Hasta La Gadget!

It seems that a bunch of scientists over at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms has managed to come up with a new generation robot which could prove to be a precursor to the fantasy organic robotic lifeforms that we have all come to know and love as the Transformers. Toy robots that were able to fold itself into different configurations are not rare at all, but actual robots which are able to do so? Well, lab director Neil Gershenfeld, visiting scientist Ara Knaian, and graduate student Kenneth Cheung, have come up with what they call the Milli-Motein, a reconfigurable robot which has been specially programmed to fold itself into a number of different shapes.

Once the robot shifted into a new shape, it is capable of retaining that particular shape, even though there is no more power supply. This is made possible thanks to an electro-permanent motor. According to Gershenfeld, “[The Milli-Motein is] effectively a one-dimensional robot that can be made in a continuous strip, without conventionally moving parts, and then folded into arbitrary shapes.”

It will still take a long time, even if a Transformers-like robot were to be possible, to arrive. I guess we will have to make do at the moment with the Milli-Motein.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: HyTAQ Flying Robot, Toshiba Robot Relishes In Nuclear Emergencies,

Wil Wheaton has a gnarly sense of humor. Maybe that’s something you sort of develop if you play a character that creators loved but audiences loathed on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yes, folks, Wil Wheaton is the guy who played Ensign Wesley Crusher. He’s also a superstar among geeks.

He also happens to have a big heart.

Wil was recently asked for an autograph by the friend of a friend who loved Star Trek. Wil happily obliged, but when he signed the card, he accidentally over-signed and left a huge black mark on his face. So he did what anyone would’ve done in the same situation: he doodled on a pair of sunglasses over his eyes.

Then to complete the whole thing, he added on a ‘Yeeaahh!’ on top to transform the sunglasses into the Sunglasses of Justice. Yeah, that’s all it takes.

Long story short, Wil’s friend forgot who the autograph was supposed to be for so he’s decided to put it up for auction instead – and all the proceeds go to charity. Bidding began at $1 but now it’s up over $1000, and the auction closes late tonight.

[via Mashable]

We’ve had ample opportunity to ogle the electrical version of Fiat’s venerable 500 when the Italian firm fortold its US arrival years ago. This week at the LA Auto Show, the car finally made its official debut, so naturally, we had to swing by and check it out. While we’ve got plenty of eye-candy of the diminutive EV in our gallery below, allow us to first regale you with the car’s specs.

Under the hood lies a 111HP motor powered by a 24 kWh battery that generates 147 pound-feet of torque — not exactly the stump-pulling grunt of its new Yankee competition, but still plenty of power for such a small car. Range tops out around 80 miles in general use, while city drivers can expect an extra 20 miles per charge. Speaking of, the car gets all the juice it needs through a 240-volt outlet in just under four hours. Can’t wait to get one? Well, Fiat’s not telling how much the 500e will cost, but we do know it’ll be available in California starting Q2 of 2013, and it’ll come to the rest of North America by the middle of the year.

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We do know that Asus the hardware manufacturer behind the Google Nexus 7, and here we are with benchmarks concerning the ASUS ME172V which was recently made available online for all and sundry to take a look at. The GLBenchmark results point towards a device known as the ASUS ME172V, where it was powered by Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean, packing in other kinds of hardware specifications such as a 1GHz processor and a 400MHz Mali GPU.

The resolution for the ASUS ME172V was revealed to be a mere 1,024 x 600 pixels, which is far less compared to the Nexus 7′s 1,280 x 800 pixel display. Of course, we are talking about a similarly sized display, so with a lower resolution, you can expect things to not look all that great at all, albeit on the other side of the same coin, a lower resolution would also mean that the final hardware build will be more affordable to the masses. One advantage that the ME172V has which the Nexus 7 is missing would be a microSD memory card slot for expansion purposes. This could eventually be a budget-priced tablet for emerging markets rather than having it fall under the Nexus brand.

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University of Waterloo neuroscientist Chris Eliasmith has spent the better part of his working years in figuring out just how one is able to build a brain. Well, he has compiled his thoughts into a book that comes complete with instructions, describing the grey matter’s architecture as well as the manner where all of the different components interact. In fact, Eliasmith’s team has come up with Spaun, touted to be “the world’s largest simulation of a functioning brain.”

Spaun is capable of recognizing numbers, taking note of lists and remembering them while writing them down. Heck, it is also capable of passing some basic aspects of an IQ test, although you won’t find it being the evil supercomputer that engineers the downfall of mankind by getting the rest of the machines to unite and work against everyone here on earth. At least not yet.

This simplified model of the brain is a true labor of love, taking more than a year to build, and yet is capable of capturing many aspects of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and psychological behavior.

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