The SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY News Thread

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

Unreal games engine licensed to FBI and other US agencies

Now i'm interested.

The FBI Academy using the tech to develop a virtual multiplayer crime scene in which its agents can carry out training simulations

CSI: The MMO?

Technically not, but imagine if normal gamers can log-in...

[synaesthetic]

Nuclear fusion research looking rather promising...

If we can figure out how to make this work, the energy problem will cease to be a problem, and it will open all sorts of new opportunities...

You can ship anyone you want, but I'll keep steaming around on the deuterium+tritium ship! </verybadpun>

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Nuclear fusion research looking rather promising...

If we can figure out how to make this work, the energy problem will cease to be a problem, and it will open all sorts of new opportunities...

You can ship anyone you want, but I'll keep steaming around on the deuterium+tritium ship! </verybadpun>

Please don't make my iron-ore contracts worthless.

[Ithekro]

You still need to build the ship out of something.

[Rising Dragon]

National Highway Transportation Safety Agency Says You Can Keep Your GPS -- As Long As It's Completely Useless

So I guess they want us to regress technology now?

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

National Highway Transportation Safety Agency Says You Can Keep Your GPS -- As Long As It's Completely Useless

So I guess they want us to regress technology now?

Chicken Little Syndrome... the sky is always falling for some people.

[Ithekro]

Basically they are following Aviation regulatios. A GPS is a fine thing to have....but you still need to look out the window to make sure you aren't about to run into a mountain or another airplane.

Along the same vain, a GPS is fine and it can tell you directions and stuff...but you still need to watch the road to evade other cars, or see pedestrians...squirrels...road blocks. Those sorts of things. You can't do that if you watch the GPS the entire time.

There recommende changes are impractical, however. While on a large scale map of say a county, having the car move and the map not would be fine...in city driving where you are on the block by block scale to figure out which street to turn...it is not. It takes less time to see where you need to turn if your car is always centered and pointing in your direction of travel that to try to figure our which way is left when you are pointing southeast in the bottom corner of the map.

The funny voices might be distracting. Never used one that wasn't a default. The Yoda one...or BRIAN BLESSED, might be distracting.

[synaesthetic]

I seriously would pay money for a GPS that called out directions with the voice of BRIAN BLESSED.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

National Highway Transportation Safety Agency Says You Can Keep Your GPS -- As Long As It's Completely Useless

So I guess they want us to regress technology now?

Well, my GPS is completely useless, so I guess I'm a-okay by their standards?

(Two hour drive, it was able to connect for all of 14 seconds. Luckily I was able to read what exit I needed before it lost all connections again.)

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I seriously would pay money for a GPS that called out directions with the voice of BRIAN BLESSED.

And yes, his voice is now (well, has been for a while now) commercially available on TomTom devices.

Also, to add some more Tech News:

LG begins mass-production of flexible plastic E-ink displays

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Basically they are following Aviation regulatios. A GPS is a fine thing to have....but you still need to look out the window to make sure you aren't about to run into a mountain or another airplane.

Along the same vain, a GPS is fine and it can tell you directions and stuff...but you still need to watch the road to evade other cars, or see pedestrians...squirrels...road blocks. Those sorts of things. You can't do that if you watch the GPS the entire time.

There recommende changes are impractical, however. While on a large scale map of say a county, having the car move and the map not would be fine...in city driving where you are on the block by block scale to figure out which street to turn...it is not. It takes less time to see where you need to turn if your car is always centered and pointing in your direction of travel that to try to figure our which way is left when you are pointing southeast in the bottom corner of the map.

The funny voices might be distracting. Never used one that wasn't a default. The Yoda one...or BRIAN BLESSED, might be distracting.

Personally, I still want one that uses the voice of Rie Kugimiya in the mode of "I'm only helping you because I had nothing else to do!"

But 'point of view' map rendering or alternate 'north fixed' maps are both essential. Dammit, how about taking the incompetent drivers off the road?

