Hasta La Gadget!

This robot ape from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) could be considered a cross between a humanoid and a quadruped. Most of the time it moves around on four limbs, but it can stand up on its hind legs too.

Gentlemen, we now have a fully functional and operational robot ape. This can’t end well. Prepare for Planet of the Robot Apes when they take over.

The robot ape part of a project called iStruct, which is focused on improving robotic mobility. But that doesn’t really matter. ROBOT APE!

Hopefully they can contain this thing before it grabs your Princess and start throwing barrels at you.

[via iEEE Spectrum]

When cats fight, it’s best that you steer clear and let them resolve the issue themselves. I don’t know about you, but I’m not too eager to step in between a cat fight, especially when the claws are out.

The Pet Collective put a pretty interesting twist to cat fights that you will no doubt find amusing, and it’s called Cat Fighter.

It’s a catty parody of the video game Street Fighter, and it’s excellently done, if you ask me. Instead of Ken and Ryu, we’ve got Ren and Kyu (see what they did there?) They’ve got nothing but their claws and sheer ferocity to fight their battles with.

Ken and Ryu rivalry is re-imagined on a feline level. See these Kittens hash it out in some retro SNES fashion.

Most cats probably can’t do the high jumps and backflips that you see Ren and Kyu doing, but hey, this is a parody after all.

On a side note, I find it extremely amusing to see a 5-Year Q&A journal in the center of the fighting arena, since I have the exact same one on my desk right now. Maybe I can host my own Cat Fighter tournament here when my sister visits and brings her kitties with her next week, eh?

[via Obvious Winner]

Researchers at MIT are constantly finding ways to use technology to improve people’s lives. This particular one will probably be most useful to those who might need remote healthcare services one day.

After doing extensive work at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, these scientists explain that they have developed an algorithm that will allow them to determine a person’s heart rate based on a video feed of them. The system is so accurate it was able to determine the heart rate of people wearing a mask or who had their face blurred out.

You might notice that your head might rock back and forth slightly when you’re seated. That’s a result of the blood rushing to your head with every beat of your heart. This phenomena is measured and then used to figure out your heart rate.

The method was evaluated on a group of 18 men and women with different skin tones, and the results were reportedly “nearly identical” to that of an electrocardiogram.

There’s a lot of potential with this technology. Aside from remote healthcare, it can also be used to monitor patients with sensitive skin, like the elderly or newborns. It can also be used to measure the time interval between beats, which is useful for monitoring patients who are at risk for cardiac events.

[via C|NET]

No other art form transacts with us the way literature can. It’s very accessible yet it demands and invites us to add depth to the world and the ideas it conjures. Devin Montgomery tries to capture the joy of discovery and exploration that we get from reading with his unique invention. He calls it the Midnight Clock. It’s a functional timepiece, but it also has a secret. If you follow the riddle engraved on its body, you’ll find a hidden book compartment.

The Midnight Clock is made from either birch of bamboo, with a shatterproof acrylic cover and a quartz movement. To reveal the hidden compartment, you have to remove four pegs along with the acrylic cover in the right order. Naturally, you’ll need to decipher the riddle to find out the right order. It’s not hard to solve, but that’s not really the point of the clock.

Pledge at least $85 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a Midnight Clock as a reward. Naturally once you solve the riddle the Midnight Clock’s magic is drained, but I prefer to think of it as a functional and very creative gift wrap. I think it’s a good way of foreshadowing the wonders that await the recipient in the gift itself.

I do find it somewhat of a missed opportunity though. I think that art is man’s attempt to express that which cannot otherwise be shared using words. Which is why I find the writer a very funny and also valiant class of artist: he uses the very thing that he hopes to transcend. It’s like a vaccine, not because it cures something but because of the audacity of its composition. So wouldn’t it be funny if instead of a clock, you had a book that, when read in a certain way, opens up to reveal another book?

You probably wouldn’t let your dog drink out of your toilet, but did you know that there are actually people out there who would eat out of a toilet?

Not out of a regular toilet, of course, but out of the Moko Moko Mokoletto. If you say it again and again fast enough, it’s almost like a tongue twister…

Anyway, the Moko Moko is actually a toilet-themed candy from Japan, where most awesome, weird, and unusual things seem to orginate.

The pack comes with a plastic toilet and a pack of candy. The miniature toilet is first assembled, and then the flavored candy powder is added to the toilet’s tank with water in order to activate it. You, the candy eater, are then supposed to sip the bubbly candy concoction from the toilet. Yum.

The clip above was posted by RRcherrypie, who describes the experience on his blog (translated): “Idea of the product is great, taste is OK. Made of toilet put the water from the tank actually is good. Place in Bathroom own Dollhouse of (1/12 scale). Chloro to look at the toilet was clogged …. Head, I keep clean …!”

There are four different colors of miniature toilets to choose from. Moko Moko product information is available here.

[via Tastefully Offensive and Yababoon via Laughing Squid]