Get ready to be moonstruck (again) this Saturday
May 2nd, 2012 | 
Author: 
(Credit:
Lick Observatory)
If you missed it last year, the super perigee moon is back for an encore performance.
On Saturday, the moon will be up to 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the other full moons of 2012, according to NASA.
That’s because it will reach perigee, its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit, at 11:34 p.m. ET and become full just a minute later.
Super perigee moons happen about once a year on average, but the moon of March 19, 2011, was nearly 250 miles closer than this week’s moon, prompting wild calamitous speculations.
When the moon is on the perigee side of its orbit, it’s about 31,000 miles closer to Earth than the apogee side. The only effects expected are slightly higher tides and many beautiful photos.
Related stories
- Tonight’s super perigee moon a rare treat
- NASA offers new reassurances about supermoon
- Shooting for the super perigee moon
The annual … [Read more]
Related Links:
Shuttle Discovery, bound for museum duty, makes final flight
Europe to explore Jupiter’s icy moons
Asteroid mining: Land grab in space
A rare look at a star’s demise in a supermassive black hole
Planetary Resources seeks to mine asteroids’ riches
Posted in Uncategorized | 
As steampunk Nerf guns go, the Goliathon is, well, awesome
(Credit:
Etsy)
“What happens when you weaponize all the horsepower of a full-size steam locomotive?” asks Professor T. Lemetry. “You get the Goliathon. One shot can level a building, down an airship, or turn a man inside out.”
I bet it can take down Morlocks, too.
In any case, this is how the Nerf Vulcan should have been designed. Not out of cheap plastic, but awesome copper and brass.
Meet the Goliathon, a heavily modified Vulcan from Etsy vendor T. Lemetry. It’s two and a half feet of steampunky goodness.
Related stories
- Steampunk your iPad with phonograph speaker
- Steampunk show imagines Jules Verne gadgets
- Ornate steampunk computer desk really works
The Goliathon features copper piping, brass decorative elements, and four gauges. There’s also a metal valve wheel that gives it even more heft.
Sadly, it doesn’t fire lasers, musket balls, or even Nerf balls.
It’s only a prop, but… [Read more]
Related Links:
Can Jane Austen + steampunk spark girls’ science fire?
Phone history, full of steampunk designs and rotary dials
IP tin can phone slightly better than string version
Awesome DIY cell phone has universal appeal
Investigating New Mexico’s less-famous UFO landing
Panasonic shampoo robot hits the salon
If you think 10 fingers feels good on your scalp, try 24.
(Credit:
Video screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)
If I were near Tokyo Station right now, I’d hop on a bullet train to Osaka lickety-split. Why? To get my scalp cleansed by Panasonic’s shampoo robot, of course.
Hair salon Super Hair Seo in the nearby city of Nishinomiya is playing the lucky host to the electronics giant’s Head Care Robot, which is undergoing its first tests alongside hairdressers.
Introduced back in 2010, the device consists of a reclining chair and a mechanized washbasin. It first scans your head to get an idea of its shape, and can accommodate a variety of noggins, according to Panasonic.
Related stories
- Hair-washing robot leaves your locks silky-smooth
- Balding? Artas robot ready to harvest your hair
- Panasonic’s Hospi-Rimo robot tends to patients
Then it releases shampoo jets and gets to work on your scalp with its 24 robotic fingers, as the promo vid below tells us. Eight of the fingers work the back of your neck while the rest knead your scalp.
… [Read more]
Related Links:
Exoskeleton hand gives you robo-powered fingers
DARPA seeks humanoid robots in Grand Challenge
iRobot Warrior, PackBot go to work at S.C. nuclear plant
Will robots replace prostitutes?
Robot companies come to bury C-3PO
Exoskeleton hand gives you robo-powered fingers
Festo chairman Eberhard Veit shows off the ExoHand.
(Credit:
Festo)
In the future when we’ll all be wearing robotic exoskeletons, we’ll laugh when we think back on the days when we were mere meatsacks. German automation firm Festo is helping us upgrade with the ExoHand, a glove controller that can give people a machine handshake.
