Gamasutra reports on a set of standards (PDF) published by the Entertainment Merchants Association to promote the use of technology that would "disable" games and DVDs until they are activated when purchased. "The effort is codenamed 'Project Lazarus,' and the EMA says it's assembled a consortium of retailers, home video companies and video game publishers to see how easily such 'benefit denial technology' could be implemented, and to evaluate possible cost-benefit analyses. The initiative is similar to security tags used in clothing retail that spill ink on garments if they're forcibly removed, thereby destroying the item. In such a situation, shoplifting is discouraged by implementing a solution that only the retailer can remove at the point of sale."

esocid writes "A team of European scientists has deliberately triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time by aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm. At the top of South Baldy Peak in New Mexico during two passing thunderstorms, the researchers used laser pulses to create plasma filaments that could conduct electricity. No air-to-ground lightning was triggered because the filaments were too short-lived, but the laser pulses generated discharges in the thunderclouds themselves up to several meters long. Triggering lightning strikes is an important tool for basic and applied research because it enables researchers to study the mechanisms underlying lightning strikes. Moreover, triggered lightning strikes will allow engineers to evaluate and test the lightning-sensitivity of airplanes and critical infrastructure such as power lines. Research into laser-triggered lightning has been going on for some years. Until now, no experiment was able to produce a long enough plasma channel to affect the electrical activity inside clouds."

Nvidia has stated that their translation of Ageia's physics engine to CUDA is almost complete. To showcase the capabilities of the new tech Nvidia ran a particle demonstration similar to Intel's Nehalem demo, at ten times the speed. "While Intel's Nehalem demo had 50,000-60,000 particles and ran at 15-20 fps (without a GPU), the particle demo on a GeForce 9800 card resulted in 300 fps. In the very likely event that Nvidia's next-gen parts (G100: GT100/200) will double their shader units, this number could top 600 fps, meaning that Nehalem at 2.53 GHz is lagging 20-40x behind 2006/2007/2008 high-end GPU hardware. However, you can't ignore the fact that Nehalem in fact can run physics."

simonbp writes "NASA's Constellation Project has approved the Rollercoaster Escape System to be used as the Emergency Egress Systems (EES) for astronauts and pad crew to race away from the Ares I pad, should an emergency be called. The Ares I is the first of NASA's new moon/Mars rockets and is scheduled for a first manned flight in 2014." From the article: "An unpowered fixed single-rail system from the access arm level of the ML tower to the existing bunker would be used. The railcars could be enclosed to provide personnel protection. Each railcar can hold four to six people. The rail would follow the ML tower vertically down to the pad surface, then turn and continue close to the ground to the safety bunker. A passive magnetic and friction braking system will decelerate the cars at the tracks end as well as prevent the cars from hitting each other."