Rio de Janeiro: Bar Codes on Sidewalks Give Tourist Info

Rio de Janeiro is mixing technology with tradition to provide tourists information about the city by embedding bar codes into the black and white mosaic sidewalks that are a symbol of the city.

The city installed its first two-dimensional bar codes, or QR codes, as they're known, at Arpoador, the massive boulder that separates Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. The image was built into the sidewalk with the same black and white stones that decorate sidewalks around town with mosaics of waves, fish and abstract images.

With an accompanying smartphone application, onlookers were able to take snapshots of the mosaic QR codes with their phones or tablets before being directed to a website that disbursed information in Brazil's native Portuguese, and also in Spanish and English. A map of the area was also included.

They learned, for example, that Arpoador gets big waves, making it a hot spot for surfing and giving the 500-meter beach nearby the name of "Praia do Diabo," or Devil's Beach. They could also find out that the rock is called Arpoador because fishermen once harpooned whales off the shore.

Each stone code reportedly takes about seven days to construct due to the level of precision necessary to make it scan, though some future iterations will be constructed out of different recycled materials. The next four, expected by March, will pop up at Redra do Leme, Sao Conrado Beach, Mirante do Leblon and Pepe Beach in Barra da Tijuca.


The Department of Conservation said it plans to implement the co-called QRIO project at 30 locations across the city by the year’s end and 50 locations by July 2014 when Rio hosts the FIFA World Cup.

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App for a perfect Halloween Costume

If you are not especially imaginative, or do not have time to properly prepare yourself for a masquerade costume, there are applications that will help you to prepare for the following Halloween.

"Digital Dudz" is a conceptual project of NASA engineer Robert Brand, who became famous for his incredible costume that was created for last year's Halloween. Unfortunately, it cost about 920 euros - far from affordable. 

However, they do something for people with shallow pockets for this year's costume: all you need is a T-shirt, smartphone, and "Digital Dudz" applications. The preparation of the costume takes about four minutes. 

Just follow the instructions on the video below:

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American robot that can run faster than Usain Bolt

The latest version of the Pentagon's robot Cheetah was able to run faster than a man, and not any man - faster than athletes Bolt Useini!
Cheetah Robot is a fast-running quadruped developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA.

During a recent test enhanced prototype Cheetah achieved a speed of 45.54 kilometers per hour (28.3 mph) without losing stability. The fastest man in the world, Usein Bolt, reached a top speed of 44.71 kilometers per hour (27.8 mph) 2009th when setting the world record.

The latest prototype is still powered from an external source using overhead cables, but Boston Dynamics, the company that the Pentagon is working on the development of advanced robots, believes the field test version of the robot in early 2013. year.

"The fact that we have achieved 45 km/h (28 mph) on the treadmill was a challenge and a great achievement, for which we congratulate our team of robotics," said Dr Alfred Rizzi, technical project leader Cheetah.

"Our goal is to create robots that can move freely in the open field and running quickly. Exactly the right version of the open ground we call Wildcat, which should be ready for testing early next year, said Rizzi.

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Scientists are getting closer to the solution of the mystery of invisibility

Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas is one step closer to creating an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter in a movie, using carbon nanotubes (carbon nanotubes - CNT).

CNT has unique properties, such as air density and the strength of steel. They were the subject of constant study and placed into operation in numerous applications. His exceptional ability to conduct heat and transmit it to the surrounding area makes it an ideal material to be used for so-called "Mirage effect", which you can see in the deserts.

Block of lined highly transparent carbon nanotube are heated to high temperatures, with electrical stimulation. They then have the ability to transfer that heat to its surroundings, causing sharp temperature gradation.

Like a mirage, the sudden change in temperature makes light rays to bend around an object by hiding what is behind devices, making it invisible.

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Unsuccessful test of hypersonic jet plane

U.S. military says that U.S. unmanned experimental spacecraft failed to achieve the planned rate six times greater than the speed of sound.
Hypersonic jet plane X-51 WaveRider was supposed to reach speeds of six Mach, or 5800 km / h when it was launched bomber B-52 off the coast of southern California. 

