Hasta La Gadget!

Making a bipedal robot is hard. You have to make sure maintain exquisite balance at all times and, even with the amazing things Atlas can do, there is still a chance that your crazy robot will fall over and bop its electronic head. But what if that head is a quadcopter?

University of Tokyo have done just that with their wild Aerial-Biped. The robot isn’t completely bipedal but it’s designed instead to act like a bipedal robot without the tricky issue of being truly bipedal. Think of the these legs as more a sort of fun bit of puppetry that mimics walking but doesn’t really walk.

“The goal is to develop a robot that has the ability to display the appearance of bipedal walking with dynamic mobility, and to provide a new visual experience. The robot enables walking motion with very slender legs like those of a flamingo without impairing dynamic mobility. This approach enables casual users to choreograph biped robot walking without expertise. In addition, it is much cheaper compared to a conventional bipedal walking robot,” the team told IEEE.

The robot is similar to the bizarre-looking Ballu, a blimp robot with a floating head and spindly legs. The new robot learned how to walk convincingly through machine learning, a feat that gives it a realistic gait even though it is really an aerial system. It’s definitely a clever little project and could be interesting at a theme park or in an environment where a massive bipedal robot falling over on someone might be discouraged.

NVIDIA has a smart TV device called SHIELD TV which, as of this week, has a fourth individual bundle. A bundle includes the SHIELD TV itself and an assortment of controllers. This week the device was officially wrapped up in a bundle called “SHIELD TV SMART HOME EDITION” complete with a SmartThings Link. That SmartThings link otherwise costs approximately $40 … Continue reading

It appears that hundreds of Instagram accounts have been hacked en masse since the beginning of this month. The method of these hacks is actually quite similar. It’s unclear at this point in time what vulnerability is being exploited to hack hundreds of Instagram accounts or if it’s a data dump from somewhere that’s aiding the hackers with credentials that are being used to compromise these accounts.

Mashable has heard from many people who have had their accounts hacked this month. They found themselves logged out of their accounts for no reason. When they try to log in again, they find that their handle, image, contact information, and even the number associated with the account has been changed.

The profile image is often changed to a Pixar or Disney character while the account’s email address is changed to a .ru Russian domain. Some accounts even had their two-factor authentication disabled by the hackers. The people behind the hackings don’t seem to be making any other changes to the accounts. They aren’t adding any new photos or deleting previous ones.

In addition to the report, countless complaints about such a hack are now spreading on Twitter and communities like Reddit. Instagram hasn’t commented on the situation as yet but given the publicity this is getting, it’s probably looking into the matter already.

Instagram Accounts Reportedly Being Hacked En Masse , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

The jury is set to hear closing arguments in the trial, now in its third week.

The party filed a lawsuit to block Shaun Brown amid an investigation into suspicious signatures collected on her behalf.