Limited Edition Pentax K-7 Camera Forgets Silver Isn’t a Rare Color In Camera-Land [Cameras]

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I'd be more excited if this special limited edition color was a never-seen-before color, but alas Pentax thinks the camera world can still get excited about silver. Or maybe silver is rare in Japan, where this model is launching?

The K-7 has been around since last summer, but only 1,000 of these limited edition model exist. If the new silver color, a reinforced LCD screen and new firmware and image processing software is making your fingers itch at the thought of flying out to Japan to scoop one up, it's on sale March 13th for the equivalent of $1,420.

Apart from those minor changes, it's still the same old 14.6-megapixel, 720-p-shooting camera which can be picked up for as low as $1,000 on Amazon. [CrunchGear]


CO2 Molding

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Good am,

Sir/Madam,

Is it possible to use coke powder in CO2 molding instead of seacoal to provide good surface finish and good shakeout properties? Can you please give me ideas on how to do this? and what are the possible side effects by doing this. thanks

Regards,

Rem

Welded PTFE Tubes

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Hello all, I have a project were I need PTFE tubes. The outer diameter is 42 mm, the inner diameter 40 mm (wall thickness = 1mm). I found several suppliers which are able to deliver the extruded one, but I'm looking for the (cheaper) lengthwise welded tubes. Does anybody know, where I can find such

First-Time Traveler

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First-Time Traveler is written by Claire Marie Algarme and designated to helping other “first-timers”. Her reviews of each destination are a smooth mix of personal experiences and interesting observations. Even the more seasoned traveler will enjoy this read.

Timing the Olympics, Over Time [Sports]

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Over at Beyond Binary, Ina Fried's got a fascinating profile of Omega Timing, the company that's been managing event timing at the Olympics for over 70 years. Counting seconds now is somehow totally different than it was in 1936.

Take the methods for timing skiers:

Less than a century ago, the timing of downhill skiing required someone at the top and bottom of the run, each with a stopwatch synchronized to the time of day.

Every few skiers, the timer at the top would send down a piece of paper with the start times of the last few skiers and then some math would ensue, eventually resulting in the time of the run being calculated.

Or the above pictured replacement for the classic—and conceptually bizarre, because what the hell, a gun?—starter pistol:

Among the many Winter Olympics firsts at Vancouver is the use of a new all-electronic starter gun that emits a consistent sound and light. Plus, says Omega's Christophe Berthaud, it's a whole lot easier to get through airport security.

Or—and this is the most surprising bit—the raw manpower it takes to time the Olympics now, versus the good old days:

At its first Olympics, in Germany in 1936, Omega sent a single technician with 27 stopwatches to the Games. At the 2006 Turin, Italy, Winter Games, Omega sent 208 people—127 timekeepers and 81 data handlers—along with some 220 tons of equipment.

I'm partial to the classic classic method, by which competitors judged their own finishing times, got in fights about who finished first, and settled the dispute like real athletes: On the floor of the coliseum, with improvised weapons, while running from recently imported, still very disoriented exotic animals. Athletes these day! [CNET]


3D Monitor Fight: Acer GD235HZ vs Alienware OptX AW2310 [3D]

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The 23.6-inch Acer GD235HZ ($399) and Alienware OptX AW2310 ($499) represent the latest gen 3DHD monitors. So which is the better buy for 3D gaming? Tom's Guide actually likes them both quite a bit.

In their epic review of these 120Hz displays, Tom's gives Acer points for excellent contrast while praising the Alienware for superior color. Both seem equal in terms of actual 3D (and much improved from the previous generation of 3D LCDs), which makes sense given that two monitors with equal refresh rates and resolution are being driven by identical graphics cards and looked at with identical NVIDIA shutter glasses.

For Tom's, it comes down to amenities, which they feel Alienware nails with extra ports, a nicer build and a swiveling display. I personally just dig that orange finish. Since the OptX AW2310 is on sale for $450 at the time of this post, it certainly sounds worth the $50 premium, should you want to enter that whole 3D glasses lifestyle. [Tom's Guide]


NASA iPhone App Lets You Drive a Lunar Rover (Just Try Not to Get Stuck) | Discoblog

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iRoverPresident Obama may have nixed the idea of returning astronauts to the moon anytime soon due to budgetary constraints, but that hasn’t stopped NASA from doling out a gift to its lunar fans.

