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Submission + - Solar Wind Energy's Downdraft Tower Generates Its Own Wind All Year Round (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: When we think of wind power, we generally think of huge wind turbines sitting high atop towers where they can take advantage of the higher wind speeds. But Maryland-based Solar Wind Energy, Inc. is looking to turn wind power on its head with the Solar Wind Downdraft Tower, which places turbines at the base of a tower and generates its own wind to turn them.

Submission + - China must import more water than the US imports oil (sovereignman.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: China does not have the capacity to feed itself. By the estimates of one state official, the country’s agricultural imports require more land to grow than the entire land mass of California.

The reasons are simple. For one, China doesn’t have enough fertile land in production to support its population’s growing food demand.

Theoretically this is fixable. With a bit of time, patience, and technology, barren soil can be rehabilitated In other words, China doesn’t have enough enough productive land capacity to support its population.

But the far greater issue is China’s massive freshwater deficiency. Chief Economist Qian Keming of China’s Agriculture Ministry summed it up by telling the audience at the Third China International Agribusiness Forum:

“Fresh water resources are only 2100 cubic meters per capita, which is only 28% of the world’s average level.”

and

“The shortage of [water for agricultural irrigation] each year is about 30 billion cubic meters. China imported about 148.6 billion cubic meters of water in 2013, which was equivalent to 38% of China’s agricultural water.”

Here’s that number in perspective: China water imports of 148.6 billion cubic meters last year handily exceeded the 569 MILLION (0.569 billion) cubic meters of oil that the United States imported.

Submission + - Restored Bletchly Park Opens

Submitted by Graculus
Graculus writes: Codebreakers credited with shortening World War Two worked in Bletchley Park, in structures built to last only a few years. Now, following a painstaking restoration, they have been brought back to life and Wednesday's official opening marks a remarkable turnaround from top secrecy to world wide attraction. With no photographs of the insides to work with, Bletchley Park looked to its most valuable resource — the veterans who worked there. A museum at the site has already been opened.

Submission + - Washington Redskins stripped of trademarks 4

Submitted by BillCable
BillCable writes:

In a major blow to the Washington Redskins, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday canceled six federal trademarks of the “Washington Redskins” team name because it was found to be “disparaging” to Native Americans.

“We decide, based on the evidence properly before us, that these registrations must be cancelled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered,” the PTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board wrote. The panel voted 2-1 in favor of the decision.

Perhaps this move will speed up the inevitable name change which was expected within the next few years.

Submission + - This Is How Formula 1 Brakes Work

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: For the most part, you probably have a simple understanding of how your car's brakes work. But a race car, that's a whole different beast. Brembo's the biggest name in the brake industry, and it just released a video explaining the technology that goes into the brakes on a Formula 1 race car from pedal to caliper. Obviously it starts with every component being beefed up from a normal braking system, but there's also aluminum monoblock calipers, carbon rotors and pads, a brake-by-wire system with a redundancy in case of an electronic failure, and a kinetic energy recovery system (KERS). Of course, KERS is the most interesting bit as the it allows for smaller rear calipers than before which of course reduces mass. Believe it or not, all of this stuff ends up trickling down to mass-market cars eventually, it's just a matter of time. So the next time you tap your brakes, remember, that technology was likely proven on a race car at some point.

Submission + - Chinese gov't reveals Microsoft's secret list of Android-killer patents (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: A list of hundreds of patents that Microsoft believes entitle it to royalties over Android phones, and perhaps smartphones in general, has been published on a Chinese language website.

The patents Microsoft plans to wield against Android describe a range of technologies. They include lots of technologies developed at Microsoft, as well as patents that Microsoft acquired by participating in the Rockstar Consortium, which spent $4.5 billion on patents that were auctioned off after the Nortel bankruptcy.

Submission + - Crowd-control drones reveal the technology's dark side

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: The Skunk, built by Desert Wolf, is designed to "control unruly crowds without endangering the lives of security staff," and is reportedly already being adopted by South African mine owners. Equipped with a 4,000-strong clip and four paintball gun barrels, the Skunk can fire up to 80 projectiles in a single second. It can carry dye markers, pepper spray bullets or even solid plastic balls, which somewhat stretches the definition of "non lethal." The hardware also carries strobe lights and on-board speakers to disorientate and warn the crowd, as well as a FLIR thermal camera for night vision operations.

