This camera can snap chemical reactions at a trillionth of a second

You know those high-speed cameras used to film mesmerizing ultra slo-mo videos? They’re downright slow compared to this one developed by researchers from The University of Tokyo and Keio University in Japan. The 12-man science team has just revealed an extremely speedy camera that can take pictures of chemical reactions (in burst mode, as those are impossible to capture in a single shot) at 450 x 450 pixels. It’s called the Sequentially Timed All-optical Mapping Photography or STAMP cam, and it can capture consecutive images at a rate of one per every one-trillionth of a second. To note, other high-speed cameras capture one image per every one-billionth of a second. The device is supposed to be 1,000 times faster than comparable models and has even managed to snap a picture of heat conduction (a process that takes, oh, 1/6th the speed of light) during a test.

Its potential applications are pretty limited at this point, since the current prototype’s humongous at one square meter in size. STAMP’s creators aim to shrink it down in the future, though that might take time, seeing as it took them three years to get to this point. If and when they do succeed, the camera could be used in medicine to advance ultrasonic therapy and to better understand laser processing in the production of cars and semi-conductors. Wondering how STAMP can take multiple pictures in a very, very short amount of time? According to the team’s paper recently published in Nature:

The principle of this method — ‘motion picture femtophotography’ — is all-optical mapping of the target’s time-varying spatial profile onto a burst stream of sequentially timed photographs with spatial and temporal dispersion.

If you’d like to savor every technical detail on how STAMP works, though, make sure to head over to the journal for a longer read.

[Image credit: The University of Tokyo]

Filed under: Cameras, Science

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Via: The Wall Street Journal

Source: Nature

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Cyborg arm made of Lego can flex its fingers and shake hands

It certainly isn’t the first robotic arm made out of Lego that we’ve seen, but this particular one can actually be worn and easily controlled by the user. According to its creator, Diavo Voltaggio, the arm was made using Lego Mindstorms EV3, which is a software-and-hardware kit for DIY robots. He says the machine is pretty straightforward: it has four buttons connected to four motors that control each finger. Pressing a button flexes the corresponding finger, while releasing it relaxes the finger, as well. Voltaggio calls this cyborg limb the Mark VI, as it’s the sixth one he’s built, thus far — he disassembled the first five, so he could learn from them and make better models going forward. As a result, it’s much sturdier than its predecessors, though it’s also much heavier with all its braces and battery pack.

The Mark VI has won Best Mindstorms creation at a recent BrickFair Lego convention, where Voltaggio demonstrated what it can do by shaking a lot of people’s hands, as you can see in the videos below. Its creator plans to build more iterations for future BrickFairs, though, so you might still get to see the arm for yourself.

Filed under: Robots

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Source: Diavo Voltaggio (Google+)

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Government forms digital task force to avoid future Healthcare.gov disasters

If former Googler Mikey Dickerson and his team could fix that HealthCare.gov nightmare last year, then they can certainly fix any other faulty government website. That’s likely what authorities were thinking when they decided to hire this group full time to form the new US Digital Service team. They’re supposed to establish digital standards that government agencies should follow, among other things. But, in a nutshell, the the task force’s duty is to identify and fix shoddy government websites and inject features that’ll actually make people want to visit and use them. Dickerson, who’ll serve as the team lead after leaving his post as Google’s Site Reliability Manager, told The New York Times that mending HealthCare.gov was a life-changing experience, so he couldn’t say no to the government’s offer.

In addition to introducing the team, the administration has also launched the Digital Services Playbook, which contains pointers for government agencies to follow. These pointers are made up of the best business practices from both private and public sectors, such as “Bring in experienced teams” (which could’ve avoided the HealthCare.gov fiasco in the first place) and “Use data to drive decisions.” Finally, in order to avoid any shady dealings, the government has also come up with the TechFAR Handbook. This one details the correct process of buying goods and services (say, hiring someone outside the Digital Service team to tweak a website) from private sectors.

[Image credit: AFP/Getty Images]

Filed under: Internet

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Via: The New York Times

Source: The White House Blog

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Galaxy Note 4 Poses for Pictures?! Mid-Ranged HTC Desire Poses as Well! – Mandroid Daily

The ManDroid Quickie is no longer a thing, but the ManDroid Daily will now be in your lives Monday-Thursday. It’s exactly like the Quickie so nothing drastic here, just more of these videos. The Galaxy Note 4 looks to have been spotted out in the wild, as well as a mid-ranged HTC phone. Evleaks is no longer doing his thing, so others have stepped up to the plate to give us the leaks we want to see.

Android News
Galaxy Note 4 pics
Galaxy Note 4 packaging
HTC Desire A11
SKULLY AR-1 helmet

The post Galaxy Note 4 Poses for Pictures?! Mid-Ranged HTC Desire Poses as Well! – Mandroid Daily appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

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