You can only learn so much about cells by studying 2D pictures, and 3D microscope technology can produce an abundance of data that might be hard to decipher. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Virginia Mason have an answer, though: let sci...
NASA doesn't just want to return to the moon by 2024, it also wants to establish a "sustained human presence" and to use the moon as a hub for future Mars exploration. In order to do that, it will need new ideas and technologies, like those solicited...
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Designed as a collaborative project between Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center and DARPA researchers, the Reconfigurable Wheel Track, dubbed the RWT, helps vehicles move on any sort of terrain… and it does so in spectacular fashion, by shapeshifting to turn from a rotary wheel to a track system.
On much harder terrain, the RWT works like a regular wheel, rotating to help move the vehicle from point A to B, but the minute it reaches terrain that’s softer, like mud, silt, snow, or sand, the RWT shapeshifts (within as quick as 2 seconds) to a triangular format, and the rubber grip around the tire runs like a conveyor track you’d see on tanks. The wheel ultimately allows vehicles to move around effectively, regardless of the terrain type or the weather, and will see itself being used on vehicles for defense purposes.
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The internet was supposed to become an overwhelming democratizing force against illiberal administrations. It didn't. It was supposed to open repressed citizens eyes, expose them to new democratic ideals and help them rise up against their authoritar...
A technique developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University has just turned 3D printed silky hair into a reality.
Furbrication, as this technique is called, can be used for making touchably soft fibers and bristles in a manner that resembles pulling a hot glue gun away from the object it has touched. Gierad Laput, Xiang ‘Anthony’ Chen, and Professor Chris Harrison, the three researchers who came up with the idea, realized that typical 3D printing methods (which typically imply extruding melted plastic and placing it layer upon layer) won’t be good enough for 3D printing hair and bristles, and proceeded to inventing a new technique.
First displayed publicly at the Engadget Live event in Brooklyn, New York, the 3D printed hair doesn’t require any special machines for producing it. As Gierad Laput, one of the PhD students involved in the development of this technique, “You just squirt a little bit of material and pull away. It’s a very simple idea, really.”
As emphasized before, the technique can be used for making both soft strands of hair, and stiffer bristles. This is achieved by modifying the root positions. Randomized root positions lead to silky fibers, while uniform root positions generate toothbrush-like bristles.
Back in August 2014, Disney Research announced that they had found a way of 3D printing human hair accurately. Whereas Disney Research’s approach lead to accurate impressions of a person’s hairstyle, furbrication is able to produce individual strands of hair.
“We introduce a technique for furbricating 3D printed hair, fibers and bristles, by exploiting the stringing phenomena inherent in fused deposition modeling 3D printers,” added the three researchers. “We show several examples of output, demonstrating the feasibility of our approach on a low cost printer. Overall, this technique extends the capabilities of 3D printing in a new and interesting way, without requiring any new hardware.”
Horse tails for new toys can be 3D printed equally easy using this technique. I’m definitely not thinking of My Little Pony adopting this 3D printing method.
Beards of wizards and shaolin monks can be adjusted to the desired length once 3D printing is done.
Assuming that this process is cheaper, furbrication could allow people to 3D print their toothbrushes, with the precise bristle hardness and density that they need.
All in all, given that these results were achieved with $300 FDM 3D printers and common PLA 3D printing filaments, the entire technique is rather impressive.
The researchers are now looking into 3D printing individual strands of ABS or even materials with magnetic properties.
Now that it’s finally possible to 3D print toupées, will we get to see more trolls looking like Donald Trump? I’m not saying that his counter-candidates should pick up this idea, but I don’t think that people would mind if they did. Jokes aside, the paper titled “3D Printed Hair: Fused Deposition Modeling of Soft Strands, Fibers and Bristles” explaining how this technique works is available in PDF format here.
What if there were a simpler way of interacting with our smartphones and tablets than reaching for the connected smartwatch? Silicone stickers that rely on touch input to control mobile devices could be a solution to the problem.
It’s usually Sci-Fi movie characters that sport a keyboard on their arm, and somehow that keyboard is easier to use than any other input method. Not to mention that it’s always at hand, if you know what I mean. Not to get into HUD land, having a method to control other devices remotely attached to your arm is nothing short of fantastic, especially when there are no implants involved, and the controller can be removed at any time. To expand the idea, it’s far more convenient to use a touch surface in such a scenario, than having buttons that need extra pressure and effort.
iSkin stickers came into existence as the result of an ambitious collaboration between Martin Weigel and Jurgen Steimle, from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Saarland University, Saarbrucken, Germany, Carmel Majidi and Tong Lu from the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, U.S., Gilles Bailly from CNRS LTCI, Telecom-ParisTech, Paris, France, and Antti Oulasvirta from the Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.
Being made from silicone, the product itself is flexible and stretchable (even though I’m pretty sure it has its limits in these aspects), and can be attached to about any area of the body with the help of some medical-grade adhesive. iSkin includes both resistive and capacitative sensors, and as you have probably imagined, can be tailored to suit specific areas and needs.
Some of the possible uses of these silicone skin stickers include answering and placing phone calls, texting and controlling music playback. Depending on their size and the area of the body they attach to, they could definitely serve more functions. The prototypes are hard-wired to a computer, but future versions of the skin stickers will be able to send and receive data wirelessly, and this is in fact the ultimate goal of the scientists who have developed iSkin.
The paper detailing the scientific basis of the iSkin silicone stickers is available in PDF format here. To get a better idea of how the stickers look and work in real life, check out the following video:
Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study following more than 5,000 Facebook users over six years, from 2005 and 2011, and found that changes in the social network's privacy policies caused users to share more -- not less -- personal data. Lest you think this means that users suddenly trusted the site more, Carnegie Mellon says that Facebookers became more and more protective of their personal details as the social network grew in membership -- and that the uptick in shared information is a result of increasingly granular privacy settings. If you recall, Facebook introduced new in-depth privacy controls in 2010, and the study found that the release of these new settings corresponded to users sharing more personal data, both within their network of friends and with strangers and third-party applications.
It's been quite some time since the new privacy policy was introduced, but the university says the sample group didn't reduce the amount of info shared with non-friends on the network, even as of 2011. The takeaway? Well, it's safe to say that more privacy controls doesn't equal more vigilance in protecting personal data, and it's certainly not a stretch to call Facebook's settings confusing. The researchers' comparison of the struggle for privacy to the eternal plight of Sisyphus? That might be a touch more dramatic.
You can only learn so much about cells by studying 2D pictures, and 3D microscope technology can produce an abundance of data that might be hard to decipher. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Virginia Mason have an answer, though: let sci...
NASA doesn't just want to return to the moon by 2024, it also wants to establish a "sustained human presence" and to use the moon as a hub for future Mars exploration. In order to do that, it will need new ideas and technologies, like those solicited...
Whether it's a meditation app or looking at puppy videos, much of today's technology focuses on replacing your negative feelings with positive ones. But what if you want to act on all your feelings of anger, sadness and anxiety -- in a healthy way? G...
Buffering and pixelation are the scourge of streaming video. It ruins the experience for viewers, robs advertisers of revenue as said viewers tune out, and causes technical headaches for streaming services which have to engineer solutions. But a new...
At its WWDC 2017 keynote on Monday, Apple showed off the fruits of its AI research labors. We saw a Siri assistant that's smart enough to interpret your intentions, an updated Metal 2 graphics suite designed for machine learning and a Photos app that...
The internet was supposed to become an overwhelming democratizing force against illiberal administrations. It didn't. It was supposed to open repressed citizens eyes, expose them to new democratic ideals and help them rise up against their authoritar...
