Stealth destroyer defenseless says Admiral

Two weeks ago, the Navy canceled plans to build the rest of its hulking stealth destroyers. At first, it looked like the DDG-1000s' $5-billion-a-copy price tag to blame. Now, it appears the real reason has slipped out: The Navy's most advanced warship is all but defenseless against one of its most common threats.

We already knew that the older, cheaper, Burke-class destroyers (pictured) are better able to fight off anti-ship missiles -- widely considered the most deadly (and most obvious) hazard to the American fleet. Specifically, the old Burkes can shoot down those missiles using special SM-3 interceptors; the new DDG-1000 cannot.

But now, a leading figure in the Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (and Vice Admiral) Barry McCullough, is saying that the DDG-1000 "cannot perform area air defense" at all. Never mind the SM-3; the ship isn't designed to fire any kind of long-range air-defense missile, whatsoever. It's presumably limited to the same last-ditch "point defense" systems (Phalanx guns and short-range missiles) that cargo ships, aircraft carriers and even Coast Guard cutters carry in case a missile slips past their screening Burkes. Those point defenses can't intercept ballistic missiles at all -- and when they destroy sea-skimming missiles, the debris can still strike and severely damage the ship.

In other words, the world's most expensive surface warship can't properly defend itself or other ships from an extremely widespread threat. That, needless to say, is a problem. Not only is the DDG-1000 vulnerable to the ballistic anti-ship missiles that countries such as China are developing, it wouldn't even be particularly effective against common weapons in the arsenals of everyone from Russia to Iran. And it's not like this was some kind of new threat; these missiles have been around, in one form or another, since World War II.

If that wasn't bad enough, the Navy has been saying all along that the DDG-1000 can fire at least some of Raytheon's missile-killing Standard Missiles. In other words, according to the inestimable Galrahn over at Information Dissemination, "the Navy has been delivering a lunchbag of bullshit to Congress regarding surface combatants for three years."

In a 2005 presentation, for instance, the Navy claimed the ship would have a "3X survivability rate" against anti-ship missiles and other threats. The service asserted that the destroyer's new SPY-3 radar would give it a "15X greater detection capability against sea-skimming targets," a "10X increase in maximum track capacity," and a "20% greater firm track range against all anti-ship cruise missiles (improves survivability)." Of course, the fanciest radar in the world doesn't do much good, if there's no way to respond to the threat.

A Navy source tells Defense News that the new destroyers "could carry and launch Standard missiles, but the DDG 1000 combat system cant guide those missiles onward to a target."

And that's not the only flim-flam going on here. For years, the Navy insisted that the DDG-1000 was absolutely crucial, because it could whack targets on land, from far-off at sea. It always seemed like an odd argument; could planes hit those targets just as effectively? But the Navy stuck to it -- repeatedly. Now: Never mind. "With the accelerated advancement of precision munitions and targeting, excess fires capacity already exists from tactical aviation," Adm. McCullough says. Tell us something we didn't already know.

There may be additional threats, as well. Defense News is reporting that the Navy has announced that there's a new "classified threat" against which older Burke-class destroyers are better defended.

One source familiar with the classified briefing said that while anti-ship cruise missiles and other threats were known to exist,those aren't the worst.The new threat, which­ didn't exist a couple years ago,is a land-launched ballistic missile that converts to a cruise missile. Other sources confirmed that a new, classified missile threat is being briefed at very high levels. One admiral, said another source, was told his ships should simply ­stay away. There are no options. Information on the new threat remains closely held.

In light of this, Galrahn says, the DDG-1000 is little more than a renamed, gold-plated version of a shipbuilding scheme that seemingly died more than a decade ago. That would be the 1990s "Arsenal Ship" concept (pictured), which would have put hundreds of land-attack missiles in a simple, cheap, mostly defenseless hull -- perhaps based on a cargo ship. The Arsenal Ship idea eventually was replaced by the Navy's four new SSGN submarines that each carry more than 100 cruise missiles and don't need anti-air missiles, since they can submerge.

"The Navy has not only kept the Arsenal Ship concept alive and well, but they evolved the program from 6 small dependent combatants into a class of 7 independent stealth battleships, then had the program funded and pushed through Congress in plain sight under the pretext of a more capable program," Galrahn writes.

That's insider-speak for a simple truth: The Navy screwed up its premiere ship-building project, big time.

Toyota Winglet personal transporter

Only a year after taking control of Sony's robotics business, Toyota has come up with a vertical, mechanized scooter (or personal transporter, in future-speak) intended to help people move about in public areas.

Called the Winglet because of its fleet nature, it is the first gadget to duplicate the celebrated, and often mocked, navigation system of Dean Kamen's Segway Transporter: self-balancing through gyroscopic sensors detecting the gentle directional tilts of a rider.

However, this personal scooter is probably not up to par to the Segway in speed or ruggedness. The newest Segway model can go up to 12.5 miles per hour (versus the Winglet's 3.7 MPH), and the slightness of the Winglet's frame probably wouldn't survive a Police chase.

According to Toyota, they will begin testing three different models at a few Japanese airports later this year, as well as some popular malls. The feedback received from customers will help determine whether Toyota will mass-market the gadget for sales everywhere else.

Last year, Sony decided to sell off most of its robotics division in order to streamline its overflowing number of product departments (killing off the Aibo dog in the process), and Toyota stepped in to keep pushing the technology.

Check out the Winglet in action after the jump.

Video Microblogging

Credit: Technology Review

In late July, a startup called 12seconds launched an early version of a product that lets people publicly post 12-second-long videos on the Internet about what they are doing. Using a Web camera or a cell-phone video camera, people record themselves doing anything--watching a football game at a bar, telling jokes, buying new shoes, playing with their child--and can upload it immediately to the Web, where others who subscribe to their videos get the update.

12seconds borrows heavily from the concepts of Twitter, an increasingly popular tool for so-called microblogging, in which people write pithy, 140-character updates on the status of their daily lives. A posted "tweet" can be published on Twitter's main page and sent directly to people who are following the person who posted. While initially laughed off as a waste of time, Twitter, founded in 2006, has slowly been gaining traction as more and more people and companies are finding it a useful way to quickly share information with a broad audience.

"Microblogging is really starting to take off," says Sol Lipman, founder of 12seconds. But in some instances, he says, short text updates just aren't as compelling as video. "I think video as a medium is significantly more engaging than text," Lipman notes. "If I'm at the bar with my friends, I want to show us having fun at the bar, not just text it."

The startup, based in San Francisco, was founded about five months ago and has no outside funding. Its ranks fluctuate between seven and ten people, depending on the workload, and about five of those employees work part time, says Lipman. 12seconds launched its "alpha" version of the product (alpha versions typically have fewer features than beta versions) on July 24, by providing four popular blogs, including TechCrunch, with 500 invitations to give out to their readers. Those invitations were snapped up quickly, says Lipman, leading to 7000 video uploads in just the first few days. In the coming weeks, the company will dole out additional invitations to the long queue of people turned away from the first round.

It's unsurprising that 12seconds has had such immediate small-scale success. Millions of people use Twitter, and many of them are interested in testing out new ways to update their status. Liz Lawley, a Twitter user and director of the Lab of Social Computing at Rochester Institute of Technology, says that she has seen a growing number of Twitter posts with links to 12seconds videos.

Infosys's sensor network turns stores into mini-Internets

Credit: Technology Review

Infosys may have solved a $100 billion problem for companies in the retail business: how to tell whether their promotions really work. In the process, Infosys has also created the potential for stores and consumer-goods companies to track things like traffic and inventory in real time.

Consumers like Procter & Gamble and the retailers they sell through spend more than $100 billion per year to promote products in stores, according to Forrester Research. They pay fees for shelf space in stores, including premiums to have their products at eye level. They pay for special promotion stands. And although they pay for armies of checkers to see whether retailers follow through on the deals, it's a system fraught with error, says Forrester analyst George Lawrie.

"Stores make lots and lots of mistakes," Lawrie says, noting that at many retail stores, the people who stock the shelves may have little or no interaction with the people who make the promotional deals. "In the big brands, the CFOs know they've had to hand these funds over to be eye level on aisle number one, and they don't know if it's really happening, and they're beginning to start to ask if the stores can prove it."

So Infosys, which counts 12 of the world's 20 largest retailers among its current customers, has developed ShoppingTrip 360, a hosted software application that can track shoppers and inventory, using wireless sensors placed on shelving, promotional displays, and shopping carts. The sensors, which use the 802.15.4 wireless protocol to connect to each other in a mesh network, can send information such as where shoppers stop in a store, what products they pick up, what they put back, what they put in their cart, and whether a product is out of stock. Infosys has also developed an application to let consumers in the store use their cell phones to get information such as store maps, or to access an online shopping list or collection of recipes.

"This, we believe, is the next wave of innovation in the retail space," says Infosys cofounder and CEO S. "Kris" Gopalakrishnan. He notes the push by retailers in the 1970s and '80s to develop electronic data interchange, as well as the 1990s push into e-commerce. He says that Infosys is trying to usher in the in-store Internet.

Retailers and consumer-goods makers typically get data on a daily basis, from point-of-sale scanners. Getting better data about product sales was a big reason why retailers like Wal-Mart and Target pushed radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, minuscule radio chips that were expected to replace the bar code on individual products. But RFID chips remain too costly to be ubiquitous, and Lawrie says that they may never be. He says that the cost of the chips, coupled with the substantial amount that retailers would have to spend to outfit their stores to work with the chips, have limited interest in RFID.

What's more, RFID raises privacy concerns that ShoppingTrip 360 might not. Infosys says that its system is completely anonymous, unless the consumer agrees via cell phone to tell the system who he or she is (and consumers can opt to identify themselves based on just their shopping-cart number). Infosys says that it will pay to install the sensors in stores, charging retailers only for the data that they want to use.

"I'm charging to tell them when stocks are reduced by a certain percentage, or when a consumer redeems a coupon through their mobile phone," says Sandeep Dadlani, global head of sales for Infosys's retail unit.

Exactly what the data will cost is not yet determined, says Gopalakrishnan. He says that Infosys is piloting the system at a number of large retailers in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Girish Ramachandra, head of the innovations practice for the Infosys retail unit, says that it is no harder to install its wireless sensors than to set up a wireless router in a home. Initially, it will take a week per store to deploy and test the system.

Infosys says that it is ready to offer three things: "heat maps" of stores that show levels of inventory, levels of inventory at the fronts of shelves, and concentrations of shoppers in the store; a smart shelf pad with a built-in wireless sensor that is powered by the store's lights; and a shop-by-cell phone option, which lets consumers get recommendations or coupons on their phones.

Infosys thinks that there will be many other applications it can develop for the system, such as a "perpetual checkout" service that would let shoppers ring up their goods as they put them in their carts, allowing them to walk out of the store when they are finished shopping. For apparel retailers, the company is developing smart mirrors that will recommend combinations of clothing and automatically notify salespeople to bring things for shoppers to try on. Infosys could develop an application to let stores employ the sensor networks to manage energy usage. And it intends to open its development platform so that other companies can create applications for the service as well.

Forrester's Lawrie says that without seeing the system in action in a store, it's too early to say how well it will work. But if the system works as promised, he says, "this would be a huge breakthrough."

A cool fuel cell

Conductive crystals: A scanning transmission electron microscope image shows the crystal structure of a new electrolyte material for solid-oxide fuel cells that works well at room temperature. Credit: Jacobo Santamaria

A new electrolyte for solid-oxide fuel cells, made by researchers in Spain, operates at temperatures hundreds of degrees lower than those of conventional electrolytes, which could help make such fuel cells more practical.

Jacobo Santamaria, of the applied-physics department at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, in Spain, and his colleagues have modified a yttria-stabilized zirconia electrolyte, a common type of electrolyte in solid-oxide fuel cells, so that it works at just above room temperature. Ordinarily, such electrolytes require temperatures of more than 700 °C. Combined with improvements to the fuel-cell electrodes, this could lower the temperature at which these fuel cells operate.

Solid-oxide fuel cells are promising for next-generation power plants because they are more efficient than conventional generators, such as steam turbines, and they can use a greater variety of fuels than other fuel cells. They can generate electricity with gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and hydrogen, among other fuels. But the high temperatures required for efficient operation make solid-oxide fuel cells expensive and limit their applications. The low-temperature electrolyte reported by the Spanish researchers could be a "tremendous improvement" for solid-oxide fuel cells, says Eric Wachsman, director of the Florida Institute for Sustainable Energy, at the University of Florida.

In a solid-oxide fuel cell, oxygen is fed into one electrode, and fuel is fed into the other. The electrolyte allows oxygen ions to migrate from one electrode to the other, where they combine with the fuel; in the simplest case, in which hydrogen is the fuel, this produces water and releases electrons. The electrolyte prevents the electrons from traveling directly back to the oxygen side of the fuel cell, forcing them instead to travel through an external circuit, generating electricity. Via this circuitous route, they eventually find their way to the oxygen electrode, where they combine with oxygen gas to form oxygen ions, perpetuating the cycle.

The electrolyte--which is a solid material--typically only conducts ions at high temperatures. Santamaria, drawing on earlier work by other researchers, found that the ionic conductivity at low temperatures could be greatly improved by combining layers of the standard electrolyte materials with 10-nanometer-thick layers of strontium titanate. He found that, because of the differences in the crystal structures of the materials, a large number of oxygen vacancies--places within the crystalline structures of the materials that would ordinarily host an oxygen atom--formed where these two materials meet. These vacancies form pathways that allow the oxygen ions to move through the material, improving the conductivity of the materials at room temperature by a factor of 100 million.

The material is still some way from being incorporated into commercial fuel cells. For one thing, the large improvement in ionic conductivity will require further verification, Wachsman says, especially in light of the difficulty of measuring the performance of extremely thin materials. Second, the direction of the improved conductivity--along the plane of the material rather than perpendicular to it--will require a redesign of today's fuel cells. What's more, the limiting factor for the temperature in fuel cells now is the electrode materials. Before room temperature solid-oxide fuel cells are possible, these will also need to be improved.

Yet if initial results are confirmed by future research, the new materials will represent a significant advance. Ivan Schuller, a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, says that this represents a major change in the performance of electrolytes. He adds, "It will surely motivate much new work by others."

Say I'm Inside the Large Hadron Collider and It's Revving Up. Should I Be Concerned?

When functioning properly, radiation levels in the LHC's tunnel will be equivalent to a CT scan: Photo by CERN

Well, it's never a great idea to stand next to a machine that could create black holes, but the magnets that steer the proton beams around the planet's most powerful particle accelerator would probably spare you from excess radiation. Then again, there is the off chance that some 300 trillion protons could erupt from the device and kill you on the spot.

Even though the LHC's twin beams will travel in protective isolation through 17-mile-long, two-inch-wide pipes sucked to a near-perfect vacuum, some of those protons—potentially billions—will inevitably wander off the track. When they do, they will slam into the magnets that steer and focus the beam, or hit other hardware, gas molecules or protons. These collisions will generate a mess of secondary radioactive particles, explains Mike Lamont, an LHC machine coordinator, filling the tunnel with a field of radiation roughly equivalent to that of a full-body CT scan. That's not a dangerous amount of radiation to be exposed to for a few minutes, but longer than that, and you might suffer some cellular damage. (It's important to note, though, that the security measures in place at the LHC make it virtually impossible to sneak into the tunnel when the beam is on.)

If engineers were to lose control of the beam, however, watch out. The beam is only one millimeter wide, yet it contains 320 trillion protons moving just shy of the speed of light. (That gives it about the same momentum as a 400-ton train speeding at 95 mph.) It would plow through the magnets and unleash a fatal cascade of high-energy particles and radiation.

And that's just if you were near a runaway beam. If you stood in its way, it would burn a hole right into you, Lamont says. "A human body wouldn't stand a chance."

More on the 09 WRX

First Look: 2009 Subaru Impreza WRX

By Andrew Strieber

By the time it reached U.S. shores in 2002, the Subaru Impreza WRX already had a global reputation as a champion rally car and, more important, a seriously fun drive. That tradition continued as the hot hatch (and sedan) virtually created the American sport-compact market, helping inspire Mitsubishi to bring over its Lancer Evolution, VW to create a sharpened GTI, and Mazda to introduce the MazdaSpeed3. Following years of success Subaru introduced an all-new WRX for 2008, which featured among other things a new platform, more compliant suspension, nicer interior, and 10-percent-better fuel economy. All grown up and easier to live with, opinions on the next-gen WRX were split, as some liked the changes while others felt it had gone soft, abandoning its heritage. However, there was one thing everyone could agree on -- the 2008 Impreza WRX was in serious need of more power.

Despite the new model's myriad changes, surprisingly Subaru decided to leave the previous WRX's 2.5-liter boxer four-cylinder engine and all-wheel drive system virtually unchanged. Though still wicked fast and eager to rev, with just 224 hp on tap the Rex was seriously outgunned by some of its competition. At least it was until now -- for 2009, the automaker has taken its rally rocket to finishing school, giving it a sharper suspension, more aggressive styling, summer tires for better grip, and most important, a serious dose of extra horsepower.

Subaru says its goal when developing the 2009 Impreza WRX was called "Kyo-Ka," which loosely means "strengthening" in Japanese. So to strengthen the car's performance, engineers started off by fitting it with a bigger turbocharger, a larger-diameter exhaust, and low-density catalyst for reduced backpressure. Combined, these extras manage to boost the 2.5L turbo four's output to an impressive 265 hp and 244 lb-ft of torque, an improvement of 41 hp and 18 lb-ft over the 2008 model, respectively. This puts the standard WRX on par with a MazdaSpeed3 and closer to EVO territory (though with a 30-hp deficit that fight is still reserved for the STI), but more important, it blows the doors off the new Lancer Ralliart, which only manages 237 hp.

WRXs have always been willing partners for canyon carving, but Subaru's '08 redesign received a fair amount of criticism for making the car softer and less performance-oriented. To rectify this, Subaru gave the 2009 Impreza WRX a significant suspension retuning, increasing spring rates from 26.5 N/mm to 38 N/mm up front and to 34 N/mm from 24 N/mm in the rear. The car's double-wishbone rear suspension and rigid chassis remain the same, but the front upper-strut mounts are now borrowed from the track-ready STI, the diameter of the stabilizer bars is greater in the front and rear, and a new damper valve on the steering gearbox helps turn-in feel smooth and sharp. Another problem called out by enthusiasts was the '08 Impreza WRX's choice of rubber -- originally fitted with relatively narrow 17-inch all season wheels, this year the Rex comes standard with wider (225mm), lower-profile summer tires, though the overall size remains the same. Additionally, the automaker's Vehicle Dynamics Control stability and traction control systems are now standard across the Impreza line.

Like all Subarus, the 2009 Impreza lineup retains its signature symmetrical drivetrain layout and all-wheel drive, and standard models employ an active torque-split system with an electronically managed continuously variable transfer clutch, distributing power to all four wheels based on acceleration, deceleration, and available traction. As before the WRX employs a slightly different, simpler setup, using a viscous coupling locking center differential to split torque 50/50 between the front and rear wheels. When the car loses traction, power is diverted to the ones with more grip.

