Citizen Mars, Episode 3: the lives they leave behind
It everything goes to plan, the first Mars One probe will touch down on the Red Planet in 2018. Two years later, it’ll then start scouting for potential colony sites. In 2022, life support systems and other essential equipment will be sent to Mars ahead of the first manned mission. Sue Ann, Mido, Adriana, Shradha and Pietro are doing what they can to be ready for blast-off, knowing full well that they won’t return.
The most difficult thing about going away forever is leaving behind the world they know: a dinner party with friends, a game of soccer, a hike through Griffith Park.
The Citizen Mars series takes an in-depth look at five of the 100 finalists for the Mars One mission. In each episode we chart progress of everyday people determined to be the first to colonise the Red Planet.
Through interviews and extensive vérité that spans Europe, Africa, Asia and the US, discover the obsession with the future, adventure, and space that’s propelling them to leave everything — and everyone — behind.
Filed under:
Home Entertainment, Transportation, Science, HD
Source:
Citizen Mars
Tags: citizen mars, citizenmars, exclusive, hdpostcross, mars one, marsone, space, uk-feature
‘Sleepy Hollow’ for Oculus wins first virtual reality Emmy
Virtual reality has officially become mainstream, as an Emmy has been awarded to a work created for an VR headset (the Oculus Rift DK2) for the first time. The Sleepy Hollow Virtual Reality Experience (below), co-produced by Fox and Toronto-based Secret Location, won in the “Interactive Media, User Experience and Visual Design” category. It first debuted at Comic-Con, and gave thousands of Oculus Rift users the unique gift of seeing what it would be like to have their heads cut off and waved in front of them by the Headless Horseman. You can view it for yourself on Oculus Share if you have a Rift DK2.
Another Emmy was handed to the team behind the AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience app, a 360-degree video centered around the singer’s Blank Space music video, which has been viewed over a billion times. It let users to look around the entire scene, follow Swift around and look for hidden clues. However, it was designed for a smartphone or tablet and not a headset, so falls outside what most folks would call virtual reality. Nevertheless, Swift was clearly well pleased, and the awards will no doubt motivate producers and artists to create similar side projects and keep the VR snowball rolling.
[Thanks, Felipe!]
Filed under:
Wearables, Facebook
Source:
Fox
Tags: Emmy, facebook, OculusRift, SecretLocation, SleepyHollow, video, VR, VRExperience
Prosthetic hand restores a man’s sense of touch
DARPA promised prosthetic limbs that produce realistic sensations, and it’s making good on its word. The agency’s researchers have successfully tested an artificial hand that gave a man a “near-natural” level of touch. The patient could tell when scientists were pressing against specific fingers, even when they tried to ‘trick’ the man by touching two digits at once. The key was to augment the thought-controlled hand with a set of pressure-sensitive torque motors wired directly to the brain — any time the hand touched something, it sent electrical signals that felt much like flesh-and-bone contact.
There’s still a lot of work left to go before this hardware is truly realistic, of course. The sensors don’t cover the entire hand, and they don’t account for temperature or other factors you’ll likely worry about when grabbing objects. Still, this should represent a big step forward. Provided the technology takes off, both amputees and paralysis victims could regain some of the tactility they once had.
Filed under:
Wearables, Science
Source:
DARPA
Tags: artificialhand, darpa, hand, health, medicine, prosthetic, prosthetichand, RevolutionizingProstheticsProgram, science, thoughtcontrol
Solar system simulation makes sweet planetary music
Designer Luke Twyman’s solar system simulation doesn’t have intricate graphics or a load of features to explore, but it can do what many others can’t: sing. Called SolarBeat, it plays a music box-like tune while the planets — represented by dots — revolve around the sun. It’s been around since 2010, but Twyman redesigned it after the Dawn spacecraft reached Ceres’ orbit. The new version has more controls you can use to adjust the speed of the music (which will also speed up or slow down the revolution of the planets), bass, echo, flutter and scale. There’s also a counter keeping tabs on how many Earth years have passed since you started playing the simulation. Our only complaint is that it stops playing when you switch tabs, so you can’t use it as a background music while going about your day.
[Image credit: ChrisGorgio/Getty]
Filed under:
Science
Via:
io9
Source:
Solarbeat
Tags: music, space, website
Motorola Connect app updated with improved UI, 2015 Moto 360 support and additional watch faces
Those who use Motorola accessories or smart devices definitely need some help keeping all their gadgets in check. This is why the Motorola Connect app exists; to help users manage their multiple Motorola articles. If you are one of the many who take advantage of this software tool, you may notice there is a new update awaiting in the Google Play Store. You should go get it soon, as it brings forth some meaningful improvements.
The main enhancement is likely the addition of the Moto 360 (2015) to the list of supported devices. The new Android Wear watch joins a list of plenty other supported devices, including the older Moto 360, the Moto Pulse, Moto Surround, Motorola Power Pack Micro, Motorola Keylink and the Motorola Connect PC Extension.
Supporting the new Moto 360 will only benefit a few of you, though. What most users will actually notice is the improved UI, which makes the experience “more intuitive and easier to navigate”. It looks very similar to the new Moto app, which we saw on the newest Moto G and Moto X smartphones.
