Archive for the ‘science’ Category

Lights, Camera, Action!

Thursday, July 8th, 2010
So how would you like to have some video that you’ve shot shown at the Sundance film festival after it’s been edited by Kevin Macdonald (who directed the Last King of Scotland) and executive-produced by Ridley Scott ( Who directed Gladiator, Alien, Blade Runner) Sounds a bit too good to be true, but Google is offering exactly this as part of it’s Life in a Day project.
The idea is to shoot your everyday life on 24th July and submit it to a special channel on YouTube.
Anything can be shot, but there are certain rules, like no trademarks, no music and no TV clips. Once everything has been submitted they will all be sifted through and the best bits will be edited together into a full length feature to be shown at the Sundance Festival.
Google say that this will act as a ‘time capsule that will tell future generations what it was like to be alive on July 24, 2010′
There’s a nice little feature and more information on the project here:
http://www.youtube.com/lifeinaday

dayinthelife
So how would you like to have some video that you’ve shot shown at the Sundance film festival after it’s been edited by Kevin Macdonald (who directed the Last King of Scotland) and executive-produced by Ridley Scott ( Who directed Gladiator, Alien, Blade Runner) Sounds a bit too good to be true, but Google is offering exactly this as part of it’s Life in a Day project.

The idea is to shoot your everyday life on 24th July and submit it to a special channel on YouTube.

Anything can be shot, but there are certain rules, like no trademarks, no music and no TV clips. Once everything has been submitted they will all be sifted through and the best bits will be edited together into a full length feature to be shown at the Sundance Festival.

Google say that this will act as a ‘time capsule that will tell future generations what it was like to be alive on July 24, 2010′

There’s a nice little feature and more information on the project here:

http://www.youtube.com/lifeinaday

Posted in Arts, Technology, science | No Comments »

Get Away from it all

Friday, June 4th, 2010
We’ve all been in the position at some point in our lives where we wish we could just get away from “it all” Well six potential cosmonauts have done just that, only rather than for a couple of days or a week – they’re getting away from it all for 18months!
They are taking part in a Russian experiment called Mars500, the aim of which is to try and see the emotional, physical and mental strains placed on humans on a trip to the red planet. Their “space-craft’ consists of four tubes with areas for living and working, but it’s not all just about the journey. There is also a room filled with rocks and sand which has been designed to represent the planet surface and two of the team will actually perform missions on the ’surface’
The only contact that the crew will have with the outside world will be via e-mail.
There’s more on the project website:
http://mars500.imbp.ru/en/index_e.html
And if you are really interested, why not follow one of the cosmonauts on twitter:
http://twitter.com/diegou

mars

We’ve all been in the position at some point in our lives where we wish we could just get away from “it all” Well six potential cosmonauts have done just that, only rather than for a couple of days or a week – they’re getting away from it all for 18months!

They are taking part in a Russian experiment called Mars500, the aim of which is to try and see the emotional, physical and mental strains placed on humans on a trip to the red planet. Their “space-craft’ consists of four tubes with areas for living and working, but it’s not all just about the journey. There is also a room filled with rocks and sand which has been designed to represent the planet surface and two of the team will actually perform missions on the ’surface’

The only contact that the crew will have with the outside world will be via e-mail.

There’s more on the project website:

http://mars500.imbp.ru/en/index_e.html

And if you are really interested, why not follow one of the cosmonauts on twitter:

http://twitter.com/diegou

Posted in Technology, science | No Comments »

Hubble Hubble

Monday, April 26th, 2010
It’s hard to believe that the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates it’s 20th Birthday this week. It hardly seems like yesterday when the Space Shuttle Discovery set off with it’s payload in place.
The telescope was named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble and was designed to orbit just outside of earths atmosphere. Here it would allow images to be taken with virtually no background light. However when the first pictures came back it was clear that something was wrong. In fact the main mirror had been ground incorrectly which meant getting sharp images were impossible. In a remarkable piece of engineering this fault was corrected and a service mission managed to get the telescope working to full power.
Since then four more service missions have upgraded and improved the telescope.
Of course what everyone knows the Hubble for, are the incredible images of the far reaches of the universe. These have been so important to scientists as to lead to breakthroughs in astrophysics.
The Hubble is due to function until 2014 at least whereupon it’s successor – the James Webb Space Telescope is due to be launched.
To see some of the incredible images taken by the telescope – head over to the official Hubble site and take a look around the gallery.
http://hubblesite.org

Hubble-Telescope-twentieth-anniversary-picture
It’s hard to believe that the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates it’s 20th Birthday this week. It hardly seems like yesterday when the Space Shuttle Discovery set off with it’s payload in place.