Keeping with its new, hard-core theme, Subaru also gave the Impreza WRX sedan and five-door a host of sharp styling upgrades inside and out. 2009 cars feature a new, STI-esque grille, a standard Aero package, front and rear under-bumper spoilers and side ground effects, while WRX sedans receive a low-profile trunk spoiler, and five-door models get the STI's rear spoiler and diffuser. The area between the tail lights is body colored on the hatch and chrome on the sedan, while other distinctions between the two carry over from 2008, such as clear tail-lamp lenses versus red and a single, large tailpipe or dual exhaust. Inside the WRX gets a new dose of sportiness, too -- the seats boast carbon black-checkered upholstery accented with red stitching, which also graces the leather steering wheel. In addition, the aluminum pedal covers are joined by a similarly finished driver's footrest, the instrument panel has electroluminescent gauges similar to the STI, and the optional Premium Package now includes a power moonroof.

The 2008 Impreza WRX represented a major leap forward over its predecessor, featuring more comfortable appointments, new tech, and advanced safety features. With the 2009 version going more extreme, Subaru also wanted to make sure that those who liked the car's softer qualities didn't get left out. With that in mind the automaker is releasing an entirely new model called the Impreza 2.5GT, which features the same 2.5L turbo four from last year's WRX under the hood. Lacking the new WRX's revised spring rates and available only with a four-speed automatic transmission, the 2009 Impreza 2.5GT is only good for 224 hp and 226 lb-ft -- but that's still just 13 horses shy of a Lancer Ralliart.

When the kinder, gentler Impreza WRX was introduced last year, it looked like the current sport-compact king might cede its crown to faster, edgier competitors from Mazda and Mitsubishi. But with more power, a stiffer suspension, and a host of improvements to give it a harder look and feel, the 2009 Impreza WRX is thankfully starting to return to its street-legal rally car roots. Add to that a new, separate model catering to drivers who prefer a little more comfort mixed with their speed, and it's safe to say that Subaru is back in the game.

Disney Theme Park prices go up around 5%

Los Angeles (AP) -- As if rising gas and food prices weren't enough, a ticket to the Magic Kingdom will soon cost a few bucks more.

The Walt Disney Co. (DIS, Fortune 500) said Friday it is raising one-day ticket prices at its domestic parks starting Sunday.

Tickets for those aged 10 and older to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., will rise from $71 to $75, while tickets for children aged 3 to 9 will go from $60 to $63.

At Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., one-day prices will rise from $66 to $69 for those aged 10 and older, and from $56 to $59 for children aged 3 to 9.

The price increase applies in varying degrees for longer stays, while the park hopper option, an add-on that allows ticket-holders to move among any of Disney's parks, will cost $50, up from $45

Baseball's Formula for success

Sabermetrics Primer

Bill James has written several books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed "sabermetrics" in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), attempts to use scientific data collection and interpretation methods to explain why teams win and lose, and to help evaluate baseball talent. His fascinating formulations have produced conclusions that often run counter to years of accumulated "baseball wisdom."

Below are some of the innovative statistical measures developed by James:

Runs Created
A statistic intended to quantify a player's contribution to runs scored, as well as a team's expected number of runs scored. Runs created is calculated from other offensive statistics. James' first version of it: Runs Created = (Total Bases * (Hits + Walks))/(Plate Appearances). Applied to an entire team or league, the statistic correlates closely to that team's or league's actual runs scored. Since James first created the statistic, sabermetricians have refined it to make it more accurate, and it is now used in many different variations.

On Base Plus Slugging (OPS)
OPS is calculated by adding On Base Percentage to Slugging Average: (Hits + Walks + Hit-by-Pitch) divided by (At Bats + Walks+ Hit-by-Pitch + Sac Flys) + Number of (Singles + [2 x Doubles] + [3 x Triples] + [4 x Home Runs]) divided by At Bats. This is not a true statistic by definition, but it is often used as an index for rating an overall player's performance and production versus other players.

Range Factor (RF)
A statistic that quantifies the defensive contribution of a player, calculated in its simplest form as RF = (Assists + Put Outs)/(Games Played). The statistic is based on the notion that the total number of outs that a player participates in is more relevant in evaluating his defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic Fielding Percentage.

Win Shares
Bill James invented Win Shares as a method to compare baseball players at different positions, as well as players of different eras. Since the win is the ultimate measure of success, James developed a statistic that measures each player's contribution to his team's wins, or Win Shares. Win Shares incorporates a variety of pitching, hitting and fielding statistics.

Pythagorean Winning Percentage
A statistic explaining the relationship of wins and losses to runs scored and runs allowed. In its simplest form: Winning Percentage equals Runs squared divided by the square of Runs plus Runs Allowed. The statistic correlates closely to a team's actual winning percentage.

Major League Equivalency
A metric that uses minor league statistics to predict how a player is likely to perform at the major league level.

The Brock2 System
A system for projecting a player's performance over the remainder of his career based on past performance and the aging process.

Similarity Scores
Judging a player's qualifications for the Hall of Fame based on his career's similarity to those of other Hall of Famers.