Submission + - Google Launches 64-bit Version Of Chrome For Windows

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google today announced the debut of a 64-bit version of Chrome for Windows, starting with the introduction of 64-bit Dev and Canary channels for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users. You can download both now from their respective pages: Dev and Canary. It's worth noting that in both cases the 64-bit version is offered by default if you are running a 64-bit flavor of Windows, though the 32-bit version is still available. This would suggest Google eventually plans to serve up the 64-bit version of Chrome as the default version for 64-bit Windows users.

Submission + - FPGA for Makers: The Dream of Drag and Drop Circuits (kickstarter.com) 12

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: FPGA's are great, but learning VHDL/Verilog can be a daunting task! This new Kickstarter project has a unique new idea so simple that it just might put FPGA's into the hands of Makers everywhere. It's as simple as pairing an FPGA with an Arduino and creating software that lets Makers draw circuits. Instead of learning a new programming language Makers can draw circuits right away using open source building blocks such as stepper controllers, audio chips, video chips, and even a bitcoin miner. Circuits are loaded to the FPGA and then controlled by the Arduino. It's a very simple arrangement with mind boggling possibilities — everything from bitcoin mining, embedded vision, robotics, to reconfigurable System on Chip designs.

Submission + - Anatomy Of The 1,000 MPH Bloodhound SSC

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: The laws of physics are pretty clear: speed is relative. To a snail, human walking pace is incomprehensible, yet compared to the speed at which light travels, everything in the universe is standing still. To us mere humans, 1,000 mph is pretty fast. It's even faster along the surface of the planet, which is what the Bloodhound SSC land speed record team aims to achieve next summer. Using both a jet engine and a rocket, the 1,000 mph target seems within reach. A new video has been released detailing the anatomy of the record attempt including the start and stop points which are twelve miles apart. The entire run is lined with rocks which isn't very comforting, but the Bloodhound SSC does have the world's strongest brakes, parachute, and air-brakes. Still, aiming your 1,000 mph car at a bed of rocks is still risky business. We'll find out how it all pans out next summer when the record attempt run takes place.

Submission + - War of the one cubic inch Linux computers

Submitted by jonsmirl
jonsmirl writes: The battle for smallest Linux COM may not be won yet. Recently Vocore was announced, but it is attracting competition. AsiaRF is offering a one cubic inch Linux computer with wifi and Ethernet on Indiegogo. What sets this project out is it's low risk. The module already has FCC. It is already supported in OpenWRT. And it ships next month, no need to wait.

Submission + - Pixar gives away RenderMan software for free (pixar.com)

Submitted by Rashdot
Rashdot writes: As a further commitment to the advancement of open standards and practices, Pixar is announcing that,in conjunction with the upcoming release, free non-commercial licenses of RenderMan will be made available without any functional limitations, watermarking, or time restrictions. Non-commercial RenderMan will be freely available for students, institutions, researchers, developers, and for personal use. Those interested in exploring RenderMan’s new capabilities are invited to register in advance on the RenderMan website to access a free license for download upon release.

Submission + - 'Female' Hurricanes Are Deadlier (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Hurricane names help to make public safety messages memorable, but new research shows that the choice of name may influence how people react to evacuation orders. Although the World Meteorological Organization assigns the storms alternating male and female names, historical records show that those with more feminine names had higher death tolls. Could people be avoiding evacuation because they assume that female-named storms will be gentler? Researchers tested this idea with written scenarios that described an upcoming storm and asked respondents how dangerous they expected the storm to be and whether they would follow a voluntary evacuation order. No matter which names they used—Victor/Victoria, Christopher/Christine, or selections from the upcoming hurricane name lists—respondents who read about male-named hurricanes judged them as riskier and said they would be more likely to evacuate than people who read about hurricanes with female names.

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