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

[MIKA27]

Skype Says It Can Support Holographic Video Calls

For decades, we’ve been waiting for oh-so-futuristic hologram technology to make the leap from Star Warsmovies to our living rooms, and it hasn’t. But it sounds like it’s right around the corner after Skype announced that it had developed 3D video chat technology in the lab.

The Microsoft executive responsible for Skype recently disclosed the milestone in an interview with the BBC, but he did so with a healthy dose of realism.

Indeed, Skype is making progress in its stated mission to project a “realistic physical ‘body double’” during a Skype call. Despite the fact that many top-of-the-line displays now offer 3D capabilities, however, it will take a few years before Skype can offer the feature to the mass market due to limitations in widely available capturing tools.

“The capture devices are not yet there,” Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Skype Mark Gillett told the BBC. “As we work with that kind of technology you have to add multiple cameras to your computer, precisely calibrate them and point them at the right angle.” He added, “We have it in the lab, we know how to make it work and we’re looking at the ecosystem of devices and their capability to support it in order to make a decision when we might think about bringing something like that to market.”

Skype isn’t the only one working on making holographic video chats a reality. Earlier this year, holographic technology startup Provision 3D Media launched a Kickstarter project aimed at making the Princess Leia effect a reality for the average consumer.

However, after Provision’s Kickstarter page got taken down over a copyright dispute, it’s become increasingly clear that this might be a job for the pros — more specifically, their deep corporate coffers.

Speed bumps and scepticism aside, all signs point to progress in the realm of futuristic video chats. Researchers

recently developed a way to reorient faces in Skype calls so that you’re always looking at the camera, and an IBM survey found that most researchers believed the capability for full-on 3D video chats would arrive by 2015. Well, it’s already here. The only question now is when Skype will let us have it.

[MIKA27]

Goodbye Ugly Futons: Laid-Back Lounger Transforms To Sleep One

They’re a cheap and easy way to add some extra sleeping space to your apartment, but futons are a sure sign that you’re either in school, just graduated from school, or can’t stop reliving school. If you’re looking for a slightly more sophisticated way to accommodate guests, like an adult, this incredibly comfy-looking Figo lounger transforms into a bed for one — in style.

You don’t even need to sacrifice one of the pillows from your bed, because the Figo has one built-in that doubles as a headrest when it’s not prepped for sleeping. At $US550 it’s nowhere near as cheap as an air mattress, but buying nicer things is all part of that whole growing up thing.

[MIKA27]

You'd Be Crazy Not To Buy This Straitjacketed Wine

Picking out the right bottle of wine to take to a dinner party is too often a tough task, so many people go with the pick-the-pretty-label approach. And, of course, you want to send the right message. With Vino Loco, that message is loud and clear: You crazy.

This Spanish-designed bottle of wine comes wrapped in a cute little straitjacket and packed in a padded box that holds three bottles. It makes the perfect gift for your looney neighbour, your psychiatrist uncle or an unsuspecting coworker. It’s less perfect for your friend who just got released from a mental institution.

[MIKA27]

A Children's Treasury Of Insane Designs For Kazakhstan's World Expo

The architectural rendering is a subtle knife. It can be used to convince, intimidate and generate laffs — or all three at once, if you’re really good. Such is the case with this collection of renderings, which show proposed designs for the upcoming 2017 World Expo in Kazakhstan.

The Expo will bring an estimated three million people to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, in less than four years. When they get there, they’ll be treated to exhibits from over a hundred different countries, all located within a central hub — the design of which is still up in the air. Last spring, the Expo organisers invited international firms to propose ideas for these space — and the resulting designs are on view in Astana now (the winner will be announced next month).

Astana is already home to some fairly bonkers architecture, stemming both from its history as a Soviet outpost and its recent building boom, which has seen the construction of dozens of enormous, futuristic structures. Designed in a fit of wishful thinking, its bombastic buildings are vastly too large for the number of people who use them. As writer Jeffrey Inaba once explained:

A photographic inventory of recent and not-so-recent architecture shows that Kazakhstan’s interiors are as beautifully over-scaled as their outdoor counterparts. Hallways are dimensioned to accommodate rush-hour Tokyo pedestrian traffic. Classrooms are longer than the distance a teacher’s voice can carry. Lobbies are proportioned for the largest conceivable assembly of people. Vegetation, which is not present outside for most of the year, is strategically arranged to fill the inevitable void in composition. The potted plant is an architectural detail.

These Expo designs — which hail from architects all over the world — seem to continue the trend over overbuilding. And it’s hard to say whether hosting the World Expo will be a good investment for the city. More and more critics are questioning the value traditionally placed upon hosting international events like the Olympics and the World Cup, arguing that the investment required to build gigantic new structures and venues ends up dragging host cities into deep debt.

It’s still too early to say whether the same issues will befall Astana. So for now, let’s enjoy the renderings free of context, scale, or questions about their value. Here we go!

