Tech Universe: Monday 27 June

A Texas project will see a clock that will run, hopefully, for the next 10,000 years. Photo / Thinkstock

GRAND DESIGN: In the mountains of Texas a very long-term project is being started: a huge clock that will run for the next 10,000 years.
Why? To keep us focused on the distant future and our effects on it.
Metal gears, a huge stone weight and a titanium mechanism inside a quartz box will keep the time. And it's taking a lot of ingenuity, and robots, to build it. It's good to know someone's thinking about the
future. Mopre at Wired.

FIELDS OF LIGHT: With current cameras you must choose where to focus before you press the shutter. If you're not careful you may end up with a photo where the wrong part is blurry. Light field cameras though use a light field sensor to capture the colour, intensity and vector direction of all the rays of light in a scene. Then powerful software allows the viewer to focus the image on any point they like.
The Lytro light field pocket-sized camera is expected to be available later this year. Better hope this is small enough to fit in a cellphone. More at AllThingsD and video here.

A PAIR OF ARKS: In the Netherlands one builder has created a full-size replica of Noah's Ark, 300 cubits long, even filled with stuffed animals, and a few live ones. He's had the dream of creating an ark for 20 years, and built a smaller version several years ago. The ark now functions as a tourist attraction, and he hopes to sail it down the Thames before the 2012 Olympics. We'd better pray there's no full-size version of the flood that went with the original Ark. More at MSNBC.com.

OLD NEWS: Google has teamed up with the British Library to scan 250,000 books from its collection. The out-of-copyright books cover the period from 1700-1870. The material includes printed books, pamphlets and periodicals and will form a searchable digital archive.
Historians sharpen up your search skills. Details here.

ALL FOR ONE: Aimi Eguchi is a pop star in Japan, in the band AKB48. But she's not quite the same as the other band members, because she's actually a digital composite of all of them. The band members were recorded using digital motion capture, then designers pulled the best features of each and blended them into Eguchi. Brilliant!
Details here and video here.

- Miraz Jordan knowit.co.nz