Youtuber Spark IO has taken a toy Sting sword and combined it with a Spark Core to transform it into a tool that glows when there are unsecured wi-fi networks nearby.
To celebrate the launch of the new Hobbit flick, we made a version of Sting that turns blue near unsecured Wi-Fi networks. And when you slash the sword, Sting will jump on the network, and publish a message: “{YOUR WI-FI NETWORK} has been vanquished!”
Mary Coffelt, Briena Heller, and Michael McCamy have created this fun take on Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s “Bulge” illusion at the Barrow Neurological Institute last summer. Sure, we all now that lines on a LEGO checkerboard can’t be anything but straight, but when you strategically position M&Ms on it, your brain warps your vision and make the whole thing all funny looking.
Can can check out this video to see what happens to a similar illustion when you make the “dots” disappear all at once.
Created by Mary Coffelt and her colleagues at the Barrow Neurological Institute, this version of Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s “Bulge” illusion uses strategically placed white and purple M&Ms to warp your perception of a checkerboard built from legos of the same color. (Hit the jump to see a video of the Bulge illusion in action.)
The Fermi paradox states that, since there are nearly endless chances for life to evolve in the universe, civilizations must occur in some of those instances. But to date there have been no signs of these civilizations. Bill Nye has a simple yet hopeful answer to the mystery.
I will show you – The Hobbit song is a tribute to Peter Jackson`s trilogy.
It’s an original song using sounds, effects and vocal samples from The Hobbit.
Music created and produced by Glover with Logic Pro X.
A European court ruled that Google must consider requests by people to remove links to pages with information about them if the owner of the relevant site refused to do so, enforcing a so-called “right to be forgotten.” Bing and Yahoo later agreed to follow the rules, while Google revealed that it had agreed to 41.5 percent of subsequent requests. The situation remains legally unclear, with the search engines having to judge each request on its merits, balancing privacy and free speech.
Google issued a formal recall for its high-tech Nest smoke alarm after discovering a theoretical risk that it might wrongly believe somebody was waving an arm to switch it off, thus delaying the alert in a real fire. It later ended the recall after disabling the wave feature with a software update, with later efforts to find a safe way to reenable it proving unsuccessful.
The University of Michigan started work on a 32-acre model city designed to test self-driving cars in a realistic setting, complete with working traffic lights and mechanical pedestrians and bicycles. In December the university released aerial pictures of the Mobility Transformation Center, where the basic road layout is already in place. It’s scheduled for completion and will be operational by spring.
A paralyzed man kicked a football using a robotic skeleton controlled by his thoughts during the opening ceremony of the World Cup. Unfortunately broadcasters somehow managed to screw up the direction of the ceremony, with most viewers around the world seeing little or none of the kick.
The Supreme Court ruled against Aereo, an online service that involved customers “leasing” a remote TV antenna and receiving the relevant stations over the Internet. The court agreed this constituted a “public performance” that violated the copyright of the stations. Aereo has sinced filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, giving it protection from creditors while it puts together a reorganization plan.
Let’s just hope that this squirrel doesn’t get upgraded, and then end up turning all squirrels on the planet as little cybersquirrels. It would be the end of humanity.
In a more serious note, this squirrel feeder was created by Doctor Who fan Emma Young.
“My whole family are Doctor Who fans, especially my younger son Joe, so I decided to have a go at creating this special sci-fi feeder,” she said, at her home in Beaulieu, in the New Forest National Park, Hampshire.
As the year ends, here’s a message of hope and optimism from astronaut Chris Hadfield.
Our world is not as bad a place as we often feel it to be. It is easy to look to the future and lament on how far there is left to go, but sometimes it is helpful to stop and reflect on just how far we’ve come.
This timelapse video is a collection of footage shot over the last year and a half around the western half of the United States. The shots ranged from very different locations. From Montana to Arizona and most weren’t easy to get to but of course that makes them worth going to. The locations captured ranged in temps of 100 degrees to -9 degrees and in elevations of 12,000 feet to 225 feet below sea level. It took over 15,000 captured still images to make this video.
Kat Robichaud is obviously a big fan of the Doctor because she inspired herself from the Character to write “Somebody Call The Doctor,” a quirky fun rock music video featuring the many and varied incarnations of the legendary alien. Check it out!