このあと23時50分からCrimsonFMで放送する「JNS」。今週のゲストは、話題の本「VRビジネスの衝撃ー仮想世界が巨大マネーを生む」の著者で、デジタルハリウッド大学院准教授、 Tokyo VR Startups株式会社の取締役でもある新 清士さん。
著書の「VRビジネスの衝撃」で描かれていたVRの現在・過去・未来について、縦横無尽に繰り広げたインタビュー・セッションのEpisode#1をお届けします。
（制作協力：城西国際大学メディア学部）
via io9.com
This is incredible. NASA has just released a never-before-seen video of a solar eruption from July of last year that shows a solar flare, a coronal mass ejection, and loops of solar rain all occurring in one breathtaking sequence.
There appears to be a speculative discovery that has been made by French explorers that is being considered a monumental discovery. It is believed they discovered a partially translucent, crystal-like pyramid rising from the Caribbean seabed— its origin, age and purpose are completely unknown at this point. The picture below is fascinating.
On Friday evening asteroid 2012 DA14 skims closer to our planet than any other known asteroid. Although invisible to the naked eye, binoculars can bring the space rock into focus. Or simply watch the webcast.
Space rock 2012 DA14 is only 50 metres across. It will pass the Earth on Friday evening (UK time) just 17,100 miles above our heads. There is no danger of a collision. Nevertheless, this is closer to the Earth than many artificial satellites.
It will pass from the southern to northern hemisphere and set the record for the closest pass of any known asteroid since systematic surveys of the sky began in the mid-1990s.
Animated visibility map for asteroid 2012 DA14 between 18:00 and 21:30 GMT. The asteroid will be visible from green areas. Image: Geert Barentsen
According to Don Yeomans of Nasa's Near-Earth Object Observation Programme, an asteroid like 2012 DA14 flies this close on average only once every 40 years.
via edition.cnn.com
Moscow (CNN) -- A meteor streaked through the skies above Russia's Urals region Friday morning, before exploding with a flash and boom that shattered glass in buildings and left hundreds of people hurt.
The number of injured continues to rise as new reports come in from across a wide area.
Is this one of the sign of the times, I wonder…
via RT
A functioning prototype of revolutionary airship is undergoing tests south of Los Angeles. A US company is developing a series of gigantic heavy-payload dirigibles with an innovative ballast system that mimics that of a submarine.
The ‘Aeroscraft’ – developed by Worldwide Aeros – more resembles a spaceship from the 1986 sci-fi movie ‘Flight of the Navigator,’ instead of a classic 20th-century zeppelin. Though the Aeroscraft uses the same basic principles as blimps did 100 years ago, it’s as different from its ancestor as a Boeing 787 Dreamliner if from the Wright brothers’ plane.
According to the engineers who developed Aeroscraft, the airship is a considerable advance in aviation technology. The new airship has potential to carry cargo more efficiently than any other aircraft, and could revolutionize long-range hauling in near-future.
via archdaily
Foster + Partners, in conjunction with the European Space Agency (ESA), has undertaken a study to explore the possibilities of using 3D printing to construct lunar habitations on the moon’s southern pole (where there is near perpetual sunlight). The firm has already designed a lunar base that could house four people, and has begun to test the structure in a vacuum chamber that echoes lunar conditions.
The shell of the base, which has a hollow closed cellular structure inspired by natural biological systems, should be able to protect potential inhabitants from “meteorites, gamma radiation and high temperature fluctuations.” According to Xavier De Kestelier, Partner at Foster + Partners, the firm is ”used to designing for extreme climates on earth and exploiting the environmental benefits of using local, sustainable materials – our lunar habitation follows a similar logic.”
The study will also address the challenges of transporting materials to the moon, and is investigating the use of lunar soil, known as regolith, as the potential building matter.
via the guardian
Beijing residents advised to stay indoors as much as possible with severe pollution at levels 'beyond index'
I mean, don’t they have a climate control weapon or “something” which they proudly showcased during the Beijing Olympics? How come they don’t use it NOW?
They should use it to wash the hazardous PM2.5 down while they are still in Chinese territory.
Zhao Jialin, a blogger on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog site, tweeted: "Thank the government for making this effort to solve the problem. It is a Chinese New Year gift from them to the people."
As I mentioned before, China should seriously consider to slow down their current pace of motorization, put extremely high tax on all vehicles using fossil energy and encourage their people to switch all vehicles to EV or Hybrids, and better yet, go back to bicycles like they used to!
via WIRED
A Dutch architect is planning to construct a Möbius strip-shaped house using the world's largest 3D printer.
Landscape House, designed by Janjaap Ruijssenaars of Amsterdam firm Universal Architecture, will contain around 1,100 square meters of floorspace throughout the twisted structure. The 3D printer -- which can "print" objects as large as six meters by nine meters using a mix of grinded-down rocks or sand, held together with a liquid binding agent -- has been designed by Italian roboticist Enrico Dini.
