Blinds are handy things. They give us privacy at night and block the sun’s rays during the day. But what if there was a way to capture the light from the day and give it back at night to illuminate the house? That’s the thinking behind Vincent Gerkens’ concept design which takes a Venetian blind and combines it with flexible solar cells and electroluminescent foil to produce the ‘Blight’ – that’s short for ‘Blind Light’, but I’d be tempted to give the name some more thought if I were Vincent given the images of pestilence and decay the word evokes. The Blight captures solar energy during the day and uses it to power the electroluminescent foil covering the blinds to produce light at night.
Clay Moulton of Springfield, Va., who received his master of science degree in architecture (concentration in industrial design) from the College of Architecture and Urban Studies in 2007, created the lamp when he was an industrial design graduate student. The light-emitting diode (LED) lamp, named Gravia, has just won second place in the Greener Gadgets Design Competition as part of the Greener Gadgets Conference in New York City.
Concept illustrations of Gravia depict an acrylic column a little over four feet high. The entire column glows when activated. The electricity is generated by the slow fall of a mass that spins a rotor. The resulting energy powers 10 high-output LEDs that fire into the acrylic lens, creating a diffuse light. The operation is silent and the housing is elegant and cord free -- completely independent of electrical infrastructure.
The light output will be 600-800 lumens - roughly equal to a 40-watt incandescent bulb over a period of four hours.
To "turn on" the lamp, the user moves weights from the bottom to the top of the lamp. An hour glass-like mechanism is turned over and the weights are placed in the mass sled near the top of the lamp. The sled begins its gentle glide back down and, within a few seconds, the LEDs come on and light the lamp, Moulton said. "It's more complicated than flipping a switch but can be an acceptable, even enjoyable routine, like winding a beautiful clock or making good coffee," he said.
The design is based on future developments in LED technology. With current technology, Moulton concedes, a great deal of weight –- tons -- would be required, and current LEDs are not sufficiently efficient. But there are many exciting developments occurring in the field of LED technology so this futuristic lamp could one day become a household item.
Moulton estimates that Gravia's mechanisms will last more than 200 years, if used eight hours a day, 365 days a year. "The LEDs, which are generally considered long-life devices, become short-life components in comparison to the drive mechanisms," he said.
The acrylic lens will be altered by time in an attractive fashion, Moulton said. "The LEDs produce a slightly unnatural blue-ish light. As the acrylic ages, it becomes slightly yellowed and crazed through exposure to ultraviolet light," he said. "The yellowing and crazing will tend to mitigate the unnatural blue hue of the LED light. Thus, Gravia will produce a more natural color of light with age."
He predicted that the acrylic will begin to yellow within 10 to 15 years when Gravia is used in a home's interior room.
A patent is pending on the Gravia.
Aw crap, I just bought a bunch of round bolts... >:(
Machine drills square holes in metal (http://www.wimp.com/squareholes/)
You can see why the U-2 is considered the most difficult plane in the world to fly. Each pilot has a co-pilot, who chases the plane on the runway in a sports car. Most of the cars are either Pontiac GTOs or Chevrolet Camaro the Air Force buys American. The chase cars talk the pilot down as he lands on bicycle-style landing gear.
In that spacesuit, the pilot in the plane simply cannot get a good view of the runway.
Upon takeoff, the wings on this plane, which extend 103 feet from tip to tip, literally flap.
To stabilize the wings on the runway, two pogo sticks on wheels prop up the ends of the wings.
As the plane flies away, the pogo sticks drop off.
The plane climbs at an initial climb rate of nearly 15,000 feet a minute.
We kept going up to 13 miles above Earth's surface.
You get an incredible sensation up there. As you look out the windows,
it feels like you're floating, it feels like you're not moving, but you're actually going 500 mph..
The U-2 was built to go higher than any other aircraft In fact today, more than 50 years since it went into production, the U-2 flies higher than any aircraft in the world with the exception of the space shuttle.
It is flying more missions and longer missions than ever before,
nearly 70 missions a month over Iraq and Afghanistan, an operation that is unequaled in history.
The pilots fly for 11 hours at a time, sometimes more than 11 hours up there alone. .
By flying so high, the U-2 has the capability of doing reconnaissance over a country without actually violating its airspace.
It can look off to the side, peering 300 miles or more inside a country without actually flying over it.
It can "see" in the dark and through clouds.
It can also "hear," intercepting conversations 14 miles below.
The U-2, an incredible piece of history and also a current piece of high technology, is at the center of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. .
Enjoy the ride!
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new exoplanet candidates, researchers announced Monday.
The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope's total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation. These discoveries, if confirmed, would quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700.
The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler, orbits a star very much like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one that could conceivably harbor life, scientists said.
"We're getting closer and closer to discovering the so-called 'Goldilocks planet,'" Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said during a news conference on Monday.
Hunting down alien planets
The $600 million Kepler observatory launched in March 2009 to hunt for Earth-size alien planets in the habitable zone of their parent stars, where liquid water, and perhaps even life, might be able to exist.
Kepler detects alien planets using what's called the "transit method." It searches for tiny, telltale dips in a star's brightness caused when a planet transits — or crosses in front of — the star from Earth's perspective, blocking a fraction of the star's light.
The finds graduate from "candidates" to full-fledged planets after follow-up observations confirm that they're not false alarms. This process, which is usually done with large, ground-based telescopes, can take about a year.
The Kepler team released data from its first 13 months of operation back in February, announcing that the instrument had detected 1,235 planet candidates, including 54 in the habitable zone and 68 that are roughly Earth-size.
To date, just over two dozen of these potential exoplanets have been confirmed, but Kepler scientists have estimated that at least 80 percent of the instrument's discoveries should end up being the real deal.
More discoveries to come
The newfound 1,094 planet candidates are the fruit of Kepler's labors during its first 16 months of science work, from May 2009 to September 2010. And they won't be the last of the prolific instrument's discoveries.
"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement.
Mission scientists still need to analyze data from the last two years and on into the future. Kepler will be making observations for a while yet to come; its nominal mission is set to end in November 2012, but the Kepler team is preparing a proposal to extend the instrument's operations for another year or more.
Kepler's finds should only get more exciting as time goes on, researchers say.
"We're pushing down to smaller planets and longer orbital periods," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead at Ames.
To flag a potential planet, the instrument generally needs to witness three transits. Planets that make three transits in just a few months must be pretty close to their parent stars; as a result, many of the alien worlds Kepler spotted early on have been blisteringly hot places that aren't great candidates for harboring life as we know it.
Given more time, however, a wealth of more distantly orbiting — and perhaps more Earthlike — exoplanets should open up to Kepler. If intelligent aliens were studying our solar system with their own version of Kepler, after all, it would take them three years to detect our home planet.
"We are getting very close," Batalha said. "We are homing in on the truly Earth-size, habitable planets."
I really don't want to start playing that game again of staying up with the Jonses.
If you enjoy the sight of "shooting stars," then make plans to look skyward before dawn on Wednesday, when a strong display of Quadrantid meteors may appear. This first meteor shower of 2012 may end up being one of the best.
Could living things that evolved from metals be clunking about somewhere in the universe? Perhaps. In a lab in Glasgow, UK, one man is intent on proving that metal-based life is possible.
He has managed to build cell-like bubbles from giant metal-containing molecules and has given them some life-like properties. He now hopes to induce them to evolve into fully inorganic self-replicating entities.
"I am 100 per cent positive that we can get evolution to work outside organic biology," says Lee Cronin (see photo, right) at the University of Glasgow. His building blocks are large "polyoxometalates" made of a range of metal atoms – most recently tungsten – linked to oxygen and phosphorus. By simply mixing them in solution, he can get them to self-assemble into cell-like spheres.
Cronin and his team begin by creating salts from negatively charged ions of the large metal oxides bound to a small positively charged ion such as hydrogen or sodium. A solution of this salt is squirted into another salt solution made of large, positively charged organic ions bound to small negative ones.
When the two salts meet, they swap parts and the large metal oxides end up partnered with the large organic ions. The new salt is insoluble in water: it precipitates as a shell around the injected solution.
Cronin calls the resulting bubbles inorganic chemical cells, or iCHELLs, and says they are far more than mere curiosities. By modifying their metal oxide backbone he can give the bubbles some of the characteristics of the membranes of natural cells. For example, an oxide with a hole as part of its structure becomes a porous membrane, selectively allowing chemicals in and out of the cell according to size, just like the walls of biological cells. This property gives the membrane control over the range of chemical reactions that can happen within – a key feature of specialised cells (Angewandte Chemie, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201105068).
