Heart Bot can draw an artistic rendition of your heartbeat (video)
How does a famous-rapper-slash-business-tycoon and a tech titan launch a collaborative project? Apparently, by throwing a fancy soirée graced by the presence of a robotic Picasso. In honor of Intel’s and SMS Audio’s (a company founded by 50 Cent) new heart rate-monitoring headphones, a team of interactive artists led by Aramique created a robot that can draw its viewers’ heartbeats. You simply place your hand on a sensor for 30 seconds, and the aptly named Heart Bot’s arms will start moving, sketching your heartbeat with pens. It does so by feeding your heart’s rhythm to a software that translates it to movements for Heart Bot’s pen-equipped mechanical arms.
Heart Bot was on display for one day during the party (no word on whether Bacardi was served) at The New Museum in New York, before it toured Intel’s facilities in San Francisco. According to Motherboard, you might catch a glimpse of it at CES 2015, but make sure to watch how it works below, just in case that doesn’t push through.
Via: Motherboard
Source: Aramique
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Watch PS4 streams on your Vita with upcoming app
If you’re a fan of Playstation 4 game livestreaming, Sony’s about to have a PS Vita app for that. At a prelude to the Tokyo Game Show (TGS), it announced updates that will let you view live PS4 game action directly from a PS Vita. There are also themes coming to the PS Vita around the same time — Sony showed off one that centered around the popular (and insane) Dangan Ronpa shooter. It also revealed a pink-backed PS Vita with a white front arriving in Japan on November 13th for 18,980 yen (around $182). There’s no specific dates for the new themes and the PS4 game streaming app, but Joystiq pointed out a translated tweet saying it’ll arrive sometime in October.
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How would you change the Fitbit Flex?
Fitbit is one of the most well respected names in the quantified-self space, so we expected a lot of the Fitbit Flex. When we put the device in front of Terrence O’Brien, he found that it wasn’t the most feature-packed, or the flashiest, but certainly the most well-rounded device on the market. That was despite the fact that the Nike Fuelband had a better display and the Jawbone Up had a better mobile platform. One of the reasons, of course, that the Flex won out was its cheaper price, and you can rarely argue with that. What we’d like you all to do this week is to sign up to our product forums and discuss what, if Fitbit came knocking on your door, you’d change.
Filed under: Wearables
Source: Engadget Product Forums
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Listen to a song made from recording thousands of industrial machines
We’ve heard music made from bats’ echolocation signals and the sounds of glaciers before, but what about tunes composed with something a little more, say, industrial? And no, we aren’t talking about Nine Inch Nails’ classic The Downward Spiral. Think more along the lines of a song comprised of sounds from pneumatic equipment and welders and you’re most of the way there. As spotted by Laughing Squid, musician Matthew Dear partnered with GE and recorded the acoustics used to diagnose the performance of turbines and jet engines, among other things, and the result is a dance-ready electronic track dubbed “Drop Science.” Sure, artists including Amon Tobin have done similar sorts of things before, but not at such a grand scale. Curious to hear what it sounds like when thousands of machines are humming at peak performance? Check out the video and audio embedded below.
Filed under: Alt
Via: Laughing Squid
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New Aerial Video Shows Significant Construction Progress at Apple Campus 2 [Mac Blog]
Apple appears to be making significant progress on its forthcoming “Spaceship” campus in Cupertino, as an aerial video shared by YouTube user jmcminn (via Apple Spotlight/9to5Mac) shows the site now featuring significantly constructed walls, spots for buildings, and a more defined oval shape.
Apple closed off sidewalks and built a number of privacy fences to keep the area hidden, but this latest video taken with a DJI Phantom 2 drone and GoPro camera goes above the site to show an assortment of vehicles and materials helping to build Apple’s newest campus. Previous photos showed initial work on the site’s walls and deep trenches for what was said to be “underground tunnels.” The site was once the home of Hewlett Packard’s former offices, which were vacated and demolished by Apple ahead of its initial work on its Campus 2 project.
Apple is currently at work on the first phase of its Campus 2 construction, which includes the 2.8 million square foot ring-shaped main building and an underground parking facility capable of holding 2,400 cars. Those structures will also be complemented by a 100,000 square foot fitness center and a 120,000 square foot auditorium, with some of the landscape being occupied by more than 4,500 trees.
The first phase of construction is expected to be completed by 2016, and will be followed by additional 600,000 square feet of buildings along with another parking structure in the second phase.
