dracodraconis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dracodraconis) wrote2008-03-05 01:10 pm
dracodraconis) wrote2008-03-05 01:10 pm
Entry tags:
Assorted stories
Woman claims she affects electrical devices - However, her claim has yet to withstand an empirical test of her abilities. Termed "sliders", she is one of many people who claim that their presence causes electrical devices to die, flicker, or otherwise go wonky. Found on Improbable Research.
Early Daylight Savings Time means no savings at all - With the new daylight savings time almost upon us we turn to this recently-released study, found via Slashdot, which concludes that Daylight Savings Time in general results in greater energy use and greater cost to consumers.
MagLev mouse for better haptics - Haptics, the ability to transmit touch information, is an emerging field, and one research team may have come up with an easier way to do it. They use a bowl lined with electromagnets and a mouse containing a magnet and an LED. As one moves the mouse over the bowl, it's position is determined using the LED, and in response the magnetic field is subtly changed to emulate changes in resistance to the mouse's motion as if it were moving over the surface. The magnets are strong enough to make a surface feel solid, resisting with as much as 30 newtons of force, and do so with six degrees of freedom. They are currently working on commercializing the technology.
Nine Inch Nails sidesteps recording label to sell new album online - Trent Raznor continues his experiment with selling product online by offering the first nine of 36 songs from his latest CD online for free. For $5 you can download the entire CD, along with "extras", or you can get the 2-disc set with plenty of extras for $10. The result: he sold out of the $300 Limited Edition set which includes a copy of the music on vinyl version in a signed and numbered package with a few days of release, netting him an estimated $750,000.
Early Daylight Savings Time means no savings at all - With the new daylight savings time almost upon us we turn to this recently-released study, found via Slashdot, which concludes that Daylight Savings Time in general results in greater energy use and greater cost to consumers.
MagLev mouse for better haptics - Haptics, the ability to transmit touch information, is an emerging field, and one research team may have come up with an easier way to do it. They use a bowl lined with electromagnets and a mouse containing a magnet and an LED. As one moves the mouse over the bowl, it's position is determined using the LED, and in response the magnetic field is subtly changed to emulate changes in resistance to the mouse's motion as if it were moving over the surface. The magnets are strong enough to make a surface feel solid, resisting with as much as 30 newtons of force, and do so with six degrees of freedom. They are currently working on commercializing the technology.
Nine Inch Nails sidesteps recording label to sell new album online - Trent Raznor continues his experiment with selling product online by offering the first nine of 36 songs from his latest CD online for free. For $5 you can download the entire CD, along with "extras", or you can get the 2-disc set with plenty of extras for $10. The result: he sold out of the $300 Limited Edition set which includes a copy of the music on vinyl version in a signed and numbered package with a few days of release, netting him an estimated $750,000.