news for nerds, stuff that matters...

[chief108]

even een aparte thread voor nerd nieuws
zitten te vaak gewoon te leuke dingen bij

je kunt natuurlij ook gewoon naar DE übernerd site gaan:
Slashdot - News for nerds, stuff that matters (http://www.slashdot.org)

oud, vertrouwd en elke dag actueel....

[chief108]

Human Exoskeletons Getting Closer


It's not Sigourney Weaver (http://www.mwctoys.com/images/review_loader_1.jpg) tossing aliens about, but The Register has an interesting blurb about a real human-capable exoskeleton (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/27/lockheed_exoskeleton/) that looks pretty cool (Lockheed-Martin press release (http://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/press_releases/2009/MFC_022609_LockheedMartinUnveilsExoskeleton.html)) . Runs for three hours at 3 mph on internal batteries; max speed is 7 mph. Of course, no price is listed but I suppose if you have to ask you can't afford it. Team this up with a Big Dog (http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog) and you've got the ultimate high-tech cross-country team. Bring your own batteries. Or just wait for your jetpack to arrive.

[chief108]

Robot Love Goes Bad

Ever had a super needy girlfriend that demanded all your love and attention and would freak whenever you would leave her alone? Irritating, right? Now imagine the same situation, only with an asexual third-generation humanoid robot with 100kg arms. Such was the torture subjected upon Japanese researchers recently when their most advanced robot, capable of simulating human emotions, ditched its puppy love programming and switched over into stalker mode (http://gear.ign.com/articles/959/959790p1.html). Eventually the researchers had to decommission the robot, with a hope of bringing it back to life again.

http://images.slashdot.org/articles/09/03/09/147255-1-thumblg.png (http://images.slashdot.org/articles/09/03/09/147255-1.png) (http://images.slashdot.org/articles/09/03/09/147255-1.png)

[chief108]

Intel Envisions Shape-Shifting Smartphones


It's not sci-fi, but rather advanced robotics research which is leading Intel to envision shape-shifting smartphones (http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/03/intel_envisions.html). 'Imagine what you would do with this material,' says Jason Campbell, a senior researcher at Intel's Pittsburgh Lab who's working in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University. 'If you want to carry the device, you'd make it as small as possible by making it pack itself as densely as possible. When you go to surf the Web, you're going to make it big.' The material being studied is transparent silicon-dioxide hemispheres, which can roll around each other under electrical control to create different shapes. The lab has built 6-inch long actuators, which it's working to reduce to 1-mm tube-sized prototypes. When will we see a shape-shifting phone? 'In terms of me being able to buy it, that's a difficult forecasting problem, because I have to guess about manufacturing costs,' Campbell said. 'I won't do that. But we hope the science will be proved out in three to five years.

YouTube - Nokia Morph Concept (long) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX-gTobCJHs)

[renamer]

pfff ik vind de nintendo 16 bit al een flinke vooruitgang...