The space agency has released its first iPhone game, which is called the “NASA Lunar Electric Rover Simulator.” The free app, available on iTunes, puts you in the driver’s seat of a lunar rover. The release might serve as a kind of homage to Spirit, NASA’s real-life Mars rover that recently became immobilized. (Opportunity continues chugging along.)

Nasawatch.com describes the idea of the game:

“Drive your Lunar Electric Rover (LER) over the lunar surface to conduct missions. Rescue stranded crew members, transport crewmembers, and launch and recover other Landers. Avoid being caught on the surface unprotected during Solar Particle Events (SPEs).”

The game also shows the ascent and descent of the moon lander, and aims to give players a first-hand feel for what the lunar surface looks like and how a rover works. The game is based on NASA data and file footage of actual lunar rovers, and it mimics the approximate conditions of one of the lunar base sites.

The new game is part of the space agency’s efforts to gin up more interest in its activities via trendy technology like smart phones. And the moon was not its first stop. Earlier this month, NASA released a new iPhone app that allowed users to get live updates from the surface of the sun. NASA says that app lets users “fly around the star, zoom in on active regions, and monitor solar activity.”

Related Content:
80beats: Photo Gallery: The Best Views From Spirit’s 6 Years of Mars Roving
80beats: Obama’s NASA Budget: So Long, Moon Missions; Hello, Private Spaceflight
80beats: NASA Invites You to “Be a Martian” & Explore the Red Planet’s Terrain
Bad Astronomy: Give Space A Chance
Discoblog: Is Apple Taking Sexy Back? Raunchy Apps Vanish From the App Store
Discoblog: California Lays Claim to Astronaut Garbage Left Behind on the Moon

Image: Apple


School Spying Update: District Used Webcams 42 Times; FBI on the Case | 80beats

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MacBook_Pro_17When we last left the Lower Merion School District, its officials had circled the wagons and refused to openly discuss the lawsuit charging school administrators with remotely accessing the webcams in the laptops loaned out to students, and doing so without the students’ or their parents’ knowledge. The school stayed pretty quiet about it over the weekend, but spokesman Doug Young says that the district has suspended the practice amid the lawsuit and the accompanying protests by students, the community and privacy advocates [The New York Times].

That might not be enough to quell the swell of anger over Lower Merion’s policy. The district, which loans out Apple laptops to all it students, admits remotely activating the webcams 42 times over the course of the last 14 months, but says all of those instances were attempts to find missing or stolen computers. However, this whole fracas started after school administrators tried to use a photo taken of student Blake Robbins as evidence to corroborate charges that the young man had engaged in some sort of mischief. Robbins told CBS News that the school accused him of selling drugs and tried to back up the charge with images from the webcam.

Robbins’ parents filed suit in U.S. District Court, but that won’t be the end of Lower Merion’s legal troubles. The FBI has launched a query into the incident. Risa Vetri Ferman, the Montgomery County district attorney, said Friday that she might also investigate [ABC News].

Related Content:
80beats: Lawsuit: Webcams in School-Issued Laptops Used to Spy on Students at Home
80beats: Facebook CEO: People Don’t Really Want Privacy Nowadays, Anyway
80beats: Should Online Advertisers Be Allowed To Track Your Bedroom Habits?

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Andrew Plumb


How Developers Really Feel About Windows Phone 7 [Blockquote]

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Windows Phone 7 could save Microsoft's mobile future, but what do developers think about it? IM app BeeJive's CEO Kai Yu: "I think it's just royally fucked. That place is so big: The tools, the people, it's all so fragmented."

The one developer Wired talked to who was actually kinda up on Windows Phone 7 was the COO of Pageonce, which makes the awesome app Personal Assistant for iPhone and BlackBerry—he's excited that Microsoft "has some incredible platforms they can tie all together with the new mobile platform."

But then there's Peter Hoddie, the CEO of Kinoma, which makes media software for Windows Mobile, who wasn't too thrilled about Silverlight supposedly being a huge component of the app development kit: "Silverlight, geez...Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water."

