animals
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iPhone and mirror turned into DIY monkeycam
YouTube user Mark Rober, last seen making a gruesome Halloween costume with a couple of iPad 2s, has posted another video on YouTube featuring another relatively unconventional use for Apple's mobile devices. Rober found that during a trip to the zoo, he could use the iPhone's front camera and screen to both get the apes' attention and film them at the same time. He also found they weren't looking right at the camera, however (since the iPhone's camera is offset from the main screen), so he decided to rig up a mirror frame for the iPhone to sit in, and head back to the zoo to make some amateur and DIY "wildlife" photography. As you can see below, the results are pretty amazing. Not only are the primates entranced by their own images, but the iPhone's camera (I presume he's using a 4S -- I'll be impressed if it's just an iPhone 4) captures some really amazing footage, even at the relatively short distance and through whatever glass is holding the animals in their pens. As Rober points out, you can even see the orangutan's pupils dilating, which I think is quite a feat for a smartphone camera. Plus, definitely stay to the end of the video, when he tries the trick (with surprisingly similar results) on some other hairy apes.
Merry Christmas, here's a frog playing video games
We can't help but feel sorry for the little guy, to be honest. There he is, thinkin' he's about the receive a delicious buggy treat, only to have his enthusiastic face smushed against the cold, unforgiving capacitive touchscreen of his owner's nondescript Android device. Don't get us wrong, we love watching animals play video games as much as the next guy, but we'd be lying if we said that thumb didn't get what was coming to it.
Pinoky makes it easier to pretend like your stuffed animals are real friends (video)
Seated above, from left to right, are Ms. Snuggleberry, Mr. Cuddlekins, and Professor Puddles. They congregated atop this egg yolk for what they thought would be another customary meeting of Mammalian Malice -- a vaguely neo-Jacobean slam poetry collective founded in the aftermath of the Crimean War. Little did they know, however, that they were walking straight into Yuta Sugiura's trap. Sugiura and his colleagues, you see, have created a toy known as Pinoky -- a small, ring-like device that wirelessly brings stuffed animals to "life," as Snuggleberry, Cuddlekins and Puddles soon discovered. Developed as part of a project at Keio University, Pinoky uses a micro controller, a Zigbee input device and a servo motor system to move an animal's extremities, with a set of photo sensors designed to measure the angle at which it bends. All you have to do is grab your favorite imaginary friend, strap a Pinoky around his limb, and use the accompanying remote controller to make him flail around like a fish on house arrest. See it for yourself, after the break.
Visit the famed San Diego Zoo with your iPhone
The San Diego Zoo is arguably among the very best zoos in the world. With more than 4,000 animals and 800-plus species, it's a national treasure. My visits are fondly remembered, and starting today you can visit some of the best of the zoo from the comfort of your iPhone. The free SanDiegoZoo app is chock full of pictures, maps, visitor info and live cams showing pandas and polar bears, among other features. There are hundreds of still images of zoo residents, and all are sharable and can be saved locally. There are also guides to the many restaurants at the zoo, but no menus. There is also a detailed zoom-able map, but I'd prefer GPS integration so that people who are actually at the zoo could see where they are and easily find their way around the huge facility. This official, zoo-sponsored app has a lot to offer for animal lovers and fans of the San Diego Zoo. The app could use a bit more detailed information in certain areas. The app is an 18 MB download and is for iPhone and iPod touch only, although armchair travelers would probably appreciate an iPad version of the app. SanDiegoZoo is a good app, and with a few changes could be great. Even if you never get to visit the zoo, this app is a great introduction and offers some good information and striking images. Check the gallery for some sample screens. %Gallery-141922%
Retro gadget orchestra nails House of the Rising Sun, puts your garage band to shame (video)
YouTube user BD594, also known as James Cochrane, is no stranger to pushing retro tech to its musical limits. Back in 2009 he coaxed a scanner, an Atari 800XL and a host of other antiquated gadgets to perform Bohemian Rhapsody. The results, while certainly enjoyable, were a tad tone deaf. Well, in the years since he's tweaking his "musicians" and his orchestra has just issued its second single -- a stunning rendition of House of the Rising Sun, in the style of the Animals. Seriously, this staple of '60s high school rockstar wannabes is absolutely nailed by the assortment of hard drives, oscilloscopes and the scanner. Cochrane isn't alone in his quest to turn obsolete tech into musical magic. Christopher Mitchell managed to hack a Ti graphing calculator and floppy-disk drive into a monophonic media player. While his accomplishment is impressive, he loses this round for wasting his skills on the saccharin stylings of Cold Play. Check out both videos after the break.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: magnetic highways, MoMA tech exhibit and lasers in the sky
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. Renewable energy supercharged our transit system this week as Inhabitat showcased Vycon's plans to tap speeding subway trains for immense amounts of kinetic energy, and we took a look at an innovative magnetic highway system that harvests energy from passing cars. Biofuels also got a boost from several unlikely sources as researchers discovered that bacteria in panda poop is incredibly efficient at breaking down plant matter, and scientists developed a way to recycle newspaper into biofuel. We also showcased a real-time energy monitoring device for kids, we learned that some radioactive areas around Fukushima are more dangerous than Chernobyl, and we took a look inside a subterranean atomic shelter that has been transformed into a cavernous underground office. How do machines communicate with people? If you're pondering that idea, you'll be interested in this exclusive video interview with Museum of Modern Art curator Paola Antonelli on MoMA's new 'Talk to Me' technology exhibit which recently opened in New York City. We were also amazed by several artistic innovations this week as Wacom unveiled a pen that instantly digitizes anything you can draw and Sarah Garzoni created a beautiful series of printed paper butterflies. In other news, we shined the spotlight on several brilliant advances in lighting technology as scientists successfully created rain by shooting laser beams into the sky and a designer unveiled a solar OLED tile system that can transform skyscrapers into zero-energy displays. We also brought you several bright ideas in wearable tech as Halston unveiled a glow-in-the-dark sequin gown, a ghostly troop of illuminated radiation suits wandered through the German countryside, and a Cornell student developed a type of clothing that traps toxic gases. Meanwhile the Hudson River lit up with a luminous field of 200 LEDs and Laser Power Systems unveiled plans for a nuclear powered car. Speaking of green transportation, we also spotted a high-tech E-Max motorcycle that converts pressure into power, and we watched Toyota's all-electric P001 racer become the first EV to break the Nurburgring's 8-minute speed record.
5 apps for the lemur owner
Sometimes a wiseacre editor (we have a few) suggests we do a Five Apps post for a particularly offbeat area of interest. And sometimes we actually start brainstorming these. "Five Apps for the Lemur Owner" has been on our "to hit" list for ages now. The problem is we're not entirely sure we can get behind the idea of private lemur ownership. Sure, there are USDA-licensed lemur breeders, so you can buy a lemur legally in the US and feed it with easily-available primate-chow, but there are many good reasons that lemurs top lists of worst-pet-choices. And better ways to spend your money. That being said, TUAW has been promising a 5 Apps for the Lemur Owner write-up for years now. And it all came down to put up or shut up. We decided to put up. We hope you take this post with the lighthearted humor that is intended. On to the Monkey Business. For US$1.99, you can load your iPhone with Monkeys!!, (yes, those two exclamation points are part!! of its name!!), an app that offers over a hundred "fascinating images that [your pet lemur] will love...you'll never find a better selection of gorillas, apes, chimpanzees, lemurs, and other primates!" Perfect for the lemur whose just a wee bit bored with the primate who actually delivers the primate-chow and cleans up after it. If your lemur is something of a speciesist snob, there's an entire app devoted to lemurity. iLemur (free) offers "The first interactive encyclopedia of lemurs." The application helps you discover "lemur species from a dynamic mosaic," encouraging you to "Find the cutest!" Lest you be put off by this title, be assured the app is full of facts, offering physical characteristics, ecology, conservation status, and more. The Primates (also free) provides an all-round guide to all primates including lemurs, orangutans, gorillas, the guy you sit next to at work, and more. The marketing text specifies that "every primate lover should have this application." Moving on... There are primates aplenty to be enjoyed with ZooBorns, a free app that ties into the much-loved baby animal site. If you have not bookmarked ZooBorns in your browser, do so now. I'll wait. It's not a lemur-specific site, but it's one of the best child-friendly web pages around. Finally, we give you Banana Gun. Because someone had to. This free-app lets you roleplay as one of the last surviving bananas in the world, coming under attack by rabid monkeys. Only the elite banana warriors will triumph. And with that, we invite you to go bananas. (Next up? 5 Apps for the Amish. Send in your suggestions.)
