› added 10 years ago

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TIL that Microsoft has a patent that allows the Kinect (and other video devices) to count the number of people in the room and stop playback if there are too many viewers. (Link to patent.)

Read more appft.uspto.gov

via reddit.com

KYAbJ TIL: About Queen Radavalona I, "The Mad Monarch of Madagascar". She enforced isolationist policies, hunted down Christians, repelled the French, and made tax payments payable through forced labor. She eliminated her mom by starvation to not spill her own blood. The population dropped in half.
JYvkl TIL: "Archers Paradox". Whilst straight, arrows were actually designed to flex and bend in flight
OoAMg TIL that sunlight provides a protective effect against influenza and other viruses
awPn0 TIL the Italians almost made a jet fighter prototype in WW2 developed from their N1 experimental craft, though under a mixed piston/jet power. A single prototype was under production and it is unknown what happened to it or if it was completed at all
bgOa TIL President Bush’s AIDS initiative has saved over a million people’s lives.