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Researchers map a building in 3D using WiFi-enabled drones
Turns out WiFi is good for more than just sharing cat GIFs with your friends. Researchers at the Mostofi Lab at UC Santa Barbara have created a system that "sees" inside buildings using two drones and WiFi.
ICYMI: Robotank and carbon emissions made into rock
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Israel Aerospace Industries has built a combat robot vehicle that is made of modular bits that can be switched out, while environmental scientists created rock out of carbon emissions from a power plant in Iceland, by first pumping the pollutant underground. Be sure to read up on the flying car competition reportedly happening under Larry Page, and watch this video purely because it's the strangest cat video we've seen in months. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
ICYMI: Plant-powered, self-moving robot and safer spacecraft
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: The Hortum Machina B is made of plants that send electrochemical stimulus to the autonomous robotic machine that houses them, so they can direct where to move. UC Santa Barbara researchers developed materials that can better handle the thermal loads carried inside modern rocket engines, because in some cases, the components are close to completely melting (bad news for the astronauts onboard). Take a spin through this Norwegian cruise ship's slide and if you want to watch our new favorite VR freakout video, it's here. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Squid skin could help make color-changing gadgets
Not happy with the color of your clothes and devices? Eventually, you might get to change those hues on a whim. UC Santa Barbara researchers have discovered that the color-changing California market squid (aka opalescent inshore squid) manages its optical magic thanks to the presences of protein sequences that let it create specific light reflections. If scientists can recreate those proteins in artificial structures, it'd be easy to change colors at a moment's notice. This could be useful for camouflage and near-invisibility, but scientists note that the squid's colors are as vivid as "paintings by Monet" -- to us, that suggests wearables that can stand out when you want them to, or blend in when you'd rather go low-key.
Brain-like circuit performs human tasks for the first time
There are already computer chips with brain-like functions, but having them perform brain-like tasks? That's another challenge altogether. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara aren't daunted, however -- they've used a basic, 100-synapse neural circuit to perform the typical human task of image classification for the first time. The memristor-based technology (which, by its nature, behaves like an 'analog' brain) managed to identify letters despite visual noise that complicated the task, much as you would spot a friend on a crowded street. Conventional computers can do this, but they'd need a much larger, more power-hungry chip to replicate the same pseudo-organic behavior.
AlloSphere three story virtual environment not available for birthday parties, Bat Mitzvahs
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara are developing an immense, wholly immersive VR environment that would allow groups of researchers the opportunity to explore their data aurally and visually on a scale never before seen. The AlloSphere is a three story metal sphere housed in an echo-free chamber, large enough that twenty researchers can stand on a bridge and take a walk through an atom, for instance, or a human brain. The project relies on a supercomputer for generating real-time, high-res 3D video and audio streams from a mountain of scientific data, and currently the team is hard at work building the bad boy's computing platform and interactive display. The project leader JoAnn Kuchera-Morin has yet to state whether or not the sense of smell would be incorporated into the finished product, but we sure hope not -- that would be rather distracting, don't you think? Check it out on video after the break.[Via TED]
