Plasma Rocket Could Travel to Mars in 39 Days (PhysOrg.com) -- Last Wednesday, the Ad Astra Rocket Company tested what is currently the most powerful plasma rocket in the world. As the Webster, Texas, company announced, the VASIMR VX-200 engine ran at 201 kilowatts in a vacuum chamber, passing the 200-kilowatt mark for the first time. The test also marks the first time that a small-scale prototype of the company's VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket) rocket engine has been demonstrated at full power. "It's the most powerful plasma rocket in the world right now," says Franklin Chang-Diaz, former NASA astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra. But Ad Astra has bigger plans for VASIMR, such as high-speed missions to Mars. Chang-Diaz has been working on the development of the VASIMR concept since 1979, before founding Ad Astra in 2005 to further develop the project. More information: www.AdAstraRocket.com Connect to PhysOrg.com on Facebook via: New Scientist © 2009 PhysOrg.com
New Mexico City buses cut pollution, generate cash Descriptive Camera The Descriptive Camera works a lot like a regular camera—point it at subject and press the shutter button to capture the scene. However, instead of producing an image, this prototype uses crowd sourcing to output a text description of the scene. Modern digital cameras capture gobs of "parsable" metadata about photos such as the camera's settings, the location of the photo, the date, and time, but they don't output any information about the content of the photo. As we amass an incredible amount of photos, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage our collections. Technology The technology at the core of the Descriptive Camera is Amazon's Mechanical Turk API. The camera itself is powered by the BeagleBone, an embedded Linux platform from Texas Instruments. Presentation Video Results After the shutter button is pressed, the photo is sent to Mechanical Turk for processing and the camera waits for the results. This is a faded picture of a dilapidated building. Acknowledgements
Colorado Sets the Bar on Hydraulic Fracturing Chemical Disclosure Contact:Mica Odom, 512-691-3451, modom@edf.org (Denver, CO – December 13, 2011) Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today praised the State of Colorado for adopting a fracturing fluid chemical disclosure policy that, in many ways, can serve as a model for the nation. “The public expects and deserves full transparency from the oil and gas industry,” said EDF President Fred Krupp. The Colorado rule builds on the experience of Wyoming, Arkansas, Texas and Montana – and makes important strides in requiring companies to disclose chemical information in ways that are useful and user-friendly. “Moving to a searchable database format will allow land owners, neighbors, regulators and policymakers to focus their questions and their research about hydraulic fracturing operations. According to industry testimony before the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), at least half of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing don’t fall under these OSHA regulations.
Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously? As detailed in yesterday’s article, if a VPN provider carries logs of their users’ activities the chances of them being able to live up to their claim of offering an anonymous service begins to decrease rapidly. There are dozens of VPN providers, many of which carry marketing on their web pages which suggests that the anonymity of their subscribers is a top priority. But is it really? Do their privacy policies stand up to scrutiny? We decided to find out. Over the past two weeks TorrentFreak contacted some of the leading, most-advertised, and most talked about VPN providers in the file-sharing and anonymity space. 1. 2. This article does not attempt to consider the actual quality of service offered by any listed provider, nor does it consider whether any service is good value for money. P2P Supporting VPN providers NordVPN Response to Q1: As stated in our terms of service, we do not monitor, record or store any VPN user logs. NordVPN website Private Internet Access BTguard TorGuard ItsHidden
Five reasons the robo-car haters are wrong The self-driving cars we've been promised since the dawn of the auto age are here. Google's amazing robo-Prius hybrids have racked up more than 200,000 miles on public roads. Luxury cars boast gadgets that do everything but steer the car for you. And General Motors has predicted we'll see autonomous tech in showrooms by 2020. Autonomous vehicles will be inherently more unsafe than humans Yes, computers crash. A recent New York Times article featured an interesting quote from NHTSA's chief counsel: "We think it's a scary concept for the public. Ought to be petrified? On the other hand, we'll always have lousy drivers. Hey, I like driving Really? If the actual assembly-line-drudge operation of this machine were so enriching, why is so much of it already being automated? We don't have the infrastructure for autonomous cars Well, we didn't have the infrastructure for cars, either -- at least until bicyclists got together and helped make it so. This may be so. Source: Wired.com
This Internet provider pledges to put your privacy first. Always. | Privacy Inc. Nicholas Merrill is planning to revolutionize online privacy with a concept as simple as it is ingenious: a telecommunications provider designed from its inception to shield its customers from surveillance. Merrill, 39, who previously ran a New York-based Internet provider, told CNET that he's raising funds to launch a national "non-profit telecommunications provider dedicated to privacy, using ubiquitous encryption" that will sell mobile phone service and, for as little as $20 a month, Internet connectivity. The ISP would not merely employ every technological means at its disposal, including encryption and limited logging, to protect its customers. It would also -- and in practice this is likely more important -- challenge government surveillance demands of dubious legality or constitutionality. A decade of revelations has underlined the intimate relationship between many telecommunications companies and Washington officialdom. Like the eavesdropping system that President George W.
System could warn of solar storms 15 August 2012Last updated at 18:59 ET By Jonathan Ball BBC News Solar flares can send high energy particles streaming towards Earth A warning system with the potential to protect against the devastating and costly effects of a massive solar storm could be on the horizon. That's according to research published in the journal Astroparticle Physics. Solar flares can be accompanied by the release of high energy particles - a coronal mass ejection - towards Earth. Ensuing huge geomagnetic storms could wreak havoc on electronic systems, satellites, power grids and communication networks. Data from the study, led by Prof Ephraim Fischbach and Prof Jere Jenkins of Purdue University, suggest that the rate of breakdown of radioactive materials changes in advance of solar flares. They hope they can use this to develop a system that could predict when a potentially devastating geomagnetic storm might take place. But it is unclear how long such a system would take to develop.
Re:fill Chime Bell And Lights For Restaurants by Doyeop Kim & Yanko Design - StumbleUpon An Empty Bottle Gets A New Purpose In Life What good is an empty discarded glass bottle? It only deserves to go back to the recycle bin! NOOO! Wait, don’t give up as yet, invert it over the “Re:fill Chime Bell And Lights” and see it dazzle on your restaurant table! How to survive the next 100,000 years MacGregor Campbell, contributor Will humans be around in the deep future? Given the track record of most mammals, we've got a pretty good shot at surviving for at least the next 100,000 years and possibly even a million years or more. In this animation, we give you a sneak peek at what could be in store for future generations of humans.
Epson's Android-Powered Glasses Are Out of Sight | PCWorld - StumbleUpon Epson (yes the guys that make printers), has invented what could be the coolest headwear since Geordi La Forge's VISOR on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Epson Moverio BT-100 is a wearable transparent display that runs on Android. The Moverio uses micro-projectors to project the equivalent of an 80-inch screen into your eyes, and is capable of displaying both 2D and 3D content. You can even load apps onto it, thanks to the device being able to connect to Wi-Fi and having access to the Amazon App Store. The glasses are slightly larger than normal sunglasses, and have an attached control pad for navigating about the Android interface. Now before you go running out to buy yourself a set of Android powered glasses, there are a few things you should be aware of: The Moverio is aimed at developers and is priced at $699--not exactly pocket change for the average person. Like this?
10 Futuristic Materials Lifeboat Foundation Safeguarding Humanity Skip to content Switch to White Special Report 10 Futuristic Materials by Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member Michael Anissimov. 1. Aerogel protecting crayons from a blowtorch. This tiny block of transparent aerogel is supporting a brick weighing 2.5 kg. Aerogel holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of Records, more than any other material. Carbon nanotubes are long chains of carbon held together by the strongest bond in all chemistry, the sacred sp2 bond, even stronger than the sp3 bonds that hold together diamond. “Metamaterial” refers to any material that gains its properties from structure rather than composition. We’re starting to lay down thick layers of diamond in CVD machines, hinting towards a future of bulk diamond machinery. Diamonds may be strong, but aggregated diamond nanorods (what I call amorphous fullerene) are stronger. Transparent alumina is three times stronger than steel and transparent. inShare28 Materials
Spinthariscopes A Little History... Way back in 1903, Sir William Crookes was experimenting with the most expensive material on Earth at the time... Radium Bromide. Working in total darkness, he accidentally spilled a small quantity on a thin layer of a special type of activated Zinc Sulfide (ZnS). Spinthariscopes were popular items back in their day but they have long since disappeared and been forgotten. The Nuclear Spinthariscope Each Spinthariscope is individually handmade and assembled by our craftsman. There are two different types of Spinthariscopes available.