Technology – Page 91 – Infinite Unknown

Tesla CEO: GM couldn’t afford us now

November 8, 2008 by Infinite

The Roadster goes 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. Image: Yi-Wyn Yen

SAN FRANCISCO – How much is Tesla Motors worth?

Tesla CEO Elon Musk won’t say, but it’s at least too expensive for General Motors to buy. “I’m not sure they can afford Tesla right now,” he said during a 30-minute talk Friday at the Web 2.0 Summit.

The South African-born entrepreneur talked candidly with host John Battelle about the failures of the auto industry and Tesla’s own troubles. Battelle had asked why GM (GM) doesn’t buy the electric car startup.

GM reported a $2.5 billion loss in the third quarter Friday and also warned that it could run out of cash soon. Said Musk, “There’s an issue with organized labor and trade and management still acts like it’s 1955. There are too many country club memberships, and [GM] management has focused on the wrong thing. ”

Tesla has been plagued with its own problems. In mid-October Musk, who has helped bankroll Tesla, became its third CEO in less than a year, announced layoffs and delayed the debut of its forthcoming electric sedan, the Model S.

Musk explained why Tesla had to let go 10% of his employees last month. “Before market Armageddon occurred, the point was to raise $100 million. And we intended to get going with that in full force before the market collapsed,” he said.

The company settled for cutting costs and raising $40 million from its existing investors. Musk says he’s backing half of the $40 million round. He has already poured $55 million of his own money into the company.

National road toll devices to be tested by drivers next year

November 5, 2008 by Infinite

Trial could lead to £1.30-a-mile charges

Hundreds of drivers are being recruited to take part in government-funded road-pricing trials that could result in charges of up to £1.30 a mile on the most congested roads.

The test runs will start early next year in four locations and will involve fitting a satellite-tracking device to the vehicles of volunteers. An on-board unit will automatically deduct payments from a shadow account set up in the driver’s name.

Paul Clark, the Transport Minister, confirmed yesterday that the trials would proceed despite previous statements from the Government suggesting that it had abandoned the idea of a national road-pricing scheme. In 2004 a feasibility study considered a range of possible prices, up to £1.30 a mile. It said that the highest rate “would be paid by only 0.5 per cent of traffic”.

The on-board unit could be used to collect all road charges, such as congestion charges in London and Manchester and tolls for crossing bridges and using new lanes on motorways.

In the longer term the technology could be used to introduce pricing on all roads, with the price varying according to the time of day, direction of travel and the level of congestion.

Drivers would use the internet to check all their payments on a single bill. They would choose whether the bill showed where they had travelled or simply the amounts they had paid.

Space station trash plunging to Earth

November 2, 2008 by Infinite

Tank of toxic ammonia coolant thrown from station more than a year ago

NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson, an Expedition 15 flight engineer, tosses a hefty unneeded ammonia tank the size of a refrigerator ovebboard from the space station during a July 23, 2007 spacewalk. The tank is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere on Nov. 2, 2008.

A piece of space station trash the size of a refrigerator is poised to plunge through the Earth’s atmosphere late Sunday, more than a year after an astronaut tossed it overboard.

NASA and the U.S. Space Surveillance Network are tracking the object – a 1,400-pound (635-kilogram) tank of toxic ammonia coolant thrown from the international space station – to make sure it does not endanger people on Earth. Exactly where the tank will inevitably fall is currently unknown, though it is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere Sunday afternoon or later that evening, NASA officials said.

Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street

October 27, 2008 by Infinite

Civil rights campaigners say images must not be added to databases

Photograph: Roger Tooth

Every police force in the UK is to be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners – handheld devices that allow police to carry out identity checks on people in the street.

The new technology, which ultimately may be able to receive pictures of suspects, is likely to be in widespread use within 18 months. Tens of thousands of sets – as compact as BlackBerry smartphones – are expected to be distributed.

The police claim the scheme, called Project Midas, will transform the speed of criminal investigations. A similar, heavier machine has been tested during limited trials with motorway patrols.

