Google has launched a new service intended to give searchers fast links to song lyrics, musical artists and CD titles on the main search results page. Google Music will allow a person to type in the name of a band, artist, album or song in the main Google search bar, and results will appear at the top, accompanied by icons of music notes — via Darren Barefoot
When I first saw the photos of the new Nintendo controller (for the upcoming Revolution console), I was both impressed and bewildered. Impressed, because clearly it was going to be something a bit out of the ordinary (Nintendo’s strong suit), and bewildered as to how the thing was supposed to work in the real world. CNN had a play with the Rev controller prototype and all is revealed: as well as having the usual rumble feature (and wirelessness), the controller is also modular and gyroscopic.
The basic unit looks like a TV remote, and has a d-pad, a trigger, and a large main button. Two smaller buttons are lower on the face, as well as the usual start button. The select button is also back, and an indicator has been added to show you which control port the device is wireless mapped to. The basic idea is that you tilt the controller, and the analogue gyroscope works like a control stick. You can also move the whole controller through the air, swinging it like a sword, yanking it like a fishing rod, or moving it like a free-floating joystick. For games that require two axes of movement, like first-person shooters, a traditional control stick can be added (see picture).
There are more Rev controller photos at Nintendo.com.
The European Space Agency is developing a new thruster based on the same physics that power the northern and southern auroras. This new plasma thruster could eventually deliver more power than the efficient ion engines which have been installed on several spacecraft — via digg
Spray Grancrete over a frame of Styrofoam, metal, wood‚Äîeven woven sugarcane stalks‚Äîand in 20 minutes you have a waterproof, fire-resistant structure that has more than twice the strength of traditional concrete and can withstand extreme temperatures without cracking — via digg
Google is ramping up its operations in Australia following its acquisition of a local mapping software startup, Where2, snapping up computer science graduates from university campuses to expand its Google Maps offering. The company would not comment on the recruitment drive, but AustralianIT understands Google is looking for 15 graduates to work in the Sydney headquarters of Google Maps, in addition to the 12 software engineers already working there
Two satellites have become the first to exchange information from different orbits using a laser. The feat may lead to super-fast data-relay systems between spacecraft. The laser link took place on Friday between two satellites designed to test communications technologies
Community Voicemail offers free voicemail boxes to homeless and unemployed people who are seeking work, so they’ll have a way for prospective employers to reach them. The programme is very successful too: Workers distributed voicemail numbers to 145 people over six months, and a whopping 70% found jobs within two months
— via Boing Boing
In recent tests by Stephanie Schuckers, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Clarkston University, she has shown that, among other things, biometric security measures were fooled 90% of the time by simple attacks like Play-Doh moulds. Schuckers’ biometric research is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of Homeland Security and the Department of Defence. She is currently assessing spoofing vulnerability in fingerprint scanners and designing methods to correct for these as part of a $3.1 million interdisciplinary research project funded through the NSF
A Google engineer has warned that if the performance per watt of today’s computers doesn’t improve, the electrical costs of running them could end up far greater than the initial hardware price tag. That situation that wouldn’t bode well for Google, which relies on thousands of its own servers
Photocritic.org has posted a great guide to making your own inexpensive macro photography rig from cannibalised lens — and body-covers and a Pringles can — via MAKEblog
Engineers at NEC have developed a flexible battery that is less than a millimetre thick that can be charged in half a minute. The battery has been designed for use in applications such as active RFID cards and could provide enough power to keep such cards running for several weeks before requiring a recharge
Yahoo has acquired del.icio.us, a New York-based startup that is considered a pioneer in social bookmarking, a type of online service that lets users save, annotate, and tag their favorite web pages and share their lists with other users
linear has done what was thought to be impossible: he has opened his hard drive and installed a clear acrylic window. And it still works
The New Oxford American Dictionary is adding podcasting to the dictionary. A year ago it was rejected because not enough people were reading it, but, in a ode to the speed of technology’s growth, it is being declared the word of the year. Podcasting has been in the Oxford Dictionary of English since last summer. Podcast beat out words such as lifehack and rootkit for inclusion in the dictionaries. I guess no one needs to know what a rootkit is — Slashdot
Australian Senators wants Australians’ internet connections to be automatically filtered by ISPs. Anyone who wants to view pornography or other adult material
(details not specified) must apply to their ISP to be given access to it. Another step towards becoming a nanny state — via Slashdot
A US government study into the prevalence of dodgy web sites has found that 3.89 million domain names, or 8.6%, were registered with false or incomplete information
A developer has added tabbed browsing of e-mail messages to Mozilla’s Thunderbird e-mail client, mimicking one of the most popular features of the Firefox and Opera Web browsers. It is unlikely the feature will be found in Mozilla’s imminent release of Thunderbird 1.5 — currently in testing — but software developer Myk Melez has put test versions of Thunderbird online with the tabbed browsing feature included
A new laser welding technique is repairing power station turbine rotor blades in minutes, rather than days, through advances in the way repair metals fuse together. Called In Situ Laser Surfacing, the development is the product of a collective effort by several research institutions and power station operators and has prompted a flurry of international interest
A company called PetsMobility has come out with PetCell, the first mobile phone for dogs. The phone will allow users to call their dogs in case the dog gets away and also includes a GPS tracking device if the dog doesn’t respond to the call. In addition, the PetCell will feature GeoFence, which will alert owners whenever their dogs wander outside a prescribed area
The US Air Force has unveiled its first hand-held laser weapon that gives security forces a non-lethal
option for controlling crowds and protecting areas like checkpoints. While only in prototype form and years away from fielding, the weapon, known as the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHaSR) system, they claim it holds great promise
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