The team has also made bubbles within bubbles (see images), creating compartments that mimic the internal structure of biological cells. Better yet, they have started imbuing the iCHELLs with the equipment for photosynthesis by linking some oxide molecules to light-sensitive dyes. Cronin says early results suggest he can create a membrane that splits water into hydrogen ions, electrons and oxygen when illuminated – the initial step of photosynthesis.
"We've [also] got an indication that we can pump protons across the membrane" to set up a proton gradient, says Cronin – another key stage in harnessing energy from light. If he can assemble all these steps, Cronin could create a self-powered cell with elements of plant-like metabolism.
It's early days; other synthetic biologists are reserving judgement for now. Cronin's bubbles are never going to be truly life-like until they carry something like DNA to drive self-replication and evolution, says Manuel Porcar of the University of Valencia in Spain. That is theoretically possible, he says, "but I cannot imagine what kind of system they would implement". Cronin isn't sure yet either, but last year he showed that he could get polyoxometalates to use each other as templates to self-replicate (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1181735).
In an ambitious seven-month experiment, Cronin is now mass-producing bubbles and injecting them into an array of tubes and flasks filled with different chemicals at different pH levels. He hopes that the mix of environments will allow only the fittest bubbles to survive. "If the pH is too low and [some bubbles] dissolve then those droplets will have died." Others may persist and accumulate. In the long run, the real test will be whether the cells can modify their own chemistry to adapt to different environments. Cronin hints that his latest work may show this, but is unwilling to give details as yet. "I think we have just shown the first droplets that can evolve" is all he will say.
If Cronin is right, then the possible range of extraterrestrial life is blown wide open. "There is every possibility that there are life forms out there which aren't based on carbon," he says. Tadashi Sugawara of the University of Tokyo, Japan, doesn't see why not. "On Mercury, the materials are all different. There might be a creature made of inorganic elements." Cronin may be some way from proving this, says Sugawara, but "he has pointed out a new direction".
Life-like cells are made of metal (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20906-lifelike-cells-are-made-of-metal.html)
Playing with a Super Strong Magnet
I couldn't find this on Youtube, but it's pretty freakin impressive.
Oh, and I'm going to buy me a NeoCube
It’s pretty hard to get excited about a USB cable, but the Dexim Visible Smart chargers are ridiculously cool in a super geeky way.
You need to watch the video below to see the effect, but basically the cable glows while it is charging or syncing to “visibly show the electrical current flowing through the cable.” The lights actually change speed based on the battery capacity of the iPhone, iPod, or iPad, with the animated lights moving quicker the lower the battery charge is, and finally stopping motion once the battery is charged.
Also, I don't have 200 years to meet everyone. I will settle on a select few that I wanna meet, starting with Kristen Bell.
He got burned up in the Mare volcano period.
We've heard rumors about Google working on augmented reality glasses, but now the search engine giant has confirmed the existence of what it calls Project Glass — and it's as awesome as you might imagine.
As you can see in the video below or on the Project Glass Google+ page, this new wearable technology will basically consist of a pair of clever glasses which contain a display, a camera, a microphone, and everything necessary to make some sci-fi fantasies come true. (But keep in mind that the Project Glass designs are simply ideas, not final products at this point though.)
So what will you do with a pair of these strange glasses?
Well, you might wake up, slip on your Google glasses and set some calendar alerts before looking up directions to your first meeting of the day. While walking to your destination, you may pause to snap a photo of a funny sign (which you instantly share with your friends via a social media service of your choice) or find a coffee shop. Later you could start a video-chat with a friend and show him or her your current view.
And you'd do all of this without ever reaching for a computer or smartphone. You'd simply speak or tap a button on the glasses and the appropriate actions commence.
Hey, an cool geeky thing related to movies.
Amazing Island Festival Floating Screening 'Room' (http://www.firstshowing.net/2012/check-out-this-amazing-island-festival-floating-screening-room/)
Alien vs. Predator Chess Set (http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/alien-vs-predator-chess-set/)
Has someone hardwired the lights to a remote control or is this a series of people on each floor in each room doing this based on choreographed moves?
It was amazing all the Engineering and planning that went into building this bridge, especially the continuous slip form pouring of the arch from both sides to meet in the middle; out in the middle of nowhere in 120 plus degree summer heat in the river valley.
They injected liquid Nitrogen into each load of concrete to keep the pouring temperature at 80 degrees or less. to keep it from drying too fast in the extreme heat and cracking. It was all extremely interesting. I hope you enjoy the pictures taken during construction. It's hard to believe.
It's been a rough year for passwords.
First, 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords were leaked online. Soon after, millions of passwords from eHarmony and Yahoo users were published by hackers. These events exposed untold numbers of accounts to criminals, as many consumers use the same passwords across multiple accounts.
The leaks also proved something experts had fretted about for a while: Passwords are very easy to guess. Analysts quickly compiled results from the list of passwords and found that really dumb choices abounded. The most common phrase in the LinkedIn passwords, for example, was "link." Not far behind was "1234."
Despite years of warnings, the truth is incontrovertible -- mortal users do a very poor job of defending their data with passwords. To add insult to injury, a recent analysis of debit card PINs shows that 1 in 10 users pick "1234." And the "safest" PIN code, 8068, is no longer safe because it was published in the analysis.
It's quite possible that 2012 will be a turning point in the history of passwords; or rather, it may be the point that passwords become history.
For years, you've been hearing about space-aged authentication systems like retina scans and computers that recognize your voice. And yet, for the overwhelming majority of computer users and home and at work, simple user/password combinations are all that stands between their data and the bad guys.
This old-fashioned system has obvious limitations, the most evident being user memories. Our brains are ill-suited to recall eight-digit combinations of letters, numbers and special characters that are recommended. Sticky notes with password lists taped to computer screens remain common.
Meanwhile, "Forgot your password?" is among the more popular links on websites, and among the more dangerous, as it often puts only your pet's name and your high school mascot -- easily determined from Facebook -- between your data and hackers.
There has to be a better way. And there is, if Carnegie-Mellon University and a small Canadian start-up firm are right. At the school's new "Biometrics Research and Identity Automation Lab," researchers are investigating whether the way people walk can be used as a simple yet secure way to affirm their identities.
“The continuing threats to military personnel and critical infrastructure and the growing national cybersecurity vulnerabilities demand a new breed of credentialing technology, and what our group has achieved certainly puts a whole new spin on things," said Todd Gray, president of Ottawa-based Autonomous ID, which is working with the university on the project. The system uses a "BioSole" inserted into shoes to assess a wearer’s gait, matching that distinctive pattern against an existing record to verify the person’s identity.
BioSoles are among dozens of new authentication systems vying for acceptance in a thriving industry that has gained momentum because of the recent troubles with passwords. Before we describe more of them, it's important to discuss the basics of authentication technologies and why new systems might succeed where others have failed.
Security professionals often talk about "two-factor" authentication as a way of double-checking to see if a person logging into a system should be authorized. Traditionally, those two factors include "something you have" and "something you know." For example, a debit card is "something you have,” and a PIN code is “something you know.” For a criminal to hack your bank account, he or she must have both elements, which is a much harder challenge than simply stealing a password.
Biometric passwords expand the possibilities into the "something you are" category. A retina scan or fingerprint, for example, authenticates users based on something they are, and, in most cases, cannot change. Biometrics have a decided advantage over passwords because they don’t rely on users’ ability to remember them -- you are who your retina says you are. There is a dramatic downside, however. Horror films have long exploited the plot line where a bad guy cuts out a target's eyeball and uses it to log into a computer or enter a secure facility.
Facial pattern recognition maps are on display at Carnegie Mellon's CyLab.
The newest technologies retain the advantage of biometrics, but don't create the same level of physical risk. They involve "something you do," such as the way you walk, as being researched at Carnegie Mellon. Another similar tool involves quantifying the unique way users type, a technique that's been dubbed "keystroke analysis." These so-called "behavioral" authentication mechanisms give systems architects four distinct methods to choose from.
Another promising new behavioral technique takes advantage of a skill most video game players know well -- users learn behaviors that become automatic through play. Later, they can recall these learned behaviors – they can recognize patterns, for example -- without having to think about them. Researchers at Stanford and Northwestern are working on a system that would "teach" users to recognize a pattern of dots in a puzzle-like picture, then have that puzzle serve as a password. As writer Devin Coldewey notes, the most secure password might be the one a user doesn’t have to remember.
Marty Jost, who works in Symantec Corp.'s authentication group, says he thinks behavioral techniques offer the most promise for next-generation "passwords."
"Biometrics have been around a long time, but have historically tended to be unreliable. Just when you need it most, your fingerprints are dirty and they don't read right, for example. That's what's held it back," he said. "The key to success is providing a second factor without making it difficult to use. When you try to use an exotic method, it becomes a different problem, such as a customer service problem or a user satisfaction problem."
