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A Japanese researcher called Hiroshi Liu has developed a robotic hummingbird, which, just a real one, can flutter freely in mid-air by rapidly moving its wings (up to n impressive 30 times per second). Liu, who works for Chiba University just outside Tokyo, says his hummingbird is powered by a small motor and has four wings. It can be remote-controlled through infrared.

The robo hummingbird can not only fly up and down but also in a figure of eight. Liu claims the little guy, who just weighs 2.6g, is more stable than a helicopter. It’s 10cm long, meaning it comes close to real hummingbirds in size and weight. According to his inventor, building micro robots is much harder than building large robots and requires specific knowledge not all robot makers have.

R&D costs stand at about $2 million so far, but those costs are likely to rise. By 2011, Liu plans to equip the robot with a micro camera. The main purpose of the hummingbird is to one day use it to rescue people in emergency situations (when a building has collapsed, for example) or to hunt down criminals.

Via Engadget and Der Spiegel [GER]

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Good old Harry McCracken has build up another one of his exhaustive topical examinations, this time turning his bespectacled gaze towards the iPhone. Like the iSlate or the iTablet or the iNinjaStar, analysts, journos, and bloggers frothed at the mouth for years before the product was announced. Take Kevin Rose’s exciting prediction, straight from “sources:”

* January launch on “all” providers, both CDMA and GSM
* Extremely small form factor
* Two battery design (with single charger) — one for playing music, the other for phone functions
* Flash memory: 4GB for $249, 8GB for $449
* “Slide-out keyboard”
* Possibly touchscreen

Generally, what you’re seeing here are a million monkeys at a million typewriters. They eventually get some things right but they mostly get things wrong.

Harry rolls into page three of his analysis with an with a few pertinent points to ponder when thinking about iPhone rumors. To wit:

They rehashed a gumbo of “facts” from multiple sources. The stuff that might actually have been leaked by insiders in the know got indiscriminately blended with iffy guesswork and bizarre fantasy, until it was tough to tell the difference. For instance, several stories about the iPhone rightly talked about it having a touchscreen, but nobody figured out that this was (A) true, and (B) one of the phone’s defining features.

This rehashed gumbo of facts is what’s currently clouding our thinking on the iTablet and creating a mess of conjecture and prediction that, in the end, will be wrong. But darn it if we don’t keep right on fantasizing.

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One big reason readers choose e-books over ink and paper versions: The digital ones are cheaper.

That wasn’t the case when e-books first appeared a decade ago. But Amazon has made a point of selling its Kindle titles at a discount to physical editions, even if it means losing money.

And then there are the titles that Kindle owners really, really love — the ones they get for nothing. As the Washington Post noted earlier this week, the list of best-selling Kindle titles is dominated by free books:

Amazon’s customers have made it clear that $9.99 is still too high for their taste. Most titles in the company’s list of top 100 Kindle bestsellers are priced below $9.99, and the most popular price point is $0.00.

The good folks at MediaBistro have gone ahead and counted, so you don’t have to. As of a day ago, 64 of Amazon’s top 100 Kindle titles cost nada.

How exactly does that work? I understand why Amazon is able to hand out public domain works like “The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes” and “Pride and Prejudice” for free. But I’m not sure what’s going on with titles like Noel Hynd’s “Midnight In Madrid” (#1 on the Kindle charts) or Beth Hensperger’s “Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Recipes for Entertaining” (#9). Anyone want to weigh in?

I’m also not sure what conclusions we can draw from the dominance of freebies on the Kindle charts. I’m tempted to say that Kindle buyers are rabid but indiscriminate readers, and they’ll lap up whatever you put in front of them.

But without a real sense of the numbers, which Amazon is never going to cough up, it’s hard to tell what the sales patterns really look like.

I suspect, for instance, that a lot of the freebies are picked up by readers in the first few weeks that they own a Kindle, when they’re looking to download something simply for the sake of downloading something.

