Where did you read they want to use the regular/primary room lights for this sort of communication?
It's in the story summary, and from the story's link to the Berlin Institute I found this...
{ Live-Demo: Optical Wireless High-Speed Data Communication
Optical wireless data communication uses standard LED lights for transmission of broadband data. This transmission technology can equally be used for HD video streaming and two-way communication. Offering data rates of up to 1.25 Gbit/s, it can easily deal even with broadband video files in HD quality. All it takes are just a few add-on parts to turn an off-the-shelf LED light into a powerful optical WLAN transmitter. Digital data is transmitted through a special modulator which switches the luminaries on and off at ultra high speed. At embedded world Fraunhofer HHI will be demonstrating two-way data transmission with through-put of up to 500 Mbit/s. }
I've been using a pair of Infra-Red Wireless headphones ($40 from Radio Shack) for some time now and the IR tech is impressive. While inside the room where the transmitter is there's really no interruption of the signal at all (it helps the transmission a lot when your walls/ ceiling are painted white to bounce the light off of). This sounds like a re-application of this pre-existing technology, and I'm not sure why it hasn't become mainstream for transmitting computer data already.
Harald Haas: Communications technology innovator: Harald Haas is the pioneer behind a new type of light bulb that can communicate as well as illuminate – access the Internet using light instead of radio waves.
TedTalks - Why you should listen to him:
Imagine using your car headlights to transmit data... or surfing the web safely on a plane, tethered only by a line of sight. Harald Haas is working on it. A professor of engineering at Edinburgh University, Haas has long been studying ways to communicate electronic data signals, designing modulation techniques that pack more data onto existing networks. But his latest work leaps beyond wires and radio waves to transmit data via an LED bulb that glows and darkens faster than the human eye can see.
The system, which he's calling D-Light, uses a mathematical trick called OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing), which allows it to vary the intensity of the LED's output at a very fast rate, invisible to the human eye (for the eye, the bulb would simply be on and providing light). The signal can be picked up by simple receivers. As of now, Haas is reporting data rates of up to 10 MBit/s per second
(faster than a typical broadband connection), and 100 MBit/s by the end of this year and possibly up to 1 GB in the future.
He says: "It should be so cheap that it’s everywhere. Using the visible light spectrum, which comes for free, you can piggy-back existing wireless services on the back of lighting equipment."
"As well as revolutionising internet reception, it would put an end to the potentially harmful electromagnetic pollution emitted by wireless internet routers and has raised the prospect of ubiquitous wireless access, transmitted through streetlights."
Herald Scotland
Fuck, as soon as you enter political statements into your post, you have undermined anything you might have said that would make sense. After you sadi Mitt Romney...we all heard blal blah blah blah blah blah.
Was using the M.R. 47% thing as an example of organizations that do their 'real' business dealings in ways that they wouldn't want the general public to know about. Not trying to make a pro/ anti political statement.
I have been told people go from Intern to "Creative Director" in one jump. So I wouldn't think much about this.
Well, due to this MS employees tweets, right now the rumour mill is churning without any actual statement by MS confirming or denying that a game will not function on the XBox720 after 3 minutes of not having an internet connection. The console debut is months away, perhaps these tweets were a test baloon to gauge reaction to the always online idea. It seems to be the disturbing trend in computing/ gaming. Not the future I'm looking forward to, perhaps 24/7 monitoring in all of our devices is going to be inevitable, sigh.
Those comments MS's marketing director made in his 'tweets' do seem to reflect the underlying cavalier attitude at MS towards its customers. It reminds me of Mitt Romney's attitude toward the "49%", very telling of their true feelings.
The XBox720 will not function if an internet connection is not found within 3 minutes. I don't give a damn how 'great' their games might be, as a consumer I've been turned off to Microsoft altogether, and won't be contributing my dollars to this company in any of their product line.
