An education video describing how the cool technology of superconductors in magnetic levitation works.

Simple, tiny and makes it easy to share your video collection.

How does it work? It’s simple. The projector uses a lens and a mirror to reflect images from your mobile device which you insert in the tray underneath. HypnosEye works especially well with an iPhone or a Touch, but will also work with any other backlit mobile phone that allows you to adjust the brightness. But rather than use an ordinary mirror which would result in an unclear image, HypnosEye has implemented a special mirror with a reflection agent on top of the glass surface (rather than behind). As a result, you can show media from your portable device almost anywhere at anytime.

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This animation is based on all currently available data concerning the US Airways Flight 1549 crash (Cactus 1549). Satellite imagery, elevation models and robust GIS mapping methods are utilized to create a vegetation model, terrain model and ground clutter (3D buildings). Of all available audio tracks, only two are used, La Guardia Tower and New York TRACON Departure controller position. Radar data as well as the onboard Flight Data Recorder are utilized in constructing the flightpath of the aircraft.

Two German men who killed an actor in 1990 are suing the charity behind the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, claiming that its inclusion of detail of their crimes infringes their right to privacy.

The case has become an instant online cause celebre – with one lawyer saying that the integrity of history itself is at stake – because it ranges the US’s First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, against German privacy and criminal laws, which dictate that after a certain period a crime is “spent” and cannot be referred to. The UK has similar rules on the reporting of lesser crimes.

The two men, who cannot be named here, became infamous for the killing, for which they were sentenced to life in prison in 1993. They were released in 2007 and 2008. But Alexander Stopp, the lawyer for the two men, noted that Germany’s courts allow a criminal’s name to be withheld in news reports once they have served a prison term and a set period has expired.

“They should be able to go on and be resocialised, and lead a life without being publicly stigmatised” for their crime, Stopp said. “A criminal has a right to privacy, too, and a right to be left alone.”

German editors of Wikipedia, which is available in multiple languages around the world, have already removed the killers’ names from the German-language version about the victim, Walter Sedlmayr. But Stopp has also filed suit in German courts to demand that the Wikimedia Foundation, which funds and runs Wikipedia, remove their names from the English-language article.

In fact Wikipedia administrators – the unpaid group that helps oversee the running of the site – have been discussing the challenge for more than a year. But there is deep disagreement about whether the individuals’ German-determined right to privacy overrides the US First Amendment.

[ VIA ]

A previously undiscovered asteroid came within 14,000 km (8,700 miles) of Earth last week, and astronomers noticed it only 15 hours before closest approach. On Nov. 6 at around 16:30 EST a 7 meter asteroid, now called 2009 VA, came only about 2 Earth radii from impacting our home planet. This is the third-closest known non-impacting Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid.

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