JK Brickworks has created the EV3 Cookie Icing Machine, a clever machine that ices cookies with festive designs built using LEGO Mindstorms EV3 building set. The instructions and relevant software for the machine can be downloaded through the JK Brickworks site.
via Laughing Squid
… Read More → "A clever machine that ices cookies with festive designs built using LEGO mindstorms"
Disney has released video of a new, bizarre tool that allows people to visually modulate actors’ emotions, seemingly in real time. By taking two shots, with actors performing two different ways in each shot, Disney has shown it can then sew them together into one moment, with someone behind the controls shifting the emotions on command.
The result is the company’s “FaceDirector” software, which is more … Read More → "Disney’s crazy ‘FaceDirector’ software can change actors’ emotions in a scene"
The three largest airlines in the country—American, Delta, and United—put hoverboards on the no-fly list this week. The decision came after multiple reports of the gadgets bursting into flames without warning. Obviously, spontaneous combustion and planes do not mix.
In addition to the Big Three, both JetBlue and British Airways have banned people from bringing hoverboards on planes. The cited reasons include elevated risk that … Read More → "Multiple airlines ban hoverboards because they keep catching on fire"
Law enforcement agencies the world over are worried about the power of drones, and how nefarious types could use them for evil. Tokyo has decided that there’s only one thing to be done about the problem, which is to form an anti-drone squad that’ll apprehend rogue fliers in the air. Rather than using a dragnet on the ground, the anti-drone drone will use an actual net* to scoop up suspects and carry them away to safety. … Read More → "Tokyo’s solution to rogue drones? Drones with nets"
On December 11, 1972, Apollo 17 touched down on the Moon. This was not only our final Moon landing, but the last time we left low Earth orbit. With the successful launch of the Orion capsule, NASA is finally poised to go further again. So it’s important to remember how we got to the Moon — and why we stopped going.
Crewed by Commander Eugene A. Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald E. Evans and Lunar Module Pilot … Read More → "The real story of Apollo 17…and why we never went back to the moon"
A new computer model can now mimic the human ability to learn new concepts from a single example instead of the hundreds or thousands of examples it takes other machine learning techniques, researchers say.
The new model learned how to write invented symbols from the animated show Futurama as well as dozens of alphabets from across the world. It also showed it could invent symbols of its own in the style of a … Read More → "Computer learns to write its ABCs"
The world’s first “test tube” puppies have been born after years of attempts, say scientists in the US.
The in-vitro fertilisation success paves the way for conserving endangered breeds and could help in the fight against human and animal diseases, say researchers at Cornell University.
The seven beagle and cross-bred beagle-spaniel puppies were born to a surrogate … Read More → "World’s first IVF puppies born to surrogate mother dog"
Seattle, Washington, has a reputation for the kind of weather that would depress a duck. The photo above was taken on December 7, 2015, and though it depicts a bar in Pioneer Square, it could’ve just as well been describing Seattleites’ feelings about the weather that day. That’s because thanks to the recent onslaught of flooding rains, Monday, December 7, 2015, will go down as the darkest day in Seattle in … Read More → "Seattle just had its darkest day in nine years"
A French scientist named Pascal Cotte used a new method of light based layer analysis called the Layer Amplification Method to examine what lies beneath the paint:
The method involves a multispectral camera projecting intense lights on to the painting while measuring the reflections, helping look for what happened between the paint layers.
Cotte believes one of the hidden portraits is the actual painting of Lisa del Giocondo, the woman thought to be portrayed in … Read More → "Scientist reveals there are three hidden portraits underneath the Mona Lisa"
The journey started at Mount Hopeless, and only got more dire from there. After artist Damien Rudd came across the name of that South Australian landform, his curiosity was piqued. He wondered if there were any other places with depressing identifiers, and his hunt turned up a wellspring of inconsolable physical features.
The resulting project is an Instagram account called < … Read More → "See the world in a new (depressing) way with ‘Sad Topographies’"
