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Nintendo DS Wireless in Freefall

Posted by timothy on from the that's-pretty-normal dept.

Nicholas Roussos writes "Wired reports about four skydivers who decided to give the Nintendo DS wireless capabilities a try while they were freefalling. 'The four sky divers proved that an ad hoc network set up using the wireless functions of a Nintendo DS works perfectly at distances of nearly 400 feet while falling 120 miles an hour,' states the article."

19 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Boring... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    were part of an experiment this month to discover the outer limits of the wireless capabilities of the DS
    Wow, amazing, so you mean that all that wind doesn't mess the signal up? But seriously, I think that if you got a few people with a couple of two-seater ultralights it might be slightly cooler. Well ok maybe not.

    I'll tell you what would be cool, ultralights with automatic paintball guns, heat seeking nerf missiles, and a HUD. Then have a dogfight, and when Mr. Farmer comes out of his house yelling at you for scaring the bejesus out of his livestock you make a second pass, *thunk* *thunk* *thunk* *thunk*

    Wait, what was this article about again?
    1. Re:Boring... by s20451 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'll tell you what would be cool, ultralights with automatic paintball guns, heat seeking nerf missiles, and a HUD. Then have a dogfight

      I'd like to see the dude who tries to do an Immelman in an ultralight. Or his next of kin.

      --
      Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
    2. Re:Boring... by RM6f9 · · Score: 5, Funny

      There are such things as aerobatics-capable ultralights....
      (to avoid the temptation of flying with a paintball gun)
      Air-to-air paintball would all too often become inadvertent air-to-ground, and how much do we want to wager that Joe Farmer owns a 12 ga. double barrel that is most emphatically *not* firing paintballs?

      --
      Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
  2. Einstein would be pleased by SiliconEntity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In this year of the Einstein centenary, these skydivers have managed to rediscover the Principle of Relativity - that it matters not how fast you are moving, the laws of physics are the same. Indeed, if radio waves failed to propagate for skydivers the entire structure of physics would have to be re-created from scratch.

  3. Please turn off your electronic equipment... by FuryG3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    So now when they kick you and your friends off the plane for using wifi while in flight, you'll be all good.

  4. Why should it not work? by imsabbel · · Score: 4, Funny

    I mean, there is no/little relative velocity, and radio waves are fast (plus there is no ether :D).

    As to the whole thing... I really dont know. Its cool, but it sounds like a real potential for darwin awards ("damn, ill get you. Just a nother round..." *splash*)

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  5. The Video by bscience · · Score: 5, Informative
    There is a torrent serving up the video of the PSP and Nintendo DS tests here:

    http://stashbox.fromtheshadows.tv/

    or the actual torrent:

    http://torrents.fromtheshadows.tv/fts_box1.0.avi.t orrent

  6. Good to read..... by wpiman · · Score: 5, Funny

    It is good to read about some real world applications with todays technology. Usually these articles are so theoretical....

  7. This is really cool... by Smiffa2001 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...though I'd really hate to try it. I get sucked into "the zone" when gaming and computing so tend to ignore most outside stimuli (feel free to correct spelling, etc.). Hope that my parachute would be automatically opening, otherwise...

  8. An EM Signal at 120MPH? by ColdZero · · Score: 5, Funny

    At speeds like that, how could the speed of light even hope to keep up?

  9. Re:excitement! by Adrilla · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just don't forget to pause, so you can pull the chute.

    --

    "Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
  10. Good thing they didn't use the PSP... by solowCX · · Score: 5, Funny

    They might have hit the ground before they booted up the game and loaded the level. ;)

  11. Gotta Get that High Score by StarWreck · · Score: 5, Funny

    Jimmy! PULL THE STRING!!
    *waves hand* Just a second man
    For the love of god! Deploy your parachute!
    I just gotta get the high score, I'm almost there. *SPLAT*

    --
    ... and in the DRM, bind them.
  12. Yeah... by l00sr · · Score: 5, Funny

    I get pretty bored skydiving too.

  13. Physics/Math test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    1) If Bob is in the baggage car of a train traveling north at 90MPH and Margaret is standing still 10 cars north of Bob, each car being approximately 40 feet long, home much time would pass before Bob crashes into Margaret? Show your work.

    2) If I put two chickens in a bag and give you the bag, how many chickens do you have?

    3) If radio waves from a Nintendo DS travel at roughly 186,000 miles per second, how fast would two parallel trains moving in the same direction have to travel before the conductor in each train could no longer receive signals from the other conductor's Nintendo DS?

    4) If you were in a car travelling at the speed of light and you flashed your high-beams, would anything happen? Assume you're on the New Jersey Turnpike.

  14. Galileo would be pleased.. by rufusdufus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The skydivers experience is consistent with Galilean relativity, Einstein's special relativity wouldnt have much of an effect in this situation.

    1. Re:Galileo would be pleased.. by Jerf · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not the theories of Relativity, the Principle. There is a difference. Einstein's theories of Relativity solved an increasingly important conflict between physicists beliefs that the Principle of Relativity was true (an intuitive belief) and their inability to put solid math around the way the Universe works.

      The first chapter of this work should help. Basically, the principle of relativity is that physics is the same for all inertial reference frames; Einstien put that together with the fact that light appears to travel the same speed for all observers. Galilean relativity doesn't work with that; it has other contradictions inherent in it (it can't answer the Zeno paradox, again, see the linked work), but it takes longer to notice. There are other relativity theories that haven't panned out, either.

      Pardon the pedantry, it's intended to be educational.

  15. Re:What about different speeds? by Grond · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So I looked up the relativistic Doppler effect and plugged in some numbers.

    For a relative velocity of 400mph you get an observed frequency of 2.39999856GHz.

    Now, looking at the 802.11b spec available at the 802 working group site I see that it operates in the 2.4 - 2.4835GHz range.

    So the Doppler effect at 400mph introduces a difference in frequency equal to .0017% of the total frequency range. Unfortunately, I don't know what the tolerances for 802.11b are, but I have difficulty believing that .0017% would cause much trouble.

    Now, backfiguring for a more common 5% tolerance, we get something like 500,000m/s or 1.1 million mph. So, yes, 802.11b probably won't work between passing spaceships. Aside from that, we're probably safe.

  16. Here comes the science by sunami · · Score: 4, Informative

    I hate to break it to you guys, but so long as the people are moving at the same velocity, there isn't any kind of problem. If all of them had been moving at .999 speed of light (in our point of view), there still wouldn't be a difference, because they are all in the same frame of reference, and they would all measure the speed of light from their point of view to be 3.0x10^8 ms^-1. No doppler effect of the radio waves would be created, and no greater time lag would ensue. It's as if they aren't moving, because according to each other, they aren't!