Steven Leckart

ECCEROBOT: Not Via SKYNET, But Might As Well Be

ECCE is an anthropomimetic robot, meaning it is designed not only to look human, but to mimic the inner architecture and mechanisms of the human body like bones, ligaments, and joints.

Behold, the three goals behind ECCE:

(1) to design and build a robot using anthropomimetic principles
(2) to characterise its dynamics and control it
(3) to exploit its human-like characteristics to produce some human-like cognitive features

Says ECCE:

Nice try with #2. KNEEL BEFORE, ECCE!!!!!!!

I suggest we add a #4 to the list. How about programming ECCE to abide by the Three Laws?

[via IEEE Spectrum via BotJunkie]

Steven Leckart

New Rover is a Hi-Def TV Studio, Internet Node

Astrobotic Technology's prototype is scheduled to explore the Apollo landing site in 2011 &mdash and hopefully win the $25 million Google Lunar X Prize. Developed by Dr. William Whittaker, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon, the solar-powered rover has been tweaked and fine-tuned for its mission, which will involve examining how materials used by the Apollo 11 mission have weathered on the Moon.

Here are a few unique engineering feats:

Unlike Mars rovers that have motors in the hub of each wheel, the Astrobotic lunar rover tucks two motors inside the body of the robot where they are safeguarded both from heat and the abrasive lunar dust. Each motor drives one side of the robot's wheels using a chain drive like a bicycle. Key to the design are tailored composite structures made from carbon fiber tape and resin...

The fundamental innovation developed at Carnegie Mellon is the rover's asymmetrical shape. On the cold side, there's a flat radiator angled up to the black lunar sky as well as a vertical panel for the logos of the corporations sponsoring the expedition. On the hot side, a half-cone of solar cells generates ample electrical power to power the wheels, run the computers and energize the transmitter beaming back stereo HD video to Earth.

Another innovation is a lunar-specific drive train. Unlike Mars rovers that have motors in the hub of each wheel, the Astrobotic lunar rover tucks two motors inside the body of the robot where they are safeguarded both from heat and the abrasive lunar dust. Each motor drives one side of the robot's wheels using a chain drive, like a bicycle. The chain drive mechanism has been tested in a Carnegie Mellon vacuum chamber to ensure that is does not experience "cold welding" &mdash a process where materials sometimes merge or weld to each other when touching in a hard vacuum.

Steven Leckart

Buzz Aldrin: Engineer, Rapper, Heart-Breaking Realist

"That's not going to happen."

In just five words, Buzz Aldrin casually broke my heart. Which is to say, the former astronaut-turned-rapper reminded me that despite the haze of nostalgia surrounding the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, Aldrin is still very much an engineer, a logician who deals in pragmatic extremes. Not some romantic willing to dive into hyperbole or seemingly-pointless hypotheticals.

The question prompting the above response seemed simple enough at the time: "If you could go back for another Moon walk or orbit Mars tomorrow, which would you choose?"

A total softball question, I admit, but I'd just spent the last half hour listening to Aldrin mostly ramble and rehash much of what he's already said about NASA's failures, China, why we should focus on Mars, and more. Not all that surprising, considering Xeni found Aldrin relatively incoherent when she interviewed him a year ago.

However, I had figured a simple question like this might ground us, get the 79-year-old legend reflective &mdash possibly even a little misty-eyed &mdash or at least waxing semi-poetic. After all, Aldrin took part in one of the most glorious spectacles ever captured on film, an event which garnered what was, at the time, the most-watched live TV broadcast ever (some 600 million viewers). Getting to the Moon is still the gold standard to which invention and engineering can frequently be compared &mdash i.e. "We've gone to the Moon, but I still can't get cell phone reception in my home?"

All I wanted was for Aldrin to utter something like: "Well, my boy, I'd orbit Mars, because it's somewhere we've never been. And we should never stop pushing the limits of what's possible." etc. etc.

