3D soccer arrives in Germany after England

The soccer fans of England watched the English Premier League soccer match between Arsenal and Manchester United on a television, broadcasted live by Sky Sports, at a pub in London, Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010. British pay-TV broadcaster Sky transmitted their first 3D soccer match to selected venues around the UK on that.
After successful testing in Englan, the German pay-TV Channel Sky Deutschland has announced their plans to broadcast the Bundesliga football game between Bayer Leverkusen and Hamburger SV on 14 March to a select audience in Munich in HD 3D. This will be the first time effort of 3D football teleast in the world . The game will be produced in 3D by DFL and Sportcast.Former German international Franz Beckenbauer will present in the match.

Deputy CEO of Sky Deutschland told “ We're going one step further,with the first live HD 3D production in Germany." The match will be telecasted in BWIN, ESPN HD UK, ESPN UK, German Sports, Setanta Sports Australia.

A separate version of the match will be captured for the 3D audience. Presenter Jessica Kastrop and commentator Kai Dittmann will host the transmission that will use multiple 3D cameras.Samsung's first 3D models - 46-inch and 55-inch flat panels starting at $2,340 - are available for pre-order on Amazon.com and Sears. com

Fifa has signed an agreement with Sony to film up to 25 games from the finals in South Africa in 3D. Fans will be able to watch the games on 3D-ready televisions at home or at special public screens in seven cities around the world, including London, using special glasses.

Now, you can recommend places to click on Mars!

Fri, May 29 02:05 PM
Washington, May 29 (ANI): Arizona State University (ASU) researchers and scientists have created a new feature for Google Earth 5.0, which would enable anyone, anywhere, to recommend places on Mars to photograph. Google Earth 5.0 is the popular online application that lets users tour Earth, the starry sky, and the Red Planet Mars. The ASU team has created two new features for the application, one of which lets anyone, anywhere, recommend places on Mars to photograph with ASU's THEMIS (Thermal Emission Imaging System) camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter. The second new feature shows the most recent infrared images of Mars sent back to Earth from the THEMIS camera.HEMIS is the Thermal Emission Imaging System, a multiband infrared and visual camera designed at ASU by Dr. Philip Christensen. According to Dr. Christensen, "These two features, developed by our staff in cooperation with programmers at Google, will help everyone have a lot more fun exploring the Red Planet. It's public engagement at its best." "We wanted to give the general public a way to suggest places on Mars for THEMIS to photograph," he added. "Using the new feature, people can recommend sites, and these recommendations go to mission scientists who will decide what areas THEMIS images. If a public suggestion matches what the researchers choose, we'll notify the person who suggested the site and let them see the image as soon as we do," he further added. To suggest a place for THEMIS to photograph, viewers need two things: Google Earth 5.0 and a file that is updated each week giving the spacecraft's Mars orbital ground track. To get the orbital track, users should go to http://suggest.mars.asu.edu and follow the simple steps to register. With the orbital track file downloaded, viewers start Google Earth and switch the globe to Mars (via the Planets toolbar button, which resembles the planet Saturn). Then, viewers open the orbital track file from within Google Earth. Viewers can also just double-click on the orbital file once Google Earth has been set to Mars as its planet. The places where THEMIS can take images during the coming week appear as stripes wrapped onto the Martian globe. Viewers click on stripe segments to recommend places for THEMIS to photograph. "Each viewer can make up to 10 imaging suggestions per week," said Christian Yates, software engineer at the Mars Space Flight Facility. (ANI)

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20090529/981/tsc-now-you-can-recommend-places-to-clic.html

"Missing link" found

Yesterday, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, a revolutionary discovery -- one that will stand as a milestone for paleontologists and evolutionists everywhere -- was announced. Scientists based at the University of Oslo have discovered “Ida,” also known as Darwinius masillae, a 47-million-year-old fossil that has been proclaimed the “missing link” in connecting human skeletal structure to early mammals.

Scientists found Ida in Messel Pit, Germany and soon found out that she is about twenty times older than most fossils related to human evolution. What makes Ida so special is that despite her classification as an early prosimian (lemurs), she has certain undeniable human characteristics such as forward facing eyes and even an opposable thumb.

This is an exciting and validating day for scientists everywhere. Broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough has said: “This little creature is going to show us our connection with all the rest of the mammals.”

Head on over to The Link for pictures, video and more information about Ida and the team of researchers behind her. Also don’t miss what’s up at the open source journal PLoS One to read about the scientists’ findings.
News link: http://blog.ted.com/2009/05/darwin_validate.php
Photo link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090519-missing-link-found.html

Now, software that allows laptops to shout for help when stolen!

London Mar 2 (ANI): Scientists have developed a computer program that allows laptops to shout for help if they have been stolen.
The program, called Retriever, has been developed by a software company called Front Door Software Corporation, reports the Telegraph.
Retriever enables users to display alerts on the missing computer's screen and even to set a spoken message such as a shout or a warning.
Tracking software for stolen laptops has been on the market for some time, but this is understood to be the first that allows owners to activate recorded messages, according to The Times.
Owners must report their laptop missing by logging on to a website, which sends a message to the computer, triggering on-screen messages of warning to the thief and voice alerts.
The 21-pound software, designed by the Colorado-based firm, also collects information if the stolen laptop is being used to access the Internet so that the police can be alerted to its location. (ANI)

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20090302/862/ttc-now-software-that-allows-laptops-to.html

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UAE is building network of driverless electric taxis

United Arab Emirates, land awash in petroleum, why are you so ahead of us with your gasoline-free Masdar City (near Abu Dhabi)? Well, the Emirates are awash in another key ingredient — petrodollars. But look at what they’ve done with all that cash: PRT (personal rapid transit), driverless electric taxis that take to the streets later this year. When the system’s fully built, planners say the podcars will be able to deliver riders within 100 meters of any location in the city. The whole network of tracks for the cars will be two stories beneath street level.

The cost? Its creators say the system will pay for itself by charging riders the same price they’d pay for an equivalent taxi ride. Similar podcars are in use at Heathrow Airport near London, but never have they been deployed on such a city-wide scale.
http://www.gadgetted.com/msn/?p=3998

NASA, Google launch Mars exploration

WASHINGTON: NASA and Google announced the release of a new Mars mode in Google Earth that brings to everyone's desktop a high-resolution, three-dimensional view of the red planet. Besides providing a rich, immersive three dimensional view of Mars that will aid public understanding of Mars science, the new mode, Google Mars 3D, also gives researchers a platform for sharing data similar to what Google Earth provides for Earth scientists. The mode enables users to fly virtually through enormous canyons and scale huge mountains on Mars that are much larger than any found on Earth. Users also can explore the planet through the eyes of the Mars rovers and other Mars missions, providing a unique perspective of the entire planet. Users can see some of the latest satellite imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and other probes orbiting the planet. Viewers can learn about new discoveries and explore indexes of available Mars imagery. The new Mars mode also allows users to add their own 3D content to the Mars map to share with the world. The announcement is the latest benefit from a Space Act Agreement that NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, signed with Google in November 2006. Under its terms, NASA and Google agreed to collaborate to make NASA's data sets available to the world.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Health__Science/Science/NASA_Google_launch_Mars_exploration_/articleshow/4068689.cms