PreacherTom writes "It is nothing new to see technology from military and governmental endeavors change daily life profoundly. One only has to look at the fruits of the space program (from computers to microwave ovens to Tang). New military gear is on the horizon that promises to do the same, including biosensors, bandages that clot blood using soundwaves, and the ubiquitous Swiss Army Pen."

serutan writes "Shortly before the release of 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension' in 1984, physicist Carl Sneider of U.C. Berkeley wrote a surprisingly interesting essay on the physics behind the movie. Since the essay is not widely available on the web and I could only find it in plain text, I posted a more readable HTML version on my site. Among the more interesting points Sneider makes are that the oscillation overthruster is the result of decades of research instead of the usual laboratory accident, and its development corresponds surprisingly well with the evolution of particle physics from the 1930s to the 80s."

Skythe writes "Gateworld reports that an exclusive, third Stargate series is in the works: 'The new series is in the concept phase, and is being actively worked on by the Vancouver creatives behind Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. No concept for the show has yet been revealed.' Gateworld also reports despite the cancellation of SG-1, the series is likely for a 2007 debut. I wonder if the direct-to-dvd movies will any influence on the new series, and what the concept behind the show will be?"

Philias writes "A new web-based Star Trek Animated Series may be in the works. CBS is considering a pitch by veteran Trek producer Dave Rossi for a 'Clone Wars' style animated series for StarTrek.com. Like Clone Wars the episodes would be just a few minutes long. Unlike the old animated Trek show from the 70s, this one would be with a whole new crew set in a new time period. The setting is to be a war-torn post-9/11-like Trek universe 150 years after the time of Picard." From the post: "The Zero Room team felt that the time was right for a new approach to Trek. The setting is the year 2528 and the Federation is a different place after suffering through a devastating war with the Romulans 60 years earlier. The war was sparked off after a surprise attack of dozens of 'Omega particle' detonations throughout the Federation creating vast areas which become impassible to warp travel and essentially cut off almost half the Federation from the rest. During the war the Klingon homeworld was occupied by the Romulans, all of Andoria was destroyed and the Vulcans, who were negotiating reunification with the Romulans, pulled out of the Federation. The setting may seem bleak and not very Trek-like, but that is where the show's hero Captain Alexander Chase comes in."

Joe Dickerson writes, "Aberrant Dreams, an Atlanta-based online magazine, has posted an exclusive interview with science fiction great Greg Bear. The interview covers topics from what it was like being the son-in-law of Poul Anderson, to his newest book (Quantico), to plans for upcoming books. While you're there, check out their other exclusive interviews with the likes of Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, and Gerald W. Page."

ajs writes "As previously announced, 'Babylon 5: The Lost Tales' is a direct-to-DVD project based on the popular series from the mid-1990s. Lost Tales first DVD, titled 'Voices of the Dark' has now begun production. As usual, J. Michael Straczynski and Doug Netter will be running the show with Straczynski directing. The characters, President John Sheridan (Boxleitner), Captain Elizabeth Lochley (Scoggins) and the technomage Galen (Woodward) are returning. The Lost Tales is an anthology series of sorts with two movies (previously three) per DVD starting in 2007. Straczynski has commented on Usenet that a more CG-intensive installment is coming in the next batch, featuring the character of Michael Garibaldi (Doyle)."

ultracool writes, "While the only permanent solution for human-driven global warming is developing renewable energy, a temporary hack to counteract possible abrupt climate change is to build a giant sunshade in space. The sunshade would be launched in small pieces by electromagnetic launchers, conventional chemical rockets being far too expensive. The sunshade could be developed and deployed in 25 years, would last about 50 years, and would reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth by 2% — enough to balance heating due to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere." From the article: "The [trillions of] spacecraft would form a long, cylindrical cloud with a diameter about half that of Earth, and about 10 times longer... Sunlight passing through the 60,000-mile length of the cloud, pointing lengthwise between the Earth and the sun [at L-1], would be diverted away from our planet... The sunshade could be deployed by a total 20 electromagnetic launchers [collectively] launching a stack of [a million] fliers every 5 minutes for 10 years."

Susan Elliott Sim asks: "In the science fiction novel, 'A Deepness in the Sky,' Vernor Vinge described a future where software is created by 'programmer archaeologists' who search archives for existing pieces of code, contextualize them, and combine them into new applications. So much complexity and automation has been built into code that it is simply infeasible to build from scratch. While this seems like the ultimate code reuse fantasy (or nightmare), we think it's starting to happen with the availability of Open Source software. We have observed a number of projects where software development is driven by the identification, selection, and combination of working software systems. More often than not, these constituent parts are Open Source software systems and typically not designed to be used as components. These parts are then made to interoperate through wrappers and glue code. We think this trend is a harbinger of things to come. What do you think? How prevalent is this approach to new software development? What do software developers think about their projects being used in such a way?"

Ant writes "Chairboy's Halloween costume this year was a Caterpillar Power Loader J-5000, the hydraulic utility vehicle seen in the James Cameron's 1986 movie, Aliens. There is a journal of him making it from scratch, a photograph/photo gallery, and a video clip of it in action from yesterday."

Wired's games blog Game|Life alerted me to a great feature on the main Wired site. Called Very Short Stories, the piece features the work of 33 well-known writers practicing their craft in six word chunks. Their work is combined with several talented graphic designers to generate some very creative works of art. Some of my favorites: "The baby's blood type? Human, mostly'. - Orson Scott Card
'Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.' - Richard Powers
'Kirby had never eaten toes before.' - Kevin Smith" The games blog makes a point to highlight the works of game writers Mark Laidlaw and Steve Meretzky. Laidlaw's contribution: ">Help! Trapped in a text adventure!" Alrighty, folks ... let's hear yours.

