Michael Rundle2013-06-19T04:12:17-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=michael-rundleCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Michael RundleGood old fashioned elbow grease.Nasa's Tiny Submarines May Search Jupiter's Moon Europa For Life In Underground Lakes (PICTURES)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34581902013-06-18T04:47:46-04:002013-06-18T06:01:13-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/remarkable last interview with sci-fi legend Iain Banks, the Culture author briefly listed the things he wished he'd be able to live see.
"I'd love to see what's going to happen next," he said. "What's happening in the oceans of Jupiter's moon, Europa."
Data from both the Voyager and Galileo space probes suggests that the moon holds an ocean of warm, salty water - bigger than all of Earth's oceans combined - underneath its outer layer of ice, and that in those murky depths it's possible that - well, something - might be living.
As such the idea of exploring this ocean has long fascinated scientists - though for obvious reasons (not least among them, Europa's distance from Earth), sending humans is less than feasible.
But back in 2007 Carl Ross, a professor at the University of Portsmouth, proposed a novel idea: let's send a submarine.
Movie sequence of a miniature submarine exploring under the ice.
The idea of the watery probe was developed further by Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Angstrom Space Technology Centre in Sweden, and has now been refined into a practical prototype by Jonas Jonsson, an engineer at Nasa's Ames Research Centre.
The mission would see a craft land on the surface of Europea, and drill a small hole in the ice. It would then release a robotic craft about the size of two cola cans into the gap. And if that sounds fanciful, remember that we did just land an SUV-sized rover on Mars with a hovering sky crane.
Above: The craft would then explore the ocean of Europa, controlled by a remote operator.
Powered by eight small thrusters, Dadu would be attached by a fibre-optic tether to a surface lander and have built-in software designed to avoid obstacles - or, you know, space sharks.
Equipment to collect any potential living species - small ones, obviously - would also be included in the machine.
In a piece for Huffington Post and Space.com, Jonsson said that the tiny submarine - named Deeper Access, Deeper Understanding (Dadu) could first be used to test hard-to-reach environments on Earth.
"A mission to explore Lake Vostok in Antarctica, which is believed to have been isolated from the rest of the world by kilometers of thick ice for millions of years, would of course be the 'Holy Grail' mission, and a real proof of concept for a future mission to explore the oceans thought to exist underneath some of the frozen moons in the solar system, such as Europa and Enceladus," Jonsson said.
The craft is still a long way from being finished - and any mission to Europa is still dependent on Nasa (or another agency) developing a range of new technologies, and getting new funding from the US government. But Jonsson is convinced that if we really want to start looking for life in our Solar System, Europa's oceans should be very high on that list.
And potentially, we may soon have more reason to go than ever.
The European Space Agency is aiming to launch a mission to the moon to measure the thickness of its ice in 2030 (known as Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer Mission, or Juice) and Nasa is also looking into a fly-by mission in future decades. If they turn up interesting science, it's possible that the Little Submarine That Could might head to Europa sooner rather than later.]]>Nasa's New Astronaut Class Could Take Humanity To An Asteroid - And Mars (PICTURES)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34578402013-06-18T03:59:52-04:002013-06-18T04:22:03-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/
The new group of four male and four female astronaut's is Nasa's first class of astronauts to be selected in three years.
Nasa hopes the group will "help the agency push the boundaries of exploration and travel to new destinations in the solar system".
But their selection does not guarantee a spot on a space mission, and Nasa is still reliant on new funding and technology to successfully carry out manned exploration of an asteroid, and then of Mars.
But the space agency is hopeful that its new astronauts will be able to go further than previous explorers.
"These new space explorers asked to join Nasa because they know we're doing big, bold things here - developing missions to go farther into space than ever before," said Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden.
"They're excited about the science we're doing on the International Space Station and our plan to launch from U.S. soil to there on spacecraft built by American companies. And they're ready to help lead the first human mission to an asteroid and then on to Mars."
The team of eight is made up of the following personnel:
Josh A. Cassada, 39 -- a former naval aviator, physicist by training and currently co-founder and Chief Technology Officer for Quantum Opus.
Victor J. Glover, 37, Lt. Commander, US Navy. An F/A-18 pilot and graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School. Currently is serving as a Navy Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Congress.
Tyler N. Hagu, 37, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Air Force. Graduate of the US Air Force Academy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School.
Christina M. Hammock, 34,. Currently serving as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Station Chief in American Samoa.