[Pokaru]

Also, to add some more Tech News:

LG begins mass-production of flexible plastic E-ink displays

Quite interesting, even LG has joined this race. But did they say next month? I'm a bit surprised.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Personally, I still want one that uses the voice of Rie Kugimiya in the mode of "I'm only helping you because I had nothing else to do!"

Vexx.....you are mentally broken....

But 'point of view' map rendering or alternate 'north fixed' maps are both essential. Dammit, how about taking the incompetent drivers off the road?

Link the GPS system to the engine block and brakes. When the driver attempts to turn the wrong direction at the wrong time, shut the whole car down.

[Dhomochevsky]

Just give us heads-up displays already.
Give them a standard interface like hdmi for plugging in a 3rd party nav and everyone is happy.

The black box car electronic systems with no room for modular upgrades are the real problem. It's just stupid that you have to put the nav on your windshield and have cables run all over the place. Meanwhile the car's built in system are obsolete after 2 years.
Instead you should be able to plug these things into standard ports (say 2.5" cartridge slots) and have them feed into your dashboard.
Phones should be able to access the car's audio system as a "headset device".
Why does the nav have to figure out the car's speed over gps, when the car knows exactly how fast it's going? Just link it to the nav and improve navigation ten fold.
And so on...
These things would already exist, if car makers would offer open standard interfaces.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

Also, to add some more Tech News:

LG begins mass-production of flexible plastic E-ink displays

Interesting, but I don't know that weight or flexibility's a problem for present e-readers. My problems:
- size. Though that's mostly because I have an old Kindle. It takes a fairly big pocket to hold it. At the same time, the screen's too small for some of uses I'd like to put it to (basically, reading stuff with pictures in them...).
- resolution. Again, watching images is a problem.
- contrast. It's not too bad, but it's not that good either.
- color. I don't actually miss it, but it might be nice.

[Vena]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Interesting, but I don't know that weight or flexibility's a problem for present e-readers. My problems:
- size. Though that's mostly because I have an old Kindle. It takes a fairly big pocket to hold it. At the same time, the screen's too small for some of uses I'd like to put it to (basically, reading stuff with pictures in them...).
- resolution. Again, watching images is a problem.
- contrast. It's not too bad, but it's not that good either.
- color. I don't actually miss it, but it might be nice.

And there's still nothing quite a like a textbook and being able to look at multiple pages on the fly, especially for referencing and looking up stuff.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Vena

And there's still nothing quite a like a textbook and being able to look at multiple pages on the fly, especially for referencing and looking up stuff.

I think well designed e-books could solve that. I mean, there's already a search function. And a ToC, if they care to put one. Adding some links shouldn't be too hard.

Browing's more of a problem.

[0utf0xZer0]

Just implement a splitscreen mode in your ebook reader, then you could display two pages independently.

Sony actually makes a tablet with dual 5.5 inch screens but it's a bit small for ebook use and I have no idea if the dual screen implementation works well or not.

Originally Posted by Vexx

Personally, I still want one that uses the voice of Rie Kugimiya in the mode of "I'm only helping you because I had nothing else to do!"

I want one with Kana Hanazawa calling me onii-chan.
j/k

(also, for those that aren't aware, the GPS Vexx mentioned exists, but it's Japanese market only)

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I want one with Kana Hanazawa calling me onii-chan.
j/k

*smashes a GPS system over outfoxzero's head*

She will ONLY call ME that. You hear me? Nobody else! Stop stealing my lolis!

(also, for those that aren't aware, the GPS Vexx mentioned exists, but it's Japanese market only)

He used to work for the CIA, so anything can be hacked, rigged or reverse engineered. If he can't do it, I believe his interns/understudies can.

Come to think of it, since the PSP can be rigged to become a GPS system, we could actually rip the voice from the original system and work from there, homebrewing it onto the PSP.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Holographic eBooks, imo.