Nintendo has certainly broadened the demographic of the gaming community in recent years, as demonstrated by 100 year old gamer Kathleen ‘Kit’ Connell. Kit  plays on her Nintendo DS console for two hours every evening, and has been nicknamed the ‘Nintendo Queen’ by UK newspaper The Sun.

With the recent boom in casual, social and mobile gaming, the pastime is no longer seen as having just niche appeal. Nintendo’s commitment to broadening its user base is typified by the range of brain training and educational games available on its … Read More → "100 year old gamer uses Nintendo DS to keep her mind active"

The U.S. government’s effort to create an electric-vehicle battery industry suffered a setback last week when one of the companies it funded as part of this effort saw its parent company file for bankruptcy protection. Battery maker Enerdel had been awarded a $118.5 million grant to build a lithium-ion battery factory in Indiana as part of a $2 billion grant program for electric-vehicle component and battery manufacturing; its parent company is Ener1.

Ener1 hopes to emerge from bankruptcy, and says Enerdel will continue operations during bankruptcy proceedings. Yet its difficulties point to the challenges of creating … Read More → "Tough Times for U.S. EV battery makers"

Last year, NASA announced it was seeking proposals for mission concept studies of a high-power solar electric propulsion (SEP) system that could be used in a “space tugboat.” Such a ship would be used ferry payloads in low Earth orbit (LEO) into higher energy orbits, including geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) and Lagrange point one (L1) – saving on fuel and the use of expensive secondary boosters. NASA also anticipates an … Read More → "NASA studying solar-electric propulsion for “space tugboat”"

The Luminarie De Cagna is an imposing cathedral-like structure that was recently on display at the 2012 Light Festival in Ghent, Belgium. The festival was host to almost 30 exhibitions including plenty of 3D projection mapping, fields of luminous flowers, and a glowing phone booth aquarium, however with 55,000 LEDs and towering 28 meters high the Luminarie De Cagna seems to … Read More → "A cathedral made from 55,000 LED lights"

Legendary rocker Neil Young has taken his campaign for higher-fidelity digital sound to the stage of a technology conference. He says a giant of technology was on his side: the late Steve Jobs.
via Mercury News

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A wonderfully executed ad campaign by Legas Delaney for Plant for the Planet, using cut leaves symbolizing their ability to absorb CO2. Beautiful work.
via Colossal

Tesla will unveil the Model X — its third car and an electric SUV — at an event on February 9th in Southern California. While Tesla has been a pioneer of the electric sports car (with the Roadster) and an electric sedan (with its Model S), this will be one of the first times anyone will attempt to tackle the soccer-mom set with an electric … Read More → "Will an electric SUV be a game changer?"

Over 1,000 academics and scholars have signed a petition against science-publishing titan Elsevier, taking issue with the company’s exploitative and abusive dealings with its writers, and with its support of laws that hinder good scientific collaboration, like SOPA and the Research Works Act. The signatories vow to withhold their work from Elsevier journals “unless they radically change how they operate.”
via Boing Boing

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This fractal viewer is a great way to get your feet wet with Field-Programmable Gate Arrays. The project will give you some experience working with video output, user input, and a whole bunch of math and memory management.

The arcade Megawing for the dev board gives him easy access to the controls needed to scroll and zoom on the fractal design. Calculations to generate the shape are being run at 240 MHz, with the VGA output running at 80 … Read More → "Fractal viewer can zoom and enhance like on CSI"

When Norwegian news channel NRK presented a story about eye treatment for the elderly, they picked an unfortunate choice for an eye test chart. 
via Neatorama

… Read More → "OMG NRK got PWN3D"