VizWorld.com

CXO magazine published an article recently which asked the question “Are you password protected?”. In other words, how strong is your password?

The only problem with this infographic, is that it lists a password as unbreakable. There are no passwords that are unbreakable. To test it out, I took their password (g01111001110011101100e) and entered it into Google Mail’s password strength meter. Google returned a value of strong. That makes me wonder where they had the idea that this password was unbreakable.

For the record, it turns out all of my passwords are considered strong by Google. To get a better feel for the strength of my passwords, I turned to The Password Meter. The unbreakable password above registered as very weak. All of my passwords registered as very strong, with the exception of my Amazon account, which I knew was weak. It looks like I need to come up with a new password. (Which I just did. The new Amazon password is now rated as very strong.) Another site to check your password strength is Microsoft. The unbreakable password there is rates as medium, while mine as rated as strong (but not the best).

via : Are you password protected?

Graphics infographic, security

Ever since news of NVidia’s Optimus came out, people have been speculating about it coming to Apple MacBooks.  AppleInsider’s Kasper Jade talked to some Apple Insiders and found that the next generation of MacBook will take the current manual switching technology to an automatic switching technology.

More specifically, the Mac maker has up and running in its labs several next-generation MacBook Pros that can switch between their integrated and discrete graphics processors automatically, according to people familiar with the matter.

(…)

While those privy to Apple’s plans could not say with complete certainty that the new technology would qualify for inclusion in the most immediate update to the MacBook Pro family, they do believe that’s indeed the Cupertino-based company’s plans. The current chipset situation Apple faces across its notebook lines also lends support to these claims.

Given Apple’s previous close relationship with NVidia, it’s no stretch to believe that Optimus is what’s under the hood here.  If it is, I guess I need to start saving now for an upgrade.

PS: Steve, if you’re out there, I would be willing to sacrifice some time to review a unit :)

AppleInsider | Apple plans dual graphics enhancements on future MacBook Pros.

Hardware apple, laptop, nvidia, optimus

MSNBC has posted an article on the winners of the 2009 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. The visualization images range from conceptual visualization, to information visualizations, to photographs produced from electron tunneling microscopes. The image to the right is my favorite. It is called “Kuen’s Surface: A Meditation on Euclid, Lobachevsky and Quantum Field”. Basically it is a conceptual visualization of an equation used in quantum field theory. Click through the link to see fifteen more amazing images that accompany the article.

via : Top sights of science

Science conference, contest, Science

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has both a 4-sided CAVE (3 walls & a floor), and a large 9-projector display wall, that they use for education and research.  In a fluffy writeup on the UAB website, they talk to Dr. Bharat Soni about the potentials for the technology.

“This facility creates a virtual environment and multi-dimension visualization capability resembling a real world,” explains Bharat Soni, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “At UAB, we’re using this technology mostly for engineering and health-care applications, but the possibilities really are virtually endless.”

They cover uses for visualizing airflow simulations, biomedical data sets, and connecting it to haptic devices for even better results.  I like this idea in particular:

Soni’s team is exploring collaborations with the School of Health Professions and Birmingham’s Lakeshore Foundation that will enable patients to perform rehabilitation activities in this controlled environment. “This is an exciting area in which to expand our 3-D capabilities because it has so many practical applications,” says School of Engineering Dean Linda C. Lucas, Ph.D. “In this virtual environments you can see the limitations and the areas that are showing progress, and all this is done with minimal risk to the patient.”

For example, amputees often are taught to water ski as part of their therapy in order to strengthen their muscles and improve balance. The cube can become a lake, and with the help of haptic and other devices the patients can experience virtual skiing.

See the article, and see the smiling Dr. Soni & Alan Shih, at the UAB site.

via Visualization cube offers infinite educational possibilities.

