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Can’t decide between black and brown shoes as a career accessory? A grounded aviator with a limited budget and a yard not big enough to put in your own runway?

This just may be the answer.

Kit built, 75 mph, max altitude about 10 feet, or hovers at 8 inches. Seats 4 (but only 2 if you’re going to fly)…so you can bring your GIB friends along for the ride, too.

From Universal Hovercraft, here’s the UH-18SPW Hoverwing™

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What are you waiting for? 275 hours of work is all that separates you from ground effect adventure!

Of course, for those stuck between the surface navy and the Silent Service™, there’s a solution for you, too!

Have you lusted, for a very long time for a fully functional “heads up display” (HUD) that’s no muss, no fuss to wear? No annoying glasses style rigs, no wires dangling around your neck….

Well, in a “life imitates art” moment, someone has done your bidding.

From the Telegraph in the UK:

Contact lenses with Terminator vision

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 27/01/2008

An electronic contact lens has been developed that will enable maps and videos to be beamed before the wearer’s eyes.

The bionic lens has microscopic circuits fixed to a flexible plastic. The scientists who created the device say the lenses could eventually provide computer-aided vision similar to that of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s robotic character in the Terminator films.

Drivers and pilots would have essential information - their speed and direction, for example - superimposed in front of their eyes, in a massive advance on the kind of “wearable displays” now available, which are spectacles that have images displayed on the lenses.
[…]

Now, just because this was in an English paper, doesn’t mean it wasn’t homegrown. Babak Parviz, an electrical engineer at the University of Washington is the man with the plan.

And if just data displays aren’t good enough for you, he is working on advanced versions already:

[…]
Mr Parviz plans more sophisticated components to show detailed pictures, and it is possible to include a zoom function. The lenses have been tried on animals but there will be tough safety tests before the technology is developed for people.
[…]

Sign me up for the testing! I wonder…do they also correct for astigmatism? Probably for an extra cost…

A 40 hour laptop battery?

Maybe, if Asst Prof Yi Cui and his associates get their way.

[…]
Publishing in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the Stanford researchers have shown that by using silicon nanowires as the battery anode instead of today’s graphite, the amount of lithium the anode can hold is extended tenfold.
[…]

Another life improvement due to nanotech…

Take the tour here.

Apple, out ahead of the pack again. New idea: LEDs for LCD backlighting. Durable, survivable, lightweight, energy efficient. And that’s just the first of the innovation…

Starting @ $1799….

Update: Steve Jobs MacWorld 2008 keynote address. The world may soon belong to Apple…Check out the iPhone market share and new features…

Dust off your old slide rules and HP RPN calculators! Get the big roll around fan and some plywood and get to work on making a makeshift wind tunnel, coz you’re gonna need it to compete in this!

You don’t have to make it up and back into space two times to become a millionaire, you just have to make a really efficient ground bound method of transportation.

Rules will be published this summer (2008), but no time like the present to start scheming on how to change the world now.

Me like….

Can you guess? Well, I’ll tell you, since you don’t know how tall she is: 205 INCHES! of viewing experience. From Luxio in Italy.

Have a spare $610K (and the cost of shipping and installation, too)? I hope so, because until enough of the well off buy these, you can bet the prices aren’t going to get any cheaper.

If you’re on a budget, you can get these fine TV screens in 90″, 120″, 150″ and 180″ sizes, too.

And in case you’re one of those engineer types, you’ll need to support the 1041 lbs of weight to go along with the 1500 nit contract and 10,000:1 brightness.

For you XBox gamers, I’d wait: The resolution is only 1344×768. Stuff there will look kinda chunky at that setting…

qaBut a different kind. Today is a day to pay tribute to the Son of God, part of the trinity who hung the stars in the heavens.Technology you ask? Yep, It’s about the Creator of the Universe and all that is in it. Just contemplate the picture of the Tadpole galaxy above for a moment. Consider going to either this or this link to see more pictures from NASA of the universe, or, if that’s too expansive for the moment, our solar system.How did it all get here, from the Black Holes, to the comets, to the atomic interactions of the star’s inner cores, to the wonder of the “universal acid” that fuels life here on Earth and is sought out elsewhere in the Universe by out scientists, as a signal that life maybe accompanied by the presence of water…

What about photosynthesis? Hydrogen bonding? Brownian motion? asexual replication? Gravity? Lift? Hemoglobin? Gold? The things on the Periodic Chart? The brain, in each and every form?

Consider this: Cosmologists/physicists tell us the Universe formed from an incredibly dense ball of matter. Consider this, too: Black holes, as defined in our understood science are balls of matter, held together so tightly, that even photons cannot escape their grasp. We speculate on their existence be derived observations, where light isn’t coming from. Now, I have heard said “the Bible is not a book of science, but when it speaks to it, it is correct.” Take that how you may, but I’ll reference Genesis 1:3:

And God said “Let there be light” and there was light.

Could that have been the unleashing of the very elemental waves/particles we study as light, from the single core of the only black hole in existence? The “Big Bang” as it were? I attribute it to that, aided by the millenia of understanding mankind has determined, to God Himself. My question to those who aren’t sure: How the heck did that large pile of matter end up being assembled in the center of the universe? Makes you wonder, huh? Now, one I don’t think I have encountered: Who placed the large expanse of nothingness around the place we try to reckon as the center of the Universe? Someone had to clear the lot before a house gets built, right?