Given the way some developers feel Microsoft's mistreated them in the past—and the way Microsoft's basically killed the current Windows Mobile platform—it sounds like Microsoft's got a ton of sweet talking to do to rally the dev troops if they wanna be on the same playing field as other platforms when it comes to apps. More quotes from developers over at Gadget Lab: [Gadget Lab]

Update: Corrected a mix-up with the quotes from Pageonce and Kinoma's respective execs.


In The End Its Only About Jobs, Right?

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Q&A: Plans for NASA would bring significant changes to Space Coast, Florida Today

"Our real concern is Main Street: the guys who are going to see a reduction in their sales because household incomes are going to change. "We've been researching the opportunities and trying to find models of other communities around the country who have gone through similar instances. . . "

ATK supporters dismayed over U.S. space plans, AP

"Current and laid-off workers and promoters of ATK Space Systems say they are discouraged by an apparent drift in U.S. plans for space travel. Clearfield-based ATK Space Systems has laid off 970 workers in Utah since October, citing an uncertain future with the phase-out of the space shuttle and the Minuteman III ballistic missile programs."

Unpeeling the history of water on Mars | Bad Astronomy

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Years ago, I visited the Grand Canyon with my family. The beauty of it was overwhelming, and everything they say about it is true. It’s magnificent.

That grandeur is only amplified by the obvious scientific significance of it. The layers of sedimentary rock, exposed by the eons-long patient erosion of the Colorado river, are a dramatic open textbook of the geological history of our planet, as if the Earth itself is saying "Look here, and learn of the past!"

Learn we have. And the Earth, as we have also learned, is not entirely unique. From millions of kilometers away, another canyon beckons us to uncover a planet’s past.

hirise_gale_oblique

[Click to engrandcanyonate.]

What you’re seeing here is a topographical model of a small part of a crater floor on Mars: Gale Crater, to be precise, a monster 150 km (90 miles) wide impact located nearly on the equator of Mars. In its center rises a mountain, a central peak common in large impact craters. Surrounding this central peak is an enormous mound of material, rising kilometers above the crater’s floor (see the topographic image below; the ellipse represents an old potential landing site of the Spirit rover). It’s not entirely clear how this mound formed; however, it’s likely that the entire crater was once filled with material laid down as periodic deposits, and that most of it has eroded away, leaving just that lopsided mound.

gale_crater_topoIf that sounds familiar, it may be because the Grand Canyon has a similar history (without the crater, of course).

And like its terrestrial counterpart, the exposed layers tell a history of Mars’s geologic past. Scientists studying those layers using images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have uncovered a startling feature: while sulfates (deposited by salty water) are seen throughout the layers, clays are only seen lower down, deeper into the past. Clays are only seen where water is abundant, but sulfates alone indicate conditions where water evaporated away.

What the floor of Gale Crater appears to be telling us is that standing water, at least locally, existed long ago on Mars, but later evaporated away. This is consistent with what we have seen in other parts of Mars, of course. Ever since the rovers landed on Mars we’ve seen one piece of evidence after another of standing water in the Red Planet’s distant past.

But there’s something about this news that appeals to me, that touches more than the scientist part of my brain. If I hadn’t told you that first image was from Mars, you might very well think that it was from the Grand Canyon or some other Earthly feature. And it really is a canyon, as you can see from this HiRISE image of the same area:

hirise_gale_crater

This image shows the very lower left of the oblique view shown above. It’s upside-down, making features difficult to compare (check out the full HiRISE image of the area to see the whole thing), but the crater floor is at the top of this false-color image, and the mound begins to rise toward the bottom. You can see the canyon carved right into the floor, with sand dunes rippling across it.

Whatever carved this canyon, perhaps hundreds of millions of years ago, perhaps more, tore away the deposited material and revealed all those layers of rock. These layers can be read like a history book written in reverse chronological order, showing us the deep past of Mars, and telling the sad tale of how an entire planet lost its water.

Mars was once more like the Earth is now, though just how much is anyone’s guess at the moment. I doubt it was exactly like Earth; the evidence of water we see indicates it was incredibly salty, far saltier than we have here at home. But still, Mars is a brilliant ochre cautionary tale in our sky. There but for the grace of water go we…


All Eyes On Nelson As Hearings Approach

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Mikulski slips Nelson a note on NASA, Orlando Sentinel

"Earlier this week, Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland sent a two-page letter to Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida that attempts to outline her vision for NASA and notes that it is "more important than ever" that the two lawmakers "work on consultation" to consider the White House plan. The potential alliance is crucial as Mikulski heads the Senate spending subcommittee with oversight of NASA's budget and Nelson oversees the subcommittee that helps define NASA policy. "I thought it might also be helpful to share with you the principles that I will rely on when drafting the fiscal year 2011 funding bill for NASA," she writes."

