Hasta La Gadget!

In an act that can only be described as brave (or lunatic), Jetman (A.K.A. Yves Rossy) strapped on his custom-built, still experimental jet-powered wings, flew to about 8,000 feet over Bercher, Switzerland, and, on November 5th, completed a single loop before parachuting back to the ground.

Calling himself “Jetman”, Rossy started with inflatable wings in 1999 and switched to a rigid construction and jet engines in 2004, making his first two successful flights in 2005. Today, Rossy flies with the assistance of 2-meter carbon-fiber wings and four jet engines–all strapped to his back and controls the direction of the solo-flying device with his own body. To complete the historic flight, Rossy had to jump out of the “Esprit Breitling Orbiter” hot-air balloon. This act lays the ground-work (or is it air-work?) for future, more aerobatic flights, and Rossy hopes to one day take off from the ground. Previously, and with a somewhat larger prototype, Jetman flew across the English Channel.

If you’ve ever wanted a way to make your XBox Live Avatar or your Mii into a real figure that can sit on your desk and keep you company while you work, reminding you of the fun you could be having at home on your console, 3D printing company Sculpteo wants to help. The service launched at the end of October and allows customers to provide 3D files via the Web for the company to carve into real world objects using its 3D printers and ship back to the customer.

Now, Sculpteo is offering customers the ability to upload a photo of themselves to the site, and based on that photo the company will build a personalized Sculpteo Avatar that the customer can tweak with custom clothing and accessories. When your avatar looks the way you want it to, Sculpteo will print a 3D figure based on the avatar and send it to you.

Sculpteo offers the new avatars in 7 cm (2.7 inch) and 10 cm (3.9 inch) models for $74.90 and $129.90 US respectively.
 

It looks like we might finally be catching up with a long,
long time ago in a galaxy far, far away–in a couple of years, at least Researchers at the University
of Arizona have reportedly designed
an almost 360 degree hologram that updates at a rate of two seconds–not quite
animation-level, but a step in the right direction, perhaps.

Said researcher Nasser Peyghambarian, “We foresee many
applications, including for example, car or airplane manufacturing. They can
look at the hologram and design the system they have in real-time and look at
the model and make changes on it as they go.”

He didn’t mention anything about messages from the Rebel
Alliance, but we all know he was thinking it.

The group has been working on the technology for some time.
Back in 2008, they created a black and white 3D projection that updated every
four minutes. The new technology updates more than 100 times faster than that.

Just don’t expect the thing to land in your living room any
time soon. Says Peyghambarian, “I don’t think you can see these in our
houses in less than seven to 10 years.”

When we think of oil by-products, most attention goes to gasoline. But oil is–literally–everywhere. It’s in many cosmetics and household products, in the plastics we surround ourselves with, and a major component of what you drove on today–asphalt.

But just because asphalt isn’t burned for energy doesn’t mean it doesn’t have toxic effects on the environment. Various chemicals are leaked into nature by asphalt’s production, installation, and throughout its lifetime.

That’s why engineers are starting to look to alternatives to asphalt in road construction. One pair of designers has created a new project that hopes to do just that. The research team of Thomas Kosbau and Andrew Wetzler recently won the Korean green design Iida
Awards 2010 for their innovative road construction: “Sand.Stone.Road.”

The idea is simple: using very cheap and abundant sand, and mix it with a common microbe to create roadworthy sandstone. If implemented, the idea would not only take a need for millions of barrels of oil out of the global equation, but save money. The system would be far cheaper than traditional asphalt, which rose in price by 222% (!) between 2003 and 2008.

She called it a date, but as far as we can tell, the meeting between MSNBC reporter Stephanie Pappas and soon-to-be the first humanoid robot in space Robonaut 2 was a bit of a one-sided affair.

A joint project between General Motors and NASA, Robonaut 2 is expected to help astronauts perform repairs and other maintenance on the International Space Station. This model, Robonaut 2B will travel on the very last Space Shuttle mission; Originally scheduled a November 1 launch, fuel leaks have delayed the Shuttle Discovery blast-off until Tuesday of next week.

Pappas, who met the robot at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, reports that the 330 pound automaton was a little intimidating and looked as if it might be “ready to throw a punch.” It does look a tiny bit like a giant version of one of those punching puppets (our favorites were always the nun and ET) . Though only a torso, Robonaut 2 can replicate human hand and arm movement and perform tasks such as drilling and painting. During Pappas’ date, however, Robonaut didn’t paint, throw a punch, speak or even move. To be fair, Pappas’s date is not the robot heading into space. The final model, Robonaut 2B, has new fire-proof skin and a few space-ready parts. Plus, as Pappas notes, it doesn’t have any smell. (Now you know the answer to the age-old-question, “Do things still smell in space?”).

As Pappas’ date neared its conclusion, the reporter did manage to make brief contact with the humanoid robot’s arm. She reports that it felt like a “cross between a memory-foam pillow and a well-muscled human arm.”

We’re taking bets on whether or not Robonaut will call Pappas, or at least text her.