Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "In August 2012, the NASA rover Curiosity is scheduled to touch down on the surface of Mars. The size of a small car, it's four times as heavy as predecessors Spirit and Opportunity, and comes with a large robot arm, a laser that can vaporise rocks at seven meters, a percussive drill and a weather station. Oh, and 4.8kg of plutonium-238. Wired has some high-resolution photographs from lab that is putting the next rover together." Curiosity's destination on Mars has reportedly been chosen: Gale Crater. The 150-kilometer wide depression 'includes a tantalizing 5-kilometer-high mound of ancient sediments, [and] may have once been flooded by water.' The Planetary Society blog has a couple of additional pictures and a time-lapse video of the delicate, lengthy process of preparing the lander for transport. Curiosity will launch near the end of 2011. No cats were harmed during its construction.

ptresset writes with a snippet from Wired: "Pop along to the Tenderpixel art space in Soho this month, and you could grab a drawing of your mug, sketched by one of Patrick Tresset's robotic arms. The sketching bot is called Paul. It starts off the exhibition by scanning the room and looking for people with its motorised eye. When it spots a human face, it uses an edge detection technique called Gabor filter (which is modeled after cells in a human's visual cortex) to pick out the salient lines."

Lanxon writes "Usually, the only constraint on building a Lego creation is your imagination. Unless, that is, you build a giant structure which demands its own 'Lego Room.' One Lego fan has done just that: say hello to the Garrison of Moriah, and the 50 metre square room it inhabits. Inspired by the fantastic buildings featured likes of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, Garrison-creator Gerry Burrows has built a detailed (and huge) sculpture to scale of the tiny Lego people who have the honor of inhabiting it ."

Lanxon writes "Designer Dominic Wilcox has come up with a Pinocchio-style 'finger-nose stylus' that lets you use your phone hands free, reports Wired. He came up with the design after he found that he wanted to use his touchphone in the bath. A wet hand is not a good touchscreen navigation device, so he found himself using his nose to scroll, but found it hard to see precisely where his nose was touching the screen. The solution was to create a nose extension 'finger' that would allow for navigation while holding the phone firmly in his one dry hand."

Thanks to a new art/science exhibition called "Blood Wars," you can find out whose dad has the toughest immune system once and for all. The brainchild of artist Kathy High, "Blood Wars" pits white blood cells from two different people against each other. From the article: "In order to create the blood duel, High gets a phlebotomist to take blood samples from two different people. She then separates the white blood cells from the rest of the blood and stains them using different colors. They are then placed in a Petri dish and their interactions are filmed under a microscope using time-lapse microscopy. The cellular 'winner' of each round will go onto fight another participant."

Lanxon writes "A lengthy and emotional feature on Wired this week goes behind the scenes of Refugees United (RU) — a US-registered non-profit, founded in 2006 by two Danish brothers, Christopher and David Mikkelsen, that aims to be a Google for refugee search: an easy, accessible platform that enables the displaced to find their families. On a grey July day in the RU office in Copenhagen — typical tech-company open-plan — Christopher and David, and Tomas Krag, chief technology officer, explain how the project came about, and the impact it has had on the world."

Lanxon writes "Noted Kinect-tinkerer Martin Szarski has used a car, a laptop, an Android smartphone and the aforementioned Xbox 360 peripheral to make a DIY-equivalent of Google Street View. The Kinect's multi-camera layout can be used to capture some fuzzy, but astonishingly effortless 3D maps of real world locations and objects. As we saw in Oliver Kreylos' early hack, you can take the data from Kinect's depth-sensitive camera to map out a 3D point-cloud, with real distances. Then use the colour camera's image to see which RGB pixel corresponds to each depth point, and eventually arrive at a coloured, textured model."

Lanxon writes "Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit. The lake, which lies four kilometers below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it's been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent for such a long time. It's also oligotropic, meaning that it's supersaturated with oxygen — levels of the element are 50 times higher than those found in most typical freshwater lakes."

Lanxon writes "A Swedish architecture firm that came up with a plan to roll buildings through a city on rails has won third prize in a competition to develop the Norwegian city of Åndalsnes. The company, Jagnafalt Milton, suggested that existing and new railroads could be built to provide the base for buildings that could be positioned differently depending on the seasons and on the weather. It proposed designs for rail-mounted single- and double-berth cabins, along with a two-story suite, reports Wired."