To address fears about mass surveillance and random searches, the police insist fingerprints taken by the scanners will not be stored or added to databases.

Liberty, the civil rights group, cautioned that the law required fingerprints taken in such circumstances to be deleted after use. Gareth Crossman, Liberty’s policy director, said: “Saving time with new technology could help police performance but officers must make absolutely certain that they take fingerprints only when they suspect an individual of an offence and can’t establish his identity.”

Darpa Wants to See Inside Your House

October 24, 2008 by Infinite

The Pentagon wants to be able to peer inside your apartment building — picking out where all the major rooms, stairways, and dens of evil-doers are.

The U.S. military is getting better and better at spotting its enemies, when they’re roaming around the streets. But once those foes duck into houses, they become a whole lot harder to spot. That’s why Darpa, the Defense Department’s way-out research arm, is looking to develop a suite of tools for “external sensing deep inside buildings.” The ultimate goal of this Harnessing Infrastructure for Building Reconnaissance (HIBR) project: “reverse the adversaries’ advantage of urban familiarity and sanctuary and provide U.S. Forces with complete above- and below-ground awareness.”

By the end of the project, Darpa wants a set of technologies that can see into a 10-story building with a two-level basement in a “high-density urban block” — and produce a kind of digital blueprint of the place. Using sensors mounted on backpacks, vehicles, or aircraft, the HIBR gear would, hopefully, be able to pick out every room, wall, stairway, and basement in the building — as well as all of the “electrical, plumbing, and installation systems.”

Darpa doesn’t come out and say it openly. But it appears that the agency wants these HIBR gadgets to be able to track the people inside these buildings, as well. Why else would these sensors be required to “provide real-time updates” once U.S. troops enter the building? Perhaps there’s more about the people-spotting tech, in the “classified appendix” to HIBR’s request for proposals.

The International Interphone Study Confirms: The Use Of Mobile Phone Is Carcinogenic

October 19, 2008 by Infinite

The official publication of the first intermediate results of the International Interphone Study from the International Research Centre on Cancer (CIRC) dependent on WHO confirms the increased tumors and cancer cases due to the use of mobile phone.

The Use Of Mobile Phone Is Carcinogenic: Here (PDF)

INTERPHONE Results latest update Oct. 08, 2008: Interphone Results Update (PDF)

Phoenix Lander sees snow falling on Mars

September 29, 2008 by Infinite

In this artist conception, the Phoenix Mars Lander, which launched in August 2007 and the first project in NASA’s Mars Scout missions, landed on Mars on May 25, 2008. (UPI Photo/NASA)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (UPI) — The U.S. space agency says its Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds, vaporizing before reaching the planet’s surface.

And the National Aeronautics and Space Administration says that, plus soil test experiments, have proven evidence of past interaction between minerals and liquid water — both processes that occur on Earth.

“A laser instrument designed to gather knowledge of how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars detected snow from clouds about 2.5 miles above the spacecraft’s landing site,” NASA said, adding data shows the snow vaporizing before reaching the ground.

“Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars,” said Jim Whiteway, of Canada’s York University, the lead scientist for the Canadian-supplied Meteorological Station on Phoenix. “We’ll be looking for signs that the snow may even reach the ground.”

Since landing May 25, Phoenix has also confirmed a hard subsurface layer at its far-northern site contains water-ice. NASA said determining whether that ice ever thaws will help answer whether the environment there has been favorable for life, a key aim of the mission.

Published: Sept. 29, 2008 at 3:40 PM
Source: UPI

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Canadian laser gadget finds snow in Martian sky

OTTAWA – Trust a Canadian weather instrument to find snow. Even on Mars.

A Canadian university’s laser aboard a NASA Mars lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds about four kilometres above the landing site, and vaporizing before reaching the ground.

Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind

September 25, 2008 by Infinite

Baggage searches are SOOOOOO early-21st century. Homeland Security is now testing the next generation of security screening – a body scanner that can read your mind.

