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Olympus E-P2 dons all-black garb for limited edition pancake lens kits
Olympus has just made a pair of new, limited edition kit options official for its PEN E-P2 shooter. Both include an M. Zuiko Digital 17mm F2.8 prime lens and an all-black paintjob, with the choice for the buyer being between a Special Black (or just black, if you're talking to humans) EVF Edition that brings you the V-F2 viewfinder, and an equally noir Flash Edition, which will enrich your life with the FL-14 external flash. Prices are €1,079 ($1,371) and €1,049 ($1,332), respectively, and launch is scheduled for October of this year. As the old saying goes, you don't have to be crazy to buy these, but it'd help.
Robot arm learns to flip pancakes, can never know the joys of tasting one
We'd like to pretend to be all serious about the science behind teaching a robot arm to teach itself a complicated motion like pancake flipping. We'd drone on and on about how the combination of demonstrated motion, trial-and-error, and object motion tracking come together for some "Expectation-Maximization based Reinforcement Learning," but really we just can't stop giggling at all the pancake misses perpetrated by the robot on video, which can be found after the break.
Video: ABB FlexPicker replaces human pancake pickers with amazing effect
Mmm, pancakes. While moms might be responsible for giving us our first taste, it's the humble robot that makes these golden-brown discs of battered splendor available for mass market binging. A promotional video from ABB Robotics shows how its FlexPicker robots installed at a HoneyTop foods facility can accelerate production while simultaneously improving hygienic conditions. Four gigabit Ethernet cameras are mounted in front of each robot to locate the pancakes running down the conveyor belt. Software allows the bots to recognize and grab overlapping pancakes and then stack the 'cakes for easy packing. A software reconfig allows for quick production changes from pancakes to pretty much anything the robot can grasp including Soylent Green ration wafers. The video starts slow, but delivers with an impressive 400 pancakes per minute sorting routine -- see it after the break.[Via Make:]
ChefStack automatic pancake machine -- for all your pancake party needs
Remember the last time you made pancakes? No? Well, let us remind you: it ended in sadness and confusion because you simply couldn't crank out the insane volume of pancakes you wanted / needed. Well, the ChefStack is here to help. It's a giant, automated machine with internal rollers, and its entire purpose is to do nothing but make pancakes (roughly 200 per hour). Using pre-filled bags of batter, this dude does all the work while you site by, and apparently it's also a breeze to clean too, though we find that a bit hard to believe. Now -- do you need a machine that makes nothing but pancakes? Are the pancakes any good? Hard to say -- but this device, which seems to be targeted at restaurants, will run you about $3,500 if you really want to get your hands on one. [Via SlashGear]
Beware: Tomorrow is April Fools' Day
Just a friendly reminder, folks, tomorrow is April Fool's Day, so be very careful about "breaking news" you might stumble upon. Whether it's Blue Hobbits or Wii.TV, just take what you read with a grain of salt until the clock strikes midnight. Here's some helpful advice: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is: We'd all love for Nintendo to suddenly give everyone who clicks a link a free Wii, but face it, it doesn't seem too likely. Sourcing is important: If a blockbuster April 1 story comes from unnamed sources or a mysteriously dead web site, remain skeptical. The least they could do is forge some documentation for their joke; make them work for it. Pimps at Sea is never coming out: It's a Bungie inside joke, and someone always manages to fall for it. Also, whatever Blizzard announces tomorrow is a lie, so just have a laugh. Duke Nukem Forever is never coming out: That 100% confirmed release date you'll read about tomorrow? Total baloney. Any questions? Here's a bunny with a pancake on its head.
