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DIY Robot Does 3D Carving: Self-Replication Still Far-Off
Posted by Gizmodo US Edition at 11:30 PM on June 11, 2008
Robots robots robots... from sexy ones to fighting ones, we love them here at Giz. But this amazing project by commenter winchy_matt over at Robosavvy has me in two minds. It's a modified DIY hexapod robot with a motorised Dremel-tool nose, and Matt's written some code that lets the robot move the cutting tool with precision, so it acts like a little precision CNC mill. And it's amazing: wait til you see the video of it in action, carving out a model. But is this project a scary step towards self-replicating 'bots?
The Good News: Toshiba and Hitachi are both flaunting new technologies to make MRAM (the successor to DRAM) more plausible for public consumption. Plus, the United States and Korea both have begun national-level projects to develop the tech.
While modders are busily adapting the Eee PC for 
While we've 
A 59-year-old furniture restorer from Britain has modded his half-century-old television ahead of the digital switchover. Richard Howard spent US$225 on a Bush Television Receiver and watched everything on it—including the moon landings—until the late '80s, when TV pictures changed from the 405-line format to 625 lines. With the analog-to-digital switchover looming, however, Mr Howard wondered if it would be possible to rejig his 1957 telly so that he could watch Madonna videos in glorious black-and-whitenicolour.
If you are looking for a self-driving car, now you can buy the ByWire XGV, the modified Ford Escape that got third place at the 
Sony has developed a new CMOS technology that may revolutionise consumer video camcorders and cameras: a 5-megapixel, 60 frames per second back-illuminated sensor. As you can see in this test image, the sensor nearly duplicates light sensitivity while reducing the signal-to-noise ratio. The idea is apparently simple, but it dramatically increases the quality of the picture in low-illumination conditions. How does it work?
For those of you with desktop PCs crammed to the gills with peripherals, this slot-loading data dock from 
On show at Computex is Honlai's portable projector for the iPhone. It's dock-style gadget that you slot your first-gen iPhone into, beaming a smallish image onto the wall in front of you. This strikes me as such a good idea—it's currently just a concept—that I really hope Honlai, the brains behind this 
XM Satellite Radio and EMI Music have settled the 
Brando's Cyber Tap bath-time radio is not massively high-tech, sure, but its cuteness is undeniable. Stick its 12 cm sucker onto tiles or glass, adjust FM/AM frequency and twirl the volume tap to boogie away to showertime music. Is the red one more suited to Hot Gossip while the blue one's best for Coldplay? Who knows, but after a bad joke like that you'll be pleased to know the water-resistant, battery-powered Cyber Tap costs US$16. [
The ChocoCase is a sturdy case for iPhone that has an incorporated screen protector. Added to the GizFever catalog on, it says, June 10, there's one problem that I can see: it's designed for the almost-obsolete first-gen iPhone. Still, nice idea, even if it costs US$30.
PopSci got their hands on this 2.5-ton home-built frogtruck, a 260-horsepower treaded monster which is the first-ever amphibious vehicle that can fully retract its drive assembly. The path for the perfect amphibian truck was as hard as the ones this thing can now travel through at 50kph: the mud flats, bogs, ice fields, snow slopes, rivers and lakes of the Alaskan tundra.
Several 
Just a few months ago we reported that Toshiba had turned up the spin-speed on its 1.8-inch hard drives to 
We knew 
One of the first things we noticed when Steve Jobs came out on stage was that he was noticeably thinner than he was in previous events. We were vaguely concerned since he's had a recent history of what could be considered 
While not all of us at Giz (read: none) like the white iPhone 3G, I'm sure some of you might. So feel free to vote for your favourite non-colour here. Not like it matters. Hit it, MJ!
BMW has created a concept car called the GINA Light Visionary Model, which takes a seamless, plastic-coated lycra material, and stretches it over a metal frame with moving parts — allowing for the car to have shape-shifting properties. The shape of the body can be changed without tearing or loosening the fabric, and the steering wheel, gauges and headrest all move into place after you sit down in the car.
Honda research engineers have given Asimo the ability to understand three voices at once, thanks to an array of eight microphones that can recognise each voice individually. The recognition software, HARK, can process the commands with 70-80 percent accuracy and the microphones are placed all over Asimo's head and body for spatial recognition purposes. The current application for this technology is using Asimo as a judge for verbal Paper-Rock-Scissors, where everyone calls out their answer at once, and Asimo decides who said what, and who wins. Though a great technical feat, this feels less glamorous than the robot's stint as orchestra conductor, no? [
NZXT's been making slightly expensive gaming cases for a while, but their latest full tower Khaos case looks very nice. It's got dual power supply support, 2-3mm aluminium build, a total of 7 fan slots and a price of US$399. Did we mention that it looks nice? This case alone costs more than some fully-built computers, but if you're the type of gamer that likes to haul your rig to LAN parties in order to compare your aluminium wang to your buddies', you could do a lot worse. [
Taser International, the company behind the new delightful trend in law enforcement where using verbal communication is deemed too time-consuming and replaced with a extremely painful jolt from their patented electro-weapons, was just dealt a stinging blow in court. After winning 45 wrongful death or injury lawsuits, it just lost a $6 million wrongful death suit, paving the way for plenty more liability in the future.
Bluetooth enabled pens are nothing new, but they generally require something like special dotted paper to function properly. SMK Corp claims that their new "Wireless Input Pen" is the first device of its kind to transmit characters written in mid air. Combined with Bluetooth, the pen utilises a a built-in triaxial acceleration sensor to detect the position of the pen when characters are formed, then transmits that information to a PC.