Bulb will debut at $50; nobody said “perfection” was cheap
From Ars Technica: Feature: Gigabit Internet for $70: the unlikely success of California’s Sonic.net
SEBASTOPOL, CALIFORNIA—Two things set a one-block stretch of Florence Avenue apart from other American streets. One is the quirky metal sculptures planted in front of most homes; the other is the Internet traffic coursing through recently-strung fiber-optic cables on the block’s utility poles. They offer each house up to one gigabit per second in bandwidth, making this one of the fastest streets in America.
While some other cities can also brag about gigabit access, in this Sonoma County town it costs only $69.95 a month.
The service comes courtesy of Sonic.net, the18-year-old Internet provider based in the neighboring city of Santa Rosa. And Sonic even throws in two phone lines with unlimited long-distance calling when you sign up.
from Ars Technica
From Geeks are Sexy Technology News: Stop Motion LEGO Millennium Falcon Assembly Video
Assembly of the Lego set 10179 from Star Wars Ultimate collector series in stop motion in 3d. Created using 3ds max and V-ray. A very long work over 3 years, modelling all the pieces by myself. and rendered frame by frame.
From Gizmodo: Breakthrough Quadcopter Does Previously Impossible Acrobatics
Looking at their latest invention, Mark Cutler and Jonathan P. Howe will get an awesome job at some military aerospace company. They have created a quadrotor drone with variable-pitch, something that didn’t exist before in these kind of machines. Not they can do some crazy acrobatics. More »
from Gizmodo
From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Thermoelectric “Power Felt” Fabric Lets You Sit on Your Phone to Power It
Power Felt Wake Forest University
A team from Wake Forest University’s Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials has created a new thermoelectric fabric they call Power Felt. It’s constructed of “tiny carbon nanotubes locked up in flexible plastic fibers,” though the final product looks and feels like fabric, and creates and electrical charge from changes in temperature–like, say, touching it with your hot finger, or sitting on it with your hot butt (hot in this case referring to temperature and thus wholly inoffensive science).
Thermoelectrics isn’t a new field, but it’s mostly been hampered by expensive materials that can cost up to $1,000 per kilogram. But Corey Hewitt, a graduate student at Wake Forest and member of the Power Felt team, says the new design could drastically bring down the price. For something small, like a cellphone case, the addition of Power Felt could cost as little as a dollar extra. And there are all kinds of possible applications, from apparel to car seats.
from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now
From New Scientist – Online News: GPS jamming: a clear and present reality
Secret sensors sniffed 60 GPS jamming attempts in the UK in the last six months, says a government backed project
From Gizmodo: Ikea Could Learn Something From This Self-Assembling Rising Table
If Robert van Embricqs worked in Ikea’s design and engineering department, the company wouldn’t have to worry about creating instructional videos for assembling its furniture. All his Rising Table needs is some heavy lifting and the pull of gravity. More »
from Gizmodo