sun
Latest
NASA going to the Sun, Jay Leno readies 'hot' jokes for coming years
Our favorite aerospace exploration organization will finally fulfill a 1958 recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences by sending the Solar Probe Plus into the Sun's atmosphere. It will be the first time any craft visits a star -- previous data have been collected from at least millions of miles away. Why the personal visit? Two main reasons: to determine why the sun's corona is millions of kelvin hotter than its visible surface, and to learn more about how that solar wind we've been hearing so much about lately gets accelerated. Look out for answers to these and other burning questions (we're getting started early!) sometime before 2018.
Google calls Oracle Android lawsuit 'baseless,' says Java goes 'beyond any one corporation'
Oracle's decision to sue Google for infringing its patents and copyright on Java in Android has certainly stirred up a hornets' nest of commentary and analysis on the web today, but it's only just now that we've received Google's official statement, in which the search giant calls the suit "baseless" and vows to "defend open-source standards." Them's fightin' words -- and considering the Dalvik virtual machine at the heart of the Android OS is the centerpiece of this dispute, we wouldn't expect either side to back down quietly here. Get ready for years of litigation, friends. Here's Google's full statement: We are disappointed Oracle has chosen to attack both Google and the open-source Java community with this baseless lawsuit. The open-source Java community goes beyond any one corporation and works every day to make the web a better place. We will strongly defend open-source standards and will continue to work with the industry to develop the Android platform.
HomeSun to install gratis solar panels on UK roofs, hope for reimbursement
As the story goes, the UK government is helping to subsidize the installation of solar panels on homes around the country, and HomeSun is hoping to make a name for itself by providing a bit of encouragement for those on the fence. Reportedly, the outfit will be providing and installing 2.5 kWh to 4 kWh systems -- which typically range between £11,000 and £15,000 -- for precisely nothing on abodes with "optimally sited and sized roofs." Post-install, HomeSun will receive government funds over 25 years, and at any point, customers can buy the system off on a straightline depreciation basis and start receiving the feed-in tariff themselves. Better still, those who don't meet the "free" qualifications can still get in on the goodness for a one-time fee of £500 and a £5/month maintenance charge. We'd suggest you apply quick, though -- the company will only be installing 100,000 systems over the next three years.
Photon enhanced thermionic emission could double efficiency of solar cells
Engineers at Stanford have developed a process which can harness the light and heat of the sun simultaneously, which could lead to solar cells that are twice as efficient as those currently available. Called photon enhanced thermionic emission -- or PETE for short -- the process differs from traditional cells which lose efficiency as temperatures rise, and the materials needed to build the cells are cheap and widely available. The engineers got around the lower efficiencies by coating a piece of semiconducting material with a thin layer of the metal cesium, which enables the material to use both heat and light simultaneously. While the materials as currently demonstrated work best in very high temperatures, the researchers indicate that in the near future, the materials could have wide enough application to make them competitive with traditional forms of energy. Hit the source for the full story.
Violent sun throws fit, massive blast of plasma to hit Earth tomorrow
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are no laughing matter, but for quite some time now we've been livin' easy as the sun kept it cool. That changes tomorrow, when a massive CME will hit our atmosphere, flung asunder by that great CFL in the sky, which apparently spent much of yesterday throwing a giant, solar tantrum. Scientists are saying that human life will probably not be exterminated thanks to our atmosphere, but GPS and cellular reception could be a little finicky tomorrow. We can't wait to see the anti-sun attack ads from Apple. Update: Twitter user d0mth0ma5 sent us this link to a NASA time-lapse of the ejection. Make your time. [Thanks, Eric]
Soul of the Ultimate Nation sees the spreading Shadow
It might seem like everything is all fine and dandy in Soul of the Ultimate Nation, but there's a shadow on the horizon. More specifically, there's Shadow, the newest character added to the game. A combination of dark sorcery and assassin skills form Shadow's potent, solo-friendly skillset, something the game's development team had been hinting at since the beginning of the year. But that's hardly all that's new in the game, which has expanded the high-level content as well. Player characters over level 100 have access to nearly two hundred added quests, as well as new high-level areas in Helron's Castle. Neville's Swamp and Bronze Moon City, as well as the area conquest for the aforementioned castle, are all open. To cap off the experience, players have access to the fourth village in Soul of the Ultimate Nation, giving high-end players a spot where they can congregate with one another. Rather than forcing you to just read the text, however, we have both a set of preview images in our gallery, and two trailers for the update embedded past the cut. %Gallery-98558%
New biggest star discovered, is not Justin Bieber
