LEDs will light up Rockefeller Christmas tree - CNN.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:17 pm EST, Nov 21, 2007
The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is going "greener" -- with energy-saving lights replacing old-fashioned bulbs on the towering evergreen this year.
The 84-foot-tall Norway spruce will be covered with 30,000 multicolored light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, strung on five miles of wire.
Using the energy-efficient LEDs to replace incandescent bulbs will reduce the display's electricity consumption from 3,510 to 1,297 kilowatt hours per day. The daily savings is equal to the amount of electricity consumed by a typical 2,000-square-foot house in a month.
After the official tree lighting ceremony on November 28, the Christmas tree will be illuminated from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. most days through the first week of January.
netpython wrote: Someone thought it would be a good idea to model their home theater after the Enterprise NCC-1701D from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Sony pleads the PS3 is not dying / 1 year Aniversary of Wii
Topic: Miscellaneous
6:11 pm EST, Nov 19, 2007
To spur more games being ported to the PS3, Sony is cutting the SDK price in half. The newest PS console is struggling with lack of sales, high priced (yet sold at a lose) consoles, and lack of games. Developers are inclined to release games on the older PS2 as some of the advanced hardware on the PS3 is not needed. The "Blu-Ray" feature is not drawing expected crowds as the HD format war scares some consumers (along with the price tags); neither format (Blu-Ray or HD-DVD) has moved from early innovator / adopter stage to early majority stage. The PS3 did have a 100$ price cut in July, but it is considered by some analyst as too late. Another small price cut after Black Friday would demonstrate desperation, while another "violet diode cost reduction" reason is used.
In happier news, Nov 19 is the one year anniversary of the Wii release. A few sales places still have stocking issues.
Some other stats to look at...
Games available: PS3 : 140 (including PS Network) X Box 360 : 500 (including XBox Live) Wii : 50 (not counting virtual console); 270 (including virtual console)
Worldwide Units Sold: PS3 : 5.6 mil Nov 2006 to Sept 2007 X Box 360 : 13.4 mil Nov 2005 to Sept 2007 Wii : 13.2 mil Nov 2006 to Sept 2007 (+ 4 mil expected in next 3 months)
Disk based Video formats: PS3 : DVD and Blu-Ray X-Box 360 : DVD (HD-DVD with $180 addon) Wii : No support (DVD support expected someday soon)
Kaguya (Selene) Images of Earth-Rise Over the Moon | SpaceRef - Space News as it Happens
Topic: Miscellaneous
1:00 am EST, Nov 14, 2007
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) have successfully performed the world's first high-definition image taking of an Earth-rise* by the lunar explorer "KAGUYA" (SELENE,) which was injected into a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km on October 18, 2007 (Japan Standard Time. Following times and dates are all JST.)
This is awesome. The planet looks so small in those videos.
Make a PC interface out of a wii remote, IR emitters, and your finger tips. The true power of this is demonstrated with a grid manipulation demo at the end.
Google dials into the cell phone market - Yahoo! News
Topic: Miscellaneous
2:21 pm EST, Nov 5, 2007
Confirming its long-rumored foray into the mobile market, Google said Monday it is developing a free cell phone software package so the Internet search leader can more easily peddle ads and services to people who aren't in front of a PC.
Google's system will also be based on computer code that can be openly distributed among programmers. That, Google hopes, will encourage developers to create new applications and other software improvements that could spawn new uses for smart phones. A development tool kit for working on the new platform will be released next week.
The list of wireless carriers that have agreed to provide service for the Google-powered phone in the United States include Sprint Nextel Corp. and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile in the United States. China Mobile, Telefonica in Spain and Telecom Italia are among the carriers that have signed on to provide service outside the United States.
They are among a Google-led group of 34 companies that have formed the Open Handset Alliance. Other key players include major chip makers like Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., Broadcom Corp. and Nvidia Corp.
[Walmart] was taking orders online Wednesday for a computer called the "Green gPC" that is made by Everex of Taiwan, costs $199 and runs Linux.
A comparable Everex PC that comes with Windows Vista Home Basic and more memory costs $99 more, or $298, partly because the manufacturer has to pay Microsoft Corp. for a software license. Both computers come with keyboard, mouse, and speakers, but no monitor.
The variant of Linux on the gPC is called gOS and is derived from the popular Ubuntu variant. It's heavily oriented toward Google's Web sites and online applications, like YouTube, Gmail and the company's word processing program, all of which can be used only when the computer is connected to a broadband line.
The gPC has a low-end processor from VIA Technologies, plus 512 megabytes of internal memory, an 80-gigabyte hard drive and a combination DVD drive and CD burner.
But ... get this bonehead move:
The PC comes with a dialup modem, but gOS doesn't support it. So most users likely will get online other ways.
Slashdot | Call For Halt To Wikipedia Webcomic Deletions
Topic: Miscellaneous
11:23 am EDT, Oct 31, 2007
"Howard Tayler, the webcomic artist of Schlock Mercenary fame, is calling on people not to donate money during the latest Wikimedia Foundation fund-raiser. This is to protest the 'notability purges' taking place throughout Wikipedia, where articles are being removed en-masse by what many see as overzealous admins.
Apparently people around here aren't the only ones grumbling about deletionism.
MIT researchers improve `tractor beam' - Yahoo! News
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:55 am EDT, Oct 31, 2007
Taking up the sci-fi staple of "tractor beams," scientists have developed a way to use light to grab and move minuscule particles on a microchip
The work by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers could extend the possibilities for "optical tweezers" — super-focused beams of light that have been used for years to study and manipulate tiny biological structures or even individual atoms.
Lang and Appleyard proved their technique by getting 16 live E. coli cells to spell out "MIT" on a [microchip surface].
