In a recent test done by the Ames
Research Center, a part of NASA, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano controlled a
robot on California soil from the heights of the International Space Station. The
robot he is controlling is a K-10 rover, which had made appearances in space
before.
The original Paperboy was ahead of its time. While other arcade games in the 80s featured spaceships or medieval warriors, Paperboy only had, well, a paperboy. So it’s fitting that this homage to the game uses cutting edge technology. PaperDude VR harnesses the powers of the Oculus Rift, the Kinect and the Kickr power trainer, even though you can achieve a more realistic experience with, I don’t know, a bicycle and rolls of paper.
PaperDude VR is a pet project of Globacore, a company that specializes in interactive installations. Globacore is making the game using Unity and Photoshop. The game requires you to throw virtual newspapers at mailboxes to score points. As with Paperboy, you have to do this without crashing your bicycle, only this time you’re actually pedaling on a bike. The Kickr detects your speed and can adjust the bike to make it easier or harder to pedal. The Oculus Rift provides 360º visibility and the Kinect tracks your hands and arms.
Globacore said they’re planning to improve PaperDude VR by adding features like obstacles and other nuisances to avoid, an online leaderboard and even a replica of the training course at the end of levels in Paperboy.
[via Prosthetic Knowledge]
There’s something so neat about robots which are built to replicate the movements of animals and insects. But this biologically-inspired little guy has a gait all his own and makes me want to have one as a pet.
The STAR (Sprawl Tuned Autonomous Robot) was created by David Zarrouk, Andrew Pullin, Nick Kohut and Ronald Fearing at UC Berkeley’s Biomimetic Millisystems Lab. The 3D-printed robot uses six spinny “legs” can adjust its sprawl angle in order to navigate over difficult obstacles, so its little legs can change the amount of ground-clearance they offer. This allows the robot to scurry its way under doorways and other small spaces, and then resume walking normally – if normally means running around like a crazed millipede on speed.
STAR has had two prior versions, with this one getting some mechanical improvements as well as reinforcements to help keep it together after collisions.
Top speed for the STAR.V3 robot is a whopping 5.2 meters-per-second. That means that it can run 43 of its own body lengths every second. This agile robot can also climb over loose rocks, and even right itself if it flips over. Oh, and it can play pool.
Inkjet printers are relatively cheap. That’s because it’s the inkjet printer cartridges that will burn a hole in your pocket. It’s the old razor-razorblade business model.
Depending on how often you use your printer, you could be changing cartridges as often as every week. You could save your old cartridges and get them refilled, and just buy a new one if it gets busted… or you could just print your own. 3D-print, I mean.
Frankly, it’s about time someone did this!
InkFactory recently used a 3D printer to print an inkjet cartridge. A standard ink bladder was installed, and voila! That’s a ton of money saved minus the mess and the hassles that usually come with most ink cartridge refill kits. Of course, there is the matter of the amount of time it takes to print the cartridge shell itself.
They used a MakerBot Replicator 2 to print the cloned Kodak inkjet cartridge, which is relatively simple in design. Cartridges for other printers might be more complex, but I think it’s only a matter of time before they get the 3D-printed treatment.
Now all we need is a 3D printer that prints 3D printer parts. Oh wait, we already have one.
[via Softpedia]
As it turns out, gaming isn’t all the Oculus Rift is good for. Even though the peripheral is still in development mode, a user group known as Intuitive Aerial has hooked a few cameras up to a flying drone, and connected that drone to the Rift. Said drone is user-controlled, and basically lets whoever’s utilizing it experience flight.
Sweet.
Where the tech industry is concerned, Australia is widely known as being one of the most expensive places to buy. Nowhere is this more clear than in video games, with titles selling for exorbitant amounts compared to prices overseas. Now, this long-standing problem may well have a solution on the horizon: The House of Representatives is taking businesses to task.
I’ve had the opportunity to try out a number of head-mounted displays over the years, and most of them have been pretty underwhelming, either from a display quality or comfort perspective. And while many users are waiting to see what the consumer version of the Oculus Rift has to offer, there is already a very capable head-mounted display – with a head-tracking option – on the market today.
The Zeiss Cinemizer display is by far the most comfortable head-mounted display I’ve ever worn. The glasses weigh only 4.2 ounces, and place less than 3 ounces of weight on the bridge of your nose, which makes them comfortable for long viewing sessions. Inside the Cinemizer’s white goggles, it packs a pair of 870 x 500 resolution OLED displays. These tiny 8mm x 5mm displays provide an insane pixel density of 2500 ppi, and extremely rich colors.
The displays themselves offer a sharp, noise-free picture to each of your eyes, and pixel structure is virtually indistinguishable to my eyes. That said, small text is definitely harder to read than on a true 1080p display, but gameplay and movie content looks great. I encountered no motion blur to speak of, though I did see a little bit of a “blooming” effect which is a typical side-effect of self-illuminating displays. There’s also a small amount of blue fringing around high contrast areas of the image, such as white on a black background. But these issues are minor, and I still found the displays to be on-par or better than other HMD screens I’ve used before. They’re definitely sharper than the displays in the current build of the Oculus Rift, and nearly as good as the displays in Sony’s HMZ-T2 – a competing display with higher resolution OLED screens that’s major downfall is a lack of portability and its very poor comfort. Comfort is definitely not an issue with the Cinemizer.
