Minted, the company that is best known for its online marketplace for stationery with prints by individual graphic designers, has launched a new vertical: Art prints. The art business on Minted is curated in the same way as stationery. Minted holds design competitions to which any graphic designer or artist can submit work, and the submissions are voted on by their peers -- the community of artists and designers on the site call themselves "Minties." Only the top designs as voted on by the community are presented for sale.
In a world where Instagram is worth more than the New York Times, old media is no longer dying, it's dead. Instead, in its wake, we've got the Wild West: A chaotic morass of never-ending slideshows, puny WordPress blogs breaking big time news (and selling for tens of millions) and the merger of lolcats and politics on a site which focuses just as much on content sharing as content. Although we all agree that new media is just media now, there are many perspectives battling it out for the future of the medium and whatever form it will take -- Aggregation vs. Original content, etc, etc and so on and so forth -- "The medium is the message" is at its most poignant in online media.
Contact: Heinrich Grger heinrich.grueger@ipms.fraunhofer.de 49-351-882-3155 Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Is that pear ripe? Or will you be annoyed when you get home and discover that the one you bought is neither sweet nor juicy? And what about that meat? Does it contain too much water, which will make it turn tough when you cook it? Buying the right food is often a question of sheer luck for consumers. But all that is set to change. In future, all you will need to do is hold your smartphone near the product in question, activate the corresponding app, choose the food type from the menu e.g. "pear" and straight away the device will make a recommendation: the fructose content of the pear is high, so buy it! The application is based on a near infrared spectrometer which measures the amount of water, sugar, starch, fat and protein present in the products. The system "looks" several centimeters below the outer surface of the foodstuffs which means it can detect, for instance, whether the core of an apple is already rotting. Thin packaging film is no problem for the device as it takes measurements straight through it.
But how does the device actually work? By shining a broad-bandwidth light on the item to be tested for instance a piece of meat. Depending on the meat's composition, it will reflect different wavelengths of light in the near infrared range with different intensities. The resulting spectrum tells scientists what amounts of which substances are present in the foodstuff.
Smaller than a sugar cube
The novel thing about this spectrometer is its size. With a volume of only 2.1 cc, it is 30 percent smaller than a sugar cube, and thus substantially more compact than its commercially available counterparts, which are around 350 times larger. Another advantage is that the devices are inexpensive to make and suitable for mass production. "We expect spectrometers to develop in the same way that digital cameras did," says Dr. Heinrich Grger, who manages the relevant business unit at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS in Dresden, where the system is being developed. "A camera that cost 500 euros ten years ago is far less capable than the ones you get virtually for free today in your cell phone."
Spectrometers are usually manufactured by assembling individual components: The mirrors, optical gaps, grating and detector each have to be put in place individually and properly aligned. The IMPS researchers instead manufacture the individual gratings and optical gaps directly on silicon wafers. But that's not all: The thin silicon wafers are large enough to hold the components of several hundred spectrometers, which means that hundreds of near infrared systems can be produced in one go. The scientists stack the wafers containing the integrated components on top of the ones bearing the optical components. They then align and bind the wafers, and isolate them to form individual spectrometers. This means the researchers do not need to position each component, but only the respective composite substrates. Another advantage of what is called Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology is that the devices produced are much more robust than their handmade counterparts.