Kokkugia (UK):

J. Mayer H. Architects (Germany):

Mecanoo (Netherlands):

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (USA):

Zaha Hadid Architects (UK):

UNStudio (Netherlands):

Studio Pei-Zhu (China):

COOP HIMMELB(L)AU Wolf D. Prix & Partner ZT GmbH (Austria):

Safdie Architects (USA):

Serie Architects (UK):

[MIKA27]

Endangered Animal Sperm Bank Will Let Us Bring Pandas To Space

Whether or not you think that certain endangered animals are worth all the fuss — *cough*pandas*cough* — judging by the internet’s recent, excited tittering over a potential panda pregnancy, the majority of people are very much pro-animal kingdom diversity. So much so, in fact, that a team of Japanese scientists has begun freeze-drying certain endangered animals’ sperm in the hopes of one day bringing them with us to other planets.

So far, the team at Kyoto University’s Institute of Laboratory Animals Graduate School of Medicine has successfully preserved the sperm of two different endangered primates and a species of giraffe. This sperm is being stored for a very, very long haul, though, and if this stuff really is going to last until we’re ready to blast off, it needs to be incredibly stable. To solve this problem, Takehito Kaneko, an associate professor working on the study, mixed the animals’ baby juice with a special preservative before freeze-drying the mixture, allowing it to safely exist at a cool — but still much warmer than other methods would require — 4C.

Before any of this could begin though, the researchers tested the process on sperm samples from rats and mice to fantastic results — they were still able to prove the full viability of the rats’ little swimmers five years later. As Kaneko told Agence France-Press:

In this way, scientists will be able to obtain genetic information more easily, which means we could help to preserve endangered animal species. This may sound like a dream, but we could in future take genetic information into space. Now we have to use fresh eggs or those frozen conventionally, but we are studying methods to freeze-dry eggs as well.

Better still, the sperm would even be able to survive if storage lab suffered a power failure — assuming the outage only lasted a short period of time, of course. As of now, though, all we really have is a whole lot of giraffe sperm and nothing to do with it.

The real magic won’t come until we figure out how to apply similar techniques to the animals’ eggs. And when that happens, who knows — one day, your great-grandchild might wake up every Martian morning only to hitch a ride to school on the nearest roaming space panda.

[MIKA27]

Take A Tour Of This Insane Solar Thermal Energy Plant

Sometime in the next few months, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System will flip the switch on the largest solar plant of its kind in the world: a 377-megawatt, 3500-acre solar thermal energy system. It’s located in California’s Mojave Desert, near the Nevada border, and it’s ridiculously big. ‘

‘I would suggest going to check it out in person during your next Vegas binge weekend, but from the 15 freeway it’s little more than a silvery blur — a rippling, mirage-like, silvery blur that feels like it might sear your retinas if you look at it too long. So it’s a good thing they’ve just posted this incredible virtual tour.

A boiler atop one of three towers where the mirrors focus the sun’s light. It really does glow white-hot like this.

Unlike traditional photovoltaic cells, where semiconductors create an electronic circuit to convert solar radiation into energy, Ivanpah uses “heliostats”, or giant computer-controlled mirrors, that focus the sun’s energy onto boilers located atop 140m towers, creating steam that powers turbines, thus creating energy. The water is then air-cooled and recycled in a closed-loop system.

Heliostats are mechanically moved as needed to maximise the sun’s reflection.

Since photovoltaics are static and have to be positioned very precisely, the heliostats are more low-impact, requiring minimal land grading. The plant estimates it will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 360,000 tonnes per year, the equivalent of taking 2.1 million cars off the road during its 30-year lifecycle.

It’s like a funhouse! Heliostats waiting to be put into place.

When finished the plant will have over 300,000 heliostats, or enough mirrors to replace all the windows of the Empire State Building 54 times.

The heliostats are assembled in here, using metal poles which are drilled into the ground.

Ivanpah will power over 140,000 California homes during peak hours. The plant also features investors like Google and a $US1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

Here’s where “pad bonding” happens, attaching the mirrors to their steel frames.

But it hasn’t been all sunshine and Google investments for Ivanpah. After determining that the habitat was threatening 200 desert tortoises, the tortoises were relocated to other parts of the Mojave Desert at a scandalous cost of $50,000 per tortoise.

Here’s a video of construction, where you can watch the mirrors spin into place like a giant disco ball.

Last month, President Obama’s climate action plan set a goal to permit enough wind and solar projects on public lands to power six million homes by 2020, and from the number of new projects underway, it looks like it might happen. About an hour northeast, construction has started on Copper Mountain 3, a 250-megawatt, 1400-acre photovoltaic plant outside Boulder City, Nevada. This is the third phase of a massive development will also be one of the largest solar plants in the world.

But they both better watch their backs: The Blythe Solar Power Project, a 485-megawatt, 7000-acre photovoltaic project is expected to start construction in 2014. In the meantime, Ivanpah reigns supreme.

[MIKA27]

New Delhi's Super-Park Will Completely Dwarf Central Park

In 1857, Central Park was carved out of the still-wild landscape of Manhattan. In 2013, a new park in the middle of super-dense New Delhi is poised to dwarf Central Park by almost 50 per cent.

