Magic Fluids: Fun with water and smoke animations

There isn't exactly any functional purpose to it, but that doesn't mean it's not incredibly fun

Magic Fluids is an animation app that simulates the effects of liquid and smoke with a bit of artful flair. With a pretty robust number of settings to tweak and play with, you can spend hours getting lost in this app. When you're done actively using it, Magic Fluids can be turned into a live wallpaper as well.

While it doesn't have any value other than being extremely cool to look at, Magic Fluids is still worth playing around with. Hang with us after the break and see what it's all about.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/LoK9QmIONFc/story01.htm

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10 Router Bits Every DIYer Should Own

A router is arguably the most versatile portable power tool you can buy. With this single tool you can shape decorative edges, trim laminates and veneers, rout hinge mortises, and cut a wide variety of woodworking joints, including dado, dovetail, rabbet, mortise-and-tenon, and tongue-and-groove, to name a few.

There are hundreds of different sizes and styles of router bits available to help you make all those cuts. But the vast number of choices can make it difficult to know which router bits to buy, especially if you're new to routing. So we drew up a list of 10 carbide-tipped router bits that every do-it-yourselfer should own. Once your woodworking skills and confidence grow, you can add more bits. Happy routing!

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/reviews/power-tools/10-router-bits-every-diyer-should-own?src=rss

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U.S.: N. Korea poses 'real and clear danger'

By Jack Kim and Phil Stewart

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said it would soon send a missile defense system to Guam to defend it from North Korea, as the U.S. military adjusts to what Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called a "real and clear danger" from Pyongyang.

Hours later, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said North Korea had moved what appeared to be a mid-range Musudan missile to its east coast. It was not clear if the North planned to fire the rocket or was just putting it on display as a show of force, one South Korean government source was quoted as saying.

North Korea also barred entry to a joint industrial complex it shares with the South for a second day on Thursday and said it would shut the zone if Seoul continued to insult it.

Events on the Korean peninsula have begun to unnerve global financial markets long used to the rhetoric North Korea routinely hurls at Seoul and Washington.

"The assumption remains that this is more bluster ...," said Rob Ryan, a strategist with RBS in Singapore. "But from here, we've reached a level of tensions that say things can't get too much worse without an actual exchange of fire."

The broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.6 percent, dragged down by a 2 percent slump in South Korean shares, while the South Korean won slid 0.7 percent against the U.S. dollar.

U.S. stocks sank on Wednesday after Hagel's comments and the Guam deployment news.

North Korea also repeated its threat to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. Pyongyang said it had ratified a potential strike because of U.S. military deployments around the Korean peninsula that it claimed were a prelude to a possible nuclear attack on the North.

Washington had been informed of the potential attack by North Korea, a spokesman for its army said in a statement carried by the English-language service of state news agency KCNA. It was unclear how such a warning was given since North Korea does not have diplomatic ties with Washington.

The report from KCNA appeared to re-state many of the month-long fusillade of threats emanating from Pyongyang.

Experts say North Korea is years away from being able to hit the continental United States with a nuclear weapon, despite having worked for decades to achieve nuclear-arms capability.

North Korea has previously threatened a nuclear strike on the United States and missile attacks on its Pacific bases, including in Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific.

Those threats followed new U.N. sanctions imposed on the North after it carried out its third nuclear test in February.

"Some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger," Hagel told an audience at the National Defense University in Washington.

Despite the rhetoric, Pyongyang has not taken any military action and has shown no sign of preparing its 1.2 million-strong armed forces for war, the White House said on Monday.

That indicates its threats are partly intended for domestic consumption to bolster young leader Kim Jong-un ahead of celebrations marking the anniversary of the April 15 birthday of Kim Il-sung, the state's founder and the younger Kim's grandfather.

Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, criticized the latest North Korean statement.

"It is yet another offering in a long line of provocative statements that only serve to further isolate North Korea from the rest of the international community and undermine its goal of economic development," Hayden said.

HAGEL: TAKE THREATS SERIOUSLY

Hagel said he had to take the threats seriously, language he has used in recent weeks as the United States has revamped its missile defense plans and positioned two guided-missile destroyers in the western Pacific.

The United States has also flexed its muscles during annual military drills with South Korea, flying two radar-evading stealth bombers on a first-of-its-kind practice bombing run over South Korea.