Nicole Aunapu Mann, 35, Major, US Marine Corps. An F/A 18 pilot, currently serving as an Integrated Product Team Lead at the US Naval Air Station, Patuxent River.
Anne C. McClain, 34, Major, US Army. An OH-58 helicopter pilot, and a recent graduate of US Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station, Patuxent River.
Jessica U. Meir, Ph.D., 35, has an advanced degree from the International Space University, and earned her doctorate from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Currently is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School.
Andrew R. Morgan, M.D., 37, Major, US Army. Has experience as an emergency physician and flight surgeon for the Army special operations community, and currently is completing a sports medicine fellowship.
]]>Jon 'Maddog' Hall Interview: Free Software Champion On Money, Borders, Guns And Porntag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-06-17T08:49:27-04:002013-06-17T11:16:54-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/
Computer science is no different. And that's where Jon 'Maddog' Hall comes in.
Outside of computer circles, his name might not seem that familiar. But Hall, 63, has been one of the leading voices in the free (or open source) software movement for many decades.
An author, educator, programmer and currently the executive director of Linux International, he has travelled the world speaking on the benefits of free software, and most recently has given several keynote talks at the global Campus Party technology conference.
We managed to catch up with Maddog to ask about Campus Party, but we also touched on several other big issues affecting the tech world - among them whether the UK should consider moving its data off US-owned surveys. Oh and porn. We talked about porn.
This is an edited transcript of a longer telephone interview conducted with HuffPost UK.
To get this out of the way, I imagine you get asked where the name 'Maddog' comes from five to six times a day?
At least, yeah. And I’ll just tell you that at the age of 63 I’ve learned to control my temper better than I could at the age of 27.
Fair enough. Perhaps we should start with the O2 Campus Party - how did you get involved with these kinds of events?
Well I’ve been talking about free software in Brazil since 1996. Campus Party started in Spain a number of years ago and then about six or seven years ago they came to Brazil and they were looking for somebody who knew free software there... So I came to Campus Party and really liked it - the people were really bright and enthusiastic. ... I get to talk to the great unwashed, and get to convince them about the goodness and purity of free software. And how to make and save money from using free software.
How do young people respond to that message, given that many of the people they may look up to in software are not just millionaires but billionaires?
First of all, there are quite a few free software people who are now billionaires. The people who started Red Hat Software - Bob Young is a billionaire, and the three technical people who started it made hundreds of millions of dollars... There are lots of people who make money off free software. And a lot of these people want to make a comfortable living but they also want to do good for society.
What damage are the global patent and copyright systems doing to the tech industry?
In the past I just thought that software patents were bad. Now I believe that they are actually evil.
I look at the stupidity of Samsung and Apple and going back and forth, and all the money that was spent on all the lawsuits and everything else, and I ask myself who is actually making money on this? It’s the lawyers. Who’s paying for it? The consumers. And it’s pulling away from the ability to choose...
That is not to say that there aren’t some software patents that really deserve to be patented, but if you take a look at some of the patents that are out there... The best one was where Apple insisted that it’s not intuitive that people wanted to have a thin, lightweight tablet with rounded corners. No, as a consumer it’s obvious I wanted a big, heavy, fat tablet with sharp square corners... Linus Torvalds refuses to study software patents, because if you are aware that you have a patent infringement and you continue to do it you have to pay three times the penalty. By not studying that he can honestly say ‘hey I didn’t know’.
Part of the other argument is - ‘what happens with the innovator who has an idea, but don’t have the resources to take it to market?’ They sell it to a larger company, and they’ve paid money and have an investment in it now, and they’re going to take it to market and recoup their investment. I can understand that as a businessperson.
But you know something? Going back to that constitution of the United States? Guess where the patent and copyright office was formed? In the first six articles of the constitution. We didn’t even get to the rights of people until the first 10 amendments. The patent and copyright office was set up in the constitution - it was about making money. But because it’s in the constitution it’s ‘we the people’. Not ‘we the companies’, ‘we the industry’, ‘we the rich people’, it’s ‘we the people’ have to decide what’s right for the country. This has gotten way out of hand.
[Following a discussion about the balance of powers in the US political system, and it’s implications for the role of Prism].
We’ve seen with the Prism surveillance operation that there are implications for the UK in storing data overseas. Should we think differently about how that works?
Is this a complex thing? Yes it is. Now I’m speaking as a US citizen. And the problem that you guys have is that you don’t get to vote for Obama, or a congress. And you don’t get to be protected by our constitution. And yet all of these things are affecting you as part of the internet, and as part of using Google and Facebook.
So you guys are screwed!
