ALL HOBBYIST

2006 BUGATII VEYRON CAR TAKE OFF INTO THE LAKE

2009-11-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

A sports car swamp into the lake. A 2006 Bugatti Veyron car which a rare model of wheel. Read more about below.

It was a great day for the brown pelican Wednesday, being taken off the endangered species list, but the driver of a rare 2006 Bugatti Veyron EB — one of only 15 in the U.S. — may be wishing he had never set eyes on one of the ungainly creatures.

That's because a low-flying pelican startled him as he was driving on the Interstate 45 feeder in La Marque, causing him to veer off the road and land the million-dollar car in 3 feet of water that reached up to the door handles.

The Lufkin man, whose name La Marque police refused to release, is a collector of exotic cars and had purchased the Bugatti just last month from a Jonesboro, Ark., dealer, who offered it for sale for $1.25 million.

Now, the wayward driver has become something of a celebrity, with his phone ringing off the hook. He told the Texas City wrecker driver who towed his car that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called him Wednesday, along with several other celebrities.

“He said he was getting so many calls that he finally stopped answering his phone,” said wrecker driver Gilbert Harrison of MCH Truck and Auto, which is storing the mudcaked sports car.

The Bugatti Veyron, made by a Volkswagen subsidiary, is the fastest and most expensive production car in the world, capable of reaching 253 mph, said Elite Autos owner Shelby Smith, who sold the car. The vehicle has 1,001 horsepower and is almost entirely electronic.

Smith, who said his Arkansas dealership does most of its business over the Internet, said he could not disclose the man's name or the final sales price. But Smith said the man is a “repeat customer.”

The Bugatti had only 500 miles on its odometer when the Lufkin man purchased it.

Smith said he spoke to the driver about two hours after the accident and believes the vehicle will be a total loss.

The driver seemed to take his very expensive mistake in stride, Harrison said.

“He was calm,” Harrison said. “If it had been me, I'd have been cussing, but he was calm. I imagine inside he was probably pretty upset.”

The car crashed at 3 p.m. Wednesday as the driver was northbound in the 700 block of the freeway's feeder road and his cell phone slipped out of the car's center console, Smith said. The man was not on his phone at the time, but reached to retrieve it from the floorboard.

When the driver sat up, he was startled by the bird, flying low alongside the Bugatti, Smith said. His right front tire strayed onto the shoulder of the road, said La Marque police Lt. Greg Gilchrist.

“He couldn't regain control,” Gilchrist said, noting that no guardrails separate the road from the water at that point in the road.

The car landed 20 to 25 feet from the feeder road, according to Gilchrist, who said he found no indication that driver had been speeding.

Crabs were seen crawling around the tow truck after the sports car had been loaded on board, said MCH Truck and Auto owner Jim Morris.

“It hurts your ego more than anything,” Smith said of his customer's reaction to the wreck. “He wasn't doing anything stupid.”

DARK SECTOR PC game review

2009-11-15T19:06:00.001-08:00

It's certainly a unique challenge to write a review for a game that's old enough to be found in bargain bins. As of this writing, I can find a copy of the Xbox 360 version of Dark Sector, which was released on consoles in 2008, for $6. It's an incredibly difficult task to muster excitement for an old game, even when it's good. Unfortunately, Dark Sector is a completely forgettable game, and the PC iteration is the definition of a cheap, quick and dirty port. There is one thing that stands out about Dark Sector, and even that concept wears thin by the time you're finished with the game.

Dark Sector starts off well enough. You play as Hayden Tenno, a troubled antihero, who is investigating a slightly mysterious, if uninteresting, zombie-like infection that's spreading through the fictional eastern European country of Lasria. Unfortunately, it falls apart quickly, and the initial promise collapses into a void of confusion. Cut scenes have very low production values, the script is laughably bad, and while attempts are made to explain the plot and some of Hayden's background, it's so poorly conceived and poorly delivered that it's difficult to follow and impossible to care about.

The setup is pretty standard fare. Hayden is a CIA operative who's been dropped into a zone of the "infected" with orders to kill a man named Mesner, who is apparently behind this new infection. Hayden is apparently a troubled spy who doesn't want to kill anymore. This is established in a scene where Hayden breaks a man's neck and then cries out, "I won't do this anymore!" Thankfully, his whining about killing ends quickly, or that would ruin any fun you could find in killing the endless hordes you'll face over the course of Dark Sector. Of course, things go horribly wrong as you run around shooting things, and you end up infected. Instead of turning into a zombie, your arm turns metallic and you get a really awesome weapon. Meet the glaive.

