Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Andre Borschberg sounds remarkably bright and alert after spending more than 60 hours straight at the controls of the Solar Impulse flight simulator. Granted, he’s been able to get some sleep, sometimes napping for a whole 20 minutes at a time.

Borschberg is approaching the end of a 72-hour stint in the sim, running through a series of tests and challenges to prepare for what lies ahead when he attempts to fly around the world in a solar airplane in 2014. It’s been grueling, but not so bad.

“I feel quite well, better than what I expected,” Borschberg said from the cockpit mockup in Switzerland.

The point of the prolonged testing is to determine how best to manage the pilot’s needs while circumnavigating the globe in a solar plane. It also will allow the team to evaluate and refine the cockpit design. Some of the tests are simple reaction-time experiments; others are emergency drills designed to prepare Borschberg for things like losing power during a landing. Borschberg says his piloting skills haven’t degraded too badly with the loss of sleep.

“The quality stays very good,” he says, “but certainly it’s a bit lower than somebody who has slept eight hours.”

 

A larger cockpit has been a big help. Compared to the first Solar Impulse that first flew in 2009, the second aircraft offers a bit more room.

“This cockpit is slightly larger than the first one,” Borschberg says. “We can do some exercise gymnastics, it helps to stimulate the muscles and the blood circulation. And I do some meditation to smooth how I use my energy.”

Borschberg has been allowed to take several “micro-naps” of about 20 minutes. It’s all part of the test. When the alarm goes off, there’s no hitting the snooze button. The former Swiss Air Force pilot must immediately take control of the airplane and establish straight and level flight.

“We measure the reaction time, as soon as I’m awake I go and take control of the airplane,” he says. “I have to grab it and provide an action. First control the airplane, then figure out anything else. Reaction time from alarm to when I grab the controls is 2 to 4 seconds. It is very quick.”

The biggest challenges of sleep deprivation have been critical decision making and of course landing the airplane. Borschberg says he finds he needs more decision making help from the crew as the simulation progresses. This was expected though, and he says it is not a problem.

The next-generation Solar Impulse, known as HB-SIB, will have a wingspan of more than 236 feet. It will not have a true autopilot. The airplane lacks sufficient power to maintain any type of predetermined flight altitude in the event of a strong downdraft, according to Borschberg, and it is so delicate that an autopilot could cause problems in unusual circumstances. Instead, Borschberg says, the airplane will have an electronic co-pilot of sorts capable of maintaining a directional heading and alerting the pilot to any problems with the performance of the airplane.

Borschberg and Solar Impulse co-founder Bertrand Piccard hope to attempt their around-the-world solar powered flight in 2014.

 

Victorinox has unveiled a Swiss Army knife with a USB flash drive that holds 1 terabyte of data.

The company has had a USB knife in its line of products for a while, but the Victorinox SSD comes with several new features: it connects to eSATA II/III as well as USB 2.0/3.0 with a single connector, it has a monochrome graphic display showing what’s on the drive and it supports 256 AES encryption.

Data transfer speeds are 220 MB/s for reading and 150 MB/s for writing data, and the availabile capacities range from 64 GB to a whopping 1 TB.

Of course, the knife also has a blade, scissors, nail file with a screwdriver tip and a LED/laser pointer. All you frequent travelers needn’t worry – the drive can be interchanged between the fully-equipped body and the flight-friendly body, which comes without the pointy stuff.

The company has also launched the Slim 3.0 USB drive, which goes up to 128 GB on the storage side and offers 10 times faster data transfer than the previous version.

Both devices will be available in April 2012 at a yet unannounced price.

---

CES 2012: Mashable’s Photo Coverage From the Ground

---

Check out more gadgets, booths and appearances from our team on the ground at CES 2012.

Russian airplane maker Sukhoi is joining the business jet community with a VIP version of its SuperJet 100 regional airliner. The new Sukhoi business jet joins Boeing and Airbus, along with the Brazilian company Embraer and Canada’s Bombardier in converting airliners for private use.

The Sukhoi 100 that the SBJ is based on first flew in 2008. The regional jet has seating for up to 103 passengers. More than 300 have been sold, mostly to Russian airlines, though operators in Thailand, Indonesia, Italy and Mexico also have Sukhois on order.

The launch customer for the SBJ is the Swiss company Comlux. The new Russian business jet will be added to Comlux’s fleet of 19 charter aircraft that includes several Airbus Corporate Jets, business jets from Bombardier and a Boeing 767. Comlux placed an order for four of the $50 million jets and expects to take delivery of the first one in 2014.

