From slashdot.org
Russian government is proposing to build an underground tunnel between Russia and Alaska for transporting goods, electricity and natural resources. The tunnel would be twice as long as that between the UK and France. The $10 — $12b cost is not something to be overlooked, but Russia claims the benefits would pay it off in 20 years. It would take 10 to 15 years to build.
The company started recently to show off this so called “metro notebook”. The laptop appears to be a pretty decent unit, measuing just 0.7 inches thick and packing a Core 2 Duo processor, along with Bluetooth, WiFi, and WiMAX connectivity.
From slashdot.org
The spacecraft “Gravity Probe B” was launched into orbit from California, US, on 20 April 2004. It uses four ultra-precise gyroscopes to measure two effects of Einstein’s general relativity theory — the geodetic effect and frame dragging. According to the mission’s principal investigator, the data from Gravity Probe B’s gyroscopes confirm the Einstein theory’s value for the geodetic effect to better than 1%. In a common analogy, the geodetic effect is similar to the shape of the dip created when the ball is placed on to a rubber sheet. If the ball is then rotated, it will start to drag the rubber sheet around with it. In a similar way, the Earth drags local space and time around with it — ever so slightly — as it rotates. Over time, these effects cause the angle of spin of the satellite’s gyroscopes to shift by tiny amounts.
Panasonic TH-103PF9 103in Plasma TV – full review here.
From space.com
If symmetry is a sign of splendor, then the newly discovered Red Square nebula is one of the most beautiful objects in the universe. Seen in the infrared, the nebula resembles a giant, glowing red box in the sky, with a bright white inner core. A dying star called MWC 922 is located at the system’s center and spewing its innards from opposite poles into space. (A nebula is an interstellar cloud of gas, dust and plasma where stars can both emerge and die.)
What is particularly astonishing about the Red Square, the researchers say, is the degree of symmetry seen in lines, or “rungs,” that bisect its surface. The rungs appear as shadows, and their makeup is uncertain. The Red Square ranks among the most symmetrical objects ever observed by scientists. “If you fold things across the principle diagonal axis, you get an almost perfect reflection symmetry,” said study leader Peter Tuthill from the University of Sydney in Australia. “This makes the Red Square nebula the most symmetrical object of comparable complexity ever imaged.”
From engadget.com
The US military is hoping to set their next router right beside a constellation. Partnering with Intelsat and Cisco Systems, the US Department of Defense is hoping “to test an internet router in space in hopes of benefiting civilian broadband satellite communications.” Additionally, the Internet Routing In Space (IRIS) project aims to assist in all sorts of “military communications,” as it routes IP traffic between space-bound sats and cuts down on the time required to divvy out information. As expected, voice, video, and data will all be supported, and once the three-year initiative is complete, “the technology will be available for commercial use”
They’ve just announced the Duo HD BD-UP5000, their first player to support both HD disc formats. Samsung is promising that the Duo HD BD-UP5000 will have full support for HD-DVD (including support for HDi).
Philips partnering with Swarovski will offer an Active Crystals collection of 1GB USB drives onto the fashion-conscience set. They are not yet priced and will come in August.
Astronomers have detected water in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system for the first time. The finding, to be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal, confirms previous theories that say water vapor should be present in the atmospheres of nearly all the known extrasolar planets. The discovery means one of the most crucial elements for life as we know it can exist around planets orbiting other stars.
HD209458b is a world well-known among planet hunters. In 1999, it became the first planet to be directly observed around a normal star outside our solar system and, a few years later, was the first exoplanet confirmed to have oxygen and carbon in its atmosphere. HD209458b is separated from its star by only about 4 million miles (7 million kilometers)—about 100 times closer than Jupiter is to our Sun—and is so hot scientists think about it is losing about 10,000 tons of material every second as vented gas.