Most preventive screening looks for explosives or metals that pose a threat. But a new system called MALINTENT turns the old school approach on its head. This Orwellian-sounding machine detects the person – not the device – set to wreak havoc and terror.

MALINTENT, the brainchild of the cutting-edge Human Factors division in Homeland Security’s directorate for Science and Technology, searches your body for non-verbal cues that predict whether you mean harm to your fellow passengers.

It has a series of sensors and imagers that read your body temperature, heart rate and respiration for unconscious tells invisible to the naked eye – signals terrorists and criminals may display in advance of an attack.

But this is no polygraph test. Subjects do not get hooked up or strapped down for a careful reading; those sensors do all the work without any actual physical contact. It’s like an X-ray for bad intentions.

Who Killed The Electric Car? (Documentary)

October 15, 2011September 24, 2008 by Infinite

Google removed the video.

I’ve found a replacement.

A MUST-SEE!!!

Documentary about GM killing of the electric car. It has been here since ’96 but they killed it off.

The film features interviews with celebrities who drove the electric car, such as Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, Alexandra Paul, Peter Horton, Ed Begley, Jr., a bi-partisan selection of prominent political figures including Ralph Nader, Frank Gaffney, Alan Lloyd, Jim Boyd, Alan Lowenthal, S. David Freeman, and ex-CIA head James Woolsey, as well as news footage from the development, launch and marketing of EV’s.

Nominated: Best Documentary – Environmental Media Awards (2006)
Won: Special Jury Prize – Mountain Film (Telluride) (2006)
Nominated: Best Documentary – Writers Guild of America
Won: Audience Award – Canberra International Film Festival
Nominated: 2007 Best Documentary Feature – Broadcast Film Critics Association

The “gasoline” for operating this car only costs 16 cents per gallon!

Who Killed the Electric Car? from Julien Chaulieu on Vimeo.

A murder mystery, a call to arms and an effective inducement to rage, Who Killed the Electric Car? is the latest and one of the more successful additions to the growing ranks of issue-oriented documentaries.
– The New York Times

A potent hybrid of passion and politics fuel this energetic and highly compelling documentary.
– Michael Rachtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter

If $3-a-gallon gasoline doesn’t make you hate the big oil companies, the shocking revelations in Chris Paine’s thought-provoking documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? will.
– V. A. Musetto, New York Post

Large Hadron Collider to Be Stalled for 2 Months

September 20, 2008 by Infinite

The giant Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most expensive scientific experiment, will be shut down for at least two months, scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva said today.

The shutdown casts into doubt the hopes of CERN physicists to achieve high-energy collisions of protons in the machine before the end of the year. “It’s too early to say whether we’ll still be having collisions this year,” James Gillies, head of communications for CERN, said in an e-mail message. The laboratory shuts down to save money on electricity during the winter.

A gala inauguration party scheduled for Oct. 21 will still take place, Dr. Gillies said.

The collider is designed to accelerate the subatomic particles known as protons to energies of 7 trillion electron volts, far surpassing any other accelerator on Earth, and bang them together in search of new particles and forces.

The Army’s Totally Serious Mind-Control Project

September 15, 2008 by Infinite

Army scientists want to cram this array of brain-wave reading sensors into a helmet.

Soldiers barking orders at each other is so 20th Century. That’s why the U.S. Army has just awarded a $4 million contract to begin developing “thought helmets” that would harness silent brain waves for secure communication among troops. Ultimately, the Army hopes the project will “lead to direct mental control of military systems by thought alone.”

If this sounds insane, it would have been as recently as a few years ago. But improvements in computing power and a better understanding of how the brain works have scientists busy hunting for the distinctive neural fingerprints that flash through a brain when a person is talking to himself. The Army’s initial goal is to capture those brain waves with incredibly sophisticated software that then translates the waves into audible radio messages for other troops in the field. “It’d be radio without a microphone, ” says Dr. Elmar Schmeisser, the Army neuroscientist overseeing the program. “Because soldiers are already trained to talk in clean, clear and formulaic ways, it would be a very small step to have them think that way.”

