funkyfutures

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Introducing Virtual Wearables

Another update from Keiichi Matsuda and his Mixed Reality work for Leap Motion demonstrates a proof of concept virtual interface:

Introducing Virtual Wearables pic.twitter.com/LPvknKBlnO

— Keiichi Matsuda (@keiichiban) March 22, 2018

Source

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Tesla has unveiled a new Roadster, the new version of its original sports car at a launch event in Hawthorne, California, on Nov. 16 - It’s the fastest production car ever made, according to Elon Musk, with speeds of just 1.9 seconds for 0 to 60 4.2 seconds for 0 to 100. It can handle a quarter-mile in 8.9 seconds. “This is the base model,” Musk said, then went on to mention that its top speed is above 250 mph. and it has a 200 kWh battery pack that offers 630 miles of highway driving range. It’s also a 2 by 2 four-seater, and it’s available in 2020 starting at $200,000, with the first 1,000 sold being Founder’s Series models that will retail for $250,000 apiece. –

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Tesla released its new Semi truck at a launch event in Hawthorne, California, on Nov. 16 - The Semi can accelerate from zero to sixty in just five seconds, and haul 80,000 pounds. Unlike other trucks, the Tesla Semi places the driver in the center of the front vehicle. Instead of the usual levers, two touchscreens are placed beside the steering wheel. It will also be semi-autonomous, capable of keeping lane and braking on its own. - The truck will have a range of 500 miles when fully charged. Plugging into one of Tesla’s fast-chargers for 30 minutes will give the Semi a 400-mile range. The Semi will be built on a truck chassis with components from Tesla’s Model 3 line, the mass-market vehicle the company plans to make in huge volumes (about 500,000 per year after 2018). - The first deliveries of the semi are expected in 2019, the same year production begins. In May, Musk said the truck will exploit manufacturing efficiencies of the Model 3, making it “a very compelling product that has low unit cost.” –

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Boston Dynamics has shown off its new version of SpotMini, but now it’s also catching us up with its bipedal Atlas bot, the most humanoid of its creations. Atlas can now jump from elevated block to elevated block, and do a complete about-face in the air. It can leap pretty high, and also do a backflip – and then celebrate its backflipping ability. –

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Research from @nvidia has taken neural network image synthesis to much higher visual definition than has previously been achieved. Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) are artificial intelligence algorithms that use unsupervised learning. Typically, a GAN consists of two networks; a generator and a discriminator. The generator is trained to produce a sample image, and the discriminator is trained to asses whether the image is from the training set or a fake from the generator. In the image above, you can see the progress of the network being trained over the course of 19 days. You can also witness a loop of generated faces transitioning one to the next in the latent space. –

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Boston Dynamics ‘new’ SpotMini robot looks ready for a walk The all-electric quadruped is built for “offices, homes and outdoors.” Boston Dynamics isn’t a part of Google/Alphabet anymore, but that won’t stand in the way. Described only as the “new SpotMini” it looks sleeker and more production ready than any version we’ve seen before. There’s no creepy manipulator arm mounted on top and it’s covered in plastic, revealing only a set of 3D vision cameras on the exterior. –

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20 Windmill-Powered Music Boxes

Installation by @royrobotiks features a collection of wind-powered music boxes (which you can make yourself):

A cluster of windmills is installed above the heads of the pedestrians on a public square in Namur, Belgium. Once the wind blows, each propeller powers a little music box that plays “Für Elise”. Since all music boxes are driven asynchronously, the single notes and chords of Beethoven’s iconic music piece are constantly re-arranged. The result is a wind powered sound installation which scrambles the original and permanently produces new compositions based on one of the world’s most well known melodies.

You can find out more here

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So I’ve been reading about historic glass-techniques for my archaeology course and I’ve become obsessed with uranium-glass. It was popular in the United States up until the Cold War, when uranium stopped being commercially available because the US government was stocking huge amounts of it for use in nuclear weapons. It’s kind of funny to imagine people in 1880s-1940s eating dinner off of glowing dishes. 

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Space mining is closer than you think, and the prospects are great

by Andrew Dempster

In this week’s Q&A on the ABC, the American cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson gushed about the prospects of mining in space, and the benefits that might afford humanity.

