I need to charge a battery (12 Volts DC, 10 Amps MAX) but the closest source of electric power is an Electric Motor (250 Volts DC, 90 Amps). Is there any battery charge controller that I could use for this? If not, is there any other alternative?
Chairs You Can Eat [Furniture]
I don't know how solid these are, but they look so yummy.
I want a bite too. [Enoc Armengol via Core77]
Pattern of Rotation
I have recently re started production of an Old family business of the original Rolling Ball Clock.
And I just got an E-Mail for someone asking if we have ever tried to determine something.
The clocks motion can be seen at,,
Bolden Seeks To Set The Record Straight
NASA Internal memo: Message from the Administrator - March 5, 2010
"During a Strategic Management Council meeting on Tuesday, I asked JSC Director Mike Coats and MSFC Director Robert Lightfoot to put together a very small team to help me develop an accelerated plan for research and development on a heavy lift launch vehicle for future exploration, in support of that element of the President's FY11 NASA budget. Regrettably, this was subsequently reported by the news media as a request for a "Plan B" alternative to the President's budget."
Review: Alice In Wonderland 3D Doesn’t Need the 3D [Review]
Having read the original many times, watched multiple films and TV series, and collected every object imaginable, I must confess that I'm an Alice whore. Here's my review of Tim Burton's sequel: I love it. But not on 3D.
Spoilers ahead
In fact, I like everything about the movie except the 3D. I don't hate it, but it's obnoxious and distracting through most of the film. It just doesn't add anything to the experience beyond the post-movie dizziness. It's the antithesis of Avatar.
The movie itself—a simple, delightfully wacky, adventures movie set in Lewis Caroll's crazy world—is good. The story, the dialogs, the photography, the direction, and the acting are all spot on. The digital effects are perfect for the story, from the delicate details of the White Rabbit's embroidered vest to the intricate scenarios. The design—like all Tim Burton's movies—couldn't be better: The characters, the costumes, the settings... everything exudes the spirit of the original John Tenniel's book illustrations. And then there is the adult Alice—who returns after her first adventures in Wonderland. By the end of it, you will fall in love with Mia Wasikowska, especially when she gets into her shiny armor.
Focus!
The only problem with Alice in 3D is that the film doesn't seem to be directed with 3D in mind. And that's fucking great (if you watch the movie in a normal theater and avoid the 3D). Burton plays with camera moves, angle changes, depth of field, and different scene planes like he usually does, framing shots perfectly.
One example of this is the first action sequence in the movie, when the Knave of Hearts—eerily played by Crispin Glover—and his card soldiers chase Alice through the woods. As the camera frantically races with the action, Burton plays with the foreground—twisted plants and branches—to increase the anxiety levels of the audience. In 2D, this frames the action, making everything more exciting visually. In 3D, it becomes distracting. The same goes for every time the camera moves, and every time the depth of field changes: The illusion of 3D is broken by the distraction, because that's not how your brain processes the real world.
In the real world, nobody forces you to change the depth of field. When you are focusing on something, you just focus, it comes naturally to you. But when you shift this around in a 3D movie, your brain just gets confused, as if it's saying "hey, I want to keep looking at that thing."
In a normal film, a shift in focus is a device that is part of the story telling and the aesthetics of the film. In 3D, it just gets annoying.
Thinking Inside the Box
And that's precisely my problem with 3D: Whenever you move the camera, whenever you play with the traditional cinematic language, 3D can often get in the middle.
I realized it while watching the credits, which roll inside a box in which fantastic mushrooms and vegetation grow. I was truly amazed by it, as if a new world had opened in front of my eyes. I had a hard time distinguishing the weird plants from reality. And it wasn't only me: My wife was next to me and I could hear her exclaiming "Wow. Oh, wow."
So how can I love that 3D but hate the 3D during the movie? Because during the credits, the camera point of view is fixed. The illusion is complete. Nothing bothers you. Your brain completely buys the experience. It's like being in the theater watching a play: Everything is there.
What is the solution to this? Since the invention of cinema, humans have developed a language that has evolved into different paths. All of them revolve around the idea that everything is projected in a bidimensional plane. Directors frame their movies in their minds, then with their cameras, and it's all related to that single flat silver screen.
Perhaps directors need to invent a new language for 3D altogether, where everything is in focus, nothing overlaps the action, and the depth of field never changes. Maybe they should look into the rules of theater and fixed cameras. Or maybe they should watch Up! if they really want to film a movie in 3D.
But while we all wait for that to happen, you should go and see Alice in 2D. You will enjoy it a lot more.
Changes at USA
Keith's note: Sources report that Dick Covey announced his retirement as the head of United Space Alliance this morning.
Remainders – The Things We Didn’t Post: Headaches Edition [Remainders]
In today's Remainders: headaches. Microsoft's browser ballot is a headache for the little guys; CereProc talks about the painstaking process of rebuilding Ebert's voice; WiMax taxis in Taiwan get me a little steamed; a magical migraine-diminishing wand, and more.
