French puppet theatre company Royal De Luxe demonstrates their piano catapult. Long and short videos below.

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If there’s one concept that has suffered more damage than just about anything else as a result of the web and the ongoing explosion of digital media, it’s copyright: the idea that a content creator should have virtually unlimited control over his or her creation, regardless of what form it takes. As blogger Andy Baio notes in a recent post, the principle behind copyright has been taking a beating from “remix culture,” driven in large part by YouTube and other video sites. Is the rise of the YouTube … Read More → "Copyright and remix culture: The new Prohibition?"

Wake Island Air Force base is located some 2,000 miles east of Japan and 2,000 miles west of Hawaii, putting it smack dab in the middle of the Pacific. During some recent renovations on the base, someone opened a door marked with a restricted area sign and made a startling discovery: A cache of over 9,000 carefully organized and cataloged vinyl records. Amazingly, the extensive collection has been valued at between $90,000 and $250,000.

The records … Read More → "Enormous cache of lost classic vinyl records found on Air Force base"

Google has revealed a new chip-themed homepage doodle that celebrates the birthday of Robert Noyce, co-founder of Intel and widely known as one of the brains behind the microchip. Noyce – who would have turned 84 today – passed away in 1990 at the age of 62. Nicknamed “the Mayor of Silicon Valley” the physics doctor created Intel with Gordon E. Moore … Read More → "Google celebrates chip-father Robert Noyce with new doodle"

Engineers have made a tiny engine a few micrometers wide, or roughly the size of a water droplet found in fog.

The device is both confined and powered by a “trap” of laser light, and it sputters a bit. The fact that it works at all, however, may push the boundary of what’s possible in engineering microscopic machines.

“The machine is so small that its motion is hindered by microscopic … Read More → "World’s smallest steam engine is the size of a fog droplet"

Cambridge University is putting the papers of Sir Isaac Newton online for the first time, including his own annotated copy of his greatest work, Principia Mathematica, with notes and calculations in his handwriting revising the book and answering critics.

So far, more than 4,000 pages, about 20% of the university’s Newton archive, have been put into digital form as part of a programme that … Read More → "Sir Isaac Newton’s own annotated Principia Mathematica goes online"

Tomorrow, CERN will be webcasting a talk on the latest results in its search for the Higgs boson, a particle that is theorized to provide other particles with mass. The director of CERN has gone on record as saying there won’t be any announcement that we’ve definitively discovered the Higgs, nor will there be any statement indicating that we’ve completely ruled out its existence. Still, expectations are high that we’ll find some signal indicating the Higgs is probably at a specific mass—rumors have it near either 120 or 140GeV.

Even as … Read More → "Understanding how physicists hunt for the Higgs"

In another sign of how technology can foster more communication, a new survey in Britain found that one in five parents use tech gadgets to talk to their own children while inside the same home. Supermarket chain Asda recently conducted a nationwide survey and found that parents were increasingly using technology as a form of in-home intercom with their kids, calling them to dinner or telling them to do their chores. via gigaOM

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Remember NAO, the robot that stole the show at the recent Robotville event? Well, NAO’s already impressive set of abilities have just been extended with Aldebaran Robotics releasing a new version of its cute little humanoid robot. Around two thousand NAOs are used for research and education purposes all around the world but now that the NAO Next Gen is ready, the founder and chairman of Aldebaran Robotics, Bruno Maisonnier, hopes to see it become useful … Read More → "Aldebaran Robotics’ NAO Next Gen is smarter but still cute"

SpaceX will become the first commercial spaceflight company to dock a vehicle with the International Space Station, with NASA giving the green light for the Dragon capsule to begin its mission on February 7 2012. The journey will see the Dragon cargo transporter blast off to the ISS, where a robotic arm will grab the capsule and guide it in to dock,  … Read More → "SpaceX ISS docking mission gets Feb 2012 go-ahead"