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Submission + - Japanese firm showcases 'touchable' 3-D technology (japantimes.co.jp)

Submitted by skade88
skade88 writes: Unveiling technology that generates touchable 3-D imagery, developers said Monday objects that only exist in the virtual world could be manipulated as if they were real.

Officials of Miraisens, a high-tech firm based outside Tokyo, said the technology, which can be used to improve the gaming experience or allow someone to physically shape objects that exist only on a computer, will soon be available for purchase.

“Touching is an important part of human communication, but until now virtual reality has lacked it,” Chief Executive Natsuo Koda said.

“This technology will give you a sense that you can touch objects in the 3-D world,” said Koda, a former virtual reality researcher for Sony Corp.

It works by fooling the brain, blending what the eye sees with different patterns of vibration created by a small fingertip device, said Norio Nakamura, the inventor of so-called 3D-Haptics Technology and chief technical officer at the firm.

In one demonstration of a prototype head-mounted display, the company showed how the wearer can feel resistance by pushing virtual buttons.

Submission + - Physicist Peter Higgs: No University Would Employ Me Today (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Peter Higgs, the physicist who laid the groundwork for the discovery of the Higgs boson, and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics, says he doubts any university would give him a job today. Higgs says universities wouldn't consider him productive enough; though the papers he published were important and of high quality, he didn't have the volume necessary for serious consideration in today's competitive employment environment. 'He doubts a similar breakthrough could be achieved in today's academic culture, because of the expectations on academics to collaborate and keep churning out papers. He said: "It's difficult to imagine how I would ever have enough peace and quiet in the present sort of climate to do what I did in 1964." Speaking to the Guardian en route to Stockholm to receive the 2013 Nobel prize for science, Higgs, 84, said he would almost certainly have been sacked had he not been nominated for the Nobel in 1980.' His comments highlight the absurdity of the current system for finding researchers in academia. How many researchers of Higgs' caliber have been turned down for similar reasons?

Submission + - US Issues 30-Year Eagle-Killing Permits To Wind Industry

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Lindsay Abrams reports at Salon that in an attempt to encourage the growth of wind power, the Obama administration has announced that it is offering wind farms 30 years of leeway to kill and harm bald and golden eagles. The new regulations, which were requested by the wind industry, will provide companies that seek a permit with legal protection, preventing them from having to pay penalties for eagle deaths. An investigation by the Associated Press earlier this year documented the illegal killing of eagles around wind farms, the Obama administration's reluctance to prosecute such cases and its willingness to help keep the scope of the eagle deaths secret. President Obama has championed the pollution-free energy, nearly doubling America's wind power in his first term as a way to tackle global warming. Scientists say wind farms in 10 states have killed at least 85 eagles since 1997, with most deaths occurring between 2008 and 2012, as the industry was greatly expanding. Most deaths — 79 — were golden eagles that struck wind turbines. However the scientists said their figure is likely to be "substantially" underestimated, since companies report eagle deaths voluntarily and only a fraction of those included in their total were discovered during searches for dead birds by wind-energy companies. The National Audubon Society said it would challenge the decision. ”Instead of balancing the need for conservation and renewable energy, Interior wrote the wind industry a blank check,” says Audubon President and CEO David Yarnold. "It’s outrageous that the government is sanctioning the killing of America’s symbol, the Bald Eagle."

Submission + - US Now Produces More Oil and Gas Than Russia and Saudi Arabia

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Claudia Assis writes that the US will end 2013 as the world’s largest producer of petroleum and natural gas, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia with the Energy Information Administration estimating that combined US petroleum and gas production this year will hit 50 quadrillion British thermal units, or 25 million barrels of oil equivalent a day, outproducing Russia by 5 quadrillion Btu. Most of the new oil was coming from the western states. Oil production in Texas has more than doubled since 2010. In North Dakota, it has tripled, and Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah have also shown steep rises in oil production over the same three years, according to EIA data. Tapping shale rock for oil and gas has fueled the US boom, while Russia has struggled to keep up its output. "This is a remarkable turn of events," says Adam Sieminski, head of the US Energy Information Administration. "This is a new era of thinking about market conditions, and opportunities created by these conditions, that you wouldn't in a million years have dreamed about." But even optimists in the US concede that the shale boom's longevity could hinge on commodity prices, government regulations and public support, the last of which could be problematic. A poll last month by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that opposition to increased use of fracking rose to 49% from 38% in the previous six months. "It is not a supply question anymore," says Ken Hersh. "It is about demand and the cost of production. Those are the two drivers."

Submission + - Could IBM's Watson Put Google in Jeopardy? 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Over at Wired, Vashant Dhar poses a provocative question: What If IBM’s Watson Dethroned the King of Search? "If IBM did search," Dhar writes, "Watson would do much better than Google on the tough problems and they could still resort to a simple PageRank-like algorithm as a last resort. Which means there would be no reason for anyone to start their searches on Google. All the search traffic that makes Google seemingly invincible now could begin to shrink over time." Mixing supercomputers with a scalable architecture of massive amounts of simple processors and storage, Dhar surmises, would provide a formidable combination of a machine that can remember, know, and think. And because the costs of switching from Google search would not be prohibitive for most, the company is much more vulnerable to disruption. "The only question," Dhar concludes, "is whether it [IBM] wants to try and dethrone Google from its perch. That’s one answer Watson can’t provide."

Submission + - Shots fired at US Capital (nbcnews.com)

Submitted by skade88
skade88 writes: The United States Capital has been put on lock down after shots were fired. Reports indicate a policeman was injured.

Submission + - Cells Reprogrammed in Living Mice (sciencemag.org) 1

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers have discovered a surprisingly effective way to “reprogram” mature mouse cells into an embryolike state, able to become any of the body’s cell types. Their recipe: Let the transformation happen in a living animal instead of a petri dish. The finding could help scientists better understand how reprogramming works and it may one day help breed replacement tissues or organs in the lab—or in living patients.

Submission + - Valve Announces Family Sharing on Steam, Can Include Friends (techgage.com)

Submitted by Deathspawner
Deathspawner writes: Valve has today announced its next attempt at a console-killer with “Family Sharing”, a feature that will allow you to share your Steam library with family, and close friends. This almost seems too good to be true, and while there are caveats, this is going to be huge, and Valve knows it. As Techgage notes, with it you can share nearly your entire Steam library with family or friends, allowing them to earn their own achievements, and have their own saved games. Given the mammoth collection of games available on Steam, the fact that this feature is becoming a reality is almost as interesting as the feature itself.

Submission + - SSD Failure Temporarily Halts Linux 3.12 Kernel Work 1

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: The sudden death of a solid-state drive in Linus Torvalds' main workstation has led to the work on the 3.12 Linux Kernel to be temporarily suspended. Torvalds has not been able to recover anything from the drive. Subsystem maintainers who have outstanding pull requests may need to re-submit their requests in the coming days. If the SSD isn't recoverable he will finish out the Linux 3.12 merge window from a laptop.

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