As mentioned I did a little Googling for other articles, from PC Magazine

"We have found a way to extend a new lithium-ion battery's charge life by 10 times," said Harold H. Kung, lead author of the paper, in a statement released by the university. "Even after 150 charges, which would be one year or more of operation, the battery is still five times more effective than lithium-ion batteries on the market today."

Which I would interpret as meaning two batteries with the same capacities have vastly different capacities after 150 recharge cycles. 10x would be too huge an increase in charge density to be believed. Keep in mind we are getting lay person summaries in these articles and it is striking that NONE of them mention huge range improvements for this like Automobiles, but do mention things like Charge retention over a week for cell phones which I interpret as meaning better standby charge holding rather than talking on the phone for a week.

Having read the article (*gasp*) as well as a few others it seems these batteries do NOT hold 10x more power. They degrade 10x slower on on drain/recharge cycles and can be charged 10x faster. BUT this is not the same as having 10x more POWER per cycle. Gonna have to wait some more before you get an cheap electric car that can go 500 miles before charging (though charging 10x faster is nice).

DAMN IT Wrong Thread.

3D may not be being adopted has quickly as TV manufactures would like, but I don't think it is going away. This isn't the same once every decade or so gimmick it was. But the camel's nose under the tent won't be movies I think, but rather immersive 3D games with good 3D tracking.

I haven't yet tried Sony's Move system, but couple 3D tracking with a large 3D display and you may have an unbeatable gaming experience. I am also not a Second Lifer or a WoW player, but again 3D seems ideal for when you are not just looking passively at a story being told, but must move about in an environment. 3D Desktops have been predicted for quite sometime, but perhaps you really need true 3D to pull of a 3D Desktop.

Still this may all fall to wayside if someone can get rid of the screen, giving you true mobility in a 3D space. Yes there are VR 3D headsets, but they are clunker than the 3D glasses everyone here is already complaining about and high definition VR headsets are prohibitively expensive. No doubt technology will eventually catch up with how to make a high definition, light weight, untethered, long battery life, unobtrusive, VR headset.

On a related note, more than 3D for passive content, we need higher frame rates. There seems to be some conception that movies must be in 24fps to have a 'movie' feel as opposed to a 'TV' feel. I don't know any TV in full progressive 60fps. Most prime time TV shows are shot on 24fps film. 60fps 1080p would be much more immersive for high motion scenes. Someone needs to shoot some action epic in 60fps or higher and see if the public responds to it. IMAX once sometime ago shot one or two films in 48fps. It was insanely expensive to pull off back then, but now should be a cinch. Oddly almost every one's HDTV is capable of displaying 60fps, but unless you are using it for gaming it probably never use more than half this bandwidth.

(BTW, yes I posted this first in the wrong thread. Sigh....)

3D may not be being adopted has quickly as TV manufactures would like, but I don't think it is going away. This isn't the same once every decade or so gimmick it was. But the camel's nose under the tent won't be movies I think, but rather immersive 3D games with good 3D tracking.

I haven't yet tried Sony's Move system, but couple 3D tracking with a large 3D display and you may have an unbeatable gaming experience. I am also not a Second Lifer or a WoW player, but again 3D seems ideal for when you are not just looking passively at a story being told, but must move about in an environment. 3D Desktops have been predicted for quite sometime, but perhaps you really need true 3D to pull of a 3D Desktop.

Still this may all fall to wayside if someone can get rid of the screen, giving you true mobility in a 3D space. Yes there are VR 3D headsets, but they are clunker than the 3D glasses everyone here is already complaining about and high definition VR headsets are prohibitively expensive. No doubt technology will eventually catch up with how to make a high definition, light weight, untethered, long battery life, unobtrusive, VR headset.

On a related note, more than 3D for passive content, we need higher frame rates. There seems to be some conception that movies must be in 24fps to have a 'movie' feel as opposed to a 'TV' feel. I don't know any TV in full progressive 60fps. Most prime time TV shows are shot on 24fps film. 60fps 1080p would be much more immersive for high motion scenes. Someone needs to shoot some action epic in 60fps or higher and see if the public responds to it. IMAX once sometime ago shot one or two films in 48fps. It was insanely expensive to pull off back then, but now should be a cinch. Oddly almost every one's HDTV is capable of displaying 60fps, but unless you are using it for gaming it probably never use more than half this bandwidth.

I have not yet seen the ISS, but will probably look for it soon with my 5-year old daughter.

One of my strongest childhood memories is of watching the Echo satellite go overhead from my grandmother's backyard during a summer family barbecue, probably sometime between 1966 to 1968 (though it had been launched in 1960). Everyone was aware it would be coming overhead so we were all waiting for it -- they must have announced it in the paper or something for our area. It seemed a very bright star and passed completely from horizon to horizon in what must have only been a half minute or so -- way too fast for a high altitude plane, plus it didn't slow down as it got closer to the horizon. Hopefully seeing the ISS will bring back this memory in better detail. Even more hopefully my daughter will have the same sense of awe I remember having when I saw Echo.

While I wouldn't mind being younger, I do feel sad for today's generation, I don't think they ever get the sense of the fantastic we experienced so often in the 60s and 70s from our space program.

BTW Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on my 11th birthday and Viking I on Mars on my 18th... if you want to do the math to figure out hold old I am. This probably helps explain why I can't walk into the Smithsonian Air and Space museum without a bit of a chill or having to strain from keeping a tear or two from leaking from my eyes when I think and see how bold and glorious we once were as a Nation.

Modded Funny, but your probably not just right, but right by orders of magnitude. The MPAA and RIAA are all for Orwellian surveillance to detect copyright violations, but probably not so much for the kind of surveillance that would make for easy interdiction of drug trafficking.

While I don't necessarily agree with our current drug laws, I am definitely not pro-drug and anyone deciding they can enjoy them as a strictly victim-less crime is sorely mistaken. Musicians whose music glorifies violence, drug use and crime, then cry and whine about p2p sharing should have a special level of hell reserved for them.

Excellent timing, I just finished a 2,000 word essay in my Slashdot Journal on the Subject of SETI

SETI Augmented with Supernova Synchronization