Find out what he actually said, after the jump, along with more reflections with/of/from the man Snoop Dogg now calls "Doc Ron," a shortened version of Aldrin's nickname "Dr. Rendezvous."

photo by NASA via Boston Globe via Todd Lappin

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Rob Beschizza

Undead Nintendo

By skadrums71 of the retrotaku fora. [Retrotaku]

Steven Leckart

Visualizing Complex Functions

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Steven Leckart

Fighting Carpal Tunnel w/Data, Pegboard

Doctors may soon use devices like this to obtain precise measurements of hand muscle strength. Developed by bioengineering students at Rice University, the unit promises to present docs with actual hard data that will lead to swifter diagnoses, especially carpal tunnel syndrome. (Many health practitioners currently opt for the more subjective, manual tests like when a doc grabs your hand and asks you to push back.)

Known as PRIME (Peg Restrained Intrinsic Muscle Evaluator), the unit has just has three main components: "pegboard restraint, a force transducer enclosure and a PDA custom-programmed to capture measurements."

Here's how it works, per Rice:

In a five-minute test, a doctor uses pegs to isolate a patient's individual fingers. "You wouldn't think it works as well as it does, but once you are pegged in, you can't move anything but the finger we want you to," Miller said. A loop is fitted around the finger, and when the patient moves it, the amount of force generated is measured. "PRIME gets the peak force," Xu said. "Then the doctor can create a patient-specific file with all your information, time-stamped, and record every single measurement.".

[via MedGadget]

Rob Beschizza

Samsung files patent for sweep-wing cellphone keyboard

The patent itself is an exceedingly dry journey into the technology of preventing short circuits between contacts inside a complex mechanism, but the picture, "illustrating a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device according to an embodiment of the present invention"--is sexy. The filing also contains the term "doped polysilicon," which should be the name of a chippunk band. [via PhoneArena]

Lisa Katayama

Gallery of caution signs at Parc

You know you're in a serious research facility when you're walking along the corridors and every other door you pass has a different caution or danger sign on it. Here are a few selects that I was able to snap pics of during our visit to PARC in May.

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Steven Leckart

Captured Lightning: Lichtenberg Figures

Irradiating a beam of electrons from a 5 million volt particle accelerator into a block of acrylic causes the electrical "treeing" you see above. This particular hunk costs $175.

[via Scoutmaster]

Steven Leckart

Review: Discovery Trekking Ultra Fast Dry Towel

I've been using one of these quick-dry towels for months now, mainly for surfing, but I also took mine on the BBG camping trip.

It is an ideal hiking/outdoor towel for three reasons: 1) it's lightweight, thin, and packs very small, 2) it's a pretty effective absorber, 3) there's silver woven into the fabric, which combats mildew.

I was skeptical until I remembered that water bottles by Platypus feature a silver-ion compound baked into the plastic to help reduce microbes.

I've laundered my towel maybe four times in five months of regular use. I take it surfing, dry off at the beach, hang it up in the garage, and it's ready to go the next day without any noticeable stink. Repeat. Same thing.

Available from Discovery Trekking for $30 (34x58-inches).

Steven Leckart

Contest: Win a Set of BuckyBalls

BuckBallys are tiny rare earth magnets, a set of 216 to be exact, which can be arranged and rearranged into a variety of fun, trippy shapes.

In honor of this year's Father's Day, the folks at Zoomdoggle are offering BBG readers a chance to win a free set of BuckyBalls (I actually gave my Dad something similar last year).

To win, just write into the comments or email me steven AT boingboing DOT net.

One catch: It is not first-come first serve. You must either send in your favorite Buckminster Fuller quote (if you don't have one, then find one). OR, tell us your most awesome and/or horrifying story that somehow involves magnets (someone erased your bootlegged copy of Jedi, etc.)

We have FIVE sets to give away. Good luck! Update: Contest is CLOSED. I'll be sorting through the submissions and getting back to the winners early next week. Have a great Father's Day, everyone! If you post a comment after 1:45pm PST June 19, 2009, it will read, but will not count towards the contest, FYI.

Steven Leckart

Do Your CPR Training via iPhone [Just Don't Practice on Me]

iCPR Lite is a new, $0.99 app for the iPhone that provides visuals and prompts to help you learn basic Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation.

But is it better than the free CPR*Choking app released last month?

If you have experience with either and/or know CPR and can provide some insight, please drop some knowledge in the comments or email me: steven AT boingboing DOT net.