I gave up on console gaming after playstation2. Overpriced gaming, basically with the 'same old stuff' gameplay, prettier graphics is all consoles offered. Ouya has a chance where major consoles dont because it is a $100 (as opposed to $300 or more) console that is as powerful as current ones, the games will be far cheaper than $30 - $60 each, with 'free to try' options.
I got fed up with paying so much for a game that gathered dust pretty quickly. If the console/ games are cheaper to start out with, there will be a larger user base right out of the box. No major investment of hundreds of dollars right off, and it will have the ability to be a media player, internet connected browser, whatever Android has going for it will be available. As someone who feels jaded by the 'big 3' console producers, this concept has possibilities for me, as a locked down system is the last thing I want to buy again. I'll wait and see how the Ouya shakes out over the first few months, it might well be worth the investment of $100. For once in a long time I'm actually looking forward to a new gaming system, I'd just like to see what its true potential is before I buy into it.
This Ouya's made with the modder in mind. Philips head screws for easy access to it's innards so that every time you want to upgrade the cpu or any other parts, you're free to do so. The company actually encourages the users ability to personally change out the Ouya's hardware. Name any other video game console maker that's done this, I'll wait...
P.S. No one knows how and when God does decide to get involved, I'm betting that when God does get involved, (S)He stay's 'low key' about it, and doesn't need to call attention to themself.
All right, I didn't mention religion. IMO, religion is all man made, and has nothing to do with God. Many religions, though only one God. Some believe Jesus Christ is the son of God, others Mohammed, still others Vishnu, and on and on. Christ and Mohammed are both supposed to have claimed that they're just men, nothing special or divine about them that would make them different from others. Aren't we all then sons and daughters of God?
Is God supposed to get involved in every natural and man made disaster beforehand? How then would we learn to deal with them correctly to prevent them? We are a smart enough species to learn so many things, for God to step in every time something bad occurs would cause us to become dependent on Him/Her, not conducive to our growth as a species. And that would interfere with free will, and we would be not much better than infants needing our parents constantly. A good parent would want to see their children learn from their mistakes, lest they become 'crippled' by their dependency on the parent.
Think of God as a dean in a college of higher learning. Usually you never see that dean, they're running the show from their office and only get involved when they deem it necessary, not when the students make demands that they do. Subordinates handle the lesser things.
And not to worry when people die from this existence, it seems that there's a safety net for all of us. To me this life is akin to kindergarden, where you learn the basics to living this life. Basics like play nice together, don't hit, share your blocks with others, etc. I 'know' (don't ask, too involved, and you probably wouldn't believe me anyway) that there's a 'first grade' that we'll graduate to at the end of this life, if we remember the lessons we learned in kindergarden, and practice the universal golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have done unto you". Pretty simple rule to living that many do not practice. Perhaps they get sent back to repeat kindergarden again until they 'get it', who knows. All I know for sure is that there's something after this life, what that something is I don't know. Just that there's something, and that's good enough for me. I try to live the best life I can, help others, learn from my mistakes as I can, and I remain grateful to God for this wonderful, odd, beautiful life I've been granted here, temporary though it may be. And I try not to bitch too much when thingsdon't go the way I wanted them to, that's what children do.
Can we just skip this April Fools shit from now on? It's just a fucking waste of time.
Agreed. Happening right now is a story about Apple CEO Tim Cook apologizing to the people of China for not providing a 2 year warranty on iPhones. This is breaking "News That Matters", dammit! How can Slashdotters be expected to properly vent their feelings on this highly charged issue?!!!
What "binarylarry" originally posted: " Unified Korea and scores of dead North Koreans..."
What your reply was: "Do you know that a "score" is the same as "twenty"? I feel like you either (a) didn't know that, (b) are making some kind of joke, or (c) estimating a very low number for a reason I can't detect.
That is: "scores of dead", for example 2-10 score, would imply between 40 and 200 dead or so. Usually when the U.S. goes to war there are thousands or hundreds of thousands dead, which is really a terrible thing."
