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Toys

Aerial Video Footage of New York Taken By RC Plane 208

Posted by timothy from the make-friends-in-law-enforcement dept.
kkleiner writes with this fun bit from Singularity Hub: "Expert remote control pilot Raphael 'Trappy' Pirker recently took his 54 inch Zephyr model plane on a harrowing tour of Manhattan and the surrounding area. The best part: his RC vehicle was fitted with a camera that wirelessly transmitted an amazing recording of everything it saw – Pirker was piloting his craft with this visual feed. As you can see in the video, the results were spectacular. The plane looks to be flying within a few feet of buildings and whizzing past bridges with ease. You have to check out around 2:01 when he starts to buzz right by the Statute of Liberty."
Space

Thin Oxygen-CO2 Atmosphere Discovered On Rhea 37

Posted by Soulskill from the fo'-rhea dept.
Randyll writes "During its Saturn flyby in March, the Cassini space probe detected an oxygen-rich atmosphere on Rhea, Saturn's second-largest moon. While 100 times thinner than the atmospheres of Europa or Ganymede, Rhea's atmosphere contains a surprising amount of carbon dioxide. There is an explanation for the oxygen — the decomposition of surface ice — while the origin of the carbon dioxide is a mystery. A few of the possible explanations are that Rhea has carbon-rich organic molecules or that the gas is seeping from Rhea's interior. However, researchers have been unable to determine the exact source for the gas." While "richness" is relative — the study's abstract refers to Rhea's atmosphere as "tenuous," and oxygen concentrations are trillions of times lower there than they are on Earth — the finding still puts Rhea in rare company among the planets and moons of the solar system.
The Internet

British MP Calls For Pornography 'Opt-In' 335

Posted by samzenpus from the join-the-club dept.
Robadob writes "Internet providers should create an 'opt-in' system to prevent children gaining access to pornography, a Conservative MP has said. Claire Perry wants age-checks to be attached to all such material to reduce exposure to it. The mother-of-three, who has prompted a Commons debate on the issue, said internet firms should 'share the responsibility' of protecting children."
Music

Japan's Latest Rockstar Is a 3D Hologram 305

Posted by samzenpus from the as-real-as-it-gets dept.
kkleiner writes "Hatsune Miku is a Japanese pop diva who's just started to play massive stadium concerts to sold out crowds. Her hair is blue, she dresses like Sailor Moon, and she'll only appear in concerts via a 3D 'hologram.' Oh, and did I forget to mention that she's completely fictional? Created by Crypton Future Media, Hatsune Miku and her virtual colleagues have gone on limited tours in Japan."
Transportation

Digital Dashboard Device Detects Driver Drowsiness 117

Posted by timothy from the string-between-ceiling-and-nostril dept.
Pickens writes "Science Daily Headlines reports that researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology have developed a self-contained, dashboard-mounted assistant system that tracks a driver's eye movements and issues a warning before the driver has an opportunity to nod off to sleep. 'What we have developed is a small modular system with its own hardware and programs on board, so that the line of vision is computed directly within the camera itself,' says Professor Husar. 'Since the Eyetracker is fitted with at least two cameras that record images stereoscopically — meaning in three dimensions — the system can easily identify the spatial position of the pupil and the line of vision.' The cameras, which can be installed in any model of car, evaluate up to 200 images per second to identify the line of vision. If the camera modules detect that the eye is closed for longer than a user-defined interval, it sounds an alarm. The Eyetracker also has applications in computer games where players could look around themselves without requiring a joystick to change their viewing direction, and in marketing and advertising, where researchers could determine which parts of a poster or advertising spot receive longer attention from their viewers."
Australia

Researcher Builds Machines That Daydream 271

Posted by timothy from the free-thinkers-are-the-best-kind dept.
schliz writes "Murdoch University professor Graham Mann is developing algorithms to simulate 'free thinking' and emotion. He refutes the emotionless reason portrayed by Mr Spock, arguing that 'an intelligent system must have emotions built into it before it can function.' The algorithm can translate the 'feel' of Aesop's Fables based on Plutchick's Wheel of Emotions. In tests, it freely associated three stories: The Thirsty Pigeon; The Cat and the Cock; and The Wolf and the Crane, and when queried on the association, the machine responded: 'I felt sad for the bird.'"
Idle

Submission + - Internet Petitions Stephen Colbert To Hold 'Restor (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "A grassroots campaign has begun to get Stephen Colbert to hold a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to counter Glenn Beck's recent "Restoring Honor" event. The would-be rally has been dubbed "Restoring Truthiness" and was inspired by a recent post on Reddit, where a young woman wondered if the only way to point out the absurdity of the Tea Party's rally would be if Colbert mirrored it with his own "Colbert Nation.""
Security