I also assume that the Kindle charts are skewed by hardcore early adopters’ reading habits. And that the patterns will start changing now that more casual users are picking up the Kindle for the first time.

And in case you were wondering — because I was — Amazon (AMZN) says it is not counting free book downloads when it releases sales statistics like the one it put out on Saturday, when it said more customers had purchased Kindle titles than physical books on Christmas day.

[Image credit: lordcolus]

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PLAY VIDEO: Watch Bob Sullivan discuss America's math woes and other ripoffs with Matt Lauer on Today.

 

When I published Gotcha Capitalism two years ago, I was in for a big surprise.  As I talked about systemic hidden fee fraud all around the country, many, many friends (and even co-workers) found me and asked in hushed tones, “What’s a mutual fund?” “What’s comprehensive and collision?” “What’s a mortgage point?”

It was obvious from these conversations that millions of Americans are severely lacking in financial basics, and this shortcoming played a major role in the housing bubble and the resulting economic collapse. I wanted to know why.

I'm the hidden fee guy, the “Gotcha” guy.  People like me usually rant about dreadful banks are and how unfair big companies are, about how corporate greed caused our economic collapse and about how rampant unfairness built the house of cards that just collapsed all around us and sent the world into a global recession.

But it's impossible to ignore the fact that individual consumers made a lot of really bad choices in the past decade. They bought homes with $2,000 mortgages when they only earned $3,000 a month. They borrowed money at 30 percent interest to buy granite countertops.  Aren’t they to blame for their own demise?  To be an honest journalist, I had to ask: Why are American consumers so gullible, so seemingly out of control? Is there something wrong with us?

Yes, several things. But most important is this: Americans are terrible at math. 

I know you know that. But my research shows we are far worse at math than you think.

Exhibit A: Think about the last time you had lunch with four or more friends. What happened when the bill came?  Everyone pulled out calculators, there was a lot of murmuring and head scratching and still some of your friends just ended up throwing down a $20 bill and hoping for the best.  Now, imagine that crowd in a car dealership or with a mortgage broker. They wouldn’t stand a chance.

Turns out, there's an entire field of study — albeit a small one — devoted to this subject. It's called “innumeracy” — or mathematical illiteracy. It’s a hidden epidemic in our society. And the consequences are dire.

Just as there is a hidden epidemic of people who are functionally illiterate in our country, there is big problem (bigger, by my reckoning) with people who can’t do basic math. There’s no way to function in our society without understanding money, percentages, interest calculation and so on. Yet in a recent government study, less than one in seven American adults ranked “proficient” at math. 

Here are a few examples of innumeracy in action:

According to the Department of Education’s National Assessment of Adult Literacy, U.S. adults are terrible at solving real-world math problems, like calculating tips or comparing prices in grocery stores.  Some dismal results:

*Only 42 percent were able to pick out two items on a menu, add them, and calculate a tip.

*Only 1 in 5 could reliably calculate mortgage interest.

*1 in 5 could not calculate weekly salary when told an hourly pay rate.

*Only 13 percent were deemed “proficient.”  Worse yet, only 1 in 10 women, 1 in 25 Hispanics and 1 in 50 African Americans made the grade.

*Americans are terrified of numbers when it counts most: 20 million Americans pay someone to file their 1040EZ, a one-page tax form with around 10 blanks to fill out.

Also, these numbers show up in U.S. student math scores, which are abysmal:

*The U.S. ranks 25th among 30 industrialized nations in math scores, down near Serbia and Uruguay. U.S. students thought they had the highest grades of any nation in the study, however.

*Half of 17 year olds couldn't do enough math to work in an auto plant, according to President's National Mathematics Advisory Panel.

*Study after study shows U.S. achievement falls off the cliff during middle school, when subjects like fractions and percentages are introduced — exactly the skills you need as a consumer or, for that matter, to move on to algebra, calculus and advanced sciences.

But here’s another essential point. How can Johnny learn to add if Johnny’s teachers can’t?

