WEBVTT - Marshall Brain's News Roundup: April 15th, 2011 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.600 Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff Works dot com 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:14.680 where smart happens. Hi. I'm Marshall Brain and it is 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.960 time once again for the Friday News Roundup, where we 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.720 feature some of the most interesting science and technology articles 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.320 of the week. If you were to pick the thing 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.479 that has the probability of having the most effect on 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:31.720 humanity in the future, it would probably be IBMS demonstration 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:36.519 of a graphine transistor running at an impossible to imagine 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.680 a hundred and fifty five giga hurts. If a CPU 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.200 could clock at that speed, it would be roughly fifty 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:46.320 times faster than the typical CPU chip available today. That's 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.440 quite unlikely because the clock speed of a chip is 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.519 a lot more complicated than the speed of one transistor, 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:56.680 and these transistors are more designed for radios rather than 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.760 for you know, computing kinds of applications. But even so, 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.920 if you could take graphing and get even a two 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.440 x or a four x speed up, so you know, 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.920 a chip running at ten giga hurts or twenty giga hurts, 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.920 that would be impressive. Given that speed increases of pretty 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.479 much stalled at three giga hurts for several years. We'll 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.360 have to see where IBM and other manufacturers take this, 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.720 but it appears possible that graphing or some derivative thereof, 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:28.039 could be the thing that replaces silicon over the next decade. 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.640 If you go to Interesting Reading number seven twenty seven, 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.399 you can get details on these new transistors. But if 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:37.200 I were to pick the thing this week that has 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.040 the coolest buzz factor, that would have to be a 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:44.280 guy talking about building a life size functional at at 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.880 Yes and at at. This is the all terrain armored 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.600 transport that came out in the Empire Strikes Back film. 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.480 You remember in the hot scene at the beginning of 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.880 the film, there's this ice planet and these giant walkers 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.000 are walking across the ice to destroy the rebel base 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.320 and the power reactor or whatever it was. The idea 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:10.840 being that these walkers can somehow handle terrain that's you know, 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.320 rough and complex, much better than a wheeled vehicle could. 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.840 So let's ignore the obvious, like kind of silliness of 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:22.000 such a tall vehicle that's connected to such a narrow chassis, 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.560 especially since the legs in the film appear to have 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:28.880 little or no sideways mobility to handle tipping over. But 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.560 you know, these design problems have no effect on the 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:36.160 utter mind blowing power of the machines. When you saw 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:38.240 them in the film, especially when you saw them for 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.560 the first time in theaters, it was just an amazing spectacle. 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.720 So building a real one and having it walk around 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.640 would be a triumph. There's a guy named Mike Kohler 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.760 who's hoping to raise money for the project on Kickstarter. 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.120 If you google Interesting Reading number seven twenty eight, you 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.560 can you can read more about it. There's an interview 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.480 with him there. Speaking of legs, there is a female 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:06.639 double leg amputee who's making lemonade out of lemons. She um, 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:08.959 you know, as I said, as a double leg ampute 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.320 so that's the lemon part. But she's able to now 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:16.040 don a prosthesis that turns her into a mermaid. The 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:20.359 prosthesis combines her two stumps into a single tale for swimming, 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.200 and she swims so well that she would like to compete. 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.040 But obviously this would have to be a new category 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.360 of competition, since you know, normal people who are in 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.200 swimming competitions aren't wearing fins or tails or anything else currently, 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:35.720 so we'll have to see how this develops. If you 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.800 google Interesting Reading number seven seven. You can read more 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:43.720 about her story. We all have lithium ion batteries and 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.680 things like our cell phones, are iPods, are iPads, our cameras, 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.880 and our laptops. How could we get the most life 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.080 and power from these batteries? Because they are expensive and 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.480 we do use these devices a lot, it would be 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.600 nice if the batteries could last as long as possible. 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:05.200 So Popular mechanics study this question and has four recommendations. First, 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:09.800 a lithium ion battery prefers an intermediate state of charge 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.280 that is given a choice, it would last longest if 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.719 it is not ever fully charged to its maximum voltage 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.640 and if it's not ever fully drained down to you know, 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.599 no charge left on the battery. Those two conditions can 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.320 shorten the life of the battery by quite a bit. 