$24,000 Transform Robot goes from car to humanoid

Kenji Ishida wants to build a full-scale Autobot. It all starts with this RC toy.

We've seen transforming robots before, and I'm not talking about anything related to Hasbro.

Researchers from MIT are among many engineers and tinkerers trying to design robots that perform different functions by changing their shape or appearance.

Japan-based Brave Robotics has designed a 1/12-scale RC car that can transform into a humanoid robot. It can shuffle around, grab footage with its Wi-Fi camera, and even fire little missiles from its arms.

But the intriguing part about the Transform Robot is its scope. Not only has Brave Robotics hobbyist Kenji Ishida put 10 years into building robots in disguise -- he began in 2002 with a simple pair of legs and the Transform Robot is version 7.1 -- he wants to build a full-scale transforming, drivable car with artificial intelligence by 2030.

Mars radiation fine for humans

Initial readings of cosmic ray radiation on Mars suggest it's about the same as on the International Space Station. Now we just need a spaceship.





With radiation levels on Mars apparently safe, how long will it be before astronauts start exploring the 'Total Recall' planet?(Credit: TriStar Pictures)

"Now, this is the plan. Get your ass to Mars."

We all remember Schwarzenegger motivating himself to go to the Red Planet in "Total Recall" (anyone bother watching the remake?) and sure we'd like to go too. Now NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has determined that radiation levels on the planet's surface are safe for human explorers.

"The astronauts can live in this environment," Don Hassler, principal investigator on Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector instrument (RAD), told a news conference.

"Basically, we're finding that the Mars atmosphere is acting as a shield for the radiation on the surface and as the atmosphere gets thicker, that provides more of a shield and therefore we see a dip in our radiation dose," Hassler said.

The findings mark the first time that cosmic rays have been measured on the surface of another planet, and come 100 years after Victor Hess discovered cosmic rays on Earth by using a hot-air balloon.

Microsoft: Skype and Messenger coming together

The Skype team is planning to replace the Messenger instant-messaging client with Skype messaging a lot sooner than many expected.

After months of leaked bits, Microsoft's Skype division is finally opening the informational tap.

On November 6, the Skype team provided more information about its recently stated plans to ultimately replace Windows Live Messenger with Skype. The planned cutover date is quite aggressive: It's Q1 2013, according to a new Skype blog post.

"We will retire Messenger in all countries worldwide in the first quarter of 2013 (with the exception of mainland China where Messenger will continue to be available)," according to the post. By that time, consumers who want to use instant messaging will have no choice but to use Skype for that. (Business instant messaging will still be largely the province of Microsoft's Lync, though Lync-Skype federation is coming at some point.)

In late October, Skype officials said that Skype would most likely will replace Messenger some day, but declined to provide a public timetable. However, in October, Skype began testing new Windows and Mac beta releases that allowed users to sign in using their Windows Live ID (Microsoft Account) so they could send and receive instant messages and see presence information from those using Messenger.
On the back-end, in the months after Microsoft's acquisition of Skype was finalized, the pair have been moving Skype to use the Windows Messenger infrastructure. Storage of pictures, video and other Skype content is now happening on Windows Azure.

Once users migrate from Messenger to Skype, they will be able to use not just Skype's instant messaging, but also its video calling, Skype's landline calling capability, screen sharing, video calling on mobile phones and with Facebook friends and Group Calling, according to today's post.

The Skype team's ultimate goal is to convince consumers to leave Skype running on their machines all day and use chat as the first place they go when they sign in.

Anonymous hacking spree hits PayPal

The hacks are apparently just the beginning of document dumps and defacements for its day of protest, the 5th of November, aka Guy Fawkes Day.

The press arm for Anonymous has announced that it has begun its hacking spree for the 5th of November -- Guy Fawkes Day -- and claims to have dumped user and employee account information on accounts from PayPal, Symantec, Australian government Web sites and much more.

Monday's main focus seems to be an anti-surveillance protest -- as with the recen tAnonymous October 20 protest -- with November 5th intent aimed at surveillance systems such as TrapWire and INDECT.

Trapwire and INDECT's opponents believe that the surveillance systems to be direct threats to privacy and certain civil freedoms and that their implementation could constitute human rights violations.

According to the various Anonymous Twitter accounts announcing the hacks and linking to document dumps, this is just the beginning of doc dumps and defacements for its day of protest. News of the protest is being shared on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Pastebin.

'Gangnam Style' the $50 million meme!

Psy's epic dance sensation has infiltrated every crevice of pop culture, redefined awesome, and generated tons of money along the way.

While it might be impossible to put a dollar value on awesomeness, the epic rise of the meme surrounding South Korean rapper Psy's "Gangnam Style" sensation gives us an opportunity to try.
Right now, Psy's music video has more than 337 million views on YouTube, making it the ninth most watched video of all time, and one that's quickly advancing on Justin Bieber in position eight. It's also topped the U.K. charts, garnered over 2 million Facebook Likes, and inspired a Klingon version.
How much is all that viral, meme-licious goodness worth in real-world currency? Quite a bit, it turns out.
Serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis estimates that the YouTube views alone have generated at least $600,000, and perhaps more than a million bucks. Here's how he breaks it down in his e-mail newsletter:

Math is fairly simple, as partners tend to net out at $2 CPMs on YouTube. It is likely that the last 100M views were sold out at a higher CPM as the trend broke out. My guess is: $2 for the first 200k views ($400k), then $8 for the last 100M (another $800k for the last 100M views). Total? $1.2M in revenue -- or $20k a day.

That doesn't include the nearly hundred million additional views of a handful of other videos of live performances and other clips that have been posted on Psy's official YouTube channel since "Gangnam Style" hit. That means it's within the realm of possibility that "Gangnam Style" has become a $1.5 million revenue stream for the South Korean pseudo-rapper over the past few months.

 

With the brand new iPhone establishes itself as the fastest selling version since the launch of the first model.

Yesterday came a news that Apple was breaking sales records with accessions to the pre-sale of the new iPhone 5 handset. At that moment, there was no concrete data on the exact numbers, but now new information about it, confirmed by the Cupertino company.

Apple recently confirmed in a statement that the records achieved with the iPhone 4S were bent, meaning that there are already 2 million units pre-sold in just 24 hours, they should start being delivered already on the 21 of this month. According to a note published by AT & T, the iPhone 5 is already the fastest selling version of the history of the unit.