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Tech NewsGadgetsFreakishly Real Jules Robot Now Makes Faces Right Back At You
Click to viewWe’ve shown you Jules the robotic head before, but now a team of scientists have added real-time human expression mimicking—and taken him marching right across uncanny valley. A team at the University of Bristol, UK, have combined Jules with some analytical software that looks at a person’s face and tweaks Jules’ 34 servos … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Designer Lingerie Has Embedded GPS-Uplink for Lady Location
This could be a tongue-in cheek bit of high-tech flirtery: Brazilian designer Lucia Lorio’s “Find Me If You Can” lingerie line has embedded GPS-uplinking units that a partner can remotely track. So you could play a titillating game on your man by flitting around near his location, and then zipping far away. Or you could … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech News
Blackberry Storm Pricing Leaks On Vodafone UK
Earlier we learned that it was Verizon’s requests that’ve partly crippled the Blackberry Storm, but we at least hope Verizon follows the lead of Vodafone UK and prices the thing reasonably. The Vodafone pricing scheme’s just out, and it’s seemingly good news: under a 12-month contract the phone costs the equivalent of $485 at its … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Snowball Gun Advances Winter Sports Arms-Race With 50-Foot Range
The worst bit of snowball-fighting has always been, to me, the massive pain caused as you over-chill your hands by frantically sculpting your 100’th snowball: something that’d not be a problem with this snowball gun. It sculpts the ‘balls for you, three at a time, and then you can use its internal slingshot to fire … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech News
JVC’s Sound Garden Concept Is Modular, Bonsai’d-Up Concealed Speaker System
Check out JVC’s Sound Garden concept: it’s come leaping forth like a delighted lamb from the creative spring that is Tokyo’s Design Week, and just like a newborn lamb finding its legs, it sure looks funny. An attempt at blending eco-friendliness with interesting design, it’s a full hi-fi speaker system with bass-reflex ports and the … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Air Force Wants Bat-Senses In Micro Spy Drones For “Urban Combat”
We’ve seen bat-like drones, and even heard of genuine bat weaponry, but now the Pentagon is after micro UAVs with genuine echolocation bat-senses, for real. The Air Force has just awarded a new contract to develop swarms of micro drones that use bat-inspired echolocation for navigation through the complex airspace in urban environments cluttered with … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
NASA-TV Streams HD Film to Celebrate 50 Years in Space
50 years ago this month NASA rocketed into existence, and to celebrate this fact NASA-TV is streaming its special retrospective show “50 Years of Exploration: The Golden Anniversary of NASA” in HD format today at 1pm and 8pm EDT (and again tomorrow at 10am and 2pm). Check it out: it’s presented by none other than … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Sauna Gondola Car is Perfect Mix of Snow, Skiing and Nudity
Screw jacuzzi-ing on top of Mont Blanc, or shrinking your unmentionables in a freezing ice sauna, this is the best kind of winter sport relaxation: a ski gondola has been converted into a sauna. Ohboy yes, you can dangle free and naked over a snowy mountain in the Lapland resort of Ylläs. Après-ski? Nah… with … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Nokia N96 Media-Cameraphone Lands at Best Buy For $800
News of the European debut and pricing of Nokia’s anticipated N96 slider cellphone stirred up debate about its cost: but now it’s nearly here in Best Buy and yes, that $800 price tag is intact. That’s clearly just for the phone, naked and un-contracted to a provider, but it’s a massive amount of cash—half as … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Cara Lamp is Crystal-Like LED and Silver Circuit-Board Beauty
Those little interlaced blades of ice you sometimes get on the edge of ultra-cold things in wet air: that’s the image that popped into my head on seeing the Cara lamp. It’s by designer Andreas Ostwald and that fragile crystal-like shape is composed of interlocked flat white circuit boards with silver tracks, sprinkled with 70 … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Truly Scare Neighbour Kids with CNC-Carved Geek-o-Lantern
With just one day to go, the novelty Halloween pumpkins have been slowly building up: but I say none of them, none, have the scariness factor of this. It’s a geek head pumpkin, geekily precision-carved using a geekily cool open-source DIY CNC machine into a genuine geek pumpkin. OK, so the last part is a … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech News
Japanese iPhones Getting TV
Softbank’s just stumped-up with this interesting mobile TV add-on for Japanese iPhone users: it’s a separate unit with tuner and aerial that retransmits the signal over Wi-fi to the phone. The rechargeable device will give about three hours of TV oggling, and connects to a special iPhone app that’ll be distributed free when the device … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgetsAmazing Fly Stick Levitating Toy Doesn’t Need Spells, Just Static Electricity
“Wow!” was basically my reaction to this video of the Fly Stick levitating toy in action, followed by the realization that this is about as near as you’ll ever get to really playing with magic (or the Force, my inner geek reminded me). Of course the forces it uses are all very real: it’s a … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Robotic Insects Could Build Human Habitats on Mars Before We Arrive
Move over bristlebot: Europe’s I-SWARM program is developing some similarly small but much smarter micro ‘bots that could be used to build human colonies on Mars. The tiny machines would be dispersed in huge numbers, working automatically and independently, and also collaborating together to form larger compound ‘bots able to do physical stuff like moving … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
UK Trains Get Quieter As Window Film Blocks Cellphone Signals
UK train operator C2C has taken the neat step of actually enforcing its “quiet zone” train carriages with a system than blocks cellphone signals. It’s a technique borrowed from the defense industry where a transparent conductive film is placed over windows to stop electronic signals from sensitive equipment “leaking” out (it’s dubbed TEMPEST). Basically C2C … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
USB Hub, Speaker, Clock Gizmo Looks Like Bad Sci-Fi Prop
Check out this all-in-one USB gadget: it wraps up a 4-way USB hub, speakers and digital alarm clock in one box. In one big, ugly, LED-laden, stolen from a bad B-grade sci-fi TV show set box. It’s even battery powered for when your PC’s off. It’s so very, very bad, it goes roaring out the … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Zacuto Kit Turns Video DSLRs Into Cheapo Movie Steadicams
Redrock’s “cinematizing” kit stirred up some attention last week with its bolt-on professional movie-camera-alike zoom controls and lens hoods for video DLSRs, and now Zacuto has something similar to offer. The camera sits up front in this rig, with the same kind of light controlling barn doors, fine focus and zoom controls, but this system … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
ScienceHealth
Artificial Heart Developed, Beats Almost Exactly Like Real Thing
Artificial heart technology has been around a while, but this new invention by European scientists is so convincing in its emulation of a real heart’s action that if you plot its output blood flow and show “the graphs to a cardiac surgeon, he will say it’s a human heart” apparently. It also beats previous designs … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech News
The Eeephone Cometh: Asus To Launch Android Phone in ’09
We already know Hop-on and Motorola are planning Android-based cellphones, but now there’re a few hints that Asus is interested in joining the game. Some unnamed company sources are reportedly saying it’ll hit the streets during the first half of 2009—which is about the same timing as Motorola’s promised version—though it appears it may be … Continued
By Kit Eaton -
Tech NewsGadgets
Darpa Wants Bigger, Smarter BigDog ‘Bot To Help in Combat
Boston Dynamic’s BigDog is already an impressive and freakishly animal-like beast, but Darpa it seems has bigger plans in mind and is asking for a smarter, bigger BigDog. The upgraded robot needs to carry 400 pounds of payload, run 20 miles on any terrain and survive un-refueled for a whole day to please Darpa’s request. … Continued
By Kit Eaton
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