Coming soon to an urban center near you: wireless connectivity for your laptop or PDA, brought to you by City Hall. At least that's the hot trend among U.S. municipalities, 48 of which now offer wireless access, according to a recent report. Most municipal systems are the result of public-private partnerships, and many offer some level of free access.

The first website Wireless World: City WiFi Networks Growing is an overview of the wireless downtown phenomenon which notes the importance of such systems for local economic development. The second link Wireless Philadelphia: Fact Sheet is to a fact sheet about Wireless Philadelphia, which, as one of the first and largest downtown wi-fi projects, helped spark the national trend. The third website is a node map of NYCwireless: Network Map and the 147 access points where that municipal network currently can be accessed. The fourth link leads to a Case Study: chaska.net, Chaska, Minn, which provides wireless access to the 7,500 homes and 18,000 residents of that Minneapolis suburb. The fifth website is a Gainesville Digital Downtown of a slick brochure produced by the city of Gainesville, Fla., to promote its Digital Downtown project. The sixth link is to a Sacramento Bee Editorial: Go Wireless Downtown. The seventh website is a free database listing 10,840 wireless access points in 767 locations worldwide NodeDB.com, organized by geographic region.

A writer from the SmallBizPipeline recently wrote an article reviewing some of the ways technology has been used to facilitate aid distribution and locate those missing after the Tsunami that hit several countries in Asia on December 26, 2007. National Geographic: Can Satellites Aid Earthquake Predictions? discusses how satellites might be used to improve early warning systems , while the next article World Socialist Web Site: The Asian tsunami: why there were no warnings reports from a socialist perspective on the reasons why there was no early warning for the people who suffered from the recent tsunami, many of which are not related to a lack of technology. Nonetheless, predicting the next big earthquake is still beyond the control of scientists, according to this article from the Why Files: Perilous Predictions. This website from the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program: Latest Earthquakes, provides an overview of the magnitude of the most recent earthquake and links to other pages that help put the catastrophe in perspective in terms of previous earthquakes. This next website Princeton Earth Physics Project proposes a lesson plan for calculating the magnitude of an earthquake, with links to some related information. Finally, this article Christian Science Monitor: A Low-tech Solution to Tsunamis highlights a low-tech way to minimize the effect of Tsunamis --mangroves.

As is common with the end of another year, recent media coverage includes several articles reviewing what happened in 2007. These two articles review technology in 2007. The first article from MSNBC provides a general overview of some of the issues covered in the media throughout the year, including biometrics, broadband, spam, viruses, and the iPod. The second article highlights the Top Picks from Technology Research News (TRN). The article reviews just a few of a long list of scientific and technological research papers published in 2007. The key research areas of 2007 include notable advances in biotechnology, communications, computing, engineering, energy, security, nanotechnology, applied physics and the Internet. Each area is discussed briefly and links are provided to related articles from TRN.

1. MSNBC: The Year in Technology
2. Technology Research News Top Picks

Benjamin Roe, who is currently pursuing a PhD in Process Scheduling at the Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Imperial College, has posted this article on Usable GUI Design strategies. The author presents five key points that Open Source software (OSS) developers should consider when designing Graphical User Interfaces (GUI's). The points are drawn from the author's experience in using and writing OSS software and consulting books and websites on the subject, which are listed in the references of the article. Although he uses actual examples to discuss user interface issues, he notes that the comments are meant to serve as constructive criticisms and not to offend anyone. The FAQ section includes a selection of comments from readers and his responses to questions and concerns they have raised.

Interactive Nano-Visualization in Science and Engineering Education (IN-VSEE) is a consortium of university and industry scientists and engineers, community college and high school science faculty and museum educators. Together they have created this website, or "laboratory without walls," offering instructional resources on the "remote operation of advanced microscopes and nano-fabrication tools coupled to powerful surface characterization methods." The program, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), combines research, education and outreach to help prepare students "for the work force in the imminent nanotechnology revolution." Visitors will find interactive IN-VSEE modules that ask students to draw on key concepts and fundamental principles from science, math and engineering to design experiments. Educators and researchers can use SPM Live!, an online tool that broadcasts images and allows for remote control of the visualization instrument. The Visualization Gallery offers images "that illustrate the interdisciplinary nature of modern science and engineering and the value of integrating research into education." Visitors can browse the Gallery by image type (Photographs, Schematics, Animations, and Micrographs taken from Scanning Electron Microscopy or Scanning Probe Microscopy) or use the keyword search. The project is ongoing and some of the images are still without explanations, but the database is extensive and the modules are clear and easy to navigate. Information on workshops offered by IN-VISEE and related publications are also available from this website.

