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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 17 declined, 8 accepted (25 total, 32.00% accepted)

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Displays

Submission + - USC Lab Creates 3-D Holographic Displays (wired.com)

ZonkerWilliam writes: USC has developed a novel 3D holographic display that not only does video but at a low cost as well.



The process is not simple but can be defined through a few key concepts: Spinning mirrors, high-speed DLP Projections, and very precise math that figures out the correct axial perspective needed for a 360-degree image (even taking into account a viewer's positioning.)


Make sure to see the video at the bottom of the page

Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - New Hero Class for World of WarCraft (wow-europe.com)

ZonkerWilliam writes: Blizzard releases their new hero class on Arpil 1st! Totally amazing Bard class, as excerpted from the article.

Armed with a trusty axe, killer riffs, and a ton of attitude, the guitar-wielding bard is the second hero class to be introduced in the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft.

Communications

Submission + - Nerve-tapping neckband allows 'telepathic' chat (newscientist.com)

ZonkerWilliam writes: Newscientist has an interesting article on tapping the nerve impulses going from the brain to the vocal chords, allowing for 'Voiceless' phone calls, as seen in the video. As quoted,

With careful training a person can send nerve signals to their vocal cords without making a sound. These signals are picked up by the neckband and relayed wirelessly to a computer that converts them into words spoken by a computerised voice.
It's not quite telepathy, but it's pretty close.

Space

Submission + - More Spacecraft Velocity Anomalies (aip.org)

ZonkerWilliam writes: The American Institute of Physics Bulletin has an excerpt of a study on recent spacecraft, such as NEAR, appear to have an anonymously acceleration much like Pioneer 10 had shown ten years ago. As quoted from the article,

A new look at the trajectories for various spacecraft as they fly past the Earth finds in each case a tiny amount of surplus velocity. For craft that pursue a path mostly symmetrical with respect to the equator, the effect is minimal. For craft that pursue a more unsymmetrical path, the effect is larger

Sci-Fi

Submission + - Navy BeginsTesting Railgun (Update) (eetimes.com)

ZonkerWilliam writes: Eetimes has an update on the testing and time-line for the deployment of their EM Railgun, as quoted from the article;

In 2009, ONR will decide whether to award contracts for deployment to BAE Systems PLC (Farnborough, U.K.) or General Atomics Technologies Inc. (San Diego) for the railgun. Boeing Co. (Chicago) and Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (Cambridge, Mass.) are vying for the projectile contract. If the Navy decides to deploy the railgun, it plans to have a final design in place for approval by 2012. Initial prototypes will probably shoot a single projectile, but plans for rapid-fire versions are already on the drawing board. The final design specification calls for a muzzle velocity of 5,760 mph for a weapon that is capable of launching a projectile in a parabolic ballistic path 94 miles high. It must strike targets within six minutes at 3,840 mph.

Space

Submission + - Stars cluster caught fleeing the Galaxies core 1

ZonkerWilliam writes: A fast cluster of stars has been seen speeding from the galaxies central core, http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12974-star-clusters-extreme-speed-puzzles-astronomers.html Whats fascinating is the speed in which they are traveling, a brisk 200 km/sec, which in a region of space governed by the gravitational field of the massive black hole that lies at the core, is truly puzzling.
Education

Submission + - New accelerator technique doubles particle energy

ZonkerWilliam writes: Plasma wake particle accelerators are making suprisingly quick advances. It was a just a little while ago we had Gev acceleration in 3cm; http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/0 4/0057225. Here they are capable of doubling the speed of electrons, in one meter. See the article for more information; http://www.physorg.com/news90682193.html
Space

Submission + - Ocean Planets on the Brink of Detection

ZonkerWilliam writes: Seems, at least theoretically, that there may be water planets, and that we may be close to detecting them. http://www.physorg.com/news89627725.html Excerpt from the article; "Imagine a world with no land at all, merely the impenetrable depths of a seething ocean. Models of planet formation predict the existence of such worlds, even though our own solar system has none. Indeed, their formation should actually be rather common — and new satellites may soon detect them around other stars."

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