According to the Airports Council International, the world’s busiest airport by passenger traffic is Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport with a whopping 95,462,867 passengers passing through in 2012. Which makes sense considering it’s the home of Delta, the world’s largest airline. So one can only imagine what the flight paths of all those planes must look like, which is why Alexey Papulovskiy scraped data from Plane Finder for a month before charting it all out in a beautifully interactive visualization tool called Contrailz.
If you’ve wanted full-blown Windows 8 in bite-size form, you now have your chance: the Acer Iconia W3 is on sale in the US. The 8.1-inch slate is in stock at both Office Depot and Staples, starting at $350 for a 32GB model at both outlets. Don’t count on the 64GB version being available — it’s still listed as an online-only pre-order at Office Depot. There’s also no word on inventory at Amazon or other competing retailers. Should you not be picky about capacities or store choices, however, you can take the W3 home today.
Source: Office Depot, Staples
They're coming for you.
(Credit: Screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET)
You are caught in a dark maze full of glowing orbs. You’re hungry and only the orbs can feed your insatiable appetite. But at each turn, danger lurks. Merciless ghosts haunt your every move. This is the story of Pac-Man.
Freelance game developer Tom Davies has converted Pac-Man into a first-person shooter gaming experience that mines the darker side of the classic. FPS-Man is free to play on gaming site Kongregate.
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Maze walls rise up around you and tense music plays, ratcheting it into survival-horror gaming territory. The game really picks up when you munch a power pellet and start running headlong through the maze, looking for ghosties to chow down on.
The immersive viewpoint adds a challenge to the game. You don’t have the full top-down map to follow and Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde can s… [Read more]
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NetNewsWire 4 enters open beta, gives Mac owners a new, local RSS reader option
Posted in: Today's ChiliAs Google Reader’s closing in on the end of its days, a spate of new RSS aggregators have popped up to replace it. Sure, web-based readers from AOL, Digg or Feedly could do the trick, but what if you want your RSS stored locally? You’re in luck, because one of the elder statesmen in the RSS world, NetNewsWire, has what you need with its version 4 open beta. This new beta is a more refined version of NetNewsWire 4 Lite, which was released in 2011, and will allow folks to pull down all their GReader archives and store them locally for free while it’s in beta. The catch? You’ve gotta be running Mac OS X 10.7.3 or later, and while the beta’s free for now, the software will cost you once it’s final — $10 dollars for those who pre-order, and $20 after that.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Via: The Next Web
Source: NetNewsWire
Sometimes parents have to explain things to their kids in more child-friendly terms. During World War II, that meant outfitting a child with a weird Mickey Mouse gas mask.
Have you ever tried limiting your sweets intake? It can be hard to do on a good day, but when someone bakes a fresh batch of cookies, you’re going to find yourself back in the kitchen every few minutes. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way that you could force yourself to wait a specific amount of time before eating the next one? Sure, you should be able to control your urges, but sometimes you need that extra help. Well that’s where the Kitchen Safe comes in.
This interesting gadget looks like an ordinary container, but the lid is what really makes this thing stand out. There is a small screen with a timer on the top. You can set the timer to count down from anywhere from one minute to ten days. Once set and secured, the lid won’t come off until the timer reaches zero. There is no override, and even removing the batteries won’t help you get to your sweets. If your batteries do die, the timer will start from where it left off when new ones are installed.
Food isn’t the only thing you can store in these containers. If you want to ground your child from their Xbox for a week, just pop their controller in, and start the countdown. Somehow it makes the punishment seem even worse when they can actually see the controller sitting out every time they walk past.
The container is made from BPA-free plastic, which is perfect for storing all kinds of food. Should you desire, you can choose a solid white container, which is not transparent. This is good for foods that need to be kept out of the light. It measures 6” x 6” x 6.5”, which is a nice size for storing a variety of goods. The Kitchen Safe is currently a Kickstarter project, though at the time of writing, it has received more than 90% of its funding, and still has 26 days to go. If you order during the Kickstarter funding period, you can get a safe for just $25. After that, the price will jump up to $35.
Source: GizmoDiva
[ The Kitchen Safe locks down your cravings copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Microsoft is selective about where its first-party game franchises appear — outside of lightweight releases like Kinectimals and Wordament, it prefers to use games as technology showcases and system sellers. It may not be picky for much longer, though, as Nikkei claims that Microsoft has reached a deal with Japan’s KLab to develop Android and iOS versions of its first-party titles. The deal reportedly includes adaptations of both PC and Xbox games, and would start with a free-to-play variant of Age of Empires that could launch before the end of the 2013 fiscal year. We’ve reached out to Microsoft to verify the rumor, but it’s clear that the arrangement could be a breakthrough for gamers who aren’t wedded to Microsoft’s existing mobile strategy.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Microsoft
Via: Reuters
Source: Nikkei (subscription required)
MIT Researchers Can Tell How Fast Your Heart is Beating By Video Monitoring
Posted in: Today's ChiliResearchers at MIT are constantly finding ways to use technology to improve people’s lives. This particular one will probably be most useful to those who might need remote healthcare services one day.
After doing extensive work at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, these scientists explain that they have developed an algorithm that will allow them to determine a person’s heart rate based on a video feed of them. The system is so accurate it was able to determine the heart rate of people wearing a mask or who had their face blurred out.
You might notice that your head might rock back and forth slightly when you’re seated. That’s a result of the blood rushing to your head with every beat of your heart. This phenomena is measured and then used to figure out your heart rate.
The method was evaluated on a group of 18 men and women with different skin tones, and the results were reportedly “nearly identical” to that of an electrocardiogram.
There’s a lot of potential with this technology. Aside from remote healthcare, it can also be used to monitor patients with sensitive skin, like the elderly or newborns. It can also be used to measure the time interval between beats, which is useful for monitoring patients who are at risk for cardiac events.
[via C|NET]
Electric vehicle charging stations aren’t cheap: one of the most affordable Level 2 (240V) units sells for $450 and only supplies 16A. Electric Motor Works (EMW) — which is best known for its electric conversion kits — wants to change this with JuiceBox, a 15kW Level 2 EV charger that costs just $99 in kit form (plus $10 shipping). The device, which is launching on Kickstarter today, supplies up to 62A and operates on both 120V and 240V. It’s built around an Arduino microcontroller and EMW is making both the hardware and software open source.
But wait, there’s more! The company is also crowdfunding a Premium Edition of JuiceBox ($199 in kit form) which adds time-of-day charging, a color LCD, ground-fault plus output protection (for outdoor use) and a unique enclosure (hopefully as funky as the one in the picture above). While the DIY kits only require basic assembly and soldering skills, you’ll be able to buy fully assembled versions for $100 more. At $329 (shipped), a ready-to-use JuiceBox Premium Edition undercuts other similar charging stations by several hundred dollars. The catch? You’ll have to supply your own cables (or buy them separately from EMW), including one with a standard J1772 EV connector. Hit the source link below to check out the campaign, and take a look at the PR after the break.
Filed under: Transportation
Source: EMW (Kickstarter)