Month: June 2014

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Microsoft’s “3-D Audio” Gives Virtual Objects a Voice

Headphones that make sounds seem to come from specific points in space could be the perfect counterpoint to virtual reality goggles.

Just as a new generation of virtual reality goggles for video games are about to hit the market, researchers at Microsoft have come up with what could be the perfect accompaniment—a way for ordinary headphones to create a realistic illusion of sound coming from specific locations in space.

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How Dads Influence Teens’ Happiness

The influence of fathers on their teenage children has long been overlooked. Now researchers are finding surprising ways in which dads make a difference

— Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

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Ask Anything: Will We Ever Run Out Of Potable Water?

Illustrations by Jason Schneider

“There’s a lot of hype around this issue,” says Upmanu Lall, professor of earth and environmental engineering at Columbia University and director of its Water Center. But, he says, we’re in little danger of running out of water overall. One could conceive of a scenario in which we’ve used up all the freshwater locked in ice or aquifers. Indeed, the water table has already dropped at an alarming rate in specific regions. (We’re on pace to deplete the Ogallala Aquifer, which underlies much of the Great Plains, in the coming decades, for example.) But even if that happened, we’d still have access to other forms of water. “The most common resource is rainfall, and that’s renewable,” Lall explains. “It’s nature’s way of treating water through a distilling mechanism.”

‘The most common resource is rainfall, and that’s renewable.’

In places where water has grown scarce, farmers may be forced to change their approach to watering crops. Some may switch from using groundwater to collecting rain, or another more efficient option. In the Great Plains, exploitation of the Ogallala has made further pumping much more expensive than it was. It may soon make more sense to invest in better means of irrigation. Some are even talking about piping in water from the Great Lakes. With water, it’s easy to fret over a grim future. What’s harder is innovating our way toward a brighter one. 

This article originally appeared in the June 2014 issue of Popular Science.




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VW ‘Eyes on the road’ ad brings danger of texting and driving to the movies

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VW Eyes on the Road campaign

Distracted driving continues to be a scourge to road safety around the world. In the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ran a graphic commercial in April appealing to young people about the dangers of texting and driving. In Hong Kong, Volkswagen helped with a technologically savvy way to make people understand the peril.

For the innovative ad to work, a movie theater was equipped with a location-based broadcaster that could send a mass text to everyone in the room at once. At the same time, a special short film aired before the feature.

In case you don’t see where this is going, we aren’t going to spoil the outcome. But this seems like an extremely effective way to get people’s attention about the dangers of texting and driving. The only major problem with it is that the broadcaster limits the audience to the people in one specific place. Scroll down to watch this ingenious public service announcement and the effect it has on moviegoers.

Continue reading VW ‘Eyes on the road’ ad brings danger of texting and driving to the movies

VW ‘Eyes on the road’ ad brings danger of texting and driving to the movies originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 09 Jun 2014 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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