STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[MIKA27]

Samsung’s New Ultra HD TV Is 105 Inches of Curvy Excess

When it comes out in the second half of this year, Samsung’s whopping 105-inch Ultra HD TV won’t be the first television set with a 21:9 aspect ratio. It also won’t be the first 105-inch Ultra HD set — or the first curved TV with those specs.

None of this will make the massive set any less of a stunner though. It packs more than 11 million pixels into its concave curved display, which stretches about 8 feet wide and 3.5 feet tall. With those dimensions, the curved screen actually does make a difference when it comes to “immersion.” It’s a full-array LED-backlit set with local-dimming features, and it’s built for watching movies.

“This is targeted toward movie buffs who don’t want to put a projector in their home,” says Samsung’s Mike Wood, director of the company’s AV testing. “They may not care as much about how television programs look, but they want movies to look as big as possible.”

The terms “Ultra HD” and “4K” are usually interchangeable, but that’s not the case with this TV. It has a resolution of 5120 x 2160, so it’s actually higher-resolution than 4K on one axis. But while a 21:9 display combined with a sharp picture and a concave screen should create a more cinematic experience, the problem is finding content that’s a direct match for this TV’s resolution and aspect ratio.

Samsung says that the new TV can scale 16:9 4K movies to fill the screen — with some loss of resolution — to eliminate the black letterbox bars that appear when you watch widescreen content on 16:9 TVs. There will also be other options for viewing 16:9 content on the wider, slimmer screen: At native 16:9 ratio with pillarboxing on both sides of the picture, or with the 16:9 video pushed to one side of the screen, as smart-TV features or a web browser appears on the other side.

Those scenarios involve either artificially modifying the picture by stretching the picture or using only a portion of the super-wide screen. That said, with 4K source footage and an Ultra HD panel, you won’t notice the distortion as much as you would with standard-definition content on an HD screen. Samsung says that it is working with studio partners like 20th Century Fox and Paramount to provide streaming and hard-drive-based Ultra HD content shot in 21:9 to get the most out of the set.

“You could play LaserDiscs shot in (CinemaScope) on this screen, and it would fill it,” said Wood. “I don’t know how that would look because of LaserDisc’s resolution, but you could do it.”

No pricing has been set for the Samsung 105-inch set just yet, but seeing as LG’s own curved 105-inch Ultra HD set costs around $70,000, expect this Samsung’s tag to be up in the same astronomical price range.

[MIKA27]

Giant rat: Swedes agog at 'Ratzilla' in Stockholm

The appearance of a massive rat in a Stockholm family's kitchen has made headlines in Sweden, where it is being dubbed "Ratzilla".

Measuring 40cm (nearly 16in) plus tail, the creature terrified the family in Solna district.

Pest controllers finally killed the intruder using an oversized trap.

Even the family cat had refused to enter the kitchen while the giant rat was in residence, father Erik Korsas told BBC News.

It appears that it reached the kitchen via a ventilation pipe, having gnawed its way through cement and wood.

After devouring food leftovers under the sink, the creature feasted on a "Swedish smorgasbord" of waste in the bin, according to Mr Korsas.

The women of the house - mother Signe and daughters Dana and Erica, 17 and 15 respectively - took fright but his sons, 13-year-old Justus and six-year-old Laurentius, eventually proved themselves as genuine rat-hunters, he said.

It was the boys who investigated after the trap was sprung and the injured animal crawled away. It was they who brought him tools to help establish that it was well and truly dead.

Justus wielded the iPad which captured his father posing with the dead intruder.

'Mega rat'

The incident occurred three weeks ago and initially, after taking a few souvenir photos, the family thought no more about it.

But when they contacted Sweden's Home And Rent website to see if it was interested in the story, it rapidly scurried to the top of the country's news agenda, attracting the attention of reporters at newspapers including the English-language The Local.

The rat was removed by exterminators after its death

Erik Korsas (left) was concerned for his daughters Erica (seen here) and Dana, and his wife Signe

But Mr Korsas took pride in his boys, Laurentius (left) and Justus, when it came to checking whether the rat was truly dead

Enok the cat has always been better at catching flies, Mr Korsas says

On Tuesday, the "mega rat" became the most shared item for popular Swedish daily Aftonbladet, according to a tweet by journalist Sven Nordenstam.