You know how sometimes you're just sitting out in a field with your homies, looking up at the stars and thinking man, the universe is so BIG... and I'm just so small! Thanks to the Very Large Telescope in Chile, Professor Paul Crowther at Sheffield University, and some good old-fashioned Hubble data, you can feel just a little bit smaller. Crowther and his team have measured the giant known as R136a1 to be 265 times the size of the sun. That's a pretty cool size, but not quite as cool as the 320 solar masses it was at birth -- nothing to sneeze at, since previous discoveries had the largest stars somewhere around 150 solar masses. It's also the most luminous star ever found, at 10 million times brighter than the sun. Even so, don't get your hopes up trying to see this with your telescope (unless it's, you know, Very Large) because it's a good 165,000 light years away. Doesn't mean you can't look in its direction and smile, though. [Image: ESO / M. Kornmesser]
Solar powered tattoo gun makes the earth happy, doesn't guarantee you won't regret that Biz Markie ink
Hey, if we told you that you could get a tattoo from a guy in Dallas who uses a rotary tattoo gun powered by a solar panel, would you go for it? The guy in the video below sure did. [Thanks, Naveen]
Quickertek selling solar panel for iPad
Back at Macworld, I checked out a company on the show floor that made solar (photovoltaic) panels. I was hoping to see a panel for sale ready to charge the iPhone, because an easy-to-use panel at a reasonable price would have probably had me opening my wallet on the spot. Unfortunately, they only made custom-designed panels, and nothing mass market (or in my price range), so I was disappointed. But this one might be what I was looking for: Quickertek, makers of all sorts of Mac-related accessories, has adapted its MacBook "Apple Juicz" solar panel to the iPad. This provides 10 watts of sun-based power (reportedly the same as the regular iPad charger) to your magical and revolutionary device. I don't have an iPad yet, and the price of the Apple Juicz (US$250) is still a little steep for me, even though it's probably cheap for what it is. But I am always in favor of using solar technology, and if you're doing something like camping in the middle of nowhere and using your iPad or MacBook a lot, this might be a workable solution. If nothing else, at least we're getting closer. Someday, photovoltaic panels will be so good at grabbing light and batteries will be so good at storing the generated power that all you'll need to do to charge your iPad is go read outside in the sun for a bit. [via Cult of Mac]
The Virtual Whirl: News of the Whirl
This week, in The Virtual Whirl, we're having our monthly roundup of news items. Things that got missed, things that didn't make the cut, things that got buried, and things that really should have gotten your attention anyway.
iPhone photo of "ghost" makes UK tabloids look foolish
It doesn't take much to make yourself look like a fool, but in the case of The UK's Sun and Daily Mail newspapers, they have to be feeling quite idiotic right about now. Perhaps not, as these tabloids have a history of running fabulous stories about celebrities, politicians, and the supernatural as a matter of daily business. John Ware, a 47-year old builder, sent the newspapers a photo he had taken with his iPhone that allegedly showed a ghostly little boy dressed in turn-of-the-20th-century clothing, balefully looking at the photographer. You can see the little boy at the right side of the photo, standing in the foreground. The papers dutifully ran the story, with the Sun's example shown at the top of this post. There's only one problem: as Macenstein pointed out, the same little boy haunts the US$0.99 iPhone app Ghost Capture. That's right -- it's apparent that Mr. Ware snapped a shot of a demolition site with the app, and then submitted the photo. Our guess is that Ware was having a little fun with the papers, and that the "Got a story? We pay £££." tag line you see at the top of the page might have provided some motivation. Here's hoping that the developers of Ghost Capture add The King to the family of ghosts in the app, so the Sun and Daily Mail can report a rash of Elvis sightings to their readers.
ComEd launches pilot solar energy program for 100 customers in Chicago
Chicago utility company ComEd announced earlier this week it will launch a pilot program for 100 of its customers to test out the power of the sun. The program will include the installation of solar panels into 100 homes, and further devices -- such as smarter thermostats which do things like lower during the day when no one's at home, and give out hourly pricing information -- in fifty of those homes. The meters will also have the ability to reward customers who generate excess solar power that can be pumped back into the grid -- because everybody loves being rewarded, right? ComEd will choose the pilot families by mail-in survey, and by factors such as their roofs, and the amount of shading trees there are in their yards.
Soul of the Ultimate Nation unearths Aiort graveyard
The crew over at ijji.com have just released a new content update for Soul of the Ultimate Nation, and this one has some nice additions for long-time players. The update introduces a new area called the Aiort graveyards, perfect for those level 100 and higher characters. Did I say higher? Yes! That's because this new update also raises the level cap in Soul of the Ultimate Nation to a mind-bending level 115. Along with the new area and level cap increase, players are being treated to over 150 new quests for players from level 70 on up in places like Etherain, Valley of Dragonkin, the Cursed Tower, and of course within the Aiort graveyards.
Melbourne's decommissioned Observation Wheel re-imagined as energy-making windmill
A Melbourne icon was shut down recently due to damages that were apparently too severe to bother fixing, but thankfully for the otherwise stunning Southern Star Observation Wheel, a few good men and women have their gears going about what to do next. Designer Büro North, who also dreamed up the VEIL Solar Shades, has a most splendorous idea of how to turn a broken ride into something that actually benefits local citizens. Obviously everything's still a pipe dream for now, but said dream involves strapping solar sails onto the sides and creating a wind-driven energy generation machine that pulls juice from two renewable sources. And let's be honest, you'd totally ride this -- risks be darned.
