| Jetman soars over Rio, flies circles around historical landmarks (video) May 4th 2012, 15:13  Why would you want to leap out of a perfectly good aircraft? To fly a winged jetpack over the city of Rio de Janeiro, of course. It sounds nuts, but it's just a day in the life for Yves Rossy, the self proclaimed "Jetman" who flew over the Grand Canyon last year. Since soaring over the Rio Grande, Rossy has pitted his carbon-fiber wings against a rally car on Top Gear, taken to the skies over Abu Dhabi and, most recently, buzzed Brazil's famous Christ the Redeemer statue. Jetman rocketed past the monument on an 11 minute flight earlier this week, beginning his journey by dropping out of a helicopter over Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas. Rossy pulled his Rocketeer trick and eventually parachuted to safety on Copacabana beach. Sound fun? Head past the break to see the man in action. Us? We'll keep our feet planted on terra firma, thanks. Continue reading Jetman soars over Rio, flies circles around historical landmarks (video) Jetman soars over Rio, flies circles around historical landmarks (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 May 2012 11:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Tecca | Jetman, BBC | Email this | Comments | | Series revisits ARM's humble beginnings, BBC Micro and all May 4th 2012, 14:47  If you read our interview with ARM co-founder John Biggs, you know the company behind the processor in mosts smartphones had quite modest beginnings, what with an office in a barn and all. But Biggs is only part of the story, and Reghardware fleshes the rest out with a two-part series on the "unsung heroes of tech": Sophie Wilson, Steve Furber and Herman Hauser, the team behind Acorn Computers, the British PC company that spawned ARM in the mid-80s. We'll let you click through to the source links to take the journey yourself, but here are a few highlights: earning a computer contract with the BBC, happening upon ARM chips' low power consumption by accident and striking gold thanks to a partnership with Apple. Series revisits ARM's humble beginnings, BBC Micro and all originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 May 2012 10:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Reghardware (1), (2) | Email this | Comments | | Google News updated with enhanced Google+ integration, real-time coverage May 4th 2012, 13:42  The good news is we're still here -- luckily. On a lighter note, though, Google's sprinkling some new features on top of its headline-loving News page. Via one of its numerous blogs, Big G announced it is boosting the default size of news images on the front page, while also improving the Google+ integration within its discovery site. Now with the Plus enhancements you'll be able to check out what folks in your Circles -- and other "notable" people -- have to say about current topics, which includes comments inside the novel real-time coverage functionality on both the News homepage and social network. Unfortunately, these will only be available to those in the US when they start rolling out over the next week, and it's worth mentioning you'll be able to opt out should you choose to do so. In the meantime, you can head over to the Google News Blog to pore over all the final details. Google News updated with enhanced Google+ integration, real-time coverage originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 May 2012 09:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink TechCrunch | Google News Blog | Email this | Comments | |