technology | Practikel

[VIDEO] 3-D Printing: A Full Functioning Wrench Is Printed From Powder and Binding Ink

March 20, 2012 Kelli No comments

I remember back in the day when I was looking forward to chatting face to face through phones; Which we have already made possible. Now, scientists are taking technology another step further into the future by developing a 3-D Printer that can form objects that are sturdy, durable and fully functioning. This all took place at NASA’s tool lab where they were trying to find a way to help the men and women in space be able to replicate tools that they might need if something were to happen to the ones in space.

This is amazing and almost unbelievable. The amount of though, hard-work and dedication that goes into these technological advances is rather impressive. It’s great to see that people haven’t just stayed content with what we have and have urged themselves to find more ways to improve our way of life, as well as our exploration of the universe we live in (including much more than just that).

Amazing 3D printer in action: Watch a working wrench being printed from powder (dailymail.co.uk)
3D Printing Aboard Ships? How One Technology Is Changing the Future. (gcaptain.com)
Why Printers Suck (And What You Can Do About It) – Gizmodo (gizmodo.com)
Top 10 Coolest Objects Made with a 3D Printer (techeblog.com)
Pffft Forget BUILDING your House; D-Shape 3D Printer can PRINT it (brajeshwar.com)
Pushing the Boundaries : 3-D Printing (iysn.org)

[VIDEO] Kinect Grocery Cart: Shopping Made Easy

March 01, 2012 Kelli No comments

Whether you know this or not, I am a huge fan of technology. Some people may fear that technology makes us lazy, less socially available, as well as a variety of other issues. While I do agree that some technology has made it easier for us to be lazy and or avoid human interaction, I think it’s up to us to not just accept that and find ways to interact socially as well as not submit to laziness.

Another reason I like the technological advances that are being made is because it broadens our horizons and advances us as a race. If technology is the basis for most everything, then most everybody is going to have to have at least some understanding of how these devices and programs work. Someone who may not have cared before, may have to now and will have to use parts of the brain they didn’t care to use prior. Also, as the population continues to grow, making simple tasks more convenient is going to be helpful when in crowded places that would normally have lines. When you’re in a small town, lines are something that move quickly, but in a place like Los Angeles, New York, and Japan… lines are horrendous. For this reason, I think this way of shopping is genius:

(And just because things don’t work 100% of the time doesn’t mean they’ve failed, it means that they need improvements… as do most things)

YouTube

[VIDEO] Funny Spoof: Siri Argument

November 16, 2011 Kelli 1 Comment

See all the CollegeHumor Original Videos here.

Everyone has really enjoyed poking fun at the Apple iPhone 4S’ new program ‘SIRI‘. Everything from her voice to the answers she provides have been a great deal of entertainment for many, but now someone took it a step further and made a great spoof on the popular addition. If only it allowed you to say things via text as opposed to putting it into writing, the sarcasm and connotation could be identified much better. Oh wait, we do have that capability…making a phone call.

Sadly, I’m one of those people who would rather my tone not be reflected and get myself into trouble, than picking up a phone and making an actual call. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I’m awkward at finding a good moment to say goodbye, and would rather not be put in that position. Obviously, I have to talk on the phone and would like to stop being such a pussy, but technology is making too easy.

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 14: A man uses 'Sir...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

[VIDEO] The Apple iPhone 4S REAL Siri Demonstration: Very Impressive (practikel.com)
Watch: Conan Spoofs Apple’s Siri Commercial (socialtimes.com)
GLaDOS gets snarky with iPhone owners in Siri spoof (gamesradar.com)
Exploit discovered in Siri servers, promises cross-platform access to the foolhardy (engadget.com)
Hackers Claim To Reverse Engineer Apple’s Siri To Run On Android Or Other Gadgets (forbes.com)

[VIDEO] Judge William Adams Caught Beating His Daughter On Camera

November 02, 2011 Kelli 1 Comment

UPDATE (November 3rd, 2011 – 11:44am: Hallie and Hillary Adams went on the Today show this morning to clear the air about the video and abuse that took place in their household.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

WARNING: The video that you are about to watch is graphic. Judge Williams uses prolific language (as do I, so that’s not what the warning is about) while beating his daughter with a belt multiple times.

I am absolutely disgusted after watching this horrendous beating. The young girl, aged 16 at the time of this incident has ataxic cerebral palsy that provided her with an intense fascination with technology. After illegally downloading games and music that her father wouldn’t let her enjoy because of his ass backwards beliefs, she had to be subjected to beatings much like slaves endured.

A disabled woman has taken revenge on her father – a family law judge – by posting on YouTube a secretly filmed video of him beating her with a leather belt.

The shocking film shows Court-at-Law Judge William Adams from Aransas County, Texas, repeatedly striking Hillary as she whimpers in agony.

Taken in 2004 when the girl was 16, the footage has swept the Internet after she decided last week to make it public by uploading it on YouTube and it was then posted on Reddit.

This afternoon Judge Adams responded to the video, saying: ‘It happened years ago.. I apologized. It’s not as bad as it looks on tape.’

