Hasta La Gadget!

This polymer film is expanding and contracting like a muscle, and looks pretty alive doing it, but the energy is coming from water vapor, not black magic. Go figure. More »

Never-before-seen footage of a giant squid in its natural habitat, off the shore of Japan, will be revealed late this month, after researchers from Discovery Channel and NHK joined forces to hunt the 10-foot long beast. Monster Squid: The Giant Is Real will air on January 27 in the US, and follows 55 submarine dives with twin submersibles used to comb the ocean for the elusive animal.

The documentary is the first time the giant squid has been caught on video, although not the first time it has been seen in the wild. Researchers took photos of the animal back in 2004, and another was seen a couple of years later on the surface of the ocean; however, Discovery Channel says that this is the only time one has been observed in its natural habitat.

“With razor-toothed suckers and eyes the size of dinner plates, tales of the creature have been around since ancient times. The Norse legend of the sea monster the Kraken and the Scylla from Greek mythology might have derived from the giant squid. This massive predator has always been shrouded in secrecy, and every attempt to capture a live giant squid on camera in its natural habitat, considered by many to be the Holy Grail of natural history filmmaking, has failed. Until now” Discovery Channel/NHK

Like the most bizarre speed-dating experience in history, the teams used “two deep sea submersibles with panoramic views, ultra-sensitive camera systems with light invisible to squid, bio luminescent lures and secret squid attractants” in their quest. Tsunemi Kubodera of the Japan National Science Museum told AFP that the squid would have been eight meters long had it still had its longest tentacles, which were missing.

“It was shining and so beautiful” he said of the animal. “I was so thrilled when I saw it first hand.”

The footage was filmed at up to 900 meters below the surface, though the team took in excess of 285 hours underwater to secure the film. The squid, species “Architeuthis”, is feeds on other squid and fish.

[via BoingBoing]

Giant squid caught on camera is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Attention dumbphones, point-and-shoot cameras and music players: sorry to tell you this, but it looks like your days may be numbered. According to a new survey out from Accenture (embedded below and released to coincide with the CES show), consumers are moving away from buying “single-use” devices and opting instead for those that offer the ability to do many things, with smartphones (at 41% of respondents), PCs (36%), HDTVs (33%) and tablets (23%) topping the list of items consumers are most likely to buy in 2013, as gadget spending is projected to reach $1.1 trillion.

It’s a familiar story to those of us who write about the tech industry and trends in smartphones and tablets, but Accenture’s research, covering 11,000 consumers worldwide, shows that this is more than just the musings of analysts, and a global trend fuelled by the rise of superphones and tablets.

The survey, from September 2012, was based around consumer responses to some 16 different types of consumer electronics categories — from tablets and smartphones and connected TVs through to cameras, basic TVs and e-readers.

In a telling table of increasing versus decreasing ownership, it’s clear that over the last four years, consumers have been gravitating much more towards devices that let them email and watch TV, or take pictures and post them instantly to social networks.

There are a few exceptions. For example, e-readers, GPS devices and Blu-Ray players are still appearing in the ‘increasing usage’ category, albeit as smaller players compared to tablets, smartphones and PCs. And PCs are actually a little bumpy in consumer sentiment, but they are by far the biggest category — with basic mobile phones still a close second — and so even small declines will continue to keep them the most important consumer electronics device for a while to come.

This is how the list of “increasing purchases” looks right now:

Meanwhile the decreasing category is perhaps a lesson in what features we will increasingly start to see in the multi-use devices. Indeed, the increasing power of smartphones and the ever-growing prevalence of apps makes functions like cameras, music players, and health/fitness tools into add-on, rather than central purpose, features. And with broadband speed improvements and more content moving digital, tablets and PCs are becoming the screens of choice for video.

Among some of the other interesting conclusions in this report are some lateral looks at how ownership of multi-purpose devices is helping to render other devices as obsolete. I think you can read these two ways, though. In the case of tablets, for example, it looks like it has a bigger impact on usage of e-readers and DVD players than it does on PCs and smartphones. That points to some of those features being replicated on the tablet, but also that those using multipurpose devices are going to be the people who will gravitate to other multipurpose devices. In other words, there is still an audience for well-made products that do just what they say they will, and nothing more.

