New color night vision camera can see more than just green

0digg

4Share

Seeing as we're not cats, we humans need night vision cameras to spy on people in the dark. The thing is, the cameras can only record images in green. A new night vision camera can capture real-time video in the dark — in color.
Developed by the Nanosystem Research Division (NRD) of AIST, the color night vision camera sees red, blue and green objects using "various algorithms that analyze the wavelengths reflected when objects are illuminated with infrared, and the the characteristics of the objects."

More questionable career placement jobs at ATI - Trade Schools

Students at for-profit trade schools get $4 billion in grants a year from U.S. taxpayers.

To be eligible for that money, trade schools must obtain jobs for 70 percent of their graduates in fields related to their studies. Last year, News 8 discovered Everest College claimed to have placed 288 students in non-existent jobs.

Now, News 8 has discovered dozens of similar cases at ATI, another for-profit school headquartered in North Richland Hills.

ATI runs more than two dozen for-profit schools across the country. The company claims it gets its graduates “meaningful employment.” But, WFAA discovered that dozens of employment claims involving ATI students don’t match reality.

iPhone 5 to Get Aluminum Backing, Redesigned Antenna?

GadgetsDNA points to a Macotakara report about the upcoming iPhone 5. According to a Chinese source, Apple will be abandoning the glass backing of the iPhone 4 and moving back to an aluminum casing. Apple's first iPhone also shipped with an aluminum back casing. From the translation:

Decision to design similar to iPod touch instead of using glass is supposed that Apple seems to stop problems which are told widely damages from scratching, difficulties of painting white and weight of glass.

Apple Looking to Develop iPhone Based on TD-LTE?

Reuters briefly reports on comments from China Mobile chairman Wang Jianzhou claiming that Apple has "expressed interest" in developing an iPhone capable of running on the carrier's TD-LTE network currently under development.

China Mobile Ltd, the world's largest mobile carrier by subscribers, said on Friday that Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs has expressed interest in developing an iPhone based on the Chinese carrier's network standard.

China Mobile is developing its next-generation TD-LTE mobile network technology and there have been talks over a possible iPhone tie-up with the carrier.

Time-division LTE (TD-LTE), developed by China Mobile, is a variation on the LTE standard that can offer certain benefits over traditional frequency-division LTE (FD-LTE), including lower cost of deployment and dynamic balancing of upload and download bandwidth. Reports have indicated that the same chip can be used to allow devices to access both traditional LTE and TD-LTE networks.

Pentagon Friends Social Media For Another Year

Tweet with confidence, troops. The Pentagon has extended its blessing for you to use social media for another year.

In an unheralded move last week, William Lynn, the deputy defense secretary, reauthorized the expiring social media guidelines (.pdf), which were set to expire on Tuesday. There was a minor freakout online in January, when the policy was about to turn into a pumpkin, creating fears that the military would return to the days of banning Twitter or blocking YouTube.

Apple iPads Invade Airline Passengers And Pilots

Two of the biggest challenges for any air traveler are staying comfortable and keeping occupied, especially during lengthy flights. One airline has come up with a unique solution to this issue, going well beyond the usual in-flight entertainment fare of bad movies and inane magazines.

Jetstar, the low-cost offshoot of Australia-based Qantas Airlines, will next month begin offering Apple iPad tablet rentals to its passengers. The devices can be had for $10 Australian Dollar, which is about the same in U.S. currency, and will be available on all Airbus A320 flights to Australia and Asia.

The Jetstar iPads will be full of music, magazines, books and games, which should make being squeezed in a middle seat more tolerable. Jetstar rolled out the iPad rental concept on certain flights last year as part of a pilot program (pardon the pun), and the public's response was so favorable that the rentals will become a full-time thing.

Army Wants Spy Blimps to Psych Out Insurgents

Blimps aren’t exactly known for striking fear into the hearts of men. But the Army’s betting they can still make insurgents in Afghanistan feel like they’re living in a panopticon.