Daily iPad App: Pocket Zoo HD
Parents and educators looking for a fun way to teach the young ones about zoo animals -- and have a bit of fun in the process -- now have an iPad app that fits both criteria. Pocket Zoo HD (US$3.99) gives kids of all ages a chance to learn more about some of the animals they might find in zoos (or the wild) and even see the creatures in real time through embedded webcam video. Launching Pocket Zoo HD takes you to a "zoo map" that looks remarkably similar to one of those that you'd find at a top-tier location like the San Diego Zoo. It has the animals grouped by biome on the map -- Australian critters like the platypus and Tasmanian devil occupy one area, sea creatures are in an "aquarium" in the center of the map, and so on. Tapping on the image of an animal displays informative text about the animal under a detailed photo, and tapping on the photo plays a high-quality recording of a sound that the animal makes. %Gallery-131036% In many cases, there are short videos associated with the animal as well. These videos are all from YouTube, so in some cases the soundtrack can be a bit annoying, but it's fun to see zoo animals in action as seen by the video cameras or smartphones of people at the zoo. The best feature, though, is new -- the ability to watch many of the animals in real time through zoo webcams. Not every animal has a webcam feed, and for those who do, the feed can be shut down from time to time to give the animal some "private time." While the animals are online, it's a lot of fun to watch their behavior in action. The live cams feature a camera button for taking stills of what's going on, as well as email and Twitter buttons for sharing the action with friends. Pocket Zoo HD is a perfect example of an app that can be both fun and educational, and the addition of the webcam feeds makes it even more of an enticing way for anyone to learn more about the animals we share the planet with. The developer, Tiny Hearts, also donates 1% of all proceeds to animal conservation, so you can help preserve wildlife while enjoying the app.
The Daily Grind: What's your favorite in-game wildlife?
The general rule of MMOs is pretty simple to understand -- if it moves, either get a quest from it or kill it. Natural critters other than enemy soldiers exist mostly so that you can occasionally kill ten rats rather than killing ten beastmen. But from the chocobos of Final Fantasy XI to the elementally affected critters of RIFT, there are a plethora of different creatures that roam the land that you aren't necessarily meant to kill -- or at least those that serve a purpose in the world's ecology. In some games, such as the deep space setting of EVE Online, you're not going to find much in the way of wildlife. But in the games that do feature animals meandering about, which ones are your favorites? What local fauna catches your eye, either because it reminds you that the game takes place in a living world or just because it's so alien and bizarre? 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!
Microdrones' flying robot films African wildlife, finds peace with nature
Sit back, relax and grab a cold one, because you're about to take an aerial tour of the Serengeti, courtesy of that flying drone you're staring at. Developed by Microdrones, this MD4-100 quadrotor was recently sent off to Kenya, where it gathered footage for a TV nature documentary produced by TBS Japan. By hovering over the terrain, the craft was able to get relatively up close and personal with zebras, elephants and other wildlife, without creating the same kind of disturbance that heavy duty, camera-laden trucks can wreak. Presumably, that's because the animals have no idea what to make of a flying robot, though part of us wants to believe there's some sort of full-circle, techno-evolutionary dynamic at work here, momentously bringing bot and beast together in some sort of pre-apocalyptic symbiosis. But that's just us. Hover past the break to see the video for yourself.