Secondary Average
A statistic that attempts to measure a player's contribution to an offense in ways not reflected in batting average. The formula is (Extra Bases on Hits+Walks+Stolen Bases)/At Bats. Secondary averages tend to be similar to batting averages, but can vary widely, from less than .100 to more than .500 in extreme cases. Extra Bases on Hits is calculated with the formula (Doubles)+(Triples x 2)+(Homeruns x 3).

Bugatti Veyron targa to be called Grand Sport

MOLSHEIM, France — The long-awaited targa-top edition of the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 has been dubbed the Grand Sport. Seen here in these official images, the Veyron Grand Sport will make its public debut on August 16 at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

The first car, slated to roll off the line next spring, is to be sold at this year's Gooding & Company auction at Pebble Beach. The folks at Gooding have a great track record with exotic cars, previously auctioning a rare 1927 Bugatti Type 35C Grand Prix for $2,585,000.

Curiously, Bugatti is not referring to the topless Veyron as a targa but as a roadster with a removable roof. The automaker says the variant incorporates a number of "innovative structural solutions" to help reinforce body and chassis.

We brought you early details on the car last month, including the word from insiders that production is likely to be limited to 75-80 units.

What this means to you: The Veyron Grand Sport is likely to be one of the showstoppers at Pebble — no mean feat considering some of the exotic hardware that will be on display at this year's event

Porsche RS Spyder gets Direct Injection

STUTTGART, Germany — Porsche introduced its direct injection technology on the Cayenne and 911. Now the automaker has taken it a step further by applying it to the 3.4-liter V8 in the Porsche RS Spyder.

The Porsche RS Spyder competes in the ALMS LMP2 class and gets output bumped from 476 horsepower to 503 hp with its remapped fuel curve — but the most notable feature of the DFI version of the 3.4-liter V8 is reduced fuel consumption, an important bonus for an endurance-racing vehicle.

"After reaching a very high level with the previous engine we raced, we had to put considerable efforts into the development of the direct fuel injection unit in order to significantly improve performance and efficiency. In order to achieve revs of up to 11,000 with DFI technology, it meant stepping into totally new territory," says Thomas Laudenbach, Porsche's motorsport development chief.

Another feature of the engine is its ability to run extremely lean at partial load — for example, during caution phases — which was not possible with the previous intake manifold fuel injection method.

The engine celebrated a class win during its maiden race at Mid-Ohio earlier this month with help from drivers Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas. They will be gunning for the win again in the American Le Mans Series next week at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

What this means to you: Porsche should strengthen its top position in the ALMS with the addition of DFI technology.

HDR - High Speed Exposure Filming....Highways...Cars....Planes

Many more here...about 10 pages...
click here

Telephone Music......

The Thing -- lego's...G.I.Joes!! ...techno....sick!!

First non-official video clip made for Zombie Zombie, the electrifying French duo of Etienne Jaumet and Cosmic Neman. Directed by Simon Gesrel and Xavier Ehretsmann thanks to their favourite toys... the GI Joes ! The video is an hommage to the director AND soundtrack composer John Carpenter, especially one of his masterpieces : THE THING.

VOYAGER’S GREETINGS TO THE UNIVERSE /1977/

"Very Hopeful About Life on This Planet"

VOYAGER’S GREETINGS TO THE UNIVERSE /1977/

---

The Voyager spacecraft will be the third and fourth human artifacts to escape entirely from the solar system. Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager in outstripping the gravitational attraction of the Sun, both carried a graphic message in the form of a 6- by 9-inch gold anodized plaque bolted to the spacecraft's main frame.

On the plaque a man and woman stand before an outline of the spacecraft. The man's hand is raised in a gesture of good will. The physical makeup of the man and woman were determined from results of a computerized analysis of the average person in our civilization.

The key to translating the plaque lies in understanding the breakdown of the most common element in the universe - hydrogen. This element is illustrated in the left-hand corner of the plaque in schematic form showing the hyperfine transition of neutral atomic hydrogen. Anyone from a scientifically educated civilization having enough knowledge of hydrogen would be able to translate the message. The plaque was designed by Dr. Carl Sagan and Dr. Frank Drake and drawn by Linda Salzman Sagan.

With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2-a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this they added musical selections form different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages, and printed messaged from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim. Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle. Instructions, in symbolic language, explain the origin of the spacecraft and indicate how the record is to be played. The 115 images are encoded in analog form. The remainder of the record is in audio, designed to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per second. It contains the spoken greetings, beginning with Akkadian, which was spoken in Sumer about six thousand years ago, and ending with Wu, a modern Chinese dialect. Following the section on the sounds of Earth, there is an eclectic 90-minute selection of music, including both Eastern and Western classics and a variety of ethnic music. Once the Voyager spacecraft leave the solar system (by 1990, both will be beyond the orbit of Pluto), they will find themselves in empty space. It will be forty thousand years before they make a close approach to any other planetary system. As Carl Sagan has noted, "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet."

