Today on In Case You Missed It: The latest servant robot to join the Pepper and Buddy crew is Big-I, a Kickstarter bot that uses 3D vision, motion tracking and facial recognition to help out the humans in their household. We say it looks like a rol...
Today on In Case You Missed It: Researchers at HRL Labs have developed a system to upload information to your brain using electrical signals already mapped from an expert's mind. Duke University is testing a wireless brain-machine interface that al...
A team of scientists at Duke University have developed a wheelchair that is controlled exclusively by the thoughts of its user -- in this case, one of two lab monkeys -- and have published their findings in the journal Scientific Reports. The prototy...
America's fleet of Predator UAVs could soon become even harder to shoot down (or even detect for that matter) thanks to a new kind of camouflage developed at UC San Diego. UCSD professor Boubacar Kante and his team published their findings last mon...
Most attempts at cloaking, no matter the slice of spectrum, usually leave clues as to what's there -- even microwave cloaks can spoil the surprise through reflections. At Duke University, researchers have licked some of those past problems with the first instance of a flawless microwave cloaking scheme. By crafting a special diamond-shaped cloak where the light properties stay consistent at the corners, the school's Nathan Landy and David Smith have successfully shielded a 3-inch wide cylinder from microwave detection without a hint that something was amiss. The gotcha, as hinted by the shape, is a two-dimensional nature that gives away the secret at less than ideal angles. Duke suggests that it still has the groundwork for something that could be vital for communications or radar -- we can imagine a stealth aircraft or ship in the far-flung future that could actively mask itself from radar signals. It's not quite the optical illusion we're looking for, but a refined version of the Duke project might be enough for a rare practical use of cloaking when fantasies are much more common.
Duke University creates 'perfect' one-directional microwave cloak, might lead to stealthier vehicles originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Nov 2012 19:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink
BBC | 
Nature Materials | Email this | Comments Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.
Are you reading this? Seriously, are you? Sure, we know you think you are, but what if you're just a sub-feature of a complex computer program. A sprite, nothing more than the creation of software. The problem with this question is, how would you ever know? You wouldn't, right? Well, not so fast there. Turns out, maybe there is a way to unravel the matrix (if there is one). It'll come as no surprise, that this is one of the topics in this week's collection of alternative stories. Think that's all we got? Not even close. We'll explore the truth behind cloning dinosaurs, as well a rare performance by singing mice -- all before dinner. Or is it really dinner? This is alt-week.
Continue reading Alt-week 10.13.12: is the Universe a simulation, cloning dinosaurs and singing mice
Alt-week 10.13.12: is the Universe a simulation, cloning dinosaurs and singing mice originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Oct 2012 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments