Posts

After a few setbacks, the Planetary Society’s Light Sail 1 spacecraft unfurled its wings yesterday at 3:47 p.m. EDT, allowing the craft to begin its main mission: testing out the potential of solar propulsion in spacecraft.It’s a concept that was long championed by the organization’s cofounder, Carl Sagan. But the idea has seen surprisingly few takers over time. IKAROS, a Japanese probe, is only solar sail spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit, sailing past Venus in 2010....

China’s got a new, home-grown, totally original operating system called NeoKylin, but wait just a second…[youtube ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=180&v=Z9T39O4CHzo[/youtube]Shown off in the above hands on by Quartz, NeoKylin is a Chinese-made Linux-based system built in part to lessen the country’s reliance non-Chinese software in general, and in part to lessen its reliance on Microsoft’s aging Windows XP in particular. Not that you would notice right away given as how they look virtually identical....

Researchers at Cornell and Stanford have figured out a useful thing to do with cameras installed on a car’s dashboard—one that doesn’t involve lip-syncing. They’re using them to monitor the driver’s body language and sound an alert if he or she might be dangerously close to getting in a car accident.The system, called Brains4Cars, actually uses two cameras: One is focused on the driver and another on the traffic around the vehicle....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe America’s Cup, born in 1851 and contested a total of 33 times, has seen its share of changes. Few, though, have been as dramatic as those that will be on display this summer, when 12-story-tall carbon-fiber yachts rip through San Francisco Bay at speeds in excess of 50 mph beginning July 7 (opening ceremonies are July 4).In races of the past, monohulled yachts with traditional sails scurried across open ocean waters far from the fans at a pedestrian 17 miles per hour....

Media Platforms Design TeamThroughout the year we’ve heard hints and whispers about Google’s wild new augmented reality project—Web-connected goggles that could, for instance, overlay the directions to your destination onto your field of view. Now those future glasses are going out into the world. At I/O, the gathering of developers Google is currently hosting near its home base in California, co-founder Sergey Brin told attendees today that the company would sell Google Glass to developers for $1500 a pop....

Media Platforms Design TeamAutomotive interest among teens is at an all-time low: the Department of Transportation indicates that only 49 percent of 17 year-olds have a driver’s license. That number is down more than 25 percent since 1978, and new cars with manual transmissions now account for less than 10 percent of the total take.Hagerty Insurance is determined to keep the art of driving– and more specifically, driving vintage cars– alive by holding workshops for young people who may otherwise spend their spare time and money on the latest shoot ’em up video game....

After years of preparation, chip and PIN credit cards are finally arriving in the United States. But while a chip and PIN might be much more secure than a signature, hackers have shown that it’s not invulnerable, and now we know how they pulled it off. As Ars Technica reports, a number of chip and PIN cards were stolen in France back in 2011, and somehow, the fraudsters who took them were able to start using them in Belgium, despite the security enhancements that credit card companies are wont to hold up as unimpeachable....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design TeamIt’s a rare irony to chronicle the demise of an upcoming device by using the device itself. But here I am, writing about the death of the Palm Foleo on a pre-release Foleo. This 1.1-pound, $500 semi-laptop was only weeks from its expected on-sale date when Palm CEO Ed Colligan announced yesterday that the company had cancelled plans to sell it. Only a few months ago, Foleo was introduced with much fanfare at the All Things Digital conference, pitched as the savior product of the company....

When iOS 8 came out last year, it didn’t come to the iPhone 4 and offered sluggish performance on the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. iOS 9 won’t be cutting off any stragglers; it’s coming to every device that has iOS 8. Good news, right? Yes, but there’s a catch. Your apps might not necessarily work. As 9to5Mac reports, iOS 9 is the first version of Apple’s mobile operating system that will let developers choose which processors they want to support....

While America was busy getting all hot and bothered about an American-for-Taliban prisoner exchange, the nation of Iraq has been collapsing. News broke from Iraq today that militants have seized the town of Tikrit almost without a fight. This comes on the heels of the fall of Mosul earlier this week to the same group—the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). For those without maps, Tikrit lies between Mosul, the second-largest city in the country, and Baghdad, the largest....

