15629902
submission
longacre writes:
"The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected two companies to proceed with the next stage of its Transformer, known as TX—a fully automated four-person vehicle that can drive like a car and then take off and fly like an aircraft to avoid roadside bombs. Lockheed Martin and AAI Corp., a unit of Textron Systems, are currently in negotiations with DARPA for the first stage of the Transformer project, several industry sources told Popular Mechanics at a robotics conference here in Denver. DARPA has not announced the official winners yet."
14793102
submission
longacre writes:
Erik Sofge trudges through NASA’s latest free video game, which he finds tedious, uninspiring and misguiding: "Moonbase Alpha is a demo, of sorts, for NASA's more ambitious upcoming game, Astronaut: Moon, Mars & Beyond, which will feature more destinations, and hopefully less welding. The European Space Agency is developing a similar game, set on the Jovian Moon, Europa. But Moonbase Alpha proves that as a recruiting campaign, or even as an educational tool, the astronaut simulation game is a lost cause. Unless NASA plans to veer into science fiction and populate its virtual moons, asteroids and planets with hostile species, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to suffer through another minute of pretending to weld power cables back into place, while thousands of miles away, the most advanced explorers ever built are hurtling toward asteroids and dwarf planets and into the heart of the sun. Even if it was possible to build an astronaut game that's both exciting and realistic, why bother? It will be more than a decade before humans even attempt another trip outside of Earth's orbit. If NASA wants to inspire the next generation of astronauts and engineers, its games should focus on the real winners of the space race—the robots."
13040442
submission
longacre writes:
Glen Derene at PopMech defends AT&T's new pricing plan: "AT&T's move away from all-you-can-eat pricing on June 2 has enraged many in the tech press--most of whom, I assume, own iPhones. I agree that some aspects of AT&T's pricing plan are unfair and even nonsensical. For example, charging an extra $20 a month for tethering, on top of an existing data plan, means that you are essentially paying twice for the same data usage. That being said, AT&T is taking its first, albeit clumsy, step toward a more equitable and sane way of moving data around the country--one that may end up solving the largely misunderstood problem of net neutrality."
He compares bandwidth to electricity: "Imagine, for a moment, if we bought electricity the way we buy data in this country. Every month, you would pay a fixed amount of money (say, $120), and then you would use as much electricity as you wanted, with an incentive to use as much as you could. That brings price stability to the end user, but it's a horrible way to manage electricity load."
And says that the current system gives no incentive for carriers to improve service: "There's no extra revenue generated by all that extra usage, so they are content to offer a quality of service that is only as good as their customers will bear (and many of those customers are trapped by multiyear contracts). If customers pay by the megabyte, then bad service directly equates to lost revenue for the carrier. This becomes especially important as we migrate toward 4G networks. Because on 4G networks, everything is data--including voice calls, which are handled as VoIP. Dropped calls equal undelivered bits, and undelivered bits should mean less revenue."
12049866
submission
longacre writes:
Cape Wind is making headlines for for being the first offshore wind farm to earn federal approval, but it still has plenty of legal hoops to jump through before groundbreaking. Texas, on the other hand, requires no review--state, federal or otherwise--to build wind farms off its shore. Texas energy expert and Popular Mechanics senior editor Jennifer Bogo talks to Texan energy leaders who are confident they will beat Cape Wind to the punch for the distinction of having the first functional U.S. Offshore wind farm. "I was about to write a press release to congratulate Cape Wind for getting their approval," says Jim Suydam, press secretary of the Texas General Land Office, "and let them know when they're done jumping through hoops up there they can come build off the Texas Coast." Despite its reputation as an oil-addicted, non-environmentally-friendly conservative state, Texas' existing land-based wind farms actually produce four-times more electricity than California.
10870040
submission
longacre writes:
A Gasoline-Powered Alarm Clock was among 15 bogus products granted the coveted Energy Star seal of approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during a secret evaluation conducted by the Government Accountability Office. In addition, four fictional manufacturers run by fake people and marketed with crummy websites — Cool Rapport (HVAC equipment), Futurizon Solar Innovations (lighting), Spartan Digital Electronics, and Tropical Thunder Appliances — were granted Energy Star partnerships. The root of the problem: Manufacturers need only submit photos and not actual examples of their products, and they submit their own efficiency ratings, which are not independently verified by the EPA.
9169480
submission
longacre writes:
An amateur video of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion has been made public for the first time. The Florida man who filmed it from his front yard on his new Betamax camcorder turned the tape over to an educational organization a week before he died this past December. The Space Exploration Archive has since published the video into the public domain in time for the 24th anniversary of the catastrophe. Despite being shot from about 70 miles from Cape Canaveral, the shuttle and the explosion can be seen quite clearly. It is unclear why he never shared the footage with NASA or the media. NASA officials say they were not aware of the video, but are interested in examining it now that it has been made available.
8156136
submission
longacre writes:
Apple CEO Steve Jobs won over 30% of the vote in an online poll published by personal finance and investing news site SmartMoney.com, enough to earn their "Person of the Decade" title by a solid margin over luminaries such as Warren Buffett (17%), Ben Bernanke (13%) and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page (12%). From the article, "Certainly, Jobs accomplished more than probably any other CEO since he returned to Apple in the late 1990s: Not only did he revive sales at the failing computer company, he led the stock to a more than 700% increase in value, and forever changed the way people buy and listen to music."
