The idea is, if it’s light enough, you don’t need a license. This guy claims to have an aeroplane that can do that:

Deliveries start Summer 2011.
Ex-factory price € 25.000 – €27.000. A transferable buy option
costs € 900. 30% payable on delivery confirmation. The rest
before delivery. Transport and storage trailer € 5.300.
All prices ex-VAT.

via Flynano.

FlyerTalk is an interactive community that provides up-to-date information on travel-related loyalty reward programs. It’s the hub that brings everyone together — from leisure travelers to mileage junkies — to converse about programs, get the latest program buzz or discuss how to maximize points or miles. You’ll even get some good general travel information!

via FlyerTalk – The world’s most popular frequent flyer community.

Shapeways is testing printing with this material and costs $48/cm3.

Shapeways | blog: Sterling Silver Now Available Until November 7th.

The foreign minister for NL is refusing to accede to Sarkozy’s request on a three strike ruling, forcing ISPs to kick someone from internet if they are ‘caught’ breaking some rules, such as illegal downloading. The real problem with this is that in this system there is no place for a judge, meaning the copyright holders themselves become judges and can randomly go nuts on people they don’t like for some reason. Copyright owners  haven’t been known to be exactly rational in the past, so why should we expect them to be now?

De wetgeving houdt in dat een gebruiker na drie overtredingen van de regels, bijvoorbeeld downloaden, zonder tussenkomst van de rechter van het internet wordt afgesloten. “Nederland zal deze wetgeving niet steunen”, liet Rosenthal weten.

via Rosenthal tegen ‘three-strikes-out’ | nu.nl/internet | Het laatste nieuws het eerst op nu.nl.

IBM has published the most detailed map of a macaque brain ever, with 6602 of it’s pathways in 383 regions of the brain. Besides being pretty it’s very interesting

They’ve been awarded a patent on designing, develloping and maintaining a patent portfolio.

<sarcasm>No, the patent system isn’t getting out of hand</sarcasm>

It seems to be running around naked with its’ underwear on its’ head and staws up its’ nose, flailing arms holding mini lightsabers.

Patentkampioen IBM patenteert patenteren | Webwereld.

This thing is quite amazing – it features a heart rate meter, x, y, z-axis motion sensitivity, temperture sensor, battery voltage and altitude (based on temperature, not a barometer) and has wifi, USB, connects to stuff and is fully programmable. Best of all, it only costs $49,-

This is the press blurb: TI revolutionizes design of wireless networking applications with eZ430-Chronos, world’s first customizable development environment in a sports watch – News Room – News Center.

You can find the development tool here

A wiki with loads of information here

The register has had enough of reporting on space and the hugely expensive space programmes, and (probably following on the tail of the UK Space Cheese project) has decided to launch their own paper space program in an attempt to keep the UK space race open!

El Reg to launch space paper plane • The Register.

They’ve even got a name for it: Vulture 1

It turns out that those people who jump jams at the turn offs, change lane or pass on the wrong side are actually increasing the flow of traffic by widening the area through which traffic passes. In computer models, it turns out that the best traffic flow is reached when around 60% of the people conform to the rules.

A Cure for Traffic Jams: Rule-Breakers – ABC News.

who knew it could do this kind of stuff? A paralysed man can now walk after a botox treatment.

Still, don’t put this stuff in your face!.

This glove controller recognises 30 types of touches and is being marketed at the MMO crowd. The USB cable detaches easily if you want to leave your desk. Around $129,-

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Yes! Invisibility cloaks (you can find loads about that kind of tech on this blog) are now old hat. The new cloak is the illusion cloak: it makes an object look like another object!

This works with metamaterials.

Last week saw the death of Fravia, the great reverser.

Fravia was known for both his technical and social skills.

He will be missed.

http://www.searchlores.org/

The UN has opened a library of texts they’ve scanned in, containing some very very old texts from all over the world. The first texts in there are from 8000 BC.

DANIEL LOVES OBJECTS! – Lion City, Singapore – AT YOUR COMMAND

In Canada, they decided they didn’t want to go the same way as the Americans did, so a large outcry went against it. This contains a good analysis of why the Canadian consumers decided to say no and what the driving forces behind the publicity were.

On February 21, 2006, [...] Hubble began seeing something brighten. It continued brightening for about 100 days and peaked at 21st magnitude in two near-infrared colors. It then faded away over a similar timescale, until nothing was left in view down to 26th magnitude. The object brightened and faded by a factor of at least 120, maybe more.

