Weird Science – Yet More Robots

In a strange case of the left manipulator not knowing what the right manipulator is doing, here are two more robots that I somehow managed to miss off yesterday’s post.

First up is the obvious and long overdue companion to yesterday’s beer fetching robots; a robot that can flip pancakes. Obviously there have been automated pancake makers around for a while now, but this robot from the Italian Institute of technology has learnt how to flip a good pancake by seeing how humans do it. Please, Dr. Kormushev, teach it to fry bacon next (Vimeo).



But if some groups are concentrating on robots that ply you with beer and pancakes, Autom’s mission in life is to help you lose weight and live healthily. The brainchild of Cory Kidd, who had the idea while at MIT, Autom first asks you for details of your diet, fitness and exercise regime, then it has daily 'conversations' with you during which it will dispense diet and exercise advice. Apparently a major insurance company intends to trial Autom in the US sometime next year, so we can all look forward to having one of these nag us each morning as a mandatory requirement of our health plan (Engadget).



Hmm, perhaps I could teach the pancake robot to flatten the annoying little thingamajig with its frying pan before making my breakfast stack?

Weird Science – Invention Is The Mother Of Necessity

Build a better mousetrap, it is said, and the world will beat a path to your door. The implication being that there are some problems which are just crying out for a solution. And then there are the solutions crying out for a problem - those inventions that, while inspired, are just a tad “out there”. It is this later category I shall be celebrating today.

First up, how clean is your cow? This age old problem has nagged at the minds of farmers down the ages, are their cows clean enough? And why isn’t there an easier way to clean cows? Well these merchants of the soil need worry no more thanks to a Swedish company that has developed the fully automated “cow wash”. Supposedly improving the health and yield of cows that use it, the cow wash uses a free swinging revolving brush to groom the cows while simultaneously stimulating their circulation. Apparently the cows enjoy using it and the makers DeLaval have sold over 30,000 in Sweden alone (Daily Mail).

Bigwigs in the US military will also soon be able to sleep sounder in the knowledge that the men under their command are safely in their underpants. We’re not just talking about any undies though, these have been specially designed by University of California professor Joseph Wang. Not only will his techno-trunks monitor the vitals of the personnel wearing them, they can even administer painkillers or antibiotics as the situation demands (Post Chronicle).

And if your pants don’t save you, at least your modesty will be preserved when you are taken to hospital, all thanks to the University of Montreal. For it is from that fine establishment’s School of Industrial Design that our next invention hails, a hospital gown that isn’t quite so revealing. The DUO gown is the brainchild of Noemie Marquis and Denyse Roy and consists of two overlapping panels, front and back, that is easy to put on and requires no fasteners making life simpler for both patients and staff (Medical News Today).

Meanwhile British scientists have been working on an altogether sterner cover. Nicknamed “bullet-proof custard” by its inventors, Bristol based BAE systems have developed a liquid armour consisting of layers of Kevlar combined with a secret “shear-thickening” liquid that hardens as force is applied. The company’s eventual aim is to produce lighter, more-flexible body armour for the military (BBC News).

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Weird Science - Towel Folding Robot

Judging by the huge response to what I thought was a fairly large and obscure post about a tiny coincidence, the Hitchhiker's Guide and cutting-edge science is obviously a winning combination.

So here is a super special Douglas Adams bonus, a robot folding towels! Okay so that's a bit of a stretch, but it is still quite cool.

Note that this video has been speeded up 50x, in real time it took the robot over an hour and a half to complete this one task. Perhaps it was feeling a little depressed?

The Cashless Society, As Predicted In 1967.

Here's a clip from the BBC popular science program Tomorrow's World from 1967, talking about how the future will become a cashless society. It's interesting to see that the very first debit-card system shown on the program used PINs rather than signatures to authorize.

Unfortunately, the BBC iPlayer can't be embedded like most online videos, so here's a link to the excerpt in question.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/tomorrowsworld/8012.shtml

This is just one of a number of Tomorrow's World clips the BBC is making freely available online. There are some real gems on the site, including a first look at the "light-pen" from 1967, an early screen outing for the Moog synthesizer from 1969, and a demonstration of one of the first true mobile phone systems from 1979.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/tomorrowsworld/index.shtml

Oops, it seems not everyone can view the Online BBC Archive. For those who can't here's a couple of stills from the electronic banking and mobile phone segments mentioned above.





Love that funky retro dial!

Inventions of Buckminster Fuller, Part 6: Geodesic Domes

This is one of Bucky's inventions that actually went into practical use. Also, many people are actually somewhat familiar with this one (think Spaceship Earth at Epcot).

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Inventions of Buckminster Fuller, Part 4: The Dymaxion Bathroom

This was the finishing touch to Fuller's Dymaxion House.
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Monorail!

June 2009 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Disneyland Monorail System. Let's all let out a lusty cheer for the mass-transportation breakthrough of the future which is always and forever just around the corner of feasibility. Maybe you'd even like to join THE MONORAIL SOCIETY to celebrate.

Or listen to this:

Inventions of Buckminster Fuller, Part 2: The Dymaxion House

Problem: Quality housing is too expensive for the average person.
Answer: The Dymaxion House!
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Soviet Space Stamps

These were sent to me by my Belgian pal Peter Dans-
saert.

Click on the image twice, to get them really big!

Century 21 Calling

I've never seen a young girl get so excited about a large model of DNA before!

Even if you don't watch all of this, be sure to fast-forward to about the 12-minute mark, for the great closing theme song.

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.