*In 18 U.S. states, not even one elementary math class is required for certification.

*Some teaching colleges allow admittance as long as students have math skills equal to their future students — that is, as long as they could pass a 5^th grade math test.

*It's possible in some states to pass the teacher certification exam (Praxis) without answering a single math question correctly. 

*In Massachusetts, there's a special program to reacquaint teachers with math. The man who runs the program says half of teachers can't answer basic questions involving fractions and has concluded that many elementary teachers are "phobic" about math.

*Teachers seem to be math-averse from the start. College bound seniors headed for elementary education have math SAT scores significantly lower than the national average (483 vs. 515).

There are many, many other reasons why U.S. consumers tripped and fell down a mine shaft during the past two years.  In my new book, "Stop Getting Ripped Off," I lay out a series of other explanations: Greed, laziness, lack of government regulation and magical thinking. And I offer up my own handy guide to solving today’s consumer puzzles, from buying a home to saving for retirement.  But innumeracy is the biggest culprit.

Two years ago, I would have had to lay out a doomsday scenario to draw attention to this ticking time bomb. Well, the bomb’s gone off.  People who were bad at math could hardly have been expected to see through the consequences of an adjustable-rate mortgage, or to make a sound bet on their future earnings potential. These consumers didn’t stand a chance against mortgage brokers, real estate agent and an overheated market. They can’t fight with financial planners over fees that are swallowing one-third of their retirement savings. Heck, they can’t even stop taking out 250 percent APR payday loans, 1,000 percent overdraft protection loans or paying tax preparation firms $100 for three minutes work to fill out simple tax forms.  Now, millions of individuals are losing their homes and are on pace to become destitute in old age.

If I only shine a light on only one topic with this book, I hope it will be the hidden epidemic of innumeracy in America. Because if we can’t add, if we continue suffer from an extreme lack of mathematical self-confidence, any recovery we begin is surely doomed.

Become a Red Tape Chronicles Facebook fan or follow me at http://twitter.com/RedTapeChron

China is trying out an interesting new rule that privileges energy sources like solar and wind power over coal. The country has modified existing law to require that utilities buy all the available power from renewable energy developments. The new …

After they’ve run Ferrari machineries during their maiden Le Mans Series campaign last year, JMW Motorsport have now confirmed they will field an Aston Martin Vantage GT2 in the 2010 Le Mans Series and Le Mans 24 Hours race.

No further from last week, Aston Martin confirmed that JMW Motorsport have been chosen as the manufacturer’s new development partners for its GT2 programme. No doubt about it, the team’s great season in 2009, when they managed to finish runner-up in their clas… (read more)

Article Tags: CO2 Propaganda, Kirk Myers

“Climate change” propaganda is turning many kids into militant save-the-earth pests at home.

The global warming movement has taken a decidedly sinister turn.

Not content with scaring moms and dads with tales of a coming global warming apocalypse, the true believers in human-caused climate change have taken their controversial doomsday message into the classroom and onto the Internet, polluting impressionable kids with green propaganda and creating youth legions of enviro-fanatics.

Fresh from their daily “greenwashing” sessions at school, these save-the-earth converts arrive home as little inspector generals, haranguing parents for exhibiting environmentally insensitive behavior and contributing to the planet’s looming CO2 overdose.

The young Greenites, already pre-conditioned by classroom propaganda, are subjected to the same man-is-destroying-the-earth homilies on the Internet. The eco-epistles consist of the usual heart-tugging climate scare stories (e.g. polar bears are dying and ice caps are melting), which conveniently fail to mention that the earth has warmed – and cooled – naturally for billions of years and that CO2 is a life-giving atmospheric gas. In the dark and depressing world of quasi-religious eco-fanatics, there is no room for the light of truth in their save-the-earth evangelism, and kids are easy targets.

Source: examiner.com

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Eco Factor: Sustainable building powered by solar and wind energy.

