Amy Hopper, the play's director, cast one autonomous, military-grade flying robot and five smaller remote control devices as fairies in Shakespeare's comedy. "To see them flying, spinning and bouncing through the air just adds to the magic and mystery of the world Shakespeare created," she explained.

But the drama department isn't the only one interested in the robotic thespians. Researchers in the school's Department of Computer Science and Engineering are studying how the audience reacts to the robots for application in robotic search-and-rescue missions.

"It's now possible for these unmanned aerial vehicles to be used for evacuation or crowd control," explained Robin Murphy, one of the researchers. "But what's missing is an understanding of what makes a person trust or fear the robot." Murphy and others in the department are now poring over the data they collected during the play's run which ended earlier this week. [PopSci and PhysOrg]

But Schule spent Tuesday afternoon calling the FBI, Homeland Security, the Sheriff's Department - every agency he could think of. He was stuck in a bureaucratic limbo.

"Everyone was handing it off to everybody else," Schule said.

He was surprised at the amount of work it took to get the military to pick up its lost missile launcher.

Schule called the military police at Fort Sam. But their jurisdiction doesn't extend off the post. Schule's information was passed along to an Army criminal investigator, who visited Schule on Wednesday morning - about 19 hours after he started making phone calls.

Markings identified the weapon as a guided missile launcher built in 1996. It still has the 13-digit military stock number that will be used to identify its origins and, possibly, how it might have wound up on the property of a man who lives miles from a military installation. Could there be crazy Texans out there hunting deer with black market military missile launchers? Honestly, I wouldn't be that surprised. [MySA News via Neatorama]

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Some specifics: The Canon was equipped with a fisheye lens (an EF 15mm f/2.8 lens) and powered with an external battery to capture all that goodness. The more interesting part is the replacement anti-alias filter the photographer, William Castleman, used: The Canon's stock AA filter blocks out certain red wavelengths to achieve a "more desirable" skin tone, but if it's replaced with a filter that lets those wavelengths in, you've got yourself a camera capable of shooting a galaxy, as seen here, even if we can't see it with the naked eye. Really, really cool stuff. [Vimeo via Crunchgear]

You know what? We've said it before, and we'll say it again: Vista being a hideous abomination that eats computers is mostly a bad urban legend. It had a bumpy launch, but things are just fine now, and have been for a long time. (Windows 7 is still better, though.)

But still: Vista launched so long ago that Microsoft's next OS is on the horizon, and they're just now getting to banning it because some senator on the Finance Committee who probably can't figure out how to use an iPod has heard some bad things about it? Really? It's nice to know government decisions aren't simply based on whims and hearsay. Oh wait. [ComputerWorld]

While the creationist groups did not manage to get the bulk of their agenda included in the State Board of Education's legislation, they did pass a few amendments casting doubt on the theory of evolution. Some tricky language, like an amendment requiring students to "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning any data on sudden appearance and stasis and the sequential groups in the fossil record," is more insidious than it seems. When new textbooks come up for review in 2012, the board can reject books that they feel do not adequately address the issue, a key creationist talking point. And as Texas is a major buyer, textbook publishers may be forced to alter their products so as to avoid conflict with the self-proclaimed creationists on the Texas Board of Education, which could affect the rest of the country as well.

It remains to be seen if these new amendments will indeed affect science textbooks, and hopefully they'll make no difference at all. Check out Salon's article for more information from a decidedly pro-science point of view. [Salon]

My Apartment in Austin (6:30pm)
My apartment is on the northwest side of Austin, in a quiet neighborhood between the denser central part of the city and the outer suburban areas.

Suburbia - Round Rock, TX (4:30pm)
Round Rock may be home to Dell, but it's largely a sleepy suburb. I parked in front of someone's house and they actually came home from work while I was testing, giving me an odd look like they thought I was casing their house.

South Austin Coffee Shop (2pm)
Dominican Joe's is a bit of a drive from my apartment, but worth it to get what I consider the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted. Their coffee is not bad either.

Stevie Ray Vaughan Memorial Statue, Austin (3:30pm)
The Stevie Ray Vaughan Memorial is in a beautiful park on the bank of Lady Bird Lake (formerly known as Town Lake). It is just east of Zilker Park, where Austin City Limits is held every year.

Downtown Austin - Congress Ave. (4:30pm)
Downtown Austin is rapidly expanding upwards—three new high rises went up in the past year or so. This location is very central, near the intersection of 6th St. and Congress Ave.

Results
Upstream and down, AT&T was strong with a few exceptions. Verizon was a decent contender, while Sprint was unpredictable. When it comes to downloads, the downtown density (either buildings or cell users) has a severe impact on bandwidth.