The new design is sleek and clean. There is a floating action button that allows users to add their devices, and you can simply navigate through your current Moto products and access their settings. By the way, this apps also makes it possible to change the Moto 360 watch faces, and if you jump into the wearable’s options you may find that Motorola also added the new ones from the 2015 Moto 360.
Of course, there’s also the usual batch of bug fixes, but we have no idea what those are all about. Go get your update from the Google Play Store and join the conversation in the comments below. Are you liking the new UI?
NVIDIA recalling small number of SHIELD Pro units
NVIDIA is trying to manage their way through a recall involving a small number of their NVIDIA SHIELD Pro set-top box units running Android TV. The SHIELD Pro units are the 500GB version of the SHIELD units and according to NVIDIA, the problem involves that massive hard drive. According to NVIDIA, less than 1% of those units are prone to hard drive failures. To resolve the problem, NVIDIA is replacing units for customers who are experiencing problems.
NVIDIA says the problem with the hard drive manifests itself in a couple ways. First, when users try to apply Upgrade 1.4, the Fastboot menu appears. NVIDIA says users should seek a replacement unit even if they manage to eventually get the system to recover after a system reboot. The problem also shows up as severe and persistent pixelation in all tiles on the top row of the Android TV homescreen.
NVIDIA’s customer support notice about the matter says they will ship a new unit to customers as soon as an RMA is approved. Customers will not wait for the old unit to be shipped back, although presumably they will need to do that eventually.
source: NVIDIA
Come comment on this article: NVIDIA recalling small number of SHIELD Pro units
Motorola’s Moto Body app released to the Play Store
One of the benefits of a Moto 360 is the ability for it to pull double-duty as an activity tracker. To help users make use of the activity data being generated and recorded by their Moto 360 device, Motorola has now released their Moto Body app.
Similar to apps provided by other activity tracker companies, Moto Body gives users the ability to view progress against certain measures, including heart activity, number of steps and calories burned. The app will also track this data over time so users can look at how they are doing on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis.
Moto Body will offer personalized insights, tips and other information like health related articles. The app will also provide notifications to help users stay focused on their efforts.
If you have a Moto 360 and want to give Moto Body a try, use the link below to get the app from the Google Play Store.
Come comment on this article: Motorola’s Moto Body app released to the Play Store
Animated code art uses all of its colors once in every frame
You probably know that the display on your computer or phone can display millions of colors, if not more. However, have you wondered what it would look like if you tried to represent all of those colors in a single piece of art? Well, you’re looking at it. Qubit researcher and math guru Mike Swarbrick Jones has posted a code-driven animation that shows all the colors in a 24-bit RGB palette exactly once in every frame. The technique (which relies on mapping colors to voxels, or 3D pixels) produces a kind of “rainbow smoke” that, as you can see in the clip below, is rather hypnotic — it’s tempting to watch it on a loop and meditate. While this won’t produce a masterpiece, it’s proof that a good idea and the right calculations can lead to some truly eye-catching (not to mention mind-bending) visuals.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/138957563?portrait=0
Filed under:
Software
Source:
Mike Swarbrick Jones
Tags: 24-bit, algorithm, animation, art, code, color, math, programming, rgb, software, video
White House helps you find the right college through open data
It’s more than a little late to choose which college to attend this fall, but the White House might have the tools you need to make an informed decision next year. It just launched a redesigned College Scorecard website that relies on open data (a big deal in government these days) to help you evaluate schools, whether you’re a future student or a researcher. You can not only find out which colleges produce the most successful graduates, but also the typical debt loads, average SAT scores for newcomers and other factors that aren’t always easy to track down. You can even drill down to very specific criteria, such as students who received Pell grants.
The data is wending its way to private services, too, such as College Abacus’ financial aid calculator, PayScale’s salary databases and ProPublica’s non-profit newsroom. Whichever site you use, the hope is that this open data helps you cut the middleman out of your education choices. Instead of trusting an outside firm that might skew its ratings, you decide what’s important. No, you probably don’t want to rely solely on the College Scorecard (this is a life-changing decision, after all), but it’s hard to knock a big additional source of information.
[Image credit: Shutterstock]
Filed under:
Internet
Source:
College Scorecard, The White House
Tags: college, collegescorecard, data, education, government, internet, open, opendata, whitehouse
Moneypenny and the Xperia Z5 star in Sony’s “Made for Bond” ad
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In case you hadn’t noticed the not-so-subtle advertising in the previous 3 movies, Sony has a big hand in making the James Bond movies and has put plenty of its latest products in each. Sony’s latest ad, with the “Made for Bond” tag, stars Moneypenny as she flees from some henchmen with the help of Sony’s latest smartphone, the Sony Xperia Z5, and the RX100 IV camera – despite taking on the role of M’s assistant at the end of the movie Skyfall, it looks like Moneypenny likes a run in the field. Take a look at the ad below:
Unsurprisingly, since the Xperia Z5 benefits from the new Exmor RS 23MP camera sensor, Sony is keen to show off the Xperia Z5’s apparent low light abilities, though we’ll have to see if it actually performs like that when it reaches the hands of consumers. The latest movie, Spectre, is set to hit movie screens at the end of October so expect to see more “Made for Bond” ads in the coming weeks – perhaps we’ll even see Mr Bond next time.
What do you think about this “Made for Bond” ad? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: The Telegraph via XperiaBlog
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