The decline in the amount of land available for farming has tempted architects to think about cities that are not based on the land but are constructed in the form of skyscrapers. However, the rise in population will mean that designers will have to find a way to even reduce the amount of land required for a building to stand.

(more…)

Tata Nano, the $2500 definition of low-cost motoring instantly attracted buyers when it was launched on the Indian market back in March, but it seems that meanwhile 15% percent of the customers have canceled their orders due to delivery delays, according to the Hindustan Times.

The waiting time for a Nano delivery has grown to a few weeks, driving some of the customers away, straight into the competition’s arms. This has happened due to the Nano’s production delay in 2008, as Tat… (read more)

With its 140 character limit, Twitter is all about brevity. But if you think the same shouldn’t apply for a job application, well then, “you’re done.”

This Craigslist job listing has some interesting rules, to say the least. While the eye-grabbing headline is asking for a “Twitter Genius” in Greenwich Village, the actual role is an “expert” social media marketer for some sort of e-commerce startup. “I need someone who tweets in their sleep and updates their fb status before calling their mom on Mother’s Day,” the description reads. And it gets better.

Background, education, references? Nah, these people don’t care about that stuff. All that really matters for getting this job is to follow the six little rules perfectly. Those are:

1) Email me two tweets. The first should be about your experience. The second should by why you’re perfect for this job. If you exceed twitter’s allotted character count, you’re done.

2) Email me your Twitter name in link form (e.g. http://www.twitter.com/YOURNAME)

3) Tell me how many followers you have and how many people you follow.

4) Tell me who’s the best person you follow and why (in tweet form).

5) Tell me what’s the best way to get more followers (in tweet form).

6) Specific salary requirement.

So basically, if this application is more than 600 characters or so, you’re done. And you better be damn well ready to talk briefly about how you can best self-promote, or you’re done. Also, it’s probably better if you don’t want too much money. But don’t say why, keep it short.

Think you can handle all that? Then you may have found your dream job with the easiest application ever.

[thanks Shmuel]

[photo: flickr/uaybet]

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

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So you’re cruising along, with your GPS-enabled phone on the dashboard, taking your dear wife back home to Reno. The little gadget says “turn right” and you follow its typically reliable instructions. At what point in the next three days of plowing deeper and deeper into snow-covered Oregon do you start suspecting that maybe something is amiss? Alright, so this isn’t quite on par with others driving buses into low-clearance tunnels, dipping their cars into rivers, or jamming heavy load trucks into unsuitably tight farm lanes. But we don’t discriminate here, all instances of idiotic GPS dependency deserve their moment in the sun, so here’s to Mr. John Rhoads and his tastefully named wife, Mrs. Starry Bush-Rhoads, who are now safe and sound after their phone pinged out its coordinates to emergency services when it began losing signal.

GPS leads couple into Oregon wilderness, lack of common sense keeps them there 3 days originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How many of you found themselves at any given moment in the need to find a flat surface in your car, so that you can better write down a phone number, a license plate number or whatever? We know we have and, by God, regardless of the cars we’ve driven, none of them provides such a surface.

Well, all that agony is now over, as AutoExec introduces the WM-01 Wheelmate Steering Wheel Desk Tray (a.k.a. laptop steering wheel desk). The device is as simple as they get, as is nothing but … (read more)

Imeem is the prime example that the online music business is far from a safe bet even now, as it’s beginning to look like 2010 may finally be the year when music streaming services become viable businesses for the companies running them as well as for the users. The free streaming service has been acquired by MySpace Music for a paltry sum, around $1 million, and has since been dismantled. And just when it looked like it couldn’t get any worse, the site gets a fine for $1.77 million in a copyright infringement suit.

The Orchard Enterprises, a music distribution company, filed a lawsuit against the company earlier this autumn over alleged copyright infringement charges. Things aren’t exactly clear cut though, as Imeem is accused of going over the bounds of a licensing agreement by streaming full songs instead of the previews which the license apparently allowed it to. Imeem decided to skip the hearings altogether leading the judge to issue a default judgment and fine the company.

