UPDATE: Giveaway is closed! With all the trees in place we need some lights to shine on in the night. So… Post a new comment with a picture of lights and get a patch. Never added an image to a comment before? At the bottom of the comment box, click "add image," then click "Choose Files." Pick…
By: fungus amungus
beginning of Avatar, one of the ship’s technicians tells the crew that they’ve been in cryogenic stasis for over five years — the time it takes to get from Earth to Pandora. Makes you wonder how they got there, doesn’t it? Today’s chemical thrusters wouldn’t fit the bill: Apollo 10, our fastest manned spacecraft ever, would take 120,000 years on a trip to Alpha Centauri, the closest known star system to our own.
New Scientist has a breakdown of the various technologies we could see ferrying us around space in the near future, such as ion propulsion, and stuff — ramjets, for instance — that’s still in the works. I’m glad to see some of my personal outlandish favorites are on there, such as solar sails and nuclear engines. There are also a few that will probably never ever see the glow of space, such as Miguel Alcubierre’s Alcubierre drive and wormholes, the latter of which New Scientist classifies as “almost certainly impossible” for travel.
Check it out over on New Scientist.
New Scientist, via Neatorama
It’s unclear where the recycling comes into it all, but the Light Recycler by designers Eunsung Park, Hansoon Jeong and Yoonsang Kim acts as an amplifier for tiny bulbs like the ones LEDs use. The Light Recycler appears to work just as a sticker would, but it’s also got a little dome that’ll reflect your lights to make them brighter.
Why would you want to do that? Well, maybe your cellphone charger isn’t visible enough, or you just want to amp up how loud your computer lights are because you like to pretend you’re sleeping on the Starship Enterprise. Check out more of the Light Recycler in the gallery below.
We’re not sure why designer Art Lebedev wants to shoot video from the oddest of angles, but with his new design concept he calls Fleximus, he says “your horizons for creativity will be broadened tremendously.” His design concept for a flexible snorkel-cam with a lens on one end and a compact peephole viewfinder on the other is certainly original.
If that peephole isn’t big enough for you, snap on Art’s larger viewscreen to give you a better look at the proceedings. We like the simple design of this photo and video camera, adorned with few controls, but obviously well-designed.
Apparently Mr. Lebedev is currently engaged in a flurry of design, also this week releasing “Transparentius,” a way for us to see through trucks. Let’s hope these latest ideas have better success than his wildly impractical Optimus keyboard with a video screen on each key.
Michigan has taken its fight against invasive Asian carp to the U.S. Supreme Court, suing Illinois to force the closure of Chicago-area waterways that provide the fish a pathway to the Great Lakes.
Experts fear that the invasive carp, which have been traveling up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers for decades, will devastate the $7 billion Great Lakes fisheries. The 100-pound fish have voracious appetites and rapid reproduction rates that could ravage native lake species.
Just the other day we showed you some of the military apps soldiers could take advantage of on their iPhones. Well, now there’s an even more complex way to connect infantry units with one another through the Man-packable Network Integration Kit (or M-NIK), a portable “cloud” that integrates ideas from the Land Warrior program.
M-NIK lets troops pull in video surveillance from aerial drones, share video, text and voice communications with one another via satellite and radio, and even call in precision air strikes. The last on the list is perhaps the biggest benefit to soldiers in the field, as it would allow them to link directly with their battlefield support — such as artillery or air support — without having to relay commands through a second party.
The system was recently tested in the field, and allowed two separate infantry units to network with one another, as well as with a distant command post. It’s the kind of connectivity that military vehicles enjoy but has been elusive for foot soldiers as a man can’t lug around the same weight as a tank. And the M-NIK is rather heavy, weighing in at 20 pounds.
It’s a system that shows early promise, however, and should be lighter and tighter with the rapid leaps and bounds military technology tends to enjoy.
DoD Buzz, via Popular Science
UPDATE: Giveaway is closed! You can’t have ornaments without trees! So to go along with all these ornaments we want to see some trees in the comments. So… If you want a patch, post a new comment with a picture of a tree. Check out my first comment below for an example. Never added an image to…
By: fungus amungus
There are few things more annoying than leaving the house for the day only to realize you missed a spot shaving. Then, you’re stuck being hyperaware of that little patch on your neck that would only take a second to clear up if you only had the proper tools.
