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Submission + - Questionable Patents From MakerBot (openbeamusa.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: OpenBeam USA is a Kickstarted company that builds open source aluminum construction systems (think erector sets). One of the main uses for the system is building 3D printers, and creator Terence Tam is heavily involved in the 3D-printing community. He's now put up a blog post about some disturbing patents filed by MakerBot. In particular, he notes a patent for auto-levelling on a 3D printer. Not only is this an important upcoming technology for 3D printers, the restriction of which would be a huge blow to progress, it seems the patent was filed just a few short weeks after Steve Graber posted a video demonstrating such auto-levelling. There had also been a Kickstarter campaign for similar tech a few months earlier. Tam gives this warning: 'Considering the Stratasys — Afinia lawsuit, and the fact that Makerbot is now a subsidiary of Stratasys, it's not a stretch to imagine Makerbot coming after other open source 3D manufacturers that threaten their sales. After all, nobody acquires a patent warchest just to invite their competitors to sit around the campfire to sing Kumbaya. It is therefore vitally important that community developed improvements do not fall under Makerbot's (or any other company's) patent portfolio to be used at a later date to clobber the little guys.'
The Almighty Buck

Mint It Yourself With a Browser-Based Bitcoin Miner 490

Posted by timothy from the b-b-but-the-feds-are-here! dept.
An anonymous reader writes "There's a popular discussion happening at the Bitcoin forums about a new browser-based bitcoin miner released today. This lets people mine for bitcoin straight from the browser. There's talk of making an embeddable version. How long until websites start using CPU power from their users to create Bitcoin for their owners?" As Bitcoin gets more attention, I foresee malware with payloads promising to do the same thing.
Privacy

Apple: "We must Have Comprehensive Location Data" 556

Posted by samzenpus from the I-always-feel-like-somebody's-watching-me dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Apple's iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4, and iPad models are keeping track of consumers whereabouts. Mac computers running Snow Leopard and even Windows computers running Safari 5 are being watched. But the question is why? 'To provide the high quality products and services that its customers demand, Apple must have access to the comprehensive location-based information,' Apple says."

Comment Re:Just downloaded it... (Score 1) 148

by MultiModeRb87 (#35783612) Attached to: Einstein Pedometer App Measures Relative Time Gain

...For that matter I assume it isn't taking into account acceleration (note to physicists: does non-gravity acceleration cause time dilation?).

Still it is free, and makes me feel very very very slightly younger!

IAAP (I am a physicist), so I can confirm that non-gravitational acceleration causes time dilation, under some circumstances. Since I'm waiting for some calculations to finish running through Mathematica, I'll also try to explain. :-)

Non-gravitational acceleration does cause time dilation, at least when viewed in the frame of the accelerated observer. When analyzed in the frame of an inertial observer (read: if someone who isn't accelerating calculates how much time has passed for you based on how you are moving), these effects appear to be the result of your velocity, and *not* your acceleration.

A fun example of this is the Langevin twin paradox problem. Two twins, floating in space, synchronize their watches. Then twin A uses a rocket to travel out a certain distance d at a more or less constant velocity v, turn around, and return, also with velocity v. He only uses his rocket for a very brief period upon leaving, during turnaround, and finally to return to rest relative to his twin. Twin B just sits there. They then compare their clocks.

Twin B sees that twin A spent essentially all of his time moving with velocity v, and figures that time-dilation has caused twin A's clock to record less time than twin B's. This is correct.

From twin A's perspective, it was twin B who moved with velocity v, and so he figures that time-dilation has caused B's clock to record less time than A's. This seems paradoxical until twin A accounts for the fact that he was accelerated at the far end of his trip. During that acceleration, everything not attached to his rocket (including twin B) seemed to accelerate in the direction his engine was pointed. There's a bunch of math one can do to justify it, (see chapter 13 of Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler's "Gravitation", if you want the full scoop) but the short version is that acceleration acts just like gravity (and vice versa). So twin A figures that twin B's clock must be gravitationally blueshifted relative to twin A's clock (twin B is 'higher' in the apparent gravitational potential produced by the acceleration). It turns out that over the amount of time twin A must accelerate to return to his twin, twin B's clock seems to gain exactly twice as much time as he seems to lose while twin A is coasting, which is just enough to bring each of the twins' calculations into full agreement upon their reunion.

Relativity is fun. :-)

The Internet

How Cyborg Tech Could Link the Minds of the World 219

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thought-for-food dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Science writer Michael Chorost has written a book that suggests that mankind may one day be able to link individual minds to share thoughts, feelings and perceptions by genetically modifying individuals brains and implanting computers based on neural networks in the body. Here he talks about the implications for human relationships, our sense of self and phenomenon like telempathy and dream brainstorming that this so-called World Wide Mind would make possible."
Security

IT Graduates Not "Well-Trained, Ready-To-Go" 609

Posted by samzenpus from the welcome-to-the-real-world dept.
coondoggie writes "There is a disconnect between students getting high-tech degrees and what employers are looking for in those graduates. Employers agree that colleges and universities need to provide their students with the essential skills required to run IT departments, yet only 8% of hiring managers would rate IT graduates hired as 'well-trained, ready-to-go,' according to a survey of 376 organizations that are members of the IBM user group Share and Database Trends and Applications subscribers."
Image

