Technology
Technology: Flying Drones, You Can Own Your Own (Video)
February 7, 2013
Above: Bitcraze is buzzing will be selling mini-drone copter kits this spring, but you can pre-order now.
Wait…WHAT? Didn’t we just post on military drones that might be over our cities. Now, we’re talking about drones in our cities… launched from private homes? Yep. Believe it.
Marcus Eliasson, Arnaud Taffanel, and Tobias Antonsson are the engineers behind the Swedish startup Bitcraze; and they now accepting pre-orders for a palm-sized quadcopter called the Crazyflie Nano. At less than four inches across and 19 grams, the device is small enough to fly under tables and chairs, and through enclosed spaces.
The trio used only open source material for the project’s hardware and code. So, they did not have to waste time and money they did not have to test and perfect their market version. No fighting over intellectual property rights either.
They have already gotten suggestions for modifications to the $149 device, and hacked the copter to carry a video camera, LEDs, and even an inductive charger. There will already be a more advanced, $173 Crazyflie Nano, with a magnetometer and altimeter offered.
BLITZ – 2/6/13: Awww Skeet Skeet
February 6, 2013
Prodigy – “Bang On Em”
18 People Charged By The Feds In A $200 Million Dollar Global Credit Card Scam
Former NBA Star Allen Iverson Loses His Atlanta Mansion To Foreclosure
Church Daycare Closed After 5-Year-Olds Caught Having Oral Sex
Jeremy Lin Helps Set NBA Record In Houston Rockets Win Over The Golden State Warriors
I Went To The Playboy Mansion (And It Was Kinda Depressing)
Female Prison Guard Pregnant With Inmate’s Baby & Had Multiple Affairs With Other Prisoners
Coco Brown Could Be The First Ever Porn Star In Space
Man Caught Having Sex With A Horse; Says He Was Trying To Get It Pregnant
Palm-Sized Nano-Copter Being Used In Afghanistan As A Spy Drone
Nigerian Prostitutes Offer One-Week Of Free Sex If Nigeria Wins The African Cup In Soccer
Atlanta Reporter Gets Sucker Punched In The Face Live On Camera
For 100 Years Pitbulls Were Considered The Perfect ‘Nanny Dogs’ Before Negative Stories
10 Questions Should Ask Themselves At The Beginning Of Their Careers (If They Want Success)
Room For Debate: Have Black Intellectuals Sold Their Souls?
Futuristic Freakum Dress: ‘Intimacy 2.0’ Dress Turns Transparent When Women Get Aroused
Jacksonville Jaguars Unveil New Team Logos
Jesse Jackson, Jr’s Wife Subject Of A Federal Investigation
Mixing Alcohol & Diet Soda Can Make You More Intoxicated Faster
Armor On The Field: How The NFL’s Use Of Kevlar Helmets Can Possibly Eliminate Concussions
Ray Lewis Does His Dance For The Last Time In The Ravens Stadium With Lombardi Trophy
New Orleans Saints Plan To Hire Rob Ryan As Their New Defensive Coordinator
Research Says Straight Men Who Watch Porn Tend To Be Supportive Of Same-Sex Marriages
Puerto Rico’s Battered Economy: The Greece Of The Caribbean?
Technology: A 1.8 Gigapixel ‘Eye in the Sky’ – No Hiding From ARGUS-IS (Video)
February 5, 2013
Whoa. As a high-tech society, we have already crossed many barriers; some, perhaps, maybe we should not have.
‘The U.S. Air Force, right now, has the ability to archive every single video that comes off of every single UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle]. We’re moving to an increasingly electronic society where our movements are going to be tracked.’
– Mary “Missy” Cummings, MIT Humans and Automation Lab
One million terabytes of video a day, with high enough resolution to track an object six inches from the sidewalk… in your city… from 15,000 feet above… saved forever. Take a second to be amazed. Then spend the rest of your day SHOOK!
This might already be deployed in Afghanistan… it MIGHT already be deployed closer to home! That information is classified.
Watch yourself, people. Big Brother probably is. Just saying.
‘This is the next generation of surveillance… It is important for the public to know that some of these capabilities exist.’
– Yiannis Antoniades, BAE Systems, Creator of ARGUS-IS
H∆SHTAG$: Episode 1 – “Don’t Call It #AltRnB” (Video)
February 4, 2013
H∆SHTAG$ is a new mini-documentary series from the Red Bull Music Academy, covering emerging music trends of interest across the web – like #CloudRap, #SeaPunk, #PostDubStep, and #AdvancedPop.
Above is “Don’t Call It #AltRnB” (the first episode of H∆SHTAG$), which explores… #AltRnB (or #HipsterRnB or #InternetRnB or whatever-you-get-from-watching-this-RnB). The video takes a look at the current renaissance of contemporary R&B – featuring Jeremy ‘Zodiac’ Rose (former half of The Weeknd), Miguel, Rochelle Jordan, and more. Very interesting discussion.
Posted in Producers, R&B, Technology, Videos | 
Tags: Alt R&B, Alt RnB, AltR&B, AltRnB, Don't Call It #AltRnB, Episode 1, HASHTAG$, HASHTAGS, H∆SHTAG$, H∆SHTAGS | 
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Technology: Prototype Wheelchairs That Climb Stairs and More (Video)
January 28, 2013
This is a game-changer for people who use wheelchairs to get around. Japan’s Chiba Institute of Technology has developed a robotic wheelchair that negotiates obstacles by turning its wheels into legs and climbing over them.
Holes and gaps in the road, bumps, sidewalk curbs, and steps currently bar access to free travel for those in a traditional wheelchair. Turning around in small spaces is also a huge challenge. But Chiba’s chair will change that. More robot than mobility chair, the robo-chair can actually climb stairs and move safely over uneven surfaces and onto or down off curbs. In addition, it can retract and realign its wheels to make tight 360 degree turns, all with the twist of a joystick.
So, this model proves the robo-chair to be more than a concept; rather a prototype. Next up: A project to develop wheelchairs that help people reach and read items too far overhead for folks using mobility chairs of today.
Collaborators from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, National Taipei University of Technology, Yuan Ze University, National Tsing Hua University and National Cheng Kung University developed the i-Transport model wheel chair that can lift its passenger to a standing position. Other features of the wheelchair include:
- A built-in microchip for monitoring heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and body temperature.
- A touch screen with radio frequency identification technology that allows users to control home appliances and other electrical devices from their wheelchair.
- Navigation software and obstacle detectors which allows users to enter the coordinates for frequently visited locations and change the routes upon request.
– Heather Fairchild, AtlantaCareerPath.com
Good tech. DAMN good tech!
– @ojones1
Posted in Technology, Videos | Tags: chair, Chiba Institute of Technology, Chiba Tech, Dig Info TV, Diginfo, DigInfo TV, DigInfoTV, disability, disabled, elderly, injury, mobility, mobility chair, prototype, recuperation, rehab, rehabilitation, robo-chair, Robotic wheelchair from Chiba Tech turns wheels into legs and climbs over steps, Smart Wheelchairs that Level the Field, wheelchair | No Comments »
Technology: Indoor Clouds and More – 2012’s Best Inventions (Video)
January 25, 2013
AMAZING! The Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde has developed a way to create a small, perfect white cloud in the middle of a room. By carefully manipulating the temperature, humidity and lighting in a room, Smilde conjures a cloud out of… well… thin air… using a fog machine!
Technology: Jan Takes Sweet ‘Megabytes’ of Chocolate Thanks to BCI (Video)
January 23, 2013
‘One small nibble for woman. One giant bite for BCI.’
Thanks to BCI (brain-computer interface) technology, Jan Scheuermann grasps a chocolate bar, raises it to her mouth to her mouth, takes a bite, and speaks those words in the video clip above. This is a triumph for Jan, a woman who was diagnosed with spinocerebellar degeneration but has now demonstrated ability to feed herself once again through the help of a mind-controlled robot arm. This was all made possible by the work of researchers like Andrew Schwartz.
‘It was also a triumph for Andrew Schwartz, a neurophysiologist at the University of Pittsburgh, who’s spent three decades mapping the connections between the brain and the body… Schwartz was part of a Johns Hopkins University research team that found the brain was actually expressing an intentional behavior, like turning a doorknob, that he could read in the neuron’s electrical signals… With that understanding, Schwartz’s team developed a prosthesis that could mimic complex motions. They implanted electrical sensors into Scheuermann’s brain—192 needles 1/15 of an inch long. These transmit information to software they developed to translate her thoughts into the motion of an arm that moves in three dimensions, with a wrist that turns and bends and fingers that clasp. By the second day, she could give Schwartz a high-five. In 13 weeks, Scheuermann had a degree of control that the scientist had expected would take a year to master.’
