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Intel

The Big Technical Mistakes of History 244

An anonymous reader tips a PC Authority review of some of the biggest technical goofs of all time. "As any computer programmer will tell you, some of the most confusing and complex issues can stem from the simplest of errors. This article looking back at history's big technical mistakes includes some interesting trivia, such as NASA's failure to convert measurements to metric, resulting in the Mars Climate Orbiter being torn apart by the Martian atmosphere. Then there is the infamous Intel Pentium floating point fiasco, which cost the company $450m in direct costs, a battering on the world's stock exchanges, and a huge black mark on its reputation. Also on the list is Iridium, the global satellite phone network that promised to make phones work anywhere on the planet, but required 77 satellites to be launched into space."
GUI

Augmented Reality To Help Mechanics Fix Vehicles 81

kkleiner writes "ARMAR, or Augmented Reality for Maintenance and Repair, is a head mounted display unit that provides graphic overlays to assist you in making repairs. An Android phone provides an interface to control the graphics you view during the process. Published in IEEE, and recently tested with the United States Marine Corps on an armored turret, ARMAR can cut maintenance times in half by guiding users to the damaged area and displaying 3D animations to demonstrate the appropriate tools and techniques."
Image

Yamaha Unveils Golf Cart Powered By Cow Dung 78

Jessica Mischner writes "You've seen cars powered by the sun, wind and biofuels — but a vehicle propelled by dung? Yamaha just unveiled the first one at a golf course in Japan. The experimental golf cart doesn't run on cow dung directly — the poo is processed into biofuel which is then converted into methane — but it represents a huge leap forward for green innovations."

Comment Gogo in-flight Wifi already in service (Score 3, Informative) 303

Other than the fact that they are expanding the routes on which this is offered, I'm not sure how this is new news. Gogo has been offering service on trans-con American Airlines flights from LA to the east coast for at least 6 months now.

I've used it a few times, and it works OK. Speeds were reasonable (100-150KB download speeds, ping times comparable to mobile broadband, 150-200ms) and I think there was only 1 dead spot for a few minutes during the times that I was logged in. They did not block VPN access so you could conceivably use VoIP once you VPN, but I did not try this.

A link to the actual service (rather than USA today or a blog) would help too:

http://www.gogoinflight.com/

Television

Submission + - Retailers leak new TiVo HD specs, price 1

Brent writes: Retailers goofed and posted most of the specs of the forthcoming Tivo Series 3 Lite, which Ars says may be called 'TiVo HD' at launch. A comparison with the standard Series 3 shows that for a savings of $300, you only lose the OLED screen (do you need a screen on your Tivo?), the glowing remote (which you can pickup for $50 anyway), THX certification (worthless) and 90GB of storage. Looks like it may be a Tivo hackers's dream.

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