In the latest move, the Pentagon said it was deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to Guam in the coming weeks. The THAAD system includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles and an AN/TPY-2 tracking radar.

Last month, Hagel said the Pentagon would add 14 new anti-missile interceptors in Alaska and move ahead with the deployment of a second missile-defense radar in Japan.

Yonhap quoted multiple government sources privy to intelligence from U.S. and South Korean authorities as saying North Korea had moved what appeared to be a Musudan missile to its east coast.

The missile is believed to have a range of 3,000 km (1,865 miles) or more, which would put all of South Korea and Japan in range and possibly also Guam. North Korea is not believed to have tested the Musudan mid-range missiles, according to most independent experts

South Korea's defense ministry declined to comment.

The missile was moved to the coast by train. The North has a missile launch site on its northeastern coast, which it has used to unsuccessfully test-fire long-range rockets in the past.

The Yonhap report did not say if the missile had been moved to the missile site.

The South Korean government said the North would allow 222 South Korean workers to leave the Kaesong industrial zone on Thursday. That would leave another 606 South Koreans in the complex. Seoul has urged its citizens to get out.

North Korea has threatened to shut the complex, one of the impoverished North's few sources of ready cash.

The industrial park, just inside the border with North Korea, has not formally stopped operations since it was inaugurated in 2000. It houses 123 companies and employs 50,000 North Koreans making cheap goods such as clothing.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL, Ju-min Park in PAJU, David Alexander in WASHINGTON and Vidya Rangananthan in SINGAPORE; Writing by Dean Yates; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-send-missile-defenses-guam-over-north-korea-011546394.html

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Sergey Brin Steps Out in Google Glass ? And a Hot-Pink Tesla Batmobile

Someone pimped Sergey Brin's ride in the most ostentatious way possible to celebrate All Fool's Day.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/04/sergey-brin-pink-tesla/

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TCL LE46FHDE5300

• Pros

  Very affordable. Good image detail. Energy efficient.

• Cons Oversaturated reds and greens. Sluggish remote. Only two HDMI ports.
• Bottom Line

  With the TCL LEFHDE5300 series you get capable LED-backlit HDTVs at affordable prices?the 46-inch model we tested rings up for less than $550. Features are scarce and color accuracy could be better, but this set is still a good deal for the money.

By John R. Delaney

Cash-strapped consumers take note: Chinese HDTV manufacturer TCL has reset the bar for budget-priced HDTVs. We recently reviewed the company's LE40FHDE3000 model and gave it props for its overall bang for the buck, as the least-expensive 40-inch HDTV we?ve ever tested. If you want a slightly bigger screen, though, TCL's LEFHDE5300 series is a better choice. This line has 42- and 46-inch versions, and the 46-inch version we tested, the LE46FHDE5300, is notable for its $549 (list) price, especially considering you might be able to find it for much less if you shop around. It's not without issues, though, color accuracy is a bit off, and the remote was slightly slow to respond in our tests. And like most budget HDTVs, there aren?t many features to be had here. On the plus side, 1080p image detail is sharp and the set doesn?t require a lot of power. If you're on a strict budget, TCL is worth checking out.

Design and Features
The LE46FHDE5300 may be inexpensive, but it doesn?t look cheap. The 46-inch panel is framed by very thin (0.5-inch) matte black bezels on the top and sides, with a slightly wider (0.8-inch) bezel on the bottom. The only adornments are a shiny TCL logo in the center of the bottom bezel and a silver Power button off to the right.

At first glance the set looks extremely thin, measuring just 0.6 inches at its thinnest point. However, it juts out to 2.2 inches at the bottom where the down-firing speakers are embedded. The 25-pound cabinet is supported by a heavy, rectangular glass base that is sturdy but doesn?t provide any swivel. There are four VESA-compliant mounting holes on the back for hanging the TV on a wall using an optional mounting kit.

The right side of the cabinet is home to three rocker buttons (Channel Up/Down, Volume Up/Down, Menu/Input). Around back, facing left, are two HDMI ports, a USB port, and a headphone jack. Downward-facing ports include composite and component A/V ports, PC audio input, VGA video input, digital audio output, and an antenna/cable jack. As with the TCL LE40FHDE3000, and our budget Editors' Choice, the RCA LED42C45RQ, this model only has two HDMI ports and lacks any network port, Wi-Fi, or Web apps.