Symantec is concentrating on behavioral techniques that don't require dramatic changes by users. For a while, token-based authentication procedures were all the rage -- banks and corporations gave users small gadgets that provided temporary passwords to prove the person logging in satisfied the "something you have" requirement -- but users often misplaced them. So now, companies like Symantec are increasingly using cell phones as tokens. A simple text message or phone call sent to an employee’s phone serves as a second authenticating factor.
"Users are much less likely to lose their phones," Jost said.
Symantec also concentrates on back-end behavioral techniques, such as observing the kind of activities the user is attempting. A user who normally logs in from New York but suddenly appears to be logging in from Hong Kong is flagged for extra security challenges. Similarly, a user who usually transfers small dollar amounts from one account to another is flagged if her or she suddenly requests a $10,000 transfer.
"Behavioral data over time develop a profile," he said. “We can analyze these patterns without having to involve the user.”
Jost is pessimistic about what he calls "exotic" login tools for mass audiences, because even a small failure rate can create a big problem for consumer brands.
"If you are a bank and you’ve done something exotic, if it’s not working for 1 percent of people, that's a lot of people,” he said. “We try to strike that balance between strength and usability. … We do things that make the activity safer for people without them necessary even knowing about it."
A user’s tolerance for taking extra security precautions depends on motivation. Some "exotic" methods are already in use today where circumstances encourage their use. In high-crime areas of Brazil, for example, "vein printing" machines that detect blood flow patterns in the palm of a user’s hand have been deployed. In the U.S., where ATM theft rates in the U.S. are not published by banks, the American Banking Association recently said that a successful ATM crime nets more than 10 times the cash as a traditional bank hold-up, and it hopes U.S. banks adopt one or more advanced ATM protection technologies.
Meanwhile, facial- and voice-recognition systems like Samsung’s “Face Unlock,” and Apple’s Siri mean consumers are getting used to biometrics in their everyday mobile lives, and they might be more tolerant of similarly imperfect technologies at work and at home.
Avivah Litan, a security expert at the consulting firm Gartner, thinks that the move to mobile computing holds the key to the future of passwords. As users perform more and more critical functions with their mobile device – such as mobile banking – authentication methods will have to change with the times. So-called “out-of-band” authentication techniques, like text messages sent to web users warning that their accounts have been accessed, are clumsy to use in concert with mobile banking. So Litan thinks that, finally, mobile users will tolerate a biometric technique that they are already very comfortable with – talking.
“I do think voice has a real shot now,” she said. “Who wants to carry around a token that might weigh more than your iPhone?”
The big hurdle with voice printing is “enrollment,” or getting an initial clean version of a users’ voice that’s used for comparison purposes later. Techniques for mass enrollment are still under development, but cell phone carriers are in a unique position to do this easily when they sell new phones, Litan noted.
“It would be easy for them,” she said. “But there are plenty of other ways this could be accomplished.”
But despite the technological advances, the crime and all those leaked passwords, are passwords really on the way out? Jost isn't so sure.
"I certainly think the awareness of the problem is rapidly growing," he said. "It's quite easy to guess (passwords) … and by using other types of systems you can overcome that problem. Is this a turning point or not? I'm not really sure. But I hope so. It is a problem that gets bigger and bigger."
Passwords
Gawd I hate passwords. Yet I have two pages of typed passwords for all my crap. So we at work talk on occasion what's coming down the pike. Well this article is very refreshing and complete detour of, believe it or not, old thinking with retina scans, cards and finger scans.
(http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/pininfographic.jpg)
We know people default to bad passwords, whether for their computers or banking PINs. But, we have to stress this here, people are really bad at picking passwords. This infographic visualizes that idea by taking all of the possible combinations and mapping them based on frequency of use.
A data set of 3.4 million pins was used. The first two digits are on the horizontal end; the second two on the vertical end. That perfectly diagonal yellow line streaking across it shows the frequency of 1111, 2222, etc. Data Genetics crunched the numbers (based on "released/exposed/discovered password tables and security breaches") used in the graphic, and came up with some fascinating finds:
You can crack more than 10 percent of random PINs by dialing in 1234. Expanding a bit, 1234, 0000, and 1111, make up about 20 percent.
26.83 percent of passwords can be **** using the top 20 combinations. That would be 0.2 percent of the passwords if they were randomly distributed.
For the data set used, 8068 is the "safest" password, used just 25 times out of 3.4 million.
Birthday years are big. The 1900 PINS--1986, 1960, 1991, and so on--are extremely popular, with PINs from later in the century used the most.
A full 17.8 percent of PINs are couplets, such as 7878, 8181.
2580 seems random, but comes it at No. 22 most-used on the list. Why? Because it's straight down the middle row on a telephone keypad.
In the Terminator films, it’s Cyberdyne Systems which creates an artificial intelligence that becomes self-aware and eventually tries to wipe out humanity. In the real world, it turns out it might be Disney that opens the door for the rise of the machines.
Check out this cool (and sort of creepy) new video featuring a prototype humanoid robot that the House of Mouse is working on developing. The machine, which uses lots of nifty animatronics and a Microsoft Kinect game camera, is already capable of playing catch and “juggling” three balls with another human. It always starts out with something innocent, then next thing you know these things are ready to crush us under the metal heels of their boots.
While we’re impressed by the machine’s ability to not only catch and toss a ball (and his reactions when he fails), we’re also a wee bit nervous by this technology. Even if this guy doesn’t eventually realize he’s a machine and become hell-bent on wiping out mankind, it’s still pretty unsettling to think of a day when we might go to a Disney park and interact with eerily lifelike machines as opposed to actual people. They tried that stuff in Westworld (ah, Yul Brynner) and it didn’t turn out so well.
If you think we're just being paranoid about this whole Terminator thing, well, we're not alone -- check out this story about Cambridge University's plans to open a Center for the Study of Existential Risk. One of the risks they're looking into? Your odds of dying in a robot apocalypse.
Take a peek at this footage below – and start preparing to welcome your new robot overlords.(http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i266/Chiprocks1/Smilies/0%20All%20Smilies/DevilLaughing.gif)
The company is called Leap Motion, and if you want to get an idea of how much everyone in San Francisco is buzzing about them, consider this: A few weeks ago I was visiting a different hot new startup in San Francisco, and in the middle of their demo the executives said, “By the way, have you heard about Leap Motion?” Then they interrupted their own demo to show me a video showing what Leap Motion’s software does.
That mindblowing video has been viewed more than 7 million times since Leap Motion put it on YouTube last May. Basically the engineers at Leap Motion have invented the 3D user interface of the future. You don’t use a keyboard and mouse; you don’t even use a touch screen. You just move your fingers in the air, and, as if by magic, with zero latency and pinpoint accuracy, stuff happens on your screen. Think of Microsoft’s Kinect controller, but way better. Leap Motion claims its device is 200 times more accurate than anything on the market and can track your finger movements down to 1/100th of a millimeter.
The first version of the product will be delivered in a little plastic hockey puck that you connect to your laptop or desktop computer. This little device will start shipping early in 2013 at an incredible price — only $69.99 gives you a new toy that isn’t quite like the user interface from Minority Report, but it’s not that far off, either.
Welcome To The Future
Wired called this "the best gesture-control system we've ever tested." The Verge called it "the next big thing in computing."
Leap Motion has already received preorders worth tens of millions of dollars, says Andy Miller, the company’s president and COO.
Miller, by the way, is a former top executive at Apple, and his team is packed with Apple veterans. Leap Motion was founded in 2010 by Michael Buckwald, a serial entrepreneur who serves as CEO, and David Holz, a former NASA engineer who previously was working at NASA. Holz’s official title is CTO but he lists himself on LinkedIn as a “mad scientist.” One of their first investors was Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape.
Now do you see why everyone in San Francisco is so excited about these guys?
By this time next year we might be reading stories not just about how Leap Motion was one of the hot products of 2013, but about how this product changed everything.
Beyond Computers
Because Leap Motion has big plans. Laptops and desktops are just the start. “The consumer is side a way of getting it out there, but the bigger business might be licensing deals,” Miller says. “We have been contacted by thousands of businesses that want to use this.”
He reels off potential applications that range from robotic surgery to fighter jets, from semiconductor clean rooms to fast-food restaurant kitchens. “We’ve talked about seatback screens on planes,” he says. “Climate control systems. Set-top boxes and TVs and remote controls. Tablets. MRIs.”
McDonald’s and Jack in the Box like the idea of putting Leap Motion controllers in their kitchens so that workers can manipulate screens without having to touch them.
Others want to use Leap Motion in c asino's, nightclubs and DJ booths to let people control huge video boards.
“This is a big thing that really could change the way we interact with devices,” Miller says.
Leap Motion won’t have a booth at CES, but will be present at the show. Miller won’t offer any more info as the deals have not yet been announced.