This is actually the message that I take to governments like Brazil, and they like me because I do talk to them like this. And I say to them, you know if you store your data outside of your country, it is now stored in a place where it may be coming under the laws of the United States. And if you don’t like that you better try and figure out how to store your data under your own laws. Every single one of these companies - Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook - they’re all US companies.
Is part of that problem that many people online tend to assume they’re working in a borderless, ‘new’ environment, when in fact that’s not the case?
Well take pornography, okay? I could personally take the viewpoint that I don’t mind pornography. I might even be a consumer of pornography. I often tell people that the internet was invented for pornography. So there are people who want to say they want to filter pornography and they want to turn off the ability for people to see a web-server that has pornography on it. But on the other hand what happens if that server is in a country where pornography is perfectly legal, and the consumer of that pornography is in a country where it’s perfectly legal, but the country that’s turning off that ability to access the DNS server is a country where it’s illegal.
Now you have somebody supplying it, that’s legal, somebody consuming it, that’s legal, and just because it’s coming through these so-called pipes of the internet, somebody gets to determine that you can’t have access to this.
We talk about net neutrality... You don’t sue the telephone company because somebody is taking pornography off the copper wires of the telephone company... Likewise you shouldn’t go back to the internet provider. You punish the person supplying it, you punish the person consuming it - fine. But in the middle? No.
There’s been a lot of attention paid recently to the idea of 3D printing and in particular 3D guns. There’s a fear that when you allow people to download not just data but physical objects you cross another dangerous line. Do you think that’s overplayed?
You know when I can go down to the local street corner and buy a gun and get the ammunition and stuff, I’m not going to worry too much about people printing guns in 3D printers out of plastic. You cannot legislate morality through technology.
There are always going to be people who will find out how to kill somebody, hurt somebody or whatever... We ran into this in the early days of free software because there were people who said, I don’t want people using my software for military purposes, or they’re a bank and I don’t like banks, or they’re a large multi-national. If you continue that all the way through you find out that make any piece of software that somebody will be using or misusing that you don’t like. You get morality by teaching people morals.
Above: Maddog the Guru?
Do you yourself have any role in teaching that morality?
I like to think I do. I like to think that I go around and I encourage people to do good things, and work on good projects to help people. Of course I have an interesting twist on this because I happen to be a capitalist, I happen to believe that capitalism is one of the best economic models that we have. I believe people should be able to have a good life and make a good living, and be able to do anything that doesn’t hurt somebody else.
About a year ago I came out as a gay man at the age of 62. And I was perfectly happy being in the closet myself and I didn’t have any problems, but I saw a whole bunch of kids who were committing suicide and getting kicked out of their homes by their parents, and a lot of these kids were geeks. Under the double-whammy of being a geek and a gay kid, and I just said I can’t take that any more.
So I wrote a very open blog and surprised a whole bunch of people who knew me - as I don’t exactly look like your stereotypical gay man, whatever that means, and I have no idea what a stereotypical gay person is.
But I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say thank you very much for writing that. And it’s also led me to a study of Alan Turing and the great things he did for this country and the horrible things that happened to him simply because he was gay. So I like to think that I work towards moral types of stuff.
And one of the words people attach to you if that you’re a ‘Guru’ figure - is that a word you’re comfortable with?
Well... I think that there are many people who have contributed as much or more than I have to computer science, for example Alan Turing -- and those are the people I point to. ]]>Lego Mars Rover 'Curiosity' Set Approved After CuuSoo Campaign (PICTURES)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34526872013-06-17T05:33:33-04:002013-06-17T06:29:41-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/
Since 2010 the Danish toy giant has invited fans to submit designs for new Lego sets via its 'CuuSoo' website.
Hundreds of designs have been submitted, with dozens reaching the required 10,000 supporters to move on to an official review.
Previous kits to have made it all the way to production include Minecraft Lego and one based around the Hayabusa space craft. A set based on the 80s movie Back To The Future is also being readied for sale after a successful review.
Lego doesn't just make any old kit, however, and its reviews are both stringent and often quite lengthy - the Mars rover has been undergoing the process for more than seven months. Lego explained why the review takes so long in a blog post.
Now the Mars Rover Curiosity is set to be next, after a submission by CuuSoo user Perijove, who is actually a mechanical engineer who worked on the Curiosity rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The $2.5bn Curiosity rover has been on the surface of the red planet for about a year carrying out enquiries into whether Mars was ever able to support ancient microbial life.
