NASA is no stranger to apps, but the space agency is branching out further into some new territory with its two latest offerings: a pair of educational games. The first is Sector 33, an air traffic control simulator for iOS devices that certainly won’t be confused with Flight Control, but which NASA hopes will help teach math and possibly get folks interested in aviation. Those … Read More → "NASA debuts two new educational games for iOS, Facebook"

Even though we’ve seen dozens of Kinect hacks over the years, there are a few problems with the Kinect hardware itself. The range of the Kinect sensor starts at three feet, a fact not conducive to 3D scanner builds. Also, it’s not possible to connect more than one Kinect to a single computer – something that would lead to builds we can barely imagine … Read More → "Kinect for Windows released"

Cue up your Pink Floyd records! NASA has just released the first ever video footage showing the dark side of the Moon.

It seems crazy that we know so little about the Moon’s far side, but that’s because the same side always faces us here on Earth, and you have to send something around the back if you want to see what’s there. The Soviets took the first pictures in 1959 with Luna 3 and several Apollo … Read More → "NASA releases the first video of the dark side of the Moon"

Brace yourselves, pyromaniacs. Put away all the matches before you watch the below video of SpaceX’s new SuperDraco engine spewing flame.

Elon Musk’s space exploration company released the video of a successful test-firing of an engine from a test site in McGregor, Texas. The SuperDraco could be used to propel SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft out of Earth’ … Read More → "Watch SpaceX test fire its new engine…on the ground in Texas"

What if you could use your phone to test the air for toxins? What if you could monitor your health simply by blowing on it? Sounds amazing, right? Nanosensor technology developed by NASA Ames is going to make that a reality.

Jing Li, a scientist at NASA Ames, has been working for years on what will be the greatest phone accessory of all time. It’s a small chip (about the size of a postage stamp) that … Read More → "NASA’s cancer-sniffing cellphone sensor"

With Amazon slowly taking over the publishing world and bookstores closing left and right, things can sometimes seem a little grim for the brick and mortar booksellers of the world. After all, why would anyone leave the comfort of their couch to buy a book when with just a click of a button, they could have it delivered to their door? Well, here’s why: bookstores so beautiful they’re worth getting out of the house (or the country) to visit whether you need a new hardcover or not. We can’t overestimate the … Read More → "The 20 most beautiful bookstores in the world"

The Query: What is the carbon footprint of space tourism?

The Response: If 2012 is the year that commercial space flight takes off, it’s also the year that we need to start worrying about the climate impact of space flight.

But, like space, our knowledge of the subject is largely void, since there’s relatively little private activity in space. However, … Read More → "What is the carbon footprint of space tourism?"

JTAGWhisperer turns an Arduino into an JTAG programmer for CPLDs and FPGAs. It uses the same Xilinx XAPP58 [PDF] XSVF programmer we ported to the Bus Pirate.
via Dangerous Prototypes

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Scientists have picked up fragments of people’s thoughts by decoding the brain activity caused by words that they hear.

The remarkable feat has given researchers fresh insight into how the brain processes language, and raises the tantalising prospect of devices that can return speech to the speechless.

Though in its infancy, the work paves the way for brain implants that could monitor a person’s thoughts and speak words and sentences as they imagine them.

Such devices could transform the lives of thousands of people who lose the ability to … Read More → "Mind-reading program translates brain activity into words"

If you fear the rise of intelligent, collaborative robots swarming together and gathering human prey for the battery tanks, look away now: the Nano Quadrotors have taken to the skies and they’re terrifyingly adept. The handiwork of researchers in the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, the latest-gen Quadrotors can not only handle being tossed, inverted or generally batted around without crashing, but fly in formation.

That means you can throw a Quadrotor into the air and have it automatically re-orient itself and hover, useful … Read More → "This nano quadrotor robot swarm video is mesmerizing"