An anonymous reader writes "Facial recognition software has been touted as one of the technologies that will change our future, particularly in law enforcement. How close are we to being recognized by a computer anywhere we go, as portrayed in movies like Minority Report? According to the industry's recent Public Relations releases, these products are closer than we think. The reality though, is that current products work only when utilizing a small comparative sample, and any attempts for an individual to disguise themselves typically throw off the results. To see how far this technology needs to go before becoming mainstream, one site utilized Government-tested face recognition software, available freely through MyHeritage.com, to compare hundreds of famous people, animals, and cartoons to a database of 2,000 celebrities. Some of the results showed promise for the technology, but most were just funny — for example, who would mistake Barbara Streisand for Shrek, or Lance Bass of N'Sync for a Teletubby?"

nebaz writes "MSNBC has an article saying that there is tension between NBC and Ron Moore and team about the royalties on the 'Webisodes' of Battlestar Galactica. The episodes have been seized by NBC, balking at Ron Moore's refusal to produce any more episodes, due to compensation issues."

Shadowruni writes "According to IGN.com, there will be no sequel to Serenity." Update: 10/07 01:31 GMT by Z : As enjerth pointed out below, this is not 100% accurate. Don't believe IGN, is the lesson. Here's the word from the man himself: "I turn my back for five minutes (that's how long it takes to admire my lovely back) and the interweb goes banoonoos! Isn't there any ACTUAL news to get wrong? Sorry about all this; it might be best if I just stay off the computer for a while ... The brain place is crowded with goods, ideas, sequels, spinoffs, animated versions, miniseries, radio dramas -- this is just the used goods. All the new wares are in there as well and it's deafening. Once I create a verse I never let go of it. And figuring out how much of my energy should be devoted to reawakening the projects you all love with the actors and characters I all love, and how much should be forging ahead and creating entirely new works (which you are contractually obligated to love) is exhausting."

Jean Lucy writes "TwitchGuru has an article outlining in detail what is known about Star Trek XI. The film is in the early stages of production, led by J.J. Abrams (creator of Lost), and the movie will most likely be a prequel featuring Kirk and Spock in their younger years. No word of Matt Damon to play Kirk, though..." From the article: "As reported in early September, even former Star Trek actors are saying that CBS has kicked Rick Berman off the Trek bandwagon. This helps to allay the fears of those who say that 'they' will screw up this movie as 'they' have been doing for the past several years. As Anthony Pascale put it to me, however, 'There is no they any more. Everyone who has worked on Star Trek previously, from the top executives at the studio to the guy who sweeps the floor on-set, is gone. There's now a totally different production team running Star Trek. This is what people have been asking for now for years.'"

saavyone writes to tell us Yahoo! News is reporting that while teleportation may not quite be a reality yet a team of Danish scientists have raised the bar on this line of research. From the article: "The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further. 'Teleportation between two single atoms had been done two years ago by two teams but this was done at a distance of a fraction of a millimeter,' Polzik, of the Danish National Research Foundation Center for Quantum Optics, explained. 'Our method allows teleportation to be taken over longer distances because it involves light as the carrier of entanglement,' he added."

shadowlight1 writes "According to a BBC press release, cult favorite Doctor Who has entered the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's longest running science fiction show! There we go, it's official. Also, the second season of Who premieres on the SciFi channel tonight." From the release: "The series began on 23 November, 1963, and was revived in 2005 after 16 years off the screen. William Hartnell played the original Doctor Who, with Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Peter Davison among those following in his footsteps. Christopher Eccleston took up the mantle of the ninth Timelord last year - following the show's relaunch. He was replaced after just one series by David Tennant after Eccleston dropped out. "

Digitus1337 writes to mention the 40th Anniversary of the original Star Trek series. StarTrek.com's article has a look back at that first episode, and tries to explore the whys behind the popularity that followed it. From the article: "On the evening of the 8th of September, following Daniel Boone, this new NBC show premiered with an episode called 'The Man Trap.' The angle of the story was different, to say the least: It was a love story with a sci-fi twist, borne of a relationship from the doctor's past, featuring a monster that, in the end, just wanted to live. It was moving, tragic and anything but cheesy. The viewers -- at least the ones who were paying attention -- were hooked." Update: 09/09 16:16 GMT by Z : Just to be sure you're aware of it, Slashdot's own CleverNickName is celebrating the 40th anniversary by reviewing episodes of ST:TNG on TVSquad. He begins with "The Naked Now". You know, "You are fully functional, aren't you?"

kulakovich writes, "Hot on the heels of Stargate's cancellation, the SciFi Channel is running an entire season of Firefly starting at 8am (Eastern) on September 18th. This news is fresh from yesterday's posting on the Whedonesque blog. Start making space on the PVR!"

Ant writes "The Sci-Fi channel has announced that it will not be renewing its (very popular) original series Stargate SG-1 for another season.The spinoff series Stargate: Atlantis will get the nod, though, airing for a fourth year. SG-1 aired its 200th episode on August 18th, and the SF series is the longest-running SF show on American television." Gateworld has further details: "New episodes of both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis continue Fridays this summer starting at 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific, leading up to the mid-season finale on September 22. The second half of the season will begin in March, leading to SG-1's final bow on SCI FI in June."

SaturnTim writes "Babylon 5 fans rejoice! It appears that our favorite space outpost is back. It will be returning soon in a series of direct-to-DVD 20min episodes, each featuring the past of one of our favorite characters."