Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Monday, 23 June 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 22 Jun 2014 03:06 PM PDT

The football showdown between Japan and Greece ended in a scoreless draw, but the Japanese fans scored top points from the clean-up crew after leaving the stands of the stadium and its bathroom unblemished.
It turns out that Japanese football fans have a tradition of cleaning up the stadium after matches at home, a practice which the fans vigorously undertake in Brazil.
“It’s our tradition. Living without waste is much better,” said business consultant Kenji Yoshida, who lives in Los Angeles. He and his wife Haruko Yoshida were among the approximately 15,000 Japanese who rocked the Arena das Dunas with shouts of “Nippon!” meaning Japan, in their native language.
The World Cup is an opportunity to learn from different cultures and the national team, also known as Samurai Blues, are setting the benchmark.
Even after the Samurai Blues lost their opening match in the Pernambuco Arena to Côte d’Ivoire, Japanese fans stayed after the match to clean up the empty stadium.

In Japan it is considered appropriate to clean up after yourself at public events such as concerts, sporting events, and festivals. Some even take the trash home if there is no place to dispose of it on the spot. Moreover, it is common after eating in a restaurant, to clean your table, leaving it the way you found it.

“We have started this tradition a few games ago or a few World Cups ago. We try to do little bit of clean-up to show respect to the host country and just, you know, show off how clean things are in Japan. And we like to make it so here, too,” Japanese football fan Kei Kawai told NPR.
Kawai added, “we are all told in school that we clean up our things and when we come somewhere, we just clean up even better than when we come in.”
Brazilians, the host nation seems amazed, “This is fantastic. A great example for us Brazilians,” one fan told the local news outlet, while in social networks people have been calling Japanese fans the “most respectful” and “best fans at the World Cup.”
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Posted: 22 Jun 2014 01:47 PM PDT

Korean developers of a bipedal robot allege it to be capable of outrunning the world’s 100-meter sprint record-toter.
The minds behind Raptor, as the automaton has been christened, at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) say it outperforms Usain Bolt by some two seconds. Bolt’s intact record stands at 9.58 seconds.
The machine has been fitted with a tail, which restores its balance on tricky terrain, and sports an inbuilt energy recovery system.
The institute’s Park Jong-won has said, “The KAIST’s Raptor robot actually runs at the maximum speed of 46km/h which means the robot can run 100m in just 7.8seconds. That means the robot is faster than Usain Bolt.”
“Raptor robot also stabilizes its position when it’s disturbed while running very fast. So, that means the robot can manage its body posture very actively based on the natural movement of animals,” he has noted.
Park has said, “So, in the future when the robot is fully developed, the robot is expected to be used in military service for instance, reconnaissance, or supply things. On the other hand, the robot also can be used for rescuing people in the very urgent situations.”
A robot with three spinning legs on either side has also been made, which is capable of running as fast as a car, using a special method for locomotion.
The legs on OutRunner, the two-feet-tall android, move in such a way to keep one leg on one side on the ground as another on the other side is lifted off.
An offshoot of Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), Robotics Unlimited has created the automaton. According to its creators, it can reach speeds of up to 20 miles per hour.
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Posted: 22 Jun 2014 12:55 PM PDT

The US Postal Service is looking to integrate with the “Internet of Things” by attaching electronic sensors to your mail.
The proposal appears in a solicitation posted on FedBizOpps which announces a program to, “Provide a vision for the Internet of Things applied to the Postal Service (the Internet of Postal Things — IoPT): a conceptual design of how new sensor and other data collection technologies could increase the ability of Postal Service infrastructure to create value to its business, customers and stakeholders through data.”
The USPS is also looking to, “Identify the components of the postal physical infrastructure that could lend themselves to the collection of new types of data.” The solicitation offers $100,000 to an individual or company that can help to achieve this goal.
Given that the “Internet of Things” was hailed by former CIA director David Petraeus as a transformational boon for “clandestine tradecraft,” the idea of America’s postal service jumping on board isn’t going to sit comfortably with privacy advocates.
The USPS already scans letters and parcels almost a dozen times during processing, but the notion of a government agency developing sensors that soak up even more data is likely to cause consternation in a post-Snowden era where paranoia about privacy is rife.
It’s still a federal crime to read someone else’s mail and then destroy the contents, meaning it’s far easier for the government to snoop on your email than your physical mail.
However, given that the NSA now routinely intercepts shipments of tech goods such as wi-fi routers to implant surveillance bugs, the notion of a microphone being hidden inside a USPS sensor on a letter delivered to a targeted individual doesn’t sound nearly as outlandish as it once would have done.
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Posted: 22 Jun 2014 12:49 PM PDT

