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
Category: Technology
DIY Canon Camera Firmware Enhancements
One of the greatest things about technology isn’t what it does, but it’s what it can do. This is a shining example of this very concept:
If you have a point-and-click digital camera made by Canon, you may be able to turn on all sorts of features usually reserved for more expensive SLRs. That includes live histograms, depth-of-field calculation, under and overexposure highlighting, and — best of all — shooting your pictures in RAW. The secret is CHDK, an enhanced, free software replacement firmware.
I’m going to have to disagree that the best part of this is being able to shoot in RAW mode. Don’t get me wrong, I love using RAW (or NEF as it’s called on my Nikon) but the best part of this enhancement is that fact that you can do scripting in a BASIC like language in the camera. Wow… This is like getting a computer that has predefined programs on it and then discovering the programming tools for it. With these scripts you can do such amazing things as automatically create a series of photos for HDR stacking that can later be run through software to extend the dynamic range of the images. You can run an interactive interval timer to take X number of photos ever X seconds, minutes, or even hours so you could do a time laps study of ice melting or a building being built. Those are just two examples of what can be done with the powerful feature.
One clever thing is that if you make a mistake and screw something up that chance of you ‘bricking’ your camera is quite low. To remove the firmware enhancement you simply remove the CD card and power up the camera. Bingo, everything is back to normal. I for one will be on the lookout for a camera that this will work on.
[via MAKE]
Linux.com :: How to give your low-end Canon digital camera RAW support
Google Sponsors Lunar X PRIZE
Ripped from the headlines of today…
The X PRIZE Foundation and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable $30 million prize purse. Private companies from around the world will compete to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives, including roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth.
Well this is just cool, a $30 million dollar (US) prize may not sound like all that much when your talking about going to the moon but the money isn’t what is at stake here. Charles Lindbergh didn’t set out to win the Orteig prize (Started in 1919 by a wealthy hotel owner, it offered $25,000 for the first allied aviator(s) to fly non-stop from New York NY to Paris France vice-versa) just for the cash. I’m sure the money was part of the incentive, but the achievement of winning was it’s own reward. When Lindbergh finished his 30 plus hour flight his accomplishment ushered in a new age for aviation. I can see
No one has eve said that space travel is easy. It may possibly be the single hardest task to accomplish in the world. It’s full of risks, high costs, the potential for catastrophic disaster is high. But the long term rewards are fantastic. The knowledge gained by undertaking such a task could benefit mankind for years to come. If your one of those people that think that thing like the exploration of space and a contest to get robots to the moon is just a waste of time and money I’d like you to give a long hard look at what your reading this on. If it’s a computer, and I bet I’m right, then you yourself have already reaped the rewards of technology that was pioneered for space exploration. No matter how you slice it, setting a mark and offering people a chance to excel breeds innovation and advancements that the entire world benefits from.
[via CNN Money]
Google Sponsors Lunar X PRIZE to Create a Space Race for a New Generation
MAKE Halloween Something Special
I don’t usually toot my own horn but this time I’m going to. I was recently asked if MAKE magazine could use a few of my photos of a Halloween display that I had made a few years ago. I agreed to it of course, I mean who wouldn’t want to see their photos in a national magazine? So I signed some paperwork and waited for the issue to hit the stands. All my waiting paid off when I saw the issue on Saturday and saw my photos printed up in glorious color. My photos of glow sticks, black light, and electric arcs fit right in with the other amazing projects that are being showcased in the Halloween issue. If your looking for a way to add a little something to your garage turned haunted house or even if your just wanting to scare the crap out of a coworkers with some automated nasty in the cube farm this is the magazine to buy!
Ecolong MP3 Player, 85 Hours of Music
This music player sports an impressive 85 hours worth of play from 3 AAA batteries. Now, only having 1 GB of storage is going to mean that you better like your music. You know, even if you did have to use something like iTunesAgent to get iTunes to play nice with the alien (read: non Apple) hardware it would be worth it if you were going backpacking. Oh yeah, it weighs 34 grams and measures 36.6×18.5x78mm so it would fit in your bag quite nicely. I wonder if I can find one of these in my neighborhood.
So You Wanna Build A Rocket?
If I’m asked what kind of book I like to read my answer is science fiction. And the style that I prefer is usually called ‘hard scifi‘. That would be stories that deal with the technological details and loads of information about far fetched star drives, energy beams, and what not. Needless to say I love reading about all the made up details that are in these stories. No wonder my top three favorite authors are Larry Niven, Robert A. Heinlein, and William Gibson. I happened across the ‘Atomic Rocket’ page today and just had to post about it.
"Another annoying fact is that realistic spacecraft propulsion systems are incredibly weak. They will take forever to push the ship to anywhere farther than, say, Luna. So SF authors try to jazz things up by postulating more powerful propulsion systems. Alas, they then run full tilt into Jon’s Law for SF authors.
Jon’s Law for SF authors is closely related to Niven’s Kzinti Lesson. It states: "Any interesting space drive is a weapon of mass destruction. It only matters how long you want to wait for maximum damage." It goes on to say: "Interesting is equal to ‘whatever keeps the readers from getting bored’".
As an example, a spacecraft with an ion drive capable of doing a meager 0.0001g of acceleration may be scientifically realistic and the exhaust is relatively harmless. However, to most of the audience it will not be interesting. "Nine months just to travel to Mars? How boring!"
The author, not wanting his book sales to go flat, hastily re-fits the hero’s spacecraft with a fusion drive. The good news is that the ship can make it to Mars in twelve days flat. The bad news is that the ship’s exhaust is putting out enough terawatts of energy to cut another ship in two, or make the spaceport look like it was hit by a tactical nuclear weapon."
How cool is that? The page is for ‘science fiction authors who wanted a little scientific accuracy’ but the heck with that, I’m going to read this from ‘cover to cover’.
[via retro thing, boingboing]
Atomic Rocketships of the Space Patrol
If you want to read a few book by my favorite masters of scifi, go on over to Amazon and flex the credit chip.
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