Media Platforms Design TeamAviation experts agree that it is highly unlikely that lightning alone caused the crash of Air France Flight 447 earlier today. The 2005 Airbus A330-200 twinjet with 228 aboard disappeared on a flight from Rio to Paris shortly after the aircraft sent out automated signals indicated it had suffered a catastrophic electrical failure and a sudden loss of cabin pressure while flying through an area of severe thunderstorms....
Astronomers have known about Wolf 1061, a nearby cool, dim star, since 1919. But hiding that entire time were three rocky planets, including one that’s in the star’s habitable zone. The new discovery, spotted at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, will be published in an upcoming Astrophysical Journal Letters.At just 13.8 light years away, the new planet is the closest within the habitable zone of its star to Earth, and could provide an important test-bed for determining if it has the conditions ripe for life....
Media Platforms Design TeamBentley plans to officially unveil their Continental GT-based race car concept at the LA Auto Show, but the Crewe-based manufacturer offered a sneak peak of the heavily modified GT3 contender to a small crowd of invited attendees at a Hollywood sound stage.Boasting aggressive bodywork and 2,200 pounds of weight loss, the GT3 car makes visual promises that will hopefully translate to race victories for Bentley. Setting the tone was a panel discussion with Motorsports head Brian Gush, World Land Speed Record Holder Andy Green, Motor Trend Editor-at-Large Angus MacKenzie, and Bentley board member Rolf Frech; the proceedings were moderated by racer Justin Bell....
Media Platforms Design TeamThe “cult car” is a curious automotive phenomenon in which inexplicable desirability trumps common sense and convention. For a classic cult car example, consider the Audi Allroad Quattro of yore, an A6-based wagon that enjoyed a devout following and unexpectedly high resale values.Despite mainstream America’s fascination with so-called crossovers and general disinterest in wagons, the folks in Ingolstadt deemed it necessary to bring the Allroad back to the States....
Media Platforms Design TeamCollaborations between timepiece manufacturers and the auto racing world are nothing new– think of TAG Heuer’s Steve McQueen-inspired wristwatches or Rolex’s legendary title sponsorship of the 24 Hours of Daytona– and Tsovet rides that wave with their new Chip Ganassi limited edition watch, which will see 51 numbered units produced. With styling cues inspired by the team’s race livery, the chunky timepiece commemorates 145 wins from 1994 to 2011 in everything from Indy Car, NASCAR Sprint Cup, to Grand-Am; Ganassi’s record also includes 14 championships and three Indianapolis 500 victories....
On Tuesday, during a trans-Atlantic flight from London to Boston, an intoxicated passenger attempted to open the emergency exit door at cruising altitude on British Airways Flight 213. The flight’s crew quickly restrained the 32-year-old woman.According to theBoston Globe, passengers reported that they saw her pulling on the exit door and saying she wanted a smoke. It is unclear if she thought the plane had landed, figured dropping 30,000 feet into the Atlantic would be fine, or just really wanted a smoke....
Media Platforms Design TeamA European Court of Justice has ruled that Google must remove personal information from search results at the request of an individual. Now the tech giant is granting the first of those requests.Google has a webform that asks for a person’s name, email address, and the URL links that they would like removed. The form also asks for “a legible copy of a document that verifies your identity” in order to “prevent fraudulent removal requests from people impersonating others, trying to harm competitors, or improperly seeking to suppress legal information....
At its big developer conference in May, Google quietly introduced a revolutionary development: its growing, learning robot brain. The first main task the brain was put to was organizing your photos, but now it will transcribe your voicemails too. The new transcription tricks come as part of Google’s “Voice” service, a potentially awesome internet-based phone services that has been unfortunately neglected by the search giant foryears . Google Voice has been transcribing voicemails for its users this whole time, but the catch is that the speech-to-text has just never really been that great ....
As the Sun’s churning surface lets loose a belch of white-hot flame, it sends out a storm of radiation that washes over the solar system. Luckily for us, Earth’s magnetic field shields us from most of these deadly rays. But overhead, something strange and lethal is happening when the solar wind bombards the Earth. A band of radioactive particles circling the planet, called the outer Van Allen belt, starts to charge up like a rail gun....
“Use channel 7. It always cooks on 7,” chef Sean Rembold of Brooklyn restaurant Marlow & Sons says. Nearby, a cook whips up the signature Brick Chicken on one of the five single-burner induction cooktops. The “channels” refer to the 20 heat settings on his machines. They have plenty of firepower for his restaurant, and more than enough for the 2 percent of U.S. homes with induction in the kitchen. “It’s a fun way to cook,” Rembold says....
