Magnetic Levitation Haptic Control Technology

Researchers at Carnegie mellon University’s Robotics Institute are currently developing a magnetic levitation system that they claim provides the most realistic sense of touch yet to be seen on similar devices. Possible applications include microsurgery, computer-augmented design, robot control, and even data visualization.

Haptics is the study of touching, and haptic technology refers to that which applies force feedback, texture and other physical sensations when the user manipulates virtual objects. Healthy virtual tissue would feel soft; a tumor, hard. Models created by supercomputers could be manipulated without creating expensive physical artifacts.

[Via Wired]

Change your IM audio to something more geekish

By Mark O’Neill

dockingbay94starwars.jpgThe thing about instant messaging programs such as Pidgin and Skype is that their sounds suck. Their chat services may be the best thing since pop-tarts but it doesn’t take long for their sound effects to grate on your nerves. You know, the audio notifications that you’ve got a new message, that people have logged on, that sort of thing.

The good news is that you can change the sound to whatever you want and in true geek style, I changed it to Han Solo’s blaster. So now whenever I get an instant message coming in, my office sounds like Docking Bay 94.

“wav” audio files abound on the internet. Some sites try to charge for wav files but you don’t have to pay for them as there are countless sites giving these audio files away for free. Just decide what you want and google it, along with a “.wav” at the end. So to get the blaster file, I put “blaster.wav” into Google and I also considered “lightsaber.wav“, “phaser.wav” and so on. Just try different variations of the type of file you’re looking for and you should get quite a few download links.

Just remember though to choose a sound that isn’t going to irritate you. If you get quite a few messages each day, you’re going to hear that sound over and over. So choose very carefully.

Then head over to the sounds and notifications section of your instant messaging program and upload your wav file :

soundsnotssettings.gif

I know for a fact that Pidgin and Skype allows uploading of audio files. I can’t speak for the others. Maybe users of other IM programs can let us know in the comments if their preferred IM programs allow this too.


The Newton Virus: Hitting a Mac near you?

The Newton Virus

The Newton virus is a perfectly inoffensive little Mac application that will never replicate itself, mail itself to your contact list or delete any of your files. According to its designer, it was made to revive the golden era of “fun” viruses, which were created to make pranks upon your friends. The little critter comes on a USB key that looks like a cross between an evil Apple logo and a carnivore PacMan. If you want to infect someone with it, all you need to do it to plug the device on a Mac system for a few seconds and remove it. The Virus will then execute itself at a completely random time, and it will do so only once. Check out the following video to see it in all its destructive glory.



Interview: Wafaa Bilal casts himself as terrorist in Virtual Jihadi

By Brian Boyko
Contributing Writer, GAS
and Editor of Network Performance Daily

You may not remember the name Wafaa Bilal, but you probably remember the Iraqi-American who locked himself in a room with a paintball gun controlled by random individuals on the Internet for thirty days – that was him, and it’s now nine months later and he’s unable to sleep at night without medicine. Now Bilal has a new controversial art piece that has caused the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s College Republicans to call the college’s Arts department a “terrorist safehaven” for exhibiting it.

In 2003, a forgettable budget first-person shooter game called “Quest for Saddam” was released by a programmer using the Duke Nukem 3D engine. “Quest for Saddam” featured ethnic stereotypes, crude ethnic slurs, and “humor” characteristic of those who find Ann Coulter funny. The developer, Jesse Petrilla went on to found the “United American Committee,” which is most famous for hanging Osama bin Laden in effigy outside a mosque in Culver City, California.Wafaa Bilal as “Virtual Jihadi.”

This game should have faded into obscurity, except that a group called the “Global Islamic Media Front” transformed “Quest for Saddam” into “Quest for Bush” by replacing all the textures. Press coverage immediately slammed “Quest for Bush” as an Al Qaeda recruiting tool, while generally ignoring the content of the original “Quest for Saddam.”

Gameology has more information in a well researched article on both “Quest for Saddam” and “Quest for Bush,” as well as this line:

“Creating a game that repeatedly portrays the killing of a specific individual or ideology and then distributing that game in a context that sincerely advocates the killing of that individual or ideology precludes any claims about that game’s facetiousness.”

That line should be plastered above the door of every FPS shooter game development company as a litmus test.

Bilal’s new art installation takes the game and hacks it to create “The Night of Bush Capturing: A Virtual Jihadi.” Through the game, which will be revealed this Wednesday night, March 5th, 2008 at Rensselaer, Bilal casts himself as a suicide-bomber.

Here’s a description, from RPI’s Arts Department:

After learning of the real-life death of his brother in the war, he is recruited by Al Qaeda to join the hunt for Bush. This work is meant to bring attention to the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians to the travesties of the current war and racist generalizations and stereotypes as exhibited in games such as Quest for Saddam; along with vulnerability to recruitment by violent groups like Al Qaeda because of the U.S.’s failed strategy in securing Iraq. The work also aims to shed light on groups that traffic in crass and hateful stereotypes of Arab culture with games like Quest for Saddam and other media.