This website was initiated by Cory Futrell, a self-acknowledged math addict, who is currently a sophomore math and physics dual major at the University of Oklahoma. A key feature of the website is an encyclopedia with short definitions of over 100 mathematical terms. Visitors are also invited to offer their comments on the articles written by contributing authors and covering topics such as Numerical Systems, Binary to Hexadecimal, a Description of the CSS Cipher, a Proof of Euler's Equation, and a Mathematica Tutorial. The website uses MathML embedded within XHTML to show equations as text rather than as images, so visitors may need to download special fonts or upgrade Web browsers to view the equations.

The world of religious icons and other illustrative and symbolic elements is well-documented both in print publications, and to a lesser extent, in various online archives and exhibitions. But what about the world of graphical user interfaces, such as the icons that populate many of our computer screens? Curious visitors will find their fill at this online museum of graphical interfaces, many of which even some long-time computer users may have forgotten about. Divided into categories such as icons, sounds, components, and interfaces, the site contains over 2675 pictures and 651 icons from 51 interfaces. Visitors may want to browse through some of these sections, especially ones like the "Splashes" area where they can view some of those iconic images that are (or were) displayed while various programs are in the process of launching. Here visitors can view such classics as those splashes created for Netscape Navigator 2.0 and Microsoft Word 1.1. Also, even the most stoic user may shed a tear while listening to some of the "classic" sounds of such platforms as Windows 95, which are also available here. Rounding things out here are a selection of historical articles on graphical user interfaces, and a few advertisements from the not-so-distant past, including one featuring a certain Harvard drop-out-turned billionaire.

H.D. Mittelmann from the Department of Math and Statistics at Arizona State University and P. Spellucci from Department of Mathematics at Technical University Darmstadt have posted this guide entitled, Decision Tree for Optimization Software. The guide "aims at helping you identify ready to use solutions for your optimization problem, or at least to find some way to build such a solution using work done by others." The online document is organized into sections covering specific software problems, a collection of test results and performance tests, and example files to use with existing software. The authors also list information on available books and tutorials, some of which are online, as well as various software tools to assist in formulating an optimization problem or simplifying its solution. Those tools listed in the Web-submission section are available to try directly via the Internet.

The UC Teaching, Learning & technology Center (TLtC) Webzine & Online Forum is published by the University of California and highlights news and events across the UC campuses. This article reports on a strategy used by professors at UC Riverside to assess student progress in a large lecture course. The article points out that quizzing students in large introductory science courses is time consuming and often does not provide students and teachers immediate feedback. The UC Riverside professors have found that online quizzes are an effective way to assess student understanding of key concepts throughout the term in a timely manner. Another strategy discussed in the article is the use of a wireless computing system in the lecture hall to conduct anonymous quizzes during class time. The article concludes with a short discussion of another innovation under development known as "smart homework," which tailors itself to the student's ability level in order to give real-time feedback to the student.

For those who feel that there may be a paucity of material on the Himalayan region, they will need to take a close look at this fine site provided through a collaboration between the Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge University and the Anthropology Department at Cornell University. Since its inception in December 2000, the partners have managed to digitize a number of photographic collections, several journals, and a number of short films. Scholars with an interest in Himalayan studies will want to browse through the digitized volumes of such publications as Contributions to Nepalese Studies and the Journal of Bhutan Studies. One particularly intriguing collection made available here is the Frederick Williamson Collection. Williamson was a British political officer stationed in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibet during the 1930s. During his tenure there he and his wife took some 1,700 photographs documenting their experiences and also made a number of short films, which are also available for viewing on the site. Visitors to the site may also want to register with the project so that they are informed of project updates.

This website presents resources from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Computational and Systems Biology course offered in the spring semester of 2007. This site is part of the MIT OpenCourseWare project, which was developed to share MIT undergraduate and graduate course resources with the Internet community. This introductory course emphasizes "the fundamentals of nucleic acid and protein sequence analysis, structural analyses, and also serves as an introduction to the analysis of complex biological systems. It covers principles and methods used for sequence alignment, motif finding, structural modeling, structure prediction, and network modeling." The website contains downloadable lecture notes, assignments, and quizzes. The site also lists reading assignments, and links to a number of Computational Biology Tools and Resources. Note: RasMol software is needed to run .pdb files, and Python Interpreter can be used to run .py files.

