The moon marks 40 years without a human visitor, prepares for impending probe crashes
It’s likely not an anniversary anyone thought we would meet after the first moon landing, but today marks 40 years since Gene Cernan left the last footprint on the moon as Apollo 17 ended its mission. That was the last of six manned missions to the lunar surface (nine including those that didn’t land), which saw twelve men actually walk on the moon in all. The years since have of course seen continued exploration of the moon through other means, though, and next week will see another major event when NASA’s twin GRAIL spacecraft conduct a planned crash into a mountain near the lunar north pole. Those have been in orbit since January 1st, creating a high-resolution map of the moon’s gravitational field and collecting data that promises to provide more detail than ever about the moon’s internal structure and composition. You’ll be able to follow along on NASA’s website as that happens beginning at 5PM Eastern on Monday, December 17th.
[Image credit: NASA / Eugene Cernan]
Source: NASA
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Google Maps creation put under the microscope, reveals a human touch
They say you should never learn how the sausage gets made, but we’re willing to make an exception for Google Maps. Talking to The Atlantic, Google has revealed just how much the human element figures into all that collected satellite imagery and road data. Many pieces of terrain information are tested and modified against what Google calls Ground Truth: actual driving, alternate sources and sign photos automatically extracted from Street View runs. Google isn’t just making the occasional correction, either. Mapping a country can take hundreds of staff plugging away at the company’s Atlas tool, even before we get a crack with Google Map Maker. The combination of man and machine helps explain why Google Maps is one of the most accurate sources of location information on Earth — although the firm does have some catching up to do in space.
Filed under: GPS, Internet, Alt
Google Maps creation put under the microscope, reveals a human touch originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Sep 2012 05:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Leave a commentOUYA console’s first exclusive game is ‘Human Element’ prequel from former Call of Duty maker
After all the excitement from the Yves Behar-designed OUYA console’s massive Kickstarter campaign fades away, like every other console it will be judged on the quality of its games we finally have the name of one. Robotoki president Robert Bowling — best known as @fourzerotwo on Twitter and formerly as a producer from Infinity Ward for the Call of Duty series — has announced plans to bring an “episodic prequel” to the company’s first game Human Element exclusively to OUYA. While not much is known about Human Element yet other than that it’s a survival game set in a zombie apocalypse it’s scheduled for release in 2015, although Bowling is promising OUYA backers will get exclusive access to updates during development. He can also be counted among that group, cheerfully noting in a video along with the announcement that he’s contributed $10,000 to the cause. That’s one project on the list — any bets on which developer will be next to hitch their game to the bandwagon?
Filed under: Gaming
OUYA console’s first exclusive game is ‘Human Element’ prequel from former Call of Duty maker originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jul 2012 17:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Samsung’s ‘human centric’ Galaxy S III launches around the globe, says what delays?
Despite carrier and retailer indications of delays for certain editions of Samsung’s new Galaxy S III, the company triumphantly announced its launch right on schedule tonight. Of course, here in the US we’re sadly on the outside looking in at the launch action going on in 28 countries as a new day dawns for the 29th, but at least there’s rumblings that our localized editions aren’t far off. As long as you’re looking for a 16GB Marble White quad-core Exynos juggernaut, you should be able to find it — if the machine translated Korean press release is too tough to bear, remember we’ve got all the launch details (and a review) right here.
Samsung’s ‘human centric’ Galaxy S III launches around the globe, says what delays? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 May 2012 23:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Cha-ching! IBM’s Watson heads to Citigroup to meddle in human finances
Watson’s been a busy supercomputer since it took a couple of humans to school on Jeopardy last year — what with its stint at Columbia and a recent foray into hunting patent trolls — and now it’s taking on the financial industry. IBM and Citigroup recently announced plans to explore how America’s favorite supercomputer fits into the realm of digital banking. Under the agreement, Citi will examine Watson’s ability to “help analyze customer needs and process vast amounts of up-to-the-minute financial, economic, product and client data,” in the hopes of providing rapid, personalized banking solutions. According to Bloomberg, Watson’s financial assistance will be provided as a “cloud-based service” and will earn IBM a portion of the revenue and savings it helps generate. The full press release (which makes no mention of a vacation for the overworked machine) can be found after the break.
