Ever wonder what your brain looks like on video games? Below, Matt Richtel of the New York Times lies in a $3 million M.R.I. scanning tube while playing a simple driving game, as researchers sit by and observe the real-time images inside Richtel's brain.
The Writers at io9.com have been running through a fantastic series of blog posts, in which they're teaching their readers about the history of great 80s sci-fi and fantasy. Because so much of this is right up my alley, I though I'd aggregate their aggregations, so to speak, and write a little retrospective of my own.
Thanks to Microsoft’s XBOX 360 motion-detecting system, Kinect, the world is becoming a play place for sci-fi style virtual reality. One of the latest hacks demonstrates the next best thing to regular old air guitar... virtual reality air guitar: Artist Chris O'Shea explains how it works:
UPDATE: New York University photography professor Wafaa Bilal talked the talk, and now he's walked the walk with his recent camera implant. And guess what? It hurt. What a surprise.
Think beautiful bokeh photography + just a hint of TRON sensuality and you have photographer Audrey Penven's lovely series entitled "Dancing with Invisible Light: A series of interactions with Kinect's infrared structured light".
Tricycle + simple plow blade = true yankee ingenuity. (Who needs a pricey snow plow vehicle?) Craig Smith recently submitted his custom contraption to MAKE:
Professor Wafaa Bilal of New York University plans to soon undergo a surgical procedure that would temporarily implant a camera in the back of his head. The project is being commissioned for an art exhibit at a new museum in Qatar. The Iraqi photographer will be a living, breathing cyborg for an entire year, during which the implanted camera will take still photos every minute, simultaneously feeding the images to monitors at the museum.
The future of technology promises more and more seamless daily interactions. Pee on your phone, test for STDS. Or perhaps more widely appealing, ditch your wallet for all-in-one easy mobility.
White: the first thing comes to my mind when I see light white is an angel, I think that this color represent the good side of everyone, the angel form of a person, sometimes you can see someone and look at him like he is a real angel, what a wonderful feeling, and even someone who is very gentle with you, you can display him in your mind with a white circle on his head.
It is amazing that when you go out at night, the world is so full of colors and lights and everybody is dressed in certain way, also you can watch every big commercial image for 5 seconds, but in the end, you realize that your eyes can understand the fake and also the natural very quickly.
PopSci's Gray Matter demonstrates again and again what the layman should absolutely Not Try at Home. Which is precisely what makes Gray's experiments so fun. Remember when the mad scientist fully submerged his hand in liquid nitrogen? Today's demonstration also plays with what is (quite reasonably) assumed to be extremely dangerous and painful: torching the human hand.
Every day of the week, WonderHowTo curators are hard at work, scouring the web for the greatest and most inspiring how-to videos. Every Friday, we'll highlight our favorite finds.
Remember Willy Wonka's magical gum? Wonka promised the flavors of tomato soup, roast beef, baked potato, blueberry pie and ice cream. As the avid gum lover Violet Beauregarde tested it out, she exclaimed: “It’s hot and creamy, I can actually feel? it running down my throat!” Um, yum... I think. Good news. Wonka's three course chewing gum is finally a reality-in-the-works. Scientists at the Institute of Food Research (IFR) have been developing recent advances in nanotechnology, which could pot...
Valero and Tesoro are known as the biggest oil companies in California. They have spent large amounts of money on the Proposition 23 campaign, Valero with $4,050,000 and Tesoro with $1,525,000, in hopes of passing the Proposition, which would suspend the Assemmbly Bill 32, the Global Warming Act of 2006, until unemployment drops to 5.5% for 4 consequtive quarters. Valero's stand is that the California's Global Warming Act will only cause more lost jobs for California and therefore should not ...
Last I checked pole dancing was mainstream acceptable as a form of exercise for adventurous young women and repressed housewives. Until now. This latest discovery deserves some real R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 24 Tonight one of the worlds most intense directors has a premiere of his new film.
Lucy, whose real name is BPM 37093, is a diamond roughly the size of our moon. At around 4000 kilometers in diameter (2,485 miles), Lucy is estimated to be around 10 billion trillion trillion carats. A billion trillion trillion? x 10? It's easier to imagine dividing by zero than to put this ridiculous number into perspective.
In this prank, all of the cast members will be involved because let's be honest, it's funnier when all of the "talent" is getting hurt.The premise is that each one of the cast members will have to complete a stunt in order for the next one to start. There will be eight individual stunts -- one for Preston, Wee-Man, "Danger" Ehren, England, Dunn, Bam, Pontius, and Steve-O. Each cast members will start in an enclosed box. Once their box opens they will be released into a 60x60' area that will b...
Ok, so first Periodic Tables demonstrates how a McDonald's cheeseburger breaks down in your stomach during the digestion process. Everybody has hydrochloric acid in their stomach, so drop a burger in acid and you can see it happen before your eyes (minus the amino acids a human stomach would supply). Seems innocent enough. Here's what happened after 3.5 hours: NASTY. So my question is: does healthy food look the same? What would a pile of broccoli or granola look like? Probably just as nasty....