What I replied to you: "
Yes, 'score' means 'twenty'. Very good son, you get a gold star for knowing that, your parents will be quite proud.
"Scores" can also mean an indeterminate large number. You didn't know that. Gold star taken back, parents shamed.
The OP's usage was correct."
From your own definition that you just posted: "(scores of) a large amount or number of something..."
Binarylarry used the exact phrase "scores of", and part of the definition YOU just provided says "(scores of) a large amount or number of something...". Why then are we arguing about this anymore when your provided definition agrees with what I originally stated, that binarylarry's usage of "scores of" is correct??!?
If "Score" means "twenty", then "Scores of" means at least 40 or more, and there is no upper limit to what that number can be. It could mean 40 googleplex, though that's an extreme example on my part here. Your very definition of "scores of" validates my statement as true.
My reply to you 'was' a bit smarmy sounding, for that I'd like to extend my apology to you, I could have phrased it to you in a more congenial manner.
Thank you for helping to clear this up. I accept your definition, now can this matter be finally laid to rest?:-)
Obvious the reason why there are less comments today. For some unknown reason, there are no linked articles to ANY of these stories today! I mean, just how are Slashdotters supposed to make intelligent, informed comments if they cant RTFA?
The Space Pen (also known as the Zero Gravity Pen), marketed by Fisher Space Pen Company, is a pen that uses pressurized ink cartridges and is claimed to write in zero gravity, underwater, over wet and greasy paper, at any angle, and in a very wide range of temperatures.
The Fisher Space Pen was invented by American industrialist and pen manufacturer Paul C. Fisher and is manufactured in Boulder City, Nevada, United States of America. Paul C. Fisher first patented the AG7 "anti gravity" pen in 1965. Pens claiming some or all of the same abilities have also appeared on the market from other manufacturers.
Models: There are two prominent styles of the pen: the AG7 "Astronaut pen", a long thin retractable pen shaped like a common ballpoint, and the "Bullet pen" which is non-retractable, shorter than standard ballpoints when capped, but full size when the cap is posted on the rear for writing.
Several of the Fisher Space Pen models (the "Millennium" is one) are claimed to write for a lifetime of "average" use; however the product literature states that the pen will write exactly 30.7 miles (approximately 48.15 kilometres).
Standard Space Pen refills can be used in any pen able to take a standard Parker Pen Company ballpoint refill, using the small plastic adapter that is supplied with each refill. Fisher also makes a Space Pen-type refill that fits Cross pens, one that fits 1950s-style Papermate pens (or any pen that uses that type of refill), and a "universal" refill that fits some other ballpoint pens.
Technology: The ballpoint is made from tungsten carbide and is precisely fitted in order to avoid leaks. A sliding float separates the ink from the pressurized gas. The thixotropic ink in the hermetically sealed and pressurized reservoir is claimed to write for three times longer than a standard ballpoint pen. The pen can write at altitudes up to 12,500 feet (3810 m). The ink is forced out by compressed nitrogen at a pressure of nearly 35 psi (240 kPa). Operating temperatures range from 30 to 250 F (35 to 120 C). The pen has an estimated shelf life of 100 years.
A common urban legend states that, faced with the fact that ball-point pens will not write in zero-gravity, NASA spent a large amount of money to develop a pen that would write in the conditions experienced during spaceflight (the result purportedly being the Fisher Space Pen), while the Soviet Union took the simpler (and cheaper) route of just using pencils. Russian cosmonauts used pencils, and grease pencils on plastic slates until also adopting a space pen in 1969 with a purchase of 100 units for use on all future missions. NASA programs previously used pencils (for example a 1965 order of mechanical pencils) but because of the substantial dangers that broken-off pencil tips and graphite dust pose in zero gravity to electronics and the flammable nature of the wood present in pencils a better solution was needed. NASA never approached Paul Fisher to develop a pen, nor did Fisher receive any government funding for the pen's development. Fisher invented it independently, and then asked NASA to try it. After the introduction of the AG7 Space Pen, both the American and Soviet (later Russian) space agencies adopted it.
