The Evolution of Music Consumption: How We Got Here

All Posts, Music / Audio, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Peter Lobner

There is an good survey article on this subject at the following link; tracing the evolution of consumer-oriented media platforms for recorded music from early phonographs through the latest on-line outlets for streaming audio and music videos:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-evolution-of-music-consumption-how-we-got-here/

33-45-cd-640x438

The timeline addressed in the above article starts in 1877 with the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison. A significantly expanded timeline is presented below

Year Music Media Milestone
1877 Thomas Edison introduced the first machine that could both record music and play it back, the phonograph, which initially used a metal foil covered cylinder as the media.
1878 Patent granted for Edison’s phonograph.
1886 Patents awarded to Chicester Bell (cousin of Alexander Graham Bell) and Charles Tainter for an improved phonograph, called the graphophone, which used a hard wax cylinder as the media.
1887 & 1888 Patents granted to Emile Berliner for the gramophone, which played a stamped disc record initially made of “Vulcanite” (hard rubber), holding about 2 minutes of music on a disc typically playing at 72 – 86 rpm
1889 Pre-recorded wax cylinders hit the market, initially running at about 120 rpm, holding 2 – 3 minutes of music.
1890 Shellac flat-disc records introduced, initially 5” diameter, then 7”, 10” and 12”. At 78 rpm, the 10” records held about 3 minutes of music and the 12” records held 4 – 5 minutes of music. The 10” 78 rpm disc became an industry standard in the early 1900s.
1904 Valdemar Poulsen presented a paper on the “arc set” transmitter, which produced continuous sinusoidal wave signals that could be used with analog amplitude modulation (AM) for audio transmissions.
1906 Victor Talking Machine Company introduced the first “Victrola” 78 rpm disc record player.
1906 Lee de Forest invented the three-element (triode) “grid Audion”, which provided the foundation for the development of vacuum tube technology.
1908 U.S. patent granted for the grid Audion.
1908 Pre-recorded wax cylinders with finer grooves introduced, holding 4 minutes of music.
1912 – 1913 Columbia and other manufacturers abandoned the cylinder media format, favoring the disc format. Edison continued manufacturing cylinders until 1929.
1912 – 1917 First amateur broadcasts of music radio at a college radio station in San Jose, CA.
1919 First commercial radio station 1XE, Medford MA, broadcast music.
Early 1920s George O. Squier granted patents for a system for transmission and distribution of signals over electrical lines. This technology became the basis for Muzak, a service for streaming continuous music to commercial customers without the use radio.
1927 First selective jukebox, capable of selecting and playing more than one record, introduced by Automated Musical Instrument Company, later known as AMI.
1928 Fritz Pflumer (Germany) invented magnetic tape for making audio recordings, using paper tape, based on magnetic wire audio recording technology developed in the late 1880s.
1929 Last cylinder-playing phonographs and wax cylinder records manufactured by Edison’s Entertainment Phonograph Division.
Early 1030s Vinyl records introduced, primarily for use by music radio stations. Shellac remained the standard media for retail record albums.
1931 Columbia created the first “long-playing” (LP) 33-1/3 rpm record with features similar to the commercial LP records introduced more than a decade later.
1930s German firms BASF and AEG developed improved magnetic tape and reel-to-reel machine technologies, resulting in the Magnetophon
1933 UK patent issued to Alan Blumlein for stereophonic sound recording and reproduction.
1933 Analog frequency modulation (FM) radio patented.
1936 First concert recorded on magnetic tape: London Philharmonic Orchestra playing in Ludwigshafen, Germany, hometown of the magnetic tape manufacturer BASF.
Late 1930s First analog FM radio stations begin broadcasting, including W8HK (Buffalo, NY); W1XOJ/WGTR (Paxton, MA).
1944 Ampex Electric and Manufacturing Company founded; acquired German Magnetophon reel-to-reel recorders and BASF magnetic tape.
1947 The Bing Crosby Show was the first pre-recorded TV show, using AMPEX Model 200 tape recorders, setting the stage for widespread use of magnetic tape technology for recording and delayed broadcasting by TV & radio stations
1947 Transistor invented; enabled later transistor radios and a host of other music delivery platforms.
1948 Columbia Records introduced commercial 12” 33-1/3 rpm “micro-groove” vinyl LP records holding about 22 minutes of music, which soon became the standard for albums.
1949 RCA introduced the 7” 45 rpm “micro-groove” vinyl record holding 8 minutes of music, which soon became the standard for singles.
1949 First pre-recorded music albums on ¼” reel-to-reel magnetic tape introduced in the U.S.
1950 Seeberg Corporation introduced the first jukebox for 45 rpm vinyl records.
Early 1950s RCA Victor and EMI (UK) start selling pre-recorded music albums on ¼” reel-to-reel magnetic tape.
1952 – 1954 New York City’s WQXR initiated its first stereophonic broadcasts in October 1952, and by 1954, was broadcasting all of its live music programs in stereo, using its AM and FM stations for the two audio channels (and requiring the listener to have two radios).
1954 First commercially-produced transistor radio, the Regency TR-1, introduced by Texas Instruments and Industrial Development Engineering Associates.
1955 First transistor car radio, Chrysler Mopar 914HR.
1955 Last commercial-volume 78 rpm records produced.
1957 Audio Fidelity Records released the first mass-produced stereophonic record. Side 1: Dukes of Dixieland; Side 2 railroad and other stereo sound effects.
1958 Mass-produced stereo record albums released by many record companies. Affordable magnetic pickup cartridges for stereo phonographs also became available (price dropped by a factor of almost 10).
1958 RCA introduced a short-lived, not-so-compact (5” x 7”) cassette tape cartridge and player, which disappeared from the market in 1964 when a smaller tape cassette format was introduced.