The airframe of the Sukhoi is made in Russia where the airplane is assembled, though the engines and most of the systems are from the west. Russia has a long history of civil airplane manufacturing, though very few have been able to penetrate markets beyond the former iron curtain. Sukhoi is most famous for its history building fighter jets, including the SU-27.

Sukhoi is one of several companies currently entering the airline market through regional jets. Both Embraer and Bombardier successfully joined the global marketplace years ago filling in the smaller end of the jet market not covered by Boeing and Airbus. Companies in both China and India are also planning regional jets of their own.

The fly-by-wire Sukhoi business jet will have a 4,300 mile range, though with a limited passenger load. With a cruise speed of around 530 miles per hour, the SBJ offers performance similar to other jets of its size.

Image: SuperJet International

At Valve we love the human experience. Here is a great example of another one. Ian Barry and the crew at Falcon Motorcycles have rolled out another beautiful custom, this one a riff on the venerable Vincent Black Shadow.

The Black Shadow was an incredible machine that essentially set the benchmark for performance through the 1950s. It was blindingly quick, something Rollie Free proved at Bonneville in 1948. Barry and a team of six craftsmen spent one year building an homage that is as much a work of art as it is a motorcycle.

According to our friend Chris Hunter at Bike EXIF, the Black Falcon features a 1952 Black Shadow engine that was discovered in pieces. The 1,000cc mill had been modified for drag racing, so Barry had the engine stripped to the last part and meticulously rebuilt. It now runs like “a 75-bhp Swiss watch.”

The entire chassis but for a single lug was fabricated from scratch. The aluminum fork is based on the Vincent “Girdraulic” design, and the bike sports custom Works Performance shocks. The 8-inch drum brakes may look like the old finned Vincent units, but they were built specifically for the Black Falcon and are quite capable of hauling the bike down from speed.

There’s no end to the delicious details Barry has incorporated into the bike, from the gorgeous foot pegs to the six-way adjustable handlebars to the … the list goes on.

The Black Falcon, the third of 10 one-offs we’ll see from Falcon Motorcycles, is already sold.

In keeping with the Vincent Black Shadow’s history, the Black Falcon is built for tearing up tarmac or peeling off eyeball-flattening speed runs. The “roadster” tank shown here can be swapped out with a smaller “dragster” tank for quarter-mile runs.

So gorgeous.

Another shot of the Black Shadow engine, with too many details to count.

The front brake only resembles the finned brake of the Vincent Black Shadow. The 8-inch double-sided drum brake was built specifically for the Black Falcon and features four shoes.

Even the primary drive is beautifully detailed.

A close-up of the rear brake.

Most builders would slap on a pair of pegs and a shifter and call it a day. Ian Barry is not most builders. Note the fender mounting bracket.

The top of the tank.

The seat provides another definition of “craftsmanship.”

Sit down, start up and hold on.

It looks just as good from the back as it does from the side.

Photos: Falcon Motorcycles via Bike EXIF. Video: Los Angeles Times/YouTube

This is not a Suzuki X-90 painted in a special color scheme and handed out as a reward to the top Mary Kay saleswoman in the southeastern Toledo region. It’s not even a golf cart specially designed to deliver daiquiris to the discerning beachgoers of the Maldives.

No, the Rinspeed BamBoo is none of those things. But it is a rolling billboard that purports to be modern art, and from its waterproof, inflatable roof to the Swiss Army knife that doubles as a key, it’s cloyingly cheeky.

Of course, the folks at Switzerland’s Rinspeed already know that. “This car irritates,” begins the announcement of the car’s debut at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show. The self-deprecation isn’t to head the onslaught of criticism off at the pass, but instead to proudly yet disinterestedly proclaim that people aren’t supposed to like the car. Duh. And here we were, fooled into thinking a punchline just silently rolled into Geneva. Point: Rinspeed.

The BamBoo was designed as a “sun and fun” showcase for new technologies by Rinspeed chief Frank M. Rinderknecht with some help from pop artist James Rizzi, whose exuberant 3D creations we’ve always liked. The design is where the art stops and the product placement begins, however, as all that tech is marketed by brand name about as subtly as a Chevy ad featuring the entire cast of Glee.

One of Switzerland’s finest mills created the interior fabric from threads of bamboo fiber, an HTC tablet PC sits in the dash, Goodyear tires offer low rolling resistance, a German high-efficiency heater keeps occupants warm on cold nights and an inflatable roof doubles as a go-anywhere mattress. There’s even a foldable bike in the back. It’s as if Rinspeed ordered everything in the July 2019 Crutchfield catalog and stuck corresponding decals on the side of the BamBoo like it’s a ‘93 Civic.

The best mod? The BamBoo’s front grille has been replaced by an “Identiface” — a display screen that shows whether you are single, “in a party mood” or “need a break,” status updates that sound a lot more Jersey Shore than St. Tropez. Oh, and we didn’t tell you it was electric? Well, of course it is. Shame on you for assuming otherwise.

Photos: Rinspeed

Love it or hate it, there’s no debating just how much e-mail has changed the way we communicate.

Since the 1990s, electronic mail has eclipsed snail mail and the fax to become the standard in the business world, and although social media sites are edging in on personal online messaging, e-mail still holds strong in that arena.

You may use it everyday, but how much do you know about e-mail? Do you know who sent the first message? What the biggest webmail provider is in the U.S.? What about the most common Hotmail password?

We’ve found 10 fascinating facts about electronic mail. Have a read, and do share in the comments below any relevant trivia you know on the topic.

---

1. What Was the First E-mail Message?

---

Ray Tomlinson is credited as being the first person to hit send on a network e-mail message.

Tomlinson had not been specifically tasked to develop e-mail, but he was working out some useful applications for MIT’s ARPANET project (which later evolved into the Internet). He took the time to work on e-mail “mostly because it seemed like a neat idea.”

Sent between two side-by-side computers, the first message was a small step for e-communications, but an important one. Tomlinson says he can’t remember the content of that first message but it likely read “testing 123″ or “QWERTYUIOP” — the letters found on the top line of a QWERTY keyboard.

---

2. Where Did the Word Spam Come From?

---

The term spam is widely thought to have come from the above Monty Python sketch, where its incessant chanting by Vikings (naturally!) drowns out all meaning.

These days, while the term refers to nuisance e-mail, it seems the phrase pre-dates e-mail as we know it, and has been traced back to online role playing chat rooms from the ’80s called MUDs. Generally, the term refers to any type of abusive online behavior.

---

3. What’s the Most Common E-mail Password?

---

We are nothing if not unimaginative with our e-mail passwords. It seems “123456″ is the all-time most popular choice for protecting our precious online correspondence. This sequence came out on top in 2009 when 10,000 Hotmail passwords were exposed online. (“123456″ also topped the list of passwords in the recent Gawker hack.) Come on netizens — must try harder.

---

4. What is Google’s Spam-Flavored Easter Egg?

---

Google has a little fun with spam via an Easter egg that can be viewed in any Gmail account. Opening the “Spam” folder turns the “web clips” display into recipes for the canned pork product. Spam Primavera, Spam Swiss Pie, Creamy Spam Broccoli Casserole and Spam Veggie Pita Pockets are just four examples of the delicious recipe links Google offers. Mmmmmm, Spam.

---

5. What is the @ Sign in Morse Code?

---

Despite the rise in popularity of e-mail in the late 20th century, Morse code didn’t get a character for the “@” sign until 2004.

The string combines Morse for “A” and “C,” and is known as the “commat,” an abbreviation of “commercial at.”

---

6. How Do You Spell E-mail?

---

So is it e-mail, email, Email, E-Mail, E-mail or eMail?

That depends who you ask. While many dictionaries and style guides are beginning to drop the hyphen and the caps in favor of “email,” the The Associated Press Stylebook still insists on seeing the word as an abbreviation of “electronic mail” and therefore sticks with e-mail. Here at Mashable, we do the same.

---

7. What’s the Biggest Webmail Service in the U.S.?

---

As of September 2010, Compete revealed that, based on the U.S. Internet browsing population, Yahoo! Mail clearly dominates. Hotmail — or “Windows Live Hotmail,” as Microsoft insists on calling it these days — comes in second. A little upstart known as Gmail looks positively minnow-esque in third place.

---

8. What is the @ Sign Called?

---

In English, “@” is commonly known as the “at” sign or symbol — or if you want to be adventurous, the “commercial at.” Other languages have much more poetic ways to describe the symbol, many of them animal-related.

In Dutch, it’s apestaart — “monkey’s tail.”

In Swedish, it’s snabel-a — “A” with an elephant’s trunk.

And in Italian, it’s chiocciolina — small snail.

Other languages nickname it “mouse’s tail,” “sleeping cat,” “little duck,” “dog,” and “little worm.”

---

9. When Was the First E-mail Sent From Space?

---

The first e-mail from space was sent in 1991. The crew of STS-43 Atlantis used Apple’s early AppleLink software on a Macintosh Portable to transmit the following:

“Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here… send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby… we’ll be back!”