Known for its elegantly engineered SmartBird robot seagull, Festo says its ExoHand can not only teleoperate a robot hand in a master-slave control relationship, it can reduce strain from repetitive tasks when using your own old-fashioned, flesh-and-blood hands.
It’s a “force amplification device” consisting of eight double-action pneumatic actuators. Potentiometers and pressure sensors track the force and position of the fingers.
With its force-feedback system, the glove could help manipulate objects from afar when dealing with hazardous environments such as nuclear power plants. Factory workers who perform repetitive manual tasks might also benefit from the ExoHand as it would increase their strength.
Related stories
Tweet ‘buy’ to purchase flights by Twitter
(Credit:
tweetaflight.com)
If you’re a frequent flyer, there’s nothing that sucks the fun out of travel like combing the Web for deals (apart from airports and economy class, that is). But what if buying a ticket were as simple as tweeting?
TweetAFlight promises to get you deals in ads you see on Twitter if you just tweet “buy” in response.
Steven Frischling of The Travel Strategist hopes to launch TweetAFlight in the next few months. It’s aimed at giving you the best chance of taking advantage of Twitter deals on airfares — before you can become distracted while you follow the ad link to a Web page.
TweetAFlight uses PayPal and Chirpify to grab cheap tickets, and users will need accounts with both services. Airlines will have to sign up with TweetAFlight too.
Startup Chirpify said this week that it has raised $1.3 million to develop a platform for buying, selling, and making donations on Twitter. It promises to “monetize your followers.”
TweetAFlight says it will be an instant, one-step way to get cheap deals and last-minute bargains, many of which are missed because travelers don’t buy them quickly enough.
It’s hard to believe people used to have to physically travel to mee… [Read more]
Related Links:
TweetDeck interrupted, amid reports of security access breach
Five social media lessons from @BubbaWatson, Masters champ
Instagram’s instabillion, Hillary Clinton’s texts, and online pranks – a week in social media
Courtney Love’s daughter says Twitter should ban mom
Current TV plugs wrong Twitter ID for Olbermann replacement
IP tin can phone slightly better than string version
The Can in Commander and Mini versions. Twine not included.
(Credit:
Kickstarter)
Remember when kids used to play stickball, marbles, and hopscotch instead of iPhone games? Well I don’t either. But this Kickstarter project wants to revive a medium of simpler times — with a modern twist.
The Can is a tin can telephone wired for IP phone use. It has a microphone, a speaker, and a jack for your computer, phone, or tablet so you can pretend you’re 7 years old and it’s 1939 again.
Aside from its patently ridiculous design, alternately listening to and speaking into The Can seems like more fun than just slapping a regular phone to your skull.
As the video below shows, The Can comes in Commander and Mini editions, with the former featuring an indicator light for missed calls. The Mini, meanwhile, jacks into your cell phone with a TRS connector.
Related stories
- Man builds social network using Atlantic Ocean
- Steampunk your iPad with phonograph speaker
- … [Read more]
Related Links:
Ninja Blocks add spy power to everyday stuff
iPhone case, wall charger combo arriving sooner than planned
Ape-headed, ape-controlled, cannon-wielding robot is for real
How an odd dancing movie became a phenomenon
iPhone-compatible ‘smart watch’ raises $100K in two hours
Cargo ship with metal sails would save 30 percent fuel
(Credit:
University of Tokyo)
Can wind energy really power modern cargo ships? We’ve seen the idea of hybrid freighters before, but this concept from the University of Tokyo has a remarkable sail system.
A model of the UT Wind Challenger was recently shown off at the Sea Japan trade show in Tokyo. It would have giant telescoping sails that rise above the deck when wind conditions are good.
As seen in the vid below, University of Tokyo professor Kiyoshi Uzawa and collaborators believe this hybrid system could cut fuel consumption by cargo ships by about 30 percent.