Lots of bases in Afghanistan have surveillance aerostats floating above them on a tether, thanks to a program called RAID. Cheaper and easier to operate than drones, the balloons have helped troops spot insurgents as they plant bombs, Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, the outgoing leader of the Pentagon’s anti-bomb squad, told reporters this week. The fact that the blimps are tethered means their spy gear can only view a set area, but the Army sees them providing an even bigger psychological advantage.

So Far, Rivals Can’t Beat iPad’s Price

The iPad 2, unveiled on Wednesday, offers several sleek improvements over its predecessor. But its most attractive feature is perhaps the same one its predecessor had: the price tag.

And what makes that feature even more compelling is that so far, Apple’s competitors in tablets cannot beat or even match it.

The iPad 2, like the original, starts at $499. Apple says that since it introduced the original last April, it has sold 15 million of the devices, generating $9.5 billion in revenue. Analysts say this is only the start of a lucrative market for tablet computers, which could soar as high as $35 billion by 2012.

ASUS CEO: 3D quadcore tablet in 2011, maybe Windows Phone in 2012

ASUS has confirmed plans to launch a 3D tablet running a quadcore processor sometime in 2011, though the slate will not have 3D cameras like the LG G-Slate. Speaking to hi-tech.mail.ru, ASUS CEO Jerry Shen said that quadcore chips – presumably NVIDIA’s Kal-El – will be essential for smooth video playback at Full HD resolution or higher. The company is aiming to be the second largest player in tablets by 2012, with a 5 to 8 percent market share.

Gates to Air Force: Get Used to Drones, Cargo Runs

If any cadets at the Air Force Academy joined up in the hopes of dogfighting enemy jets or going on big bombing runs, Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ lecture on Friday probably came as a disappointment.

It’s not that the future doesn’t feature fighter jets and bombers — after all, Gates is a big proponent of the Joint Strike Fighter, and his new budget kickstarts the process of building the Air Force a brand new bomber. But he warned the Air Force to “shed the nostalgia” for “air-to-air combat and strategic bombing.”

HP MetaWatch puts all of your portable devices on your wrist

Like most connected people, most of us at Dvice juggle a bunch of different gadgets to get us through the day. That's fine if you're a juggler, but what if you could consolidate all of that information in one single device in your wrist? That's the idea behind the HP MetaWatch from Fossil.

Air Force ponders using ICBMs on terrorists

It sure seems like a good idea: we've got all these intercontinental ballistic missileslying around with nothing to do, under an hour from striking anywhere on Earth, plus a bunch of terrorists running around Afghanistan. So why not just use one against the other? The Air Force is thinking about doing just that.

The first 3D Star Wars movie gets a release date

Because George Lucas just doesn't have enough money, he's releasing all six Star Wars movies back to theaters after converting them to 3D. And now the first one has a release date: February 10, 2012.

I know, finally, Jar Jar Binks in 3D! The whole saga is being released in "order," which means we're stuck getting the worst one first: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. So from 2012 to 2018, you've got a "new" Star Wars to look forward do, I guess. Sigh.

Via AV Club

Blank canvas reveals its art when you snap a picture of it

Imagine a gallery full of blank canvasses, that instantly turn into art when you take a picture of them. That's the idea behind this art project called Take A Picture.

Computerized surfboard measures all of your fancy moves

Competitive surfing is one of those sports where a group of judges rate your performance based on what they see. The problem is that judges can miss things, or might even be biased against you. This high-tech surfboard aims to put a little objectivity back into surfing, by making accurate measurements of your gnarly moves.

Frak, yes! Two more BSG vets join Ron Moore's 17th precinct

It's definitely going to be an all-round Battlestar Galactica reunion for Ron Moore's upcoming NBC supernatural series pilot 17th Precinct, since both James Callis and Tricia Helfer have now joined their former BSG castmate Jamie Bamber on the show.

NASA launch FAIL: Rocket crashes into the Pacific Ocean [Video]

NASA's Glory satellite was shot into the air this morning to begin a three-year mission to analyze how airborne particles affect Earth's climate—but that mission never got a chance to begin, its short trip ending a few minutes after lift-off when the rocket carrying it crashed into the Pacific Ocean.

Michael Bay admits Transforme​rs: Revenge of the Fallen 'was crap'

It's no secret that a lot of us thought Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a big pile of crap. Well, guess what? Michael Bay thinks so, too.

In an interview with Empire about the third film in the saga, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the director finally admits the truth about its predecessor nearly two years later: "We made some mistakes. The real fault with [Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen] is that it ran into a mystical world. When I look back at it, that was crap."

In Russia, Stealth Jet Flies You

In the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie Firefox, the Soviet Union develops a stealth jet capable of hypersonic speeds and completely invisible to radar — so advanced that the U.S. and U.K. have to infiltrate the country and steal it. Well, Clint Eastwood may want to put his flight suit on. Because the way the Russians are hyping their latest jet, the T-50, you’d think it was Firefox come to life.  Russia tested the second prototype for its T-50 (a.k.a. the PAK FA) fifth generation fighter jet yesterday. The plane took off from the Sukhoi’s Komsomolsk-on-Amur airfield and flew for 44 minutes.

Producers of new Blade Runner to Christopher Nolan: Let's do lunch

The producers who just bought the rights to make more Blade Runner movies have spoken out about their plans for the potential franchise. And, not surprisingly, one director in particular is at the top of their wish list.

As announced earlier this week, a production company called Alcon Entertainment bought the rights to create sequels, prequels and other properties (except a direct remake) based on the 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner. In an interview with io9, producers Andrew Kosove, Broderick Johnson and Bud Yorkin were asked if there were any "pie in the sky" writers or directors that they would love to have work on a new film. Kosove replied, "Pie in the sky? Yeah, our friend Chris Nolan, who we did Insomnia[with], would be in the pie in the sky for us."

Air Force launches second mysterious space plane

A second mysterious, robotic space plane was launched into orbit by the U.S. Air Force today, after the first craft safely returned to Earth late last year following a secretive months-long mission and speculation about its potential military or intelligence uses.

The second Boeing-built X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV, left Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 2:46 p.m. PT, atop an Atlas V rocket, Boeing said.

This 100 kW nuclear reactor is two billion years old

See this big pile of rocks? It's actually a fully functional nuclear reactor. Or, it was, about two billion years ago.

All that a nuclear reactor is, is an area where there's a high enough concentration of uranium 235 (around 3% or so) such that a fission reaction is sustainable. You don't generally find concentrations of the uranium 235 isotope that high without refining uranium ore, since at this point, it's all decayed away.

NASA scientist publishes images of possible alien fossils

Late on Friday, the Journal of Cosmology (a free but peer-reviewed scholarly journal) published a paper on their website by NASA astrobiologist Dr. Richard B. Hoover that showcases a variety of microscopic fossilized structures from inside meteorites that are possibly the remains of extraterrestrial bacteria. Aliens, for real.

Steve Jobs Wasn't Lying: Apple's iPad Market Share Was Really More Than 90% Last Year

Ever since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad 2, people have busy trying to compare his statements to the truth, especially this one: 

“Many have said (iPad) is the most successful consumer product ever launched. Over 90% market share and our competitors were flummoxed.”

Where was Steve getting this 90% market share data point? Strategy Analytics showed iPad’s market share at 75% in 4Q10 and falling fast. 

The thing about Steve Jobs is that he rarely outright lies, instead opting to look at data in a way that he thinks makes most sense and which contains some shred of validity.  I don’t think Steve was far off from the truth saying iPad had 90% market share. Using conservative figures and assumptions, I calculate iPad’s tablet market share at 90% in 4Q10, and nearly 95% for 2010. 

$430k Love settlement shows tweets can be costly

LOS ANGELES – Courtney Love's settlement of a case sparked by online attacks on a fashion designer show that while Twitter posts may be short, they can also be costly.
The singer has agreed to pay Dawn Simorangkir $430,000, plus interest, to settle a lawsuit the designer filed in March 2009 over comments Love made on Twitter and her MySpace blog.
While the case didn't go to a jury, First Amendment experts say it highlights the need for celebrities and average people to watch what they say online.
"People are getting in trouble for Twitter postings on an almost daily basis," said First Amendment Attorney Doug Mirell, a partner at Loeb and Loeb who did not handle the case.
"The laws controlling what is and isn't libelous are the same regardless of the medium in which the statements appear," he said.
Nancy Derwin-Weiss, an attorney who specializes in digital entertainment and advertising law, said the amount was sure to get the attention of stars and their handlers.

South Korean websites come under further attack - 69 sites

SEOUL, South Korea – Unidentified attackers targeted more than two dozen South Korean government and private websites Saturday, a day after two waves of similar attacks, but officials reported no serious damage.
A total of 29 websites were hit Saturday in so-called "denial of service" attacks, in which large numbers of "zombie" computers try to connect to a site at the same time in an attempt to overwhelm the server, the Korea Communications Commission said.
Commission official Lee Sang-kug said the attacks were "so weak that no actual damage was detected so far." Lee said the commission would keep a close watch on the situation in coming days, but that the fallout was likely to remain limited because the government and computer security companies were well prepared.

Secrecy Envelopes Air Force Mission

Few details released about launch of X-37B spaceplane. VIDEO

NASA research satellite plunges into the sea

WASHINGTON – For the second time in two years, a rocket glitch sent a NASA global warming satellite to the bottom of the sea Friday, a $424 million debacle that couldn't have come at a worse time for the space agency and its efforts to understand climate change.
Years of belt-tightening have left NASA's Earth-watching system in sorry shape, according to many scientists. And any money for new environmental satellites will have to survive budget-cutting, global warming politics and, now, doubts on Capitol Hill about the space agency's competence.
The Taurus XL rocket carrying NASA's Glory satellite lifted from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and plummeted to the southern Pacific several minutes later. The same thing happened to another climate-monitoring probe in 2009 with the same type of rocket, and engineers thought they had fixed the problem.
"It's more than embarrassing," said Syracuse University public policy professor Henry Lambright. "Something was missed in the first investigation and the work that went on afterward." VIDEO

High-End Real Estate Action

Tour the $60 million Miami mansion developers say Lebron James couldn't afford. LINK

Prep star hits game-winning shot for perfect season, falls and dies

Tragedy struck Western Michigan on Thursday night when Fennville (Mich.) High basketball star Wes Leonard hit a game-winning shot in a 57-55, overtime victory over Bridgman (Mich.) High, then collapsed on the court while celebrating the victory and was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly thereafter.

How we'll roll with Thunderbolt

Intel and Apple are underselling Thunderbolt - for good reason - but make no mistake: Thunderbolt is part of of your future. Here’s how Thunderbolt will roll out - and why.

Performance
Thunderbolt consists of 2 10 Gbps bi-directional (full duplex) channels. Each channel can handle 10 Gbps in and 10 Gbps out at the same time.

USB 2.0 also runs bi-directionally at 240 Mbit/sec each way. Which is where the 480 Mbit/sec number you see everywhere comes from - even if you never see it in real life.

If Thunderbolt was promoted the way USB 2.0 was, ApTel would be claiming 40 Gbps. Here’s how Apple positions it:

Sony Directs German Police to Raid PlayStation 3 Hacker's Home

Sony has been fighting PlayStation 3 hackers in court for the past month, and now it appears the Japanese tech giant has declared all out war on anyone that messes with its console. Sony has confirmed that it directed German police to raid a PS3 hacker's home early yesterday morning.

PlayStation 3 modding community PSX-Scene broke the news that the PS3 hacker known only as graf_chokolo had a few armed, unwelcome visitors to his home in Germany before the sun came up on Wednesday.

Designing Uncharted 2 with SketchUp

Art Director, Robh Ruppel, explains how he used Google SketchUp to help conceptualize the look and feel of the award-winning video game, Uncharted 2. LINK

The Mother Of All Android Malware Has Arrived: Stolen Apps Released To The Market That Root Your Phone, Steal Your Data, And Open Backdoor

For more details on DroidDream, check out out the follow-up post. It includes more information about the virus and how it works, who’s to blame, and provides a link to a flashable .ZIP that prevents the virus from working.

