We’ve already learned that in-flight Wi-Fi will be getting a whole lot better next year, but what wasn’t clear was just how we’re going to be seeing such a big leap in performance. Now Boeing has revealed that 20,000 pounds of potatoes played a key role.

It turns out that an airplane cabin is an incredibly complex area for Wi-Fi signal penetration, with everything from … Read More → "Boeing tests in-flight Wi-Fi by stuffing jets full of potatoes"

Researchers at MIT have discovered a new state of matter with a new kind of magnetism. This new state, called a quantum spin liquid (QSL), could lead to significant advances in data storage. QSLs also exhibit a quantum phenomenon called long-range entanglement, which could lead to new types of communications systems, and more.
via Extreme Tech

Read More → "MIT discovers a new state of matter, a new kind of magnetism"

Broadcast.com founder Mark Cuban and Minecraft creator Markus Persson have donated $500,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to endow the “Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents,” which will be occupied by an attorney tasked with hunting down and destroying crappy patents that have been recklessly granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office to unscrupulous “inventors” who claim to have invented things that were obvious and/or already extant; and to pay for activists to fight for substantive patent reform.
via Boing Boing</ … Read More → "EFF creates the “Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents”"

Amid rising concerns over post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental illnesses, two MIT startups are developing wrist-worn sensors that can detect physiological changes—including perspiration and elevated temperature—that may signal the onset of events like anxiety attacks.

The data collected by these devices can be fed into an algorithm that aims to learn what triggers anxiety, or when people may be about to engage in a risky behavior. One goal … Read More → "Wrist sensor tells you how stressed out you are"

Wow. Photographer David Breashears and his team at GlacierWorks are working on an interactive tour of Mount Everest. Basically, you start with a wide view, then click any of the hot spots — or little green boxes — and off you go.
via npr/The Picture Show

</ … Read More → "An (amazing) interactive tour of Everest"

Solar panels are typically heavy, which makes them expensive to install, and rigid, which limits where they can be used. In the current issue of Nature Scientific Reports, researchers describe a novel, potentially cheap way to make solar cells that are both lightweight and flexible.

The technique is meant to work with thin-film solar cells. The active part of thin-film cells—the part that gathers … Read More → "Flexible solar cells can stick to just about any surface"

DARPA showed off some of the Legged Squad Support System’s (LS3) new functionality in a YouTube video posted today.

First off, the sound of the LS3’s motor has been toned down to a reasonable 70 decibels — about the same as a vacuum cleaner or car, and a significant improvement over the deafening roar of the earlier models.
via Robotics Trends

We are not sure if this is a case of real life mimicking fiction, but this definitely does not look like mere coincidence—NASA’s new spacesuit is a dead-ringer to Buzz Lightyear’s! 

Featuring the same lime-green details as the one Buzz is wearing, this new spacesuit is a greatly improved version of the ones NASA is currently using.
via Read More → "NASA’s new spacesuit looks just like Buzz Lightyear’s"

Things like earbud cords have a nasty way of getting hooked on things and breaking. Such incidences may become a lot less common, however, as scientists from North Carolina State University have created conductive wires that stay intact even when stretched up to eight times their regular length.

The researchers made the wires by filling a tube of extremely elastic polymer with a liquid metal alloy of gallium and indium. As a result, … Read More → "Liquid metal electrical wires can be stretched without breaking"

LAIKA is a fictional and animated short film based on the true life story of the first dog in space. It was directed and animated by Avgousta Zourelidi, alongside animators David Grey, Sean Sears and Mark Nute.

The film is a re-imaging of the true story about the first dog in space launched by Russian scientists in 1957 and what may have happened to her on her momentous journey. An intelligent creature, curious and proud she fulfills her duty taught to her by the scientists back on … Read More → "LAIKA, animated short film about the first dog in space"