Hackers claim there’s a black hole in the atom smashers’ computer network

September 13, 2008 by Infinite

From The Times

September 13, 2008

Hackers have broken into one of the computer networks of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

A group calling itself the Greek Security Team left a rogue webpage describing the technicians responsible for computer security at the giant atom smasher as “schoolkids” – but reassuring scientists that they did not want to disrupt the experiment.

The hackers gained access to a website open to other scientists on Wednesday as the LHC passed its first test, sending its protons off on their dizzying journey through time and space, close to the speed of light.

Farmers See ‘Mark of the Beast’ in RFID Livestock Tags

September 10, 2008 by Infinite

A group of community farmers, some of them Amish, are challenging rules requiring the tagging of livestock with RFID chips, saying the devices are a “mark of the beast.”

Michigan and federal authorities say the radio frequency identification devices (RFID) will help monitor the travels of bovine and other livestock diseases.

Scientists launch huge particle-smasher experiment

September 10, 2008 by Infinite

GENEVA (Reuters) – International scientists celebrated the successful start of a huge particle-smashing machine on Wednesday which aims to simulate the conditions of the “Big Bang” that created the universe.

Experiments using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complex machine ever made, could revamp modern physics and unlock secrets about the universe and its origins.

The project has had to work hard to deny suggestions by some critics that the experiment could create tiny black holes of intense gravity that could suck in the whole planet.

Such fears spurred huge public interest in advanced physics ahead of the start up of the 10 billion Swiss franc ($9 billion) machine, which proceeded smoothly on Wednesday morning.

Pravda: Shocking Menace of Satellite Surveillance (Part II)

September 18, 2008September 9, 2008 by Infinite

There are various other satellite powers, such as manipulating electronic instruments and appliances like alarms, electronic watches and clocks, a television, radio, smoke detector and the electrical system of an automobile. For example, the digital alarm on a watch, tiny though it is, can be set off by a satellite from hundreds of miles up in space. And the light bulb of a lamp can be burned out with the burst of a laser from a satellite. In addition, street lights and porch lights can be turned on and off at will by someone at the controls of a satellite, the means being an electromagnetic beam which reverses the light’s polarity. Or a lamp can be made to burn out in a burst of blue light when the switch is flicked. As with other satellite powers, it makes no difference if the light is under a roof or a ton of concrete–it can still be manipulated by a satellite laser. Types of satellite lasers include the free-electron laser, the x-ray laser, the neutral-particle-beam laser, the chemical-oxygen-iodine laser and the mid-infra-red advanced chemical laser.

Pravda: Shocking Menace of Satellite Surveillance (Part I)

September 18, 2008September 9, 2008 by Infinite

Unknown to most of the world, satellites can perform astonishing and often menacing feats. This should come as no surprise when one reflects on the massive effort poured into satellite technology since the Soviet satellite Sputnik, launched in 1957, caused panic in the U.S. A spy satellite can monitor a person’s every movement, even when the “target” is indoors or deep in the interior of a building or traveling rapidly down the highway in a car, in any kind of weather (cloudy, rainy, stormy). There is no place to hide on the face of the earth. It takes just three satellites to blanket the world with detection capacity. Besides tracking a person’s every action and relaying the data to a computer screen on earth, amazing powers of satellites include reading a person’s mind, monitoring conversations, manipulating electronic instruments and physically assaulting someone with a laser beam. Remote reading of someone’s mind through satellite technology is quite bizarre, yet it is being done; it is a reality at present, not a chimera from a futuristic dystopia! To those who might disbelieve my description of satellite surveillance, I’d simply cite a tried-and-true Roman proverb: Time reveals all things (tempus omnia revelat).

Pigs to be bred for transplants

September 9, 2008 by Infinite

LORD Winston, the fertility expert and Labour peer, is to begin breeding genetically modified pigs in the hope of providing organs for transplant to humans, it was reported yesterday.

Scientists in London and California have begun experiments to find a solution to record waits for organ transplants. In Britain around 8,000 patients are on waiting lists.

