simulator

Virtual shooting gallery on wheels

If your fair-weather friends are getting bored with your in-home theater, bowling alley, and bevy of indentured pedicurists, you may want to step up to a VirTra Systems' mobile live-fire training simulation trailer.

The trailer is based on the Houston company's IVR (immersive virtual training) simulation technology and offers a three-lane marksmanship simulator and "full-featured judgmental-use-of-force scenario" with both laser-based and live-fire training, including full auto in anything up to .50 caliber. Depending on your preferred quarry, it's available in either a police or military version.

"We remain committed to offering the training community innovative, … Read more

Cool Easter egg: Google Earth's flight simulator

This is so cool: Google Earth (download) has a slightly hidden flight simulator. Press Ctrl-Alt-A (on a PC) to bring it up the first time. After that, Ctrl-A or a selection from the "Tools" menu activates it.

It's no Microsoft Flight Simulator in terms of controls, flyability, or features (no sound, no weather, no autopilot, only two aircraft choices... I could go on), but since the Google flight simulator has access to Google Earth's streaming database, the visuals are awesome. In most areas, it looks fantastic when your plane is more than about 2,000 feet above ground level. Get down low and it becomes a lot less believable, except in cities with good 3D building coverage.

… Read more

Cool Easter egg: Google Earth's flight simulator

This is so cool: Google Earth ( download) has a slightly hidden flight simulator. Press Ctrl-Alt-A (on a PC) to bring it up the first time. After that, Ctrl-A or a selection from the "Tools" menu activates it.

It's no Microsoft Flight Simulator in terms of controls, flyability, or features (no sound, no weather, no autopilot, only two aircraft choices... I could go on), but since the Google flight simulator has access to Google Earth's streaming database, the visuals are awesome. In most areas, it looks fantastic when your plane is more than about 2,000 feet … Read more

Awaken to your inner sunshine

Whenever anyone starts talking about "Circadian rhythms" we get a little nervous, not unlike the way we feel when someone mentions Amway. Yet there are obviously many believers in the biological time clock, and we're in no position to dispute anything that helps people get a good night's sleep (and avoid being cranky with us).

We're just not sure which product claims are more valid than others because there are so many simulated sunrise gadgets on the market. But there's one thing that the "Sunrise Serenade" undeniably has in its favor: It'… Read more

3D model to test force of shark's bite

If the number of shark documentaries on cable is any indication, people love to obsess about man-eating fish. Now, Australian scientists are taking the obsession one step further.

Scientists in the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries are developing a 3D computer model to test the "bite force" of the Great White, the world's largest predatory fish. Taking data from sharks caught off the Australian coast, the researchers are attempting to illustrate the cranial mechanics, bite force and feeding behavior of the sharks through the use of computer simulations, according to a news release from Science … Read more

Permission to board the simulator

Battle stations! The U.S. Navy has upped the stakes in the battle of the training simulators with the commissioning of its 550-foot USS Trayer Battle Stations 21.

The Trayer, dry-docked at a mock pier in the $82.5 million USS Iowa training complex in Great Lakes, Ill., simulates an Arleigh-Burke-class destroyer and some of the adventure and hard work that goes with sailing the Seven Seas.

BTS 21 is part of a 10-year, $763 million "recapitalization" of training facilities that will set new standards in simulation technology by using video screens, smells, vibrations and sound effects to … Read more

Scientists reconstruct still-horrifying 9-11 images

A computer simulation of the attack on the World Trade Center is now showing at YouTube. While the images are designed to help engineers and scientists study how a large structure behaves when smashed into by an airliner, they are still horrifying.

Flight 11 crashed into the WTC's North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001. A team of researchers from Purdue University used scientific principles, state-of-the-art simulation code and animation computer system to recreate the three-quarters of a second following impact.

Over and over again, wreckage from the Boeing 767 careens towards the viewer. Sometimes the simulation includes only the … Read more

A racing simulator with 3 LCDs? Sign us up

Of all the over-the-top racing simulators out there, this one is probably our favorite so far. But then again, we're suckers for anything that sports three LCD TVs. These aren't just any flat screens either, but 37-inch Sharp Aquos displays in full 1080p clarity. And that's just the beginning.

VRX's "Triple Screen Limited Edition 001" is a behemoth that includes "four Xbox 360 Elites, four copies of Forza Motorsport 2, an Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on player, camera/wireless headset, a Zune, force feedback wheel," according to Engadget. The system is built … Read more

Ancient Rome rebuilt, virtually

Not only was Rome not built in a day, but a digital model took 10 years to construct. A team of archaeologists, architects and computer specialists from Italy, the United States, Britain and Germany has just unveiled a sprawling 3D digital simulation of the ancient city as it appeared at the height of its development as the capital of the Roman Empire.

They are calling it the largest, most comprehensive simulation of a historic city ever created.

"Rome Reborn 1.0," based at the University of Virginia, shows almost the entire city within the 13-mile-long Aurelian Walls in … Read more