As a result of the furore, the video was being examined by the District Attorney and previous controversial judgements Judge Adams made in cases involving children have come to light.

The young girl, Hillary Adams, now 23-years-old, has received many tweets and apologies since the release of this video. It has now gone viral and gained much attention, including a FaceBook page urging people to not re-elect the Judge. She has also been very outspoken about the incident on her Twitter page urging people to offer the Judge help instead of reacting with hatred.

She said: ‘My father’s harassment was getting really bad, so I decided to finally publish the video that I had been sitting on for seven years.

‘It had happened before, and had been escalating,’ Adams said. ‘I set up a camera, and I caught it.’

From her Twitter account, she tweeted: ‘Please spread the word that my father needs professional help and not hatred. We can offer him the tools to be a better person.

‘It is my wish that people stop threatening my father and start offering professional help. That is what he really needs.’

The Youtube description -

2004: Aransas County Court-At-Law Judge William Adams took a belt to his own teenage daughter as punishment for using the internet to acquire music and games that were unavailable for legal purchase at the time. She has had ataxic cerebral palsy from birth that led her to a passion for technology, which was strictly forbidden by her father’s backwards views. The judge’s wife was emotionally abused herself and was severely manipulated into assisting the beating and should not be blamed for any content in this video. The judge’s wife has since left the marriage due to the abuse, which continues to this day, and has sincerely apologized and repented for her part and for allowing such a thing, long before this video was even revealed to exist. Judge William Adams is not fit to be anywhere near the law system if he can’t even exercise fit judgement as a parent himself. Do not allow this man to ever be re-elected again. His “judgement” is a giant farce. Signed, Hillary Adams, his daughter.

SOURCE

2004 Video Shows Texas Judge Beating Daughter; Judge Says, “Not as Bad as it Looks” (reason.com)
Texas Judge Whips His Daughter With A Belt [Disturbing] (buzzfeed.com)
Disturbing Video Allegedly Shows Texas Judge Beating Daughter; Internet Springs Into Action (mediaite.com)
Texas Judge Captured On Video Beating Daughter (dreamindemon.com)
[VIDEO] Bully Caught On Camera Beating Gay Classmate While Officials Do Nothing (practikel.com)

Wizards Hacking Lexington Road Signs? | LEX18.com | Lexington, Kentucky

July 15, 2011 Kelli No comments

Wizards Hacking Lexington Road Signs? | LEX18.com | Lexington, Kentucky.

Hackers got in the spirit for the last movie: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

‘Turn your iPhone 4 into a DSLR using real SLR lenses’

July 14, 2011 Kelli No comments

How would you like to turn your iPhone 4 into a real DSLR Camera? Photojojo has made that happen! Now you can take great photos, with great lenses on the camera that you always have available, your phone. They support both Canon and Nikon, which are both great.

For more information on the product, visit the photojojo website:
http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/iphone-slr-mount/

The Westboro Baptist Church is BACK!

July 11, 2011 Kelli No comments

This video doesn’t make me angry so much as it makes me laugh. It is ironic how they speak over this individual, and yet stop him in his tracks when he speaks after thinking they have finished. The things that they mention or discuss make no sense, and they give NO ONE an opportunity to speak to them about THEIR opinions. They are so brainwashed that they know if they listened to anything logical, they may call into question their whole sense of self-worth. Pathetic.

Their website (which I only put on here for your curiosity. I rarely visit to try and deter popularity): http://www.godhatesfags.com

Meet Ecci: The Robot That Learns From Its Mistakes

July 08, 2011 Kelli No comments

THIS is Ecci — the world’s first robot complete with tendons and muscles like his fictitious cousins in The Terminator movies.

As well as boasting human-like movements and grip, Ecci also has an ability that up until now only humans displayed — he can learn from his mistakes.

Scientists at the University of Zurich in Switzerland who built him claim he is the world’s “smartest artificial intelligence creation”.

A computer built into Ecci’s brain allows him to learn from accidents such as stumbling or dropping things by analysing information on how it happened to avoid making the same mistakes in future.

It brings robots almost up to date with the humanoid metallic monsters in The Terminator movies — they were also a mixture of machine and muscle that could behave and think like a human.

Capability

One of the scientists on the project, Professor Rolf Pfeifer, said that although Ecci, whose full name is Eccerobot, has only one Cyclops-like eye, he has the vision capability of two human eyes.

Explaining how Ecci was created, Professor Pfeifer said: “We built the skeleton, muscles and tendons with a special type of plastic which needed a lot of patience.

Muscling in … Ecci has muscles and tendons

CEN

“To move the joints, the tendons are connected to electric motors that allow the plastic bones to be moved.

“It opens up a lot of possibilities but in particular it will help us to understand better how the human moving apparatus works — a complicated task.

“If we can make a robot hand operate like ours then it opens up all sorts of possibilities for artificial limbs.

“It would also mean a robot that moved like a person could take over some of the jobs done by people where human hands are needed.”

The multi-million pound project has had 25 scientists working round-the-clock for three years.