[via Medgadget]

Rob Beschizza

Flexible solar panels as roof shingles

From Inhabitat:

Researchers at PNNL developed a film encapsulation process that was initially used for protecting flat panel displays over 15 years ago. However with the recent emphasis on energy generating technologies, they decided to take a second look at the materials and encapsulation process. It turns out that this encapsulation process can be used to protect components that are intended to be exposed to ultraviolet lights and natural elements, making it perfect for waterproofing thin-film solar panels.

Rob Beschizza

Adam Savage on experimentation

Fantastic stories of the virtue of failure: "As long as an experiment yields data, it's a success." [Fora.TV]

Steven Leckart

Furniture That Counts Calories

Part of Alice Wang's Chairs for the Dysfunctional collection, the Constant Shaker chair measures and displays the number of calories your body burns while fidgeting in your seat.

...Or you could just calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). I'm burning somewhere around 85-90 calories/hour just sitting here doing nothing. Which entitles me to one Michelob Ultra every hour on the hour.

[via MoCo Loco]

Steven Leckart

HOWTO Click Train Your Dog

This video has nothing to do with click training (that I know of). But I'll go out on a limb and say it had to have taken some deep, deep discipline to shoot that thing.

Personally, I'm all about affirmative verbal cues and occasional treats. Other dog owners prefer the non-verbal conditioned reinforcements of a handheld clicker.

So which is more effective?

According to one recent study the use of a clicker resulted in a "decrease of over 1/3 in training time and number of required reinforcements" when compared to verbal conditioning. Plus, click training also promoted the superior acquisition of complex behaviors (on a limb again, but just look at that video!).

Most of Clickertraining.com's 15 Tips seem pretty straightforward and helpful:

Click for voluntary (or accidental) movements toward your goal. You may coax or lure the animal into a movement or position, but don't push, pull, or hold it. Let the animal discover how to do the behavior on its own. If you need a leash for safety's sake, loop it over your shoulder or tie it to your belt.

A clicker costs $1.50. How hard could this technique be, really?

If you've used a great book, web site or video, or just want to share your experience, please write us in the comments...

Rob Beschizza

An algorithm to simulate the sound of water

Cornell University's Changxi Zheng and Doug L. James have developed an algorithm that accurately simulates the sound of water.

Fluid sounds, such as splashing and pouring, are ubiquitous and familiar but we lack physically based algorithms to synthesize them in computer animation or interactive virtual environments. We propose a practical method for automatic procedural synthesis of synchronized harmonic bubble-based sounds from 3D fluid animations. To avoid audio-rate time-stepping of compressible fluids, we acoustically augment existing incompressible fluid solvers with particle-based models for bubble creation, vibration, advection, and radiation. Sound radiation from harmonic fluid vibrations is modeled using a time-varying linear superposition of bubble oscillators. We weight each oscillator by its bubble-to-ear acoustic transfer function, which is modeled as a discrete Green's function of the Helmholtz equation. To solve potentially millions of 3D Helmholtz problems, we propose a fast dual-domain multipole boundary-integral solver, with cost linear in the complexity of the fluid domain's boundary. Enhancements are proposed for robust evaluation, noise elimination, acceleration, and parallelization. Examples of harmonic fluid sounds are provided for water drops, pouring, babbling, and splashing phenomena, often with thousands of acoustic bubbles, and hundreds of thousands of transfer function solves.

You can download the paper at the website, and watch high-res video: Harmonic Fluids [Harmonic Fluids Project via /.]

Steven Leckart

HOWTO Predict Surf at Mavericks [Hint: Data]

Surfers have been catching massive waves at Pillar Point in Half Moon Bay, CA since the 1960s. The first legitimate contest was held in 1999-2000, but what most of us know as Mavericks didn't launch until 2004 with the help of big wave rider Jeff Clark. Unlike the Kentucky Derby or March Madness, Mavericks doesn't happen every year. It was a no-go in 2007 and again this past season.

Why?

The problem isn't a lack of big swells, but whether the perfect one will rock Pillar Point during the contest waiting period (Jan. 1 - March 31 in 2009) -- and then predicting the if and when so everyone can get in place. The 24 surfers who compete at Mavericks are given 24-hours notice to show up. Extending the waiting period and tethering the surfers to Mavericks wouldn't be fair since they make their living traveling to contests all over the world, says Keir Beadling, who co-founded Mavericks Surf Ventures with Clark. Plus, the arrival of late spring welcomes gray whale migration and seal pups, which results in crowded waters.