Better Yet, There's An SDK
Leap Motion has created a software developers kit so that others can write apps for the device. So far the company has received more than 40,000 applications from developers. Leap Motion will send 10,000 free units to developers so they can start writing apps.
Those developers will dream up ways to use Leap Motion that the company itself might never have imagined, just as happened when Apple threw open the iPhone to outside developers and spawned a huge new industry of apps-makers.
One guy has already figured out how to use a Leap Motion controller to drive a quadcopter:
Keyboards? Mice? Disc drives? It may be time to pull the plugs, experts say.
After decades of monopolizing the home computing experience, the desktop PC could be on the way out. Technology experts say the rise of "second screen" devices such as smartphones and tablets represents a fundamental shift toward a "post-PC" or "PC plus" era.
In an entry to his blog Tech Broiler, ZDNet Senior Technology Editor Jason Perlow predicted that, within a decade, less than 10 percent of the current PC-using population will still require a desktop computer.
For the foreseeable future, experts say, some functions will continue to require a traditional computer, but for basic tasks, users increasingly are picking up other devices.
A purely post-PC world has not arrived, but here are five signs it is on the way.
1 THE CLOUD
Many experts say one of the most definitive signs of post-PC's arrival is the increase in the number of cloud computing services.
Using a website or a program installed on a computer, a cloud offloads the labor of running an application from the user's computer to a server to which they connect, usually via the Internet. The benefits of cloud services include reduced demand on the user's own computer hardware, automatically updated content and the ability to access files across multiple devices -- PC, smartphone, tablet -- anywhere there is an online connection.
Via a cloud, users can manage event calendars between devices, continue streaming a film on a smart TV that they started on their tablet or upload and share pictures between a smart phone and a PC.
Popular clouds include multimedia streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and OnLive, online file hosts such as Google Drive and Dropbox and web-based email providers such as Gmail and Hotmail. Google and Microsoft each have launched cloud-based productivity software suites built on subscription models: Microsoft 365 and Google Apps, respectively.
When he returned from sick leave to introduce Apple's iCloud service at the 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference, late CEO Steve Jobs suggested cloud computing was the next leap forward.
"We think this solution is our next big insight, which is that we're going to demote the PC or Mac to being just another device," Jobs said. "[We] will move the hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud."
Some companies are building hardware entirely around a cloud-based experience. In 2011, Acer and Samsung began manufacturing Chromebooks, notebook computers based on Google's cloud-based operating system: Chrome. Because they access applications online rather than off a hard drive, Chromebooks feature small hard drives, slower processors and require an Internet connection for full functionality but also are correspondingly cheaper than traditional laptops.
2 PC SALES SLUMP
This year has been especially tough for PC manufacturers. In an Oct. 10 story citing market researchers International Data Corp. and Gartner Inc., The Associated Press reports that third-quarter global PC sales fell by about 8.5 percent.
For the same period, Dell reported a 47 percent slump, and Hewlett-Packard's $8.9 billion loss was the worst in the company's 73-year history. In its October report, International Data Corp. also predicts PC shipments in 2012 likely will represent the first annual decline since 2001.
Most industry analysts blame the sluggish sales, in part, on the rising popularity of tablets and smartphones. During the third quarter, worldwide tablet and smart phone sales rose by 43 and 47 percent, respectively, from 2011, according to estimates by research firms Strategy Analytics and Gartner.
That growth is expected to accelerate. In a February forecast of the mobile market, Transparency Market Research predicted that, by 2015, annual smartphone sales would more than double 2011 numbers to reach 1 billion units. The same report suggests tablet sales in 2015 would more than triple to reach 282 million units.
In an Aug. 24 story on Wired.com, author Marcus Wohlsen says the steady decline of PC sales since 2007 is not a slump, which indicates a potential for bouncing back, but a sign of traditional PCs' obsolescence.
"The PC market may not have that well of potential waiting to be reborn," Wohlsen writes. "Does anyone expect some near-future radical innovation to come along and rescue the traditional PC from increasing irrelevance?"
3 CONVERGENCE
With the approach of the post-PC era, the line between a desktop PC and other devices is becoming increasingly blurry.
Traditionally, the computing experience was tied to a single location in the home -- wherever the computer was. In the post-PC era, however, a similar experience can be had on multiple devices, from an Internet-connected TV in the family room to a smartphone in a pocket.
"'Post-PC' means that you don't have to sit in one spot," says Dan Thompson, manager of product development at Claris Networks, an information technology support provider with offices in Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville.
"Now, the PC lives many places," he continues. "It doesn't stay in one place anymore."
Hardware and software designers are seeking ways to welcome the PC into the living room.
Earlier this year, Dell subsidiary Alienware introduced the X51, a small-case gaming PC with a video game console-like shape designed to help it fit seamlessly into entertainment centers. Similarly, the "Big Picture" function added earlier this month to the cloud-based service Steam lets PC gamers access their content via a console-like interface navigated by a game controller instead of a mouse and keyboard.
TVs similarly are borrowing from the PCs. Internet-connected smart TVs and set-top boxes such as Roku, Apple TV and Boxee Box provide access to services also offered on computers, such as social networking, web browsing and multimedia streaming services.
According to a Sept. 26 survey by market researcher The NPD Group, about 10 percent of American homes have Internet-connected TVs. The same report says that, for the first time ever, the TV has overtaken the PC as the most popular device for watching online video content at home.
Post-PC convergence also includes interaction between companion devices. The Apple TV allows users to stream the display of an iPhone or iPad onto an HDTV, a feature Google reportedly is seeking to replicate in its devices. Microsoft is pursuing a similar function with SmartGlass, which allows a smartphone or tablet to interact with the Xbox 360 game console by navigating menus and accessing supplementary information about movies, TV shows and games.
4 NO MORE DISCS
After decades of delivering content to computer users via floppy discs, CDs, DVDs and other physical media, many companies now are starting to rely exclusively on digital channels. As a result, manufacturers are beginning to remove physical drives from their latest computers.
Apple drew fire from critics around the world in 2008 when its new MacBook Air ultra-slim notebook debuted without a built-in DVD or CD drive. Since then, the company has continued the trend by also removing disc drives from the latest editions of the iMac and MacBook.
Similar to the removal of the then-outmoded floppy drive from the original iMac in 1998, Apple saw the writing on the wall, and other companies since have followed suit.
Many of Intel's Ultrabook-branded laptops, similar to the MacBook Air and Google's Chromebook, are too slim to accommodate a disc drive. According to August reports in the Japanese-language newspaper Asahi Shumbun, Sony plans in March to shutter Optiarc Inc., its division for making PC optical drives.
In October, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller explained the decision to move away from physical discs in an interview with Time Magazine, saying: "These old technologies are holding us back. They're anchors on where we want to go. ... We try to find better solutions."
5 JUST A TOUCH
For decades, the only means of navigating a computer was a keyboard and a pointer device such as a mouse or touchpad. With the shift to a post-PC era, however, users now have 10 more options at their disposal: their fingers.
With the release of OS X Lion, the eighth version of its operating system, Apple borrowed many design elements from the iOS system used in its mobile devices, including new multitouch gestures, the Mac App Store and an iPad-like desktop and file organization system.
On Oct. 26, however, Microsoft took touch integration on PCs to a new level with the release of Windows 8.
The newest version of the world's most popular operating system is a dramatic departure from previous versions, due in large part to being designed from the ground up for simultaneous use on traditional desktops and touchscreen tablets, such as Microsoft's new line of Surface devices.
Although Windows 8 still can be navigated using a mouse and keyboard, the announcement of a shift to a touch-based interface led hardware manufacturers to install touch screens in many of the recently released Windows 8-equipped desktop PCs and notebooks. Some of the latter feature removable or reversible screens that essentially turn them into hybrid tablet-a-likes.
In a Nov. 1 article on CNET, Mike Feibus, a principal analyst of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based TechKnowledge Strategies, says Microsoft's melding of tablet-like interfaces with traditional PCs is a game changer for post-PC computing.
"Touch is as big an addition as the mouse was more than 20 years ago," Feibus says. "For many tasks, it's a better way to interact with the PC. Everything is different from here on out."
It's one thing for the rest of the world to have way cooler trains than us. America has chosen car culture, for better or worse. But now comes word that the Netherlands is building way awesomer highways, while ours are stuck in the 20th Century. The Netherlands! If this isn't a wake-up call for the United States to invest more in infrastructure, I don't know what is. (OK, maybe this.)
Wired UK reported in October that the Dutch design firm Studio Roosegaarde and infrastructure management group Heijmans have come up with a "smart highway" concept that will replace standard road markings with photoluminescent powder that charges in the daylight and glows through the night. When the temperature drops below freezing, the road will automatically light up with snowflake indicators to warn drivers of possible ice, sort of like the Coors beer cans that turn blue when they're extra cold.
