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Watch jetpack pilot Vince Reffet set a new altitude record in Dubai
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Jetman Dubai's latest aeronautical achievement in a jet-powered wingsuit. The team says it's reached a major milestone with its Iron Man-like jet suit, flying nearly 6,000 feet in altitude from a standing start and working hovers, turns and maneuvers into the mix, too.
Perlan glider sets altitude record for unpowered flight
Gliders may be inherently limited by their nature (they're dependent on rising air currents), but that isn't stopping them from achieving feats normally reserved for their powered counterparts. The Perlan Project and Airbus have set a new record for engineless flight with Perlan 2, which flew to a lofty 52,172 feet -- well above the 50,727 feet the previous record holder (appropriately, Perlan 1) reached in 2006. The trick was to fly in the right place at the right time.
Altitude - View & Share for iOS reports your current altitude
Altitude - View & Share for iPhone (free) is an interesting little app that reports on your current altitude. Once launched, the app displays your altitude in meters or feet over a landscape photo meant to represent your surroundings. With a tap, you can share this information with family or friends via Facebook or Twitter. That's great, but what if you want to use your own photo? An in-app purchase (US$0.99) unlocks this feature. Once bought, you can save a custom image with altitude information intact to your iPhone's camera roll. The option of using your own photo is a nice touch. Still, I wish I could share via email from within the app. As it is, you have to make a trip to your camera roll. That seems a weakness in an app that bills itself as a sharing solution. I also wish I could choose an existing photo. Altitude requires you to shoot a new one. (The author of the software says that function is in the app. I didn't find the control obvious, but it is there.) Finally, the built-in photos slowly pan left and right, while custom pictures remain static. I like the idea behind Altitude. It's great for sharing your travels, especially in the mountains. Of course, a trip to some parts of Death Valley will give you some below-sea-level readings. A similar, free app is Travel Altimeter Lite. It displays altitude, latitude and longitude over a picture, but if you want more variety, you'll need some pricey in-app purchases that total more than the $0.99 upgrade for Altimeter. Altitude needs iOS 7.0 or later. It supports English, French, Spanish and Italian. It's not a universal app, but it is optimized for the iPhone 5.
Earth, as seen by Raspberry Pi camera attached to weather balloon
The Raspberry Pi camera has been out for less than two weeks, and it's already skirted the final frontier. Armchair astronaut Dave Akerman strapped the $25 shooter to the equally inexpensive Raspberry Pi, put it inside a protective case shaped like the berry that inspired the product's name, and then attached it to a weather balloon. Three hours and quite a few vertical miles later, his experiment was recovered by a stranger not too far from the launch site, who called the phone number written on the side of the Linux powered microcomputer. The resulting photos are beautiful (see more at the source link), and required no help whatsoever from NASA.
STMicroelectronics details pressure sensor in your Galaxy S III, can tell when you're mountaineering
If you're the sort to tear down your Galaxy S III, you might have noticed a mysterious STMicroelectronics LSP331AP chip lurking on the motherboard. While we've known that it's a pressure sensor, we now know that it's a new generation -- new enough that ST is just getting to explaining the technology to a mainstream audience. The piezoresistor-equipped MEMS chip tracks altitude through atmospheric pressure with an uncanny knack for precision; it can tell when you've crossing between floors, which could be more than handy for future iterations of indoor navigation. Don't worry if you're an extreme sports junkie that might push the limits, either. The sensor can do its job at the kinds of pressure you'd normally see when 32,800 feet high or 5,900 feet below sea level, which should keep it working even if you're checking your phone during a climb up K2 or a HALO skydive. We don't know if anyone beyond Samsung is lined up to use ST's pressure sensor in their devices, but we wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a mainstay for smartphones and outdoor gear in the near future.
Man skydives from 13 miles above Earth, isn't satisfied (video)
Your worst nightmares? Felix Baumgartner's breakfast. Determined to cement his legacy in the Pantheon of Daredevilry, the famed skydiver successfully leapt from an altitude of more than 70,000 feet last week -- and that was just a trial. It's all part of Baumgartner's attempt to complete a record-breaking 120,000 foot "spacedive" later this year and, based on early returns, he seems well on his way. His latest jump, completed on March 15th, saw the fearless Austrian carried up to more than 13 miles above the Earth, protected only by a pressurized suit and capsule that hung from a 165-foot high helium balloon. Not long after jumping out, he reached a maximum speed of 364.4 mph, with the entire free fall lasting a little over eight minutes, according to Red Bull Stratos, which is sponsoring the effort. The idea behind last week's run was to test out the balloon and pressurized capsule, though Baumgartner is apparently hoping to complete another jump from about 90,000 feet above ground, before attempting the record breaker sometime this summer. Somewhere, Yves Rossy is furiously polishing off his jetpack. For more details on the equipment used to pull off the feat, check out Red Bull Stratos' video, after the break.
Wolfram Alpha search engine now tracks flight paths, trajectory information
If you've ever looked up in the sky and wondered where a plane might be headed, Wolfram Alpha might just know the answer. The search engine, which recently began incorporating data from the FAA can now, with a five-minute delay from real-time data, use a flight's speed, heading and altitude to offer a projection of a plane's position. A search for 'flights overhead' via the Wolfram Alpha web site or app will use your location to pinpoint flights that should be visible to you. That string currently only works if the flight has at least one endpoint in the United States, so tracking international flights might be limited. Even so, this should allow you to look up flight delays, check when the next flight will be, see a cool interactive sky map and track a specific flight, of course. You'll have no valid excuse for being late to pick a friend up from the airport ever again.
eRocketry successfully launches Delta II Model 7420-10 rocket, has the video to prove it
Got a hankering for homebrewed aeronautics? You might wanna reach out to the folks at eRocketry -- a self-described "Online Rocketry and Space Community." Earlier this week, at the tenth annual Plaster Blaster event in California, a group of eRocketeers made their grand debut, successfully launching a Delta II Model 7420-10 Rocket into the ether, along with an onboard camera. Constructed by space enthusiasts from Tripoli San Diego and the Diego Area Rocket Team (DART), the 1:9 scale rocket (pictured above) stands nearly 14 feet tall, with a diameter of just 10.75 inches. After eRocketry founder Philip Odegard attached a Contour HD camera to his creation, the beast triumphantly soared above the desert sky, reaching an altitude of 2,272 feet. Fortunately for all of us, the camera survived the journey, capturing some pretty cool footage along the way. Check it out for yourself after the break, or hit up the source link for more images. [Thanks, Keith]
DIY unmanned airship soars 95,000 feet above Earth, lays claim to new record (video)
Are you entertaining dreams of launching your own private spacecraft? All you need is about 30 grand in your bank account, and lots of spare time. Last weekend, a company called JP Aerospace sent its unmanned Tandem airship 95,085 feet above the ground -- a height that, according to the company, establishes a new record for remotely controlled airships. In fact, JP Aerospace says this altitude is a full four miles higher than any other airship has ever flown. To pull this off, the team strapped its 30-foot-long aircraft with two balloons, and packed it with a pair of electric motors that manipulated the Tandem's specially designed propellers. It's a relatively simple method, and one that didn't exactly break the bank, either. All told, it took about five years and some $30,000 to launch the aircraft, as part of the company's Airship to Orbit project. The long-term goal is to use the Tandem or similar airships as a launch pad for rockets or other interstellar aircraft. No word yet on when that could happen, but you can float past the break for a brief video on the Tandem, coupled with a brief PR.
Civilization 5 marked down to $17, Altitude free-to-play this weekend on Steam
It's far too hot to even consider crossing the threshold of your domicile this weekend. We suggest you tap into Steam's two big deals instead: Until Monday at 10 a.m. PT, Civilization V is down to $17, while the biplane combat title Altitude is half-price and free-to-play until Sunday afternoon.