Bill Nelson: Manned space program isn't dead yet

"The White House made two errors when announcing its plans for NASA, Sen. Bill Nelson said Tuesday. "I think they made two tactical mistakes that gave everybody the wrong impression," the Florida Democrat said. "The first one is that the president didn't set what the goal is, and everybody knows the goal and that's to go to Mars. "The second mistake was that they said they are canceling the Constellation program."

Don't be blinded by the moon, Opinion, Tampa Bay Online

"Nelson is right that space research is not a waste. It has produced useful spinoffs, including communication and weather satellites, GPS and medical advances, including Lasik surgery. But those successes don't make Obama wrong to try to unleash the inventiveness of U.S. profit-motivated entrepreneurs to build faster and cheaper ships. Jobs will be created, but they will be different jobs, possibly in different places."

Nvidia Ion 2 GPU Benchmarked As Slower Than Its Predecessor [Guts]

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The first Nvidia Ion 2 netbook has been benchmarked, and the early results are disappointing: the Acer Aspire One 532G's next-gen GPU managed to underperform the older Ion LE.

The benchmarking was done by Netbook News while at MWC, who managed to run a 3DMark03 graphics benchmark test during their hands-on time. The resulting score of 3,049 is lower than some Ion LE netbooks achieve; the Samsung N510, for example, scores a 3,593.

There are possible explanations, of course, and we won't know for sure how the Ion 2 stacks up until we're able to test a production-ready unit. As Netbook Choice points out, it's possible that Acer and Nvidia purposefully hamstrung the machine to keep it stable during demonstrations. Then again, it's also possible that Nvidia has had a difficult time working with the Aspire One 532G's Pine Trail processor. Let's hope it's the former: the last thing netbooks need is even more limited graphics capabilities.

[Netbook News via Netbook Choice]


Announcing My Next Point of Inquiry Guest: Climatologist Michael Mann (Ask Your Questions Now) | The Intersection

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Following this discussion thread at the CFI/Point of Inquiry forums, I’ve decided to announce my show’s guest a week early from now on, and call for audience questions for him/her. I’ll take a sampling from those questions that appear on the forums, and ask them on the air.

mann_treeringThe guest for Friday is going to be Penn State University climatologist Michael Mann, and we’ll be talking about the unprecedented wave of recent attacks on climate research–and climate scientists. So I am sure there will be many, many questions that folks will come up with. Don’t leave them in comments here–although comments are open. Leave them on this CFI forum thread if you want me to consider them. (Note that I believe you’ll be required to register over there.)

Michael E. Mann is Director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State, and author of the famous “hockey stick” study, as well as dozens of other peer reviewed papers. He’s also a contributor to RealClimate.org, and is the author, with Lee R. Kump, of Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming:

Dire Predictions

So any questions for Michael Mann? If so, leave them here–and they may just make their way into the interview!

Also, compose your questions sooner rather than later, as we’ll be recording fairly early on this week…..


NASA and the future of space exploration: what do YOU think?

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"Veteran space journalist and NASA Advisory Council member Miles O'Brien will testify on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Feb. 24, regarding what the public thinks of President Obama's space plan and NASA in general. What do you think? We appreciate your participation in this short survey. Thank you." Go here to participate in the survey.

Keith's note: If you'd like to suggest some comments for Miles, post them here. Brevity is encouraged.

Hesitation or Common Sense From Inside JSC?

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NASA JSC Advanced Planning Office Blog: Pass the Baton or Short Track Speed Skater Push, NASA Blogs

"Therefore for me it is not a question of how do we handoff the responsibility of access to Low Earth Orbit to commercial space but how do we ensure that the commercial space community reaches a speed close to what NASA has obtained over the past 50 years so that NASA can push them off to continue the race? How do we set up the transition so that in the event that commercial space should fall, NASA can tag the fallen and temporarily continue the race? Yes I know, with the completion of the Shuttle program the push off is more of a challenge yet not impossible."