For everything from family to computers…
The M2 flamethrower utilized by Allied forces during WWII proved to be a devastatingly effective weapon against bunkers—and Axis psyches. However, walking around a firefight with a napalm-filled backpack and an effective range of 20m is a great way to become a crispy critter. So the US military developed the M202 FLASH rocket-propelled flamethrower. More »
from Gizmodo
This boxy guy is called Kuratas, otherwise known as Vaudeville, and he stands 12 feet 5 inches tall. He weighs about 4.5 tons and is diesel-powered. Do not smile at him. He will shoot that grin right off your face.
Kuratas is a real-life mech from (where else?) Japan, and it’s an art project designed by Suidobashi Heavy Industry. Iron worker/artist Kogoro Kurata, at right in the photo above, built his namesake robot and debuted it at something called Wonder Fest 2012, which took place over the weekend.
It has a ride-in cockpit, a master-slave joystick and a touchscreen interface, and its arms can be controlled via Kinect, so it could be trained as a champion boxer. Its twin BB Gatling guns can fire up to 6,000 BBs per minute, according to Plastic Pals. And it fires when a small camera inside the robot detects when you smile. This is just for fun, however – Kurata says he would never want his creation to harm anyone. But it could be used for robot competitions, he said.
You could pretend-order one of your own, via a slick website Kurata and his colleagues at Suidobashi designed. The mecha come in various color schemes and customizable weapons. But the base model starts at $1,353,500, so better start saving.
from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now
A power outage struck India’s northern and eastern electrical grids earlier today, hitting around 600 million people — that’s roughly half of the country’s population of 1.2 billion — cutting off electricity to businesses, transit and traffic lights, to name but a few. The power failure hit around 1pm local time “without warning” according to the electric company. The incident follows another major outage the day prior, which affected around 300 million people. Regions have taken to seeking out alternative energy sources such as hydro power, with local business utilizing backup diesel generators and the like, which have helped keep hospitals and airports in service.
[Photo by NASA]
from Engadget
Despite plenty of indications that the Earth has gotten warmer—like melting glaciers and ecosystems that are shifting toward the poles—there are a number of climate skeptics who simply don’t accept the temperature records produced by three different organizations (NASA, NOAA, and the CRU). Many of them pinned their hopes on physicist Richard Muller, who was also not convinced the professionals had gotten it right. But Muller did something about it, forming the Berkeley Earth project, and building a huge database of land temperature records.
Back in October, Muller dropped his findings in a rather unconventional location: an editorial in The Wall Street Journal. Despite the hype, the results were rather bland. He produced a temperature record that was nearly identical to that of the other organizations. But now, Muller is back for round two, and this time he has chosen the New York Times as an outlet for his climate musings.
As before, his team uses a different statistical method of reconstructing temperatures that works well with short records, taken at sites that were shut or moved. NASA, NOAA, and the CRU use methods that require long records, so they have to make adjustments to the data from sites that have shifted or gotten new equipment. This compensates for the fact that these changes will lead to discontinuities in the record. Since Berkeley Earth doesn’t need the same length, it can just skip adjustments entirely: any record with a discontinuity is just split there, and treated as two records. The team has now also pushed its analysis back to almost 1750, adding a century to the land temperature records produced elsewhere.
from Ars Technica
Suidobashi Heavy Industries has put the finishing touches to its latest project, the 4.4-ton Kuratas. Mobile suit obsessives around the world can thank artist Kogoro Kurata and robotics expert Wataru Yoshizaki for the robot frame, which has space to house a pilot inside. The mech’s touchscreen UI even includes a Kinect-based movement interface and the shudder-inducing “smile-activated” twin BB gatling guns. You can customize your own diesel-powered beast in the dystopian gang colors of your choosing, but be advised: the $1.35 million price tag doesn’t include further customization options like a faux leather interior, cup holder or phone cubby. The Kuratas does, however, come with the ability to make phone calls direct from the cockpit, so you can tell your enemies that you’re coming for them.
from Engadget
Who knows what kind of craziness the CIA is working on now, but back in the 1970s, the goal was to perfect a robotic dragonfly. Now, 40 years later, you can see footage of the prototype in action. More »
from Gizmodo
