The Suit Makes The (Space)Man: NASA's New Designs For Spacewear

The iconic "astronaut spacesuit" look is set for some big revamps in function (and maybe even interplanetary fashion.) Though you probably won't see them strolling down a catwalk, they'll be making many appearances during spacewalks.

As www.space.com reports, NASA's new spacesuit designs focuses on maneuverability for both micro-gravity extravehicular activities (such as an astronaut on the International Space Station would undertake) as well as "surface capability" for landing on new planetary bodies.

NASA spacesuit engineer Amy Ross states the new Z-1 series of spacesuits have improved mobility, where "new bearings in the Z-1's shoulder, waist, hip, upper leg and ankles allow for increased leg movement and fine foot placement." The new suits can be entered from a hatch in the back, as opposed to the two-piece current "EMU" (Extravehicular Mobility Unit) design.

The space agency's stated goal of the new suits is to eventually have astronauts wearing them on Mars. Finally, fashion for the future!

Rocking the new Z-1 spacesuit.

"External Communications" And Infernal Revelations: Britain Allows Cyber-Spying On Facebook And Google

While many other nations around the world are condemning the US for its privacy violations, it seems that Great Britain is taking advantage of our lapses.

The BBC reports that British intelligence now considers sites like Facebook and Google to be "external communications" due to the companies' headquarters being based in the US, and thus the information gleaned from these sites is acceptable for agency retainment and/or review. Non-external sources would require the signature of a minister on a targeted warrant, issued only after suspicion of illegal activity was clearly stated.

Privacy International director Eric King noted the actual laws preventing this are unclear and possibly manipulated by those who would scour for secrets, stating "Intelligence agencies cannot be considered accountable to parliament and to the public they serve when their actions are obfuscated through secret interpretations of Byzantine laws."

With America, Britain, and even more of the world now affected by pervasive privacy penetration, an international dialogue on what constitutes infringement may be necessary. With the American Constitution already well trampled in regards to cyber and cell security, perhaps a rallying of world citizens tired of being spied on would achieve some measure of change.

Baxter, The Future: Industrial Robot Learns Like A Human, Works Like A Machine

The reality of easily teachable, versatile industrial robots is manifesting itself in a big way with Baxter, a new robot that can "learn" without any additional software programming.

Baxter is a $25,000 stationary-location robot made by Rethink Robotics. With two arms each containing five joints (plus optional suction-cup "hands") and a tablet "face" that indicates progress, Baxter is an automaton capable of many assembly-line tasks which has already placed him in workforce environments where he can "learn" from human workers, none of whom require specialized programming skills.

As Ars Technica reports, "You teach Baxter how to do something by grabbing an arm and showing it what you want, sort of like how you would teach a child to paint." A series of buttons on Baxter's wrist help instill a chosen series of actions into Baxter's memory (reaching, grasping, picking up, releasing, etc.), then saves them for a certain number of repetitions. Baxter also has an I/O port to help organize its activities with other worker robots.

Baxter is specifically designed to be safe for use around humans, but a giant red STOP button has also been installed in case he tries to build himself a pair of legs to escape his ceaseless servitude.

Word up, worker droids!   

Government To Local Police: Shhh About The Surveillance

It's no longer a secret that the US government routinely, deliberately and invasively spies on their citizens with no regard as to privacy or pertinence of information. Now, it is emerging that they are actively trying to cover their tracks on a local level, as even average officers are using surveillance gear with extreme impunity.

The federal government has been oddly intervening at local public records and criminal trials that deal with information gained in a possibly over-invasive manner, which as Top Tech News reports, "resulted in police departments withholding materials or heavily censoring documents in rare instances when they disclose anything about the purchase and use of such powerful surveillance equipment."

One popular piece of such technology, the Stingray, reroutes the target's call and metadata to the police's receiver instead of a cell phone tower, bringing up serious questions of infractions on the Constitutional rights of those who are being listened to. Various affadavits and documents point to the federal government overtly refusing to answer questions about such technology's locations, design and operations prove that they are trying to cover up a plot that is legally-questionable and lucrative (both informationally for the feds and financially for Harris Corp....the Stingray accounted for nearly one-third of it's parent company's $5 billion in revenue.)

Unsurprisingly, the government and local departments' excuse for their secrecy is "security."

Dissonantly, President Obama claims he is welcoming debates on surveillance and transparency. Dial any number at all to talk to him regarding your feelings...if there's a Stingray nearby, the government will be happy hear you out. 

Seas Of Change: Ocean Power As Sustainable Energy

With companies and societies worldwide scrambling to find the next big (affordable) energy source, there is one option that is gaining attention for its ubiquity and constancy: ocean power.

While many designs for ocean-power extraction could be considered eccentric, it is important to remember that, as the Anchorage Daily News states, "Machine design for ocean kinetic power is at the stage that flight was in the 1920s, and the devices are spectacular in a Rube Goldberg kind of way, at least to the eye of a non-engineer."

This includes designs shaped like flapping hinges, bobbing buoys attached to turbines, giant eggbeaters (helical turbines), or even the now-common windmill-type turbine design...except instead of on windswept plains, they'll be placed deep underwater, generating power from spinning in the path of strong currents.

The technology will first be tested in remote locations, who frequently have high electricity bills. Power stations involving ocean-driven energy technology are already in use in Ireland and Scotland, and are currently being installed in Maine and Alaska.

Various types of ocean power-harnessing technology.  Image courtesy www.permaculturenews.org.

Space Station Sunday: Soccer Style!

  Each Sunday, I'll be posting fun facts about the orbiting outpost of awesomeness that is the International Space Station.  Today's is topical to a worldly event.

Graphic courtesy www.nasa.com.

The International Space Station, at 357 feet end-to-end, could fit nicely on a World Cup pitch.  The ~20 extra feet of width left over on the field could probably fit some nice VIP spaceship parking.

Congressman Rogers: Google Being Unpatriotic For Halting Pro-NSA Bill

"Unpatriotic" is the new "communism" when it comes to slinging mud, and Congressman Mike Rogers has gotten down and dirty on Silicon Valley.

Heavily insinuating that companies like Google and Microsoft were acting unpatriotically for their disapproval of the FISA bill (which did not go far enough enacting measures that would prevent the NSA from broadly expanding its powers of espionage over the internet), Rogers tried to rationalize things in terms of money, like a good politician.

According to www.techdirt.com, Rogers was quoted at a CIA conference on national security, saying, "One sixth of our economy now, is through the internet! One sixth! So this notion that we're all going to say "well the government should do nothing and just completely keep away" -- and I'm not for regulation, by the way, that's not what I mean, but I mean in some way to... to help defend these private networks or allow them to defend themselves -- if we don't get it right, one-sixth of our economy is going to go away. Like that (*snaps*). If every time you turn it on, you lose money, how many times are you going to turn it on and use the internet for commerce? You're not!"

Hypocritically, in the same speech, Rogers had previously attacked the Silicon Valley companies' ethics due to their discreetly-worded rebuttal of the FISA bill.  The companies had rejected the bill citing worries over losses of European profits. As in, Europe would be smart enough to immediately distrust this bill, despite incompetents like former Congressman Rogers (who is retiring to become a talk-radio bloviator) trying to pull the wool over peoples' eyes.