Solar flares set to wreak havoc on GPS signals
The sun's activity isn't usually a hot topic around these parts, but when it threatens to derail satellite navigation services around the world, it must surely take center stage. UK researchers have corroborated Cornell's 2006 warning that our solar system's main life-giver is about to wake up and head toward a new solar maximum -- a period of elevated surface activity and radiation. It is precisely that radiation, which can be perceived in the form of solar flares, that worries people with respect to GPS signaling, as its effects on the Earth's ionosphere are likely to cause delays in data transmission from satellites to receivers and thereby result in triangulation errors. Still, it's more likely to be "troublesome than dangerous," but inaccuracies of around 10 meters and signal blackouts that could last for hours are being forecast in the absence of any intervening steps being taken. So yes, you now have another reason not to trust your GPS too much. [Thanks, Mike]
Plants vs. Zombies coming to iPhone on February 15th
Yes, PopCap is at it again -- this time, their crazy addictive (just like all of their games) take on the tower defense genre, Plants vs. Zombies, is headed off to the iPhone. They just tweeted confirmation a little while ago, and released this trailer showing all of the flower vs. undead action that we enjoyed so much in the other versions of the game, squeezed into the smaller screen of the iPhone. They don't mention a price point, but I'm guessing it'll come out at $4.99, since that's what most of their releases have debuted at (though if you're patient, it'll probably drop down in price after a while). I'll tell you that yes, if you've never played it, the game is more than worth $5, but even if you don't believe me, you can go play it online for free and see what you think. PopCap is the master of dropping colorful graphics, sparkling gameplay, and constant little rewards on your plate, so PvZ on the iPhone will probably be yet another meal you won't want to stop eating.
Soul of the Ultimate Nation lays down plans for 2010
The new year is a busy one for Soul of the Ultimate Nation players, as we'll be looking forward to not only a string of updates, but a brand new class to play with as well. This year is the year of the Shadow, SUN's sorcerer/assassination combination character. Carrying a really cool sword that's reminiscent of Ivy Valentine's weapon from SoulCalibur, the Shadow is made for playing the game solo. So for all those of you out there who have been looking to get away from the groups and set out on your own, the Shadow is the character you've been looking for. Beyond the addition of the Shadow, Webzen is also rolling out mounts and the ability for your characters to transform for the international version. For all of the information on the new additions as they roll out, keep an eye on the Soul of the Ultimate Nation website.
How to run Windows apps for free with Wine on OS X
There are many options for running Windows programs on the Mac. Boot Camp, for instance, is included with OS X for installing Windows on a separate partition. Parallels, VMware, and Sun offer virtualization software that let you run your Windows programs without logging out of OS X. And then there's Wine. Wine is an Open Source application layer that runs within the Mac operating system rather than as a stand-alone, sandboxed operating system. The thing that all of these options, except Wine, have in common though is that they legally require you to actually run Windows and therefore own a Windows license. Wine, however, implements the Windows API allowing you to run Windows applications without actually running Windows. David Baumgold has put together an excellent tutorial for setting up and using Wine on your Mac. The tutorial does a good job covering the pre-requisites, the actual installation, and then what to do with Wine once you have it installed. It should be noted that the installation of Wine is rather technical and should not be attempted by those unfamiliar with Terminal.app. Once you get Wine up and running, you can install a myriad of different Windows applications from games to productivity apps (Office, anyone?). If you're curious about a particular program's compatibility with Wine, you can check out the AppDB for a list of applications and any issues present when running with Wine. If you're interested in the technical benefits of Wine, you can also check out the excellent application Crossover, which is an easy-to-use port of Wine (pun intended) that makes it dead simple to get up and running with Wine.
Command and Conquer coming to 'new medium' in 2010
click to embiggen The above image could mean a lot of things: that life is fleeting, that every day brings a new challenge, or that maybe you should cancel those plans to visit the Palace of Westminster next year. But according to the official Command & Conquer 4 website, it only means one thing: the RTS series is coming to a brand new medium in 2010, "never created for the C&C franchise before, until now." The image above is a sneak peek, the site says, but doesn't give us anything more than that. Four color us crazy, but we look at the intricate chiaroscuro, inking, and shading above, and the words "comic book" jump to mind. But maybe that's too obvious. We'll be happy to follow C&C into whatever new medium it has planned, as long as it brings Tricia Helfer along. [Via Blue's News]
Soul of the Ultimate Nation rolls out a large content patch, raises level cap
Soul of the Ultimate Nation (SUN) hasn't been out that long and it's already getting an injection of content! Players of Webzen's second MMORPG will be happy to have a brand new level cap of 100 to ascend to, sockets on items so you can modify your weapons with gems, the new ability for crafters to make "elite" armor (the best armor in the game for now), and one new dungeon along with a brand new field. The Cursed Tower is an interesting dungeon offer that starts off at level 20 and goes all the way to level 100. Each wing of the tower is specifically crafted for a certain level range. For example, the Emerald Sanctuary is tuned for players between level 20 and 40. So, no matter your level, you'll have something available to you in the Cursed Tower. The Valley of the Dragonkin is the brand new field area, coming equipped with new quests to beat and monsters to kill. We'd say more about it, but we have this handy video of players in the Valley of the Dragonkin right after the break. So, don't listen to us, watch it for yourself by continuing to read!
