This video is simply stunning. You may have heard of levitation using superconductors. This video shows takes those experiments even further, demonstrating an amazing effect called ‘quantum locking,’ where an object is ‘locked’ in a fixed position without contacting any other objects. Watch the disc in this video spin and move, all while maintaining the same local orientation. Watch below:
Bitcoin, the worlds first peer-to-peer digital currency, fell below $3 on Monday. That represents a 90 percent fall since the currency hit its peak in early June.Supporters argue that Bitcoin has fundamental advantages over conventional currencies. The system is designed to transfer funds without a central authority, freeing Bitcoin users from bank fees and government regulations. The Bitcoin protocol offers robust anonymity, and the protocol guarantees that there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins in existence, which supporters have argued would give the currency a stable value.Unfortunately, the currencys value hasnt proven stable in practice. Several waves of media coverage between April and June pushed the currencys value up from less than $1 to more than $30. Soon after it reached a peak, the currency had a series of PR disasters. One Bitcoin user claimed that a half-million dollars worth of Bitcoins were stolen from his PC; he may have fallen victim to Bitcoin-stealing malware. A few days later, the most popular Bitcoin exchange was hacked, forcing a multiday suspension of trading and generating another wave of bad press.
via Bitcoin implodes, falls more than 90 percent from June peak.
The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in Denver has delivered its usual array of outrageous audio gear, but this shockingly priced turntable would have to go pretty high on anyone’s list.
The Onedof One Degree Of Freedom turntable was designed by NASA award winning aerospace engineer Aleks Bakman, and includes some unusual features. The self-centering 50-lb platter uses a liquid suspension to damp resonances, while the platter itself is filled with some kind of damping fluid. Bakman also described its noise canceling vertical motor adjustment, but to be honest the description went over my head.
Google is on track to earn $2.5 billion this year in mobile ad sales, Larry Page told investors during Googles third quarter earnings call today. That growth is led by mobile search activity, with mobile display ads a lesser factor.Overall, Google grew aggressively during the quarter, reporting revenue growth of 33 percent and overall quarterly revenue that was just shy of $10 billion.
via Google Expects $2.5 Billion in Mobile Ad Revenue This Year | ClickZ.
At long last, the next major version of Ubuntu is all polished up and ready to strut around in front a public audience. Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot” brings a bevy of changes to Canonical’s popular open source Linux operating system, most notably to the Unity shell. Unless you’ve been playing with a beta build, Oneiric Ocelot is Ubuntu like you’ve never seen it before.
via Maximum PC | Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) Now Available for Download.
“Landscapes: Volume Two” is a time-lapse film directed by Dustin Farrell, title design by Chris Pettit, and music by John Murphy. The footage was taken in Arizona and Utah.
A nice chart on some social statistics.
via Making Your Brand More Social On The World Wide Web | Online Marketing Trends.
Then Yegge switches gears to talk about Google.”That one last thing that Google doesn’t do well is platforms. We don’t understand platforms. We don’t ‘get’ platforms,” Yegge wrote. “Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership (hi Larry, Sergey, Eric, Vic, howdy howdy) down to the very lowest leaf workers (hey yo).” The G+ platform, Yegge wrote, is a “pathetic afterthought” and Google lacked an API at launch.
Google’s biggest blunder, he added, is that it didn’t emulate Facebook’s plan of building “an entire constellation of products by allowing other people to do the work.”
The outage is more bad news for RIM, following news that it is being lined-up for a takeover from Vodafone, as reported in the Independent last week.
Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, told the BBC that the latest outage is an unwelcome headache for RIM, which has been losing market share to Apple and Android devices.
“The current situation with the Blackberry outages couldn’t come at a worse time for RIM, following some harsh criticism in recent months,” Saadi said.
He added, however, that BlackBerry are unlikely to abandon their handsets just yet: “It will take more than just a couple of collapses to persuade loyal consumers of Blackberry services to look for alternatives,” he said.
Apparently this new ad for the soda is getting panned. I don’t know, I laughed.