The set uses the same remote that ships with the LE40FHDE3000. It?s 8 inches long, with a glossy black finish and 37 non-backlit buttons. There are no color-coded keys, but it does have playback controls and a dedicated picture preset button. I noticed a lag in response time when using the remote to change picture settings and while navigating through the settings menus, an issue I did not experience with the LE40FHDE3000.

There are six picture presets: Natural, Sports, Cinematic, Vibrant, ECO, and Personal. Basic settings include Brightness, Contrast, and Sharpness. Expert settings allow you to adjust Backlight, Color, Tint, and Color Temperature. The Advanced settings menu offers an SABC (Screen Adaptive Brightness Control) option that, when enabled, changes the brightness level depending on the content being displayed. There?s also a Dynamic Backlight option that changes the backlighting level depending on screen content, and three noise reduction settings.

Performance
Using images from the DisplayMate HDTV diagnostic utility, a Klein K10-A Colorimeter, and SpectraCal?s CalMan 5 software, I performed a basic darkroom calibration on the LE46FHDE5300 and then measured luminance levels and color accuracy. The set produced a peak brightness of 255.73 cd/m² and a black level reading of 0.079 cd/m². The resulting contrast ratio of 3,237:1 is nothing to write home about, although it is higher than what we got from other low-cost sets including the Insignia NS-42E480A13, the Westinghouse UW40T2BW, and the RCA LED42C45RQ.

Color accuracy is sketchy, as you can see from the CIE chromaticity chart below. The closer the red, green, and blue dots are to their corresponding boxes, the better the color accuracy. (Ideally each dot will be inside the box.)? In this case, blues were very close to ideal, but reds and greens land well outside the box. As a result, the LE46FHDE5300?s picture is a little hot, or oversaturated. This was obvious while watching the movie Piranha on Blu-ray; flesh tones looked a bit too red, and Elisabeth Shue?s blond hair had a very slight green cast to it. That said, color accuracy issues are not uncommon with HDTVs in this price range, and are part of the reason you?ll pay a lot more for a same-size set like the Sony Bravia KDL-46HX850, which has extremely accurate colors.

Otherwise, the LE46FHDE5300 offers sharp image detail and moderately good viewing angles. There is some loss of luminance at around 45 degrees off center that gives the picture a slightly washed out look, but colors remain intact.

The LE46FHDE5300 is a relatively energy efficient budget HDTV, requiring 53 watts of power during testing, which is exactly what the much smaller (40-inch) Westinghouse UW40T2BW used, and only slightly more than the same-size Sony KDL-46HX850 (47 watts). The Insignia and RCA models used 64 watts and 67 watts, respectively, and both have smaller screens than the LE46FHDE5300.

Conclusion
If you?re in the market for a simple, inexpensive, larger-than-40-inch HDTV, the TCL FHDE5300 series has you covered. It delivers a bright picture and sharp image detail, has relatively wide viewing angles, and is energy efficient. While its color accuracy is not optimal, it offers a better all-around picture than comparably priced sets like the Insignia NS-42E480A13 and the Westinghouse UW40T2BW. That said, it still can?t match the overall picture quality of our reigning Editors? Choice for budget HDTVs, the 42-inch RCA LED42C45RQ.

