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Space

Battle of the Heavy Lift Rockets 211

Posted by Soulskill from the go-big-or-stay-home dept.
schwit1 writes: Check out this detailed and informative look at the unspoken competiton between NASA's SLS rocket and SpaceX's planned heavy lift rocket. It's being designed to be even more powerful than the Falcon Heavy. Key quote: "It is clear SpaceX envisions a rocket far more powerful than even the fully evolved Block 2 SLS – a NASA rocket that isn't set to be launched until the 2030s." The SpaceX rocket hinges on whether the company can successfully build its new Raptor engine. If they do, they will have their heavy lift rocket in the air and functioning far sooner than NASA, and for far less money.
The Internet

Net Neutrality Is 'Marxist,' According To a Koch-Backed Astroturf Group 531

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the toll-road-ahead dept.
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes American Commitment, a conservative group with strong ties to the Koch brothers has been bombarding inboxes with emails filled with disinformation and fearmongering in an attempt to start a "grassroots" campaign to kill net neutrality — at one point suggesting that "Marxists" think that preserving net neutrality is a good idea. American Commitment president Phil Kerpen suggests that reclassifying the internet as a public utility is the "first step in the fight to destroy American capitalism altogether" and says that the FCC is plotting a "federal Internet takeover," a move that "sounds more like a story coming out of China or Russia."

Comment The oblig. quote from Snow Crash (Score 5, Insightful) 233

When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:

music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery

.
Businesses

With Chinese Investment, Nicaraguan Passage Could Dwarf Panama Canal 322

Posted by timothy from the start-digging dept.
Nicaragua is now home to the early stages of one of the largest infrastructure projects on earth, plans for which have been raising questions for some time now. In a move that will affect global trade in the long term, "A Chinese telecom billionaire has joined forces with Nicaragua's famously anti-American president to construct a waterway between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean to rival the Panama Canal. The massive engineering undertaking would literally slice through Nicaragua and be large enough to accommodate the supertankers that are the hallmark of fleets around the world today." (Here's a related article with a bit more on the project from Wang Jing, the Chinese telecoms entrepreneur now also at the head of the Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co.) One potential problem with the canal: disruption of surfing in Nicaragua.
GUI

New Car Heads-Up Display To Be Controlled By Hand Gestures, Voice Commands 142

Posted by timothy from the don't-take-that-call dept.
Lucas123 (935744) writes "A new company has just opened a crowdsourcing campaign for a heads-up display that plugs into your car's OBD II port and works with iPhones and Android OS-enabled mobile devices via Bluetooth to project a 5.1-in transparent screen that appears to float six feet in front of the windshield. The HUD, called Navdy, works with navigation apps such as Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions, and music apps such as Spotify, Pandora, iTunes Music and Google Play Music. Using voice commands via Apple's Siri or Google Voice, the HUD can also write, read aloud or display notifications from text messages or social media apps, such as Twitter. Phone calls, texting or other applications can also be controlled with hand gestures enabled by an infrared camera."
Transportation

Idiot Leaves Driver's Seat In Self-Driving Infiniti, On the Highway 406

Posted by samzenpus from the bad-idea dept.
cartechboy writes Self-driving cars are coming, that's nothing new. People are somewhat nervous about this technology, and that's also not news. But it appears self-driving cars are already here, and one idiot was dumb enough to climb out of the driver's seat while his car cruised down the highway. The car in question is a new Infiniti Q50, which has Active Lane Control and adaptive cruise control. Both of which essentially turn the Q50 into an autonomous vehicle while at highway speeds. While impressive, taking yourself out of a position where you can quickly and safely regain control of the car if needed is simply dumb. After watching the video, it's abundantly clear why people should be nervous about autonomous vehicles. It's not the cars and tech we need to worry about, it's idiots like this guy.

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