Talk To Me
Since we first read about the Scottish company CereProc and their effort to give Roger Ebert his voice back, we've been eager to get the scoop on the tech behind the scenes. Ebert's computerized voice was debuted on Oprah earlier this week, and while it was far from a perfect recreation, no one could deny that at some points the voice was distinctly his own. Now, CNET has an in-depth talk with CereProc which sheds some light on the process behind their incredible product. It has some interesting bits, like how they usually require 15 hours of recordings to recreate a voice, though they rebuilt Ebert's from only four hours of clips. If you have even a passing interest in Ebert's incredible story, the interview's worth a read. [CNET]
Analysis
Analysts! You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em. Actually, you could almost certainly live without them, but then you wouldn't have little nuggets like this to consider before you toss them into your mental recycling bin: Apple, who already commands 1/3 of the entire supply of NAND flash memory, might eat up even more of that supply with all these iPads of theirs, delaying the greater PC migration to SSD in the process. The thinking is that with iPad grabbing all the NAND memory, their prices could be driven up and those of SSDs would go up along with them. Maybe, maybe not, but for now there are too many unknowns in this equation—iPad demand being a big one—to worry just yet.[DigiTimes]
Glass Windows
Secunia, a security firm, released the results of a new study that might give pause to Windows users. It suggests that if you use Windows and have software from more than 22 different vendors, you need to install a security patch every five days to keep your computer safe from all those nasty viruses. That's pretty often. Here's what gives me pause, though: Secunia, the company issuing this warning, conveniently has a program called Personal Software Inspector that presumably protects you from just these threats. Hmmm. OK, sure, their software is free (for now), but you can't imagine that it'd hurt their business to drive a whole herd of panicked users to their inspector software. In either case, I guess there's something to raise an eyebrow at here. [BoingBoing]
Stuffing the Ballot Box
We recently got our first look at Microsoft's browser ballot, a new system that gives European Windows users the chance to choose their own browser as opposed to being force-fed Internet Explorer from the get go. The system, which arose from an antitrust investigation by the European Commission, was the source of much confusion and consternation throughout the whole process, but we figured that everyone would be happy with the final screen we saw the other day. We were wrong. The ballot offers new installers with 12 choices, but only the five most popular—IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera—are visible on the screen from the start. To take a look at the other seven—AvantBrowser, Flock, K-Meleon, GreenBrowser, Maxthon, Sleipnir, and SlimBrowser—you have to scroll your way to the right. As Ars Technica explains, "The unpopularity of horizontal scrolling is well-known," and "the importance of this ballot to minority browsers is hard to overstate," (I think they just did). The ballot screen will be rolling out in the next 90 days, and in the mean time you can bet that the little guys will be fighting against the clock to save themselves from sideways scrolling obscurity. [Ars Technica]
Hello Geeks
Here we have an Apple-centric parody of Old Spice's wildly popular The Man Your Man Could Smell Like ad. Often times, parodies grow to eclipse the original item they riff on. That will not be the case here. 1. the spoof uses CGI where the original did not. 2. It is less sort of funny where the original was not. The original was extremely funny. So just watch the original. But watch this one too, because it will make you love the original all the more. [The Awesomer]
A Headache
"Neuralieve Headache Management System," Redferret's headline reads for this particular gadget, "is this the beginning of the end for migraines?" No, no it isn't, because even if the Neuralieve does rid people of their headaches, there's no way anyone's going to use this ridiculous, gigantic piece of machinery to alleviate them. The Neuralieve beams a "single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation" into your brain, supposedly halting the headache in its tracks. While it may provide some relief in the short term, I'm not sure that letting some sketchy handheld gizmo pump magnetic pulses directly into your head is necessarily going to pan out so well in the long run. [Red Ferret]
WiMaxi
Starting March 9, 1000 taxis in Taiwan will be equipped with free WiMax. Great. Whatever. Taxi WiMax I can live without. But is it took much to ask to just get it somewhere in my city? Somewhere in the state of New York? [UberGizmo]
Four Point Oooooh
Bluetooth 3.0 is old and busted; Bluetooth 4.0 is the new hotness. The improvements will supposedly let the technology work with devices that consume less power, and today's news is that it could make its way into those types of devices by the end of this year. Well, a Bluetooth-enabled pedometer doesn't seem too cool to me to begin with, so having one by the end of the year doesn't get me all that excited either.
Motorola Wants to Patent Combining Several Phones Into A Single Gigantic Screen [Motorola]
It's time for movie night and you have several cellphones but no decent-sized TV or monitor. No worries! With Motorola's "Reconfigurable Multiple-Screen Display" technology you'll be able to turn that pile of tiny phone screens into one big display.
Motorola's patent filing describes this technology as something that allows the displays of several phones to be "configured to act like one to run applications" or stream videos while "maintaining the same aspect ratio." Basically, you stick them next to each other and pretend that there are no bezels in the middle of someone's face.
Anyway, any guesses on how many cellphones I need to construct my own movie theater? [USPTO via Go Rumors via Engadget]
Flatpacked AT-AT Model Doesn’t Come From IKEA Or The Dark Side [Star Wars]
Hide wires, powerboards, your prized mini-figs—heck, even the droids the stormtroopers are still looking for, all in this tidy flatpacked AT-AT model from China.
