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Cat Car turns your feline into a furry RC vehicle
Lasers, Arudinos, cats doing funny things -- here's a student project custom built for the internet age. We popped by the Winter Show at NYU's ITP school to check out a new batch of works exploring the intersection between art and technology and couldn't help but be enamored by Cat Car, the "feline fitness frenzy." Designed to be a sort of exercise contraption for our furry friends, Sam Brenner's project eventually blossomed into something for more entertaining, though he assures us that "the safety and wellbeing of the cats involved [were his] top priorit[ies]." Cat Car uses a steering wheel controller with an attached Arduino and gyroscope / accelerometer, which communicate with a cat harness via an XBee. The movements control a servo on the back of the cat, which moves around a laser pointer, propelling the cat forward, thus allowing the user to remotely control the cat. A video of this magic can be found after the break.
Caturday pic: Stop working nao
Kitty is obviously thinking, "get off the computer and pet me." photo by kwalk628
EVE Evolved: A game of cat and mouse
Outside of the annual Alliance Tournament, it's rare to find a fair fight in EVE Online with both sides being evenly matched in numbers or odds of success. On the actual battlefields of EVE, lone pilots and fleets alike hunt for fights they can win and tend to shy away from fights that aren't stacked in their favour. A bold few will intentionally engage when they're outmatched or outgunned in the hopes of getting a lucky and impressive-looking kill, but most of the time, that kind of fight is the result of a poor judgment call or misreading the situation. Something new EVE players tend to have trouble accepting is that the outcome of a fight is often decided before the guns even start firing. EVE PvP is a massive game of tactics in which the goal is to catch weaker enemies at a disadvantage, so the fight could already be lost the moment you're caught by a superior foe. A lot of PvP is psychological; you trick enemies into thinking they have the upper hand, and you hide your true intentions and abilities until it's too late. Fleets of all sizes roam around EVE appraising the smaller fish while avoiding the sharks, and I wouldn't trade that cat-and-mouse gameplay for any level of pre-arranged fairness. But what motivates people to fight or flee, and how can we win the psychological battle to gain an upper hand? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at three tricks you can use to catch targets off-guard.
The Daily Grind: Do you want more from your vanity pets?
So I completed Funcom's 30-mission goal this past weekend during The Secret World's one-month celebration. The reward was a shirt and a handful of points to use in the game's cash shop. I spent them on the Little Lion vanity pet that is a spitting image of my real-world house cat, and I got a few chuckles out of having her follow me around as I smited various dead and undead creatures terrorizing the locals in Blue Mountain. Eventually I zoned and she went back to her digital cat-napping, and I was left to wonder why more games don't give you some actual functionality to go along with your vanity pets. I know, they're just vanity pets, but in EverQuest II for example, I can make them play dead and about a dozen other tricks, whereas in The Secret World (and most other MMOs), they just follow me around. Heck, I can't even name this one! What about you, morning folk? Would you like your vanity pets to actually do something, or is that pretty far down on your MMO wishlist? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Funcom extends grace period for pre-order customers
There's nothing quite like the real world for gumming up the operations of the fantastical one. Some players of The Secret World pre-ordered the game and haven't yet received their retail copy, which is important because the grace period for playing without entering a retail key isn't a very big window of time and players were beginning to get antsy. In response to those concerns, Funcom announced that the grace period for pre-order key entry has been extended by 24 hours, allowing more people to slide in under the deadline. It's not an unusual step to take because launch-time distribution is known to be totally sucky. In a similar vein, some of the pre-order benefits -- the Egyptian Cat in-game pet, an exclusive in-game t-shirt, and an in-game ring -- are also extended to customers who enter their retail or digital game keys up until the end of today, July 6th. While that may not thrill true pre-order customers who liked being special snowflakes, that cat is darn adorable and everyone should get one.
Google simulates the human brain with 1000 machines, 16000 cores and a love of cats
Don't tell Google, but its latest X lab project is something performed by the great internet public every day. For free. Mountain View's secret lab stitched together 1,000 computers totaling 16,000 cores to form a neural network with over 1 billion connections, and sent it to YouTube looking for cats. Unlike the popular human time-sink, this was all in the name of science: specifically, simulating the human brain. The neural machine was presented with 10 million images taken from random videos, and went about teaching itself what our feline friends look like. Unlike similar experiments, where some manual guidance and supervision is involved, Google's pseudo-brain was given no such assistance. It wasn't just about cats, of course -- the broader aim was to see whether computers can learn face detection without labeled images. After studying the large set of image-data, the cluster revealed that indeed it could, in addition to being able to develop concepts for human body parts and -- of course -- cats. Overall, there was 15.8 percent accuracy in recognizing 20,000 object categories, which the researchers claim is a 70 percent jump over previous studies. Full details of the hows and whys will be presented at a forthcoming conference in Edinburgh.
