The Breakmate was supposed to revolutionize how we consumed soda, on par with the advent of the soda fountain and soda bottles, and bring delicious sugary soft drinks to millions of disenfranchised American office workers. So why did Coca-Cola’s foray into small-scale commercial vending during the 1980’s flop so miserably? Read more…
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The Lost History of Coca-Cola’s Biggest Failure
Oh no! We sure hope you were able to download Flappy Bird before its imminent extinction . Because, as promised , developer Dong Nguyen has officially removed the insanely popular game from both the App Store and Google Play . There’s no need to shed tears if you’ve already installed it, since you can keep playing it and continue to frustrate over how terribly low your scores are. Still, it’s a little sad to see Flappy Bird go — especially given that there are probably some people (like this editor’s mom) who never got to experience it. Who knows, maybe it’ll make a triumphant comeback one day. Filed under: Misc , Gaming , Internet , Apple Comments Via: MacRumors
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Flappy Bird no longer available from the App Store or Google Play
ananyo writes “Physicists have produced nanoribbons of graphene — the single-atom-thick carbon — that conduct electrons better than theory predicted even for the most idealized form of the material (abstract). The finding could help graphene realize its promise in high-end electronics, where researchers have long hoped it could outperform traditional materials such as silicon. In graphene, electrons can move faster than in any other material at room temperature. But techniques that cut sheets of graphene into the narrow ribbons needed to form wires of a nano-scale circuit leave ragged edges, which disrupt the electron flow. Now a team led by physicist Walt de Heer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta has made ribbons that conduct electric charges for more than 10 micrometres without meeting resistance — 1, 000 times farther than in typical graphene nanoribbons. The ribbons made by de Heer’s team in fact conduct electrons ten times better than standard theories of electron transport they should, say the authors.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Graphene Conducts Electricity Ten Times Better Than Expected
From preparing the bomb to dropping it—the explosion is a few seconds after 8:40. [ Video Link ] This silent film shows the final preparation and loading of the “Fat Man” bomb into “Bockscar,” the plane which dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. It then shows the Nagasaki explosion from the window of an observation plane. This footage comes from Los Alamos National Laboratory. I have not edited it in any way from what they gave me except to improve the contrast a little — it is basically “raw.” I have annotated it with some notes on the bombing and what you can see — feel free to disable it if you don’t want it. I suggest leaving them on. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a video benefit from YouTube annotations! [via Nuclear Secrecy and MeFi ]
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Unedited silent footage of Nagasaki bombing
The Medieval Unicode Font Initiative has a collection of glyphs and type elements that they’d like to see added to Unicode to make it simpler to represent medieval writing on the Web. ( via O’Reilly Radar )
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Medieval Unicode
You probably already know you can play your favorite retro games on your computer , tablet, or phone with an emulator. But emulators are good for more than just saving space in your entertainment cabinet—they can also make your games look and play better than the original systems. Here are a few ways you can modernize those old games when they’ve gotten stale. Read more…
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Bring Your Retro Games Into the Modern Age with These Emulator Tricks
That 60 gallon tank of hot water in your basement eats up a lot of energy. But tankless on-demand water heaters leave you running water down the drain while you wait for warmth. This tiny Kickstarter water heater promises to change all that, and save you money, thanks to some fascinating technology. Read more…
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This Football-Sized Device Could Replace Your Huge Water Heater
Apple is preparing for a big push in sapphire crystal display manufacturing, according to some new information unearthed by 9to5Mac and told to TechCrunch via a source familiar with the company’s plans. 9to5Mac, with the help of analyst Matt Margolis, has obtained documents that report Apple placing an order with partner GT Advanced technologies for large quantities of furnaces and chambers used in making sapphire displays. Our source informs us that a large order placed at Meyer Burger for wire-based diamond cutting systems (useful in handling ultra hard material like sapphire) was actually for Apple for delivery in 2014, though they aren’t named as a customer. Regarding the furnaces, Mark Gurman at 9to5Mac reports that GT Advanced has already taken delivery of 518 units, which could allow it to build as many as 116 displays of roughly five inches in size per year, with another 420 machines still on order, for a total potential capacity of around 200 million display panels at a size around one inch larger ( rumors suggest new models will be bigger ) than the current diagonal proportions of the iPhone 5s screen. Apple sold around 150 million iPhones in 2013 to put that in perspective, so doing the math, it could indeed be the case that Apple is putting the pieces together for a production run that spans the entire next generation of iPhone hardware. Gurman’s report adds that GT Advanced has ordered a large quantity of Sirius Sapphire Display Inspection Tool components, which helps manufacturers using sapphire in displays specifically for smartphones and other mobile devices by increasing yield numbers and making sure only high quality sapphire makes it into the production stream. Back when the GT Advanced deal, which saw Apple contribute $578 million to build a manufacturing plant for sapphire crystal in Arizona , our own Matthew Panzarino explained that it made sense for Apple to invest early in the tech should it plan to use it in large volumes later own. At first, it seemed likely that in the short-term, Apple’s focus would be more on small screen production with sapphire (for existing components like the camera lens cover and Touch ID sensor), but Gurman seems to believe iPhone displays are at least as likely. That’s backed up by a tidbit also reported by Matthew around the time of the revelation of the GT Advanced deal: Apple filed a patent recently for manufacturing sapphire laminates , which can help greatly reduce the cost of production for use of the material in touchscreen devices. Now, Apple seems ready to build the infrastructure necessary to turn its R&D into a key component advantage for future iPhone hardware. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on these new reports around sapphire component manufacturing, but we have yet to hear back. We’ll update if new information comes to light.
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Apple Said To Have Acquired Sapphire Display Manufacturing Components, Diamond Cutting Tools
It’s already a pretty great time to be a couch-bound art lover , and this summer the gallery experience is getting even more futuristic—because anyone with a working Wi-Fi connection will be able to sign up to pilot light- and camera-clad robots around the Tate Britain late at night, offering a self-guided tour with a drone’s-eye-view. Read more…
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You’ll Soon Be Able To Explore Museums After Dark Using These Robots
First time accepted submitter time_lords_almanac writes “A Canadian band has sent an invoice to the U.S. Department of Defense after learning that its music was used without permission in ‘interrogations’ of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The members of Skinny Puppy, who specialize in electronic music, were originally going to make the invoice the cover of their next album until they discovered they could bring legal action against the department. They were also none to happy to learn the purpose their music was being employed for, let alone illegally. The amount of compensation requested? $666, 000, of course.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Skinny Puppy Wants Compensation For Music Used in US Interrogations