Author: John

Driv-e-moticon – LED Message Screen For Your Car

Driv-e-moticon

Nice one there, for about $20USD you can have an LED sign in your car that will display the handy messages "thanks" and "back off". It will also display a happy face and a sad face. Just the thing to let other drivers know how your feeling.  It would be cool if it used a big LED matrix that you could program but the chances of someone pissing off people with language that was, shall we say less than clean, is a sure thing.

Helps you improve communication with other drivers & express yourself. Fix display module to rear windscreen & use remote control in the front of the car. Battery operated – No Wires – Single and Multiple message options.

[via MAKE] 

AU-MY – Driv-e-moticon

Microsoft Robotics Studio

Microsoft robot studio 

Looks like software giant Microsoft has unveiled a preview of their robotics studio.

Today at RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition 2006, Microsoft Corp. showcased the community technology preview (CTP) of a new Windows®-based environment for academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotic applications for a wide variety of computing platforms. In addition, early adopter companies, universities and research institutes offered demos and provided support for the new Microsoft® Robotics Studio development platform. The community technology preview of the Microsoft Robotics Studio is available for download at http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics.

Some bullet points of the package:

  • End-to-end robotics development platform.
  • Lightweight services-oriented runtime.
  • Scalable, extensible platform.

The coolest part of this development package is that it will work with the new LEGO Mindstorm NXT CPU.

[via MAKE] 

Microsoft Robotics Studio

STS-121 Crew To Fly July 1

 

NASA Space Flight - STS-121 

Amid heated discussions about the safety of the foam insulation on the main fuel tank, the orbital vehicle Discovery will take to the sky on July 1.

The STS-121 mission will visit the International Space Station and continue evaluating new shuttle safety improvements. At least two spacewalks are planned during the 12-day mission, which also includes repair work to the station.

[via SPACE.com]

NASA Space Flight – STS-121

The End of SciFi is Near – Speak Out!

What will the idiots do next?In light of my recent post about the SciFi channel (a channel supposedly devoted to science fiction programming) deciding on showing "an alternative brand of wrestling suited to fit the SCI FI Channel’s commitment to fuel the imagination", a friend of mine reminded me that you can send feedback to SciFi and tell them what you think about their programming. The page is http://www.scifi.com/feedback/ and the email address you want is feedback@scifi.com. Send them an email telling them that wrestling isn’t related to science fiction (unless its Godzilla doing the Tokyo stomp with a fellow monster) and you don’t want to see in their line up. Tell them you want science fiction programming, not stuff about ghost hunting or C rated movies about killer moths or black holes. Be polite and make sure you mention ECW so they don’t get confused, after all this might be read by a programming executive.

Monster CCD Sensor Has 111 Million Pixels

 

Wow. This is going to make one heck of a camera for a telescope. I can see a market for these with medium and large format camera users. A sensor this size would make a nice replacement for a film back on a 4×5 view camera.

Dalsa Semiconductor has fabricated an image sensor with more than 111 million pixels. The company claims the 4 x 4-inch charge-coupled device, configured as 10,560 x 10,560 pixels, is the world’s highest-resolution image sensor and the first to break the 100 million-pixel barrier.

EETimes.com – Record CCD image sensor has 111 million pixels