Lanxon writes "In 1967, the BBC set about junking its Doctor Who archive: a moment sci-fi fans wish they could travel back in time to prevent. There are 108 vintage episodes missing, but since 1978 a number have been rediscovered as 16mm black-and-white films. The BBC shot many of these series in color, but made monochrome copies for countries such as Australia, where many TV companies were still broadcasting in greyscale. The reels had sat in archives since. Now, the Doctor Who Restoration Team, an independent group contracted by the BBC, is using a new technique to regenerate The Doctor in color."

Lanxon writes "Deep inside the Swiss Alps, a former nuclear bunker is now the ultimate hiding place for the world's most sensitive secrets — the Swiss Fort Knox. In a lengthy feature, Wired gains access to the server farm designed to survive a full-scale military attack. From the article: 'As we punch our codes at the checkpoint, the yellow door opens into what looks like a city of server towers, their green LEDs flickering as a technician in a white jumpsuit runs diagnostic checks. [Later], we are in a dimly lit tunnel next to what looks like a metal oven door carved into the side of the rock. "These are expansion rooms in case you have an atomic explosion outside," Christoph Oschwald, a retired Swiss paratrooper turned contractor, says. The thinking behind the rooms, he explains, is that if there were a nuclear explosion, the rush of high-pressure air would fill them through vents in the opposite side. Then, the vents would snap shut, trapping the air before it had a chance of damaging the fortress. "There is a lot of protection you can't see," he says. We stroll past an intricate network of insulated pipelines that carry water up from the underground glacial lake to the cooling system.'"

Lanxon writes "A German artist named Ralf Schmerberg has created an igloo out of fridges in a square in Hamburg, Germany, to try and draw attention to energy use and climate change. To make that point, alongside the construction is a giant electricity meter that displays how much electricity is being used by the 322 old fridges that comprise the structure."

Lanxon writes "A prototype for an electric vehicle — code named Urbee — is the first to have its entire body built with a 3D printer, reports Wired. Stratasys and Winnipeg engineering group Kor Ecologic have partnered to create the electric/liquid fuel hybrid, which can deliver more than 200 miles per gallon on the motorway and 100 miles per gallon in the city."

Lanxon writes "The Global Seed Vault opened in 2008 after engineers spent a year drilling and blasting through the sandstone, siltstone and claystone of the Norwegian Platåberget Mountain to create a system of subterranean chambers on the Advent Fjord's southern flank that could store 4.5 million seeds. It's a $9 million bet against climate change. But can it save us from the threat of worldwide famine? An article at Wired explores its current state and its future: '... it operates as a secure storage space for samples of other collections that are at risk. The samples remain at all times the property of the depositors, the only proviso being that the originals must be freely available to researchers and breeders under the terms of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. There have been deposits from every continent: 3,710 species in total, from 29 crop institutes representing 226 countries. Over the past few years the need for a secure storage facility has become ever more urgent. A typhoon in the Philippines in 2006 caused a flood that left the national crop gene bank under two meters of water.'"

Lanxon writes "Wired has published a lengthy behind-the-scenes feature documenting the inception, development and technological struggles of Microsoft's Project Natal, now known as Kinect. The feature is the result of conversations the magazine had with a number of key developers and researchers behind the project, and unprecedented access to Microsoft Research in a number of countries, over the course of three years."

It's doubtful that any other distillery will come up with a whisky that tastes like Gilpin Family Whisky because of its secret ingredient: urine. Researcher and designer James Gilpin uses the sugar rich urine of elderly diabetics to make his high-end single malt whisky. From the article: "The source material is acquired from elderly volunteers, including Gilpin's own grandmother, Patricia. The urine is purified in the same way as mains water is purified, with the sugar molecules removed and added to the mash stock to accelerate the whisky's fermentation process. Traditionally, that sugar would be made from the starches in the mash."

Lanxon writes "Music lovers can now be immortalized when they die by having their ashes baked into vinyl records to leave behind for loved ones, reports Wired. A UK company called And Vinyly is offering people the chance to press their ashes in a vinyl recording of their own voice, their favorite tunes or their last will and testament. Minimalist audiophiles might want to go for the simple option of having no tunes or voiceover, and simply pressing the ashes into the vinyl to result in pops and crackles."