It was partially funded by private enterprise and with two million euros from EU coffers.
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While this is all very exciting, I’d much rather a robot that could assist me in daily activities. A robot that has muscles and can learn from its mistakes sounds more like something prehistoric that I gain nothing from. Okay, Okay. This is pretty amazing, but I’d be willing to be that he isn’t quite as talented as The Terminator, like they mentioned. I mean, would you trust your life with Ecci?

Glasses That Tell You If You’re Uninteresting

July 08, 2011 Kelli No comments

The Expression Glasses are a wearable device that allows any viewer to see a graphical display of a subset of the wearer’s facial expressions. Currently, the glasses are capable of learning an individual’s patterns and discriminating between confusion and interest expressions. Through two small pieces of piezoelectric film imbedded in the frames, the muscle movement in the corrugator and frontalis (eyebrow) muscles is measured and translated to a full-color visual display.

The display allows a viewer to visualize confusion expressions of the wearer of the glasses by watching changes in a moving bargraph (red for confusion, green for interest).

The Expression Glasses in use. The cloth portion above the plastic conceals both EMG sensors and the user’s facial expression, enabling the user to express emotion freely and anonymously.

There are many reasons why the wearer or his audience may want to have access to expressed emotions. For Human-to-Self purposes, this might include practice session feedback for certain professions (such as counseling), where individuals are trained specifically to refrain from expressing negativity. For Human-to-Human communication, a device like this would be helpful in allowing a video lecturer access to the confusion or interest level of her students in a remote location, providing a “barometer” of collective emotional expression. Since current technology tends to inhibit access to individual facial expressions when lecturing via videoconferencing, use of a device like the glasses gives students an opportunity to communicate information about their experience to the instructor. Additionally, the anonymous nature of the glasses allows individual students to express their emotions without necessarily being forced to identify themselves.
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This idea seems great in theory, but could really lead some insecure people to be even more insecure. I mean, say someone is insecure because they ARE boring and uninteresting?? The glasses will just verify that what they thought is true and could influence them to retreat even farther as an introvert. For me, they’d be fabulous! I could call people out for being bored, incite them to get angry and know if I’m succeeding, or just aim to bore people that don’t have the balls to tell me to shut up. With these and flying cars, it’s becoming far too apparent that the future is coming and I don’t know if I’m 100% prepared.

Source:http://affect.media.mit.edu/projectpages/archived/projects/expression_glasses.html

Flying Car is Cleared for Road Use and set to Hit Streets in 2012

July 07, 2011 Kelli 1 Comment

By Balasubramanyam Seshan | Jul 07, 2011 06:12 AM EDT

Tired of getting struck in traffic then better fly with Terrafugia’s light sport roadable aircraft, Transition, which can be transformed from a car to a plane in just just 30 seconds. The world’s first flying car of the 21st century is ready for the road.

The flying car has been cleared by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for use on roads and granted it special exemptions as a roadable aircraft.

“Terrafugia’s Transition is the first combined flying-driving vehicle to receive such special consideration from the Department of Transportation since the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards came into being in the 1970s,” the Woburn, Massachusetts-based Terrafugia Inc. said in a statement.

In the exemption text, NHTSA states “We further conclude that the granting of an exemption from these requirements would be in the public interest and consistent with the objectives of traffic safety.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation has granted a three-year hardship exemption that will allow the manufacturer to enter its planned 2012 production time frame. Previously, the company said deliveries of the Transition are scheduled to begin in late 2011.

But, the company, after the approval, said the flying car will start shipping in 2012 and will be priced at around $250,000. Terrafugia has about 100 orders for the Transition with a $10,000 reservation fee.

Terrafugia Inc. said extensive analysis and simulated crash testing are also being employed with industry partners to ensure that the Transition meets all other applicable crash safety standards.

The NHTSA’s exemptions allowed the roadable aircraft to use lightweight plastic windows and use a different type of tire than that used by other vehicles.

In order to prevent shattering of the windshield in case of a bird-hit, Terrafugia used polycarbonate materials instead of automotive safety glass. The tires are heavier like any other small aircraft to handle landings as well as road driving.

The Transition can fly at 115 mph and reach 65 mph on the road. On the ground, with its wings tucked up and in, it can fill up with auto gas at a normal filling station and it fits in any average-sized garage.

The Transition has a 26 feet wingspan and will retract and expand with only the push of a button. It has a range of nearly 500 miles. “A lot of people said they never thought it would fly. But we have a vehicle right here, right now that drives and flies, and converts between the two in 20 seconds,” says Terrafugia CEO Carl Dietrich.

The “roadable aircraft” first flew in 2009 and is the first light airplane to incorporate features found in most cars like a rigid carbon fiber occupant safety cage, and passenger and driver airbags.

“This is an aeroplane first and foremost. The idea is you can drive it to and from a regulation airport. Fully fueled, you can fly it for a range of 400 to 450 miles. We have 100 orders so far. There are still some minor changes that need to be made because it has to meet both road and aviation standards,” said Richard Gersh, VP Business Development of Terrafugia on February.

It has been cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration for flight as a “light sport aircraft”. The NHTSA clearance finally made the flying car both air and road ready.

Here is a glimpse of Transition on the road and on air: