This video is of a graphite disc floating over a magnetic field, which is then being spun by nothing but laser light. Temperature changes where the laser hits the graphite surface, cause changes in the magnetic field allowing it to spin. This is a pretty cool discovery considering it could lead to new technologies like a solar powered turbine. [Mashable]
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Mobile Gaming Has Come Along Way but the TV is Getting Lonely
Gaming on mobile has never been better and it has inspired many small time developers around the world. The mobile app market is unique in that it’s probably one of the easiest ways to get your game in front of millions of users. iOS and Android are exploding with millions of apps and many of them were created by the average joe without any major support from a large corporation. With the rise is mobile gaming popularity, thanks in part to better mobile performance, many of us desire a bit more from our favorite mobile games.
Can we do any better? Well, it turns out that we can. Let’s bring this uber, developer friendly environment to the big screen. That’s exactly what Julie Uhrman was thinking when she started OUYA, a company that’s creating a console that’s mission is to “open up the last closed gaming platform- the TV”. OUYA got major support through Kickstarter and became one of the most successful Kickstarter projects to date.
This console brings the Android OS to the television and it will open the doors for developers to begin creating content for the big screen on an open platform. It’s very affordable at just $99 and all of the games will be free-to-try. OUYA is compact and elegant, it also comes with a nice looking controller. Another cool feature of the OUYA console is that it can be easily hacked, in fact it’s encouraged. Not a hardware guy ? Maybe you’re looking to develop? You can start now, the OUYA software development kit is already available for download.
Specifications:
- Tegra3 quad-core processor
- 1GB RAM
- 8GB of internal flash storage
- HDMI connection to the TV, with support for up to 1080p HD
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
- Bluetooth LE 4.0
- USB 2.0 (one)
- Wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad
- Android Jelly Bean
- Ethernet
Another Cosmic Catastrophe Avoided
It seems that we have survived several “end-of-the-world” scenarios but now you can add another reason to celebrate to your list. Another massive asteroid named ‘2011 AG5’ was expected to possibly hit Earth sometime around the year 2040. The asteroid was discovered early in 2011 and ever since we have been keeping track of it’s movement to see if it really could be a world-ender.
Space is a massive place and it can be truly difficult to pinpoint whether or not a single chunk of space rock will hit Earth, but University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomers along with the help of NASA, can safely say that the asteroid is not on a collision course with Earth.
It’s good to know that somebody is watching the skies above us. Now we can only hope that when we are in the path of a giant, we can do something about it. There are a few methods being drawn up about how to avoid an impact. Some of these ideas include crashing spacecraft into astroids to alter their course and steer them away from our planet. However, there are not any solid plans in place at this time to help avoid such impacts.
If there are any space projects that are going to be put together, you would hope that one of the top priority missions would include saving our planet. I would like to see missions that focus on landing on asteroids and studying them, with the ultimate goal being to understand how to alter their trajectory. It sounds simple enough but it takes a lot of force to move these giant and all of this would have to be controlled over long distances. Again, it’s a case of us knowing so much but knowing so little. For now it seems that we have a little more time to figure things out, let’s hope we do before we absolutely have to.
StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm Beta for Those Who Pre-Ordered
If you got onboard early with StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm and pre-ordered the game before December 18th, you will have access to test out the beta version of the game. Amazon will be sending out promotional beta key codes with actual physical pre-orders. That’s a pretty sweet deal. Blizzard Entertainment will be releasing StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm will launch 3-12-2012. You can get more information about the upcoming expansion from our earlier post here.
Update: PCGamesN.
Steven Sinofsky Gets a New Gig
Steven Sinofsky was a Microsoft executive who ran the Windows division of the company for many years. Sinofsky had recently left Microsoft after not seeing eye-to-eye with other senior management at the company. One of those people included Steve Ballmer, the current CEO. Now, Sinofsky is heading to Harvard to teach product development, planning and more. Currently, is unclear how long Sinofsky will remain at Harvard.
A few days ago Sinofsky tweeted about heading to Harvard,
“Excited to return to @HarvardHBS to teach again this spring!” Sinofsky wrote. “New perspectives, recharge, share experiences, write.”
Sinofsky is credited with restoring user’s faith in Windows by pushing out Windows 7, which has done quite well. He was also the main man behind Microsoft’s latest OS, Windows 8.