The telescope was named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble and was designed to orbit just outside of earths atmosphere. Here it would allow images to be taken with virtually no background light. However when the first pictures came back it was clear that something was wrong. In fact the main mirror had been ground incorrectly which meant getting sharp images were impossible. In a remarkable piece of engineering this fault was corrected and a service mission managed to get the telescope working to full power.

Since then four more service missions have upgraded and improved the telescope.

Of course what everyone knows the Hubble for, are the incredible images of the far reaches of the universe. These have been so important to scientists as to lead to breakthroughs in astrophysics.

The Hubble is due to function until 2014 at least whereupon it’s successor – the James Webb Space Telescope is due to be launched.

To see some of the incredible images taken by the telescope – head over to the official Hubble site and take a look around the gallery.

http://hubblesite.org

Posted in Technology, science | No Comments »

Social Politics

Monday, April 12th, 2010

parties
With the election date set and the parties in full campaigning gear, it’s interesting to see how the web, and social networking in particular, will be used by the main parties. Bear in mind that at the time of the last election Youtube was a mere 4 months old, Facebook and twitter were a year away.

We’ve compiled a short list of the main parties twitter, facebook and You tube pages – it shows how important an area of the media this has become that all three parties have very strong representation here.

Of course it’s not all kissing babies, dull speeches and manifestos that can be found – the interactivity of the web allow some interesting tools for the election. Two that we particularly like are the BBC’s election seat calculator – interesting in it’s own right – but a great piece of interactive design too! And the Telegraph’s  “How should I vote” tool which asks you a number of questions before letting you see which party is most suited to your views. And our favourite (and the power of the viral) is http://mydavidcameron.com/ this started as one person making a ‘version’ of their own Tory poster … it spawned hundreds of others – you really have to admire the design and creativity of people here!

It’s going to be an interestingcampaign with the internet playing a really significant role.

Who should I vote for?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7541285/How-should-I-vote-in-the-General-Election-2010.html

Seat Calculator:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm

Twitter:

http://twitter.com/labourparty

http://twitter.com/conservatives

http://twitter.com/LIbDems

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/labourparty

http://en-gb.facebook.com/conservatives

http://www.facebook.com/libdems

Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/theuklabourparty

http://www.youtube.com/webcameronuk

http://www.youtube.com/user/LibDem

Posted in Technology, science | No Comments »

Put Your Glasses On

Monday, January 11th, 2010
There’s one big thing making a buzz at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and that’s 3D TV. Most of us have made the transition to digital TV and even to HDTV – and the market is worried about what they can sell us now. Well, they think it’s 3D. Most of the big players were showing 3D TVs at the show and are pegging their hopes for large sales and huge public take-up. Although this might sound like wishful thinking on their parts, 3D TV does have one big advantage, which is that consumers can really see the difference. It was tricky for the maufacturers to persude us about High Definition as sometimes it was hard to see the difference – but with 3D there’s none of that – it’s instantly amazing.
The plans at the moment are for most film releases to be made available in 3D and so you’d view these on the TV’s via traditional and blu-ray DVDs. But there are talks for broadcast TV to be in 3D (The Discovery Chanel are believed to be preparing for this) and things will get really interesting then.
Of course the big problem that we can see is that you still need to were those silly glasses – although they are looking seriously cooler now than the old fashioned paper numbers with sweet wrapper lenses.
Watch this space. In 3D!
Check out the show at:
http://www.cesweb.org/
13871
There’s one big thing making a buzz at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and that’s 3D TV. Most of us have made the transition to digital TV and even to HDTV – and the market is worried about what they can sell us now. Well, they think it’s 3D. Most of the big players were showing 3D TVs at the show and are pegging their hopes for large sales and huge public take-up. Although this might sound like wishful thinking on their parts, 3D TV does have one big advantage, which is that consumers can really see the difference. It was tricky for the maufacturers to persude us about High Definition as sometimes it was hard to see the difference – but with 3D there’s none of that – it’s instantly amazing.

