Online Cortex Thoughts on Science and Technology

I have just submitted my first Google Gadget.
It is called Bird of the Day, and it simply presents a photo of a new bird species each day. The photo is a public domain image from Wikipedia, and I link back to it so that you can get more information.

Here it is:

You can put it on your iGoogle page by clicking here…

I am going to write a few other versions that will complement my BirdPlanner.com site. The first will be a modification of the above where the user can enter their latitude and longitude to get birds that are present in that locale. That way people can prepare for their birdwatching trips.

I will also try writing one which is a Bird Identification Quiz. It will be a multiple choice quiz. I can vary the difficulty by sampling from birds of the same genus, from the same family, or from the whole set of birds.

This is a fun way for me to become familiar with the computational technology. The google gadget is just an XML file. The tag <Module> identifies it as a Google Gadget.

The remaining XML has three parts:

1. <ModulePrefs>, which encodes the properties of the gadget.
2. <UserPref>, which encodes the user information.
3. <Content>, which encodes the content.

My gadget is pretty straightforward.  There are no User Preferences, so I just have the first and last sections. 

You can look at the xml code here.  You will see that the workhorse of the content section is a php file that emits an html file.  In this case the gadget simply holds a simple web page.

In the future, I will write more details about how all of this works.

Kevin Knuth
Albany NY

Posted under Biology, Birds, Coding, Gadgets, Inventions, Software

Google announced yesterday that they are joining with the X Prize Foundation to sponsor the Google Lunar X Prize which offers $30 Million to the first two privately-funded teams that successfully lands and roves a robotic explorer the lunar surface.  This prize, which is the largest private prize ever, is aimed at creating a global private space race that involves the public in space exploration. 

The recent Ansari X Prize was awarded to Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites who succeeded in launching the first manned reusable private spacecraft into space.  These prizes are motivated by the early prizes in aviation that led to Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic only 80 years ago.

So start aiming at the Moon!

Kevin Knuth
Albany NY

Posted under Entrepreneurship, Exploration, Fun, Intelligent Systems, Inventions, Research, Robotics, Space, Technology, Uncategorized

Google has a relatively new search engine that searches for patents.
This is extremely useful for that entrepreneur involved in patenting his or her ideas.

http://www.google.com/patents

Kevin Knuth
Albany NY

Posted under Entrepreneurship, Internet, Inventions, Research, Solutions, Uncategorized

Here is another note-to-self.

Instead of Googling a web site that allows you to convert units.  Simply type the following into Google:

0 degrees celsius in fahrenheit
373 degrees Kelvin in fahrenheit
36 inches in yards
60 miles in kilometers
21 light-years in parsecs
48 days in fortnights
15 pounds in stones
6 kilograms in pounds
5 newtons in pounds
3 euros in dollars

Note that 6 kilograms in pounds is correct only on Earth, since kilograms is a unit of mass, and pounds is a unit of force.  But Google even knows you are on Earth!!!  Those guys in Mountain View are AMAZING!  What will they think of next…free wireless for all?

Happy converting.

Kevin Knuth
Albany NY

Posted under Fun, General, Internet, Note to Self, Solutions