Disney’s one-legged robot will hop its way into your heart

Disney’s research division revealed last year that one of the company’s goals is to bring its fictional characters to life… as robots. Well, folks, we may now be witnessing the birth of a robotic Tigger. The House of Mouse’s scientists have designed a bouncy machine with one leg that can hop around without support. It can only stay upright for around 19 hops before it adorably topples over, but according to its creators, other one-legged robots and aren’t as portable and can’t balance on a single limb without a tether.

Tigger-bot, however, can naturally bounce on its own. The secret lies in its leg mechanism that the researchers call “Linear Elastic Actuator in Parallel” or LEAP. It uses compression springs to support the structure’s weight and a voice coil that pushes against the ground. We’re sure it helps that the whole leg can move forward, backward, right and left instead of staying rigid.

It will likely take a long, long time before you can buy an actual bouncy Tigger toy based on this design, though. Disney hasn’t even admitted that it’s making a robotic version of the friendly feline. For now, you can watch the video below and imagine the hopping machine as Pooh’s friend, happily bouncing on his tail.

Via: The Verge, Gizmodo

Source: Disney Research

Tesla drops the entry-level Model X 60D from its lineup

We hope you weren’t scrimping and saving to put the entry-level Model X in your driveway. Tesla has quietly dropped the 60D version of its electric crossover, leaving the 75D as your only choice. While the Model X wasn’t exactly a budget vehicle to start with, that definitely raises the price of entry. You now have to spend $85,500 before tax credits to get past those falcon wing doors, or about $11,500 more than you did while the 60D was around.

We’ve asked Tesla if it can say why the 60D is leaving a mere 3 months after it made its debut. There’s a chance (however slim) that it could tie into the company’s looming October 17th event. However, it wouldn’t be surprising if the starter Model X occupied an awkward middle ground and just wasn’t selling as well as the company liked. After all, frugal buyers (relatively speaking) are more likely to skew toward the Model S 60, which starts at $66,000. If you can afford to spend thousands of dollars more for the X, why not splurge on the longer range of the 75D? Tesla wants to deliver more of the EVs it makes these days, and that likely means scrapping any vehicles that aren’t strong sellers.

Via: Electrek

Source: Tesla

Android and chill: Do the right thing

It’s piling up so fast you almost need wings to stay above it.

That line (paraphrased) from Martin Sheen’s character in Apocolypse Now perfectly describes this weekend for Samsung. I had what I thought was a really well-written and thoughtful article ready yesterday about the price of phones, our reactions, and how we can’t judge what anything is worth to someone else. A big part of it was about the Note 7, which set off the most recent chain of phones that cost “a lot.”

Yeah, that went off the rails. That’s what I get for trying to talk about things that move as quickly as mobile tech. This week’s Android and chill isn’t so chill.

The Note 7 has turned into a dumpster fire. We really have no idea what’s going on, yet we’re seeing people with replacement phones doing the same exact thing the original ones did. The ones that Samsung, Health Canada, and the CPSC all deemed as unsafe. Why this is happening is anyone’s guess. I imagine that even Samsung isn’t quite sure. Worst of all, people who spent nearly $1,000 USD on a new phone, universally touted as the best you can buy, have no idea what the hell is going on. And that’s not fair. Not even a little.

I imagine even Samsung is unsure about exactly what is happening right now.

I’m done believing some story about anode-to-cathodes and other assorted nonsense as the explanation for phones exploding, catching fire, and in a few cases putting people in the hospital. Especially now that the miracle cure seemingly did nothing. And if there isn’t another wide-spread issue and these were isolated incidents that had the most terrible timing imaginable, I don’t care. The Note 7 is damaged goods, never to be redeemed. The public doesn’t want it, the carriers don’t want it, and even if the people who do still want it bought three of them each, that’s not enough to save it. Kill it. Take it out back with one bullet like the thing you love that could turn rabid and hurt you at any time.

Photo courtesy KTSP News

Until we are able to retrieve the device, we cannot confirm that this incident involves the new Note 7. We are working with the authorities and Southwest now to recover the device and confirm the cause. Once we have examined the device we will have more information to share

That was Samsung’s response when a man’s replacement Note 7 burst into flames while he was boarding his flight to Baltimore. Seeing that is when I realized that things were once again out of control. No mention of concern for the people involved or relief that nobody was injured, no empathy for worried customers who shelled out $1,000 and no tact. How hard would it have been to say that “Samsung is thankful that nobody was injured during the incident and we are ready to assist the investigation in any way we can.” Or better yet, how about you get your lead engineers and someone in a suit and tie with a VP title on a Goddamn plane and find out what’s going on while you’re saying it? Instead, the response sounds accusatory towards the victim and frankly has the vibe that Samsung is in damage-control mode and doesn’t care about anything else.

