Sugar

Terraforming Maui: The Hawaiian Sugar Industry’s Technological Revolution

Claus Spreckels, successful sugar refiner and capitalist, had already revolutionized the process of cubing sugar when he set about reorganizing Maui’s dry plains into lush tracts of cane. This is how he modernized Hawaiian sugar production and monopolized its distribution. Spreckels’s major [irrigation] ditch was the Haiku Ditch, constructed by Japanese workers using hand drills…

Tech News Jessica B. Teisch Jan 27

Stronger-Than-Diamonds Graphene Can Be Made From Sugar

It’s been discovered that you create the very same substance those Ruskis won the Nobel prize for out of household sugar. Borrow a cup from your neighbour, and get baking the world’s hardest substance. No, not your Mom’s scones. Graphene. https://gizmodo.com/graphene-just-won-two-guys-the-nobel-so-what-the-hell-5656256 Rice University researchers are responsible for making the startling discovery, which could cut down…

Tech News Kat Hannaford Nov 17

How Kellogg’s Made Cereal Taste Good

The discovery was simple yet awesome: they added sugar. This awesome vintage ad described how much better it tasted with toasted sugar. Oh sparkling, frosted flakes, what would I do without you. [BoingBoing]

Tech News Casey Chan Oct 2

The “Misunderstood” Sweetener Formerly Known As High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Before we start talking about the evils of high-fructose corn syrup, let’s consider that it might just seem like it’s bad for us because of its name. So let’s just call it “corn sugar” instead and all will be well. Sounds good? Yeah, I didn’t think so either, but apparently that’s the idea the Corn…

Tech News Rosa Golijan Sep 22

Sugar From Trees and Grass Will Be Made Into Plastic in Next 5 Years

Those scientist types have been very active of late, between making ethanol fuel from orange peel and now tree-derived sugar being used to make plastic. Who’ll be first to make trees from fuel? https://gizmodo.com/scientist-discovers-fruit-peel-and-newspaper-can-be-tur-5474818 The latter project is being worked on at the Imperial College of London, and unlike plastic made from corn it’s looking…

Tech News Kat Hannaford Feb 19

Sugar On a Stick Turns Any Netbook Into Your Very Own OLPC

While it’s probably not very practical for typical day-to-day laptop use, the Sugar Linux desktop environment, designed for the OLPC project, is a novel take on user interfaces. Now, Sugar Labs has released Sugar on a Stick, a version of the OS that is designed to boot, run and save data from and on a…

Tech News John Herrman Jun 24

Negroponte Halves OLPC Staff, Phases Out Sugar Linux to Focus on Dual-Screen XO

Today, Ars Technica picked up a blip from Nicholas Negroponte, who informed readers of his intention to cut half the staff and reduce pay of the rest, and emphasizing the shift to hardware. The already beleaguered non-profit has been hit as hard as other charities during the economic crisis, says Negroponte, who said on the…

Tech News Wilson Rothman Jan 7

First Windows XP OLPC Pilot Marks the Transition From the Sugar UI

Today the government of Peru, Microsoft and the OLPC announced the first official pilot of XO laptops running Microsoft Windows. This was expected of course, but it marks the beginning of a major shift away from Sugar / Linux—although both will remain as dual boot options for the foreseeable future. It also represents a major…

Tech News Sean Fallon Sep 15

Mystery Tablet Shown at Intel Event, Either the Classmate 3 or a Quad Core Speak & Spell

At the end of an otherwise tepid presentation at the Intel Developer Forum today, Dadi Perimutter, head of Intel’s Mobility Group, dropped a bomb (via PowerPoint) on his audience: a mysterious tablet device, which could well be the next generation of the Classmate OLPC competitor. If that is the case, the OLPC might really have…

Tech News John Herrman Aug 19

Windows XP On OLPC Gets Slowly Tested

We showed you the first footage of an OLPC booting the official Windows XP installation back in June, but now Laptop has given the XP-sporting XO a quick round of testing, and unsurprisingly, things are a bit sluggish. The XO’s hardware has gone unchanged for the XP edition, so Windows boots off of an SD…

Tech News John Mahoney Aug 6

First Footage: Same OLPC XO Boots Both Sugar and Windows XP

This is the first footage of the same XO OLPC doing a dual-boot of Sugar Linux and Windows XP—something skeptics have said wasn’t going to happen. Soon, XOs will ship with both Sugar and XP for Boot Camp-style dual-booting options. They will never come with only XP, though the team is working on adding more…