The glaive is the highlight of Dark Sector, and the combat would be completely and utterly unattractive without it. This is somehow generated by your arm, and you can throw it, touch up on its movement, and do all kinds of neat things to tear people to shreds. Achieving the perfect throw to shred people's limbs is all kinds of satisfying. Watch a hazmat guy stare in horror at his missing leg and hop around before he falls to the ground in a dead heap. Enjoy the brief burst of gore as you cut a man clean in half with the glaive.

The rest of the combat in Dark Sector, however, is pretty boring. There's no intensity, and the AI doesn't put up a very strong fight, as it rarely moves aside from occasionally charging right at you. You can pick up weapons from your slain enemies, but every guard's weapon is equipped with an Infection Governor, which registers the infection level of anyone who picks it up. If the infection is over a certain threshold, the gun automatically detonates a "burn out" charge that renders the weapon useless. You can collect money to purchase new weapons that are Governor-free, but you can't carry many weapons, and ammunition is scarce. Ultimately, the gun combat isn't very satisfying, so you rely on your glaive, but when everything but one weapon isn't any fun to use, there's a very clear problem with your combat.

Occasionally, there are very simple puzzles that require you to set the glaive on fire or charge it with electricity, but it never gets more complicated than that. The only other thing you'll have to contend with is some very bizarre level design. Dark Sector is extremely linear in its level design, an you can never take more than one path through a level. However, finding that path isn't always easy. Many combat situations place you in relatively open areas, and it often feels like the game holds you in one spot for too long with just too many waves of enemies. The game often completely fails to guide you to an exit. More often than not, this exit is a door that needs to be opened, but it fails to look any different from any of the other doors that are scattered around the area. You'll end up spending far too much of your time simply running into doors and looking for one that actually opens. This kind of level design is unacceptable.

As you explore the environments, you'll slowly find two different items scattered around. Both of these tie into the black market, which exists in the sewers of the game. Hidden in briefcases you'll find in many corners are upgrades that can be applied to weapons to give them an extra kick: stronger firepower, firing two bullets with one shot, etc. Currency is conveniently left all over the place, and you'll need it to spend on new weapons, should you actually want to use something other than the glaive. These guns are useful when you encounter enemies who are just out of the range of your glaive. The entire black market isn't very involving, and the game can be done without it, but it's still a nice touch.

All in all, Dark Sector will probably take you eight hours to beat, but most players will probably stop playing before the game is over. The plot won't catch anybody's interest, the level design will aggravate, and even the outstanding glaive combat starts to wear thin by the halfway point.

If you happen to find yourself in a house with a huge LAN network between eight computers and have a copy of the game on you — the game seems to lack any copy protection — you can engage in some multiplayer. There are two multiplayer modes. One pits everyone against a player who gets to control a fully powered-up Hayden, and whoever gets the kill gets to be Hayden in the next round. The other mode pits two teams against each other, with each team getting one Hayden and everyone else playing as a gun-toting guard. These modes can be fun, but as I've said, the gun combat isn't very satisfying, and the person playing Hayden is generally so overpowered that he can destroy anyone in his path. Completely ruining the multiplayer is the fact that the online functionality has been completely removed from the PC iteration. This greatly cripples the game's replay value, as most people can't get eight people together for a LAN event. Nobody is going to want to play the multiplayer portion of Dark Sector when there are hundreds of games with better — and online — multiplayer out there.

The removal of online play isn't the only place where it's evident that Dark Sector was a dirty port. The visuals have some serious issues. The game can sometimes look fantastic as you run around killing everything with the glaive, but it often falls into bland and uninspired-looking environments. Dark Sector is a massive offender of the "real is gray" department. Gray is by far the game's favorite color, only venturing into colorful, well-lit environments on occasion. That's not the biggest problem with the visuals, though. Since this is a PC game, you expect to be able to control detail levels on the game, but they're only barely present. You're given three boxes that can be checked to turn on a few effects here and there. The second huge problem is that visually, the game is completely broken for players on a widescreen monitor. Although the console versions of Dark Sector play at 1280x720, which a widescreen resolution, the PC iteration will only display properly on 4x3 resolutions. Choosing any widescreen resolution will result in the game displaying in a 4x3 aspect ratio and stretching it. This is incredibly lazy work on the developer's part and a backward step for the game.

While the audio isn't broken in the PC version of Dark Sector, that doesn't make it something worth listening to. The voice work in the game ranges from mediocre to laughably bad, but the soundtrack really suffers. The soundtrack ranges from forgettable to scene-ruining. Never before in a game have I actually wanted to finish a fight just so the music would stop. In the sequences where you're fighting the infected, you'll hear some of the most annoying music to ever grace a video game.

