The Large Hadron Collider Is Now on Google Street View

As reported by Motherboard: Honestly, I'd much rather see more locations (like the Galapagos) that are super-remote and rarely photographed added to Google Street View, or maybe some of the large part of the exterior world Google has yet to Street Viewify, but I'm not going to complain about my newfound ability to tour the subterranean corridors of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the French and Swiss border. China has its own street view offering anyway.

Putting together a Street View tour of one of the largest and most expensive science projects in history wasn't a particularly easy task; the mammoth detectors and tunnels of the collider took two full weeks to photograph. “Every three meters, they took a six-sided panorama of the tunnel,” CERN photographer Max Brice told Symmetry Breaking. “Then we had to figure out the coordinates of every image. It came out to 6000 points for us to track.” This was in 2011; stitching everything together into the finished product took an additional two years.

That finished product is broken into five parts: four detectors (ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, and ALICE) and a large portion of the tunnel. 

Honeywell Wins $499 Million in GPS, Equipment Defense Contracts

As reported by the Motley Fool: The Department of Defense issued $10.92 billion worth of new and amended defense contracts on Friday -- a mind-boggling 113 separate contract awards in all. Of these, defense contractor and industrial conglomerate Honeywell (NYSE: HON  ) won two -- of significantly different sizes.

Honeywell's big win of the day was a $485.4 million sole-source, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to integrate platforms, upgrade, and test the Air Force's Embedded Global Positioning System Inertial Navigation System, or EGI. Honeywell will also provide technical support post-integration, training, and engineering support and will provide spare parts and conduct repairs on the system through Sept. 26, 2018. EGI is described as a small, lightweight piece of electronics that uses a "state-of-the-art Ring Laser Gyro inertial navigation system" plus GPS signals to figure out an aircraft's "precise position."

Honeywell's other award of the day, considerably smaller, was a cost-plus-fixed-fee task order worth up to $13.5 million to support the Marine Expeditionary Unit Augmentation program -- a project that the USMC describes as an equipment "prepositioning program," storing heavy equipment close to places on the globe where Marines may be required to fight on short notice. This contract in particular deals with equipment being prepositioned in Kuwait and runs through Sept. 30, 2014.

SpaceX Launches Falcon 9 Rocket, Its Largest to Date

Featuring nine engines, a longer first stage, and triple redundant flight
computers, new rocket delivers Canadian research satellite to orbit.

As reported by CNET: SpaceX launched its most powerful rocket to date on Sunday, a booster the company hopes will one day ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.

The nine-engine Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles, at 9 a.m. PT, carrying a Canadian science satellite for placement in orbit. The 224-foot-tall rocket features a longer first stage and triple redundant flight computers. Sunday's launch was the first Falcon 9 mission to use a payload fairing to encapsulate the satellite.

"Launch was good," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet Sunday. "All satellites deployed at the targeted orbit insertion vectors."

The Falcon 9 was launched from a mothballed launch pad formerly used to by they Air Force's Titan 4 heavy-lift rocket after undergoing nearly $100 million in modifications.

The rocket delivered to orbit Canada's 1,100-pound Cassiope space weather satellite, which will be used to gather data on space storms in Earth's upper atmosphere and assess their potential impacts on radio communications, GPS navigation, and other technologies.

Musk, who co-founded PayPal and sold it to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, co-founded SpaceX that same year and secured a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to provide 12 cargo flights to to deliver equipment and supplies to the International Space Station.

Cygnus Autonomous Supply Ship Reaches International Space Station After Delay

A video view from NASA TV shows the Cygnus cargo spacecraft
attached to the International Space Station's Canadian-built
robotic arm during its capture and berthing on Sunday.
At the time, both vehicles were travelling over the Indian Ocean.

As reported by USA Today: A second private cargo spacecraft berthed at the International Space Station on Sunday morning, fully establishing NASA's commercial resupply fleet.

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano steered the station's 58-foot robotic arm to snare Orbital Sciences Corp.'s unmanned Cygnus freighter at 7 a.m. Eastern as the vehicles flew 260 miles above the Indian Ocean.

"It was really, really a pleasure," he said.

"It was really everything we would have wished for today," replied Cady Coleman, an astronaut communicating with the crew from Houston. "Thank you very much to your whole crew."

Parmitano should pull the Cygnus into a docking port around 9 a.m. to complete a voyage that began with a launch 11 days ago from Virginia.

The Cygnus made what appeared to be a flawless and uneventful final approach, a week later than planned after a navigation software glitch postponed the rendezvous.

The station's six-person crew is expected to open the Cygnus hatch Monday morning to begin unloading about 1,300 pounds of food and clothing and some student science experiments.

The Cygnus was flying for the first time on a demonstration mission for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.

With the successful first flight, a second Cygnus could be called upon to fly Orbital's first resupply mission under a $1.9 billion contract in December.

Under the same demonstration program, SpaceX's Dragon capsule last year became the first privately designed and operated vehicle to visit the station, and SpaceX has completed contracted resupply missions.

Major League Baseball Demos Location Technology With Apple's iBeacon

As reported by ABC News: As good as GPS is at helping smartphones guide you, the technology isn't very precise and doesn't work reliably indoors.

Apple is trying to improve that with a new iBeacon system, which comes with last week's iOS 7 software update for iPhones and iPads.

Better location information will improve a range of features, including recommendations based on what's popular nearby. It will also enable ads and coupons from nearby retailers and potentially allow mobile ordering and other transactions.

The technology also promises to work better indoors, particularly in multi-story environments such as shopping malls and stadium concourses.

