Space shuttle Atlantis, is on display inside the new $100 million "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit that opened Saturday, June 29, 2013, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. The guests' experiences begin even before they enter the building. Outside, a towering replica of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters and massive external fuel tank serve as a gateway for the exhibit. The facility, itself, was designed to evoke a shuttle returning from space, using iridescent hues of orange and gold to represent the glow of re-entry and a shimmering tile pattern similar in appearance to the orbiter's underbelly.
Europe's leading space company, Astrium, is "generally interested" in acquiring one of two U.S. digital imagery providers, GeoEye Inc or DigitalGlobe Inc , and would look carefully at a deal if the price was affordable, a top Astrium executive reported on Tuesday.
Evert Dudok, chief executive of Astrium Satellites, said the company's parent, Europe's EADS, was actively looking for takeover targets in the United States, and either of the two companies would be a good fit with Astrium, which is ranked No. 3, behind them, in the geospatial information market.
"We are generally interested, but we have to really see whether that makes any sense," Dudok told Reuters after a panel at the Satellite 2012 conference. "Should such an occasion arise at a price that is affordable, one would certainly look at it."
Dudok's comments came after Sean O'Keefe, chief executive of EADS North America, underscored the company's determination to pump up its U.S. revenues through acquisitions, alliances or mergers, especially in the services and satellites sectors.
Dudok noted that Astrium last year acquired Vizada, a Paris-based satellite communications firm, and was building a strong geo-information business that provides earth observation, radar and other data to customers around the world.
He said both GeoEye and DigitalGlobe did a great deal of work for the U.S. government, which could make an acquisition by the European company more difficult, but he said an acquisition in that area would allow Astrium to streamline market approaches and combine databases for expanded commercial sales.
GeoEye and DigitalGlobe shares have come under pressure in recent weeks amid reports that the U.S. government plans to halve or significantly scale back its expected procurement of $7.3 billion in digital imagery over the next decade.
The second presentation innovation Microsoft has announced, is called PocketTouch and it is aimed at making smartphones receptive to touch gestures through fabric, such as a pocket, purse, or jacket.
The idea is that sometimes people want to quickly interact with a smartphone without having to pull it out. Microsoft refers to PocketTouch as an “eyes-free” solution. Here’s the description:
PocketTouch enables a rich set of gesture interactions, ranging from simple touch strokes to full alphanumeric text entry. Our prototype device consists of a custom multitouch capacitive sensor mounted on the back of a smartphone.
Similar capabilities could be enabled on most existing capacitive touchscreens through low-level access to the capacitive sensor… Our results suggest that PocketTouch will work reliably with a wide variety of fabrics used in today’s garments, and is a viable input method for quick eyes-free operation of devices in pockets.
PocketTouch are evolutionary steps of a larger effort by Microsoft Research to investigate the unconventional use of touch in devices to extend Microsoft’s vision of ubiquitous computing.”
It’s terrific to see Microsoft innovating on multitouch since it’s obviously a critical element of the future of computing. However, Microsoft Research has a track record of showing off lots of cool stuff that never comes to market.
They need to follow the lead of IBM’s prolific research devision, which is much better at commercializing and productizing its best innovations — or at least maybe IBM only shows off stuff that has a reasonable path to becoming a real product. Still, in this case, it looks like Microsoft has a couple innovations that aren’t just cute ideas.
Whatever you might expect from the latest computer technology, fur is unlikely to be one of them.
An unusual display at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics and animation conference in Los Angeles this month is all about the senses, and uses optical fibre to create a surface that feels furry.
Humans are naturally inclined to stroke furry objects, say Kosuke Nakajima from Osaka University, Japan, and colleagues. So, they say, we will need no instructions to interact with a furry display. "The surface of the Fusa2 display is covered with fur made of optical fibres. When a user stands in front of the display, they begin to touch its surface without any suggestions and instructions," says Yuichi Itoh of Osaka University, who is project manager of Fusa2.
When you stroke the display, it changes colour, creating "stroke marks". "In order to detect the touched area, the fibre-optics surface has many infrared LEDs," explains Itoh. Underneath the display, half the fibres lead to a camera and the other half to a projector. When a hand strokes the fibres, the infrared radiation is reflected and travels down the fibres to the camera. This image is fed to a computer, which calculates the track of the hand and has the projector shine coloured light up through the other fibres to create the coloured trails.
Itoh believes there are practical applications for a screen that users intuitively want to stroke. Because people are naturally drawn to it, it could work well with digital signage, he says, or for robotic pets. "If we create a bigger one, we could even construct a soccer stadium with turf made of a Fusa2 display. This could show lots of information, like the offside line, players' positions and score."
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