Redeeming some of these problems are the sharp controls. The keyboard controls work reasonably well, and I never really felt like they get in the way. It never feels natural, but you won't ever feel like you're fighting the control to get them to do what you want. If you have the hookups, though, plugging in a 360 controller is the way to go. Dark Sector recognizes it right away and maps out the controls perfectly, which results in a very tight and responsive control scheme that's by far the best way to play.

Dark Sector isn't a terrible game. It's just a game that is built around one great idea and surrounded by mediocrity. The glaive combat was such a heavy focus that everything else suffered as a result. Making the package less attractive is the removal of online multiplayer and broken visuals for players with widescreen monitors. Dark Sector is just simply a third-person shooter with one neat concept that becomes old before the game is even done. The title has already been largely forgotten and overshadowed by all of the fantastic shooters that have been released since March 2008, when Dark Sector first appeared on consoles. While the PC port didn't show up until a year later, it has fewer features and is made even less compelling by the year between the console the PC releases. It's also over twice as expensive as the console version of the game. If you must play this game, get it on a console; it's cheaper and a better overall experience. If PC is your only option, you should probably just go look for a better game to play, as Dark Sector really isn't worth anybody's time this far down the line.

Source from : http://worthplaying.com/

GAMBLE on NCAA game?

2009-11-15T18:55:00.001-08:00

The NCAA says it's heartened by findings from a new gambling study that, among other things, shows fewer college athletes betting heavily on sports.

Still, nearly 30% of all male athletes admitted wagering at least once in a year's time on college or pro sports in violation of association rules. And mirroring the most troubling revelation of a similar study five years earlier, a small percentage say they or a teammate agreed to participate in game-fixing.

A little less than 1% of the responding players in Division I football — 0.9% — and 0.6% of those in men's basketball said they accepted money or some other reward for "playing poorly" in games. Between 1-2% in both sports said they knew of teammates who did.

"Obviously, we've seen that. .. with the most recent point-shaving case that's still in the judicial process," said Rachel Newman Baker, the NCAA's director of agent, gambling and amateurism activities, alluding to charges facing seven former football and basketball players at Toledo. "Definitely, it's something that's still on our radar.

"The one way we've been able to combat that as much as possible," she said after Friday's release of the new report, "is through our educational initiatives and trying, particularly, to get in front of Division I football and men's basketball student-athletes to show them how they can get sucked into that."

The NCAA cautioned that, despite guarantees of anonymity, athletes may be less than honest in answering questions about "illegal or eligibility-jeopardizing activity." Tom Paskus, the association's principal research scientist, said other respondents may boast of violations they didn't commit.

Paskus noted that admissions of game-fixing ran virtually the same in sports that were less visible and ostensibly less threatened by gambling-related activities. "There was no difference between basketball and football and kind of the noise level," he said.

The report nonetheless said some of those findings — such as an increase in the percentage of athletes who said they were approached for inside information — "may be seen as intriguing." About 1% in both Division I football and men's basketball admitted providing that information.

NCAA rules prohibit players, coaches, administrators and everyone else connected with a school's athletics department from wagering on sports or providing information to anyone associated with gambling. That ban extends to all sports, college, amateur and professional.

Friday's study revolves around a 2008 survey of more than 19,000 athletes in 22 sports across all three of the NCAA's competitive divisions. It replicates a study released in 2004. Officials were jolted by the game-fixing admissions in that earlier survey and stepped up the association's anti-gambling efforts, setting up FBI-assisted educational sessions for every team reaching the Sweet 16 of its men's and women's Division I basketball tournaments, expanding background checks on game officials and attempting to more closely monitor betting lines.

Newman Baker said the latest report would be used for "guidance for additional educational endeavors."

Among the findings:

• The number of male athletes who admitted heavy, weekly gambling on sports dipped from just under 5% in 2003 to a little less than 3% in 2008. However, the number placing at least one sports bet in the year before they were surveyed rose six percentage points to 29.5%.

• The percentage who placed bets over the Internet (18.8%) nearly doubled.

• They were just as likely to bet on college as pro sports. Female athletes leaned slightly toward the pros. The favorite betting targets for both were the NFL and the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

• Male athletes termed by the NCAA as frequent bettors on sports — placing at least one wager a month — said they most often drew on personal savings. A little more than 6% said they got their gambling money from unspecified "illegal activities." Close to 5% said they used scholarship money.

• Golf stood out as problem sport, with more than one in five men's golfers in Division I wagering at least once a month on sports. In men's basketball, by comparison, it was about one in 20. The NCAA said it likely will offer educational presentations at the Division I men's championship similar to basketball's, and Louisville's Mark Crabtree said the issue will be addressed at next month's convention of the Golf Coaches Association of America.

"We take this issue very seriously," said Crabtree, who heads the GCAA.

