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College esports is set to explode, starting with the Fiesta Bowl
As executive director of the Fiesta Bowl, one of the largest postseason college football games of the year, Mike Nealy was more familiar with shoulder pads than mousepads. Six months ago, he didn't know people were making money playing video games professionally, he'd never heard of Twitch, and the last time he picked up a controller, it was attached to an Atari 2600. That all changed after a conversation with John Pierce, an esports consultant and former marketing head for the Phoenix Coyotes and US Olympic Committee. Pierce outlined the professional-gaming boom to Nealy and explained how it could tie into the collegiate football scene. He put Nealy in touch with Blizzard, the studio behind Overwatch.
Batteries that stretch are perfect for smart watches and clothes
Used to be that the only time your lithium-ion batteries changed their shape was when they were about to explode in an airliner cargo hold. But thanks to the ingenuity of an Arizona State University research team, future power packs could not only bend but stretch up to 150 percent of their original size while providing an uninterrupted stream of power. Their secret: the ancient Japanese art form of Kirigami. It's an offshoot of the more well-known Origami form that involves both folding and cutting the working material.
Video: ASU's touch-screen ePaper display evokes the future from the past
With the Kindle back in the news, everyone's interested in showing off their E-Ink displays. Here we have the latest video from Arizona State University's Flexible Display Center. Their new bendy display is touch-sensitive (stylus or finger) and makes us long for Apple's old Newton for some reason. Check the video after the break to see why.[Via I4U News]
HP and ASU demo bendable, unbreakable electronic displays
Well, what do you know? Nearly four years after Arizona State University opened its very own flexible display center comes this, a prototype device that's purportedly easy to manufactur, easy on the environment and practically as strong as Thor. HP and ASU have teamed up to demonstrate the fresh e-displays, which are constructed almost entirely of plastic and consume far less power than traditional computer monitors. The "unbreakable displays" were crafted using self-aligned imprint lithography (SAIL) technology invented in HP Labs, and while we'd love to see this in a pliable laptop at CES 2009, we suspect it'll be a few years yet before these slither out to the commercial realm.Update: HP Labs pinged us with this tidbit on the image above. "This image from the Flexible Display Center at ASU represents what the flexible display, a paper-like computer display made entirely of plastic, could look like in the future."
ASU testing Snow Crash for Google?
Matt Stone at ASU Web Devil (Arizona State University's online newspaper) has gotten a hold of some internal emails between ASU officials that indicate that they are testing a secret project (referred to as Myworld or sometimes Snow Crash), among strong suggestions that it's for Google and that it's in beta with a small number of students right now. ASU is something of a poster-child for Google (who even have an office on one of the ASU campuses), and has been an early tester for assorted Google applications.
Femtosecond laser pulses could safely destroy viruses, bacteria
The world is already well aware of just how potent (and useful) femtosecond lasers are, and a recent study conducted by a team of Arizona State University physicists explains how pulses could be used to dismantle viruses and bacteria without harming a single innocent cell. Rather than follow in the footsteps of indiscriminate laser treatment options, the group of Sun Devils reportedly figured out a way to "produce lethal vibrations in the protein coat of microorganisms," which has the potential to at least treat "blood-borne diseases such as AIDS and Hepatitis." The technique, dubbed ISRS (Impulsive Stimulated Raman Scattering), has shown to not harm healthy human cells while fighting the good fight against viral pathogens, and while there's no easy way to surmise how quickly we'll see this in action, we're gonna wait for a bit more proof before getting our hopes up.[Via Switched]
Software Update: Apple Security Update 2006-008
For your downloading pleasure, Apple presents Security Update 2006-008 (PPC and UB). Both weigh in at under 2MB and require Mac OS X 10.4.8 (client or server). You can grab this patch from Apple's downloads page or from Software Update.According to Apple, this patch "improves the security of Quartz Composer and QuickTime for Java." Specifically, it patches a vulnerability that may lead to "information disclosure" when visiting a malicious website (aka phishing site). Complete details on the flaw can be found in Apple's Kbase.Mike and I were curious about why there's both a PPC and a UB version. Seems redundant since UB means it works on both PPC and Intel. Turns out it's not truly "universal." As Mike noticed first, the System Requirements state that it's Universal for 10.4.8 Server, but 10.48 Client is Intel-only. Hence the standalone PPC-only download (which can be used on client or server.) Would still be nice to streamline this a bit more. Faithful guinea pigs, please report your experience with this update below!
Arizona student envisions giant space mirrors for terraforming Mars
Anyone who's ever read science fiction knows that in addition to space elevators and transporters, there's another futuristic technology that we'd all dig: terraforming. Being able to transform the moon, Mars, or any other barren celestial body into a new Earth would make human interplanetary colonization a bit more feasible. However, instead of terraforming an entire planet, which at current estimates could take centuries, it appears that altering one single square kilometer first might be a bit simpler. Earlier this year, Rigel Woida, an undergraduate at the University of Arizona, received a grant from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts to study "reflective balloons," which in theory could raise the surface temperature of Mars on that patch to 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), compared with the typical high of -76 degrees Fahrenheit (-60 degrees Celsius). Woida recently gave a presentation at the NAIC meeting in October and will give another at a second meeting this March, where he will hopefully show NASA how great his concept his, and how the astronauts who study Mars in his little patch of paradise will be able to like, totally, get the best tan ever.
Fusion Tour impressions from the mid-South [update1]
Last week, we forayed into an as yet undiscovered country for a chance with the Wii. What country? Well, it's more of a town, really ... a smallish town ... known as Jonesboro, Arkansas.Arkansas State University in Jonesboro is a strange stop for the Fusion Tour. Sure, it's a college town, but there are far more obvious locales nearby. Little Rock is a mere two hour drive away. It's a big, grown-up city, home of a President and all. And Memphis, that sultry city of the blues, is less than an hour away for those with particularly heavy accelerator feet. But Nintendo chose Jonesboro. Sigh. In service to you, dear reader (maybe not all of it), it was Jonesboro-ho.
