Robot Eco Dogs

This news story sort of has to do with Little Brother, the book I just read, since the author talked about this story in the Bibliography in the back.

"For the Feral Dogs Project Jeremijenko has worked with numerous student groups to create packs of roving robo-dogs, which are “released” en masse into a community space to sniff out harmful VOCs, ozone, and other environmental toxins. The ‘packs’ of feral robotic dogs are designed to “patrol” sites of public interest like schools, parks, and industrial sites, in order to generate community and media attention on the issue on contaminants in the environment."

How cool is that? These students are hacking into toy robot dogs and turning them into toxic waste detectors!
I would LOVE to make one of these at home, but I'm definitely not tech savvy enough to do it.

Here's a link to the Feral Robotic Dogs website:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/feralrobots/

Speaking of robots, I saw the movie Wall*e tonight, and fell in love with it. If you don't love it for the adorableness of robot romance then you'll at least be awed by the cool computer animation.

Control Video Games With Your Mind

So for another world cultures project I had to research some global issues, one of them technology and the future. I found this article and I thought it was pretty cool, even though I don't really play video games. But the whole being able to control a computer just with your mind--how cool is that?

Anyway, here's the article from USA Today:


Control Video Games With Your Mind

By Barbara Ortutay, Associated Press
NEW YORK — Hands cramping up from too many video games?
How about controlling games with your thoughts instead? Later this year, Emotiv Systems plans to start selling the $299 EPOC neuroheadset to let you do just that.

The headset's sensors are designed to detect conscious thoughts and expressions as well as "non-conscious emotions" by reading electrical signals around the brain, says the company, which demonstrated the wireless gadget at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The company, which unveiled a prototype last year, says the headset can detect emotions such as anger, excitement and tension, as well as facial expressions and cognitive actions like pushing and pulling objects.

The headset will be sold with a game developed by Emotiv, but it can also be made to work with existing PC games, the company said. Users will also be able to access an online portal to play more games, chat or upload their own content such as music or photos.


Emotiv plans to work with IBM Corp. to explore applications beyond video gaming. The "brain computer interface" technology could transform not only gaming, but how humans and computers interact, said Paul Ledak, vice president of IBM's Digital Convergence business.

Finally!

I finally got a digital camera! It was a late Christmas present from my family and I absolutely love it. It's a red Casio Exilim, and I must say it's pretty fancy. It has 8.1 mega pixels and a youtube capture mode that films video in a youtube file size.


Here's some pictures of the camera. These pictures will also hopefully be the last I take with my crappy camera cell phone.






<---Ooooh Shiny!!



I also want to thank all the commenters on this blog. All of your comments and the thought that someone is actually reading this blog make me warm and fuzzy inside. :D