Whether any of that will actually make drivers safer remains to be seen. (Personally, I'd rather see these guys collaborate with Coors on a special paint that makes cars glow in the dark when their drivers are full of alcohol.) The Netherlands is wisely starting small, with a pilot project in the province of Brabant scheduled to begin later this year. But those are only the first two stages of the grand Dutch plan to put our highways to shame. The next steps include windmills that light up as cars pass by, and "induction lanes" that would charge electric cars while they drive.
The video below offers a rough illustration of what this might look like. Even if it turns out not to work as seamlessly as the video suggests, the innovative spirit behind the concept is admirable—and sorely missing from U.S. infrastructure planning. The design firm behind the project says it would like to bring the concept to the United States eventually, but Americans shouldn't hold their breath. Current levels of infrastructure spending are barely sufficient to maintain our "D" grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers and our 23rd-place global ranking from the World Economic Forum.
The domino effect—a cascade, a chain reaction, the propagating consequence of cause and effect—is a familiar metaphor, invoked when people want to convey that an action will have far-reaching effects. As it is usually envisioned, “the domino effect” is a series of similar-sized blocks tumbling down in turn. But in a 1983 study, University of British Columbia physicist Lorne Whitehead demonstrated the true power of the domino effect. As showcased by University of Toronto professor Stephen Morris, dominoes can actually knock down things about one-and-a-half times their size. Starting from a domino just five millimeters tall, says Morris, it would take just 29 progressively-larger dominoes to wipe out the Empire State Building.
We’ve seen a lot of fake UFO encounters over the past few years – digital film tools have made it easier than ever to craft impressive extraterrestrial crafts and “capture” them on video (we’ve come a long way from the days when guys would use their Super 8 camera and a pie tin on a fishing line to simulate a UFO visit, that’s for sure), but Aristomenis Tsirbas’ UFO Over Santa Clarita is in a class all by itself.
At first glance, the 38-second clip looks like a lot of other faux alien encounters. A guy’s driving along in his car, futzing around with his cell phone, when he spots a giant alien craft in the sky overhead. He films it (complete with shaky-cam effects and dodgy focus) for a few seconds and then an even bigger mother ship appears before the film cuts out. Pretty standard stuff.
However, what sets Tsirbas’ video apart from all the other videos out there is that it's not just utilizing CG for the alien ships – everything in the video was created with computers. The car, the phone, the sky, the clouds – none of it physically existed. That’s really impressive.
Tsirbas, who directed the CG film The Battle for Terra, has long been a champion of CGI effects. While film purists often decry the move toward computer-generated imagery and away from practical FX work (guys like me…), Tsirbas set out to prove that you could actually create something entirely out of CG and make it look convincing. We think he hit his goal – in fact, the actual mundane items are far more interesting to us than the UFOs…
The filmmaker explains his ambitions in a chat with Wired:
“The point of the video was to prove that CGI can look natural and convincing. Everybody assumes the background and car are real, and that the UFOs are probably fake, especially the over-the-top mothership at the end. The general reaction is disbelief, so I usually have to prove it by showing a wireframe of the entire shot to prove that nothing is real.”
Tsirbas goes on to add that making the car and the surrounding environment was actually much more challenging than creating the UFOS – and took up the bulk of the clip’s four-month production schedule.
“Without a doubt the ‘real’ stuff was the toughest because everybody knows what an actual car driving down a desert should look like. The digital versions either worked or they didn’t. Getting it ‘mostly’ right wasn’t good enough. We had to nail the car and desert perfectly, otherwise the gag wouldn’t work.”
We’d say that he essentially nailed it – because even on repeated viewings it’s not obvious that the entire clip is CG. Kudos on that, Mr. Tsirbas.
Now that he’s revealed the full extent of the hoax (and hopefully convinced some folks that CG isn’t quite as evil and soulless as some of them think it is), the director and CG whiz is back at work on some “secret projects at Blur Studios” and writing his next screenplay.
Check out UFO Over Santa Clarita below and let us know what you think.
What!? How is this even possible? Because science, my friends. Brusspup’s (previously) latest video explores what happens when a stream of water is exposed to an audio speaker producing a loud 24hz sine wave. If I understand correctly the camera frame rate has been adjusted to the match the vibration of the air (so, 24fps) thus creating … magic zigzagging water. Or something. Here’s a little more detail:
Run the rubber hose down past the speaker so that the hose touches the speaker. Leave about 1 or 2 inches of the hose hanging past the bottom of the speaker. Secure the hose to the speaker with tape or whatever works best for you. The goal is to make sure the hose is touching the actual speaker so that when the speaker produces sound (vibrates) it will vibrate the hose.
Set up your camera and switch it to 24 fps. The higher the shutter speed the better the results. But also keep in the mind that the higher your shutter speed, the more light you need. Run an audio cable from your computer to the speaker. Set your tone generating software to 24hz and hit play. Turn on the water. Now look through the camera and watch the magic begin. If you want the water to look like it’s moving backward set the frequency to 23hz. If you want to look like it’s moving forward in slow motion set it to 25hz.
Interesting. The quick rendering is what I'm most impressed by. It's almost instantaneous.
Should I even ask if the interviewer was a woman?
FlexGlass is a new rear projection screen material that reportedly offers all of the benefits of the best rigid optical panels with the added benefit of custom and curve capabilities that can only be achieved with a flexible screen material. Allegedly delivering unmatched edge-blend capability, zero hotspot, very wide viewing angles, and the ability to be rolled on a 2-foot core to significantly reduce freight and jobsite handling issues, FlexGlass is an ideal choice for multiple-projector, edge blending, and short throw projector applications.
1.5 Uninstall Visual Studio
If you have Visual Studio installed, you need to uninstall Visual Studio before starting the decryption. If you don’t know whether you have Visual Studio installed, you don’t have it.
The elite of the tech world have decided that Google Glass is the future.
And perhaps they're right, but, Google Glass is clearly not the present. It's not even the near-future, if the early reviews that are rolling in turn out to be accurate.
I haven't worn Glass. While I think it looks neat, I don't see a killer application that makes them worth it.
After reading all the reviews, and talking to people who actually wore Glass, I just see a product plagued by bugs, and of questionable use, that's generating a lot of buzz because people want so desperately to have some new gadget to latch onto, and fear being wrong about the next major technology trend.
Let's run through the ugly truth about Glass.
The battery life is terrible. Engadget estimated battery life is at five hours. Our own Kevin Smith says the battery life is actually closer to three hours. For a gadget that's supposed to be on your face all day, providing push notifications and alerts, this is not good. ABC says it's 3.5 hours.
It's disorienting, and gives you a headache. Our own Alyson Shontell said of Glass, "It's disorienting. You're unable to focus on people or things around you ... Glass is headache-inducing too; you're more or less cross-eyed when focusing on something so close to your face." Hedge fund manager Eric Jackson also tweeted that he heard the same thing: "VC told me this week — who'd tried it and knows many people who have — Google Glass actually is not very good at the moment, gives big headaches."
The screen is hard to see in bright light. Here's Engadget: "seeing the display in bright sunlight can be a problem."
You can't tweak any settings in Glass. Engadget, again: "You can't adjust volume levels or display brightness, can't disable WiFi or Bluetooth (both appear to be always on), can't re-arrange the application cards in the interface or set their priority, can't modify the default screen timeout length and you can't enable a silent or do not disturb mode."
The voice controls for Glass are buggy. There are two ways to control Glass. One is a touch panel on the side of Glass, the other is through voice. You say, "OK Glass," then give it a command. Our own Megan Rose Dickey said that when she tested the voice commands there were problems: "While wearing Glass, my colleague Alyson Shontell was nearby having a conversation with someone else in the room. Without anyone saying, 'Ok, Glass...,' Glass picked up on what Alyson said, and then proceeded to do a Google search for 'running.'"
You still need a smartphone to use Glass outdoors. Google Glass doesn't have a built-in cellular data connection. So, you have to have to pair it with a smartphone that has a data connection when you leave your home. This will add to your data plan costs and drain your smartphone's battery.
It's hard to take off Glass. Unlike glasses, which actually fold up, Glass is one piece that can't be made smaller. Here's Engadget: "That unbroken titanium band looks nice and provides flexibility, but it also means that Glass doesn't fold up like a traditional pair of glasses, so it won't dangle from the front of a shirt or slide easily into a pocket. That's made worse by the seeming fragility of the exposed refractive display, which we were told shouldn't be touched. Google thoughtfully includes a microfiber carrying case with a hard plastic insert to protect everything sensitive, but the resulting package is hugely bulky. Better bring your big purse."
