Last year, a team of researchers from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering unveiled RoboJelly – a robotic jellyfish in development since 2009, that’s about the size of a man’s hand. While the squishy little robot is certainly an impressive feat of engineering, the same team has now created a bigger, better jellybot, known as Cyro.
via Gizmag

… Read More → "Virginia Tech develops a better robotic jellyfish (video)"

An study conducted at the Ars Electronica Museum in Austria, though, suggests a surprising way to make humanoid robots seem more friendly — by giving them a backstory. Specifically, a backstory in which they are aliens.

The museum ran an expirment in which it introduced a small Telenoid robot to visitors in one of three ways — without any backstory, with its real backstory — Telenoid is designed to make telepresence communication easier and smoother — or with the following … Read More → "Giving a robot an origin story makes you more likely to trust it"

The steampunk-ish effort, chronicled on Petkus’ blog Robotic Arts, combines some artfully arranged scrap metals with an integrated optical theremin that lets the wearer manipulate an incredibly unpleasant tone just by waving their hands and adjusting the amount of light fed into the sensors.
via Engadget

… Read More → "DIY theremin goggles marry the art of noise with steampunk style (video)"

The best way to deal with smog is to make less of it, but it’s too late to just do that. And when it comes to cleaning up your already polluted air, mesh structures like this one in Mexico City are a stylish way to filter a whole city’s worth of air.

This porous wall currently being constructed around a Mexico City hospital, designed by the Berlin firm Elegant Embellishments, tackles … Read More → "Giant mesh wall acts like an air filter for Mexico City"

This is a time lapse video of iron-infused silly putty swallowing a rare earth magnet over the span of an hour and a half.
via Geekologie

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A team of masters students from the Queen Mary, University of London is hoping to develop the world’s first photovoltaic multi-copter. Dubbed “Solarcopter,” the team’s creation is a solar powered remote controlled helicopter-prototype designed for multipurpose applications.
via Gizmag

… Read More → "Student-build “Solarcopter” powered solely by the Sun’s rays"

In 2013, a day in the life of a Los Angeles family of four is an amazing testament to technological progress and the idealistic society that can be achieved…or at least that’s what the Los Angeles Times Magazine was hoping for 25 years ago. Back in April 1988, the magazine ran a special cover story called “L.A. 2013″ and presented what a typical … Read More → "Futuristic predictions from 1988 LA Times Magazine come true…mostly"

French artist Jeremy Laffon makes elaborate sculptures out of a most unlikely material: chewing gum. Laffon arranges white and green sticks of chewing gum into sprawling architectural structures, geometric shapes, and even flooring. For some of his installations, he heats the gum so that his sculptures are slowly destroyed.
via Laughing Squid

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Actors may soon say good-bye to those humbling Lycra body suits commonly used in the visual effects industry, thanks to a group of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (MPII). They’ve formed a start-up called The Captury that is set to deliver its proprietary markerless motion capture software later this year. Their software can even capture a costume’s surface detail in three dimensions, like the draping folds in a ballroom … Read More → "New animation tech could make motion capture suits obsolete"

Cryptolog, the internal technical journal produced by and for NSA employees, will finally be seen outside of the agency’s walls, as the NSA declassified back issues from 1974 to 1997 today. Cryptolog: The Journal of Technical Health, as it’s officially known, covered everything from operations procedures to profiles on longtime employees of the NSA. Unfortunately for those wishing to learn all of … Read More → "Internal NSA magazine ‘Cryptolog’ gets limited declassification"