The JavaNumerics website "provides a focal point for information on numerical computing in Java." The project is headed by the Java Grande Forum Numerics Working Group, and sponsored by the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division of the NIST Information Technology Laboratory. Reports, presentations and proposed APIs for numerical computing from the JavaNumerics working groups are posted here, along with links providing information on Java-related meetings, proposals, and benchmarks. Links to general numerics and linear algebra libraries, along with other tools and utilities, are also provided.

The Hypermedia Image Processing Reference (HIPR) offers a wealth of resources for users of image processing and an introduction to hypermedia (through use with Web browsers). HIPR was developed at the Department of Artificial Intelligence in the University of Edinburgh as computer-based tutorial materials for use in courses on image processing and machine vision. The material is available as a package that can easily be shared on a local area network and then made available at any suitably equipped computer connected to that network. The materials cover a wide range of image processing operations and are complemented by an extensive collection of actual digitized images, all organized for easy cross-referencing. Some features include a reference section with information on some of the most common classes of image-processing operations currently used, a section describing how each operation works, and various other instructional tools, such as Java demonstrations; interactive tableau where multiple operators can demonstrate sequences of operations; suggestions for appropriate use of operations; example input and output images for each operation; suggested student exercises; an encyclopedic glossary of common image processing concepts and terms; and other reference information. From the index, visitors can search on a particular topic covered in this website.

Alex Kasman, Associate Professor in the College of Charleston Department of Mathematics, has compiled this list of Mathematical Fiction. The books and stories listed here may be of interest to teachers or anyone wanting to read about mathematics from a literary perspective. The collection is organized so that visitors can browse by medium (which includes 22 entries that are categorized as "Available Free Online"), genre, motif, or topic. Some motifs include Evil Mathematicians, Female Mathematicians, Insanity, Math as Beautiful/Exciting/Useful, and Math as Cold/Dry/Useless. Some examples of topics listed include Algebra/Arithmetic/Number Theory, Mathematical Physics, and Probability/Statistics. The category with by far the most entries is Science Fiction with Not Science-Fiction, Fantasy or Horror coming in at a close second. Visitors can also search the entire database, view entries by Title or Author or Year, or check out the 30 most recently added or modified entries. Each entry is followed by a sentence or two describing the article or book and some include a website link to the article or to Amazon.com for ordering information. Proceeds from sales made through the website go to the College of Charleston Department of Mathematics.

The Physics Department at Trinity College introduces students to the wide range of subspecialties of physics at this substantial website. Through the abundance of helpful figures and text, users can discover various phenomena related to the study of the universe, galaxies, stars, Earth, light, materials, atoms, and quarks. At one of the many links provided at the website, students can learn about energy quantization, the uncertainty principle, particle-wave duality, and other concepts related to quantum theory. The website describes how physics is related to sports, finances, communications, and other aspects of our lives. Along with providing an abundance of information, the site also directs visitors to additional educational websites.

Nanotech is a nanofabrication facility located at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It offers expertise in "compound semiconductor-based device fabrication, encompassing the full range of processes including lithography, thin film deposition, and etching." The website describes the facility and lists some of the research projects involving fabrication that were performed there. Some of the research summaries include links to further research for more information on the topic. Note that the summaries should be viewed using recent versions of Internet Explorer.

The January issue of IEEE Communications Magazine has devoted a special feature to the topic of wireless communications in China. According to the issue's editors, the wireless market in China is especially unique since specific technology, market, government and cultural considerations all play important roles. This issue presents recent developments in China's emerging wireless mobile communications networks, as well as perspectives on China's future wireless mobile technology and market, with an emphasis on research, development, deployment, application, and business issues. The guest editorial on the topic is now accessible to all readers at:

This website features supplementary materials for a book called Mathematical Constants by Stephen Finch, a Clay Mathematics Institute Book Fellow. The book is a collection of stories about 136 mathematical constants that, according to one reviewer, "will startle us, intrigue us and nurture our quest of mysterious patterns amongst numbers and structures." On this website, the author has errata and addenda to the book as well as some sample essays on integer compositions, optimal stopping and Reuleaux triangles. Supplementary materials are organized by topic, which include Number Theory and Combinatorics, Geometry and Topology, Probability and Stochastic Processes, Real and Complex Analysis, and Inequalities and Approximation. The website also includes links to the book publisher and companies selling the book as well as some of the author's favorite websites.