Those little white strips that they stick on product boxes use some pretty neat technology to prevent you from shoplifting. As you might know from your wild middle-school days, attempting to take one through the sensors by the front door will trigger an alarm unless the tag has been deactivated by a store clerk. They work thanks to the property of magnetostriction, which causes ferromagnetic metal to change shape when it is subjected to a magnetic field, as explained in wonderful and excruciating detail by Applied Science:View full post on YoutubeBasically, when two metal strips inside the anti-theft tags are placed in a magnetic field, they will begin to oscillate....
I have a 1995 Ford Taurus with a 3.0-liter engine. The engine pulses at idle. It seems to almost stall, then goes back to normal. This happens every few seconds. While I’m using the gas or driving, it doesn’t happen, but when I slow down for stop signs, the lights will dim, come back up, dim, come back up. What is going on?This is almost certainly the result of a vacuum leak or a leak in the duct between the mass airflow sensor and the throttle body....
Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamI Love You, Man (2009)Media Platforms Design TeamDirector John Hamburg takes a well-deserved break from Ben Stiller (having written Zoolander, Along Came Polly and all three Meet the Parents films) and delivers a “bromantic” comedy in every sense of the word, starring the Judd Apatow stock players Paul Rudd and Jason Segal. Peter Klaven (Rudd) is an L.A. real estate agent who, on the eve of his engagement, suddenly realizes that he doesn’t have any guy friends in his life....
Q: I want to use powerline networking to link my computers. But how do I avoid interference from my appliances that use the powerlines? Also, I live in an apartment. Will other people in my building be able to tap into my network?A: Powerline networking uses adapters that allow networked devices (PCs, gaming consoles, etc.) to plug directly into wall outlets and send data over your home’s electrical wiring. But powerline networking operates on a different frequency from AC current....
Media Platforms Design TeamPity AT&T and their troubled data network. While previous iPhones’ data usage was largely confined to static webpages, simple apps and maybe the occasional song streamed through Pandora, the just-announced iPhone 4’s (available June 24) hunger can best be described in one word: video. In other words: If you thought the iPhone was a data-hog before, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. No wonder AT&T killed their unlimited data plans....
Media Platforms Design TeamPrice: $699.99Twelve years after the Roomba’s introduction into the American home, by now most of us are familiar with the autonomous robot vacuum and preferred mode of transportation for cats in shark suits everywhere. More than 10 million Roombas are dutifully picking up our dirt worldwide, an impressive number to be sure.The bot’s creator, iRobot, is also the company behind scientific and military machines like the Packbot and Seaglider....
Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s always Chevy vs. Ford in pony car wars, and GM’s just fired the latest salvo. While Ford doesn’t have an in-house “supercar” to borrow parts from, the newest Z28, a model that’s waxed and waned in the Camaro line since its introduction in 1967, is getting the enormous 7.0-liter (427 cubic inch) V-8 from the C6 Z06 Corvette. And as is tradition, it’s naturally aspirated. Power output is promised to be at least 500 hp and 470 lb....
Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: Konstantin Inozemtsev/Getty Images)A group of scientists fed up with claims that a chatbot passed the Turing test decided that maybe the test needed a few—or more than a few—revisions. So they’re hosting a workshop to do just that.The Turing test is meant as a metric of artificial intelligence. Named after computer pioneer Alan Turing, it involves a computer having a conversation with a real human via text....
Media Platforms Design TeamBig news is sometimes very small. We got a preview last night of Sony’s new DAV-IS10 Micro Home Theater System ($799; coming out in July), and it was truly a marvel of miniaturization. Truth be told, we never thought that speakers such as Bose’s Jewel Cubes were overly large, but Sony’s new system suddenly makes Bose’s tiny tweeters seem gargantuan. Each satellite speaker in the 450-watt DAV-IS10 setup is the size of a golf ball—a comparison the company took quite literally at the introduction, setting up miniature putting greens and posing the speakers next to their dimpled cousins—yet the 5....
Mean Hardware Guy worked fasteners—screws, nails, bolts. Probably still does. Back in the late ’90s and early oughts, Mean Hardware Guy was my favorite staffer at my favorite hardware store, Clark-Devon Hardware in Chicago (where the latter word is pronounced “de-VAHN”), and certainly not for his personal effervescence. He was, and inevitably still is, brusque, wearily but quickly turning from one weekend bumbler to the next, almost seeming to enjoy the cluelessness of the questions, always setting things right with the answers....