Cash-strapped consumers take note: Chinese HDTV manufacturer TCL (The Creative Life) has reset the bar for budget-priced HDTVs. We recently reviewed their LE40FHDE3000 model and gave it props for its overall bang for the buck, and for being the cheapest 40-inch HDTV we?ve seen here at the PCMag.com Labs.? However, if a 40-inch screen just won?t cut it, consider 46-inch version of the company's LEFHDE5300 series, the LE46FHDE5300. This $549 (list) 1080p LED-backlit HDTV offers significantly more viewing area than its smaller sibling, and it?s a relative steal at just under $550 (or less if you shop around). However, it is not without issues; color accuracy is off and the remote is slow to respond. Like most budget HDTVs, there aren?t many features on this model, either. ?On the plus side, image detail is sharp and the set doesn?t require a lot of power. The 42-inch version, the LE42FHDE5300, is available for even less, and while we haven't tested that specific model, our tests based on the LE46FHDE5300 give a good sense of how it will perform. ? Design and Features ? The LE46FHDE5300 may be inexpensive, but it doesn?t look cheap. The 46-inch panel is framed by very thin (0.5-inch) matte black bezels on the top and sides, with a slightly wider (0.8-inch) bezel on the bottom. The only accoutrements are a shiny TCL logo in the center of the bottom bezel and silver power button off to the right. ? At first glance the cabinet looks extremely thin, measuring just 0.6 inches at its thinnest point. However, it juts out to 2.3 inches at the bottom where the down-firing speakers are embedded. The 25-pound cabinet is supported by a heavy, rectangular glass base that is sturdy but doesn?t provide swivel movement. There are four VESA-compliant mounting holes on the back for hanging the TV on a wall using an optional mounting kit. ? The right side of the cabinet is home to three rocker buttons (Channel Up/Down, Volume Up/Down, Menu/Input). Around back facing left are two HDMI ports, a USB port, and a headphone jack. Downward-facing ports include composite and component A/V ports, PC audio input, VGA video input, digital audio output, and an antenna/cable jack. As with the TCL LE40FHDE3000 and the Editors' Choice RCA LED42C45RQ, this model only has two HDMI ports and lacks any network port, Wi-Fi, or Web apps. ? The LE46FHDE5300 uses the same exact remote that ships with the LE40FHDE3000. It?s 8 inches long, with a glossy black finish and 37 non-backlit buttons. There are no color-coded keys, but it does have playback controls and a dedicated picture preset button. ?I noticed significant lag in response time when using the remote to change picture settings and while navigating through the settings menus, an issue I did not experience with the LE40FHDE3000. ? There are six picture presets: Natural, Sports, Cinematic, Vibrant, ECO, and Personal. Basic settings include Brightness, Contrast, and Sharpness. Expert settings allow you to adjust Backlight, Color, Tint, and Color Temperature. The Advanced settings menu offers an SABC (Screen Adaptive Brightness Control) option that, when enabled, changes the brightness level depending on the content being displayed. There?s also a Dynamic Backlight option that changes the backlighting level depending on screen content, and three noise reduction settings. ? Performance ? Using images from the DisplayMate HDTV diagnostic utility, a Klein K10-A Colorimeter, and SpectraCal?s CalMan 5 software, I performed a basic darkroom calibration on the LE46FHDE5300 and then measured luminance levels and color accuracy. The set produced a peak brightness of 255.73 cd/m2 and a black level reading of 0.079 cd/m2. The resulting contrast ratio of 3,237:1 is nothing to write about, although it is higher than what we got from the Insignia NS-42E480A13, the Westinghouse UW40T2BW, and the RCA LED42C45RQ. ? Color accuracy was sketchy, as you can see from the CIE chromaticity chart below. The closer the red, green, and blue dots are to their corresponding boxes, the better the color accuracy (ideally each dot will be inside the box).? In this case, blues were very close to ideal but reds and greens landed well outside the box. As a result, the LE46FHDE5300?s picture is a little hot, or oversaturated. This was obvious while watching the movie Piranha on Blu-ray; flesh tones looked a bit too red and Elisabeth Shue?s blond hair had a very slight green cast to it. That said, color accuracy issues are not uncommon with HDTVs in this price range, and is one of the reasons you?ll pay more for a set like the Sony Bravia KDL-46HX850, which has extremely accurate colors. ? Otherwise, the LE46FHDE5300 offers sharp image detail and moderately good viewing angles. There was some loss of luminance at around 45-degrees off dead center that gave the picture a slightly washed out look, but colors remained intact. ? The LE46FHDE5300 is a relatively energy efficient budget HDTV and earns our Greentech stamp of approval. It required 53 watts of power during testing, which is exactly what the much smaller (40-inch) Westinghouse UW40T2BW used and only slightly more than the Sony KDL-46HX850 (47 watts). The Insignia and RCA models used 64 watts and 67 watts, respectively, and both have smaller screens than the LE46FHDE5300. ? Conclusion ? If you?re in the market for a 46-inch HDTV but need to keep expenses below $600, the TCL LE46FHDE5300 has you covered. It delivers a bright picture and sharp image detail, and it has relatively wide viewing angles. It?s energy efficient, too. While its color accuracy is not optimal, it offers a better all around picture than comparably priced sets like the Insignia NS-42E480A13 and the Westinghouse UW40T2BW. That said, it still can?t match the overall picture quality of our reigning Editors? Choice for budget HDTVs, the RCA LED42C45RQ.