Hardware, Science biomed, cave, uab, visualization

Back in January, the Supreme Court ruled on a 5-4 vote that political spending by corporations in elections is a form of free speech. This raises the fear that corporations can spend large sums of money to essentially buy elections for candidates who will promise to vote their way. Others trumpet it as a victory for the First Amendment. President Obama, in the recent State of the Union speech criticized the ruling saying “Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, …” To which Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words “not true”.

Big spending, and corruption, have been a part of American politics since the birth of the nation. Financial Infographics has created a graphic showing who the largest contributors are, and who the biggest spenders are in Congress. I was quite surprised to see John McCain’s name listed as the biggest spender, by a long shot. He is followed by fellow Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat Max Baucus.

via : Corporate Campaigning: Where Do Politicians Get Their Money?

Graphics infographic, political

Looks like companies are taking the challenge of ATI’s Eyefinity 6-display solution seriously, but one unlikely competitor has a promising product coming out: S3.  The new S3 Graphics 5400E X2 combines to drive eight monitors at 1080p, with hardware video acceleration and genlock support.

“The S3 Graphics 5400E x2 is a highly integrated and flexible video card that features dual graphics and multimedia processors,” the company said. “Boasting extreme hardware acceleration of the latest HD video codecs, the S3 Graphics 5400E x2 uses S3 Graphics’ PanoChrome technology to provide up to four independent HD video streams at resolutions of 1080p on up to eight displays, employing a variety of display modes and configurations.”

Cards will be on the floor of the Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas next week, with samples reaching customers in Q2 2010.

via S3 Dual-GPU Card Competes with ATI Eyefinity – Tom’s Hardware.

Hardware multidisplay, s3, via

Some things are just too cool. We talked earlier about the launch of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Now we came across a video of the launch as the Atlas V rocket carrying SDO exceeds the speed of sound and passes through a Sun Dog. What is a Sun Dog? A Sun Dog is the prismatic effect that occurs when sunlight passes through ice crystals in a cirrus cloud.

via : SDO is GO!!!!!

Science nasa, SDO

Slate has an interesting application that they have just put on-line. They call is News Dots. What the application does is it connects the day’s news events in a social network. Some of the networks are isolated from one another, such as David Cos and Mount Saint Helens. Other news stories connect to one another in a myriad of ways, such as U.S. President Barack Obama connecting to 38 other topics. I like the fact that you can jump to a specific news tag, and even go back in time on a day-by-day basis. The one downside that I see to this social network of news stories is that Joseph Andrew Stack, who crashed a plane into a IRS building a few hours ago, is not mentioned. In other words, it appears that breaking stories may be missed. I am sure that the application will be upgraded over time to include this feature.

via : The Day’s Events as a Social Network

Graphics infographic, interactive, news, slate

Visual Economics has published a new infographic on the 2010 global economic recovery. The graphic shows which countries have gross domestic products that are increasing, and which ones are decreasing. It also shows how unemployment in the United States compares with other countries around the world. The one thing that is striking to me is that many of the countries apparently have no information on the map. Iceland, for example, suffered a collapse of its economy in 2009 due its banking industry. Yet, the tiny island nation is not colored red for having a -6.3% GDP according to the CIA factbook. Likewise the GDP information is missing for such countries as Greenland (+2.0%), Finland (-6.7%), among others.

via : Finding the Bottom: 2010 Global Economic Recovery

Graphics economic, infographic

A beautiful experimental painting program, Peter Blaskovic’s “Flame Painter” website is a java applet that combines chaotic curves with some beautiful color blends to create some beautiful pseudo-random art with your mouse.

Flame is a painting program, it belongs to my “I am Artist” experimental project. I think with tools which inspires you, everybody can be an artist. You can try it here, change different brush settings and paint your own flame paintings. When you change background from black to white, palette changes from additive to substactive and the feeling of the painting is very different. It’s not easy to explain all brush parameters, so I leave this for your experimentation.

Definately worth spending a few minutes playing with.

via flame | peter blaskovic | escape motions.

Graphics art, java, processing, Website