Related stories
- Yacht powered by wind even with sails lowered
- Navy charters kite-powered cargo ship to deliver equipment
- Sail-powered cargo ship test results in: It cut fuel by 20 percent
The rigid sails would be 164 feet tall and 65 feet wide, made of aluminum and fiber-reinforced plastic. Consisting of five … [Read more]
Related Links:
Microbe helps convert solar power to liquid fuel
2013 Lexus GS 350, 450h: A tale of two sport sedans
The Tao of loo: A toilet with its own Japanese garden
iRobot Warrior, PackBot go to work at S.C. nuclear plant
LG Optimus Elite hands-on: Super green but far from premium
AT&T grabs another texting phone with LG Xpression
LG Xpression
(Credit:
AT&T)
Though finding an affordable AT&T texting phones never has been a problem, the carrier introduced yet another choice today.
The ">LG Xpression has a red slider design that hides a full QWERTY keyboard behind the 3-inch, 262,000-color touch screen. Features include a 2-megapixel camera with video, a personal organizer, Bluetooth 2.1, messaging and e-mail, 3G support, microSD card support (up to 32GB), voice dialing, a Web browser, and a basic music player. It runs LG’s standard operating system, but you’ll find social networking apps, AT&T Navigator, and LG Instant Note for sending a text or tweet and updating Facebook with one touch.
The Xpression is $49.99 with a new two-year contract and after a mail-in rebate.
[Read more]
Related Links:
Six things Nokia did to make the modern cell phone
Don’t buy these phones (roundup)
Why I’m still frustrated with Google Voice
Top tablets with HDMI connections
Samsung Smart Interaction: Hands-on with voice and gesture control
One Day on Earth is a stunning global snapshot (Q&A)
A bride in Kosovo prepares for her wedding in One Day on Earth.
(Credit:
One Day on Earth)
Today is Earth Day, and to celebrate it filmmakers Kyle Ruddick and Brandon Litman have released “One Day on Earth,” a remarkable snapshot of our planet that was shot in every country of the world on October 10, 2010.
More than 19,000 filmmakers, professional and novice, contributed more than 3,000 hours of footage to the project, which has the support of the United Nations and 60 nonprofit organizations. The archive is being hosted by Vimeo, with Ning hosting the related social network.
The project is said to have been the inspiration for Ridley Scott’s “Life in a Day,” which opened last year as a stitched-together series of YouTube videos.
“One Day on Earth,” meanwhile, takes a hard look at pressing global issues like endangered species, carbon emissions, and poverty. It tells viewers that, for instance, 1.3 billion people have no access to clean water, and a species becomes extinct every 20 minutes.
Related stories
- YouTube film ‘Life in a Day’ coming to theaters
- … [Read more]
Related Links:
Striking views of Earth captured in time-lapse video
Asteroid to get neighborly with Earth on Sunday
New maps of Mercury show icy-looking craters
How an odd dancing movie became a phenomenon
View from space shows Earth in a state of flux
Italy to launch Ferrari-style high-speed train
NTV borrows its look, and its chairman, from Ferrari.
(Credit:
NTV)
Next time you’re stuck in traffic on the highway, consider those lucky Italians. Some will get to ride in style next week when services on the slick Italo high-speed train kick off.
Operated by Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (NTV), the Italo debuts April 28 and will connect Milan, Rome, and Naples. It’s being billed as the most advanced train in Europe.
It has a top speed of 186 mph — not the fastest in the world but still respectable. The record for fastest commercial service depends on several factors, but Shanghai’s Maglev Train can run at 268 mph.
Related stories
- China tests 311-mph train after deadly crash
- High-speed rail to get $336 million more from feds
- High-speed Euro train system gets solar power
Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemoto is a major shareholder in (and chairman of) NTV, as is French National Railways (SNCF). The car… [Read more]
Related Links:
Rumors and teasers from the New York auto show
Is Ikea’s Uppleva all-in-one HDTV entertainment system a game changer?
Japanese court besmirches Google’s autocomplete feature
2012 Ford Focus Electric: The strong, silent type (first drive)
Ferrari trivia contest