1961 GE and Zenith FM stereophonic broadcasting systems (theoretically identical) were formally approved by the FCC as the standard stereo FM broadcasting method in the U.S.
1963 Phillips introduced the compact cassette tape, which they licensed free of charge.
1964 Compact cassette tape players / recorders, including some portable models, started becoming commonplace, eventually with about 85 manufacturers worldwide.
1964 Bill Lear introduced the 8-track tape cartridge and player for home audio and automotive use.
early-1970s Sales of music on ¼” reel-to-reel tape media rapidly declined after introduction of smaller tape cassette / cartridge formats.
1979 Sony introduced the Walkman compact portable compact cassette tape player.
1980 Digital compact disc (CD) format standardized.
1981 First popular album released on CD: ABBA, The Visitors.
1981 Video channel MTV (originally an initalism for Music Television) launched in the U.S.
1984 Sony introduced the Walkman compact portable CD player.
1984 Columbia House final release of music on ¼” reel-to-reel tape media. Low-volume audiophile market for recordings in this media continued.
Late 1980s Standards for digital radio transmission defined.
1991 Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) standard for digital audio (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III) finalized.
1991 File extension .mp3 introduced for digital audio files.
1992 Sony introduced the short-lived MiniDisc (later supplanted by mp3 players).
Early 1990s 2G digital cellular phone services introduced, including the ability to access media content on mobile phones.
Early 1990s Two digital audio tape formats, Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) and Digital Audio Tape (DAT) were introduced, but failed to sell in large quantities and never replaced analog cassette tapes.
1993 First band to perform live in the internet: Severe Tire Damage, playing at Xerox PARC.
1995 DVD and DVD-ROM introduced.
1995 Microsoft introduced a media player application that allowed streaming on personal computers (PCs), but only in a proprietary digital file format.
1996 – 1997 First portable mp3 players were released, capable of holding a relatively small number of songs (6 – 12 songs in the early mp3 players).
1997 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format standardized; intended as a replacement for mp3.
1998 Improved digital format, MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, standardized.
1998 Digital Media Copyright Act (DCMA) signed into law.
1998 The first downloadable content sold to 2G mobile phones was the ring tone.
1998 The firm Compact Disc Data Base (CDDB) was formed to maintain and license an Internet-accessible database containing information about the contents of audio CDs and vinyl records. The digital track identification service also supports mp3 files.
1999 Microsoft and Apple introduced streaming digital media player applications (Microsoft Media Player for PCs, and Apple QuickTime initially for Macs) capable of handling several standard digital file formats.
2000 Pandora internet streaming digital radio service introduced and also started the Music Genome Project to support customization of the user’s music experience with Pandora.
2000 The firm Compact Disc Data Base (CDDB) was renamed Gracenote. Apple, Sony, and others use Gracenote Track ID services.
Early 2000 Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing web sites, such as Napster, proliferated, and many raised digital copyright issues that led to digital piracy lawsuits from the music industry.
2001 Apple introduced iTunes and the iPod, with a 5 GB hard drive capable of holding about 1,000 songs.
2001 First commercial 3G digital cellular phone services introduced (in Japan); included better support for streaming.
2001 XM satellite digital radio service began in the U.S.
2002 FCC selected the digital radio transmission standard for the U.S.: HD Radio, which is a trademarked term for a proprietary in-band-on-channel (IBOC) digital technology that can be used by AM and FM radio stations.
2002 Sirius satellite digital radio service began in the U.S. (4 months after XM).
2003 Apple opened the iTunes Store (originally iTunes Music Store), which is an on-line digital music retail outlet integrated with the iTunes application. This was Apple’s entry into the music sales business and offering a new music sales paradigm: complete albums or individual tracks of an album, all in AAC format.
2007 Apple introduced the iPhone, starting a smart phone revolution and increasing the popularity of streaming and applications on mobile devices.
2007 Merger of satellite digital radio service providers formed SiriusXM.
2008 Pandora Mobile introduced to deliver personalized digital internet radio service to mobile devices.
Around 2009 4G digital cellular phone services introduced, including greatly improved media streaming capability.
2012 Apple reported 350 million iPods sold thru September 2012, but sales were slowing due to the availability of similar music capabilities on smart phones and other mobile devices.
2013 MySXM debuted, providing a personalized interactive online satellite digital radio experience.
Now Customizable streaming media sites are increasing in popularity and streaming surpasses digital music sales, which have been in decline for several years. Pandora, iHeartRadio, iTunes Radio, and Spotify currently are the top four music streaming sites in the U.S.
Now A great percentage of Americans still listen to AM / FM radio (91% in 2013), which allows an easy listening experience without having to create (i.e., no music libraries, playlists, or user preference customization).
2017 Norway plans to be the first nation to end analog FM radio broadcasts. It will transition to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) as a national standard.
Future Possible “Zero User Interaction (Zero-UI)” music players that can deliver a customized, varied music listening experience based sensing current activities and other parameters, none of which require user interaction. This won’t be for everyone.
Future There will still by music aficionados who will choose their own music delivery platform, content, and venue for their own unique music experience.

