It’s all about the constants you start with, but if you think any aliens out there are exploring the galaxy at 10 percent of the speed of light, as physicist Rasmus Bjork proposes, then it’s not surprising that we haven’t met any yet (and aren’t likely to for a very long time).

I’m a sucker for visual representations of complex data sets – largely because I’ve always been rubbish at maths. The Google gang have just put out a new tool designed just for folk like me who’d like to look at how various economic statistics correlate against each other over time for all the major countries on the planet. It’s hard to describe accurately, so just go and play with the Gapminder World and kiss goodbye to an hour or two.

India successfully launched a small capsule into orbit for 12 days, de-orbited it, and recovered it successfully from the Bay of Bengal. This is more for space experiments, a very small unit, but it’s not too hard to see India scaling it up to eventually attempt manned spaceflight.

Security cameras in the United Kingdom are getting an “upgrade:” now they sport speakers so the bored camera jockey can yell at you when you deviate from his definition of social norms. [slashdot]

David software lets you scan an object in 3D using a webcam, the corner of your room, and a laser pointer. Best of all, it’s free software. [engadget]