Responding to messages is tough. It's not easy to edit your responses, it seems: "If you speak slowly, clearly and avoid grammatical contractions you have a chance of sending a correct email. Should Glass hear you incorrectly, you have to cancel the entire message and start again."
Much of these things can be fixed over time by Google. These are hardware and software tweaks.
But even when these things are fixed, we still haven't heard a single compelling use case for Glass.
After reading the most enthusiastic review of Glass on the web from early adopter Robert Scoble, the biggest reason for owning Glass is that you can take photos more quickly.
The photo quality, it should be noted is worse than that of your iPhone or the latest Android.
His other reason for buying Glass is, "They are much more social than looking at a cell phone. Why? I don't need to look away from you to use Google, or get directions, or do other things."
That's actually not true. You have to look up to activate Glass, or lift your eye to see the display. The person you're with will see you checking email, or whatever you're trying to do.
These things are going to cause a lot of social angst early on. It's hard to imagine going out to dinner with your wife and not getting heat for wearing Glass. Or hanging with your friends at a bar, and having them believe you're fully committed to the conversation.
Looking at your phone in front of friends sends a direct, honest signal that you are tuning them out. With Google Glass, you're doing the exact same thing, just in a more surreptitious way.
There's a lot of excitement around Google Glass right now because it's new, shiny, and exciting.
The iPad was the last new, shiny, exciting tech gadget. And that was three years ago.
Three years may not sound like a long time to you, but imagine if your entire livelihood is built around writing about new gadgets, or selling applications for new gadgets? Of course you're going to get excited about the next new thing.
Thus, the tech press, and the tech investment community, is thrilled with Google Glass.
Plus, Google has brilliantly limited the roll out of the product. Early on, a few Googlers had them. Naturally, they were enthusiastic about the potential of Glass.
Then, Google held a contest to win Glass, giving people the privilege of paying $1,500 to be beta testers for its new gadget.
(By the way, why is it so expensive? It's not using top of the line processing, according to leaked specs. It's about as powerful as the original Kindle, which cost $159 right now. Is miniaturization and a metal headband a $1,341 cost?)
The people that won the right to pay $1,500 for Glass are inherently disposed to like Glass, no matter what. Would you tell your friends you blew $1,500 on something that's totally useless?
There's another reason people are irrationally excited about Glass, despite seeing a long list of problems — nobody wants to be the person that was wrong about the future.
The tech elite have decided that Glass is the future, dammit. If you say otherwise you're a short-sighted Luddite who can't accept how the world is about to change. You will be ridiculed in five years when everyone and their grandmother is walking the streets will creepy pieces of glass floating over their right eyes.
If you don't say something nice now, people will remember it, they will mock you, and you will be a fool. It's better to be safe and say something like, "it is undoubtedly a game-changer," despite the fact that you only see problems with Glass.
There is a lot of excitement around Glass, but the early reviews are making it clear that this is very much a first generation product that's very buggy, and will probably fail to revolutionize the tech industry, at least as Glass is currently built.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/nobody-really-likes-google-glass-2013-5#ixzz2SRAAUiHF
A Boy and His Atom is, as the title suggests, a minute-long film involving thousands of precisely placed atoms over 250 frames of stop-motion action.
The film, uploaded on to YouTube and with a playful backing track, shows the eponymous boy befriending a single atom and going dancing, playing catch and bouncing on a trampoline.
IBM said the film, made using cutting-edge technology, represented a ‘unique way to convey science outside the research community’.
‘Moving atoms is one thing; you can do that with the wave of your hand. Capturing, positioning and shaping atoms to create an original motion picture on the atomic-level is a precise science and entirely novel,’ Andreas Heinrich, principle investigator, IBM Research, said.
‘At IBM, researchers don’t just read about science, we do it. This movie is a fun way to share the atomic-scale world while opening up a dialogue with students and others on the new frontiers of math and science. ‘
Atoms in the film were moved with a two-tonne microscope that is itself a recipient of a Nobel Prize.
Scientists used the microscope, which magnifies the atomic surface over 100million times, to control a super-sharp needle across a copper surface.
A Boy and His Atom: The world’s smallest movie from IBM
I think it's premature to make a judgement before they are actually released...
The Verdict Is In: Nobody Likes Google Glass
With all of the talk around wearable computing lately, most notably Google’s Project Glass, many might wonder how Steve Jobs would have felt about Google Glass, and the potential for Apple to enter that market with a competing product. Jeff Soto recalls a moment from his time as an Audio Test Engineer at Apple that could provide some food for thought on what Steve might think of Google Glass and similar projects.
(http://cdn.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Google-Glass-1024x576.jpg)
From an article on Soto’s blog, I AM NOT A ROBOT, entitled Steve Jobs’ Take on Google’s Project Glass:
As soon as I saw the video for Google’s Project Glass I instantly recalled a funny story from my time at Apple. I was once at a Town Hall meeting in Cupertino where Steve Jobs commented on this type of wearable computing. An Apple employee in the audience asked Steve a question to the extent of: “How can we reach out to our leadership if we have a really good idea”. Steve immediately put him on the spot and made him pitch the idea in front of everyone there. An opportunity to pitch Steve Jobs. What?
The employee proceeded to pitch an idea about glasses you can wear that display various types of information. A heads up display a’la terminator cyborg vision if you will. He continued to explain how he wished he had a way to see projected information while he perhaps went for a run outside. Keep in mind this is happening in a room filled with a lot of people.
Steve immediately shot his idea down and told the guy that he would probably trip and fall if that were the case. Steve also suggested he should get a girlfriend so he has someone to keep him company while running. I can not watch this Project Glass video without recalling this moment. So if you’re wondering what Steve would think about Project Glass, that’s pretty much it.
Update: I had a few people ask me when this happened. If I remember correctly this was during the summer of 2007.
Months ago, a fella asked if it'd be alright for him to wear Google Glass on a date with me. The question was, at that point, hypothetical, but I hesitated. I hadn't even considered how the tech giant's new headgear could affect romantic entanglements. Now — after a month of wearing Glass and taking it on half-a-dozen dates — I can say that while it's not a deal-breaker, the headset sure makes the awkward moments more awkward.
Lest you don't know, Google Glass is a head-mounted computer with a camera, microphone, bone-conducting speaker and all kinds of sensors. It connects to the Web via Wi-Fi or by tethering to a smartphone and can take pictures, record video, initiate video chats, send messages, search Google and more.
Few — mainly Google employees, software developers, journalists and some other early adopters — are running around with Glass right now. Even fewer are actually wearing it for the majority of their waking hours like I am. (When I adopt new technology, I really adopt it, darn it!)
It's difficult to imagine that bringing technology closer — to one's face — could actually help get it out of the way, but that's what happens with Glass. It's tempered my smartphone addiction and reduced the amount of time I spend staring at a screen. I've even rediscovered the fine art of making eye contact with people.
There's plenty about Glass that can make a date weird.
More... (http://www.today.com/tech/will-google-glass-destroy-your-love-life-6C10132134)
In 2009, Andrew Johnson, 35, was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's disease. Last November, and again in February, he underwent a procedure, during which surgeons implanted a device in his brain that controls his tremors. Today, you'd never guess he suffers from Parkinson's – but watch what happens when he turns his new implant off.
Johnson flips the switch on his device at the 2:00 mark, but for the full effect you'll want to watch from the beginning. When his hands and head are at rest, you're witnessing the stunning effects of a procedure known as deep brain stimulation (DBS). The surgery involves the implantation of a brain pacemaker. Like the artifical pacemaker you might find attached to someone's heart, a brain pacemaker is used to generate electrical impulses, only instead of targeting heart muscles it targets specific regions of the brain. In patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, DBS is used to treat motor symptoms when other forms of therapy fail.
As Johnson points out on his blog, DBS is not a miracle cure – it's an FDA-approved surgical procedure that's been cleared for the treatment of Parkinson's disease for over a decade now. That being said, Johnson has responded to the treatment extraordinarily well, as you can clearly see in the video.
Johnson writes about the his decision to make the video, on his blog:
I made this video today as I was curious about what would happen when I turned my neuro-stimulator off. I am flying to Sydney tomorrow for a conference and didn’t want to be blind-sided if the screening device turned my DBS implant off (which has been known to happen). I hadn’t turned it off before, so this was quite the experience.
It's difficult for geologists to witness the flow of lava on snow- and ice-covered volcanos, so researchers with the Syracuse University Lava Project decided to create their own simulation, melting 300 kg of lava and pouring it over ice to watch the effects.