Submission + - Women Less Likely to Fall Prey to Pretexting? (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "Of the 135 people Fortune 500 employees targeted by social engineering hackers in a recent contest only five refused to give up any corporate information whatsoever, and they shared one glaring commonality: all five were women. The contest, which transpired over two days at this year's DefCon, pitted social engineering hackers against employees at 17 major corporations. Sitting in a plexiglass booth, with an audience watching, contestants called up company employees, trying to get them to give up information. Among the more successful tactics: pretending to be insiders who were doing audits or consultants filling out surveys. And if contestants tried to get employees to visit an outside Web site, they always succeeded, eventually. Still the five women performed admirably, said contest organizer Chris Hadnagy. 'Within the first 15 seconds, they were like, "This doesn't seem right to me," and they ended the call,' Hadnagy said. Contributing to their suspicions may have been the fact that all of the contestants were men. 'I think inherently women are more cautious when guys are involved,' he said."
Apple

Submission + - Facebook-Ping integration Disappears overnight (cnet.com)

Submitted by Tootech
Tootech writes: After Apple introduced its social music discovery service, Ping, on Wednesday, some people reported they were able to use Facebook Connect to find people to follow. But a day later, that feature doesn't appear to be supported by Facebook. And a lot of people are wondering why.

"Last night before going to sleep, I downloaded iTunes 10 and set up my Ping account (more on that later). As part of the setup, I signed up with Facebook Connect so I could find my social graph, ready to recommend songs," Om Malik, founder of GigaOm, wrote Thursday. "I woke up this morning, and expected to see Ping activity in my Facebook account, and well let's just say, nothing is going on."

According to Malik, Ping is not communicating with Facebook and vice versa.

So what happened? It was there Wednesday, and even made a cameo at Apple's presentation, according to screenshots captured from the live stream. One slide clearly says "find friends via Facebook or e-mail."

Once you sign up for Ping, you get a welcome e-mail from Apple, the text of which refers to finding friends through Facebook (see below). Yet people who logged in to the service Thursday only have the option to find new friends via e-mail.

The confusion seems to stem from some disagreement between Facebook and Apple. The reason, as articulated by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in an interview with AllThingsD on Wednesday: Facebook wanted "onerous terms that we could not agree to."
Space

Kepler Spacecraft Finds System With Multiple Planets Transiting the Star 136

Posted by timothy from the they've-probably-found-us-too dept.
rhaas writes "NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered the first confirmed planetary system with more than one planet crossing in front of, or transiting, the same star. They found two planets almost the size of Saturn, and possibly a third, small, very hot planet with a radius about 1.5 times that of Earth."
Input Devices

Textured Tactile Touchscreens 99

Posted by CmdrTaco from the tremendous-triumph dept.
HizookRobotics writes "A new covering developed by Senseg and Toshiba Information Systems gives touchpads, LCDs, and other curved surfaces (eg. cellphones) programmable texture using a high-resolution electrotactile array — a grid of electrodes that excite nerves in the skin with small pulses of current to trick the body into perceiving texture, pressure, or pin-pricks depending on the current amplitude and electrode resolution. The new covering has many potential applications: interactive gaming, touchscreens with texture, robot interfaces, etc."
Movies

Leonard Nimoy Retires From Star Trek 224

Posted by Soulskill from the live-long-and-prosper dept.
DesScorp writes "Leonard Nimoy is hanging up his Vulcan ears for good and retiring from the role of Spock in the Star Trek franchise, reports the Daily Mail. Nimoy apparently wants to pass the torch: 'Nimoy, one of the most recognizable and best loved characters from the sci-fi series that began in 1966, announced that he wanted to "get off the stage" and give young actor Zachary Quinto a clear run at the role he took over for last year's Star Trek movie.' Nimoy, at age 79, appears to be retiring from acting, period. He has, in recent years, undertaken another career in photography, as well as other pursuits, but seems to be preparing to retire from the public eye altogether."
Earth

Cows On Treadmills Produce Clean Power For Farms 640

Posted by CmdrTaco from the mooves-you-to-tears dept.
separsons writes "William Taylor, a farmer in Northern Ireland, recently developed the Livestock Power Mill, a treadmill for cows. Taylor uses the device to generate clean, renewable power for his farm. Cows are locked into a pen on top of a non-powered, inclined belt. The cows' walking turns the belt, which spins a gearbox to drive a generator. One cow can produce about two kilowatts of electricity, enough energy to power four milking machines. It may seem like a kooky idea, but Taylor could be onto something: According to his calculations, if the world's 1.3 billion cattle used treadmills for eight hours a day, they could provide six percent of the world's power!"
Math

Millennium Prize Awarded For Perelman's Poincaré Proof 117

Posted by timothy from the now-prove-perelman-exists dept.
epee1221 writes "The Clay Mathematics Institute has announced its acceptance of Dr. Grigori Perelman's proof of the Poincaré conjecture and awarded the first Millennium Prize. Poincaré questioned whether there exists a method for determining whether a three-dimensional manifold is a spherical: is there a 3-manifold not homologous to the 3-sphere in which any loop can be gradually shrunk to a single point? The Poincaré conjecture is that there is no such 3-manifold, i.e. any boundless 3-manifold in which the condition holds is homeomorphic to the 3-sphere. A sketch of the proof using language intended for the lay reader is available at Wikipedia."

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