Smart software to spot Formula One winner's secret

Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent

F1's tricks could be caught by smart code (Image: Vladimir Rys Photography/ Getty Images Sport)

Red Bull Racing scooped both the Formula One Drivers and Constructors Championship in 2010 and 2011. Yet, one of the big mysteries of the Red Bull cars is how they manage to do so well in the third and final race qualifying session - known as Q3 - and more often than not book a grid place in the race-commanding pole position as a result.?McLaren F1 driver Lewis Hamilton put it pretty succinctly when he said: "Red Bull seem to do something in Q3 that we can't figure out."

Not for much longer, perhaps. Michael Schumacher's Mercedes GP team hope to work it out using predictive software called Autonomy Virage that analyses post-race video to pinpoint where and how any car gains the milliseconds of advantage that make a difference to winning and losing in F1. It does so using algorithms based on the Bayesian idea of searching for 'priors' - events that lead, on the balance of probabilities, to another event. In other words it automatically finds the likely cause of an effect. Was it track position that was important? The apparent downforce bending a front wing? Virage should help them find out.

James Vowles, chief engineering strategist at Mercedes GP, says that if Red Bull does have a trick up its sleeve, the Bayesian code will help them spot it. "Virage will enable us to catalogue all of the onboard and offboard video footage we have of the Red Bull - and any other competitor of course -?to try and understand what they are doing. It means we don't have to sit through hours of video footage to find what we need."

Virage also analyses GPS data, driver and team audio, engine data and the way the pitlane team co-operate to get tyres changed the quickest. Mercedes doesn't need much help there though: they won the BBC's Golden Wheelnut award in 2011 for the fastest pitstop, at 2.3 seconds. That's not the trophy they want, however.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1aad53a3/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Conepercent0C20A110C120Cpaul0Emarks0Esenior0Etechnology0Ec0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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Lemieux is Canada?s latest ?$2-million-dollar man?

Auctions Canada November sale breaks record for a post-war Canadian artist

By Larry Humber. From Web only
Published online: 26 November 2011

Toronto. A 1962 oil on canvas by Quebec City?s Jean Paul Lemieux realised a record price for post-war and contemporary Canadian art on November 24.

The piece, titled Nineteen Ten Remembered, hammered at $2m ($2.34m including buyer?s premium, all prices in Canadian dollars) at Heffel Fine Art?s fall sale. Lemieux became just the fourth Canadian artist to realize $2m at auction, joining legends like Paul Kane, Emily Carr and Lawren Harris, with Tom Thomson knocking on the door.

Lemieux eclipsed the previous high-water marks for a post-war or contemporary Canadian artist of $1.8m for a sale outside Canada and $1.6m for one held in the country, established by fellow Quebecer Jean-Paul Riopelle in 2008 and 2006.

Nineteen Ten Remembered was just one of nine Lemieuxs on offer in Toronto, but easily the pick of the litter. It shows the artist as a six-year-old boy outfitted in a sailor suit flanked by his soon-to-be estranged parents, his dad almost edging off the canvas.

The record price was hardly a surprise, as Nineteen Ten Remembered is a well known work in Quebec, with countless prints and frequent showings. As Heffel stated earlier, ?It is among the ideal known and most reproduced canvasses ever created by a Canadian artist. Such pieces traditionally are reserved to the domain of public museums.?

The artist, who passed away in 1990 aged 86, had given the painting to his wife Madeleine and daughter Anne Sophie Lemieux, who subsequently sold it to a Montreal buyer, who in turn sold it to his next-door neighbour, the consignor.

The consignor asked that a pre-sale estimate be waived and Heffel complied, a first for the Vancouver-based auction house.

A 1908 Emily Carr watercolour on paper, War Canoe, Alert Bay, provided another highlight, becoming the first Canadian watercolour to top $1m, securing $1.2m. Lawren Harris?s Rocky Mountain Sketch was the other huge seller at $1.8m.

In all, almost $17m changed hands, well above the estimate of $8m-$12m.

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Cluster munition talks reject US proposal (AP)

GENEVA ? A group of 50 nations led by Norway, Austria and Mexico has defeated a U.S. effort to enact a worldwide ban on cluster munitions produced before 1980.

Two weeks of diplomatic talks ended late Friday night with the U.S. government saying it was "deeply disappointed by the failure."

The U.S. mission to the U.N. in Geneva said in a statement Saturday its proposal would have reined in about 85 percent of the world's stockpiles of cluster bombs, artillery shells and missiles.

But opponents including activist groups say that would undermine an international law that took effect last year to phase out cluster weapons, which are packed with "bomblets" that scatter indiscriminately and often harm civilians.

More than 60 nations have adopted the law so far.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_re_eu/eu_un_cluster_munitions

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