Lego said the model was selected because of its "high play value", its quality design and - crucially - the fact that Lego was able to secure the rights from Nasa.
"After analyzing the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover project, we learned that this product has niche appeal and strong demand from the space and education communities. The product aligns well with the LEGO Group's mission to "inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow," including those who will build our future in outer space."
Release date, final design and price are still to be determined.
Unfortunately for ever victor there has to be a loser.
Lego announced that a ridiculously ambitious Star Wars Sandcrawler, which would have been the largest and most complex Lego set ever made, did not pass the review because of its "ongoing relationship and collaboration with Lucasfilm on LEGO Star Wars".
Meanwhile a set based around the video game Portal is still being looked into, pending "test results". Which might be Lego stalling for time, or making a very clever Portal-related in-joke.
There are currently three more batches of sets under review. They include 'Purdue Pete', a set based around an American Football mascot, an Android logo, a Legend Of Zelda set and a series of 'Mini Shops' designed to bring retail to Lego Towns.]]>'Hell Is Other People' Is The World's First Anti-Social Network (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34525002013-06-17T04:57:51-04:002013-06-17T05:25:53-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/anti-social network - and it promises to keep you as far away from your friends as possible.
'Hell Is Other People' is a new web application designed specifically to keep you separated from your friends.
Using data taken from Foursquare, the app attempts to warn you when you're getting too close to anyone you know.
Described as "an experiment in anti-social media" the site says it "will track your "friends" and calculate optimally distanced locations for avoiding them".
It highlights various 'safe zones' and gives you critical information about friends' check-ins so you can attempt to skirt around them. Of course it does depend on your friends regularly checking-in to Foursquare - and really, if they use the location-based network enough to make Hell Is Other People genuinely useful, this is probably just a way to avoid having conversations about Foursquare.
And yes, Arrested Development fans, while we know George Maharis got there first (or did he?) that doesn't quite count.]]>Robot Runs Like A Cat - And Could One Day Save Lives (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34524462013-06-17T04:21:28-04:002013-06-17T09:16:16-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/
Designed by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne's Biorobotics Laboratory, the metal feline is about to run with the same mechanics as a regular moggy.
The result is a small robot which is both very fast and stable - in fact it's the quickest quadruped around under 30Kg.
The cat-like running motion helps the animal move over uneven surfaces.
"Although not as agile as a real cat, it still has excellent auto-stabilization characteristics when running at full speed or over a course that included disturbances such as small steps. In addition, the robot is extremely light, compact, and robust and can be easily assembled from materials that are inexpensive and readily available."
(Hat-tip to Engadget)
]]>Google Glass: The First Few Moments And How They Changed My Life (A Bit)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34416962013-06-14T09:58:00-04:002013-06-14T10:29:41-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/Thanks to Somo Global for the chance to try Google Glass, even if we left with a few more questions than answers - as you will see...
Why do we desire new technology?
It's obviously not because we need it - not really. Anyone with a history of early-adoption has a drawer of half-used, but perfectly functional, products, ordered on launch day and forgotten shortly after. We buy machines, but we're not machines.
No, in tech, as in so much else, anticipation is more than half the fun.
And it is intoxicating, that delusion. It makes us light-headed. It is why we follow gadget news, turn up to press events, watch live unveilings from LA at two in the morning, and install dodgy betas of half-baked OS redesigns.
From the outside, this quest to acquire fresh, transformative tech looks like exactly that - a mission of acquisition, alone. And to look at the names of the reviews sections of some websites or magazines, or the queues outside Apple Stores, you might even think of it in terms of lust. A magpie chasing reflections in the murk. And maybe it is that, on some level.
Even so, it's impossible not to feel - at least once, twice a year - a deeper excitement, perhaps even the half-whispered expectation, that this or that device, just announced, un-reviewed, untested, is going to be the thing that will not just to improve your life, or bolster your status, but actually solve some key aspect of being alive.
And you can boil that down further, I think. Because when you anticipate a new technology or device, it's not the moment of purchase you fantasise about. It's not two weeks down the line, when it's a slickly-integrated part of your new post-device life.
It's the first few seconds that you - that I - imagine.
The shore of the new world. And then one fine morning-
And then Google Glass - and the moment you first pick up a pair, and adjust the little prism screen, and wait for it to change everything.
I had waited for my first time with Glass for longer, and with more nervous energy, than most products. That includes both your run-of-the-mill phones and games machines, and those more transformative (and rare) leaps-forward that occasionally come along.