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.800 The second tip is, you know, following on that, to 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:34.200 avoid full charges at full discharges at any time, But 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.560 the number of cycles if you're at an intermediate charge 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.520 is irrelevant. So you know, if you charge it three 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.440 times a day to keep it at an intermediate charge, 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.400 that's okay. The number of times it comes on and 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.479 off the charger is not relevant. Then number three is 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.159 something we probably already knew heat and cold are bad 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.560 for lithium ion batteries, as they are for a lot 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:59.560 of other batteries. And also you don't want to keep 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.880 lit em I on batteries constantly on a charger because 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.680 for one, that keeps him at this fully charged level, 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.880 which is bad, and for another it adds heat. So 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.200 if all of this is true, and really there's no 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.359 reason to believe that it's not, it makes you wonder 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.599 why all these tricks aren't built into chargers already, Like 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:19.840 why would a charger take a battery up to full 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.680 charge if that's bad for the battery? But you know 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:25.920 we have to wait, I guess for these chargers that 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.000 are smart enough to avoid these problems. So if you 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.159 want to learn more about this, you can go to 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:35.040 Interesting Reading seven to get the details. It really is 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.520 a pretty fascinating article. Speaking of making things last longer, 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:43.159 there was a story in Interesting Reading seven five where 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:47.159 a z Camaro with the sticker still on the window 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.080 and just a few miles on the odometer had been 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.120 left in a sort of time capsule and then got 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.960 pulled out of hybridation more than twenty years later. Except 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:58.840 for a lot of dust, it appeared to be in 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.240 pristine shape, which might suggest that if you're going to 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.000 do your own time capsule with a car and it, 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.120 you might want to invest in one of those fabric 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.440 car covers and put it over the car before you 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.880 stuff it in the box or the trailer or whatever 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:13.800 you're gonna store your time capsule in. Anyway, it was, 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:15.840 you know, a fun video to see them pull the 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:17.720 car out, and they had done a nice job of 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.039 preserving the seats with plastic and stuff, so it was 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.960 it was a neat little thing to see. But that 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:28.159 brings up a great point. If you are going to 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.880 buy a car today and save it for the future yourself, 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.000 and you wanted to hold its value, what car should 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.120 you buy? So you know, you don't want to buy 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.360 a car that people are gonna look at as junk 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:42.279 in twenty or thirty years. You want to pick a 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.600 good car. And so there's this article and interesting reading 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:50.160 number seven six that explores this question. The article recommends, 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:52.799 you know, the obvious stuff like keeping the car pretty 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:56.839 much exactly as this time capsule car was kept. You 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.320 buy the car, it has very low mileage. If you 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.640 can leave the around the window, that's great because it 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:03.880 shows you you know exactly what's on the car and 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:06.600 how much it exactly costs. You want to have all 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:08.640 original equipment on the car, you want it to be 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:12.000 in mint conditioned. But what kind of car should you pick? 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:14.760 And this is where it gets very strange, at least 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:17.120 with the first car in the list, because it's the 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:21.160 PT Cruiser, and I would never have picked that particular 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.640 car is one that would be valuable in the future, 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.560 but apparently because of its body style and so on, 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:31.120 it has the potential to really hold its value. Then 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:32.680 you go down through the list and the rest of 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:34.880 them are a lot more obvious than that, including things 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.400 like the Dodge Viper and the Plymouth Prowler and the 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:40.640 BMW Z three and even the Chevy Vault, which I, 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.320 you know, thought was interesting. Of course, the Vault is 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.760 in there because it's unlikely that anyone will ever own one. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.200 They're making so few of them. And I actually went 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.320 to the Chevy dealer here and Raleigh and asked about 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.000 the Vault, and apparently if it even ever makes it 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.280 to North Carolina, it would be in something like two 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.640 thousand and twelve. Maybe the Dler was really sketchy on 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.360 whether he would ever have Chevy vaults on his lot. 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:07.520 So anyway, if you want to see all the recommendations, 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:12.520 google Interesting Reading number seven twenty six. Everyone knows what 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.120 skyscrapers look like today, you know, they all have these 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.920 different embellishments to make them a little different from the other. Sure, 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:23.680 but they're all pretty much tall, thin, tower like buildings. 