WorldRecords
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OSU Buckeye Bullet 2 sets new battery-powered speed record
Ohio State's Buckeye Bullet 2 has just set a new battery-powered vehicle record after hitting a speed of 291 mph averaged over two separate runs done back-to-back in opposite directions. Yes, it's technically slower than the two-way land speed record of 300.992 mph the original Bullet set back in 2009, but that car was powered by hydrogen fuel cells. This year's model instead was developed in partnership with boutique Monaco-based electric car manufacturer Venturi and replaced the fuel cells with lithium-ion batteries from A123 Systems. It's also apparently a testing prototype for a new car that's coming in 2011. Will that car hit these kind of world record speeds? Probably not, but we're not letting that dash our newly formed geek fantasy of seeing it drag against a Tesla.
Seagate claims world record for magnetic recording density
While researchers in academia have the luxury of playing around with exotic technologies like nano-clusters, shape-shifting lasers, and nanomagnetic vortices, the engineers at Seagate know that they actually have to profit off of their research, so for now they're sticking with traditional magnetic recording techniques in order to push the limits of hard drive capacity with new and exciting storage densities. Using now-standard perpendicular recording heads and media manufactured with current production techniques, the company recently demoed drives with a record-breaking 421Gb/in² data density, which should allow for 500GB 2.5-inch notebook drives, 2.5TB 3.5-inch desktop drives, and 1-inch to 1.8-inch consumer electronics drives that can store between 40GB and an impressive 275GB, starting in 2009. Looking beyond perpendicular recording, Seagate researchers say that the still nascent Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and bit patterned media techniques should eventually allow mind-boggling densities of up to 50Tb/in², which is surely more space than anyone could possibly need, ever. (We know that last part's actually untrue, but we just included it so that future generations perusing our archives can have a good, hindsight-enabled laugh at our naïveté).
The bestselling games of all time
Gaming Steve's asking the question "What is the bestselling video game of all time?", and better still, he's found some answers. Super Mario Bros. takes the Guinness Book of World Records' accolade, helped in no small part by its bundling with the NES.With innovative title The Sims taking the PC top spot and Pac-Man walking off with the coin-op crown, it's unsurprising to see that all three games have given rise to spinoffs, sequels and copycats galore. However, while Mario's still running riot, you don't see much of Pac-Man nowadays. The lesson to publishers? Bundling games, repurposing content and milking franchises may see you clear to the top spot, but you'll have to work jolly hard to outsell Mario.
