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How to Hack Humans, Epilepsy Sufferers Targeted
Posted on 04.01.08 by John @ 7:37 pm

Not that I think that doing this with the intent to harm people is very nice at all, I have to admit that figuring out what in essence causes a ‘BSoD‘ in humans is impressive. Reminds me of ICE in the William Gibson books.

This incident is quite possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims: hackers uploaded a flashing computer animation to an epilepsy support forum to trigger epileptic attacks!

RyAnne Fultz, a 33-year-old woman who suffers from pattern-sensitive epilepsy, says she clicked on a forum post with a legitimate-sounding title on Sunday. Her browser window resized to fill her screen, which was then taken over by a pattern of squares rapidly flashing in different colors.

Fultz says she "locked up."

"I don’t fall over and convulse, but it hurts," says Fultz, an IT worker in Coeur d’Alene, Ohio. "I was on the phone when it happened, and I couldn’t move and couldn’t speak."

After about 10 seconds, Fultz’s 11-year-old son came over and drew her gaze away from the computer, then killed the browser process, she says.

Neatorama » Blog Archive » Hackers “Seize-rolled” Epilepsy Sufferers in a Support Forum


Filed under: Computers and To be used for Evil and Cool and Hacked
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Virgle: The Adventure of Many Lifetimes
Posted on 04.01.08 by John @ 4:26 pm

VirgleLooks like the mega corps of Virgin and Google have decided to reach higher than anyone has ever thought possible. They have she their goal on a journey to the red planet Mars

(from the PR page)

"Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Virgin Group today announced the launch of Virgle Inc., a jointly owned and operated venture dedicated to the establishment of a human settlement on Mars.

"Some people are calling Virgle an ‘interplanetary Noah’s Ark,’" said Virgin Group President and Founder Sir Richard Branson, who conceived the new venture. "I’m one of them. It’s a potentially remarkable business, but more than that, it’s a glorious adventure. For me, Virgle evokes the spirit of explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo, who set sail looking for the New World. I do hope we’ll be a bit more efficient about actually finding it, though." 
The Virgle 100 Year Plan’s milestones will include Virgle Pioneer selection (2008-2010), the first manned journey to Mars (2016), a Virgle Inc. initial public offering to capitalize on the first manned journey to Mars (2016), the founding of the first permanent Martian municipality, Virgle City (2050), and the achievement of a truly
self-sustaining Martian civilization with a population exceeding 100,000 (2108).Open source Planet
"Virgle is the ultimate application of a principle we’ve always believed at Google: that you can do well by doing good,” said Google co-founder Larry Page, who plans to share leadership of the new Martian civilization with Branson and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
"We feel that ensuring the survival of the human race by helping it colonize a new planet is both a moral good in and of itself and also the most likely method of ensuring the survival of our best – okay, fine, only — base of web search volume and advertising inventory,” Page added. “So, you know, it’s, like, win-win."
The original contingent of Virgle Pioneers will be selected by numerous criteria, including an online questionnaire, video submission, personal accomplishments, expertise in scientific, artistic, sociological and/or political fields of endeavor, and inadequate Google and Virgin personal performance reviews."

This is trurlly a banner day for the human race!
And if you want to stay a little closer to the cradle of mankind, you could opt for a position on the Google Copernicus Lunar Center.

Virgle: The Adventure of Many Lifetimes

(I love days like these)


Filed under: General and Mad Science and Space and Hacked and Historic
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New! Gmail Custom Time
Posted on 03.31.08 by John @ 11:45 pm

Custom Time from GmailAh yes, it must be that time again…


Ever wish you could go back in time and send that crucial email that could have changed everything — if only it hadn’t slipped your mind? Gmail can now help you with those missed deadlines, missed birthdays and missed opportunities.
Pre-date your messages
You tell us what time you would have wanted your email sent, and we’ll take care of the rest. Need an email to arrive 6 hours ago? No problem.
Mark as read or unread
Take sending emails to the past one step further. We let you make emails look like they’ve been read all along.
Make them count
Use your custom time stamped messages wisely — each Gmail user gets ten per year.
Worry less
Forget your finance reports. Forget your anniversary. We’ll make it look like you remembered.

