Hasta La Gadget!

The world is full of firsts, and we all clearly celebrate those achievements with plenty of pomp and grandeur. The arts, whoever, do not seem to have that many ‘firsts’ compared to the world of science, but now is a moment where both fields intersect. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, commander at the International Space Station (ISS) program, who is aboard Expedition 35 at the moment circling the earth, decided to try something different as he spends Christmas in space – by recording a song in orbit.

Doing so on Christmas Day itself makes it all the more memorable, making Chris the first person in the galaxy to record a song while orbiting the earth. He has dubbed his original composition as ‘Jewel in the Night’, being an acoustic guitar and vocal piece. Over the weekend, Chris uploaded the song to YouTube and SoundCloud. What other frontiers are there for humanity to break? Has someone recorded a song while being 20,000 leagues under the sea?

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Facebook, the world’s most popular social network, has just announced that they will be doing the general public a great service when the clock strikes 12 this December 31st, as we bid goodbye to this year, and usher in 2013 – so much for the world ending on December 21st, eh? Well, Facebook’s upcoming feature via the ‘Stories’ application will enable users to send a personalized special greeting to select friends at the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve. Touted to be a ‘Midnight Message Delivery’ system, it is said to guarantee a holiday greeting to friends who are on your “nice” list.

Guaranteed delivery is definitely something that we love to hear, considering how during holidays such as Christmas and New Year, the mobile phone networks tend to get jammed as millions and millions of people overload the network, trying to send a message out to their loved ones simultaneously. Oh yeah, and since it is free, why not, no?

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Humanity is still very far from coming up with a robot that is so intelligent, it could function in the same way that we see C3-PO and Sonny (from I, Robot fame) interact. Well, this does not mean that we are not going to try (and hopefully, not die trying). A team from Switzerland has taken it up upon themselves to create a humanoid looking robot that intends to come in the form of a realistic robot boy. Known as Roboy, it was developed by the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the University of Zurich, and comes across as a tendon-driven humanoid robot which will share a similar physical size as that of a human four year old.

Roboy is unique as it will focus closely on replicating the functions of human tendons, joints, bones, and muscles. Being in the construction phase, the group of researchers behind Roboy intend to raise funds enough to kick start Roboy’s production, and they intend to do so by taking the age old route of advertising, that is, selling logo space on its body. Roboy is tipped to be completed by the time March 2013 rolls around – you down to purchase one if you can afford it?

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If you have a young boy in your home who has an overactive imagination, then you might want to brace yourself to be a superdad after reading this. Five year old Finn is one blessed kid, as his dad took the time, trouble and creativity to use discarded TV broadcast equipment in order to conjure this unique spaceship bed, which is more than ideal to send a kid’s imagination soaring as he figure out just what he is going to be when he grows up.

The panel is a Grass Valley video switcher, which is a piece of equipment deemed as useless since it was fished from of a dumpster that is behind a local TV station. When new, the video switcher was most probably crazy expensive, but the force of time and advancements in technology has probably made it worth nothing today. Jeremiah Gorman, dad extraordinary, decided to take this video switcher and turn it into a spaceship control panel. Additional lighting is added to the mix for dramatic effect, and all he needs to do now is make sure that he has the time to figure out how to make some robots to move around.

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AMD‘s financial woes have been ongoing for awhile now, and it is no secret that employees are jumping ship as the issue worsens. It seems that Michael Goddard is one such employee, who after having worked at AMD for nearly 25 years, has left the company to work for Samsung instead. He now works as a system architect at a Samsung office in Texas.

Goddard worked as an engineer for AMD, having started back in 1988. His departure comes after that of over two dozen other AMD executives who have left the company during 2012, not all of whom left voluntarily. As we reported back in October, the company hinted that it would cut a significant amount of its workforce, including those higher up.

That scenario came into fruition, with AMD announcing a short five days later – after its third quarter financial data came in – that it was laying off employees. The company’s Q3 financial report revealed a non-GAAP net loss of $150 million. The company is expected to layoff even more employees in 2013.

As for Goddard and Samsung, neither have offered any sort of statement about the employment shift. While Goddard’s LinkedIn profile was briefly available to show some information, including that he moved to Samsung this month and is a system architect, it is no longer publicly viewable. AMD, however, confirmed that he has left the company.

[via AllThingsD]

Michael Goddard, AMD employee since 1988, leaves for Samsung is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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