… Read More → "Apple is now worth more than Google and Microsoft combined"Apple is trading at almost $460 per share, a $16 boost. That means it’s worth $459.82 billion dollars. That’s more than Microsoft and Google combined.
Heck, it’s more than Google, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, Ford, Starbucks and Boeing together.
via Gizmodo
Scientific breakthroughs inspire science fiction. But that door swings both ways, because popular science fiction and its reception also affect scientific research and its reputation, as the general public is more likely to read a science fiction novel or see a movie than to discuss the merits of the latest genetic studies. The most popular science fiction comes from someone who follows science and thinks, “What could possibly go wrong?” The classic example is the group of young educated writers who got together around the time Luigi Galvani was getting publicity for his experiments in … Read More → "The science fiction effect"
Jumping to Earth from the edge of space is no mean feat. Not only are you dropping like a stone, there’s also the minor issue of your blood boiling as you do so. These are challenges daredevil Felix Baumgartner and the Red Bull Stratos team will be taking head-on — literally — with their record-breaking 120,000 foot “spacedive.” To ensure Baumgartner lives to claim his honors, the Stratos team is using a custom spacesuit.
</ … Read More → "Record-breaking freefall advances space suit technology"
MOSCOW — In the coldest spot on the earth’s coldest continent, Russian scientists have reached a freshwater lake the size of Lake Ontario after spending a decade drilling through more than two miles of solid ice, the scientists said Wednesday.
via New York Times
In space, no one can hear you scream. This is a problem, since if you’re screaming in space, there’s a good chance you desperately need surgery for one reason or another. To address this, the ESA has come up with the fancy little hat that uses augmented reality to turn just about anyone into a skilled surgeon, even in spaaace.
The European Space Agency has developed a system that they’ … Read More → "Putting on this magic hat makes you a surgeon"
Remember the original BigDog? That funny robot pack animal? Well, a supersized version has been let off the leash–and it ain’t so funny anymore.
We last saw the brute when Boston Dynamics unveiled the AlphaDog prototype last year. Even in a harness, it looked pretty mean and could haul 400 pounds without even panting.
This latest incarnation, though, makes its predecessor look quite poodle-like. As seen in the video below, DARPA recently took AlphaDog, aka the Legged Squad Support System, or LS3, out for a walk in … Read More → "DARPA takes BigDog out for a walk"
“REK is a bookcase that grows with your book collection,” writes Reinier De Jong Design on its official website. “The more books the bigger the bookcase gets. The zigzag shaped parts slide in and out to accomodate books in the resulting voids. REK will always be full, regardless of the quantity of books. Also the books can be arranged according to their sizes. The narrow spaces are excellent for magazines.”
via Read More → "Zigzag bookcase shows Ikea a thing or two about not shipping air"
When I was growing up, my parents had a 20-inch Sony Trinitron television. There was a 25-inch model, but having a TV that big seemed vulgar. When I would ask my father why he didn’t splash out for the bigger set, he would say, “Who am I, George Lucas?”
It seems almost quaint now. These days you would be hard-pressed to even find a 20-inch display. Maybe there is a L’il Couch Potato model from Fisher-Price that runs that small, but TVs continue to grow at … Read More → "Is this living room big enough for my TV?"
It looks like Oracle has some competition when it comes to selling big iron for big data. On Wednesday, Cray, the Seattle-based company best known for building some of the world’s fastest supercomputers, said it’s getting into the big data game. A new division within Cray, called YarcData, will leverage Cray’s experience working within data-intensive environments for customers such as Boeing in order to … Read More → "Cray is getting into the big data game"
The reason people are so pumped about solid-state hard drives right now is because they’re super-speedy. But if you think your SSD is fast, just wait until a new breed of laser-based hard drives comes to market.
A team of scientists has demonstrated an amazing new way of writing data to magnetic storage devices. It uses lasers, and it can write data to disk about 1,000 times quicker than a normal spindle hard drive. We’re talking gigabytes — maybe even terabytes — a second here. How the hell?
via Read More → "How a laser could make your hard drive 1,000 times faster"
