Which led me back to the GRL Laser Tag installation in Rotterdam, which I’ve long admired (Though until now I hadn’t read the how-to. If anyone would like to help me procure a heap of pricey tech, this would be fun to do on the south wall of the sugar refinery.

Right now I am looking at learning vvvv, but here is a video about a book on Processing that makes a pretty compelling case for learning that environment.

As the researchers reported Oct. 15 in the online journal Biotechnology for Biofuels, they’ve begun to identify which of these genes encode for enzymes that could significantly improve the production of cellulosic ethanol, a fuel made from inedible plant material

At the University of Florida they are studying termite guts. Termite guts are awesome collections of bacteria and micro-organisms that live only in the stomachs of termites and are passed on from generation to generation.

There’s a good overview of things in this article about bioprospecting termites, which is very readable. Gripping science journalism:

He worked at a rapid clip, pulling the insects’ heads and anuses in opposite directions with a microscopically violent yank

The production of biofuels is one of the main ends of the sythetic biology research program. The place of termites in the larger process of making useful life is not without complications, but maybe one day we will see parts of the genetic code for verious termite symbiotes stocked as open wetware. ]]> http://eightprime.net/2009/11/16/formiculture/feed/ 0 http://eightprime.net/2009/11/16/humanoid-walking-robot/ http://eightprime.net/2009/11/16/humanoid-walking-robot/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:15:57 +0000 eightprime http://eightprime.net/?p=674

This humanoid walking robot has been built for testing  protective suits against chemical warfare attack.  The robot can walk, stumble and maintain its balance. Once outfitted with a head and arms Petman will move around dressed in an outfit to help people not get turned into useless mush when the environment turns toxic.

By the makers of the Big Dog robot, Boston Dynamics.

I think they are eerily beautiful. And a little ominous.

There is, of course, the terrible spectre of something going terribly wrong. We could all die. The world could end. Horror.
But there’s always the terrible spectre of something going terrible wrong. That’s nothing new.

No scientific achievement has promised so much, and none has come with greater risks or clearer possibilities for deliberate abuse. The benefits of new technologies—from genetically engineered food to the wonders of pharmaceuticals—often have been oversold. If the tools of synthetic biology succeed, though, they could turn specialized molecules into tiny, self-contained factories, creating cheap drugs, clean fuels, and new organisms to siphon carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

My favourite bit though is when the auuthor points out that

Little more than a hundred years have passed, however, since Gregor Mendel demonstrated that the defining characteristics of a pea plant—its shape, its size, and the color of the seeds, for example—are transmitted from one generation to the next in ways that can be
predicted, repeated, and codified.

Now they’re working on a living organism built from non-living componente. They will call this organism Synthia.

Found via an interview with the author on Gizmodo.

We claim that a clear approach to measuring situations is an essential ingredient in any empirical attack on the problem of ‘awareness’

Situation awareness is applied to the design of nuclear reactor control panels, air traffic control interfaces, remote weapons control units and similar critical systems. Substantial engineering is also put into those control units to ensure that the interface resonates effectively with the troops who will be controling the armed robots. This includes the repurposing of existing consumer technology – already proved successful under the relentless selection pressure of the market – for tactical ends. The Microsoft X-box controller has proved especially useful.

we believe that internal human processing constraints will rarely be a limiting factor on work

The military applications of this research are obvious. The Warfighter Interface Division of the Human Effectiveness Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Airforce Base USA spends all its time mitigating the ambiguities of war for the men and women involved.

We learn about ourselves through doing the most peculiar things.

The quantum version of the top is the “spin” of individual laser-cooled cesium atoms that Jessen’s team manipulate with magnetic fields and laser light, using tools and techniques developed over a decade of painstaking laboratory work.

“Think of an atom as a microscopic top that spins on its axis at a constant rate of speed,” Jessen said. He and his students repeatedly changed the direction of the axis of spin, in a series of cycles that each consisted of a “kick” and a “twist”.

Because spinning atoms are tiny magnets, the “kicks” were delivered by a pulsed magnetic field. The “twists” were more challenging, and were achieved by subjecting the atom to an optical-frequency electric field in a precisely tuned laser beam.

They imaged the quantum mechanical state of the atomic spin at the end of each kick-and-twist cycle with a tomographic technique that is conceptually similar to the methods used in medical ultrasound and CAT scans.

The NOVINT Falcon is a haptic interface device.

It allows you to feel the shape and heft and texture of virtual objects.

I’m particularly interested in the tactile component of haptic technology:

With tactile feedback, a user can feel forces applied directly to the skin, which are detected by a user through sensors within the skin called mechanoreceptors. Tactile feedback can also be applied to a user through electrical currents applied directly to the skin or objects that can vary in temperature touching the skin. For example, tactile feedback can be accomplished with pin arrays on a haptic device that a user places a hand or finger on. The pins within the pin array can slightly raise or lower as the haptic device moves, giving a sensation that the user’s finger or hand is moving across a virtual object with texture.

Their discussion of 3d touch is pretty good.

The Ministry of National Defense has spent a lot of time thinking about how to turn the Army into an operation capable of dealing with the future. Apparently they had no time to spare for art. The above cover for Future Force – has Buck Rogers helmets and a hovering tank. The blaster gun turret on the tank even has those little round raygun indicators. [pdf link]

Crisis In Zefra was written by Canadian science fiction writer Karl Schroeder, who I’ve mentioned before. It’s a pretty cool document – each chapter is followed by questions for study and discussion. Things like “What are the ethical considerations in deploying robots against humans?”
If the Canadian military tech and tactics improves at the same rate as the cover art we should be ruling the world any month now.

The crew is an a/v unit from the UK that specializes in generative visuals. They even have a generative video desktop tv station.

I haven’t tried the apps yet, but off the top it looks great.