In 2008, Gene Cernan's Apollo 17-flown space pen sold in a Heritage auction for US$23,900.
I believe that if your phone is on and in a frequency blocking bag, the battery will drain faster than normal, since the phone is now emiiting a more powerful signal trying to locate a tower.
2 years back I got a call from a 'friend' one morning on the 'feature phone' I owned then, and he asked me with a suspicious tone to his voice, "Uh,... where are you?" I told him at my local library, and he hesitates, as if he's doing something else at the moment. Later on I learned why, that guy had a black market phone signal tracking program (that was given to him) running on his home computer. Not being a very computer literate person, I later realized that when he hesitated, he was really trying to understand why where I claimed to be wasn't where his program said I was, because there weren't enough towers available at that location to get a proper lock on the phone's location.
That one phone conversation was what began me googling for information about cell phone tracking, until then I was ignorant of this technology. Less than $50 and some googling for sites to download the program from is all that's needed to track a phone. Enter the phone number into such a program and a map will appear on the screen with the phone's location clearly displayed. It's an easy way to invade someone's privacy, and in my opinion it's done by people who are without a clearly defined sense of proper morality. That's rather a sad reflection on those who do track others just because they can, but what can a person do to prevent it from being done? It's a sad fact of living life in today's modern, tech-filled world.
Even with GPS disabled or if your phone doesn't have GPS, cell triangulation allows for a reasonably accurate position of the phone. In urban areas this works well, in rural areas less so but still enough to provide someone with potentially useful information. This is a function of the cell phone network and not the GPS of your phone.
Location by using cell tower triangulation can be off by as much as 10 miles.
There was a pen developed for writing upside down and in zero gravity, not by NASA. It was advertised as the space pen, and 'pumped' the ink to the tip when you pressed hard a few times. And it was used by astronauts, that got used in the ads for it. The Space Pen had a short run as a product and faded quickly. It was more an unneeded gimmick since gravity fed pens work quite well on Earth.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe because he's pushing several orders of magnitude more data through the system than your 20 khz headphones?
Size matters.
A-a-a-nd, that's what she said, thanks for that opening line :-)
Okay, I read from the pdf page that it's expected to be available 3 years down the road, either in USB stick form or built-in smartphone sensors.
http://www.hhi.fraunhofer.de/media/downloads.html
So?
Where did you read they want to use the regular/primary room lights for this sort of communication?
It's in the story summary, and from the story's link to the Berlin Institute I found this...
{ Live-Demo: Optical Wireless High-Speed Data Communication
Optical wireless data communication uses standard LED lights for transmission of broadband data. This transmission technology can equally be used for HD video streaming and two-way communication. Offering data rates of up to 1.25 Gbit/s, it can easily deal even with broadband video files in HD quality. All it takes are just a few add-on parts to turn an off-the-shelf LED light into a powerful optical WLAN transmitter. Digital data is transmitted through a special modulator which switches the luminaries on and off at ultra high speed. At embedded world Fraunhofer HHI will be demonstrating two-way data transmission with through-put of up to 500 Mbit/s. }
http://www.hhi.fraunhofer.de/media/press/embedded-world-2013.html
I've been using a pair of Infra-Red Wireless headphones ($40 from Radio Shack) for some time now and the IR tech is impressive. While inside the room where the transmitter is there's really no interruption of the signal at all (it helps the transmission a lot when your walls/ ceiling are painted white to bounce the light off of). This sounds like a re-application of this pre-existing technology, and I'm not sure why it hasn't become mainstream for transmitting computer data already.