StripeSpotter turns wild zebras into trackable barcodes
We've heard plenty of stories over the past few years about tagging animals with RFID chips, but we've never been particularly keen on the idea. Well, now a team of researchers has come up with a much less invasive way of tracking individual animals -- specifically zebras -- by essentially using their stripes as barcodes. StripeSpotter, as it's known, takes an isolated portion of a photograph of a zebra and slices it into a series of horizontal bands. Each pixel in the selection is then fully converted into black or white, and the bands are in turn encoded into StripeStrings, which eventually make up a StripeCode that resembles a barcode. All this information is stored in a database that allows researchers to directly identify particular animals without ever having to get too close. StripeCode may be a zebra-centric application for now, but its developers see it making a mark across the food chain with the inclusion of other distinctly patterned beasts, like tigers and giraffes. Animal tracking hobbyists can get their own free copy of the application by clicking on the source link below.
The Daily Grind: Has this ever happened to you?
You know how it goes. You log in to [MMO] expecting to [verb] a [noun] or two, when out of nowhere an enormous [noun] shows up. Next thing you know you've been playing for [number] hours, you can't feel your feet, and you're pretty sure that you smell worse than [game developer] after [verb ending in -ing] for the better part of a week. Not to mention that you're pretty certain you've completely destroyed your [noun] in the excitement, and that's going to set you back at least $[number]. So what do you do when you have to deal with [noun]? Is that your sign that it's time to [verb] your [noun] with your favorite [weapon type], or do you just think that you'd be better off with [adjective] NPCs to help you [verb]? Are you [emotion] when it happens, or just left to wonder what in the holy [animal] went wrong? Games Journalism sure is hard work, so we've decided to take a break today and let you write your own news! Too many stories about RIFT on Massively lately? Not enough about the game of your choice? No problem! Much in the style of Mad Libs, today is your day to create the news you want to read, all day on the :30s. Simply fill in the blanks and it's yours. Have fun!
Lunch Topic: What animal should Blizzard add to the WoW bestiary?
This Breakfast Lunch Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. The world of Azeroth is filled with creatures great and small, and a multitude of animal types are represented, both realistic and fantastic. From the beginning, we've had real-world animals such as lions, tigers, bears, ostriches, spiders, bats, hyenas, vultures, and wolves alongside mythological creatures like dragons, centaurs, werewolves, and demons. The Burning Crusade expansion added moths and wasps, dragonhawks and warp stalkers; Wrath brought in rhinoceroses, mammoths, giant worms, and minotaurs; and now, with Cataclysm, we've seen the inclusion of monkeys, mastiffs, eels, fish, sharks, and the much-anticipated fox. Blizzard is broadening the World of Warcraft bestiary with each new expansion, but there are plenty of animal types left to draw from. How about a tamable sugar glider or a chinchilla vanity pet? Speaking of vanity pets, I'd love to see some of them turned into game mobs. Who wouldn't want to fight (or tame!) a mutant rabbit or Rodent of Unusual Size? With the addition of Vashj'ir, Blizzard has already opened the door for any number of sea creature models. How about a manta ray to join the existing whales and sea turtles? Is your favorite animal or mythical creature represented in World of Warcraft? What would you like to see added to WoW's bestiary?
