SETI@home in the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, Emergency Preps for the SAT/ACT from Kaplan and Knowledge Adventure and Fisher-Price My Very First Little People Play House from Knowledge Adventure
SETI@home in the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
Last October I reported some exiting news for anyone who daydreams of life beyond our solar system with a short article on SETI, the organization that scans the skies using radio telescopes hoping to one day catch a signal from intelligent beings light years from Earth maybe waiting for our reply to their "hello." The scientists at SETI have devised a clever way to harness the power of the personal computer and the Internet to continue the search for ET with the help of more than 100,000 volunteers using their computers to analyze deep space radio telescope data downloaded from the SETI site on the Internet. The data is analyzed in a screen-saver program you can download from the SETI@home Web site URL setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ to run automatically when your computer is idle and enters the screen-saver mode. When the screen-saver is activated, it runs the SETI@home data analyzer which meticulously searches through your chunk of sky data for patterns of intelligence. If you are the lucky volunteer who finds life in a distant galaxy with your participation in SETI, you will definitely be famous for the moment and your name, along with the SETI scientists, will go down in history.
SETI plans to search as much of the sky as possible for two years. And the launch date of the program was May 17, 1999 with more than 100,000 volunteers and growing. If you're interested in participating in this exciting program, just visit the SETI@home site and download the screen saver (available for IBM and compatibles running Windows and Apple Macintosh computers). Once installed, it will automatically download your first chunk of telescope data ready to search for intelligent patterns that could be hidden in the signals received from space, but only when you're not using your computer (it must be on and idle to enter the screen saver). It may take several days to search through the data, and once done, it will automatically download more pieces of the sky. I'm participating and it's fun watching the on-screen 3D graphics analysis as it thoroughly searches the data for peaks and patterns. Since I installed SETI@home client Windows version 1.0 (programmed by Kyle Granger and project manager David Anderson) it has used 17 hours and 36 minutes of my CPU time and completed scanning 24 % of the first data block taken from Arecibo Radio Observatory.
The project is sponsored by the Planetary Society, the University of California, Sun Microsystems, Paramount Pictures, Fujifilm Computer Products, Informex, Engineering Design Team Inc. and the SETI Institute.
Emergency Preps for the SAT/ACT from Kaplan and Knowledge Adventure
New from Kaplan Educational Centers and Knowledge Adventure is the Emergency Prep for the SAT/ACT, a one-week crash course and last-minute test preparation for improving scores on college entrance exams. The software begins with you in the driver's seat of a vintage car as the main menu to this course. The lessons offered will help get the best out of those important college entrance exams that will determine if and where you will attend college. The questions cover sentence completion, analogy, regular math, quantitative comparison, critical reading, grid-ins and more. Strategies are included to help you answer difficult questions, improve timing and confidence levels and educated guessing techniques. You even have the ability to simulate the test environment by turning on distracting sounds that you may hear while you're taking the test. They haven't forgotten any important details, have they? And you'll find a few fun match games to reinforce your skills. After you tackle the lessons, you can take two different timed tests to see how you're doing. The Practice Tests are section-length tests (SAT only) covering one area at a time. The Full-Length Test, for SAT and ACT, should be taken near the end of your preparation.
Emergency Prep for SAT/ACT is a great way to gain confidence before taking those important college entrance exams that can determine your future college and career. They even provide an admissions calendar with topics on early decision, essays, financial aid and recommendations. And there's a section where you can compare your test scores to the average SAT or ACT scores of other entering freshman at hundreds of colleges and universities. You'll can see how you rank at the school of your choice. And, finally, there are Internet links to college Web sites across the country.
This CD sells for a street price of $20 and will run on any multimedia PC, 486SX./50 MHz or faster and a 68040 or better Macintosh. Both computers require 8 megabytes of RAM and a 2x CD-ROM drive. For more information contact Knowledge Adventure at 1-800-545-7677, or visit their Web site at knowledgeadventure.com.
Fisher-Price My Very First Little People Play House from Knowledge Adventure
This is an electronic version of the Fisher-Price Little People Play House for kids ages 1 1/2 to 3. You'll find six activities for toddlers accessed from the play house main menu either using the keyboard or the mouse. Lucky the dog will be there with your child as a guide to the fun games and activities with great graphics, sound effects and music, to amuse and amaze.
I let Becky, my 4-year-old daughter, test this software when it arrived. Even though she may be a little too old for this CD, she does have a Fisher-Price Little People Play House, and enjoyed interacting with the characters and playing the activities. It's definitely of no interest to my daughter Sarah, who is 7, but Becky enjoyed it.
Fisher-Price My Very First Little People Play House sells for a street price of $20 and will run on any multimedia PC, 486/66 MHz or faster and a Power Macintosh System 7.5.1 or higher. Both computers require 16 megabytes of RAM and a 4x CD-ROM drive. For more information contact Knowledge Adventure at 1-800-545-7677, or visit their Web site at knowledgeadventure.com.
Howard Berenbon