Developer pairs robot with gaming controllers for remote cat grooming, affection expression
You could take the time to make your cat feel loved. Or you could augment a robot to do it for you. Software engineer Taylor Veltrop has accomplished this by combining a 21-inch-tall Nao robot, a few Wiimotes, a Kinect sensor bar, a treadmill and a head-mounted display. The configuration, which represents about a year's work and several thousand dollars in parts, uses the Kinect and Wii remotes to control the robot's arms, the sensor bar and treadmill to provide movement and the head-mounted display to move the Nao's head and adjust its camera angle. This is still a work in progress, and doesn't include things like two-way audio, which Veltrop plans to implement using an integrated microphone and speakers. Click past the break for a video of robotic feline grooming action.
eSleeper combines cats, Arduino and Twitter in an eMac shell (video)
If we had to imagine our dream DIY project chances are it would involve Arduino, Twitter and, of course, cats. How we'd combine those things we're not sure, but we'll admit to being big fans of Samuel Cox's eSleeper, which turns a hollowed-out eMac into a bed for his feline. Inside the shell is an Arduino Ethernet connected to an IR sensor, some LEDs and a sound shield. When the cat breaks the infrared beam it triggers the iconic Mac chime and turns on a series color-shifting LEDs for a little mood lighting. From there the clock starts ticking. When little Fluffy (Captain Whiskers? Matlock? Penny? Greg?) decides she's had enough napping and leaves the white plastic cocoon, tripping the IR sensor again, a random phrase is tweeted, along with the length of the cat's siesta. Check out the video after the break to see the eSleeper in all its adorable DIY glory.
Stradivarius violin recreated from CAT scan, 'sounds amazingly similar'
We've seen all kinds of crazy things being printed -- from bones to blood vessels -- and now you can add antique violins to that list. Music loving Radiologist Steven Sirr popped his into a CAT scanner to see what it was made of, then showed the results to a violin-making friend. Curiosity soon led them to scan everything from guitars to mandolins, so when the chance to take a peek inside a 307-year-old Stradivarius came up, how could they resist? 1000 scans later, the files were converted to 3D CAD format and another violin maker enlisted. Crucially, the images show the density of the wood all the way through, allowing a CNC machine to carve out copies of each section, with different woods used to match the differing densities. With all the parts in place and a lick of varnish, the replicas were complete. Sirr claims the copies sound "amazingly similar" to the original, but we are unsure if he plans to make it open-source.
Patch 4.2: Fandral's Flamescythe turns feral cats fiery
Feral druids, rejoice! Majordomo Staghelm turns into a pretty cool-looking flame cat during his encounter in patch 4.2's raid, The Firelands. Druids have been clamoring for Blizzard to in some way or another give feral cat druids that awesome flaming cat form. Well, your hopes and prayers were answered -- Fandral's Flamescythe, a drop from Majordomo Staghelm, will shift you into flame cat form when in cat form as long as it is equipped. This is wonderful news for druids, as more customization is always welcome. Blizzard's design philosophy of You went to the Firelands and came out looking like the Firelands is in full swing. Feral druids went to the Firelands, looked Fandral Staghelm in the eyes, and left with a tangible reward -- a sweet new form. This also paves the way for other items to also change players' forms, much like Deathbringer's Will from Icecrown Citadel in Wrath. The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!
No Comment: Friskies makes iPad web games for cats
So it's come to this. Originally, discovering that cats liked to play with the iPad was just a matter of coincidence -- Felix just liked to bat around the Magic Piano, and that was fine. But pet food maker Friskies has blown that idea right out, releasing a line of three full web-based games for the iPad meant to be played entirely by cats. It's true. Cat Fishing!, Party Mix-Up! and Tasty Treasures Hunt! are all games accessible from that website and built in HTML 5 just for the iPad, and as you can tell from the video after the break, all three of them are designed to attract your cat's attention. With bright shapes that move around in a jerky yet lifelike manner and flashy graphics that respond to paw touches, your cat now has its own games to play on your iPad 2. Friskies even warns that while cat claws can't scratch the iPad's glass screen, certain plastic covers might get scratched, so be careful. What they don't warn about, however, is that you might lose all of your Angry Birds free time to a game-addicted kitty. Beyond that, we have no comment. [via Laughing Squid]
eMac becomes cat bed
This eMac-turned-cat bed is the product of a friend of mine here in LA named Colin Hughes. A little while back, he got a new computer to replace his old (though still working) eMac, and instead of junking it, he decided to clean out the hardware and turn the case into a makeshift kitty pad. He says it took about an hour, mostly because the inside of the case was full of dust, but after transferring all of his files off, cleaning it out and taking a screwdriver to the actual monitor, the case was ready for its feline tenants. The cat above is named Little Mama, and she shares the setup with Colin's other cat, Elvis. Cute stuff -- you can see a few more shots of the conversion in the gallery below. %Gallery-121420%
Superheadz Necono 3 megapixel kitty camera might tolerate you (video)
Wait, this isn't a crapgadget, although you couldn't be blamed for thinking as much about this three megapixel Necono digital camera from Japan's Superheadz. Hell, that's what we thought before digging into the feature list a bit. Based on a design from Lisa Larson, the cat features magnetic feet and a self-timer for creating whimsical self-portraits. A mic and CMOS sensor combine to record VGA videos or 3 megapixel JPEG images to microSDHC cards. The camera is available now for a tax inclusive price of ¥15,750 -- converted, we're talking a whopping $192, a price that doesn't even include the dedicated LCD dock which won't ship until May at the earliest. Sure, it won't be the best digital camera for your money but there's no denying its pure, unadulterated gadget appeal to kitty fetishists or any demographic that hops in place while clapping. See it in action after the break.