Lanxon writes "An architecture and design firm called Choi+Shine has submitted a design for the Icelandic High-Voltage Electrical Pylon International Design Competition which proposes giant human-shaped pylons carrying electricity cables across the country's landscape, reports Wired. The enormous figures would only require slight alterations to existing pylon designs, says the firm, which was awarded an Honorable mention for its design by the competition's judging board. It also won an award from the Boston Society of Architects Unbuilt Architecture competition."

eldavojohn writes "A new paper published this week in the journal Nature Materials announces a successful demonstration of highly directional terahertz semiconductor lasers. You might not think it's a big deal that some Harvard and University of Leeds researchers (funded partially by the US Air Force) figured out how to better direct lasers; but this means the ability to see what's in someone's pockets and clothing, at a distance of possibly hundreds of meters, or farther. The big benefit is that they are lower in energy than X-Rays and are less invasive, since they cannot pass through water or metal. Coming soon to an airport near you or buzzing around on board a drone in civilian airspace?"

Lanxon writes "Wired has a behind the scenes look at how Inception's reality-distorting special effects sequences were shot, in an interview with Chris Corbould — the man 'prized for his ability to stage a real-life tank chase in St. Petersburg (GoldenEye), to flip a working juggernaut down a narrow Chicago street (The Dark Knight), and to build a working Batmobile that can do 30-metre jumps without the aid of a single post-production pixel.'" Hopefully most of you who intend to see Inception have already seen it by now, so you don't have to worry about spoilers. It's getting pretty much universal praise.

Lanxon writes "A shop has opened in China that's filled with furniture, cutlery and electronics — not for sale, but to be smashed, beaten and destroyed by frustration-venting women, reports Wired. With a 'No Men' sign at the door, the shop is designed to look like a typical Chinese home, separated into several zones including a TV and mobile phone-filled living room and a bedroom. A kitchen is planned, too. All the electronics are real, purchased second-hand and ready to be smashed with the provided baseball bats (and motorbike helmets for safety)."

Lanxon writes "German-born artist Jan Vormann, 27, has spent the past three years traveling the world repairing crumbling walls and monuments with Lego, reports Wired. His "Dispatchwork" began in 2007 in the small village of Bocchignano, Italy, as part of the contemporary art festival 20 Eventi. Developing the work in situ, he became intrigued by the makeshift repairs that had been made to the crumbling walls. The approach favored function over appearance, reminding Vormann of the haphazard Lego designs created by children."

Lanxon writes "We've seen some impressive Lego creations (sniper rifles, printers, full-size houses ...), and Matt De Lanoy's Futurama diorama is a worthy addition. For starters, it's huge. It measures 1.5m by 2.1m, and it's been in construction for about two years. Almost every part of the city is represented, including Planet Express, its ship, the Robot Arms Apartments where Bender and Fry live, Momcorp HQ, the Head museum, Elzar's fine cuisine, Applied Cryogenics, the sewers where the mutants live, the Madison Cube Garden (which lights up at night!) and more."

AHuxley writes "A VPN flaw announced at the Telecomix Cyphernetics Assembly in Sweden allows individual users to be identified. 'The flaw is caused by a combination of IPv6, which is a new Internet protocol due to replace the current IPv4, and PPTP (point-to-point tunneling protocol)-based VPN services, which are the most widely used. ... The flaw means that the IP address of a user hiding behind a VPN can still be found, thanks to the connection broadcasting information that can be used to identify it. It's also relatively easy to find a MAC address (which identifies a particular device) and a computer's name on the network that it's on.' The Swedish anti-piracy bureau could already be gathering data using the exploit."

Lanxon writes "Toshiba has announced a trio of new devices that it's hoping will shake up the somewhat stagnant notebook PC market. The most interesting is the Libretto W100 — a clamshell device that comes with two screens in place of a screen and a keyboard. Both screens are identical, measuring 7-inches diagonally, and are touch-sensitive. An onboard accelerometer allows you to use it in landscape or portrait configuration, and Toshiba's pre-loaded a boatload of specialist software that'll let you get the most from the device — including a range of virtual keyboards. It runs Windows 7, is powered by an Intel U5400 processor, and comes with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 62GB SSD, and the usual array of connectivity options, including 3G."

Lanxon writes "A mildly terrifying young Brit named Jack Streat has managed to build a series of working guns, including a Lee Enfield bolt-action sniper rifle, entirely out of Lego and rubber bands, reports Wired. Streat, who lists himself as 15 years old on his profile, has constructed an enormous and diverse armory of weaponry that fire either rubber bands or Lego bricks. Most are based on real-life guns, including a Steyr AUG, a Tommygun, an AK-47, a belt-fed M429 PARA, an Arctic Warfare sniper rifle, a Glock 17, a pair of semi-automatic TEC-9s, a SPAS 12 pump-action shotgun and a minigun that he calls the Obliterator."