Gmail: Google’s approach to email


Filed under: Dumb and Historic
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$25 Head-Mounted Display
Posted on 03.11.08 by John @ 9:05 pm

This is a bit old news but if you act soon you can snatch one of these up before they are gone. This is a cool little hack to repurpose the head mounted display from a remote controlled car for better purposes. The procedure is simple, get a power supply (some batteries) pop the back off the display and move a shunt from one pad to another (switch form PAL to NTSC video standards) and you are set.
[via hackaday]
$25 Head-Mounted Display « Jake of All Trades


Filed under: Photography and Mad Science and To be used for Evil and Cool and DIY and Historic
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‘Scarab’ the Robot Goes to the Moon
Posted on 03.11.08 by John @ 8:29 pm

More robots on the moon. Well, only if they get funding and the thing works. Lets hope it does.

The Field Robotics Center at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute has developed a prototype moon rover, “Scarab.” The robot has the ability to perform the challenging task of lunar prospecting.
The ultimate goal of lunar prospecting is to discover, extract, and utilize resources in the soil of other planets.

The Tartan Online : ‘Scarab’ the robot


Filed under: Robots and Cool
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BattleBots on ESPN in ‘08?
Posted on 03.11.08 by John @ 7:57 pm

Looks like the sound of gnashing gears and grinding steel may once again grace the television sets of America. Noted sports cable network ESPN has been talking to BattleBots about a possible hook up later this summer. I for one am looking forward to it, nothing quite like seeing two hundred plus pound remote controlled cars beating the crud out of each other. Ah, technology…

(page might be down, last I looked the server’s log files are filling up its hard drive!)
Welcome to BattleBots.com : News and Press


Filed under: Robots and Technology and Cool
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Solar-thermal plant In Arizona
Posted on 03.02.08 by John @ 7:53 pm

I’ll be the first one to say it, someone is going to complain about the reflection of the collectors. I would assume that things like this are taken into account but you can never tell in this litigious world.

Abengoa Solar Inc., a Spanish technology company that has several smaller solar-thermal projects in Spain, North Africa and the United States, will build and run the Solana Generating Station. Solana will use 2,700 "troughs" of mirrors lined up across former alfalfa farmland, focusing sunlight on tubes in the middle of the troughs. The tubes will be filled with a petroleum-based chemical that will heat up to 735 degrees, and transfer their heat to water, making steam and spinning turbines in two 140-megawatt generators. The petroleum liquid is reused in the tubes, not burned. The plant also will use molten salt to store heat and continue generating electricity for as long as six hours after the sun sets. That’s key in Arizona, where residents use the most electricity between 5 and 6 p.m., when the sun is low in the sky and common solar panels struggle to generate electricity.

[via lonelocust]
$1 billion solar-thermal plant near Gila Bend to supply APS customers 


Filed under: Science and Technology
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New Holographic Display Technology
Posted on 02.07.08 by John @ 7:48 pm

Advances in display technology are simply amazing. I hope to see holographic display units so common place that they are used in cheap kids toys like and LCD would be used today.

The new material is comprised of photorefractive polymers. These chemicals have photoelectric properties that make them well-suited to storing the optical interference patterns used to produce holograms. When a photorefractive polymer is exposed to a pattern of bright and dark areas, electrons are released from the areas exposed to high-intensity light and migrate to areas that are darker. Once in place, the electron-rich areas diffract light differently from the electron-poor ones, allowing the original interference pattern to be reproduced when the material is exposed to light

Holodeck 0.1: the durable, rewritable holographic display


Filed under: Science and Technology and Cool and Design
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DORYU 2-16 Pistol Camera
Posted on 01.29.08 by John @ 8:45 pm

Oh yeah baby, you can be James Bond and Weegee all at the same time with this gem!
After a bit of digging I discovered it’s DORYU 2-16 with Cine-Nikkor 25mm F1.4 lens.

" This camera is a serious camera for the police, and not a toy. It is a pistol camera DORYU 2-16 famous as rare and valuable camera. The DORYU 2-16 has the same C mount as the 16mm movie camera. A Cine-Nikkor 25mm F1.4 lens was able to be mounted in the DORYU 2-16 pistol camera. You can find the small lens for GOLDECK 16 on the table."

This is something I’d buy if I had that chance.
The site has some impressive Nikon gear on it, I like those S Motor bodies a lot! I love Nikon cameras, go check it out.

[via Ektopia]
DORYU Pistol Camera


Filed under: Photography and Japan and To be used for Evil and Cool and Historic
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Superhuman Vision from Contact lenses
Posted on 01.17.08 by John @ 9:16 pm

My friend Greg sent this to me today. I’ll be first in line when these come out!