“People needing a new heart or liver are waiting for someone else to die – usually a violent death in a traffic accident,” Lord Winston wrote in a Sunday newspaper.

Lord Winston, who heads the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at London’s Hammersmith Hospital, expects the technique to provide a solution to the shortage of organs within ten years.

The scientists are introducing human genes into the animals to reduce the chances of the organs being rejected by patients’ bodies.

Shoppers to use fingerprints or eye scans to pay for goods

September 9, 2008 by Infinite

Barclaycard has announced it is investing a seven-figure sum in “contactless payment” technology Photo: Getty Images

The futuristic systems, like those used by Tom Cruise in the science fiction film Minority Report, are being developed by scientists for Barclaycard.

The company has announced it is investing a seven-figure sum in “contactless payment” technology.

This allows customers to use everyday items they carry around with them – such as mobile phones, key fobs or even their eyes or fingerprints – to make payments.

It means shoppers will no longer have to rely on cards.

Barclaycard, which is part of Barclays, has already introduced a new-style cash machine in the United Arab Emirates enabling people to use their fingerprints to withdraw money and shoppers in the UK may soon be able to use the same technology.

Air-purifying Church Windows Were Early Nanotechnology

September 9, 2008 by Infinite

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2008) – Stained glass windows that are painted with gold purify the air when they are lit up by sunlight, a team of Queensland University of Technology experts have discovered.

Associate Professor Zhu Huai Yong, from QUT’s School of Physical and Chemical Sciences said that glaziers in medieval forges were the first nanotechnologists who produced colours with gold nanoparticles of different sizes.

Large Hadron Collider Rap

September 8, 2008 by Infinite

Rappin’ about CERN’s Large Hadron Collider!

Source: YouTube

Scientists get death threats over Large Hadron Collider

September 5, 2008 by Infinite

Scientists working on the world’s biggest machine are being besieged by phone calls and emails from people who fear the world will end next Wednesday, when the gigantic atom smasher starts up.

The Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, where particles will begin to circulate around its 17 mile circumference tunnel next week, will recreate energies not seen since the universe was very young, when particles smash together at near the speed of light.

Hadron Collider: The final pieces slot into place

Such is the angst that the American Nobel prize winning physicist Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has even had death threats, said Prof Brian Cox of Manchester University, adding: “Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a t—.”

The head of public relations, James Gillies, says he gets tearful phone calls, pleading for the £4.5 billion machine to stop.

Is Google Turning Into Big Brother?

September 5, 2008 by Infinite

The Debut of Chrome, Google’s New Browser, May Have Been Quiet for a Reason

While we’re transfixed by the presidential election, in the world of high tech another duel between two well-funded, take-no-quarter candidates has just emerged & and in the long run the impact on our daily lives may be nearly as great — and perhaps even sinister.

Massive floating generators, or ‘eco-rigs’, to provide power and food to Japan

September 4, 2008 by Infinite

Battered by soaring energy costs and aghast at dwindling fish stocks, Japanese scientists think they have found the answer: filling the seas with giant “eco-rigs” as powerful as nuclear power stations.

The project, which could result in village-sized platforms peppering the Japanese coastline within a decade, reflects a growing panic in the country over how it will meet its future resource needs.

The floating eco-rig generators which measure 1.2 miles by 0.5 miles (2km by 800m) are intended to harness the energy of the Sun and wind. They are each expected to produce about 300 megawatt hours of power.

Environment: Solar plant yields water and crops from the desert

September 4, 2008 by Infinite

· Green energy glasshouses may transform arid areas
· Fresh water will end need to dig wells, say architects

The Sahara forest project will use seawater and solar power to grow food in greenhouses across the desert. Photograph: Exploration Architecture

Vast greenhouses that use sea water for crop cultivation could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers.

The Sahara Forest Project, which is already running demonstration plants in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, envisages huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), a technology that uses mirrors to focus the sun’s rays, creating steam to drive turbines to generate electricity.

The installations would turn deserts into lush patches of vegetation, according to its designers, and do away with the need to dig wells for fresh water, an activity that has depleted aquifers across the world.