U.S. Air Force reported that due to errors in controlling the direction of X-51 WaveRider is lost in the Pacific.
"It is unfortunate that the problem with this subsystem caused the end before we could turn on the jet engine," said Charlie Brink of the research laboratories of the U.S. Air Force.
X-51 WaveRider successfully separated from the B-52 and launched the rocket engine after which it was supposed to be activated by a jet engine in order to reach a speed of six Mach. A control of a jet was lost 15 seconds later.

The U.S. Department of Defense tries supersonic technology to make missiles that could to arrive at any point on Earth in a few minutes.
U.S. Air Force was left with only one jet, X-51 WaveRider, but not decided whether it will be the flight test.

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Fukushima butterflies show signs of mutation

Exposure to the radioactive material that leaked from the damaged Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima caused mutations among butterflies in Japan.

Scientists have noticed increasing number of mutations of legs, antennaes and wings of a butterflys, which were collected after the accident in Fukushima in March 2011. They argue that the relationship between mutations and radioactive materials is proved with laboratory experiments.

Two months after the accident in the Fukushima team of Japanese researchers has collected 144 adult butterflies of the species Zizeeria maha, within ten locations in Japan, including the area of ​​Fukushima. At the time when the accident occurred, the butterflies were in the form of larvae. In comparison of mutations in the butterflies from other locations was found that in regions with high levels of radiation insects have much smaller wings and improperly developed eyes.

From left to right, dented eyes, deformed left eye, deformed right palpus, and deformed wing shape.

"It has been believed that insects are very resistant to radiation. In that sense, our results were unexpected," said lead researcher Joji Otaki from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa. Professor Otaki and his associates continued to grow butterfly trapped in the laboratory which is 1750 kilometers away from Fukushima, where the radiation is almost not felt. They found that mutations in the next generation even stronger, as they become embedded in the genes of parents who used the contaminated feed.

Scientists have used this kind of butterflies as indicator of the environment, as previously known that these insects are very sensitive to changes in the nature.

"This study is important and overwhelming in its implications for both the human and biological communities living in Fukushima. These observations of mutations and morphological abnormalities can only be explained as having resulted from exposure to radioactive contaminants," explained University of South Carolina biologist Tim Mousseau, who studies the impacts of radiation on animals and plants in Chernobyl and Fukushima, but was not involved in this research. 

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The world's most expensive USB

Swiss company "Shawish" presented another luxurious and expensive creation, the world's most expensive USB flash drive that is part of the ultra luxury collection ''Magic Mushroom collection."

This is an incredible detail for those who care where their data is stored and a reminder that high technology and luxury make it an excellent duo. Sparkling jewels across the USB weighs a total of 9.18 of cards, while Ruby is 11.34 cards weight, and the sapphire 11.34 cards. 

 

The price of this exclusive product depends on the type of stone and materials, and its capacity is 32 GB.
''Magic Mushroom USB key'' made ​​of white gold, emeralds and white diamonds is 36,900 U.S. $, of yellow gold diamond and ruby ​​price is 24 400 U.S. $ and usb plated pink sapphires and white diamonds worth 16 500 U.S. $.

 

 

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Outfit made ​​from wine

Have you ever thought that a dress could be made from wine? Think again!

Scientists from Western Australia have added bacteria in red wine to create a cotton-like substance from which they can make shirts, dresses, swimwear... Other alcohol can be used in place of red wine, including beer.

For getting this fabric is used a kind of non-pathogenic bacteria (acetobacter), which are added to wine to convert it into vinegar and a cream that floats on the surface. This layer is then harvested and dried on an inflatable doll to get the desired shape. When the mannequin is deflated the clothing remains. However, when the ensemble dries the fibres become like tissue paper, tearing easily and needs to be kept damp when worn.

The Bioalloy team are now hoping to partner up with other experts to find a way to strengthen the material, which they have named 'Micro be'. 

Lead researcher Gary Cass, collaborated with contemporary artist Donna Franklin to deisgn the womenswear range and believes fermented fashion could one day become mainstream.

With a little imagination, will and effort, it is expected that this newly developed material used in other disciplines such as medicine, dentistry or architecture, not only in fashion.

