Sensor-Equipped Footballs to Make Refs More Accurate

Dr. Priya Narasimhan of Carnegie Mellon University has developed the football and gloves, loading them up with wireless sensors that can precisely determine whether or not a ball hit the ground before being caught or whether or not someone had control of the ball before fumbling. It could also, using GPS, determine whether or not the ball cross the goal line. But the applications don't stop there.

Eventually, the same kind of sensors used in the gloves could be adapted to shoes, to measure stride and running patterns, or even shoulder pads, to calculate blocking positions and force.

The current version of the glove has 15 touch sensors on the fingers and palm, running to a wireless module on the back of the arm, said Adam Goldhammer of Richboro, Bucks County, a master's student in electrical engineering at Carnegie Mellon.

"Knowing these contact points can tell how a ball is being thrown and how different people throw," he said, "so you could train how someone is throwing to match how they should throw."

Article Link (Gizmodo)

Consumers prefer vague product specs to utter ignorance

A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research has confirmed something we suspected all along: consumers love specs, even vague ones, and when deciding between two products people will gravitate towards the one for which more specifications were given. According to the journal, the research sheds light on both how preferences are formed in theory, and on how marketers can sell you more crapgadgets.

Article Link (Engadget)

Robot Rinses Dishes, Puts them In Dishwasher

Panasonic and the University of Tokyo have developed a robot capable of rinsing any dish and put it into the dishwasher. The dishwashing robot has three joints and enough sensitivity not to break your china. It moves on a rail, guided by TV cameras placed in the ceiling and sensors in the arm itself. According to the research team in charge, this is only the beginning.



Article Link (Gizmodo)

Muxlim.com Launches Muxlim Pal Open Beta

Muxlim.com has launched its Muslim-friendly virtual world, Muxlim Pal, to open beta. The social network, which serves 1.5 million uniques per month first discussed launching a virtual world in October.
The inspiration for the virtual world grew from observing where
Muxlim's users spent the rest of their time on the Internet. They were
interested in virtual worlds, but there weren't many that the creators
found family friendly. The PG nature of the world, Mohamed El-Fatatry, founder of Muxlim.com,  told the BBC, is aimed at more than just religious groups. Half of those members are from the United States with another 20%
coming from the UK, and the typical user is a woman in her mid-20s
looking for online entertainment content.

Article Link

Advertising gloom

Most forecasts for next year say that ad spending in America will decline by 5% or more. Much depends on the fate of the automotive industry: carmakers and dealers normally spend around $20 billion a year on advertising, but Chrysler and Ford scaled back their expenditure by more than 30% in the first nine months of 2008, and are expected to make further cuts in 2009 as they struggle for survival.

The car industry’s woes will hurt all media, but especially television. Analysts at BMO Capital Markets predict that total spending on television ads will fall by almost 9% next year. Only newspapers, where a decline of 12% is expected, are forecast to fare worse. Carmakers have already shifted some of their advertising spending to the internet, and are likely to go further in 2009. Car ads make up 25% of advertising revenues for local television channels, and carmakers have been among the most consistent buyers of high-priced ads on national television.

Article Link (Economist)

Waterflux Art Museum Is Clearly an Alien Cockroach Nest

Horrific yet incredibly intriguing is the only way I can describe
this spiked and gelatinous alien nest that mimics the landscape around
it. Fortunately, it won't hold any eggs waiting to snatch human bodies.

In
reality, it's an art museum and alpine ice research station that will
be completed next year in the Swiss alps. The construction of the
building will use a computer numerical control drilling machine, which
will manufacture 180 pieces out of 2,000 cubic meters of wood. The
pieces will be assembled on sit

Article Link

Michael Arrington on Entrepreneurship

The joy of life is great, but all these two hour lunches over a bottle or two of great wine and general unwillingness to do whatever it takes to compete and win is the reason why all the big public Internet companies are U.S. based.

Too many people choose to be entrepreneurs as a lifestyle, without realizing that it takes everything you have and more to win. And if you aren’t in it to win, why not just take that nice job down the street that gives you five weeks of vacation.

Two hour lunches are great. But when you have investors to answer to and employees (and their families) to provide for, something has to give.

Article Link (TechCrunch)