Will Your Job Be Done By A Machine?

All Posts, Automation & autonomous systems, Computer Technology, ,

Peter Lobner

In September 2013, University of Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne published a paper entitled, “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerization?”. In this paper, they estimated that 47% of total U.S. jobs have a high probability of being automated and replaced by computers by 2033. Their key results are summarized in the following graphic.

Frey & Osborn key results-2013 paper

You can download their paper for free at the following link:

http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/futuretech.ox.ac.uk/files/The_Future_of_Employment_OMS_Working_Paper_0.pdf

On 5 Feb 2015, Fortune published an article entitled, “5 white-collar jobs robots already have taken.”  This article identifies the affected jobs as:

  • Financial and sports reporters
  • Online marketers
  • Anesthesiologists, surgeons, and diagnosticians
  • E-discovery lawyers and law firm associates
  • Financial analysts and advisors

You can read the complete article at the following link:

http://fortune.com/2015/02/25/5-jobs-that-robots-already-are-taking/

On 21 May 2015, NPR posted an interesting interactive article that provides rough estimates of the likelihood that particular jobs will become automated in the future. The ranking is based on the following factors:

  • Do you need to come up with clever solutions?
  • Are you required to personally help others?
  • Does your job require you to squeeze into small spaces?
  • Does your job require negotiation?