The company sends you all the materials needed to construct the AT-AT, but can't promise protection from the rebel snowspeeders lurking nearby. It costs 55 Yuan, which is only $8, but that doesn't include postage obviously. [GeekCook via WalYou]
The Return of Sony [We Miss Sony]
We love Sony. We really do. And we want them to get back in the game, because competition makes everyone better. Here's how they do it.
Open the Library
There was a time when I might have suggested that Sony jettison its media companies, setting music and movies adrift so that the electronics divisions would no longer have to be held hostage by internal squabbles over piracy.
I've come around. While Sony Pictures has had its ups and downs over the last decade, the addition of the movie and television libraries gives Sony a strength that none of the other Big Four have—if they can loosen up.
Microsoft has games and Office; Apple sells a lot of music, but owns no content beyond software; Google has YouTube and user-generated content, but creates little professional content of its own. In this space Sony stands alone, with a rich library of music, television, movies, and games.
Imagine if buying a Sony product gave you simple, inexpensive access to that vast archive. Not even for free, necessarily. (Although Sony should continue to be liberal with its media giveaways, like it did when launching the PSP, bundling Spider-Man on UMD.) But all of it at your fingertips with an ease-of-use that put its competitors to shame.
In theory this is the aim of the upcoming Sony Online Service. (The "S.O.S." name is temporary, if apropos.) Sony has discussed plans to translate the moderately successful PlayStation Network into a cross-device infrastructure, allowing not just media downloads but media uploads, taking not only a shot at iTunes but at cloud services like Flickr and Picasa.
That's fine and dandy in theory—but why would a user choose Sony, a company that has launched and then quickly abandoned several other media stores and sharing services in the past? When they closed the Connect store, they stranded customers who had bought into their proprietary ATRAC-based DRM. When ImageStation went bust, they migrated people to Shutterfly and cited "many capable online photo services" as a reason for the closure. Why start investing dollars and time and work and memories in a company that just five years ago allowed rootkits to be installed to protect the sanctity of its media?
There's a trust issue at play, perhaps bigger than Sony realizes, as its halting and horrible missteps have made many potential customers leery of its commitment.
Lucky for Sony, there's a new age dawning in media, one based heavily in the cloud, with subscriptions taking the place of media downloads—especially in video, where customers have yet to invest heavily in pay-per-download models simply due to prohibitive costs and the infinite format war.
Sony should send the Online Service into the world with a bang: open access to Sony's media library free for a month. Or three. Take the write-down as a marketing expense, allow millions of users free access to the media that Sony controls, and use the media—not the hardware—as a loss leader to get people hooked on Sony again.
(And if they did it without DRM that'd be even better, but I'm not asking for miracles here.)
A comprehensive and liberal attitude towards online media would go a long way towards shoring up Sony's more traditional media sales strategy, as well. Blu-ray, after a long and costly battle, has finally won—just as download and streaming content is taking hold in the video space. Buying a Blu-ray disc currently guarantees me access to the video on many non-Sony devices—why not give me access to that same movie on all of my Sony products? I bought Ghostbusters on Blu-ray—now let me watch it whenever I like on whatever Sony device I choose just by grabbing it from the cloud. That would certainly make me more eager to spend money on physical copies.
Become the Best Android Maker In the World
Sony's software showing is weak. Its mobile devices, for a brief moment a bellwether in the "small and useful" space, are now bogged down in a swamp of too-little, too-late design. (More on that in a bit.) Its arcane PlayStation architecture is, according to many game developers, confusing. That was fine when PlayStation was the biggest game in town, but with the Xbox and Wii eclipsing PS3 sales and the DS and iPhone taking a huge chunk of the potential PSP market, Sony's inability to provide powerful, easy-to-use software for developers has been a huge factor in its poor showing this console generation. (Things are are looking up, but on the beam the PlayStation 3 has been a disaster for Sony exactly when it didn't need one.)
There is hope, and its name is Android. At first it might seem counterintuitive to suggest that Sony lean heavily on a product under the aegis of a company that by all rights should be a chief competitor. But for all its not-quite-actually-open-source issues, Android exists primarily so that Google can be insulated from Apple and Microsoft—the two companies that most threaten Sony, as well. In this case, the enemy of Sony's enemy could be their friend—especially when Google isn't interested in providing a full range of consumer products that use Android.
It wouldn't be the first time that Sony used a competitor's software: The entirety of the Vaio PC line runs Microsoft Windows, and its Sony Ericsson phones run Nokia's Symbian OS or—oh look!—Android.
And in this case, Google's weakness is Sony's strength: great hardware. And adopting Android across all its devices would do nothing to impede Sony's own platform goals. In fact, that a Sony-branded Android device could have access to the broad range of Android applications as well as Sony's Online Service and media offerings would do much to set Sony apart from the glut of also-rans that make up much of the current non-phone Android marketplace.
