I’ve mentioned my daughter’s little pup Buttercup before. I’ve long suspected that Buttercup is an asshole for various reasons, not the least of which is the fact that she will only poop when someone is outside with her. I’ve often wondered why exactly the dog has to sniff every inch of the yard, twirl in a circle 57 times, hunch over to drop her deuce and then suddenly give up and go sniffing for just the right spot all over again. It turns out it may be solar flares causing the confusion.
Yes, a group of actual scientists have been studying dogs and the direction they poop in. I can only imagine the piles of data they had to go through. Anyway, the researchers have determined that dogs prefer to take care of their poop in alignment with the Earth’s magnetic field. The researchers determined this by watching a group of 70 dogs during 1,893 defecations and 5,582 urinations. Talk about a crappy job.
The researchers watched the animals over two years and found that they prefer to drop the bomb in a North-South axis. The researchers also found that during times when the magnetic field was in flux, the dogs would become confused. I wonder if that explains the constant searching for just the right spot? The researchers have no idea why dogs prefer the North-South orientation. They also have no idea why they conducted the study in the first place.
Shame on each and every smartphone user for baring it all for the longest time. It’s probably not by choice, because it wasn’t until recently that people discovered that miniature rubber underwear for smartphones actually exist!
They’re made by Bandai Japan and come in a variety of patterns and designs. There are undies made for female phones and male phones, so you can mix and match and go with the style that you like best. It might seem strange if you’re holding a phone wearing skivvies covered in hearts if you’re a guy…
The smartphone undies are available in Japan. They’re sold in those plastic capsule vending machines for 200 yen (~$2 USD.) No word on if or when smartphone bras will be available. You wouldn’t want your phone running around topless now, would you?
For obvious reasons, cats and dogs don’t need to wear clothing like humans do. But a lot of pet owners humanize their pets and treat them like they would treat their own kids. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but sometimes it’s not good either (like feeding pets human food that might be too fatty for their systems.) But something that’s not likely to cause more harm to your pet is pet clothing.
As long as the clothes are not uncomfortable and overly thick that your pet will overheat in them, then I don’t see why not. You probably won’t be able to keep them on your pets that long though, because they’ll probably try to squirm their way out of their unnecessary outfit.
One such article of pet clothing is the Cat’s Pajamas. The bright red, one-piece suit will fit snugly over your entire feline and annoy him or her to bits and pieces. I’d be surprised if you don’t get a couple of scratches in the process of putting them on. Make sure you snap a lot of pictures while they’re on, because I doubt your cat will want to wear them ever again.
The Cat’s Pajamas available from Perpetual Kid for $24.99(USD).
If you have ever wanted the biggest speakers you can get your hands on, AudioOrbs might be just what you are looking for. AudioOrbs are claimed to be the first and only speaker that you can actually sit inside of. The speakers are housed inside a massive clear sphere with a small circle cut out to allow you to climb in and out.
The developers behind the speakers say that the round design almost completely blocks noise from the outside of the speaker. Inside, the speaker is fitted with Tempur pillows to make for a comfortable time inside. The orb has 18 speakers to immerse its occupants with a full audio spectrum.
The company says that it will build two units, perhaps the only two ever built. Each of the orbs will sell for $15,000. The project is on Indiegogo and hasn’t raised a dollar yet. That’s because the only thing you can do is pledge your $15,000 and get your hands on one of the AudioOrbs.
Ever wonder why SD cards are dirt cheap? At the 2013 Chaos Computer Congress, a hacker going by the moniker Bunnie recently revealed part of the reason: “In reality, all flash memory is riddled with defects — without exception.” But that tidbit is nothing compared to the point of his presentation, in which he and fellow hacker Xobs revealed that SD cards and other flash storage formats contain programmable computers.
Bunnie also summarized his presentation in a relatively easy to understand post on his blog. The images I’m sharing here are from the slides (pdf) that he and Xobs used in their 30C3 talk. Here’s the full paragraph where Bunnie claims that flash memory is cheap because they’re unreliable: “Flash memory is really cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it’s too good to be true. In reality, all flash memory is riddled with defects — without exception. The illusion of a contiguous, reliable storage media is crafted through sophisticated error correction and bad block management functions…”
“…This is the result of a constant arms race between the engineers and mother nature; with every fabrication process shrink, memory becomes cheaper but more unreliable. Likewise, with every generation, the engineers come up with more sophisticated and complicated algorithms to compensate for mother nature’s propensity for entropy and randomness at the atomic scale.”
Simply put, Bunnie claims that flash storage is cheap (partly) because all chips made are used, regardless of their quality. But how do flash storage makers deal with faulty hardware? With software.
Apparently flash storage manufacturers use firmware to manage how data is stored as well as to obscure the chip’s shortcomings. For instance, Bunnie claims that some 16GB chips are so damaged upon manufacture that only 2GB worth of data can be stored on them. But instead of being thrashed, they’re turned into 2GB cards instead. In order to obscure things like that – as well as to handle the aforementioned increasingly complex data abstraction – SD cards are loaded with firmware.
And where does that firmware reside? In a microcontroller, i.e. a very tiny computer. The microcontroller is packed inside a memory card along with the actual chips that store the data. Bunnie and Xobs then proved that it’s possible to hack the microcontroller and make it run unofficial programs. Depending on how cynical you are, that finding is either good news or bad news.
