ICYMI: DIY Iron Man

Today on In Case You Missed it: British inventor Richard Browning show us his (slow, careful) flights across a test area using his "Daedelus" jet pack prototype. Daedelus consists of six kerosene-powered microjets strapped to his limbs, which doe...

Curiosity rover can shoot lasers at any rock it wants

Is there anything cooler than sending a robot to Mars to shoot rocks with lasers? Probably not -- which is why NASA is giving the Curiosity rover the ability to shoot even more rocks with lasers. Okay, technically NASA is giving the Martian rover the...

NASA JPL takes a VR tour of Mars with Oculus Rift and Virtuix Omni (video)

DNP NASA JPL uses Oculus Rift and Virtuix Omni for an immersive space experience

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory likes to dip its feet in cutting edge consumer hardware from time to time, as evidenced by its trial use of the Leap Motion to remotely control a Mars rover. Well, you can't get much more cutting edge than virtual reality, which is why the team was so intrigued by the Oculus Rift when they first saw it at PAX last year. They signed up for a dev kit as soon as they could, cobbled the Rift together with a stereoscopic 360-degree panorama of Mars obtained from Curiosity, strapped on the VR goggles and found themselves magically transported to the Red planet.

According to our interview with Human Interfaces Engineer Victor Luo, they then added terrain imagery captured from satellites so users could actually "walk" on Mars' rocky surface using an Xbox controller -- "with up to 25 centimeters per pixel." "However, we thought it'd be great if we could literally 'walk' on the terrain," said Luo. With that in mind, they contacted the people behind the Virtuix Omni treadmill. It so happens they were in the area for E3, so they brought the contraption up to JPL headquarters, hooked it up, and sure enough, they were able to "wander around" the surface of Mars with their own two feet. Join us after the break for more on our interview with Luo, plus a video clip of the aforementioned virtual Mars tour.

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NASA’s Curiosity rover finds ancient streambed on Mars, evidence of ‘vigorous’ water flow

NASA's Curiosity rover finds ancient streambed on Mars, evidence of 'vigorous' water flow

Curiosity may have spent a while limbering up for the mission ahead, but now it's found evidence of an ancient streambed on Mars that once had "vigorous" water flow. Photos of two rock outcroppings taken by the rover's mast camera between the north rim of Gale Crater and the foot of Mount Sharp reveal gravel embedded into a layer of conglomerate rock. The shape of the small stones indicate to NASA JPL scientists that they were previously moved, and their size (think from grains of sand to golf balls) are a telltale sign that water did the work instead of wind. Evidence of H2O on Mars has been spotted before, but this is the first direct look at the composition of riverbeds NASA has observed from above.

According to Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich, it's estimated that water flowed at the site anywhere from thousands to millions of years ago, moved at a clip of roughly 3 feet per second and was somewhere between ankle and hip deep. "A long-flowing stream can be a habitable environment," Mars Science Laboratory Project Scientist John Grotzinger said. "It is not our top choice as an environment for preservation of organics, though. We're still going to Mount Sharp, but this is insurance that we have already found our first potentially habitable environment."

Continue reading NASA's Curiosity rover finds ancient streambed on Mars, evidence of 'vigorous' water flow

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NASA's Curiosity rover finds ancient streambed on Mars, evidence of 'vigorous' water flow originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 02:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Deezmaker 3D Printer Store opens in Pasadena, will sell you a slice of the future for $600

Deezmaker 3D Printer Store opens in Pasadena, will sell you a slice of the future for $600

If the MakerBot store in Manhattan is the East coast's vanguard for 3D printer stores, Deezmaker's just-opened store in Pasadena, California is the equivalent pioneer for the West coast crew. As of now, you can walk through the doors at 290 North Hill Avenue and at least see the store's own Bukobot printer in action, even if high demand through Kickstarter pre-orders precludes walk-in sales for the next few weeks. When you can make that impulse purchase, however, you'll find the Bukobot at a relatively cheap $600 and may see some alternatives during your visit. Store owner and Bukobot creator Diego Porqueras stresses to Ars Technica that he wants Deezmaker lasting for the long haul, and he may have chosen just the right area to make that happen -- the shop is a stone's throw from the experimenters (and simply curious) at Caltech, NASA's JPL and Pasadena City College. No matter how it all shakes out, we're hoping that the two near-simultaneous store openings are the start of a larger trend that takes 3D printing into the mainstream.

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Deezmaker 3D Printer Store opens in Pasadena, will sell you a slice of the future for $600 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 05:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Ars Technica  |  sourceDeezmaker  | Email this | Comments