field

Super Football Kick 3D is a simple, one-player game in which you attempt to kick football field goals from varying distances.

The touch interface is easy to master: you just swipe up the screen quickly, with your vertical motion determining how far the ball will go and horizontal motion determining its direction. The game looks great, with sharp graphics and 3D camera views that randomly alternate between different points of view (including occasional "ball's-eye view" shots in midair). The sound is also fun, with rousing drumline intros to each round (six rounds in all, each 10 yards … Read more

Getting paid to do small tasks has worked out well for Amazon and its Mechanical Turk service. And a new iPhone app called Field Agent is attempting to get similar results using Apple's iPhone.

The service, which is free to use, distributes small chores through a free iPhone app. As the task doer, you can see what jobs are the closest, or just the highest paying. In my test with it, all of these were pricing surveys that required venturing to a local Wal-Mart store to find out the price of bottle of mouthwash. It's not always like … Read more

Numbers for iPad works well for creating spreadsheets and organizing data while away from your desktop, with a multitude of useful tools and a smart interface design to make your spreadsheet work easier. The app comes with a Getting Started file that walks you through everything from basic spreadsheet use to more complicated features using an intuitive tabbed interface. As you learn the various features, the Getting Started file directs you to try them on your own as you go--an excellent way to learn the ins and outs of Numbers.

The touch interface makes interacting with spreadsheets easy. Add rows … Read more

Entering information in text fields should be smooth and fast, with no pauses or delays of any kind. Despite this, some background tasks if corrupt or otherwise malfunctioning may interfere with typing. One of the most common is OS X's spell checking behavior, but sometimes, the built-in options are not to blame.… Read more

Whether or not tablets take over as a new mobile computing form factor of choice for much of the world depends on whether they can be easily used for key functions in ways that smartphones and laptops can't. Clearly, different users will be seeking different "key functions," and thus Panasonic has announced the Toughbook H1 Field. In many ways--nearly every way, in fact--the Toughbook H1 Field is a polar opposite to Apple's iPad.

A variation on an existing H1 used in professional healthcare environments, the Field combines Windows 7 OS with an 1.86 GHz Atom … Read more

Updated at 4:28 p.m. PST with additional details about the 747-8F.

EVERETT, Wash.--With all the recent hoopla about the first flight of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, true aviation buffs may be the only ones aware that the most iconic jumbo jet of all time was also preparing for a crucial step forward.

And on Monday, it happened: the 747-8 Freighter, the next generation of Boeing's 40-year-old flagship jet, took off from Paine Field here, the first flight of the cargo version of what will be the longest commercial plane in the company's history, a very important advancement for the venerable 747 program.

The 747-8 is considered an essential airplane for Boeing, even as it proceeds with the 787 Dreamliner, because the former will be the aviation giant's entry in the more energy-efficient roster of planes that airlines and freight carriers are demanding for long-haul flights with high capacity for passengers and cargo. (The passenger version of the plane is set to arrive about a year after the cargo model.)

And while the passenger version of the 747-8 is perhaps sexier than the freighter that took off at 12:39 p.m. PST on Monday, the 747-8F's first flight is vital evidence that the 747 program is alive and well, and ready to move solidly into the 21st century.

Boeing says that the 747-8 will be quieter and far more fuel-efficient than the existing 747-400 series. It is thought that the passenger version will hold as many as 467 passengers, 51 more than on a current 747-400. The freighter version will offer 21 percent more lower-hold revenue cargo volume than the 747-400 and cost about 8 percent less per seat mile to operate, the company says.

A big part of the plane's improved efficiency comes from an innovative wing design which features double-slotted flaps inboard, and single-slotted flaps outboard, fly-by-wire spoilers and outboard ailerons. The plane also features GEnx-2B67 engines, similar to the GEnx engines that will power the 787 Dreamliner. The engine features a high-pressure compressor that is the most efficient and compact GE has yet produced, Boeing says. The result is said to be high fuel efficiency and low noise.

Boeing said the 747-8F will offer the lowest cargo cost-per-mile in the business. It weighs 154 tons, has a range of 4,390 nautical miles, a height of 63 feet, 6 inches, a wing span of 224 feet, 7 inches, and a length of 250 feet, 2 inches. It can reach Mach 0.85

The Monday takeoff was delayed by nearly three hours by low cloud cover, and the flight was scheduled for about four hours in the air, with a series of initial tests intended to demonstrate the plane's airworthiness.

But as Boeing deputy test program manager Brian Johnson said, Monday's flight was much more "a chief pilot time," as it marked the first opportunity for Capt. Mark Feuerstein, the man in that role in the 747 program, to have "four hours in the cockpit to just get comfortable with" the plane. … Read more

The Minnesota Twins' new stadium will include a rain-water recycling system, the baseball team said Tuesday.

The system was custom designed for Target Field by Minnesota-based Pentair, a tech company that specializes in part on water treatment and storage. Pentair's system will capture, filter, and purify rainwater for reuse at the stadium.

Specifically, the system will collect and purify rainwater from throughout the ballpark's seven acres, including the stands, and store it in a cistern buried deep in the ground under the outfield. That so-called gray water will then be used to wash down the stands and irrigate … Read more

Just about everybody gets excited about the first picture from a new camera, and NASA is no exception to the rule.

In this case, the "first light" image came from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, aka WISE, which NASA sent into space last month. Just last week, the agency popped off the space telescope's "lens cap," a cover that shielded the optical gear from the travails of lift-off and from the spacecraft's own heat.

WISE does like things chilly, says NASA--really, really chilly:

Happy Harvester allows you to extract data from Web pages for use in other programs. There are two primary views: Source Preview and Browser Preview. Type a URL into the Base URL window, and the Source Preview shows the code for the Web page; the Browser Preview shows how the Web page displays in a browser.

Happy Harvester's interface is basic but functional. There's a useful Help file that explains how to use the program's main features and extras. The documentation touts the program's ability to pull source code from Web pages that you can then … Read more