3D Gaming on PCs Is Looking Bigger and Brighter (Literally) [3D]

By Matt Buchanan Oct 14, 2011 9:30 PM 6,615 13

I would be lying if I said I was going to rush out to buy a new PC and 3D monitor so I can stab zombies in the brain in 3D, but I can honestly tell you Nvidia's 3D Vision 2 is much better than the original.

Nvidia's second jab at 3D gaming on the PC fixes a lot of the problems with the original: The images are twice as bright, thanks to a tech Nvidia's calling LightBoost, which essentially lets more light through the lenses at a time (3D tends to be dim, as you might've noticed at the movies). The new flagship 3D Vision monitor is a 27-inch, 1920x1080 LED display from Asus, up from last year's 24-inch screens. (You will pay for that extra real estate though: With a pair of the new glasses, the monitor's $700.) The new glasses have 20 percent larger lenses to boot, but are cheaper than before, at $100. I think they're slightly less comfortable than the originals, but they totally look less dorky.

The proof is in the pixels, though, and the handful of games I played through, like Batman's latest, Arkham City were definitely way more engaging with 3D Vision 2 than the original, since I could actually, like, see things. A dark game + dim picture = emo sadness.

I'm still not entirely sold on 3D gaming—I haven't really played anything in 3D that has shaken me to the very core of my being—but if progress can be made along the lines that Nvidia's made here at short, regular intervals, that may increasingly be a question about content rather than technology. Expect more soon, either from us or the guys at Kotaku. All the new gear goes on sale later this month. [Nvidia]

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Sex Can Literally Blow Your Mind [Sex]

By Adrian Covert Oct 12, 2011 1:20 PM 20,253 44

Could Sex have adverse side effects on your memory? Livescience tells the story of a woman who, an hour after having sex, began experiencing an episode of temporary global amnesia.

Stephanie Pappas writes that people in their 50s and 60s can suffer bouts of amnesia after intense physical activity. In this case, first reported by The Journal of Emergency Medicine, the woman was 54-years-old, and by the time she had left the emergency room, her symptoms had cleared. So what triggered the amnesia specifically? It could have to do with a lack of valves in the jugular vein, which allow deoxygenated blood to flow back up into the brain.

The best guess for what might be happening is that patients unwittingly trigger the transient global amnesia by raising the pressure inside their abdomens. This is called the "Valsalva maneuver," familiar as the "bearing down" people might do when lifting weights, defecating or even having sex. The increased pressure increases the resistance to blood flowing down the jugular veins, and insufficient valves may allow deoxygenated blood to push back up the neck. Oxygen-poor blood then "piles up" in the veins draining the brain, especially in central brain regions that are key to memory formation. The result could be transient amnesia.

If there was ever a tasteful reason to be opposed to the idea of old people having sex, this would be it. [LiveScience]

Image via Shutterstock/Selena

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Larry Ellison's Sail Boat Is Literally Faster than the Wind [Monster Machines]

By Andrew Tarantola Oct 10, 2011 11:30 AM 8,701 17

Oracle founder Larry Ellison takes his boat racing very seriously. His team's entry in last year's America's Cup, the USA-17, is actually capable of sailing faster than the prevailing wind. And not just by a little bit—2.5 times faster.

USA-17 is the specially-built sloop rigged racing sail trimaran (a catamaran with three hulls) launched by the BMW Oracle Racing team that won the 33rd America's Cup. It's 90 feet long square at the waterline—about the size of a baseball infield—and displaces 17 tons of water. The USA -17 was designed by VPLP Yacht Design and is constructed primarily out of carbon fiber composite. This makes her exceptionally light and fast for her size. When travelling downwind with a 5-10 knot winds in last year's America's Cup, the USA-17 was recorded rocketing along at an astonishing 19 knots.

The hulls are constructed from millimeter-thick carbon epoxy laminated around an ultra-light honeycomb core and then baked in a vacuum chamber within a massive oven for eight hours at 80 degrees Celsius. This results in a hull that is exceptionally strong, stiff, and most importantly, light. And it's got to be—tight turns can generate as much as 15 tons of torque on the hull.

It's also designed to cut through waves. The USA-17 has a very narrow bow that's much less buoyant than the rear of the ship. This forces the hull through, rather than over, the wave which results in a smoother ride and reduces the ship's resistance through the water.

The USA-17 is propelled by its massive 223-foot tall, 7,700 pound main wing that's attached a 3.5-ton carbon fiber and Kevlar mast. It's taller than the Statue of Liberty and larger than any plane wing in existence. This airfoil works just like a plane's wing, except that it produces horizontal thrust rather than vertical.

The amount of curve in the wing determines how much lift it produces. The mast rotates to control the angle of the wing while nine, two-story tall trailing wing flaps can be independently angled to adjust the wing's overall curve. These trailing wings form a slotted flap when deflected, much like the flaps on an airplane's wing which produces more thrust than earlier wingmast/sail combinations. In addition, these flaps can be adjusted to maximize the lift on the wing near the base of the mast and lessening higher up to produce lots of power without a lot of heeling force (which is what causes boats to flip).

In addition, her sails—the mainsail, headsail, and gennaker—have a massive combined surface area of nearly 22,000 square feet.

All of this design means there're lots of parts that can break. To monitor the stresses and loads placed upon the boat as the crew trains and races, 250 sensors located throughout the hull, mast and sails, beam real-time data to a PDA on the skipper's wrist.

[New York Times - America's Cup - Wikipedia - Tom Speer]

Monster Machines is all about the most exceptional machines in the world, from massive gadgets of destruction to tiny machines of precision, and everything in between.

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