At the Sensor+Test tradeshow being held in Nuremberg from May 22 to 24, the IPMS research scientists will be exhibiting a prototype of the spectrometer (in Hall 12, Booth 202). The device could be ready for market launch in three to five years. The researchers are also working on creating a corresponding infrastructure. "We are developing intelligent algorithms that analyze the recorded spectrums immediately, compare them with the requirements and then advise the consumer whether or not to buy the item. This advice is based solely on quality features such as ripeness and water content. The system cannot carry out a microbiological or toxicological analysis." Potential application areas for the spectrometers are not limited to foodstuffs: The device can also detect forgeries, for example, and can verify whether a product is made of high-quality original materials or whether it is a cheap fake. It can also reveal whether parts of a vehicle's body have been repainted, as well as test the contents of drugs and cosmetic creams.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Heinrich Grger heinrich.grueger@ipms.fraunhofer.de 49-351-882-3155 Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Is that pear ripe? Or will you be annoyed when you get home and discover that the one you bought is neither sweet nor juicy? And what about that meat? Does it contain too much water, which will make it turn tough when you cook it? Buying the right food is often a question of sheer luck for consumers. But all that is set to change. In future, all you will need to do is hold your smartphone near the product in question, activate the corresponding app, choose the food type from the menu e.g. "pear" and straight away the device will make a recommendation: the fructose content of the pear is high, so buy it! The application is based on a near infrared spectrometer which measures the amount of water, sugar, starch, fat and protein present in the products. The system "looks" several centimeters below the outer surface of the foodstuffs which means it can detect, for instance, whether the core of an apple is already rotting. Thin packaging film is no problem for the device as it takes measurements straight through it.
But how does the device actually work? By shining a broad-bandwidth light on the item to be tested for instance a piece of meat. Depending on the meat's composition, it will reflect different wavelengths of light in the near infrared range with different intensities. The resulting spectrum tells scientists what amounts of which substances are present in the foodstuff.
Smaller than a sugar cube
The novel thing about this spectrometer is its size. With a volume of only 2.1 cc, it is 30 percent smaller than a sugar cube, and thus substantially more compact than its commercially available counterparts, which are around 350 times larger. Another advantage is that the devices are inexpensive to make and suitable for mass production. "We expect spectrometers to develop in the same way that digital cameras did," says Dr. Heinrich Grger, who manages the relevant business unit at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS in Dresden, where the system is being developed. "A camera that cost 500 euros ten years ago is far less capable than the ones you get virtually for free today in your cell phone."
Spectrometers are usually manufactured by assembling individual components: The mirrors, optical gaps, grating and detector each have to be put in place individually and properly aligned. The IMPS researchers instead manufacture the individual gratings and optical gaps directly on silicon wafers. But that's not all: The thin silicon wafers are large enough to hold the components of several hundred spectrometers, which means that hundreds of near infrared systems can be produced in one go. The scientists stack the wafers containing the integrated components on top of the ones bearing the optical components. They then align and bind the wafers, and isolate them to form individual spectrometers. This means the researchers do not need to position each component, but only the respective composite substrates. Another advantage of what is called Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology is that the devices produced are much more robust than their handmade counterparts.
At the Sensor+Test tradeshow being held in Nuremberg from May 22 to 24, the IPMS research scientists will be exhibiting a prototype of the spectrometer (in Hall 12, Booth 202). The device could be ready for market launch in three to five years. The researchers are also working on creating a corresponding infrastructure. "We are developing intelligent algorithms that analyze the recorded spectrums immediately, compare them with the requirements and then advise the consumer whether or not to buy the item. This advice is based solely on quality features such as ripeness and water content. The system cannot carry out a microbiological or toxicological analysis." Potential application areas for the spectrometers are not limited to foodstuffs: The device can also detect forgeries, for example, and can verify whether a product is made of high-quality original materials or whether it is a cheap fake. It can also reveal whether parts of a vehicle's body have been repainted, as well as test the contents of drugs and cosmetic creams.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
I gotten these problem from one involving our listing people right now:
?? a person known as the actual forex money industry and the fact that that is generally market involving finance institutions throughout international locations. Performs this imply that, for instance, the particular EURO/USD swap rates are arranged between your Federal government Arrange as well as the ECB? Is that the way a costs are set up minus the good thing about any kind of exchanging on any listed exchange any place else? Basically simple schooling for this distinct point.? ? Stan Z.
The particular currency trading area marketplace is primarily an ?interbank? marketplace. That means the majority of the buying and selling amount is conducted bank-to-bank such as involving Citibank and also Goldman Sachs, for instance. This kind of investing is generally accomplished on behalf of bank buyers for example worldwide corporations, though the banking institutions additionally have business dealings with each other equally to be able to hedge their own forex exposure and also to accept buying and selling opportunities.
