It’s here! The next Ferrari that every publication will be evaluating and pitting against every other supercar has arrived and its name is the 458 Italia. Called upon to replace the still very competent F430, the 458 carries on the traditional mid-engine V8 setup.
As expected, Maranello’s latest creation is a hum-dinger of a sexy beast. And it’s fast too. The new direct-injection 4.5L V8 (45 in 458 stands for 4.5L) generates a jaw-dropping 562 hp and 398 lb-ft of torque. The red line begins at 9,000 rpm. Keep in mind that the 599 GTB’s 6.0L V12 puts out 611 hp and 448 lb-ft of torque with 50% more cylinders and an extra 33% of displacement.
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ROPID is a cool looking robot designed and developer by Tomotaka Takahashi of Robo Garage at Kyoto University, he stands 38 cm tall, and weighs in at 1,600g.
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ScienceDaily (Apr. 24, 2009) — A new, extremely energy-efficient processor chip that provides breakthrough speeds for a variety of computing tasks has been designed by a group at UC Davis. The chip, dubbed AsAP, is ultra-small, fully reprogrammable and highly configurable, so it can be widely adapted to a number of applications.
A new, extremely energy-efficient processor chip that provides breakthrough speeds for a variety of computing tasks has been designed by a group at the University of California, Davis. The chip, dubbed AsAP, is ultra-small, fully reprogrammable and highly configurable, so it can be widely adapted to a number of applications. The chip is designed for digital signal processing. While not the principal kind of processor chip used in desktop computers, digital signal processing chips are found in a myriad of everyday and specialized devices such as cell phones, MP3 music players, video equipment, anti-lock brakes and ultrasound and MRI medical imaging machines.
Maximum clock speed for the 167-processor AsAP is 1.2 gigahertz (GHz), but at slower speeds its energy efficiency soars. Twelve chips working together could perform more than half-a-trillion operations per second (.52 Tera-ops/sec) while using less power than a 7-watt light bulb.
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ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2009) — An international team of physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory has succeeded in using intense laser light to accelerate protons to energies never before achieved. Using this technique, scientists can now accelerate particles to extremely high velocities that would otherwise only be possible using large accelerator facilities. Physicists around the world are examining laser particle acceleration and laser produced radiation for potential future uses in cancer treatment.
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What if virtually every cellular handset on the planet enjoyed accurate location awareness? That’s the question I pondered after meeting with GloPos, a startup that’s about to leave stealth mode whose self-learning software algorithm enables any basic GSM or CDMA cellular phone to provide extremely precise locational data without using GPS—or even Wi-Fi, for that matter. The patent-pending technology offers positioning to within 1 to 40 meters, including indoor and underground locations.
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University of California, San Diego (UCSD) structural engineers have announced that a violent simulated reproduction of the Northridge earthquake shook a seven-story structure at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering’s Englekirk Structural Engineering Center, and resulted in only minor cosmetic damage to the building. The experiment, along with earlier shakes, was conducted to test a revolutionary new theory that mid-rise concrete apartment, condominium and hotel structures can be built to survive powerful earthquakes using less steel reinforcement than currently required by California building codes.
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