So how do you forecast one of the most celebrated big wave contests in the world?

"It's no longer a secret where you have three puffs of smoke announcing who the next Pope is gonna be," says Beadling, "You definitely couldn't hold a contest of this magnitude -- 50,000 spectators in person and another 1+ million on webcast -- and get mobilized in time if it weren't for all the technology."

The short answer: datahead surfer Mark Sponsler (surfing Mavericks above).

Find out how a former quality engineer and product manager at Kennedy Space Center moved to the west coast, started dropping in on big waves, tuned into data, founded Stormsurf.com, and currently crunches more than 2 terabytes of swell data per year.

photo by Doug Acton, provided by Mark Sponsler

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Steven Leckart

Video: A Tiny Bridge of Floating Water

David Pescovitz blogged about this phenomenon previously, but until now I'd never seen a water bridge caught on video.

PhysOrg explains:

When exposed to a high-voltage electric field, water in two beakers climbs out of the beakers and crosses empty space to meet, forming the water bridge. The liquid bridge, hovering in space, appears to the human eye to defy gravity...

Initially, the bridge forms due to electrostatic charges on the surface of the water. The electric field then concentrates inside the water, arranging the water molecules to form a highly ordered microstructure. This microstructure remains stable, keeping the bridge intact.

After the jump, check out more video of this crazy weird awesome phenom.

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Steven Leckart

Ionic-Cooling Laptop

What if every time your laptop hit 100°F, you didn't have to hear a noisy fan?

Technology Review reports:

One novel idea is to cool a system by using ions to push air molecules across a hot microprocessor, thereby creating a cooling breeze. So-called ionic-cooling systems have been demonstrated in research labs before, but now Tessera, an international chip-packaging company based in San Jose, CA, has demonstrated an ionic-cooling system integrated into a working laptop...

Tessera's ionic cooler sits near a vent inside the laptop. Heat pipes, which transfer heat using the evaporation and condensation of a fluid, draw heat away from the computer's processing units and toward the ionic-cooling system. Inside the ionic-cooling device are two electrodes: one that ionizes air molecules such as nitrogen, and another that acts as a receiver for those molecules. When a voltage is applied between the two electrodes, the ions flow from the emitter electrode to the collector. As they move, their momentum pushes neutral air molecules across a hot spot, cooling it down...

The system can extract roughly 30 percent more heat from a laptop than a conventional fan can, and lab tests show that it could potentially consume only half as much power, the company says...

Tessera isn't the only company looking at ionic breeze as a means to cool consumer electronics. Researchers at Garimella's own lab at Purdue have demonstrated a similar technology, which is being developed commercially by an early-stage Silicon Valley startup called Ventiva.

[image via Sherritalley]

Xeni Jardin

BB Video - Diving into Space: Miles O'Brien in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab

(Download MP4. This episode of Boing Boing Video is brought to you by WEPC.)

Boing Boing Video guest contributor Miles O'Brien brings us this special report on the same day NASA astronauts complete their final space walk -- and zero-g repair job -- on the Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission #4.

Astronauts spend a lot more time training for missions than flying in space. But I wouldn't feel sorry for them as the training is an amazing adventure unto itself. They practice in airplanes that fly a roller-coaster pattern to give them brief stints of weightlessness (the so called Vomit Comet); they get to zoom around in supersonic T-38 training jets; they fly approaches to shuttle runways in a Gulfstream jet rigged up to fly (or more accurately, plummet) like a real orbiter; they get time in high-fidelity full motion simulators; they use virtual reality goggles to practice tasks they will perform in space - and if they are a spacewalker, they get to spend a lot of time in a huge swimming pool in a former hangar at Ellington Field - near the Johnson Space Center in Houston - learning the nuances of working in the void.

Astronaut John Grunsfeld, who is an astronomer and a huge fan of the Hubble Space Telescope, invited me to join him during one of his 6 hour "runs" in the big pool - officially known as the Sonny Carter Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. I watched him as he practiced the most challenging spacewalk of his long career - the resuscitation of the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Worried as he was about accomplishing this intricate task - not designed to be done by the thick, gloved hand of a spacewalker - when he did the real thing the other day (Saturday) it went of without a hitch - unlike the other 4 spacewalks of the fifth and final Hubble Repair Mission.

