A few months ago the Emperor Penguin now known as “Happy Feet” came ashore in New Zealand. He wasn’t faring too well on his own though, so rescue workers stepped in and nursed him back to health before releasing him so he could head back to Antarctica.

For his journey home, Happy Feet is outfitted with a GPS tracking device. Sirtrack, the maker of the GPS, points out that it has been designed not to impede the penguin’s swimming ability and weighs less than 1% of the bird’s weight. Twice a … Read More → "Follow a newly released penguin on Google Maps as he swims home to Antarctica"

Retro gamers are getting excited about the upcoming Atari Arcade Duo Powered Joystick. It’s designed to work with the Atari’s Greatest Hits iPad app, which features 100 classic Atari and arcade games.

via cnet. Read more here.

Photo: Read More → "Retro Atari joystick for your iPad"

“It seems that Cleverbot, the chatbot so ready to admit that it was a unicorn during a discussion with itself, has passed the Turing test. This past Sunday, the 1334 votes from a Turing test held at the Techniche festival in Guwahati, India were released. They revealed that Cleverbot was voted to be human 59.3% of the time. Real humans did only slightly better and were assumed to be humans 63.3% of the time. That being the case, Cleverbot’s success in conning people … Read More → "Cleverbot passes the Turing Test"

Interesting article over at Wired about the patent backlog:

“The life of an American patent examiner is a harried one. More than a million applications are currently pending, and over a thousand more are added to the pile each day. The result is that it now takes an average of two to three years for an inventor to secure a patent. Inundated examiners can spend only about 17 hours judging the merits of each application, scarcely enough time to comprehend every facet of a new solid-state diode, synthetic resin, or surgical prosthesis. Yet unsympathetic critics vilify examiners … Read More → "Fix the patent backlog"

Check out this HP Limited Edition Calculator ($80) via uncrate.

HP is releasing the 12c Financial Calculator in a limited edition in celebration of the 30th anniversary of its launch date.

“The industry favorite for 30 years, it’s been a steady performer for real-estate, banking and finance professionals. Packaged in a keepsake gift box, it makes a great gift for a professional, student, or collector.”

Read More → "Remember when calculators were cool?"

Same here. And having to commute to an office every day? Is that really necessary?

“Remember back in the old days, when nano-scale motors were a clunky 500 nanometers across? That record was subsequently broken with a 200-nanometer model, but has now been broken again, by a motor that’s just one nanometer wide. By comparison, the width of a human hair is about 60,000 nanometers. The new motor, created by scientists at Tufts University in Massachusetts, is reportedly the first one ever to consist of a single molecule.” via Gizmag

Read More → "‘World’s smallest electric motor’ consists of a single molecule"

It’s easy to look back at the history of exploration and aviation and feel like there’s no mountains left to climb, that the age of the great pioneers is behind us and we’re doomed to a future of LCD tanning and monitor hypnosis. But don’t try telling that to Pascal Chretien. On August 12, this electrical/aerospace engineer and helicopter pilot took to the air in the world’s first untethered, … Read More → "Modern-day aviation pioneer achieves world’s first untethered, manned electric helicopter flight"

“The book is over 700 pages of full color images. It measures 18.6 inches tall, 12.8 inches wide, and 3.6 inches thick. It weighs in at an impressive 16 pounds including a cardboard carrying case with its own handle! Ordered directly from Taschen, the book is $200 (US) but you can find it for less online. Did I mention it had its own carrying case with a handle? To call this book a tome is an understatement; this is certainly not a bedside table book, unless you were to actually make the bedside table out of it.” … Read More → "Taschen Books’ gloriously illustrated 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking"

I agree with this completely. We run our company on this principle. I also touched on this idea in my recent article “Dibs!” about IP creation and protection.

Kevin