Eclectic junk from the four corners of the ‘Net. And pictures too!
Who the heck wouldn’t want one of these? Clearly the guys at AirHogs have been looking at the Japanese sumo robots that have been using vaccume systems to stick to the playing surface (you lose if your pushed out of the ring). This toy uses a suction device to let you drive around smooth surfaces like windows. I see that this is a prime canadate for some sumo ring sucking acton here in the states!
[via GadgetMadness]
Here is a simple and elegant solution for movement in a virtual world. Walking in the sphere while wearing wireless VR gear provides 360 degree freedom of movement. Just the think if your going to be walking around in Second Life.
[via GadgetMadness ]
The VirtuSphere: full body immersion Virtual reality at last
If your like me you grew up reading amazingly illustrated books like ‘Underground‘ so you have a sense of what is under foot when your walking around in your city. For those that might have missed the insight that those books might have brought you, there is the National Geographic’s version for what is under a New York city street (no, not ill favored mobsters!) The scale of underground construction in that place is stunning. Just knowing that when your in a subway there is a maze of pipes and conduits all around you is awe inspiring.
[via Core77 ]
Oh bother, looks like a mistake during a down link hand off from one ground station to another resulted in the robotic lander Minerva to be dropped at the wrong time. Hayabusa (it’s shadow is visible on the above photo, cool eh?) had been making burns to keep station over the asteroid Itokawa when the lander was commanded to release. The spacecraft was moving away at a speed of 15cm/sec, 2cm/sec faster than the asteroids escape velocity. So, Hayabusa launched Minerva into space. That sucks, I was looking forward to seeing that hop around on the surface. However, all is not lost. The laser range finder system on Hayabusa is working great, the thrusters are working pretty well to keep correct orientation, and plans for the slug to be shot into Itokawa is still on the short list of planned events.
This is getting close to an actual replacement for human hearing, it can detect sounds but it can’t do anything with the information. Also, the frequency range (4200-35,000 Hz) passes human hearing (20-20000 Hz). Still it is a major step closer to a hearing implant that could restore the hearing of thousands of people.
Well this isn’t good news for some people I’ve met… Some MIT students with access to loads of gear checked out the RF properties of some common aluminium foil hat configurations (Fez, Centurion, and the Classical) and discovered, much to the horror of nuts everywhere, that they can amplify frequencies used by government agencies:
The helmets amplify frequency bands that coincide with those allocated to the US government between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. According to the FCC, These bands are supposedly reserved for ”radio location” (ie, GPS), and other communications with satellites (see, for example, [3]). The 2.6 Ghz band coincides with mobile phone technology. Though not affiliated by government, these bands are at the hands of multinational corporations.
It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC. We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings.
Thats right folks, the hats will let the secret beams into your head. I’m glad I don’t own any stock in Alcoa.
[via Engadget]