MICROSOFT DATA STORAGE

2009-11-12T22:55:00.000-08:00

Image inside the data center of Chicago. a data storage room.

Although the data center is massive, it is managed with a staff of 30 to 45, including custodial and security workers. Building the facility, however, generated roughly 3,000 construction-related jobs, with the peak workforce reaching around 1,100 workers.

CONTAINERS OF DATA : MICROSOFT SERVERS

2009-11-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

These are ton-weight containers. Microsoft servers are sometimes need to moved for some reasons and although the containers are heavy (and even heavier when packed with servers), air skates allow them to be moved in place with just four workers. Eight hours later, the servers are up and running.

INSIDE THE MICROSOFT DATA CENTER

2009-11-12T22:38:00.000-08:00

Image this area of data storage of Microsoft. An eye-catching lights and cabinets of data.

Microsoft recently opened its Chicago Data Center. In its first phase, the ground floor of the facility is designed to hold up to 56 containers, each filled with anywhere from 1,800 to 2,500 servers.

SAND TRAP ON MARS - ROVER'S MISSION

2009-11-12T22:31:00.000-08:00

This is the photo captured by the rover on the Mars mission. Take a look and read more below. Find out the scientist's plan to improve Mars' investigation. Article from www.cnet.com.

After months of tests and analysis, engineers plan to beam commands to NASA's Spirit Mars rover Monday, kicking off a long-awaited attempt to free the hardy craft from the talcum powder-like soil of a hidden crater that trapped it last April.

"Spirit's facing the most challenging situation it's seen yet on the surface of Mars," Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars exploration program, said Thursday. "We know a lot of people around the world...view Spirit with great affection, exploring the Red Planet along with it, experiencing the excitement, seeing new and exciting vistas, seeing new landscapes, uncovering some incredible new knowledge about our sister planet.

"I'd like everybody to be hopeful, but I'd also like them to be realistic," he said. "If Spirit cannot make the great escape from this sand trap, it's likely that this lonely spot, straddling the edge of this crater, might be where Spirit ends its adventures on Mars."
Designed to operate for just three months on the frigid surface of Mars, Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity, have been exploring opposite sides of the planet since early 2004, collecting data in concert with orbiting spacecraft to help scientists understand the role of water in the Martian environment.
Chalking up a steady stream of discoveries over the past five years, the unexpectedly long-lived rovers are held in high esteem by the scientists and engineers who drive them across the surface of Mars and eagerly await the data they send back.

"In many ways, we think of these rovers kind of as our children that we've sent off into the world way too early," said Ashley Stroupe, a rover driver at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "And like most parents, when their kids go off to college, we can't reach out to help them every time they really need us. So it really is a bond, not just between us and the rover, but also the team has become a very close family as well."
Last April 23, the six-wheel Spirit was slowly rolling backward on the western side of a feature known as "Home Plate," heading toward the south and a pair of volcanic structures that scientists wanted to examine. The rover was driving backward because its right front wheel stopped working in 2006.
The ground to the south of Spirit looked normal, but as it rolled along, its wheels broke through an upper-crust-like layer of soil and into a softer, unseen material.
"Essentially, the rover was driving on what we call a dirt crust," said John Callas, the project manager of the Mars exploration rovers at JPL. "It was a hard surface that we broke through, and underneath this material, camouflaged underneath, was this loose, fine material where the rover is challenged right now."
Scientists later determined that Spirit's path was straddling the rim of an ancient, 26-foot-wide crater just beneath the surface. The crater was filled in with sulfate sands that formed layers with different compositions.
Initial attempts to drive out in a crablike fashion by turning the front and back wheels in the same direction only made matters worse.
Pictures from navigation cameras on the rover show its forward and rear wheels almost buried in the soil, their treads caked with a powdery coating that reduces traction. Even worse, photographs show a pyramid-shape rock sticking up from the soil directly below Spirit's body that threatens to rub against the belly, possibly lodging in an indentation. If the rock ends up bearing any of the weight of the rover, traction could be reduced even more.

NASA managers decided to halt any additional attempts to free Spirit until engineers could complete a thorough analysis using a full-scale mockup and simulated Martian soil.
"Unfortunately, Spirit may have met its match in this one," McCuistion said. "We will see if we can get it out of this talcum powder-type soil that laid beneath a seemingly innocuous surface crust that we broke through...The rover teams have been working very hard since April, they've been testing, strategizing, analyzing, and modeling to figure a way out. We even called experts in soil mechanics and mechanical systems in to try to help us understand the environment. But there's only so much you can do on Earth to simulate Mars."
Late Monday, commands will be uplinked to Spirit in an attempt to drive north, back along the furrows its wheels dug as the rover moved into the sand trap last April. Engineers will find out how the move went on Tuesday. No one expects a quick extraction, and engineers said it likely will take weeks or months to either free the rover or determine that it can't be done.

