Noesis noesis is a Greek word meaning understanding as “the ability to sense or know something, immediately”.
Two new improvements to Google results pages.
Today we’re rolling out two new improvements to Google search. The first offers an expanded list of useful related searches and the second is the addition of longer search result descriptions — both of which help guide users more effectively to the information they need.
More and better search refinements
Starting today, we’re deploying a new technology that can better understand associations and concepts related to your search, and one of its first applications lets us offer you even more useful related searches (the terms found at the bottom, and sometimes at the top, of the search results page).
The Australian think-tank, Air Power Australia (APA), has released another in their series of techno-strategy papers, this time analysing the advancements in Russian-built Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS) (http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2009-02.html), and what it means in global strategic terms for the Americans. The APA report is direct and unequivocal – Russian radar and missiles have improved to the point where the US fleet of F-15s, F-16s and F/A-18s, as well as the planned Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), are not capable of surviving against these systems and unless the Americans build another four hundred-plus F-22s, they will lose the strategic advantage they have held since the end of the Cold War.
The result will be nations such as China, Iran and Venezuela thumbing their noses at the Americans, knowing that no President will commit to using force in the knowledge that hundreds of jets and pilots would be lost.
The paper comes a month after APA savaged the JSF (http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html). APA’s Dr. Carlo Kopp, who completed his PhD in radar engineering, simulated the radar signature of the F-35 and showed exactly how vulnerable it will be to the Russian radar systems and missiles that have emerged since the specification for the JSF was drafted over a decade ago. Lockheed-Martin has not publicly disputed Kopp’s findings yet.
The HTS ship propulsion motors offer a range of benefits and advantages for both naval and commercial shipping applications including the following:
• Up to three-times higher torque density than alternative technologies, HTS machines are more compact and lighter in weight. The size and weight benefits make HTS machines less expensive and easier to transport and install, as well as allowing for arrangement flexibility in the ship.
• Absence of iron stator teeth reduce the structureborne noise
• High efficiency from full-to-low speed, boosting fuel economy, sustained speed, and mission range, all key mission parameters for warships.
• Isothermal field winding is well suited for repeated load changes
A typical Navy ship, such as the DD(X) destroyer, needs two propulsion motors, each rated at 36.5 MW, 120-rpm. Such large motors have been built using conventional technology but they are four to five times heavier than the ONR funded 36.5 MW HTS motor being built by AMSC.
This essay examines a particular example of what is known as a ‘Mobile Ad hoc Network’ (MANET) involving smartphones. This MANET would address the following problem:
‘A million and a half people annually ride the New York City subway system, which comprises 468 stations to form the largest subway complex in the world. The diverse human conglomerate of cultures and lifestyles that inhabit NYC’s subway though, share at least one common trend: a lack of mobile coverage – a rather serious, both economical and social, issue. Thus, a daily influx of 5,042,263 potential customers is practically lost for mobile companies. Not to mention the irritating circumstance that in a world of otherwise global communications one is forced to spend significant periods of time without a connection signal.’
The “semantic Web” does not sound like it’s fun and easy to use, but it could make surfing Web 3.0 a more rewarding and interactive experience. Some believe it could even lead to a new form of artificial intelligence.
The idea behind the semantic Web, very broadly, is that things on the Internet will be described with descriptor languages so that computers can “understand” what they are.
An object might be a marked as a car part or a person, for instance. If objects were thus identified, an enormous network of linked data would emerge and machines, with their vast processing speeds, could suggest surprising and useful links that the human mind could never come up with, posing the possibility of a new sort of artificial intelligence.
The semantic Web is considered a key part of the upcoming “Web 3.0.” It’s starting to occur here and there, but widespread adoption is still a long way off.
A pair of German researchers have created an experimental kiosk that lets you easily use semantic Web capabilities — even if you have no idea what they are. All that is needed is an iPhone and a finger with which to drag icons around on the kiosk’s touch screen.
The kiosk takes advantage of the fact that MP3 files are “things” that have already been described in ways that machines can understand. That’s because they have ID3 tags, which supply information on the artist and album.