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Swiss newspaper prints its entire front page in binary to celebrate going fully digital

Last Friday's (June 8) cover of Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung consisted primarily of zeros and ones to mark the fact that the publication is going fully digital.

Save for the date, the publishing number, price, the newspaper’s website link and an Omega watch advert, the front page is awash with zeroes and ones.

The titles, stories and captions have all been translated into binary, with only the smaller details such as the edition number and price remaining in their original and more readable form.

Can you decode it?

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9,000-Year-Old Mask from the Neolithic area

A 9,000-year-old mask is set to be auctioned off at Christie’s June 8. The 9,000-year-old limestone mask will be the oldest art piece to ever grace the famed auction house, reports Yahoo.

It’s estimated that the 9,000-year-old mask could fetch upwards of $600,000. The mask is Neolithic and is meant to represent a human skull and resembles a modern-day hockey mask.

The 9,000-year-old limestone mask found in the Judean dessert, estimated to be from around the 7th millenium B.C., is about 9 inches long and resembles a human skull, according to the listing on the website of auction house Christie's.

Molly Morse Limmer, head of Christie’s Antiquities department in New York, believes that the mask was one of the first attempts to connect with the spiritual world.

This sort of mask is particularly rare. Although others were thought to have existed at some point in time, very few remain intact. Molly Morse Limmer, head of Christie’s Antiquities department in New York, says that the Judean desert’s dry climate is what helped preserve the item for so many years. However, nobody seems to know what purpose the mask served upon its creation.

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First flying car is designed

This video footage shows enthusiastic couple who enters the craft - which looks exactly as we imagine it will look like the popular "bug" 2050th year, with transparent door - to ride and then showed how we could travel in the future.

Volkswagen's car of the future

"Hover car" hovering at a height of only 30-60 cm and move the electromagnetic network of roads.
Its great advantage is the ability to maneuver as easily turn into place. Inside the vehicle a robust security guarantee sensors that detect obstacles and a computer that automatically reduces the speed in the event of a collision.

See the video:

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Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived?

 

Matthew Inman, known as Oatmeal felt the need to stand in defense of the scientists, and tries to reason with people that Thomas Edison was not the creator of the AC, but that is a plain loser. He stood bravely in defense of Nikola Tesla by placing the image where on the humorous and touching way he talk about this genius, and twitt about it!

...If you want to know the whole story just click here!

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MIT Students Play Tetris on a Building

Remember way back when Tetris was first released? We had to play on small TVs. Eventually we were able to play on larger HDTVs, but it turned out that a 60″ flat screen still isn’t big enough for some people.

Last Friday, a group of MIT students performed a feat that isn’t exactly unique, but generally impressive when coherently completed: They turned the outside of a building 54 on campus (also called The “Green Building“) into a large game of Tetris.

 

They even used a console with controls to be able to move, rotate, and drop all of the familiar blocks, but there was a unique twist as the player progressed through the levels. When the player hits the second level, the blocks would become more pale in color, making it more difficult to to see, and during the third level, the colors on the screen-building shifted, making it even more difficult to keep track of the board. Apparently, the students used a joystick mounted on a podium at ground level to control the game, which mimicked the original’s title scroll and its classic “game over” animation.

Designed by I.M. Pei, the concrete structure is the tallest building in Cambridge, and its modular frame of windows proved the ideal vehicle for the task.

You can watch the video below to see how the night played out.

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DARPA releases cause of hypersonic glider anomaly

An unmanned hypersonic glider likely aborted its 13,000 mph flight over the Pacific Ocean last summer because unexpectedly large sections of its skin peeled off, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said Friday.

The Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., atop a rocket and released on Aug. 11, 2011, was part of research aimed at developing super-fast global strike capability for the Department of Defense.

The vehicle demonstrated stable aerodynamically controlled flight at speeds up to 20 times the speed of sound, or Mach 20, for three minutes before a series of upsets caused its autonomous flight safety system to bring it down in the ocean, DARPA said in a statement.

A gradual wearing away of the vehicle's skin was expected because of extremely high temperatures, but an independent engineering review board concluded that the most probable cause was "unexpected aeroshell degradation, creating multiple upsets of increasing severity that ultimately activated the Flight Safety System," the statement said.

