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.
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
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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.
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…
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
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.
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.
I 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
Alexandria writes: The very anticipated Resident Evil Umbrella Chroniclesis going to be released on 11/3/07.This Resident Evil game is a Wii exclusive which will no doubt make game play a bit more interesting but the people who don’t have a Wii will definitely miss out on this amazing game play. There will be different stages including, Resident Evil Zero, the Game Cube remake of Resident Evil, and Resident Evil 3 Nemesis been. Characters currently known to be playable in the game are Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Carlos Oliveira, Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen and yes all of you Resident Evil fans Albert Wesker will also play a very important role in these games(I mean duh he IS Wesker!!).I might actually buy a Wii just so I can play this game.
Once again, I’m impressed with Japanese vending machine technology. This time it’s hot food for a few bucks, er, yen.
We all heard about the wacky vending machines before coming to Japan, but this still surprised me. Hot dogs, noodles, french fries, etc microwaved from frozen, 400Yen each.
Ah, it’s great to live in the modern age. Is it a spoon? Is it a fork? I don’t know! I’m sure this will be handy for camping but I can see it even ending up on a manned mission to Mars.
Well, its not quite the super sensory perception you see in comic books, a group of researchers utilizing Sharp IR sensors created what could be called a ’second skin’. Think of how something gently touching the fine hairs on your arm instantly tells you that something is going on. Very handy if your moving around in the dark, you get a millisecond warning before you run into the wall. It might be enough warning to make you start slowing down before maximum damage can be done. Now imagine that you can do the same thing but with objects that are inches or even feet away from you. With enough sensors you could navigate through a room in the dark and not bump into anything. The possibilities here are almost endless. [via Hack a Day] The Haptic Radar / Extended Skin Project
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I’m sure this is going to end up like the guy that has had a site about building the DIY cruise missiles.This
is a resource for all things about amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): How-to’s, links, videos, images and a discussion group. Among other things, this is where we’ll be listing all the parts, software and instructions to build each of our UAVs.
I know that I’d like to have a plane with a camera built into it. An autopilot would make lining up a good photo a lot easier. How cool would that be? It’s simply amazing what you can do with off the shelf stuff and some brains. Oh yeah, and LEGOS. Yes, one of these planes has a servo actuated camera mount that is built from LEGO parts. That in mind your not going to be loitering over your target all day looking for the guy that has been stealing your newspaper every morning. These UAVs get about 20 minuets in the air and can only go about five miles. Still, it is very cool. DIY Drones
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This is a thing of beauty, I blogged this before but these clips are a whole bunch better.
The Sultan’s Elephant is a giant marionette show put on by the French street theater company Royal de Luxe. It has been performed in several European cities.
I find it simply amazing that a gargantuon marionette can be manipulated in such subtle ways. If it weren’t for the block and tackle surrounding her you might almost forget that it’s 30 feet tall.