"Our best plan at this point is to try to drive forward, retracing our steps as we drove in," Stroupe said. "And we believe this is our best plan for several reasons. One is that we believe this softer material may be easier to plow through than trying to break through the crust and cut new tracks. So if we follow our old tracks out, we may be able to make better progress.
"We have very little ground clearance under the vehicle. Wheel turns cause us to sink further into this material, and there is no guarantee that any plan we come up with will succeed in extricating the vehicle," she said. "This is going to clearly be a very long process, to either get to extrication or perhaps even to determine if extraction is going to work."
The team's progress will be assessed in February. Depending on the success or failure of the work at that point, NASA could opt to continue with additional attempts or decide to call it off. Even in that worst-case scenario, scientists could still use Spirit's instruments to study nearby rocks and soil, and to monitor the martian weather.
But Stroupe hopes it won't come to that.
"I think a lot of us, while we're waiting for that plan to execute (Monday), will not get a lot of sleep," she said. "But regardless of the outcome, none of us can have anything but primarily positive emotions about this mission. It's been such an incredible experience, we've come so far beyond what we thought we would accomplish...We're so proud of them, and we're so thrilled to have been part of this project. It will be sad to see them go. But we're not ready to let go yet, and we don't plan to let go yet. We still have a lot of work to do."

PILOTING NEW LUNAR ROVERS

2009-11-10T22:26:00.000-08:00

This is the newest rover who will continuously investigate space exploration.

The invention that will filter more deep investigation for space study.

These two robots are undergo for testing.

Read more in this article from cnet website and leave some comment.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For a few minutes Thursday, as I steered one of NASA's K10 intelligent robots across a small field of rocky, sandy terrain, I could almost imagine myself piloting the rover across the surface of Mars or the moon.

Until, that is, I realized I had pretty much no idea what I was doing, and saw that my struggles to steer the rover forward were actually sending it backward. Given that this little robot is worth at least as much as a mid-range Mercedes, I was relieved to see the eagle-eyed scientist standing a few feet away from it as it approached a group of large rocks that could send it sprawling, a switch in

his hand capable of stopping it dead in its tracks. I was spending the afternoon at NASA's Ames Research Center here, talking with Terry Fong, the director of the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG), about the K10 rover program--an initiative designed for remote scouting operations on the moon or Mars. To be sure, the program has been around for a few years, but Fong and his team are constantly tweaking the robots, and so what I got my hands on Thursday (remotely, at least) was a great deal more sophisticated than would have been the case just a few years ago.

We had driven out to Ames' faux lunar/Martian landscape, a 40-meters by 80-meters field of rocks and dirt tucked away in a quiet corner on the western side of the giant NASA facility. I've been to Ames many times, but this was by far the most peaceful part of the grounds I've visited: the shriek of a red-tailed hawk as it soared high overhead was the only real sound besides a gentle wind.

Fong took us into a small shed just outside a small trailer, and sitting inside was K10 "Red," one of the two rovers his team has here. It's called red because it has a big patch of red on its body. Its twin, K10 "Black" was nearby, already prowling around, lost in its own lunar fantasy, different from K10 Red only in that its body is black.

The two rovers (see video below, but be prepared for substantial wind noise) are built to travel at "human walking speed," Fong explained, and can handle between 90 percent to 95 percent of the terrain here. That includes some softball-size rocks, plenty of loose sand and dirt and even a few steep inclines. Fong allowed that some of the bigger rocks, maybe soccer ball-sized, might be a problem, and the steepest part of the incline might cause the rovers to lose traction. But in general, these are sturdy little robots built to withstand some truly out-of-this-world conditions.

According to NASA, the K10 robots are crucial elements of the space program's directive to achieve more complete investigation of the moon than was possible during the Apollo program.

"Human missions to the moon will provide numerous opportunities to advance the scientific exploration of the lunar surface," a NASA brochure about the K10 robots reads. "Initially, human exploration of the moon will be for short periods of time--no more than a few weeks per year. To make use of the time between human missions, robots can be used to perform highly repetitive and long-duration tasks, such as site-mapping and science reconnaissance.

"NASA's K10 robots are designed to be remotely operated on planetary surfaces and act as scouts for human explorers. Scouting is an essential phase of fieldwork, particularly for geology, to help establish priorities and scientific objectives. Robotic scouting can improve human exploration of the moon by providing mission planners with detailed ground-level information to supplement and complement data collected by orbiting satellites."

