03.03.11

Video: Dutch Marine's Helmetcam Delivers Thrilling First-Person-Shooter View of Raid on Pirate-Seized Ship

Video gamers and warfighters alike will appreciate this stunning first-person-shooter view of a Dutch marine boarding team taking back a German merchant ship from Somali pirates. It's not hard to imagine many more soldiers of the future equipped with cameras so that commanders can have multiple
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James Cameron Sending 3-D Cameras to Mars with Next NASA Rover

James Cameron's love of science and high-tech cameras has previously shone through with his undersea documentaries -- not to mention Titanic or even Avatar. Now the film director is playing "public engagement co-investigator" on NASA's upcoming
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Europe's Living Earth Simulator Could Forecast the Future

A world rife with burst economic bubbles and the threat of global pandemics might look more manageable through the prism of a giant SimEarth-style model that puts even Google Earth's overviews to shame. The proposed "Living Earth Simulator" would aim to model both Earth and the details
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High-Speed Camera Enables Touchless Gesture Control of Smartphones

Touchscreens can start polishing their resumes now, because a touchless future is drawing closer for the next generation of smartphones. The ever-industrious Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory in Tokyo has enabled mobile devices to touchlessly recognize movements and gestures from user's fingers, according
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Bipedal Japanese Robot Will Walk on the Moon by 2015

Japan's robot love is set to go out of this world with a plan to put a bipedal robot on the moon by 2015. Yet the bipedal robot's main mission seems curiously lacking in ambition - it's tasked only with planting the Japanese flag on the lunar surface, according to CrunchGear. The
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Congratulations, Spirit! Rover Is Now the Longest-Running Mission to the Red Planet, If It Still Lives

A stuck robotic rover may have overtaken NASA's Viking probe as the longest-surviving mission on Mars -- so long as it's still alive. But its robotic twin Opportunity could also still grab the record next month if the Spirit rover has slipped into its final winter slumber,
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Water Ice and Organic Material Found for First Time on Asteroid

A thin film of water ice and organic materials coats the space rock named 24 Themis, according to a study released today. That discovery marks the first-ever direct detection of water ice on an asteroid, and adds evidence to theories about how asteroids could have brought
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Hunt for Extraterrestrial Life Guides Next Wave of Space Exploration Missions

NASA's search for extraterrestrial life could result in missions such as a balloon or boat-like capsule on Titan, or even a complex three-part Mars mission to return a Martian sample to Earth. Until then, scientists have focused attention on both Earth and Mars regions which
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Braille for Faces: Using a Camera and Tactile Display, System Lets Blind "See" Others' Emotions

It's one thing to tell someone how you feel, but seeing is believing. So their inability to see the face and body language of other people can potentially leave visually impaired people
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Micro-Supercapacitors Could Boost Lifetime of Portable Devices

Micro-supercapacitors could enable future geeks to go longer without recharging their smartphones or computers. Researchers have developed a way to build the energy-storing supercapacitors by using microfabrication methods similar to those which create microchips for electronic
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New Electric Skin Could Bring the Human Touch to Robots, Artificial Limbs

Human skin is primed for touch - even minuscule pressure from a fly is enough to make you flinch. This ability does not yet extend to artificial limbs, however, and robots are a long way from having sensitive tactile abilities. Now two California research teams have announced
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Samsung's New Notebooks

Samsung has announced three new models to add to its lineup of notebooks - the QX series, the RF series and the SF series. We haven't had a chance to test any of these units yet, but the press release offers the following information: QX Series: This Core i5-driven notebook is made for professionals
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Munich Deploys Custom Bacteria at Oktoberfest to Devour Ubiquitous Stink of Stale Beer

Bavarian beer purveyors concerned about a smelly Oktoberfest are hoping bacteria can make the experience more enjoyable. They plan to pour a solution of live bacteria on the
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New this week: Win a Zeppelin, plus meet our new blogger

Meet Tesla Patent Pending. PopSci.com.au has unleashed a new opinion writer over at our blog. He's outspoken, he's informed, and he can usually be found hiding in dark rooms with a pile of new gadgets around him. Boys and girls, please
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MIT's Opera of the Future Features Singing Walls and Dancing Robots