Social media rang with gasps of disbelief, disgust and amusement. "Can't even read the news because there's a story about a giant rat on it," wrote one person. "I'd be moving on out of there," wrote another.

Laughing incredulously, Mr Korsas told the BBC that one reporter had said he should have frozen the rat's carcass for posterity.

He was dismayed at suggestions he had photo-shopped the whole thing. Not a penny, he stressed, was paid for any of the photos.

"What surprised me is people say they cannot even read the articles and cannot go to sleep because of this story," he told the BBC.

"The human race and rats have had a long relationship. We have gone hand in hand, both as enemies and friends."

Fly-catcher

Since the incident, the kitchen has been repaired and the family and its cat, Enok, have not been bothered by rats of any size. Nonetheless the family is "just waiting for the next rat to come home to us", Mr Korsas said.

The Stockholm rat weighed about a kilo (2.2lb), Mr Korsas believes. Despite regular media speculation, there appears to be little evidence of rats getting bigger in developed countries.

However, scientists do believe they could eventually grow into the size of sheep, Dr Jan Zalasiewicz, of the University of Leicester in the UK, recently told the BBC.

That said, any significant change would be a long way off.

[MIKA27]

CARLOCK

Chances of recovering a stolen vehicle are close to none if authorities are not notified in the first 24 hours.CarLock is a new security system that lets you monitor your car via your mobile phone. It consists of a small device connected to your car(plugs directly into the car diagnostic port), and using remote GPS technology, CarLock lets you keep track of the location and movements of your car from a mobile device.

[MIKA27]

WESTWARD OREGON MALT WHISKEY

I tend to place younger whiskies a step or two behind their more mature brethren. This is, of course, because some of the qualities that are evident in those drinks are due to the extra time mingling with the oak.

Westward Oregon Malt Whiskey however, is an exception to this rule. What it lacks in age, it makes up for in complexity and flavor.

It's made from 100% malted barley grown in the Pacific Northwest and is double pot distilled, which gives this unique drink many of the smooth characteristics you'd expect from an Irish whiskey. Proof that even a two year old whiskey can exceed expectations.

[MIKA27]

Ancient Sudanese Mummy has Christian Tattoo

Visitors to the upcoming “Ancient Lives: New Discoveries” exhibition on mummies at the British Museum will get a chance to view for the first time the mummified remains of a Sudanese woman found in 2005 along the banks of the Nile. She and seven other mummies were given CAT scans (computed tomography ) at London hospitals and those images, along with infrared reflectography and carbon dating, helped researchers create detailed images and analysis of what’s underneath their wrappings and sarcophagi.

One of the more interesting finds was a tattoo on the inner thigh of the right leg of a 20-to-35 woman who died in about AD 700 and lived in a Christian community in Sudan. The tattoo, faintly visible to the naked eye but visible in greater detail using infrared technology, spells out in ancient Greek the letters M-I-X-A-H-A or Michael and is a symbol of the Archangel Michael. It has been found in churches and on stone tablets but this is the first time in tattoo form.

More interesting discoveries about the tattooed lady and her mummified friends will be on display when the exhibit opens in May.

[Habana Mike]

Still rocking the crazy stuff, always love it!

[Habana Mike]

WESTWARD OREGON MALT WHISKEY

I tend to place younger whiskies a step or two behind their more mature brethren. This is, of course, because some of the qualities that are evident in those drinks are due to the extra time mingling with the oak.

Westward Oregon Malt Whiskey however, is an exception to this rule. What it lacks in age, it makes up for in complexity and flavor.

It's made from 100% malted barley grown in the Pacific Northwest and is double pot distilled, which gives this unique drink many of the smooth characteristics you'd expect from an Irish whiskey. Proof that even a two year old whiskey can exceed expectations.

They're doing it in North Carolina too. Defiant Single Malt made by salvage divers. Not bad at all for the age.....