– Businessweek
Amazing! While this BCI tech is not yet ready for the market, you’ve got to admit that it’s pretty damn cool.
– @ojones1
Technology: Slithering Snakes You’d Be Happy To See (Video)
January 22, 2013
Howie Choset, professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, has some snakes he’s named Uncle Sam, Betsy Ross, Pepperoni, and Monster Max. His snakes never cease to amaze him; as they climb poles, cross ponds, and burrow into tight places.
And he doesn’t even like snakes like that.
Choset’s snakes are better described (in Businessweek) as ‘snake bots.’ The reptilian bots consist of constructed joints with tiny motors, allowing them to move like real snakes – borrowing, side-winding, and the like. Why has he spent years doing this? Well, his snake bots, though still a way from commercial launch, have probed the human heart; and others in design ‘could be used in search and rescue after earthquakes and that slither along pipes at power plants to detect cracks and leaks that could cause accidents.’
Please. Oh please… could we… maybe get these ‘snakes’ on a plane? Yeah, you might groan; but not such a bad idea is it?
– @ojones1
Posted in Technology, Videos | Tags: Howie Choset, Innovation Nation, robo-snake, robot snake, Robot-Snake Charmer, Snake Bots | No Comments »
Technology: Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs Sees a Bright Future for Smartphones (Video)
January 21, 2013
Qualcomm was the chip company smart enough to put Internet protocols into cell phones right around the time the ‘Net was becoming accessible to the general public (early 1990s). The guy at the helm of a company that demonstrates such foresight is someone to whom we should listen, right?
Well, whether or not you do, I am listening to what Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs has to say:
‘There are a lot of opportunities… Obviously, the smartphone trend is going to continue… There will be 5 billion smartphones sold between now and 2016.’
– Paul Jacobs
5 billion!! Did y’all get that? Now, what would smart folks in media (radio, TV, performing artists, promoters, bloggers, etc.) be looking to do in light of such a tip from such an authority as Jacobs? I dunno.
(Yeah, I do. Look left. You can download the JayForce mobile app… to interact with this site via phone… to listen to Beatz & Lyrics with JayForce via phone… you… do get it, right?)
So, just how far can this mobile trend take us? Possibilities for business are obvious; but what about for humanity. Check it:
‘Let me tell you something that’s pretty cool. There’s a researcher we’re working with who has an idea to put a tiny chip inside your bloodstream … and it’ll maybe lodge in your wrist and look for certain indicators that in two weeks you might have a heart attack. Can you imagine that? So your phone will ring and tell you to go to your doctor. That’s in the lab right now. People are working on that now.’
– Paul Jacobs
– @ojones1
Posted in Business, Technology, Television, Videos | Tags: Charlie Rose, Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm, smart phone, Smartphone | No Comments »
Young Guru Speaks On Piracy vs. Invention in Hip-Hop (Video)
January 17, 2013
Young Guru has mixed most of Jay-Z’s albums over the years. He has been Jay-Z’s tour D.J. for years. Safe to say he knows a thing or two about Hip-Hop. Well, the NY Hip-Hop aficionado goes in-depth on the thin line between piracy and invention in the genre.
“When we study hip-hop we are actually studying the history of piracy. If we go back and study all piracy, we see that most things that were created in the world are a remix of something else.â€
– Young Guru
Now, don’t let that quote make you defensive Hip-Hop heads. Watch as Young Guru takes us on a journey of modern human history referencing the history of Hip-Hop to show how our ‘remixing’ things in industry over time is good for all overall… we just have to address some tough questions of who owns what, who should should get paid, what we consider ‘piracy’ (versus ‘new creation’) and more. Very interesting.
It has been said that ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’ Play the video clip above, and watch more after the jump, to get Young Guru’s application of that in the study of Hip-Hop.
Posted in EVENTS, Hip-Hop, History, Producers, Technology, Videos | Tags: Invention, Piracy, Pop-Tech, Young Guru | No Comments »
Man Finds iPhone Thief Using New School App Then Gives Him An Old School Beatdown (Video)
January 11, 2013
WOWWWW! Okay, DON’T take things that do not belong to you. Dude should have known better. He does now, after catching a fresh ass whuppin behind that. Now, imagine if that fight was over an iPhone5. Damn. Guess it was that serious to him. Finding a smartphone thief and beating him down in a video… There’s an app for that? Yeah. It’s called Find My iPhone. Watch the news video above. Extended video of the incident below.