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.560 So what is the skyscraper the future going to look like? 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:30.640 And a magazine called evol had a competition, and some 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.600 of the designs that came out of that competition are 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.200 mind blowing because most of the designs look nothing like 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.000 skyscrapers look today. Many of them don't even scrape the sky. 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:45.800 They are much squatter and and flatter but immense. You know, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:50.360 they spread out instead of necessarily going up, and you 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:54.760 can have complete communities inside a single structure with these things. 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.439 It really is interesting to look at the pictures from 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.359 the competition because many of them are quite quite unexpected. 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.840 So if you google Interesting Reading number seven eight and 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.120 look for the article in the future of skyscrapers, you 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.800 can go through those pictures and see what's coming down 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:14.959 the road in terms of skyscrapers. Some of these skyscrapers 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.480 could house what might be the latest in farming technology. 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.240 More and more farming is moving indoors, and lettuce is 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.720 the most important example. Currently, much of the lettuce grown 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.560 today is grown indoors because the process of growing it 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.000 indoors cut it down on all sorts of problems, and 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.680 because lettuce is a pretty quick crop, it doesn't take 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:39.920 long for it to go from seed to maturity relatively speaking. 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.640 So an interesting reading number seven seven there's an article 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.280 on future farms where more and more of this ends 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:51.400 up happening, and every single thing, including the lighting, the temperature, 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:55.200 the humidity, everything is under human control, so the plants 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:59.240 grow optimally. This to me is a little hard to imagine, 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:03.000 especially on the lighting, because lighting is pretty expensive. You know, 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:04.760 not only do you have to buy the fixture and 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.520 the bulb, but then you have to pump electricity into it. 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:09.960 And plants need a lot of light. They need bright, 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.760 bright light to do their thing. Whether it's completely comes 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.360 to pass or not is open to question, but the 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:21.240 indoor part is definitely understandable. On most vegetable crops, grains 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.040 I would expect like wheat and corn will be grown 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.040 outdoors well into the future, but the indoor farming of 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.640 vegetables seems very likely. So if you go and google 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.240 Interesting Reading seven you can learn more about the future 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:41.720 of farms. Scientists, engineers, and inventors are known for experimentation. 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:44.240 They are out on the cutting edge and they do 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.480 experiments to discover what will work and what won't work. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.040 Some of these experiments do work out, some don't, and 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:55.040 then some are horrific, horrific failures. So this week there's 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:59.800 an article entitled fifteen Bizarre Experiments Gone Tragically Wrong and 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:04.840 has fifteen experiments that fall into that terrible, horrible category. 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.920 There are several that you would expect to find if 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.520 you're you know, if you're up on your weird human 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:15.079 scientific experiments, psychology experiments like the Stanford prison guard experiment 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.480 that show how truly awful human beings can be when 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:23.640 left in peculiar situations. There are also some medical experiments 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.800 from the era where apparently experimental doctors had no ethics. 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:32.240 There's the token aviation experiment that you know ended in death, 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.240 as many aviation experiments did in the early years, and 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.520 even you know some today. And then there's the truly 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:40.880 weird stuff. A couple of which I had never even 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.959 heard of. So if you go to Interesting Reading number 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:48.280 seven twenty eight you can learn more about these bizarre experience. 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.720 It was a pretty interesting read. One article that got 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.240 a lot of hits this week is the brain Stuff 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:59.240 article on the wave disc engine. This engine design is 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.320 coming out of Michigan State University and has gotten two 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.040 and a half million dollars in federal funding to you know, 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.400 bring it from the um, you know, the not even 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:11.920 a prototype but just sort of an idea stage into 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:16.680 a reality stage. It is a completely unconventional design like 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.160 nothing I've ever seen before, and the claims are amazing, 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.880 like sixty percent efficiency. This would be three to four 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.360 times more efficient than the typical piston engine of today, 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.319 which you know might get fifteen to twenty percent efficiency 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.360 out of the gasoline that goes into it. So this 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.600 wave disc engine would be a huge deal. If this 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.840 engine really pans out at a sixty percent efficiency, even 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.079 if it panned out at a forty percent efficiency, that 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.520 would double the efficiency today and that would be amazing. 