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World View successfully launches near-space balloon from its new HQ
World View's dreams of replacing satellites with edge-of-space balloons have been long in the making, and not without some hiccups: its initial flight, which included KFC chicken in a publicity stunt,ended prematurely thanks to a leak. Things are going more smoothly this weekend, though. The startup has completed the first launch of a Stratollite balloon from its new headquarters in Tucson, where it hopes to turn balloon launches into a routine occurrence.
Space balloon company finds a home in Arizona
Arizona's Pima County residents could soon brag about having a cool space balloon port, according to TechCrunch. The county's local government has agreed to award World View $14.5 million to build its port in the area, ending the company's year-long search for a home. If you can't quite place where you've heard the name World View before, it made headlines sometime ago for its plans to offer relatively affordable trips to the edge of space.
ICYMI: Mousetrap for memory, balloon space launch and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-30194{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-30194, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-30194{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-30194").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A virtual reality simulator putting mice through a pretend maze is analyzing memory formation that should benefit humans. A newish space launch company plans to inflate stadium-sized balloons for a gentle flight to the stratosphere, with actual flights scheduled for 2017. Meanwhile researchers built a tractor beam using high-amplitude sound waves to move small objects, which is just as cool as it sounds.
World View tests a small version of its balloon-powered spacecraft
World View, the company that plans to offer relatively affordable trips to the edge of space using ginormous helium balloons, has successfully completed its first major test flight. While it aims to use balloons the size of a football stadium for the actual flights, the one it tested is a scaled-down version carrying a replica spacecraft. The test system reached an altitude of 100,475 feet, which means the company reached its goal: it promised to take passengers 100,000 feet (around 20 miles) up in the air inside a capsule for one to two hours, after all. That's about 40 miles below sub-orbital space, but it's still high enough for passengers to clearly see the curvature of our planet.
360iDev: Lessons learned from four years on the App Store
Andreas Linde is the developer of an app called WorldView+, which is designed to let you view webcams from around the world on your iOS device (we took a look at the app here). He released the app on Apple's App Store over four years ago now, and this week at 360iDev in Denver, he went through some lessons that he'd picked up working on Apple's platform. A lot of what Linde has learned echo what we've heard before from other developers: Polish and stability are extremely important when you're creating iPhone apps, because if a customer can't use the app for what it's designed for, it's just not going to be successful. Linde talked about how, when his app first arrived on the App Store, it was crashing about every one in 50 times. But as he did more and more work on it, the app now crashes only ever 0.01 percent of sessions, and that's a much better figure. One of his big recommendations was that developers look very, very closely at every single one of Apple's apps, both the released public apps from Cupertino (to see the design patterns and UI elements used), and the sample code included in Xcode's documentation, to learn just how it's all done. He also said that every developer out there should get a designer to work with, because "it really, really, really matters. Take your time, plan it early and find the right guy," said Linde. Linde also gave a few pointers on how to handle customer support -- he suggested to developers that "the customer was not always right." Obviously, developers shouldn't completely avoid customer requests, but Linde says that users don't always know what they want, and even when they send requests to a developer for a certain app feature or fix, it may not exactly be the one they'll actually use. Linde also suggested that developers do their best to keep support requests and communication out of iTunes reviews, where it often ends up if not otherwise handled by developers. Early on in WorldView+'s life, Linde created an option for in-app support, and he says that helped a lot in terms of getting support requests to him through the right channels. Linde also asked customers to rate his app directly, and he saw ratings go up substantially when he did that. "You can get better ratings just by asking," he told the crowd. Finally, Linde said he's still learning. He has gotten some press on the app, and that exposure has encouraged a few bumps in sales, but even he admitted that he's not sure how or why that coverage came about. So even as an experienced developer, says Linde, he's got quite a bit to still learn about how the App Store works. Linde's experience seems typical of a lot of developers out there -- there are certainly plenty of great lessons to have picked up from the App Store over its lifetime, and things are still changing so much that there's also lots left to learn.
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.
We're all in the Red King's dream
In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Alice is told by Tweedledee that she only exists as part of the Red King's dreams. "And if he left off dreaming about you," Tweedledee ponders, "where do you suppose you'd be?" As Carroll illustrates, the concept of self-referential realities is not new. Whether discussing the potential pitfalls of a book-based time-travelling plotline that ties a protagonist into the role of being their own grandparent, or focusing attention on the weltanschauung that supports reincarnation and clan-line prophecies, humans seem to have a need to write themselves into the story wherever they can, compartmentalizing fact, fiction, and speculation.
