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Controlled Quantum Levitation Used To Build Wipeout Track 162

Posted by timothy from the why-youtube-exists dept.
First time accepted submitter gentryx writes "Researchers at the Japan Institute of Science and Technology have build a miniature Wipeout track (YouTube video) using high temperature superconductors and quantum levitation. Right now this is fundamental research, but in the future large scale transportation systems could be built with technology akin to this. I have a different vision: let Nintendo sell this as an accessory for the Wii U. I'd buy several of these tracks, let the gliders race through the whole house and track them on our TV!" Update: 01/05 22:08 GMT by S : As many readers have pointed out, this is CGI.

Comment Overheads Rock (Score 2, Interesting) 467

by Nessak (#30045044) Attached to: Attack of the PowerPoint-Wielding Professors

The rise of PowerPoint for teaching is something I've been annoyed with for years. Honestly the best teaching tool my Professors ever used was the overhead transparency projector -- the type where the transparency was on a spool that the professor cranked to get a clean surface. This was far more legible then chalk, plus you could go crank the transparency spool in the opposite direction after class if you missed something. Not chalk dust either.

Powerpoint is annoying as professors tend to only put meaningless bullet points and skip working out the equations in real time, explaining as they go along. A good professor is interactive with the class, not just someone who reads from a script pointed at the screen. Sadly, this is way most (but not all) PowerPoint professors operate.
Space

Illinois Declares Pluto a Planet 512

Posted by timothy from the after-ruling-out-pebble-and-mailing-tube dept.
The Bad Astronomer writes "The legislators in Illinois, always on the lookout for more places to find voters, have passed a resolution declaring Pluto is a planet. I'm not sure what else can be said here, except that — besides overstepping their jurisdiction just a wee bit — they make a couple of scientific howlers in the resolution itself."
Censorship

W3C.org Briefly Censored In Finland 115

Posted by timothy from the well-they-do-inspire-impure-thoughts dept.
k33l0r writes "The web site of W3C, w3.org or w3c.org, was briefly censored (Google Translation) by at least some of the local ISPs. For an unknown reason the URL was mistakenly entered into the Federal Police's censor database. Some of the Finnish ISPs use the database to filter out questionable content such as child pornography." Finnish online activist Matti Nikki describes some of the problems with this database-based censorship.
Privacy

Shadow Analysis Could Spot Terrorists 245

Posted by kdawson from the made-in-the-shade dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "An engineer at Jet Propulsion Labs says it should be possible to identify people from the way they walk — a technique called gait analysis, whose power lies in the fact that a person's walking style is very hard to disguise. Adrian Stoica has written software that recognizes human movement in aerial and satellite video footage by isolating moving shadows and using data on the time of day and the camera angle to correct shadows that are elongated or foreshortened. In tests on footage shot from the sixth floor of a building, Stoica says his software was indeed able to extract useful gait data. Extending the idea to satellites could prove trickier, though. Space imaging expert Bhupendra Jasani at King's College London says geostationary satellites simply don't have the resolution to provide useful detail. 'I find it hard to believe they could apply this technique from space,' says Jasani." Comments on the article speculate on the maximum resolution possible from KH-11 and KH-12 spy satellites.
Image

Dolphin Inspired Mini-sub 181

Posted by samzenpus from the expensive-toys dept.
What do you get the millionaire in your life who has everything? How about the Seabreacher mini-sub. Described as a dolphin-inspired cross between a jet ski and a submarine, the Seabreacher has a top speed of 45mph above the waves and 20mph below them. The two-man £30,000 craft is 15' long and its design makes it self-righting. Strangely, this doesn't come with a laser package.
Image

Wealthy Mexicans Getting Chipped in Case of Abduction 306

Posted by samzenpus from the human-Lojack dept.
Because the number of abductions in Mexico has jumped almost 40% in the past 3 years, the wealthy are getting subcutaneous transmitters so they can be tracked when kidnapped. Xega, the Mexican security firm which makes the chips, has seen a sales jump of 13% this year. The company injects the crystal-encased chip, the size and shape of a grain of rice, into clients' bodies with a syringe. The chip then sends radio signals to a larger device carried by the client with a global positioning system in it. A satellite can then be used to find the location of the missing person. Things must be a lot worse in Mexico than I thought.
Image

