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Comment Somewhere... (Score 4, Interesting) 244

by LordStormes (#43476269) Attached to: Researchers Report Super-Powered Battery Breakthrough

... Elon Musk has one hell of a rager over this. This could make electric cars that could go from Florida to New York on one charge, and recharge in similar time to a gas refill, a possibility.

Say you got 500 miles to a charge, which is a reasonable amount if these numbers are to be believed. That's the amount of miles driven by the average US driver in 2 weeks. So if the battery needs to be replaced after 8-10 charges, you're talking once a quarter. If the battery costs $250 and is easily user-replaceable, this isn't a big deal:

My quick, rough math says that if it lost 5% of the original maximum after every charge and the maximum charge of a brand new battery were 500 miles, 10 charges would come out to 3875 miles. If the battery can be produced for $250, that comes out to 15.5 miles to every $1 spent on the battery. Now, consider experiments are in progress to allow free/nearly free recharges, so the cost would really be reduced to just the battery. The current gas price I see out my window is $3.33/gal and my Scion xB gets about 30 MPG.

So, my Scion costs $3.33 to go 30 miles. The Tesla with a $250 battery would cost $2, and not explode the environment.

I'm sold. // of course these costs are pure conjecture until we know more.
Idle

Submission + - Machina's MIDI Controller Jacket Turns Your Body Into a Music Synthesizer (ecouterre.com)

Submitted by fangmcgee
fangmcgee writes: Anyone can sway to the rhythm of a catchy tune. But what if you could translate your body movements into actual music? That’s the idea behind Machina’s “MJ v1.0,” the world’s first jacket to combine a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) controller with flexible motion sensors to operate multiple digital music instruments, computers, and other devices simultaneously. It’s even designed to be hackable. The Mexico-based technology firm is working on a “hackstore” that will allow users to upload their own presets. Ultimately, you’ll be able to make the jacket do whatever you want: engineer beats, mix video, even play games. Forget learning the guitar—this is the future of making music.

Submission + - Pets in Work Places; Is It True That Some Find Pets Helpful in their Offices? (woshiop.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When I was growing up, my grandpa kept telling me that the most genuine friend a man could ever have is a pet, and I never thought about it; recently, I was reading different articles on woshiop, the world's largest business owners network, and I found an interesting story about how having a dog in an office can help to relieve stress. It is very well explained, and it shows how BO helps Obama, read more on the link above
Security

Submission + - Raspberry Pi used for prototype hardware laptop docking station backdoor (nccgroup.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At Black Hat Europe in March a security researcher from NCC Group will show how a Raspberry Pi can be used as a hardware backdoor when built into a modified laptop docking station. While details on their blog are a little light at the moment it shows how versatile the platform is and the diverse applications outside of learning..
IOS

Submission + - Hidden 'radio' buttons discovered in Apple's iOS 6.1 (cnet.com)

Submitted by tad001
tad001 writes: C|NET is reporting 'Discovered last night within a freshly jailbroken iPad: a set of buttons and code references for "radio," a feature found in iTunes on Macs and PCs, but not on the iPad or iPhone.' ... 'The buttons hint at Apple's much-rumored radio service, a product that will let people stream music much like they do on the popular Pandora service, but with deep ties to Apple's iTunes library.' ... 'The discovery follows a high-profile jailbreak of iOS 6.1, the updated system software Apple released just last week. A team of developers came up with a tool that gives users deep system-level access to do things like install applications from third-party app stores, change the look and feel of iOS, and add new software features.'
Ubuntu

Submission + - Linux-friendly mini PC fast enough for Steam games (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Barebones mini PCs have been around for a while, and the latest one from Zotac is pretty unique. For $270, the Zbox ID42 offers a Sandy Bridge CPU, a discrete GeForce graphics processor, and all the integrated I/O and networking you'd expect from a modern PC. You have to add your own memory, hard drive, and operating system, but the latter shouldn't cost you a dime. The Zbox works well with not only Windows, but also Linux. Ubuntu even recognizes the included remote, which can be used to wake up the system, control XBMC, and navigate Steam's Big Picture interface. Team Fortress 2 for Linux is actually playable, albeit at a relatively low resolution and detail level. The hardware seems better suited to casual games. Zotac also makes a Plus version of the Zbox that comes bundled with RAM and a hard drive, but it costs an extra $130, and you can get much better components if you add them yourself. The user-friendly chassis makes filling out the system a trivial undertaking."
Space

Submission + - Kepler: Nearest 'Second Earth' May be Right Next Door (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "Extrapolating from findings by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope, scientists on Wednesday said roughly six percent of so-called red dwarf stars have Earth-sized planets properly positioned around their parent stars so that liquid water could exist on their surfaces. The team looked at 95 candidate planets circling red dwarf stars observed by Kepler and found that at least 60 percent have planets smaller than Neptune. Most were not the right size or temperature to be Earth-like, but three were found to be both warm and approximately Earth-sized. Statistically that would mean six percent of all red dwarf stars should have a Earth-sized planet. Since 75 percent of the closest stars are red dwarfs, the nearest Earth-like world may be just 13 light-years away."
Android

Submission + - "More Than Just Dreamers" Backing Ouya Console as Major US Retailers Show Suppor (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by
DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: "There were a lot of people who doubted the Android-based Ouya console would ever see the light of day, despite racking up more than $8 million in funding from Kickstarter.

It must therefore give CEO Julie Urhman great pleasure to say: "This announcement is that we now have more than just dreamers behind us, we have established companies that do their due diligence that believe there's an opportunity for bringing great content back to the television."

Urhman is speaking about the support of major US retailers Best Buy, Target and Gamestop who will stock the $99 console from June. It is also available to pre-order on Amazon (US only I'm afraid) and those early believers who supported the project on Kickstarter will get one as soon as next month."

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