Astounde covered some amazing robotic animals earlier this year. This definitely evokes some similar memories.
From Trossen Robotics and Interbotix Labs, here’s an assembled Phantom X Hexapod robot kit in action. I just wanted to showcase how truly amazing our technological capabilities have become. While the below video looks to be doctored, I can assure you it’s not.
As the great Dave Chappelle once said, everything is better in slow motion.
Via UWR.org
How close are we to breaking down global language barriers? Microsoft researchers demonstrate that we’re closer than anyone could’ve imagined.
For the last 60 years, computer scientists have been working tirelessly to build systems that can genuinely understand what a person says when they talk. The most primitive of techniques involved simple pattern matching, which was flawed by the fact that various people said the same things differently, and even one particular individual could enunciate or speak the same phrase in a multitude of ways.
We saw modest improvements over the years, but nothing truly significant until two years ago, when Microsoft engineers working with the University of Toronto implemented a technique called Deep Neural Networks that more dramatically mimicked the speech recognition and translation process the human brain goes through.
Via DVice
What can support up to 4,000 times it’s own weight, withstand blasts of dynamite, and is used by NASA to collect comet dust?
If you guessed aerogel, you are correct!
Aerogel is one of the cooler synthetic substances that science has to offer. It was actually only invented in 1930, and only came into existence as the result of a bet between two chemists: Samuel Stephens Kistler and Charles Learned.
Courtesy of Uber Phones
While most of us own some kind of iProduct and receive a seemingly endless amount of joy from them, seldom do we offer a second thought to the production process required to make such a magical device a reality.
There’s a popular notion that the entire device is made by machines, but that’s not the case, as you’ll see below. A Taiwanese electronics company you may or may not have heard of, Foxconn, is responsible for the production and assembly of the iPads, iPods and iPhones that have come to dominate our daily lives.
Here’s a quick look inside the Foxconn factory in China, one that employs over 200,000 people!
Can this machine operate forever?
Since at least the 12th century, man has sought to create a perpetual motion machine; a device that would continue working indefinitely without any external source of energy.
A large scientific contingent thinks such a device would violate the laws of thermodynamics, and is thus impossible.
Could it be that as a race, we don’t fully understand the laws of physics and such a device may indeed be possible? What would the ramifications be if we could actually build a perpetually moving device?
Via Ryno Motors
“Personal electric transportation with the versatility of a single wheel and the horse power to take you wherever you want go.” -Ryno Motors
A bicycle is to a motorcycle as a unicycle is to a…
That’s the question everyone wants answered and one that mechanical engineer Chris Hoffman sought to solve. When Hoffman’s daughter drew him a sketch of a motorized, one wheeled contraption, he had no choice but to actually build one.
Courtesy of Philips
The light bulb, a modern marvel, has become bland and underappreciated. How did we let this happen? What can we do to bring that spark back?
Via Darpa.Mil
Functional electronic devices that can dissolve in water or other fluids at a set point in time offer up a myriad of possibilities to the world.
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has funded a successful study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University, Tufts University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that showcased the feasibility of dissolvable or transient electronics to the world. How we can use this technology in the real world is where things get interesting.
Credit: Rick English
The possibilities for 3D printing are seemingly only inhibited by our imaginations. 3D printed instruments are a great example of that.
Though electric guitars have been printed within the last year, the world’s first 3D printed acoustic guitar was recently unveiled, providing an impressive solution to a daunting challenge.
With a sleek design, the 3D printed guitar was assembled from assorted custom printed parts. A company called 3D Systems printed intricate musical pieces out of a number of different materials including stainless steel, sterling sliver, and plastic.