Dini has been printing huge objects with his printer for a couple of years, but this will be the first building that he's produced that's actually designed to be occupied just like any other. For a house that will be a solid whole, without any visible seams, a Möbius strip makes perfect sense as a design shape.
via WIRED JAPAN
オランダの建築家が世界最大の3Dプリンターを使い、「メビウスの帯」の形をした継ぎ目のない家を建設しようとしている。
「Landscape House」と名付けられたこの家は、アムステルダムに本拠を置くUniverse Architecture社のヤンヤップ・ライジシェナーシュ（Janjaap Ruijssenaars）が設計した。このねじれた構造の建物の中に、およそ1,100平方メートルの床面積が確保される予定だ。
建築に使われる3Dプリンターは、粉々にした石や砂を混ぜ合わせた材料を液体の結合剤で結びつけることで、6×9mの大きさの物体を「印刷」できるもので、イタリア人のロボット工学技術者であるエンリコ・ディニが開発した。
ディニ氏は数年前から自作のプリンターを使って巨大な物体を印刷しているが、居住用として実際に設計された家を制作するのは今回が初めてだ。建物全体が一体化されて継ぎ目がひとつも見えない家をつくるために、メビウスの帯の形に設計したことは理にかなっている。
いよいよ、3Dプリンターが面白いことに成って来た・・・
via global post.com
Young Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde's clouds are real, made by controlling moisture and using smoke machine, according to the photography magazine Vignette.
via the Atlantic
In the late 1950s, an anonymous IBM employee made a lady from the pages of Esquire come to life on the screen of a $238 million military computer.
via THE BLAZE
Time-lapse videos of meteor showers are stunning. Footage of alleged UFOs are intriguing. But what do you get when you put the two of them together? A “dreamlapse.”
The video “Death Valley Dreamlapse” shows one team’s trek to the Eureka Dunes on Dec. 13, 2012, to catch the peak of the Geminid meteor shower.
” … we had to conquer epic climbs, sand roads with the 4×4 Jeep, and the occasional UFO,” Sunchaser Pictures writes on the video’s description.
UFO or not, this clip is absolutely beautiful and intriguing.
via FUTURITY.ORG
Up to half of all life on Earth consists of simple microorganisms hidden in rocks beneath the surface and for some time scientists have suggested that the same may be true for Mars. Now this theory has been supported by new research, which suggests that the ingredients for life have been present in the Martian subsurface, a zone of more than three miles below ground, for much of the planet’s history.
When meteorites strike the surface of Mars, they act like natural probes, bringing up rocks from far beneath the surface. Recent research published in the journal Nature Geoscience shows that many of the rocks brought up from the Martian subsurface contain clays and minerals with a chemical make-up that has been altered by water, an essential element to support life.
via Fox News
Critics are blasting a draft U.N. climate change report that combines studies by advocacy groups like the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace alongside scientific research papers -- the same issue that led independent auditors to slam the U.N.'s last report.
“You'd think that the IPCC would have learned its lesson, that it would have told its authors not to rely on these sorts of publications,” said Donna Laframboise, the head of nofrakkingconsensus.com
, an investigative website skeptical of the scientific consensus on global warming.
via Mashable
The documentary will tackle both the military and civilian side of drone technology, exploring how the military trains drone pilots at the Holloman Air Force base in New Mexico, as well as the role drones will play in domestic law enforcement.
There are controversies in both of these worlds. Are drone strikes in accordance with international law? Are they killing too many civilians? "We’ve entered an era where we’re conducting an array of operations using unmanned systems that in a previous generation we would have called war, and we would have treated like war," Peter W. Singer, an expert in the future of warfare, says in the documentary. "When you’re conducting more than 300 air strikes in a country, you’re conducting an equivalent of at least an ‘Air War’ campaign. But we don’t call it that now."
On the civilian side, most of the questions are related to privacy and security. Can citizens' privacy be respected when there are thousands of eyes in the sky? "I think anybody that can use a device to peer into your activities even if it’s the air outside your window or the air above your property, I think there is a right to privacy," Rep. Rand Paul tells NOVA. "The worry is that in two [to] three years we will have 30,000 drones crisscrossing the sky accumulating all this information."
【地熱情報研究所HPから】
日本は世界に冠たる地熱資源大国なのです。現在までに建設されたわが国の地熱発電設備容量は約53.5万kWで、推定されている資源量のわずか2.3％が利用されているに過ぎません。なお、この資源量は、現在利用されているのと同じ方法で発電できる量のみを示したものですが、将来的発電方式と言われる、高温岩体発電や火山発電あるいはマグマ発電（図2）を含めると、資源量は飛躍的に増加します。
原子力発電って、誤解を恐れずに非常に単純化すると、「電気を作るためにお湯を沸かして蒸気でタービンを回している、巨大で複雑な湯沸し器」な訳で。
なんだよ、それじゃ日本の場合「お湯ならそこら中で沸いてるじゃん！」と思うのは僕だけか？
世界の地熱発電プラントの70％は日本製だという。既に確立された技術で、世界からも優れて安定していると評価されている。
エネルギー政策を根本的に見直そうという日本の現状を考えると、プラントの輸出ばかりしてる場合か？と思う。
じゃあ、ど～して日本では地熱発電が普及しないのか？一つの理由はこれだ。
1972年の旧通産省と旧環境庁との覚書により、国立公園内では新たに地熱発電所は建設 しないことになったこともあり、その後、国立公園特別地域内では調査も困難な状況にな っています。ちなみに、150℃以上の地熱資源量2347万kWの81.9％が国立公園特別地 域内となっているのです。ということは、今のままでは、有望な地域のほとんどが開発で きないことになってしまっています。
僕は太陽光発電や風力発電を否定するつもりはないし、これからも再生可能エネルギーはどんどん開発研究すれば良い。そのうち、フリーエネルギーの開発だって、夢じゃないはずだ。
でもさ、原子力に比べて発電効率が劣るとしても、太陽光発電や風力よりよほど安定している、そして新たな技術開発もそれほど必要ない、（もちろん次世代型の高温岩体発電や火山発電あるいはマグマ発電の研究は是非やるべきだ）、しかも様々な点で優れているとされ、今すぐにでも使える既に確立された“国産の技術”があるのに、正に“足元に眠っている膨大な天然資源”を利用しないってのは、どう考えても合理的ではないと思うのだ。
これからは、スマートグリッドだけじゃなくて、スモールグリッドでエネルギーも地産地消が主流に成る、とすれば地熱発電が鍵に成るような気がするんだけど・・・。
今夜放送のJAM THE WORLDで、前「日本地熱学会」会長で、NPO「地熱情報研究所」代表の江原幸雄さんをゲストに迎えて、その辺りを伺いたいと思う。
Do you remember the film clip called “Power of Ten” released back in 1977?
I was so mesmerized by that film and watched it over and over again.
Well, this graphic tour somewhat resembles that idea, only updated and very much fun to click through.
Enjoy!
via space.com
NASA has successfully beamed a digital image of the Mona Lisa to a satellite near the moon with a laser, part of an effort to upgrade communications with active spacecraft.
by Mashable
Highlighting the fact that a global switch to renewable energy is not just necessary, but doable, a new report released by the WWF concludes that the solar arrays necessary to meet all the world’s projected energy needs in 2050 would cover under one percent of global land area. Obviously this is a theoretical exercise, and 100 percent of the planet’s electricity needs are not actually going to be filled through solar. But several credible scenarios suggest that solar could provide about 30 percent of global total electricity in 2050, up from the 0.1 percent it provides now.
By going through the numbers, the Solar PV Atlas demonstrates both the practical feasibility of renewable energy, and the possibility of harmonizing solar energy with conservation goals:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
To reduce weight on the plane, Boeing relied heavily on lithium ion batteries -- the same type found in mobile phones and laptops.
Can it be fixed? Fixing the fire issue is obviously the main problem. Boeing chose a particularly risky type of chemical makeup in its lithium ion battery, one that provides more power but does not stand up well to overheating.
"Boeing made a conscious design decision, and is now paying the price," he said.
via www.bbc.co.uk
An amateur prospector in the Australian state of Victoria has astonished experts by unearthing a gold nugget weighing 5.5kg (177 ounces).
OMG, it looks like something Organic!!!
via howto.cnet.com
No, Graph Search doesn't affect your privacy settings, but it surely makes digging up information about you really easy. Now's a REALLY REALLY good time to review what you're sharing and how you're sharing it.
Your data. Easily accessible to friends AND….
In the new search bar, a Facebook user can search for something like, "Friends who like 'Star Wars' and cooking." Immediately, Facebook will dig through that user's friends' likes and interests to find relevant matches. Facebook doesn't magically know which of your friends like these things, it will simply use the data they provided.
These are just a couple examples of how Facebook will use the data you willfully surrendered to make its new search tool effective and accurate, but Graph Search goes beyond just Likes and music history. Everything -- I mean, everything -- you've shared with friends on Facebook will be contributed to the index.
For example:
- Shared data from apps you use, like Spotify (it's not yet used in Graph Search, but will be in the near future)
- Tagged photos, including those with associated locations and times
- Interests, like music, TV shows, and blogs
- Facebook check-ins
- Your "About" section, including career, relationship status, and religious or political views
No matter how subtle the piece of information, friends can and will dig it up using Graph Search.
So, let’s get to it! RIGHT NOW!! Shall we?
via www.bbc.co.uk
And this will affect Our atmosphere soon or later.
My question is, would it be more hazardous than...say Fukushima?
Anyway, I think Chinese government should put ridiculously high taxes on automobiles which uses fossil energies, and encourage all to switch to EVs instead, or better yet, go back to bicycles like they used to...