Hasta La Gadget!

Model X-37B might look familiar to you — it was the name of an autonomous space vehicle that took flight just about a year ago, orbited for a whopping eight months, and then successfully returned to our planet all by itself. Now a new version of the X-37B has blasted off to hang outside of the atmosphere for a while. The spacecraft left Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 41 down in Florida and hurtled to a low-Earth orbit with help of a Atlas V rocket. Boeing isn’t saying exactly what it’s doing up there, but we suspect this spaceship knows which way to go.

Continue reading Boeing’s new unmanned X-37B launches into orbit, won’t come home until it finds Major Tom

Boeing’s new unmanned X-37B launches into orbit, won’t come home until it finds Major Tom originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 02:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Panasonic LUMIX FX77 includes a touchscreen makeup studio

Gadget Lab Notes is an eclectic roundup of gadget news briefs and intriguing products that catch our eye.

Panasonic LUMIX FX77 Is a Point-And-Shoot With a Virtual Makeup Studio
You’ve probably never stopped and looked at a just-taken photo on your digital camera and thought “Gosh, I wish I’d put on a little more eyeliner”—but your girlfriend probably has. The 12.1-megapixel LUMIX FX77 lets you add lipstick and rosy cheeks to images right on its 3.5-inch touchscreen display. It also features an SDXC memory card slot, a 5x optical zoom and Leica optics, optical image stabilization, HD video capability, and an HDMI port.

Panasonic LUMIX FX77 [Red Ferret via Slashgear]

Smart Surfboard Is Jam-Packed With Sensors To Track Board and Rider Performance
The SurfSens surfboard, developed by Pukas and Tecnalia, is loaded with a GPS compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, strain gauges, and pressure sensors. Data is recorded on a stick of flash memory. These tools are used to measure the performance of both the riders and the board, which Pukas will use to improve their surfboards’ design and features in the future.

The Future of Surfing [Singularity Hub via Gizmag]

I Double-Dog Dare You To Get a Random Tattoo From the Automatic Tattoo Machine
Auto Ink, a DIY CNC-ed tattoo machine, assigns operators a religion (at random), then inks the corresponding symbol onto that person’s arm. There are so many bad ideas wrapped up in this one device, I don’t even know where to begin. Let’s just hope it has an easy to reach manual kill switch, at the least.
Automatic Tattoo Machine [Makezine]

“Megaphones” Hide Speakers Inside Their Familiar Shape
When you want to blast sound into your living space, what better shape to signify that than that of a megaphone? These megaphones are built of wood instead of plastic, and would house legit hi-fi electronic speaker components instead of the voice amplification circuitry you’d find in a regular megaphone.

Megaphones [Yanko Design]

Giant Slide to Unlock Magnet Faux Simplifies Life
Don’t you wish you could slide to unlock everything? It’s so easy a baby could do it (no really, there’s proof on YouTube). Well, some things are definitely better left secure, but you can always pretend with this 17-inch Slide to Unlock magnet. For $6.99, you can affix it to your fridge, the car, or anything else made of metal.

Slide To Unlock Magnet [Perpetual Kid via Craziest Gadgets]

Geminoid-F, A Realistic Humanoid Robot That Blinks and “Breathes”
The first Geminoid robots were developed in Japan in 2005. The Geminoid-F hails from Denmark, and although less complex than its predecessor, its ability to look like it’s breathing and performing involuntary muscle reactions help it jump over the unfortunate gap of robotic creepiness referred to as the uncanny valley.

Incredibly Realistic Robot [SayOMG via Crunchgear]

You pick up your first tan leather roundball at the age of 9, you practice religiously for a decade before you can even feel worthy of calling yourself a basketball player, and then you find a video online of a robotic seal that can shoot better than you after just a few weeks in the lab. Yep, some Taiwanese know-it-alls have put together a robo-seal that converts 99 percent of shots (admittedly with a toy ball launched at a toy hoop) within a three-meter range. It’s basically just an articulating arm with stereo vision for some good old depth perception, but it’s sophisticated enough to maintain its killer accuracy even if the target is moved from its spot. That’s more lethal that Shaq or Karl Malone’s elbows ever were. Video’s after the break, skip to the 1:05 mark if you don’t care about the details of how it’s done.

Continue reading Ball-throwing robot seal has a talent for basketball, embarrassing humans (video)

Ball-throwing robot seal has a talent for basketball, embarrassing humans (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Mar 2011 07:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Switched  |  IEEE Spectrum  | Email this | Comments

Okay, so it may not look quite as impressive as some other mechanical cheetahs we’ve seen in the past, but this new one from Boston Dynamics certainly has a lot of potential. That robot, plus a new humanoid called Atlas, have won DARPA contracts and so will be put into at least limited production, much like the company’s earlier BigDog. Cheetah is said to run “faster than any existing legged robot and faster than the fastest human runners,” while Atlas can “move through difficult terrain using human-like behavior,” meaning neither running nor hiding will work. That leaves only fighting, so get ready to buck up.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Boston Dynamics Cheetah and Atlas robots get DARPA funding, getting ready to find you originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It might take them a good 92 hours longer than the fastest human runners, but a group of five pint-sized humanoids have officially embarked on the world’s first full-length robot marathon. The Robo Mara Full, put on by Japanese robotics company Vstone, kicked off this week in Osaka, Japan, and will see the mechanized competitors through a 42 kilometer (26 mile) race, estimated to last several days. During the marathon, entrants will circle a 100-meter indoor track a total of 422 times with little help from their human coaches — contact is only permitted during battery and servo replacement. Vstone’s Robovie-PC led the pack at the outset, but with three days left to go, it’s still any robot’s game. You can check out a live feed of all the, uh, slow and furious action at the coverage link below, and get a full overview of the race, complete with embarrassing translation, by following the source link.

World’s first robot marathon gets off to a slow start, will likely stay that way originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PhysOrg, BBC  |  Vstone  | Email this | Comments