At its heart, Android is "just" Linux. Sony's no stranger to Linux—the PlayStation 2 and 3 both have dabbled with Linux support. But Android is Linux-as-platform, a trusted and understood consumer branding. (Or, you know, that's the goal.) It is, as far as operating systems go, as good or better than anything Sony has ever cooked up themselves. Rather than spending years on disparate software platforms for each device, Sony's software engineers could spend their time building easy-to-use and beautiful user experiences on top of a unified platform. (Remind me again why the Sony Dash doesn't use Android?)
Ditch Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson's products are late, underpowered, designed by madmen and utterly irrelevant. Worse, the company is helmed by a man too proud to make a flagship phone with Google. Fire him. Rescue the engineers. Let the rest of the company burn.
This business has changed. There are no phones anymore. There are simply things that also phone. That there is not a PSP Phone in my hands right now is a travesty, one surely due entirely to the fact that Sony is entangled in a bizarre partnership with a European company trying to make phones that appeal to a feature phone market that started to go away a decade ago.
Sony Ericsson is a stone around Sony's neck and should be cut free as soon as possible. Telephony and mobile data are an intrinsic part of the electronic landscape. Even if a modern phone is really only a radio and a bit of software, it's too important to be anywhere but in-house—and increasingly, in every product.
Another fantastic man-on-the-street piece from Woody Jang about what regular consumers think of Sony's future.
PlayStation Everything
If you ask the average person on the street what their favorite Sony product is, more often than not you'll hear "PlayStation". There's a couple of reasons for that—not the least of which is that it's the last Sony product to completely stand apart from its competitors.
It's a valuable and—when executed correctly—profitable brand. As for the hardware itself, the PlayStation 3 is powerful.
So why is it so half-assed? Why is it that I can spend hundreds of dollars on a PlayStation 3 and still not use it as a DVR? Or as a powerful, slick media center to access my media files? (You can do it, yes, but it's no Boxee or Plex.) Why does Sony sell any other Blu-ray players at all?
The PlayStation of the last few years is battered, but not broken. Half-hearted and poorly conceived projects like PlayStation Home have shown how disconnected Sony is from its users, but the device, brand, and platform still have a lot to give.
I have four boxes connected to my television: All three major consoles, plus a Mac Mini. The reason I have the Mac Mini? It's because none of the consoles do a proper job as a media center, giving me universal access to every type of media I consume, from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, to movies and television I've ripped and downloaded (legally or otherwise), to DVDs and Blu-ray. (The Mini doesn't do Blu-ray, but since I only own, like, six Blu-ray discs that hasn't been a dealbreaker.)
Sony is trying. Netflix has come to the PS3, if somewhat awkwardly. But accessing files on the network still takes a UPnP server and other bits of annoying acronymic magic that makes my $350 console from a multi-billion dollar company feel gimpy and half-baked.
In the portable space, it's ever worse: I don't know a single person who bought a PSPgo. And why would they? It was clear from the outset that the PSPgo was a toe in the water of the digital-distribution stream, not the sort of cannonball into online game downloads that is already being explored to profitable depths by Apple.
But a PSP phone? A nicely designed portable device that has access to the library of amazing PSP titles, plus all the movies, music, and (hopefully Android) apps that Sony could provide? They'd sell a million on Day One, and have developers banging down their doors to let them create the beautiful 3D titles that the PSP is known for.
Thank goodness there are rumors that a PlayStation phone is happening—but Sony has made similar sashays before, only to jilt us later.
Keep It In the Lab
We've shown the absolutely monstrous number of products Sony has for sale (to US consumers) at any given time. To some extent it's understandable, if not forgivable. It's one of the strengths of megacorps to be able to shotgun lots of products onto the market to see what sticks, and diversification has been part of the Sony strategy for decades.
But it's gotten out of hand—and worse, it's turned Sony into a company that has stopped saying "Look what we've invented," to instead murmur, "We can do that, too."
I've written about how Apple's restraint has given them a product lineup that's easy to understand—and easy to invest in as a customer. Buy an Apple product and you can be sure that it'll be supported for years to come. (And that it'll be superseded by an improved version in a year, of course.)
But Sony is spitting out products that even they don't believe in. The Mylo internet communicator? The Vaio P netbook? The PSPgo? The Sony Dash? The UX Series UMPC micro whatever-the-hell? A three-thousand dollar 2-megapixel Qualia camera? Those aren't all dead products—yet. But Sony, by spewing out products that are clearly part of no greater strategy than "Let's see what sticks" has eroded the value of their brand and the trust that customers should be able to put in it.
Bring Back the Robots
Except for the robots! While I'll rail all day about how Sony has overwhelmed us with pointless or half-baked products, I have to admit: I miss the robots. I miss the strange little contraptions, the oh-so-Japanese experiments that clearly have no place in the greater company strategy, but exist only to show off the prowess of Sony's engineers.
Is the Sony Rolly absolutely silly and overpriced? Of course it is. But if Sony were selling just a couple of dozen products that really nailed it, the Rolly would stop serving as an all-too-fitting icon of Sony's directionless and instead take its place as a whirring, cooing, flashing reminder that Sony plays in the future.
Really, though: robot dogs! How are we supposed to believe in Sony if they don't believe in Aibo!