Every day of the week, WonderHowTo curators are hard at work, scouring the web for the greatest and most inspiring how-to videos. Every Friday, we'll highlight our favorite finds.
Charlie, Willy Wonka and Grandpa Joe's soul-stirring ride in the Wonkavator (Wonka's glass-bottomed elevator) was one of the most magical moments of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If you can't recall, here's the scene (ride begins at 3:15): Wonka: An elevator can only go up and down, but the Wonkavator can go sideways, and slantways, and longways, and backways...
Every day of the week, WonderHowTo curators are hard at work, scouring the web for the greatest and most inspiring how-to videos. Every Friday, we'll highlight our favorite finds.
Nine-year-old Azura of Middle Road, Worcester (England) inadvertently pranked her whole neighborhood (and whoever else happened to be browsing the area on Google Street View) when she dropped "dead" to the pavement.
Shiny, pretty touchscreen vending machines have finally gone mainstream in Japan. My only question is... what's taken so long? The vending machine business can be quite lucrative (location, location, location), so all the more reason to make the interface as aesthetically appealing and user friendly as the iPhone AND as smart as a robot (read below). Features (translation via YouTube):
A tomato and basil salad sounds like a simple delight, right? It is, and the only thing that can make it even better is a mousse with a delicious blend of mascarpone and bleu cheese. Eric Brennan, Executive Chef at Post 390, created a tower of garden-fresh tomatoes with layers of basil and a decadent and creamy mascarpone-bleu cheese mousse. No slaving over a hot stove here and a real crowd pleaser.
This is probably the funniest video I've seen this year, they really don't hold anything back. Things you'll see in the video, based on real events:
This weekend in a jungle estuary, the DEA and local Ecuadorian police seized a prototype narco sub that may be the most sophisticated one yet. Complete with air conditioning and periscope, this 100 foot creation would have carried a more cocaine tonnage than any previously captured narco sub. To give you a perspective on the resourcefulness of these outlaws, consider this. A U.S. Navy Virginia Class attack submarine will run around $2.8 billion. But a drug lord in Cartagena would make you one...
Oscar the cat is one lucky feline. After losing his two hind legs in a combine harvester, his loving owners had Oscar outfitted with two prosthetic paws, or metallic pegs to be more specific. This revolutionary veterinary procedure is nothing to scoff at - biomedical engineering experts and a neuro-orthopedic surgeon were both called in to create the world's first bionic cat. Via BBC:
Love folk art but could do without the folk? Prepare to have your heart stolen by a self-folding origami automaton.
World Cup World asks: "How'd North Korean fans get to the game?" Fair and valid question. It's seeming IMPOSSIBLE for any North Korean citizen to get a visa to leave the communist regime (not that they could afford it, anyway) to attend this past week's game. After much initial speculation on whether these fans were the real deal, the mystery has been resolved by multiple news sources.
This article aggregates a lot of things that have been said about the World Cup experience this year (South Africa's infrastructure, low scoring games, uninteresting first round match-ups, etc). I've noticed in a few broadcasts that upper seating areas are not filled to capacity and maybe the vuvuzelas make up for this. I think this will change once the Knock-out stages begin, but Nick Webster has a point:
The contenders: PS3: Singstar Dance
25-year-old Chen Jinmiao of rural China dreamt of one day owning his own Lamborghini. But the truth is, it was highly unlikely he would ever be able to afford one. The lorry driver then undertook an impossibly difficult project- figuring out how to build a replica for considerably less cash. A year and approximately $3,000 later, he achieved his goal.
Creepy crawlers. I'd say I'm not an extremely girly-girl. But (much to my embarrassment) bugs still have the capacity to make me shriek. Solution? A new study suggests that augmented reality could be used to cure cockroach phobia.
Via WonderHowTo World, LoadSave: Rock Band 3, coming this Fall, was revealed at none other than USA Today. Fully functional 25 key keyboard, 80+ songs including The Doors and Bohemian Rhapsody, Pro mode, updated guitars, and a kitchen sink are included in this new sequel. USA Today:
By Camilla Cicconetti
The Illusion Contest of the Year recently announced their top ten finalists, and the overwhelming crowd and jury favorite is Impossible Motion: Magnet-like Slopes by Koukichi Sugihara of the Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences in Japan.
A British prisoner was recently caught with a tattoo gun rigged from a Sony Playstation. The crafty D.I.Y.er broke down the Playstation and attached the console motor to a finely sharpened ballpoint pen.
LEGO Technic builder Peer (Mahjqa) Kreuger has constructed the incredible Stilzkin Bridge Launcher, a vehicle modeled after real life ALVBs (Armoured vehicle-launched bridge).
As silly as it may seem, Loews Resort's annual dog surf competition is indeed real. These pups aren't just props on a surfboard, they actually DO ride waves.
