent Karl Schmae showed the audience pictures of the Russian and American space shuttles...which look suspiciously similar. |
So how do you protect yourself and your computer? Matt Might from the University of Utah's computer science department recommends using crazy-hard passwords (his are over 30 characters long each and all different) and scanning your computer for botnets. Not only do botnets plague you with spam, but they can memorize credit card information from online purchases to sell on the black market. At one point Might guaranteed that most of the audience has these unwelcome intruders on our computers, and he recommended some serious anti-virus/spyware scans.
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| University of Utah Professor Matt Might teaches his students how to hack -- but only if they swear to use their knowledge for good. |
The last presenter was the University of Utah's Dr. John Kircher. Kircher is developing an ocular lie detector that watches for dilating pupils -- a physiological side effect of lying. The new test takes about 30 minutes, as opposed to the traditional polygraph at about 3 hours, and can be more accurate.
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| Dr. John Kircher informs the Leonardo After Hours crowd of his new developments and their potential. |
We also were able to see an aerial surveillance device from Weber State University's Center for Aeronautical Innovation & Development. Imagine seeing that hovering over your house? I'd probably call the National Enquirer to report a UFO sighting...
And if you'd still like to learn more about how to protect yourself from the savviest of cyber criminals head on over to Matt Might's website, where he'll be posting his best tips for keeping your information yours. Thanks for coming, everyone, and we'll see you at our next event on March 8!
Labels: events, Leo After Hours, technology, university, USTAR
Radio tomographic imaging
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Blog entry by Sean Clark, from The Leonardo's education team.The University of Utah drives a lot of innovation in the Salt Lake Valley -- The Leonardo is thrilled to partner with talented people throughout the university, including genetics researchers for a working genetics lab on the floor of the museum. The Leonardo also loves all the attention that the University has gotten lately for its inventive research culture -- the school tied with MIT in producing more start-up companies than any other universities in the country!
One of those start-ups is Xandem, founded by Dr. Joey Wilson, from the Sensing and Processing Across Networks (SPAN) lab within the electrical and computer engineering department. Joey's work pioneered a technique that lets you "see" through a wall -- just like you imagined while playing Superman as a kid -- with something called radio tomographic imaging (RTI).
RTI works by bouncing radio waves around the perimeter of a space. When the waves pass through an object, they lose some of their energy and produce a shadow effect, which then "bounces" back to the user to show a change in density for that object. This is called device free localization. Other products of this type have been around for a while -- radar, anyone? -- but RTI uses inexpensive, readily available technology. That adaptation means that it could potentially be useful for more people at a lower cost.
Xandem's classic example of applying RTI might be a situation where someone needs to quickly tell whether there are people held hostage in a room. Rather than relying on radar, a perimeter of radios could bounce waves through the space and determine how people objects are in the room. Another, less serious application could aid in tracking the patrons of a retail store -- businesses pay good money to know the habits of their customers.
Then, my favorite example is this Halloween application.
Labels: innovation, locals, technology, university
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