Make the Best
Once upon time, you bought Sony because "Sony" actually meant "the best." It's that reputation of quality that Sony's largely coasted on (and ridden roughshod over) for the last decade. Sony simply needs to make the best gadgets again.
Take its TVs for example, a core product where Sony is a brand that immediately comes to mind: The Bravia XBR8 is quite possibly the best LCD television ever created. Sony stopped making it last year. The products that followed it, the XBR9 and XBR10, are actually inferior products, despite costing just as much. We actually expected the XBR8 to spawn many better and less expensive TVs, not the opposite. That's the death of the Sony brand. If Sony means nothing else, it should mean the best gadgetry you can buy. The XBR11 needs to be the greatest LCD TV ever made.
Make Us Believe
Sony is lost. Too entranced by their own mythos to make the hard decisions. Too ready to listen to the Madison Avenue hucksters who convince them that "make.believe" means anything at all.
But we believe in Sony. Even their worst products, however feebly designed, retain the air of quality. (We're ignoring a few exploding batteries here and there as the travails of any massive company.)
We believe in a Sony that can practice restraint, that can encourage its engineers to dream and innovate, but also can understand that not every crazy accomplishment needs to be validated by becoming a product for sale.
More than anything, we believe that Sony can stop being so prideful, desperate to be acknowledged as the world's leading electronics company. We believe that the company of Ibuku and Morita can stop telling us they're the best, and do what they were formed to do:
Prove it.
The complete "We Miss Sony" series
• Video: Describe Sony In A Word
• How Sony Lost Its Way
• Sony's Engineer Brothers
• Infographic: Sony's Overwhelming Gadget Line-Up
• The Sony Timeline: Birth, Rise, and Decadence
• Let's Make.Believe Sony's Ads Make Sense
• The Return of Sony
A Mussel’s Tough “Beard” and a Larva’s Sticky Silk May Inspire New Medical Gear | 80beats
It’s not easy to find a material that’s both stretchy and hard. Neither is it to find a glue that will stick underwater. But this week researchers said that the solutions aquatic animals have created for those problems could inspire new materials in the lab.
Mussles have solved the hard-but-still-stretchy problem with their “beards.” The beards are actually made of 50 to 100 so-called byssal threads, and they are what anchor a mussel to a rock or other stable structure. According to study author Matthew Harrington, “they’re not only facing these huge wave forces which are trying to, you know, rip them off the rocks, but also they’re being blasted with debris like small pieces of sand and other debris in the water that are basically acting like sandblasting” [NPR]. If the mussels are blasted off the rocks, they’d likely be eaten or killed.
To avoid that fate, the mussels developed those byssal threads with dual layers. About 95 percent of the inner layer of these fibers is composed of a smooth, stretchy material, while the outer layer is made up of collagen laced with iron. No other known material on Earth exhibits this kind of soft and stretchy inside, and hard, flexible and protective outside [Discovery News]. Looking at the structure and chemical composition through a microscope, Harrington says that threads look like sandpaper, with the harder “granules” coating a softer surface. While the researchers are far off from developing a synthetic version of the material, the byssal threads could eventually inspire new types of body armor for soldiers and police. Safer, longer-lasting medical implants could also result, since new materials developed from the mussels’ fibers could help to anchor such devices in the human body [Discovery News]. The research team documents its work in Science.
Also this week, scientists from Utah looked at a species of caddisfly called Brachycentrus echo; its larva depends on its ability to weave sticky silk underwater to create structures for protection and storing food. Studying the silk in depth, bioengineer Russell Stewart found that it was made of fibroin protein and phosphates, which people already use as an adhesive in products like dentures. Stewart hopes that stealing the caddisfly’s secrets could lead to products like a bandage that doctors could use on wet surfaces during surgery. He says, “Gluing things together underwater is not easy. Have you ever tried to put a Band-Aid on in the shower? This insect has been doing this for 150 million to 200 million years”[Salt Lake Tribune].
Related Content:
80beats: Dew-Spangled Spider Webs Could Inspire High-Tech Water Collection
80beats: Metal Injections Make a Spider Silk That Superman Would Envy
80beats: Spider Ancestor Made Silk—Possibly Using it for Sex—But Couldn’t Spin a Web
DISCOVER: Unraveling Spider Silk
DISCOVER: 8 Lessons Medicine Is Learning from Mother Nature (photo gallery)
Image: Matthew Harrington
Windows Firewall
Hi all, I have managed to gain access to wireless printing by turning windows firewall off on the computer with the printer attached. I have re-enabled firewall, and once again all access is barred. Which port would I add to the exceptions list to eradicate the problem? It is XP Pro SP3. Thanks
China’s “Heavenly Palace” Space Station Module Due to Launch in 2011 | 80beats
China will soon have an outpost in space. The government has announced that its first unmanned space module, the Tiangong-1 (or “The Heavenly Palace”), will be launched next year.
The module will serve as a docking station for other aircraft before being transformed into a permanent taikonaut residence and space lab within two years of the launch [Nature blog]. It was originally due to launch this year, but now will see flight only late in 2011, due to technical reasons, Chinese officials said. The Tiangong-1 is expected to be 30 feet long and capable of housing three taikonauts; future missions will add other modules to construct a larger Chinese space station.
