world view
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A fleet of sensor-packed balloons will hit the stratosphere this summer
World View wants to occupy the sky. Its sensor-packed balloons sit in the stratosphere, taking in data and imaging the ground. The company completed test flights to tweak flight and navigation issues, and is now ready for its balloons to operate in the stratosphere on a long-term basis. A preliminary fleet of Stratolites -- equipped with various sensors -- will be released over North and Central America this summer, helping scientists, meteorologists and governments to gather data that is more accurate than that of typical satellites.
A balloon to the beyond: World View on savoring space tourism
Jane Poynter wants you to take a trip to space that's as comfortable as a luxury cruise. She's spent two years living in the sealed research lab Biosphere 2, and serves as president of Paragon Space Development Corporation, where she led development of the life-support systems for the 2018 Inspiration Mars mission. Now, as CEO of World View, she's been developing a solution for space tourism that relies on a huge helium balloon, not rockets. That means no training necessary, no dealing with the uncomfortable effects of heavy G-force acceleration and a trip that lasts four to six hours.
Shadowrun Online reveals world view and legwork videos
Cliffhanger Production's Kickstarter campaign for Shadowrun Online is entering the home stretch, which means it's time for new videos and information about the game! World views in Shadowrun Online allow players to access the information that matters most to them. A Hacker will receive and manipulate different information than a Mage, as each has skills and abilities geared towards different gameplay styles. Not only does this help tailor individual play, but it creates a more information-rich style of team dynamics when players can provide their allies with different information. The game expects players to be prepared for a given situation rather than running, guns blazing, into a room full of hostiles. "Legwork" means gathering information and having a plan to deal with security guards because unlike people in some (and by some we mean most) online worlds, people in Shadowrun tend to notice when they suddenly go missing. The team has scheduled a Reddit AMA for August 8th at 3:00 p.m. EDT. Skip below the cut for the two new videos.
Metaphor recognition software aims to distinguish friend from foe
While it's only right that people be protected from bad poetry, this could be taking things a tad too far. Intelligence officials at the Office of Incisive Analysis (no, really) have determined that metaphors could be of vital significance to national security. By, well, incisively analyzing the way people use metaphors in everyday conversations, they believe they can reveal "underlying beliefs and world views" -- such as negative feelings towards a particular country. Now they're calling on civilian scientists and academics to help them do this automatically using pattern recognition and supercomputers. Of course there's always the risk that smart terrorists will switch to using similes instead.