You can try out this interactive site at the following link:

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/21/408234543/will-your-job-be-done-by-a-machine?utm_source=howtogeek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

There is no opportunity to select many technical professions in science or engineering. Nonetheless, the results for the jobs you can select are insightful. Here are a few example screenshots from the above NPR link:

College professor automation

Aircraft mechanic automation.

Bookkeeper automation

Choosing a career is always a complicated process, but these recent studies clearly show that some careers will be marginalized by automation in the relatively near future.

Alpha the Robot Visited San Diego in 1935

All Posts, Engineering, Robotics, , ,

Peter Lobner

Earlier this year, the San Diego U-T newspaper started a series entitled, Balboa Park – 100 Memories, which, on 22 May 2015, presented an article on Alpha the robot, who visited San Diego in 1935 for exhibition during the 1934 – 35 California Pacific International Exposition. Alpha was the creation of British engineering professor Harry May and was first introduced in the U.K in 1932.

Alpha the Robot 1935 U-T

Image source: San Diego History Center, Electric Ivy

Alpha debuted in the U.S. with an appearance at Macy’s department store in New York City in 1934. The November 5, 1934 issue of Time magazine describes a demonstration of Alpha at Macy’s as follows:

 “Last week Alpha, the robot, made its first public appearance in the U. S. One of the most ingenious automatons ever contrived by man, a grim and gleaming monster 6 ft. 4 in. tall, the robot was brought to Manhattan by its owner-inventor-impresario, Professor Harry May of London, and installed on the fifth floor of R. H. Macy & Co.’s department store. Encased from head to foot in chromium-plated steel armor, Alpha sat on a specially constructed dais with its cumbrous feet securely bolted to the floor, stared impassively over the knot of newshawks and store officials waiting for the first demonstration. The creature had a great sullen slit of a mouth, vast protuberant eyes, shaggy curls of rolled metal. In one mailed fist Alpha clutched a revolver.”

Some details of Alpha’s operation were described in the February, 1934 issue of Practical Mechanics magazine, which you can read at the following link:

http://www.davidbuckley.net/DB/HistoryMakers/Alpha1932_files/PracticalMechanics/PracticalMechanics.htm

Practical Mechanics Feb34 cover

Image source: www/davidbuckley.net, see link above

As discussed in the recent U-T, Balboa Park – 100 Memories article, Alpha the robot was exhibited in the Palace of Science (now the Museum of Man) in Balboa Park. The article goes on to say:

 “The 2,000-pound, 6-foot steel giant stood up, sat down, smoked cigarettes, fired a gun and answered questions. Asked if he loved his wife, according to a Feb. 29, 1936, article in the San Diego Sun, Alpha replied, “I’ve a heart of steel. I don’t love nobody and nobody loves me.”

During the California Pacific International Exposition, a performer in a costume similar to Alpha the robot attempted to kidnap Zorine, Queen of the Nudists, from Zoro Garden, a sunken stone grotto originally designed as a nudist colony attraction for the Exposition, near what is now the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center.  Imagine that!

Alpha kidnaps Zorine

You can see a short interview with Alpha the robot at the following link:

http://en.savefrom.net/#url=http://youtube.com/watch?v=a9l9pt_Jzn8&utm_source=youtube.com&utm_medium=short_domains&utm_campaign=www.ssyoutube.com

Alpha the robot must have been very impressive for it’s time. To see what modern robots can do 80 years later, be sure to follow the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Finals to be held 5-6 June, 2015, at Fairplex in Pomona, Calif., outside of Los Angeles. Refer to my 23 March 2015 post for more information of the DRC Finals.