For their talk, Bunnie and Xobs hacked into two SD card models from a relatively small company called AppoTech. I wish I could say more about their process, but you can read about it on Bunnie’s blog…
…or you can watch their entire presentation in the video below:
Long story short, Bunnie and Xobs found out that the microcontrollers in SD cards can be used to deploy a variety of programs – both good and bad – or at least tweak the card’s original firmware. For instance, while researching in China, Bunnie found SD cards in some electronics shops that had their firmware modified. The vendors “load a firmware that reports the capacity of a card is much larger than the actual available storage.” The fact that those cards were modified supports Bunnie and Xobs’ claim: that other people besides manufacturers can manipulate the firmware in SD cards.
The slide above outlines the other ways a memory card’s microcontroller can be abused. Malware can be inserted into memory cards to discreetly open files, make data impossible to erase (short of destroying the card itself) and even discreetly scan and replace data. On the other hand, Bunnie and Xobs note that this revelation opens up a new platform for tinkerers and developers. If a memory card is both a storage device and a computer, then it may be powerful enough to control another device on its own.
It’s worth noting that this particular investigation had an extremely small sample size. That being said, Bunnie believes that this vulnerability exists in “the whole family of “managed flash” devices, including microSD, SD, MMC as well as the eMMC and iNAND devices typically soldered onto the mainboards of smartphones and used to store the OS and other private user data. We also note that similar classes of vulnerabilities exist in related devices, such as USB flash drives and SSDs.”
Turns out the memories of our computers are as unreliable as ours.
The six-sided die is one of the most recognizable symbols of gaming and gambling. But as Dr. Matt Fleming states, cubes don’t roll well. You know what does? A dodecahedron. So Matt put the numbers one through six twice on a 12-sided die. Hence the name Doublesix Dice.
Aside from being 12-sided, Doublesix Dice also have the same number of pips printed on opposing sides. Matt says this makes the dice more balanced compared to ordinary six-sided die.
Roll a browser then head to Kickstarter to get Doublesix Dice. A pledge of at least $10 (USD) gets you a pack of 12 dice.
While pretty much every smartphone today looks like a thin slab of glass and plastic or metal, this upcoming device eschews these conventions, going with a dramatically different approach.
Developed by Houston-based Noitavonne Instruments, the Noit Spectrum (aka the “Noit Joystick”) looks more like a canister of pepper spray, or some strange gizmo from the Star Trek medical deck than a phone. But if you look closely, you’ll see a numeric keypad there in the middle, and it does look vaguely like the shape of an old-school phone handset. There appears to be a small display at the top, as well as a set of physical buttons, and a screen on its side.
The device is actually being referred to as a “Mobile Companion Device,” so I’m not even sure it’s a full smartphone, or if it’s some sort of funky Bluetooth handset. I’m assuming it’s a standalone device, as it’s described as having a 1.2GHz processor, 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi and 64GB of storage, according to its entry on the CES website. I did manage to find a concept video up on YouTube which indicates that it is a full-fledged media player, which runs a flavor of Android, and can wirelessly stream content to larger displays.
While there’s no info yet up on the Noitavonne Instruments website, I’d assume we’ll find out more during CES next week.
I like burritos and I like cake, but I’m not sure that these two delicious foods were ever intended to meet. But leave it to some crafty pastry chef to defy logic and make one anyhow.
Yep, that’s not the world’s largest burrito – it’s a cake. It was made by Elizabeth Marek at Oregon’s Artisan Cake Company, and it looks good enough to eat – for lunch. The cake itself is chocolate with peanut butter mousse, but you’d never know it from the outside. The tortilla is made from fondant icing, and scorched with a blowtorch, and the guac and sour cream are made from buttercream. I have to assume the other fillings are all made of sugar, and not actual rice, beans, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and olives.
If you decide to order one just like it, be sure to ask them to make some “salsa” for dipping it into. I’m thinking some mashed up strawberries and kiwis might do the trick.
We’ve seen robots that move about using wheels, two legs, four legs and even ones that slither like snakes. The Cubli can move despite being just a cube. Actually it does have wheels, but they’re inside its body.
The Cubli was developed by researchers at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, led by Gajamohan Mohanarajah and Dr. Raffaello D’Andrea. It has three wheels powered by a small electric motor, a three-axis accelerometer, a three-axis gyroscope, a servo for braking and a STM3210E microcontroller.
By taking advantage of angular momentum and torque reaction, the 5.9 cu.in. cube can jump from a stable position, then stop and balance itself on one of its edges or even one of its corners. It can keep balancing even if you push or disturb the surface that it’s on. It can also be commanded to fall in a particular direction. By performing all three actions successively – jumping up, balancing and falling – the Cubli can be made to move around. It cannot speak though. At least not yet.
If you’ve followed Technabob for any period of time, you know that we love our quirky Japanese gadgets around here. The latest weird and wacky gizmo to turn up from our friends to the East? Remote-controlled crabs.
Yep. The Kani Crab RC Toy simulates the movements of a real crab, skittering around the table with its legs bouncing about. Though the blinking LED eyeballs blow its cover a bit.
You can even choose from a “fresh” dark colored crab, or a bright red one that looks like it just spent some time in a boiling pot of water.
You can get your hands of the Kani Crab RC Toy over at the Japan Trend Shop for $35(USD) – or if you happen to live in Japan, you can get your crabs from JTT. I can only imagine the fun you could have with your friends the next time you go to a seafood restaurant.
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