Oh, and if you guessed from the latter part of the message that 1991 was also the year Terminator 2: Judgment Day came out, you’d be correct.

---

10. Which Animated Character’s E-mail Was Hacked?

---

It was everyone’s favorite donut-loving, dysfunctional dad — Homer Simpson. Simpson’s e-mail address — chunkylover53@aol.com — was revealed in The Dad Who Knew Too Little.

Back in 2003, a Simpsons writer used to reply to messages in-character until the address became unmanageable due to sheer volume of mail.

Once the address was inactive, some dastardly hackers sent messages from the account to people who had added chunkylover53 to their AIM buddy list. The messages promised exclusive access to a new Simpsons episode, but instead delivered nothing but malware.

D’oh!

---

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, chezzzers. Homer image courtesy of Simpson Crazy.

Building a “traffic internet” of vacuum tubes that zip drivers to anywhere on earth in under an hour and circumnavigate the globe in two hours might sound like science fiction, but work on vehicles capable of tube-travel is already underway.

Acabion, a Swiss company led by former Porsche, BMW and Ferrari engineer Peter Maskus, is building vehicles it claims will be the “certified successor of cars.” They’re “streamliners” — upgraded land-speed racers that look like motorcycles wrapped in fighter jets, and Maskus hopes to have them in the hands of consumers by 2015.

The vacuum tubes won’t be around during our lifetime, but cars built in this decade could lay the groundwork for a future transportation infrastructure.

The company is working on the GTBO VIII “da Vinci,” a $15 million fully electric vehicle with a top speed of 375 mph that Acabion claims is 20 times more efficient than current EVs. It’s as much a work of art as a proof of concept: Maskus says that for production vehicles, the price will come down “by reducing the overall exclusivity and by reducing the power from our today’s top-of-the-line 700 horsepower or 800 horsepower to standard regions, and of course by mass production.”

With new cars must come new roadways. By 2050, Maskus thinks elevated tracks will separate high-speed Acabions from antiquated automobiles, just as horse-drawn carriages aren’t allowed on interstates. “The speed potential of the Acabion is so dramatically higher than the speed potential of any car or motorcycle, that future perspective will most likely call for tracks allowing much more speed much safer than today’s highways do,” Maskus said.

Elevated tracks over highways would be automated, much like high-speed rail but with individual cars. And when the elevated highways end, Acabion users can still drive on existing roads.

Next up is a network of intercontinental vacuum tubes — a “traffic internet” — that probably sounds as far-fetched today as an undersea telegraph cable did in the 1850s.

“Two tubes between New York and Paris, 1.5 meters in diameter each, maglev driven and fully automatic controlled, will move three times more people between America and Europe than all airplanes do today,” Maskus said.

Once the traffic internet is up and running, current Acabions will be fully capable of entering vacuum tubes that would propel the vehicles quickly enough for drivers to commute daily between Paris and New York.

If you’re itching for a taste of that future, we suggest you check out the current Acabion lineup. It consists of custom-made streamliners that Maskus is aiming at customers bored with their Veyrons.

For starters, the Acabion GTBO borrows an engine from the Suzuki Hayabusa, has a top speed of 340 mph, can get 100 mpg at 100 mph and has a $2.5 million price tag to match. “It is so comfortable that people would buy it even if the Acabion would just stand in the garage. Plus, as soon as you move it, you have the enormous effectiveness, whatever road you use.”

Images: Acabion

The Solar Impulse team continues to expand the capabilities of their airplane, HB-SIA, with a tour of Switzerland this week. The flights are aimed at making multiple takeoffs and landings in one day and have the airplane fly in the same airspace as other aircraft.

Yesterday pilot André Borschberg flew from the home base in Payerne to Geneva and back again all in one day. The flight to Geneva lasted about four and a half hours and marked the first time the plane has landed at a civilian airport.

After a press conference and some tests on the ground, HB-SIA made the return trip in under four hours.

Today Borschberg again lifted off from Payerne, this time bound for Zurich. Regular Twitter updates let airplane watchers on the ground know when the slow flying airplane would be overhead. The team joked that the flight may be a distraction for parliamentary elections happening as the solar powered airplane flew over the Swiss captial of Bern.

After a brief stay in Zurich, Borschberg lifted off a few hours ago and returned to Payerne a little after noon eastern time.

The path of the two flights (complete with a few sightseeing distractions) can be seen here.

The tour of Switzerland comes after HB-SIA’s historic night flight in early July. The team is working on the next generation of its solar powered airplane that is expected to make a transatlantic flight some time in 2012.

More pictures of the flights around Switzerland after the jump.