Competition in WWE is grueling. The rigors of the ring can frustrate Superstars ? often to the point where they want to put their fist through something. That rush of emotion may have been the inspiration for one of WWE?s most iconic television sets.
The classic giant fist smashing through a mirror ? SmackDown?s set from August 2001 to January 2008 ? has long been a favorite of the WWE Universe. That?s why WWE.com is calling for the return of the legendary appendage to Friday nights. (PHOTOS)
How did the fist set come about? Arguably, it was out of necessity. As SmackDown?s second anniversary approached, Rhino Gored Chris Jericho through the show?s original entrance setup at the end of the Aug. 9, 2001 episode, leaving WWE with the daunting task of coming up with something new in a hurry. One week later, the huge fist debuted, and quickly made its way into arenas across the country ? and into the hearts of the WWE Universe.
Unfortunately, when WWE went high-definition in January 2008, the organization opted to wave buh-bye to its five-fingered friend. Granted, today?s set is visually stunning, and helps make Raw and SmackDown must-see each and every week. Yet few can deny that the fist-and-broken-glass truly gave the show an attitude that equaled the explosive nature of SmackDown and its matches. Just imagine how it would look in high-def.
Think of all the Superstars that have made their way to the ring from that iconic set. Who can forget Rey Mysterio leaping out from under the stage to make his WWE debut? Hall of Famers like Hulk Hogan, Edge and ?Rowdy? Roddy Piper, legendary icons like The Undertaker and the Superstars of today ? including? John Cena and Chris Jericho ? have all emerged from under the clenched fist to the roar of the WWE Universe. It would have a tremendous impact on today's up-and-coming ring warriors, helping them project an even more powerful, larger-than-life image of themselves.
In addition to adding to SmackDown?s intense atmosphere, the fist set could also be practical, helping out any Superstars that choose to take the high ground. In September 2004, Heidenreich shocked the WWE Universe by climbing atop the massive set. As his manager, Paul Heyman, and WWE officials begged him not to jump, the unusual Superstar pulled out a microphone, using the moment to read a poem. Just imagine what some of today?s high-flyers could do with the added height. Justin Gabriel or Kofi Kingston would look like Superman, flying through the air from the top of the enormous appeandage, and crashing onto a helpless opponent.
SmackDown is exciting, unpredictable and action-packed. It deserves a set reflecting that absolute adrenaline rush. Bringing back the classic fist would surely be an instant knockout from the moment a Superstar emerged from underneath it.
Best known for his role in ?Welcome Back, Kotter,? Heyges died Thursday at age 60. NBC?s Brian Williams reports.
>>>robert hchb egyes has died. he was best known playing the jewish
puerto rican
student juan epstein alongside
john travolta
in the '70s in "welcome back cotter." he was later a regular in "cagney and lacy." he passed away thursday morning after suffering cardiac arrest. he was 60 years old.
A hydrogen fuel mini cell and a kinetic energy harvester are two new smart phone chargers debuting in 2012. Larry Greenemeier reports
January 26, 2012?|
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Carmakers learned years ago it's not easy to make a practical hydrogen fuel cell. Yet hydrogen fuel cells do work, and they're greener than batteries. So how about using a mini hydrogen fuel cell to recharge something small?like your mobile phone battery?
That's the idea behind SiGNa Chemistry's PowerTrekk, demo'd at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The device is filled with a powdery substance known as sodium silicide that produces hydrogen gas in the presence of water. It has the same recharge power as six AA batteries, minus the heavy metals and toxic chemicals.
The downside? PowerTrekk will cost about $200 when it debuts in the U.S. in May.
A cheaper option, also on display at CES, might be the nVolt by startup company nVolutions. Due out by the end of the year and expected to cost about $50, nVolt has a circular plate that attaches to the back of any mobile phone. Once attached, put your phone on a flat surface and spin it. nVolt uses kinetic energy generated by the rotations to do the re-charging. There's nothing greener than a little elbow grease.
?Larry Greenemeier
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]??
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LED lights point shoppers in the right directionPublic release date: 26-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer aem1@psu.edu 814-865-9481 Penn State
Looking for an item in a large department store or mall can be like searching for a needle in a haystack, but that could change thanks to a hybrid location-identification system that uses radio frequency transmitters and overhead LED lights, suggested by a team of researchers from Penn State and Hallym University in South Korea.