Initial shockwaves created by the gaps in the skin were more than 100 times what the vehicle was designed to withstand, but it was still able to recover and return to controlled flight, said Kaigham J. Gabriel, DARPA's acting director.

Eventually the upsets grew beyond its ability to recover.

The 2011 flight was the second time an HTV-2 was launched. The first flight, in April 2010, also ended prematurely.

Data from that flight was used to correct aerodynamic design models for the second test, resulting in controlled flight, and now data from the latest flight will be used to adjust assumptions about thermal modeling, Air Force Maj. Chris Schulz, the DARPA program manager, said in the statement.

"The result of these findings is a profound advancement in understanding the areas we need to focus on to advance aerothermal structures for future hypersonic vehicles. Only actual flight data could have revealed this to us," he said.

Most specific details of the program are secret. DARPA has released artist renderings showing a craft that looks something like the tip of a spear. After the 2011 flight the agency released handheld video, taken aboard a monitoring ship, that showed a dot streaking across the sky.

The HTV-2 would have splashed down in the ocean regardless of the anomaly. The vehicles are intended to be used once and are not recovered.

©2012 The Associated Press, JOHN ANTCZAK. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Animals Inside Out Exhibition

The exhibit is currently touring large zoological gardens, museums of natural history, and popular science centers around the world.

Naked animals may not cause even a blush, but a look under the covers of our four-legged friends (and finned ones) is a revelation. London's Natural History Museum presents a new exhibition of preserved animals from the team behind the plastinated Body Worlds shows. With more than 100 exhibits – including a giant 56-year-old elephant, a giraffe balanced on one hoof, a blood-red shark and a hairless gorilla – it is the most recent creation of the 21st-century Frankenstein, Gunther von Hagens.

While zoos present animals in environments that resemble their natural habitat, Animals Inside Out give onlookers a peek inside, "into a 3rd dimension of experience."

He treats the animals with a process called plastination which removes all the blood from the muscles, veins and arteries and replaces them with a latex material. He suffered through a lot of controversy in the past when some people had suggested that Chinese prison inmates had been the source of his bodies.

With a body so heavy that it would collapse under its own weight, Von Hagens came up with the idea of creating an internal scaffolding for the creature – a series of blood red steel pipes designed to precisely represent its vascular system. This is a new method that preserves only the blood vessels, while removing all other tissue. You’ll be startled at the number and density of blood vessels in an ostrich or a shark.

After embalming stops the bodies' decay, body tissues that won't be on display are removed, and the specimen is placed in an acetone bath to remove water and fat. Then, the animal is immersed in a liquid plastic and placed in a vacuum chamber, which forces out the acetone and causes the plastic to replace it. The specimen is then put into position and then hardened with gas, heat or light.

The lack of human specimens does make it feel slightly less macabre than previous von Hagens shows, but we still wouldn’t recommend this display to the squeamish. It’s unsettling to see, under their skins, that these animals are remarkably similar to us, with the same organs and muscle groups in slightly different arrangements.

"We really want visitors to learn more about the anatomy and physiology of the animals that are on display. It's a really unique chance for visitors to sort of see under the skin of animals and see them in a way that they've never seen them before," said Georgina Bishop, curator at the Natural History Museum.

Animal Inside Out

6 April – 16 September 2012

10.00 – 17.50

Waterhouse Gallery

Ticket prices:

Adult £9

Child and concessions £6

Family £27

School groups £3 per pupil

Free to Members, Patrons and children aged 3 and under.

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Pirate Bay is moving into Earth orbit

The founders of one of the most popular sites for multimedia content are planning to relocate their activities outside the reach of the law and literally - by sending equipment into Earth orbit.

With the development of unmanned drones which is controlled by GPS, small powerful computers and modern radio equipment, the server can be sent to a height of several tens of kilometers, says "Daily Mail".

The Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) will be the first step. Thanks to the development of technology and modern radio equipment, at a height of 50 kilometers should be enabled data transfer speed of 100Mb per second, for a planned system that allows users to connect to servers in secret locations, and it's more than enough.