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Cha-ching! IBM’s Watson heads to Citigroup to meddle in human finances originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Is that a Human in your Tree, or are you just Happy to see me?
Established in 1982 from the merger of Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (CG) and Insurance Company of North America (INA), Cigna (formerly all caps, CIGNA) is a Fortune 500, global health service company with 30,000 employees around the world and 65 million “customer relationships.” Cigna is repositioning its business model to become a retailer and provide health insurance directly to individuals, while still providing their service to employers and organizations. Launched this past September, a new campaign, “GO YOU”, has been created by Boston, MA-based Hill Holiday and a new logo designed by BrandSinger and Jerry Kuyper Partners.
Design exploration was driven by Cigna’s desire to signal change and to communicate the new focus both on the individual, and on Cigna’s growing global presence. The new symbol establishes a bright, friendly palette of blue, green and orange. The “tree of life” idea (and equity) are retained, conveying strength and security, but the tree is now dominated by a human figure in a universal posture of joyful well-being. The radiating leaves, Jerry notes, “reinforce the concept of achieving one’s full potential.” A touch of horizon is added, suggesting global scope. That’s a lot of content for one small image.
— Review and insight from Identityworks
The old logo, designed in 1993 by Lindon Leader at Landor and nicknamed the “Tree of Life”, was a nice early 1990s abstraction of a tree inside a funnily undulating square with a boringly corporate serif underneath. Quirky but with plenty of equity after 18 years. The new logo retains the tree and then adds a whole of bunch of visual clichés and annoyances. First there is the generic shapeless human being in the tree, then there is a swoosh behind it, then there is the cheesy friendly blue and green palette, and finally, there is some over-spaced boringly corporate sans-serif underneath. The one redeeming aspect of this logo, at least in execution, are the leaves on the tree. Those are nice. Other than that, this feels like a complete step backward in logo design: it’s old school in all the wrong ways. And, probably even less helpful to the new brand positioning, it is totally disconnected from the advertising.
National TV campaign spots by Hill Holiday.
The TV ads are quite good. Especially the second one with all the professionals in costumes. It’s smart, it looks edgy and contemporary and friendly all at the same time and like, indeed, it means to shift the way we think about getting healthcare on our own. The print ads are colorful and bold, with their own color palette and typography and deporting the logo in a single color to the faraway corner where, unfortunately, it deserves to be.
Thanks to Debbie Millman for first tip.
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Human Rights Logo Takes Flight
In early May, the call for entries for A Logo for Human Rights (LHR), a “global creative online competition with cash prizes and open to everyone,” was announced. The goal? To “create a human rights logo ‘by people for people’, thus making a contribution towards the global spread and implementation of human rights with the support of a large public.” The process was your typical contest malarkey: People design, people upload, people vote on uploaded logos, designers e-mail friends and family to vote for their logos, participants complain about the voting process, the top 100 vote getters get presented to the jury (Spiekermann! Ai WeiWie! Jimmy Wales! Jimmy Carter!) and the “experts” (No! Idea! Who! They! Are!), the jurors select their own favorite ten logos, of those top vote getters ten finalists are presented again for online public voting, participants complain about the selection process, finalists designers e-mail friends and family to vote for their logos, a winner is announced. On Friday, LHR announced that Serbian designer Predrag Stakic had been selected as the winner from over 15,000 submissions.
The ten finalists. You can click through their concepts here.
Winner, original submission here.
“You talkin’ to me?” Yes, you, you are holding the logo wrong.
Predrag’s concept and rationalization.
What do you know? The result is not bad. It’s easy to mock it or denounce it as the offspring of the evil process of a contest, but if you look at the two concept images above — the kids drawing their hands not that much more difficult than doing a handprint turkey and the image of protesters holding their open hand in the air — the logo has the potential to find lasting power. There is something weird about the way the thumb breaks into the dove and the dove has some mighty big feathers, but as a simple mark that could be adopted by a lot of people it works remarkably well. But it’s all potential and maybes right now with this logo — its real success depends on whether people across the world use it.
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