Lanxon writes "A Russian man is hoping to overhaul the technology within Taser-type weapons — transforming them from single-shot, short-range devices that stun for a few seconds, into more effective long-range, rapid-fire weapons — by modifying the wires and the type of shock they generate, reports Wired. Non-lethal weapon developer Oleg Nemtyshkin's design uses bare wires, rather than the insulated wires favored by Taser and other stun gun makers. These wires weigh only about one sixteenth as much as insulated wire, providing less drag on the darts and improved accuracy. Nemtyshkin demonstrated his bare wire technology with a prototype – 'Legionary" — in 2001. His latest version is the S5, and a video of the weapon in action shows it firing repeatedly — almost as fast as the trigger can be pulled."

Lanxon writes "Wired has a lengthy investigation into the state of PC game mods, and the amateurs keeping the scene exciting in the wake of draconian DRM placed on many PC titles by major studios. It highlights a number of creative modders, such as Scott Reismanis, founder and editor of Mod DB, and his community-driven alternative to Valve's Steam — Desura — which is 'a distribution system, and, like Steam, will sell games and champion indie titles. But the way it handles mods makes it even more exciting.'"

Lanxon writes "A team of researchers at the Royal Veterinary College in London has built a 'cyber-cockroach' (a cockroach wearing an accelerometer in a tiny backpack) to try and better understand the movements of many-legged animals. They found that unlike bipedal creatures, animals with more than two legs don't adjust their movements when walking over a softer surface." The academic paper is available from the Journal of Experimental Biology. This research will be helpful in finding better ways for multi-legged robots to navigate difficult terrain.

Lanxon writes "Wired has published a lengthy investigation into the litigation underway among some of the world's biggest cell phone manufacturers, and what it means for the industry of patent lawsuits and patent squatting. 'According to a 2009 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, from 1995 to 2008 non-practising entities [patent trolls] have been awarded damages that are, on average, more than double those for practising entities. Consider Research In Motion's 2006 payout of over $612 million to Virginia-based patent-holding company NTP, to avoid its BlackBerry network being shut down in the US. As part of the settlement, NTP granted RIM a licence to use its patented technology; it has subsequently filed lawsuits against AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, and Verizon.'"

Lanxon writes "At a demonstration of Volvo's new collision warning system in Sweden this week, Wired got first-hand experience (and video) of what happens when it goes badly wrong. The new Volvo S60, due for release later this year, was fired out of Volvo's testing tunnel at around 30MPH, and the collision detection system should have kicked in, bringing the car automatically to a halt before hitting the truck in its path. It didn't. Instead, the brand new car ploughed into the back of the truck in front of us, and indeed the world's press who had gathered in Sweden to see the collision detection system in action."

Lanxon writes "Wired followed US Army Staff Sergeant Kevin Rosner into Afghanistan to see first-hand the tools, tactics, and pressures involved in coordinating military airstrikes. This lengthy piece explores the people and technology involved in high-risk airborne warfare, from their perspective. From the article: 'Strapped to his chest, Rosner carries a handheld video player called a "Rover," built by L3 Communications, a New York-based defense contractor. The device, the size and shape of a PSP game console and costing tens of thousands of dollars, reads signals transmitted by the camera pods strapped to the underside of all NATO fighter aircraft. With his Rover, Rosner can see everything a pilot sees, from the pilot's perspective. On his back he carries a radio programmed with secure frequencies that tie him directly to the pilots overhead and to his unit's headquarters, several miles away. At the headquarters, another JTAC monitors a bigger, more sophisticated video terminal that displays the same video Rosner sees, plus other data.'"

Lanxon writes "In 1977, Scott Weaver decided to replicate the Golden Gate Bridge with toothpicks and glue. When the 17-year-old finished that project, he just kept going, and his hobby became an all-consuming quest to, as he puts it, 'blow people's minds' with toothpicks. Mission accomplished, then. Ripley's Believe It or Not offered Weaver $40,000 for his 100,000-toothpick town, but he turned it down without hesitation. 'Other than my wife and my son, this is the most important thing in my life,' he says. 'I just regret that my mother wasn't able to see it while she was alive.'"

cremeglace sends in news of a major advance in the speed of quantum key distribution. "Researchers at the Cambridge Lab of Toshiba Research Europe have solved the problem of transferring highly sensitive data at high speed across a long distance network. The team were able to demonstrate the continuous operation of quantum key distribution (QKD) — a system that allows the communicating users to detect if a third party is trying to eavesdrop on the data communication — at a speed greater than one megabit/sec over a 50 km fibre optic network, thanks to the use of a light detector for high bit rates and a feedback system which maintains the high bit rates during data transfer. ... The faster one megabit/sec data handling will allow the one-time pad to be used for the encryption of video — a vast step forward over the current ability to only encrypt voice data."