Openness – the very characteristic of Android that makes us love it – is a double-edged sword. Redditor lompolo has stumbled upon a perfect example of that fact; he’s noticed that a publisher has taken "… 21 popular free apps from the market, injected root exploits into them and republished." The really scary part? "50k-200k downloads combined in 4 days."

Razer's Chimaera: wireless 'n' stylish, but how do they sound?

Struck by the Chimaera's pro-gramer looks, we took the $130 stereo headset to our Xbox 360 to see whether or not Razer, makers of some of the best gaming gear on the planet, could create an unmatched personal audio gaming experience. Read on to discover if the Chimaera roar is loud and mighty or low and weak.

Storm : unleashed for the Mac

After a lot of speculation in the pro video and film industry, Storm, The Foundry's new RED Digital Cinema workflow product, has been launched.

Storm brings a focused and easy-to-adopt tool to digital camera workflows on a suitably equipped Mac, offering a consistent and reliable way to review, organize, prepare, edit, conform and deliver RAW RED media, on a laptop or workstation on and near-set.

The Foundry’s Storm

Apple: iPad 2 is 'dramatically faster' (live blog)

Editor's note: We used Cover It Live for this event, so if you missed the live blog, you can still replay it in the embedded component below. Replaying the event will give you all the live updates along with commentary from our readers. Following the introduction is an edited transcript of the event. To get the key points from today's announcement, you can check out our summary of what got announced.

Apple will be holding a press event in San Francisco today to unveil a mysterious product--what many believe will turn out be the next version of the iPad, the company's tablet computer that made its debut a little more than a year ago.

Chinese chef builds robot to shave noodles for him while he relaxes

Meet Chef Cui, the noodle shaving robot. Chef Cui Runquan was sick and tired of having to shave noodles by hand and pouring them into a pot of boiling water, so he built a robot to do the job for him.

Chinese man builds 5-ton Megatron tank just for kicks

Apparently, a guy in Huizhou, China decided to build an incredibly detailed 5-ton steel model of Megatron in tank mode from Transformers 2. And, well, that's just what he did.
This thing is damned terrifying. Luckily, it's a mere model and not a functioning tank. Or even worse, a functioning Decepticon. I'm not quite sure why someone would dedicate this much time and energy to building something like this, but hey, power to him for really going for it. PHOTOS
MIC Gadget via Blastr

Anne Hathaway accidentally reveals Selina Kyle IS Catwoman

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, the Oscar hostess let slip that the character she'll be playing in the final chapter in Christopher Nolan's Caped Crusader trilogy will, indeed, be a kitten with a whip.

Giant chamber on the moon discovered, perfect for a future base

The Indian Space Research Organization has discovered a massive underground chamber near the moon's equator, one that would be perfect for housing a moon base. A moon base!

Rocketman: smallest Mini Cooper wrapped in carbon fiber and LED light

As if the Mini Cooper wasn't already tiny enough. Mini's Rocketman Concept is the car maker's newest baby that just so happens to also be its smallest and most storage friendly vehicle ever made since 1959.
You've seen Mini Coopers before. These cars are made for Hobbits. They're tiny and sporty looking. The Rocketman isn't going bigger — it's going smarter and prettier.

iFart Sniffs Out Buyers, Asks for $1 Million on eBay

iFart, the company behind the popular iPhone application that simulates the sound of farts, is up for sale for $1 million.

Is it a novelty app and a tasteless one at that? Definitely. But iFart has been a number-one application on iTunes at one point, and the company claims it has never dropped out of the top 100 most popular apps list. It costs $0.99, and it's definitely earned a fair amount of money for its creators, whom are now looking to sell it as the company changes focus to marketing.

"After more than two years of success, my company is focusing on our performance marketing agency. It is time to pass the iFart baton to a company or individual that desires to take it to the next level. This auction will provide the right buyer with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a piece of iPhone history," says iFart creator Joel Comm.

Mystery solved in death of legendary Japanese dog

TOKYO – Scientists have settled a decades-old mystery by naming a cause of death for Japan's most famous dog, Hachiko, whose legendary loyalty was immortalized in a Hollywood movie starring Richard Gere.

