Phytoplankton Bloom in the North Atlantic : Image of the Day

Shanzai, which tracks products and trends from China, reports on a pair of video glasses that will let users watch a movie or play games in a virtual 40-inch LCD display. These glasses use binocular vision principles to produce a wider virtual display. The glasses come with a handheld media player that supports a wide range of media including video, photos and downloaded ROM games. (via Video Glasses Create A 40-Inch Virtual Display – PSFK)

No Exit [4.17]

Number One: In all your travels, have you ever seen a star go supernova?
Ellen Tigh: No.
Number One: No? Well, I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe. Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air.
Ellen Tigh: The five of us designed you to be as human as possible.
Number One: I don’t want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to – I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can’t even express these things properly because I have to – I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me! I’m a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I’m trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that “God” wanted it that way!

– am I the only one that was rooting for the Cylons? That thought the humans were the bad guys?!

Little Dog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUQsRPJ1dYw

via IEET

Previously:

Little Dog

robot backflip (via frostydesign)

from http://singularityhub.com/2010/05/25/humanoid-robot-performs-cool-back-flip-runs-like-a-little-girl-video/

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

23street-steampunk (by brucesflickr)

is NASA cancelling the shuttle while a smaller shuttle-derived vehicle is being more-or-less secretly developed and tested for flight by the United States Air Force? And is it possible that this vehicle is not just a research version of a future Air Force space craft, but is actually a synergistic spin-off of the current shuttle design, using both older iterations that had more economical promise, but with more, newer, better and more advanced technology thrown into the program?

Such is the twisted tale of the X-37B. (via To X-37B Or Not To X-37B? That Is The Question. | TG Daily)

…presumably for years after Obama leaves office in 2016 (should he be re-elected in 2012), the US will have no vehicle capable of putting astronauts into orbit. It will be able to buy passenger space on Russian rockets or on the rapidly-developing Chinese manned vehicles or maybe by 2015 even on Indian rockets. But it will essentially be a hitch-hiker on other countries’ space programmes.

…

Which is why the first man on Mars will probably be Chinese or Indian, not American.

The Telegraph – Calcutta (Kolkata) | Opinion | the first man on mars