[MIKA27]

The New Porsche Boxster GTS Tears Up Some Mountain Roads

The new Porsche Boxster GTS is top dog in the company’s entry-level two-door sports car category, which puts it squarely in competition with the cheapest mid-range Cayman. Both cars have a 3.4-litre six-cylinder boxer engine, nearly identical power output and 0-100 times well under five seconds. If we had to pick one, it’d be a difficult choice.

The 2014 Boxster GTS was officially announced in the middle of this month, but it now has an official video to accompany all its impressive technical data.

[MIKA27]

Global Research Teams Join Forces to Map the Human Brain

Earlier this week, researchers announced that the world’s two most ambitious brain-mapping initiatives—the U.S. Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative and the European Union’s Human Brain Project (HBP)—would collaborate, potentially directing a combined AU$5B in funding towards the goal of building a comprehensive map of the human brain.

Kristen Harris, lead neurobiologist at the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Learning and Memory, has dealt firsthand with the fairly low-tech—and, subsequently, frustratingly slow—brain mapping tools available to neuroscientists today. But as we work on better technology, she also sees considerable potential for advancement if we bring in scholars from other fields and address these questions in an interdisciplinary way:

But the basic technological problem she describes is huge. Neurotechnology stands to change considerably over the next ten years—and if the effort to map the human brain is to be successful, it will need to. While the HBP and BRAIN initiatives are often compared to the Human Genome Project, mapping a brain is a much more complex proposition than sequencing a genome—and given the many factors that affect brain development, results generated by a single map are likely to be far less uniformly applicable. And this is assuming that neuroscientists find only what they expect to find; as the recent discovery of the glymphatic system suggests, we are only now beginning to answer the simplest, broadest questions about the structure of the brain. It would be difficult to predict, and foolish to declare, what we’ll find next.

[Fuzz]

The New Porsche Boxster GTS Tears Up Some Mountain Roads

Does this one also spontaneously burst into flames?

[MIKA27]

Reaper Drones Might Add Dual-Mode Brimstone Missiles To Their Arsenal

Just in case the RQ-9 Reaper wasn’t effective enough as it is, the U.S. Department of Defence is considering adding a hyper-accurate, collateral damage-minimising supersonic missile to its armament. These things are nuts.

The Dual Mode Brimstone by MBDA is a millimetre wave radar and semi-active laser guided missile designed for use against fast-moving targets, both at land and at sea, while minimising the risk of collateral damage. It measures just under 6 feet long, weighs 110 pounds, and accelerates its tandem shaped-charge warhead to supersonic speeds using a solid-state rocket motor, giving the Brimstone a range of up to 7.5 miles. It can be guided to its target by both an onboard millimetre wave radar and by following the designating laser of forces on the ground.

http://youtu.be/Iw2Jswucfjk

Recent tests held at the US Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake saw Reaper crews tick off 9 shots of the Brimstone against a variety of static and moving targets, scoring direct hits on each and every one of them. Fired from an average altitude of 20,000 feet and distance of 4.3 miles, the Brimstone even successfully engaged trucks travelling at speeds in excess of 70 mph. The Brimstone has also proven itself effective against numerous vehicles and structures including cars, motorcycles, trucks, tanks, armoured vehicles, bunkers, and naval fast in-shore attack craft (FIAC).

There’s no word yet on when exactly the US military could begin deploying Brimstones aboard RQ-9s. But you can be sure you don’t want to be anywhere near them once they do.

[Fuzz]

The Real Dangers of Google Glass

For those of you looking to purchase a Google Glass, this video may be useful....

[MIKA27]

The Real Dangers of Google Glass

For those of you looking to purchase a Google Glass, this video may be useful....

Oh man....ain't that the truth!

[MIKA27]

Ring Of Thieves Pulls Off Huge Luggage Heist At LAX

You probably don’t realise it, but hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods pass through airports every day inside of passengers’ baggage. Well, a ring of baggage handlers at LAX certainly realised it. Police say they have been stealing thousands of dollars worth of goods right out of people’s suitcases for months.

Earlier this week, a joint task force arrested six people suspected of being involved in one of the biggest property thefts in airport history. This was no Ocean’s Eleven-calibre heist, either. “Basically everything of value — be it electronics, jewelry and items — that could be stolen in seconds would be removed from bags,” LAX Police Chief Pat Gannon told the press. “They’d just open up the suitcases and rifle through them and pocket valuables.” Then the baggage handlers would sell the stuff on Craigslist.