How about mining an asteroid for natural resources? […] There are more natural resources on asteroids than have ever been mined in the history of the Earth. So in 100 years […] all wars over limited resources are over because we have access to the unlimited resources of our back yard and that new back yard is our solar system.

Is this really plausible? What can we mine in space? And will it really deliver world peace, or just another realm for competition and conflict? Perhaps a look at the immediate past and near future may help us answer some of these questions.

Keep reading

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Graphene-wrapped nanocrystals makes inroads toward next-gen fuel cells

Simulations and analysis provide new atomic-scale clues to material’s enhanced hydrogen storage properties

A powdery mix of metal nanocrystals wrapped in single-layer sheets of carbon atoms, developed at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), shows promise for safely storing hydrogen for use with fuel cells for passenger vehicles and other uses. And now, a new study provides insight into the atomic details of the crystals’ ultrathin coating and how it serves as selective shielding while enhancing their performance in hydrogen storage.

The study, led by Berkeley Lab researchers, drew upon a range of Lab expertise and capabilities to synthesize and coat the magnesium crystals, which measure only 3-4 nanometers (billionths of a meter) across; study their nanoscale chemical composition with X-rays; and develop computer simulations and supporting theories to better understand how the crystals and their carbon coating function together.

The science team’s findings could help researchers understand how similar coatings could also enhance the performance and stability of other materials that show promise for hydrogen storage applications. The research project is one of several efforts within a multi-lab R&D effort known as the Hydrogen Materials – Advanced Research Consortium (HyMARC) established as part of the Energy Materials Network by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fuel Cell Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Read more.

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Hydrogen power moves a step closer: Physicists are developing methods of creating renewable fuel from water using quantum technology

Renewable hydrogen can already be produced by photoelectrolysis where solar power is used to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen.

[…]

But, despite significant research effort over the past four decades, fundamental problems remain before this can be adopted commercially due to inefficiency and lack of cost-effectiveness.

Dr Manus Hayne from the Department of Physics said: “For research to progress, innovation in both materials development and device design is clearly needed.”

The Lancaster study, which formed part of the PhD research of Dr Sam Harrison, and is published in Scientific Reports, provides the basis for further experimental work into the solar production of hydrogen as a renewable fuel. It demonstrates that the novel use of nanostructures could increase the maximum photovoltage generated in a photoelectrochemical cell, increasing the productivity of splitting water molecules.

Read more.

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AI -- Engineering: merging, morphing, mobile robots

Researchers at the Université libre de Bruxelles have developed self-reconfiguring modular robots that can merge, split and even self-heal while retaining full sensorimotor control. The work may take us closer to producing robots that can autonomously change their size, shape and function. The study is published in the scientific review Nature Communications.

Keep reading

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Cassies Take a Tour of Agility Robotics

Meet Cassie, a sleek bi-pedal robot made by Agility Robotics

Two Cassies decide to take a walking tour of our office. No CG: 100% actual robots.

More Here

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Accumulation

Public installation by Minha Yang is a series of embedded square panel that displays geometric patterns:

Installed new artwork “Accumulation” at the main gate of Le Meridien Seoul

르메르디앙 호텔 서울의 메인 출구에 새로운 작품 “집+적”을 설치했습니다.

More Here

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Instagif

Abhishek Singh hacked together a digital camera with a removable Polaroid-inspired display:

I built a camera that snaps a GIF and ejects a little cartridge so you can hold a moving photo in your hand! I’m calling it the “Instagif NextStep”. Don’t ask me why I built it, it sounded like a fun challenge and I always wanted to hold a moving photo. If it wasn’t obvious, I was inspired by the Polaroid OneStep. What I love about these kinds of projects is that they involve a bunch of different skill sets and disciplines - hardware, software, 3D modeling, 3D printing, circuit design, mechanical/electrical engineering, design, fabrication etc that need to be integrated for it to work seamlessly. Ironically this is also what I hate about these kinds of projects :P I have detailed all the steps here and have released all the code, eagle files and design files so you can create your own. 

More Here

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Uber’s engineering blog has just posted an interesting piece on the company’s web-based tool for exploring and visualizing data from self-driving car research. –