New research has warned that washing raw chicken, through spreading infection, could increase the risk of food poisoning.
Washing meat before cooking was found to spread deadly bacteria called campylobacter, experts claimed.
The bacteria infect the things around such as work surfaces, clothing and cooking equipment, through the splashing of water droplets.
Campylobacter bacteria, as the most common type of food poisoning in the UK, affect some 280,000 people a year, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) reported.
While the bacteria are less known than salmonella and E. coli, the people do not have essential information about that and the symptoms of the infected ones.
Symptoms include diarrhea, stomach pains and cramps, fever, and generally feeling unwell.
The children under five and older people are the most ones at risk. The infested people may appear to be ill only for a few days but it can lead to long-term health problems.
“Although people tend to follow recommended practice when handling poultry, such as washing hands after touching raw chicken and making sure it is thoroughly cooked, our research has found that washing raw chicken is also common practice,” said FSA chief executive Catherine Brown.
“That is why we’re calling on people to stop washing raw chicken and also raising awareness of the risks of contracting campylobacter as a result of cross-contamination,” she also stated.
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Posted: 22 Jun 2014 12:38 PM PDT

​The latest creation from Harley-Davidson can go from zero to 60 miles-per-hour faster than you can finish reading this sentence, but you’ll be hard pressed to find one at your local filling station anytime soon.
Not only is Harley-Davidson’s newest bike not available on the market yet, the company will start touring a dozen prototypes around the United States next week but it’s also the first bike from the iconic American company that runs entirely on electrical power.
“As a company, we have always been about strength and freedom and power,” Matthew Levatich, Harley-Davidson’s president and chief operating officer, told the Chicago Tribune during a recent showing of his company’s new LiveWire motorcycle. “So it’s really a question of ‘why not?’ instead of ‘why?’ This isn’t some sort of ploy for us. This is real.”

“America at its best has always been about reinvention,” Levatich added in an official statement this week. “And, like America, Harley-Davidson has reinvented itself many times in our history, with customers leading us every step of the way. Project LiveWire is another exciting, customer-led moment in our history.”
Not only that, but the impressive bike is also, according to chief engineer Jeff Richlen, “a great, kick-ass motorcycle.”
“It just happens to be electric,” Richlen told the Tribune.
Journalists at Wired recently took the LiveWired out for a spin and agreed that, like the H-D team insists, their latest bike is “actually pretty cool.”

“The Hell’s Angels aren’t going to be riding them anytime soon, but the bike offers an entertaining blend of power and comfort. It doesn’t sound anything at all like a proper Harley or a ‘fighter jet landing on an aircraft carrier’ as Harley brass say but it’s got a futuristic sound that brings to mind an airliner taking to the air,” Wired’s Alex Davies said after riding the bike.
The official specs for the bike suggest it can reach speeds of 92 mph thanks to a 74 horsepower engine and 52 foot-pounds of torque but Richlen told Wired that all that might change. For now, he said, the LiveWire is a work in progress based off of “what we think our customers are looking for.”
“Any business has always got to look ahead to see where customers are interested in going, and see where society might be going,” he said.

Indeed, Harley-Davidson isn’t the first company to work on a motorcycle that relies on electricity. For now, however, that demand has been below what retailers would like to see in the US. The country’s top selling electric motorcycle, for instance manufactured by Santa Cruz, California’s Zero only moves a few thousands units a year, according to the Tribune. Other competing US companies have only seen a fraction of that success.
Nevertheless, the company says their latest project seems to be the appropriate step in the right direction given the recent demand for electric bikes.
“We offer a no excuses riding experience in everything we do and we are led by what our customers tell us matters most,” Richer said in a statement. “Because electric vehicle technology is evolving rapidly, we are excited to learn more from riders through the Project LiveWire Experience to fully understand the definition of success in this market as the technology continues to evolve.”
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 08:53