This isn’t the first time a scheme like this has cropped up at LAX. In 2007, another ring of 11 airport workers were suspected of stealing valuables from passengers, including a $US100,000 watch that belonged to Paris Hilton. So this latest heist just gives you one more reason to lock your luggage . Of course, there’s no guarantees that the TSA won’t just cut it right off. [Los Angeles Times]

[MIKA27]

No Matter How Many Times I See This Happen, It Still Leaves Me In Awe

Neat shot of two Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft super-carriers — the USS George H.W. Bush and USS Harry S. Truman — cruising together in the Arabian Sea.

I still find amazing that ten of these giant monsters roam the seas.

[MIKA27]

Would You Like To Jump From Low Earth Orbit Using This Awesome Suit?

Fearless Felix Baumgartner’s jump was truly amazing but, at about 38,710m, it wasn’t from orbit — not even low Earth orbit. Maybe one day someone will beat his record with this re-entry emergency suit. Can you imagine being inside as you plunge into Earth’s atmosphere and everything turns into fire?

You know how it goes: “I’m burning through the sky yeah! Two hundred degrees, that’s why they call me Mister Fahrenheit! I’m trav’ling at the speed of light! I wanna make a supersonic man out of you!”

Of course, we don’t know if this re-entry suit designed by Bulgarian artist “dfacto” can work at all. Perhaps NASA has similar things in mind, but this is just a wishful concept. Maybe it’s not even possible — but possible or not, it’s a really cool concept nonetheless.

[MIKA27]

Jimmy Carter: I Think The NSA Is Spying On Me

Former President Jimmy Carter thinks the NSA is spying on him. In an interview on NBC, Carter explained that he favoured pen, paper and stamps to email because it meant his message wouldn’t be snooped on. He explained:

“As a matter of fact, you know, I have felt that my own communications were probably monitored. And when I want to communicate with a foreign leader privately, I type or write the letter myself, put it in the post office and mail it because I believe if I sent an email, it will be monitored.”

Carter went on to say that the NSA’s spying program have been “extremely liberalised” and have “abused our own intelligence agencies”. In the coming week, officials are expected to submit final recommendation to President Obama about who should host the NSA’s collected telephone metadata.

[MIKA27]

The Complete Map To Earth's Deepest Cave -- 2197m Deep, 13km Long

At 2,197 meters (7,208 feet) the Krubera cave is the deepest on Earth. Located in the Arabika Massif, of the Western Caucasus in Abkhazia, Georgia, it extends for 13.432 kilometers (8,346 miles.) I would love to get inside, but I know the fear would paralyze me. I love to go through its complete (so far) map, though.

Probably the scariest fact is this:

Ukrainian diver Gennadiy Samokhin extended the cave by diving in the terminal sump to 46 m depth in 2007 and then to 52 m in 2012, setting successive world records of 2,191 m and 2,197 m respectively. Krubera remains the only known cave on Earth deeper than 2,000 meters.

Imagine that. Dive into the “terminal sump” for 52 meters more! I know that there’s probably nothing big living in there, but if there are any monsters hiding somewhere in this world, it has to be in one of these caves.

[MIKA27]

Watch the Godfather of Air Racing Fly Through a 70-Foot-Wide Canal

The Corinth Canal in Greece is 4 miles long and only 70 feet wide, and Peter Besenyei just became the first man to fly a plane right through the middle. And then he did a few barrel rolls for good measure.

The canal was built in the late 1800s to connect the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It cut through the Peloponnesian peninsula, making the tip an island. But because of financial problems, its narrow passage, and a bad habit of dropping rocks onto the heads of merchant ships, it never gained much traction as a shipping canal. But it is good for something.

Enter Besenyei. Known as the godfather of the Red Bull Air Race, the test pilot was instrumental in helping develop the insane, high-speed race series in 2001, laying out the regulations and selecting the first batch of pilots that would compete 80 feet above the ground at 200 mph.

