Are Airships Making A Grand Comeback?

Sir David King, who you know is a big deal because dude’s knighted (and he’s director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the University of Oxford), sees a different method of freight delivery becoming a reality in the near future: cargo blimps.

While a blimp moves significantly slower than an airplane (currently not going much faster than 75 mph), they could potentially haul more, deliver goods to a wider range of places and do it without leaving a huge carbon footprint.

Where planes rely on fuel and runways, a blimp could take advantage of alternative methods for each. Solar power could keep a blimp in the sky, for instance, and it could be designed to be its own loading dock, so it wouldn’t have to land at any specialized facility. Depending on its size, the floating crafts could also haul twice as much as your average 747 freight plane.

Just how possible is the idea? Sir King thinks it could happen within the next 10 years, and that’s not as crazy as it may sound. “There are an awful lot of people we talk to who say this is going to happen,” said King. “This is something I believe is going to happen.”

We have certainly been writing about more and more zeppelins and blimps lately, and all around the world there’s been an increased interest in the technology, including America’s own Lockheed Martin, which received a grant from the US government.

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Perfect Launch: Private Rocket Gets Perfect Liftoff

SpaceX Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral this afternoon, in a picture-perfect liftoff. The vehicle separation occurred as planned, and shortly after that, the second stage ignited as designed. Beautiful!

In its first attempt at launch earlier today, Falcon 9 remained on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral because of an engine abort with about a second before liftoff. After that happened, SpaceX said the spacecraft put itself into “safe mode.”

A few minutes later, SpaceX reported, “The pad abort involved an out-of-limit startup parameter.” About an hour later, the countdown was resumed, and the powerful two-stage rocket gracefully lifted off the launch pad. At 9 minutes,4 seconds after launch, Falcon 9 achieved Earth orbit.

Via SpaceX

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The Physics Of Space Battles

Joseph Shoer is a Ph.D. candidate in aerospace engineering, studying how modular spacecraft could be assembled, and hoping that they will be the telescopes and human exploration vehicles of the future, and not for crushing the dreams of Martian colonists.

I had a discussion recently with friends about the various depictions of space combat in science fiction movies, TV shows, and books. We have the fighter-plane engagements of Star Wars, the subdued, two-dimensional naval combat in Star Trek, the Newtonian planes of Battlestar Galactica, the staggeringly furious energy exchanges of the combat wasps in Peter Hamilton’s books, and the use of antimatter rocket engines themselves as weapons in other sci-fi. But suppose we get out there, go terraform Mars, and the Martian colonists actually revolt. Or suppose we encounter hostile aliens. How would space combat actually go?

First, let me point out something that Ender’s Game got right and something it got wrong. What it got right is the essentially three-dimensional nature of space combat, and how that would be fundamentally different from land, sea, and air combat. In principle, yes, your enemy could come at you from any direction at all. In practice, though, the Buggers are going to do no such thing. At least, not until someone invents an FTL drive, and we can actually pop our battle fleets into existence anywhere near our enemies. The marauding space fleets are going to be governed by orbit dynamics – not just of their own ships in orbit around planets and suns, but those planets’ orbits. For the same reason that we have Space Shuttle launch delays, we’ll be able to tell exactly what trajectories our enemies could take between planets: the launch window. At any given point in time, there are only so many routes from here to Mars that will leave our imperialist forces enough fuel and energy to put down the colonists’ revolt. So, it would actually make sense to build space defense platforms in certain orbits, to point high-power radar-reflection surveillance satellites at certain empty reaches of space, or even to mine parts of the void. It also means that strategy is not as hopeless when we finally get to the Bugger homeworld: the enemy ships will be concentrated into certain orbits, leaving some avenues of attack guarded and some open. (Of course, once our ships maneuver towards those unguarded orbits, they will be easily observed – and potentially countered.)

Now, Let’s Talk Technology

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A Modular Aquarium For Fish Who Like To Roam

I think that humans are probably the only animals who feel a need to have rooms in their domicile. A bear can sleep in a wide-open cave, a fox can sleep in a tiny hole, and a fish, when in captivity, sleep in a bowl.

If we lived like our pet fish, then we would all live in studio apartments that would, at best, have more useless space. Now this aquarium is something that would give any fish bragging rights. I mean, I can just see a celebrity fish boasting about this “bowl” on a fish version of Cribs.

I mean, look at the thing! It’s like hamster trails designed for fish! This is definitely one place a fish would not mind sharing with other fish. If Gil, the Willem Dafoe fish from Finding Nemo, was in this castle of a fish tank, he never would have tried to escape. This is what Oscar should be living in when he got rich in Shark Tale. Yeah, not many people make references to the latter movie.

Do you those rich people who spend a lot of money on their pets? Consider this $6500 investment a diamond-studded collar for your fish. Yes, that’s is how much this fish tank (if you can even call it that) actually costs. Why shouldn’t fish get some of the rich-doting action that is usually reserved for dogs and cats?

