Dyson’s Rube Goldberg-esque Balloon Course

Apart from manufacturing really cool-looking vacuum cleaners, Dyson is also the company behind those awesome bladeless fans. The only problem with these is their price: At $300 a pop, they’ve probably got quite a stock in inventory. I mean, I don’t know too many people who would pay that price for a fan when you can get a good one for about a tenth of the price. But the question is, what would YOU do with all those unused fans? Here’s what Dyson’s engineers came up with:

Dyson engineers were asked to show how inducement and entrainment of air works on the Air Multiplier™ fan. If you watch closely, the balloon is sucked from behind and to the side of the fan this is inducement and entrainment at work.

Lots of experimentation with different sized balloons and other objects produced this video. And although edited to include our successful attempts, the video is made from completely genuine footage (and no, the balloon isnt attached to anything).

[Via Gizmodo]

BeBionic: A New Generation of Advanced Myo-Electric Hands

Complete with a range of naturally compliant grip patterns that provide repeatable accuracy, our powerful new hands combine innovative technology with life-like appearance.

Functions of the hand such as speed, grip force and grip patterns may be custom programmed to suit individual user requirements through smart software and wireless technology. Lighter than existing products it will be available to the market at an affordable price.

For those of you who want more information about BiBionic’s robotic hand, all the info you need is available on the company’s website.

[Via Dvice]


Happy Towel Day!

Towel Day is celebrated on the 25th of May every year to honor the memory and works of Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The most common way to celebrate is to carry your towel with you, which some fans do everyday. The official site has other suggestions, and a schedule of Towel Day events from all over the world. And remember: Don’t Panic! Image by Flickr user SiRGt.

[via Neatorama]

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Five Tips for the Conflicted Geek Relationship

So you’ve finally fallen in love with the geek of your dreams. All those misty montages you dreamed of while searching for that special someone will finally come to being: both of you staying up at all hours playing WoW, sharing a bucket of popcorn during Ironman 2, both reaching for the same comics issue and giggling as your hands touch…

But wait. What’s that you say? It’s not as easy as all that? Conflict? Wait a second…

It’s true. Having fallen in love with and married another geek, I have to say just because we hold a great many hobbies in common doesn’t mean that we get along all the time. In fact, sometimes our geeky hobbies are the direct cause of our duress. After wrestling with my husband over the XBox last night, I thought I’d profile a few of the most common conflicts in a geek relationship and offer some advice as to how to steer through them.

1 – Console Conflict. For some reason this hasn’t happened in a while, but has caused a bit of strife in recent weeks in my household. I’m still working my way (again) through Dragon Age and have finally hit my stride, while my husband just purchased Red Dead Redemption (which I have every intention of playing as soon as I finish saving Fereldan from the Blight… and possibly purchasing some of the expansions). The only way to deal with this is to be mutually adult about the situation as much as possible. Once the kiddo is in bed it’s a matter of scheduling: we map our our time and allow equal play. That doesn’t mean we don’t occasionally sneak in extra minutes when we can, but I think both understanding the draw of a game we can be sympathetic to each other.

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Will Facebook’s actions live up to its privacy promises?

Facebook’s founder and chief has come as close as seems likely to happen to apologizing for inadequate privacy policies.

Writing in the Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg said that the company had thought it best to offer users detailed controls over every aspect of user settings relating to data use and privacy, but that “We just missed the mark.”

That may seem a little arrogant, but read in context it appears the “just” in the comment is not so much “we only barely missed getting things right” but more “we simply didn’t get things right.”

Zuckerberg went on to promise much simpler privacy controls including “an easy way to turn off all third-party services.” He also vowed that Facebook will stick to the principles that “we do not share your personal information with people or services you don’t want” and that “we do not give advertisers access to your personal information.”

That may be true in the sense that technically it is users who give third-parties access to information, for example when clicking to accept the conditions of installing a third-party application. But it’s also clear that in many cases this “decision” is not an informed one and that people don’t fully understand exactly what information is shared.

The claim is also shaky at best when it comes to user privacy policies changing, particularly when defaults are changed so that data becomes more accessible to others without the user making an intentional choice for that to happen. While it’s clear that opt-out systems work better for Facebook’s bottom line than opt-in systems (every user who fails to change a default through apathy or ignorance is a more valuable customer to advertisers), it’s also clear that failing to make every piece of data as private as possible by default means that Zuckerberg is at best living up to the letter of his principles, but by no means the spirit.

Little Dog Robot is Big Dog’s Nimble Little Brother

Remember Big Dog, that amazing 4-legged robotic mule we posted about a while ago? Well Big Dog has a little brother folks, and this guy really knows how to handle bumpy terrain. I’ll let you check him out:

Now just imagine yourself trying to run away from that thing (for whatever reason) in a not so distant future, where little dog would be the size of a large dog and about 1000 times faster. Terrifying thought, isn’t it?

[Via Dvice]