For his flight through the canal, Besenyei used the same Zivko Edge 540 single-prop used in the air races, with a 300 horsepower engine, a 24-foot wingspan, and its ability to rocket to 4,000 feet in less than a minute. It’s also supremely agile, perfect for maneuvering through pillions and, now, running through an abandoned canal.

[MIKA27]

North Korea Threatens ‘New Form’ of Nuclear Test

The Communist nation warned Sunday it would test an unspecified new kind of nuclear weapon despite global censure. Its new threat follows test-firings of two Rodong mid-range ballistic missiles, which landed in the sea between North Korea and Japan on Wednesday

North Korea promised Sunday to carry out a “new form” of nuclear test after a recent round of ballistic testing, heightening tensions on the divided Korean peninsula.

The North’s Foreign Ministry didn’t specify what it meant by a “new form” of nuclear testing. However, Western allies have long believed the isolated state is trying to make small nuclear weapons that can be carried by intercontinental ballistic missiles, the New York Times reports.

Pyongyang’s new threat follows test-firings of two Rodong mid-range ballistic missiles, which landed in the sea between North Korea and Japan on Wednesday.

North Korea prompted tightened sanctions and global condemnation when it carried out its third nuclear test a year ago.

“North Korea should bear in mind that if it ignores the stern demand from the neighboring countries and the international community and carries out a nuclear test, it will have to pay a price for it,” South Korea Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tae-young said.

North Korea has struck a defiant tone despite overtures from South Korea that include generous foreign investment if the North ends its nuclear program. Pyongyang’s warnings also come as North Korean and Japanese officials are meeting for their first high-level talks in more than a year.

[MIKA27]

Men held over Vatican Bank 'three trillion euro bond fraud'

Italian police have arrested two men who were allegedly trying to deposit trillions of euros in fake bonds in the Vatican bank.

Officials say the pair, an American and a Dutch national, claimed they had an appointment with bank officials to gain entry but were handed over to police.

Fake bonds with a face value of 3tr euros ($4.1tr; £2.5tr) were found in their briefcase, the officials say.

The suspects were reportedly hoping to open a line of credit at the bank.

The bank - officially called the Institute for the Works of Religion - runs thousands of private accounts held by cardinals, bishops and religious orders all over the world.

The two suspects were later released pending further investigation, Financial Guard police officer Davide Cardia told AP news agency, as Italian law does not require arrest for fraud investigations.

The Vatican has been tightening up banking procedures after criticism by a European watchdog body that it has been used as an offshore fiscal haven.

Pope Francis has ordered a complete overhaul of the bank and a detailed inquiry into the transparency of its transactions.

The pontiff sacked two former directors who now face possible trial on money-laundering charges.

[MIKA27]

Scientists Create Sensor For Night Vision Contact Lenses

It may seem like the stuff from spy and superhero movies but scientists have created “the first room-temperature light detector that can sense the full infrared spectrum” which, according to researchers at the University of Michigan, can be made so thin that it can be easily stacked on night vision contact lenses.

Back in 2011 some speculated that Seal Team Six used night vision contact lenses in the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. Those rumours were never substantiated, but this invention is very real — the research has been published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology by a team at the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering led by Zhaohui Zhong and Ted Norris.

They have achieved this feat inventing “a new way to detect light,” according to Zhong. The detector uses graphene, the one-atom thick layer carbon atoms that was known to capture the entire spectrum but with a very low sensitivity, absorbing only 2.3 per cent of the light that goes through it. That render graphene unusable for sensors, but the team were able to overcome this by amplifying the signal “by looking instead at how the light-induced electrical charges in the graphene affect a nearby current.”

To make the device, they put an insulating barrier layer between two graphene sheets. The bottom layer had a current running through it. When light hit the top layer, it freed electrons, creating positively charged holes. Then, the electrons used a quantum mechanical trick to slip through the barrier and into the bottom layer of graphene.

The positively-charged holes, left behind in the top layer, produced an electric field that affected the flow of electricity through the bottom layer. By measuring the change in current, the team could deduce the brightness of the light hitting the graphene.