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Myvu Unveils Crystal EV Video Eyewear

How many of you out there use video eyewear to view your favorite movie in a compressed format? I think it is pretty useful especially when you’re on a plane and would just want to shut the world out while being tricked into thinking that you’re sitting in your very own flying theater (or on the ground if you happen to take a long road trip through rail and asphalt). Not only that, you can always watch naughty videos without having other people catching you doing it. The downside would be being unable to see what’s going on around you, but that’s no biggie when you’re on a long haul flight, right? Myvu Corporation has long released a line a video eyewear that have improved over the years, and their latest addition to an ever growing family would be the Crystal EV which debuted at InMotion Entertainment airport stores nationwide.

The Crystal EV, being the latest release from Myvu, would naturally come with upgraded technology to make it stand above the shoulders of its predecessors. Improvements over the original Myvu Crystal include the addition of Myvu’s SolidOptix technology, bringing a 64? equivalent screen size right in front of your eyes, which is a vast 30% increase over the original Crystal. In addition, you don’t have to worry about incompatibility problems concerning Apple products and the Crystal EV since Myvu is the only video eyewear company to achieve Apple iPhone Certification and Nokia Forum status.

There is no word on just how much the Myvu Crystal EV will cost, but it sure sounds cool enough to wear for long hours on end without suffering from pains or aches. What you see above is a past Myvu product, and we are pretty sure that Myvu will continue to retain the sleek lines and design that made them so attractive in the first place.

Press Release

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Build Your Own paintball Turret

Looking for a fun weekend project, but aren’t interested in building a birdhouse or a spice rack? Well, I’ve got something for you that’s a little more, well, adventurous. Like building a paintball turret that will strike fear into the hearts of any and all neighborhood kids that see it.

Inventgeek is now offering up a set of full plans and instructions for building your very own paintball turret free of charge. All you’ll need are the materials. And once you have the project complete, not only will you have the feeling of satisfaction that comes from finishing a project, but you’ll have the feeling of power that comes with having a functioning turret in your driveway. Win-win!

Via Inventgeek

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LG Reveals HDTVs With ‘Vudu’ Service Built-In

LG is an old hand when it comes to flat screen TVs with High Definition capability, and it is nice to see them introduce yet another improvement to their new line up of HDTVs in order to go one up against other competing brands. This time round, the Korean consumer electronics giant has rolled out broadband-capable HDTVs that are able to access the instant high-definition (HD) movie service from VUDU Inc. The HDTVs that fall under this purview will include LG’s LH50 1080p LCD series and PS80 Plasma 1080p series, where they will be come with “NetCast Entertainment Access” from next month onwards. This unique partnership between both companies will see consumer obtain access to thousands of HD movies at the touch of a button without having to go through the usual motion of flipping through a catalog at a video store as of yore.

The VUDU service enables consumers to instantly buy or rent from an extensive library of movies and TV titles. This industry-leading catalog will comprise of over 2,000 high-definition movies, and best of all is, you don’t have to worry about forking out any more monthly fees. In addition, there is no need to purchase, install, or connect any additional hardware for you to get started. Consumers can easily enjoy movies in VUDU’s unique HDX format, with Full HD 1080p resolution, plus Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround sound to tickle their visual audio senses.

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United States Air Force Thunderbirds Upgrade To The Lockheed Martin F-16 C/D

The U.S. Air Force flight demonstration squadron, otherwise known as the Thunderbirds, recently upgraded their aircraft to the latest Lockheed Martin F-16 C/D (Block 52) Fighting Falcons for their 2009 season of mind-bending flight demos. Besides the enhanced avionics on board, inside each fighter jet lurks the awesome power of the latest Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 engine, spinning up 29,160 lb of thrust, giving each of the six aircraft an extra 3,600 pounds’ worth of oomph to knock our socks off.

We saw these crazy flyboys slam-dunking their harrowing routine yesterday in Milwaukee, and we’re here to tell you, those new engines kick serious ass. Now the F-16 C/Ds can take off and immediately rocket straight up, forming their signature diamond formation as they execute the Diamond Loop. In the most startling part of the demonstration, one of the jets flew close to us (it felt like a few feet overhead) with the afterburner cranked up to the maximum. It was the loudest roar we’ve ever heard from an aircraft.

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Vonage Will Release Apps For Smartphones

A Semi-Automatic Taser - High Tech

Thugs the world over are learning to outwit the Taser. As long as there’s more than one of you, you’re scot-free! The single-shot nature of the air Taser has always been frustrating to victims, too: once you zap a fool, you’re done! No “and here’s one for your old man” to be had there.

But fear not, Taser hears your cries (and the cries of those you’ve tased), for they now have created a three-shot Taser that allows for multiple attacker takedown. Or just three times the punishment for a single attacker. I see no way in which this could be a problem for anybody.

In the video above, three willing participants get tased (Tased?) in the back, and the looks on their faces are priceless. The Taser X3, for so the device is called, packs enough juice to incapacitate three young women apparently, but also adjusts the voltage so no real harm is done. I don’t think anybody here believes that, but at least they’re acknowledging that harm is a distant possibility.

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