Hasta La Gadget!

After numerous false starts due to weather and other technical challenges, daredevil Felix Baumgartner successfully launched on his expedition to 120,000 feet this morning. The capsule took off at approximately 9:30am Mountain Daylight Time, and is currently on its way up to its peak altitude of about 23 miles.

As of this writing, Baumgartner is at about 46,000 feet, and rising rapidly towards his goal. The capsule is heading up at about 900 feet-per-minute, and is expected to reach “float” – where he will level off in about 80 minutes or so – around 11:30am MDT. Once he reaches that level, Felix will carefully exit the capsule, and begin his rapid plunge back to Earth below, breaking the speed of sound on the way down before he opens his chute.

Watch the amazing HD live footage of the launch in progress below:

Or head over to the Red Bull Stratos website for live updates on the mission’s progress.

Good luck on the dive, Felix! We’re rooting for you!

Talk about building up the tension! Yep, our favorite Austrian daredevil is back out on the New Mexico desert, hoping the weather will hold, and he can finally fall into the record books. Don’t forget, you can catch up on Felix Baumgartner’s long journey to Roswell in our project overview, but if you’re just here for the jump, no problem, as you can watch right here too. Currently conditions are looking like they might just go in Baumgartner’s favor, despite some initial concerns about wind levels. But, as we found out earlier in the week, anything can change in an instant. Hold on to your hat (and your breakfast), and hop past the break to watch the events unfold live.

Update: Some spoilers lurk ahead if you didn’t get to watch live and wanted to catch the event for yourself, so switch articles if you want to catch replays later on. For everyone else: it’s a success! Despite some worries about heat going to the helmet visor that threatened the attempt, Baumgartner has at least unofficially broken records both for the highest-ever manned balloon flight and the all-important altitude record for a jump, either of which respectively occurred just over and just under 128,000 feet. Baumgartner also broke the speed record for freefall, although he was just short of Joe Kittinger’s 4-minute, 36-second freefall duration. There’s a media event still ahead that should provide more details, but for now we’d just like to welcome Felix back to Earth.

Continue reading We have lift off: Felix Baumgartner and Red Bull Stratos launch for record-breaking space jump, watch right here (update: done!)

Filed under: Misc, Alt

We have lift off: Felix Baumgartner and Red Bull Stratos launch for record-breaking space jump, watch right here (update: done!) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Oct 2012 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Red Bull Stratos  | Email this | Comments

Scientists have discovered a planet orbiting a sun-like star called 55 Cancri. The planet is known as 55 Cancri e and is a so-called “super-Earth”. 55 Cancri e is 40 light years from the Earth and its light is visible to the naked eye.

The coolest thing about 55 Cancri e is that it is completely different in chemical composition from Earth. Rather than being mostly covered in water and granite, 55 Cancri e is believed to be covered with mostly graphite and diamonds. A research team led by Yale University scientists discovered the rocky planet, which is roughly twice the Earth’s size, with an estimated mass eight-times that of our planet.

The newly-discovered planet orbits its parent star at an incredibly high speed with each year lasting only 18 hours. The planet is also incredibly hot with the surface temperature estimated to be 3900°F. The scientists believe that at least a third of the planet’s mass could be diamonds.

[via Yale]

We tend to look to green designers and architects to inspire us and reshape our understanding of what’s possible, and this week we’ve seen plenty of visionary green designs over at Inhabitat. First, JM Schivo & Associati unveiled ambitious plans for “Earth City,” a futuristic green city that would be entirely powered by renewable energy. Then, inspired by NYC’s High Line, Fletcher Priest won the Green Infrastructure Ideas Competition with his proposal for an underground mushroom tunnel beneath the streets of London. At the World Architecture Festival, Nikken Sekkei took home the sustainable building award for its evaporative cooling bioskin building in Tokyo, and science fans successfully purchased Nikola Tesla’s old Long Island workshop to turn it into a museum.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Bicymple, computer-age fossils and an underground mushroom tunnel

Filed under: Misc, Science

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Bicymple, computer-age fossils and an underground mushroom tunnel originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Oct 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

When the iPhone 5 came out, many people wished that it was packed with more features – or at least a beefier battery – instead of being thinner than many smartphones. If you’re one of those people, you might one to get the iExpander case. It’s packed with practical features in exchange for nearly doubling the iPhone 5′s thickness.

Perhaps the best feature of the iExpander is its built-in microSD card slot, which supports up to 64GB cards. Inventor Charlie Corry didn’t specify it, but he did imply that the iExpander will come with an app to facilitate file transfer to and from an iPhone to a connected microSD card. The iExpander also stays true to its name by adding a built-in 1420 mAh battery, which is almost equal to the iPhone 5′s own 1440mAh battery and the 4S’ 1430mAh battery. In short, the iExpander will nearly double your phone’s battery life.

The case also has an LED flash that’s stronger than the one in iPhones for better low-light performance. The case will come in two variants, one compatible with the iPhone 4 & 4S and one with the iPhone 5. The latter variant has a bonus feature: it has a built-in adapter that makes it compatible with 30-pin cables, so you can use your iPhone 5 with older chargers, cables, and whatnot. Though the added thickness will probably keep it out of most docks.

A pledge of $75 (USD) or more on its Kickstarter fundraiser gets you an early unit. It’s already surpassed its target fund with still a week to go, so it’s safe to say that the iExpander will see production.

[via CNET Asia]