I’ll admit that even I wasn’t comfortable with the medium and thought that the message might be lost in the controversy over Bilal casting himself as would-be assassin in work of interactive fiction. Still, I sat down for a phone interview with Wafaa Bilal about the project – and its decidedly controversial nature.

I’m still not sure if I’m comfortable with the work, but at least I know more about the thought process that went into it.

You can find that interview below.

Continue reading ›

Geek Support: Can an iPod Classic be made to work on Ubuntu 7.10?

By Mark O’Neill and Mackenzie Morgan

Geek Support has its first question from one of our readers!

It comes from Flor in Mexico City :

My best friend just made the switch to Linux. After much brainwashing from my part, she decided to switch to Ubuntu 7.10. We had tons of problems on her laptop, an Inspiron 1520. Between my boyfriend and me, we have pretty much solved most of them. However, there’s still one problem we can’t solve and we don’t know why. We can’t synchronize her iPod Classic with her laptop. I thought it would be as easy as plug and play, just like my iPod. I own an iPod Photo 40gb and use it perfectly. Her iPod Classic 80gb just doesn’t work. Whenever we plug it and I transfer any songs from my computer, her iPod just doesn’t work. After we disconnect it and all, we browse on the iPod and realize that all the data it had was erased. None of the music we transfered is present and even more, all the data that was there before connecting it is no longer present. We then connect it again but in Windows Vista and the iPod is not detected, just in disk mode. What we usually end up doing is resetting the iPod from iTunes.

We’ve tried everything, gtkpod, using libgpod script…nothing. We have the same problem over and over again. My question is: is there a REAL way to make an iPod Classic work on Ubuntu 7.10? It’s so frustrating, all the how-tos i’ve found they say it works perfectly but we just can’t make it work.

Mark says : Hmmmph…..typical….first question and I can’t answer it! I haven’t installed Ubuntu on my PC so I can’t claim to know anything about it. I’m too attached to my Windows XP. I know, pathetic….

My first instinctive response in this situation is to run a virtual Windows session on the Linux system. So she can run her iPod on iTunes inside a virtual Windows and then use Linux for everything else. To me this would be the easiest solution of the lot. There are plenty of programs out there that can help Flor achieve this. I suggested VirtualBox. Flor said she would give it a try.

Mackenzie says : Try using Rhythmbox instead of trying to just drag n’ drop. If Flor doesn’t like Rhythmbox as her main music player, check out Banshee, Exaile, and Amarok.

Also, maybe try the libgpod upgrade since resetting it may have made it start to behave like a brand new iPod. Also, be sure to eject the iPod properly. Linux (or OSX) does not sync changes to the disk immediately. They are kept in a buffer, so no data is written until you eject.

The outcome : all the options have been passed onto Flor and she’s been asked to let us know if any of them work. We’ll keep you updated.

Meanwhile, if any of you have any alternative ideas on how to solve Flor’s problem, let us know in the comments! Do any of you have any geeky hacks that Flor can take advantage of?


How to create your own laser home alarm system for under $20

Here’s a short video tutorial that will teach you how to build a cheap laser alarm system. Total cost of the project: $20. This thing may not warn the cops when burglars break into your home, but it will probably set their heart pumping and make them run away in panic from your den when its siren starts screaming into their ears.



Geek Support is now standing by to take your call

By Mark O’Neill

dogbert_techsupport.jpgI have been thinking for a while now about how to engage the GAS readers more and answering Melvyn’s question in the last post made me decide to bring this idea forward now.

As a writer for GAS, I often wonder what you would like to read more about. What’s on your mind Mr and Mrs Geek? What would you like to see more of on this blog? Do you have unanswered questions driving you crazy that you would like to see as articles on GAS?

That’s when I came up with the idea of a “Geek Support” feature (which Kiltak loves the idea of) where you send me your burning questions and I will do my best to answer them and do an article on them. A bit like Melvyn wondering if podcasts to email were possible, I looked into it and did an article on it. It even hit Lifehacker just now. So it’s a win-win for everyone. You get your answers and GAS gets its online glory. Oh and I get paid!

So if you have a tech / internet / geek -related question that you don’t know the answer to and you would like to see an article on it, just get in contact with me with details and I will see if I can find out the answers well enough to write an article for Geeks Are Sexy. If I feel unqualified to answer your question, I will try to find somebody who can answer. Perhaps one of the other GAS writers might want to write the article or we can find an outside expert who has the knowledge necessary to put your mind at ease.

Of course, you will be mentioned by name in the article (if you want) and all the other readers will have the opportunity to chip in via the comments if they have something to contribute.

It doesn’t have to be a tech question. It can be anything at all. As Darth Vader says, “search your feelings”. Tap your inner geek, work out what question you most want answered and ask. We’ll then see what we can do. No charge.