The Tiangong-1 design, unveiled in a nationally televised broadcast on last year’s Chinese New Year, includes a large module with docking system making up the forward half of the vehicle and a service module section with solar arrays and propellant tanks making up the aft [SPACE.com]. The Tiangong-1 is expected to dock the unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft first to test the robotic docking systems before hosting the manned Shenzhou 9 and 10 spacecraft, which are both expected to carry two or three taikonauts into space.
China’s other space plans include launching a second lunar probe in October in preparation for an unmanned moon landing by the end of 2012. A possible manned lunar mission has also been proposed — with a target date of 2017 — putting China in the forefront of a tightening Asian space race involving India, Japan and South Korea [Associated Press].
China has insisted that its space programs are for peaceful purposes only. However, the head of the Chinese Air Force, Gen. Xu Qiliang, appeared to have gone off-message when he said in November that international “military competition has shifted towards space” [The New York Times].
Related Content:
DISCOVER: #13: China Takes Its First Space Walk
DISCOVER: China’s Long March to Space
DISCOVER: One Giant Step for a Small, Crowded Country
80beats: A Smashing Finale: China’s Lunar Probe Crashes Into the Moon
80beats: After a Successful Spacewalk, Chinese Astronauts Return Home
Image: CNSA
Maingear Managed to Shove a Full Numeric Keypad Onto Its 15-Inch mX-L 15 Laptop [Laptops]
For whatever reason, Maingear decided that they should stick a full numeric keypad onto a 15-inch laptop. And using whatever magic, they managed to pull it off without creating a monster.
I've got a 12-inch, a 15-inch, and a 17-inch laptop within an arms reach, yet none of them—not even the 17-incher—have a full number pad. This makes Maingear's mX-L 15 feel like the odd man out, but boy could it be useful for quicker data entry. Or maybe gaming.
The laptop can now be ordered with Intel Core™ i5 or i7 mobile processors, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 graphics, 802.11b/g/n support, a 2.0MP camera, and an optional SSD. Prices start at $999, ten-key pad included. [Maingear]
Creationist McLeroy loses in Texas election | Bad Astronomy
I am pleased to write that the creationist and generally anti-reality Don McLeroy has lost his bid for re-election to the Texas State Board of Education!
Yay!
The man who ousted him is Thomas Ratliff, who is — gasp! — an actual educator who has vowed to try to remove the politicization of the board and also to actually – gasp again! — listen to educators when it comes to, y’know, educational topics. You may remember McLeroy is the goofball who infamously said, "Someone has to stand up to the experts!"
However, mitigating the good news somewhat are some things to consider:
1) McLeroy is still on the BoE for the next seven months before his term runs out. He can do a vast amount of damage to Texas schoolchildren’s education in that time.
2) Ratliff only won by a very narrow margin, meaning a whole lot of Texas citizens either didn’t know about McLeroy’s maniacal attempts at derailing the Lone Star State’s educational system, didn’t care, or actually supported him.
3) McLeroy and his crew of revisionist creationists have already done so much damage that it cannot be easily repaired. There is a cycle to the way standards and such are reviewed and updated in Texas, so it could be years before things are straightened out, if at all.
Still, this is good news, and so I won’t use the "Texas: Doomed" graphic. Instead, I’ll remind you not to rest:
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Tip o’ the ten gallon hat to Robert Estes and the many other BABloggees who emailed me about this.
Sony Bloggie PM5K Camcorder Review: A Swiss Army Knife That’s Gone Dull [Camcorders]
Sure, it has a ridiculous name, but on paper the Bloggie's got it all—1080p video capture, the ability to switch resolutions and frame rate, plus a lens attachment that lets you record 360-degree videos. Bells and whistles galore.
Sony thought adding all these bells and whistles would make a difference. They were—as ever—running late to the pocket-camcorder race, but thought strapping on featured-laden running shoes would help it take on its rivals.
Unfortunately, Sony was racing against the Flip Ultra HD (our favorite pocket camcorder) - a much smaller kid sure, but he'd been around the block many times before and was very streamlined. While it couldn't do jumps and flips like the Sony—nor did it have special running shoes— the Flip was unmistakably on top of his game thanks to a single red button in the middle of his chest which starts the action up quickly and easily.
The Details
And so, like the late-comer Sony in our story, the tardy Sony Bloggie joins last year's Webbie model in the Japanese giant's quest to take on the Flip. There are three Bloggie models available, with the MHS-PM5, MHS-PM5K, and MHD-CM5 all shooting in 1080p. The CM5 has an optical zoom and flip-out LCD screen, and the only feature that separates the PM5 from the PM5K is the latter's lens attachment which offers 360-degree filming. This is the model I tested, which costs $180.
Flip's pavement-pounder is the Ultra HD, which while only shooting in 720p at 30fps, demands so few choices to be made that it's a big seller for the market-creating company. It's the easiest device to use, with the only options being to turn on/off, start/stop recording, and zoom in/out.
