NeatTrix

Dean Kamen, noted inventor of the Segway, among other things, demonstrated a really exciting prosthetic arm prototype at the TED talks in 2007. Funded by DARPA, Kamen calls his arm the “Luke Arm” in reference to the robotic arm Luke Skywalker receives after dad lops off the real one. The DARPA contract was one of several aimed at developing the next-generation prosthetic arm for amputee soldiers returning from war. The first video is from his TED talk, the second is a more in-depth look at the technology at his lab.
Videos after the jump.

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Ground-mobile robots expend most of their available power just being mobile. Being able to negotiate complicated terrain, or even stairs, adds complexity to mechanics and the programming. Motor noise makes stealthy operation nearly impossible while the robot is in motion.

Boston Dynamics’ Big Dog (www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog), for example, can carry a large payload (400 lbs), and is impressively nimble. The video also demonstrates that the Big Dog is not very fast (4 mph), and is quite loud (like a million angry bees), because of the gasoline engine needed to power it. It also looks weird (maybe because there’s no identifiable head?).

Why not just use big dogs?

(continue reading…)

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Since the new Kindle will soon take the place of the current model, I thought I’d give a nod to Igor Skochinsky, who notoriously hacked the Kindle over a year ago.  In an interview, he described the Kindle as a closed system, but not that closed.  He also said the Sony Reader and iPhone were much more closed.  Easy or not, here are the three entries from his blog, detailing the steps taken to gain access to the console, and mess about inside. (continue reading…)

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An interesting mix of items in this video. The treadmill bike is quite amusing.  The thing I’m interested in, however, starts at 3:10 on the video. The TV Death Ray.  Using the very large Fresnel lens from a rear-projection tv, they are able to melt items, including a padlock.

Now, while they are only using the lens to melt items, at incredible temperature, why couldn’t the same principle be used to melt the snow on your driveway.  Find the optimal settings, mount it on a rig that moves over your drive and melts as it goes. (continue reading…)

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Ok, I can’t take credit for this one, but it’s one that always stuck with me.  As far as I know it is the brain child of Robert J. Sawyer, my favorite living Sci-Fi author (to answer your next question, Asimov).  I am a heavy sleeper and have been all my life.  I not only can sleep though most things, but I can carry on full conversations with people, sometimes on the phone, and never remember it.  My wife is a much lighter sleeper, so I have to be very careful when coming to bed or getting up, if I don’t want to wake her.  Usually I can’t manage it.  This is where Sawyer’s invention comes in.  In one of his books, the main character has a brain wave monitor on the ceiling above his bed.  It displays the current and projected brain states of him and his wife.  He can tell, what cycle of sleep his wife is in, by reading the display.  He knows if she’s in a deep sleep and unlikely to wake, or if she’s on the verge of a deep sleep and that if he waits two minutes, she should be.  Handy.  In a separate article, he postulates an alarm clock with similar brain wave monitoring that will “keep track of your sleep cycle, gently bringing up the room lights at precisely the right time so that you’ll feel rested, not cardiac arrested, as you awake.”  That sounds great. I want it now.  So what if I don’t get up before noon.

I won’t get into the other implications of reading people’s brainwaves from across the room, but it’s obviously fertile ground for speculation and probably research.  Secret research.  Secret I-could-tell-you-but-then-I’d-have-to-kill-you kind of research.

I’ve been digging through his books to find it, but I can’t remember which one it’s in.  If I find it, I’ll update the post.

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As I was shoveling the snow from my driveway one day, I had an inspiration, a vision of a life free from shoveling and snow blowing.  A wealthy acquaintance of mine has a radiant heat system embedded in his driveway for snow removal, and while it is an excellent system, it is rather expensive.  I fashioned, in my mind, a portable low-cost version of the same.

Of course, it already exists, more or less, and so I don’t know if that makes me smart to have independently thought of such a useful contraption, or stupid for not having thought of it first. (continue reading…)

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Lucky, the German Shepherd, is truly lucky. He’s going to get a nice, warm place to sleep…outside, where he belongs. When he gets tired of watching the buffalo roam (Seriously, there’s a herd of buffalo nearby), and chasing rabbits he’ll have a warm retreat from the snow, ice, freezing rain, not-so-freezing rain, fog, drizzle, snizzle, and 40 other kinds of precipitation that only maybe the Inuit have proper words for, and which try our souls practically every day. Right now, there’s like 3 feet of global warming in the yard, and another foot or so due in the next 36 hours.

The intent is to build Lucky a doghouse controller with a Bluetooth connection. The controller will regulate a heating pad, sense Lucky’s presence in the doghouse, measure temperatures inside and outside the doghouse, automatically dispense food, and maybe control some lights or a fan (we have occasional summer weather). We’ll have the capacity to add other features. The Bluetooth connection gives us the ability to monitor Lucky’s use of his house and remotely change operational parameters. Eventually, we’ll take Lucky’s house off the grid, and convert the power source to wind and/or solar.

Stay tuned for further developments. We’re going to do this in installments, mostly from things we have lying around.

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I have, from time to time, ideas about inventions that need to be invented. As I have little to no technical ability, I don’t invent them and the world is a sadder, darker place for it.

This one came to me in the car the other day.  I was thinking about headphones.  The great advantage of headphones is of course, their ability to provide a solitary listening experience.  You can hear whatever it is without the distracting noises, and conversely others aren’t bothered by the crap you listen to. (continue reading…)

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