But how will they build a 111 square metre park smack dab in the centre of the fourth biggest city in the world? That’s the dilemma. The Aga Khan Trust for Culture plans to knit together several different adjacent sites, like the Sunder Nursery, Humayun’s Tomb, nearby gardens, heritage areas and an old zoo. The group also wants to carve out a lake and create a Mughal garden in the lush urban oasis.

Alright, stitching together some adjoining green spaces isn’t that bad. So what exactly is the problem? Well, first of all, no formal proposal has been filed. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, there’s a lot of bureaucratic red tape when it comes to getting the rights to the land. For example, the tomb is controlled by the Archaeological Survey of India. The Delhi Public Works Commission runs the nursery. And the Ministry of Environment handles the zoo. Those are just three pieces to a very large puzzle. But the Trust and its director, Ratish Nanda, say they’re committed to leading the charge.

If they’re successful, New Delhians will have in their own backyard, a space that falls somewhere in between such renowned parks as Chapultepec in Mexico City (2000 acres) and Golden Gate in San Francisco (1017 acres). Nanda says his masterpiece will have 100,000 trees from 200 species, boast beautiful Islamic monuments, a fort, a zoo that holds white tigers and exotic birds, a treated lake that you could actually swim in and so much more. Central Park is a pristine — and necessary — escape from the hustle and bustle of New York City. Hopefully now Delhi will have its own urban retreat.

[MIKA27]

Matt Damon Has a Busy Schedule (Which Doesn’t Include Playing Robin)

He'll star in the new Christopher Nolan movie and try his hand at directing

It’s official: Matt Damon will not be playing Robin to Ben Affleck’s Batman. (Phew!!)

While taking a few minutes to tell The Times of India he thought Affleck—with whom he’ll be forever linked because of Good Will Hunting—would be “great” and “terrific” in the role of a brooding Dark Knight, Damon also put an end to any fun speculation that he’d play his sidekick. “It’s safe to say I won’t be Robin,” he said. “I am a little older than Ben. I never saw Robin as older than Batman.”

He did offer plenty of support for Affleck, however, reminding folks we’re talking only about the silly role of a superhero. “I know there are a lot of people grousing on the Internet. I just think it’s kind of funny,” Damon said. “You know, he not playing King Lear.

It’s Batman! [That’s] certainly within his skill set. If anybody saw Argo or The Town and all the work he’s been doing lately, it’s way more nuanced and interesting and way more difficult than Batman! Batman just sits there with his cowl over his head and whispers in a kinda gruff voice at people. Bruce Wayne is the more challenging part of the role, and Ben will be great at that.”

So while we can’t really tell if Damon’s a fan of the actual Batman role or not, we do know he’s a fan of Christopher Nolan, who directed the most recent Batman trilogy. If the newfound reports come to fruition, Damon will team up with the director (and stars Anne Hathaway, Matthew McConaughey and Jessica Chastain) for a supporting role in Nolan’s time-travel tale, Interstellar. The movie, with Damon’s part filmed in Iceland, also features Casey Affleck, Michael Caine, David Oyelowo, John Lithgow and Topher Grace. Since Damon can walk into any size role with the ease unlike many, expect excitement all around for any spot in the new movie, no matter which time period Nolan places him in.

Since Interstellar won’t take up more than a few weeks of his time, expect to see Damon behind the camera, making a directorial debut—if he can work out all the contractual nitty-gritty, as The Playlist first reported—with A Foreigner. The script, penned by Argo screenwriter Chris Terrio, is based on a New Yorker article about a series of assassinations that rocked Guatemala in 2009.

With everything reportedly on his plate already, there’s simply no room for Damon as a sidekick.

[MIKA27]

James Spader Is an Unstoppable Robot Killing Machine (In Avengers)

In an apparent attempt to make Warner Bros.’ casting of Ben Affleck as Batman look entirely non-controversial, Marvel Studios today announced that James Spader — better known to many as The Office‘s Robert California, or perhaps Pretty in Pink‘s Steff — will play Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s main bad guy, the titular genocidal robot Ultron.

For those unfamiliar with the Marvel Comics incarnation of Ultron, he’s been a constant metal thorn in the side of the Avengers since 1968′s Avengers #54. Created by occasional Avenger Hank Pym, the robot’s mix of daddy issues and general hatred for humanity has kept him coming back with bigger and better schemes to kill all humans throughout the years, culminating in this year’s Age of Ultron series — a series that bears no relation to the movie, aside from the shared title, according to director and screenwriter Joss Whedon — where he actually managed to take over the world. Well, at least until a combination of time travel and good old-fashioned never-say-die attitude managed to undo all the bad stuff, of course.

Spader’s acting has, in the past, seemed stilted enough that offering him the role of a robot could be positively inspired casting, but it should be noted that there’s also little about the actor’s physical presence so far that really says “unstoppable killing machine.”

That particular description could be more easily said of, say, Vin Diesel, but Marvel reportedly already has him signed up to play a talking tree in another movie, again proving that the studio has no problem casting against type when necessary.

It’s unknown at this point whether or not Spader will actually be seen in the movie, or whether he’ll just be lending his voice to a CGI-animated robot. If it’s the latter, at least there’ll be some sense of audible continuity at play, as Spader’s clipped vocals play into the example already set by Paul Bettany’s JARVIS in the Iron Man movies that artificial intelligences all sound like unlikable, dismissive know-it-alls. Quick: Somebody give Ben Stein a call and see if he’s available to play Machine Man.

