And it’s a good one, too.

I wonder if there are slow poke tug drivers out there with your turn indicators on all the time…good thing there aren’t a lot of driving lanes already marked.

Mo’ better way to skydive - without the plane…

Wind tunnels keep getting better and better. I was able to get into the one at Ft. Bragg years ago by special invite and to be coached by the Golden Knights (including one of President Bush’s (41) jumpmasters. Video is on a VHS tape around here somewhere.  Yea…it was a while ago.

Go and Check out the Paraclete XP site…and also watch this video at MIlitary.com.

Trivia: Glenn Bangs was the the commander of the first 82nd Airborne unit to land in Saudi for the very start of Desert Shield (and was the other jumpaster for President Bush).

Parallel universes? Nope. Parallel Internet.

Cloud Computing will drive it:

From The Sunday Times
April 6, 2008
Coming soon: superfast internet
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.
At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.
[…]

I wanna be a beta tester…

Sure, we love our pets, so it had to happen sooner or later, getting them to share our addictive computer gaming world with us (and keeps them off your lap when you’re busy fragging the “competition”…Video games for cats. Go figure…it’s what America does best: create wealth out of a silly idea.

From Popular Science: The best surgeon is but an internet connection away, and now the system is improved!

The Da Vinci robot for distance surgery has an added advantage: It tracks what are of the patient the surgeon is looking at and provides the doctor with a 3D image of the anatomy.

What will they think of next?

or…maybe better titled “Fallout of Technology Tuesday.”

From Engadget:

Compulsive e-mailing, texting could be classified as bona fide illness

Posted Mar 17th 2008 8:11PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Considering the plethora of facilities that have opened just in the past few years to deal solely with individuals that have become undoubtedly addicted to video games, the internet and all things Hello Kitty (we jest, we jest), we’re not surprised one iota to hear that uncontrollably texting / e-mailing could soon become “classified as an official brain illness.”
[…]

Watch your usage….before your freinds and family show up for an “intervention.”

The Brits are at work on it now.

I occasionally stumble across other references to other efforts at this work, I think in the suiting out of soldiers (a la “The Predator”) or on aircraft, which was actually attempted as far back as WWI by the Germans, although it took the form of translucent fabric covering the aircraft.

Can handle the thought of putting on cheap plastic specs to get a 3D view of a virtual world?

Good news! Help is on the way!

FANTASTIC PLASTIC: Prototypes made from the photorefractive polymer film so far offer small—four-square inch (10 centimeter)—monochrome images, such as this ethane molecule.
Photo: University of Arizona College of Optical ScienceFrom Scientific American:

[…]
Researchers at the University of Arizona’s College of Optical Sciences (OSC) in Tucson, and engineers from Nitto Denko Technical Corporation, in Oceanside, Calif., recently unveiled a prototype of a photorefractive polymer film on which 3-D images can be recorded, erased and replaced with new images. When carried out swiftly enough, this process leads to a series of images on the film that deliver three-dimensional action that can be picked up by the naked eye.

I’m confident I can say a display for your home might be a little pricey right now, not to mention a sort of still in the engineering Frankenstein-istic look about it, too. The “hope” (we hear a lot about that these days) is stuff like this tends to get to be real and affordable one day…hopefully before Darth Vader and friends try to take over the universe.

From Scientific Blogging:

This prototype plasma antenna is stealthy, versatile, and jam-resistant. Credit: T. R. Anderson and I. AlexeffNifty! Plasma antennas…Now you see them, then you don’t. Tunable to multiple frequencies…don’t rust, won’t bust with the added bonus (at NO COST!) of being jam proof! And did I mention the use of them eliminates a massive reflective surface, that would be detected be radar looking for you?Just how do they do it? The answer is here.

The March Scientific American has an article on it, in which I read that the funding by the Navy has been pulled because, so far, the beams can only be steered in one plane, and they asked for it to be done in two planes. I’m sure the wizards will figure it out one day.

It seems there is and organized effort from China to infect computer systems via consumer devices. Wow…our friends would do that? Like our friends the Saudis?

Anyhow, from the San Francisco Chronicle - “Virus from China the gift that keeps on giving:”

Deborah Gage, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, February 15, 2008
An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games - and its designers might have larger targets in mind.

“It is a nasty worm that has a great deal of intelligence,” said Brian Grayek, who heads product development at Computer Associates, a security vendor that analyzed the Trojan Horse.

The virus, which Computer Associates calls Mocmex, recognizes and blocks antivirus protection from more than 100 security vendors, as well as the security and firewall built into Microsoft Windows. It downloads files from remote locations and hides files, which it names randomly, on any PC it infects, making itself very difficult to remove. It spreads by hiding itself on photo frames and any other portable storage device that happens to be plugged into an infected PC.

The authors of the new Trojan Horse are well-funded professionals whose malware has “specific designs to capture something and not leave traces,” Grayek said. “This would be a nuclear bomb” of malware.

By studying how the code is constructed and how it’s propagated, Computer Associates has traced the Trojan to a specific group in China, Grayek said. He would not name the group.
[…]

Read it all. And, BTW, you have been warned!

More details: over 67K variations of the malware have been detected, and in checking some of the picture frames, other, older trojans were found.

Target was selling a model that has beeen pulled. I wonder why?

Let’s be careful out there…

Tracked back @ Cao’s Blog