fritz
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XYZbot's Fritz offers a cheaper robot head, free trips to the uncanny valley (video)
It's been relatively easy to get your hands on an expressive robot face... if you're rich or a scientist, that is. XYZbot would like to give the rest of us a shot by crowdfunding Fritz, an Arduino-powered robot head. The build-it-yourself (and eerily human-proportioned) construction can react to pre-programmed actions, text-to-speech conversion or live control, ranging from basics like the eyes and jaw to the eyelids, eyebrows, lips and neck of an Advanced Fritz. Windows users should have relatively simple control through an app if they just want to play, but where Fritz may shine is its open source nature: the code and hardware schematics will be available for extending support, changing the look or building a larger robot where Fritz is just one part. The $125 minimum pledge required to set aside a Fritz ($199 for an Advanced Fritz) isn't trivial, but it could be a relative bargain if XYZbot makes its $25,000 goal -- and one of the quickest routes to not-quite-lifelike robotics outside of a research grant.
Fishing on the Fritz
The fish in WoW seem to be becoming more studious, as they now appear together in schools after patch 1.9. Ok, that was a bad pun, but the new update has revamped the fishing system a bit, making it easier to find pockets of sought-after fish such as Firefin Snapper & Oily Blackmouth.Only thing is...the fish might be in schools, but you're not learning a thing from it. That's not a pun, I'm trying to say that fishing seems to be broken for the time being; you can still catch stuff, but you won't gain any skill for it...at least not as of this writing.Even so, the school system does make the whole skill a bit more rewarding; even though I love to sit back, cast a line & relax, those Blackmouth can be hard to come by sometimes. Glad to see 'em all in one place for once...
