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Star Wars Fans Look For Love In Alderaan Places 88

Posted by samzenpus from the I-can-win-your-heart-in-less-than-twelve-parsecs dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that devoted fans at the recent Star Wars Convention V, many dressed as Jedi knights, stormtroopers, or the indomitable Princess Leia, sat opposite one another for a series of 3-minute speed dates, in hopes of finding a connection with a fellow Star Wars enthusiast. 'Over the course of the three events, due to size and time, we turned away about 600 participants,' says Ryan Glitch. 'Yesterday, this room was packed. We had to keep shoveling people along.' Meanwhile in the main exhibition hall, a chapel was set up to allow fans to profess their love and devotion to each other in the form of commitment ceremonies. 'I've been told that we've had two commitment ceremonies from people that met at my event,' says Glitch adding that he saw eight additional couples at the convention made up of people who had attended his speed dating sessions."
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Seinfeld's Good Samaritan Law Now Reality? 735

Posted by samzenpus from the not-that-there-is-anything-wrong-with-that dept.
e3m4n writes "The fictitious 'good samaritan' law from the final episode of Seinfeld (the one that landed them in jail for a year) appears to be headed toward reality for California residents after the house passed this bill. There are some differences, such as direct action is not required, but the concept of guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."
Biotech

Monitor Your Health 24x7 With the WIN Human Recorder 66

Posted by timothy from the paranoia-count-high dept.
kkleiner writes "Japanese venture firm WIN Human Recorder Ltd is set to bring a health monitor patch to market that is capable of keeping tabs on all your vitals. The HRS-I is a small (30mm x 30mm x 5mm) lightweight (7g) device that adheres to your chest and relays the data it collects to a computer or mobile phone via wireless connection. While the HRS-I only directly monitors electrocardiograph information, body surface temperature, and movement (via accelerometers), it can connect to sensors for heart rate, brain waves, respiration and many other important health indicators. WIN is selling the HRS-I for around ¥30,000 (~$330) and providing monitoring software for around ¥10,000 (~$110)."
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Living In Tokyo's Capsule Hotels 269

Posted by samzenpus from the living-in-the-hive dept.
afabbro writes "Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 once offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home. Now with Japan enduring its worst recession since World War II, it is becoming an affordable option for people with nowhere else to go. The Hotel 510’s capsules are only 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide. Guests must keep possessions, like shirts and shaving cream, in lockers outside of the capsules. Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas says, 'It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep. You get used to it.'”
Space

Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242

Posted by Soulskill from the i-for-one dept.
likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."
Space

Big Dipper "Star" Actually a Sextuplet System 88

Posted by kdawson from the toil-and-trouble dept.
Theosis sends word that an astronomer at the University of Rochester and his colleagues have made the surprise discovery that Alcor, one of the brightest stars in the Big Dipper, is actually two stars; and it is apparently gravitationally bound to the four-star Mizar system, making the whole group a sextuplet. This would make the Mizar-Alcor sextuplet the second-nearest such system known. The discovery is especially surprising because Alcor is one of the most studied stars in the sky. The Mizar-Alcor system has been involved in many "firsts" in the history of astronomy: "Benedetto Castelli, Galileo's protege and collaborator, first observed with a telescope that Mizar was not a single star in 1617, and Galileo observed it a week after hearing about this from Castelli, and noted it in his notebooks... Those two stars, called Mizar A and Mizar B, together with Alcor, in 1857 became the first binary stars ever photographed through a telescope. In 1890, Mizar A was discovered to itself be a binary, being the first binary to be discovered using spectroscopy. In 1908, spectroscopy revealed that Mizar B was also a pair of stars, making the group the first-known quintuple star system."

Feed Microsoft will sell $3 software to developing countries (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

In what initially sounds like an altruistic gesture towards developing nations -- but is in reality a shrewd business move to both compete with pirates and get kids hooked on Windows -- Microsoft will be selling a package containing full-fledged versions (well, kinda) of its OS and office software to eligible countries for a mere three-bucks-a-pop. Starting sometime in the second half of the year, less-developed nations that agree to provide free computers for their school systems will be able to participate in the latest effort in Microsoft's Unlimited Potential initiative, which nets them a bundle containing XP Starter Edition, Office Home and Student 2007, as well as various other educational titles (fingers crossed for Flight Simulator). Of course, by putting this restriction on participants, Microsoft is obviously forcing them to purchase PCs that work with its ecosystem of products -- and more importantly, that aren't the OLPC XO (Classmates are cool, though). The company will also benefit somewhat from governments that tend to buy their software from shady sources, although pirates can rest assured that they'll still be able to thrive on the patronage of individuals and private firms. So make no mistake about it, the war for the hearts and minds of the next wave of PC users is most definitely on, and while Bill Gates may espouse the many societal benefits of bridging the digital divide, Microsoft's Orlando Ayala made the company's intentions crystal clear when he told Reuters "This is not a philanthropic effort: this is a business."

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Feed San Diegans convert carbon dioxide to fuel via solar energy (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Being Earth Week and all, it's not too surprising to hear of San Diegans stretching their mental might and figuring out an effective way to convert carbon dioxide to fuel, but according to the University of California, San Diego, that's precisely what they've done. Clifford Kubiak and Aaron Sathrum have reportedly developed a prototype device "that can capture energy from the sun, convert it to electrical energy, and split carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen." Interestingly, this concept produces more than just an alternate source of fuel, as CO2 splitting also creates a "useful industrial chemical" in CO, and furthermore, helps reduce a greenhouse gas. Currently, they are building the device using a gallium-phosphide semiconductor, and while the existing rendition still requires "additional energy" outside of sheer sunlight for the process to work, they're hoping that the American Chemical Society will warm up to the idea and give 'em a helping hand.

[Via Physorg, thanks Richard N.]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Feed White Dwarf And Ultra-cool Dwarf Keep Their Distance (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Astronomers have discovered a rare binary system consisting of a white dwarf, a Sun-like star that has reached the end of its life, and an ultra-cool dwarf, which is the smallest kind of star. To make the discovery even more unusual, the co-orbiting pair has by far the widest separation ever detected in this type of binary system.

Feed Chemists Identify Organic Molecules That Mimic Metals (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Chemists at UC Riverside report that a class of carbenes -- molecules that have unusual, highly reactive carbon atoms -- can mimic, to some extent, the behavior of metals. The organic molecules could be used to develop carbon-based systems for storing hydrogen, and transform ammonia into amino compounds used to make pharmaceuticals and bulk industrial materials.

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