"LED lights are becoming the norm," said Mohsen Kavehrad, W. L. Weiss Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Center for Information and Communications Technology Research at Penn State. "The same lights that brighten a room can also provide locational information."
To locate an item in a mall, the system would not need to transfer large amounts of data. Kavehrad and his team envision large stores or malls with overhead LED light fixtures, each assigned with a location code. At the entrance, a computer that is accessible via keyboard or even telephone would contain a database of all the items available. Shortly after a query, the location or locations of the desired item would appear.
"The human eye can't see beyond 15 on and offs of a light per second," said Kavehrad. "We can get kilobytes and megabytes of information in very rapid blinking of the LEDs," he told attendees at the SPIE Photonics West 2012 conference today in San Francisco.
But LED-transmitted locational information alone will not work because light does not transmit through walls. Kavehrad, working with Zhou Zhou, graduate student in electrical engineering, Penn State, designed a hybrid LiFi system using a Zigbee multihop wireless network with the LEDs.
ZigBee is an engineering specification designed for small, low-power digital radio frequency applications requiring short-range wireless transfer of data at relatively low rates. ZigBee applications usually require a low data rate, long battery life, and secure networking.
While a ceiling light can have communications with anything placed beneath its area, light cannot travel through walls, so a hybrid system using light and RF became the practical solution.
The system consists of the location-tagged LEDs and combination photodiode and Zigbee receiver merchandise tags. The request for an item goes from the computer through the many jumps of short radio frequency receivers and transmitters placed throughout the mall. The RF/photodiode tag on the merchandise sought, reads its location from the overhead LED and sends the information back through the wireless network to the computer.
Even when merchandise is moved from room to room, the accurate location remains available because a different LED overhead light with a different location code signals the tag.
While ideal for shopping applications, this hybrid model is also useful in other situations. LED-transmitted information is useful in places like hospitals, where radio frequency signals can interfere with equipment.
Modern Geographic Positioning Systems, such as those in cell phones, can easily locate people outside, but they do not work within buildings. A hybrid system in a high-rise office building, for example, could not only tell the system someone was in the building, but could identify the floor where the person was at that time. In museums or hospitals, navigation systems could guide people through large buildings by reading the final destination signal from a hand-carried photodiode device and initializing lights or other indicators to show the proper path.
Kavehrad notes that Zigbee devices are designed to be inexpensive, as are the photodiodes also required for the system. Not every identical item would need a tag and the tags are reusable.
Also working on this project were Yong Up Lee, professor of electronics, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea, currently at Penn State on sabbatical, and Sungkeun Baang and Joohyeon Park, masters degree students at Hallym University.
###
The National Research Foundation of Korea and the National Science Foundation funded this work.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LED lights point shoppers in the right directionPublic release date: 26-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer aem1@psu.edu 814-865-9481 Penn State
Looking for an item in a large department store or mall can be like searching for a needle in a haystack, but that could change thanks to a hybrid location-identification system that uses radio frequency transmitters and overhead LED lights, suggested by a team of researchers from Penn State and Hallym University in South Korea.
"LED lights are becoming the norm," said Mohsen Kavehrad, W. L. Weiss Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Center for Information and Communications Technology Research at Penn State. "The same lights that brighten a room can also provide locational information."
To locate an item in a mall, the system would not need to transfer large amounts of data. Kavehrad and his team envision large stores or malls with overhead LED light fixtures, each assigned with a location code. At the entrance, a computer that is accessible via keyboard or even telephone would contain a database of all the items available. Shortly after a query, the location or locations of the desired item would appear.
"The human eye can't see beyond 15 on and offs of a light per second," said Kavehrad. "We can get kilobytes and megabytes of information in very rapid blinking of the LEDs," he told attendees at the SPIE Photonics West 2012 conference today in San Francisco.
But LED-transmitted locational information alone will not work because light does not transmit through walls. Kavehrad, working with Zhou Zhou, graduate student in electrical engineering, Penn State, designed a hybrid LiFi system using a Zigbee multihop wireless network with the LEDs.
ZigBee is an engineering specification designed for small, low-power digital radio frequency applications requiring short-range wireless transfer of data at relatively low rates. ZigBee applications usually require a low data rate, long battery life, and secure networking.
