A research team from the University of Bremen in Germany as created a robot that looks, and walks, like a monkey. The ape has big arms that drag on the ground. The research is being funded by the German
Aerospace Center, to the tune of about $3.9 million.
Doing the right thing can be tough. But today, BlackBerry did the right thing by choosing to not update its all-but-forgotten tablet.
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Last week, FBI Director Robert Mueller finally admitted that the Bureau uses drones to carry out surveillance on Americans (say hi!). Meanwhile, the tweens next door are probably spying on you too, watching you pick your nose using a $300 drone they bought on Amazon. UAV use in America—and public anxiety over it—is exploding. And Domestic Drone Countermeasures, an anti-drone technology startup, is building a business around it.
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College-age kids these days are pretty good at a few things: selfies, social oversharing and staring into screens. But can you leverage that self-obsession into a mechanism for learning? The mad scientists at North Carolina State University think so and they’ve got a program to prove it. Dubbed JavaTutor, the software’s aimed at teaching our future workforce the basics of computer science. And it does this by tracking facial expressions — using the Computer Expressions Recognition Toolbox, or CERT, as its base — during online tutorial sessions. Frown and the AI knows you’re frustrated; concentrate intently and the same automated emotion detection applies. So, what’s the end sum of all this? Well, it seems the research team wants to gauge the effectiveness of online courses and use the cultivated feedback to better tailor the next iteration of the JavaTutor system. But the greater takeaway here, folks, is that at NCSU, online tutoring learns you!
Filed under: Science, Software
Source: North Carolina State University
Just in case Jon Snow catches a ride on the Enterprise.
(Credit: Screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET)
Few things are more embarrassing than landing your Millennium Falcon in Westeros, walking into an inn, and not having exact change for your flagon of wine. That’s almost as bad as Harry Potter arriving at DS9 and trying to figure out how many galleons he owes to park his broom.
Sci-fi and fantasy characters no longer need to worry about making financial faux pas when crossing over from world to world. The Intergalactic Exchange Bureau is here to help convert a variety of fictional currencies into other fictional currencies, or into dollars, pounds, or euros.
The whimsical currency converter comes from U.K. loan company Money in Advance. It includes currencies from “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” “Game of Thrones,” “Discworld,” “Red Dwarf,” the Harry Potter series, “Judge Dredd,” the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and even the Sims.
Let’s say … [Read more]
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This Han Solo LEGO pixel art from The Sydney Brick Show this past April is mindblowingly cool. If you aren’t familiar with the event, it’s an opportunity for Australian LEGO sculptors bring some of their creations and get together with other fans.
Skels from Geek Crafts shared some of the best things that she saw there and among them is this amazing pixelated Han Solo LEGO sculpture. This entire piece is said to be about 1 meter squared and is comprised of over TWENTY THOUSAND bricks.
Yes, you read that right. Why so many? Because those pieces are the tiny “one-ers” that are always all over your kid’s floor, waiting to stab you in the feet.
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