This may be the moment for all of us sober, rational, boring scientists to stop with our quick dismissals, as beyond them hides a much more interesting reality, says astrophysicist Adam Frank.
“Wolf went for a walk over the world from the Mir Space Station in the late 1990s and saw the Earth seemingly vanish. His recollection so moved New York-based artist Rachel Rose when she heard it on NPR that she went to considerable lengths to track him down for a personal retelling.”
Photographs taken by astronaut Scott Kelly from the International Space Station are beautiful – but could a robot do better?
Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Sussex, in collaboration with Ultrahaptics, have built the world’s first sonic tractor beam that can lift and move objects using sound waves.
Details of the device, published in Nature Communications, describe how the tractor beam uses high-amplitude sound waves to generate an acoustic hologram that is capable of picking up and moving small objects. The technique comes straight from the pages of a science-fiction novel.
Continue reading “World’s first sonic tractor beam lifts objects using sound waves” »
A funny article ending with transhumanism:
Ukraine’s Internet Party, which has been adding levity and subtle satire to the country’s tense politics for a few years now, is making a statement with sci-fi again. Yes, this is all true.
Acer might be better-known for its range of laptops, tablets, phones, and similar consumer electronics, but it has quietly lifted the lid on a brand-new product line — an electric, all-terrain vehicle (eATV).
The Taiwanese tech titan unveiled the eATV “X Terran” (presumably that’s not meant to be ‘Terrain’) prototype at the eCarTech conference in Munich last week, but the company didn’t reveal too many details. We have, however, now obtained some photos of the vehicle.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=GbShbMRudUM
InVisage filmed in challenging, bright sunlight conditions to test the dynamic range, and shot fast moving subjects (RC race cars) to show off the global shutter. The resulting footage (below) is surprisingly cinematic, considering that the sensor is smartphone sized. (It’s also a bit soft, which the company chalked up to the sensor being an early prototype.) The tech looks intriguing, though the level of hype in the press release and making-of film is a bit over-the-top. Still, if it can be refined further — perhaps by a sensor company like Sony — it could result in strikingly better smartphone and camera images in the not-too-distant future.
This robot can precisely copy your movements, but more impressively, it can solve a Rubik Cube all by itself. http://voc.tv/1cRrjAQ
They cannot stop us. They cannot stop the future. At the recent DARPA Robotics Challenge, things didn’t always go as planned…