While a ceiling light can have communications with anything placed beneath its area, light cannot travel through walls, so a hybrid system using light and RF became the practical solution.
The system consists of the location-tagged LEDs and combination photodiode and Zigbee receiver merchandise tags. The request for an item goes from the computer through the many jumps of short radio frequency receivers and transmitters placed throughout the mall. The RF/photodiode tag on the merchandise sought, reads its location from the overhead LED and sends the information back through the wireless network to the computer.
Even when merchandise is moved from room to room, the accurate location remains available because a different LED overhead light with a different location code signals the tag.
While ideal for shopping applications, this hybrid model is also useful in other situations. LED-transmitted information is useful in places like hospitals, where radio frequency signals can interfere with equipment.
Modern Geographic Positioning Systems, such as those in cell phones, can easily locate people outside, but they do not work within buildings. A hybrid system in a high-rise office building, for example, could not only tell the system someone was in the building, but could identify the floor where the person was at that time. In museums or hospitals, navigation systems could guide people through large buildings by reading the final destination signal from a hand-carried photodiode device and initializing lights or other indicators to show the proper path.
Kavehrad notes that Zigbee devices are designed to be inexpensive, as are the photodiodes also required for the system. Not every identical item would need a tag and the tags are reusable.
Also working on this project were Yong Up Lee, professor of electronics, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea, currently at Penn State on sabbatical, and Sungkeun Baang and Joohyeon Park, masters degree students at Hallym University.
###
The National Research Foundation of Korea and the National Science Foundation funded this work.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Former Bachelorette star Ali Fedotowsky has a type.
That type is apparently a Jewish guy with a sense of humor. Basically, the 27-year-old Massachusetts native's taste could be summarized as "good."
Newly single at the Bachelorette / Bachelor reunion held at The Mirage in Las Vegas, last weekend, she confessed her weakness for certain guys.
"I tend to like nice, funny Jewish boys," she said, adding that while she's not looking to date right now, she reveals she's open to it. Calling J-daters!
So who's her dream celebrity date? An SNL funnyman who had a Jewish upbringing. "Andy Samberg," she told Life & Style. "He's so funny."
She's a cutie, Andy. Might want to pick up the phone.
Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez, who proposed to her on The Bachelorette season finale of in 2010, split in November after an 18 month engagement.
"We were trying to establish ourselves individually," A-Fed recently said of the breakup. "But a relationship should be solid regardless of circumstances."
Tens of thousands of Egyptians packed shoulder to shoulder into Cairo's Tahrir Square on Wednesday to mark the one-year anniversary of the uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Some, particularly Islamist supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the ultra-Islamist Salafis' Nour party, came out to celebrate their victories after a year of political discovery.
Between them, the Islamist parties won a combined 72% of available seats in the lower house of parliament in the country's first democratic election in more than a half century. "We are here to celebrate what we've achieved, and reiterate what we haven't achieved," said Mohamed Abdel Ghafar, a 40-year-old teacher sporting a Freedom and Justice Party hat. "We achieved the elections and the ousting of Mubarak, putting the symbols of corruption on trial, setting a date for the transition of authority, and lifting the emergency law," he added. Nearby, a speaker on the Brotherhood's stage trumpeted congratulations to Egypt's heroes -- that would be everyone who came out to help overthrow the president.
But thousands of those on Tahrir Square, Wednesday, also came out to protest. While many express satisfactin with the election result, frustration over economic woes, endemic corruption, and the slow pace of reform has deepened in the year since Mubarak's fall. The focus of much of that anger has been the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the junta that took over from Mubarak last February and has shown little interest in ceding complete executive authority to a civilian government. (MORE: Egyptians Mark Their Revolution's Anniversary with Mixed Feelings)
Men, women, and families thronged beneath banners demanding an end to military rule and justice for those killed and injured by security forces during the uprising and protests since. Liberal youth activists even chanted for the execution of SCAF chief Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, hoisting posters depicting faces of Mubarak officials, as well as Tantawi and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.
"We believe that SCAF lost its legitimacy in August and now it's ruling the country with force," said Mohamed al-Essawy, 24, who held a large stencil depicting the faces of Tantawi and the Brotherhood's speaker of parliament hovering over bodies of slain activists. "They're playing chess with the revolution," he explained. "Anything supervised by SCAF is illegitimate, ranging from the parliament to the constitution."
