News Corp's 'The Daily' Has Its Own News-Gathering Aerial Drone, Which Is Drawing FAA Inquiries

Alright, news agencies spying on you, spy agencies spying on you, druglords spying on you... hrmm... not cool. The FAA raises an eyebrow at News Corp’s unmanned spy drone.


 

The U.S. military has drones, lots of them if the daily reports coming in from Afghanistan and Pakistan are any indication. And a handful of law enforcement groups--though less than would like--have a drone or two at their disposal. But on the domestic, non-security front, drones live a in a regulatory gray area. Hobbyists can use them, but commercial entities are not supposed to employ drones for any kind of monetary gain, says the FAA.

Nonetheless News Corp’s The Daily has a news gathering drone aircraft that it’s been flying around, and the FAA is investigating that use to ensure that it complies with all of the nebulous FAA regulations that kind of exist regarding private drone usage.

See the rest of the article HERE

 

Classic Out Run game cabinet becomes a drivable car

[Garnet Hertz], a professor and “artist in residence” at UC Irvine, built a drivable Outrun arcade cabinet for an experiment in augmented reality.

The old fiberglass and wood cabinet was hacked up and the motors, wheels, and drive train from an electric golf cart were stuffed inside. The original steering wheel and pedals were used for the controls. Although the top speed of the in-game car is about 180 mph, that was brought down to a reasonable 13 miles per hour.

 

The build doesn’t run on the original 68k processor. Instead, custom software is used to take real-world image data from two webcams on top of the cabinet. These images are then converted into Outrun sprites and displayed on the monitor. The software proportionally changes the speed of the in-game car, but it seems the difference between the game speed and real-life speed would be a little disconcerting. Although it’s not a real world track with the corkscrew loops of Race Drivin’, it’s still an interesting experiment in augmented reality.

Right now, we’re trying to figure out how to put this in our car. Outrun is now being reverse engineered, and the road layer code is complete. Does anyone want to take a stab at that build?

Fool proof diet

Did you hear about the heavyset guy who had tried every diet in the world in an attempt to lose weight? He tried the Scarsdale diet, the Navy diet, Weight Watchers, and many more. None worked. One day, he was reading the Washington Post when he noticed a small ad which read:

"Lose weight Only $1.00 a pound Call 1-555-555-5555"

The man decided to give it a try and called the number. A voice on the other end asked, 'How much weight do you want to lose?', to which the man responded, 'Ten pounds.' The voice replied, 'Very well, give me your credit card number and we'll have a representative over to your house in the morning.'

About 9:00 am the next morning the man gets a knock on the door. There stood a beautiful redheaded woman, completely naked except for a sign around her neck stating, 'If you catch me, you can have me'.

Well, the hefty fellow chased her upstairs, downstairs, over sofas, through the kitchen, all around the house. Finally, panting and wheezing like a dog, he did catch her. When he was through enjoying himself, she said, 'Quick, go into the bathroom and weigh yourself!'. He did just that and was amazed to find that he had lost ten pounds, right to the ounce!

That evening he called the number again. The voice on the other end asked, 'How much weight do you want to lose?', to which the somewhat less overweight man replied, 'Twenty pounds.'

'Very well', the voice on the phone told him, 'Give me your credit card number and we'll have a representative over to your house in the morning.'

At about 8:00 am the next morning the man receives a knock on the door. When he opens the door he sees a beautiful blond dressed only in track shoes and a sign around her neck stating 'If you catch me, you can have me'. The chase took a good while longer this time and the man nearly passed out, but he finally did catch her. When he was through she told him, 'Quick, run into the bathroom and weigh yourself!' He ran to the bathroom and found he had lost another 20 pounds!

'This is fantastic!', he thought to himself. Later that evening he called the number again and the voice at the other end asked, 'How much weight do you want to lose?'. 'Fifty pounds!', the man exclaimed. 'Fifty pounds?', the voice asked. 'That's an awful lot of weight to lose at one time.' The man replied, 'Listen buddy, here's my credit card number, you just have your representative over here in the morning!', and he hung up the phone.

About 6:00 am the next morning the man gets out of bed, splashes on some cologne and gets all ready for the next representative. At about 7:00 am he gets a knock on the door. When he opens the door, he sees this large gorilla with a sign around his neck stating,

'If I catch you, I'm going to screw you'

Taiwan's Foxconn to use one million robots by 2014

Ok, this is how it begins... the robot revolution

 

Taiwan IT giant Foxconn -- hit by a spate of suicides at its Chinese plants -- plans to replace 500,000 workers with robots in the next three years, state media reported.

Taiwan IT giant Foxconn -- hit by a spate of suicides at its Chinese plants -- plans to replace 500,000 workers with robots in the next three years, state media reported Monday.

Foxconn -- the world's largest maker of computer components, which assembles products for Apple, Sony and Nokia -- plans to use one million robots to do "simple" work, China Business News quoted chairman Terry Gou saying.

Gou announced the plan to 10,000 staff at a company event in Shenzhen on Friday, various media reports said.

Read the rest HERE

Hacking the lottery, gaming the game

 

Due to a quirk in the design of the Massachusetts state lottery game Cash WinFall, a handful of players — including MIT and Boston University statisticians — has been able to invest piles of money into the game at strategic times to claim the vast majority of the prizes.

The quirk works this way: in weeks after the grand prize jackpot hits $2 million, the payouts for smaller prizes grow. By purchasing over $100k in tickets during these “rolldown weeks,” a player is guaranteed a huge return on investment without ever winning the top prize — which has been awarded only once in the game’s history.

Now that the hack has been discovered, the state has started policing the game, and suspended a few stores that broke the rules to sell more tickets to the power players, but Cash WinFall is still in business for now.

 

Heh.

Light LED’s with FIRE!

Awesome... this is “cool” (harhar) a Copper Oxide Thermoelectric Generator. All you need is a bit of solid copper wire and a gas torch. Burn the wire so it gets a nice coating of oxide. From there, it is a matter of making the 2 sections of burned wire cross at a point and heat up only one of the wires. Whichever is hotter forms a cathode and whichever one is cooler is the anode.

Just one of these junctions is enough to produce a few hundred millivolts, but the author takes it a step further, well 16 steps further. He made a ring of these junctions in series, which is enough to light a bright blue LED. While the author notes that this thing is producing a considerable amount of voltage, its not producing much amperage. This could come in very handy in the future, like if you need some additional LED lighting for your camp stove.