I'd waited for at least a year since the device was announced, of course. But also far longer than that. Becuase Glass, as others have said, is a device that was dreamed up far before it was ever possible to actually build one.
The popular sci-fi antecedants are obvious, but the idea goes further back, too, to make-believe friends and genies-in-the-bottle, to an outside voice of consience, with you since birth, that you imagine on your shoulder, helping you to be better, which is now able to take photos and make video calls too. Neat.
And when I placed it on my head (it fits! it fits!), made those adjustments and said "OK Glass", and when the screen popped on and invited me to speak my desires, I did feel something new come into my life, and wink back at me.
It happened. For a second.
For there are little things when you first try Glass that deliver on its promise, a little bit.
The spooky bone-conduction audio, for instance, works, and works well. The screen is just as semi-transparent, clear and shimmering as you hope. The voice transcription is pretty accurate, while the ease of taking pictures and video is also hard to overstate. It's not even that heavy or bulky. It's almost there.
The sadness, though, comes after the first moment passes - as it did, as it will - when you realise that Glass isn't quite ready. Not yet.
For one thing, it's still very buggy.
Getting it to connect adequately to a phone is tricky. It comes on at awkward times, based on a loose tilt of the head, and gets in the way of your line of sight when having a conversation. The video calling works, but doesn't really make sense - you can see the other person, they can't see you. Doing anything complex - managing mail, reading anything - is impossible.
Worse, the actual build quality, while decent, is not ready for the mainstream. The screen is okay, but drifted in and out of focus for me. It feels quite fragile, and the battery life is poor. And it does just look dorky, like a giant mobile telephone used to in the 1990s, and an adult using a Galaxy Note 8.0 still does.
It's not slim enough, small enough, cool enough, to melt into your life as you'd hope. And it's telling that the Glass is far more enjoyable and attractive with the sunglass attachment clipped on, just because it takes away the persistant, nagging fear that someone's about to punch you, or rob you, or first one, and then the other.
(Though it does seem like a device with a camera on it could record and upload a few seconds of video just after being nicked, to help the police. Take that idea for free, Somo.)
But did I enjoy using it? Absolutely - and I can't wait to see where it goes. Google is on to something here, and one day it will be spectacular.
When you tell people that you've used Google Glass - particularly here in the UK, where it's even less common to see it - they ask you if you'd buy one. The answer right now is no, obviously. It's not useful enough - it's not good enough.
But in a way, that's the wrong question to ask. Glass as it stands today isn't a product, really. It's an idea - a question, which Google is asking the world. It will look different, it will work differently, it will be better - it might be less exciting. It might even be cool.
So if you meet someone who has used, or owns, Google Glass, the right question to ask might just be: 'did anything happen for you in those first few moments?'
And the answer is that for me, it did, nearly. Tantalisingly nearly. And next time, or next time, or the time after that, things will be different.
Just wait. ]]>Dark Lightning: US Navy To Investigate Potentially-Dangerous Radiation Bursts (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34404462013-06-14T06:29:28-04:002013-06-14T07:41:58-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/
Lightening is caused by the interaction of charged particles in the atmosphere, created during violent winds.
When lightning strikes, the vast amounts of electrical energy stored in the clouds are released in sharp, intense bursts - which, helpfully, we can see. So far, so familiar.
But back in 2010 Nasa discovered - by accident - that it's not just visible electrical energy which is created and released in this way, but also intense bursts of radiation.
This so-called 'dark lightning' - consisting of surprisingly powerful gamma rays more usually released by stars in deep space - can also be generated and sent out in wide, strong bursts during a storm.
Discovered by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Nasa thinks these flashes are potentially dangerous. If one struck an aeroplane in mid-air, it's possible that passengers could be exposed to the maximum safe lifetime dose of ionising radiation in an instant.
Above: Simulation of a Boeing 737 struck by dark lightning.
Fortunately dark lightning appears to be rare - about one burst per thousand regular strikes of lightning. But the US Navy wants to look into it further, and has launched a study to nail down just how dangerous dark lightning might be.
The team is also building detectors that it can send up on high-altitude balloons, to further test the gamma-ray bursts first hand.]]>Apple Gaming Console: Does Tim Cook's Game Controller API Indicate Apple Wants To Make An iBox?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34401812013-06-14T04:59:58-04:002013-06-14T05:46:11-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/hasn't exactly been a shortage of video game news this week.
As the E3 Conference in LA showed, momentum is quickly building towards the launch of the next generation of games consoles. Both the PS4 and Xbox One are making strong cases for placing ever-more-powerful boxes under your TV, capable of playing mind-blowingly complex games.