The Cinemizer offers diopter adjustments for each eye, so they’re easily tweaked to your individual vision, so you don’t wear your glasses while wearing them. While watching content, the displays simulate a 40-inch widescreen display, viewed at about 6.5 feet away from your eyes. While this isn’t as immersive as the Oculus Rift, or going to watch a movie in IMAX, it’s certainly more immersive than playing games on most computer monitors or watching movies on your laptop or tablet screen. By design, you can still see outside of the glasses a bit, so you can occasionally look at your keyboard, mouse or game controller, but there’s also an optional rubber eyeshield which can plunge you into movie theater darkness.
One big advantage the Cinemizers offer is that they’re battery powered. The included USB-rechargeable battery pack is good for anywhere from 2.5 hours to 6 hours, depending on whether you’re feeding it with a digital or analog video source. I only tested it with an HDMI input, and got enough battery power to watch the entirety of Avatar. And speaking of Avatar – the Cinemizers support stereoscopic 3D. Since each eye views an independent image, there’s no flicker, and no decrease in brightness like you get with displays which require 3D glasses. I found the 3D image quality to be quite good – though the depth isn’t as impressive as the 3D I get from my Samsung plasma display or from an IMAX 3D theater. That said, the 3D is definitely a nice bonus.
I tested the Cinemizers with their optional head-tracker module, a small USB device which replaces one of the adjustable ear pads. This gadget emulates the movements of a standard USB mouse, so any game that uses a mouse to look around can be used with the Cinemizer’s head-tracker. This worked seamlessly on all of the FPSes I could throw at it on my Mac and my PC, and it definitely made looking around in games more intuitive and immersive than with a mouse. That said, to use the head-tracking feature on a PS3 or Xbox 360, you’ll need to pick up a third-party adapter, such as the Penguin Eagle Eye, which sells for about $60. There’s also support for full X/Y/Z axis tracking when using the appropriate SDK.
In addition to playing games and watching movies, I could also imagine the Cinemizers working well for first-person view piloting of remote-controlled vehicles and drones. There’s also an optional $79 adapter for plugging in iOS devices, which replaces the standard HDMI output module of the Cinemizer, but only works with devices with a 30-pin connector. This could definitely come in handy for watching movies on long trips.
There are just a couple of minor complaints I have with the Cinemizer. One, they come with built-in earbud jacks and a pair of earbuds for privacy. That’s all well and good, but the audio quality is weak and tinny. Thankfully, there’s a headphone jack on the battery pack so you can use your own headphones. My other complaint is that the cabling is a bit bulky when using the head tracker. It would be nice if there were a single molded cable that carried both HDMI and USB signals, but instead, you end up with a pair of cables sticking out of the glasses, and then another cable sticking out of the battery pack to connect an HDMI cable into. I also wish the rubber eyeshield were included. When you’re spending $800 or more on device, you’d think they could throw those in rather than charge you another $39 for those. And while they throw in a handy carrying case, it’s not quite big enough if you’re trying to cram in the glasses, the head-tracker and all of its cables.
Overall, I was impressed with the Cinemizer. It’s a nifty device, and is portable enough that you could take it on the road to really enhance your private video viewing experience. It’s lightweight and comfortable and is compatible with standard video sources. Plus its optional head-tracker is great for playing FPSes and racing games. The biggest thing standing in the way of the Cinemizer is its price. The goggles themselves list for $799(USD), and the head tracker will add another $229. $1000 will buy a you any of a number of good LCD and plasma TVs these days, so unless you really need privacy while playing content, it’s tough to justify the expense. Hopefully, the price will be driven down with time as the cost of components comes down.
Space may be the final frontier, but it seems that it is
mostly going to be explored by robots, at least for the time being. Some of you
may be aware of the Curiosity rover. Curiosity is currently on the surface of
the planet Mars, but what you may not know is that the rover is coming up on a
very big anniversary.
If you find yourself lying in bed trying to read emails or get some work done, you know it can be tricky to hold your laptop in the right position if you want to lie down. Now, thanks to this gadget, you can use your laptop while lying flat on your back.
It’s unclear how the stand holds onto your laptop when lying upside-down, but the image above suggests that you might need a bungee or rubber band of some sort to hold it in place. There’s definitely a lip that holds the front edge in place.
In addition to the configuration shown above, Uncaged Ergonomics‘ highly-adjustable WorkEZ Executive stand can be used in a wide variety of positions, as a standing desk or even as a tray table in bed. The aluminum stand can hold items up to 22 inches-wide, and can stand up to 2 feet-tall. it’s also got ventilation holes built into the bottom to help keep your computer cool.
Best of all, the WorkEZ Executive laptop stand sells for just $65(USD). It’s available over on Amazon, where it’s available in black, blue, silver or even pink.
[via CRNCHY]
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