Category: Technology

Solar Orbs on Japanese House Roof

Alien technology or sci-fi movie?

No, the orbs you see on top of this japanese house are used to reflect sun rays into the inventor’s house, replacing light bulbs.
Since there are no electronics involved there, the setup only works during sunny days. Which is good for houses or apartments that receives lots of sun on the roof, but for some reason the sun can’t get to the rooms.

Source: TechEBlog




Radio Active

Your radio too boring? You wish you could have more interaction with it?
Watch this very interesting design by industrial design student Erez Bar Am:

Not very practical, but an interesting idea nonetheless!

Source: Gizmodo




Point Clouds with Depth of Field

Ever watched the clip for Radiohead’s House of Cards? No? Here:

The effect achieved in this clip, namely point clouds with depth of field, is the object of study and subsequent DIY instructions by Kyle McDonald.
Continue lendo 'Point Clouds with Depth of Field'»




Remote Controlled Airplane Dodging Fireworks

YouTube user cybrown posted these very interesting videos of his radio controlled airplane dodging some fireworks:

Continue lendo 'Remote Controlled Airplane Dodging Fireworks'»

SawStop

I remember watching a SawStop ad quite sometime ago, where they used a sausage to demonstrate the product.
It’s basically a circular tablesaw that prevents accident by going from full force to a complete stop in case someone puts his finger/hand/body part there.

The saw detects a finger by using an electric current. So if something conductive enough goes through the blade, it goes to a full stop.
Breaks have to be really harsh to completely stop a circular saw spinning that fast… and it is. A piece of metal (which ends completely destroyed) gets shoved in the blade. Costs 60 bucks to replace it, but as the video says, better than a finger.
In this video, the creator goes one step ahead and puts his oen finger to the task. Something I believe he’d never do if he didn’t trust his own invention… :P

Source: TechEBlog

USB Hourglass

A real hourglass that turns by itself with a little help of digital circuitry and a USB port!

Created by A. Peter Allan, you can check more details of the project on the official USB Hourglass page!

Source: Gizmodo

OmniTread Serpentine Robot

The OmniTread Serpentine Robot was designed by a team supervised by Prof. Dr. Johann Borenstein at the University of Michigan:

Objective is to reach difficult and tight locations. Could be used in disaster scenarios like earthquakes.
You can check more on the project at OmniTread Serpentine Robot’s University or Michigan webpage!

Source: TechEBlog

PR2 Robot – Dynamic Movement Primitives

Willow Garage’s PR2 Robot was already programmed to find it’s own outlet.

Now it’s learning how to generalize simple tasks, like taking a bottle and pouring it’s content in a cup.
This is a relevant step in robotics because the robot learns the task (and not only a set of instructions or movements), meaning that even if the bottle and cup are in different places, PR2 will still be able to perform the task.
Neat!

Source: Gizmodo

Vaporware – Moller’s Sky Car

Remember this one? It came with a promisse of being the first fully functional commercial flying car.

Moller – the company behind the Sky Car – released several photos, projects and the above video test presenting advantages over other flying car sollutions with a schedule for full product release seeking investors.
This was back some six years ago.
I read about it in at least a couple of big magazines here in Brazil, with full articles and stuff.
Current status is: No new material was released so far, several schedule delays, a lawsuit and lots of people who payed for it in presale never got any return for their money.
Nowadays we possibly have better ideas and technology to create a real fully functioning flying car… so I can’t say what the future for the Moller’s Sky Car will be.

Source: Gizmodo

RFIDdler – A Riffle that Kills RFIDs

RFID tags are being used just about everywhere nowadays.
Most people don’t really care about it, mainly because most people also don’t understand how it works.
But there were several concerns regarding security raised with the technology… so for all the paranoid people out here, watch this video:

CodeNinja is the guy behind this technology that kills RFID tags… and also USB Sticks among other devices, since it basically emmits a strong EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse).
It could be used to disable RFID tags, but also erase and destroy data from several stuff.

Source: Gizmodo

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