Avengers assemble, set Hulk to smash

Some new clips of the much anticipated Avengers movie.

Hitting theatres May 4th.

A tour of Chernobyl`s eerily beautiful graffiti

This is what it would really be like wearing Google`s new glasses

We all know those annoying pop ups will be part of the deal.

Take a ride through Titan`s canyon country

This fly through was created using the NASA Cassini probe`s surface mapping radar to infer topography and render a 3D map of the Sikun Labyrinth region which has strong similarities to regions of China, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the United States.

Ronnie James Dio battles Star Trek`s Borg years before Picard

In his 1984 music video the late great Ronnie James Dio engages one of Star Trek`s infamous enemies, known as the borg. Money shot 3:26, sadly it looks like he too gets assimilated. Maybe the borg just don`t like metal.

Ouch

Watch a Pac Man fan film

A Polymorphic Autonomous Compound Manipulator?, and a super-secret government project? 

Watch Robots cover Come Together

Robots playing music is nothing new. But Drexel University's HUBO robots add a twist, these robots play music completely autonomously by following an actual music score. Love the PVC instruments too.

I`m guessing the back stage party would be a bit boring.

Watch Season 2 of Falling Skies

Watch the first 3 minutes of Falling Skies: season 2

Season 2 of Falling Skies will be 2 hours long and premieres June 17th at TNT.

Google unveils it`s Project Glass concept

Google today unveiled a concept video for a pair of augmented reality glasses it calls Project Glass. In this short we see the user check mail, replay to messaging using his voice, get an alternate route to a destination, find a friend`s location, issue a command to take a photo and some other really neat things....

I like the concept, but to me honest there`s something nice about not being connected at all times.

Flying Car makes successful first flight

Who hasn`t dreamed of being able to hop into a personal aircraft and take flight, whether to avoid the stresses of traffic or just to shorten a trip. The PAL-V has just completed it`s first flight successfully in the Netherlands. The craft is pushed through the air using a small propeller mounted in the rear powered by familiar gasoline, with diesel and bio-diesel variants in the works. PAL-V flies via rotating blades similar to a helicopter but unpowered, this makes emergency landing much more controllable and survivable in the event of a power failure. It has an estimated flight range of between 220 miles and 315 miles and a driving range of 750 miles with a purported top speed of 110 mph on both land and air. Obtaining a license takes anywhere between 20 and 30 hours of training, no word on pricing yet.

Samuli Torssonen the C64 slinging special effects man behind Iron Sky

I`m sold at C64, ah the memories.....

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Ridley Scott Prometheus Q&A

A pretty good sit down with the man himself, obviously spoiler free......

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Can`t watch this enough, please don`t disappoint us Ridley.

Thanks Microsoft for killing Star Wars

Microsoft released Star Wars Kinect for its Xbox console that lets gamers take part in lightsaber battles and at some point allows you to dance with Leah and Han, why? I don`t know.

Poor Han, I can`t bare looking into his cold dead eyes, he looked happier in carbonite.

Poor Leah, she looks like she would rather have been on Alderaan on that fateful day.

You owe me exactly one childhood.

Surviving the "big one"

"If humans one day become extinct from a catastrophic collision, we would be the laughing stock of aliens in the galaxy" So says Neil DeGrasse Tyson and I tend to agree.

"Every few decades, on average, house-sized impactors collide with Earth. Typically they explode in the atmosphere, leaving no trace of a crater. Once in about a hundred million years, though, Earth is visited by an impactor capable of annihilating all life-forms bigger than a suitcase."
Saving the planet requires a major effort. We have to catalogue and categorize every object whose trajectory intersects Earth’s orbit then make the necessary calculations in order to predict potential catastrophic collisions hundreds or thousands of orbits into the future. Meanwhile, space missions would have to determine in great detail the structure and chemical composition of these killer rocks.


There are those that would like to blow potentially hazardous rocks out of the sky with nuclear weapons. Others suggest that deploying a neutron bomb to induce a recoil and alter the asteroid’s orbit is the better solution. A more practical approach would be to nudge it into a different orbit with constant low thrust rocket motors such as ion propulsion or by use of a solar sail powered completely by the pressure of the solar wind.

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Total Recall theatrical trailer

For you viewing pleasure, In theatres Aug 3 2012

IBM to build gigantor computer for astronomy

IBM announced it has won a $42 million contract to work with the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) to research the exascale computer systems that are needed for their radio telescope, known as Square Kilometer Array (SKA). The project, when completed in 2024, is perhaps one of the biggest scientific and computing efforts of all time.
IBM plans to implement computing power that will read, store, and analyze one exabyte of raw data per day. The SKA is to be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. It is estimated that the processing power required to operate the telescope will be the equivalent to several millions of today’s fastest computers. The telescope will be used to explore evolving galaxies, dark matter, and data from the creation of the universe.

ASTRON and IBM will investigate 3D stacked chips for more energy-efficient computing. They will also look at advanced optical technologies and nanophotonics to optimize data transfers.
The SKA will use a technology for low-frequency array (LOFAR), which serves as a spotter scope for the larger array. The SKA itself will have millions of antennae to collect radio signals, with the collection area equivalent to a square kilometer. The telescope will be 50 times more sensitive at picking up radio waves than earlier devices. It will also be 10,000 times faster than previous instruments. The site for the SKA is expected to be selected this later year. Australia/New Zealand and South Africa taking top spots, since radio pollution is not a great concern in those regions.

Definitely not your average gaming rig.

Celestial GPS

When mankind ventures out of the solar system we will need a reliable method of navigating the gulf between the stars. Recently scientists have proposed using pulsars as an interstellar GPS system. The proposed system would use X-rays from pulsars to triangulate a position in space, this would hypothetically work anywhere in the universe to within a few miles.

Now how `bout that warp drive?

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Getting to the moon on fumes

It looks like EPFL laboratories are prototyping an innovative ion engine which they claim can reach the moon using a tenth of a litre of fuel. The aptly named Micro Thrust engine weighs in at around a few hundred grams and is tailored to payloads that weigh 1-100kg. Though not suitable for manned flight this just may usher in an era of economical space exploration.

No word yet as to how much this power system costs. It would be nice to see the private and educational sector contribute to space exploration.

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Space X readies Dragon for ISS mission

Space X is currently readying it`s Dragon capsule for a cargo mission to the ISS next month. The craft`s manifest includes 1000 pounds of supplies such as water, food and clothing for the astronauts aboard the space station. Now that the space shuttle has been retired, SpaceX wants in on the potentially lucrative multibillion-dollar job of ferrying astronauts and cargo to the ISS. In order to do so, SpaceX needs to make sure its capsule, which is built to fit up to a crew of seven is safe for manned spaceflight.

This looks like the shape of things to come. As NASA funding shrinks private enterprise takes up the reigns.

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