Cassandra Khaw is an entry-level audiophile, a street dancer, a person who writes about video games for a living, and someone who spends too much time on Twitter. More by Cassandra Khaw
Gary Meek/Georgia Tech
Described by its makers as the "first robot to employ flippers against malleable surfaces," the 7.5-inch long Flipperbot came about after a six-week study of hatchling loggerhead sea turtles in 2010. As a result of that study, researchers found out the baby sea turtles moved about in pretty much the same way regardless of the kind of surface they were on. It's all in the wrist, apparently.
Upon reaching that conclusion, Daniel Goldman, an associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, and Nicole Mazouchova, a Ph.D student from Temple University, teamed up with Northwestern University's Paul Umbanhowar to develop Flipperbot in an attempt to figure out just how real-life organisms use flippers and fins to move on granular surfaces like sandy beaches. Did it work? It certainly looks it.
ChromeOS developer and hacker Liam McLoughlin told Twitter Thursday that not only has he figured out how to gain root access on Google Glass, the task is apparently pretty simple.
looks like root is easy too: reboot-bootloader gives you fastboot oem unlock. There is fun to be had here...
Glass runs a version of Google’s Android operating system, so the similarities will make the headware easy to work with for the large existing community of independent Android developers and modders.
Elizabeth Fish is a freelance writer who happens to run a hyperlocal news website in Lincoln, UK. She also covers all things geeky for TechHive. More by Elizabeth Fish
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Cornell
We're pretty accustomed to seeing shooting stars and meteorites here on Earth. But what do typical meteorite collisions look like on other planets? NASA recently released photos taken by the Cassini spacecraft between 2009 and 2012 that show meteorites colliding with Saturn's ring system.
According to NASA scientists, this is the first time astronomers have gotten to see such collisions with Saturn's rings. Until now, the only places stargazers have directly observed collisions with space rocks were Earth, the Moon, and Jupiter.
Kevin is a small-time tech hound, amateur photographer, and a general know-at-least-something of all things geeky hailing from New York. More by Kevin Lee
NOAA
We’ve all been there: The weather forecast calls for rain, and then it’s sunny skies for the entire day. Then one day, after you completely ignore the rain advisory, in comes a freaking deluge while you're left without an umbrella. The National Weather service may not be able to help you out if you forget your umbrella, but its new radar system could mean more accurate weather forecasts.
According to the agency, it has nearly completed upgrading the nation's entire Doppler weather radar network. As of late April, the NWS has upgraded 151 operational radar units with a new "dual polarization" (dual-pol) technology that will allow meteorologists to distinguish between different types of precipitation—such as rain, snow, or hail—for the first time ever.
Kevin is a small-time tech hound, amateur photographer, and a general know-at-least-something of all things geeky hailing from New York. More by Kevin Lee
Of all the iconic scenes from the original Star Wars movie, the one that resonated with me the most was the hologram monster chess match. Despite all our Wolf Blizter- and Tupac-related holographic advances, we are nowhere near virtual 3D Dungeons & Dragons board games.
At the NY Tech Day expo, I saw something almost equally as cool—a 3D tabletop gaming rig called the Voxiebox. Voxon, the folks behind the Voxiebox, are calling their glasses-free 3D device the first-ever volumetric entertainment system.
Jacob Siegal spends a vast majority of his time surrounded with and invested in technology and media, so he decided he may as well start writing about it. You can find more of his writing at Game Rant and his topical tweets @JacobSiegal.
Between the announcement from Nintendo that the company will not be holding a press conference at this year's E3, and the unfortunate news from EA that restructuring has resulted in hundreds of layoffs, it’s been a pretty tumultuous day for the video game world. In case any of this news has gotten to you, why not read a few stories about the inventor of the telephone, booger benefits, and a robotic chicken to take your mind off it all?
Kevin is a small-time tech hound, amateur photographer, and a general know-at-least-something of all things geeky hailing from New York. More by Kevin Lee
If you think the Retina display on an iPad looks unreal with its 2048 by 1536-pixel resolution at 264 pixels per inch, just imagine a display with 2,500 individual LEDs in a package that’s only five square-centimeters in size—that’s smaller than just about any piece of your phone.
At the right in the picture above is a typical LED display that’s similar to those used in electronic billboards found in New York's Times Square or the Las Vegas strip. This panel uses 2304 individual LEDs as pixels, arranged in a 48 by 48-LED grid. The chip on the left, however, is a new type of micro-display developed by Lumiode that has tiny micro-sized LEDs arranged in a 50 by 50 grid—all confined into an one-square-millimeter array.
Gary Meek/Georgia Tech
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Cornell
NOAA
-AnnA-/Shutterstock
