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Seventy percent of Mother Earth’s surface is covered in water, yet we know more about the moon than we do about our deepest oceans. In yet another ground-breaking initiative under Virgin’s multi-faceted “Branded Venture Capitalism”, Richard Branson intends to change all that with the Virgin Oceanic Five Dives project. The project is a series of ocean expeditions to the bottom of the five deepest trenches in the world, beginning with an attempt on the world record 35,911 foot dive to the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench – the deepest point on earth.  Read More

The trend toward ubiquitous global mobile media consumption without traditional boundaries and the convergence of internet and TV accelerated today with the release of the GBP229 (US$367) Hauppauge PCTV Broadway 2T which will stream TV to any iOS device (iPad or iPhone), Mac or PC with no thirdparty app required. Whatsmore, Android support is expected to be added within six weeks.  Read More

Kris Tressider may not be a boxer, but he is a fitness nut with a background in gymnastics and martial arts. It therefore isn’t surprising that some time ago, the Australian draftsman invested in a punching bag to add to his daily workout. It wasn’t long, however, before he began to get bored of simply slugging away at the defenseless bag. To make things more interesting, he created the Punching Pro – a one-off sparring apparatus that is built not only to receive blows, but also to deliver them via its extending robotic arms.  Read More

Among other things, Einstein’s theory of special relativity says that as an object’s velocity increases, time as experienced by the object will slow down when compared to another object traveling at a lower velocity. This means that a 'relatively' short round trip on a space ship traveling at close to the speed of light would see you arrive home having aged less than those back on Earth. While the greater the velocities involved, the greater the effect, the theory applies to all relative movement. Now there’s an iPhone app that will let you know just how many extra nanoseconds you’ve gained by getting moving as opposed to sitting on your rear end.  Read More

Solid-state laser weapons are a step closer to operational capability with the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) reporting that it has successfully disabled a small target boat during testing off the Californian coast. Stemming from the Defense Department's Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) program, the Northrop Grumman developed Maritime Laser Demonstrator (MLD) was installed on the deck of the Navy's test ship the USS Paul Foster for the demonstration, making it the first time such a system has been integrated with a ship's radar and navigation system and the first time a high-energy laser has been fired at sea from a moving platform.  Read More

A combination of light weight AND strength makes advanced composite materials very useful when building something that's designed to go fast while being subjected to physical stress ... like an aircraft. On the downside, bulky equipment is required when it comes to inspecting these aircraft for damage – a problem that is MIT researchers hope to solve with the development of a new type of composite material that incorporates carbon nanotubes.  Read More

A remarkable milestone in human history took place exactly 50 years ago today when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. During the flight of Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, Gagarin, then 27, completed a single orbit of Earth in approximately 108 minutes. His flight begun at Baikonur cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan and ended with his safe arrival by parachute in the Saratov region of central Russia, where he was famously welcomed back to our planet with a hospitable offer of bread and milk by Anna Takhtarova and her four-year-old granddaughter Margarita.  Read More

At the Winter NAMM show in Anaheim recently, Korg unveiled a new oriental version of its famous Wavedrum percussion synthesizer, designed specifically for Middle Eastern music. For Musikmesse 2011 in Frankfurt, the company has announced that its Wavedrum technology has been reduced down into a compact, portable, playable pad with a built-in speaker and effects. The Wavedrum Mini also features a clip sensor which is said to allow users to transform finger taps and hand slaps made on just about any surface into synthesized, amplified percussive sounds.  Read More

SpaceX, the American space transport company founded by PayPal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk that is responsible for the Dragon space capsule and Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets, has announced a late 2013 or 2014 launch date for the world’s most powerful rocket, the Falcon Heavy. Overshadowed by only the Saturn V moon rocket that was decommissioned after the Apollo program, the Falcon Heavy will be able to carry payloads of 53 metric tons (117,000 pounds or 53,070 kg) into orbit, which is more than the maximum take-off weight of a Boeing 737-200 loaded with 136 passengers, luggage and fuel.  Read More