Tech News Wilson Rothman Jun 23

Intel Classmate OS Will Be as Sugary as the OLPC

Intel’s for-profit take on the OLPC concept will soon share a UI with its spiritual predecessor. Walter Bender, the guy who made the original child-friendly Sugar interface with the OLPC project, told PC Magazine that Sugar will be adapted to the Classmate PC. Intel had previously disassociated themselves with the OLPC program because they really…

Tech News John Herrman Jun 19

OLPC XO Laptop’s Sugar OS Being Shopped to Four Other Laptop-Makers

Even though the XO Laptop’s Sugar-coated OS wasn’t exactly the most vaunted aspect of the attempted laptop-for-all, following Windows XP’s invasion of the project, former OLPC exec Walter Bender’s newly formed Sugar Labs is shopping Sugar around. They’re in talks with at least four “ultra low-cost” notebook makers who would use it for kid computers.…

Gadgets Matt Buchanan May 23

Portable Urine Glucose Meter Hates Needles, Loves Pee

Most diabetics are tough enough to routinely test their blood without crying about it (the alternative to death is certainly a good one), but Tanita has announced a portable digital urine glucose meter for those with sugar-management diseases like diabetes and metabolic syndrome that needs no blood. A portable unit of what they’ve had in…

Gadgets Mark Wilson May 21

Negroponte Moots Windows XP Version of OLPC—Is It a Case of So Long, Sugar?

The founder and chairman of OLPC has admitted that only using open-source software has not been good for the project. Just a day after the resignation of group president Walter Bender, Nicholas Negroponte admitted that the choice of the Sugar operating system has hit the XO laptop project in two places: usability; and popularity. With…

Tech News AddyDugdale Apr 23

Sugar-Powered Batteries: Hello to iPod and Frosties, Goodbye to Osama?

After long nights in the lab, probably fuelled by gallons of coke, researchers at Missouri’s University of Saint Louis have come up with a sugar-powered fuel cell. The battery, that runs on anything from soft drinks to tree sap, has the potential to run up to four times as long on a single charge than…

Gadgets Ad Dugdale Mar 22

OLPC: Tipping its Hat to the Apple M.O. – Kind of

The One Laptop Per Child project may have turned down Apple’s offer of free Mac OS X for each machine in favour of making their own XO interface, but they’re not averse to aping the way the Cupertino gang work. At least according to John Maeda, one of the grand poobahs at MIT who has…

Tech News Ad Dugdale Mar 1

Eliminate Logos on Cellphones with Sugar – Sweet

Large corporations can be so greedy. Even though you spend hundreds of dollars on a new gadget to call your very own, they want their name on it! Instructables posted a tutorial on scraping logos off electronic devices using sugar. You cover the logo with scotch tape and rub the hell out of it with…

Tech News Mark Wilson Sep 10

Terraforming Maui: The Hawaiian Sugar Industry’s Technological Revolution

Stronger-Than-Diamonds Graphene Can Be Made From Sugar

How Kellogg’s Made Cereal Taste Good

The “Misunderstood” Sweetener Formerly Known As High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Sugar From Trees and Grass Will Be Made Into Plastic in Next 5 Years

Sugar On a Stick Turns Any Netbook Into Your Very Own OLPC

Negroponte Halves OLPC Staff, Phases Out Sugar Linux to Focus on Dual-Screen XO

First Windows XP OLPC Pilot Marks the Transition From the Sugar UI

Mystery Tablet Shown at Intel Event, Either the Classmate 3 or a Quad Core Speak & Spell

Windows XP On OLPC Gets Slowly Tested

First Footage: Same OLPC XO Boots Both Sugar and Windows XP

Intel Classmate OS Will Be as Sugary as the OLPC

OLPC XO Laptop’s Sugar OS Being Shopped to Four Other Laptop-Makers

Portable Urine Glucose Meter Hates Needles, Loves Pee

Negroponte Moots Windows XP Version of OLPC—Is It a Case of So Long, Sugar?

Sugar-Powered Batteries: Hello to iPod and Frosties, Goodbye to Osama?

OLPC: Tipping its Hat to the Apple M.O. – Kind of

Eliminate Logos on Cellphones with Sugar – Sweet

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