Building the lenses was a challenge because materials that are safe for use in the body, such as the flexible organic materials used in contact lenses, are delicate. Manufacturing electrical circuits, however, involves inorganic materials, scorching temperatures and toxic chemicals. Researchers built the circuits from layers of metal only a few nanometers thick, about one thousandth the width of a human hair, and constructed light-emitting diodes one third of a millimeter across. They then sprinkled the grayish powder of electrical components onto a sheet of flexible plastic. The shape of each tiny component dictates which piece it can attach to, a microfabrication technique known as self-assembly. Capillary forces – the same type of forces that make water move up a plant’s roots, and that cause the edge of a glass of water to curve upward – pull the pieces into position.

Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision


Filed under: Science and Technology and Mad Science and Cool
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Rise of the Exoskeletons
Posted on 12.04.07 by John @ 6:59 pm

robo soldiersSoon you may be seeing squads of power suited troops on your evening news reports from international hot spots. Or at least that is what the Utah based start up company SARCOS wants. The exoskeletons amplify the strength of the operator enabling them to lift 200 pounds with no effort without sacrificing agility and speed. Even as these early tests were all tethered to a power supply, building a backpack sized power supply should be right around the corner.

[via futurismic]
News::Robo-Soldiers


Filed under: General
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FPV Video Home Page
Posted on 11.23.07 by John @ 6:35 pm

FPVJust over a year ago I noted a page where a guy had rigged up a telepresence system using a video transmitter with a servo that is slaved it to a head tracking system. The results were pretty good. He might have sparked a new fad amongst R/C fans.

This website is here to help others who are interested video piloting in the newly growing and exciting Hobby of First Person View (FPV or RPV) that has become popular with Radio Controlled airplanes, R/C helicopters, cars and boats.
What is First Person View? also known as FPV, it’s an intelligent term given to video-piloting by one of the pioneers of this kind of flight (cyber-flyer*) describing the use of video camera(s) to pilot a RC heli/plane by sending the video back to the user by a wireless transmitter/ receiver so the user will see what the plane sees.  So in short this puts you in the pilot seat of your RC airplane. For a lot of people this makes flying RC even more fun and gives the user a real since of controlling there aircraft/vehicle.  Most people who enjoy piloting by video and do well with it are typically persons who like video simulation games like flight simulators. Among others are Full-size aircraft pilots, they seem to pick it up quite easily.

[via MAKE]
FPV Video Home Page


Filed under: General
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NT Zeppelins over Tokyo
Posted on 11.07.07 by John @ 9:09 pm

NT Zeppelins over TokyoI can only hope that someone decides that this sort of service is needed at the Grand Canyon. Makes more sense than a silly transparent walkway.

Starting this month Nippon Airship Corporation will begin offering airship cruises over Tokyo, at roughly US $1,100 to $1,500 a pop, no pun intended. Rides will be aboard a Zeppelin NT and will last 90 minutes

Too cool. You can read more about NT Zeppelin here.

Zeppelin rocks on in Japan


Filed under: Japan and Technology and Cool
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DIY Box Plans
Posted on 10.17.07 by John @ 6:02 am


Just the thing for that extra special gift. Print, cut, fold, and fill with goodness.

[via norcot]
» Packaging vettoriale gratis » Idee Montabili


Filed under: DIY and Paper
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Plastic as Strong as Steel
Posted on 10.11.07 by John @ 4:55 pm

Plastic as strong as steelNow if this material can be made clear… Oh wait, it is. If it can be made crystal clear and has good refractive qualities it would make for some dandy scratch proof glasses.

A new composite plastic built layer by layer has been created by engineers at the University of Michigan. This plastic is as strong as steel. It has been built the same way as mother-of-pearl, and shows similar strength. Interestingly, this 300-layer plastic has been built with ’strong’ nanosheets of clay and a ‘fragile’ polymer called polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), commonly used in paints and glue, which acts as ‘Velcro’ to envelop the nanoparticles. This new plastic could soon be used to design light but strong armors for soldiers or police officers. The researchers also think this material could be used in biomedical sensors and unmanned aircraft.

A plastic as solid as steel


Filed under: Science and Technology
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How to Hack Humans, Epilepsy Sufferers Targeted
Virgle: The Adventure of Many Lifetimes
New! Gmail Custom Time
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