Read the rest of this entry »
Technology: DJ Rocks Party With His Face & Body (Video)
January 9, 2013
Tokyo’s Daito Manabe takes the role of programmer, designer, DJ, VJ, and composer on each of his projects. Whereas most electronic musicians control sound with their hands, Manabe controls it with his facial muscles and feet. With shoes made for more than just walking, Manabe retro-fitted some Nike sneaks with sensors that trigger and manipulate sound. Even the fastest DJs may want to take note’ as this guy can rock sets with his whole body! What’s crazy is Manabe’s projects have also involved stimulating facial expressions with sound. Maybe he will become the DJ who literally rocks the body (face) that rocks the party, too. Wow.
Check out Manabe above and with Perfume choreographer MIKIKO’s below for Nosaj Thing’s “Eclipse/Blue†below. Below that, see some stills from Manabe’s various projects.
Posted in Technology, Videos | Tags: Cyborg Music, Daito Manabe, Watch a DJ Play Facial Expressions via Electrical Impulses | No Comments »
Technology: Robocops Expected To Patrol Los Angeles By 2025 (Video)
December 31, 2012
No kidding. At the last Los Angeles Auto Show, robot drone cars designed to patrol the streets were on display. Nah… they won’t be replacing human cops (not initially… you never know though, right?). And nah… no half-man, half-machine clunky cops in design either… yet. Peep the video though.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Technology, Videos | Tags: 2025, Auto Show, drones, LA, Los Angeles, Patrol, Robocops | No Comments »
Technology: Scientists Are Able To Move Metal Discs Using Nothing But Light (Video)
December 31, 2012
Japanese scientists at Aoyama Gakuin University are working to make traveling via hoverboard a less-distant ‘Back to the Future’ future reality. In a breakthrough, the researchers have developed a way to move magnetically levitated graphite discs with nothing but laser light. Watch the clip above, and be amazed, McFly!
READ THE ENTIRE ANITA LI WRITE-UP AT MASHABLE HERE.
Posted in Technology, Videos | Tags: hoverboard, light, magnets, Metal Discs, move, Scientists, Watch Scientists Move Discs With Nothing But Light | No Comments »
‘Mayan Doomsday 2012’…NASA Knew It Wouldn’t Happen (Video)
December 27, 2012
C’mon… you’ve been watching “The Walking Dead” on AMC… you peeped the movie trailers for “World War Z” and “After Earth”… You cannot tell me that along with those visions of sugarplums dancing in your head… you hadn’t thought about what might happen on 12/21/2012 (the day the world was supposed to end).
Okay, you don’t have to admit it. After all, you have the luxury of being here today saying “I knew it all along.” NASA’s and other scientists took a stand on this craziness before the so-called Doomsday date arrived.
‘…there was never evidence that the Maya culture predicted the end of the world on 12/21/12 . In fact, there are Mayan texts that refer to time periods beyond 2012.’
– Anthological archeologist Sonja Schwake
NASA made a video about it. Wanna see it? Click above.
– @ojones1
Posted in Cover Story, History, Human Interest, News, Technology, Videos | Tags: 12/21/12, 12/21/2012, 2012, December 21, Doomsday, End of the World, Mayan, Mayan Calendar, Mayans, NASA | 1 Comment »
Technology: The Most Overlooked & Underappreciated Inventions In History
December 20, 2012
You know… it’s the simple things in life that are the best. The best thing since sliced bread… better button up… better to light a candle than… well… you get it. Well, get this: Huffington Post compiled a list of 19 underrated inventions we rarely think about but probably could not do without:
Buttons, candles, glasses, pencils, tin cans, safety pins, toilet paper, paper clips, clothes hangers, jeans, straws, stop signs, zippers, sliced bread, deodorant, tilt-and-roll luggage, rubber bands, tissues, and socks.
BONUS: See my number 20, to round out the list, after the jump.
Technology: Scientists Create An ‘Invisibility Cloak’ Developed Using Quantum Stealth Material
December 17, 2012
Scientists are exploring a so-called scientific invisibility cloak. News has spread fast about a Canadian company, HyperStealth Biotechnology, that claims to have developed Quantum Stealth camouflage material, which renders its wearers invisible by bending light waves around them. Talk about some Star Trek tech! Of course, you know the defense industry will be all over this first. A way to cloak troops and machinery – no brainer. And the invention doesn’t require a power source.