Imagine, in the future, the Constellation program kicks in and NASA begins sending manned missions to the moon. Fong explained that the K10s would be essential to maximizing the research that could be done in between visits by astronauts. Indeed, they could be left behind after one mission and then be deployed to gather intelligence for the next manned mission, data that could complement what NASA can see with instruments in lunar orbit.

And while the K10s I saw ran off of Lithium-Ion laptop batteries with a life of about four hours, Fong said K10s that stay on the moon could run on an ongoing basis on solar, or on power cells.

Continuous navigation
To look at them, today's K10s are unchanged since their introduction eight years ago. But pop the hood, as it were, and what you find is an ever-changing Red Hat Linux-based brain. Every few months, Fong said, he and his team replace the standard PC laptops that serve as the K10s nerve centers with newer and more powerful ones. Even considering what a top-of-the-line laptop costs, a couple new computers are pretty cheap compared to the tens of thousands of dollars' worth of lidar, navigational equipment, sun trackers--which allow the robots to figure out precisely where they are, an advantage over compasses when they're being used for field tests in far northern parts of the world--3D surveying instruments and more.

Fong said that while much about K10s remains the same today as in the past, one recent innovation has been building in the ability to process data on the go, rather than what was possible in early missions on Mars, where rovers had to stop, calculate, move, stop, calculate, move and so on. That means, he said, that now, K10s can make real-time navigation decisions, progress that means they can cover ground much faster than their predecessors.

All told, explained Fong, a K10 robot is smart enough to figure out a path between point A and point B and determine which parts of the terrain it encounters it needs to skirt due to big rocks or other dangerous conditions.

In some cases, the IRG scientists will test the limits of what the K10 can do. Fong said that during trials last summer at the lunar-like Black Point Lava Flow, in Arizona, he and his team tweaked the K10s' algorithms so that the rovers would push on, despite confronting bush clusters that compute as rocks to be avoided.

"The robot says, 'Hey, it's rocks,' so we make it a lot more aggressive," said Fong.

Five football fields
One reason the K10s are so important to NASA is that they feature 3D laser scanners capable of surveying as much as 500 yards ahead and identifying and analyzing objects as small as pencil erasers. Similarly, the rovers carry downward pointing cameras that take very high-resolution pictures every few feet, images that can then be used to help the mission planners decide where and how to explore in the future.

Back in a lab at Ames, Fong reached into a large suitcase and pulled out what he called a K10 mini (see video below). This is a one-fifth size model rover that is an experiment to see what's possible on a much smaller scale.

The idea behind the mini rover, Fong said, was to try to understand what's possible with a robot that small. And while it's only the size of a small dog, he explained that its basic software was the same as its larger cousins, and was actually built up around the smallest Thinkpad laptop the IRG scientists could find.

And now, the IRG team is looking toward what's next for the K10s. And that, said Fong, is to determine how best to marry the rovers with human teams so that they can be used to support explorers instead of being autonomous. The Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers were built to do everything on their own, the K10s can be employed for wide ranges of tasks that aren't efficient or productive for the folks in space suits. And not only that, but because the K10s can be mounted on the lunar exploration vehicles NASA expects to send its personnel around on the moon in, they can be used for research, surveying and exploration wherever the astronauts go.

But at the same time, NASA knows they have a great deal of utility as autonomous explorers, and on the moon, which is within reasonable striking distance of the Earth, there's even less risk involved than there would be on Mars with putting the K10s through rigorous paces since, even if one got damaged, the next manned lunar mission could come and fix them.

Of course, if you're part of the IRG team, or you're an astronaut trained in operating, or working with, a rover, you probably have a lot of confidence about what the robot's limits are. Why else would anyone trust you with such an expensive toy?

For me, however, clutching that joystick back at Ames, trying to get my K10 to go right, or hop over that little rock, every wrong move seems like potential catastrophe. I think it's going to be a while before anyone lets me play with one of those thing without having a guy watching every move I make with it, ready to push his big red button to keep me from sending it sprawling and costing taxpayers a Mercedes' worth of cash. And I'm OK with that.

USB Warm Gloves

2009-11-10T20:12:00.000-08:00

This is the USB warm gloves. It is uniquely glove shape to wear by the user of the computer.

It is coming back for its new model and fashion. Just take a look and amaze.

If you just gotta have USB Warm Gloves, Japanese e-tailer Thanko has finally released a new fashion model, four years later. The latest gloves (2,500 yen, $27.75) come in white with faux trimmings for a more feminine elegance. Not forgetting the tech nerds, they also come in a more conservative black without the furry bits.

Other than those cosmetic tweaks, the gloves retain the original hood so you can expose your twinky digits for more effective keyboard work. The bummer is you'll need two USB jacks to plug in and get toasty, which could be a crowd if you're pairing these with the equally dubious USB slippers.

Arabic-speaking Robot

2009-11-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

This is a newly invented arabic-speaking robot.

His name is Ibn Sina, a humannoid robot.

A project from arab students at United Arab Emirates University.

Say salam wa aleikum to an Arabic-speaking android developed at United Arab Emirates University and billed as the first of its kind in the world. It could enter mass production to help people at shopping malls.

The Ibn Sina robot, named after an 11th century philosopher, can recognize faces, converse with people by speaking in classical Arabic, connect to the Internet, and retrieve information. As seen in the video below, it can also exchange kisses with people.

Software for Ibn Sina was developed by a team led by computer science assistant professor Nikolaos Mavridis, with the mechanics by Hanson Robotics. Mavridis says some companies have approached his lab and asked about using the turban-wearing, bearded bot in shopping malls or as a receptionist.

Doubtless Ibn Sina, known as Avicenna in English, would have been pleased.

ADOBE SYSTEM COMPANY

2009-11-10T19:28:00.000-08:00

ADOBE is the owner of most popular application spreading all over the internet.

It owns Macromedia, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc.

It is one of the famous company in the world.

Most mouth-topic by the web designers.

Adobe Systems expects to cut 680 full-time employees, or about 9 percent of its global workforce, as the company tries to align costs in the face of lagging sales.

The layoff, which was disclosed Tuesday in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, marks the second wave of job cuts in the past year. In December, the company said it would slash 600 jobs amid less-than-anticipated demand for its recently launched Creative Suite 4 series of products.

he cuts will affect only those workers who were Adobe employees before the $1.8 billion acquisition of Web analytics firm Omniture in September. They are separate from an earlier-announced 9 percent workforce reduction within the Omniture unit, which had about 1,200 employees at the time of the acquisition.

Adobe, which is best known for its Photoshop and Illustrator software titles, said it expects to record about $65 million to $71 million in pretax restructuring charges.

"Adobe is restructuring its business to align costs with its fiscal 2010 operating plan and budget, the company's three-year strategic priorities, and the realities of the business environment, as well as to ensure its ability to continue investing in long-term growth opportunities," Adobe said in a statement.

In September, Adobe reported that its fiscal third-quarter profit fell 29 percent amid declining sales.

SOLDIER : SNIPERS

2009-11-09T19:18:00.000-08:00

The word SNIPER evokes some unsettling imagery -- a lone gunman, undetectable, on the hunt.

Military snipers are indeed elite shooters who hide, line up a target in their sights and pull the trigger, there is a lot more to it than that.

When a sniper takes a shot, there are countless variables to consider before squeezing the trigger ---

wind speed
wind direction
range
target movement
mirage
light source
temperature
barometric pressure

Considering that factors that's beginning to pull the trigger. The work that goes into getting a good position to take a shot is immense. That's why snipers always work in pairs. Surprised? Most people are.

These highly skilled marksmen are often perceived as lone assassins racking up "confirmed kills." In reality, true snipers work for the military and law enforcement agencies and are far more concerned with the number of lives they save than with the ones they take.

Because of the secretive and stealthy nature of the work, not too many people know what's really involved in being a sniper, so we went straight to the source: We interviewed a former U.S. Army Ranger sniper to get the inside information. In the next few sections, we'll go over tools, tricks, and training of these mysterious and deadly warriors.

BEARD PAINTER

2009-11-08T19:43:00.000-08:00

This is a rare man who has a unique tool in a field of Art. Watch this video posted from DIAGONAL VIEW at www.metacafe.com.

SAND PAINTING ART WORK

2009-11-05T22:38:00.000-08:00

This video is a collection of wonderful sand painting masterpiece. Check this out from www.metacafe.com. Have fun.

HAND PAINTING ART WORK

2009-11-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

This one will amaze you. Source from www.metacafe.com, just take a sit and watch this video clip.

Have fun

HAND SHADOW SHOW

2009-11-05T20:51:00.000-08:00

Raymond Crowe is an Australian citizen and he is the only UNUSUALIST in Australia.

He is famous in US for his outstanding show. He performed and marked his name at CAESARS PALACE in Las Vegas

Watch this video from www.metacafe.com and have fun with RAYMOND CROWE the unusualist

SCIENCE TRICK

2009-11-05T18:55:00.000-08:00

This is a science related trick which will amaze you. If you are bored and need something to do, just try this trick. Video source from www.metacafe.com.

BEST OF BRUCE LEE

2009-11-05T16:57:00.000-08:00

This is the old video from the legend Bruce Lee. To those who are Bruce Lee fan, watch this video from www.metacafe.com and amaze why he is one of the famous personality of all time. Have fun.