Crisis City, just outside the little town of Lindsborg, Kan., looks and sounds like a nightmare. From an apartment block built of old shipping containers, the sounds of gunfire and screams drift past the twisted wreckage of a derailed train. Nearby, in the shadow of the concrete rubble of a collapsed building, wooden debris sprawls beneath a clear blue Kansas sky.Joe Pruitt calls it the Disney World for emergency-response instructors. Here in Crisis City, a disaster training facility built and operated by the Kansas Adjutant General’s Department, emergency responders can train for disasters from train wrecks and terrorism to tornadoes....

CABOT, Vt. — A few weeks ago, we received an early morning phone call from a neighbor. “Turn on your radio,” she said. “The DJ is ranting about Ben’s Energy Family story in Popular Mechanics.” We didn’t get tuned in quickly enough to catch the rant, but according to those who heard it, he was fuming that I was advocating expensive alternative energy technologies that most Vermonters simply can’t afford. I’m thinking about that today after returning from a friend’s house....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat Is It? Mitsubishi Outlander GT Prototype The Specs In our dream garage there’s a car called the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Wagon. It combines the Evo sport sedan’s aggressive performance with the practicality of a station wagon. But sadly, this beast doesn’t yet exist. Mitsubishi’s Outlander GT Prototype may not have the Evo’s snarling engine or its brilliant SST dual-clutch transmission, but it does use an S-AWC all-wheel drive system and a more powerful 230 hp 3....

Media Platforms Design TeamMaybe we were too blinded by the awesomeness of the Space Shuttle launch (click here for video). Maybe it was all the fanfare over the Atlantis crew unveiling the International Space Station’s huge new solar arrays. But even as NASA administrator Michael Griffin was singing the praises of commercial space flight in our exclusive interview with him last week, this one snuck up on us: Europe has stolen back some major space thunder with the unveiling of a top-secret suborbital rocket plane (pictured above)....

A Delta airlines flight arriving at New York’s LaGuardia Airpot just slid off the snowy tarmac and into a nearby fence. Thankfully, there were only minor injuries in the crash.Flight 1086 had just arrived from Atlanta and crashed shortly after 11 a.m. Passengers were evacuated from the plane at the scene. In all, there were 127 passengers and five crew members. The plane suffered a fuel leak on impact, which had to be contained by emergency personnel....

(Published in the June 1997 issue)More: Visit our personal watercraft buying guideI recently had a chance to ride two trendsetting 1997 personal watercraft. Sea-Doo’s redesigned XP is a high-tech, high-performance production racer that anyone can buy, while Kawasaki’s 1100 STX is the biggest, coolest 3-seater on the market. They are very different, but each is world-class and at the forefront of thrust-propelled excitement. Sea-Doo XPThe XP name has been around for years, but the 1997 version is totally different from previous Sea-Doo racers....

Media Platforms Design Team1 Screen The monitor determines the size and weight of the computer. To keep ultrabooks slim, manufacturers typically laminate LCD screens in place without a glossy protective top layer. Media Platforms Design Team2 Battery Open an ultrabook and you’ll see that half the real estate is occupied by a battery. These PCs can run 5 to 7 hours on a charge—accept nothing less. Media Platforms Design Team3 Unibody chassis When you build something this thin, rigidity becomes an issue....

ABOARD SS UNITED STATES - The world’s fastest ocean liner, which hasn’t sailed in more than four decades, has received what may be a permanent stay of execution, literally hours before its luck seemed to have run out. The ship, which sits at a Philadelphia mooring, had its maiden voyage in 1952, setting a still-unbroken record for an Atlantic crossing (less than four days, at a top speed of 44 knots, faster even than today’s most modern aircraft carriers)....

Media Platforms Design TeamCHRYSLER2010 Financial Performance: −$652 million ▼CEO: Sergio Marchionne Strengths: Strong design and engineering talent at Chrysler and sister company Fiat. CEO and senior team are moving fast to deliver new cars and trucks and improve quality. TV commercials deserve an Oscar.Weaknesses: The new cars, like the Grand Cherokee, are terrific and quality is improving, but they’re climbing a hill. Dodge and Chrysler brands have low trust among consumers....

Here is a narrator, backed by a cinematic score, gushing over plywood. Studio matriarch, queen of building materials, a delicious wood sandwich—this is just a sampling of the plywood poetry you are about to experience.Sold?If not, you should watch this clip from 2012 (unearthed this week by Kottke) anyway. Over the course of 10 minutes, it lays out the case that plywood—easily marginalized as a cheap mashup of woods, something inherently inferior to pure ash, walnut, or oak—is the everything material....