Inflatable robots could explore Mars

Inflatable robots could explore Mars

An army of inflatable, spherical robots might one day roll around on the Martian surface. Engineers who have designed the lightweight probes say they could economically explore vast regions of other planets.

“Our inflatable rovers are lightweight, travel great distances, use very low energy and will be fairly cheap,” says Fredrik Bruhn of Ǻngström Aerospace in Uppsala, Sweden, who initiated the idea that has now been developed by a team of engineers. “One battery charge will let such a rover travel around 100 kilometres.”

While researchers have proposed rolling spherical rovers before, no-one has previously suggested making them inflatable. With funding from the Swedish National Space Board, Bruhn’s team has designed an Continue…

30 Websites to follow if you’re into Web Development

30 Websites to follow if you’re into Web Development

I’ve made it a goal to learn at least one useful thing each day so that I can stay sharp and well-versed on the topic of web development and design. To that end, here’s some of the websites I keep track of to find new techniques, resources, and news about building websites.

Most of these sites are updated frequently, so there’s never a lack of new content that fills up my Google Reader. Continue…

Denmark Generates Too Much Wind Power

Denmark Generates Too Much Wind Power

Denmark has a problem with their wind turbines. Apparently its generating too much power from wind.

Right now, they are generating about 20% of their total electricity from wind power and on windy days that percentage can double which has placed some strain on the electricity grid due to extreme fluctuations. In western Denmark, the price of electricity can sometimes drop to 0 on a windy day which leaves utilities trying to find ways to offload the excess power. What a “good” problem to have! Continue…

Major Update to Prism, First Prototype of Browser Integration

Major Update to Prism, First Prototype of Browser Integration

Prism is an open source cross-platform prototype of functionality that lets users split web applications out of the browser and run them directly on the desktop.

Today we’re releasing a major update to Prism that includes the first prototype of browser integration along with new desktop integration capabilities and simpler installation.

As previously announced, Prism is part of a series of Mozilla Labs experiments into bridging the divide in the user experience between web and desktop apps and exploring new usability models as the line between those kinds of apps continues to blur.

Philosophy

We believe that the Web is a powerful platform for innovation, and our goal with Prism is to drive the development of enhancements to that platform that bring the advantages of desktop apps to the Web. To that end, Prism is not a new platform or product but rather a vehicle for Mozilla Labs to experiment with new technologies to extend the capabilities of the Open Web. Web developers shouldn’t have to lift a finger to desktop-enable their web applications (although they can specify settings to enhance the experience), while users have the choice to use their favorite web apps in their browser, on their desktop of choice, or in both places.

Major New Features and Updates

Today we’re releasing a major update to Prism that includes new desktop integration capabilities and simpler installation. With this update, you can now get Prism simply by installing a small extension to Firefox 3. With the new Prism extension for Firefox 3, users can now split web applications directly out of Firefox without needing to install and manage a separate Prism application. Just install the extension, browse to a web app, then select Tools > Convert Website to Application.

Other new or improved features include:

• Pick an icon to represent a web app on the desktop: Prism can use the web app favicon or the user can pick a custom image to represent the web app.
• Run each web app in its own profile: Prism now places each web app into its own process/profile so they don’t interfere with each other, which also makes it possible to install a web app twice and use it simultaneously with two different user accounts.
• Badge the dock icon: Initial support for adding a badge to the desktop icon has been added. Currently, this can be done through a custom webapp.js file. We’re working on creating and reusing web standards to expose this to content without requiring custom scripts.

Roadmap

While Prism still supports .webapp and site-specific webapp.js files as a way to install, customize and launch Prism, we’re working towards removing the need for those files in favor of leveraging and extending existing web conventions for exposing site configuration, like <link> and <meta> tags.

See bug 420878 and bug 420661 for some of those discussions. Continue…

Top 10 (free) apps I can’t live without

Top 10 (free) apps I can’t live without

I’m debating a re-format soon and I was trying to think of a list of software I want to take with me when it’s done, this is a condensed version of that. My top 10 leopard apps i couldn’t live without!

In short it’s an application launcher. From a shortcut menu it tries to auto-guess what your looking for allowing you to not only launch apps but use functionality from within them. E.g. Play an album in iTunes or Open an FTP session in Transmit. Another good feature is the ability to bind hot keys to nearly any app/website/function. Its features are well documented (link) so I won’t go into them here.

Visit the Quicksilver website to download

Continue…

nBot Balancing Robot

nBot Balancing Robot

I’ve been working on a two-wheeled balancing robot, nBot .
This robot was featured as NASA’s Cool Robot of the Week for 19 May 2003. Thereafter Scientific American’s online website, SCI/Tech Web Awards, honored the NASA page as one of the top 10 engineering and technical web sites for 2003, referencing nBot in its text. nBot is also featured in a new O’Reilly book spun off from Make Magazine in 2006, called The Makers. Continue…

Mouse Gestures

Mouse Gestures

What are mouse gestures?

rapid execution of common browser commands with mouse movementsget it

Mouse Gestures are a fast way to execute commands without using the keyboard, menus or toolbars. Instead, the user holds down a mouse button (usually the right one), moves the mouse in a certain way to form a gesture, then releases the mouse button. Continue…

Soviet Buran Space Shuttle

Soviet Buran Space Shuttle

Is it true that Russia built a copy of the space shuttle? Was it actually turned into a piece of playground equipment?!
- question from Joyce Kelly I know that Russia built its own Space Shuttle. Why doesn’t NASA use it to replace the Columbia?
- question from Charles Monroe

The Soviet Union did indeed build its own version of the American Space Shuttle that was known as Buran (”snowstorm” in Russian). The US had made the decision to develop its reusable spacecraft in 1972. Since the US Defense Department had plans to use the Shuttle for military missions, Moscow felt the need to respond with a comparable craft to maintain parity with the West. The Reusable Space System (MKS) was subsequently approved in June 1974 with NPO Energia given responsibility for the project the following October. Though only the first spaceworthy vehicle built was actually named Buran, the entire project came to be known by this designation.

Energia-Buran Reusable Space System sitting on the launch pad

The design requirements specified for the MKS called for a vehicle to accomplish the following goals:

Continue…

Install Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” Beta In Windows

Install Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” Beta In Windows

There are various reasons why people don’t try out Linux. The most common reason, is that they can’t bring themselves to remove the familiar Windows system and replace it with a totally new environment. While there are ways to boot into a Linux environment without uninstalling Windows, most people either don’t have the patience or the time to learn how.

With the Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” beta, Windows users will be able to install Ubuntu onto their systems without having to worry about affecting their Windows installation. The Hardy Heron beta includes an install option for Windows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu just like your normal Windows app. Continue…