Other TCL Corporation HDTVs

By John R. Delaney Contributing Editor, Monitors and HDTVs

As a Contributing Editor for PC Magazine, John Delaney has been testing and reviewing business displays, PCs, servers, and other assorted hardware and peripherals for the past 8 years. A 13-year veteran of PC Magazine's...

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Californians support coal despite LA plan to ban it

Californian support for clean coal power?is in stark contrast to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to remove coal from the city's electricity mix by the year 2025, Tracey writes.

By Evan Tracey,?American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) / April 4, 2013

This content provided by a Monitor sponsor. What's this?

The Los Angeles, Calif., downtown skyline is pictured. The mayor of Los Angeles has announced that the city will become the only city in America that won?t get any electricity from coal by the year 2025.

Mario Anzuoni/Reuters/File

Enlarge

Clean coal technology enjoys majority support among California voters. It is especially interesting that this support is broad-based, encompassing majorities of Republican, Democratic and voters declining to state a party affiliation. Given that the most important issues to California voters are ?jobs and the economy?, voter sentiment that the state?s energy policies have made it less competitive should be a red flag to Sacramento legislators.

Skip to next paragraph Evan Tracey

Senior Vice President for Communications, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE)

Mr. Tracey oversees the strategy on how to communicate the importance of electricity from coal and the value of investments in clean coal technology. He has two decades of political, legislative and issue research experience and has provided strategic media analysis for a number of trade associations, foundations, Fortune 500 companies, political party committees, the national press, academic institutions, as well as hundreds of national, statewide and local political campaigns.

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In a recent survey of California voters, nearly 57% answered yes when they were asked ?Do you support or oppose developing new clean coal power plants in California??

When asked the question, ?Do you think that California?s energy policies have made the state more or less competitive??, more than 43% answered yes. And particularly telling is the fact that nearly?one-quarter of California voters (24.7%) feel that the state?s energy policies have made the state far less competitive.

These numbers are in stark contrast to comments recently made by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa when he announced that the city will become the only city in America that won?t get any electricity from coal by the year 2025.?

Chimps: Ability to 'think about thinking' not limited to humans

Apr. 3, 2013 ? Humans' closest animal relatives, chimpanzees, have the ability to "think about thinking" -- what is called "metacognition," according to new research by scientists at Georgia State University and the University at Buffalo.

Michael J. Beran and Bonnie M. Perdue of the Georgia State Language Research Center (LRC) and J. David Smith of the University at Buffalo conducted the research, published in the journal Psychological Science of the Association for Psychological Science.

"The demonstration of metacognition in nonhuman primates has important implications regarding the emergence of self-reflective mind during humans' cognitive evolution," the research team noted.

Metacognition is the ability to recognize one's own cognitive states. For example, a game show contestant must make the decision to "phone a friend" or risk it all, dependent on how confident he or she is in knowing the answer.

"There has been an intense debate in the scientific literature in recent years over whether metacognition is unique to humans," Beran said.

Chimpanzees at Georgia State's LRC have been trained to use a language-like system of symbols to name things, giving researchers a unique way to query animals about their states of knowing or not knowing.

In the experiment, researchers tested the chimpanzees on a task that required them to use symbols to name what food was hidden in a location. If a piece of banana was hidden, the chimpanzees would report that fact and gain the food by touching the symbol for banana on their symbol keyboards.

But then, the researchers provided chimpanzees either with complete or incomplete information about the identity of the food rewards.

In some cases, the chimpanzees had already seen what item was available in the hidden location and could immediately name it by touching the correct symbol without going to look at the item in the hidden location to see what it was.

In other cases, the chimpanzees could not know what food item was in the hidden location, because either they had not seen any food yet on that trial, or because even if they had seen a food item, it may not have been the one moved to the hidden location.

In those cases, they should have first gone to look in the hidden location before trying to name any food.

In the end, chimpanzees named items immediately and directly when they knew what was there, but they sought out more information before naming when they did not already know.

The research team said, "This pattern of behavior reflects a controlled information-seeking capacity that serves to support intelligent responding, and it strongly suggests that our closest living relative has metacognitive abilities closely related to those of humans."

The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Georgia State University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. M. J. Beran, J. D. Smith, B. M. Perdue. Language-Trained Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Name What They Have Seen but Look First at What They Have Not Seen. Psychological Science, 2013; DOI: 10.1177/0956797612458936

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/7SxbKioskGU/130403141442.htm

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