Category Archives: Tech

Rube-y Goldberg Tuesday, Hanukkah Edition

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[A] Rube Goldberg machine that lights the Chanukah menorah. Hanukkah is the holiday of miracles and here is another one.

(Personally I think a consistent spelling of Chanukah/Hanukkah would also be a miracle.)

I’m a little disappointed in the camera work — many shots are too tight and quick, IMO — you don’t get a feel for the inter-connectedness of the device. And the use of a robotic arm at the end isn’t kosher (I’m more of an orthodox Goldbergist.); I thinks it’s more accurate to say that the R-G device starts the robotic arm, which then lights the menorah.

Hello, Polly

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Goodbye, fluorescent light bulbs: New lighting technology won’t flicker, shatter or burn out

The device is made of three layers of moldable white-emitting polymer blended with a small amount of nanomaterials that glow when stimulated to create bright and perfectly white light similar to the sunlight human eyes prefer. However, it can be made in any color and any shape – from 2×4-foot sheets to replace office lighting to a bulb with Edison sockets to fit household lamps and light fixtures. This new lighting solution is at least twice as efficient as compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs and on par with LEDs, but these bulbs won’t shatter and contaminate a home like CFLs or emit a bluish light like LED counterparts.

Still waiting for the other shoe to drop — new technology doesn’t always pan out, though this seems closer to production than most. No mention of how the price will compare to existing products; despite the generally lower total cost of ownership of CFL and LED bulbs, some are put off by the price of the bulb. Also, FIPEL? I think that will get reworked for public consumption.

I Spy, With My Mannequin's Eye

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Bionic Mannequins Spy on Shoppers to Boost Luxury Sales

“Any software that can help profile people while keeping their identities anonymous is fantastic,” said Uché Okonkwo, executive director of consultant Luxe Corp. It “could really enhance the shopping experience, the product assortment, and help brands better understand their customers.”

While some stores deploy similar technology to watch shoppers from overhead security cameras, the EyeSee provides better data because it stands at eye level and invites customer attention, Almax contends.

A few interesting peripheral observations about the concern that customers are being profiled and whether that constitutes an invasion of privacy. I think it’s similar to resistance to the photo-radar and red-light cameras I’ve seen here in the US: for some reason, when a person does it it’s acceptable but when a camera is involved, it becomes objectionable. People can observe you in stores, and it’s not like this information is private — anyone can estimate your age group, determine your gender (unless you’re Pat) and make a guess as to your racial makeup. (Though if you knew the greeter at the store was doing that and recording it, you’d probably find it to be creepy). So I wonder if there will be any formal objections, or if it will fall under the rubric of “irksome technology” mentioned at the end of the article.

Building a Better Soccer Ball

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Better in terms of durability.

Joy That Lasts, on the Poorest of Playgrounds

The children, he learned, used trash because the balls donated by relief agencies and sporting goods companies quickly ripped or deflated on the rocky dirt that doubled as soccer fields. Kicking a ball around provided such joy in otherwise stressful and trying conditions that the children would play with practically anything that approximated a ball.

“The only thing that sustained these kids is play,” said Mr. Jahnigen of Berkeley, Calif. “Yet the millions of balls that are donated go flat within 24 hours.”

The solution was a foam similar to what is used in Crocs.

[H]e happened to be having breakfast with Sting, a friend from his days in the music business. Mr. Jahnigen told him how soccer helped the children in Darfur cope with their troubles and his efforts to find an indestructible ball. Sting urged Mr. Jahnigen to drop everything and make the ball. Mr. Jahnigen said that developing the ball might cost as much as $300,000. Sting said he would pay for it.

An interesting logistical issue is also brought up: the balls are more difficult to ship than traditional balls, because they can’t be deflated (the reverse of a certain balloon issue I’ve run into)

If you are so inclined, you can go to the website and buy a ball for about $40, in which case one will also be donated, or you can donate one for $25.

This Just In: Kids Are Awesome

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Ethiopian kids hack OLPCs in 5 months with zero instruction

“We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He’d never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android.”

That is such a great story.

Glow in the Dark … Roads

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Netherlands highways will glow in the dark from mid-2013

The studio has developed a photo-luminising powder that will replace road markings — it charges up in sunlight, giving it up to ten hours of glow-in-the-dark time come nightfall. “It’s like the glow in the dark paint you and I had when we were children,” designer Roosegaarde explained, “but we teamed up with a paint manufacture and pushed the development. Now, it’s almost radioactive”.

Special paint will also be used to paint markers like snowflakes across the road’s surface — when temperatures fall to a certain point, these images will become visible, indicating that the surface will likely be slippery.

For the CDO Among You

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Most people call it OCD, but not putting it in alphabetical order is pretty sadistic to those who have it.

Skittles sorting machine:

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Over, Under, Sideways, Down

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[T]he Pet-Proto, a predecessor to DARPA’s Atlas robot, is confronted with obstacles similar to those robots might face in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). To maneuver over and around the obstacles, the robot exercises capabilities including autonomous decision-making, dismounted mobility and dexterity. The DARPA Robotics Challenge will test these and other capabilities in a series of tasks that will simulate conditions in a dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environment.

We'll Do That!

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Portal Gun and Magnetic Levitation

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Rhett doesn’t quite get to the point where he explains what’s going on in the video, since the levitation mechanism for the system is only hinted at, but they talk of the coil, so it’s almost certainly a servo-mechanism adjusting the coil current, as Rhett guesses.

Watching this, I was thinking that it would be nest to take one of those globes and cover it with a pattern to make it look like a Beryllium Sphere from Galaxy Quest. Never give up! Never surrender!