TedTalks - Why you should listen to him:
Imagine using your car headlights to transmit data ... or surfing the web safely on a plane, tethered only by a line of sight. Harald Haas is working on it. A professor of engineering at Edinburgh University, Haas has long been studying ways to communicate electronic data signals, designing modulation techniques that pack more data onto existing networks. But his latest work leaps beyond wires and radio waves to transmit data via an LED bulb that glows and darkens faster than the human eye can see.
The system, which he's calling D-Light, uses a mathematical trick called OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing), which allows it to vary the intensity of the LED's output at a very fast rate, invisible to the human eye (for the eye, the bulb would simply be on and providing light). The signal can be picked up by simple receivers. As of now, Haas is reporting data rates of up to 10 MBit/s per second (faster than a typical broadband connection), and 100 MBit/s by the end of this year and possibly up to 1 GB in the future.
He says: "It should be so cheap that it’s everywhere. Using the visible light spectrum, which comes for free, you can piggy-back existing wireless services on the back of lighting equipment."
"As well as revolutionising internet reception, it would put an end to the potentially harmful electromagnetic pollution emitted by wireless internet routers and has raised the prospect of ubiquitous wireless access, transmitted through streetlights." Herald Scotland
http://www.ted.com/speakers/harald_haas.html
Here is the TED talk video:
http://www.ted.com/talks/harald_haas_wireless_data_from_every_light_bulb.html
Fuck, as soon as you enter political statements into your post, you have undermined anything you might have said that would make sense. After you sadi Mitt Romney...we all heard blal blah blah blah blah blah.
Was using the M.R. 47% thing as an example of organizations that do their 'real' business dealings in ways that they wouldn't want the general public to know about. Not trying to make a pro/ anti political statement.
I have been told people go from Intern to "Creative Director" in one jump. So I wouldn't think much about this.
Well, due to this MS employees tweets, right now the rumour mill is churning without any actual statement by MS confirming or denying that a game will not function on the XBox720 after 3 minutes of not having an internet connection. The console debut is months away, perhaps these tweets were a test baloon to gauge reaction to the always online idea. It seems to be the disturbing trend in computing/ gaming. Not the future I'm looking forward to, perhaps 24/7 monitoring in all of our devices is going to be inevitable, sigh.
The XBox720 will not function if an internet connection is not found within 3 minutes. I don't give a damn how 'great' their games might be, as a consumer I've been turned off to Microsoft altogether, and won't be contributing my dollars to this company in any of their product line.
I got fed up with paying so much for a game that gathered dust pretty quickly. If the console/ games are cheaper to start out with, there will be a larger user base right out of the box. No major investment of hundreds of dollars right off, and it will have the ability to be a media player, internet connected browser, whatever Android has going for it will be available. As someone who feels jaded by the 'big 3' console producers, this concept has possibilities for me, as a locked down system is the last thing I want to buy again. I'll wait and see how the Ouya shakes out over the first few months, it might well be worth the investment of $100. For once in a long time I'm actually looking forward to a new gaming system, I'd just like to see what its true potential is before I buy into it.
This Ouya's made with the modder in mind. Philips head screws for easy access to it's innards so that every time you want to upgrade the cpu or any other parts, you're free to do so. The company actually encourages the users ability to personally change out the Ouya's hardware. Name any other video game console maker that's done this, I'll wait...
...just ask Apple?
After allowing "small pocketknives" again, the TSA recently announced that it is now allowing "very small terrorists". - (Courtesy of TheOnion)
- - -
"Hey! Let go of me!"
P.S. No one knows how and when God does decide to get involved, I'm betting that when God does get involved, (S)He stay's 'low key' about it, and doesn't need to call attention to themself.
Is God supposed to get involved in every natural and man made disaster beforehand? How then would we learn to deal with them correctly to prevent them? We are a smart enough species to learn so many things, for God to step in every time something bad occurs would cause us to become dependent on Him/Her, not conducive to our growth as a species. And that would interfere with free will, and we would be not much better than infants needing our parents constantly. A good parent would want to see their children learn from their mistakes, lest they become 'crippled' by their dependency on the parent.