Liberals, youth activists, and political analysts have increasingly alleged that a conspiracy exists between the Brotherhood and the junta, pointing to the former's seeming compliance with military-drafted rules and declarations. However, the majority of Egyptians seem to disagree. (PHOTOS: Revolution in Egypt: 18 Days That Shook the World)
On January 24th, Tantawi announced the termination of the country's emergency law on national television, in a move aimed at currying favor with the protesters ahead of the one year anniversary of the uprising. For Brotherhood supporters, and many others in Tahrir on Wednesday, the concession seemed like an additional victory. But an exemption decreed by Tantawi, which allows the emergency law's provisions to be applied in cases of "thuggery", had human rights groups crying foul -- the imprecise term has been widely used by the military to prosecute activists over the past year. Human Rights Watch warned that the exception would "invite abuse."
Demonstrators poured into the downtown square throughout the day, many marching the same routes they had taken a year ago to start the historic rebellion. That day was fraught with tension and violence, as protesters broke through police lines and braved volleys of tear gas, astounded and emboldened by the power of their collective action. There were no police lines to cross to get to Tahrir for the anniversary event, and the crowd was far larger this time than it had been a year ago. But nostalgia ran high. Tahrir pulsed with the national pride that had characterized the 18-days that brought down Mubarak. And the crowd's diversity stirred the familiar debate and exchange of ideas that many Egyptians had reveled in a year ago, as men and women from across the country and its social classes first camped in the square, united by the common goal of ousting Mubarak. (PHOTOS: Police and Protesters Clash in Cairo)
"We were not divided back then," remembered Mohamed Farghaly, a university student. "On January 25th 2011, we were unified. We came down to call for the fall of the regime, and at the time, we thought that Mubarak was the regime," he said. "Then we found out that he wasn't." Farghaly admits that his realization hasn't been shared by everyone. "The majority is staying at home," he added, claiming they had been swayed by the "liars" on state TV. "That's the division, and it's one of the biggest challenges."
Indeed, how the numbers fall on either side of that division will impact Tahrir's dynamic in the days ahead. Already, many say they will camp in the square as long as it takes to force the military from power. Some have predicted a repeat of the violent clashes between protesters and security forces that characterized a series of demonstrations in November and December, particularly if large numbers remain in Tahrir and the military moves to clear it. "Some of the people think that we need to stay until SCAF leaves," said one Brotherhood supporter, Mohamed Said. "As Muslim Brotherhood, we don't believe that. We are here to deliver a message." That doesn't mean the revolution is over, he added, but Egyptians can make their voices heard in other ways.
Nokia has announced a major mobile milestone: over 1.5 billion (with a b) Series 40 handsets sold since the first device -- the 7110 -- was introduced in 1999. "We are incredibly proud to reach this milestone," wrote Nokia's Executive VP of Mobile Phones, Mary McDowell. "It is gratifying to consider how Series 40 devices have made mobile technology accessible." Breeze on past the break for the official PR with more information about the Asha 303 handset knighted number 1,500,000,000, then feel free to weigh in on how long will take the Lumia line to reach the same milestone.
The classic giant fist smashing through a mirror ? SmackDown?s set from August 2001 to January 2008 ? has long been a favorite of the WWE Universe. That?s why WWE.com is calling for the return of the legendary appendage to Friday nights. (PHOTOS)
Unfortunately, when WWE went high-definition in January 2008, the organization opted to wave buh-bye to its five-fingered friend. Granted, today?s set is visually stunning, and helps make Raw and SmackDown must-see each and every week. Yet few can deny that the fist-and-broken-glass truly gave the show an attitude that equaled the explosive nature of SmackDown and its matches. Just imagine how it would look in high-def.
In addition to adding to SmackDown?s intense atmosphere, the fist set could also be practical, helping out any Superstars that choose to take the high ground. In September 2004, Heidenreich shocked the WWE Universe by climbing atop the massive set. As his manager, Paul Heyman, and WWE officials begged him not to jump, the unusual Superstar pulled out a microphone, using the moment to read a poem. Just imagine what some of today?s high-flyers could do with the added height. Justin Gabriel or Kofi Kingston would look like Superman, flying through the air from the top of the enormous appeandage, and crashing onto a helpless opponent.
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