BBC drama have been produced and broadcast since even before the public service company had an officiallu established television broadcasting network in the UK.BBC period drama Little Dorrir and Churchill biopic into The Storm will head the British charge for glory at this year’s Emmy Awards, with both dramas receiving multiple nominations. The adaptation of Charles Dickens’ is up 11 gongs including Best Mini-series of honor, while the actors Tom Courtenay and Andy Serkis both received a salute to their supportive roles.‘Little Dorrit’, which stars Matthew Macfadyen, Pam Ferris and Sir Tom Courtenay, was the surprise star of the show…
Business
BBC drama ‘Little Dorrit’ bags seven Emmy awards
Game
Virtual pool, real-world interface
Sunday we saw robots playing pool and an augmented reality pool game. Today we’ll complete the pool trifecta: virtual pool using a real cue stick and ball in another vintage video from Hack a Day’s secret underground vault. The video is noteworthy for a couple of reasons:
First is the year it was made: 1990. There’s been much buzz lately over real-world gaming interfaces like the Nintendo Wii motion controller or Microsoft’s Project Natal. Here we’re seeing a much simpler but very effective physical interface nearly twenty years prior.
Second: the middle section of the video reveals the trick behind it all, and it turns out…
Hack
Nintendo DS mini USB plug
Noting that so many of his electronics are using the mini USB plug for charging, [Xavier] decided to modify his Nintendo DS to charge via the same adapter. It looks like the existing adapter is basically a proprietary mini USB plug, so replacing it was actually almost a perfectly clean swap job. He has nice pictures of the process and some helpful tips as well. If you’re thinking of consolidating your charging devices, this looks like a step in the right direction.
Business
Reliance says new plant running at about full rate
GADIMOGA, India (Reuters) – Reliance Industries’ new 580,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery in Gujarat is operating at close to full capacity, Executive Director P.M.S. Prasad said. The new plant, next to its old 660,000 bpd refinery, has turned Jamnagar into the world’s largest refining complex, processing 1.24 million bpd. “We have commissioned all the units and it is operating at almost full capacity,” Prasad, who heads Reliance’s upstream and refinery business, told Reuters on Saturday. Last month Reliance started an 85,000 bpd alkylation unit, the only unit remaining to be started up at the new plant, with the aim of…
Business
BSE Sensex falls 0.5 pct after 6-day rally
MUMBAI (Reuters) – The BSE Sensex (^BSESN : 16185.2 -79.1) dropped 0.5 percent Monday as investors locked in profits after a six-session rally, with weak Asian markets setting the direction. By 11:23 a.m. (0553 GMT), the 30-share BSE Index was down nearly 80 points at 16,185.94 points, with 20 components losing. The benchmark, which climbed 5.6 percent over the previous six sessions, had more than doubled last Tuesday from its March low. “There is very little room for buying at these levels,” said D.D. Sharma, vice-president, Anand Rathi Securities. “There might be pockets of demand at dips, but largely…
Business
Credit card cos revisit their revenue model
NEW DELHI: Credit card companies are revisiting their revenue models to sustain usage of cards and attract new clients. What could be in the offing is a lower or differential interest rate on credit cards. To make up for revenue loss on this front, companies may be levying a variety of fees, including an annual fee, annual or monthly maintenance cost, charges for direct services provided such as cheque representation charges and cash collection fees. Credit card issuers such as State Bank of India Cards, ING Vysya Bank, and Deutsche Bank have all hinted that they are giving this option…
Hack
Variable Range Sprinkler
[Pete], a musician, and the guy behind SparkFun’s pogobeds and locking footprints has a sprinkler hack. He wanted to keep his dog, Choppy, happy with a green lawn while also keeping his sidewalk water free. To solve this problem, he hacked his sprinkler and hose to adjust the sprinkler’s range. He uses an Arduino to read a potentiometer signifying the direction that the sprinkler is facing and a servo to adjust a hose valve that controls the sprinkler’s water flow. Be sure to check out the video above to see it in action.
Hack
Interfacing a digital rotary switch
[hw640] has put together a well written and detail packed explanation of how to interface with a digital rotary switch. These digital opto encoders have just two outputs with four possible logic levels (00, 10, 11, 01). The relative position of the switch is insignificant but the direction of rotation is what matters.
The short and dirty: Each of the switch’s 2 output pins is attached to a pin change interrupt on the microcontroller. Every time the switch moves it generates either a rising edge or a falling edge on one of the two pins; both edges cause an…
Facebook
Zong Becomes First Mobile Payment Provider To Test Integration With Facebook Credits
While much of the U.S. uses credit cards to make online purchases, many other countries still don’t have easy services for making online transactions. Mobile transactions are clearly a step in that direction. The first company to test mobile payments with Facebook is Zong, as spotted by Erin McCune earlier yesterday. Facebook has also confirmed that they are currently working with developers to test a variety of payment integrations.
This is a big step for Zong who is currently one of the leading mobile payment providers (as well as a sponsor of this site). Interestingly enough, payments through mobile providers…
Hack
Little Walker
This little walking robot caught our eye. We’ve seen tons of 4 legged bots, but the design on this probably took more effort than the electronics. The design is radially symmetrical, it can walk in any direction, turn in place, and even walk upside down. The electronics weren’t forgotten though. This little bugger manages to pull a half our of use out of each battery charging. It communicates wirelessly with a custom dual Wiimote Nunchuck setup via XBEE modules. You can find much more technical details in the captions of the pictures. We’re not positive what processing power is…
Life
Ask On The River
I ask the river ………..Where the direction of water flow?Who determines movement direction of the river?Determine the direction of the water river?Or the river that formed the direction of water flow?Man just water ….Nothing more …. so IAs the water now I are the phenomena of life I am ….I never ask why the water….And was entrusted by me to the life river….Where then I will be channelled, would not was worried by me….Although I will meet in the coral and stone….Everything I will willinglyjust as water will flow…..And will never stop flowing….Until the ocean….Until the sun come after me….Become…
Hack
Custom flex sensors
Flex sensors, like the ones used in the Nintendo Power Glove, are generally expensive and hard to find. However, [jiovine] demonstrates that they are easy enough to make from spare parts. He sandwiched a strip of plastic from ESD bags between pieces of copper foil, and wrapped the whole thing in heat shrink tubing. The sensor is able to detect bends in either direction, unlike the original power glove sensors. His version had a nominal resistance of about 20k ohms, but by choosing a different resistive layer you could create sensors that are more or less resistive.
Related: 5-cent…