Bad hardware can happen to any company. Unlike many others, I praised Samsung for moving forward with a voluntary recall while waiting for government agencies to churn out something. Getting the Note 7 off of the streets was the single most important thing that needed to be done at the time and Samsung did it without being forced. Supply issues and replacements were something that can be worked out after you’re sure nobody else is going to get hurt. That goodwill I felt is quickly slipping away as Samsung remains silent after another round of high-profile battery failures.

The Note 7 is damaged goods, never to be redeemed. Even if there’s nothing wrong with it.

We need to know what’s happening, Samsung, or we need an avenue for an instant refund of every dollar spent so we can buy a different phone. If I or anyone in my family had a Note 7, it wouldn’t leave my office. My wife wouldn’t be carrying one, nor would my children. Not until I knew it was safe, and I’m afraid I’ll never know that. I’m not advising anyone else on what they should do with my unsolicited opinion. But I know the bad taste this is leaving behind might have been avoidable had Samsung said something, anything, as soon as they had reports of the replacement Notes having these familiar issues. I’m not going to entertain the thought that Samsung knew there was a problem before phones exploded in Korea, and Taiwan, and China, and Kentucky and Minnesota right now. I can’t.

I just know it’s time for Samsung to do the right thing and let us know what they know, tells us what they plan to do, and help us feel better about their phones.

Ben Heck’s guide to making your own Halloween costume

It’s almost time for Halloween! Ben and Karen put their heads together to design an electronics superhero costume, filled with sound effects and highlighted with electroluminescent wire. Ben starts to prototype the circuitry using an i2c connected LSM303DLH accelerometer sensor, which is connected to a Parallax Propeller development stick. Unfortunately, this isn’t actually that easy, and Ben is forced to debug the connections to the i2c circuit with an oscilloscope.

Once Ben has the code ready for testing, it’s time for Karen to calibrate the sensors with kicks, punches and a little dancing. Finally, what’s a superhero without the correct attire? Karen walks through the group’s ideas so far and considers laser-cutting skirts and trousers with a superhero logo to give them some extra style. Meanwhile, you can submit your own design ideas over at the element14 Community.

Tesla is holding a ‘product unveiling’ on October 17th

This October is a busy month for Tesla. On top of a SolarCity-linked event on the 28th, the company’s Elon Musk has revealed that there’s a Tesla-specific “product unveiling” event slated for the 17th. It’s not certain what will appear at the event (Musk says it’s “unexpected by most”), but there are already ideas floating around. Suffice it to say that this probably won’t involve pure energy products — those are more likely to wait for the 28th.
One possibility: this is Tesla’s chance to showcase the finished Model 3 design, and possibly to explain more about its options and features. Just what is the “obvious thing” for Autopilot on the upcoming EV? We also wouldn’t rule out further Autopilot improvements for existing cars, or hardware upgrades such as longer-ranged batteries. Tesla is fond of iterative tweaks to its vehicles, so there’s no guarantee that this will be an earth-shaking announcement.

Tesla product unveiling on the 17th (unexpected by most), followed by Tesla/SolarCity on the 28th

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 9, 2016

Source: Elon Musk (Twitter)

From the Editor’s Desk: Saying sorry

Some Sunday thoughts from cottage country.

It’s hard to say sorry. Big companies especially need to get better at it. Hell, I’m Canadian and say it all the time and still need to get better at it.

What struck me about this whole Note 7 mess is that Samsung just hasn’t made people feel good enough about its response. It did all the right things — got the phones back en masse, issued new ones quickly, with sufficient (albeit strange) differentiation — but they missed the emotional impact that this recall had on people. And now, after several replacement Note 7s have reportedly exploded, the company has stayed largely silent, except to say the investigation continues. The trend is disturbing.

It’s akin to a relationship gone south, and all you see can see after the breakup is a totally different person staring back at you.

People are scared. They’re scared to buy Note 7s, they’re nervous to be around other people with Note 7s, and they’re especially hesitant to use one themselves. And that’s OK: It’s normal to be worried when you’ve been told a thing in your house — in your pocket— could explode without warning. The difference is that the Note 7, or any phone, is meant to stay near you most of the time, to be a companion. Even a friend. It’s akin to a relationship gone south, and all you see can see after the breakup is a totally different person staring back at you.

Despite the recent rash of fires from the new batch of Note 7s, the chance of an individual unit spontaneously alighting is still very low. And yet, when I peer at the replacement Note 7 on my desk, I can’t help looking at it a bit sideways. My response is as emotional as it is based in fact, but that’s the point: Samsung hasn’t adequately addressed the underlying human side of this very technical problem.

It’s also a side of tech that I don’t think we, as the media, successfully approach. No piece of tech has engendered more sustained discord, more animosity, more feigned us vs. them, than the smartphone, both inter- and intra-ecosystem. And yet we don’t really acknowledge the cause of this vitriol, since we generally only address it after it’s been expressed. I don’t want to play the role of armchair psychologist, so I’m just going to end with this: Phones are not phones, but extensions of ourselves, and our lives, over which we have considerably more control than most other areas. And when that control is upended in some way — by an errant software update, or the fear of an exploding battery — it becomes more distant from us.