Think of God as a dean in a college of higher learning. Usually you never see that dean, they're running the show from their office and only get involved when they deem it necessary, not when the students make demands that they do. Subordinates handle the lesser things.
And not to worry when people die from this existence, it seems that there's a safety net for all of us. To me this life is akin to kindergarden, where you learn the basics to living this life. Basics like play nice together, don't hit, share your blocks with others, etc. I 'know' (don't ask, too involved, and you probably wouldn't believe me anyway) that there's a 'first grade' that we'll graduate to at the end of this life, if we remember the lessons we learned in kindergarden, and practice the universal golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have done unto you". Pretty simple rule to living that many do not practice. Perhaps they get sent back to repeat kindergarden again until they 'get it', who knows. All I know for sure is that there's something after this life, what that something is I don't know. Just that there's something, and that's good enough for me. I try to live the best life I can, help others, learn from my mistakes as I can, and I remain grateful to God for this wonderful, odd, beautiful life I've been granted here, temporary though it may be. And I try not to bitch too much when thingsdon't go the way I wanted them to, that's what children do.
Have a great day/ life, sir/ madam! :-)
Can we just skip this April Fools shit from now on? It's just a fucking waste of time.
Agreed. Happening right now is a story about Apple CEO Tim Cook apologizing to the people of China for not providing a 2 year warranty on iPhones. This is breaking "News That Matters", dammit! How can Slashdotters be expected to properly vent their feelings on this highly charged issue?!!!
What "binarylarry" originally posted: " Unified Korea and scores of dead North Koreans..."
What your reply was: "Do you know that a "score" is the same as "twenty"? I feel like you either (a) didn't know that, (b) are making some kind of joke, or (c) estimating a very low number for a reason I can't detect.
That is: "scores of dead", for example 2-10 score, would imply between 40 and 200 dead or so. Usually when the U.S. goes to war there are thousands or hundreds of thousands dead, which is really a terrible thing."
What I replied to you: " Yes, 'score' means 'twenty'. Very good son, you get a gold star for knowing that, your parents will be quite proud.
"Scores" can also mean an indeterminate large number. You didn't know that. Gold star taken back, parents shamed.
The OP's usage was correct."
From your own definition that you just posted: "(scores of) a large amount or number of something..."
Binarylarry used the exact phrase "scores of", and part of the definition YOU just provided says "(scores of) a large amount or number of something...". Why then are we arguing about this anymore when your provided definition agrees with what I originally stated, that binarylarry's usage of "scores of" is correct??!?
If "Score" means "twenty", then "Scores of" means at least 40 or more, and there is no upper limit to what that number can be. It could mean 40 googleplex, though that's an extreme example on my part here. Your very definition of "scores of" validates my statement as true.
My reply to you 'was' a bit smarmy sounding, for that I'd like to extend my apology to you, I could have phrased it to you in a more congenial manner.
Thank you for helping to clear this up. I accept your definition, now can this matter be finally laid to rest? :-)
Obvious the reason why there are less comments today. For some unknown reason, there are no linked articles to ANY of these stories today! I mean, just how are Slashdotters supposed to make intelligent, informed comments if they cant RTFA?
May be we can get samzenpus a job at the Onion. His humor is super sophisticated. Bitcoin spoof Mac spoof next up.
Q: On April Fools Day, does The Onion print real news stories?
When I went on the guy's computer I saw & ran the program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen Space Pen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Space Pen (also known as the Zero Gravity Pen), marketed by Fisher Space Pen Company, is a pen that uses pressurized ink cartridges and is claimed to write in zero gravity, underwater, over wet and greasy paper, at any angle, and in a very wide range of temperatures.
