US to Pay You (Up to $130,000) To Weaponize Everyday Tech

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If you’ve got an idea for turning a household appliance into a weapon, it’s normally best to keep it to yourself. But now the US military might pay you a six-figure sum for the idea.

Regular readers will no doubt have guessed the bounty comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is effectively the military version of Q from James Bond.

The logic behind the “Improv” program is that terrorists and hostile militaries have an obvious incentive to come up with tactics for weaponizing devices, but to inspire the same level of ingenuity from patriotic Americans, only cold hard cash will do.

The idea is that participants may come up with ideas that military staff hadn’t thought of, allowing the military to then come up with creative new ways to counter potential threats.

What contestants actually make is relatively unrestricted. The main rules are that it has to use commercially available technology; that the result be able to “threaten current military operations, equipment, or personnel”; and that contestants don’t break any laws in building a device. Contestants can use pretty much any commercial technology, but DARPA says ideas using tech from non-military settings are of particular interest.

There’ll be a five stage process in assessing the entries. The first two involve participants submitting an abstract, and officials then picking some entrants to submit a more detailed proposal. Those will be whittled down with officials paying up to $40,000 for participants to carry out a feasibility study. From there they’ll thin out the field and then pay up to $70,000 for building a prototype. Finally any prototypes selected for military testing will earn up to a further $20,000.

The process is deliberately being kept to a tight timescale, with 30 days to produce the feasibility study and 75 days to produce the prototype. The idea is that this will force people to work on modifying existing technology rather than building weapons from scratch.

For those interested, you have until March 21 to register your interest.



Henry Cavill is the Real Life Clark Kent [Video]

Henry Cavill strolled through Time Square yesterday, surrounded by massive Batman v Superman billboard, and this is what happened:

 

Yep, he’s just like Clark Kent in real life! No one recognizes him!

This reminds my of a comic we featured in the past by Seemikedraw:

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[Henry Cavill on Instagram]



Turbo Killer: One of the Coolest and Most EPIC Music Video of All Time [Video]

You guys absolutely have to check out the retro sci-fi music video for “Turbo Killer” by Carpenter Brut. You’ll be glad you did. It’s more of a short film featuring a really cool song, but this is beside the point. Just watch the whole thing. It’s one of the 10 coolest music video I have ever seen.

[SETH ICKERMAN STUDIO | Via GT]

Followup: The Star Trek Transporter is a Suicide Box [Video]

If you follow this blog, you’ve surely seen CGP Grey’s awesome video about teleportation. The video is super interesting, but there’s one thing the Youtuber forgot to cover: the fact that there’s no cloning in Quantum Mechanics.

It is impossible to create an identical copy of a quantum state without destroying the original – in fact, you HAVE to destroy the original arrangement in order to extract all the necessary information from it to construct the new, teleported, state. In fact, the relevant theorem in quantum mechanics is called the “no cloning” theorem. Now, we don’t yet know exactly how brains work to create consciousness, but if the quantum states of some electrons somewhere in the brain are critical to perfectly determining — and thus copying — “you”, then a teleporter would necessarily have to obey the rules of quantum teleportation when sending the information about the arrangement of particles that are “you” to the new location, and whatever was left behind would definitively *not* be you.

So yeah, this means that transporter as we see them in Star trek are essentially suicide boxes.

[MinutePhysics | Via Gizmodo]

X-Men: Apocalypse – First Full-Length Trailer [Video]

Following the critically acclaimed global smash hit X-Men: Days of Future Past, director Bryan Singer returns with X-MEN: APOCALYPSE. Since the dawn of civilization, he was worshipped as a god. Apocalypse, the first and most powerful mutant from Marvel’s X-Men universe, amassed the powers of many other mutants, becoming immortal and invincible. Upon awakening after thousands of years, he is disillusioned with the world as he finds it and recruits a team of powerful mutants, including a disheartened Magneto (Michael Fassbender), to cleanse mankind and create a new world order, over which he will reign. As the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) with the help of Professor X (James McAvoy) must lead a team of young X-Men to stop their greatest nemesis and save mankind from complete destruction.

No Wolverine yet? Will Logan be in the movie? Does anyone know?

X-Men: Apocalypse will hit the big screen on May 27, 2016.

[20th Century Fox]

WANT: Nintendo Entertainment System Backpack

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A fantastic NES backpack from the folks over at Thinkgeek! An officially-licensed Nintendo product!

This Nintendo Entertainment System Console Backpack is pretty sweet. It has dimensional details on the outside, including vents, power/reset buttons & controller sockets. Note that the vents don’t actually open to reveal the contents of your backpack; that could be counterproductive to keeping items inside. But you can still get to your goods by using the dual-zippers with little controller zipper pulls. Use it to carry your books. Use it to store your amiibo collection. Use it to hold your actual NES out in the garage and protect it from the elements.

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[Nintendo Entertainment System Backpack]

Summer T-Shirt Sale: Over 100,000 Geek Tees at Just $14 Each!

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Just a quick post to let you guys know that we’re offering some big savings on all of our t-shirts as well as those from teepublic! Just use promo code “GEEKS30” at checkout and you’ll get 30% off your entire order!

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Go ahead and check ’em all out!

[Save BIG on All Geek T-Shirts – Use Promo Code “GEEKS30” at Checkout]

WILL IT CRUSH? Crushing Barbie with an Hydraulic Press [Video]

Yesterday, you’ve seen the “Hydraulic Press Channel” attempt do fold an A3 sheet of paper more than 7 times, and today, they’re crushing a Barbie doll. Yes, I know, this is highly educative!

Move over Blendtec, the “Will it Blend” fad is now over, “Will it Crush” is now taking its place as the new cool thing to watch on the web… after looking at pictures of cats and puppies, of course.

[Hydraulic Press Channel]