Lanxon sends in an intriguing piece from Wired: "This eerie wreck image is not computer-generated. It's the sonar image of Russian nuclear submarine B-159 (called K-159 before decommissioning), which has been lying 248m down in the Barents Sea, between Norway and Russia, since 2003. The Russian Federation hired Adus, a Scottish company that specializes in high-resolution sonar surveying, to evaluate if it would be possible to recover the wreck. 'The operation was complicated as the submarine was very deep, so we had to use the sonar equipment mounted on a remotely operated vehicle' [also pictured in the article], says Martin Dean, the managing director of Adus and a forensic-wreck archaeologist. 'We also had a problem with the surveying due to the density of North Atlantic cod attracted to the sound of the sonar and the light of the cameras.'"

Lanxon writes "Wired reports that for one French fan, the Stormtrooper has become an obsession. Stormtroopers 365 is a collection of wacky, witty, and artistic photographs that its creator Stéfan Le Dû has been adding to daily since 3 April 2009 when the project began. 'I got a new camera and I had some Stormtrooper figures sleeping in their blister packs for months. I wanted to start something a bit challenging on Flickr, and I had previously seen some awesome Star Wars toys pictures, and other "365" projects that I really liked,' he says. The two starring Stormtroopers — TK455 and TK479 — have run into cats, clocks, various household implements, and even a DeLorean sports car."

McBacon writes with this excerpt from Wired.co.uk: "Often dismissed as a failed venture, the Xbox Indie Games programme has earned successful man-and-his-dog developers tens of thousands of pounds from sales of their homebrew games. Wired explores the success stories of this hidden marketplace. ... now, more than a year since its launch, the Xbox Indie Games are seeing something of a revival. Microsoft has made huge strides to improve the service, games are beginning to be taken more seriously and success stories are becoming more and more common. Especially for [James] Silva, a New York-based developer, who became an impromptu Indie celebrity after his game The Dishwasher won Microsoft's Dream-Build-Play competition. He says he's 'absolutely thrilled' to have seen I Maed a Gam3 w1th Zomb1es!!!1 — his latest game — become a cult hit, for gamers to flock to it in record numbers and to have sold over 200,000 copies."

Lanxon writes "The guy behind Ultima Online once bought an old Russian rover, despite it being lost on the moon somewhere. And now, using images released by NASA, it has been located on the moon's surface after nearly four decades of being MIA, reports Wired. Richard Garriott, who created the Ultima Online multiplayer game, bought the Lunokhod 2 in a Sotheby's auction in New York in 1998. And so new was the discovery of his lost possession, he hadn't even heard that the craft had been discovered when Wired spoke to him." (Richard Garriott is also well known as Lord British.)

Lanxon writes "Robots of the future will be capable of learning more complex behaviors than ever before if a new, pan-European research project succeeds in its goal of developing the world's first architecture for advanced robotic motor skills, reports Wired. If successful, the four-year AMARSi (Adaptive Modular Architecture for Rich Motor Skills) project could see a manufacturing world filled with autonomous, intelligent humanoid worker bots that can learn new skills by interacting with their co-workers."

Lanxon writes "It's true: 'Effects of cocaine on honeybee dance behavior,' 'Fellatio by fruit bats prolongs copulation time,' and 'Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?' are all genuine scientific research papers, and all were genuinely published in journals or similar publications. Wired's presentation of a collection of the most bizarrely-named research papers contains seven other gems, including one about naval fluff and another published in The Journal of Sex Research."

Lanxon writes "The law that allows the US Internet Archive to collect and preserve websites does not apply to British archivists. In fact, experts from the Archive and many other archivist institutions argue that the only way the millions of Britain's websites could be legally archived is if British law itself was amended, reports Wired in an investigation published today. Currently, archivists have to seek permission from webmasters of every single site before they are able to take snapshots and retain data."

Lanxon writes "Director Chris Cairns has turned his short 'Neurosonics' film — which features disembodied heads mounted on a selection of instruments — into a live performance that's just as jaw-dropping as the original, reports Wired. The director originally created the 'Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs' film back in 2009. It's set in a lab, and depicts three scientists mounting a number of different heads onto turntables and drum sets before playing them like real instruments. The original video was created with plenty of CGI, so shifting it into a live setting was always going to prove troublesome. To bridge the gap between the virtual and the physical, Cairns enlisted the assistance of holographic projection experts Musion. The company set up the performance for the first Musion Academy Media Awards — which exist to recognize the most impressive holographic creations — and the result is truly impressive."