Sea Change: 2015 – 2025 Decadal Survey of Ocean Sciences

All Posts, Ocean Sciences,

Peter Lobner

A new book by the above title has been published by The National Academies Press (NAP).

NAP Sea Change  Source: NAP

As described in the NAP abstract for this book:

In the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is the primary funder of the basic research which underlies advances in our understanding of the ocean. Sea Change addresses the strategic investments necessary at NSF to ensure a robust ocean scientific enterprise over the next decade. This survey provides guidance from the ocean sciences community on research and facilities priorities for the coming decade and makes recommendations for funding priorities.

If you have set up a MyNAP account as described in my 14 March 2015 post, then you can download a pdf copy of this book for free at the following link:

http://www.nap.edu/search/?rpp=20&ft=1&term=sea+change

Stealth Reconnaissance Drone Developed in San Diego by Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical (TRA) in the Late 1960s

Aeronautical, All Posts, , , , , ,

Peter Lobner

The Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical (TRA) Model 154 Firefly, designated AQM-91 by the U.S. Air Force and codenamed Compass Arrow, was a secret unmanned spy plane that was an early adopter of stealth technology. Ryan won the competition with North American Aviation (now part of Boeing) in June 1966 and Model 154 made its first flight in September 1968. It was unceremoniously revealed to the public after an in-flight failure followed by a parachute landing into a picnic area in in an unrestricted part of Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico in August 1969.

The 5,400 pound Model 154 was designed to be carried under-wing and air-launched from a modified C-130 cargo plane and then fly at subsonic speed at an altitude about 78,000 ft. over a range of more than 2,000 miles. The intended mission of the Model 154 was to provide surveillance deep into China.  For this mission, the aircraft was equipped with an Itek KA-80A Optical Bar Panoramic Camera to provide both broad area coverage and high resolution photography over long distances (coverage of an area 1,720 miles long and 43 miles wide). This same camera is used in the U-2 spy plane, and was the basis for the Apollo Panoramic Camera used to survey the Moon’s surface from lunar orbit in the late 1960s.

Stealth features of the Model 154 included: (1) significant use of plastic composites instead of metal, (2) radar absorbent material (RAM) triangular inserts in the wing and tail leading and trailing edges, (3) location of engine inlet and exhaust on the top of the fuselage to reduce radar and infrared signatures when viewed from below, (4) inward-canted vertical fins to reduce radar reflections and help conceal the engine exhaust stream, (5) hot engine exhaust gas mixed with cool air to reduce infrared signature, and (6) likely use of RAM on the engine inlet structure. You can see several of these features in the following Ryan photo of a sub-scale radar cross-section model.

Ryan Model 154 RCS subscale model - SDASM

Photo source: San Diego Air & Space Museum

A total of 28 Model 154s were built, including 20 production machines. The program was cancelled in 1972 after President Nixon visited China and promised to end aircraft reconnaissance overflights of Chinese territory. All Model 154s were put into storage in 1973 and subsequently were scrapped. Total program cost was almost $2 billion in then-year dollars, or about $65 million per unit. This was an early indicator of the rather high cost of developing and deploying a small fleet of stealth aircraft. In current-year dollars, the cost per unit would be almost seven times higher.

Additional information is available in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force fact sheet for the AQM-91 (Model 154), which you will find at the following link:

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet_print.asp?fsID=406

One Model 154 is in display in the Cold War gallery of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, hanging high above the main floor, painted black on all visible lower surfaces, and suspended from the black roof structure.  This aircraft is easy to miss during a visit to the museum. Compass Arrow remains a stealthy aircraft, even today.