Govt To Bomb Guam With Frozen Mice To Kill Snakes 229

Posted by samzenpus from the rodent-rain dept.
rhettb writes "In a spectacularly creative effort to rid Guam of the brown tree snake, an invasive species which has ravaged local wildlife and angered local residents, the US Department of Agriculture is planning to 'bomb' the island's rainforests with dead frozen mice laced with acetaminophen. While it might not seem difficult to purge an island of snakes, the snake's habit of dwelling high in the rainforest canopy has so far thwarted efforts to rid the island of the pest. Eradicating the snake is a priority because it triggers more than 100 power outages a year at a cost of $1-4 million and has driven at least 6 local bird species to extinction."
Medicine

What Happens To a Football Player's Neurons? 176

Posted by timothy from the hut-hut-huuuuuut dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It seems like every week there's a new story about the consequences of all those concussions experienced by football players and other athletes — just a few days ago, the NY Times reported that some athletes diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease may actually have a neural disease brought on by head trauma. But missing in these stories is an explanation of what head trauma actually does to the brain cells. Now Carl Zimmer has filled in the gap with a column that takes a look at how neurons respond to stress, and explains how stretching a neuron's axon turns its internal structure into 'mush.'"
Books

Japanese Researchers Develop World's Fastest Book Scanner 138

Posted by timothy from the don't-they-have-any-boffins? dept.
An anonymous reader writes "IEEE Spectrum reports that Tokyo University researchers have developed a superfast book scanner that uses lasers and a high-speed camera to achieve a capture rate of 200 pages per minute. You just quickly flip the book pages in front of the system and it digitizes the pages, building a 3D model of each and reconstructing it as a normal flat page. The prototype is large and bulky, but if this thing could be made smaller, one day we could scan a book or magazine in seconds using a smartphone." The article mentions Google's similar dewarping system; the difference here is speed.
Robotics

iRobot Introduces Morphing Blob Robot 177

Posted by kdawson from the compare-to-doctor-johnson's-dog dept.
Aristos Mazer sends word of research out of iRobot on a "chembot," or morphing blob robot, that looks like dough and moves by shifting its sides from solid-like to liquid-like states. This will allow it, in theory and after lots of refinement, to pass through cracks by squeezing. iRobot calls the new technique "jamming." The research project was funded by DARPA. The video clearly shows the early stage the work is in, but when you think about it the possibilities are a little unsettling.
Cellphones

Verizon's Challenge To the iPhone Confirmed 423

Posted by Soulskill from the is-this-the-droid-you're-looking-for dept.
misnohmer writes "Verizon has just launched a new set of ads confirming the rumors of its upcoming iPhone competitor: 'Unlike previous Android phones, the Droid is rumored to be powered by the TI OMAP3430, the same core that the iPhone and Palm Pre use, and which significantly outperforms Qualcomm 528MHz ARM11-based Android phones that exist today. Droid will also be running v.2.0 of Android, with a significantly upgraded user interface. The Droid poses a different and more significant challenge to the iPhone than any other phone to date. The Palm Pre could have been that challenger, but it lacked the Verizon network, and users were unimpressed with the hardware. According to people who've handled the device, the Droid is the most sophisticated mobile device to hit the market to date from a hardware standpoint. When you combine that with the Verizon network, you've got something that is most definitely a challenger to the Jesus phone.'"
Moon

Unambiguous Evidence of Water On the Moon 251

Posted by samzenpus from the water-and-cheese dept.
Nethemas the Great writes "Information has leaked ahead of the scheduled NASA press conference tomorrow that we have found unambiguous evidence for water on the moon. From the article, 'Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon.'"
The Almighty Buck

Running Over Virtual Pedestrians Helps In-Game Ad Recall 144

Posted by Soulskill from the i-find-this-true-in-real-life-as-well dept.
neuroworld writes to point out a study which found a correlation between in-game violence and a player's ability to recall advertisements seen while playing. The test subjects were given two versions of a driving game, which included "unobtrusive" billboard ads, and their eye movements were recorded by a camera. One version had players hitting targets for points, and the other version had them running down pedestrians. "[The researchers] found ads displayed along with violent scenes to be more memorable to players than those shown with nonviolent content, even though players spent less time looking at them. The results are contrary to expectations stemming from research on television, where violence has been shown to decrease attention to advertisements."
Role Playing (Games)

Developer Explains Clone/Transhumanist RPG 41

Posted by Soulskill from the gamers-don't-like-words-that-big dept.
destinyland writes "How much would you use technology to change yourself if humanity faced extinction? In this interview, the two creators behind Eclipse Phase explain their bizarre role-playing game, which 'expands the transhuman conversation.' All the characters can be identical clones, and when you switch bodies, it affects your core characteristics while damaging your sanity. But its spookiest concept is close to reality today: the idea of universal surveillance in which 'everything is networked and equipped with sensors and all meshed together.'"
Supercomputing

DARPA Wants a 19" Super-Efficient Supercomputer 200

Posted by timothy from the as-do-we-all dept.
coondoggie writes "If you can squish all the processing power of, say, an IBM Roadrunner supercomputer inside a 19-inch box and make it run on about 60 kilowatts of electricity, the government wants to talk to you. The extreme scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency this week issued a call for research that might develop a super-small, super-efficient super beast of a computer. Specifically, DARPA's desires for Ubiquitous High Performance Computing (UHPC) will require a new system-wide technology approach including hardware and software co-design to minimize energy dissipation per operation and maximize energy efficiency, with a 50GFLOPS per watt goal."

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