US Light vehicles sales for all of 2011 totaled 12.8 million, Autodata said, an increase of 10.3% from 2010. Car sales may rise 12 percent to 14.3 million this year and 3.5 percent to 14.8 million in 2013, Southfield, Michigan-based AlixPartners said. In the three years through 2016, sales may rise 7.4 percent to 15.9 …
Barrels and cones dot an open field in Saline, Mich., forming an obstacle course for a modified vehicle. A driver remotely steers the vehicle through the course from a nearby location as a researcher looks on. Occasionally, the researcher instructs the driver to keep the wheel straight — a trajectory that appears to put the …
MSNBC Cosmiclog – Planetary Resources, the billionaire-backed private venture that’s aiming to hunt down and mine near-Earth asteroids, is looking for suggestions about projects that could attract extra funding through Kickstarter-style campaigns. “To offer you a chance to actually get involved, we’ve been tossing around the idea of adding additional capacity in our production run, …
Wharton – Asia Grows, but Holds Its Breath (22 pages) Indonesia’s Economy Is Surging Forward, but Challenges Abound With GDP growth of more than 6% expected this year, Indonesia’s economy is stronger than it has been in years. The country is soon expected to join the club of nations with an annual GDP of more …
Voyager 1 is detecting an increase in cosmic rays. This could be indicating it is crossing over into interstellar space. This crossover could take some time. In 2011, NASA was indicating that Voyager is close to the edge of the solar system. Scientists analyzing recent data from NASA’s Voyager and Cassini spacecraft have calculated that …
Our universe may exist inside a black hole. This may sound strange, but it could actually be the best explanation of how the universe began, and what we observe today. It’s a theory that has been explored over the past few decades by a small group of physicists. The Big Bang and inflation theories leave …
The US economy should have 4-5% GDP growth. Matching Korea’s Broadband would be a 2.5% GDP boost Arthur D. Little and Chalmers University of Technology study shows that doubling the broadband speed for an economy increases GDP by 0.3%. A 1000 times increase in broadband speed should mean a 3.0% boost in GDP. If the …
China is expected to Moderatly Stimulate Economy 1. China’s economic growth is likely to rebound some time this year due to government stimulus policies and a restocking of inventories, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday. “As the inventory cycle turns, and fiscal and monetary policy become more expansionary, growth should pick up …
Researchers have taken a step toward overcoming a key obstacle in commercializing “hyperbolic metamaterials,” structures that could bring optical advances including ultrapowerful microscopes, computers and solar cells. The researchers have shown how to create the metamaterials without the traditional silver or gold previously required, said Alexandra Boltasseva, a Purdue University assistant professor of electrical and …
The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 103 is up at Yes Vermont Yankee. Nuclear Diner debunks the claim of radioactive kelp There was an article from Common Dreams that referenced report from Cal State Long Beach. According to the Cal State web page: * “Although we measured iodine 131 because we were limited in what our …
Programmable Assembly With Universally Foldable Strings (Moteins). 12 pages, 2011. Understanding how linear strings fold into 2-D and 3-D shapes has been a long sought goal in many fields of both academia and industry. This paper presents a technique to design self-assembling and self-reconfigurable systems that are composed of strings of very simple robotic modules. …