If you haven’t been following the Cassini spacecraft’s second mission to Saturn, here’s a video that will hook you in. via Open Culture
… Read More → "Cassini Solstice Mission: Saturn’s Moons Meet Nine Inch Nails"
From the press release:
“RIKEN and Fujitsu have taken first place on the 37th TOP500 list announced today at the 26th International Supercomputing Conference (ISC’11) held in Hamburg, Germany. This ranking is based on a performance measurement of the “K computer(1),” currently under their joint development.
The TOP500-ranked K computer system, currently in the configuration stage, has 672 computer racks equipped with a current total of 68,544 CPUs. This half-build system achieved the world’s best LINPACK(2) benchmark performance of 8.162 petaflops (quadrillion floating-point operations per second), to place it at the head … Read More → "Fujitsu K supercomputer now ranked fastest in the world, dethrones China’s Tianhe-1A"
“In contrast to green technologies like solar power and biofuels, which take decades of research and massive funds to scale, big data tools offer a relatively capital-efficient way to use proven technology to better manage resources, fight climate change and get ready for the 9 billion people on the planet by 2050. If there’s no Moore’s Law delivering rapid and exponential progress for things like batteries, and solar panels, why not try to leverage Moore’s Law in a more indirect way for greentech via big data? Here are 5 companies that are leveraging big … Read More → "5 companies using big data to help the planet"
Debuting in mid-July in Japan’s Fuji-Q Highland Amusement Park, the Takabisha rollercoaster features a 130 foot drop at 121 degrees. Just looking at the pictures makes my stomach feel weird.
… Read More → "World’s steepest roller coaster to open in Japan"
A couple of enterprising Frenchmen are using a modified consumer-grade telescope, a small motor, a hand-held controller and a video camera to create a do-it-yourself satellite tracker capable of recording the movements of America’s most secretive spacecraft. via Wired
Hello World is an illuminated sign art installation created by Valentin Ruhry using 5,000 orange rocker switches. It is on display through September 5th as part of the Fünf Räume exhibition at Austrian Cultural Forum New York. via Laughing Squid
‘”Dig This” is a new Las Vegas heavy construction theme-park that gives you the chance to run enormous earth-moving machines. You have to be at least 14 to get behind the controls. Sounds like enormous fun, but with so many Las Vegas mortgages under water, it seems like they might get more bang for buck out of letting punters run wrecking balls and bulldozers on abandoned subprime property than digging the same dirt over and over again.” via … Read More → "Vegas Earth-moving theme-park lets patrons operate heavy machinery"
Microsoft’s Kinect SDK is now available for download now at Microsoft’s research website.
“Microsoft announced today that it is releasing a beta development kit that will let software developers tap into the company’s Xbox 360 motion controller, the Kinect, and build apps that use it.” via Venture Beat