Sony's Bloggie has a bewildering choice of features, which will end up being a problem if they want to appeal to anyone other than those who actually know what different resolutions are. It shoots in 1080p at 30fps, 720p at either 60fps or 30fps, and VGA. There are a few limitations with shooting in 1080p though—you can't use the zoom, there's no image stabilization, and you can't use the 360 degree lens attachment with it.
Design
The Bloggie is very "Sony" in style. That means a glossy black finish and cheap parts that I can see breaking down very quickly, like the door that covers the AV output and protruding USB stick.
At 2.4-inches, the 4:3 LCD screen is one of the worst displays I've encountered, with a poor off-axis viewing angle, meaning you have to be facing it straight-on to actually see the footage at its best. It's also got a softer surface than desired—as you can see from some of the photos, it's covered with a few scratches from just a week's use.
To record a video, the button is located on the top right side—and admittedly, when I first turned it on I tried pressing the middle button, which just brings up the menu. You can't stop recording video without jerking the camcorder trying to get to the button, which means you'll have to edit every single video if you want something smooth.
360-Degree Lens Attachment
The main draw to this camcorder over other similar makes is the lens options. The inbuilt lens can be turned around in 270 degrees angles, great for self-filmers. The second way involves clamping another lens on top, which then shoots video in 360 degrees. It's very fun to play with, especially if you put it on a sofa and leap around the room like I did, but I just can't imagine putting the extra part in my bag and wanting to pull it out and use it. It'd be lost in the draw, forgotten for months. You can see my efforts with this attachment just below, where I jump about like a heavy-footed fairy at a Talking Heads concert. How embarrassing.
Motion
To test how both camcorders handled shooting something in motion, I strapped on my running shoes and ran on my gym's treadmill. It was so well-lit inside that both camcorders produced satisfactory results, but the Bloggie's wasn't quite as smooth as the Flip's was. This is interesting, as the Bloggie was filmed at 60fps, double what the Flip can handle. You can see some jaggies on my legs as I jog—the edges are smooth, but look jagged. A touch of motion blur wouldn't be obvious to the untrained eye, but I was a lot happier with what the Flip managed to produce.
Sony Bloggie: Motion at 720p and 60fps.
Flip Ultra HD: Motion at 720p and 30fps.
Outdoors
The park was a perfect opportunity to see how the Bloggie performed in natural light, on a sunny (yet overcast) day. There was some wind, which the Bloggie picked up more than the Flip (which actually captured a bit of birdsong at one stage), but altogether the Flip managed to convey the colors a lot better than the Bloggie did.
As you can see from the video I shot with the Bloggie, the colors are just too washed out, it's like everything has been dampened with paleness. It was a sunny day, but at one point in the footage you can see it jumps to let even more light into the lens—which wasn't necessary. The Flip, while slightly skewing the colors so the green grass and red buses were more fluroscent than in real life, had a much healthier portrayal of colors and light.
Other tests outdoors showed individual blades of grass being made out on the Flip, whereas the Bloggie couldn't distinguish any—even when filmed at 1080p and played back on my 42-inch TV.
Sony Bloggie: Outdoors at 1080p and 30fps.
Flip Ultra HD: Outdoors at 720p and 30fps.
Macro
Both camcorders have digital zooms, but there's a major difference between the two: you can actually use the Flip's zoom. I didn't end up including video proof showing how bad the Bloggie's zoom actually is, but once you zoom half-way in (it's a 4x zoom), the amount of visual noise it produces is mind-blowing. It's like static on your TV. This occurred even outdoors, when shooting flowers at close-range.
Neither camcorder can handle the closest flowers well, which were 2-inches from the lens (without zoom activated). Focus was off, with the Flip only adjusting when it panned to the second layer of flowers, which were about 4-inches away. It's only until the Bloggie sees the third layer of flowers that it begins to focus—which would've been a good 6 - 8 inches from the lens. It's not that much of an issue when you're filming flowers, true—but imagine if this was the next iPhone that I was filming, and you couldn't even make out the icons?
Sony Bloggie: Macro, 1080p at 30fps.
Flip Ultra HD: Macro, 720p at 30fps.
Low-light
Seen in the two videos here are not only my friends trying to act "natural" when two camcorders are shoved in their faces after a few drinks in the pub, but also—in the Bloggie's case—a heck of a lot of noise. I'm talking visual noise, because in terms of audio it's spot on—really clear, and able to pick up a lot more than the Flip can (though that also means more background noise, too).
Our corner of the pub was lit by two lamps, so it was pretty dark, but at 1080p on the Bloggie it coped well. Not as well as the Flip did though, which impressed me more with its lack of noise.
Sony Bloggie: Low-light 1080p and 30fps.
Flip Ultra HD: Low-light 720p and 30fps.
Color
On a rain-soaked afternoon in my corner of London, I ventured out to the busiest intersection near me and filmed double decker buses careening around the roadworks-bespeckled corner. With the gray haze of rain, the Bloggie's trademark of dampening the colors down really didn't make for good footage. The Flip meanwhile, while heightening the colors so everything is ultra-vivid, made the video a lot nicer to play back. The red of the double decker buses may be skewed, but at least they actually look RED, unlike the Bloggie's disappointing paleness.
