These were all too good not to share.
Awesome Projects
“The Lab Discovering DNA in Old Books” on The Atlantic: “Studying the DNA in artifacts is still a relatively new field, with many prospects that remain unexplored. But in our own modern world, we’ve already started to change the biological record, and future archaeologists will not find the same trove of hidden information in our petroleum-laden material culture.”
“Slice a Recipe” video on Vimeo: “Students had to actually cut the book apart in order to see the recipes. They had to follow thin cutting lines. With each slice, they saw what to do in cooking class. They were improving their skills with each page. Cut by cut.”
GoChords: “An easy-to-use tool for writing and playing, with moveable chord symbols for guitar, ukulele and mandolin.”
“Interactive anti-bullying tool Oat the Goat a $334,228 success” on Stuff: “Oat the Goat – the Education Ministry’s new $334,228 interactive anti-bullying tool – has proven such a hit in schools that teachers want more. The digital pick-a-path book is aimed to help children aged four to seven make positive choices in a bullying scenario.”
“Once Upon a Try” on Google Arts and Culture: “A journey of invention and discovery with CERN, NASA, and more than 100 museums around the world”
Augmented Reality (AR) / Virtual Reality (VR)
“AR Will Spark the Next Big Tech Platform—Call It Mirrorworld” on Wired: “The mirrorworld—a term first popularized by Yale computer scientist David Gelernter—will reflect not just what something looks like but its context, meaning, and function. We will interact with it, manipulate it, and experience it like we do the real world.”
“Augmented Reality: “The Ultimate Display” by Ivan Sutherland, 1965” on Wired: A famous essay about emergent technologies. “The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. […] With appropriate programming such a display could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked.”
“Lessons Learned as a VR Developer” on Medium: “Josh Farkas is a writer, illustrator, and VR creator whose indie company Cubicle Ninjas just commercially launched their virtual reality relaxation platform Guided Meditation VR, which won ‘Most Innovative Game’ at Meaningful Play 2014. Their team has had apps hit #1 in both Steam’s VR category and on Gear VR. He recently put out a Twitter-storm of excellent advice for developers looking to jump into VR. We’ve compiled those tweets in this handy list.”
Women in STEM
“Women in Science 2019 eBook” on Technology Networks: “Despite their successes, women have, and continue to be underrepresented in STEM fields. This year, to honor the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we have produced an eBook celebrating the exceptional contributions that female researchers are making to the world of science.”
“Want to Solve the Women in Tech Problem? Help Women Brag About Each Other” on Think Growth: “Women who may be reluctant to talk about their own accomplishments often have no problem singing the praises of their friends and colleagues. With that in mind, here are four ways we’ve come up with to get women at HubSpot to celebrate one another’s hard work.”
“History has a massive gender bias. We’ll settle for fixing Wikipedia.” on the Washington Post: “Groups such as Art + Feminism sponsor regular “hackathons” to train more diverse groups of Wikipedia editors and to publish a broader range of articles.”
Tech Communities and Ventures
Sunglass: “Sunglass’ mission is to provide the online technical community the best resources to make their lives easier, so they can spend less time on researching or finding work, and more time doing the things they love like designing and building. In order to do that, Sunglass is committed to being the best resource for businesses as well.”
Hack NY: “The hackNY Fellows program pairs quantitative and computational students with inspiring NYC startups. Students enjoy free housing together over the course of 10 weeks and a pedagogical lecture series to introduce them to the ins and outs of joining and founding a startup.”
“Atypon Acquires Authorea and Manuscripts Platforms” on Publisher’s Weekly: “Atypon has acquired two authoring platforms, Authorea and Manuscripts, adding free HTML-first authoring and collaboration tools for researchers to its portfolio. The tools enable researchers to write, cite, collaborate, host data, and publish.”
“Mozilla and Scroll partner to test alternative funding models for the web” on VentureBeat: Mozilla “says it will work with Scroll to better understand how consumers react to ad-free experiences on the web and subscription-based funding models”