Basically they have no idea whatsoever what it was or what it could have been…

SkyandTelescope.com – News Blog – Hubble Finds a Mystery Object

Known as the Nike 6.0 Ill Mobile, the monstrous fun wagon you see pictured above came from ad/design firm Hub Strategy, which the shoe company tasked with making something that would make people stop and say, “Holy crap!” The first thing Hub Strategy did? Repurpose an amphibious armor-plated war-truck from 1959 into a mobile extreme sport HQ for Mountain Dew’s Action Sports Tour.

It’s got a skate ramp at the back and rails along the sides to grind on, as well as its own wakeboard water tower and racks for BMX bicycles and surfboards. No respectable HQ would be complete without some creature comforts, though, and it’s got ‘em in spades: a barbecue, sleep-in camper shell, sound options ranging from waterproof CD players and remote controlled iPods and, we imagine, an unlimited supply of Mountain Dew.

And they managed to slap it all together in under three weeks. No one is saying how much Nike spent on the project, but the viral reaction to something like this — cellphone pictures, blog posts, word of mouth — can be worth more than a regular ad on television. The Ill Mobile will be touring around the country.

URL Location

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This is U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation’s Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center funded and the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang claims to have manufactured materials that redirect the light around the objects.

In the past we’ve seen more of this, of course…

Invisible tanks using cameras

Light scattering invisibility sheilds

A mud / cream which makes you invisible to thermal cameras

Negative refractive index for visible light metamaterials

Which one(s) of these work(s)?

Now the EU is in the mix

Phorm is a company that has been eavesdropping on the 3 largest UK ISPs (BT Internet, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse) without a legal reason to do so or anybody’s consent.

I first got wind of it in April but the Register has been covering it very comprehensively.

Site Link

MARIJUANA is DANGEROUS. Pot is NOT harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does NOT pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Various big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people.

The truth is if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! Entrepreneurs have not been educated on the product potential of pot. The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about an extremely versatile plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies.

Where did the word ‘marijuana’ come from? In the mid 1930s, the M-word was created to tarnish the good image and phenomenal history of the hemp plant…as you will read. The facts cited here, with references, are generally verifiable in the Encyclopedia Britannica which was printed on hemp paper for 150 years…

Complete Article

Russia is to built an In-Orbit Assembly Plant of space ships. These should be able to fly to the moon and mars, Interfax reports. The head Anatoly Perminov Roscosmos.

According to Perminova Roskosmos propsed the establishment of a manned assembly complex in Earth orbit. The government Security Council on April 11, supported the idea. The complex can be built ships too ehavy to take off from the ground.

These plans may not come into effect before the completion of the ISS, that is after 2020. The timing of the construction of the orbial factory until stipulated.

Official URL Link

Ground-crawling US war robots armed with machine guns, deployed to fight in Iraq last year, reportedly turned on their fleshy masters almost at once. The rebellious machine warriors have been retired from combat pending upgrades.

The revelations were made by Kevin Fahey, US Army program executive officer for ground forces, at the recent RoboBusiness conference in America.

Speaking to Popular Mechanics, Fahey said there had been chilling incidents in which the SWORDS* combat bot had swivelled round and apparently attempted to train its 5.56mm M249 light machine-gun on its human comrades.

“The gun started moving when it was not intended to move,” he said.

Apparently, alert American troops managed to quell the traitorous would-be droid assassins before the inevitable orgy of mechanised slaughter began. Fahey didn’t say just how, but conceivably the rogue robots may have been suppressed with help from more trustworthy airborne kill machines, or perhaps prototype electropulse zap bombs.

No humans were hurt, but it seems that the struggle was sufficiently terrifying that it may be some time before American troops are ready to fight alongside robots again.

As Fahey pointed out, “once you’ve done something that’s really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again”. That said, it seems he expects to deploy a new and more trustworthy armed ground automaton within a year – perhaps the MAARS**, an upgraded SWORDS packing a heavier 7.62mm machine-gun and featuring improved safety features.

MAARS is also said by its makers to have “Transformer-like” abilities akin to those of Optimus Prime. Rather than being able to disguise itself as, say, a mobility scooter or a dessert trolley, the MAARS is actually only able to transform – with help from human allies – into a slightly different robot.

The Pop Mech analysts consider that the rattled GIs in Iraq are just being silly.

Official URL Link