But the most truly transformative bit of news in gaming might not have come from either Sony or Microsoft, And no, we don't mean Nintendo.
We're talking about Apple.
In small announcement made at its busy WWDC 13 conference, Apple released the first ever instructions for partners to make cohesive, console-style game controllers for both the iPad and iPhone - and, potentially, Apple TV.
So is this the first sign that Apple is making a console? And if not, could it still launch a sneak assault on the next-generation of living room gaming?
The document (above) actually outlines two types of controller - one designed to 'wrap around' an iPad or iPhone, and one intended to be used separately like a traditional gamepad.
The note to developers ('Game Controller Framework') allows for a controller as complex as any used by the big three games makers, with dual analog sticks, shoulder buttons and four front buttons.
The release has increased speculation that before long Apple will allow developers to build apps and games not only for its mobile devices and computers, but also the Apple TV box - or a future generation of it.
It's already possible for iPad users to play games on the Apple TV via screen mirroring, of course. And some titles, such as EA's Real Racing, allow gamers to use the iPad as a separate controller with the action streamed to the TV.
But the hope - or for Microsoft and Sony, the fear - is that Apple might have its sights set on bigger, more intense games being played on its TV box, and not on the mega-consoles pitched by the big two. And with its extensive developer community, its 575 million App Store customers and the (current) low cost of its TV box, it might just be able to take some of the big two's market share in living room gaming.
If that sounds unlikely given Sony and Microsoft's current dominance, consider the iOS App Store. From a standing start four years ago Apple has now paid developers more than $10 billion in profits from the sale of more than 50 billion apps. In a recent study 24 of the top 25 developers - who shared half the US 2012 app store revenue - made games. And increasingly the iPad is where global gaming hits are being made, from mass appeal games like Angry Birds to critical hits like Ridiculous Fishing. Apple is already a major player in games, just not on the TV. Yet.
Of course, we're still a long way from Apple truly entering the console space (which they have before, to disastrous effect.
For one, the current Apple TV isn't capable of running very complex or intensive software, so an update would be required - which could possibly boost the price to beyond the box's current 'impulse buy' level of £99.
More importantly, Apple knows that its customers and developers aren't necessarily traditional gamers, and Tim Cook might not want to transition them in that direction.
The iPad and iPhone's top selling games aren't those which ape console games, but find new mechanics that work within the touchscreen's limitations - and enhance its unique selling points.
In an illustration of that, in Apple's guide for third party controller makers it stresses that games much still be playable via touch screens. It explicitly does not want to make games only playable with controllers it can't, well, control.
Then there is the fact that third party controllers are actually already available for iOS -- and haven't exactly sold by the ton. Admittedly the lack of a common API means that compatibility and performance issues have hurt those devices, but it's a sign that iPad gamers aren't desperate to pick up gamepads quite yet.
Despite all of this, however, we know Apple has designs on your living room.
At last month's D11 conference, CEO Tim Cook indicated that the Apple TV was moving from a mere "hobby" (in Steve Jobs' words) to a genuine business, with total sales around 13 million units. Rumours - mostly unsubstantiated - of a true Apple TV set also persist, but Cook does say he has a "grand vision" in this space. And with many consumers already ready to drop £349 (or more) on a new console this Christmas, it's clearly a good time for Apple to get an alternative, cheaper option on store shelves - complete with a TV-focused app store.
To do that successfully, Apple knows it will need developers' help. That means releasing an SDK for building apps for Apple TV - and we haven't seen that yet.
But with the release of a controller API, Cook might just have taken the first visible step towards a true assault on the Xbox and PS4 - or the creation of a new niche market that, like iOS before it, might just crack the whole system open. Game on.]]>Apple Gaming Console: Does Tim Cook's Game Controller API Indicate Apple Wants To Make An iBox?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34401832013-06-14T04:59:58-04:002013-06-14T06:11:52-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/hasn't exactly been a shortage of video game news this week. Both the PS4 and Xbox One made strong cases at E3 for placing ever-more-powerful boxes under your TV. And the games they've showed so far, for the most part, do at least look stunning.
But the most truly transformative bit of news in gaming this week might not have come from either Sony or Microsoft.
And no, we don't mean Nintendo. (Sorry, Mr Miyamoto. We can't wait for Mario Kart 8, honest.)
We're talking about Apple.
In small announcement made at its busy WWDC 13 conference on Monday, Apple released the first ever instructions for partners to make cohesive, console-style game controllers for both the iPad and iPhone - and, potentially, Apple TV.