However, the consequences of the decision are a bit murky as it looks like MySpace wasn’t involved in the lawsuit which would indicate that the assets it acquired from Imeem weren’t part of the legal battle. Because of the legal and financial troubles, MySpace Music only bought select assets from the company, the most valuable of which are… (read more)

After analyzing the trucks sold in America for the last ten years, the PickupTrucks.com website alongside AutoPacific decided to create a top ten of the most significant trucks, the models which introduced new technology.

"On balance, we thought the 2009 Ford F-150 was the most significant pickup of the last decade," said Jim Hossack, vice president of consulting for AutoPacific. "It sells in high volume, owners like it and its body, chassis and powertrain are all f… (read more)

Audi’s Q5 is the latest subject of a safety recall in the United States as it has been discovered that some trim covers might get loose once the head airbag is deployed. A notification posted on the official website of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) claims that around 6,000 model year 2009 Q5 units are concerned by the recall.

In the official recall information it is mentioned that a defective cover piece mounted on the A-pillar can detach if the head … (read more)

Romain Grosjean might just have a shot at keeping his Renault seat for the 2010 season of Formula One, as it now appears Franck Montagny is no longer favorite for the job. Although recent reports showed that the Frenchman was in pole position to becoming Robert Kubica’s teammate for the upcoming year, his latest comments hint that F1 is no longer an option.

Writing on his personal website, Montagny’s goals for the year 2010 seem to have taken a sudden turn towards a successful Le … (read more)

Indian carmaker Tata Motors recently launched an upgraded version of the Sumo in the domestic market. Dubbed Grande MK II, the car will be available in 3 variants, namely Gx, Ex, and Lx, with a seating capacity ranging between 7 and 9 seats in front and side facing configurations.

The vehicle will be available in three new colours, Walnut Gold, Platinum Beige and Castle Grey.

Exterior styling features for the Grande MK II include a new chrome lined grill, side rub … (read more)

Article Tags: Michael Asten, Reply To Article, Updated

THE Copenhagen climate change summit closed two weeks ago in confusion, disagreement and, for some, disillusionment. When the political process shows such a lack of unanimity, it is pertinent to ask whether the science behind the politics is as settled as some participants maintain.

Earlier this month (The Australian, December 9) I commented on recently published results showing huge swings in atmospheric carbon dioxide, both up and down, at a time of global cooling 33.6 million years ago.

Paul Pearson and co-authors in a letter (The Weekend Australian, December 11) took exception to my use of their data and claimed I misrepresented their research, a claim I reject since I quoted their data (the veracity of which they do not contest) but offered an alternative hypothesis, namely that the present global warming theory (which was not the subject of their study) is inconsistent with the CO2-temperature variations of a past age.

Updated Below

Source: theaustralian.com.au

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Eco Factor: LED lamp powered by solar energy.

Lighting fixtures and lamps use a major percentage of the total amount of energy a household consumes. Using renewable energy for lighting systems can significantly reduce energy consumption. Od-Do Arhiteckti has come up with a sustainable lamp that harvests clean energy during the day for sustainable lighting after dark.

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A young man named Jeremy Gillian stole another young man’s XBox 360 in a robbery and then turned it on… with the network and Gamertag intact. The results are as you’d expect: the victim was able to grab the IP, police tracked it to Gillian’s grandmother’s house, and the XBox and a trove of other stolen stuff were discovered.

Now this story comes to us from the NY Post, not one of the most tech savvy newspapers in our fair city. Also the thought that NYC detectives would “work with Microsoft” to track a stolen XBox is a bit hard to accept at face value, but apparently the story happened so kudos to Pelham Detective John Hynes and Microsoft for working together on this. At least a detective had a bit of fun learning about IP scanning.

We should also totes send the detective a new XBox. Anyone live in Pelham, Bronx?

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