DaimlerChrysler AG, the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars, is set to launch Internet-based video channels with the latest on new products and details on the company’s history.
Debuting Thursday, Mercedes-Benz TV will feature a weekly 20-minute news magazine and five channels each running an hour’s worth of material 24 hours a day with topics on lifestyles; cars; engines and sports; history; and automotive legends. It will also showcase Mercedes-Benz events at world auto shows and the premieres of new models live.
Viewers can either join the programs in progress or bring them up on demand. Shows will be in English and German.
Buyers of Mercedes-Benz cars tend to be a loyal bunch and the famous brand’s German-American owner, DaimlerChrysler, has never been shy about providing information and accessories for those who shell out thousands upon thousands of dollars for the upscale luxury cars.
Scientists seek help in classifying galaxies: Scientists need help sorting through an unusual digital photo album: pictures of about 1 million galaxies.
They are asking volunteers on the Internet to help classify the galaxies as either elliptical or spiral and note, where possible, in which direction they rotate. It would be the largest galactic census ever compiled, something scientists say would provide new insight into the structure of the universe.
“We’re in the golden era of astronomy,” said Bob Nichol, an astronomer at the University of Portsmouth in southern England. “We have more data than we can assimilate, and we need help.”
Astronomers say computer programs have been unable to reliably classify the star systems.
Without volunteers, researchers would need years to wade through the photographs, which were taken automatically by a massive digital camera mounted onto a telescope at the Apache Point Observatory near Sunspot, N.M., Nichol said. With 10,000 to 20,000 people working to classify the galaxies, the process could take as little as a month.
Water will wow world expo attendees in Spain: Walking through walls will be possible and even encouraged.
When next year’s world expo opens in Zaragoza, Spain, fairgoers will encounter a building with walls made of thin sprays of water. Inside, there will be normal building stuff: a cafe, an exhibition space and overhead lighting.
The water will come from thousands of little jets that can be switched on and off, rapid-fire, by computer-controlled sensors.
The resulting effect will enable images and text to scroll in the water walls. Or as a person approaches, the sensors could shape the water flow to make a door appear anywhere in the wall, and then close it after the person ambles through.
The 5,400-square-foot building also can vanish in moments, as the roof can be lowered from its 16-foot height all the way to the ground.
Surely these are cool tricks, but so what?
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology architects who developed the idea say it’s a boundary-pushing artistic statement, in the tradition of the Crystal Palace and White City of long-ago world’s fairs. Current estimated cost is about $3 million.
Congoo lets you judge the news: A news aggregation site will start letting its users influence the placement of articles by voting on items they like or dislike.
Congoo pulls stories from about 25,000 news sources and uses software formulas to rank the top ones in about 500 predetermined categories such as real estate and cancer.
In an announcement expected Thursday, Congoo will let users recommend stories not already on the featured list – as long as they are from one of the sources checked by Congoo. And for those already on the list, users can help bump an item higher or lower by voting on it.
“At the end of the day we do feel we have a good proprietary algorithm, but we do miss stories,” said Ash Nashed, Congoo’s founder.
Congoo’s service will differ slightly from the user-recommendation news site Digg. Even with recommendations, software formulas are expected to still play a role in Congoo’s rankings. And users for now will be limited to the items already pulled by Congoo, while Digg lets people recommend stories from anywhere on the Internet.
Congoo is one of several efforts aimed at helping people assemble news items from a variety of sources online rather than rely on a single media outlet, as was the case with the printed newspaper or a TV network’s evening news.
From Herald news services
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