Psalm 19:

¹The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.
²Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
³There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
⁴Their voice goes out into all the earth; their words to the end of the world.

My question now for you: Doesn’t a look skyward, in day or night, give you a reason to wonder? I would hope so. And when you wonder, who do you say did it all?

Take a few minutes to read Job 38 to 41 for a compendium of some of the things God has done to create the Universe and life. It can give one a greater appreciation of the effort it took to do that. Amazingly, it took a man complaining to God about what he wasn’t doing for us to get the Lord’s “resume” for the record, in much greater detail that presented in Genesis.

Having spent a lot of years observing my physical surrounding and the body of (ever changing) science, I have come to a point, about a decade ago, where I let God get the glory for the creation of it all. We, in my humble opinion, are allowed to discover how it works, like kids peering through the dusty garage windows of that seemingly nutty neighbor down the block who has a workshop full of inventions. Sometimes, while looking in, we even figure out a piece of how something works, but we never will know it all, yet we will be happy to use the outcome to our benefit.

He not only took care of the macro level, He spent time designing everything else. King David remarked thusly in Psalm 139:

¹³For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Remember the high school biology classes about DNA, RNA, transfer RNA, and the 4 proteins that make up DNA? One could certainly describe that process as “knitting.”

Scientists, on a daily basis, ask us to take their understanding on faith and act on it. Even much of what they know is derived from what they can observe, to help the determine what must have been, so that the circumstances they are studying make sense to them first. Faith, is therefore not an unknown thing, and responsible people use it regularly to operate in life.

This day, picked for some reason as a day in the year to celebrate the giving of a gift to us may not be the actual day of the year that Jesus the Christ was born, but a large portion of humanity has picked December 25th as the day, and the business acumen of some of the rest of the world’s inhabitants have made it a great commercial endeavor. It’s not like parents of adopted children haven’t had to sometimes do the same type of thing, let alone the numerous pet owners happy to also make up a birth date. So why argue over the date, when it’s about the issue.

All in all, it is a day to consider that the Creator of the entire Universe, and all that is in it, cared enough to send His Son so we could look forward to a day when all our pain was gone, all our sadness behind us and a life everlasting stands before us, but also so we might understand ourselves and our fellow travelers on this planet, so that we might enjoy life more abundantly here and now. All you have to do is accept that gift. Even more amazing is that He doesn’t force you at all in the decision. He who created gravity to allow us to sit and type our thoughts to one another on the internet, with out the desk, chair and keyboard floating away. If He could do that, why does He let us decide if we will accept His love? Once I got passed my individual arrogance regarding MY view of MY presence and purpose here and now, I understand how awesome that situation is.

You know, even the Koran said God filled the virgin Mary with God’s spirit in the 66th Sura, regarding the birth of Jesus as something special. It even labels Jesus as the Christ in 2:136, “Christ” being Greek for “Messiah.”

So, in closing, Merry Christmas to all.

Interesting stuff - Precision Formation Flying. Might cause future Lex’s to complain loudly that only a human can do it, rejecting the idea that “it’s so simple, even robotic systems can do it!”

Formation flying by unmanned platforms. In space…going really, really fast (well, that’s with true speed…here it’s the relative speed that makes a difference, and that can be very small, except at the “join up”) Lots of applications, like many small sensor platforms being electronically integrated into a larger system, but only if they are positioned specifically to add to the synergism.

Check out the JPL data on the topic, and, if you’re a military pilot….be afraid, be very afraid…of the word “autonomy.”

Taking a break from what is normally called “technology” to post a little thankfulness for a “technology” the military uses quite effectively as the real, tangible force multiplier: The Recruiter.

It was easy enough, when taking management time on someone to check the enlistment contract of the sailor in question and make disparaging remarks about the lineage of the poor soul who was detailed to recruit and found themselves a little short of quota near the end of the month, and working under the emotional stress of the “system,” as defined by the analysts defined it….

In retrospect, I have, through introspection and reading the many weblogs over the last few years, have come to appreciate the role these people play in the maintenance of a solid, strong and continually improving best military in the world, and, in history.

While out making rounds today, I pulled into a local Marine Recruiter’s office. I did have an ulterior motive, but it was driven by the need to just step in and shake a few hands and say thanks for the hard work that makes the rest of it all possible. It also told me the quantity of pizza I will have delivered one day soon for lunch.

A Staff Sargent and two brand, spanking new Privates were present. The young man and young woman privates looked all the part of the very young who are carrying the load of the nation. No ribbons but the NDSM graced their khaki shirts, but they got the same hand shake and thanks, for they are the ones, with a global war staring them in the face.

So: My suggestion - stop by those strip mall storefronts and take a moment to tell them you appreciate their work, walking the halls of the high schools and making community meetings, much of it at the expense of their personal time at home, when the entire military is making deployments to the combat zone when they are not on “cake” jobs like “shore duty” stateside.

This work is vital, but not nearly as well recognized as an integral part of the system. I think this is especially important in areas far from military bases, as many of these little outposts of the Armed Services are like little islands unto themselves.

They are our edge to make the non-living technology work to defeat our enemies and help those others around the world less fortunate.