Samsung hasn’t adequately addressed the underlying human side of this very technical problem.

It’s for those reasons that the Pixel’s announcement, that it was at once not a Nexus and too much like a Nexus, was so divisive. I was lucky enough to use the phones briefly at an event in Toronto, and came away impressed and confused. On one hand, the phones are objectively great — nicely-built, and conscientious of the way people use their phones today — but, in the hands of Google, they have limited carrier support in the U.S. and are being positioned as both Galaxy and Nexus. I want the Pixels to do well, but I also know how difficult that will be.

• Andrew and Russell did a great job on the Pixel hands-on, and both of them really understand where it fits in the Android
  ecosystem.
• Alex did better than most other sites reviewing the iPhone 7 Plus, giving it a fair shake from an Android user. It’s a great phone, with an amazing camera, but it’s no longer automatically the best phone, as evidenced by…
• …the results of the Blind Camera Test. I’m of two minds about the results: Samsung ramps up the color saturation of its photos, which is naturally pleasing to the eye, but there are also examples where the phone is objectively better. The iPhone 7 also holds its own, but Apple goes for a more natural look — #nofilter to Samsung’s Juno or Ludwig —which can turn some people off. Different strokes.
• The LG V20 goes on sale on October twenty days too late for most people. (October 28.) Seriously, LG, you had one job, and it was to get this phone into people’s hands two weeks after the September 6 announcement.
• Verizon ruins everything.
• But seriously, Verizon isn’t just a wireless network provider; it’s a services company, a content producer, and an enormous ad funnel. You think Google’s deal to sell the Pixel on Verizon was all about the company pre-installing a couple of apps and controlling software updates? No, it was all about Google promising to advertise the crap out of its new phones on every Verizon-owned publishing channel, including AOL.
• We’re approaching a time when the Note 7 will have to be recalled again, but this second round of problems has, I believe, damaged the Note brand’s reputation beyond repair.
• And if this text message can be verified as having come from a Samsung representative… wow. Just wow.
• Hurricane Matthew looked devastating. Hope all of you are safe and unharmed from the inundation.

If you’re in Canada, have a very happy Thanksgiving, and if you’re in the U.S., happy Columbus Day!

      -Daniel

Mobile, sun-seeking gardens, and more in the week that was

The Fisker Karma was one of the world’s hottest plug-in hybrid supercars when it debuted in 2011 – and now its creator Henrik Fisker has announced plans to launch an electric sports car with a 400-mile range next year. Meanwhile, Mercedes is taking aim at the Tesla Model X with its new Generation EQ SUV, which touts 400 horsepower and an all-electric driving range of 300 miles. The International Space Station is getting ready to test a brand new ion thruster that can be powered by space junk, and teenage inventor Boyan Slat has modified a C-130 Hercules aircraft with high-tech sensors to spot plastic debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Solar power is getting cheaper by the day – and two groundbreaking projects in China and Abu Dhabi have pushed the price down 25% in just five months. In other energy news, Poland just unveiled a glowing, bright blue bike lane that’s charged by the sun. The Water Seer is a new wind-powered gadget that pulls clean drinking water from thin air, and the Land Art Generator Initiative showcased a fog-harvesting, energy-generating boat that could collect 30 million gallons of water ever year. And an innovative algae-growing building took top prize in the Biodesign Competition.

In design and technology news, this week the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists who invented the world’s tiniest machines. Gensler unveiled plans for a high-tech floating structure to house the UK Parliament on the River Thames, and we spotted a a futuristic Dutch community made from 50 spherical homes. You’ve probably heard of self-driving cars, but what about a self-driving garden? That’s the idea behind this crazy geodesic garden sphere that drives itself around in search of sunlight. And Sealtech has developed an innovative fabric that’s able to repair itself with just a touch.

Get ready to prove the skills on your resume in virtual reality

If you’re going to add skills you don’t actually have on your resume, make sure the employer won’t do everything in its power to make you prove it. Lloyds Banking Group, for instance, is putting potential employees to the test with the help of VR headsets. According to Wired, the British financial institution will ask applicants to perform tasks and solve issues they’re bound to encounter as the company’s employees, but in virtual worlds. By doing so, interviewers will have the chance to observe how they’ll handle problems they can’t recreate in an office instead of asking hypothetical situations.
Wired says the applicants will be placed in 360-degree virtual environments. Motion control sensors will track their actions, so they can move objects within those worlds. Lloyds plans to launch its high-tech job interview process at its recruitment drive this autumn, and we really wouldn’t be surprised if other companies follow suit. It’s only natural for people to find new uses for virtual reality the more common VR devices become, after all.

Source: Wired