Sculptor Bob Wysocki and geologist Jeff Karson collaborate on the Lava Project, melting basaltic lava to produce natural-scale lava flows in a variety of conditions. Because the remoteness of snow- and ice-covered volcano peaks make those peaks difficult to observe, observations like those from the Lava Project have been valuable in gaining insight into the interactions between lava and snow. Wysocki and Karson are two of the co-authors on a paper about these interactions, which appears in a recent issue of Geology. One of their findings, which you can see in the video, focuses on the formation of lava bubbles by steam from vaporization of the underlying ice.
As impressed by we all were by Petman, DARPA and Boston Dynamics' remarkably agile and nimble humanoid, it's about to get upstaged by the company's latest and greatest robot creation: ATLAS. Designed to compete in DARPA's upcoming Robotics Challenge, we actually already got a glimpse of ATLAS' impressive skills back when it was just a prototype, but as it nears completion we're now seeing just how damn impressive it really is.
Not only does it keep its balance and remain standing after being hit by a 20-pound wrecking ball, ATLAS also tackles a treadmill with ease, staying on two feet while two-by-fours and other obstacles are tossed in its path. Is it time to be really impressed, or really scared?
By Ashlee Vance
August 12, 2013
Almost a year after Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors (TSLA) and SpaceX, first floated the idea of a superfast mode of transportation, he has finally revealed the details: a solar-powered, city-to-city elevated transit system that could take passengers and cars from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes. In typical Musk fashion, the Hyperloop, as he calls it, immediately poses a challenge to the status quo—in this case, California’s $70 billion high-speed train that has been knocked by Musk and others as too expensive, too slow, and too impractical.
In Musk’s vision, the Hyperloop would transport people via aluminum pods enclosed inside of steel tubes. He describes the design as looking like a shotgun with the tubes running side by side for most of the journey and closing the loop at either end. These tubes would be mounted on columns 50 to 100 yards apart, and the pods inside would travel up to 800 miles per hour. Some of this Musk has hinted at before; he now adds that pods could ferry cars as well as people. “You just drive on, and the pod departs,” Musk told Bloomberg Businessweek in his first interview about the Hyperloop.
(http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2013-08-12/0812_Hyperloop_605.jpg)
Musk published a blog post (http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop) detailing the Hyperloop on Monday. He also held a press call to go over the details.
Musk has built his entrepreneurial career attacking businesses he deems inefficient or uninspiring. He co-founded PayPal in a bid to shake up the banking industry, then used the fortune he made selling the startup to eBay (EBAY) to fund equally ambitious efforts in transportation. Tesla Motors, for example, has created the highest-performing, highest-rated all-electric car and a complementary network of charging stations scattered around North America. Meanwhile, SpaceX competes against entire nations in the market to send up satellites and resupply the International Space Station.
In the case of the Hyperloop, Musk started focusing on public transportation after he grew disenchanted with the plans for California’s high-speed rail system. Construction on the highly political, $70 billion project is meant to begin in earnest this year, with plans to link cities from San Diego to Sacramento by 2029. “You have to look at what they say it will cost vs. the actual final costs, and I think it’s safe to say you’re talking about a $100 billion-plus train,” Musk says, adding that the train is too slow and a horrendous land rights mess.
Musk thinks the Hyperloop would avoid many of the land issues because it’s elevated. The tubes would, for the most part, follow I-5, the dreary but direct freeway between L.A. and San Francisco. Farmers would not have swaths of their land blocked by train tracks but could instead access their land between the columns. Musk figures the Hyperloop could be built for $6 billion with people-only pods, or $10 billion for the larger pods capable of holding people and cars. All together, his alternative would be four times as fast as California’s proposed train, at one-10th the cost. Tickets, Musk says, would be “much cheaper” than a plane ride.
As for safety? Musk has heard of it. “There’s an emergency brake,” he says. “Generally, though, the safe distance between the pods would be about 5 miles, so you could have about 70 pods between Los Angeles and San Francisco that leave every 30 seconds. It’s like getting a ride on Space Mountain at Disneyland.” Musk imagines that riding on the Hyperloop would be quite pleasant. “It would have less lateral acceleration—which is what tends to make people feel motion sick—than a subway ride, as the pod banks against the tube like an airplane,” he says. “Unlike an airplane, it is not subject to turbulence, so there are no sudden movements. It would feel supersmooth.”
The Hyperloop was designed to link cities less than 1,000 miles apart that have high amounts of traffic between them, Musk says. Under 1,000 miles, the Hyperloop could have a nice edge over planes, which need a lot of time to take off and land. “It makes sense for things like L.A. to San Francisco, New York to D.C., New York to Boston,” Musk says. “Over 1,000 miles, the tube cost starts to become prohibitive, and you don’t want tubes every which way. You don’t want to live in Tube Land.” Right?
Well, if there was an accident, you would never know it or feel a thing ;)
If you can raed this, you have a sgtrane mnid, too.
Can you raed this? Olny 55 people out of 100 can.
I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd
what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the
hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in what
oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt
tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still
raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn
mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the
word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas
tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! As fall settles in and the holiday season starts to creep closer, it’ll be time to start thinking about Christmas decorations soon. Right? Okay, you probably want to put that off for a while longer but, what geek could resist the Holiday smart Christmas lights from MooresCloud?
Taking its cue from the likes of the Philips Hue lightbulb, this 50-bulb string of lights can be set to run a range of display programs in 16,777,216 colors, as controlled by you via a mobile, tablet or Web app. Although Holiday isn’t expected to ship until the start of November, MooresCloud is taking advance orders at an introductory price $129. The full retail price will be $199.
The Ohio State University Marching Band is making waves across the Internet with fluid formations such as Michael Jackson moonwalking, Superman in flight and a naval battle between two ships. NBC’s Dylan Dreyer reveals their secrets.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Have trouble staying motivated to get out and run? The makers of the Race Yourself app for Google Glass think they have just the solution. The app pulls in data from your recent runs, showing your pace, time and personal records right in your eye piece, turning an afternoon jog into a video game-like competition. For those who need a little extra motivation, the app also let’s runners select from virtual add-ons like zombies and runaway boulders that appear to be chasing you, to give joggers that extra spring in their step that comes from believing their life is in danger ...
With apologies to Apple, Panasonic now has one of the highest-resolution tablets on the market. At CES 2014, Panasonic debuted its Toughpad 4K UT-MA6 tablet, whose 20-inch screen sports a resolution of 3840 x 2560 pixels. Meant for graphic artists and designers, the tablet starts at $5,999, enough to buy 14 iPad Airs, and have money left over.
One of the most gorgeous — and largest — tablets we’ve seen, the UT-MA6 has a magnesium alloy case and glass-fiber bezel and back, which provides a measure of protection, as it’s able to survive drops from 2.5 feet. Moreover, these materials bring the overall weight of the tablet to 5.6 pounds, while keeping it just 0.49 inches at its thickest.
(CNN) -- Google has heard all the concerns about Glass, its digital headset expected to hit the market by the end of the year.
They've heard people's fears they'll be secretly recorded by a Glass-wearing creeper. They know somebody's going to be stupid and drive while using them. And, yes, they know that some people might think you're a "Gl****."
So, now, they're serving up a list of "do's" and "don'ts" to avoid those awkward moments and get the most out of what may be the most high-profile entry in the emerging wearable-tech market.
On its website for Glass, Google has posted advice for testers in its current Explorer program and, presumably, the folks who will be entering the world of Glass when the headset goes on sale to the public.
'Google Glass' more chic, less geek
Google Glass: view from a firefighter
Judge tosses Google Glass driving ticket
Here's a breakdown of some of our favorites.
DO: Ask for permission
"Standing alone in the corner of a room staring at people while recording them through Glass is not going to win you any friends," Google says. "The Glass camera function is no different from a cell phone so behave as you would with your phone and ask permission before taking photos or videos of others."
Fears about privacy around Google Glass have been one of the device's biggest hurdles on its path toward acceptance. Restaurants have banned them, and complete strangers have confronted testers because of the device's ability to shoot photos and video.
Easing those fears will be important for Google as it moves forward.
DON'T: Be creepy or rude (aka a "Gl****")
Yes, Google itself used the derogatory term "Gl****" (although it's been massaged into a description of bad behavior, as opposed to its broader meaning as a slur, voiced by some critics, used to describe anybody wearing the headset).
This is the flip side of the first entry.
"If you're asked to turn your phone off, turn Glass off as well," Google writes. "Breaking the rules or being rude will not get businesses excited about Glass and will ruin it for other Explorers."
DO: Take advantage of the Glass voice commands
This is the real advantage of a lot of wearable tech. You don't have to fiddle around with it like you do a smartphone. But we mostly just like Google's hypothetical scenarios here:
"Glass can free your hands up to do other things like golfing, cooking, or juggling flaming torches while balancing on a beach ball."
DON'T: Glass out
Google is pushing Glass as a way of getting quick updates or performing quick actions, as a complement to other mobile devices instead of a replacement.