The first unmanned drones should be circulating across "no man's land" over international waters.

Details are currently unknown, but the Pirate Bay probably will not restrict the storage of data only on Earth.

 

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Swiss Tiny Mountain Village of Tenna Build the World’s First Solar-Powered Ski Lift

In the tiny mountain village of Tenna, a farming village in eastern Switzerland not far from resorts such as St. Moritz and Davos, big green ideas have been introduced.

Although larger, well-known ski resorts overshadow it, when their aging ski lift needed replacing, locals raised enough money to update it and then went a step further: They invested in building one of the world's first solar-powered ski lifts. This tiny Swiss town with a population of about 110 inhabitants is now home of the world’s first ski lift powered by a chain of 82 solar “wings” that trail up from the base station to its mountain peak.

On sunny days, the lift produces twice as much power as it consumes, according to Andina. In the springtime when ski season ends, it becomes a mini solar power plant. The investment wasn't cheap: $1.5 million, but the lift is expected to produce 90,000 kilowatt hours annually - well beyond the 21,000 kilowatt hours needed to run it during the season! So, about three times more solar energy than it needs to power the lift providing surplus power that is sold to the regional power company’s grid.

So what happens to the 82 solar "wings" when it dumps? Not a problem, because they rotate to follow the path of the sun in the sky and can be tilted to perpendicular during a storm, so there's no load and the snow slides right off.

You have to admit that this is pretty useful.
Altogether, if you like interesting things, or just to ski, this is definitely something that would be worth a look and visit.

 

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NASA probe sent the first video clip of the dark side of the moon

NASA twin spacecraft from the "Grail" mission, called "Eb" and "Flow", reached the moon at the beginning of January, and one of them has just sent its first video "dark" side of the Earth's satellite, the moon and those who never see from Earth.

This video clip is recorded flight from northern to the southern half of the moon. The north pole is visible in the top of the screen while the probe is flying towards the south pole.

The moon is "bound" for the Earth so that the planet always faces one side only. clip that you can see is just the first of many that should arrive within an interactive project to explore the dark side of the month and should include students of American schools.

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Pirate Bay: Farewell torrent!

The world's most popular site for "exchange" of multimedia, Pirate Bay has announced that it changes way to download files.

Faced with pressure from the global battle against piracy, the world's largest torrent site has announced that switching to a new way of downloading on 29 February, more accurately file sharing movies, music, games, software ...

Official blog "Pirates":

In following with our decision to skip .torrent-files in the nearby future one of the biggest steps will come on the 29th of February. We will stop serving .torrent-files for all torrents that has has more than 10 peers from this date.

The so-called torrent files, will replace "magnet links". This basically means that the contents or files from now on, will be downloaded from a computer other users, and not from the website Pirate Bay.

It is expected that this will primarily mean slower downloading torrent, considering that in the beginning small number of people will share the magnet links.

Let us remind, one of the biggest torrent search engines BTJunkie, he decided to stop working last week after the U.S. Justice closed the file sharing site Megaupload. Swedish Justice upheld prison sentences against the founders of the Pirate Bay site.

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Wikipedia blackout

The Wikipedia founder announced on Twitter today that starting at midnight on Wednesday, January 18, the English language version of the world’s encyclopedia will go dark for 24 hours in protest of SOPA and PIPA. With their commitment confirmed, Wikipedia will be joining a slew of websites and companies that will suspend their operations for one day in an effort raise awareness around the two bills.

Wikipedia will go offline in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill that would allow the U.S. government to cut off funding sources to foreign websites accused of piracy by rights holders. PIPA, the Protect IP Act in the Senate, and SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, have been presented as a way to protect movie studios, record labels and others. Supporters range from the Country Music Association to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Websites found to offer pirated content, along with the services that they use, could be hidden from US internet users by being delisted on search engines and potentially on DNS servers themselves.
The Internet giants say the bills could require your Internet provider to block websites that are involved in digital file sharing. And search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing could be stopped from linking to them -- antithetical, they say, to the ideal of an open Internet.
The whole explanation you can find on Wikipedia, or just click here.

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