Smithsonian captures 201,000 wild photos with automated cameras
We have this big, fang-filled, claw-sharpened big cat all up in our grill thanks to the researchers at the Smithsonian, who have created a new database filled with over 201,000 pictures of elusive animals in their natural habitats. These candid shots were made possible with motion-activated automated cameras scattered around the world, and feature over 200 species of birds and mammals, and here's most impressive part -- these photos are au naturel. That's right... there's no editing here, these are untouched raw shots straight from the rain forests of places like Peru and China -- which allow us to see these magnificent creatures as scientists do. If you want more info or desire to check out these wild photos, hop over to the source link or check out the gallery below. %Gallery-118866%
Robot fish get upgraded, keep schooling real-life counterparts
Okay, so they still look like Depression-era bath toys, but Maurizio Porfiri's robot fish have come a long way from the coconut-and-tin-foil look they were sporting last summer. In an attempt to further "close the loop" between robotics and nature, Porfiri has continued to tinker with the little leaders by incorporating diving and surfacing into their aquatic repertoire, and it seems to be working: real fish have shown interaction patterns including tracking, gathering, and following in the presence of the pesci-bots. Now if they could just do the same with the the feral ferret living in our bedroom walls...
Hamster-powered miniature Strandbeest proves that sometimes, cute is a gadget
Sometimes, after a hard day of gadget blogging, you just want to sit down at your terminal and watch a funny, heart-warming video of a hamster running furiously (as they will) in a plastic ball attached to a Strandbeest traveling across a table to the delight of watching children. Right? Video is after the break.
Robot camel jockeys found packing illegal stun guns, Dubai police say 'Don't tase them bro!'
It's been awhile since we've talked about the remote controlled robot jockeys used in Arabian camel racing, but a recent scandal that has rocked the camel-racing world compels us to revisit the topic. The Dubai police discovered that some shady characters have been selling robot jockeys equipped with stun guns to "encourage" camels to run faster. We're pretty sure that the animals don't need any more incentive to run -- they already have a robot whipping them -- and it's good to see that the powers-that-be agree with us, as the two men selling the machines were arrested. Now that our dromedary friends need no longer fear being tased in the name of sport, we only have to worry about over-zealous peace officers using them on all of us. [Image Credit: ZDNet]
Panasonic's iPhone-powered augmented reality T-shirt
This little video shows off what most of the augmented reality features we've seen so far look like; they're cool, but not all that practical or useful. The idea is supposed to be an ad campaign for Panasonic's 3D televisions, so they gave away special AR shirts and a free iPhone app. If you find one of the shirts in the real world, you can point the iPhone app at it, and instead of just the AR code, you'll see an actual animated animal sticking its head out, framed in a Panasonic television. It's a cool effect, but of course, it's totally cosmetic. You can't actually interact with the animals at all (other than simply taking pictures through the viewfinder and sending them off on Twitter). And it's an ad for a separate piece of tech, so it's nothing to actually do with the iPhone or even Apple. But still, every experiment with AR gets us closer to using the technology for something really interesting. [via Dvice]
Fable 3 art team working on a menagerie of animals
You may not have been too disappointed by Fable 2's lack of animals (filthy, stinking animals), but Lionhead's Lead Artist John McCormack was, and he tells Beauty of Games that he's making up for it with the next game. "The lack of animals in the Fable franchise is always something that has bothered me," he says, and so in Fable 3, "we've built bats, crows, rabbits, ducks, robins, vultures, lizards, rats, butterflies, moths, insect swarms, dogs, fireflies, geese and we even started on a cow." Rest assured that animals won't be the only new part of the experience, though -- McCormack also says his team is hard at work on incorporating the new Industrial aesthetic into the game's buildings, morphed weapons and NPCs as well. He's not sure whether all of those animals will eventually make it into the finished product, but we hope so -- vultures need to be Touched, too.
Faunasphere goes Facebook
We've received word today from the team over at Faunasphere that they're taking their game over to the land of Facebook, to show the "social gamers" what a MMO really is. Faunsphere Facebook and Faunsphere.com will be linked together into one large world, letting users from both realms interact with one another. The game will continue to run on the same microtransaction system, where users can buy additional items for their fauna and commission scientific tests to know more about the hidden skills that lie in their favorite animals. All we can do now is pray that this style of game catches on in Facebook, so when we ask our friends if they play any MMOs, they don't respond with, "Oh, yeah, Farmville!" Then, we won't feel the need to throttle people.