"If you find yourself staring off into the prism for long periods of time you're probably looking pretty weird to the people around you," the post reads. "So don't read War and Peace on Glass."
DO: Use screen lock
Once you've customized your Glass, bad guys who get their hands on it will have access to your e-mail and other sources of personal information, just as if they'd snagged your phone or laptop.
DON'T: Wear it and expect to be ignored
Google is treating its Explorers (many of whom forked over $1,500 for the right to say they were first) as walking billboards for the product.
They don't want those billboards acting like ... well ... Gl****s.
"If you're worried about someone interrupting that romantic dinner at a nice restaurant with a question about Glass, just take it off and put it around the back of your neck or in your bag," says Google.
Around the back of your neck? That sounds like a fashion faux pas -- and another "don't" to us.
Chris Burden says his amazing Metropolis II—a gigantic retrofuturistic city model where thousands of slot cars race forever—is not just a city model. Of course it's not. It's a goddamn amazing jesuschrist look at that city model. It looks glorious in this short by Henry & Rel.
(CNN) -- Forget the cloud, and rework your mental image of those mysterious data centers. Sony has reinvented a tool for storing a mind-numbing amount of data: A cassette tape.
But this isn't one of those rattling plastic tapes you used to compile your ultimate summer road-trip jams and, too often, were probably forced to rewind with a pencil.
Sony's record-breaking magnetic tape technology allows it to store 180 terabytes of data on a single cartridge. That's the same amount of storage as 1,184 iPod Classics, Apple's roomiest music player, which can hold about 40,000 songs. Using that number, Sony's new cassette could technically store about 47.3 million songs of its own.
That's enough jams for a really long road trip -- say, driving in Atlanta during a snowstorm.
If you're more of a movie buff, think of it this way. The cartridge, which stores 148GB of data per inch of tape, has room for 3,700 Blu-ray discs full of your favorites.
The number obliterates the standing record, set in 2010 when Fuji developed a tape that could hold 35 terabytes of data.
Sony, which worked with IBM on the tape, presented the new technology over the weekend at InterMag Europe, a magnetics conference in Dresden, Germany.
In very simple terms, the technology involves shrinking the microscopic magnetic particles on tape that store data. On average, the new particles are 7.7 nanometers wide. There are 10 million nanometers in one centimeter.
In a news release, Sony said it would like to pursue a commercial use for the new cassette tape technology, as well as continuing to improve it.
But if you're dreaming of someday popping that tape into some sort of digital-age boombox and pushing "play," you may be in for a bit of a disappointment.
Tape has the potential for massive data storage, but it's unwieldy to actually use. Recording to, and retrieving data from, tape takes a lot longer than digital storage devices and players we've become accustomed to in an era of Web streaming.
So, it's a lot more likely that tape will be used to back up huge databases than to save, and play, our music collections. That's too bad. We liked the idea of needing only one cassette for a cross-country drive.
New cassette tape could hold 47 million songs
Look at that. It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.
I'm sorry for that, but there are some jokes that demand to be made. That was one of them.
In all seriousness, this is Vantablack, a material made by the British company Surrey NanoSystems that sets a world record by absorbing all but 0.035% of visual light. It's made of carbon nanohair that is 1,000 times thinner than the average human hair. The tubes are small enough to prevent light from entering them and packed so tightly that the light which makes it between the tubes bounces between them until it's absorbed.
It's got applications in astronomical cameras, telescopes, and infrared scanning systems, since it has "virtually undetectable levels of outgassing and particle fallout" which can contaminate sensitive imagers .And, ominously, it has "military uses that the material's maker is not allowed to discuss."
The picture actually reveals just how black it is: the aluminum foil that the Vantablack is "grown" on is clearly crumpled. But the thin Vantablack layer doesn't echo those shapes, instead just creating a void. Said Ben Jensen, the firm's chief technical officer:
You expect to see the hills and all you can see … it's like black, like a hole, like there's nothing there. It just looks so strange.
Not that any of us normal people could get some of this stuff to make the world's most accurate black hole costume: It's so expensive that Jensen can't even give the price.
Existing laws are supposed to prevent motorists from using smartphone apps while driving. But they aren't working. The number of drivers injured or killed by distraction continues to rise.
I don’t harbor hope that automakers—notoriously bad at digital driver interfaces—will find the best solution. The way forward is more likely to come from a small startup, perhaps a company like Navdy. The San Francisco company is attempting to solve the distracted-driver epidemic by moving car data and mobile functions away from clunky dashboards and tiny phone screens—and onto simple interfaces that magically float six feet in front of the driver’s eyes.
More... (http://readwrite.com/2014/08/05/smartphone-car-navdy-heads-up-display)
You don’t need a window for these views. Paris-based design company Technicon Design recently won an award for their IXION Windowless Jet Concept. The idea is to provide a 360-degree view using cameras mounted on the plane’s exterior to capture the scenery and then project that on high-res screen on the interior cabin walls and ceiling.
SEE ALSO: What The Future Of Transportation Looks Like
And actually any scene could be displayed on the interior. Let’s say the view is mostly clouds or ocean. How about displaying a rainforest? A flight through the Grand Canyon? A trip to the Moon?
Solar panels on the exterior would help power the displays.
Removing windows has its advantages, too. It reduces the materials and cost needed as well as reducing the weight of the plane. Not having windows allows for a greater flexibility of the interior design of the aircraft, too.
“The ethos of the project is simple, to challenge current thinking, and propose something a little different, but not just a fantasy. It has to be credible and relevant, yet provoke discussion,” design director Gareth Davies said in a press release.
Nice find. Sometimes I do wonder what it is you're typing into search to find these unique video clips
(I also love that the knobs go to 11)
ohn Edmark has created a fascinating series of fibonacci zoetrope sculptures that feel like magic. Watch them in action. It's hypnotizing.
The recursive nature of the sequence used to build them and the filming technique—with the camera "set to a very short shutter speed (1/4000 sec) in order to freeze the spinning sculpture" but with natural light—make them look as if the sculptures were growing forever.
Scientists at the University of Rochester have created a metal that is so extremely hydrophobic that the water bounces on it as if it were repelled by a magic force field. Instead of using chemical coatings they used lasers to etch a nanostructure on the metal itself. It will not wear off, like current less effective methods.
The applications can be revolutionary: From the construction of airplane surfaces—which will avoid water freezing of the fuselage—to non-stick pans to phones to computers to TVs to cars to whatever you can imagine made of metal. They are also thinking of applying the technique to create 100-percent efficient water recollection systems in underdeveloped countries and the creation of latrines in areas where water is not abundant enough to allow for effective cleaning.
But it gets even better: The lead scientist says that 'the structures created by their laser on the metals are intrinsically part of the material surface' so they will not disappear over time, like current chemical coatings do.
So I just had my 20th Anniversary here at Boeing. Man, where did the time go. And actually it's longer... I'll explain later.
So Boeing gives gifts at certain anniversaries. I was given a nice limit and I could choose anything out of the Boeing Store. Most of it... Big Meh, but then I came across this...
(http://c1.neweggimages.com/BizIntell/item/55/129/55-129-006/2.png)
It's Skullcandy's Air Raid Bluetooth Speaker. It's small but heavy. It does not have good bass response. But it is very loud and very clear. This will work perfectly nice out in the garage. Not bad for free.
I just recently purchased JBL's Charge 2 which is sonically awesome. But I will use that for all my other outdoor stuff.
(http://icdn3.digitaltrends.com/image/jbl-charge-2-600x315-c.jpg?ver=2)
Oh, I almost forgot. Actually I've been working here at Boeing for 26+ years. The early years were as a contractor. When I signed up as a Boeing Employee, they did not take into account those years. :'(
Getting stung by insects hurts, and some hurt (a LOT) more than others. Of course, this necessitates a ‘sting pain’ index by which to compare the aftereffects of meeting the business end of a stinger. Why, just last weekend when i was on an ill-fated canoe trip (I dumped out twice, in freezing water) and was stung by a particularly unruly bee, I was remarking on how useful it would be to place my excruciation in the context of other nasty bugly-bites.
Lucky for all of us, an entomologist named Justin O. Schmidt decided to take one for the team and let a lot of bees, ants, and wasps sting him. Then, he would rate the level of ouchiness in an admirably systematic method. He published his “Schmidt Pain Index” in 1984 (refined in later papers, eg 1990), which ranked the sting-pain on a scale from 0 (completely benign) to 4 (mostly dead). The descriptions of the stings he presents are borderline precious, hearkening back to wine-tastings or sampling a pungent perfume:
1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
2.x Honey bee and European hornet.
3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of Hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).
4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.
More... (http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/05/16/schmidt-pain-index-which-sting/)