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From Engadget: BASF, Philips team up to create transparent OLED car roof

If you’re the sort who wished your car had a transparent roof when the rain falls down but want some shielding when the sun’s up (or, you know, vice versa) then BASF have good news for you. It’s showing off the transparent OLED technology it developed with Philips that behaves like glass when inactive, turning opaque when activated. We’re already familiar with the technology here, because it’s the same kit that the chemicals giant showed off on its custom Smart Forvision it produced with Daimler back in September. As before, it’s also been able to pair them up with transparent solar cells, for environmentally friendly sky watching: just remember that people will be able to see you pick your nose from all angles now, okay?

Continue reading BASF, Philips team up to create transparent OLED car roof

 

from Engadget

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From Engadget: Russia in talks for Moon base timeshare with European Space Agency, NASA

Whether or not you believe we actually put a man on the moon, there’s about to be a whole gaggle of’em bouncing about the place and mucking things up in the name of Science. Taking that whole “one giant leap for mankind” motto a few baby steps further, is an in-development initiative that would see our former, space race frenemy Russia teaming up with the ESA and NASA to develop a Moon base. Citing recently discovered reservoirs of water located near the polar caps, Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin believes the time is ripe to continue exploration of Earth’s satellite via the installation of a settlement on its surface or an orbiting station. As with all things outer space, expect this cooperative project to take some time coming to fruition. After all, there are billions of dollars, not to mention a bevy of international egos on the line here.

Continue reading Russia in talks for Moon base timeshare with European Space Agency, NASA

 

from Engadget

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From Ars Technica: Hands on: building an HTML5 photo booth with Chrome’s new webcam API


Experimental support for WebRTC has landed in the Chrome developer channel. The feature is available for testing when users launch the browser with the --enable-media-stream flag. We did some hands-on testing and used some of the new JavaScript APIs to make an HTML5 photo booth.

WebRTC is a proposed set of Web standards for real-time communication. It is intended to eventually enable native standards-based audio and video conferencing in Web applications. It is based on technology that Google obtained in its 2010 acquisition of Global IP Solutions and subsequently released under a permissive open source software license.

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from Ars Technica

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From NPR News: Stephen Colbert Wants You To Know: That’s Definitely Not His SuperPAC

As funny as Colbert is, his parody and punts reveal a LOT of truth on how corrupt politicians can be…  Read on… and watch the clips…

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Stephen Colbert had a superPAC. Jon Stewart has it now. But they’re totally not coordinating with each other — or so they explain when parodying campaign finance laws as part of Colbert’s latest operation.

from NPR News

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From Technology Review RSS Feeds: Fracking Quakes Shake the Shale Gas Industry

Well shutdowns prompted by fracking-induced seismicity may inspire technology tweaks.

Geophysicists are increasingly certain that expanding production of shale gas is responsible for a spate of minor earthquakes that have upset some communities and prompted authorities in Arkansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, and the U.K. to shut down some natural-gas operations. The question now, say the experts, is whether the underground operations causing the trouble should be scaled back or more closely monitored to minimize future quakes—and whether the relatively small quakes may yet have the potential trigger truly destructive ones.


from Technology Review RSS Feeds

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From Gizmodo: Learn Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Coffee and Coffee Gear

You might’ve noticed that the other Mat and I talk a lot about coffee and coffee gear, and occasionally we say some things that sound crazy, like the French Press is the most brutal “French” invention since the guillotine, or that we’d sooner drink water from a muddy elephant footprint pressed into a swamp fed by nightsoil runoff than anything that comes out of a Keurig. We’re not trying to be jerks, really. Honest. Mostly. More »


from Gizmodo