Information about the Earth and its Inhabitants

• Images
• Sounds .ra or .wav
• Languages .ra or .au
• Music
  

Back to Basics

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes
here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall
be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to
discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.

But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American,
and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here.
Any man who says he is an American, but something else also,isn't an American at all.

We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We
have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...
and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the
American people.
-Theodore Roosevelt 1907

15 Dumbest Things You Hear at Work

Authored by EP member theTruth, from the group: I Hate Corporate Cliches

I want to point out the most ridiculous work sayings or cliches that really get on my nerves. It's as if taking something simple and phrasing it in an idiotic and often nonsensical way has become a key part of fitting into corporate culture. I say NO. Let's take a look at my favorite 15 of these gems...

15) Best Shored � as in, we're going to have this project "best shored." Ouch. Talk about euphemisms. This isn't even proper English AND it's insulting and foreboding all at the same time.

14) Too Many Indians, Not Enough Chiefs -- I'm amazed that in our politically correct world, this phrase seems to linger on. And in reality, it's usually the other way around-- there are far too many middle managers trying to prove that their jobs have some meaning and impact and not enough people actually doing work.

13) Run it up the Flagpole and see if someone salutes it -- Wow. This is guilty of so many things, but most importantly of trying to tie poetic imagery and patriotism into a business decision.

12 ) Evolutionary not Revolutionary -- we get it, you're talking about incremental change. But the fact that this rhymes does not merit that ridiculously smug look you get after you say it.

11) Can't Change a Leopard's Spots-- Are you saying that some things are permanent? Wow, great observation! You're so clever!

10) Do you have Enough Bandwidth? � The answer to this is always supposed to be yes but in reality is no. Why bother asking it? And does it make sense to use a networking metaphor to discuss the 45 year old woman in accounting's availability?

9) Let's not Fight the Tide -- this is humorous because the person that says it generally would stand no chance of fighting anything but a twinkie wrapper. You know what I mean, too.

8) Let's Not Go Into "Solution Mode" Yet � Immediate translation: I have no plan. Secondary comment: I didn't realize that you had to enter a particular state of mind to solve a problem. Shouldn't companies always be in "solution mode"?

7) Keep the Train on the Tracks -- this essentially says nothing. Trains are at their very foundation of design meant to stay on tracks. A derailment is a one-in-a-million accident, not something you have to actively work against. Yet this is said as if it's an everyday occurrence.

6) Sing from the Same Hymn Book -- not only is this offensive to people who don't practice organized relgion, but anyone that has sung from a hymn book knows that half the people are frantically trying to find what verse they're on while the ones that are singing are butchering the song. By the time the first half catches on to where they are, everyone else is at "amen."

5) Work to a Program -- as opposed to working haphazardly? "Hey boss, I want to work as randomly as possibly, OK?"

4) Tighten our Belt -- belts go around the middle... meaning we're going to squeeze the people who actually do the work, and leave the top alone.

3) Give 150% -- you are aware that this is actually an impossible task, yes? Then why do you say this at practically every meeting?

2) Peel Back the Onion � This is an insanely odd reference, as I can pretty much guarantee most people don't peel back onions ever, yet for some reason that's become a basic part of their job description.

And the #1 worst work saying:


1) Come to Jesus Meeting -- With one phrase, you have taken a simple concept of a group discussion and managed to make both Christians and non-Christians feel uncomfortable. That right there, is 100% of the people, and is worthy of recognition.

Bonus for reading this far... Dilbert's "diagnosis"...
Can he lead a normal life?
No, he'll be an engineer.

Real Fries in a Fake World

1password makes secure logins easier on iphones

iPhone/iPod touch only: Free application 1Password makes logging into secure sites much easier on the iPhone's mobile Safari browser by creating a double-protected mini-database of your passwords. The app won't auto-fill login forms in Safari, but provides its own mini-browser that plugs in your credentials into any site's login form. Great for checking your bank accounts or secure work data, but the big drawback is lack of a keyboard inside the mini-browser—so no further typing once you're in. Of course, you can just use 1Password as a memory-booster for your user/password combos, for which it works just fine. Users of 1Password's Mac version can sync their passwords between versions with the $35 upgrade. 1Password is a free download for iPhones and iPod touch devices only.

1Password [iTunes App Store]

Driving Through a Massive Dust Storm

Does anyone know where dust storms like this occur? That is totally insane and I would be convinced the world was coming to an end.

Driving Through a Massive Dust Storm - Watch more free videos

A Radio Telescope the size of Planet Earth is ready to work

Photo: Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis

Arecibo, Puerto Rico: The 1000-meter radio telescope dish at dawn.

This fall, the world's largest telescope will begin its scientific mission. Made up of radio telescopes in Chile, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, South Africa, and Sweden, the e-VLBI—for electronic very long baseline interferometer—creates in effect a telescope with a diameter of 11 000 kilometers; Earth's own diameter is about 12 750 km at the equator. Because a telescope's resolution is proportional to its size, the e-VLBI should see farther out in space and time and elucidate the finer structures of the most energetic phenomena in the universe, such as supernovas, pulsars, and black holes.