[MIKA27]

Giant Canyon Discovered Under Greenland Ice Sheet

The subglacial bedrock canyon is nearly twice as long as the Grand Canyon.

Imagine if you could pick up the Greenland Ice Sheet and see what lies beneath. Surely 1.7 million square kilometers of slowly thawing ice must rest on a massive pool of melted water, right?

Not necessarily, according to a study released today in the journal Science.

Unlike the ice sheet covering Antarctica that sits atop numerous lakes, the Greenland Ice Sheet blankets a giant subglacial canyon nearly twice as long as the Grand Canyon located in Arizona.

Scientists suggest the canyon—which runs as deep as half a mile (800 meters) and as long as 466 miles (750 kilometers)—is paleofluvial, meaning it originated as a system of rivers in Greenland's hard bedrock surface. According to this research, the canyon is part of an organized valley system that carries meltwater away from the inland ice sheet and funnels it toward coastal fjords connecting to the Arctic Ocean.

Jonathan Bamber, lead author of the study and a physical geography professor at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, says he believes the canyon pre-dates the ice sheet. Before the land was completely glaciated at least four million years ago, melt from partial ice cover likely flowed through the bedrock canyon.

Since then, the features of the land have survived glaciation without significant erosion.

Beyond the Surface

While flying over the ice sheet, scientists over the past three decades have measured the depths of the canyon using a radar system that operates at frequencies transparent to radio waves—from around 50 megahertz to 500 megahertz. A pulse of energy is sent down to penetrate through the ice, bounce off the bedrock, and travel back to the radar system.

Bamber and his team compiled this decades-worth of airborne radar data, mainly from NASA, to build a more comprehensive picture of what sits under the Greenland Ice Sheet.

The data have made him curious about other parts of the world. The Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is ten times as large as Greenland's, sits on a complex topography that includes bedrock and mountain ranges. After the recent canyon discovery in Greenland, Bamber says it is hard not to wonder about the areas of Antarctica still left to be explored.

Greenland has been glaciated for about 3.5 million years, and will continue to remain so for thousands more. But because of constantly increasingly global temperatures, it is difficult to determine when exactly the glacial land ice will completely erode.

Understanding what happens to meltwater will be crucial for research on the future of glacial melt and rising sea levels.

"If we carry on warming up the planet, the ice is going to melt faster than we want it to," Bamber said. "It really depends on what we do to the planet, doesn't it?"

[MIKA27]

The Obstacle Course Where DARPA Will Test A New Breed Of Robot Heroes

As the Chernobyl and Daiichi Fukushima nuclear disasters illustrated in unnerving clarity, mankind commands technology capable wreaking destruction we can’t clean up without putting people’s lives at risk. That’s why DARPA is hosting the DARPA Robotics Challenge, in hopes of jump starting development of tomorrow’s mechanical first responders.

But in order to win the ultimate $US2 million purse, the six competing robots must first pass a gruelling obstacle course. The eight stages, or tasks, are designed by DARPA engineers to put the contestants in situations they’re likely to encounter in crisis zones the world over.

Task One

The robots’ first task will be their easiest. They’ve just got to slalom a 2WD Polaris Ranger XP900 side-by-side through a 76m long by 12m wide obstacle course strewn with pylons and barriers. The buggies will be limited to speeds of 16km/h and will be equipped with remote engine kill switches and brakes. Think of it as a very slow, very controlled Death Race. But, you know, with robots.

Task Two

Once they’ve parked the Polaris, the robots will then have to clamber through an ankle-breaking series of cinder-block walking hazards. The course consists of 10 subsections that become increasingly difficult as the bots progress.

Moving from right to left in the map above, the robots will first have to walk over 15-degree pitch ramps, step over diagonally laced 2×4 and 4×4 tripping hazards. Then they’ll need to hurdle 6-inch and 12-inch blocks, avoid 16-inch and 32-inch deep footfalls, mount the Diagonal Hill Stepfield and get down from its peak. After that, they’ll mount and dismount another stepfield pocked with pitched stairs before finally leaping over miscellaneous debris normally found in disaster areas.

Task Three

The third task will evaluate the robots’ strength and dexterity. They must clear a path to a door by moving heavy debris piles that weigh between 2kg and 5kg. Hopefully crushed infrastructure from future catastrophes will be stacked as neatly as it is here.

Task Four

The door in Task Four leads to a hallway with three more doors. All the robots must do to advance is walk through them. Of course, they’ll have to open each one first. The first door pushes open, the second one pulls, and the third is equipped with a weighted closure (those hissing things that keep the door from slamming behind you). Seems easy enough.

Task Five

The robots’ balance and agility will be tested in Take Five. Each contestant must ascend a 2.4m tall industrial ladder onto the roof of a shipping container.

Task Six

DARPA’s sixth task demands that each robot break through a section of wall. No, not with their mighty mechanical fists. They’ll be employing power tools, like civilised robots. The contestants will have their pick of a Dewalt 18V Cordless Cut-Out Tool, a Ryobi P340 18V Cordless Job Pil or a Skil 2895 18V Cordless Drill.

