Startups need to be more rigorous about compliance during the recruitment process to ensure they don’t hire misfits, according to a panel of experts at the Silicon Valley Comes To Tech City event.

In a session chaired by LinkedIn’s former managing director and angel investor Kevin Eyres, founder of Buysight Shaukat Shamim, Threadless CEO Thomas Ryan, Nancy Lublin, CEO of Do Something and Greylock’s Data Scientist in Residence … Read More → "Startups need to work hard to avoid recruiting misfits"

The first step is acceptance. Finding a great gift for your gal is really hard. There is probably not one woman alive who hasn’t experienced the panicked or shifty-eyed stares of a gift giver who came up with an “under pressure” gift of fuzzy socks or a crock-pot for the holidays. via Dvice

Read More → "You know you need help: 12 groovy gifts for your geeky girl"

Los Angeles musical group Fol Chen has created a strange new instrument that lets listeners re-create the band’s unique sound.

The device, called a Tetrafol, is a wooden tetrahedron that can manipulate sound. Its guts sense orientation and motion and use those movements to modify the playback of sounds. Each device comes loaded with mini-compositions created by Fol Chen, but users of the Tetrafol can also upload their own sounds to … Read More → "The Tetrafol is a crazy, motion-sensitive musical pyramid from Fol Chen"

[Last week,] four Wave Gliders—self propelled robots, each about the size of a dolphin—left San Francisco for a 60,000 kilometer journey. Built by Liquid Robotics, the robots will travel together to Hawaii, then split into pairs, one pair heading to Japan, the other to Australia. Waves will power their propulsion systems and the sun will power the sensors that will be measuring things like water salinity, temperature, clarity, and oxygen content; … Read More → "Liquid Robotics’ Wave Gliders begin historic swim across Pacific"

Researchers at MIT have devised methods of utilising ocean currents to the advantage of ocean vessels in improving their manuverability and energy saving. Pressure around the AUVs exerted by the ocean water affects their performance by impeding their speed or changing their direction. Not only the ocean vessels but their rudders and propellers are also affected by ocean currents. via Read More → "MIT researchers design MEMS-based pressure sensors to enable AUV navigation"

Starting with the handheld controllers introduced by the Nintendo Wii console in 2006, gamers have been able to control computers by making gestures in the air rather than with joysticks, game pads, or keyboards. Microsoft brought the technology to the next level in 2010 with the release of the Kinect, allowing Xbox consoles to be operated without any controllers at all: arm and body motions suffice. Now gestural interfaces are beginning to spread to … Read More → "Gestural interfaces go mainstream"

Image: Plessy Semiconductors

A new type of sensor can continuously monitor your heart rate without actually touching you.

The chip, known as the Electric Potential Integrated Circuit (EPIC) biosensor, is essentially a super-sensitive digital voltmeter which can measure tiny changes in electrical fields around all muscles and nerves.

The final product will be integrated into hospital beds, from where it will unobtrusively monitor a patient’s vital … Read More → "Biosensor can monitor your heartbeat from a distance"

The device suggests the advent of a new generation of implants, which could be used to control bionic limbs or as robotic medical monitoring tools. via Robotics Trends

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And on a related note, Irish Folk meets Physics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpMY84T8WY0

Fascinating story.

Since the late 1980s, Mark Landis has been donating forged paintings he’s painted to a number of museums around the country. No one really knew why…until John Gapper from The Financial Times tracked him down. via kottke

Read the story at Financial Times