BP has developed a petrol that contains fewer aromatic compounds and so will not intoxicate people who deliberately sniff it.
*When I was in high school, one of my classmates would sniff gas to catch a buzz.*
Read (New Scientist)
Three or four days a week, Darren Hiers gets lunch at a Sterling convenience store near the car dealership where he works. He grabs a chicken sandwich and a soda and heads to the checkout counter, where a little gadget scans his index finger and instantly deducts the money from his checking account.
Read (Washington Post)
[DARPA](http://www.darpa.mil) [announced](http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/NQE_Press_Release.pdf) (pdf file) the 40 [Grand Challenge](http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge) teams selected to advance to the National Qualification Event. The teams come from a variety of backgrounds including universities, individuals, corporations, and a high school.
Both of [Virginia Tech’s](http://www.me.vt.edu/grandchallenge/) teams made the cut. [Team Jefferson](http://www.perronerobotics.com/dgc/index.htm) includes someone I used to work with, and their vehicle doesn’t look anything like the other vehicles. [Team CajunBot](http://www.cajunbot.com/site.php) is back, but their vehicle is a Jeep Wrangler this time. [Carnegie Mellon](http://www.redteamracing.org/) also has 2 teams in the race. 78 teams did not make the cut.
On May 18 Stanford announced its entry in the DARPA Grand Challenge, a 175-mile driverless race across the Mojave Desert. It’s a gray Volkswagen Touareg, a state-of-the-art sport utility vehicle modified with oversized wheels, a reinforced bumper and a protective metal plate under the car. The fuel-efficient turbodiesel engine allows the vehicle to complete a 10-hour race and power all its electronics on a single tank of gas. And unlike many competitors, Stanley is fully street legal. The Grand Challenge, which is scheduled for Oct. 8, will pit 20 robotic competitors on an unpredictable, obstacle-filled course.
Read (Stanford)
I use Bloglines and FEED ON FEEDS to read RSS Feeds in Firefox, and I’ve started to see many ads in the feeds. I have no problem with ads on the site, but I don’t want them in the feed because I find them distracting when I’m trying to quickly scan article summaries. I decided to try to find a way to remove the ads. I first tried the Adblock extension, but it left an “Ads by Google” link in some of the feeds, which is still distracting when I’m scanning through the posts.
John Walkenbach posted the styles that he uses in Sage to block some of the ads, and I thought I’d try to make these work in Bloglines and FEED ON FEEDS. I found my userContent.css file (in my profile’s chrome folder), and I added the following to the file:
/* block google ads (ex. Engadget) */
a:link[HREF*="googleadservices"] {
display: none;
}
a:link[HREF*="ads_by_google"] {
display: none;
}
/* block feedburner ads (ex. Boing Boing) */
a:link[HREF*="feedburner.com/~a/"] {
display: none;
}
/* block feedster ads (ex. Slashdot) */
a:link[HREF*="feedster/adclick"] {
display: none;
}
|
That did the trick. I don’t currently see any ads when using Bloglines and FEED ON FEEDS. I’m sure I’ll have to add additional listings to userContent.css at some point.
Snapshots of traffic patterns in a given area are created by handheld computers linked to vehicles in the vicinity. Drivers can avoid traffic jams on the fly when the devices suggest alternate routes.
Read (Wired)
When two robots arrive at a doorway, who should go first?
Read (Nature)
A lot of innovations do not come from people trying to figure out what customers want, but rather from the users themselves, who cannot get what they want from existing products.
Read (New York Times)
A steady stream of mechanical animals is marching out of the lab into the field. Jonathan Knight tunes in to see how these motorized models can expose what makes real creatures behave the way they do.
Read (Nature)
A leading expert in artificial intelligence and neural networks argues that cognition in humans and many animals occurs in a very different, non-algorithmic and less complex way than has been widely assumed until now.
[Read][ReadMe] (ScienceDaily)
[ReadMe]: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050411210504.htm
A new kind of airship called the Stratellite could be a low-cost alternative to space-based satellites. It’s an unmanned, helium-filled airship that looks like a blimp and is capable of relaying signals for cell phones, video and the Internet to an area the size of Texas.
[Read][ReadMe] (NPR’s Morning Edition)
[ReadMe]: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4598169&sourceCode=RSS
Can a robot learn to navigate like a cockroach? To help researchers find out if a mechanical device can mimic the pesky insect’s behavior, a Johns Hopkins engineering student has built a flexible, sensor-laden antenna.
[Read][ReadMe] (ScienceDaily)
[ReadMe]: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050321084250.htm
“The Chevy HHR will help launch a new family of radios that will bring iPod connectivity to a broad range of GM vehicles,” said Paul Nadeau, director, infotainment displays and controls, for GM Engineering. “We think the ability to easily connect an iPod or other audio source directly into the vehicle audio system will be a big hit with customers.”
The new radios include an auxiliary channel and front mounted auxiliary input jack, so that an iPod or other audio source can be easily plugged in and played through the vehicle audio system.
Radios featuring the new auxiliary input jack will debut starting in late spring. They will be standard equipment on 2006 models of the Chevy HHR, Impala and Monte Carlo; Saturn VUE and ION; Pontiac Solstice; Buick Lucerne; and Cadillac DTS. The radios will be fitted to other new GM models over the next several years.
Read (GM)
Kevin Martin has close ties to the Bush White House, and an agenda to the right of Michael Powell’s when it comes to “crude” programming.
[Read][ReadMe] (Salon.com)
[ReadMe]: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/03/16/fcc_martin/index.html?source=RSS
With all the antennas in some new cars – high-tech luxury sedans may carry 18 or more – it takes a major engineering effort to design vehicles that do not bristle with metal quills.
[Read][ReadMe] (The New York Times)
[ReadMe]: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/automobiles/14CARS.html?ex=1268456400&en=ec5edf39652952d8&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt