MAKE’s special projects editor David Pescovitz wrote a great article for Salon about “Big Ideas” in tech, including a section on the Maker mindset. “Robugs, biologically based software, the GeoWeb, transgenic art and other hot frontiers in technological innovation.” I really enjoyed it. Oh, when you click the link, you have to “click here and watch a brief ad” to get to the article unless you have a Salon account….Link.
This guy invented a device that he says emits sounds only young people can hear – it’s used to chase them away and stop them from doing bad things. Nooo!! Not the Ludwig Van, and the dreaded Ninth Symphony! “Howard Stapleton, inventor of the Mosquito, with a speaker mounted on the wall behind him, at a store in Barry, Wales, where boisterous teenagers once gathered. The device projects a very shrill and very annoying tone that only youths can hear. Then they flee.” Thanks Nick! Link.
“There’s a reason Beck has been so hush-hush about the video for his new single, “Hell Yes.” Actually, there are four reasons. They’re called QRIOs, so-called “dream robots” developed by Sony Japan as high-tech playthings for children. QRIO can carry on conversations, adapt to a multitude of environments and — most importantly — mimic human movements, including complex dance routines. Currently, there are only four working QRIOs in the world. And all of them appear in the “Hell Yes” video.” [via] Link.
Today is iRobot’s first day of trading on the NASDAQ stock market under the symbol “IRBT.” iRobot’s PackBot Tactical Mobile Robot will be the first robot in history to ring the NASDAQ stock market opening bell (iRobot makes the Roomba as well as the PackBot Tactical Mobile Robots). Link.
Good NYT article on the changing face of the toy business – “Having failed to beat the electronics industry, the ailing toy business will join it in a big way in the year-end holiday shopping season, offering just about everything from cellphones for 6-year-olds (LeapFrog) to video projectors for 8-year-olds (Hasbro) in an effort to hold on to children who are casting aside Lego and GI Joe to play with their parents’ gadgets.” Link.
Mr. Jou, a graduate student in language technologies at Carnegie Mellon University, was simply mouthing words in his native Mandarin Chinese. But 11 electrodes attached to his face and neck detected his muscle movements, enabling a computer program to figure out what he was trying to say and then translate his Mandarin into English. The result boomed out of a loudspeaker a few seconds later. [via] Link.
Here’s a “MAKE from the future” project, once we learn how to train the wasps that is. Scientists say they can train wasps to detect hidden explosives, plant diseases, illegal drugs, cancer and even buried bodies. The team developed a ventilated PVC pipe which holds a small cartridge containing five wasps. The wasps were trained to detect a chemical produced by toxic fungi that infect corn and peanut crops. The wasps could be trained to detect explosives, human diseases and hidden bodies. [via] Link.