This weirdo Japanese cellphone comes with an electric razor built right in. Of course. Sure, getting little beard hairs in your phone probably isn’t the smartest thing in the world, but if it means you’ll never have a missed spot again, it might just be worth it.
Wireless Watch Japan via TokyoMango
Well, this is ridiculous. The Office Mini Tool is like a Swiss Army Knife, but designed for the cubicle jockey set. Instead of knives, you get a calculator, a stapler, scissors and measuring tape. Because why should you clutter up your desk with all of these things individually when you can cram them into one perplexing little object?
TaylorGifts via Random Good Stuff
What do you do when you need to use Mac software but don’t really want a normal Apple computer? Well, if you’re hardware modder Will Urbina, you build your own custom computer in the shell of an old Xbox.
The original Xbox really lends itself nicely to modding, thanks to its hulking size. There’s room to put all sorts of stuff in there, so all he had to do was create a custom machine inside and load it up with exactly what he wanted. Sure, it won’t play Halo, but it lets him edit on Final Cut Pro. Which is almost more impressive.
Will Urbina via Technabob
Now that the United Nations climate talks have wrapped up in Copenhagen, nations agreeing to the accord drafted there are now obliged to keep their promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions . Wind power is one of the key sources of renewable energy expected to play an important role in helping to cut emissions and wean society from its dependence on fossil fuels, which means wind-power companies must be prepared to quickly fix mechanical problems that threaten to slow down renewable energy production. [More]
That video we showed you yesterday made it appear that the HP MediaSmart PC with facial recognition doesn’t work with black people. HP responded to that assertion, blaming bad lighting for the PC’s inability to follow the face of that cool guy who demonstrated it so aptly in the video:
The technology we use is built on standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose. We believe that the camera might have difficulty “seeing” contrast in conditions where there is insufficient foreground lighting.
Indeed, it’s a tall order to achieve the proper exposure on the face of a dark-skinned person while surrounded by intense backlighting — in this case, the bright fluorescent fixtures clearly visible in the background. However, in the screen cap we grabbed above, the exposure on the man’s face is adequate, yet the face tracking still wasn’t functioning. We think HP needs to rebuild its “standard algorithms.”
HP Voodoo blog, via Advertising Age
We’ve come a long way since the mid-’90s, when animated .gif graphics files were the first sign that the Internet could be lively. But they were so…tacky. Not any more. Now a new generation of artists have picked up animated .gifs, creating an entirely new artform out of the file format that we thought was long dead.
Here’s a gallery of just a few of these exuberant graphics — follow the link for a whole lot more.
Via Fast Company
For those times when you want to pretend you really are a time traveler and not just ahead of the tech curve, London watchmaker STORM has introduced the Navigator. The bulky (in a good way) watch offers time in analog and digital formats on two separate faces.
In addition to time, the watch also gives you a compass and thermometer, ensuring your geek status among the detail-oriented. You can pick up the Navigator for just 129 pounds ($209) here.
Via Technabob
Art Lebedev, he of the wallet-busting concepts that sometimes make it to the real world has come up with a surreal — nay, crazy — idea for road safety. The Transparentius is not a Harry Potter spell to be used on girls’ tee-shirts in a club, but rather for truck drivers. The idea consists of a camera stuck on the front of a truck which transmits the image of the road ahead onto the back of the load, showing drivers in the car behind just what is up ahead of them.
It’s not the first time the Russian design agency has gone all Jack Kerouac on us all, but this sure is a laaaaaarge concept. Just one question. Is it better than seeing the dirty white backside of a truck with “I’m a dirty girl who needs cleaning up” written in the grime? Possibly.
Via Engadget
For the past two decades, promises of crop improvement have been the domain of genetically modified plants : mostly, crops supplemented with bacterial genes to resist pests or weedkillers like Roundup. More than 85 percent of U.S. corn, soy or cotton grown contains such genes.
But there is more than one way to transform a plant.
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