Nybble 2006.01.25

N Y B B L E   B I - W E E K L Y   N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2006.01.25 Issue No. 172

Sorry about the late Nybble (again). With the Australian Open on, I
can't seem to get any work done (office or personal). I have the
laptop on the table, the TV a few meters in front of me. The only time
I touch the keyboard is when the advertisement or screensaver comes
on, whichever comes first.

To be on-topic, let's talk about technology in tennis. If you watch
the game, you've probably already heard the sharp beeping/buzzing
sound that precedes a let or service fault call. That's the Cyclops in
action. The Cyclops is a 5-infrared-beam electronic system that
determines whether a serve is in or not. The infrared beams run
parallel to the service line, 10mm above the ground, with the
transmitters and receivers on opposite sides of the court. One master
beam is positioned over the service line, while the four others are
outside the service line. When the ball misses the master beam, and
cuts any of the fault beams, an audible sound is generated.

You might have also heard the commentators talk about "hawk-eye".
Hawk-Eye employs a full-blown system comprising of 5 or more
high-speed video cameras positioned around the court and a back-end
computer. The cameras track the trajectory of the ball, and send the
recordings wirelessly to the computer, where special software combines
the separate views and generated an accurate 3D representation of the
ball's flight path, accurate to 3-4mm. Aside from resolving
controversial line calls, the Hawk-Eye gives some pretty cool visual
stats: whether the ball was in or out (by how many millimeters), the
speed and trajectory of every ball in every rally, how a player places
his or her serves around the court, etc.

Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my
way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to
discuss a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the
tennis fans about it. Thanks.

_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* World's First Maglev Elevator
* Robotic Sign Language Translator
* Sex.com Sold
* Doomsday Seed Bank in Norway
* No More Konica Minolta Cameras
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh

_________WORLD'S FIRST MAGLEV ELEVATOR_________
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/01/17/maglev.lift.ap/index.html

We've heard of maglev trains before. Now Tokyo is set to get the
world's first elevators controlled by magnetic levitation as soon as 2008.

Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corp. will employ so-called
maglev technology -- capable of suspending objects in mid-air through
the combination of magnetic attraction and repulsion -- to control the
lifts. The maglev elevators will be quieter and more comfortable and
will travel 300 meters (984 feet) per minute -- not as fast as the
company's conventional lifts that can move up to 1,010 meters (3,314
feet) a minute.

Maglev technology has already been used to develop high-speed trains.
The only passenger-carrying maglev train in the world links Pudong
International Airport in Shanghai, China, to the city center at speeds
of 430 kilometers (267 miles) per hour. A maglev shuttle in
Birmingham, U.K. was abandoned in 1995 after 11 years in operation
because of technical glitches.

_________ROBOTIC SIGN LANGUAGE TRANSLATOR_________
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/culture/20060116TDY19003.htm

An 80-centimeter robotic hand that can covert spoken words and simple
phrases into sign language has been developed in the Sasagurimachi
town in Fukuoka Prefecture. The aluminum robot was developed by a team
led by the Fukuoka Prefecture Education Center's head instructor Keita
Matsuo, 39, and Hirotsugu Sakai, 38.

The two men came up with the idea when they visited a school for the
hearing-impaired and communicated with students through an interpreter
who signed for them. Why not use a robot to communicate? They studied
a book on sign language, and spent about two months creating the
system. A microchip in the robot recognizes the 50-character hiragana
syllabary and about 10 simple phrases such as "ohayo" (good morning)
and sends the information to a central computer, which sends commands
to 18 micromotors in the joints of the robotic hand, translating the
sound it hears into sign language. In the future, hundreds of
thousands of words could be programmed into the voice recognition unit
and the robotic hand could function as a receptionist.

_________SEX.COM SOLD________
http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=12847

The infamous and controversial domain Sex.com has officially been sold
to Boston-based Escom LLC for a reported $14 million.

Prior to learning of the sale of Sex.com, numerous adult industry
message board postings had already begun speculating on the sale after
noticing the radical change in the appearance of the Sex.com website.
On the homepage of the updated website, the new owners refer to the
site as "the new Sex.com," and the appearance is radically different
from the former site. The site is copyrighted by Escom.
The Sex.net domain is still registered under Kremen's Grant Media company.

_________DOOMSDAY SEED BANK IN NORWAY_________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4605398.stm

Norway is planning to build a "doomsday vault" inside a mountain on an
Arctic island to hold a seed bank of all known varieties of the
world's crops.

The Norwegian government is planning to drill into a sandstone
mountain on Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard archipelago, about 966km
(600 miles) from the North Pole. Hollow out a cave for the seed bank.
Permafrost will keep the vault below freezing point and the seeds will
further be protected by metre-thick walls of reinforced concrete, two
airlocks and high security blast-proof doors. It will be designed to
withstand global catastrophes like nuclear war or natural disasters
that would destroy the planet's sources of food. While there are
currently about 1,400 seed banks around the world, a large number of
these were located in countries that are either politically unstable
or that faced threats from the natural environment.

The number of seeds and types of plants in the bank would be
determined by the countries wishing to use it. Seed collection is
being organised by the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

_________NO MORE KONICA MINOLTA CAMERAS_________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4627002.stm

Japanese photographic equipment maker Konica Minolta has announced
plans to withdraw from the camera business because it had become too
competitive. It warned last year November that it was on course to
post a full-year net loss of 47bn yen (US$408m; £232.5m). It's also
planning to cut 3,700 jobs, or 11% of its workforce, by 2007 as part
of a restructuring drive.

Its decision to ditch the camera business altogether includes the
cessation of its colour film and photo paper business, in which it has
trailed Eastman Kodak of the US and Japan's Fuji Photo Film. Instead,
it plans to focus on products such as colour office photocopiers and
medical imaging equipment.

It would sell its digital camera business to Japanese electronics
giant Sony. Earlier in January, fellow Japanese cameramaker Nikon said
it would stop making most of its film camera line, and focus most of
its effort on digital cameras. As well as Nikon's decision, Eastman
Kodak has said for some time that digital is to be its priority in the
future.

_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
The Longest List of the Longest Stuff at the Longest Domain Name
http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/

IP Spotting
http://www.ipspotting.com/
How interesting is your IP address?

_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
Where does the blue urine used in diaper commercials come from?

_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, scholar, orator

_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Is coral a rock or a plant?
Neither. Coral are actually minute animals called polyps (only a few
millimeters long) living together in massive colonies. When you look
at hard coral, you're seeing the outer skeleton of the polyps. Only
the outermost part of coral is alive. Underlying layers are the
skeletons of dead polyps.
Source: Arcamax Trivia

_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
A college graduate applied for a job at the Central Intelligence
Agency. Together with several other applicants, he was given a sealed
envelope and told to take it to the fourth floor.

As soon as the young man was alone, he stepped into an empty hallway
and opened the packet. Inside, a message read: "You're our kind of
person. Report to the fifth floor."

That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in
progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to
improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.