This sort of market construction matches the main one for the majority of income market place authorities financial debt buying and selling, for example which for people Treasury Bonds and the like. You can think of the idea like the over-the-counter market for shares. Individuals investments do not move through an exchange, but you are carried out straight broker-to-broker.
In foreign exchange and fixed revenue you can find large participants like hedge funds in which get involved with the business along with expense finance institutions. The earth?s core banking institutions may also be main contributors only at that amount inside their efforts to effect fx rates (forex) and/or rates of interest (repaired cash flow).
Your financial transaction dimensions within the interbank market place are generally huge : generally $5 million and up. Certainly, the common personal dealer will not end up being buying and selling everywhere in close proximity to which large. That is where the web brokerages as well as currency trading sellers come in to play. They permit little merchants to accomplish dealings inside drastically reduced sums. Actually, there?s no less than one which will perform positions as small as $1.
This is exactly where some individuals have a tad stressed. A number of these currency trading retailers actually become market makers with their customers. What i mean is they will take the other side from the positions which are produced by their clients. That is something which can occasionally take place in the stock exchange at the same time, particularly with Over-the-counter futures. Your issue that men and women have got with this will be the suggested clash appealing regarding value execution that induce. Is really a dealer who?ll be using other side of your respective buy and sell going to be behaving in your greatest interest if you wear the buy and sell?
Although it could be genuine that several greedy retailers usually takes advantage of the clientele in this way, We are quite confident that a lot of them are certainly not behaving in opposition to their clients. They only offer liquidity towards the marketplace and also create the distributed to do this. When they?ve the extreme experience of virtually any specific currency exchange, they offset it by securing inside interbank market place or perhaps using yet another dealer. That?s basically the same as the ground speculator about any kind of exchange.
Getting to the particular question of how rates acquire set, the marketplace does that will, not really your core banking institutions. Everyone financial institution and dealer is in fact setting its very own price. Which may appear a lttle bit unusual in this it could generate distinct rates everywhere. The simple fact with the make any difference is actually, however, in which price ranges in between traders along with banks have been likely to be extremely, extremely shut. You can find services for example Reuters exactly where vendor prices are aggregated and introduced inside info rss feeds, making it possible for everybody to know the actual (as well as traditional) market place prices. Arbitrage investing will keep traders through pricing prices too far far from the other.
There is also investing in the futures trading market, and also the somewhat new foreign exchange bought and sold cash (ETFs). The adventure right now there, even though just a tiny proportion of the world-wide market quantity, in addition leads to preserving prices inside collection across the board.
Is colony collapse disorder just the visible part of a "global pollinator crisis"? The answer is surprisingly murky. To help answer the question, scientists have created an inexpensive, nationwide wild bee monitoring program
By Sarah Fecht
?|
May 8, 2012?|
Image: Graham Snodgrass
Bees are making headlines these days, and not in a positive way. Colony collapse disorder has cut through honeybee populations, with some beekeepers reportedly losing up to 90 percent of their stock in recent years. European bee populations are also declining, and so are some species of North American bumblebee. That data is often interpreted to mean that all of the world's 20,000 bee species are in danger, and that we may be in the midst of a "global pollinator crisis." But there's little data to back up those claims, scientists say.
"When you look at what's out there in the public press, the implication is that pollinators are all under threat, that there's some kind of mysterious decline across the board," says Sam Droege, a biologist at U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. "The problem is, there's really no data to show that either way."
View the Native Bee Slide Show.
A new paper, published in the Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, offers a ray of hope for native bee species. In this research, Droege and his colleagues compiled a list of 770 species that are historically native to the eastern U.S. They sent this list to a network of bee experts, asking them to note which species they had found within the past 20 years. The survey revealed that 95 percent of the bee species that lived 150 years ago have not gone extinct. Thirty-seven species were nowhere to be found, but the researchers pointed out that those bees had been rare to begin with and were often subject to taxonomic confusion. The paper offers "a clarification to the 'all pollinators are going to hell' point of view," Droege says.
It is important to understand the health of our native pollinators, because "in the absence of pollination, whole communities could collapse," says USGS ecologist Ralph Grundel. "If plants can't reproduce, you lose the primary producers, and then the species that depend on them." It is also estimated that bees pollinate about a third of the food that we eat, at a value of about $15 billion per year.