Major League Baseball showcased some of iBeacon's potential Thursday in front of about a half-dozen journalists at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets. MLB's free 'At The Ballpark' app can customize fans' experience from the moment they get off the subway or out of their cars.

For instance, MLB officials showed how its app can offer bonus features such as video when fans are within a few feet of landmarks. The stadium map is customized based on the entrance used and the fan's seat, and a coupon pops up the moment the fan walks into a souvenir shop.

Phones can do some of this now, but not as well.

Eric O'Brien, director of wireless product development for baseball's interactive business, MLB Advanced Media, said the new technology is precise enough to deliver coupons right at the door, not 10 feet past the store.

He said GPS technology can be a half-mile or so off at times, and supplemental location technology such as cellular and Wi-Fi signals are more complicated to configure. With iBeacon, a handful of sensors are placed around the stadium to enable specific functions.

So far, Apple has said little publicly about iBeacon, other than that it uses a low-energy variant of Bluetooth wireless technology to pick up data from sensors, or beacons. Apple recently released technical specifications for software developers such as MLB to incorporate the technology into apps.

MLB officials temporarily installed several beacons around Citi Field for Thursday's demonstration. It plans to use the technology more extensively next season. Each ball club is expected to adopt its own set of features based on its fan base and stadium configuration.

The beacons will work with the new iOS version of 'At The Ballpark'.

The Android app won't get the new features initially, but O'Brien said the 4.3 version of Android has a way to use Bluetooth to determine location. That version came out in July and is in only a few devices, including Google's Nexus 7 tablet.

Fans can already use either app at stadiums to upgrade seats, buy copies of songs played over the loudspeakers and view maps and menus for vendors. A few stadiums even allow fans to order food and merchandise from seats.

O'Brien said iBeacon could eventually improve those features by letting the vendor know, for instance, where the fan is sitting without needing to enter the seat number.

Using iBeacon, MLB's app could also keep track of visits, even if the fan didn't check in or open the app. That way, it can extend different types of offers to first timers and regulars.

Those worried about privacy will be able to turn off location services for the entire device or for specific features. MLB also plans to offer additional settings in its app. Officials say the idea is to keep it to features fans want.

"We want to help out fans," O'Brien said. "We don't want to creep them out."

Boulder Colorado Sets Up Crowdsourced Flooding Map

Colorado residents are using a crowd sourcing map tool to
help identify flooding damage for current claims and future
planning efforts.

As reported by the Daily Camera: In efforts to document and learn from this month's damaging flooding, the city of Boulder is asking residents and businesses to contribute to a "Community Flood Assessment" crowdsourcing map.

Using geo-located pins, community members can submit their stories or data related to the flooding, which they can also enhance with photos or videos, according to the city. 

The map has specific date and time categories including  flooding, road damage, path damage, property damage, debris and overflows.

The mapping tool is called Crowdmap and is available for use on computers

or iPhone and Android devices.

All data and photos posted to the site will become public domain.

The specific data the city hopes residents will provide is expected to assist in flooding assessments as well as future flood planning efforts, officials say.

Some Day, Voice Control May Cut Drivers' Gizmo Distractions

As motorists use a proliferating number of personal electronic
devices while driving, scientists are looking for ways to reduce
the distraction factor. One possibility is voice-control technology
that may some day permit drivers to use the devices hands-free.

As reported by NBC News: As personal electronic devices have proliferated in cars, and with the corresponding increase in crashes resulting from motorists trying to drive while using those gadgets, automakers have touted voice control as the solution that will permit drivers to safely text, tweet and update their Facebook pages to inform the world of the amazing fact that they are in the act of driving to work.

The problem with the notion of voice control as a panacea for distraction is that it assumes that attempting to command electronic devices by voice is not distracting. “It is a great concept, and used in the right way it can work well,” explained Bruce Mehler, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is aware that poorly designed voice interfaces are distracting, so the agency has announced that it will issue rules for automobile voice-command systems in 2014. Until now, no one has determined what kind of system is less distracting and what is more distracting.

MIT researchers are working with Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. to find the answer to the issue.  Their first goal, according to CSRC senior principal engineer Jim Foley, is to establish the metrics that will measure the workload involved in the operation of a voice-command system.

This project’s overall goal is to produce some concrete information on what works and what doesn't to help guide the federal rules when they come out.

To do this, the team has equipped a car with cameras to monitor drivers’ eyes as they watch the road. Test subjects are also wired up with a heart-rate monitor and an instrument that measures galvanic skin response (like a lie detector) to assess their stress levels. Researchers will study the motorists while they perform tasks such as changing radio stations. The scientists will monitor the drivers while they are using physical controls and voice control.

The researchers also have a test in which they read off a list of numbers and the driver has to repeat a specific number from the list. Repeating the latest number produces a low strain on the brain. However, asking a driver to repeat the number that precedes the latest number cranks up the load on the brain to “moderate”; when the driver is asked to recall the number that precedes that number, that results in a high cognitive workload.

This procedure allows researchers to measure the effects of hard work by the brain on driving skills, so when they find voice interface designs that apply a similar load, as demonstrated by the test subjects’ heart rates and galvanic skin response, they can predict the deterioration in driving ability that will result.

In a simple reaction time test that takes the average driver about two-thirds of a second to respond under normal conditions, the same driver takes nearly a full second to respond when that motorist is called on to repeat the number before the most recent number read to him. At 60 mph, a car travels 29 feet during that additional third of a second, which underscores the need for quick response times.