Task Seven

The penultimate stage demands an exceedingly high degree of dexterity. The contestants must identify and close a variety of valve wheels. The wheels will be located at various heights on a vertical wall, as well as on the horizontal surface behind it. The robots will have to find, grip and turn the variously-sized wheels closed without ripping them out of the wall.

Task Eight

The final task demands a combination of speed, coordination and strength. The robots must uncoil a fire hose from a wall-mounted rack, drag the connector end down a pathway to a fire hydrant, and then connect it using the supplied spanners.

As impressive as this course is, especially given that the contestants will have to clear it while racing against the clock, this is among the first steps down a long road towards a truly deployable robot first responder.

After the Robotics Challenge is complete, the winning Track A teams (who build the robots) will collaborate with winning Track B and C teams (those who design the software controls) through 2014. Then, their ultimate “smart” robots will take on a final set of real-world challenges — we’re talking real leaking hydrants and water mains, not just valve wheels on a plywood wall — to take home the $US2 million purse.

[MIKA27]

T-Fal's Intelligent Indoor Grill Knows Well-Done From Rare

T-fal’s new OptiGrill can not only be used indoors, all year round, it’s also smart enough to let you know when a steak is perfectly done — whether rare, medium or charred. So how is the OptiGrill the perfect grillmaster right out of the box when you’ve been unsuccessfully honing your BBQ skills for years?

Well, first of all it lets you specify what exact you’re grilling, with settings for steak, hamburger, fish, sausages and more. And that info, combined with a built-in sensor that detects how thick a cut of meat is, allows the grill to report back the level of doneness via a glowing colour-changing indicator.

And if you don’t feel like standing there and waiting for the grill to do its thing, an audible alarm sounds at each level so you can pull the meat off when it’s cooked to your liking. So for $US180 when it’s available in October, you never need to worry about propane, charcoal or lumps of black carbon that started life as a juicy steak.

[MIKA27]

Mercedes-Benz Vehicles Get Night Vision That Can Recognise Animals

Mercedes-Benz’s vehicles have had night-vision capabilities and automatic object recognition for years now. While they can accurately recognise street signs and other lifeless hazards, it’s only now that the company’s fleet — starting with the 2014 Mercedes S-Class — will be able to recognise living, breathing obstacles like cows and kangaroos.

The feature actually took about five years to develop, because recognising the various animals that pose a threat to drivers is a little trickier than spotting humans. But after training the system with images of thousands of animals from around the world, using a pair of infra-red cameras the vehicles can finally reliably warn a driver if one’s wandered onto the road ahead.

In fact in Europe, the S-Class actually shines a spotlight on the animal and tracks its movements so it’s easy for the driver to spot at night, but unfortunately that feature has yet to be approved by authorities. Presumably given concerns over what it might do to the nation’s thriving roadkill industry.

[MIKA27]

This Re-Purposed Mining Cart Hauls Drinks Instead Of Coal

Nothing helps fill the silent void at an awkward dinner party like a piece of furniture with an interesting back story. Whether it’s the couch you found inexplicably just abandoned next to a dumpster, a bookshelf that started life as a stolen stack of cinderblocks, or this truly unique mine cart coffee table that spent a past life hauling coal and other materials.

If it’s an industrial look you’re after in the living room, you won’t do much better than this piece which started duty back in 1900, but has since been cleaned up, re-painted, and re-purposed with a glass top now. For $US2400 it even comes with its own set of rails so it’s easy to move — a metre or so. Which, FYI, also means you should file this under ‘not safe for kids’ if you’ve got a family planned. [Ducôté Design]

[MIKA27]

Seeing Random Things Cut In Half Is The Best Thing

Here’s your #FollowFriday or #ff or whatever the cool tweet birds called it back when Twitter launched years ago and people had no idea what it was for so they made their followers create a giant circle: @HalfPics. It’s a simple Twitter account that shows random things chopped in half. How random? There are grenades, camera lens, guns, ramen, toothpaste, doughnuts and coffee, shoes and so on. Basically, endless entertainment.

So if you’re ever curious about what’s inside a damn thing, HalfPics will probably eventually show you. Here is a sampling below. @HalfPics

A Shanxi Chinese Type 17 handgun

Toothpaste

Doughnuts and Coffee

An Atom

[Fuzz]

Seeing Random Things Cut In Half Is The Best Thing

An Atom

Well, now. That's not exactly true. Else we would have nuclear explosions everywhere.

[MIKA27]

This Beautiful, Twisting Glass Building Could Be Google Australia's Next HQ

This stunning building proposed for Sydney’s Darling Harbour precinct is being flagged as a possible future home for Google Australia. Meet The Ribbon

The concept for “The Ribbon” takes advantage of cutting-edge building technologies that allow for twisting glass facades — as seen in London’s The Shard — and is being marketed as a prestige home for a major company.

It’s at the current location of Sydney’s IMAX theatre and is right next to Commonwealth Bank’s new complex at Darling Quarter, which houses over 6000 personnel.

