NASA's "Beyond Einstein" Program: Exploration at the Limits of Space & Time

NASA's "Beyond Einstein" Program: Exploration at the Limits of Space & Time
52 min 54 sec - Aug 30, 2007
www.google.com


Google Tech Talks August, 30 2007

ABSTRACT
Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity predicted results that were so incredible that even he did not accept them: space is expanding from a Big Bang, space itself contains an energy that is pulling the Universe apart from within, and deep chasms of gravity called black holes actually exist. Astonishingly, all of these wild ideas are now known to be true. But now we need to build on Einstein's work to take the next step -- to study the underlying physics of the very phenomena that came out of his theories. NASA's Beyond Einstein program consists of a series of space missions, large and small, that push Einstein's theories to their limits, using increasingly more sensitive probes. The two flagship missions now in development, Constellation-X and LISA, will explore extremes of space, measuring X-rays and gravitational waves. The smaller missions, the Einstein probes, will target specific science questions such as "What is Dark Energy?" and "What powered the Big Bang?"
Speaker: Randall Smith Randall Smith is an X-ray Astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University and NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. He worked at the Chandra X-ray Center for six years after the launch of the Chandra X-ray Observatory before moving to JHU & NASA to work with the Suzaku X-ray Telescope.

NASA's "Beyond Einstein" Program: Exploration at the Limits of Space & Time

Searching For Evil in the Web

Searching For Evil
1 hr 0 min 6 sec - Aug 23, 2007
Google Tech Talks August 23, 2007

ABSTRACT
Computer security has recently imported a lot of ideas from economics, psychology and sociology, leading to fresh insights and new tools. I will describe one thread of research that draws together techniques from fields as diverse as signals intelligence and sociology to search for artificial communities.
Evildoers online divide roughly into two categories - those who don't want their websites to be found, such as phishermen, and those who do. The latter category runs from fake escrow sites through dodgy stores to postmodern Ponzi schemes. A few of them buy ads, but many set up fake communities in the hope of having victims driven to their sites for free. How can these reputation thieves be detected?
Some of our work in security economics and social networking may give an insight into the practical effects of network topology. These tie up in various ways with traffic analysis, long used by the signals intelligence agencies which trawl the airwaves and networks looking for interesting targets. I'll describe a number of dubious business enterprises we've unearthed. Recent advances in algorithms, such as Newman's modularity matrix, have increased the robustness of covert community detection. But much scope remains for wrongdoers to hide themselves better as they become topologically aware; we can expect attack and defence to go through several rounds of coevolution. I'll therefore end up by talking about some strategic issues, such as the extent to which search engines and other service providers could, or should, share information in the interests of wickedness detection.
Speaker: Ross Anderson Ross Anderson is one of the top security researchers in the world.





Searching For Evil

Thinking Beyond Borders - video

Thinking Beyond Borders
Google engEDU
32 min 44 sec - Sep 27, 2007


Google Tech Talks September 27, 2007

ABSTRACT
Our global society faces great challenges such as Global Warming, HIV/AIDS in ... all » sub-Saharan Africa, wide-spread hunger, and poverty. To effectively address these issues in years to come, we must re-envision how we prepare our next great leaders to be conscious agents of change. Thinking Beyond Borders is a 35-week program to educate Gap Year students about the economic, political, and cultural realities of our world while empowering them with the tools to create proactive social change. Through varied service learning opportunities, the itinerary immerses students in cultures and communities around the world to provide experiences with various issues of International Development. The curriculum challenges students to synthesize academic research and their collected observations into powerful conclusions about the nature of globalization, world hunger, human rights, cultural change, and political systems. The most unique aspect of this program is that students return to the US to meet with international policy makers and share their conclusions with student and philanthropy groups to raise awareness and funds for the NGOs they worked with abroad. In these ways, Thinking Beyond Borders seeks to create a community of conscious agents of proactive change, equipped to tackle our world's greatest challenges.


Thinking Beyond Borders

Toward the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences

Toward the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences
Google engEDU
1 hr 2 min 31 sec - Aug 8, 2006


Google TechTalks August 8, 2006

B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. has been a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970. He is currently seeking ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices and Western science to advance the study of the mind. He is the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies ( http://sbinstitute.com ).

ABSTRACT Galileo took a seminal role in launching the first revolution in the physical sciences, and a key element in this revolution was the rigorous, sophisticated observation of physical phenomena. Darwin likewise launched a revolution in the life sciences on the basis of decades of meticulous observation of biological phenomena. Although scientists have been studying the mind for more than a century, no comparable revolution has taken place in the mind sciences, and the missing element that may account for this delayed revolution is the absence of rigorous, precise observations of mental phenomena. By integrating the third-person methodologies of the cognitive sciences with the first-person methods for examining the mind that have been developed in Buddhism and other contemplative traditions, our present generation may bring about the first revolution in the mind sciences.


Toward the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences

1963 - World The Future

Google: "I'm feeling lucky" button costs Google $110 million per year

Google: "I'm feeling lucky" button costs Google $110 million per year:

Google 'I'm feeling lucky' button costs Google $110 million per year Google cofounder Sergey Brin told public radio's Marketplace that around one percent of all Google searches go through the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button. Because the button takes users directly to the top search result, Google doesn't get to show search ads on one percent of all its searches. That costs the company around $110 million in annual revenue, according to Rapt's Tom Chavez. So why does Google keep such a costly button around? 'It's possible to become too dry, too corporate, too much about making money. I think what's delightful about 'I'm Feeling Lucky' is that it reminds you there are real people here,' Google exec Marissa Mayer explained, or at least tried to."