BASKETBALL : POINT GUARD

2009-11-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

Point guard - it is encrypted as "1" in the game

team's floor general
best ball handler on the team

When compare in football, point guard is the team's "quarterback." The point guard is the most important player in the team, usually he is the team's captain ball, his function is to make his teammates better and to hand out assists. The point guard is typically the smallest player on his squad.

There are two more in-depth point guard classifications:

scoring point guard
passing point guard - this is also known as "pure" point guard.

Scoring point guard - These point guards often prefer to score rather than record a high number of assists.

Famous NBA Star scoring point guard.

Baron Davis
Devin Harris
Stephon Marbury
Allen Iverson

Passing or Pure point guard - often record several assists than high score in a game

Famous NBA Star passing point guard.

Jason Kidd
Jose Calderon
Steve Nash

HUMAN ABILITY

2009-11-05T00:41:00.000-08:00

This people has a strange human ability which someone can't do the same thing. Please watch this video from www.metacafe.com and decide who is your bet?.

FOOD CARVING

2009-11-05T00:28:00.000-08:00

These are some of the best food carving ever. Video source from www.metacafe.com.
Stay tune and amaze the great talent. Have fun.

FLY POWER

2009-11-05T00:24:00.000-08:00

video source from www.metacafe.com

HOLOGRAM

2009-11-04T23:12:00.000-08:00

A hologram (pronounced as HOL-o-gram ) is a 3-dimensional object or image, form from photographic projection. Hologram is came from a Greek words holos (whole) and gramma (message). Unlike 3-D and virtual reality on a 2-dimensional display from computer, a hologram is a truly 3-D and free-standing object or image that does not simulate spatial depth or require a special viewing device.

Some movies appearing a hologram high technology equipment. A screen monitors, cellphones and some other communication devices. But in theory, holograms could someday be transmitted electronically to a special display device in your home and business.

This theory was developed by Dennis Gabor in 1947. The development of laser technology made holography possible. This hologram is now on cellphone, watch the video below. iHOLOGRAM from iPhone.

WARCRAFT III DOTA WARKEYS

2009-11-03T22:25:00.000-08:00

- it is a software were you can modify your inventory control in DOTA Warcraft III game.

- the default value of the inventory as the game started are 7, 8, 4, 5, 1, 2 (all these numbers are from numpad of the keyboard). Some players hard to manipulate with this buttons.

- to make it more easier, you can edit those buttons and transfer it to your comfortability

e.g.: num 8 -to- spacebar

num 7 - Capslock

- if you already installed this to your PC, the configuration you modify will automatically run as you play DOTA Warcraft III

-warkeys are available and can be installed in any version of maps, any version of DOTA Warcraft III

ADVANTAGES

-advantage of this is you will not hold the ALT button for the rest of the game,it's automatically show everything, it's look like you're holding ALT button.

Things to be aware

- ScrollLock is not applicable to be assigned in any inventory because it is a switch button to activate your Warkeys, if the scrollLock indicator is on, this means that your warkeys configuration you set earlier is activated otherwise default inventory button is active.

How to install

- after you download the warkeys, just click on it and follow the intructions until you will finish the rest of the installation

-after the installation, it will create a desktop icon, just click on it and start configuring you inventory.

-after you configure it, click save and run the script

- then close the warkeys, it will be pop-up asking if you want to save your configuration

-simply click yes and name what you want.

-finish, as you start playing DOTA Warcraft III, you will notice that the scrollLock indicator on your kayboard is activated, which means that your new warkeys configuration you made earlier is now activated

-that's it, it's simple right?,.goodluck.

DOWNLOAD LINK

If you cant wait to try this stuff, you can download WARKEYS here.

Thanks for downloading ...Good luck and have fun

keep playing

Technology Problem?

visit my site http://www.techiesandnewbies.blogspot.com

LEARN HOW TO TURN YOUR PENCIL INTO AN EMERGENCY LIGHT

2009-10-30T01:43:00.000-07:00

This procedure is useful when you are stranded in the street, blowing your tires especially at night, make sure you bring a used pencil with you and learn how to convert it into an emergency light.it's easy all you need to do is to prepare the following:

used pencil (cut its lead into an inch)
speaker wires or jumper cables
car battery

Procedures:

Pick the pencil lead and tie the end side with the speaker wires and another speaker wire in the other side.
The other end of both speaker wire connect to the car battery.
The other end is to the negative and the other is to positive.

observe the pencil lead, it will a light. An inch of lead will last up to 3-4 minutes.

IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER

do not use this procedure when refilling a gas or when you are near in flammable object, this might cause an accident.

watch this video

Turn A PENCIL Into A LIGHT ! - More free videos are here