Australia’s largest private developer Grocon and property management company Markham announced they had submitted a development application for the project this week. They say they are aiming to create a landmark similar to The Shard or the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

Grocon’s NSW general manager Chris Carolan told Business Insider the design drew on an emerging trend for “these innovative curved structures, all around the world, including in the Middle East and China. We want to bring it to this country.”

Sydney’s corporate architecture is generally conservative, and statements tend to be matters of height or signage rather than creative design. The Ribbon sweeps upwards and outwards from the ground along its east-west axis, with an undulating facade made entirely from glass wrapping around the building.

The building leans in towards the heart of the CBD and its roof, visible from the expressways that pass it, has varying curves designed into it as it approaches the upper storeys. Grocon worked on the design with architects HASSELL.

Inside, the furthest you can get from a window is 12m. The windows have a particularly slick feature that will excite any desk jockey: they are triple glazed and contain a venetian shade sitting in a cavity between the glass panels to keep the sun out when needed. Oh, they’re computer-controlled, too. No cord-wrestling.

This gets around one of the drawbacks of many modern offices which have large window areas but rely heavily on the use of overhanging ledges, fixed slats and other shading devices which, while keeping out the harsh summer sun, also block the view.

“Our research has shown that some of what people see as internal comfort is the ability to see outside,” Carolan said.

The Australian reported that Google has “looked hard at the site” as a potential future location if it outgrows its current offices in nearby Pyrmont.

If the development is approved by authorities it would take around three years to build. Assuming it was ready to occupy around 2017, its first openings would line up closely with the expiry of Google’s current property commitments which expire the following year, in 2018.

A spokesman for Google said the company did not comment on speculation.

Google is growing quickly – it now has 800 employees in Australia, up from 350 in 2010. The Ribbon has just over 41,000 square metres of office space. Carolan said their standard measure was 13 metres squared per person in office space, which would allow it to fit around 3,200 people.

However, another commercial property source told Business Insider the building could “easily accommodate 4,000 workstations and 5,000 people in an agile work style [like] activity-based working”.

Either way it would likely comfortably fit Google Australia even if the company was to continue at its recent rate of expansion.

Alternatively The Ribbon could fit a bank, or one of the major accounting firms. EY’s current office is nearby on George St, but it announced plans to move to the north end of the city by 2017 earlier this year.

Corporations’ increasing demands for “activity-based working” office environments have been integrated into the design, Carolan said. For example, the air conditioning is highly localised, allowing companies to save money on areas that aren’t being used.

The complex will also have some retail space, and the IMAX gets to stay.

The west side of the CBD is the focus of intense development activity. Following the Commonwealth Bank’s development of Darling Quarter, the nearby Sydney Convention Centre is being demolished and rebuilt in a $1 billion makeover, and Mirvac Group is in the process of acquiring the Harbourside shopping centre. Only a few blocks further north, there’s Barangaroo, the site of more major developments including James Packer’s proposed casino.

[MIKA27]

Australian Liberal Candidate Wants To Shoot Suspects With Trackers From A Sniper Rifle

Read that headline again. Slowly. Surely nobody thinks that shooting criminal suspects with trackers from a sniper rifle in Australia is a good idea, right? Wrong: Meet Ray King, the Liberal Party candidate for McMahon who thinks it’s a great idea.

The Sydney Morning Herald uncovered a report authored by King in his time as a former police commander entitled “Microchipping of human subjects as a productivity enhancement and as a strategic management direction of NSW Police”. Catchy.

The crux of the paper advocated the use of microchip technology in law enforcement. Now that’s not a terribly crazy idea: sex offenders are often required to register their location, while others are monitored real-time by state officials making sure they don’t stray too close to where they shouldn’t be.

The crazy idea comes from how King wants to use the microchips in his context.

According the the Herald, King wants to use the microchips to “obtain information” via “legitimate means” to prove a case before the courts with “microchip technology similar to that used in controlling the activity of domestic animals”. King believed (and perhaps still does) that the microchip operations will “quantifiably enhance the success of law enforcement”.

Sure, because illegally bugging potentially perfectly innocent individuals has no downside, right?

The most interesting and terrifying aspect of the plan however is how the microchips were to be deployed: via a “long-distance injector”. A patent exists for a sniper rifle-style deployment tool, but it doesn’t exist yet.

Let’s be fair: King might have changed his mind since the paper was submitted in 2011. Let’s certainly hope he has, for our sake.

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: The Giant Telescope That Helps Take The Sharpest Space Photos Yet

The Hubble Telescope has revolutionised our understanding of the cosmos but the venerable telescope has been orbiting for nearly a quarter century and is quickly nearing the end of its already-extended service life. That’s not a bad thing, mind you, telescope technology has advanced significantly since the Hubble went up in 1990. And by the end of the decade, we’ll have completed an all-seeing observatory with 10 times the Hubble’s resolution and none of its space-based complications.

It’s called the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), and for good reason. For the last decade or so, the Baade and Clay telescopes have operated at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile’s Atacama desert as part of the Magellan Project, a collaborative effort by the Carnegie Institution, University of Arizona, Harvard University, University of Michigan, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At 6.5m apiece, measured by their apertures, these optical/near IR telescopes are among the 16 largest telescopes on Earth, the biggest of which measures 10.4m.