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Amazon’s war on e-books, LG’s G Watch R and other stories you might’ve missed
This week, we reviewed the HTC One for Windows, investigated Amazon’s controversial e-book-pricing model, played around with Hyperlapse, learned about LG’s G Watch R and more! Read on for Engadget’s news highlights from the last seven days. Oh, and be sure to subscribe to our Flipboard magazine!
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Radiance Icon Pack Review: GFXDevs and Areeb Jamal radiate their design prowess
There’s always more room on your device for a new icon pack. Today, we take a look at a new icon pack, the Radiance Icon Pack from GFXDevs. That name probably sounds familiar as they’ve published quite a few icon packs, however this one was designed by one Areeb Jamal. As you can see, the icon pack features round icons with a solid circle in the centre with a translucent ring around it giving it a ‘radiating’ appearance. Check out our video review of the icon pack to get a better idea of what it looks like in person:
As you can see, a very nice, unique set of icons. The Radiance Icon Pack currently has 600+ icons in there will the promise of more updates. The wallpaper count is a bit low at the moment (though the ones that are there suit the colour scheme perfectly) so hopefully there will be more wallpapers added in the near future. For updates on the icon pack and as well as future projects, be sure to circle Areeb Jamal on Google+ here.
If the Radiance Icon Pack looks like the set for you, you can have them now for $1.30 USD; Play Store links are provided below.
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The post Radiance Icon Pack Review: GFXDevs and Areeb Jamal radiate their design prowess appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
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Apple Hires Longtime Technology Journalist Anand Lal Shimpi
After announcing his departure from AnandTech, veteran technology journalist Anand Lal Shimpi will join Apple in an undisclosed role, reports Re/code. A representative for Apple confirmed that Shimpi would be joining the company, but also declined to provide any further details.
Image credit: Anandtech
Shimpi launched AnandTech in 1997 and established the website’s reputation around in-depth analysis and reviews on a number of topics from the world of technology, including posts on Apple’s line of desktops, notebooks, iPhones, iPads, iPods, and accessories.
In his farewell post on AnandTech published yesterday, Shimpi stated that he “won’t stay idle forever” and added that there are “a bunch of challenges out there.”
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Samsung has a soundbar that matches your curved TV
Let’s say you bought a pricey curved TV, only to remember that your existing soundbar is (gasp!) flat. Will you have to live with that geometry mismatch for the life of your set? Not if Samsung has its way. It just unveiled the Curved Soundbar, which it says is the first audio system designed to match curved screens — specifically, the company’s 55- and 65-inch sets. The aluminum-clad device looks the part, of course, although it also promises some better-than-average audio with 8.1-channel surround support and side speakers that add to the immersion. There’s no word on just when the curvy peripheral will show up or how much it will cost, but it’s likely to sit on the higher end of the price spectrum.
There is some good news if you’re not interested in expensive TV audio. Samsung is adding a low-end model, the M3 (below), to its multi-room wireless audio system. The firm isn’t saying just what kind of output you’ll get from the M3 right now, although it’s safe to presume that the smaller speaker won’t deliver quite as much oomph as the M5 or M7. It will, however, add rich Spotify Connect support; you’ll get to stream your tunes through multiple M-series speakers at the same time. It’s doubtful that the M3 will sway you from the Sonos Play:1 or other lower-cost wireless speakers that you might already own, but it’s nice to have another major alternative.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Peripherals, HD, Samsung
Source: Samsung Tomorrow
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Homemade exoskeleton lets a man lift big cinder blocks with ease
Think you need the budget of the military or a megacorporation to make an exoskeleton for heavy lifting? Nope — all you need is some standard parts and the know-how to put them together. James Hobson (aka The Hacksmith) has finished a homemade robotic suit whose pneumatic cylinders let him curl 171.5 pounds’ worth of cinder blocks with relative ease. While it’s not the most sophisticated setup, it’s only running at half pressure and could potentially double the load with a compressor upgrade. There’s a work log at the source link if you’re eager to see how this project came to be. With that said, you’ll want to be cautious about trying this yourself — there aren’t any leg supports so far, and those blocks aren’t exactly harmless. If you’re like me, you’ll probably feel safer watching Hobson’s demo video below.
Filed under: Robots, Wearables
Via: Hack A Day
Source: The Hacksmith
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AIVAnet 