NASA's Global Hawk completes unmanned airborne refueling simulation, will do it for real next year (video)
While some bot makers are busying themselves designing AI to simulate humans' natural and distinct lack of intelligence, it's nice to see there are still old-fashioned researchers out there keeping the Skynet dream alive. Northrop Grumman's aeronautics gurus have paired together a Global Hawk unmanned aircraft with a manned Proteus ship way up in the skies -- 45,000 feet, to be precise -- with the vessels of ingenuity managing to fly in tandem at a distance as short as 40 feet. Unsurprisingly, this is the first time such intimacy has been reached between UAVs (the Proteus had a monitoring crew on board to ensure the insurance bill wasn't through the roof) in high altitude, and the ultimate goal of having two Global Hawks doing the deed without any human intervention is said to be within reach by next year. That's when these light and agile air drones will be able to refuel themselves and go on for a mighty 120 hours in the air... plenty of time to complete a well planned extermination down below, if one were so inclined.
Google fires Nexus S into space, invites tenuous Galaxy S analogies (video)
How are you killing the time until the Nexus S finally goes on sale? Google's answer to that question has been a typically outlandish affair, involving seven Nexi, a collection of weather balloons, and another quest to see how much can be learned from a humble smartphone's sensors when they're shot to the edge of space. Yes, the Mountain View madmen fired a week's worth of their latest and greatest smartphones through the Earth's atmosphere, hoping to test both the durability and the information-gathering skills of the onboard compass, gyro, and accelerometer, while dedicated GPS modules were installed in each "shuttle" (made out of styrofoam beer coolers, if you can believe it) to help recover the cargo on its return to terra firma. So far, only six of the phones have been recovered -- might this be another of Google's crazy puzzles? A treasure hunt for an Android fallen from heaven? Video after the break. Update: Want to see an Android in space? It turns out that Google was documenting the entire event, and has high-res images and footage of its mascot exiting Earth's atmosphere in a brand-new blog post. Find it at our more coverage links, or hit the break for some video!
PAX 10 winners announced for PAX '10
The ten independently-developed games that will be featured on the show floor at PAX Prime 2010 have been announced. There are a few recognizable names in this year's PAX 10 collection, including Super Meat Boy and Retro City Rampage-- but there are also plenty of lesser-known (but assuredly spectacular) indie titles in the mix as well, like the pictured Fowl Space. Check out the full list of featured titles posted just past the jump, or catch a glimpse of each game in the gallery below. If you want to give the games a once-over at PAX Prime, you might want to grab one of the remaining one-day passes for the event. %Gallery-97577%
Crazy summer Steam sale includes some fantastic Mac games
The PC gaming community has long enjoyed the ridiculously awesome Steam sales Valve loves to break out during holidays and at other fun times of the year. The sales deliver game bundles for crazy cheap prices, even on AAA current titles. Steam's summer sale kicked off a couple of days ago. For the first time, Mac gamers get to join in on the fun thanks to Steam's recent adoption of OS X. While there are hundreds of Mac & PC titles on sale through July 4th, most of the best deals are found on a few select games featured each day. Today's sales have two good selections that Mac gamers may want to check out. For strategy fans Paradox Interactive's deep historical real-time strategy game Europa Universalis III lets the player control a European nation and rewrite history between 1453 and 1820 AD. For adventure gamers, a bundle of all five episodes of the previously mentioned Telltale Games' Tales of Monkey Island is also available at a great price. The clock is ticking -- but thankfully Valve offsets the time for most US timezones so you can get a chance to pick them up in the morning. If those two games don't belong to any of your favorite genres, there are a bunch of other titles included in the full sale. Right now is a great time to pick up any of Valve's growing list of games released for OS X with first-person shooters Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Portal and Half-Life 2. Better yet, grab the Valve Complete Pack for all of them so you're ready to go when Left 4 Dead 2 arrives on OS X.
Cross-platform multiplayer titles hit Steam for Mac
A new batch of games has landed on Steam for Mac. While there are several new single-player titles available, it's the new multiplayer titles that are particularly noteworthy. The reason: Multiplayer is compatible across both Mac and PC platforms. Leading the cross-platform charge is cooperative zombie murder sim Killing Floor. Two other cross-platform titles now available include Madballs in Babo: Invasion and Altitude, a 2D aerial dogfighting game. To mark the occasion all three games are on sale, with Killing Floor priced at $13.99 (33 percent off) and both Altitude and Madballs available for $4.99 each. Plus, Altitude will be free to play this weekend. Incidentally, these sales apply to the PC versions as well. Find a full list of this week's new Mac games after the break.