Sony Bloggie: Color, 1080p and 30fps.
Flip Ultra HD: Color, 720p and 30fps.
Battery life
It's been a bit hard to judge the battery lives of both camcorders, as after each test I've been plugging them straight into my MacBook (yes, they're both OS X and Windows compatible), which automatically charges them. The Bloggie is showing a full battery life, and I've used it in total about three hours over the past week—charging it here and there, for about five minutes at a time. The Flip's got a quoted battery life of two hours, and hasn't held its juice as well as the Bloggie, which has a removable battery—a definite bonus in my book.
Connectivity
A HDMI output would've been nice on the Bloggie, but it compensates with the Memory Stick PRO Duo / SD/SDHC card slot. I stuck the memory stick in my PS3 and watched all my videos back within seconds on the TV. As both camcorders have built-in USB arms I could connect the Flip to the PS3 too, but having the memory card slot is a nice touch. It also means you can store more on the Bloggie than the Flip, which only has an 8GB capacity.
Results
Sony was late to the pocket camcorder race, and while they stuffed the Bloggie with a extraordinary amount of features, it just feels bloated. The old adage of quality over quantity definitely rings true when holding both the Ultra HD and Bloggie in your hands, with the Flip's cut-down, simplistic ease of use winning me over. The ability to switch resolutions and play with the different lenses was nice, but it does say something when you prefer the 720p video over the footage shot with a 1080p camcorder.
It really saddens me saying this, as I was convinced upon opening the Bloggie's box that I'd be so enamored with it I'd rush out and buy one after writing the review. Instead, I'm joining the flock of supporters embracing the Flip Ultra HD at the winner's podium.
Dual memory card reader
Great battery life
Ability to switch resolutions easily
Natural Colors
Video often too dark, with motion blur and noise
Too much background noise picked up
Flimsy build with awkward placement of record button
Zoom isn't worth using
Life Photographers On Capturing Nature That’s Never Been Seen Before [Photography]
BBC's Life, or as we've called it, Planet Earth Part II, is finally coming to Discovery starting March 21st. In this clip, the crew teases some of the amazing technique that allowed the documentary to capture so many new "firsts."
If you haven't seen our earlier coverage of Life, the clips you'll find here are definitely worth your time, as is this behind the scenes of a few of Life's most epic moments. It may be old news to our friends overseas, but for those of us in America, it's definitely time to set the DVR.
Sony Reader, You Are So Dead [Ipad]
According to ChangeWave, the Kindle is going to have a hard time surviving the incoming iPad wave. In a 3171-people survey on Amazon.com users looking to buy an ebook reader, 40% said they were planning to buy the iPad.
Comparatively, 28% wanted to get the Amazon Kindle, despite having a longer life, more titles in the store, and allegedly offering a better book reading experience than the iPad thanks to its electronic ink technology. The 28% to 40% comparison is higher than we thought, actually, with Kindle still doing fairly well in comparison to Apple's do-everything device.
The reason the iPad scored higher? Most probably, ereader shoppers are more excited about the color screen, Apple's design, and the multiple functions that the iPad can offer, compared to the single-function nature of Amazon's black-and-white, no multitouch, no fancy-schmancy design electronic reader. It'll be interesting to see what Kindle 3 brings, since Amazon is working on a full color, multitouch version. [ChangeWave]
How Apple Plans to Make You Watch Ads With Cheap TV Shows [Apple]
An Apple patent worth gawking at, given its grander ambitions for advertising, iTunes and TV subscriptions: It details a way to make you watch ads embedded into video content, like say, a free or cheap TV show.
Conceptually, it's not too dissimilar from what you see with Hulu, actually—essentially, in order to unlock further segments of the video, you have to watch an ad. You know, just like real TV worked, before DVRs!
The patent goes in-depth about how ads would be embedded with content that could be downloaded to multiple devices—like an iPhone or iPad—how it'd react to trying to jump ahead of the ad, and gathering statistics about how the ad was viewed or interacted with.
The reason it's interesting, primarily, is that Apple's reportedly been heavily pitching networks both on selling TV shows for cheap—99 cents—and signing on to an iTunes TV subscription service that would bundle a selection of TV shows from major networks for 30 bucks a month, like say, Gossip Girl from CBS. The networks have been cool to both suggestions, given that TV's expensive to produce and stuff.
Ads, especially ones with detailed usage statistics (and maybe demographics), would help make up the revenue lost by offering shows for a buck, and make $30 subscription a lot more palatable, and possibly even offset the screams of cable operators watching content dance out the door and maybe onto the cloud.
The retrenchment of the old timeline model of television with interstitial advertising in the age of the DVRs, where we can create any timeline we want as we watch, is one of the more curious developments of networks groping for new ways to make money off of old media on new devices. What's old is new is old again, apparently.
Oh, and Apple's patent illustrators apparently like Charlie from Lost. [Patently Apple via 9to5Mac]
Battery Sizes and Codes
Hi All, Can anybody explain how the battery size coding (AA, AAA, C etc.) came to being. Is there any significance for each of those alphabet(s) in the code? Thanks in advance.:)