Lanxon writes to mention that Antro, a Hungarian car manufacturer, is developing a new electric car that can split into two smaller cars. Antro plans to have it on the market by 2012. "The environmentally-conscious company started research back in 2002 and, with backing from various local sponsors, has invested 1.5 million euros in market research and development of a working prototype. The Antro Solo concept is a three-passenger car, with a hybrid drive and solar cells on its roof that the company says could generate enough electricity for up to 20km a day at city speeds. Futuristic looking in itself, the grander plan for the car is much more audacious: Antro intends to allow users to be able to connect two Antro Solos to form a six-passenger Antro Duo. Or perhaps more interesting still, owners of a Duo could split the car into two smaller Solos should Mum have different weekend plans to Dad. Or if they divorce."

Lanxon writes "A pan-European team of robotics researchers began a project this year that could see humanoid bots interact with groups of people in a realistic, anthropomorphic way for the first time. The 'humanoids with auditory and visual abilities in populated spaces' (HUMAVIPS) project has the ambitious goal of making humanoid bots just a bit more human by building algorithms that will enable bots to mimic what psychologists call the 'cocktail party effect' — the human ability to focus attention on just one person in the midst of other people, voices and background noise."

Lanxon writes "British criminals should soon prepare to be shot at from unmanned airborne police robots. Last month it was revealed that modified military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on everyone from British protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers. But these drones could be armed with tasers, non-lethal projectiles and ultra-powerful disorienting strobe lighting apparatus, reports Wired. The flying robot fleet will range from miniature tactical craft such as the miniature AirRobot being tested by one police force, to BAE System's new 12m-wide armed HERTI drone as flown in Afghanistan."

McBacon writes "After Leonardo Da Vinci's resume was transcribed, Wired asked Gordon Chesterman, Director of the Careers Service at the University of Cambridge, if Da Vinci would get hired today. 'What about commercial awareness? No mention of any budgetary control, meeting financial targets or a good return on capital. Few companies can afford "blue sky" stuff at any cost these days.'"

Lanxon writes "'In the universe there is intelligent life, I'm confident about that,' SETI founder Dr Frank Drake (of the Drake Equation) affirmed earlier today during a talk at the Royal Society in London, 50 years after SETI was founded. One of his visions to prove this, and to show that the last five decades were not a waste of time, is to station a radio observatory not in near-Earth orbit, but on the far side of the moon. He also suggests that another craft could later be stationed 500 times further away from the Sun than the Earth, using the Sun itself as a giant magnifying lens to resolve alien worlds."

Lanxon writes "How much would you pay for a piece of artwork that you could only own for a week? A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter, 2009, is a black acrylic box that places itself for sale on eBay every seven days thanks to an embedded Internet connection, which, according to the artist's conditions of sale, must be live at all times. Disconnections are only allowed during transport, says the creator, Caleb Larsen. Larsen tells Wired UK: 'Inside the black box is a micro controller and an Ethernet adapter that contacts a script running on [a] server [every] 10 minutes. The server script checks to see if the box currently has an active auction, and if it doesn't, it creates a new auction for the work.'" Another condition of sale is that the artist gets 15% each time the piece is sold. Maybe the First Sale Doctrine works differently in the UK.

Lanxon writes "A collaborative electro-opera based on Charles Darwin and his evolutionary treatise, On The Origin of Species, is about to be released to the world, after a number of highly artistic live performances in Copenhagen and Athens, reports Wired. Called Tomorrow, In A Year, the two-hour production is the work of a whole range of artists, masterminded by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma. They grabbed reclusive electro-pop duo The Knife to write the music, who in turn asked electronic artist Mt. Sims and multi-instrumentalist Planningtorock to lend a hand along with several other musicians, singers and artists. The result is an unusual fusion of science, experimental music, and art that treads some new creative ground."

Lanxon writes "Amazon currently encourages publishers and authors to sell their books and magazines digitally, but the upcoming Kindle Development Kit (KDK), which goes into beta next month, says Wired, will allow software developers to create a variety of different applications. Amazon has already confirmed a Zagat guide for restaurant reviews from Hallmark and a selection of word games and puzzles, such as Sudoku, from Sonic Boom. EA Mobile is also set to release games on the Kindle."The kit itself is expected to be available next month.