Grundel, who was not involved in the research, said that the paper is a good starting point. "It's useful because they've put together this information on what was out there historically, and what still is out there. But the fact that they're not finding mass extinctions is not the equivalent of knowing whether species are declining or in jeopardy."
Droege, too, said that the conclusions are weaker than he'd like. "We'd love to make statements more detailed than, 'Yup, we found 'em!' But if we didn't do this paper, we basically wouldn't know anything at all," he says.
John Ascher, an invertebrate zoologist at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), agreed. He wrote in an e-mail that "we don't even know what native bees exist, as many remain undescribed or unidentifiable. Nor do we know where they live, as even state lists remain highly incomplete despite our best efforts?. As to how the bees are doing?we know even less."
In order to really understand the health of native bees, scientists need to document species' distribution and abundance as well as monitor how those numbers change over time. That's why Droege and several colleagues are working with the U.S. Forest Service to set up a nationwide bee-monitoring program. He recruited 11 experimental forest stations from places as far-flung as Maine, Colorado and Puerto Rico, and has created a standardized, almost foolproof collection strategy.
Increasing noise pollution, coming from various sources, is one of the major reasons that can cause several health problems, such as stress, hypertension and hear loss, among others. This is because the body is sensitive and prone to the changes taking place in the environment. It is important to take proper care of the body organs in order to avoid serious health hazards. The noise pollution has main impact on the ears leading to the problem of hearing loss, which may be temporary or permanent.
These days a large number of people suffer from the problem of hearing loss. Hearing loss can be caused due to several reasons such as continuous expose to loud or harsh sound, iPods or loud music, ailments, excessive use of mobile phones, old age or other forms of noise pollution. Hearing loss can also be caused due to some genetic disorders. In order to improve this hearing impairment, several equipment and devices are readily available in the market. Hearing aids are one of the most widely accepted devices used for overcoming the problem of hearing impairment.
Hearing aids are the devices that are used for enhancing the hearing ability of a person. These devices are designed for people who suffer from hearing loss caused due to the damage of the hair cells presents in the ears. The function of hearing aids is to amplify the sound vibrations entering the ears. Hearing aids convert the larger vibrations into the neural signals with the help of the undamaged hair cells, which are then passed onto the brain.
Several options of affordable hearing aids are available in the market these days. One can choose from the options available depending upon the budget as well as preference. Most of the available hearing devices are either based on analog technology or on digital technology; latter being more expensive but effective than the latter. However, before purchasing any of the hearing aids, one should consult an audiologist and follow all the instructions, in order to avoid any further problems. Moreover, a proper hearing aid can help simplify the life of people suffering from hearing problem.
Sophie Ben is an expert author and has more then 5 years of experience in writing health and disabilities like hearing advice, Digital Hearing aids, hearing aid accessories, hearing aid batteries, Hearing aids articles.
Minted, the company that is best known for its online marketplace for stationery with prints by individual graphic designers, has launched a new vertical: Art prints. The art business on Minted is curated in the same way as stationery. Minted holds design competitions to which any graphic designer or artist can submit work, and the submissions are voted on by their peers -- the community of artists and designers on the site call themselves "Minties." Only the top designs as voted on by the community are presented for sale.
In a world where Instagram is worth more than the New York Times, old media is no longer dying, it's dead. Instead, in its wake, we've got the Wild West: A chaotic morass of never-ending slideshows, puny WordPress blogs breaking big time news (and selling for tens of millions) and the merger of lolcats and politics on a site which focuses just as much on content sharing as content. Although we all agree that new media is just media now, there are many perspectives battling it out for the future of the medium and whatever form it will take -- Aggregation vs. Original content, etc, etc and so on and so forth -- "The medium is the message" is at its most poignant in online media.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_u-O1kNtw1Ta-rHwhXKgJ6bJsVyoO78HO0GS68an90w31D-8GSyv8aoYxGiye4zCnsgxYwdDhUTp8MO8amZlsAI7DIksK4B0TfKNziVkUM=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 9-May-2012
Share ] 