Control another human via your brain

While this isn't has hardcore as River Tam's psychic abilities ("I can kill you with my brain"), researchers have done an experiment where a colleague controls another colleague's hand movement to press a key.

Vods:



It's no where near the Nerve Gear but we're getting there ... to the point where the Matrix prison could be a concern ... and taking control of people, or killing them via the brain interface could easily happen. Like in Surrogates or Ghost in the Shell.
Cyberpunk ftw.

Ubuntu Edge ... Final Hours

While I posted about Ubuntu Edge before, It's at the final hours (17) of the campaign and with only 12.25mil and just under 20mil to go, it doesn't look very likely this crowd-funding campaign will reach its goal.

At the discounted price of $695/phone, that is now 46k units instead of 40k units, which is a decent manufacturing run, although I'm not sure on the exact numbers in the economical analysis of these things.

Spec-wise, and functionality-wise it trumps anything in that price-range, Xperia Z or HTC One. Unfortunately, probably due to inadequate advertisement/social media-ring and just not enough people ready to upgrade/commit (a lot of the early adopters may have already bought something this year like the previously mentioned phones), the campaign won't be breaking crowd-funding records like Star Citizen's record breaking crowd-funding dollars.

Still, 12mil is pretty respectable, it was 11mil yesterday and comes close to the 14.6 mil that Star Citizen had when I posted about Ubuntu Edge before (see previous blog post link). Right now Star Citizen has a whopping 15.7mil and growing everyday. Hangar module comes out 24th August at GamesCon, so can't wait to see the news and test it.
I hope they release something like an OpenGL version soon because apparently it'll be DirectX11 and my GT330m doesn't have that support T_T. Also, recent look at ATI's open source driver support leans me towards getting an ATI graphics next time. These nvidia binary blobs sometimes screw up and took me an hour to get my 319 driver working with Linux 3.8 and jockey -_-.



P.S. So for Systems Engineering Analysis (ENGN2226) I get to look at nanosats woot.

Tesla's Model S does it again: tops safety rating in the US

Way too many posts on Elon Musk but this guy's doing stuff! =P

http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-model-s-achieves-best-safety-rating-any-car-ever-tested
A pro and badass post including the Model S breaking test equipment and Apollo reference. =P

Also, if you wanted that side crash in detail:


Something funny:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/08/a-tesla-model-s-crashed-into-an-electric-pole-and-caused-a-blackout/

Also, if you haven't seen these old EV safety training videos for first responders:

Hyperloop - Finally! (by Elon Musk & co)

http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop

Actual white paper linked to in those two identical blogs.

It's basically like the Alcubierre Warp Drive in a low pressure air tube.. haha. Sub-sonic, solar panels on top, sky-mono-rail so tube lifted by pylons to reduce ground impact and earth movement problems. Propulsion is by electromagnetic linear induction motor acceleration powered through the tube. (Think sub-orbital railgun).

Kid's can't use computers

http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/

Interesting article about how kids or the younger generation these days aren't really computer literate. They're just proficient users of browsers and web-apps.

Without reference to Wikipedia, can you tell me what the difference is between The Internet, The World Wide Web, a web-browser and a search engine?

Had to wikipedia what WWW was.

Can't wait for COMP3300 and COMP3310 xP. Also need to be proficient in at least one language =/

Arduino + starter kit $12 or less, shipped worldwide

Yes, even though you could get arduinos for less than USD7 on taobao, you need a taobao payment method, conversion rates and whatnot, and pay shipping.

Here, it's on a familiar website (indiegogo), ships worldwide, purposed for education, and is definitely an inspiring and sharable campaign/project =) So grab one or more and share to the world the fun of electronics =D

Obligatory iframe:

ArduSat is In SPACE!!! (and AIAA Sydney Section tour of Canberra)

omg it's SPACE!!!
So Greg Chamitoff came to speak at the ANU a couple of weeks back (with U Syd and AIAA) and he said everyday, his commander would wake him up with "Guess what? WE'RE IN SPACE!!! =D"

Anyways, ArduSat was launched into space in the early morning (AEST, which is similar to Japan time) between the AIAA tour days when some students from Sydney came over to visit Canberra's Aeronautical and Aerospace stuff =P

I was so tired helping out and staying up and waking before 9 that I skipped the live launch, but here it is in all its glory (launch at 47:30). Rocket is JAXA's H-IIB, ArduSat is piggybacking on the HTV-4 resupply mission to the ISS, and will be deployed off Kibō [yes, I was a bit annoyed with the pronunciation of Kibō xP]



ArduSat was my first Kickstarter project I backed with $1 =P (Poor student who really wanted to afford time for operation of ArduSat). It's also apparently partly built in Australia. And has a goal for education and science, you could buy time on the kickstarter and I assume before EOL they'll have time for other people to do some science/education with it! Test and learn your arduino programs on the spacecraft here! =)


Here's a video about AITC, one of the places (CDSCC, AITC, ATSB and ADFA/UNSW@Canberra)  where the AIAA tour went in Canberra; by a Melbourne Hackerspace/Maker Jonathan Oxer (who not so coincidentally worked on ArduSat):


UPDATE 16/7/2014:  I posted some photos of the AITC when we visited here. I posted a lot more (100+) photos on facebook back around when this post came out which you can view if you're my "friend". =P

NASA uses the Rift and Omni

So NASA uses the Oculus Rift and Omni. Specifically JPL, who do everything (friends, see my recent Facebook album on the AIAA Sydney Section's Sydney student tour of Canberra and its CDSCC, AITC, ATSB and ADFA/UNSW@Canberra.

Video here:
Iframe here:

Can't wait to just strap one of these with translation sensors on and start up Star Citizen. =)