Just about two years ago, we said that Kansas
City would be the first place to get very high speed Internet access from the Google
Fiber project. This week we announced that Austin,
Texas will be the next location for Google Fiber. Like Kansas City, customers in
Austin will be able to get gigabit Internet and Google Fiber TV service. Many schools,
hospitals, and other public buildings in Austin will get gigabit Internet at no charge.
If you live in Austin or Kansas City, and you want to find out more, take a look at the Google Fiber website. Or maybe you’ll want
to plan to move to one of those cities.
Speaking of moving, the next time you’re moved by music, you might be interested to know
what’s going on in your brain. Recent
research shows that when people like a new song, the nucleus accumbens becomes
active, while other parts of the brain work on pattern-matching and emotional connections. The
more complex the activity among these various brain regions, the more the brain's owner likes
a song, according to the research. Scientists are hoping to use this work to learn more about
how we process all kinds of sounds, not just cool new tunes.
Finally, take some time this weekend to watch this amazing NASA video of Earth from
orbit. It’s part of NASA’s Earth month, which includes a
bunch of other images of our favorite planet that are also fun to look at. It’s sure to light
up your brain.
With all its interplanetary travel, it’s nice of NASA to have a month just for us
earthlings. And here on the blog, we’re happy to have Fridaygrams,
which allow us to depart temporarily from developer world and just feature some random, nerdy,
science-y stuff instead.