READ: QUANTUM STEALTH MATERIAL DESIGNED TO MAKE TARGET INVISIBLE
Read the rest of this entry »
Technology: StickNFind – The Bluetooth Device That Will End ‘Lost & Found’ (Video)
December 6, 2012
Amazing! Check out the video above. Bluetooth-powered StickNFind locator stickers have been developed to be small (about the size of a quarter), handy (can be affixed to anything you’d lose – from the TV remote to your luggage), and ready just in time for Christmas… 2013. Hahaaaaa!
But seriously, this is good tech. Via smartphone interface, you can track up to 20 objects at once. Check that… you can track your pet, too (with a StickNFind placed on its collar). And its real tech, not theoretical:
– Braden Goyette, New York Daily News
READ THE ENTIRE NY DAILY NEWS WRITE-UP ON STICKNFIND HERE.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Technology, Videos | Tags: Bluetooth, location stickers, locator, quarter-sized, StickNFind | No Comments »
Technology: The Hackers Of Damascus – Cyber Wars Of Syria
November 29, 2012
Okay, sometimes I may wax ‘conspiracy theorist’ on here from time to time, but this time I leave it to Stephan Faris of Businessweek. In an in-depth expose, Faris details the way tech is being used – for good and bad – in the Syrian conflict. THIS IS LIFE AND DEATH PEOPLE!
That’s right. PRO-GOVERNMENT HACKERS. Now, this could be taken as legitimate counter-terrorism via Internet; noble e-soldiers fighting the good fight for their country. BUT consider the testimony of Taymour Karim, a 31-year-old doctor and anti-government protester:
The same tech that Egyptians used to organize and encourage during their uprising and successful ouster of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak has now been “figured out” by oppressive government regimes; and the consequences are deadly. In the West, hackers attack government and business systems; and they are indicted and tried in court…NOT BEATEN! There is such a thing as too far folks, and the Syrian government is taking it there. I know that, in an earlier write-up, I posted that ‘safe and secure’ is a delusion in the modern computing world; but damn. I did not report that compromised passwords result in folks being injured or possibly dying. Well, I am now. It even got kind of dangerous for Faris, as he gathered facts via online interview of the Special Operations Department of The Syrian Electronic Army. They tried to hack his email account shortly after initial contact. The subversion was thwarted though, and the SEA denies the incident. Here is what they did say, however:
READ THE FULL STEPHAN FARIS ARTICLE IN BUSINESSWEEK.
– @ojones1
Technology: Your Passwords Can No Longer Protect You!
November 19, 2012
You know how online banking, career, gaming, and other accounts now press you to create ‘unique’ user names and ‘strong’ passwords? Okay, see the guy above? He’s Mat Honan. He protected all his online accounts using the strongest such measures; and he declares that that so-called ‘protection’… was an illusion. In his words:
Since suffering at the hands of hackers (who, it turns out, just wanted to hijack his plumb of a Twitter handle @Mat), Mat devoted himself ‘to researching the world of online security…[and what he found] is utterly terrifying.’ In a very thorough write-up, Mat explores the problems… challenges… futility of trying to fully secure accounts and systems using passwords: Hackers using code and algorithms to successfully guess passwords to savvy evil-doers using new school cons to trick authorized personnel into giving up the goods. Walking readers through it all, Mat comes to a chilling conclusion. We are dangerously exposed, and relying on current data security methods, relatively defenseless against those who want to access and do major damage to us using our data. Mat succinctly sums the security situation coldly:
The age of the password is over. We just haven’t realized it yet.
So, what is the way forward? Well, we have to move away from relying on passwords that can be cracked or single elements of personal data that can be stolen – like key cards, or even fingerprints. The problem of fending off increasingly more sophisticated hack attacks is complex. Accordingly, the new countermeasures have to be complex… without making it so difficult to access and use data to conduct business and live. Mat suggests biometrics (er… it’s like ‘fingerprinting’ on steroids) as something to try:
YOU CAN READ MAT HONAN’S ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE.
See some tips regarding what you can do to strengthen your online defense NOW are posted after the jump.
Posted in Technology | Tags: biometrics, Hackers, Kill the Password, Mat Honan, Passwords, Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore | 1 Comment »
