According to a new report by the International Data Corporation, the United States’ electronics recycling industry is booming with 3.5 million tons of electronics recycled in the US in 2010 and resold at home and abroad. The study, the most comprehensive of its kind ever conducted in the US says that the industry employs 30,000 workers and has an estimated revenue of over $5 billion. With US consumers buying more electronics each … Read More → "Study finds that the US electronics recycling industry is booming with billions in profits"

The folks over at Engadget have a cool video of the Cyberdyne HAL robotic arm. Check it out.

Bletchley Park, the birthplace of modern crypto and the home of the WWII codebreaking effort, has received a £4.6m Heritage Lottery Fund grant to fund restoration efforts and new exhibits. Bletchley was broken up after the war and its work was literally buried as part of the Cold War climate of secrecy that prevailed. In the years that followed, neglect and time led to the near-destruction of many of the historic sites. The Bletchley Park trust has since done amazing … Read More → "Bletchley Park gets a £4.6m grant, financed by government pro-innumeracy programme"

Richard Feynman talking about the beauty of science and of the natural world. 

… Read More → "Feynman explains beauty and science"

Both mobile and high-performance computing are placing huge power efficiency and performance demands on chips, but the $64,000-question is how long until such extreme computing use cases hit the server mainstream. Asked another way, the question becomes, how long until Amazon Web Services adopts ARM-based servers?

Or perhaps it isn’t ARM-based servers, but a variation on an Intel chip that takes its architecture from some of the more innovative and energy-efficient silicon out today. via GigaOM

Read More → "How long until clouds adopt extreme computing chips?"

NASA announced this week it has awarded the $1.35 million prize for its CAFE Greenflight Challenge to the team from Pipistrel-USA.com. The twin fuselage, four-seat electric airplane beat out the eGenius team from Germany during two competition days held last week at the Sonoma County airport in California. The eGenius team will take home $120,000 for second place and another $10,000 for a separate competition from the Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Prize for the quietest aircraft during the week. via Read More → "Electric airplane wins $1.35 million prize from NASA"

The cost of delivering a gigabyte of data will surpass the cost carriers receive for said gigabyte some time in early 2013, according telecommunications gear vendor Tellabs. The chart below, which is one of many awesome data points in a paper advocating more lenient spectrum policy, shows how the 2010 revenue a carrier received from delivering a gigabyte was nearly $25, and will drop to about $5 by 2015. via GigaOM

</ … Read More → "Is 2013 the year mobile data stops being profitable?"

Tektronix loaned us a massive MDO4104-6 mixed domain oscilloscope for a few weeks. Not only does it show voltage over time, like you see on a standard scope or logic analyzer, it simultaneously measures the frequency domain. This is not just another scope with FFT, it has a fully functional spectrum analyzer built in. via Dangerous Prototypes

Read More → "Review of Tektronix’ MDO4104-6 mixed domain oscilloscope"

NASA has announced that it will start taking applications to be an astronaut from anyone that wants to be an astronaut. There are a few caveats though. It seems if you don’t hold a degree in a specific subject, you need not apply.

NASA is specifically looking for potentials with degrees in math, science, or engineering and at least three years of work experience. NASA has stated that it will be naming the people chosen … Read More → "NASA still looking for normal folk to be astronauts"

The development phase of a new synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite system has been completed, offering coverage of any spot on Earth in all conditions. via the engineer

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