Teens Arrested For Motorized Office Chair 338

Posted by samzenpus from the crazyboy dept.
German police have confiscated the world's fastest office chair and arrested its 17-year-old inventors. The duo added a lawnmower engine, brakes and a metal frame to the office chair and were reported to be driving it all over the streets of Gross-Zimmern. Police did not comment on the chair's handling or acceleration but I look forward to it being profiled on Top Gear.
Image

Bottom of the Barrel Book Reviews — The Lost Blogs 235

Posted by samzenpus from the If-thine-eyes-offend-thee dept.
We get a lot of books for review here at Slashdot. Most are sent out to users on our reviewer list within a few weeks. Others become part of an impressive wall of books on my desk before they find a home. There are a choice few however that are doomed to never see the inside of a Fedex box. This is mostly due to the complete and utter stupidity or absurdness of their subject matter. I've decided to give these failed intellectual endeavors a chance and explore just how big a waste of time a book can be. We start scraping the bottom of the barrel with a little number written by Paul Davidson called, The Lost Blogs. Read below to find out just how bad it got.
The Almighty Buck

Knights Templar Sue the Pope 675

Posted by CmdrTaco from the trade-ya-for-the-grail dept.
pdragon04 writes "According to The Register, "the Knights Templar are demanding that the Vatican give them back their good name and, possibly, billions in assets into the bargain, 700 years after the order was brutally suppressed by a joint venture between the Pope and the King of France..."." I wonder what a holy grail goes for with 700 years of compound interest.
Security

Two Black Hat Talks On Apple Security Cancelled 125

Posted by kdawson from the can't-say-that dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Two separate Apple security talks have been nixed at the last minute from next week's Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. The Washington Post's Security Fix blog reports that Apple researcher Charles Edge was to present on flaws in Apple's FileVault encryption plan, but asked Black Hat to cancel the talk, citing confidentiality agreements with Apple. Then on Friday, Apple pulled its security engineering team out of a planned public discussion on the company's security practices — which would have been a first for Apple. 'Marketing got wind of it, and nobody at Apple is ever allowed to speak publicly about anything without marketing approval,' a Black Hat spokesman said."
Education

How To Teach a Healthy Dose of Skepticism? 880

Posted by kdawson from the doubt-early-and-often dept.
c0d3h4x0r writes "It's no accident that 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong' is one of the most common tags applied by this community to stories about proposed ideas or laws. The ability to spot and predict faults is a big part of what makes a great engineer. It starts with having a healthy skepticism about the world, which leads to actual critical thinking. Many books and courses teach critical thinking skills, but what is the best way to encourage and teach someone to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism? Is it even a teachable skill, or is it just an innate part of the geek personality?"
United States

Maryland Scraps Diebold Voting System 209

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the long-overdue dept.
beadfulthings writes "After eight years and some $65 million, the state of Maryland is taking its first steps to return to an accountable, paper-ballot based voting system. Governor Martin O'Malley has announced an initial outlay of $6.5 million towards the $20 million cost of an optical system which will scan and tally the votes while the paper ballots are retained as a backup. The new (or old) system is expected to be in place by 2010 — or four years before the state finishes paying off the bill for the touch-screen system."

Comment Re:I don't mean to troll but... (Score 1) 420

by Nessak (#22110982) Attached to: MacBook Air's Battery is Actually Easy to Replace
Like the iPods, the mechanics (structure) involved to make the battery as easy to remove as say, the macbook, would add a significant amount to the size of the unit. The battery latch on the macbook is roughly the size of a nickel. Would you like your ipod to be 1/8" thicker just to add a latch for the battery?

That just isn't true. Look at the bottom of a Macbook Pro and notice the little flap with two little screws -- behind that is where the user can easily replace the memory. The metal flap is

Apple may have their reasons for making a battery that can't be replaced but don't say they couldn't have added one of they wanted. If apple can figure out how to solve much more complex design and manufacturing problems, they could have figured out a way to make a replaceable battery and still kept the computer under 1".
United States

Copy That Floppy, Lose Your Computer 766

Posted by CmdrTaco from the god-bless-america-land-of-the-super-corporation dept.
Over the weekend we posted a story about a new copyright bill that creates a new govt. agency in charge of copyright enforcement. Kevin Way writes "In particular, the bill grants this new agency the right to seize any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime and auction it off. You would not need to be found guilty at trial to face this penalty. You may want to read a justification of it, and criticism presented by Declan McCullagh and Public Knowledge." Lots of good followup there on a really crazy development.

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