Cheetoh

FooFighting

ZERFLO

shadzow

corsair130

Brownski

Mr-Supes

shadzow

Buddy Ruddy

Aaron Linsky

And famous artwork at that, thanks to its admission into the prestigious architecture and design collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As the New York Times points out, this is the best of the best in the design/art world, akin to an Oscar for film making.

But why this particular symbol? Well, it's a combination of factors, all of which must be agreed upon by the MoMA's 25-person committee of art experts, architects and designers:

The committee must be convinced that each addition meets the entry criteria. Does it excel in terms of form and function? Does it embody the values of clarity, honesty and simplicity that MoMA considers essential to good design? Has it has made an impact on our lives? Is it innovative? Then there's the clincher. "If this object had never been designed or manufactured, would the world miss out?" said Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA. "Even just a bit?" - NYT

The @ symbol performed "brilliantly" during its run through the MoMA gauntlet. Today, it is officially part of the MoMA's elite collection, represented in a variety of typefaces and sizes. My emails, unfortunately, were all rejected. [New York Times]

No, really, this could totally happen! And soon, as McDonald's Japan is currently developing a $2.2 million DS "game" called eSmart that is designed to "cut training time by half." How? Unclear. Perhaps there's a frialator atachment we're not seeing yet.

In any event, the software will probably work best with the new XL model... [Nikkei via Andriasang via GoNintendo via Technabob]

Omar Cavazos-Hi

ESPN 3D, which we've heard about before, will produce and air a 3D MLB Home Run Derby on July 12 during the All-Star break. This is but a day after the service officially launches alongside the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (the inaugural game is set to be Mexico/South Africa).

Next up is Sky 3D, which will broadcast a 3D Chelsea vs. Manchester United game on April 3. The match is the first of six 3D Premiership matches scheduled to take place this season.

Japan brings up the rear with a non-sporting network that will nevertheless be broadcast in 3D, all the time. It'll be the second for that tech-savvy nation, with the new one leveraging (marketing buzz word alert) content from the acTVila on-demand service. [acTVila, ESPN, Sky 3D via Engadget]

(Starman) 258, Brigadier-General of the FireWire Battalion

Destronok

Real, and more importantly observable. Observable is important because until this week when one talked about quantum mechanics they were either spouting a lot of unproven theory about things way too tiny to be measured or they were Lt. Cmdr. Geordi LaForge on the engineering deck of the Enterprise D.

No longer!

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving. - Nature

Bwah? It reads like science fiction, to me, but apparently science guy Andrew Cleland and his team, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, were able to cool a tiny 30-micrometer metal paddle to the point where it reached a quantum mechanical ground state. Or, as my limited understand calls it, the place where nature starts to get all freaky deaky.

After the cooling process was complete, Cleland and company were able to "simultaneously set the paddle moving while leaving it standing still." Again: The metal paddle was both vibrating and not vibrating at the same time, and in a way that was observable by the naked eye.

Are you freaking out yet? Because I know a few cats in dark boxes that are right now.

Updated: Obviously, quantum mechanics is not, nor will be, my area of expertise. As AreWeThereYeti explains, better than I, "It's important to realize that they didn't actually observe it in a superposition. All they said was that the paddle is large enough that it could be observed by the naked eye, but not while it is in a superposition state."

Right. So the object is observable by the human eye. Mind, slightly less blown.

Updated: Be sure to check out Justin's reply to AreWeThereYeti's comment as well. I promoted it so it should appear for everyone. Interesting, record-correcting, stuff in there. The debate continues -j.l. [Nature via Kottke]

robooneus

(Starman) 258, Brigadier-General of the FireWire Battalion

(Starman) 258, Brigadier-General of the FireWire Battalion