The plans at the moment are for most film releases to be made available in 3D and so you’d view these on the TV’s via traditional and blu-ray DVDs. But there are talks for broadcast TV to be in 3D (The Discovery Chanel are believed to be preparing for this) and things will get really interesting then.

Of course the big problem that we can see is that you still need to were those silly glasses – although they are looking seriously cooler now than the old fashioned paper numbers with sweet wrapper lenses.

Watch this space. In 3D!

Check out the show at:

http://www.cesweb.org/

Posted in science | No Comments »

Resolutions

Monday, January 4th, 2010
Happy new Year to everyone from Viziononline. The New Year is a great time to make new plans, possibly to move – well to day sees the opening of the world’s tallest building – how about a penthouse in  Burj Dubai?
The building is almost twice the height of the Empire State building and rises an impressive 800m tall which means it can be seen almost 95km away! It’s an architectural and engineering masterpiece. It’s location means that it need to be resistant to geological faults and incredible winds – during it’s construction it’s been hit by lightning twice and also has to suffer an earthquake which it’s stood up to with ease.
In terms of cost – well the figures are staggering – the whole project cost a cool $1.5bn and what’s more impressive in these financial times is the the developer has actually made a profit!
Find out more and see some stunning photos at:
http://www.burjdubai.com

Dubai-BurjDubai

Happy new Year to everyone from Viziononline. The New Year is a great time to make new plans, possibly to move – well to day sees the opening of the world’s tallest building – how about a penthouse in  Burj Dubai?

The building is almost twice the height of the Empire State building and rises an impressive 800m tall which means it can be seen almost 95km away! It’s an architectural and engineering masterpiece. It’s location means that it need to be resistant to geological faults and incredible winds – during it’s construction it’s been hit by lightning twice and also has to suffer an earthquake which it’s stood up to with ease.

In terms of cost – well the figures are staggering – the whole project cost a cool $1.5bn and what’s more impressive in these financial times is the the developer has actually made a profit!

Find out more and see some stunning photos at:

www.burjdubai.com

Posted in Technology, design, science | No Comments »

Mapping Properties

Monday, December 7th, 2009

logo
Google have decided to add a new feature to googlemaps – using their overlay technology they’re going to be putting properties for sale on their maps. The service will be open to both Estate Agents and private sellers. This is unlike services like Rightmove who only allow estate agents to place properties on their site.  Of course this could signal a huge drop in traffic for sites like Rightmove as people use the proven, and much liked, mapping technologies of googlemaps to find properties where they can physically see where they are … in areas that have been ‘Streetmapped’ this also means you can take yourself for a virtual walk around the neighbourhood….

The service is already running in Australia and (although no official comment has come from google) it’s believed the service will be up and running next year.

Watch this space.

Posted in Technology, science | No Comments »

The Last 350 Years

Monday, November 30th, 2009
The Royal Society marks it 350th anniversary in 2010 and they’ve decided to mark the occasion by making 60 of it’s most important or interesting papers online for the first time. Their trailblazing website has a fascinating timeline which charts the 350 years – within it you can click to reveal landmark papers and discoveries of those times. These link onto the actual scientific papers.
You can find out about Newton’s theory of  Light and Colour or even read an article about the young Mozart where the subject is whether he is a ‘genuis’ or not. There’s the discovery of DNA, and right up to date a paper about big ideas for dealing with global warming.
It’s a fascinating site it you have a scientific bent – and even if not it provides a rich history of the last three and a half centuries.
The site can be found at:
http://trailblazing.royalsociety.org/

Royal Society_logo

The Royal Society marks it 350th anniversary in 2010 and they’ve decided to mark the occasion by making 60 of it’s most important or interesting papers online for the first time. Their trailblazing website has a fascinating timeline which charts the 350 years – within it you can click to reveal landmark papers and discoveries of those times. These link onto the actual scientific papers.

You can find out about Newton’s theory of  Light and Colour or even read an article about the young Mozart where the subject is whether he is a ‘genuis’ or not. There’s the discovery of DNA, and right up to date a paper about big ideas for dealing with global warming.

It’s a fascinating site it you have a scientific bent – and even if not it provides a rich history of the last three and a half centuries.

The site can be found at:

http://trailblazing.royalsociety.org/

Posted in science | No Comments »