So is this the first sign that Apple is making a console? And if not, could it still launch a sneak assault on the next-generation of living room gaming before 2014?
The document (above) actually outlines two types of controller - one designed to 'wrap around' an iPad or iPhone, and one intended to be used separately like a traditional gamepad.
This note to developers ('Game Controller Framework') allows for a controller as complex as any used by the big three games makers, with dual analog sticks, shoulder buttons and four front buttons.
The release has increased speculation that before long Apple will allow developers to build apps and games not only for its mobile devices and computers, but also the Apple TV box - or a future generation of it.
It's already possible for iPad users to play games on the Apple TV via screen mirroring, of course. And some titles, such as EA's Real Racing 2, allowed gamers to use the iPad as a separate controller with the action streamed to the TV.
But the hope - or for Microsoft and Sony, the fear - is that Apple might have its sights set on bigger, more intense games being played on its TV box, and not on the mega-consoles pitched by the big two. And with its extensive developer community, its 575 million App Store customers and the (current) low cost of its TV box, it might just be able to take some of the big two's market share in living room gaming.
If that sounds unlikely given Sony and Microsoft's current dominance, consider the iOS App Store. From a standing start four years ago Apple has now paid developers more than $10 billion in profits from the sale of more than 50 billion apps. In a recent study 24 of the top 25 developers - who shared half the US 2012 app store revenue - made games. And increasingly the iPad is where global gaming hits are being made, from mass appeal games like Angry Birds to critical hits like Ridiculous Fishing. Apple is already a major player in games, just not on the TV.
Of course, we're still a long way from Apple truly entering the console space (which they have before, to hilariously disastrous effect.)
For one, the current Apple TV isn't capable of running very complex or intensive software, so an update would be required - which could possibly boost the price to beyond the box's current 'impulse buy' level of £99.
More importantly, Apple knows that its customers aren't necessarily traditional gamers (whatever that means), or already own a console, and Tim Cook might not want to make too big a bet in that direction.
The iPad and iPhone's top selling games aren't those which mimic console games, but those find new mechanics that work within the touchscreen's limitations - and enhance its unique selling points.
In an illustration of that, Apple's guide for third party controllers stresses that games must still be playable via touch screens. It explicitly does not want to make games only playable with controllers it can't, well, control.
Moreover, if Apple wanted to make a console, they'd make a console. They haven't. They've just opened up a new, sensible avenue for developers to mine new worth from iOS gaming without getting their own hands dirty.
Then there is the fact that third party controllers are actually already available for iOS -- and haven't exactly sold by the ton. Admittedly the lack of a common API means that compatibility and performance issues have hurt those devices, but it's a sign that iPad gamers aren't desperate to pick up gamepads quite yet.
It's also worth noting that while you might be playing your next console with an iPad, that console might still be made by Microsoft. With SmartGlass the Xbox One will let you play games with your existing touchscreen device, and while we're still not sure of how well developers will use this functionality, it's another sign of how these devices are starting to converge.
Despite all of this, however, we know Apple does have designs on your living room.
At last month's D11 conference, CEO Tim Cook indicated that the Apple TV was moving from a mere "hobby" (in Steve Jobs' words) to a genuine business, with total sales around 13 million units. Rumours - mostly unsubstantiated - of a true Apple TV set also persist, but Cook does say he has a "grand vision" in this space. And with many consumers already ready to drop £349 (or more) on a new console this Christmas, it's clearly a good time for Apple to get an alternative, cheaper option on store shelves - complete with a TV-focused app store.
To do that successfully, Apple will need developers' help. That means releasing an SDK for building apps for Apple TV - and we haven't seen that yet. It will also need a better product than the current Apple TV, which is a useful little box for iOS users but is hampered by a terrible interface, no live TV integration and buggy software.
All that said, the controller API is significant. It's a sign that while Apple won't make a mainstream console, but it might just build something new for the living room which - like iOS before it - could crack the whole system open, make a lot of money and give us some fun new games to play.
Game on.]]>Binary Stars And Their 'Tatooine'-Style Planets May Be Perfect For Life, Research Suggeststag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34400362013-06-14T04:38:35-04:002013-06-14T04:53:57-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/Star Wars and science fiction, rather than science fact.
But according to new research, alien worlds with more than one sun might actually be a great place to go about finding life.
The idea is that the two suns would "calm each other down", Clark says, acting as a gravitational sink for many of the most damaging particles being blasted out by their solar partner.
"They vent to each other, and they're not focused on anything else. They slow each other down and that causes increased magnetic protection of the planets," Clark told Space.com.
Not every binary system would necessarily have an expanded Goldilcoks Zone. The stars would have to orbit each other roughly once every 10-30 Earth days and not be too far apart form each other.
But if the conditions are right, this configuration of stars and planets could allow Earth-like worlds to emerge as close to a sun as Venus is to our own.
Smaller planets that ours could also host life because they would not need to rely on their own strong magnetic shields as much as we do.
Scientists are currently expanding efforts to locate and describe exo-planets orbiting suns outside our Solar System. Finding them is difficult since they cannot be directly imaged by telescopes, but are instead found by instruments such as the Kepler Space Telescope observing variations in light reaching us from distant suns.
However several binary systems have been found to have rocky planets orbiting their suns already, and scientists expect that number to expand dramatically in the new few years.]]>Chinese Astronauts Dock With Tiangong-1 Space Lab (PICTURES)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34333772013-06-13T05:21:36-04:002013-06-13T05:52:34-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/
The mission is by some distance China's most advanced space mission yet.
The successful launch marked the start of China's fifth manned mission in space.
Chinese media now says the capsule has successfully docked with the Tiangong-1 space laboratory, which has been in orbit around Earth since 2011.
The docking was completed automatically, but manned docking tests will also be conducted during the taikonauts' stay.
The space lab is principally designed to test docking and navigation systems. Just 10.5 metres long and 4.5 metres wide, it contains scientific instruments and life support systems, but is not intended to be a permanent Chinese outpost in space.
But the team of three astronauts will spend up to two weeks at the lab, with events planned including a televised lesson for students on Earth led by Wang Yaping, the second Chinese woman in space.
China eventually wants to build a permanent space station of its own, and has said it wants to start by the end of the decade.
]]>Google Trends In Real Time: Watch The Internet Search, Livetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34331232013-06-13T04:51:19-04:002013-06-13T11:05:38-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/ The neat online tool, based on Google Trends data, gives viewers a snapshot of what's trending online.
As of press time hot searches included iOS 7, the PS4 and lots of things in Russian that we don't understand.
You can choose to see just one topic on screen, or expand it into a five-by-five grid.
In truth it's not exactly the most useful Google tool around - the search giant has a wealth of interesting and engaging Trends tools, but after a few minutes this one is a bit of a snooze.
But as a pure visual treat - or possibly as a screensaver if someone can hack that up for us? - it's quite fascinating.
And yes, as far as we can tell it's safe for work...]]>Brit Colin Furze Builds Jet-Powered Bicycle (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34330872013-06-13T04:17:25-04:002013-06-13T04:38:20-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/
Famed internet inventor, genius and brilliant human being Colin Furze unveiled his machine - named Norah - on his website.
Furze likes to call the propulsion mechanism - which appears to have a tendency to shoot flames out of its exhaust pipe - a "big ass pulse jet".
In fact the jet is so hot when in operation that Furze had to lengthen the bike - just to keep the rider a safe distance away.
"Had i binned the pedals idea ye it could have been shorter but the heat this thing chucks of is intense and at times ive struggled to turn a valve of 40cm away from it so sitting on top of it would need some sort of heat shield and i think it would start to look less bicycle like. With all that in mind we cut n stretched norah by around a metre and slung it in "test time"."
"It is as MAD as it looks" he adds.
If only he could team up with the minds behind the flying bicycle, even more wonderful and potentially lethal things could happen...]]>Flying Bike: Duratec Bicycles Unveils The Future Of Commuting?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/thenewswire//2.34327962013-06-13T03:27:53-04:002013-06-13T03:41:58-04:00Michael Rundlehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rundle/
So why not fly above it?
A prototype 'flying bike' has been demonstrated successfully taking off for the first time, and given a few more years might just represent a new frontier in commuting.
The flying bike uses six giant rotating fans to provide lift and balance, powered by batteries.
Duratec Bicycles unveiled the machine in the Czech Republic, albeit only with a dummy pilot.
They hope to improve the prototype and make it safe enough for human pilots - depending on battery tech matching their ambitions. Unfortunately weight restrictions mean the machine only has a five minute capacity, currently.
"Because the capacity of batteries doubles about every 10 years, we can expect that in the future the capacity would be enough for the bike to used for sports, tourism or similar things," said Milan Duchek, who is technical director of Duratec Bicycles.
Movie sequence of a miniature submarine exploring under the ice.