Compass Arrow Source: P. Lobner photo

You can find even more information on the Model 154 and some other cold war-era reconnaissance drones at the following link:

http://craymond.no-ip.info/awk/twuav4.html

Update on Supercomputer Performance and Development

All Posts, Computer Technology, , , , , , ,

Peter Lobner

The TOP500 project was launched in 1993 to implement an improved statistical process for benchmarking the performance of large general purpose computer systems and maintain a list of the 500 most powerful general purpose computer systems in the world based on benchmark test results. The TOP500 website is at:

http://www.top500.org

The TOP500 list ranks computers by their performance on a LINPAC Benchmark test to solve a dense system of linear equations. While this performance metric does not reflect overall performance of a given system, the systematic application of this benchmark test provides a good measure of peak performance and enables a meaningful relative ranking.

The TOP500 list is updated in June and November each year. Tianhe-2 (Milky Way), a supercomputer developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology has maintained the top position in four consecutive TOP500 lists with a performance of 33.86 petaflops [PFLOPS; 1015  floating-point operations per second (FLOPS)], using 17.8 MW (megawatts) of electric power. The growth in supercomputer performance over the past 20 years is shown in the following chart:

TOP500 Supercomputer Chart Source: TOP500

You can access the November 2014 TOP500 list at the following link:

http://www.top500.org/list/2014/11/

On 9 April 2015, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $200 million investment to deliver a next-generation U.S. supercomputer, known as Aurora, to the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) near Chicago. Read the DOE announcement at the following link:

http://energy.gov/articles/us-department-energy-awards-200-million-next-generation-supercomputer-argonne-national

Intel will work with Cray Inc. as the Aurora system integrator sub-contracted to provide its scalable system expertise together with its proven supercomputing technology and the HPC (Hewlett Packard) software stack. Aurora will be based on a next-generation Cray supercomputer, code-named “Shasta,” a follow-on to the Cray® XC™ series. Aurora is expected to have a peak performance of 180 petaflop/s. When commissioned in 2018, this supercomputer will be open to all scientific users.

Argonne and Intel will also provide an interim system, called Theta, to be delivered in 2016, which will help ALCF users transition their applications to the new technology to be used in Aurora.

DOE earlier announced a $325 million investment to build new, state-of-the-art supercomputers at its Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore laboratories.

Kurzgesagt Explains the Fermi Paradox: Where are all the aliens?

All Posts, Astronomy, Computer Technology, Engineering, Global Climate, Physics, Power Generating Technology - Nuclear, , ,

Peter Lobner, updated 17 November 2022

Kurzgesagt (German for “in a nutshell“) is a Munich-based design studio with a distinctive perspective on design and animation in the fields of education, science and commerce.  For background information on Kurzgesagt, visit their website here: https://kurzgesagt.org/agency/

You’ll find their YouTube channel with a library of briefings at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q

From here you can navigate to many intriguing and entertaining animated briefings.  Four Kurzgesagt briefings address the following questions regarding extraterrestrial life:

“The universe is unbelievably big – trillions of stars and even more planets. Soo… there just has to be life out there, right? But where is it? Why don’t we see any aliens? Where are they? And more importantly, what does this tell us about our own fate in this gigantic and scary universe?”

I hope you’ll enjoy these Kurzgesagt briefings:

The Fermi Paradox — Where Are All The Aliens? Part 1:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhhvQGsMEc

The Fermi Paradox — Where Are All The Aliens? Part 2:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fQkVqno-uI

The Great Filter:  Why Alien Life Would be our Doom:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM

What Do Alien Civilizations Look Like? The Kardashev Scale:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhFK5_Nx9xY

Aliens under the Ice – Life on Rogue Planets:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7CkdB5z9PY

For more information

San Diego Bioprinter and Cosmetics Firm Team Up to Manufacture Human Skin

All Posts, Engineering, Medical, , , , ,

Peter Lobner

The 20 March 2015 Pete’s Lynx post, “Scalability of 3-D printing (additive manufacturing)”, addressed the use of 3-D printing to manufacture skin for treating burn victims, either by separately manufacturing skin for use in conventional grafts, or by directly printing new skin onto the burn wounds.

