CERN is pouring cold water on the rumor it’s gonna announce the discovery of the Higgs at today’s seminar in Zurich. For the uninitiated: the Higgs-Boson is the particle that is believed to give all things mass: it surrounds us, penetrates us and binds the galaxy together. The scuttlebutt is that the ATLAS sensor picked up a Higgs with a mass of 125GeV (gigaelectronvolts) and rated at three-point-five-sigma — a one sigma barely warrants a mention, a five-sigma is a bona-fide scientific discovery. CERN hasn’t confirmed or denied anything, claiming it’s still got five femtobarns worth of data (roughly 5 x 70 x 10^12 of individual collisions) to examine before it can be sure, so just chuck the one bottle of champagne into the refrigerator — better to be safe, eh?

CERN: ‘Don’t believe the Higgs-Boson hype’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Day job just too darn terrestrial? Maybe you should score a gig at Boeing, which’ll apparently sling two of its very own into space come 2015. What’ll be their chariot? The company’s CST-100 — you know that spiffy capsule that can hurtle a lucky seven humans 100km into the dark abyss. Strapped to ULA’s Atlas V, the crew will follow two unmanned missions, eventually reaching the International Space Station. If that all goes to plan, commercial service will start in 2016. Now about those extra five seats…

Continue reading Boeing’s CST-100 to shoot non-NASA astronauts into space by 2015

Boeing’s CST-100 to shoot non-NASA astronauts into space by 2015 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, so it may not look quite as impressive as some other mechanical cheetahs we’ve seen in the past, but this new one from Boston Dynamics certainly has a lot of potential. That robot, plus a new humanoid called Atlas, have won DARPA contracts and so will be put into at least limited production, much like the company’s earlier BigDog. Cheetah is said to run “faster than any existing legged robot and faster than the fastest human runners,” while Atlas can “move through difficult terrain using human-like behavior,” meaning neither running nor hiding will work. That leaves only fighting, so get ready to buck up.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Boston Dynamics Cheetah and Atlas robots get DARPA funding, getting ready to find you originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Originally posted at Android Atlas

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Originally posted at Android Atlas

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas