Hasta La Gadget!

NASA recently announced that it intended to change the orbit of the International Space Station slightly in an effort to avoid any potential contact with orbiting debris. Yesterday, NASA announced that the planned orbit change had been canceled because the debris that had caused the concern had been deemed to pose no risk to the space station. The debris that caused the alarm included remnants of an old Russian Cosmos satellite.

The worrisome debris also contained fragments of an Indian rocket. NASA issued the alert, continued to track the orbit of the debris, and determined with “a high degree of confidence” that neither piece of orbiting space junk posed a threat to the space station. Flight controllers in Russia agreed with NASA on the decision to cancel the orbital change.

Even tiny pieces of space debris orbiting the planet at massive velocities pose a significant threat to the space station and the crew onboard. Tiny pieces of debris moving at high speeds could puncture space station modules and potentially kill crew members. NASA planned to use the engines on the docked European cargo ship to alter the space station’s orbit.

This is the same automated cargo ship that was unable to detach earlier this week due to a computer malfunction. Russian engineers have determined the reason the cargo ship was unable to detach from the space station and are prepared to make a second attempt to undock the unmanned ATV. The undocking attempt could possibly be made today.

[via MSNBC]

NASA cancels space station maneuver to clear orbital debris is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Auto show concept cars are all whizzy styling and impractical interiors, and Smart’s latest offering, the Forstars EV at the Paris Auto Show, has all that in spades. But the stubby car has another show-stopping feature we’d love to see in production — a projector installed right into the vehicle’s grill. That would let you and a special friend pull the two-seater up to any white wall and beam the flick of your choice from an iPhone’s bluetooth port, while blasting the audio through the sound system. Other friends not in the Forstars’ confines would also get the sound from speakers located in the ventilation grills behind the doors. Once rolling, the concept Smart moves along with an 80 horsepower electric motor and 17.6 kWh battery, boasting 127 lb/ft of torque and an 80MPH top speed. Since the car’s currently a one-off, don’t get any ideas about heading to Lookout Point with a screen in tow — but you can head to the video after the break to see how it works.

Continue reading Smart Forstars concept EV brings drive-in theater to a wall near you (video)

Filed under: Displays, Transportation

Smart Forstars concept EV brings drive-in theater to a wall near you (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 08:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some of us are blessed with perfect vision, and we are able to go through our entire lives without having to worry about washing a pair of glasses, smearing them with greasy fingers after a delightful pizza meal, or having to tussle with the stubborn contact lens on those days when it simply refuses to remain put on your cornea. Well, for those of us who have four eyes instead of two, you might want to rely on a different magnifying tool once in a while when indulging in your daily reading. Enter the $79.95 Eye Fatigue Preventing Magnifier which will function as an illuminated magnifier that emits clarity-enhancing, white illumination so that natural daylight is simulated in an attempt to reduce eye fatigue.

A grand total of five dozen (that would be sixty for the mathematically challenged) LEDs will attempt to simulate the color fidelity of natural sunlight, making sure it illuminates crafts or small print with crisp, focused illumination without any of the eyestrain-inducing glare that often comes across as a by-product of incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. Sporting a 3.75” diameter glass lens that delivers 1.75X magnification, you can be sure that you might find yourself reading far more often than ever with this. The LEDs have been specially rated for 30,000 hours, and each purchase will be accompanied by a protective lens cover and a cleaning cloth.

[ Eye Fatigue Preventing Magnifier copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

You are not looking at a human brain. Nor for that matter are you looking at the brain of any living creature. In fact, this is a scanning electron microscope image of a tiny little seed of a plant called rumia crithmifolia. More »

Apple isn’t delaying bringing its latest iPhone to regional carriers this time around, with launches across the U.S. going out today, at a list of carriers that includes C Spire, Bluegrass Cellular, Appalachian Wireless, Alaska GCI, Cricket Wireless, Cellcom and nTelos Wireless. It’s a change from the way things used to work that’s significant for both the carriers and their customers, in a market when access to hardware is a key competitive metric.

All of the companies above are getting the iPhone 5 just one week after it’s going out to the big national networks of Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. That’s a lot faster than the 4S hit regional carriers last time around, and a world of difference away from what happened when the first iPhone arrived, and it was limited only to AT&T due to an exclusivity arrangement that lasted until the iPhone 4 came to Verizon in 2011.

I spoke with nTelos spokesman Mike Minnis, to find out what near-parity in terms of iPhone 5 launch times means for the carrier, and how customers have responded to the option of having the latest and greatest right away on networks that for many years were treated as second-class citizens, at least when it comes to Apple’s latest hardware.

“A week after the national carriers, to be able to offer our value proposition to our customers with the most iconic device in the world right now is a great opportunity for us,” he said. “For the first time, when the new iPhone was announced, we were able to announce on the same day that we’d provide it September 28, we were able to immediately start registering subscriber interest, and that response has been tremendous.”

The ability for smaller carriers like nTelos to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got that too,” should not be underestimated. Since AT&T introduced the iPhone in 2007, it’s seen subscriber growth of 14.9%. Compare that to just 4.69% growth for Verizon, and an actual dip of 3.86% percent for Sprint. In February, T-Mobile announced a subscriber loss of 706,000 customers during a three-month period, something the company’s CEO ascribed to not carrying the iPhone in a written statement. The iPhone is a compelling device, once capable of convincing people to change their mind’s about who they use as a wireless carrier.

Regional carriers still face other hurdles even with the iPhone 5, including networks that mostly can’t handle new powerful LTE speeds, and having to deal with Apple’s considerable up front subsidy costs, which regularly see the biggest  carriers adjusting financial targets down for an iPhone launch quarter. Minnis acknowledged that footing the initial bill is a challenge. But he hinted that running a smaller, leaner operation might actually help nTelos and other small carriers have an advantage over larger national providers when it comes to costs.

“I can’t really speak to the details of how it’s working financially,” he said. “But we’ve had the position in the marketplace as the best value in wireless, so we have to be efficient in everything we do to achieve that and pass the value on to customers.”

nTelos is offering a better deal, with iPhone 5 on contract pricing for a two-year term ranging from $149.99 for the 16GB, to $249.99 for the 32GB model and $349.99 for the 64GB. The iPhone 4S will remain available for $49.99 as well, meaning that across the board, nTelos pricing undercuts that of the big three by $50. Likewise, Cellcom is offering a similar pricing breakdwon, as is Bluegrass Cellular and many of the other carriers on the list mentioned above.

The iPhone 5 is also the first Apple smartphone to be offered on pre-paid plans, available today on Cricket Wireless starting at $499 with no contract commitment. Cricket’s LTE network is just getting started, however, but it will be offering the latest smartphone in 50 different markets across the U.S., and its plans are cheaper than comparable ones at AT&T, Sprint and Verizon.

It’s true that those large national carriers got a week’s head start, but for the first time, there’s a relatively level playing field (though Minnis notes he expects the iPhone 5 to be in short supply at regional carriers, at least initially), which translates into greater choice for consumers and significant, launch window pricing competition for the first time in the iPhone’s history.