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Today's Vision of Tomorrow: Tiny Robots Doing Your House Chores BY Kit EatonFri Feb 12, 2010 Forget the robocalypse: Remember the robot-laden utopian home of the future, as portrayed in the Jetsons and a thousand sci-fi shows? It's on its way, and surprisingly soon you'll find many a household task in the hands (claws?) of a robot. At CES this year, Evolution Robotics wowed many a person in the crowd with its unbelievable cute little Mint robot. This diminutive machine, which is now available on pre-order, takes a leaf out of the Roomba's product manual, but instead of zig-zagging its way across your apartment's floors vacuuming-up crud, the Mint is actually a sweeperbot. And it's built around simplicity: There are only three buttons on the thing, and all you have to do to kick it off is stick either a new wet or dry Swiffer pad on its bottom and select the corresponding mode by button. Despite its simple UI, it's got inertial measurement systems,...

Highlights from TED 2010, Friday: "Using nuclear waste to power next generation's reactors" By Mark Frauenfelder at 5:02 PM February 12, 2010 Here's my round up of highlights from the second day of the TED 2010 presentations. I especially enjoyed Bill Gates' talk about a zero-carbon future, and Temple Grandin's talk about the valuable contributions autistic people make. (Here's Thursday's round up. Here's Wednesday's round up) Bill Gates at TED2010, Session 8, "Boldness," Friday, February 12, 2010, in Long Beach, California. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson Bill Gates said a changing climate is especially bad for developing nations, mainly because it hurts crop yields. Temperature increase has effects on weather, ecosystems can't adjust and collapse. There is uncertainty about how bad the effects of increases in atmospheric CO2 are but they will be bad. Until we get to near zero, the temperature will go up. "W...

Jamie Oliver is transforming the way we feed ourselves, and our children. Jamie Oliver has been drawn to the kitchen since he was a child working in his father's pub-restaurant. He showed not only a precocious culinary talent but also a passion for creating (and talking about) fresh, honest, delicious food. In the past decade, the shaggy-haired "Naked Chef" of late-'90s BBC2 has built a worldwide media conglomerate of TV shows, books, cookware and magazines, all based on a formula of simple, unpretentious food that invites everyone to get busy in the kitchen. And as much as his cooking is generous, so is his business model -- his Fifteen Foundation, for instance, trains young chefs from challenged backgrounds to run four of his restaurants. Now, Oliver is using his fame and charm to bring attention to the changes that Brits and Americans need to make in their lifestyles and diet. Campaigns such as Jamie's School Dinner, Ministry of Food and Food Revolution USA c...

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How Soft is Smart Joel Whitney interviews Joseph Nye, October 2008 Author Joseph Nye on the definition of soft power, why it's imperative to getting what a country wants, and which presidential candidate is better equipped to use it.   Contrary to the popular notion that strong men, war veterans, or “deciders” make more electable, tougher presidents, a White House inhabited by Barack Obama would be measurably more effective, safer, and better respected around the world than a McCain White House. That’s if Joseph Nye, an admitted Obama supporter, is right. The former dean of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Clinton Administration, Nye’s most sweeping contribution to international affairs may be his simple coinage: soft power. The phrase has been embraced widely by foreign leaders and in the business community, but is little discussed in American campaign discourse. Perhaps uns...

Photograph: Gleb Kosorukov On the night of 30-31 August 1935, the ­Soviet miner Alexey Stakhanov set a new record for coal production. Working deep inside the ­bowels of a mine in eastern Ukraine, ­Stakhanov managed to hew out 102 tonnes of coal in five hours and 32 minutes. This was 14 times more than the standard daily norm. Although it later emerged he had help, ­Stakhanov's super-human feat became a synonym for heroism and communist endeavour. In a matter of months the "Stakhanov" movement had spread across the Soviet Union, with workers and farmers urged to set their own norm-defying records for personal productivity. Seventy-five years later, miners still work at the mine where Stakhanov set his record. In a series of 100 remarkable portraits, the Russian photographer Gleb Kosorukov has captured the Ukrainian miners on their ­return to the surface from a six-hour shift ­underground, amid dust, dirt and artificial light. Most of the miners agreed to be photog...