The Fisher Space Pen was invented by American industrialist and pen manufacturer Paul C. Fisher and is manufactured in Boulder City, Nevada, United States of America. Paul C. Fisher first patented the AG7 "anti gravity" pen in 1965. Pens claiming some or all of the same abilities have also appeared on the market from other manufacturers.
Models: There are two prominent styles of the pen: the AG7 "Astronaut pen", a long thin retractable pen shaped like a common ballpoint, and the "Bullet pen" which is non-retractable, shorter than standard ballpoints when capped, but full size when the cap is posted on the rear for writing.
Several of the Fisher Space Pen models (the "Millennium" is one) are claimed to write for a lifetime of "average" use; however the product literature states that the pen will write exactly 30.7 miles (approximately 48.15 kilometres).
Standard Space Pen refills can be used in any pen able to take a standard Parker Pen Company ballpoint refill, using the small plastic adapter that is supplied with each refill. Fisher also makes a Space Pen-type refill that fits Cross pens, one that fits 1950s-style Papermate pens (or any pen that uses that type of refill), and a "universal" refill that fits some other ballpoint pens.
Technology: The ballpoint is made from tungsten carbide and is precisely fitted in order to avoid leaks. A sliding float separates the ink from the pressurized gas. The thixotropic ink in the hermetically sealed and pressurized reservoir is claimed to write for three times longer than a standard ballpoint pen. The pen can write at altitudes up to 12,500 feet (3810 m). The ink is forced out by compressed nitrogen at a pressure of nearly 35 psi (240 kPa). Operating temperatures range from 30 to 250 F (35 to 120 C). The pen has an estimated shelf life of 100 years.
A common urban legend states that, faced with the fact that ball-point pens will not write in zero-gravity, NASA spent a large amount of money to develop a pen that would write in the conditions experienced during spaceflight (the result purportedly being the Fisher Space Pen), while the Soviet Union took the simpler (and cheaper) route of just using pencils. Russian cosmonauts used pencils, and grease pencils on plastic slates until also adopting a space pen in 1969 with a purchase of 100 units for use on all future missions. NASA programs previously used pencils (for example a 1965 order of mechanical pencils) but because of the substantial dangers that broken-off pencil tips and graphite dust pose in zero gravity to electronics and the flammable nature of the wood present in pencils a better solution was needed. NASA never approached Paul Fisher to develop a pen, nor did Fisher receive any government funding for the pen's development. Fisher invented it independently, and then asked NASA to try it. After the introduction of the AG7 Space Pen, both the American and Soviet (later Russian) space agencies adopted it.
In 2008, Gene Cernan's Apollo 17-flown space pen sold in a Heritage auction for US$23,900.
Maybe.
I believe that if your phone is on and in a frequency blocking bag, the battery will drain faster than normal, since the phone is now emiiting a more powerful signal trying to locate a tower.
That one phone conversation was what began me googling for information about cell phone tracking, until then I was ignorant of this technology. Less than $50 and some googling for sites to download the program from is all that's needed to track a phone. Enter the phone number into such a program and a map will appear on the screen with the phone's location clearly displayed. It's an easy way to invade someone's privacy, and in my opinion it's done by people who are without a clearly defined sense of proper morality. That's rather a sad reflection on those who do track others just because they can, but what can a person do to prevent it from being done? It's a sad fact of living life in today's modern, tech-filled world.
Even with GPS disabled or if your phone doesn't have GPS, cell triangulation allows for a reasonably accurate position of the phone. In urban areas this works well, in rural areas less so but still enough to provide someone with potentially useful information. This is a function of the cell phone network and not the GPS of your phone.
Location by using cell tower triangulation can be off by as much as 10 miles.
There was a pen developed for writing upside down and in zero gravity, not by NASA. It was advertised as the space pen, and 'pumped' the ink to the tip when you pressed hard a few times. And it was used by astronauts, that got used in the ads for it. The Space Pen had a short run as a product and faded quickly. It was more an unneeded gimmick since gravity fed pens work quite well on Earth.