Another response that caught my eye: awareness of operating systems. This is one of those old chestnuts that some have claimed consumers don’t care about, but these numbers seem to tell a very different story:

That’s a powerful table combined with the fact around half of respondents also seem to say that they’d rather have all their devices using the same operating system.

The Accenture survey doesn’t single out any single brands among Apple, Samsung, Google, Sony, LG, Microsoft, Nokia or others that might be leading the pack with consumer sentiment.

That kind of lock-in is potentially music to many hardware makers’ ears, but it’s a road they need to tread carefully. Just as many want the opposite, meaning they can alienate just as many users as they can win over with a strategy that makes it easier or harder to run several devices in tandem (Apple: take note).

I’ve had problems with computers and video game systems overheating over the years, so I’m all for good cooling systems. And while some computer modders have solved the problem by adding more cooling fans and heat sinks, I think this build might just be a bit more than most of us need.

What you’re looking at here is the Wind Tunnel Computer. It was built by Mike Schropp over at Total Geekdom, and it’s nothing short of awesome, if you ask me. Those giant ducts you see on the left and right are air intakes and outputs for the 6-foot-wide system, which is mounted in a contraction chamber in the middle designed to take full advantage of the increased air speed as it flows through.

The beefy Intel Ivy Bridge 3770k powered system is overclocked to a whopping 4.5GHz, along with overclocked Radeon 7970 GPUs running on Sapphire Dual-X cards. But it doesn’t just run fast, look cool and stay cool – Mike built it for a good cause. It’s connected to the World Community Grid project, and its CPU and GPUs spend their days and night crunching numbers to help cancer researchers find a cure. And thanks to the massive throughput of the system, it’s able to push through about 20x the workload of an average 4-core system. While that’s all awesome, I do wish Mike had actually built a small wind test chamber inside of it for other science experiments. Maybe for version 2.0.

He built the system using large MDF wood panels for the vent sections, and there’s a big box fan installed in one end of it to generate the wind. Mike assembled the main computer section using custom-cut Lexan so you can see through to it, and aluminum pieces to finish the look. It’s even got a control panel on the front with LED temperature gauges and key switches for turning the fans on and off.

Using a wind-speed tester, Mike was able to determine that the inlet takes in air at about 0.6MPH, and the exhaust port pushes out air at 1.4MPH. However, it’s the center contraction section where the computer is that really benefits from the design, where the wind reaches 12MPH – or 9MPH with the computer in place. He actually was able to push wind speeds as high as 26-30MPH with the fan set on a higher setting. He even used smoke testing to ensure optimal airflow over the components.

Check out the complete build log, along with many more photos over on Total Geekdom.

A new study conducted on mice has been investigating what the effect of radiation in space that astronauts would be subject to on a mission to Mars might do to the brain. NASA hopes to put astronauts on the surface of Mars or possibly asteroids closer to the earth in the coming decades. According to the study, researchers have shown for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a Mars mission could produce cognitive problems and speed changes in the brain.

According to the researchers, the changes the radiation can cause in the brain are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The author of the study is Kerry O’Banion, a neuroscientist from the University of Rochester Medical Center. The problem with deep space missions is that astronauts are outside the Earth’s protective magnetic field that shields us from harmful radiation.

Once astronauts venture out of lower orbit, they are constantly bombarded with dangerous cosmic rays. The longer the astronauts are in space, the greater the risk. This is concerning for NASA because it hopes to send astronauts to Mars by about 2035. The round-trip to and from Mars could take at least two years.

This study investigated a specific type of space radiation known as high-mass, high-charged particles or HZE. Shielding astronauts from these potentially hazardous particles is a very difficult job according to the study. These HZE particles have enough mass and speed to allow them to travel through solid objects such as spacecraft and astronauts inside. O’Banion says that to shield astronauts from these particles effectively the spacecraft would have to be wrapped in a 6-foot thick block of lead or concrete.

The researchers tested the mice using iron HZE particles generated by a particle accelerator at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory. The mice were dosed with radiation levels comparable to what astronauts might receive during a Mars mission. After dosing the mice with radiation, the rodents were subjected to a series of experiments where they had to recognize places linked with electric shocks to their feet. The researchers found that rodents dosed with radiation were far more likely to fail the tests than those not dosed. Dosed mice also showed signs of inflamed blood vessels and abnormally high levels of beta amyloid, which is a protein that accumulates as one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.

[via MSNBC]

Radiation in space could cause changes in the brains of astronauts is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.