Although a smaller, Europe-wide e-VLBI has been in operation for more than a year, the full multicontinent version opened its eye only on 22 May 2008, when all seven sites were linked to a custom-built supercomputer, operated by the European VLBI Network (EVN), in a test observation.


VLBI increases the resolution of a pair of radio telescopes by using the time a particular radio wave arrives at each of them to estimate its frequency and pinpoint its origin. Although the technique has been in use since the mid-1980s, linking radio telescopes between other countries and continents in real time has not been possible until now.


Each of the radio telescopes used in the May test produced up to 1 gigabit per second of data. Until the EVN supercomputer was built, the only way to transport such large volumes of data across the globe for analysis was by recording them on magnetic media and then physically shipping the media to the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe, located in Dwingeloo, Netherlands.


The new system transports data via a large number of network providers. Just getting the data to EVN “was an enormous technical hurdle to overcome,” says Arpad Szomoru, head of technical operations and R&D at Dwingeloo. The supercomputer can handle flows of up to 100 terabytes per observation coming in from 16 radio telescopes.


Radio astronomers were initially skeptical that moving to real-time VLBI was worth the effort, says Huib van Langevelde, director at Dwingeloo. But the recent test showed that e‑VLBI collapses processes that would have taken weeks without the supercomputer networking into a matter of hours.


Earth-Size Radio Telescope Opens Its Eye By Barry E. DiGregorio

First Published August 2008

Seven telescopes act as one to produce finest radio images ever

For the new intercontinental e-VLBI system to work, all the telescopes must observe the same astronomical radio source at exactly the same wavelength. All the stations have atomic clocks, synchronized to within a few millionths of a second, so that a radio wave's arrival can be precisely marked at every telescope. 


As Earth rotates, an observational target will drop beneath the horizon in relation to some telescopes and rise in relation to others. “The source is tracked by a changing set of telescopes,” says Szomoru. 


According to Szomoru, astronomers will get the most from the e-VLBI when they're tracking stellar explosions and other transient cosmic activity, including gamma-ray bursts and flaring microquasars. “It is now possible to observe a number of candidate cosmic sources and, if one of them is seen to come into an active state, do one or several follow-up observations, thus catching a flare in a microquasar at a very early moment, something which was not possible previously.”

Firefox 3.1 Alpha Preview Delivers Slick New Features

Firefox 3.0 is barely out of the gate, but already Mozilla is moving toward the future with the first alpha release of Firefox 3.1. The final release of 3.1 is scheduled for the end of 2008 with the usual series of alpha and beta releases in the coming months.

The first 3.1 alpha (code-named Shiretoko) already packs some impressive new features like the new visual tab switcher, which offers previews of pages, and changes the sorting order based on which tab was most recently open. In essence it mimics the behavior of cmd-tab application switchers on most OSes. The visual eye candy is quite nice, but the real benefit is the dynamic ordering, which makes it much easier to quickly jump between recently viewed tabs.

Also new in alpha 1 is the wildcard searching capabilities we mentioned earlier. Firefox 3.1 will allow you to quickly restrict your “awesome bar” searches using customizable wildcard characters. For instance typing an asterisk limits results to your bookmarks and typing a pound sign limits results to page titles (rather than titles and URLs).

The Gecko rendering engine, which powers Firefox under the hood, also has support for some new CSS options like text-shadow, box-shadow, border images and the HTML5 Canvas text API. The first three are already available in some other browsers like Safari, but with Firefox on-board as well, web designers will no doubt feel more comfortable using those elements in their designs.

The HTML 5 canvas support is a bit more experimental (the W3C spec is still in the draft stages), but Mozilla has rolled it in anyway. If you want get really bleeding edge, the latest Firefox nightly builds also include support for audio and video tags.

Like the Canvas element, the and HTML 5 elements are still in the draft stages, but the idea is to easily embed media without proprietary plugins (like Quicktime, Windows Media, etc). Technically both tags are codec-neutral, but Mozilla has bundled the Ogg Theora and Vorbis codecs giving you the option to deliver audio and video in an open format.

Keep in mind though that the and aren’t part of alpha 1. For those elements you’ll need to go to the nightly builds.

So far, Firefox 3.1 is looking like it will be a very impressive release, building on and refining many of the best features in 3.0, as well as adding some important new ones. If you’d like to test it out, head over to the download page, but bear in mind that, as this is an alpha, the usual warnings apply and most of your extensions will probably be disabled.

See Also:

• Firefox 3.1 Will Add More Awesomeness to the ‘Awesome Bar’
• Mozilla Unleashes First Firefox 3 Update, Offers a Glimpse of 3.1
• Roadmap Targets Firefox 3.1 For the End of 2008
• Why You Should Download Firefox 3 Right Now