Saturday, December 11, 2010

Over Two-Thirds Of U.S. Broadband Internet Connections Aren’t Technically Broadband

6:00PM December 11, 2010 | Adrian Covert

>A recent report by the FCC shows that more than two-thirds of so-called broadband internet connections in the U.S. don’t actually meet the minimum speed requirements of 4Mbps upstream and 1Mbps downstream to be considered broadband. More »

It’s Like Bringing A Mach 7 Railgun To A Knife Fight

5:40PM December 11, 2010 | Adrian Covert

This US Navy-developed railgun is not to be trifled with. In recent tests, this weapon fired a electromagnetically-charged projectile at 8,000 KPH, generating a staggering (not to mention record-setting) 33,000 megajoules of power. More »

Who Needs Acid When You Have These Animated Buildings?

5:00PM December 11, 2010 | Adrian Covert

As part of their 118-year old Festival of Lights, buildings—such as the historic Église Saint-Nizier—in Lyon, France have been outfitted with special animated projections that make the buildings look like they’ve come to life. More »

Cars

Europe Wants Self Driving Cars, And It Wants Them Now

4:20PM December 11, 2010 | Adrian Covert

A project funded by the European Commission is working to develop an infrastructure for self-driving cars. The system, called SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment), will allow cars to autonomously travel in a convoy. Also, testing begins NOW. More »

Computing

Google Says They’ll Have Failed If Chrome OS And Cloud Computing Doesn’t Become The Norm

3:40PM December 11, 2010 | Adrian Covert

Google has a lot of faith in their Chrome OS. So much, in fact, that they won’t be satisfied with anything less than creating a paradigm shift in computer use. More »

Entertainment

This Week’s Top Web Comedy Video: Honest Grad School Ad

3:00PM December 11, 2010 | Splitsider

Not in grad school? Enjoy this look at everything you find hilarious and sad about people still earning degrees well into their 30s. For everyone who is in grad school, feel free to leave your post-humanist deconstruction in the comments! More »

Science

Scientists Say There’s A Planet Lined With Diamonds

1:40PM December 11, 2010 | Casey Chan

The extremely hot planet Wasp-12b has such a high carbon-to-oxygen ratio that scientists are saying that the planet’s surface might be littered with diamonds. The lead researcher specifies: “You might see land masses and mountains made up of diamonds.” More »

Science

Can You Survive A Jump From A Building?

1:00PM December 11, 2010 | Rhett Allain - Wired

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http://www.youtube.com/v/sZ0AnF-Zrgc&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1","customParams":[] ,"width":500,"height":332.5,"ratio":0.615,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube","wrap":true,"agegate":false} ); Kids, if I EVER catch you doing this you will be grounded for like 2 months. That means no Wii and no internet. GROUNDED. More »

Science

How Far Did Armstrong And Aldrin Walk On The Moon?

12:20PM December 11, 2010 | Jesus Diaz

Yesterday, Neil Armstrong explained why they didn’t run wild around the Moon. I was curious about how much him and Buzz Aldrin actually walked. To give you a sense of perspective, here are their walks over a baseball and soccer field: More »

Entertainment

How #FollowFriday Is SUPPOSED To Work

12:00PM December 11, 2010 | Matthew Inman

Every Friday, many of us will watch our Twitter streams fill up with lists of users and variations of #ff and #followfriday hashtags. Is this really how that whole thing is supposed to work? What would be better? More »