A laser range-finder could probably detect a rapidly decelerating car faster than good ol' Eyeball Mk.1. We only see the braking lights and have to guess the rate of deceleration, which may be not immediately obvious, leading to a delay in reaction. The laser range-finder immediately sees the closing distance, and doesn't even need braking lights as a clue.

Same thing about surprise obstacles. The laser range-finder has 360Â vision, all the time. We usually don't check the mirrors constantly...

But it has been said before - if you can make a car for the blind, you can make a self-driving car. I'd rather have that. It would drive a lot more rationally, possibly reducing or eliminating traffic jams (if everyone had one).

Why deorbit it at all? They could attach an ion drive to the station and slowly raise the orbit until it won't decay for another 500 years or so. The station can withstand that much acceleration. There's certainly space enough up there, it's not like it takes up valuable room... also, lifting all that mass into orbit has been so stupidly expensive, they should at least reserve the option to use it at some point in the future. Anything else is irresponsible.

At the very least, it would be an interesting machinery longevity experiment. Re-visit the station in 50 years or so, just to see how it has stood up to the environment up there. Also, at some point in the future it will be an archaeological artifact, and valuable to future historians.

Considering that motion-capturing game controllers are quite the rage in the industry these days, and given that it's a possible application for these Bokodes (they expressly state so in the article), there's obvious potential there.

Even better, you can use a probabilistic sensor model and incrementally refine your position estimate of the RFID tag based on tag detection rates. If you're genuinely interested, look at this paper.

Besides, in a properly organized library finding a particular book is very, very easy, as long as you know the signature and the book is at its proper place. Might be quite handy for spotting those misplaced books, though.

The Bokode pose estimate seems quite stable indeed, but then the comparison pose estimate (the "G" in the black square) seems to be willfully bad. I've seen better than that, if maybe not quite as stable as the Bokode example, with traditional 2D code matrices.

Unfortunately, the 2-camera rig that they use (one focused at the scene, one at infinity) isn't exactly standard. And it probably won't work with cell phone cameras at all, since these are fixed-focus. Finally, if the camera has to move around a whole lot before it has seen the whole code, it probably isn't going to take off as a barcode replacement. Information at a glance is important in that area.

Besides, I don't really see the need to visually encode a whole lot of information on an object. A small reference ID or an URL is enough, then anything can be looked up online without size restraints.

I'm not sure about this. Kicked up lunar dust particles move in parabolic trajectories. Since there's no atmosphere, they won't stay afloat and disperse. So, if you know which way the wheels will kick up dust, you can strategically place the solar panels where they won't get dusty. They'll stay clean forever...

That bit about the batteries is really ridiculous. A thin aluminum foil will protect the batteries from thermal radiation just fine. Apart from that, there's no "temperature" on the moon...

Have you ever heard of rootkits? There's no way you can guarantee that a previously infected computer is "clean" again. Why not simply back up user data, format and reinstall? You end up with a guaranteed clean system, and doesn't take much longer.

Concerning OS updates, here's what I do: I buy a new HDD, install the new OS on that, then put my old HDD in an external enclosure and copy my data over from there. By the time I update my OS, the old HDD is most likely obsolete as well, so why not upgrade that at the same time... and it's impossible to lose data.

That's what I'd have suggested as well. Least amount of work, efficient, usable, no questionable hacks. It's common sense.

Or better yet... license id tech 5 for the next Elderscrolls game! Seriously, id's graphical fidelity and Bethesda's sandbox-making abilities... what could top this?

I completely agree. I played STALKER prior to Fallout3, and the latter's FPS experience was just very, very lacking in comparison. Little things like iron sight aiming, bullet drop and ricochets add so much immersion, it's sad they weren't there. Also, the whole manual aiming system is somewhat broken, it doesn't really feel "right".

Another trackball I've heard very good things about is the mouse trak evolution. I've never owned one, unfortunately.

I don't think so. Simplicity often implies efficiency, which leads to speed. Simplicity can also mean a lean, clean architecture, which is conductive to security. As much as I like "pick any two" memes, this probably isn't one of them.

So if I'd compile a Linux from scratch with this new compiler, everything speeds up by 18% on average? That would be quite impressive, and possibly the best justification for Gentoo. Might be nice for my aging notebook...