iOS-controlled robot lawnmower #
You know, the worst thing about living in 2011 is that it doesn’t seem like 2011. We all thought we’d be jetting around in our flying cars, and taking holidays on the moon, while our robot slaves did all the stuff we never wanted to.
Well, I guess one outta three ain’t bad. We all know of the Roomba (that cute little vacuum robot that kittens love to ride on), but now there is a much more manly version available from Husqvarna that gets geek points for a) mowing your lawn for you, and b) being able to be monitored, controlled, and diagnosed via the My Automower app for iOS.
You can plot a course out for it on Google Maps, or else watch where it’s going in real-time. It will head back to recharge when it runs outta juice, and will send you a text message if it runs into trouble. Now, hands up who wants to hack this thing to go down to the store for beer?
Schizophrenic computer claims terrorist attack #
Ok, so the headline here is maybe just a little too sensationalist, but researchers at the University of Texas in Austin and Yale University have programmed a computer-powered neural network with a possible form of schizophrenia.
A neural network is a program that is able to learn roughly the way that a human brain does: from experience. The more it experiences, the more it learns. The idea behind the research was to recreate in the computer the ‘hyperlearning hypothesis’, by having it treat everything as extremely important.
This hypothesis suggests that some schizophrenia is caused by the brain marking all memories as important, due to excessive levels of dopamine. The brain then stops forgetting or ignoring as much as it normally would, and causes the patient to make illogical connections and paranoid jumps in reason.
Interestingly enough, the computer did just that, going beyond just spewing out nonsensicals, and ending up claiming responsibility for a terrorist attack. What does this prove? That Osama wasn’t killed, but actually uploaded himself to the cloud, Lawnmower Man style, of course.
Teeny Atari-compatible microSD drive #
There’s a soft spot for retro computing in every geek’s heart, but, these days, where can you buy the 5.25" floppies, the tapes, or any of the plethora of deprecated media that has existed throughout the years?
Faced with this problem, many retro computer geeks take it upon themselves to modify modern media (like SD cards, etc.) to work with their digital museum pieces. But there’s something off-putting about a 21st century card reader jutting out of your 20th century collector’s piece.
And so was born the miniaturised Atari 810 microSD disk drive. In fact, this diminutive piece of style is actually an Atari connector paired with a LPC1114 microcontroller, capable of emulating up to eight Atari drives, and is managed by a custom, auto-booting app.
The enclosure was created through the wonders of 3D printing, and won’t be produced in number. However, if you happen to have a spare 3D printer lying around, and a hankering for a new retro microSD card reader, the schematics for the whole project are available online.