The Berkeley Institute of Design (BID) conducts research and educational activities that emphasize an interdisciplinary approach to designing interactive environments. Under the topic of "environments," the website includes "architectural spaces, products, web sites, and other artifacts that support complex human activity." Given the current "era of ubiquitous technologies," the organization's approach combines technical and social/humanist perspectives drawing on psychology, social sciences and art practice. Its goal is to understand human behavior and the experience that technology should enhance, while remaining committed to social values and critical reflection. Projects include: MultiView Papier-Mâché, Books with Voices, The Designers' Outpost, Digital Chemistry Project, SUGAR (CAD for MEMS), flexonics editorial, UCWISE, paradoxes in creativity, Organum, and Mobster.

Part of the Smithsonian Institution since 1967, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York was founded in 1897 by Amy, Eleanor, and Sarah Hewitt as part of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Today the museum is one of the largest design museums in the world, with a total catalog of more than 250,000 objects. The site is full of helpful material, ranging from the pragmatic (upcoming and ongoing exhibitions) to the playful (a series of very entertaining online games). Of course, users must be sure to check out the National Design Awards page, where they will have the opportunity to learn about the best designs of the year in a host of categories, including architecture, communications, and fashion. Finally, those persons interested in obtaining a master's degree in the history of decorative arts and design will want to learn about this rather compelling program offered jointly with the Parsons School of Design.

The Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting (CRC) works "to assist Australian industry and agriculture in the areas of land use and land management through techniques to enhance carbon sequestration over the long term." Bringing together more than a hundred leading Australian greenhouse researchers, the CRC aims to support the development of both "national and global greenhouse policy and best practices." The CRC website includes downloadable Annual Reports for 2002-03 and 2003-04 as well as the Science Plan for 2003-06, and a variety of other publications. The site offers a Publications Database with search fields for Author, Source, Title, and Year. The site also offers summaries of the six CRC research programs, and brief descriptions of projects within the program areas. Site visitors can also peruse copies of eCarbon News which touch on CRC News, Australian News, World News, and Conferences.

This website, which uses a Web version of Mathematica software, "supplements text books by giving you step-by-step solutions to the two basic operations of calculus:" derivatives and integrals. The Director of Planning and Project Management at Wolfram Research, Inc., the company that sells Mathematica, developed this Web version of the product that gives Wolfram Research an alternative source of product-testing data and provides Internet users a way to use the software for free. For example, visitors can request online solutions to derivatives, long multiplication and long division without registering. Other features, such as step-by-step solutions for indefinite integrals, determinants and matrix inverses, or systems of linear equations are available only with a paid subscription. The website will also create a graph of a function and its first and second derivatives, but only partial solutions are provided for free. A section with examples of derivatives instruct the user on the proper input format for Mathematica. The website is also available in French, Spanish, Japanese, and German.

The Center for Research in Scientific Computation (CRSC), based at North Carolina State University, aims to "foster research in scientific computing and provide a focal point for research in computational science, engineering and applied mathematics." The Center has developed a teaching experimental laboratory "where students are exposed to experimental design and data collection through demos and actual hands-on experience." The Center's multidisciplinary research addresses topics in scientific computation such as Numerical Optimization and Control, Numerical Solution of Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations, Mathematical Modeling and Analysis; Numerical Linear Algebra, and Parallel Computing. This website describes the Center's projects and offers links to the project websites. An online database makes available CRSC technical reports from 1992 to the present.

Ireland's National Microelectronics Research Center (NMRC) at the University College, Cork, conducts research on information and communications technologies. The organization identifies and addresses "key emerging technological challenges" and focuses on "the development of core technology competencies that will yield technology platforms for future high impact innovation and commercial exploitation." Research themes include microtechnologies, photonics, nanotechnology and research at the ICT/Bio interface. Images and short descriptions provide some background information on these themes, while more detailed research findings can be found on the individual research group websites. Some sections of the website were still being developed at the time of this report.