Day: July 2, 2019

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Researchers create eye-tracking glasses that auto-focus where you look

https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/02/stanford-eye-tracking-auto-focus-glasses/

Researchers at Stanford University have created glasses that track your eyes and automatically focus on whatever you’re looking at. The so-called autofocals, detailed in a paper published in the journal Science Advances, could prove a better solution than transition lenses or progressive lenses.

The authors note that, over time, our ability to refocus at near distances worsens as the lenses in our eyes stiffen. The condition, called presbyopia, typically kicks in at around age 45 and it affects more than a billion people. It’s a key factor as to why many of us need to start wearing reading glasses, progressive lenses or monovision glasses in middle age.

But those types of lenses aren’t ideal. For one thing, they might require you to carry out unnatural head movements, such as to crane your neck to look at side mirrors while driving, because progressive lenses might not offer effective enough peripheral focus. The researchers, who said that people who wear those lenses are also at higher risk of injury from falls, suggest their autofocals might prove a better answer.

Stanford University autofocal glasses

Their glasses take a cue from how eye lenses work; the autofocal lenses are filled with fluid that expand and contract as your field of vision shifts. As you’d expect, there are eye-tracking sensors to figure out what you’re looking at. The lenses and trackers already existed, and the researchers created software that pulls in eye-tracking data to make sure the lenses properly focus on the right thing.

A group of 56 people with presbyopia tried out the autofocals and found them to be more effective than progressive lenses for reading. They generally preferred them to progressive lenses.

That sounds great, but it’s probably going to be quite some time before you can pick up a pair from your optometrist. The study participants weren’t fans of the size and weight of the autofocal system, which looks more like a virtual reality headset than a pair of designer frames.

The researchers hope to make the technology small enough that autofocals will be comfortable to wear all day. Stanford electrical engineer Gordon Wetzstein reckons it’ll take a few years before we see autofocal glasses that are energy efficient, lightweight and, perhaps most importantly for something we have on our faces all the time, stylish. If companies can pack smart glasses tech into normal-looking frames, it certainly seems likely autofocals will be a snazzy enough option down the line.

A single pair of autofocals might also be enough to last for decades even as your prescription changes. "This technology could affect billions of people’s lives in a meaningful way that most techno-gadgets never will," Wetzstein said.

GIF: Robert Konrad

Via: Gizmodo

Source: Stanford

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

July 2, 2019 at 12:51PM

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‘Mountain Of Hell’ Glacier Bike Race Results In Huge Crash, Pandemonium

https://geekologie.com/2019/07/mountain-of-hell-glacier-bike-race-resul.php


This is a video from this year’s ‘Mountain Of Hell’ bike race in Les Deux Alpes, France that "starts with a terrifying descent down a glacier" and apparently ends for a lot of racers with bruises and broken bones, wondering what the hell they were thinking ever signing up for this race in the first place. You know sometimes you really need to dig deep and ask yourself just how important another purple participation ribbon is to you. Keep going for the video, but the crash chain-reaction begins at 0:40 and just keeps going.

Thanks to Jody, who agrees at least France has a good healthcare system.

via Geekologie – Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome https://geekologie.com/

July 2, 2019 at 11:52AM

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The Orion spacecraft flew Tuesday morning and it looked pretty spectacular

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1530555

  • At 7am ET on Tuesday morning, a Peacekeeper missile launched a boilerplate Orion spacecraft.

  • The refurbished missile only had to get Orion to an altitude of about 9.5km.

    Trevor Mahlmann

  • This is Cold War solid rocket motor technology at its finest.

    Trevor Mahlmann

  • The launch escape system is the tower at the top of Orion.

    Trevor Mahlmann

  • The rocket launched as the day brightened in Florida.

    Trevor Mahlmann

  • This triple shot captures the moment when Orion’s launch escape system fired to pull the spacecraft away from the booster.

    Trevor Mahlmann

  • The Ascent Abort-2 test vehicle is seen on the pad at Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida before Tuesday’s launch.

    NASA

It went fast. Early on Tuesday morning, a former Peacekeeper missile lofted a boilerplate Orion spacecraft to an altitude just shy of 10km before a powerful escape motor fired. Amid the smoke, the escape system pulled the NASA spacecraft rapidly away from the Peacekeeper booster. The entire test lasted 3 minutes and 13 seconds.

“Everything we’ve seen so far looks great,” said Orion program manager Mark Kirasich, about two hours after the test following a very preliminary review of data.

In many ways, this was an odd-looking test. The stubby Peacekeeper missile looked nothing like a tall, brawny rocket—such as the Space Launch System or the Delta IV Heavy—capable of launching Orion into space. After the escape system fired and Orion was released, the vehicle tumbled and plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean in what was less than a heartwarming scene.

However, it was a successful test. At the time of maximum dynamic pressure during a launch, when a rocket is still accelerating but the atmosphere is remains relatively thick, the launch abort system proved capable of pulling Orion away from its booster, reorienting the spacecraft, and then releasing it. This was the sole purpose of the test on Tuesday.

Why didn’t the agency add parachutes to ensure that Orion could make a safe and soft landing in the ocean? Because the goal was to conduct a specific test, according to Kirasich. “We simplified the test article,” he said. “We wanted to get this test done as early and as quickly as possible. It was all about the launch abort system today. By all accounts, it was magnificent.” NASA has, in fact, conducted nearly four dozen tests of Orion’s parachute system already.

Mass and schedule

In truth, the problem with Orion has never really been its technical performance—by all accounts, NASA and Lockheed Martin are building a capable, robust, safe vehicle for humans to return to deep space in the early to mid-2020s. Rather, the issue is one of mass, budget, time, and mission. In terms of mass, Orion is a very heavy vehicle with its launch escape system, about 26 tons. This requires a very large rocket to launch it even into low-Earth orbit, let alone lunar orbit.

Then there is the lack of a mission. Since NASA first solicited contracts for deep space capsule in 2005 and awarded the contract to Lockheed a year later, the space agency has spent $16 billion on Orion. It seems unlikely that the spacecraft will fulfill its intended purpose, carrying humans into deep space and back, before 2022 or 2023. If that plays out, the development process will have stretched across nearly two decades.

This is not because NASA or Lockheed Martin are bad at building spacecraft—they’re not. This is mainly because NASA has lacked a clear, sustained purpose to actually use Orion. That may be changing with the Artemis program to return humans to the Moon, but so far Congress has yet to acquiesce to the Trump Administration’s desire for more funding to accelerate a human lunar return by 2024. And so Orion tests, and waits, and tests some more.

Listing image by Trevor Mahlmann

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

July 2, 2019 at 10:32AM