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A stream of links and notes and pictures and articles on new technology, augmented reality, new media, cross-media, TV, mobile, Internet, artificial life, digital entertainment, social networking, inspiring art. That sort of cool stuff.

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Archive

Apr
3rd
Tue
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The MorpHex by Zenta is a hexapod that can roll as well as walk and change shape.

Reminded me of the Golden Wheel spider that can curl up and roll out of danger…

More information on MorpHex on Hackaday. Zenta has a previous hexapod design currently for sale through lynxmotion. Mmm…

(Source: youtube.com)

Apr
2nd
Mon
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Electronic Hungry Hungry Hippos for iPad. An AppToy too far. From thinkgeek. Happy April’s Fools.

Mar
30th
Fri
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A wickerwork brain? 3D brain structure of intersecting planes of inter-woven nerve fibres.

Using diffusion spectrum MRI, which maps nerve fibres by tracking the movement of water molecules, suggests that the brain consists of a three-dimensional grid of fibres on two-dimensional planes. The orientations of the grid correspond to up-down, right-left and front-back body axes laid down in the earliest stages of embryonic development and grow in the right direction by following simple developmental rules controlled by biochemical signals.

If the brain were organized like a tangle of spaghetti, says Wedeen, it would be difficult to see how mutations could lead to incremental changes in connectivity on which natural selection could act.

However, note that diffusion MRI can’t detect nerve fibres directly, so changes in machine set-up or data analysis could alter what is seen. Diffusion MRI detects the junctions of fibres and it is being argued that is likely to miss fibres criss-crossing in other orientations at angles less than about 70 degrees.

More details in Human brain organised like a 3D ‘New York City’ grid - health - 29 March 2012 - New Scientist

Mar
27th
Tue
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iPhone accelerometer control over HTML5 browser game. Data is pushed form iOS to a nodejs server which serves the game in your desktop browser. Node.js is a server-side JavaScript environment based on Google’s V8 Javascript engine. Based on Socket.IO, Node.js makes it easy to deliver real-time data between almost every browser and the node server. More details and source code at http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2012/using-an-ios-device-to-control-a-game-on-your-browser/ (via Accelerometer-based game control using an iOS device courtesy of HTML5 - Hack a Day)

iPhone accelerometer control over HTML5 browser game. Data is pushed form iOS to a nodejs server which serves the game in your desktop browser.

Node.js is a server-side JavaScript environment based on Google’s V8 Javascript engine. Based on Socket.IO, Node.js makes it easy to deliver real-time data between almost every browser and the node server. More details and source code at http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2012/using-an-ios-device-to-control-a-game-on-your-browser/

(via Accelerometer-based game control using an iOS device courtesy of HTML5 - Hack a Day)

Mar
16th
Fri
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ChronoZoom is ‘Google Earth’ for time. ChronoZoom is a zoomable timeline the universe’s existence, a joint project between Microsoft Research, the University of California, Berkeley, and Moscow State University in Russia. The navigation needs a some smoothing out and I’m not quite sure how the information has been categorised. There is a shed load of information embedded in the ChronoZoom but a problem is that some things happen on such a tiny time-scale that there is a danger that you would never find them, unless they are labelled on the timeline.  Wait for the timeline labels to appear and click on “Threshold 8: Origins of Modern World” to see how brief humanity’s existence is. Creationists look away. (via One Per Cent: Zoomable timeline of the cosmos puts us in our place)

ChronoZoom is ‘Google Earth’ for time.

ChronoZoom is a zoomable timeline the universe’s existence, a joint project between Microsoft Research, the University of California, Berkeley, and Moscow State University in Russia.

The navigation needs a some smoothing out and I’m not quite sure how the information has been categorised. There is a shed load of information embedded in the ChronoZoom but a problem is that some things happen on such a tiny time-scale that there is a danger that you would never find them, unless they are labelled on the timeline. 

Wait for the timeline labels to appear and click on “Threshold 8: Origins of Modern World” to see how brief humanity’s existence is. Creationists look away.

(via One Per Cent: Zoomable timeline of the cosmos puts us in our place)

Mar
9th
Fri
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Autonomous co-operating flying robots that swarm and co-operate using local and decentralised control. Presented at TED2012 by Vijay Kumar and his team at the University of Pennsylvania. One example uses Kinect camera and 3D scanner to build maps of newly explored locations.

(via TEDtalksDirector)

Mar
6th
Tue
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Pop-up ‘origami’ microrobotic ‘Monolithic Bee’ is amazing. Uses laser-cut 18 layer laminate of varying materials to create the body, actuators and assembly scaffold that cunningly folds the dragonfly-like robot into shape with the use of tiny printed hinges. 

(via Pop-up dragonfly robot could be the future of business cards - Hack a Day)

Feb
24th
Fri
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Two DIY Geiger counters using smartphone. Radiation-watch.org produces a low cost ($46) sensor from photodiodes and foil that plugs into the headphone socket. pachube helps aggregrate citizens’ readings to crowdsource radiation maps such as Japan Geigermap. (via One Per Cent: DIY Geiger counter smartphone app to measure radiation) RadioactivityCounter is another smartphone Geiger counter app for Android and iOS that uses the onboard CMOS sensor and not external sensor to register gamma rays (and a beta on some phones). 

Two DIY Geiger counters using smartphone.

Radiation-watch.org produces a low cost ($46) sensor from photodiodes and foil that plugs into the headphone socket. pachube helps aggregrate citizens’ readings to crowdsource radiation maps such as Japan Geigermap. (via One Per Cent: DIY Geiger counter smartphone app to measure radiation)

RadioactivityCounter is another smartphone Geiger counter app for Android and iOS that uses the onboard CMOS sensor and not external sensor to register gamma rays (and a beta on some phones). 

Feb
23rd
Thu
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Google Street View goes sub-marine with panoramic mapping of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

 Google, the University of Queensland and sponsor Catlin Group aim to start mapping for real in September 2012 with specially designed mini submarines that contain 4 fish eye lens DSLR cameras (up, down, left, right). Demos and more information at seaview.org

(via Google ‘Seaview’ gives you underwater reef tour - environment - 23 February 2012 - New Scientist)

Feb
21st
Tue
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Fungi clock 180,000g - fastest airborne accelerators on Earth! Anything to get away from cow poo it seems.

Simply osmotic pressure is used to provide these accelerations which, if provided to a human would send them travelling at “more than 5000 times the speed of sound.”, and pulverised I’d assume. 

(via Fungi break acceleration record to escape dung - environment - 17 September 2008 - New Scientist)