The spacewalks are now over - and a shuttle crew has left Hubble behind for the last time. The telescope is in the best shape it has ever been in - Hubble's "Perils of Pauline" tale now mashed up with "Benjamin Button". The eye above the sky will begin a new phase of scientific discovery making astronomers pretty happy right about now. But for those of us who are passionate about sending human beings into space, and have enjoyed watching this adventure unfold over the past 19 years, it is the end of a great era - a wistful moment.

Miles is the only reporter who has ever dived in the NBL.

Hubble crewmember Mike Massimino, shown above doing Hubble telescope repairs today in the Atlantis cargo bay, is on Twitter: @Astro_Mike. You can follow Miles O'Brien on Twitter, too: @milesobrien. Read his feature reports at trueslant.com, and catch his launch coverage at spaceflightnow.com. Official NASA STS-125 mission page is here.

RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic).

Previously:
Boing Boing Video: Welcome, Miles O'Brien! - Boing Boing
BB Video - Miles O'Brien Reports: An Astronaut Climbs Everest ...

Steven Leckart

Space is the place

Steven Leckart

Two years of air quality photos in Beijing

Working with the Asia Society and a photographer in Beijing, my former colleague Michael Zhao has designed an interactive site with an amazing collection of snapshots taken through the same apartment window in Beijing. The images date from March 2009 (as I write) all the way back to March 2007.

You can click through them all, and sort by best/worst air pollution index (API) and air quality grade for each day on the Asia Society project site. Or you can watch everything in reverse timelapse and zoom out to see tiny images of every day on Michael's site.

On my last birthday (Dec. 7), Beijing's air scored a C and the index was a 112, meaning "Generally healthy individuals may also notice some discomfort." The photo above is a 115. The worst day recorded/photographed: December 28, 2007, with a score a 500!

Of course, there's some pretty neat tech wizardry that goes into measuring airborne chemicals. After the jump, check out a quantum cascade laser open path sensor...

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Steven Leckart

Goggles schmoggles

[via Make]

[via CreativePro]

[via Smartdogs]

[via Make]

[ditto Make]

Joel Johnson

The spaced out covers of Advanced Materials

If the covers of Advanced Materials, a peer-reviewed science journal published every month by Wiley, were offered as a series of posters, I would not be made of strong enough stuff to resist.

Joel Johnson

Cloaking devices are here, provided you are already invisible

National Geographic on new cloaking research:

Both materials still have a long way to go before they're ready for stealth military operations. To start with, both cloaks work only in infrared light for now. The next step is to try to develop a version that works in visible wavelengths.

The cloaks are also capable of hiding only microscopic objects.

Joel Johnson

Video: Colliding Particles, or "What the hell is the Large Hadron Collider for?"

Do you know why the Large Hadron Collider actually exists, besides looking spiffy and putting the fear of instant void in evening newscasters? Watch "Colliding Particles: Hunting the Higgs", a stylish series of films produced by Mike Paterson. The first is above, but they're up to episode 4 now. Good stuff.

Update: I really didn't mean to type "Large Hardon Collider", but you would be right to think that is not beneath me.

Rob Beschizza

Power On Self Test: Test

Via The Tweney Review.

Steven Leckart

The world's hottest spot?

136°F. That's the record for the highest recorded temperature on Earth,
a measurement taken in 1922 in El Azizia, Libya. Just a relative stone's throw from the ocean, too.

But what if they were wrong?

Fántoli (1954,1958) examined the record and researched the exposure, the instrument shelter, and the instruments themselves. A discussion in English of Fántoli's 1954 work appears in Gentilli, 1955. Fántoli generally concluded that the probable extreme maximum should have been only 132.8°F (56°C). Lamb (1958) noted that the extreme occurred following two days of hot, southerly winds and that latent heat may have been added to the air mass due to rain south of location.

If I were Death Valley, I'd take the debate to Twitter.

[image via GlobalWarmingIsBS]

Joel Johnson

Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab (1950)

From ORAU's collection of Atomic Toys:

This was the most elaborate Atomic Energy educational set ever produced, but it was only only available from 1951 to 1952. Its relatively high price for the time ($50.00) and its sophistication were the explanation Gilbert gave for the set's short lifespan. Today, it is so highly prized by collectors that a complete set can go for more than 100 times the original price.