In the age of super-sonic fighter jets, cruise missiles, and exo-atmospheric ballistic missiles, carrier fleets must be able to monitor as accurately and far afield as possible to avoid being caught unaware of incoming threats. Odd then, that the duty of watching over the most sophisticated aircraft carriers ever constructed falls to the last propeller-powered planes still allowed to land on them. More »
With over a billion dollars at the box office, The Avengers are having a banner year, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you wanted some Avengers themed collectibles for your desk, right? How about some awesome Avengers Matryoshka (Russian stacking dolls)?
This set of Avengers stacking dolls was made by Australian artist Irene Hwang of BoBo Babushka. Each one is hand painted, and the set includes eight stacking Avengers ranging from the 9″ tall Incredible Hulk to the 3/4″ Loki. I know, Loki is a bad guy, but she made him so tiny it’s almost like he’s not even there.
The set also includes Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Nick Fury – complete with tiny eyepatch. The full set is available over on Etsy for $200 (USD), and you can check out more detailed images over on BoBo BaBushka’s Blog. Be sure to check out her Etsy shop for all kinds of other cool Matryoshka, including Kiss, The Flight of the Conchords, The Big Bang Theory, and Reno 911.
At last, after years of horribly bad referee calls, the cave full of old crooks and farts known as FIFA has approved the use of technology to track the ball in soccer games. This is a huge change, with profound implications in the most popular sport in the world. More »
For years and years now, football (soccer) fans have been asking themselves when FIFA would finally realize the “beautiful game” needed to start implementing some sort of tech to help referees with decision-making during major tournaments and in every-day matches. Well, that time is now. After a few months of putting the so-called goal-line technology through intensive and rigorous testing, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) has once and for all approved the use of such tech in official footie games. What this means is FIFA will utilize a couple of methods, one dubbed “GoalRef” and the other “Hawk-Eye,” to assist refs in any controversial calls that may take place throughout the 90 minutes (or more if there’s extra-time) on either goal. The first of these uses electromagnetic antennas around the goal posts and crossbar to transmit a signal to a referee’s watch as soon as the entire ball crosses the line; meanwhile, the latter requires six to eight high-speed cameras — that shoot at 500 fps — to grab multiple images of the match ball and quickly process them to identify if it indeed crossed the line completely — this is also helped by black-colored dots on each goal post which aid the cameras gain a better overall precision.
What’s best, though, these new systems are set to take their first legitimate runs as soon as the FIFA Club World Cup takes place in December, with the upcoming 2014 World Cup in Brazil also said to have the goal-line technology ready to be used in all of its 64 global glory-seeking matches.
IFAB gives goal-line technology the nod, first official run will be at this year’s FIFA Club World Cup originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jul 2012 13:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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