The result is a sensor that has the same sensitivity of the bulky, cooled mid- and far-infrared detectors in the market today. One that, amazingly enough, works at room temperature and can be made so thin that you can put it in contact lenses and mobile phones, according to Zhong:

We can make the entire design super-thin. It can be stacked on a contact lens or integrated with a cell phone. If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision. It provides you another way of interacting with your environment.

This, and not Google Glass, is what excites me: New ways to transparently expand our senses.

[MIKA27]

The Fossilised Machines Humans Will Leave Behind

In the debut issue of a new journal called The Anthropocene Review, University of Leicester geologist Jan Zalasiewicz leads a team of five writers in discussing the gradual fossilisation of human artifacts, including industrial machines, everyday objects, and even whole cities. They refer to these as “technofossils,” and they’re destined to form a whole new layer of the earth’s surface.

As Mark Williams, a co-author on the paper, explained in a recent press release: “If any palaeontologists were to appear on — or visit — the Earth in the far geological future, they will think the technofossil layer more weird and wonderful, by far, than dinosaur bones.”

The “technofossil layer” he’s referring to will be a new stratum of fossilized machinery: strange and compressed artifacts “that will range in scale from the near-continental (urban conglomerations) to small (e.g. bottles, pens) to microscopic (e.g. fly ash particles and other ‘nano-artifacts’),” the authors explain in the paper.

The authors add some theoretical context, illustrating the various scales at which this fossilisation will occur, even, at one point, suggesting that deep mining tunnels are candidates for future fossilisation, and that “deep crustal penetration,” as they describe it, might even be one of the last traces left behind by human beings. The science fiction-like implication here — that, on other rocky planets, we might be better off looking for deep and ancient mines preserved beneath kilometers of rock, rather than ruined cities in the dust and radiation of the planet’s surface — is pretty mind-boggling, and perhaps even suggests (even if only for budding young novelists) other, more subterranean strategies for finding civilizations on other worlds.

In any case, Zalasiewicz is already widely known for his detailed geological speculations about what will happen to the cities of the world over the next several hundred million years, as places like Los Angeles are eroded away entirely and others — including delta cities such as New Orleans, Hanoi, and London, to name but a few — will gradually be entombed in mud, buried, cooked, and literally fossilised. These vast and sprawling fossil landscapes will perhaps then be partially exhumed by some far-future civilisation and displayed in museums, forming mysterious artifacts as impossibly ancient for those gazing upon them as the dinosaurs are for us today.

[MIKA27]

Another Insanely Cool F-16 Pilot Selfie Makes Me Jealous

Image of the day: The Aviationist’s David Cenciotti argues that F-16 pilots take the most amazing selfies because of the fighter’s bubble canopy.

Looking at the evidence, it’s impossible to debate his argument. That rounded glass gives the very best view of any of the modern jets — perhaps even better than good old P-51 Mustang. This is a Royal Norwegian Air Force pilot over Tromso fjord.

[MIKA27]

What Makes Dark Energy Dark?

Nobody knows exactly what dark energy is, but most theoretical physicists agree that it comprises most of the energy in the universe and is largely responsible for the fact that the universe hasn’t collapsed back in on itself like a deflating balloon. Or as SciShow host Hank Green puts it: “The bottom line is that whatever dark energy, and whatever it’s doing, it’s doing it like crazy.” Actually, Hank’s three-minute description of dark energy is well worth watching in its own right:

SpaceDaily has recently brought attention to the Basilakos-Solá hypothesis, which argues that the quantum vacuum itself, the apparent emptiness of the inert universe, produces the majority of the universe’s energy (and the entirety of dark energy) by way of quantum fluctuations. The idea that there is more energy in the quantum vacuum than we suspect isn’t an especially new one—Einstein’s cosmological constant expressed a very similar idea—but the idea that dark energy could exist in the quantum vacuum not as a constant, but as a very large-scale distribution of quantum fluctuations, is a bold one. (“Nothing,” Paula Solá told the magazine, “is more ‘full’ than the quantum vacuum, since it is full of fluctuations that contribute fundamentally to the values that we observe and measure.”) Basilakos and Solá suggest that dark energy is simply the unrecorded energy crackling in and out of existence all around us—not a strange new form of energy, but an unrecognized expression of what we can already see.