Tech News 2/17/10
Challenger space shuttle disaster amateur video discovered after 24 years
On January 28, 1986 a retired optometrist named Jack Moss captured the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster on his Betamax camcorder. He never showed it to anyone, but told his pastor, Marc Wessels, about it shortly before he died from cancer in December. Wessels, who is also the executive director of the Space Exploration Archive, found the tape and added it to the Archive.
boingboing
New Lasers Fight Crime, Martians
A new technique that uses a laser to vaporize materials like rocks and steel to analyze their chemical composition is finding new applications from Mars to forensics.
Thanks to its relatively small size and low cost, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy is emerging from the laboratory and turning into a precise tool for figuring out what something is made of. What had been a technique largely for scientists now can be transformed into a tough, small system that can be operated by a technician instead of a PhD
WIRED
Air Video Streams Your Videos to Your iPhone with Minimal Effort, Is Incredible
Windows/Mac + iPhone/iPod touch: Not only do videos take up a ton of space on space-constrained devices, but converting videos for the iPhone gets painful quickly. Air Video streams videos straight to your iPhone, converting them on-the-fly if they're incompatible.
The app is actually an iPhone app plus a PC/Mac app that acts as a server. You can use any videos on your computer, whether they are in iTunes or not—and, if you prefer, you can also add video playlists from iTunes to the list of sources. Once you get the server app running on your desktop, you can start streaming over your home network immediately. Streaming over the internet from outside your home, though, only takes a few more seconds—in the server app, go to the "Remote" tab and check Enable Access from Internet (see below). The app will give you a server PIN that you can type in when you go to add a source on your iPhone or iPod touch—note that your router at home needs a public IP address and support UPnP or NAT-PMP protocols, which shouldn't be a problem for most people.
Last Updated (Wednesday, 17 February 2010 08:36)