Web video boom shown with cool graphics

Image Sources: Cisco estimates based on
CAIDA publications, Andrew Odlyzko
via Gizmodo via Wired

Video is taking over the web - but by how much exactly? This great infographic sums it up - that pink triangle on the right is the proportion of US internet traffic that's all online video. And the graphic shows how it's boomed since the year 2000.

One of the things I've noticed working at video production company Agtel is just how much people expect web video to be central on websites these days. Enterprise Ireland have just launched their new website and lots of high quality videos (produced by Agtel, by the way!) covering innovation and business are right there up front.

I'm a big fan of data visualisation techniques that show information we kind of know in a new and interesting way - for example, the US satellite images that showed the housing boom in Ireland as seen from space were really impressive.

Gizmodo updated their original story to include this extra bonus graph from Mr. Beschizza of BoingBoing too - basically because the diagram above is all above the proportion of web traffic that's video etc. but the actual amount of web traffic has shot up too. Maybe this would all make even more sense through 3D glasses?

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"CSI Dublin" revealed in Sandyford Industrial Estate

[Picture credit: Kobukson via Gizmodo]

I've just read a really interesting report about Microsoft's CSI-style forensics lab - and it's right here in Dublin. 

Why would a software company need a forensics lab I hear you ask? Well, to beat dodgy counterfeiters of course. They're using advanced microscopy techniques to analyse fake software CDs and trace them back to the counterfeiters. Pretty cool, eh? Here's more detail on it:

At a crime lab in Dublin, Microsoft's Donal Keating uses a custom-built microscope to take 72 high-resolution images of a counterfeit software disc. Just as police use ballistics to match bullets to a suspect's gun, Keating, the company's senior forensics manager, will use the abrasions and grooves on the stacking ring, a raised ridge around the disc's center, to match it to other fakes. He'll then try to trace the counterfeit disc to the factory and the crime syndicate that produced it.

It's always great when Irish scientific and technology stories show up in surprising places - this story was first published in US Magazine Bloomberg Businessweek and then picked up by tech news site Gizmodo.

Astronauts thrown from helicopter (Spoiler: they knew it was going to happen)

I always thought that being an astronaut was meant to be fun... but it turns out that's not always the case. Unless you like being thrown out of a helicopter, that is.

The latest European Space Agency (ESA) recruits got a bit more than they bargained for when they were forced off a helicopter into the sea as part of their survival training. But it's not the kind of survival they'll be expected to do if they crash land on Mars - foraging for food there is not expected to be a very successful activity apparently. And there's no sea there either. Nope, it's more about what to do if they crash land coming back to earth and there's no McDonald's (or Supermacs for that matter) in sight.

See the ESA site for more insight into how these poor astronauts survived their summer holiday from hell...

Wow! Now that's a cool sunrise photo!

The guys on the International Space Station have a great view - and one of the perks of the job is the 16 sunrises they get to see everyday. This has got to be one of the coolest photos of one of them...


It was taken by astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock and he posted it up on Twitpic (and I saw it up on Gizmodo). He's since posted this even more amazing one of the "Southern Lights" up on Twitpic as well... not a bad way to show some scientific stuff in an interesting way!