From slashdot.org
Researchers at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich are reporting that solar sunspot activity is at a 1000-year peak. Records of sunspots have been kept since 1610. The period between 1645 and 1715 (known as the Maunder Minimum) was a period of very few sunspots. Researchers extended the record by measuring isotopes of beryllium (created by cosmic rays) in Greenland ice cores. Based on both observations and ice core records, we are now at a sunspot peak exceeding solar activity for any time in the past thousand years.
Ocean’s 13 is coming June 8th. Watch full trailer here.
From slashdot.org
Space.com is reporting on the discovery of seven dark spots near the Equator on Mars. The thinking is that these are cave openings. The openings are the size of football fields, and one of them is thought to extend approximately 400 feet below the surface.’The researchers hope the discovery will lead to more focused spelunking on Mars. “Caves on Mars could become habitats for future explorers or could be the only structures that preserve evidence of past or present microbial life ,” said Glenn Cushing of Northern Arizona University, who first spotted the black areas in the photographs.
A French train with a 25,000-horsepower engine and special wheels broke the world speed record Tuesday for conventional rail trains, reaching 357.2 mph (574.8 kph) as it zipped through the countryside to the applause of spectators. It fell short, however, of beating the ultimate record set by Japan’s magnetically levitated train, which hit 361 mph (580.9 kph) in 2003.
From firstshowing.net
X-Files 2 Movie Returning in 2008 – In an interview over at IESB.net with David Duchovny, he told them that they are finishing final negotiations and could start filming by early 2008 if not sooner.
The Bourne Ultimatum – The very first exclusive international trailer has debuted and you can watch it right here.
A few more new casting details courtesy of JoBlo today reveal more about National Treasure 2. It’s already filming in Washington DC at the moment, but the remaining cast has only been revealed recently.
There’s no real justification to say that, but there are two big movies in the last week that are both being directed by big directors and are focused on WWII. The first is “Valkyrie”, directed by “X-Men” and “Superman Returns” director Bryan Singer, and the second is “Inglorious Bastards” directed by “Grindhouse” and “Kill Bill” director Quentin Tarantino.
Valkyrie
Tells the story of real-life Nazi officer Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg who, along with several others, carried out the famous assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944. The most interesting news – von Stauffenberg may be played by Tom Cruise.
Inglorious Bastards
Tells the story of a group of soldiers on their way to be executed, when they get the chance of a reprieve. Tarantino has described them as “not your normal hero types that are thrown into a big deal in World War II.” The part that gets me with this is that it’s Tarantino. He’s truly remarkable, just look at any of his movies, and now he’s tackling World War II?! Sounds like one hell of a film experience to me. This has been in discussion for a long time and older mentions stated that the script would be incredibly long and may end up being a 2 or 3 part movie, somewhat like Kill Bill.
This image was acquired on Oct. 29, 2006, from an average distance of 902,000 kilometers (560,400 miles) above the cloud tops of Saturn.
NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft imaged the feature over two decades ago. The fact that it has appeared in Cassini images indicates that it is a long-lived feature. A second hexagon, significantly darker than the brighter historical feature, is also visible in the Cassini pictures. The spacecraft’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer is the first instrument to capture the entire hexagon feature in one image.
“This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides,” said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “We’ve never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn’s thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you’d expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is.”
The hexagon images and movie, including the north polar auroras are available at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu
Attend the launch event online on March 27, or view the recorded webcast here.
UK-based luxury goods creator Luvaglio has created the first million dollar laptop.Full details of the laptop have not been released yet, but it is known that it incorporates a 17″ widescreen LED lit screen with a specially designed anti-reflective glare coating for clear and brighter image, 128GB of Solid State Disk space and a slot loading Blue-Ray drive. There is an integrated screen cleaning device and a very rare coloured diamond piece of jewellery that doubles up as the power button when placed into the laptop and also acts as security identification.
From firstshowing.net
The one and only Agent Smith from The Matrix, Hugo Weaving, is voicing the Decepticon leader Megatron in the upcoming Transformers movie from Michael Bay.