The GMT will have an aperture of 24.5m — that’s 2.5 times that of the largest ground-based optical on the planet, nearly four times bigger than the current Magellen project, with a resolution 10 times that of the Hubble. All without having to be launched into orbit.

Since pouring and shaping an 24.5m wide piece of borosilicate glass is still beyond our most advanced fabrication techniques, the GMT employs a segmented mirror array comprised of six offset 8.4m mirrors working in concert. These mirrors are precisely shaped and uncannily flat.

Produced at the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab (SOML) in Tucson, Arizona, each mirror starts out as a honeycomb mould. This mould is “spin cast” in a giant rotating oven, using cintrifugal force to spread the glass into a hollow disc much the same way pizza crusts are made. Not only does this cut down on the massive weight of each mirror, it allows them to be precisely cooled at night to reduce thermal distortion. Each mirror spends a full year being polished to within a tolerance of a few wavelengths — roughly a millionth of an inch. For perspective, if each mirror were the size of America, Mount McKinley would be barely an inch tall.

As with most optical telescopes, incoming light reflects off of these primary mirrors, then again off a set of secondary mirrors, and into the telescope’s CCD imaging apparatus. What most optical telescopes don’t have, however, is adaptive optics.

This revolutionary image stabilisation technique employs laser guide stars to act as reference points. By measuring the amount of atmospheric distortion these lasers run into and deforming the secondary mirrors accordingly, this system can image more of the night sky, more clearly, and with far less distortion than conventional ground-based telescopes.

It “will allow us to look at giant black holes almost anywhere in the cosmos,” project director Patrick McCarthy, told Motherboard. It will study galaxy formation, hunt for dark matter and clues about the earliest states of the universe. Not only that, researchers hope that the GMT’s ultra-res images may find both undiscovered Earth-sized planets and evidence of life on them as well. It’s a one-stop alien spotting shop.

[MIKA27]

A Close Call in a Rock Slide:

A heavy storm in Keelung, Taiwan, dislodges a rock perched at the top of a hill. It comes to rest on the road, in a spot where the white car could have easily been, if the landslide hadn't nudged it over. Go back to the beginning of the clip to see the rock start to move. The white car did not get away unscathed, but it could have been so much worse. Here's what the boulder looked like in better weather

[Fuzz]

A Close Call in a Rock Slide:

To quote Jeremy Clarkson, "Some poo has come out!"

[MIKA27]

PlayStation 4 Will Feature Kinect-Like Voice Control

According to Sony, the PlayStation 4 will feature a voice command system which will allow users to control the console by speaking to it — much like the Xbox One’s Kinect-powered system. The feature will be routed through PlayStation Camera’s built-in microphone, and Sony plans to dribble out details of how it might be used soon.

The news comes from a Sony press conference at the Gamestop Expo, where a presentation used a slide which proudly boasted of “navigational voice commands” and facial recognition.

It’s kind of a step behind Microsoft: the Camera is an optional extra on the PlayStation, while the Kinect comes standard with the new Xbox One. Still, it does mean that those of us who like shouting at screens can plump for PS4 or Xbox without fear of disappointment.

[MIKA27]

Why Japan’s Biggest Defense-Spend Hike in Over Two Decades Isn’t Going to Buy Much

The biggest increase in defense spending in 22 years is the latest signal that Japan is getting serious about bolstering its defenses in the face of a rising China. But it might not be serious enough

The biggest increase in defense spending in 22 years is the latest signal that Japan is getting serious about bolstering its defenses in the face of a rising China. But it might not be serious enough.

Japan announced last week a $49 billion defense budget for 2014 that will add surveillance capabilities in Japan’s southwest islands and speed the training and equipping of soldiers to defend remote territory — including islands claimed by China.

What’s more, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is working to rescind a ban on collective self-defense. The current policy forbids Japan’s military from aiding allies unless the Japanese themselves are directly attacked and has hampered Japan’s ability to forge closer ties with friendly nations.

Abe also is overseeing a review of defense guidelines that could alter basic strategy and spending priorities established in 2010 — before the latest standoff with China.

The 3% increase in spending for 2014, if approved, would be the largest since 1992 and the first back-to-back hike in defense spending since the mid-’90s. Japan’s annual defense budget declined every year from 2002 to ’12.

Reversing that trend is meaningful, says Brad Glosserman, executive director of the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies in Honolulu.

“A declining defense budget in a time of increasing international uncertainty doesn’t make Japan terribly credible,” says Glosserman. “The important thing is that the Japanese send a signal that they are getting serious about defense, and they seem cognizant of that. They understand they have to do things differently.”

Japan has been losing the spending war with China for some time.

Beijing spent $166 billion on defense in 2012, roughly three times that of Japan, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. From 2003 to ’12, China’s defense budget increased by 175%, while Japan’s declined (it should be noted that comparisons can be difficult because of exchange-rate fluctuations and the opaque nature of China’s defense establishment).

With big spending has come new assertiveness. Chinese patrol craft regularly encroach on Japanese-administered waters around the Senkaku Islands, which China claims as the Diaoyu. Incidents were narrowly avoided twice this year when Chinese warships locked targeting radar on Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) ships and aircraft in international waters nearby.

As dramatic as the turnaround in Japan’s defense spending might appear, it will buy very little new capability. Much of the increase in 2014 would go to restoring government-wide pay cuts imposed after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan.

The leftover will pay for surveillance aircraft to relocate from northern Japan to Okinawa to help patrol Japan’s southwest island chain and the adjacent East China Sea. A new radar facility will be located on the island of Yonaguni, not far from Taiwan.

Training will accelerate for a planned amphibious warfare unit that — like the U.S. Marines — would be capable of operating from warships. Their job would be to defend or retake remote islands.

New, big-ticket items are scarce. The budget includes money for preparing to buy Global Hawk or other long-range surveillance drones, and V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft to transport the new amphibious troop from ship to shore. But no money to actually buy the new aircraft; that would wait for later years.

Abe’s plans for easing the reins on the military could be in trouble, as well. A newspaper poll released last week shows 59% of voters are opposed to changing the current ban collective self-defense.

Article 51 of the U.N. Charter allows member nations to defend themselves individually or collectively if attacked. Japan maintains that it has the right to engage in collective self-defense, but that doing so would exceed the minimum necessary use of force permitted under the constitution.

By tradition, Japan’s defense spending has been capped at roughly 1% of GDP, and the 2014 budget stays within that limit. Nonetheless, Japan has the world’s fifth largest defense budget, and a powerful military. The JMSDF, in particular, bristles with modern submarines and surface warships, with highly trained crews.

Still, Japan needs to change the way it operates to meet growing challenge, says Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, in Tokyo.

“First and most importantly, Japan must cooperate more closely with its friends in Asia — especially Australia, Southeast Asian countries and India — to maintain the balance of power,“ he says. “Some level of offensive capability and flexibility in use of force — by making it possible for Japan to take collective self-defense actions, for example — might help.”

What about the 3% boost in spending in 2014? Will that help? Says Michishita: “Not really.”

[MIKA27]

Tragic! Baby in pushchair shot dead in Brooklyn, New York

New York police are hunting for a gunman who shot dead a baby in a pushchair.

Antiq Hennis, one, was shot in the face as gunfire rang out in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn at 19:20 on Sunday evening (23:20 GMT).

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the target had been the boy's father.

The boy's parents went with him to hospital where he was declared dead from a gunshot wound to the left side of his face.

Witness Gina Gamboa, 23, told the New York Post: "I heard three to four shots.

"I saw a man with a stroller screaming: 'My baby got shot! My baby got shot!' He was going crazy."

The gunfire left four bullet casings on the corner and bullet holes in the pushchair, Commissioner Kelly told reporters on Monday.

"We have some leads, and those leads are being aggressively followed," he said.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the killing was "a tragedy for his family, for this community, for the entire city".

City Councilman Charles Barron told the New York Daily News: "The child didn't even get a chance to start his life, and now it's over."

It is not the first time this year that a baby in a pushchair has been shot dead in the US.

On Friday, an 18-year-old man in the state of Georgia was convicted of murdering 13-month-old Antonio Santiago after the child's mother refused to hand over her purse.

New York's Brooklyn area has gentrified in recent years, becoming a cultural heartland of "cool", as Manhattan's high living costs drove hip, young trendsetters across the East River.

But the borough's eastern Brownsville district, home to some of the highest concentration of public housing in the US, has a reputation as one of the city's most dangerous neighbourhoods.

MIKA: This is terrible news...

[MIKA27]

Crocodile 'stalks' New Zealand man for two weeks

A New Zealand tourist has returned to safety after being menaced by a crocodile off Western Australia for two weeks, an Australian report says.

The man became stranded on an island because the reptile stalked him when he tried to leave by kayak, rescuer Don Macleod told broadcaster ABC.

Mr Macleod said he rescued the man on Saturday after spotting a light on Governor Island, near Kalumburu.

The crocodile was around six m (20 ft) long, Mr Macleod said.

The unidentified New Zealander had planned to kayak back to the mainland. But he "came to the conclusion very quickly that he couldn't get off [Governor Island] without attracting [the] crocodile", Mr Macleod said.

"[it] started following him around so he made it back to the island," he added.

'Easy meal'

Mr Macleod said he had seen the crocodile "several times" before.

"He was going by quite fast one day and he just happened to surface alongside me as I was going past... My boat is 20 ft long and he was well up on the 20 ft mark."

The tourist said he did not knowthere were crocodiles in the area, Mr Macleod said. "A lot of people are a bit naive about these things."

"Even though the crocodiles have been reduced along the coast by this poaching business, there's still a number of these very old ones that are cunning and certainly on the lookout for an easy meal. He's very, very lucky," Mr Macleod told ABC.

"He wouldn't have made it much longer without water because he seemed to be a bit distressed when we found him."

Last week, a man was killed by a crocodile as he swam in a river in Australia's Northern Territory during a birthday party.