A new opera produced by the lab behind Guitar Hero technology includes robotic singers, interactive instruments and a focus on technology that could change the way we experience live performances.
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General Electric Gives Gearless Wind Turbines a Big Boost

Conventional wind turbines have an Achilles
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File-Sharing Group Mulls a Floating Pirate Ship of Servers in the Sky

Pirate Parties International, the central group that unites all of the disparate political Pirate Parties in other countries, recently had a meeting wherein a particularly bonkers proposal was discussed. The problem: Where can servers that store data frequently seen as unsavory
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Mobile Indoor Positioning is Coming, But Incompatible Standards Stand in the Way

Our GPS-wielding smartphones have made it somewhat difficult to get lost, say, on the way to the museum. But if you're waiting for the day your phone will also help you navigate to a specific painting once you're inside, you might be waiting
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WIN 1 of 3 Pioneer NAC-3 Digital Speaker Systems.

 For your chance to WIN 1 of 3 Pioneer NAC-3 Digital Speaker Systems for Ipods valued at $699 each. Email us at [email protected] with the subject line ‘The Buzz Oct Comp’ and in 25 words or less, tell us “How many songs do you have stored on
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Singapore's SkyPark infinity pool lets you swim to the edge of the world

You've got to admire an architect who can take an ordinary hotel pool and turn it into a genuinely terrifying attraction. The newly built Sands SkyPark in Singapore offers guests a place to cool off on the 55th floor, nearly 200
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Mainstream science fiction needs to step it up a notch so humanity can advance

One of my most favourite pastimes is losing myself in an engaging film. Although I enjoy a mindless Hollywood blockbuster as much as the next 18-35 year old male target demographic member, it’s the films that drag me away to a whole other world that stick with me. And that’s because my
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Über panopticism

In 1975, French philosopher Michel Foucault coined the term ‘panopticism’ in his book, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. The term itself is derived from the panopticon, which is a rather ingenious prison design. The panopticon is circular, with prisoners housed on the outer
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iPhone 4: if it’s broke, I’ll still buy it

It wasn’t so long ago that I was querying the logic behind the surge of interest in the newly released iPad. Since then, my desire to purchase Apple’s latest iGadget hasn’t increased in the
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The blind leading those who drive but don’t see

While scouring the PopSci front page for inspiration I came across this story about the impending test-drive of a modified Ford Escape for blind drivers. While
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Your life expectancy: would you like to know more?

Today I’m going to explore the ins and outs of a question that I’m sure many of us have encountered in some form or another, be it through TV shows, movies or morbidly curious minds. The question is simple: if you could know when you were going to die, would you want to know? Personally,
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The Twitter epidemic

As far as self-explanatory blog titles go, this one certainly takes the cake in terms of removing the mystery of my point of view. For those who wish the point hammered home, I’m not a fan of Twitter. For me, Twitter is the bumper sticker of the online realm: a rather hit-or-miss attempt
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The e-book is dead, long live the e-book

It wasn’t so long ago that there was rather serious talk of the end of an era: we were going to see the decline of paperback and hardcover books, and enjoy the rise of the e-book. The only problem was that it didn’t play out like that. E-books arrived in a big way, with a multitude of onscreen
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Form fits into function: from geek to ‘gique’

The term ‘geek’ is in dire need of an upgrade. What used to be a word that described a stereotypical pasty, overweight and agoraphobic middle-aged man no longer refers to the same thing. Nowadays, pastimes and interests that relate to typical geek culture—love of movies, TV show obsession
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Seasons in review: winter bites

As I’m sure many of you are more than well aware, parts of Australia are currently suffering through some of the coldest days we’ve had in years (coldest day since 1949 here in Sydney town). While this can certainly prove difficult to motivate oneself to do much of anything during the day
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Kids are getting smarter, faster

Not so long ago I received an email whose intent was to garner some sort of appreciation for my parent’s generation. It contained a list of various activities that we ‘kids these days’ don’t have an appreciation for: having to post letters by way of snail mail, playing outside due to
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