They say Hachiko died of cancer and worms, not because he swallowed a chicken skewer that ruptured his stomach — as legend had had it.

For years, Hachiko used to wait at Shibuya train station for its master, a professor at the University of Tokyo. Even after the professor died, the dog went to the station to wait for his master every afternoon for a decade until he finally died.

Tokyo residents were so moved that they built a statue of Hachiko at the station, which remains a popular rendezvous spot for Japanese today. He was also the hero of Japanese children's books.

Can data stored on an SSD be secured?

Until a university study emerged last week, few experts suspected that it's more difficult to erase data stored on solid-state drives (SSD) than that on hard disk drives (HDDs).

Industry experts were taken aback by the study, but noted that there are SSDs with native encryption capabilities that can prevent data from being seen even after a drive's end of life, and that there are some SSD drive sanitation methods that are more successful than others.

"I don't think anyone ever knew about this," said security technologist Bruce Schneier.

NVIDIA Quadro Powers New Era of Mobile Super Computers

Dubai, UAE: NVIDIA announced today a new line of Quadro® professional graphics solutions for mobile workstations. Designed for engineers, industrial designers, animators, and film & video editors that need to take their work with them, these new Quadro graphics processing units (GPUs) leverage the NVIDIA Fermi architecture, which combines fast visualization performance with high performance computing capabilities. This massively parallel processing horsepower transforms laptop computers into mobile super computers.

Featuring twice the number of CUDA™ cores and twice the graphics memory over previous generations, these new Quadro GPUs also incorporate NVIDIA Optimus™technology, maximizing battery life by automatically powering the GPU only when needed. Optimus also provides users with the ability to drive up to four displays at the same time.

Unreal Engine 3 adds DX 11 tessellation, PhysX, Apex, 3D Vision support

Epic's PC support has waned in recent years; the company, along with Microsoft, first skipped Gears of War 2, before releasing the troubled Bulletstorm. Alongside consoles, they're giving the platform more juice, however-- the Unreal Engine 3 has just added support for PC-exclusive DirectX 11 tessellation in addition to three multiplatform NVIDIA technologies: PhysX, 3D Vision, and Apex.

Free iPad app offers software training

Infinite Skills has released a new iPad app which offers access to free tutorials in Mac OS X, Adobe CS5 and more, from the company’s library of successful training titles.

Training provider Infinite Skills has made the app available from Apple’s App Store, as well as other popular third party Websites. The app provides easy access to hundreds of free lessons covering all the most popular and up-to-date programs.

Apple sets the stage for the iPad 2

PHOTOS

Laptop tracks gaze, taking eye-tracking out of lab

NEW YORK – Ever wish your eyes were lasers? A laptop prototype brings that wish closer to reality.

It tracks your gaze and figures out where you're looking on the screen. That means, among other things, that you can play a game where you burn up incoming asteroids with a laser that hits where you look.

In another demonstration this week, the computer scrolled a text on the screen in response to eye movements, sensing when the reader reached the end of the visible text.

China tightens media controls amid protest calls

BEIJING – China appears to be tightening restrictions on international media again, barring foreign journalists from working near a popular Shanghai park and along a major Beijing shopping street after calls for protests in those spots appeared online.

The new restrictions put the popular leisure spots on a par with Tibet as out-of-bounds areas where foreign reporters need special permission to work and come after journalists were attacked and harassed while working in the same areas over the weekend.

Bob Dietz, the Asia coordinator for the Committee to ProtectJournalists, said the treatment of journalists in Beijing on Sunday was "the worst aggression against the foreign press we've seen since the Olympics in 2008."

US says China's Baidu, Taobao markets for piracy

BEIJING – The U.S. government has labeled China's top search engine, Baidu, and a popular e-commerce platform "notorious markets" linked to sales of pirated and fake goods.

The two companies were among 33 websites or public markets in China, Russia, India and other countries that the U.S. Trade Representative's office said Monday facilitate trade in music, clothing and other goods that are fake or unauthorized copies.

China is a leading source of fake and counterfeit goods despite repeated government crackdowns. Beijing launched its latest enforcement effort in October and says it hopes to achieve lasting results.