Back to main Coast-to-Coast 3G Data Test story

Texas has a new law that makes it mandatory for computer repair technicians in the state to have private investigator licenses. This is being contested by at least one advocacy group that's suing, as many techs don't know they're being criminals by doing their jobs. The strange new law comes about because sometimes in the course of repairing a computer some investigation is needed, and in the great state of Texas that's a felony without a license. It can take up to three years to get one, so this whole thing is messed up. Hopefully no poor minimum wage Windows jockey will wind up in jail over this, but stranger things have happened in Texas. Looks like those Geek Squad guys will get real badges, though. [Gear Log]

Since Pacheco started wearing the monitor on April 1st, he has had perfect attendance, and many other kids in the program have experienced similar results. Now, school systems across Texas are planning to expand the program and drastically increase the number of kids hooked up with the monitors next year. Yet another example of GPS scaring kids straight. [NYT]

The Flikr page reads, "Heck, it's Texas, what did you expect?" Nothing less, Texas. Nothing less, whatsoever. [Flickr via Born Rich]

However, at the risk of sounding like a pedantic little trollop, surely that should read iDentity, rather than identity? [Dark7]

Supposedly, consumption-based billing is aimed at all you assholes downloading movies from BitTorrent—"heavy users of large downloads," the purported 5 percent that swallows "up to 50 percent of network capacity" in order to improve network performance. But this is, at least partially, BS.

Everybody is using more bandwidth than ever, and that is going to continue ramping up with services like Netflix and iTunes that keep pushing these "large downloads" into the mainstream. So, it might only hit a small percentage of users really hard right now, but soon enough it'll be hitting everybody, which is the real point.

At the same time, ISPs and telcos are lobbying hard against network neutrality, largely so they can slap the content providers themselves with higher costs for equal priority on the network with the ISP's own services. In other words, they're reaching into the cookie jar with both hands—from the top, and a hole they're trying to cut into the bottom.

For now, Time Warner's plan will only affect new users starting sometime in the next couple of months, and they actually give you tools to monitor your data diet, but if there isn't a total revolt and pillaging of their home office, expect them to roll it out nationally and other providers to follow suit. [AP/Wired]

The flamboyant in-house cinema room boasts 24-karat gold gilding details, hand embroidered fabric seats and genuine antique candle holders throughout. That's nothing compared to the technology behind the flush finish. There are twenty-four 12-inch subwoofers, CAT/MBX speakers tuned by professional engineers, a 200 pound, 3 feet long Runco MBX-1 projector, which is able to crank out 40 ft wide images, thirty-eight distinct audio zones, with the cheapest speakers costing $2000 /pair and touchscreen controls, which double up as controls for the whole house. The cost of all this flawless gadgetry? A staggering, $3.4 million. We'll keep saving. Hit the link to check out the full gallery. [Home Entertainment]

• The NY Times has a lengthy review of Leapfrog's Fly Pentop edutainment gadget, which is appearing on all of those "hot toys for Christmas lists" that gets parents in a tizzy. Aimed at the hard-to-please tween set, the loquacious Pentop reads text aloud from special paper (only sold by Leapfrog, natch) and uses program modules that are — you guessed it — sold separately at $25-$35 a pop. Unless I'm misunderstanding the article, Leapfrog spent $100 designing the little bugger so I guess it's okay to fleece parents with impunity, if only because it really does seem to make learning fun for the kids who use it. [NY Times]
  
• If you prick call center operators, do they not bleed? More and more American customers are going ballistic on the guys and gals who field customer service calls, which, as you ve probably noticed, are increasingly being outsourced to other countries. Unfortunately, many of these heated (one-sided) discussions get very, very ugly these days as customers are pelting the poor souls with cruel racial insults and profanity that would make a Ku Klux Klan member cringe. Chill out everyone!
  [San Francisco Chronicle]
  
• Thanks to slick manufacturing wizardry, Texas Instruments, Intel, and other semiconductor companies have managed to shoehorn most of the main functions of a cellphone onto a single chip, paving the way for cheaper phones. [WSJ (reg)]
  
• Sony and NEC ink a deal to co-manufacture their DVD and CD drives. One big problem they need to work out: Sony's the leader of the Blu-Ray gang and NEC's allegiances are with HD-DVD. [Chicago Tribune].
  
• WebTV lives! But Microsoft is calling the sequel MSN TV2 Internet & Media Player (ugh-they should've stuck with the old name; at least Microsoft kept the WebTV.com domain) and despite some major upgrades, still only appears to be fit for tech-phobic senior citizens looking for a simple way to email their loved ones that they've fallen and can't get up. [Baltimore Sun].