The stocks of The Walt Disney Co., News Corp., CBS Corp., Time Warner Inc. and Viacom Inc. fell slightly more than the broader market by the close, with CBS falling the most, by 4.7 percent, or 87 cents, to $17.73.

“Shifts from physical to digital will disrupt the marginal economics of the TV and movie businesses, just as it did for music,” analyst Anthony DiClemente said during a conference call.

DiClemente argued that the average profit the companies see from new DVDs, including higher-priced Blu-ray discs, is $10.59. Selling the same movie through Apple Inc.’s iTunes online music and video store nets them $9.29, 12 percent less, he said.

Online movie rental services offered by iTunes and Netflix Inc., with profits ranging from $1.81 to $2.44 per movie rented, will further hurt the industry as more young people choose to rent digital copies, he said. more>>>

see video HERE

DARPA, the Pentagon’s source for R&D (and lovers of acronyms big and small) have released a video illustrating the Damage Tolerance and Autonomous Landing Solution they developed alongside Athena Technologies. Basically, DTALS is designed to take over for a pilot in the event that the aircraft sustains heavy damage. The system automatically detects the damage and adjusts the flight control system to land the aircraft safely.

In the demo video, a scale model F-18 manages to return safely to the earth despite the loss of over 60% of its wing. At this point, the DTALS system is being confined to UAVs and other unmanned aircraft, but it seems that it could be applicable to manned an commercial aircraft somewhere down the line. Hit the following link to see the full video. [Rockwell Collins and Business Wire]

From engadget:

“Hey man, check out my $4000 combo iPod dock / Class A amp playing a 128kbps MP3 file! Listen to that brittle high-end… it’s like you’re in the room with the computer that compressed this file!”

Its per-layer capacity is 25 gigabytes, which is the same as that of a Blu-ray Disc (BD). This multilayer technology will also be applicable to multilayer recordable discs.

For multilayer optical discs, it has been difficult to obtain clear signals from each recording layer in a stable manner due to crosstalk from adjacent layers and transmission loss.

Utilizing the optical disc production technology that it has developed in the DVD field, Pioneer solved these problems by, among other things, using a disc structure that can reduce crosstalk from adjacent layers, resulting in a 16-layer optical disc that can playback high-quality signals from every layer. more>>>

“There are about 25,000 genes in the humane genome. We have 9,000 articles,” said Andrew Su, one of those behind the “Gene Wiki” project from the Genomics Institute at the Novartis Research Foundation in San Diego, California.

“Our goal is to provide a uniform starting point for all genes,” he said, noting that afterwards it was up to other scientists to add information and keep it up to date, as happens now with Wikipedia entries.

“The entire community will generate content and also oversee that content.” more>>>

US scientists have developed robots using the same principles of electro-magnetics that make balloons stick to ceilings after being rubbed.

The robots, developed by a team in SRI’s Mobile Robotics and Transducers Programme, are around the size of a remote-controlled car and have caterpillar tracks similar to those on toy tanks.

The technology could be used to enable robots to work in areas that are difficult for humans to go, such as tunnels or outside large buildings. see video>>>

Emotiv, a San Francisco-based startup that marries neuroscience and computer engineering, says its EPOC gaming headset offers only a glimpse of what the technology has to offer.

“There is no natural barrier from what we can see,” Emotiv co-founder Tan Le told AFP while demonstrating the headset in the firm’s office.

“This is the tip of the iceberg for what is possible for us. There will be a convergence of gesture-based technology and the brain as a new interface — the Holy Grail is the mind.”

Gamers will be able to get their hands on the gadget in time for the winter holiday season, the company says. more>>>

…need to have a good laugh too! This is a fucking awesome video about Singulatarians. Watch it…then get back to work!

B. Alan Wallace on the Pursuits of Understanding, Happiness and Virtue from Kevin Mullin on Vimeo.