thecarchik writes "Chrysler announced Wednesday that it would partner with the US Environmental Protection Agency to build and test prototypes of a different kind of hybrid vehicle, one that accumulates energy not in a battery pack but by compressing a gas hydraulically. The system in question, originally developed at the EPA labs, uses engine overrun torque to capture otherwise wasted energy, as do conventional hybrid-electric vehicles. The engine is Chrysler's standard 2.4-liter four-cylinder, the base engine in its minivan line. But rather than turning a generator, that torque powers a pump that uses hydraulic fluid to increase the pressure inside a 14.4-gallon tank of nitrogen gas, known as a high-pressure accumulator."

thomst writes "The New York Times has an article (cookies and free subscription required) about the protests generated by The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology's decision to accept for publication later this year an article (PDF format) on precognition (the Times erroneously calls it ESP). Complaints center around the peer reviewers, none of whom is an expert in statistical analysis."

Hugh Pickens writes "Fox News reports that Nintendo has posted a cautionary note on its Japanese website that 'vision of children under the age of six has been said [to be in the] developmental stage,' adding that 3D content 'delivers 3D images with different left and right images, [which] has a potential impact on the growth of children's eyes.' The notice went to say that Nintendo recommends that all viewers take regular breaks while watching 3D video or playing stereoscopic 3D games (google translation). Dr. Michael Ehrenhaus, an ophthalmologist with New York Cornea Consultants, thinks Nintendo and Sony may be getting ahead of themselves with these disclaimers. 'It's hard to say that it'll ruin development,' says Ehrenhaus."

An anonymous reader writes "NoMachine has sneakily revealed it is closing its source of the NX compression technology with NX 4.0: 'This release marks an important milestone in the history of the company. Version 4.0 of the software, in fact, will be only available under a closed source license.'"

jamie writes "As some of you may have heard, the incoming Republican majority in Congress has a new initiative called YouCut, which lets ordinary Americans like me propose government programs for termination. So imagine how excited I was to learn that YouCut's first target — yes, its first target — was that notoriously bloated white elephant, the National Science Foundation."

ctmurray writes "The independent writers who publish on Amazon report that erotica books containing incest are being taken down with no explanation by Amazon, and removed from the Kindles of purchasers of the books. Author Selena Kitt writes: 'I want to be clear that while the subject of incest may not appeal to some, there is no underage contact in any of my work, and I make that either explicitly clear in all my stories or I state it up front in the book's disclaimer. I don't condone or support actual incest, just as someone who writes mysteries about serial killers wouldn't condone killing. What I write is fiction.' Kindle's own TV ad features a book with a story line of sex between a 19-year-old and his stepmother, defined in some states as incest (Sleepwalking by Amy Bloom)."

heptapod writes "Slashdot reported earlier about Google's Chrome notebook and keen-eyed readers would have noticed the lack of a caps lock key. 'According to Google, this will improve the quality of the comments, because people will not be able to write all in capital letters. I'm not a fan of the caps lock key myself. I never use it, so it can go to hell, for all I'm concerned. But taking away choice from people is not good, especially when this is not going to improve the quality of comments.'"

cylonlover writes "Researchers from Aachen University's Media Computing Group have created a computer workstation called the BendDesk where the desk and screen are transformed into one multi-touch display. The display is curved at the middle and uses infrared emitters and cameras to track user movement over the whole of the surface, which has its graphical user interface beamed onto it by a couple of short throw projectors hidden within its wooden frame."

Dr. Alan Hirsch, Director of Chicago's Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Center, says the key to a man's heart, and other parts, is pumpkin pie. Out of the 40 odors tested in Hirsch's study, a mixture of lavender and pumpkin pie got the biggest rise out of men ages 18 to 64. That particular fragrance was found to increase penile blood flow by an average of 40%. "Maybe the odors acted to reduce anxiety. By reducing anxiety, it acted to remove inhibitions," said Hirsch.

astroengine writes "A UC Santa Barbara associate professor is disputing the accuracy of the mesoamerican 'Long Count' calendar after highlighting several astronomical flaws in a correlation factor used to synchronize the ancient Mayan calendar with our modern Gregorian calendar. If proven to be correct, Gerardo Aldana may have nudged the infamous December 21, 2012 'End of the World' date out by at least 60 days. Unfortunately, even if the apocalypse is rescheduled, doomsday theorists will unlikely take note."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Google has written a defense of their joint Net Neutrality proposal with Verizon, responding to criticism like the EFF's recent review. Google presents its arguments as a list of myths and facts, but too many of them look like this one: 'MYTH: This proposal would eliminate network neutrality over wireless. FACT: It's true that Google previously has advocated for certain openness safeguards to be applied in a similar fashion to what would be applied to wireline services. However, in the spirit of compromise, we have agreed to a proposal that allows this market to remain free from regulation for now, while Congress keeps a watchful eye. Why? First, the wireless market is more competitive than the wireline market, given that consumers typically have more than just two providers to choose from. Second, because wireless networks employ airwaves, rather than wires, and share constrained capacity among many users, these carriers need to manage their networks more actively. Third, network and device openness is now beginning to take off as a significant business model in this space.'"

myshadows writes "Tech Review has an interesting article on how Tokyo Metropolitan University researchers have been able to give a sensory addition to gaming peripherals — namely, temperature. 'As the range of interactions with digital environments expands, it's logical to ask what's next: Smell-o-vision has been on the horizon for something like 50 years, but there's a dark horse stalking this race: thermoelectrics. Based on the Peltier effect, these solid-state devices are easy to incorporate into objects of reasonable size, i.e. video game controllers. In this configuration, just announced at the 2010 SIGGRAPH conference, a pair of thermoelectric surfaces on either side of a controller rapidly heat up or cool down in order to simulate appropriate conditions in a virtual environment.'"

thsoundman sends in a blog post from Rahul Sood, CTO of HP's gaming business, who claims there was once a project in development at Microsoft to let Xbox users compete against PC users playing the same game. According to Sood, the project was killed because the console players kept getting destroyed by their PC counterparts. He wrote, "Those of us who have been in the gaming business for over a decade know the real deal. You simply don't get the same level of detail or control as you do with a PC over a console. It's a real shame that Microsoft killed this — because had they kept it alive it might have actually increased the desire of game developers and gamers alike to continue developing and playing rich experiences on the PC, which would trickle down to the console as it has in the past."

schliz writes "A new, trial network of software-based clocks could give data centers and networks the accuracy of an atomic clock for free. The so-called RADclock analyses information from multiple computers across the internet by collecting the time from each machine's internal quartz clock, the time it takes for this information to be transmitted across the network, and comparing all the information collected to determine a time that is most likely to be accurate, so machines are calibrated across the network with up to microsecond accuracy — as good as that provided by a $50,000 atomic clock, researchers say."