In Brief

By Lev Grossman

MOVING PICTURES Next time you're on a plane suffering through Beethoven's Third for the eighth time, think about signing up with a service called InMotion Pictures. InMotion rents portable DVD players (and DVDs) to airline passengers for a mere $10 a day so you can watch whatever you want while you fly. Already in seven airports nationwide, including Philadelphia and Seattle, it's coming soon to a cramped airplane seat near you.

WARP SPEED That Einstein guy--pretty smart, right? Here's a puzzle for him. Last week two independent groups of researchers, one in the U.S. and one in Italy,each claimed to have found a way to make light travel faster than its regular cruising speed of 186,000 m.p.s. According to the special theory of relativity, that's verboten; the velocity of light is supposed to be the cosmic speed limit, which nothing can exceed. Nevertheless, a physicist, Lijun Wang of the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, N.J., says he revved up a beam of light as much as 300 times its normal speed, using a special chamber filled with cesium gas. Now let's see him prove it.

FEETS, DON'T FAIL ME NOW Ever think about all that extra energy you generate just walking around? British inventor Trevor Baylis has. Baylis, whose previous brainstorms include a clockwork radio, has announced the founding of a company to manufacture shoes that produce power using the natural motion of walking. This summer Baylis plans to test his shoes in Africa in a walk across the Namib Desert during which he'll place a phone call to PM Tony Blair (who else?) using only power made by the footwear. That's one small step for man...

--By Lev Grossman