A new application for the use of manufactured human skin in cosmetics testing is being explored by San Diego bioprinting firm Organovo Holdings, Inc. and French cosmetics firm L’Oreal. This is the first potential application of this technology in the beauty industry, and it appears to offer an effective means to test new cosmetics and conduct other advanced research while complying with the 2013 European Union ban on animal testing.

The Organovo website is:

http://www.organovo.com

You can read the press release on the partnership between L’Oreal USA and Organovo to develop 3-D bioprinted skin tissue at the following link:

http://ir.organovo.com/news/press-releases/press-releases-details/2015/LOreal-USA-Announces-Research-Partnership-with-Organovo-to-Develop-3-D-Bioprinted-Skin-Tissue/default.aspx?_ga=1.173869475.1464967055.1432334566

The press release states that:

“…the collaboration will leverage Organovo’s proprietary NovoGen Bioprinting Platform and L’Oreal’s expertise in skin engineering to develop 3-D printed skin tissue for product evaluation and other areas of advanced research…… Organovo’s 3D bioprinting enables the reproducible, automated creation of living human tissues that mimic the form and function of native tissues in the body.”

Those of you who watch the BBC TV series Dr. Who may already see another application of this blend of bioprinting + cosmetics technology as a means for maintaining Lady Cassandra, who, after 708 plastic surgeries, has been reduced to a translucent piece of skin stretched across a frame.

Lady_Cassandra Source: Wikipedia

Reflections on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident

All Posts, Power Generating Technology - Nuclear, , ,

Peter Lobner

This new book presents a comprehensive summary of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident from a variety of viewpoints, including technological, organizational, societal, and ethical.

Springer - Fukushima Reflections - cover  Source: Springer

This book is published by Springer Science + Business Media, and you can download a pdf copy this book for free at the following link:

http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-12090-4

Another recently updated source of information on the Fukushima nuclear accident is the World Nuclear Association’s on-line report at the following link:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident/

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) Turns 40

All Posts, Computer Technology, Movie-making & Animation, , , ,

Peter Lobner

When 20th Century Fox approved the production of George Lucas’ first Star Wars movie, the studio had no special effects department and much of the technology eventually used in creating that movie did not exist. George Lucas founded ILM in the summer of 1975 to address this matter, and since then, ILM has been at the forefront of developing, innovating, and applying a broad range of new technologies that have been instrumental in the production of 317 movies and have fundamentally changed the course of the movie-making business.

ILM_logo  Source:  en.wikipedia.org

You’ll find lots of interesting information at the ILM website:

http://www.ilm.com

You can read an excellent oral history, “The Untold Story of ILM, a Titan That Forever Changed Film,” by Alex French and Howie Kahn at the following link:

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/inside-ilm/?utm_source=howtogeek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

French and Kahn conclude:

 “What defines ILM, however, isn’t a signature look, feel, or tone—those change project by project. Rather, it’s the indefatigable spirit of innovation that each of the 43 subjects interviewed for this oral history mentioned time and again. It is the Force that sustains the place.”

 Pixar started in 1979 as an ILM internal project and it evolved into the premier computer animation studio, bringing us feature-length animated movies, including Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars, A Bug’s Life and many more. More than being well-animated, the Pixar movies have excelled in telling meaningful stories through characters that have become part of our modern culture. You may recognize the Pixar logo shown below, with the little lamp, Luxo, Jr.:

Luxo-Logo  Source: Pixar

Disney purchased Pixar in 2006, forming Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. Pixar also is responsible for RenderMan software products that are widely used to manage texture, color, lighting and more in computer animation processes. Find out more at the Pixar website:

http://www.pixar.com

You can scroll through the Pixar timeline from 1979 to the present at the following link:

http://www.pixar.com/about/Our-Story

Movie special effects have come a very long way since Flash Gordon’s spaceship circled a landing site on visible wires, belching rocket exhaust that strangely resembled 4th of July sparklers.