Hasta La Gadget!

Hiroshi Ishiguro (or his evil android twin, one) is back in business, and nearly four years after his Geminoid HI-1 startled youngsters everywhere, the Geminoid-F has arrived to consternate the grown-ups. Shown off this weekend in Osaka, Japan, the lifelike lady you see above (pictured left, just in case you were wondering) was designed to mimic human facial expressions that are fed in to its internal computer. The rubberized face has a rather insane amount of flexibility, enabling it to pull off subtle gestures that have thus far been impossible to replicate on a robot. Sly grins, angry glares and totally-fake smiles are all possible now, with developers hoping to have these in hospitals and the like in the not-too-distant future. Currently, copies of the humanoid are expected to sell for around ¥10,000,000 ($105,780), though it’ll likely be robotics research organizations doing the majority of the buying. Hop on past the break for a video that’s guaranteed to leave you stunned — and while we’re not fluent in Japanese, we’re pretty sure someone asks if they “can rock that bad Larry on their dome.”

Continue reading Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Geminoid-F humanoid mimics Earthlings, is definitely the beginning of the end (video)

Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Geminoid-F humanoid mimics Earthlings, is definitely the beginning of the end (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  AFP  | Email this | Comments

It’s a fantasy come true for the avid nerd / traveler, but unfortunately for us, it’s but a concept in its current form. Syracuse’s own Rahul Mahtani and Yofred Moik have dreamed up Google Envelopes, and if brought to production, this might just make the USPS as relevant as it was during the heyday known as 1985. Put simply, the solution would involve a new ‘Send Envelope’ method of passing along a note penned in Gmail; when pressed, you’d get a printout of the message along with a specially crafted envelope, the latter of which really makes this idea shine. The envelope itself would be a Google Maps representation of the quickest route to transfer said message from you to the recipient if roadways and kayaks were used in place of fiber and coax, giving the receiver a crucially awesome keepsake each time you dropped him or her a line. Oh, and having an ‘Avoid Tolls’ option would just totally put it over the top — even if were relegated to beta.

[Thanks, Yofred]

Google Envelopes turns Gmail into snail mail, wraps it in precisely routed Maps printout originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Yanko Design  | Email this | Comments

It’s not something laypeople think about very often (space debris, for those wondering), but it’s clearly on the minds of boffins at the University of Surrey. Over the years, the amount of defunct equipment hovering around beyond our view has increased significantly, with some reports suggesting that over 5,500 tonnes of exhausted kit is currently hanging around somewhere up there as a result of “abandoning spacecraft.” In order to prevent the problem from growing (and to possibly reverse some of the damage), the CubeSail has been created. Put simply (or as simply as possible), this here parachute could be remotely deployed once a satellite had accomplished what it set out to do, essentially dragging it back through a fiery re-entry that it would never survive and clearing out the orbital pathway that it was using. We’re told that it’ll be ready for deployment in late 2011, but for now you can check out an all-too-brief demonstration vid just beyond the break.

Continue reading CubeSail parachute to drag old satellites from orbit, keep atmospheric roads clear

CubeSail parachute to drag old satellites from orbit, keep atmospheric roads clear originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Science Daily, University of Surrey  | Email this | Comments

Take everything you thought you knew about multitouch and throw it out. Okay, keep the Minority Report stuff, but throw everything else out. What we’re looking at here is a 22 megapixel display, stitched together from the output of no less than 28 projectors (7,168 x 3,072 total resolution), which just happens to respond to touch-like input in a fashion even Tom Cruise would find fascinating. You don’t have to actually touch the wall, floor-mounted cameras pick up your gestures in 2D space and a 30-node computer setup crunches all the computational and visual data to deliver some buttery smooth user interaction. For demo purposes, the makers of this system grabbed a 13.3 gigapixel image of Tromso and took it for a hand-controlled spin. See the mesmerizing show on video after the break.

Continue reading Tromso students put together the best interactive display wall we’ve seen yet (video)

Tromso students put together the best interactive display wall we’ve seen yet (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 07:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  University of Tromso  | Email this | Comments

Those HDTV manufacturers did tell us that 3D was going to be everywhere this year, didn’t they? Keeping up with the times, scientists investigating potential methods for rendering physical objects invisible to the human eye have now moved to the full three-dimensional realm. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology has developed a photonic metamaterial that can make things disappear when viewed from all angles, advancing from previous light refraction methods that only worked in 2D. It sounds similar to what Berkeley researchers developed not too long ago, and just like Berkeley’s findings, this is a method that’s still at a very early stage of development and can only cover one micrometer-tall bumps. Theoretically unlimited, the so-called carpet cloak could eventually be expanded to “hide a house,” but then who’s to say we’ll even be living in houses by that time?

3D invisibility cloak fashioned out of metamaterials originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  BBC  | Email this | Comments