Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own communication satellites into orbit.

The scheme was outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.

The project’s organisers said the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground stations to track and communicate with the satellites.

Longer term they hope to help put an amateur astronaut on the moon.

Hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit – usually only for brief periods of time – but tracking … Read More → "Hackers plan space satellites to combat censorship"

This is fun!

Zoom from the edge of the universe to the quantum foam of spacetime and learn the scale of things along the way! Press left or right or drag the scroll bar to zoom in … Read More → "The scale of the universe"

This vintage chip is on sale; a snap at only $800,000. Free shipping! via Boing Boing

Today we are launching code.nasa.gov, the latest member of the open NASA web family. Through this website, we will continue, unify, and expand NASA’s open source activities. The site will serve to surface existing projects, provide a forum for discussing projects and processes, and guide internal and external groups in open development, release, and contribution. via Read More → "The plan for code – open.NASA"

Holographic video is sort of the holy grail of video display technology right now. Stereoscopic 3-D is fine and everything, but it basically works by tricking the brain into seeing that 3-D depth via two offset 2-D images–hence the occasional headaches associated with current commercial 3-D displays. Holographic video, by contrast, creates images that are really three-dimensional, no … Read More → "Spring-loaded MEMS-driven pixels could enable 3D holographic video displays"

Each cube is designed to function in one of three ways: action, sensing and passive functions. Combining these variations of blocks together allows for the creation of a myriad of interesting robotic constructs, without any need for programming or robotics expertise. Perhaps the only thing more entertaining than the Cubelets is the video presenter who looks like some sort of super happy Swedish mad scientist (this is a good thing). via Dvice 

Read More → "Computerized toy blocks let kids build simple robots in seconds"

Attention all obsessive internet pirates: If SOPA has you worried about your ability to continue to perform your pixelated perfidy, there’s one clear and unexpected solution to your problem: Move to Sweden, which has just recognized file-sharing as an official religion. via Techland

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We’ve heard of experimental contact lenses that can non-invasively monitor the blood sugar levels of diabetes sufferers before, but where prior research relied on chemical reactions inducing color-change in the lens, new joint research by the University of Washington and Microsoft Research aims to incorporate electronics into such lenses to report blood sugar levels wirelessly. Gizmag spoke to Desney Tan, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research Connections, to find out what sets this work … Read More → "Microsoft developing electronic contact lens to monitor blood sugar"

For the last decade we have been told that TV is ripe for an internet revolution, but so far the attempts of major software firms like Google and Microsoft to change our viewing habits have made little impact.

But in California I’ve just met a man who thinks he knows where they have gone wrong. via BBC

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Late one June afternoon in 1903 a hush fell across an expectant audience in the Royal Institution’s celebrated lecture theatre in London. Before the crowd, the physicist John Ambrose Fleming was adjusting arcane apparatus as he prepared to demonstrate an emerging technological wonder: a long-range wireless communication system developed by his boss, the Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi. The aim was to showcase … Read More → "A century ago, one of the world’s first hackers used Morse code insults to disrupt a public demo of Marconi’s wireless telegraph"