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.040 So one thing about this engine is it's a fixed 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:54.400 rpm turbine like design, and that means it would likely 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.760 be running a fixed load electrical generator or something like 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.160 that in a hybrid vehicle. But you know, when I 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:05.040 look at this, I am I am pretty skeptical. The 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.360 articles that have been published so far on the wave 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.640 disc engine have been very high on hype and very 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.480 low on details of how this engine is going to 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:18.000 actually work. So if you read the articles, we're supposed 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.199 to actually see a working model of this engine by 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.440 the end of two thousand and eleven, and we'll get 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.240 to see if it lives up to all the expectations 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:30.559 fairly quickly. If you google brain stuff Wave disc Engine, 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:32.680 you can learn more about the engine, and some of 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.240 you know my thoughts on whether or not this might work. 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.120 I am going to be fascinated to see what happens 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.480 when the when the first real engines come out, and 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:45.840 I really hope that I'm wrong, but I'm quite skeptical 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.760 at the moment. There was a story about myth Busters, 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:53.520 in particular about Jamie Hyneman this week and his work 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.400 with the US government to develop better armor for vehicles 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.520 that will protect them from explosives like I E. D 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.679 s and minds that are embedded in roads. The idea 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.839 is to make much lighter armor so if you look 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.120 at some of the current designs for armorund vehicles, they 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.360 already show a fair amount of creativity. There's of course 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:18.320 heavy steel plating, and sometimes that plating is glued or 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.320 stickered onto thinner sheet metal to provide a quick fix, uh, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.880 you know, a quick layer of extra armor. For example, 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:29.800 on humvees. There are some V bottom vehicles where the 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:33.480 V shape tries to deflect the blast waves away from 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.800 the vehicle after the blast, so instead of coming right 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:38.520 up through the bottom of the vehicle of the blast 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:42.360 waves are are blown outward. There's something called reactive armor 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.520 that explodes when something like an RPG hits it to 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.240 blow the grenade away from the vehicle. So it'll be 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.440 interesting to see what Jamie comes up with. If you 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:54.000 google Interesting Reading seven eight you can read more about 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:59.840 his thoughts on armor design. And finally, there's head track. 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:02.960 If you've seen the demos of any of the head 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:08.040 tracking displays, the results are spectacular, and you know they've 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.800 been around for several years. The displays were used to 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.320 looking like don't do any head tracking at all. They 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.920 work more like paintings. When you move your head, it 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.840 has no effect on the screen. A head tracking display 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.200 is instead like the window of a building. As you 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.880 move your head around, the view of the window changes, 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.280 So if you walk closer to a window, you see more, 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.760 If you walk further back, you see a narrower range. 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:35.440 If you walk up close to the window and look 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.560 out to the left, there's actually you know, a lot 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:40.320 more stuff you can see out to the left, and 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.120 so on. A window works a lot different from a painting. 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.600 So people have been, you know, goofing around with head 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.400 tracking for I don't know, three or four or five years, 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.320 and amazingly, even though it's such a cool looking thing, 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.680 it's never made it into a widely used application. So 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:02.360 now there's an iPad two app location that uses the 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:07.320 iPads FaceTime camera to implement head tracking, you know, inexpensively 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.880 obviously basically for free, because the camera's already there, and 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.160 maybe this will be the version that breaks through. This 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.680 is you know, it's an application that really deserves the 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.640 limelight because it is cool when you see it in action. 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:22.840 So if you google interesting Reading number seven twenty six, 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.480 you can get a discussion in a video demonstration. So 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:28.920 that's it for this week. If you'd like to get 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.440 more details on these topics or about a hundred others. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:39.200 You can google interesting Reading number seven seven and seven 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.960 nine for details. Until next time, have a great weekend. 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.360 For more on this and thousands of other topics. Does 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:49.600 that how stuff works dot com and don't forget to 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:51.520 check out the brain stuff blog on the house stuff 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.080 works dot com home page. You can also follow brain 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.440 stuff on Facebook or Twitter at brain stuff hs W. 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.160 The house Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:03.520 today on iTunes.