Thanko's USB kitty mask might get you noticed
You know why he's so happy? Because he's Japanese, and being Japanese is awesome. Trains run on time, robots do the work, and you get to wear kitty-faced masks with a USB- or battery-powered fan to circulate the atmosphere in front of your air holes... and nobody cares. ¥1,980 (about $24), or ¥2,190 gift wrapped for someone special.
Flyff's Rise of the Muran expansion now live, complete with catgirls, achievements and more
When it comes to the free-to-play business model, US-based early-adopter Gala-Net has certainly raised a few eyebrows with its light-hearted fantasy MMO Flyff. Also known as Fly For Fun, Flyff has now had its doors open for several years and is showing no signs of slowing down. The game's latest expansion, Rise of the Muran has just gone live, bringing players a whole array of new content and gameplay just in time for Christmas. The expansion raises the game's level cap to 139 and includes a new third job evolution system, introducing eight new classes to the game. Players can now take on the roles of Templar, Slayer, Harlequin, Crackshooter, Force Master, Seraph, Mentalist, and Arcanist. Also included for players is a new guild housing system, in which high-level guilds can bid on huge shared buildings. As if that wasn't enough, Rise of the Muran opens a new area of the game for exploration -- the lost region of Kaillun. It's here in the safe city of Eillun that a new race of friendly cat-like creatures known as the Muran live. With all the new content to explore, new classes to try out and a brand new achievement system coming in, there's sure to be a lot for Flyff fans to do while wrapped up warmly in their houses this winter.
TUAW's Daily App: ChuChu Rocket!
Sega's classic ChuChu Rocket! puzzle title is on the App Store for both iPhone and iPad right now. I've been waiting for this one for a while. I loved the old Dreamcast version, and the remake for the iPhone not only recreates the mouse-redirecting gameplay (you place arrows on a board to guide mice around cats and into their mouseholes), but it adds a few iOS-specific features as well. There are 145 puzzles to play through, and as a special treat, Sega has added a one to four player multiplayer capability via Apple's Game Center; there are achievements to score as well. The iPhone version is US$4.99, which is less than you'd pay if you found the used Dreamcast version in a store somewhere. The iPad version is $6.99, but it includes a multiplayer mode where up to four players can play on one screen -- it sounds pretty crazy. This one is a classic puzzler that you should definitely check out even if you never played the old game. We're lucky to have it up and running on iOS.
Feline-powered humidifier pales in comparison to Alice B. Toklas' catnip brownies
We know what you're thinking -- how can you combine the awesome power of electrical generation with the subtle charms of your housecat? The Wool Ball hybrid humidifier, designed by a certain Yuan Gu for the Chinese firm Yadu, gets its power from the playful swipes of your pet -- or from a wall socket, if your tabby is as lazy as ours. There's no telling when this one will make it to market, but sometimes gadgets are better in the abstract anyways.
Amputee cat gets bionic back legs and a new attitude
When Oscar the cat got both of his back legs severed by a harvester, his prognosis was undoubtedly grim. Luckily for him, he was referred to a veterinarian, Noel Fitzpatrick, who had some pretty interesting ideas of his own. Dr. Fitzpatrick has successfully given the cat two back prosthetic legs, but they're completely unlike any prosthetic we've ever seen. Oscar's been given Itaps (intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics) which were developed at University College London. Itaps are custom made pegs which allow the bone and skin to grow to them, meaning that the "prosthetic" actually becomes part of the appendage itself. The surgery has been in testing for humans since 2005, and this one was the first performed on an animal. Hit up the BBC source link to check out a video of the kitty getting mobile.
Cat@Log, the tiny Twitter box for tweety bird hunters
Your cat's Twitter account just got real, yo. With an embedded accelerometer, GPS and camera in a lightweight neck-mounted package, this "Cat@Log" can figure out what your feline friend is doing at any given moment, and automatically send status updates accordingly. Should Sony Computer Science Laboratories and the University of Tokyo ever commercialize the thing, we're sure they'll sell plenty -- but please don't try to friend us with one. Why? Um... we're allergic... to anthropomorphic social networking. Yes, that's it. Your cat? Cute as a button, we swear.
Found Footage: Cat and iPad play well together
If you're not in the market to buy an iPad for yourself, at least get one for your cat. YouTube user Rautiocination captured his cat Iggy and his iPad, both apparently in a playful mood. It appears that iPads may soon become the toy of choice for well-heeled felines! Smule's Magic Piano is the app that Iggy is playing towards the end of the video, but I'm not sure what the initial app is. Anybody? Thanks, Michele, for the tip!
